Bills Make Series Of Roster Moves
As part of a handful of transactions on Thursday, the Bills waived cornerback Dorian Strong with a non-football injury designation. They also waived/injured running back Desmond Reid and waived wide receiver Gabriel Benyard. The Bills signed receivers Deven Thompkins and Max Tomczak in corresponding moves.
Strong is likely to make a quick return to the organization, as he is expected to miss the season with a neck injury, per Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN. Assuming Strong clears waivers, Buffalo will place him on IR.
As a sixth-round rookie from Virginia Tech in 2025, Strong appeared in four games and made 10 tackles. He started in his debut, a Week 1 win over the Ravens, as the Bills were without injured corners Maxwell Hairston and Tre’Davious White.
While Strong looked like capable depth in limited action last season, the 24-year-old’s career has been in doubt since the Bills placed him on IR in early October. General manager Brandon Beane revealed in April that Strong underwent “specialized” neck surgery after the season. Beane admitted then that it is “unknown” if Strong will play again (via Ryan Miller of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle).
Thompkins, the only other member of this group with NFL experience, took advantage of a minicamp invitation this week. So far, all 36 of his pro appearances have come with NFC South teams. He played for the Buccaneers from 2022-23, with whom he logged extensive work as a return man, before joining the Panthers in 2024 and the Falcons last year. The 5-foot-8, 155-pounder has totaled 29 catches, including three in seven games in 2025. The Falcons waived Thompkins in early May.
Falcons To Acquire T Wanya Morris From Chiefs
3:45pm: The Falcons have placed Norton on the reserve/PUP list. While they did not disclose a reason for the move, it may have something to do with the ankle injury that kept Norton out for all of 2025. The Falcons designated Norton to return from IR in late October, but they did not activate him during his 21-day window.
1:00pm: The Chiefs are trading offensive tackle Wanya Morris to the Falcons, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports. Along with Morris, the Chiefs will send a 2027 seventh-round pick to the Falcons for a ’27 sixth-rounder, according to veteran insider Jordan Schultz.
This deal comes just two days after Fowler reported the Chiefs and Morris agreed to pursue trade options. The Chiefs spent a third-round pick on Morris in 2023, but the 6-foot-6, 307-pounder did not develop as hoped in his three years with the team. He made just 16 starts in 43 games, including only one in 12 appearances in 2025. The Chiefs will move on with Josh Simmons at left tackle and a right tackle competition that includes Jaylon Moore, Esa Pole, Matt Waletzko and undrafted rookie Kahlil Benson.
While Morris has professional experience at both tackle spots, the majority of his work has come on the left side. He started a career-high 11 times on the blindside in 2024, his lone 17-game season, though Pro Football Focus ranked his performance a lowly 70th among 81 qualifiers.
Barring an injury to stalwart left tackle Jake Matthews, who has missed just one game in his 12-year career, Morris will not see much action there in Atlanta. His best path to playing time is on the right, where the Falcons unexpectedly lost Kaleb McGary to retirement in April. They immediately brought in former Chief Jawaan Taylor, whom Morris has been teammates with for his entire career, on a one-year, $5MM pact to replace McGary.
As a full-time starter since he entered the NFL in 2019, the 28-year-old Taylor is the obvious favorite to serve as the Falcons’ No. 1 right tackle this season. Morris will join Storm Norton, Michael Jerrell and Jack Nelson to give the Falcons more experienced depth behind Matthews and Taylor.
Browns S Ronnie Hickman Signs Second-Round RFA Tender
In March, the Browns elected to keep restricted free agent safety Ronnie Hickman in the fold by applying a second-round RFA tender. That one-year deal has now been signed.
Hickman is officially on the books, the Browns announced on Thursday. The 24-year-old is due to collect $5.77MM in 2026 as a result. That represents a sharp raise in pay compared to Hickman’s first three years in the NFL, and it illustrates his importance to Cleveland’s defense in at least the near term.
