2016 September - Pro Football Rumors

Month: October 2024

PFR Originals: 9/11/16 – 9/18/16

September 18th, 2016 at 3:09pm CST by Sam Robinson

The original analysis and content produced by the PFR staff during the past week:

Ben Levine took an expansive look at the Los Angeles Rams’ offseason in PFR’s Offseason in Review series as the team began its second stint in southern California.
To wrap up PFR’s Impact Rookies series, Dave-Te Thomas reviewed three NFC West teams’ first-year contingents. Examined this week:
- Los Angeles Rams
- Seattle Seahawks
- San Francisco 49ers
In advance of the AFC East’s first two tilts pitting its teams against one another this week, I asked readers who will win the division this year. While the Patriots have claimed this championship in each of the past season seasons — making them the only team to reign supreme over its division throughout the 2010s — the Jets have played well thus far, and the Dolphins gave the Pats all they can handle today, albeit without Tom Brady. Vote who you think will emerge with a home playoff game out of this quartet.
Zach Links took a look at how the NFL altered the IR format in 2016. One of the many pieces in PFR’s glossary, this focuses on the new wrinkle that eliminated the IR-DTR distinction. Teams now have more options regarding how they handle their IR list.
Zach also rounded up the latest edition of the Pigskin Links, with pieces on Brady and Kirk Cousins populating the space this week.

Titans Ownership May Face More Discipline

September 18th, 2016 at 2:25pm CST by Sam Robinson

Long the target of NFL scrutiny due to an insufficient succession plan after Bud Adams’ death, the Titans have incurred punishment from the league this offseason and could be set for more NFL discipline.

The NFL already hit owner Amy Adams Strunk with a six-figure fine this year, Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com reports, and the franchise remains non-compliant regarding its ownership.

Adams Strunk maintains she will not sell the team, although that is not the universal feeling among Bud Adams’ heirs, but the Titans have not offered a satisfactory plan to satisfy the league. No additional fines are on the table as of now, per La Canfora, but the league continues to monitor this situation and would impose more financial penalties in the future if necessary since this doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.

The Titans could well end up back on the market, per La Canfora, with Jon Bon Jovi residing as a “keenly interested” suitor after a failed bid to buy the Bills. Additionally, Peyton Manning may view the Titans as the one team he would consider owning a portion of and concurrently serve in a presidential-type role, La Canfora reports.

After playing at Tennessee, Manning has long been connected with the Titans — as both a player and a potential executive. The recently retired quarterback revealed the team was his second choice when he decided to sign with the Broncos in 2012.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Chargers Resigned To Los Angeles Move?

September 18th, 2016 at 1:35pm CST by Sam Robinson

This week, the Chargers’ future has resurfaced as a key topic despite the seminal downtown-stadium measure not being set for a vote until November. The latest news coming out of San Diego leans toward the Bolts packing up and leaving.

Sources have informed Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com the Chargers, assuming this upcoming vote fails to surpass the two-thirds majority as expected, will have no choice but to accept Stan Kroenke‘s offer and join the Rams in Los Angeles in 2017. The Chargers’ decision-makers are now resigned to the fact the stadium measure will fail and put them to a choice to follow through on the Los Angeles move, which has long been associated with a better financial opportunity for the team.

These sources told La Canfora this not being the Bolts’ final home opener in San Diego would represent a “shocking” turn of events. The Chargers clearly aren’t excited about becoming Kroenke’s tenant in Inglewood but don’t exactly view their chances as favorable of ever winning a local vote if this one doesn’t go their way.

“It’s pretty cut and dry,” one official told La Canfora. “There is no unknown solution waiting to surface.”

This runs counter to former Bolts GM A.J. Smith saying those around the league believe the Chargers will stay in San Diego. The Chargers have long let it be known they’re unhappy at their current Mission Valley site, hence the team’s effort to secure public funding for a downtown stadium. If that fails, the Chargers would almost certainly be forced to remain at their current site, at which they’ll begin regular-season play for a 49th year, if they were going to stay in San Diego.

The Los Angeles Coliseum, which will host the Rams for three seasons beginning today, looks like the Chargers’ playing site for two years, per La Canfora. But he also hears from some in the organization the much smaller StubHub Center could be a better fit.

Used to host Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy and second-tier boxing cards, the StubHub Center holds 30,000 fans — which would be by far the smallest venue in the NFL. Although, the Chargers bolting for Los Angeles would be a curious fit since the franchise has no real history there despite playing in the city in 1960 and already watched a team that does have history in L.A. move back. So, how the team would be perceived from a fan-interest standpoint after leaving its longtime market would be interesting.

