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Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff Writer
We end our look at the various tiers of the upcoming NFL free agent market with defensive linemen.
Since prominent quarterbacks don’t typically hit the open market, the defensive line often produces the most significant deals. If you look at the contracts for the top 20 players at each respective position, edge rusher is the second-most-lucrative spot, while defensive tackle is fourth. If you can’t be a quarterback, you can still make a good living by taking one down.
Linebacker has a higher franchise tag value than defensive line, but that’s because some edge rushers are considered to be linebackers by virtue of how they’re defined within a particular team’s scheme. In a league where the nickel sub-package with four down linemen has become a base defense, that’s an antiquated distinction.
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Here, I’ll be including edge rushers — outside linebackers and ends who primarily rush the passer from outside the tackle spot — and interior linemen — tackles and ends who primarily rush the passer from inside the tackles. I’ll start on the edge, where the top two players got franchise-tagged on Tuesday:
Jump to a position:
Edge rushers | Defensive tackles
More position tiers:
QB, TE, OL | RB, LB | WR, DB
Edge rushers
Tier 1: Franchise players
Free agents: None
Josh Allen (Jaguars) and Brian Burns (Panthers) would have landed here if they hadn’t been tagged. As it stands, there could be a trade market for their services, with Burns as the more likely player to be dealt given the impasse between the Panthers and their star edge rusher over the past two offseasons.
I’m not sure the Panthers can count on landing the same sort of haul they would have received when they reportedly turned down an offer of two first-round picks and more from the Rams at the 2022 trade deadline, but Burns is still only 25 and has averaged nine sacks and 19 knockdowns per season.
Tier 2: Pro Bowl-caliber starters
Free agent: Danielle Hunter, Vikings
Hunter was a case of the rare NFL extension that is too team-friendly. Signed to a five-year, $72 million deal in June 2018, he followed with back-to-back 14.5-sack seasons and quickly became one of the NFL’s more underpaid veterans. The Vikings ended up restructuring that deal twice, and when he conducted a hold-in last summer, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gave him a new one-year deal that voided after the season, preventing Minnesota from using the franchise tag on its star.
At 29, Hunter finally hits unrestricted free agency for the first time. There’s a lot of tread on his tires, as he has played more than 6,000 defensive snaps, which is roughly in line with Michael Bennett’s entire career. He has played full seasons in each of the past two campaigns and six of his past eight, but he also missed 2020 with a neck injury and most of the 2021 campaign with a torn pectoral muscle.
Coming off a season with 16.5 sacks and a league-high 23 tackles for loss, there’s no question Hunter will have a market. The big question for teams will be guaranteed years. To land Von Miller two years ago, the Bills had to give him two fully guaranteed years and a third practically guaranteed season, and that deal turned out to be a disaster. Hunter is younger and coming off a better season than Miller was in 2022. Hunter’s résumé suggests that should be able to land three fully guaranteed seasons, but that will require a huge bet from a team and something north of $70 million in guarantees at signing. Would the Bears be willing to do that to pair Hunter with Montez Sweat?
Average annual salary projection: $26 million per season
Tier 3: Capable starters
Free agents: Denico Autry, Titans; Jadeveon Clowney, Ravens; Leonard Floyd, Bills; Jonathan Greenard, Texans; Bryce Huff, Jets; Za’Darius Smith, Browns
Possible cap casualties: Haason Reddick, Eagles
There are lot of fun players here. Reddick might be the most interesting one, given that the Eagles reportedly gave him permission to explore a trade in advance of the final year of his deal. He’s owed $16 million, which doesn’t seem outlandish given his steady production; since being moved to edge rusher by the Cardinals in 2020, he has put together four consecutive seasons with double-digit sacks across three different franchises. He didn’t play well down the stretch for the Eagles last season, but neither did anyone else on that side of the ball.
