We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here, with any updates moving to the top of the list:
A former Buccaneers quarterback — the veteran Josh McCown — is drawing interest in free agency after having been released by Tampa Bay earlier this month. But a current Bucs QB — third-year signal-caller Mike Glennon — might be able to bring back the Bucs some form of compensation if they’re willing to trade him. Per Adam Caplan of ESPN (Twitter link), the feeling around the league is that Tampa could receive as much as a third-round pick if it decides to deal Glennon.
One team that might show interest, unsurprisingly, is the Browns, who have also been linked to both McCown and Sam Bradford as they attempt to upgrade their quarterback situation. Two league sources tell Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com that Cleveland has “sniffed around” on Glennon’s availability, and while there haven’t been any formal offers, it seems like the Browns would certainly been amenable to discussing a trade. Caplan confirms Fowler’s report (Twitter link), adding that the Browns have been looking into Glennon for some time.
If the Buccaneers are set on using the first overall pick in this year’s draft to select a QB — either Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota — then attempting to secure compensation for Glennon would probably be the right move. Besides those top two options, the draft doesn’t offer much depth at the quarterback position, and the free agent market is equally lacking, so Glennon would present an alternative for QB-needy teams. In turn, the Browns — who hold two first-round picks — could be interested in parting with a mid-round selection in order to acquire Glennon.
Glennon isn’t outstanding by any means, but at age 25 he offers youth, and he’s been at least mildly capable throughout his first two years in the league. He’s signed for the next two seasons, with cap figures under $1MM in both years.
Since the Buccaneers released Josh McCown on February 11, the veteran quarterback has taken three know visits, meeting with the Bills, Bears, and Jets. The 35-year-old McCown left all those visits without a contract, and now he’ll take a meeting with another club that could be in the QB market. According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer (Twitter link), McCown will visit the Browns today and tomorrow.
The quarterback situation in Cleveland is just as — if not more — complicated than the ones in Buffalo, Chicago, and New York, as 2014 first-round pick Johnny Manziel is coming off a season during which he struggled mightily in limited opportunities, and then entered a rehab facility when the season concluded. Brian Hoyer, the Browns starter for the majority of the season, is a free agent, and it doesn’t appear as though the club has any serious interest in retaining him.
Along with Hoyer and Mark Sanchez, McCown sits atop what is an extremely weak free agent crop of quarterbacks, but he’d probably be the favorite to start if signed by the Browns. He’d have some familiarity with the Cleveland coaching staff — Browns offensive coordinator John DeFillipo was the QB coach in Oakland while McCown was there — which might give him a leg up on Manziel.
The Browns have also reportedly shown interest in acquiring Rams quarterback Sam Bradford, but Peter King of MMQB.com later wrote that Cleveland wouldn’t want to acquire Bradford without assurances that he’d stay beyond 2015.
Although initial reports have indicated that both the Browns and the Bills may have expressed varying degrees of interest in acquiring Sam Bradford, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com writes that, as of Tuesday, no team has contacted the Rams to discuss trading for the quarterback. Per Rapoport, the Rams have asked Bradford to accept a pay cut — when he declined, St. Louis allowed Bradford’s agent to determine if there was a market for his client. But no team has stepped forward, so far, and Rapoport adds that the Rams expect hefty compensation for Bradford, noting that a team would have to “extraordinarily desperate” to meet St. Louis’ demands.
Here’s more from the NFC West:
Zach Links contributed to this post.
Seahawks safety Earl Thomas has never missed a game in his career, but a serious shoulder injury could put his availability for the start of the 2015 season at risk. According to Ed Werder of ESPN, Thomas will undergo surgery today to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder.
Thomas’ recovery timetable is estimated at six-to-eight months, meaning he could be ready as early as August but as late as October. Either way, it doesn’t appear that Thomas will be at full strength for either training camp or the preseason. However, general manager John Schneider indicated at the combine that the club expects Thomas to be ready for the beginning of next season, per Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times.
