Feb. 19, 2026, 9:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Mason Cameron of Pro Football Focus<\/a> selected the “best landing spot” for free agent linebacker Devin Lloyd — and it wasn’t with the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, Cameron selected the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Al Golden\u2019s defense is in dire need of an overhaul, particularly at linebacker,” wrote Cameron. “Headlined primarily by a pair of rookies, Demetrius Knight Jr. and\u00a0Barrett Carter<\/a>, the Bengals’ linebacking corps ranked last in the NFL in PFF overall grade (34.4). A defensive leader and cornerstone will be Cincinnati\u2019s biggest target this offseason.”<\/p>\n Lloyd is coming off a career year, which included him making his first Pro Bowl, along with being named a second-team All-Pro.<\/p>\n As Cameron noted, Lloyd had the second-highest overall grade among linebackers last season. He was also the only linebacker with a run defense grade, coverage grade, and pass rushing grade over 80.0.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Lloyd did a bit of everything for this Jaguars<\/a>‘ defense.<\/p>\n I’m sure in a perfect world, the Jaguars would love to have Lloyd back. However, as of now, Jacksonville’s salary cap situation is a bit tight, and Lloyd is going to be in store for a good-sized payday, with likely a number of teams interested.<\/p>\n PFF<\/a> is projecting that Lloyd lands a three-year deal worth $48 million. Spotrac<\/a> is projecting that Lloyd earns more than $20 million per year on his next contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 19, 2026, 9:00 p.m. ET Mason Cameron of Pro Football Focus selected the “best landing spot” for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[95878,228,227,256,2296,7,6,31186,95933,95907,95882,95913,96041,95936,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-763665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-bengals","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","16":"tag-sstsnjaguars","17":"tag-tagal-golden","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagcincinnati-bengals","20":"tag-tagdevin-lloyd","21":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnfl","24":"tag-tagnfl-hub","25":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}