We can lump the other players into two groups. On the veteran side, there’s Autry, Clowney, Floyd and Smith, all of whom have had unique career paths in their own respective ways. Floyd had the splashiest season, putting up 10.5 sacks in his debut year with the Bills, but he was also the 12th man on the field when the Broncos missed a game-winning field goal attempt in November, only for Denver to get another try and make it. This was Floyd’s best season (without Aaron Donald’s assistance), and he should get a comfortable raise from the $7 million the 31-year-old made last season.
Autry might be the league’s most underrated player at the moment. Since leaving the Raiders in 2018, he has 48.5 sacks and 86 quarterback hits over the past six seasons. He also played a key role in a Titans run defense that has been among the NFL’s best the past couple of seasons. His age (33) will limit his market, but he somehow continues to get better as he enters his mid-30s. He’s probably best in a role where he can play on the outside on early downs and rush from the interior in passing situations.
Smith was signed to replace Clowney in Cleveland after the latter fell out of favor with management at the end of 2022. Both veterans have struggled with injuries and have conditions that will give teams pause: Clowney has spent his entire career battling knee issues, while Smith underwent back surgery in 2021. They’ve been inconsistent, with Smith posting 9.5 sacks over the first half of 2022 and a half-sack afterward, while Clowney had a zero-sack season with the Titans in 2020 and a two-sack campaign with the Browns in 2022. Their overall level of play and underlying performance, though, suggest they can both continue to contribute. They should sign one-year deals for eight figures.
Greenard and Huff, on the other hand, are about to get paid after posting career seasons. Greenard followed a 1.5-sack season with the Texans in 2022 by racking up 12.5 sacks and 22 knockdowns last season, while Huff more than doubled his career takedown total by generating 10 sacks and 21 knockdowns for the Jets as part of their defensive end rotation. Greenard played about 150 more defensive snaps than his New York counterpart, so Huff was more efficient as a pass-rusher on a snap-by-snap basis. Huff also had three sacks where he went essentially unblocked, though.
Greenard had an eight-sack season in 2021, but neither of these guys has a track record as his team’s top pass-rusher. Should that be a warning sign for teams? In the past, I wrote that it was, but recent results have argued in the other direction. Smith was a great signing for the Packers. Trey Hendrickson signed with the Bengals and transformed their defensive line after one impactful season in four years with the Saints. Paying for an outlier season is a good way to make mistakes in free agency, but the reward might be more likely to pay out than it has seemed in previous years.
Average annual salary projection: $10 million to $16 million per season
Tier 4: Borderline starters/high-end backups
Free agents: Dorance Armstrong, Cowboys; Mike Danna, Chiefs; Marcus Davenport, Vikings; Bud Dupree, Falcons; A.J. Epenesa, Bills; Randy Gregory, 49ers; Yannick Ngakoue, Bears; D.J. Wonnum, Vikings; Chase Young, 49ers
Possible cap casualties: Charles Omenihu, Chiefs
There’s a game that will take place with the younger players in this tier. We know they can play in situational roles, but will a team that sees one of them as something closer to an every-down player pay them like one? Armstrong has 15.5 sacks over the past two seasons in a situational role. Epenesa has 13 sacks over that time frame while playing less than 40% of Buffalo’s defensive snaps. Wonnum has eight sacks in each of his two seasons as a starter. Danna has been a valuable two-way end for the Chiefs and played something close to a full-time role for the first time in 2023. Young has the pedigree as the 2020 No. 2 pick and a former elite prospect, although he suffered a serious knee injury in his second season. He is also still only 24.
The veterans are a little easier to figure. Dupree had a bounce-back season for the Falcons after failing to impress on a bigger deal in Tennessee. Gregory didn’t show much after being bounced out of Denver, though, and Ngakoue had his worst season. They’re each probably looking at one-year pacts.
