{"id":793718,"date":"2026-03-05T12:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/793718\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:39:28","slug":"ten-nfl-free-agents-who-could-land-surprisingly-big-contracts-during-2026-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/793718\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten NFL free agents who could land surprisingly big contracts during 2026 offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The tight end market is full of big names like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/travis-kelce\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Travis Kelce<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/david-njoku\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Njoku<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/dallas-goedert\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Goedert<\/a>, while 25-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/isaiah-likely\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Isaiah Likely<\/a> offers enticing potential. But with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/kyle-pitts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Pitts<\/a> off the market <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/falcons-gm-can-t-have-player-of-kyle-pitts-caliber-get-to-the-open-market\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">via franchise tag<\/a>, Okonkwo or Otton could end up being the top-paid TE in this free-agent cycle. Over the past two seasons, Otton led the Bucs with 118 receptions and ranked second behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/mike-evans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Evans<\/a> with 1,172 receiving yards; his three games of 80-plus receiving yards in 2025 tied for second-most among tight ends, behind only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/trey-mcbride\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trey McBride<\/a> (four). Okonkwo led the Titans with career highs of 56 catches and 560 yards last season. Either, if not both, could end up signing contracts worth around $12 million per year. Meanwhile, Kolar played in all 17 games last season and posted a 77.5 PFF grade (eighth among tight ends who played double-digit games) despite catching just 10 passes. When he does get the ball, he&#8217;s efficient &#8212; his 13.6 yards per catch ranks second among NFL tight ends since 2022 (minimum 25 receptions). He might end up becoming the league&#8217;s highest-paid blocking tight end, and it&#8217;s not out of the question he could get $10 million a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tight end market is full of big names like Travis Kelce, David Njoku and Dallas Goedert, while&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[4994,14134,90,35570,9341,4699,8506,28380,1812,7,4609,2318,6,609,3993],"class_list":{"0":"post-793718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-alec-pierce","9":"tag-alontae-taylor","10":"tag-analysis","11":"tag-bryan-cook","12":"tag-cade-otton","13":"tag-charlie-kolar","14":"tag-chig-okonkwo","15":"tag-david-edwards","16":"tag-ed-ingram","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-free-agency","19":"tag-john-franklin-myers","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-no-minute","22":"tag-rasheed-walker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116176619508554329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793718","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=793718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}