During his first NFL season, the former undrafted free agent made an impact on defense while operating in a part-time role and also chipping in on special teams. Hickman saw an uptick in usage during the 2024 campaign, and he continued to impress. That helped pave the way for full-time starting gig in 2025.
Hickman appeared in every game for Cleveland last year, easily setting new career highs in many categories. The Ohio State product notched 103 tackles, a pair of interceptions and seven pass deflections. Expectations will be high for a strong follow-up season in 2026, and another productive campaign would of course help Hickman’s case for a long-term Browns commitment.
The deadline for players attached to an RFA tender to sign an offer sheet from an outside team has long passed. The Browns would have received a second-round pick as compensation for Hickman inking an unmatched offer sheet earlier this offseason, but they will prepare for at least one more season of him playing a key role in the secondary. Cleveland still has Grant Delpit in the fold and the team added Emmanuel McNeil-Warren in the second round of the draft, but Hickman figures to spend at least one more season as an important contributor at the safety spot.
Chiefs Hand QB Patrick Mahomes Extension Through 2033
11:21pm: Hours after the announcement hit the waves, Mahomes has officially put pen to paper on his new deal. With the record-setting deal finalized, the three-time Super Bowl MVP is now under Chiefs control for eight more seasons.
3:34pm: Six summers ago, the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes agreed on an unrivaled extension that ran into the 2030s. The superstar’s lengthy contract benefited the Chiefs, and other passers’ salaries began to dwarf his.
The Chiefs agreed to a reworked deal in fall 2023 but did not remove any years from the mammoth pact. The parties have now agreed to add more time on this deal, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport. Kansas City will now have Mahomes signed through the 2033 season at $504.75MM. That is the total value of the new deal, which will add two seasons to Mahomes’ term.
That whopping number covers eight seasons in total, representing a seismic adjustment to the NFL’s longest-term contract. In terms of new money, Mahomes will receive $239.1MM, per Schefter and Rapoport. The first four years of the three-time Super Bowl MVP’s deal are guaranteed at signing, representing tremendous confidence the quarterback will return to his stratospheric heights after suffering ACL and LCL tears last December.
This does not mean the Chiefs are adding $239.1MM over the 2032 and ’33 seasons, as Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio points out, but the team will give the all-time great a significant raise over the existing years of his deal. In exchange, Mahomes will give the Chiefs two more years of control.
The 2033 season would be Mahomes’ age-38 campaign. That $239MM number will mark a raise throughout the eight-year contract’s life, and it represents a record-setting AAV bump for the current game’s most accomplished quarterback.
The new guarantees probably represent the most notable component of this agreement. Aside from first- or early-second-round rookie contracts and the outlier Deshaun Watson deal, teams do not authorize four years of fully guaranteed money. The Chiefs are doing so, with Schefter and Rapoport adding guarantee mechanisms — which were used in the team’s initial Mahomes extension — are present to cover the 2030s part of this accord.
While plenty of details are yet to emerge, the eight-year package worth $504.75MM comes out to more than $63MM per year. We will wait to see how this is structured, but that blows past Dak Prescott‘s previous high-water mark — set in September 2024. The Cowboys have Prescott signed to a four-year, $240MM extension, one the QB secured thanks to historic leverage. Mahomes opted for a team-friendlier deal in 2020, and it helped the Chiefs retain Chris Jones on multiple extensions — to go with other roster-building advantages. The organization is rewarding the 10th-year quarterback, and it will be interesting to see how this contract breaks down in terms of cap hits.
When Mahomes agreed to his 10-year Kansas City extension (worth $450MM) in July 2020, Russell Wilson‘s $35MM-per-year Seahawks pact had resided atop the quarterback market. Mahomes’ accord raised the ceiling, but it did not take too long for the field to catch up with him. Watson topped the deal on a much more player-friendly package — the most player-friendly agreement in NFL history — while Aaron Rodgers became the first $50MM-AAV player days earlier in March 2022.