While we’ve heard neither Kroenke nor the NFL want two teams in Los Angeles, La Canfora notes the league “staunchly” does not want the Raiders in L.A., and owners believe Dean Spanos could opt for a lower relocation fee than the Rams’ $550MM due to this.

Aqib Talib Will Not Be Disciplined By NFL

September 18th, 2016 at 12:17pm CST by Rory Parks

Broncos star cornerback Aqib Talib will not be suspended for the incident that he was involved earlier in this summer, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter). To recap, Talib was shot in the leg at a Dallas nightclub in early June, and initial reports suggested that the 30-year-old had accidentally shot himself. Days later, the Dallas Police Department said Talib was a victim of “aggravated assault.”

The report from the Dallas Police Department indicated that Talib told officers he didn’t know who shot him, and a witness claimed they only heard a single gunshot. The report further indicated that an “unknown suspect shot the complainant,” and there was no mention of Talib shooting himself. However, the Dallas PD was still investigating the incident as of the third week of August, and at that time the PD had not ruled out the possibility that Talib did, in fact, shoot himself.

If that were the case, then Talib almost certainly would be suspended, and indeed it was reported just last month that Talib would be facing discipline from the league. But now, it appears as though Talib has escaped punishment, unless the PD uncovers new evidence that might inculpate the Kansas product.

Just a couple weeks ago we learned that the Broncos were reportedly willing to trade Talib, whose off-field issues have frequently detracted from his on-field abilities. GM John Elway denied that report, and there have been no subsequent reports suggesting that opposing clubs approached Denver about a trade.

This news will surely be welcomed by the Broncos, who will likely need to rely on their defense to carry them back to the playoffs in 2016. Talib has three years remaining on his contract, and he will earn an $11MM salary this season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

North Notes: RGIII, E. Rogers, Swanson

September 18th, 2016 at 11:17am CST by Rory Parks

We learned earlier today that a number of veteran Browns scouts who were dismissed prior to the 2016 draft actually preferred Carson Wentz–last seen delivering a sterling debut against the Browns–to Jared Goff. Now let’s take a look at a few notes from the league’s north divisions, beginning with more on the Browns’ quarterback situation:

It won’t come as much of a surprise, but ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets that Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III is now expected to miss 10-12 weeks as a result of his shoulder injury, which means that his season could well be over. Even before Schefter’s report, however, it was expected that RGIII would miss the remainder of the 2016 campaign.
Mary Kay Cabot of The Cleveland Plain Dealer believes that the Browns will draft a quarterback early in the 2017 draft and that the team will likely have whoever that quarterback is open the season as the starter. As such, Cabot thinks the RGIII experiment is over, even if the team holds an “open competition” in next year’s camp.
Steelers wideout Eli Rogers, a former UDFA out of Louisville, seemingly came out of nowhere to post six catches for 59 yards and a score in his debut against Washington last week. Rogers spent all of 2015, his rookie season, on IR, but he has earned the trust of coaches and teammates and is set for an expanded role with the team, as Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports writes. Pittsburgh OC Todd Haley is an especially big fan of Rogers, and one member of the organization said Rogers has “kind of been [Haley’s] pet project for a while now and I give him a lot of credit. He’s worked very closely with him and brought him along, and he really thinks he can be an impact guy.” Rogers could be the latest in a long line of receivers not drafted in the early rounds that become an integral part of the Steelers’ offense.
Kyle Meinke of MLive.com writes that Lions center Travis Swanson, whom the team selected in the third round of the 2014 draft, has finally begun to show signs of improvement. Swanson’s Week 1 performance against Indianapolis was stellar, and if he can continue along his current trajectory, Meinke says it may be a while before Lions fans see Graham Glasgow, the team’s third round pick in this year’s draft.

Veteran Browns Scouts Preferred Wentz

September 18th, 2016 at 10:21am CST by Rory Parks

Only one full week of the 2016 season is in the books, but Browns fans, eminently familiar with pain and suffering, are already finding more evidence to prove that their team is cursed. Cleveland, of course, passed on the chance to draft Carson Wentz with the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft, instead choosing to trade the selection and to roll with Robert Griffin III and Josh McCown under center. But Wentz excelled in his professional debut against the Browns last week and RGIII found himself on IR again, so it is easy to understand the frustrations coming from the Dawg Pound.

But that may not be the worst of it. According to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, the Browns parted with several of their more seasoned scouts and evaluators prior to the draft–an usual time for such dismissals–and a number of those men actually preferred Wentz to Jared Goff and considered the North Dakota State product to be the more promising prospect. Of course, chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta, along with head coach Hue Jackson and OC Pep Hamilton, preferred Goff, and at the time the pro-Wentz scouts were dismissed, the club was already shopping its second-overall pick to other teams, since it became clear that the Rams were going to use the No. 1 overall pick on Goff.

