In what has been a chaotic and topsy-turvy NFL season, almost nothing has been decided. Five teams have been eliminated from playoff contention, but nobody has clinched a playoff berth as we enter Week 14. As I wrote about earlier this week, there are tight races atop nearly every division. The vast majority of the league’s teams have everything to play for between now and the end of the season.
Players and coaches, on the other hand, find themselves in different spots. There are those who can feel confident that they’ll be in the same place next year, either by playing well this season or being locked in to guaranteed money in 2026. Others have everything riding on what happens over the rest of the season. Journeymen are angling for that life-altering contract. Veterans are hoping to hang on for one more opportunity. Stars are hoping to confirm their legacies and Hall of Fame cases. Head coaches are trying to hold on to their jobs, and assistants are hoping to land one of those 32 opportunities the entire profession aspires to grab.
Subscribe: ‘The Bill Barnwell Show’
I’m going to break down the players and coaches with the most to gain or lose by virtue of what happens over the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs. Everyone wants to win a ring and get some good play on film, of course, but there are guys around the league who aren’t quite locked in their roles or their deals. Let’s run through the players and coaches who can change their paths with strong finishes.
Jump to:
Sanders | Stafford | Jones | McCarthy
Walker | Evans | Doubs | Johnston
Hendrickson | Chubb | Davis | Chaisson
Newsome | Hobbs | Brady | Eberflus | Gannon
Earlier this year, it was reasonable to see Brady as a potential head coaching candidate in the 2026 cycle. Brady’s initial run as an NFL offensive coordinator didn’t go well in Carolina, but after taking over for Ken Dorsey in 2023, the 36-year-old managed to take Josh Allen and the Bills’ offense to another level. The Bills were a positive play factory, wearing defenses down even without a true No. 1 receiver. In a league that’s perennially looking for young offensive wunderkinds for its quarterbacks, Brady seemed like he could be this season’s Ben Johnson, with interest from both college and NFL teams.
That has fallen by the wayside. Buffalo’s lengthy streak of almost entirely turnover-free football came to an end in September, and since its Week 5 loss to the Patriots, the Bills have turned the ball over 16 times in eight games, doubling their full season total from 2024. The Bills are eighth in EPA since that Patriots game, essentially tied with the Bears and Giants.
GM Brandon Beane has been blamed for failing to land playmaking help for Allen at the trade deadline, but there has been real and reasonable criticism lobbed toward Brady, too. Mesh is one of my favorite pass concepts and has a place in every NFL playbook for a reason, but Brady’s reliance on it as a man-beater on key third and fourth downs for the Bills has grown to the extent of self-parody, with the Bills going to it over and over again against the Texans with diminishing returns.
The Bills pulled out a win over the Steelers without both of their starting tackles last week, running for 249 yards — the most rushing yards allowed by the Steelers in a home game during the Mike Tomlin era. If Brady can spark the offense by leaning back in to the run and getting his unit cooking into a deep playoff run, there will be interest in his services as a potential head coaching option from teams such as the Giants and maybe the Bengals if they move on from Zac Taylor. (Brady developed Joe Burrow into a national champion at LSU.) If the Bills continue to struggle, though, there will be questions about whether Brady is able to flourish only with a superstar quarterback at the height of his powers.
After missing all of 2024 as he recovered from a torn ACL, Chubb signed a unique deal with the Dolphins for the 2025 season. While the Dolphins didn’t want to pay Chubb the $19.5 million he was owed on his prior deal, the sides agreed to keep his existing contract in 2026 and 2027 but essentially replaced the 2025 compensation with a one-year deal worth $8.8 million. Chubb had the ability to earn another $11 million via incentives, of which he’s currently on pace to earn over $7 million.
Chubb is having a solid season for a Dolphins team that has been frustrating on defense. The 29-year-old has racked up six sacks and 14 quarterback hits while playing 71% of the defensive snaps. Crucially, he has stayed healthy and is on pace to play his first full NFL season since his rookie year in 2018.
With the Dolphins potentially leaning into a rebuild this offseason, Chubb’s future will be interesting. Miami moved pending free agent Jaelan Phillips to the Eagles at the deadline, and 2024 first-rounder Chop Robinson has had a disappointing sophomore campaign after looking like a budding star in the second half of his rookie year. Chubb’s due just over $20 million in 2026, a figure he might struggle to hit in free agency. Would the Dolphins keep Chubb around at that rate? Would there be another team willing to trade for him without requiring a pay cut? It’ll be easier for Chubb to stay on his existing deal if he finishes 2025 on the field and productive.
