HEADLINES

Month: November 2024

Cardinals To Release Andre Branch

August 25th, 2019 at 1:45pm CST by Sam Robinson

Andre Branch‘s Cardinals stay did not last too long. The team will release the veteran defensive end less than a month after signing him, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets.

The Cardinals signed the former Jaguars and Dolphins edge player shortly after training camp began. After the Dolphins cut Branch earlier this offseason, the Cards were the only team to bring him in for a visit or workout. He combined for 10 sacks between the 2016-17 seasons but registered just 1.5 in 14 games last season.

This stands to be Branch’s age-30 season. The Cards added Terrell Suggs and Brooks Reed as Chandler Jones sidekick options. They also claimed Jeff Holland, who came to Denver as a UDFA during Vance Joseph‘s stay, with their No. 1 overall waiver priority.

Redskins To Start Case Keenum In Week 1

August 25th, 2019 at 1:34pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Redskins will turn to Case Keenum as their Week 1 starter. While this was expected, given Colt McCoy‘s health and Dwayne Haskins‘ developmental status, Jay Gruden made it official, per ESPN.com’s John Keim (on Twitter).

This will mark Keenum’s third Week 1 start in four seasons — each for different teams, with the Rams and Broncos also turning to him since 2016. It should be expected Haskins takes over at some point this season, and McCoy was slotted atop Washington’s initial depth chart. But for now, Keenum will lead the Redskins’ offense.

The Rams gave Keenum nine starts in 2016 before Jared Goff replaced him. It is unclear how quickly the team will turn to Haskins. Keenum threw for a career-high 3,890 yards last season, to go along with 18 touchdown passes. He could not match his surprisingly high-end 2017 slate, when he led all QBs in DVOA, and the Broncos jettisoned the 31-year-old passer after one season. Keenum’s 46.9 QBR figure was 31st last season.

Gruden said recently McCoy may be sidelined into the regular season, which would leave Haskins as Washington’s top backup. Keenum struggled in 2018 but did make all 16 starts for the Broncos.

Raiders Sign Corey Liuget, Place Doug Martin On IR

August 25th, 2019 at 12:21pm CST by Rory Parks

The Raiders have signed free agent defensive tackle Corey Liuget, the team announced. Oakland has also placed running back Doug Martin on IR, which contradicts reports that surfaced earlier today indicating that Martin was released.

Liuget has generated plenty of interest on the open market this offseason. He met with the Jaguars, Giants, Seahawks, and Cardinals before signing with Oakland, his former division rival.

Liuget spent the first eight years of his career with the Chargers after the Bolts made him the 18th-overall pick of the 2011 draft. Earlier in his career, Liuget made noise as a defensive end and managed 18 sacks for the Chargers between 2011-2014. His sack totals, predictably, plummeted when he was moved to the interior on a full-time basis, and his 2018 suspension for PEDs further diminished his stock. However, he should serve as a quality rotational piece for Oakland’s D-line.

As for Martin, Oakland may indeed end up releasing him with an injury settlement, as Scott Bair of NBC Sports Bay Area tweets. Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network says that Martin will be healthy soon and will be ready to play somewhere (Twitter link). The Raiders, meanwhile, will open the season with rookie Josh Jacobs as their No. 1 RB, with DeAndre Washington serving as Jacobs’ backup.

In addition to those moves, Oakland also signed UDFA linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams and waived long snapper Andrew DePaola.

Antonio Brown Loses Second Grievance

August 25th, 2019 at 12:03pm CST by Rory Parks

Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown has lost his second helmet-related grievance, per Pro Football Talk (via Twitter). AB will wear a league-approved helmet in 2019 and beyond (Twitter link).

This was the expected outcome, and the ruling should resolve this issue once and for all. Brown has been practicing and seems to be past the foot malady he suffered during a cryotherapy mishap, so Raiders fans just have to cross their fingers and hope that Brown has put his off-field matters behind him.

Indeed, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com says that no further proceedings are expected (Twitter link). Pro Football Talk tweets that Brown is close to selecting a new helmet, and that it will be a custom-made model. Brown is also going to get an endorsement deal from the maker, so, once again, AB lands jelly-side up.

The 31-year-old wideout has not played this preseason, though he is expected to be ready to go for Week 1. The Raiders are not favored to make the playoffs this year, but this year’s “Hard Knocks” outfit should at least be interesting to watch.

The club opens the season at home against the Broncos on September 9.

