NFL free agency is over. The draft is over. It's time to pick the best and worst from the 2026 NFL offseason.
As the vast majority of players have been signed, acquired or drafted to their 2026 franchises, I'm going to make my move in advance of the inevitable A.J. Brown trade. I'm going team-by-team around the league and picking each franchise's best and worst move so far in 2026, starting with the AFC. (I'll hit the NFC next week.)
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Of course, some of those moves are draft picks, so it's still impossibly early to say how a prospect will turn out in the pros. With that in mind, I'll try to use the context for where a player was regarded heading into the draft or the typical expectations of what a player drafted in a given round will do as a rookie to estimate their likely production in Year 1.
Did your favorite AFC team attack its biggest weakness successfully? Or did it pay a premium for a player who won't move the needle in 2026? Let's find out, going through all 16 teams in the conference, starting in the AFC East.
Jump to an AFC team: BAL | BUF | CIN | CLE DEN | HOU | IND | JAX KC | LAC | LV | MIA NE | NYJ | PIT | TEN
AFC East
Buffalo Bills
Best: Re-signing Connor McGovern. A lot of center deals look like bargains in light of what Tyler Linderbaum signed for with the Raiders. Before this offseason, the highest-paid center was Creed Humphrey, who re-upped with the Chiefs for $18 million per season. Linderbaum's new deal with the Raiders pays him $27 million per season, a 50% increase from the prior peak.
Solid centers will have their contracts rise accordingly in the years to come, and so it was good work by Brandon Beane and the Bills to get McGovern's deal done before free agency began. On a four-year, $52 million pact, McGovern's $13 million average salary is less than half of what Linderbaum will make. And though the Bills had to practically guarantee about 43% of McGovern's third-year compensation to keep their starting center from free agency, that figure doesn't seem burdensome in light of what Linderbaum is making.
Even if the Bills decide to move on after two years, they'll pay McGovern only $32.6 million for those prime seasons, or just over $16 million per year. That's going to be good value for a player who made the Pro Bowl in 2024 and whose mobility helps define one of the league's more impactful rushing attacks.