The guy in the middle is Davenport, whom the Saints once traded two first-round picks to acquire in the 2018 draft. He failed to live up to expectations consistently in New Orleans, and after signing a one-year, $13-million deal with the Vikings last year, he played only 118 snaps before undergoing surgery on a high-ankle sprain and never returning. He is still only 27 and is two seasons removed from a nine-sack, 16-knockdown campaign, but it’s tough to see him landing a deal close to what he got from the Vikings a year ago.
There is a wider salary range for this tier than most others because of that uncertainty about the role. Everyone above Tier 4 is going to be a starter. Just about everybody below is going to be a backup. Here, it only takes one team with a dramatically different opinion about a player to change his market.
Average annual salary projection: $6 million to $13 million per season
Tier 5: Backups likely to net guaranteed money
Free agents: Derek Barnett, Texans; Zack Baun, Saints; Dante Fowler Jr., Cowboys; Brandon Graham, Eagles; Carl Lawson, Jets; Emmanuel Ogbah, Dolphins; Josh Uche, Patriots; Jihad Ward, Giants
Possible cap casualties: Lorenzo Carter, Falcons
The players in this section are generally going to be pass-rush fliers, many of whom didn’t do much while buried on deep depth charts last season. Lawson never seemed to recover in the eyes of the Jets organization after tearing his left Achilles in 2021, while Ogbah was Miami’s fourth-choice edge rusher before everybody in front of him got injured. Graham is another one of the longtime Eagles players who are likely to either retire or return to the only organization they’ve ever known.
Barnett was cut by the Eagles and flashed in a late-season cameo with the Texans; I’d love to see a desperate team finally give him the chance to play regularly after he was caught up in the Philly rotation for so long. Ward finally got the chance to start with the Giants over the past two years and was a solid-if-unspectacular edge defender. I would say I’m most interested in Uche, who had 11.5 sacks in a seven-game span with the Patriots in 2022 but otherwise racked up seven sacks across his 44 other contests in New England, including just three sacks in 2023. Many of these players have at least one big season in their past, but Uche’s was just a year ago and he’s still only 25.
Average annual salary projection: $2 million to $6 million per season
Tier 6: Backups likely to earn roster spot
Free agents: K’Lavon Chaisson, Jaguars; Mario Edwards Jr., Seahawks; Clelin Ferrell, 49ers; William Gholston, Buccaneers; Trevis Gipson, Titans; Markus Golden, Steelers; Yetur Gross-Matos, Panthers; Charles Harris, Lions; Marquis Haynes Sr., Panthers; Jerry Hughes, Texans; Shaq Lawson, Bills; Tyquan Lewis, Colts; Jake Martin, Colts; Romeo Okwara, Lions; James Smith-Williams, Commanders; Dawuane Smoot, Jaguars; Casey Toohill, Commanders
These guys are looking at fourth defensive end jobs in training camp or serving as injury fill-ins when players go down in camp. There are a couple former first-round picks: Chaisson never developed after being drafted two picks ahead of Justin Jefferson in the 2020 draft, while Ferrell didn’t show much in San Francisco after leaving the Raiders and then missed the postseason with a knee injury.
Average annual salary projection: $1 million to $2 million per season
Restricted free agents: James Houston, Lions; Jonathan Ledbetter, Cardinals; Darrell Taylor, Seahawks; Jonah Williams, Rams
Houston, who had eight sacks as a rookie in 2022 before missing most of 2023 with a broken ankle, is an exclusive rights free agent and will be back with Detroit.
The most notable name here is Taylor, the 2020 second-rounder who missed all of his rookie season after undergoing surgery on his shin for a college injury. He has 21.5 sacks over the past three seasons in a situational role, but the Seahawks seem likely to give him a meaningful tender to avoid losing him for nothing.
