play0:42What is Alec Pierce’s fantasy outlook for 2026?Matt Bowen breaks down the importance of Alec Pierce’s free agency destination for his fantasy value next season.
play0:46Will Wan’Dale Robinson and Jaxson Dart become fantasy relevant next season?Stephania Bell breaks down the connection between Wan’Dale Robinson and Jaxson Dart and what it means for their fantasy future.
play0:3449ers GM on Aiyuk: ‘He’s played his last snap with the Niners’49ers GM John Lynch tells reporters WR Brandon Aiyuk has played his last snap with the team.
play1:54Jeff Saturday in disbelief over Bills owner’s Brandon Beane-Keon Coleman commentsJeff Saturday sounds off on Bills owner Terry Pegula’s defense of Brandon Beane regarding Keon Coleman.
play1:08Why ‘Mad Dog’ is mad at DJ MooreChris “Mad Dog” Russo sounds off on Bears wide receiver DJ Moore for not speaking to the media after the Bears’ loss to the Rams.
What happens next with Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers? (1:18)Field Yates and Dan Orlovsky discuss Brandon Aiyuk’s NFL future after GM John Lynch said the WR has played his last snap with the 49ers. (1:18)
What is Alec Pierce’s fantasy outlook for 2026?Matt Bowen breaks down the importance of Alec Pierce’s free agency destination for his fantasy value next season.
Matt Bowen breaks down the importance of Alec Pierce’s free agency destination for his fantasy value next season.
Will Wan’Dale Robinson and Jaxson Dart become fantasy relevant next season?Stephania Bell breaks down the connection between Wan’Dale Robinson and Jaxson Dart and what it means for their fantasy future.
Stephania Bell breaks down the connection between Wan’Dale Robinson and Jaxson Dart and what it means for their fantasy future.
49ers GM on Aiyuk: ‘He’s played his last snap with the Niners’49ers GM John Lynch tells reporters WR Brandon Aiyuk has played his last snap with the team.
Jeff Saturday in disbelief over Bills owner’s Brandon Beane-Keon Coleman commentsJeff Saturday sounds off on Bills owner Terry Pegula’s defense of Brandon Beane regarding Keon Coleman.
Jeff Saturday sounds off on Bills owner Terry Pegula’s defense of Brandon Beane regarding Keon Coleman.
Why ‘Mad Dog’ is mad at DJ MooreChris “Mad Dog” Russo sounds off on Bears wide receiver DJ Moore for not speaking to the media after the Bears’ loss to the Rams.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo sounds off on Bears wide receiver DJ Moore for not speaking to the media after the Bears’ loss to the Rams.
play1:54How much blame does A.J. Brown deserve for Eagles’ loss? Stephen A. weighs inStephen A. Smith reacts to A.J. Brown’s performance in the Eagles’ playoff loss to the 49ers.
If the 2024 season was the Year of the Superstar Running Back, then the end to the 2025 NFL campaign might turn this into the Year of the Superstar Wide Receiver.
With that in mind, this upcoming offseason’s wide receiver market is shaping up to be fascinating. This could be the most active market for veterans since 2022, when Adams, Tyreek Hill and A.J. Brown were traded for draft picks in a matter of weeks. Some of those moves produced Super Bowls, although in Hill’s case, it was for his old team, not his new one.
Brown is one of a number of wideouts who could be traded this offseason after a frustrating 2025 campaign. We could see a robust cap casualty market, too, with big-name stars leaving for new teams. And there are a few free agents coming off rookie deals who might land unexpectedly big contracts on the open market.
If the Cowboys decide to let Pickens test the open market and move on after one season, it would be stunning if he landed anything short of $30 million per year with a multiyear guarantee. There will be teams wary of paying anyone Mike Tomlin and the Steelers wanted to let go, but there’s no denying Pickens’ talent and ability to impact games. He doesn’t even turn 25 until March, making him one of the younger free agents this offseason.
The problem for Pickens is that the tippy-top of the wide receiver market has risen faster than the franchise tag for those players. The franchise tag for wideouts in 2026 projects to come in at $28.6 million, making it easy for the Cowboys to justify using it. Even if Dallas decides it doesn’t want to sign Pickens to a long-term deal, it could tag and trade him.
The most likely scenario should see Pickens return to the Cowboys in 2026 on the franchise tag. If he can prove that 2025 wasn’t an outlier season, the Cowboys will be more inclined to sign him to a long-term deal. If not, well, Pickens would hit the open market next season. For now, though, the tag seems like the most plausible path for one of the league’s breakout stars.