In recent years, Jerry Jones has been remarkably and uncharacteristically patient with his head coaches, but he hasn’t extended those same courtesies to his defensive coordinators. Mike Nolan was one-and-done with the Cowboys in 2020, while Mike Zimmer followed Mike McCarthy out the door after one season with Big D in 2024. Before them, the late Monte Kiffin lasted one year as defensive coordinator in 2013 before being demoted to an assistant role, with Rod Marinelli taking over instead.
During the first half of the season, Eberflus seemed likely to be the latest one-season wonder in Dallas, as a Cowboys’ defense without star edge rusher Micah Parsons struggled to stop anybody. Jones signaled his frustrations by sending two picks to the Jets for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, and the Cowboys have been much better with him in the lineup. Eberflus’ defense was 31st in EPA per play before the Cowboys’ Week 10 bye, but over their current three-game winning streak, the Cowboys have jumped to 21st by that same metric.
2:21
Can Stephen A. see the Cowboys winning the NFC East over the Eagles?
Heading into Week 14, Stephen A. Smith explains why the Eagles will hold off the Cowboys for the NFC East title.
Eberflus’ defense is at its best when he has a penetrating defensive tackle who can cause problems for interior offensive linemen, which is why the Colts traded a first-round pick for DeForest Buckner while Eberflus was the defensive coordinator in Indy. Dallas paid Osa Odighizuwa to come back in free agency to be that guy, but now, it has two potential standouts in that role. If Eberflus’ defense continues to approach league average, he should see a second season in Dallas. If it falls back toward the bottom of the pack and the Cowboys miss the playoffs, though, it’s not difficult to imagine Jones going for his third defensive coordinator in three years.
Barring something truly unexpected, Jones will be back as the starting quarterback in Indianapolis next season. For the second time in four years, though, his organization needs to decide whether it wants to keep Jones around with a long-term deal or instead use the franchise tag to retain him. In spring 2023, the Giants chose to tag Saquon Barkley and sign Jones to a long-term extension, decisions they would quickly come to regret.
Indianapolis GM Chris Ballard and the Colts could face their own conundrum this offseason. Jones has clearly earned a raise, but Indy has other contracts and potential franchise-tag candidates to consider. Alec Pierce is going to have a significant market in free agency, and the Colts could consider offering their 25-year-old wideout the franchise tag, which projects to $28 million for wide receivers. A similar move for starting safety Nick Cross would cost just over $20 million. Even if the Colts don’t necessarily want to make those moves, having the franchise tag available leaves the organization with leverage as it negotiates potential extensions for Pierce, Cross and edge rusher Kwity Paye.
Trading two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner laid the Colts’ plan bare: They’re going to move forward with Jones. How they get there is still up for debate. The Colts can franchise-tag Jones for $46 million in 2026, and if Jones looks ordinary while he plays through a fractured fibula down the stretch, it might be the most prudent option. If in December and January we see the version of Jones who in the first half of 2025 looked like an MVP candidate, he might be able to extract another contract with a multiyear guarantee.
Evans’ streak of 1,000-yard seasons is about to end after he missed most of 2025 because of injuries. What his contract looks like in 2026, though, might depend on what we see from him over the next two months. Evans is reportedly close to practicing for the Bucs after breaking his collarbone in October, and while Chris Godwin Jr. just had his best game of the season, Tampa Bay would surely love to welcome back its legendary wide receiver.
With Godwin on a significant deal, rookie Emeka Egbuka locking down a starting wideout role and quarterback Baker Mayfield due a meaningful raise this offseason, there might not be enough money to go around in Tampa for Evans. The likely future Hall of Famer hit free agency in 2024 but landed only a two-year, $41-million contract, which reflected how the league views wide receivers after age 30. Evans responded with one of his best seasons in 2024, but his injuries and age would make it tough for him to command a significant guarantee this offseason.
