{"id":774670,"date":"2026-02-25T04:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774670\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T04:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:57:17","slug":"best-available-defensive-tackles-in-2026-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774670\/","title":{"rendered":"Best available defensive tackles in 2026 offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 24, 2026, 12:16 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com<\/a> put together his list of the top 101 free agents this offseason, and of interest to the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>, only four defensive tackles were listed.<\/p>\n

This aligns with ESPN’s Ben Solak’s recent assessment<\/a> of the free agent defensive tackle position, which is that it is quite thin.<\/p>\n

Defensive tackle is one of the biggest needs that the Jaguars<\/a> have this offseason. For one, depth is needed here, but also, down the stretch last season, the Jaguars struggled to generate consistent pressure on the quarterback from the defensive tackle position.<\/p>\n

If James Gladstone is going to address this position in free agency, they are somewhat limited in salary cap space<\/a> currently, but have the ability to create more spending power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, given the level of need here, one would think that a portion of whatever cap space the Jaguars do have to work with will go to this position group.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

So which defensive tackles made Rosenthal’s rankings, and where did these players land?<\/p>\n

No. 61: DT DJ Reader<\/p>\n

What Rosenthal said: “Run-stuffing nose tackles used to stick around the league forever. So here\u2019s to Reader occupying blockers like Ted Washington and Pat Williams once did until he\u2019s 40.”<\/p>\n

No. 81: Sheldon Rankins<\/p>\n

What Rosenthal said: “Rankins has made this list at least three times over the years, and he\u2019s still getting it done as a pass rusher who gets up the field.”<\/p>\n

No. 82: David Onyemata<\/p>\n

What Rosenthal said: “Just when it looked like the Manitoba product was nearing the end of a sneaky-excellent NFL career, he put up another season with 600+ snaps as a strong run defender.”<\/p>\n

No. 97: Khyiris Tonga<\/p>\n

What Rosenthal said: “The fullback snaps were fun. The defensive tackle snaps where he ran over double teams were better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 24, 2026, 12:16 p.m. ET Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com put together his list of the top 101…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7,212,125,2401,213,6,31186,95933,95882,95892,95936,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-774670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","12":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","13":"tag-jaguars","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","16":"tag-sstsnjaguars","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagespn-inc","19":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagnfl-hub","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116129500149390127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774670","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=774670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}