Interior defensive linemen
Tier 1: Franchise players
Free agent: Chris Jones, Chiefs
I mean, you saw the postseason right? The Chiefs don’t win the Super Bowl without Jones, who hurried Bills’ Josh Allen into an incompletion on what could have been a fourth-quarter touchdown pass in the divisional round, then blew up two should-be touchdown passes with Brock Purdy pressures in the Super Bowl. Jones dropped from 15.5 sacks in 2022 to 10.5, but he still managed 29 knockdowns, 13 tackles for loss and ranked second in pass rush win rate on the interior behind Aaron Donald.
Franchising Jones wasn’t really an option, given that the 29-year-old had a $26.8 million cap hit in 2023, meaning the franchise tag would have cost the Chiefs $32.2 million as opposed to the typical defensive tackle franchise tag figure of $22.1 million. There were criticisms early in his career that he had a habit of taking snaps off, but those have faded as his time in the league has gone along. And frankly, if taking snaps off means he is as dominant in the postseason as he has been in big moments, other players should follow in his footsteps.
The top of the defensive tackle market has been impacted by the three-year, $95 million deal Donald signed with the Rams in 2022. With the Rams paying Donald elite edge rusher money, the DT market jumped from an average annual salary of $22.5 million per year to $31.7 million per season and created a negotiating disconnect between Jones and the Chiefs. The best defensive tackle to sign a deal since then, Tennessee’s Jeffery Simmons, signed for $26.2 million per season.
Simmons wasn’t an unrestricted free agent, though, and Jones will be able to point toward his impact in back-to-back Super Bowl championships as proof he should be considered a Donald-esque talent. I can see a scenario where he gets $33 million per year in terms of value on paper, but where the money is more like $25 million per season over the first three years with $60 million guaranteed at signing. Could he be the big signing the Texans make as they leverage C.J. Stroud’s and Will Anderson Jr.’s rookie deals?
Average annual salary projection: $28 million to $34 million per season
Tier 2: Pro Bowl-caliber starters
Free agent: Christian Wilkins, Dolphins
Wilkins didn’t have the sort of season Justin Madubuike enjoyed in Baltimore — Madubuike would have made this tier if he wasn’t tagged earlier this week — but with nine sacks and 23 knockdowns, he also had a career year. Wilkins’ tape was ahead of his numbers in prior seasons, so 2023 felt like a case where the numbers were more aligned with his already established reputation. Doing that in a Vic Fangio scheme where interior defensive linemen are asked to take on gap-and-a-half responsibilities to help make the numbers work speaks to Wilkins’ skill.
The Dolphins decided against franchising him; perhaps they believe his market won’t be as robust as the 28-year-old hopes.
Average annual salary projection: $19 million to $25 million per season
Tier 3: Capable starters
Free agents: Calais Campbell, Falcons; Sheldon Rankins, Texans; D.J. Reader, Bengals; Grover Stewart, Colts; Leonard Williams, Seahawks
Possible cap casualty: John Franklin-Myers, Jets
All of these guys are more valuable than their numbers would suggest. Campbell is somehow still playing at a high level at 37 years old; the Falcons’ pressure rate jumped from 25.6% without him on the field to 32.4% with the veteran defensive lineman between the lines. Williams’ contract was too generous and his 2020 season (11.5 sacks, 30 knockdowns) looms as an obvious outlier in his career, but he has been a steadily productive two-way interior defender. Reader was an essential part of Cincinnati’s turnaround before tearing a quad in December, which could slow his market.
Rankins might be the lone exception here as more of a traditional one-gap pass-rusher on the interior, where he racked up six sacks and 10 knockdowns for the Texans last season. He was a better fit there than during his time on the Jets. Franklin-Myers is still a useful player and routinely racks up 15-20 knockdowns per season, but with an unguaranteed $13.3 million base salary, the Jets might have to sacrifice him if they want to bring back Bryce Huff. They are very different sorts of defensive linemen, but replacing Huff might be harder than replacing the more expensive Franklin-Myers.