Falcons’ OL Kaleb McGary Returns To Full Practice

August 25th, 2019 at 11:48am CST by Rory Parks

Good news for Falcons fans, as 2019 first-rounder Kaleb McGary has returned to full practice, per Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com (via Twitter). McGary, who resumed on-field activities last week after undergoing a cardiac ablation procedure at the end of July, is now set to compete for Atlanta’s starting RT job.

Although a heart procedure sounds frightening, McGary has had the same operation twice before, and it is a minimally-invasive surgery. GM Thomas Dimitroff previously stated that he was comfortable with McGary’s health situation, and as of right now, it appears everything is on the right track.

McGary, of course, has a lot of ground to make up, but his competition for the RT job is not particularly inspiring. Ty Sambrailo has had a poor preseason and is presently a limited participant in practice due to a shoulder injury — as McClure notes in a separate tweet — and Matt Gono is a former UDFA who has yet to see regular season action.

Per McClure (Twitter link), head coach Dan Quinn has expressed confidence in all three of those players, but obviously the team would prefer that McGary takes the job and runs with it.

McGary, the No. 31 overall pick in this year’s draft, was the second O-lineman Atlanta added in the first round. The club also selected Boston College guard Chris Lindstrom in an effort to get better while also getting younger on the offensive front.

Raiders Release Doug Martin

August 25th, 2019 at 11:08am CST by Rory Parks

The Raiders have released veteran running back Doug Martin, as Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network reports (via Twitter). Martin was Oakland’s leading rusher in 2018, but the club selected Josh Jacobs in the first round of this year’s draft with the expectation that he would become the new No. 1 RB, and DeAndre Washington‘s excellent preseason earned him the top backup job behind Jacobs.

Martin, a former first-round pick of the Buccaneers, spent the first six years of his career with Tampa Bay before catching on with the Raiders in March 2018. In his lone season with the Silver-and-Black, Martin compiled 723 rushing yards on 172 carries — good for a respectable 4.2 YPC mark — and four touchdowns. It’s a far cry from his 2015 First Team All-Pro campaign, when he piled up 1,402 yards on the ground and 271 yards through the air, but he proved that he can still be a serviceable back.

Head coach Jon Gruden is fond of Martin, so this move may be about getting the 30-year-old back a chance to catch on with an RB-needy team as the preseason draws to a close. Indeed, the Texans are now very much in the market for an established rusher, and many pundits are already connecting Martin to Houston.

Oakland cleared $1.9MM of cap space with the move.

Fallout From Andrew Luck’s Retirement

August 25th, 2019 at 10:48am CST by Rory Parks

Andrew Luck‘s decision to step away from the game of football at the age of 29 will go down as one of the most surprising retirement decisions in the history of the league. But in his impromptu press conference last night, Luck kept using the word “exhausted,” as Zak Keefer of The Athletic observes. Luck’s latest health concern, a calf/ankle ailment, was just part of that exhaustion.

Keefer sums up Luck’s run of major injury woes over the past few years quite nicely. As Keefer writes, Luck “once played an entire quarter against the eventual Super Bowl champs with both a lacerated kidney and a partially torn abdomen muscle – and led the Colts to a win. He played half a season with torn cartilage in two ribs. There was an injured thumb, a bum ankle, at least one diagnosed concussion and the torn labrum in his throwing shoulder that nearly cost him his career at age 28.”

All of those issues forced Luck to move on to the next chapter of his life much sooner than he wanted. Anyone who watched his presser could see the anguish in his face, how his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and how painful it was for him to make this decision. But as Luck himself said, “[i]t’s been four years of this injury-pain cycle. And for me to move forward in my life the way I want to, it didn’t involve football.”

Here’s just some of the fallout from Luck’s stunning announcement:

  • Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that Luck and the Colts have reached an agreement wherein the team will not attempt to recoup any money to which it would be entitled under the CBA. As Joel Corry of CBS Sports notes, the team could have recovered $24.8MM from the former No. 1 overall pick ($12.8MM of the $32MM signing bonus he was entitled to under his current contract, plus two $6MM March 2019 roster bonuses). If the Colts did seek repayment, any money they got back would have counted as a salary cap credit (Twitter links). Colts fans are already taking plenty of heat for booing Luck during the team’s preseason game last night — which Luck admitted was hurtful — and it would not have been a good look if the team were to try and seek repayment (especially in light of how the club mismanaged his early career, as Conor Orr of SI.com summarizes).
  • The Colts are high on their new QB1, Jacoby Brissett, but as Stephen Holder of The Athletic says, the team needs a veteran signal-caller behind Brissett, and it’s likely that GM Chris Ballard is already working feverishly to make a move. Indianapolis has enough draft capital to swing a trade of some kind (Twitter links).
  • Indianapolis may well remain competitive with Brissett at the helm, and Matt Miller of Bleacher Report says team brass does not believe the Colts will be drafting high enough in 2020 to land one of next year’s top QB prospects (Twitter link).
  • Colts owner Jim Irsay sounds like a man who hopes that Luck will unretire at some point. Irsay said, “[y]ou know, I don’t rule it out. Because as quickly as this thing sort of descended on us, and as mysterious as it was coming upon us, it could leave the same way” (h/t Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk). It was clear that Luck had thought long and hard about his decision, so as shocking as his retirement is, it would be even more shocking if he were to return to the field as a player. But Irsay is not ready to give up hope.
  • Irsay estimates that Luck left about $500MM on the table by retiring early given the ever-increasing QB salaries and the $64MM he was already due under the remaining three years of his current deal. As Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network tweets, that’s probably an accurate assessment. But if Luck is willing to walk away from that kind of cash, it seems as though he really is retired for good.
  • Luck’s contract will toll, so if he were to reverse course and come back, Indianapolis would hold his rights for three more seasons, as Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com reminds us (via Twitter).
  • We heard last night that the Colts had known for at least two weeks that Luck was seriously considering retirement, but Ballard says that Luck only began discussing the possibility with the team Monday (less then a week ago), as Albert Breer of SI.com tweets.

Texans Seeking OT In Jadeveon Clowney Trade?

August 25th, 2019 at 9:12am CST by Rory Parks

There was a lot going on in the AFC South on Saturday night. In addition to Andrew Luck‘s shocking retirement announcement, reports surfaced that the Texans were likely to trade star edge defender Jadeveon Clowney in the next couple of days.

Those reports suggested that Houston is looking to acquire a wide receiver in a Clowney trade, but John McClain of the Houston Chronicle says that while he does expect Clowney to be dealt, he believes the Texans are going to swap him for an offensive tackle when he signs his franchise tender.

As we heard last night, Clowney does have some control over where he gets traded since he has to sign the tender before he can be moved. McClain thinks that head coach and de facto GM Bill O’Brien already has a deal worked out with another team, but the Texans and their trade partner just have to wait until Clowney puts pen to paper.

The O-line was the Texans’ biggest weakness in 2018, and while the club made some efforts to address that unit this offseason, it’s unclear whether the additions will result in a notable uptick in performance. But, with Luck out of the picture, the AFC South landscape has changed dramatically, and Houston now looks like the favorite to bring home the division crown. Given that, and since it’s clear the Texans are never going to sign Clowney to a long-term contract, it makes sense that Houston would want to get something of value for the former No. 1 overall pick before the season starts.

Of course, it’s fair to question whether losing Clowney on the defensive side of the ball will be worse for the team than rolling with their current group of O-lineman, but it seems that Houston is set on trading him. McClain believes the team should also ask for a running back in a trade in order to offset the loss of Lamar Miller, who tore his ACL in Saturday’s preseason game.

Packers To Cut S Josh Jones

August 25th, 2019 at 8:45am CST by Rory Parks

The Packers will be cutting safety Josh Jones today, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports (via Twitter). Jones skipped the club’s OTAs in the spring with the hope of forcing a trade, and his wish to get out of Green Bay has finally been granted.

The Packers selected Jones in the second round of the 2017 draft, and he has started 12 games over his first two years in the league. He seemed to take a step back during his sophomore season, finishing with 55 tackles, one sack, and two passes defensed in 13 games (five starts) in 2018. Pro Football Focus ended up ranking Jones 70th among 93 eligible safeties.

Green Bay invested heavily in the safety position this offseason, as the team inked former Bears safety Adrian Amos to a four-year, $36MM deal in free agency and later traded up in the first round to select Maryland safety Darnell Savage Jr.. As Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com writes, Amos and Savage are expected to serve as the Packers’ starting safeties in 2019, and former UDFA Raven Greene has worked ahead of Jones both at safety and at inside linebacker in sub-packages during training camp.

Demovsky also notes that Jones has not practiced in nearly two weeks because of an undisclosed illness, and he got kicked out of practice on July 31 for a hit and a fight during a non-tackling period. Plus, even though the Packers traded Ha Ha Clinton-Dix halfway though last season, Jones was not elevated into the starting lineup until rookie Kentrell Brice suffered an ankle injury in Week 10.

Clearly, Jones’ stock had plummeted in Green Bay, though he should catch on with another club fairly quickly given his youth and draft pedigree.

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