A host of QBs are now in the $50MM-per-year club, leading to the Chiefs infusing Mahomes’ contract with guarantees in September 2023, with Prescott hitting $60MM AAV. The $60MM-per-year club now houses two passers, and Lamar Jackson‘s camp will assuredly take note of Mahomes’ latest update.
Jackson carries favorable leverage compared to Mahomes, whose previous through-2031 arrangement gave the Chiefs flexibility — which they have continually used via restructures. The Chiefs have restructured Mahomes’ contract five times since its authorization; the latest change (in February) dropped his cap number to $34.65MM for 2026. That gave the Chiefs some breathing room, as they entered the offseason well over the cap.
The contract maxes out at $522.25MM, according to Schefter and Rapoport, with incentives and escalators present. This agreement comes more than a year after the Bills gave Josh Allen a monster adjustment by adding two more years to his lengthy contract. The only QB to remotely venture into Mahomes’ contractual territory — term length-wise — Allen signed a six-year Bills extension in 2021. After Allen’s 2024 MVP season, the team rewarded him with a six-year, $330MM contract that added two years to his previous pact. This Mahomes offering looks similar, but with four fully guaranteed years, the Kansas City icon fared better on that front.
It is debatable as to whether Allen has passed Mahomes in the QB pecking order exiting the 2025 season, and the Bills superstar is a year younger. But no debate exists as to the league’s most accomplished active QB.
The Chiefs had experienced a 50-year Super Bowl drought after their Super Bowl IV victory, which closed the sport’s AFL chapter, as the likes of Joe Montana, Trent Green and Alex Smith — among others in a QB carousel that formed a San Francisco-to-Kansas City pipeline — were unable to lift the franchise back to the game’s ultimate stage. Mahomes did, and he has played in five Super Bowls and seven AFC championship games through eight seasons as a starter.
Mahomes delivered his best statistical season in 2018, throwing 50 touchdown passes and reaching 5,097 passing yards in his first year succeeding Smith. A porous Chiefs defense could not stop Tom Brady and Co. in the AFC championship game, but Kansas City’s seminal Steve Spagnuolo hire soon after allowed Mahomes to have near-Brady-like defensive protection en route to forming the NFL’s only post-Patriots dynasty. The Chiefs won Super Bowls LIV, LVII and LVIII over the next five seasons, with Mahomes earning MVP honors in each game. Also receiving regular-season MVP acclaim in 2022, Mahomes created distance between himself and the field by that point.
Since then, the Chiefs have not rivaled their early Mahomes years on offense. The team ranked 15th in scoring in 2023 and ’24, with the Tyreek Hill trade — and a few misses at wide receiver — limiting the once-explosive attack. Travis Kelce moving into his mid-30s did not help matters, and Spagnuolo’s defense — a top-10 unit in six of the decorated DC’s seven seasons in K.C. — became an underrated component of this dynasty.
The Chiefs lost Mahomes to a season-ending knee injury in Week 15 last year, but the team was on the verge of elimination with the future first-ballot Hall of Famer at the wheel. Mahomes went 6-8 as a starter last season, as the Chiefs’ close-game mojo faded. The team ranked 21st in scoring offense, with the post-Mahomes period contributing to that placement. Wednesday’s commitment certainly shows no signs the franchise is concerned about its passer’s long-term viability.
Andy Reid, the Chiefs dynasty’s other pillar, has continually fended off retirement rumors. The NFL’s fourth-winningest all-time coach is heading into his 14th season in charge of the AFC West team. The Broncos toppled Reid’s bunch last season, going 14-3, while the Chargers swept the Chiefs with Mahomes starting both games. Reid, 68, will attempt to become the oldest HC to win a Super Bowl; Bruce Arians, 66 when his Buccaneers thrashed the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV, currently holds that record.
Mahomes, who had missed only two games due to injury prior to his knee setback, did some work at Chiefs OTAs and is targeting a Week 1 return. The Chiefs acquired Justin Fields via trade, bringing in some insurance in the event the longtime starter is not ready. Mahomes has beat rumored injury recovery timetables in the past, most notably playing on a high ankle sprain in the 2022 playoffs, and comparable recoveries from ACL tears have commenced.
