**Khalil Mack will remain with the Los Angeles Chargers after agreeing to a one-year deal on Monday.
Mack’s $18 million salary for the 2025 season will be fully guaranteed according to two people familiar with the negotiations. The people spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the Chargers did not release the contract terms.
Mack was selected to his ninth Pro Bowl in 2024 after being the only player in the league with at least six sacks and nine passes defensed.
Re-signing Mack was one of the top priorities for general manager Joe Hortiz and coach Jim Harbaugh before the new league year starts on Wednesday. It became more imperative after the team released fellow edge rusher Joey Bosa last Wednesday.
This was the first time that Mack was eligible to become an unrestricted free agent. He entered the league in 2014 when the Oakland Raiders made him the fifth overall pick in the draft. He was the 2016 AP Defensive Player of the Year before being traded to the Chicago Bears the week before the 2018 season after he and the Raiders could not agree on a contract extension.
Mack signed a six-year deal with the Bears that kicked in with the 2019 season before being dealt to the Chargers in 2022.
***The Jacksonville Jaguars have reached agreement on a three-year deal with free agent slot cornerback Jourdan Lewis, multiple outlets reported Monday.
The deal is reportedly for $30 million and includes $20 million guaranteed. Lewis will make $12.5 million in 2025, per NFL Network. The deal will become official Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET, the official start of the new league year.
He played last season on a one-year deal worth $2.82 million.
Lewis, 29, has spent his entire eight-year career with the Dallas Cowboys.
He has recorded 10 interceptions, 9.5 sacks and 44 passes defensed in 115 career games (64 starts) since the Cowboys selected him in the third round of the 2017 draft.
***The New York Giants agreed to a deal with unrestricted free agent cornerback Paulson Adebo, according to multiple reports Monday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but reports pegged the value of the three-year deal at $30 million.
The move helps fill one of the Giants’ biggest offseason needs, finding someone to start alongside 2023 first-round pick Deonte Banks.
Adebo, 25, played four seasons with the New Orleans Saints but arrives with questions.
He missed the last 10 games of last season after undergoing surgery to repair a broken right femur suffered during a home loss to the Denver Broncos in October. Adebo said at the end of the season that he expects to be ready for training camp and recently posted a training video showing his progress, complete with sticking the landing on a backflip.
Adebo had three interceptions, 10 passes defensed and 52 tackles in seven starts on the season.
He has 254 tackles and 10 picks in 52 games (51 starts) since New Orleans drafted him in the third round in 2021.
***Free agent cornerback DJ Reed agreed to a three-year, $48 million contract with the Detroit Lions, according to multiple reports Monday.
Reed spent the past three seasons with the New York Jets and details of his deal with the Lions came soon after news of the Patriots signing away Carlton Davis, who played with Detroit in 2024.
Reed, 28, was a fifth-round pick of the 49ers in 2018 and was claimed off waivers by the Seahawks in 2020 before signing a three-year, $33 million contract with the Jets as an unrestricted free agent in 2022.
Reed has six career interceptions and 51 passes defensed.
The 5-9, 195-pound corner can play inside for the Lions, who employ a significant number of nickel packages to maximize the versatility of their safety tandem of Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch.
The cornerback room in Detroit is green behind Reed and Amik Robertson, 26, who emerged as the top cover corner after Davis broke his jaw in December.
A pair of 2024 draft picks, Terrion Arnold (first round) and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. (second), are also on the current CB depth chart. Arnold is projected as a starter again after making 15 starts in 16 games as a rookie. Rakestraw was never fully healthy because of a hamstring injury.
***The Los Angeles Rams re-signed quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to a one-year, $11 million deal to be their primary backup again in 2025, ESPN and NFL Network reported Monday.
Garoppolo, 33, played the 2024 season on a one-year deal worth $3.1 million. He started the regular season finale in place of a resting Matthew Stafford, throwing for 334 yards in a meaningless 30-25 loss to Seattle.
Garoppolo was receiving interest from other teams, per ESPN.
Garoppolo is 43-21 as a starter in his career, throwing for 15,828 yards, 96 touchdowns and 52 interceptions for the New England patriots (2014-16), San Francisco 49ers (2017-22), Las Vegas Raiders (2023) and Rams.
He was selected in the second round of the 2014 draft by the Patriots and started for the 49ers in a Super Bowl LIV loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
**CHARLOTTE N.C. (AP) — Jaycee Horn has agreed to a four-year contract extension with the Carolina Panthers worth $100 million, including $70 million in guaranteed money, making him the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Monday because the team has not released the terms of the contract.
The Panthers announced on their website that Horn has agreed to terms, but did not release his compensation.
The No. 8 pick in the 2021 draft, Horn is coming off his first Pro Bowl after having 68 tackles, two sacks and one interception.
Horn has battled through injuries throughout his career, but Panthers GM Dan Morgan said recently at the NFL combine he views him as the centerpiece of the defense.
Horn has played the past four seasons for Carolina, and when healthy has been a shutdown cornerback.
But keeping him on the field has been an issue. This past season Horn played in a career-high 15 games for Carolina, which failed to make the playoffs for the seventh straight season. In the three years prior to the 2024 season, Horn was limited to 25 games because of injuries.