It is not uncommon, of course, for there to be disagreement among a team’s talent evaluators, and the fact that some Cleveland scouts preferred Wentz would not ordinarily be newsworthy. But the fact that a pro-Wentz group that included former general managers and personnel directors was let go at such a strange time–even if they were going to be dismissed anyway during the team’s efforts to downsize later on in 2016–is only going to add fuel to the fire of the organization’s detractors.

If the Browns again find themselves near the top of the draft board in 2017, La Canfora believes they will almost have to take a quarterback, with Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson currently heading the list of signal-callers expected to be available.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Latest On Bills’ Coaching Staff

September 18th, 2016 at 9:22am CST by Rory Parks

After the Bills fired offensive coordinator Greg Roman earlier this week, it was natural to wonder if head coach Rex Ryan would also receive his walking papers sooner rather than later, especially in the wake of Buffalo’s disappointing start to the 2016 season. However, we learned shortly after Roman’s dismissal that Ryan’s job is safe for the time being, and Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports confirms that ownership is not presently considering any other staff changes.

La Canfora reports that “it would take a fairly epic collapse to initiate more firings in-season,” although team owners Terry and Kim Pegula are more than willing to make sweeping changes in the offseason if the Bills do not demonstrate marked improvement. One of the problems, though, is that the team’s brass is hardly presenting a united front to its players. For instance, GM Doug Whaley clashed with former head coach Doug Marrone and Roman over the usage of skill players like Sammy Watkins that Whaley brought in, and now Ian Rapoport of NFL.com paints an even more damning picture of the club’s internal divide.

According to Rapoport, the Pegulas held private meetings Friday morning with several offensive standouts–like quarterback Tyrod Taylor–to discuss the offense and potential solutions thereto. Ryan, however, was not present for those meetings, even though he publicly stated the decision to fire Roman was entirely his own. One of Rapoport’s sources indicates that the Pegulas simply used the meetings to confirm that Ryan was considering getting rid of Roman after the Bills’ Week 1 loss and that the Bills remain “Rex’s team.” But other sources believe the move to fire Roman was spurred by the Pegulas’ meeting with players, and that the suggestion was subsequently brought to Ryan.

Either way, Ryan is reportedly unhappy that ownership would hold a meeting with players without him, and even though the Pegulas will apparently give Ryan a chance to right the ship, there is clearly something rotten in upstate New York.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

AFC East Notes: Revis, Ajayi, Forte

September 18th, 2016 at 8:40am CST by Rory Parks

Let’s take a look at some notes from the AFC East before the early slate of Week 2 games get underway:

Considering Darrelle Revis‘ much-discussed struggles over the first two weeks of the 2016 season, the Patriots‘ decision not to get into a bidding war over his services after the 2014 campaign is looking especially shrewd, as Mike Reiss of ESPN.com writes. New England was never going to come close to the five-year, $70MM pact Revis received from New York, as the Pats favored a contract with option bonuses that protected them financially in the event that Revis had a sharp decline. But the Patriots did receive a lot of criticism for not making more of an effort to re-sign Revis, and although it is far too early to say Revis will never regain any of his past form, New England’s approach is pretty tough to criticize right now.
Dolphins RB Jay Ajayi was left off the travel list for the team’s Week 1 matchup in Seattle, and Miami head coach Adam Gase reportedly made that decision to send a message to Ajayi about the second-year back’s lack of professionalism. Now, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter), that message has been received and Ajayi will be active for today’s game. However, as the third running back on the Dolphins’ depth chart (per Roster Resource), it remains to be seen how much playing time Ajayi will actually receive.
The Jets need to be mindful of Matt Forte‘s workload, Rich Cimini of ESPN.com opines. Through two weeks, Forte has 52 rushing attempts, which puts him on pace for 416 at season’s end. As Cimini notes, 416 is the league record, which was set by a 26-year-old Larry Johnson in 2006. Forte, however, is 30, and New York would do well to protect its investment a bit better, especially since the team saw firsthand how Chris Ivory‘s heavy workload early in the 2015 season reduced his effectiveness down the stretch.
Although it’s never a good sign when a coach is fired after the second game of a season, we learned yesterday that Bills‘ players are generally excited about what the dismissal of OC Greg Roman could mean for the team’s offense.

Sitton Received Calls From “15 or 16” Teams

September 17th, 2016 at 10:00pm CST by Sam Robinson

As Ryan Pace and John Fox met with Josh Sitton, 15 or 16 teams contacted the free agent guard, Sitton told Dan Wiederer of the Chicago Tribune.

