Welcome back to The MMQB newsletter. It's been a busy week around the NFL, with the legal tampering period beginning on Monday and free agency officially kicking off at the start of the new league year at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The league has seen a flurry of movement, including marquee trades and blockbuster signings. The MMQB is keeping track of it all, grading every move in our NFL free-agency tracker. Conor Orr broke down the biggest news of the week, unpacking the canceled Maxx Crosby trade to the Ravens. Albert Breer also answered the biggest questions surrounding the canceled trade. Gilberto Manzano has graded the latest major trades, including Osa Odighizuwa being sent to San Francisco from Dallas, and what it says about the Cowboys' trajectory. He also assessed the Raiders' trading of Geno Smith to the Jets and what it reveals about New York's thinking. We start first, though, with Albert Breer's free agency notes on where Kyler Murray will likely land. |
Albert Breer's Free Agency Notes |
Joe Camporeale/Imagn Image |
By Albert Breer Kyler Murray's finally free—and all signs point to Minnesota. The Vikings have done plenty of research into potential quarterback reclamation projects over the last couple of months, to see if they can hit on one the way they hit on Sam Darnold two years ago. The one name that's consistently come up is Murray's. And from a football standpoint, both because of the past work Kevin O'Connell's done with guys like Darnold and Daniel Jones and the Vikings' roster, this makes sense for Murray. Most quarterbacks would want to play with Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson and Aaron Jones, and behind a line anchored by Christian Darrisaw. But it's not just a football fit. It's a financial fit too. Murray's guaranteed $36.8 million for the 2026 season, and the Cardinals are responsible for all of it, minus what he gets from his new team. That flexibility to go play for the $1.215 million veteran minimum allows for Murray to focus on the football part of it with the finances being a non-issue and allows for the Vikings to bring in high-upside, low-cost competition for J.J. McCarthy. It all makes a ton of sense, and has for a while. Now we'll see if Murray and Minnesota can cross the goal line together. |
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Eric Hartline/Imagn Images |
By Conor Orr Here's the cleanest of scenarios when it comes to the unbelievable breakdown of the canceled Maxx Crosby trade to the Ravens: A surgeon and an agent paid by Maxx Crosby have a rosier assessment of Crosby's overall health than a team that was about to pay him $30 million per season while also surrendering a pair of first-round draft picks for the privilege. Another team (the Raiders), who shut Crosby down due to the medical issue last season and are now starting an old-fashioned statement duel over the collapse of this trade, thought the Ravens understood more clearly the difference between a meniscus trim, which most athletes receive, and a meniscus repair, which carries an extended recovery timeline (and is especially difficult to analyze and project in a vacuum, at this stage of recovery if you're an individual team's doctor charged with assessing a risk worth hundreds of millions of dollars). |
Jerome Miron/Imagn Images |
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By Gilberto Manzano Last March, the Cowboys handed defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa a four-year extension worth up to $80 million. A year later, Dallas is sending Odighizuwa and his sizable contract to San Francisco. Not long after the start of the new league year on Wednesday, the Cowboys gained a third-round pick from the 49ers in the deal for Odighizuwa. This marks the fourth time—and it's hard to keep track—in the past year that the Cowboys have been involved in a trade involving a prominent defensive lineman. In a smaller move, Dallas also executed a trade that sent defensive lineman Solomon Thomas to the Titans in exchange for seventh-round pick swaps in April. In August, Dallas dealt edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Packers for draft picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Three months later, the Cowboys acquired defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the Jets before the trade deadline. And let's not forget the trade for edge rusher Rashan Gary earlier this week. Initially, it appeared the Cowboys were content with the interior trio of Odighizuwa, Clark and Williams, but now the team must arrange other plans for the 2026 defense. |
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By Albert Breer This will be my 22nd season covering the NFL, and I legitimately can't think of a precedent for what went down on Tuesday night. We've seen failed physicals (Drew Brees being the most famous one). We've seen players back out of deals (hello, Frank Gore). But the sort of confluence of a star player, two teams, a massive trade package and then two days of free agent action/inaction by teams involved preceding a development like this? Never before. And maybe never again. To recap: On Friday night, the Raiders agreed to trade five-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Maxx Crosby to the Ravens for two first-round picks, with Baltimore outdistancing Dallas and Buffalo at the end to land the 28-year-old. Then, on Monday, on the presumption that they'd cleared $30 million off their cash and cap budgets for the 2026 season, the Raiders dove headlong into free agency and spent a ton of money. And the Ravens let a flurry of starters go. All of which led to the social media bomb the Raiders detonated on their X account at 8:02 p.m. ET Tuesday: "The Baltimore Ravens have backed out of our trade agreement for Maxx Crosby. We will have no further comment at this time." Those 22 words set off a five-alarm fire that buzzed across the NFL landscape. After taking a lot of that in and working to get to those involved, here are the biggest lingering questions from the early-evening bombshell that shook pro football. |
By Gilberto Manzano The Jets are getting a second chance with one of their former notable quarterbacks. On Tuesday, the Raiders agreed to send Geno Smith and a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Jets in exchange for a '26 sixth-round pick. Additionally, Las Vegas is paying the bulk of Smith's salary to facilitate the trade that will send the 35-year-old signal-caller back to the team that drafted him in '13. The move won't be finalized until the new league year begins at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Last year, the Raiders acquired Smith in a trade with the Seahawks and quickly locked him down with a two-year, $75 million contract extension. The decision backfired, however, as the team endured a dreadful three-win season. The Raiders are still on the hook for most of Smith's $18.5 million guaranteed salary for the 2026 season, per the report from NFL Media's Tom Pelissero, but they'll at least get a fresh start at the position with Smith gone and possession of the No. 1 pick in April's draft that will likely be used to select Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. |
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Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images |
By Conor Orr Welcome to the end of the first wave of free agency. Now, the tenor of this feverish period takes on a more plodding pace, with breathless news updates on … who might need a pass rusher badly enough to spend more than $25 million on Trey Hendrickson at age 32. A.J. Brown is still an Eagle, Kyler Murray (as of the publication of this column) is still waiting to make his move, and moments after I filed, the Saints threw their hat in the ring to claim the crown of Conor Orr offseason champion by signing my favorite remaining free agent, Kaden Elliss. There are still some entertaining moments to come, but over the past 48 hours, we've gotten a chance to establish some clear-cut winners and losers. These are not just teams but individuals, markets and ideas. Life can change quickly in the NFL, especially as the cap soars and teams in need of improvement cling to the known commodity that is veteran talent. In lieu of dragging out this introduction any further, we present our initial free agency winners and losers. |
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