Seeing favorable AFC West draws in the years after Peyton Manning‘s retirement, the Chiefs now enter a season — for the first time in ages — in which they are not the surefire favorites to win the division. Kelce is entering an age-37 season, while Chris Jones is now 32. The team’s questions at wide receiver persist, with No. 1 target Rashee Rice currently in jail — while rehabbing from knee surgery — due to violating his probation. The Chiefs added Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker in free agency and made three top-40 picks in this year’s draft, using a 6-11 2025 record to their advantage.
The team will hope its cornerstone player will be back in Week 1. But for the long haul — which will feature the Chiefs moving across the Kansas state line into a new stadium in 2031 — no doubt exists about internal confidence in Mahomes, who remains the NFL’s only player signed beyond the 2030 season.
Dolphins To Extend C Aaron Brewer
The Dolphins had signed Aaron Brewer to a mid-tier center contract in 2024, but after his breakthrough 2025 season, a new deal is in place. Brewer is now the NFL’s third-highest-paid center.
Miami’s new regime is giving Brewer a three-year, $52.5MM extension, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. The deal will provide the veteran interior blocker with $37MM guaranteed. At $17.5MM per year, Brewer trails only Tyler Linderbaum and Creed Humphrey among center salaries. Brewer is now signed through 2029.
Plenty of rumblings about a Brewer payday emerged this offseason. Although new regimes regularly use their early months to evaluate holdover players — and this Dolphins power structure has made sweeping changes — Brewer joins De’Von Achane as extension recipients during the team’s offseason program. Achane signed a four-year, $64MM extension in May.
The Chris Grier-Mike McDaniel power duo had added Brewer on a three-year, $21MM deal in 2024. That represented a mid-market deal, though the pact being finalized months before Humphrey’s extension raised the center ceiling made Brewer’s terms reasonably player-friendly. But Linderbaum has since smashed through both the center and guard roofs, using unrestricted free agency to create a new sector on the center market.
Linderbaum’s AAV outpaces Humphrey’s by a staggering $9MM, but Brewer and Cam Jurgens join Humphrey on the market’s new second tier. Jurgens did see more in total guarantees ($43MM) compared to Brewer, and it will be interesting to see where the latter’s new deal lands in terms of fully guaranteed money.
Should the $17.5MM AAV be the contract’s base value, Brewer will surpass Jurgens’ salary ($17MM per annum). GM Jon-Eric Sullivan is launching a rebuild, as the Tua Tagovailoa release and trades of Jaylen Waddle and Minkah Fitzpatrick illustrate, but will ensure Brewer is around to block for free agent signing Malik Willis and perhaps a long-term successor.
Playing both guard and center with the Titans, Brewer worked his way up from the UDFA level into surefire starter. An injury-battered Titans O-line could count on the Texas State alum in 2022, when Brewer started 17 games at guard. Tennessee then placed a second-round RFA tender on him in Mike Vrabel‘s final offseason in charge. Moving to center in 2023, Brewer started 17 more games that season and created a nice market for himself. That led to the Dolphins paying him to begin snapping to Tagovailoa. The signing surely went better than the team anticipated.
Brewer landed a second-team All-Pro honor despite the Dolphins struggling in McDaniel’s final season. Pro Football Focus graded Brewer as its second-best center — behind Humphrey — while ESPN’s pass block win rate metric slotted the 28-year-old blocker ninth among all interior O-linemen. Although Miami did not see Tagovailoa rebound from a concerning 2024, Brewer’s work helped Achane to a career-best season. New HC Jeff Hafley will count on that duo moving forward.