“Probably 15 or 16 teams called. Of the ones that were truly serious, there were probably four or five,” Sitton said of the interest that accumulated during his visit with the Bears’ brass.

GMs and coaches contacted 30-year-old guard, along with Kyle Long. Per Wiederer, both Fox and Pace did not give the longtime Packers mainstay the hard sell, instead pitching him what a guard tandem of he and Long would look like. Long, though, did make a more aggressive sales pitch. “He wasn’t going to let up,” Sitton told Wiederer.

However, Chicago’s power structure did have to make their pitch quickly while seeing Sitton’s phone buzz constantly.

But Sitton also did not want to leave the meeting without a deal, having made the 175-mile drive from Green Bay to Chicago on Sunday after quickly retrieving his belongings from the Packers’ locker room following his Saturday release.

“I’ve seen what John has done with every team he has been at. He comes in and [turns] the program around. So I wanted to feel that this was a team on the rise,” Sitton said of a meeting at a Chicago-area restaurant.

Sitton ended up signing for three years and $21.75MM and forms one of the league’s top guard tandems, along with the recently extended Long. The Saints were probably another of the serious teams that contacted Sitton, but he did not leave the Chicago summit without a deal.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

NFC Notes: Wentz, Johnson, Palmer, Giants

September 17th, 2016 at 9:29pm CST by Sam Robinson

Further illustrating the Eagles‘ belief in Carson Wentz and their motivation to make the seminal trade with the Browns in April, new Philadelphia OC Frank Reich offered some high-end comparisons for the No. 2 overall pick.

“Physically, he reminds me a little bit of a combination of Andrew Luck — though, I’ve never played with him — just watching him play, but a guy that I did play with in Jim Kelly, the size, strength and just the toughness,” Reich said, via Matt Lombardo of NJ.com.

Wentz ran a tenth of a second slower in the 40-yard dash compared to Luck coming out of college (4.77 seconds to 4.67), but the quarterbacks are similar in size — both 6-foot-5 and around 235 pounds. The younger player will attempt to build on his breakthrough debut, one executed despite scant preseason reps and the anticipation he’d be the third-string passer.

Here’s more on Wentz’s potential rise and on some other NFC teams.

The Eagles trading Sam Bradford to the Vikings opened the door not only for Wentz to receive an early start on Sundays, but it cleared a path toward endless practice reps instead of a short-term future as Philly’s third-stringer, Jeff McLane of Philly.com writes. Reich told media, including McLane, there was “no question” the additional practice work would accelerate Wentz’s development compared to a season spent behind Bradford and Chase Daniel. Per McLane, Wentz did not speak up much in quarterback meetings while he was the No. 3 quarterback, instead deferring to the veterans. Daniel functions as the scout-team quarterback, and the meetings are geared around a Wentz-conducted offense.
Doug Pederson expected to hear something on Lane Johnson‘s lingering suspension by now, Reuben Frank of CSNPhilly.com notes, but the league has yet to announce the expected 10-game ban. “You would think you would have heard something by now,” Pederson said. “If it does happen down the road, it just pushes everything back. Me personally, I’d rather know now than later. But until then, [Johnson] is the guy.” Pederson said Stefen Wisniewski would play left guard after current starter Allen Barbre swings to right tackle in the event Johnson’s ruling comes down. Wisniewski usurped Isaac Seumalo as the next guard up since the Eagles initially announced their Johnson contingency plan.
Earlier today, a potential Panthers plot to select Blaine Gabbert No. 1 overall emerged in advance of Sunday’s Panthers-49ers game. The Buccaneers‘ Week 2 opponent, the Cardinals, also employ a quarterback who will face a team that pursued him years ago. The Bucs attempted to trade for Palmer in 2013, but refusing to push then-starter Josh Freeman to a backup role did not make it an enticing fit for the then-Raiders quarterback as he looked for a team and a long-term deal, Tom Jones of the Tampa Bay Times writes, analyzing what could have been in advance of Sunday’s tilt. The Bucs joined the Cardinals and Bills in making a push for a then-33-year-old Palmer’s services. Then-Tampa Bay coach Greg Schiano wasn’t enamored with Freeman, but the organization did not want to give up on the former first-round pick by automatically making Palmer a starter. Freeman lasted just three games into the ’13 season before being released.
The Giants worked out four linebackers on Saturday after cutting Deontae Skinner from their practice squad. Cassanova McKinzy, Deiontrez Mount, Eric Pinkins and Myke Tavarres worked out for the team, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports.

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