Average annual salary projection: $9 million to $13 million per season
Tier 4: Borderline starters/high-end backups
Free agents: Fletcher Cox, Eagles; Folorunso Fatukasi, Jaguars; Quinton Jefferson, Jets; DaQuan Jones, Bills; Justin Jones, Bears; Javon Kinlaw, 49ers; Derrick Nnadi, Chiefs
Possible cap casualties: Larry Ogunjobi, Steelers
Unlike the Tier 4 edge rushers, this group is more locked into situational roles, but that doesn’t mean these players can’t make an impact. Jefferson had his best season with the Jets. Cox, who is likely to either stay with the Eagles or retire, managed 17 quarterback knockdowns at age 33. Kinlaw was replaced in the starting lineup by Javon Hargrave and apparently took the benching to heart, as he produced his best tape as a pro. I wonder if he ends up with one of the former 49ers outposts around the NFL.
Ogunjobi was an underrated player with the Browns and had an impressive lone season with the Bengals in 2021, but I’m not sure his two-year run with the Steelers has worked out. He has $9.8 million in compensation coming in 2024, but none of that is guaranteed. Pittsburgh could free up nearly $10 million in space by designating him as a post-June 1 release.
Average annual salary projection: $4 million to $7 million per season
Tier 5: Backups likely to net guaranteed money
Free agents: Taven Bryan, Colts; Jonathan Bullard, Vikings; Jordan Elliott, Browns; Greg Gaines, Buccaneers; Maurice Hurst II, Browns; Austin Johnson, Chargers; Bilal Nichols, Raiders; A’Shawn Robinson, Giants
Possible cap casualties: Dean Lowry, Vikings
Many of the players here are nose tackles or run-stuffing defensive linemen who don’t offer anything in terms of rushing the passer. Every team needs a guy or two like that on its roster, but there are a lot of big bodies to go around.
Robinson played a huge role for the Rams as they played light boxes in a Fangio-style defense and won the Super Bowl in 2021. This year, the key example might have been Mike Pennel, a journeyman who rejoined the Chiefs’ practice squad in midseason, debuted in December and then played a regular role on early downs for much of the postseason. (He is in the next tier.)
Average annual salary projection: $1.5 million to $4 million per season
Tier 6: Backups likely to earn roster spot
Free agents: Montravius Adams, Steelers; Raekwon Davis, Dolphins; Poona Ford, Bills; Leki Fotu, Cardinals; Neville Gallimore, Cowboys; Kevin Givens, 49ers; Rasheem Green, Bears; Lawrence Guy Sr., Patriots; Jonathan Harris, Broncos; Shelby Harris, Browns; John Jenkins, Raiders; Sebastian Joseph-Day, 49ers; Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Giants; Mike Pennel, Chiefs; Jordan Phillips, Bills; Hassan Ridgeway, Texans; Malcolm Roach, Saints; Tim Settle, Bills; Teair Tart, Texans; Solomon Thomas, Jets; Josh Tupou, Bengals; Armon Watts, Steelers; Tershawn Wharton, Chiefs; Al Woods, Jets
The final tier of interior linemen will be competing in camp for opportunities. In some cases, they might end up making an impact on a different team; Joseph-Day started the season with the Chargers, was cut in December, signed with the 49ers and ended up playing 19 snaps during the postseason. Defensive tackle can be more plug-and-play than other positions, so teams are more aggressive adding (or removing) players from their rotations midseason.
Average annual salary projection: $1 million per season
Restricted free agents: Jeremiah Ledbetter, Jaguars; Mike Hoecht, Rams; Albert Huggins, Falcons; Benito Jones, Lions; Khyiris Tonga, Vikings
Hoecht made a name for himself as a supersize defensive end at 310 pounds, but realistically, his best role is playing on the interior. He has 10.5 sacks and 20 knockdowns over the past two seasons and was a full-time starter for the Rams in 2023, so there will be a market for him unless the Rams give him a meaningful tender or sign him to an extension.