NFL Insider Tom Pelissero: Where Top Veteran Free Agent WRs Could Land

There are still some big names sitting on the wide receiver market, and Rich wanted to know what is going on with them. Tom Pelissero walked through the board, and the through-line was simple: the market is real, but it is not the market these veterans are used to.

Stefon Diggs has the clearest path. Diggs was productive for New England last year, but as Pelissero noted, the Patriots felt they had gotten about as much out of him as they were going to and had a chance to get younger with Romeo Doubs for similar money. The three-year deal Diggs signed on paper, Pelissero noted, was realistically a one-year deal with team options.

Diggs can still play, and Pelissero made a specific case for him. He has been excellent for young quarterbacks, from Josh Allen to Drake Maye last year. Whatever has gone on off the field, including a legal accusation he was absolved of, Diggs is a professional in the building. "There is nobody who practices harder than Stefon Diggs," Pelissero said, the kind of player who is going 100 miles an hour on the second Tuesday in August and sets the tone for everyone else.

The logical fit, then, is a young quarterback. Spitballing, explicitly not based on information, the names floated included Washington with Jayden Daniels, Chicago after the DJ Moore trade, and even a non-contender like Las Vegas. The Rams came up too: they told Davante Adams they might trade him while they were close to an AJ Brown deal, before pulling the plug on that deal, and they have had a lot swirling around Puka Nacua this offseason.

Deebo Samuel is a different animal. Pelissero called him a niche player who is excellent at his best but needs a team that will manufacture touches for his body type and skill set. In Washington last year he was a bit heavier without much help around him, so defenses keyed on him. The money is the hurdle. Pelissero does not see him as an eight-to-ten-million-dollar player at this stage, maybe a five-million-dollar one, and that adjustment is hard for someone previously paid at the top. He believes Samuel lands somewhere, on his own timeline.

Keenan Allen is closer to the finish. Pelissero called him one of the most productive receivers in NFL history, but at 35 he is nearing the end, and his opportunity might have to wait until closer to the season.

Then there are the names Rich did not even raise. Tyreek Hill is entirely about health after a severe knee injury, which Pelissero said left Miami little choice but to cut him loose. The interest will come when he is healthy; the question is whether that is August, September, or a late-season situation like Odell Beckham Jr. some years ago.

Beckham himself is a complete flyer. Pelissero noted his last NFL action was with Miami in 2024, that he was out of football last year, with a strange supplement suspension in the mix, and that John Harbaugh keeps talking about him without actually signing him, which reads more like helping Beckham keep a market alive. Somebody signs him eventually, Pelissero figured, but at minimum-salary, last-gasp terms. The freakish athlete is still in there. The price just is not.