Horn had one year left on his rookie contract with the Panthers.
***The Seattle Seahawks have found the replacement for Geno Smith, agreeing to a three-year, $100.5 million contract with Sam Darnold, a person with knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press on Monday.
The person, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because teams can’t sign free agents until Wednesday, said $55 million of the contract is guaranteed. Darnold will earn $37.5 million in 2025.
Darnold had a breakthrough season in his only year in Minnesota, throwing for 4,319 yards and 35 TDs while posting a 102.5 passer rating and leading the Vikings to 14 wins.
Darnold was drafted third overall by the New York Jets in 2018, but struggled mightily during three seasons with the Jets and two with Carolina. His 78.2 passer rating during that time ranked third worst among 53 QBs with at least 500 attempts.
But the 27-year-old Darnold has revitalized his career since then.
After spending the 2023 season as a backup in San Francisco, Darnold finally played to his potential for most of the season. His 12 games with multiple TD passes and a passer rating of at least 100 ranking tied for the fourth most ever in a season, trailing only MVP seasons from Aaron Rodgers (2011 and 2020) and Patrick Mahomes (2018).
***After parting ways with quarterback Aaron Rodgers last month, the New York Jets are bringing in Justin Fields, coming to terms on a two-year, $40 million deal with the former first-round pick, multiple media outlets reported Monday.
Per the reports, $30 million of the contract is guaranteed.
Rodgers, whom the Jets plan to release Wednesday when the new league year opens, is rumored to join Fields’ former team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, per an ESPN report on Monday.
With the Jets, the 26-year-old Fields already has a built-in rapport with wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who played with Fields at Ohio State.
Sharing QB duties with Russell Wilson in Pittsburgh last season, Fields threw five touchdowns and one interception in 10 games (six starts), completing 106 passes for 1,106 yards with a career-high completion percentage of 65.8.
The Steelers acquired Fields from the Chicago Bears, who last March traded their 2021 first-round pick in exchange for a 2025 sixth-round selection.
With the Bears (2021-23) and Steelers, Fields — the No. 11 pick in 2021 — has 45 touchdowns and 31 interceptions while completing 61.1 percent of his passes in 50 games (44 starts). He’s also rushed for 19 scores and 2,509 yards.
***Cornerback Isaiah Rodgers is leaving the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, agreeing to a two-year, $15 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings, ESPN reported on Monday.
Per the report, Rodgers’ deal includes a guaranteed $8 million.
Rodgers, 27, finished his lone season in Philadelphia with 26 tackles, four passes defended and a forced fumble in 15 games (three starts).
Vikings No. 1 cornerback Byron Murphy is expected to explore free agency.
In four postseason games, he notched six tackles, four passes defended and a fumble recovery, which came in the NFC divisional-round win over the Los Angeles Rams.
A sixth-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts in the 2020 draft, Rodgers played three seasons with the Colts before sitting out the 2023 season for a violation of the NFL’s gambling policy.
In 60 games (13) over four seasons, Rodgers has 116 tackles, three interceptions, 14 passes defended, two forced fumbles and four fumble recoveries.
***PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Saquon Barkley won the Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles, set the NFL record for the most single-season rushing yards including the playoffs and raised the bar for running back contracts.
Now he’s focused on cementing his legacy and place in football history.
Addressing reporters Monday to discuss his two-year, $41.2 million contract extension with $36 million guaranteed that made him league’s highest-paid player at the position, Barkley already has turned his attention to building the best season of his career so far.
“I want to be, if not the greatest running back of all time, one of the greatest running backs of all time,” Barkley said. “I hope I’m able to do that in an Eagle uniform.”
Barkley celebrated his 28th birthday by helping Philadelphia beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 to win the second Super Bowl championship in franchise history.
“The parade was cool, winning a Super Bowl on your birthday was cool,” Barkley said. “It comes back to you that you’re a Super Bowl champion. But you kind of lose focus on that already because you start thinking about how you’re going to be able to do it again. That’s just the nature of the sport. You have your time to celebrate it, but you win and you move on.”
Barkley fell 101 yards short of breaking Eric Dickerson’s regular-season record because he was rested rather than playing in a meaningless Week 18 game against his former team, the New York Giants. He rushed for 2,504 yards from the start of the season through the Super Bowl to top Terrell Davis’ mark of 2,476.
While he is only doing light workouts now with a plan to ramp things up in April, Barkley said he already has spoken with running backs coach Jemal Singleton about improvements moving forward. He would like to be better at running while carrying the ball in his left hand, among other things.
“You’ve got a whole new year and everything that you did last year happened last year,” Barkley said. “You’ve got find new ways to create that again.”
After a recent trend of teams devaluing running backs, Barkley hopes his contract helps James Cook, Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs and others get paid their worth in the coming days, weeks, months and years. His goal is for his deal not to be the most lucrative at the position for too long.
“I hope they beat it,” Barkley said. “That’s what this sport is about and building the position up and all those young guys that’s underneath me right now when they get when it’s their time, hopefully they beat it and max it out even more and in five and 10 years, it’s the same thing for those running backs that are playing in high school and college right now. That’s the goal. It’s happening for every other position, and I think it should happen for our position, too.”