2020 January - Pro Football Rumors

Kenny Clark Not Planning Holdout

January 20th, 2020 at 6:38pm CST by Sam Robinson

Top Packers defensive lineman Kenny Clark is now in a contract year. The Packers picked up his fifth-year option — worth $7.69MM — in May of last year but have not initiated extension talks with their 2016 first-rounder yet.

While Clark did not guarantee he will be present for all Green Bay offseason workouts, he does not want to wage a holdout.

“Hopefully, I don’t have to do anything like that,” Clark said, via Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t think it will come to that.”

The Packers made an aggressive effort to strengthen their defense this past offseason, shelling out big money for edge rushers Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith, giving Adrian Amos a $9MM-AAV contract and drafting two defenders in Round 1. Clark, however, would seemingly be a priority given his abilities up front. Clark has been extension-eligible since January 2019, but teams are often not keen on extending ex-first-rounders prior to their fifth-year option seasons.

“I hope it happens sometime soon,” Clark said of extension talks. “They’re not really (at a point) where they’re actually getting into it, talking. I’m pretty sure at some point they will. Somebody will have to break the ice and talk.

After registering 12 sacks over the past two seasons, Clark has become one of the better interior defenders in the game. Although the Packers have the Smiths locked down through 2022 on major commitments, their summer release of Mike Daniels left their defensive line without a notable veteran deal. It would seem Clark is primed to fill that space, but the team has not approached this prospect yet.

Browns To Hire Bill Callahan As OL Coach

January 20th, 2020 at 5:55pm CST by Sam Robinson

Shortly after his run as Redskins interim head coach ended, Bill Callahan will land on his feet in a familiar role. The Browns are expected to hire Callahan as their next offensive line coach, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.

They will be the fifth team to bring Callahan in as O-line coach, following the Eagles, Jets, Cowboys and Redskins. While Callahan has held higher-profile titles, most notably Raiders head coach, his primary NFL role has been as an O-line instructor.

Callahan will work with new Browns HC Kevin Stefanski for the first time. This takes the 63-year-old assistant out of the running for a Giants job. He was in play for Big Blue’s offensive line coach position, per Mike Garafolo of NFL.com (Twitter link). Former Cowboys boss Jason Garrett was named OC recently. Callahan worked under Garrett as Dallas’ OC from 2012-14 but accepted a job with the Redskins in 2015. He remained with Washington through the end of the 2010s.

Callahan will replace James Campen, who spent one season working as Browns O-line coach. While the Browns’ offensive line struggled in pass protection — namely at tackle — it ranked 11th in adjusted line yards, helping Nick Chubb to a second-place rushing finish.

Buccaneers Potential Landing Spot For Philip Rivers?

January 20th, 2020 at 3:41pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

Yesterday we heard word that Philip Rivers was moving his family from the San Diego area to Florida, another indication he’s headed for a split with the Chargers. Rivers has said he isn’t retiring, so he’ll be suiting up somewhere next season even if he isn’t in Los Angeles.

There has been some speculation that Rivers could end up with the Colts, as he used to play under Indy head coach Frank Reich with the Chargers. There are a number of teams that could be interested in a veteran quarterback this offseason though, including the Buccaneers if they opt not to retain Jameis Winston. To that end, Jason La Canfora tweets that he’s “hearing a lot of buzz” about Tampa as a potential landing spot for Rivers.

La Canfora was one of the first to report back in November that a divorce from the Chargers might be in the cards. If Rivers does end up signing with the Bucs, he’ll be paired with the most accomplished offensive coach of his career in Bruce Arians. When Arians was with the Cardinals he brought in an aging Carson Palmer and rejuvenated his career, so there’s an obvious parallel there.

Rivers had a down 2019 due to a lot of turnovers, but the Chargers’ passing game was still very efficient yardage-wise, and in 2018 he was one of the best passers in the league. He led the Chargers to a 12-4 record that year while tossing 32 touchdowns and only 12 interceptions, averaging a robust 8.5 yards per attempt. Of course, all of this is predicated on the Bucs moving on from Winston, which is still very much up in the air.

It’s been hard to get a read on how they feel about Winston, and the last we heard was that members of the front office were split on bringing him back and that there hadn’t been any contract discussions between the two sides. With all of the high-profile signal-callers set to become free agents, this is shaping up to be the most interesting quarterback carousel in years.

Titans DC Dean Pees Retires

January 20th, 2020 at 2:42pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The NFL is losing a prominent assistant coach. Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees announced his retirement during a press conference Monday.