An occasionally tumultuous run for Doubs in Green Bay likely came to an end in the Packers’ wild-card loss to the Bears. The underrated Doubs was suitably impactful in his final game, catching eight passes for 124 yards and a touchdown. That goes well with a 151-yard performance in his playoff debut, a win over the Cowboys in the 2023 wild-card round, and an 83-yard follow-up the subsequent week against the 49ers.
Doubs is therefore extremely likely to actually make it to free agency, which isn’t always the case for young wideouts. And there has been steady growth in his underlying metrics. Doubs’ yards per route run has improved during his time in Green Bay, from 1.4 during his rookie and second seasons to 1.8 in Year 3 and 1.9 in Year 4. Drops can be an issue, but the 6-foot-2 wideout produced a top-30 catch score this season, per ESPN’s receiver scores.
I’ll be fascinated to see where Doubs’ deal comes in. There’s a chance teams see him as only a midtier No. 2 receiver, leaving him something in the range of $15 million per year. I suspect there will be at least one team that sees him as a player with untapped potential who could blossom in a more pass-happy scheme and with a steadier, more reliable usage pattern. That team might be willing to go north of $20 million per season.
With Evans’ streak of 1,000-yard seasons broken by a series of injuries in 2025, the likely future Hall of Famer could hit free agency under uncertain circumstances. Two years ago, Evans was a free agent as a younger player without a significant injury in his past. He landed a two-year, $41 million pact to stay with Tampa Bay, and while he looked productive when he was on the field, Evans missed 12 of 34 possible games (and most of two others) because of various ailments.
The player Evans’ camp will try to link the star wideout to is Davante Adams, who hit free agency after a frustrating age-32 season and landed a two-year, $44 million contract with the Rams, including $26 million guaranteed at signing. Adams finished with 789 receiving yards in 14 games, but he formed a connection with Matthew Stafford and scored 14 touchdowns in his first year with Los Angeles.
Evans is a franchise legend, though, and the rules can be different when those types of players are involved. It would surprising if he played somewhere else in 2026.
The Jaguars were planning to cut Kirk last offseason, but at the last minute, the Texans surprisingly traded a seventh-round pick to acquire him from their divisional rivals, ensuring that they wouldn’t need to win Kirk’s affections in free agency. It was a fortuitous turn of events for Kirk, who ended up making the $16.3 million he was originally set to make in 2025, more than he could have expected to land had he actually hit the open market.
Kirk rewarded the Texans for their largesse, although it took a while. He didn’t make much of an impact during the regular season, racking up 28 catches for just 239 yards over 13 games. In the wild-card round, though, Kirk dramatically reemerged with a big game against the Steelers, turning nine targets into eight catches and 144 yards. He added a second touchdown and 20 receiving yards in the season-ending loss to the Patriots.
As a 29-year-old receiver mostly limited to slot work, Kirk won’t have a huge market in free agency. But he’s a well-regarded teammate and has an 1,108-yard season on his résumé, so he should find some guaranteed money as a third wideout on a receiver-needy team in 2026.
Last offseason, teams desperate for speed simply overpaid to sign replacement-level talent at wide receiver in free agency. The Rams brought back Tutu Atwell on a one-year, $10 million deal and got 192 receiving yards over 10 games, as the move into 13 personnel groupings and the ascension of Xavier Smith and Konata Mumpfield cut off Atwell’s access to the field as the third wideout behind Davante Adams and Puka Nacua.
The Jaguars signed Dyami Brown to an identical contract after a hot postseason in Washington, yet despite Travis Hunter’s knee injury, they essentially lost interest in Brown after a slow start. Jacksonville traded for Jakobi Meyers and promoted Parker Washington ahead of him in the lineup. Brown played single-digit snaps down the stretch and was a healthy scratch in the season-ending loss to the Bills.
If speedy receivers who barely see the field are worth $10 million deals, Pierce’s pending free agency poses an interesting question: What if a speedy receiver who was actually good hit the market? Pierce narrowly topped 1,000 yards for the first time as a pro with a 132-yard effort against the Texans in Week 18, but his breakout wasn’t really a product of better quarterback play in 2025. His rate of off-target potential receptions was roughly the same in 2024 (23.5%) and 2025 (23.8%).
Really, there has been two versions of Pierce. The 2022-23 editions were more like Atwell and Brown as low-efficiency, high-reward deep threats, as he averaged just 1.1 yards per route run — 89th out of 101 qualifying wideouts. A cast of changing quarterbacks didn’t help, but Pierce wasn’t able to command a meaningful target share.
Pierce’s stat lines are sort of a throwback to another era. This is a league in which great wideouts might average only 11 or 12 yards per catch, as Amon-Ra St. Brown has over the past couple of seasons, trading big plays for steady completions and first downs. The NFL as a whole has moved toward shorter passes going back to the West Coast offense’s arrival in the 1980s, a trend that has only accelerated over the past decade.