Breece Hall avoids playing on the franchise tag after agreeing to a three-year extension. Al Bello / Getty Images
May 8, 2026Updated 8:43 pm EDT
The New York Jets hung on to running back Breece Hall at last year’s NFL trade deadline. Now, they’ll be hanging on to him for a while longer.
Hall and the Jets agreed Friday to a three-year extension worth up to $45.75 million, per a league source. That makes him the third-highest-paid running back in the NFL in average annual value, behind only the Philadelphia Eagles’ Saquon Barkley and San Francisco 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey.
There was a point last season where it felt like Hall no longer wanted to be a Jet — and that they might make him part of their trade deadline fire sale that sent away Sauce Gardner, Quinnen Williams and Michael Carter II. There were reports of an offer from the Kansas City Chiefs — but ultimately general manager Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn valued Hall more than the offers out there. That was made clear by their decision to franchise tag him ahead of free agency to avoid the risk of losing him for nothing — an easy decision for a team flush with cap space and lacking difference making talents like Hall.
The Jets held off on contract talks after the tag, which would have paid him $14.3 million, to focus on the NFL Draft and talks reignited over the last week to come to this conclusion. Notably, Mougey structured the contract in a way — $29 million guaranteed, and no money guaranteed in the third year — that puts the Jets in a positive position if they look back a year or two from now and decide they’d like to move on. Mougey structured Gardner’s extension last offseason similarly, making it so there wasn’t much financial loss when the Jets traded him away a few months after he signed the deal.
Now Hall, coming off his first 1,000-yard rushing season in the NFL, is locked into an offensive skill group that looks more talented and multi dimensional on paper than any the Jets have had in a long time — and all the key pieces are under contract beyond this year with Hall, Garrett Wilson, Adonai Mitchell, Mason Taylor and first-round rookies Kenyon Sadiq and Omar Cooper Jr.
May 9, 2026
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