Pees, 70, started coaching college football in 1979 and has been in the NFL since 2004. The Titans just lost secondary coach Kerry Coombs to Ohio State earlier today, so Mike Vrabel will have some work to do retooling his defensive staff. Pees got his NFL start with the Patriots, where he served as Vrabel’s linebackers coach and defensive coordinator. Pees left New England after the 2009 season, and went to Baltimore. He served as linebackers coach and then defensive coordinator with the Ravens for the next eight seasons, winning Super Bowl XLVII with the team.

Pees has been on the staffs of some legendary head coaches, including Nick Saban, Lou Holtz, and Bill Belichick. He initially retired after the 2017 season, but that retirement lasted only a few weeks. After Vrabel landed the job in Tennessee, he quickly lured his old coach out of retirement. Tennessee’s defense was up and down during the regular season, but Pees had them playing really well in the playoffs. He was able to put together a gameplan that completely shutdown Lamar Jackson and the vaunted Ravens running game in the divisional round.

Coaching Notes: Giants, Bengals, Titans

January 20th, 2020 at 2:18pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The Giants’ offensive line has been a bit of a mess the past few years, so who rookie head coach Joe Judge decides to hire as his O-line coach is a crucial call. One familiar name is getting consideration, as Dan Graziano of ESPN.com tweets that New York will interview Dave DeGuglielmo for the vacant job. DeGuglielmo has been in the NFL for the past 15 years, and was Miami’s offensive line coach this past season. The year before that he coached Indy’s league-best offensive line, but was surprisingly let go after the season. As Graziano points out, DeGuglielmo coached alongside Judge with the Patriots in 2014-15, so there’s plenty of familiarity there.

Here’s more from the coaching ranks:

The Bengals have a new cornerbacks coach, and it’s coming at the expense of the Jets. Cincinnati is hiring Steve Jackson to coach their cornerbacks, according to Brian Costello of the New York Post (Twitter link). Jackson had previously served as the Jets’ assistant defensive backs coach for the past two years. Jackson played with the Oilers/Titans for nine seasons from 1991-1999. He’s served as safeties coach for the Redskins and Titans in the past.
The Titans are also losing an assistant coach. Kerry Coombs, Tennessee’s secondary coach, is leaving to become the defensive coordinator at Ohio State, per Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports (Twitter link). There are plenty of connections between the two teams, as Titans head coach Mike Vrabel played at Ohio State and was an assistant coach with the Buckeyes before returning to the NFL. He brought a lot of guys from OSU with him to Tennessee, including Coombs.
In case you missed it, ESPN analyst and former backup NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky is drawing interest as a coach.

USC OC Graham Harrell Won’t Leave For Eagles

January 20th, 2020 at 11:34am CST by Zachary Links

USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell won’t leave the school to take on the same role with the Eagles, Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports (on Twitter) hears. It’s not clear whether Harrell would have gotten the job in Philly, but he was among the coaches on their radar.

The Eagles bounced Mike Groh earlier this month, shortly after head coach Doug Pederson inadvertently told reporters that he’d be staying on board. Since then, they’ve seen Ravens quarterbacks coach James Urban decline their request for an interview and ex-Redskins OC Kevin O’Connell accept the same job with the Rams.

It’s not clear where the Eagles will go from here. They’ve been connected to Chiefs quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka, but they’ve yet to schedule an interview.

Harrell became USC’s OC last year after Kliff Kingsbury left for the Cardinals. In 2019, USC ranked 20th last season with 454 yards per game, improving significantly from its 382.6 average in 2018.

Panthers Hire Phil Snow As DC

January 20th, 2020 at 11:18am CST by Zachary Links

The Panthers announced that they have hired Phil Snow as their new defensive coordinator. Snow has spent the last seven years as Rhule’s DC and they’ll continue their partnership in Charlotte.

Snow spent four years as Rhule’s DC at Temple before following him to Baylor, where they’ve spent the last three years together. Rhule, meanwhile, has always made it known that he wanted to put together his own staff at the pro level. Last year, he rejected the Jets’ offer when the club insisted on picking out his assistants for him given his lack of previous NFL experience. He held firm, stayed at Baylor for another year, and wound up with full autonomy (and a deal that could pay up to $70MM) with the Panthers.