The cap has gone up over that span, though, which might make a similar sort of deal to what Evans signed in 2024 possible. Davante Adams signed for two years and $44 million with the Rams, a modest raise on what Evans inked 12 months earlier. If Evans plays well after his return to the lineup, it’s not impossible to imagine a team giving him a similar sort of contract to serve as their starting X receiver. If not, the 32-year-old is probably going to be looking at something closer to a deal in the $10 million range.
Young, starting-caliber wide receivers with size and even solid speed are difficult to come by, which is why relatively unproductive burners such as Tutu Atwell and Dyami Brown got $10 million per year in free agency this offseason. With George Pickens sure to be locked up by the Cowboys and Alec Pierce a potential franchise tag candidate for the Colts, there’s going to be more demand for young wideout talent in free agency than supply this offseason.
The player who might benefit from all of that is Doubs, who could end up as the best young receiver on the market. He has issues with drops at times, and the Packers suspended him for a game in 2024 for missing practices out of frustration with his role, but there’s unquestionable talent here. Between 2023 and 2025, Doubs ranked 17th in ESPN’s receiver scores, measuring how effective he is at getting open, bringing in catches and making plays after the reception. He has averaged 1.6 yards per route run over that span, which is 40th among wideouts with 900 routes or more.
Crucially, given their depth at wide receiver, the Packers seem unlikely to re-sign or franchise-tag Doubs, which would allow him to hit free agency unfettered. Doubs probably isn’t going to develop into a No. 1 receiver, but moving from a run-first offense into more of a pass-happy attack, there’s a chance he could be a high-end No. 2 if a team is willing to commit to him in that sort of role. Playing well for the Packers down the stretch and into the postseason would strongly encourage other teams to see him as that difference-maker and pay him accordingly.
Sanders is already ahead of most other fifth-round rookie quarterbacks by virtue of getting a chance to play. He had to bide his time as part of what was once a four-quarterback battle in training camp, but with Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco traded and Dillon Gabriel injured, the door opened for Sanders, who won his first NFL start against the Raiders in Week 12. Most Day 3 quarterbacks finish their NFL careers without starting a game, let alone winning one.
Is Sanders an NFL-caliber starter? Not so far. The 23-year-old has been below average or worse across the board by just about every measure of quarterback play. We’ve seen some of the bad habits Sanders showed with taking big sacks at Colorado and in the preseason. He isn’t exactly surrounded with great infrastructure in Cleveland, to be fair, but Sanders’ 11.8 Total QBR ranks 31st out of 32 quarterbacks over the past three weeks.
1:45
Stephen A.: Shedeur Sanders should start the rest of the season
Stephen A. Smith breaks down why the Browns should start Shedeur Sanders at quarterback for the rest of the season.
There have been some big plays, though, and while Gabriel was healthy enough to take a snap when Sanders briefly exited the loss to the 49ers last week, the Browns are reportedly going to start Sanders against the Titans this week. If Sanders can play well in a game against one of the league’s worst defenses, it would stake a case for him to start the rest of the way, giving Sanders a meaningful sample of a rookie season to establish himself as an NFL quarterback.
Is Sanders going to do enough with those snaps to convince the Browns that he should be their long-term quarterback? Probably not, given where he was drafted and how he has played so far. Adequately running an NFL offense over the rest of 2025, though, might be the difference between Sanders quickly washing out of the league or getting an extended run as a backup and occasional spot starter.
Things haven’t really come together in 2025 for Hendrickson, who spent much of the offseason holding out and/or requesting a trade from the Bengals. After agreeing to a short-term deal to return to the team in late-August, Hendrickson racked up four sacks in seven games before suffering a hip injury. The Bengals didn’t put their star defender on injured reserve, suggesting that they expected him back within a matter of weeks, but he has now missed five games and has no timetable for returning.
The Bengals didn’t move Hendrickson during the offseason or at the trade deadline, and now, it seems likely that they won’t get anything (outside of a potential compensatory pick) for their best defensive player. There just isn’t a great trade market for even the best defenders on the wrong side of 30, and while Hendrickson was incredibly valuable in 2024 (a second straight 17.5-sack season), his 2025 campaign is an example of how tricky aging curves can be to project.
Hendrickson was understandably hoping to land a multiyear deal at the top of the edge rusher market this past offseason, but after an injury-impacted 2025, that’s not going to happen in free agency. If he can make it back before the end of the season and look like his old self, there should be significant interest in free agency for a player who created nearly twice as many sacks as any other player in football for himself and his teammates in 2024. If he misses the rest of the season, though, he will probably be looking at a one-year deal in the range of the $12.6 million that Joey Bosa signed in Buffalo.
