The first shoe dropped on the linebacker market more than a month ago, when Cleveland signed impending free agent Jamie Collins to a four-year, $50 million contract ($26 million guaranteed). His deal will set the bar for what’s to come.
The question is if any other linebackers will hit that $50 million plateau. Now that the Cardinals have used the franchise tag on Chandler Jones, the player most likely to get there is another one of Collins’s former Patriots teammates: Dont’a Hightower.
They are different types of player—Hightower a do-everything inside presence, Jones a pass-rushing threat outside.