The Dolphins have questions to answer up front as Hafley’s tenure starts. Austin Jackson accepted a pay cut after another injury-plagued season, and the veteran right tackle is in a contract year. The team has Patrick Paul entering a second season as its starting left tackle. The Dolphins are stationing first-round pick Kadyn Proctor — a tackle at Alabama — at left guard while putting 2025 second-rounder Jonah Savaiinaea in a competition to keep a starting job. Savaiinaea, who started at LG last season, is vying for the RG post with Jamaree Salyer and rookie D.J. Campbell.
Brewer represents some certainty for Miami’s new staff. Sullivan’s staff has now taken care of he and Achane, and it will be interesting to see if a Jordyn Brooks extension — one the former first-round linebacker has lobbied for — will come next in this transition period.
DE Za’Darius Smith Released From Eagles’ Reserve/Retired List
Last year, veteran pass rusher Za’Darius Smith signed with the Eagles a day after the team’s season opener but only lasted five weeks in Philadelphia before announcing his midseason retirement. According to Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2, the Eagles have reportedly terminated Smith from their reserve/retired list, opening the door for the 33-year-old to make a return to the league, should he find the right situation.
Yes, Smith will be 34 years old by the start of the regular season, but he is only two seasons removed from a nine-sack 2024 season split between the Browns and Lions. At his prime, though, Smith was routinely putting up sack totals in the double-digits. After exhausting his rookie contract in Baltimore with 18.5 sacks in four years, Smith joined the Packers and delivered two Pro Bowl campaigns in three years.
In his first season with the Packers, Smith put up career highs in sacks (13.5), tackles for loss (17), and quarterback hits (37). He didn’t quite match those numbers in his second Pro Bowl season, but his 12.5 sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and 23 quarterback hits were enough to land him second-team All-Pro honors. A back injury that had bothered him all through training camp in his third year in Green Bay limited him to only one game and led to his release, but Smith rebounded in 2022 with the Vikings, giving Minnesota 10.0 sacks, 15 tackles for loss, and 24 quarterback hits en route to his third Pro Bowl season.
The Vikings traded Smith to Cleveland the next year, and after a disappointing 2023 campaign, the Browns sold high on him, trading him to Detroit before the trade deadline the next season. Smith went unsigned for the entire offseason following his half-season with the Lions, and his announcement shortly after arriving in Philadelphia came as a shock to the league.
With the Eagles releasing him from the contractual rights they retained following his retirement, Smith will now be able to seek out new opportunities and find a team that best fits his situation. A few of his former teams all oddly appear to be in need of some pass rush depth, so a reunion may be on the table.
Minor NFL Transactions: 6/10/26
Here are today’s midweek minor moves from around the NFL:
Las Vegas Raiders
- Signed: WR Brandon Johnson
- Placed on IR: WR Corey Rucker
San Francisco 49ers
- Signed: RB Sincere McCormick
- Waived: RB Jordan Mims
Eagles Sign A.J. Epenesa, Michael Jordan
Several weeks after A.J. Epenesa‘s Browns deal fell through, the veteran edge rusher has found a new home. The Eagles signed the former second-round pick, per a team announcement.
Philadelphia has signed Epenesa and guard Michael Jordan. The team waived linebackers Chandler Martin and Isiah King to clear roster space. Epenesa will head to Philly after six years in Buffalo.
Epenesa, 27, had committed to the Browns in March but saw the team express concerns about his physical and back out of the agreement. The Iowa product then visited the Dolphins and Bears but will vie to become an auxiliary rush option for an Eagles team that has again seen some turnover at its edge-rushing spots.
The team lost Jaelan Phillips in free agency but belatedly replaced him by trading for Jonathan Greenard during the draft. Philadelphia has also taken fliers on Arnold Ebiketie and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. The team released the unretired Brandon Graham, but that move may be procedural that and precede the franchise’s longest-tenured player returning. The Epenesa signing crowds Philly’s EDGE corps, with Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt in place as well. The Epenesa signing could also provide some insurance for the Eagles in case Graham does not re-sign.