Chaisson’s solid 2024 campaign has given way to a significantly impactful 2025 season in New England. A first-round pick of the Jaguars in 2020, Chaisson has 6.5 sacks and 15 knockdowns, including a pressure past Orlando Brown Jr. on fourth-and-game to seal a win over the Bengals two weeks ago. Chaisson’s 5.4% quick pressure rate, per NFL Next Gen Stats, ranks 18th among edge rushers with 150 snaps or more.
Chaisson’s one-year, $3 million deal has been a bargain for the Patriots, and a raise should be coming this offseason. Will that be in New England? And will it involve a multiyear guarantee? Chaisson is still only 26 and didn’t play much for stretches of time in Jacksonville, so there’s less wear and tear on his body than other players entering the seventh season of their pro careers. This is his best chance at landing a significant contract, and if Chaisson continues to play this way through the end of the season, he won’t lack options in free agency.
When I was putting together the preseason version of this column, I included McCarthy as one of the candidates and suggested that a disappointing season for the rookie could lead the Vikings to bring in a veteran to compete with the 2024 first-round pick in 2026. That might be the best-case scenario for McCarthy right now.
While he has been sidelined for stretches by an ankle injury and a concussion this season, McCarthy hasn’t been anywhere close to an NFL-caliber quarterback in his appearances. By era-adjusted passer rating index, McCarthy’s 2025 season is the fourth worst in NFL history by a quarterback with 150 pass attempts or more. The guy just ahead of McCarthy is Alex Smith, who overcame an ugly rookie season to eventually become a Pro Bowler. And while Vikings fans were intrigued to see what Max Brosmer could do filling in for McCarthy this past weekend, he was even worse than the second-year pro.
We’ve still seen only six starts from McCarthy, and there are plenty of eventually successful quarterbacks who didn’t look very good during the first six games of their careers. Then again, many of those signal-callers weren’t taking over 13-win teams, and the Vikings could be back in the playoff hunt in 2026 if they merely land a passer the caliber of Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones in free agency.
If McCarthy returns from his concussion and shows signs of growth over the final month of the season, the Vikings should field competition for their starting job in camp next year. If he continues to look overmatched upon his return to the lineup, though, the Vikings might move forward with a new plan at quarterback, consigning McCarthy to a backup role after just a handful of pro starts.
It’s rare to see an in-season trade that exchanges starters, so the midseason swap of Newsome for Tyson Campbell raised eyebrows around the league. The new Jags regime inherited Campbell and might have believed Newsome was a better fit for Jacksonville’s scheme, but GM James Gladstone was trading a player signed to a reasonable contract (especially after his bonus had been paid) for one who was mere months away from free agency. Newsome is in his fifth-year option season, and after an excellent 2023 campaign on a great Browns defense, 2024 was comfortably his worst year as a pro.
Newsome has had an uneven start in Jacksonville, opening with Jaxon Smith-Njigba running past him for a touchdown in his Jags debut. He has allowed a 124.7 passer rating in coverage with the Jags, which would be up from his prior career worst of 112.5 in 2024. Newsome missed most of the Jaguars’ Week 11 win over the Chargers because of an ankle injury and was seemingly benched on defense during the second half of the Week 12 victory in Arizona, playing only special teams after the break.
Talented young cornerbacks are hard to come by, and Newsome turned 25 in May, so there would have been a significant market for him if he had delivered a rebound season in Jacksonville. There’s still an opportunity for him to establish himself as someone in line for a multiyear deal, but it looks like Newsome might need to settle for a one-year prove-it deal to try to put better play on film in 2026.
Do the Eagles value Davis? Sure. He has been a useful defensive tackle since joining the organization, playing a key role on early downs against the run while forming a stiff 1-2 punch with fellow first-rounder Jalen Carter. The Eagles picked up Davis’ fifth-year option after their Super Bowl run in 2024, and Davis quickly responded by winning the team a critical contest in the NFC this season by blocking a last-second field goal attempt by the Rams and returning it for a game-sealing touchdown.
2:19
Stephen A.: Eagles are ‘coming apart at the seams’
Stephen A. Smith explains why he believes the Eagles’ Week 13 loss was worse than the Rams’ loss to the Panthers.