Snow comes with some NFL experience, having served as the Lions’ linebackers coach from 2005 to 2008. At the collegiate level, he’s delivered impressive results. In 2019, Baylor ranked 41st in the nation in total defense, and finished second in takeaways (30), third in interceptions (17), eighth in sacks per game (3.31), and fifth in turnover margin (1.08). During Snow’s final year with the Bears, Baylor defensive tackle James Lynch finished fifth in the nation in sacks (13.5) while cornerback Grayland Arnold ranked fifth in interceptions (6).

Browns To Hire George Paton?

January 20th, 2020 at 10:51am CST by Zachary Links

The Browns could hire George Paton to be their new GM early this week, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com hears. Though nothing has been finalized, it sounds like the Vikings assistant general manager will be the club’s hire and make his long-awaited move up the ladder.

Paton has been very picky with interviews in recent years and he was reportedly waffling on whether to even interview for the Browns’ vacancy. On Saturday, he met with team brass and things are apparently moving in a positive direction.

The Browns also interviewed Eagles VP of football operations Andrew Berry and Patriots director of college scouting Monti Ossenfort on Friday. Berry was thought to be the favorite for weeks, due to his familiarity with the organization. Instead, Paton is now expected to take over for John Dorsey and guide the Browns through a critical offseason.

Paton may be a natural fit for a team that just hired longtime Vikings assistant Kevin Stefanski as its head coach. The two men overlapped in Minnesota for 13 years, so they should be well-aligned.

Texans Hire Anthony Weaver As DC

January 20th, 2020 at 9:01am CST by Zachary Links

The Texans are making a change at defensive coordinator. Anthony Weaver has been promoted from defensive line coach to take over for Romeo Crennel, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets.

Crennel was said to be considering retirement. It’s not immediately clear whether the 72-year-old will walk away from the game or return to the team in some sort of advisory capacity. The former Browns and Chiefs head coach served as defensive coordinator from 2014-16 and returned to that role in 2018, after Mike Vrabel became the Titans’ HC. All in all, he’s spent 38 years as an NFL coach.

The Texans ranked 19th in defensive DVOA in 2019 and just fired outside linebackers coach John Pagano. Crennel’s defense is coming off a brutal divisional-round showing, when the Chiefs erased a 24-point deficit by halftime in a 51-31 rout.

Weaver, 39, played with the Texans for three seasons in the 2000s and has coached in Houston for the past four years.

Extra Points: Johnson, Stefanski, Browns

January 19th, 2020 at 9:26pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

Chad Johnson’s time as a pro football player might not be finished after all. The legendary former NFL receiver will tryout as a kicker with the XFL on Monday, he announced on Twitter. The tryout in Houston is indeed legit, Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com confirmed with a source. Johnson is 42 now, and hasn’t appeared in a game since the 2011 season. He’s a huge soccer fan, and has often expressed an interest in kicking. Back during the 2009 preseason when he was still with the Bengals, he converted an extra point and handled a kickoff. Johnson became a six-time Pro Bowler with Cincinnati and was a first-team All-Pro selection three times. One of the best receivers in the league for a long stretch, he finished with 11,059 yards and 67 touchdowns. He also briefly played in the CFL a handful of years ago. It still seems like more of a publicity stunt than anything else, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Here’s more from around the football world:

The Browns settled on a new head coach in Kevin Stefanski, but they’re still searching for a new general manager. One potential candidate is Vikings assistant GM George Paton, but he’s apparently hard to pin down. Paton has been very picky with interviews in recent years, and the Browns still haven’t gotten a firm commitment from him on whether or not he’ll interview, according to Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). It was initially reported that Paton had agreed to interview, but that turned out not to be true. Eagles executive Andrew Berry and Patriots exec Monti Ossenfort are also candidates.
Whoever Cleveland selects to be their next GM, Stefanski will have a lot of input in the front office. The rookie head coach “will have a large say in roster decisions,” writes Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. Kay Cabot thinks they wouldn’t want his help hiring the new general manager if he wasn’t going to have a lot of power once they’re hired. Stefanski is still only 37 and last season was his first full one as a coordinator, but the Haslam family clearly has a lot of trust in him.
Stefanski still has some staffing decisions to make, even after it appears he settled on Joe Woods to be his new defensive coordinator. He won’t be hiring a new special teams coordinator, as sources told Kay Cabot that he’s going to keep Mike Priefer as a rare holdover from Freddie Kitchens’ staff. Priefer was Minnesota’s special teams coordinator for eight seasons while Stefanski was with the Vikings, so they have a lot of familiarity with one another. Priefer had previously been STC for the Chiefs and Broncos.