2026 NFL offseason team grades: Rams earn high mark, while Broncos, Jaguars confuse

A report card for all 32 teams as we enter the second week of the 2026 NFL league year

We're two weeks into March, and the new NFL league year is here for 2026. That means all free agency moves can now be made official, which allows us to take stock of how all 32 teams did after a flurry of moves. 

The NFL used to look down on big free agent spending, feeling like it was indicative of a roster that had two many holes to contend. The league's two Super Bowl LX squads, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, showed that's not the case in the 2025 season. The Seahawks ranked fourth in the 2025 offseason in free-agent spending, and the Patriots spent an NFL-record $364 million to go from top five picks in consecutive years to hoisting the AFC championship trophy. 

With the entire NFL emboldened to spend higher sums of money and on a higher volume of players in free agency, let's grade how every team has done this offseason while operating on a new roster building paradigm. 

The Arizona Cardinals have entered the 2027 NFL Draft tank race. With a new head coach in Mike LaFleur and allowing Kyler Murray to walk on over to the Minnesota Vikings, the Cardinals essentially declared they would be running it back with Jacoby Brissett. In 2025, his overall stats were solid (3,377 passing yards, the second most in the NFL from the time he became a starter in Week 6 to the end of the season), but they were empty calories, with the majority of production occurring with the game out of reach. The Cardinals lost 11 of his 12 starts with the only victory coming against the Dallas Cowboys. Losing to Brissett caused Dallas to have a come to Jesus moment about their defense trade for All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and Bengals veteran linebacker Logan Wilson. Even after those moves, the Cowboys still finished as the NFL's worst scoring defense, allowing 30.1 points per game. 

The reason Arizona earns a passing grade here is because they added steady veterans such as Isaac Seumalo and Tyler Allgeier. Seumalo, who the Cardinals reeled in on a three-year, $31 million deal, was the best move the franchise made. He ranked third in ESPN's pass block win rate metric among interior offensive linemen last season at 97%, and he ranked fourth in ESPN's run block win rate among interior offensive linemen last season at 77%. He and Chicago Bears All-Pro Joe Thuney, who won the inaugural Protector of the Year award, were the only interior offensive linemen to rank top five in both metrics.