As Werder writes, Thomas originally incurred the injury while tackling Packers receiver Randall Cobb in the NFC Championship Game. His shoulder was dislocated, and he wore a harness for the remainder of the contest. Thomas continued to wear the harness during Seattle’s Super Bowl loss to the Patriots. The 25-year-old Thomas, who rated as the league’s fifth-best safety last season per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), signed a four-year extension last April that guaranteed him more than $27MM.
The Seahawks’ vaunted secondary could be in a state of flux this offseason. In addition to Thomas, both Richard Sherman and Jeremy Lane are dealing with injury concerns, while corner Byron Maxwell is the top free agent CB available, and is expected to garner significant money on the open market.
4:36pm: Kiwanuka’s release was listed with a failed physical designation, tweets Adam Caplan of ESPN.
3:04pm: The Giants have confirmed Kiwanuka’s release via a press release.
2:23pm: The Giants will release veteran defender Mathias Kiwanuka, according to Kimberly Jones of the NFL Network (Twitter link). The 31-year-old had been with New York for each of his nine seasons in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls during that time.
Kiwanuka has shown a great deal of versatility in his career, spending time at both defensive end and outside linebacker in the Giants’ 4-3 scheme. He’s played at end the prior two seasons, racking up 8.5 sacks in 21 starts in that span. The former first-round pick has nearly 40 sacks in 82 starts during his career. Advanced metrics have soured on Kiwanuka’s performance, as Pro Football Focus (subscription required) ranked him as the third-worst 4-3 DE in the league last season.
Entering the final year of his contract, Kiwanuka was scheduled to count $7.45MM against New York’s cap in 2015. By cutting him, the Giants are now only on the hook for his prorated bonus money, meaning they’ve saved $4.825MM in the process. According to Over the Cap’s data, the club should now have roughly $25MM in cap space.
Kiwanuka will now join a free agent edge defender market that is flush with talented options. As a veteran player who has dealt with injuries (he ended last season on injured reserve), he could have trouble garnering any type of significant guarantees in free agency. The Giants, meanwhile, probably aren’t done making moves, as Dan Graziano of ESPN.com speculated yesterday that Big Blue could look into releasing J.D. Walton and/or Jon Beason.
Earlier today, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, general manager Ozzie Newsome, and head coach John Harbaugh spoke to the media in Baltimore, and Jeff Zrebiec and Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun, and Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com were on hand to document the pair’s comments. Let’s take a look at the highlights, with all links going to Twitter:
GM Ozzie Newsome
Owner Steve Bisciotti
Head coach John Harbaugh
2:06pm: A Bills source has told Joe Buscaglia of WGR 550 that they are not pursuing Bradford.
1:48pm: The Rams tell Mike Rodak of ESPN.com (via Twitter) that there is “no merit” to the report linking Bradford to the Bills.
1:06pm: The Bills are interested in acquiring quarterback Sam Bradford from the Rams, according to Rand Getlin of Yahoo! Sports. Multiple team sources tell Getlin that Buffalo head coach Rex Ryan and offensive coordinator Greg Roman aren’t high on incumbent QB EJ Manuel, and believe that Bradford could help the club contend in 2015.
The Rams have said that they’d like to retain Bradford as their starting quarterback next season, but recent reports have indicated that St. Louis has allowed to Bradford to determine his trade market. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Rams would deal the 27-year-old Bradford, but it certainly seems like the club is keeping its options open.
Bradford is scheduled to count more than $16MM on the Rams’ cap in 2015, the final year of his contract; St. Louis would be on the hook for just $3.595MM in dead money if they dealt him. An acquiring team would be responsible for Bradford’s base salary of $12.985MM. Still, that figure seems incredibly high for a quarterback who hasn’t been able to stay on the field. Bradford has torn his ACL in each of the past two seasons, and has played in only seven games during that time.