And yet, it’s fair to suggest that the Eagles were hoping they would land a more consistently dominant player when they used the 13th pick on him in 2022. It seemed telling that an organization that is routinely more aggressive than just about any other in football when it comes to signing its young players to extensions chose to simply pick up Davis’ fifth-year option as opposed to signing him to a long-term deal.
Davis has had more splash plays this season, and he has managed a career-high three sacks, although those were all on snaps in which he chased down a scrambling quarterback. Playing more than 50% of the snaps for the first time as a pro, Davis is clearly a good player. Coming off a game in which the Eagles allowed the Bears to run for a whopping 281 yards, though, a defensive collapse would hurt Davis’ chances of landing a contract more in line with that of a great player this offseason.
Is there a Walker breakout coming? After an impressive rookie season, the hope was always that Walker would string together a season full of big runs and challenge for Pro Bowl honors in the NFC. The 25-year-old has yet to get there, in part because the explosive runs haven’t come back. Walker had three runs of 40 yards or more as a rookie, but he has just one across 532 carries over the three ensuing campaigns. Given that Walker’s boom-or-bust style typically leads to middling success rates, he needs those huge gains to make up for the runs that don’t keep the offense on schedule.
It looked like Walker was carving out a larger role in the rotation alongside Zach Charbonnet in recent weeks, but the two backs basically reverted to a 50-50 split in last week’s blowout win over the Vikings. As a pending free agent, Walker is obviously hoping for a multiyear guarantee as opposed to something like the one-year, $5.3 million deal that Najee Harris signed with the Chargers during the offseason. Walker’s chances of making that happen might come down to hitting on a long touchdown or two between now and the end of the season.
It has been a tough year for Gannon in Arizona, in part because the Cardinals have been better than their record. While Arizona is 3-9 and at the bottom of the NFC West, nine of its 12 games have been decided by seven points or fewer. The Cardinals had realistic shots at winning just about every one of those games, only to come up short on their final drive or allow a late score to swing the game the other way. Gannon’s game management generally hasn’t been an issue, so I wouldn’t pin those close losses on him.
And while Gannon’s defense struggled during his first two years in Arizona, the Cardinals have improved to 15th in EPA per play on defense this season. They’ve done that with multiple starting cornerbacks injured for extended periods of time and without first-round pick Walter Nolen III — who looks like he’ll be a star at the pro level — for the first half of the season.
Gannon’s schemes are creative, and there’s a potential top-10 defense budding with some further development and better health in 2026, but he’s also 15-31 over his first three seasons in Arizona, and 2025 will be a step backward from where the Cardinals finished in 2024. If the Cardinals start winning some of those coin flips at the end of the season, he might be able to run things back for a fourth season with the hopes of finally reaching the postseason in Arizona. If the Cardinals continue to struggle and finish with one of the worst records in the NFL, though, the organization might look to replace Gannon with someone who can help revitalize injured quarterback Kyler Murray, who seemed to fall out of favor with the coaching staff this season.
Here’s an interesting one. Stafford has already made more than $408 million as a pro quarterback, so while he might hold out for a new deal yet again in 2026, he has already made enough money for several lifetimes. He has won a Super Bowl with the Rams, so that box is checked off, too. Stafford is currently eighth all time in passing yards and should pass Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers by the end of the season. He could climb as high as sixth in passing touchdowns by the end of 2025, though it’ll take a couple more years if he wants to top Brett Favre and break into the top five there.
So Stafford has likely already done enough to make it to the Hall of Fame. Winning an MVP award and a second Super Bowl, though, would eliminate any doubt. Right now, even if he does make it in as expected, Stafford would go into the Hall as a player who was a very good quarterback for a long time without ever really threatening to be the best in football. Keep in mind that Stafford has made the Pro Bowl only twice and never earned a first-place MVP vote. The only year Stafford earned even down-ballot consideration for the top individual award was 2023.
If Stafford finishes 2025 with a storybook ending, those caveats immediately disappear. We don’t know what the future holds for him after 2025, of course, but there are no guarantees that he ever gets as close to another Super Bowl ring or an MVP award as he is right now. The 37-year-old QB doesn’t need either of those things to retire with his legacy intact, but landing them would cement Stafford in a different tier of legendary quarterbacks than the one he’s in now.
0:57
Why Field Yates is still confident in Matthew Stafford for Week 14
Field Yates breaks down Matthew Stafford’s fantasy Week 13 performance and outlook against the Cardinals in Week 14.
Johnston is somehow simultaneously underrated and overrated at the same time, which makes for a difficult evaluation. The 21st pick of the 2023 draft, Johnston couldn’t find a regular role as a rookie while struggling badly with drops. He was much improved in Year 2 after Jim Harbaugh took over, but while he racked up 711 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, the drops were still an issue, most notably in a prime-time loss to the Ravens.
I’m glad to see that Johnston’s hands haven’t been as pressing of an issue this season. He had a catch score of 9 in ESPN’s receiver scores last season, one of the worst marks in the NFL; that’s up to a more respectable 46 in 2025. NFL Next Gen Stats credited Johnston with a 6.9% drop rate between 2023 and 2024; that has improved ever so slightly to 5.8% in 2025.
Johnston is probably never going to have vice-grip hands, but even with the drops, he can be a productive player. He has been a downfield threat for Justin Herbert over the past two years, catching a pair of touchdowns in the win over the Chiefs to open the season. The size and speed that made him a first-round prospect entering the league are still there, and he has averaged 1.7 yards per route run over the past two seasons, which is just ahead of players such as Jordan Addison and Darnell Mooney.
The problem has been the emergence of rookie tight end Oronde Gadsden II, who has served as a viable vertical threat and drawn targets away from the third-year pro. Johnston averages just 1.2 yards per route run with Gadsden on the field. Johnston topped 70 receiving yards in each of his first four games, but after the Chargers gave Gadsden more playing time in October, Johnston has yet to top that mark since — including two catch-less games against the Vikings and Jags. And the Chargers losing offensive linemen Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater to season-ending injuries has also limited the amount of time Herbert has to look downfield, where Johnston typically can make an impact.
Johnston’s a useful player in the right role, which might mean more time in the slot than he gets to see on a team with Keenan Allen and Ladd McConkey in the mix. This offseason, though, the Chargers have to decide whether they want to pick up Johnston’s fifth-year option for 2027, which would guarantee the 24-year-old $17.5 million. That’s not an unreasonable figure for a second wideout and could be a bargain if Johnston continues to develop, but it’s more than L.A. would like to pay a player who has gone missing for stretches while Gadsden has been in the mix.
The current Chargers regime isn’t the one that drafted Johnston, and it might not be quite as attached to Johnston’s success in Los Angeles as it would be otherwise. If Johnston has a blistering end to the season, the Chargers could pick up the option or even talk about an extension. If there are more zeroes in his game log, a declined option or a trade seem more likely.
The Packers have a unique way of structuring their contracts for veteran players. While most teams will give significant free agent additions multiple guaranteed years as part of their contracts, Brian Gutekunst is generally aggressive about holding the line at one guaranteed season, structuring deals in a way that allows for players to be released after one season if needed. In return, the Packers typically pay a little more than expected in terms of yearly salary for the players they bring in.
Last year, when the Packers landed Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney in free agency, there understandably wasn’t much talk about moving on from either Pro Bowler after their first seasons in Green Bay. This year, though, the free agent class hasn’t been quite as successful. Aaron Banks has battled injuries and played just seven complete games so far for the Packers. It remains to be seen whether Gutekunst will want to pay the $18.1 million in non-guaranteed money that Banks is owed in 2026.
Things might be even more tenuous for Hobbs, who signed a four-year, $48 million deal after leaving the Raiders in the offseason. Hobbs had been at his best in the slot with the Raiders, but with the Packers using Javon Bullard there, he was left to take meaningful snaps as an outside cornerback, where more than 82% of his coverage has come this season. Things haven’t gone well. Hobbs has allowed a 116.2 passer rating in coverage in Green Bay while playing behind one of the league’s fiercest pass rushes. He has a 13.6% missed tackle rate, which is well below league average, and missed five games because of injuries to both knees.
Great playoff runs have a way of making organizations forget about rough regular-season patches, and if Hobbs plays a meaningful role for the Packers in January, all will be forgiven. With all of Hobbs’s $9.1 million compensation in 2026 being non-guaranteed, though, the Packers could choose to treat their decision to sign him as a mistake and go in another direction this offseason.