Graham, 38, retired not long after Super Bowl LIX but agreed to come back in-season. The Eagles had just lost Za’Darius Smith to an in-season retirement. Graham then expressed interest at playing a 17th season. Already the only Eagle to play 16 years with the team, the 2010 first-round pick would seemingly factor into the organization’s supplementary EDGE situation, which would leave Ebiketie, Tryon-Shoyinka and Epenesa vying for limited playing time.
Playing well as an auxiliary Bills rusher from 2022-24, Epenesa only recorded 2.5 sacks last season. Buffalo consistently used Epenesa as a rotational cog, with Von Miller and then Gregory Rousseau anchoring the team’s pass rush. Epenesa tallied 6.5 sacks in 2022 and ’23, combining for 14 tackles for loss in those seasons. He then delivered a six-sack, eight-TFL 2024 to go with his only career safety. Epenesa does not have a sack in 14 career playoff games, and the Bills added Bradley Chubb in free agency before drafting Clemson edge rusher T.J. Parker in the second round.
The first- and second-most-famous Michael Jordans are unapproachable for the veteran O-lineman, but the enduring guard has continued to work as a starter at various stops. Brought in as a depth option by the Buccaneers last year, Jordan ended up starting nine of the 11 games he played. This came after he started 11 of 12 Patriots contests in 2024. Jordan was a 10-game Panthers starter in both 2020 and ’21, before serving as a 2022 Carolina backup and missing the 2023 season.
Jordan spent the 2023 season on the Packers’ practice squad and did not make the Pats or Bucs’ rosters out of training camp in the ensuing years. But the former Bengals fourth-rounder managed to move back onto each team’s roster for extended starter duty each year.
Pro Football Focus has never graded Jordan as a top-60 guard, but teams have continued to view him as a valuable backup. The Eagles return starters Landon Dickerson and Tyler Steen, though Dickerson considered retirement this offseason and missed time in 2025. Philly also drafted a guard in Round 6 (Micah Morris).
Browns Complete Draft Class Signings With 1st-Round WR KC Concepcion
The Browns have now signed their full 2026 draft class to rookie deal. First-round receiver KC Concepcion has put pen to paper on his first professional contract, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Concepcion, 21, was the No. 24 pick in April’s draft. He is set to earn just over $20MM in fully guaranteed money across the next four years, including a signing bonus worth roughly $11MM, per OverTheCap.
All first-rounders have fully guaranteed contracts with values that are set by the CBA’s rookie pay scale. That leaves less to be negotiated between player and team, though payment schedules have become a common battleground. The Browns came to terms with Spencer Fano, their other first-round pick, and the rest of their draft class far quicker than with Concepcion, indicating there were a few sticking points in his deal.
Now, all 10 of the Browns’ 2026 draft picks are under contract for the next four years, including Washington wide receiver Denzel Boston, who went in the second round, 15 picks after Concepcion Boston was viewed as a potential first-round talent by some, as was Toledo safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, who Cleveland traded up to snag at No. 58 overall.
That core quartet represents a second strong draft in a row for Browns general Andrew Berry. Last year’s No. 5 pick, Mason Graham, did not flash as a rookie but still profiles as a long-term anchor for the defensive line. Second-round linebacker Carson Schwesinger was named Defensive Rookie of the Year, and fellow Day 2 picks Quinshon Judkins and Harold Fannin both carved out clear roles in the offense moving forward. If either Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders can evolve into a competent starter – or the team finally lands their long-awaited franchise QB in the 2027 draft – the Browns would seem to have all the pieces to finally move back into playoff contention in the next few years.
Minor NFL Transactions: 6/9/26
Today’s minor moves:
Indianapolis Colts
- Placed on reserve/retired list: S Reuben Lowery
Kansas City Chiefs
- Waived: S Marlen Sewell
Los Angeles Rams
- Signed: LB Tomon Fox
New York Jets
- Reverted to IR: WR Quentin Skinner
Pittsburgh Steelers
- Claimed off waivers (from Buccaneers): P Aidan Laros
- Waived: WR Brandon Johnson