As Getlin writes, it could be tough for the Bills to pony up enough compensation to satisfy the Rams. Buffalo only has six pick in this year’s draft, having already traded their first-round selection to move up in last year’s draft. Still, Bradford probably wouldn’t command a first-rounder anyway, so perhaps the Bills would be willing to part with some combination of mid-round picks.
Over the weekend, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the Browns would also have interest in acquiring Bradford.
Defensive end Brandon Graham will officially become a free agent next month, and while it’s likely he’ll leave Philadelphia, it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Eagles will fail to re-sign him, according to Geoff Mosher of CSN Philly. Per a team source, the Eagles “haven’t ruled out” Graham returning to the club next season. Mosher reported several weeks ago that Graham would look to secure $20MM in guarantees, and today noted that Everson Griffen‘s five-year pact with the Vikings could act as a starting point in negotiations.
Let’s take a look at some more notes from the East divisions…
Our list of 2015 free agents provides a comprehensive position-by-position breakdown of which players are eligible to hit the open market this year. However, that list of names doesn’t include much context or additional information about those players. So, with March’s free agent period fast approaching, we’ll be taking a closer look this month at the free agent market for each position. Today, we’ll turn our attention to linebackers. Having already covered 3-4 outside linebackers in our look at edge defenders, today’s focus is on 4-3 OLBs. Let’s dive in….
If a team surveys the free agent market this winter in search of an outside linebacker, that club would be much better off running a 3-4 scheme than a 4-3 system, given the talent available at each spot. While there are a handful of above-average 3-4 OLBs expected to be available two weeks from now, the top tier of 4-3 OLBs is led by Weatherspoon, who missed the 2014 season with a ruptured Achilles and sat out over half of the 2013 campaign as well, due to knee and foot injuries.
While he may not be the most reliable player here when it comes to health, Weatherspoon is still just 27 years old, and averaged 110 tackles per season in 2011 and 2012. And it’s not as if the other players in this group are slam dunks to play 16 games either — Durant and Briggs also missed significant chunks of the 2013 and 2014 seasons with injuries of their own.
If these players stay healthy, they should all but solid contributors for new or old teams in 2015, but taking into account concerns about health, age (Briggs), and inconsistency (Smith), I don’t expect any of them to find a big payday on the open market.
There are a few interesting names here, including Herzlich, who played just 304 defensive snaps for the Giants in 2014, but graded out as one of the best run defenders at the position, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required). Casillas was a part-time contributor down the stretch for the Super Bowl champion Patriots. Hayes has 70 career starts on his résumé. Thomas and Williams each racked up 85+ tackles, and Anderson is only a year removed from a season of 100+ tackles himself.
Still, if the players in our first tier weren’t exactly impact performers, that applies to doubly to most of the guys on this list. Some could hold their own as starters, but most will be reserves, part-timers, or special teams contributors.
As a housekeeping note, Bynes would have been eligible for restricted free agency, but the Lions have announced they won’t tender him an RFA offer. While he could still return to Detroit, Bynes appears poised to have the opportunity to test the open market.
Lamur earned the most playing time of anyone in this group, by far, but in 900+ defensive snaps, he graded as a below-average in pass coverage, run defense, and as a pass rusher, per PFF, which ranked him 39th out of 40 players at the position overall. The Bengals may have viewed his performance more favorably, but it remains to be seen whether it was enough to earn an RFA tender.
Besides Lamur, most of the other players on this list made more of an impact on special teams than on defense, though Johnson was the one exception. In addition to recording 11 special teams tackles, Johnson was also forced into action on defense during the second half, logging 251 snaps. The Broncos won’t want him starting at linebacker, and he certainly isn’t their top priority in free agency, but he’s a solid depth piece, and I expect the team to bring him back — we’ll see if Denver values him enough to make him an RFA tender offer, or if the club tries to re-sign him for less.
Previous looks at the 2015 free agent market: