We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves right here:
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
Seattle Seahawks
The Jaguars have finally traded Yannick Ngakoue, shipping him to the Vikings in exchange for a 2021 second-round pick and a conditional fifth-rounder in 2022. But before that happened, Jacksonville and the Browns were engaged in serious trade talks, as Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports.
The Browns were mentioned as a potential suitor for Ngakoue this offseason, but until now, there were no concrete reports concerning Cleveland’s interest. Per Cabot, the fact that Ngakoue was dealing with a change in representation during the trade negotiations threw a wrench in the works, and by the time his agency situation was settled, the July 15 deadline for extending franchise-tagged players had passed. While the Browns may have been willing to part with the same draft capital that the Vikings did to land Ngakoue, his status as a potential one-year rental made them less inclined to do so.
However, Ngakoue “really wanted” to play for the Browns, according to Cabot’s sources. The 2016 third-rounder accepted a significant pay cut from his $17.8MM franchise tag number to facilitate his trade to Minnesota, and Cabot says he may have been willing to drop his 2020 salary even more for Cleveland.
But the Browns ultimately elected to move forward with Olivier Vernon, reworking his deal to turn his $15.25MM non-guaranteed pact into $11MM guaranteed with the potential to earn an additional $2MM via incentives. When that happened, it made an Ngakoue trade (or a Jadeveon Clowney signing) much less likely.
Cabot says that Vernon is in the midst of a terrific training camp, and the Browns fully believe that he and Myles Garrett will form an imposing pass rush duo in 2020. Ngakoue obviously has considerably more long-term upside than Vernon, so time will tell if Cleveland — which still has a lot of salary cap space — made the right call.
Free agent DB Logan Ryan has hired one of the NFL’s top agents, Joel Segal, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports (Twitter link). Rapoport says Ryan is “poised to do a deal.”
It’s unclear if that means Ryan, 29, is set to sign a contract or just that Segal has some ideas to get his new client signed as the regular season draws closer. Ryan, who is now marketing himself as a safety, has seen his name crop up in some informal speculation recently.
The Ravens just parted ways with Earl Thomas, thereby opening up a theoretical spot for Ryan, and the Browns lost rookie safety Grant Delpit for the season due to an Achilles tear. Meanwhile, Browns’ starting corner Greedy Williams is dealing with a shoulder injury, so Cleveland could definitely use some reinforcements in the secondary.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com says the Browns have likely inquired about Ryan, but the most recent reports regarding his salary demands indicated that he was looking for a $10MM/year contract. That number has almost certainly come down, so we will see if he can come to terms with a new club in the coming days.
Ryan led all corners — by a significant margin — in tackles last season, racking up 113 combined. No other corner topped 82. The then-Titans slot defender also paced corners with 73 solo tackles. Ryan’s tackling prowess extended to his New England days as well, with the former Patriots starter registering 74 solo stops in 2016.
Ryan only played 22 snaps at safety — compared to 855 in the slot and 243 at outside corner — last season. Still, his intelligence and experience should make the switch to safety a relatively straightforward one, and though his coverage abilities at corner are not as strong as they used to be, he can still serve as effective CB depth if necessary.
Earlier this week, there was yet another tense moment between Jets head coach Adam Gase and running back Le’Veon Bell. As Rich Cimini of ESPN.com details, Gase pulled Bell after two series during Wednesday’s scrimmage because of hamstring tightness. That prompted Bell to take to Twitter to say that there was nothing wrong with his hamstrings and that “it’s tough to stay loose when you do a bunch of standing around.”
Gase said that he spoke with Bell for a long time after the Twitter posts and that the two sides are on the same page. But as Cimini writes in a separate piece, the latest episode might not be the last one. Bell has reportedly had an unimpressive camp, and Gase has previously indicated he wants to reduce Bell’s workload in 2020. So Bell, who needs a productive season in order to avoid being cut — or to land a lucrative contract with another club — is unlikely to appreciate his fellow backs siphoning off his carries. It remains a situation ripe for future turmoil.
Now for more from Gang Green:
Yannick Ngakoue finally got his wish. As Adam Schefter of ESPN.com was the first to report, the Jaguars have traded their disgruntled defensive end to the Vikings in exchange for a 2021 second-round pick and a conditional 2022 fifth-round selection that could become a fourth- or third-round choice.
Ngakoue has wanted out of Jacksonville for some time. Last July, he became upset when then-executive vice president of football operations Tom Coughlin abruptly ended extension negotiations with the 2016 third-rounder, and while he did suit up for the club in the 2019 season, he made it clear this offseason that the relationship between him and the team was beyond repair.
The Jaguars put the franchise tag on him, valued at $17.8MM, but he did not sign the tag, and all indications were that, if he wasn’t traded, he was going to stay away from the team until Week 10 of the 2020 season. That would have been the deadline for him to be able to count 2020 as an accredited year towards free agency.
Given his very public unhappiness with Jacksonville, the fact that the deadline for tagged players to sign an extension passed on July 15, and his high franchise tag number, the Jags didn’t have a ton of leverage. But GM Dave Caldwell managed to finagle two draft picks out of the Vikings, and Schefter says the 2022 fifth-rounder will become a fourth-rounder if Ngakoue makes the Pro Bowl in 2020 and will become a third-rounder if he makes the Pro Bowl and the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
From the Vikings’ perspective, that’s a relatively small price to pay for the chance to bookend Ngakoue with another talented young pass rusher, Danielle Hunter. The team lost longtime stalwart Everson Griffen to the Cowboys earlier this month, and as Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com notes, Minnesota began working on an Ngakoue deal as soon as it became clear Griffen wasn’t coming back (Twitter link).
In order to make the trade work, the Vikings did have to create some cap room. Further proving just how desperate he was to get out of Jacksonville, Ngakoue reduced his 2020 pay from $17.8MM to just below $13MM to facilitate the deal (Twitter link via Albert Breer of SI.com). Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com reports that Minnesota could also rework an existing contract and names LT Riley Reiff as a potential restructure candidate. Cronin says the team will not cut a player just for salary cap purposes (Twitter links).
However, Cronin points out that the Ngakoue acquisition could mean that the team is not going to reach an extension with running back Dalvin Cook (Twitter link). The two sides recently agreed to table contract negotiations, and without a major cost-cutting move or two, Cook may be destined for free agency in 2021.
But that’s another story for another day. For now, the Vikings have solidified their status as one of the top teams in the NFC, and the Hunter-Ngakoue combination will be a formidable one for opposing offenses, especially when considering the similar excellence the team enjoys in its LB and DB corps.
Ngakoue is not particularly strong against the run, but he has averaged over nine sacks per season over his first four years in the league, and he has also shown some serious play-making ability. He has forced 14 fumbles to date, and as Schefter writes, the Maryland product is directly responsible for five of the 12 defensive touchdowns the Jaguars have scored since 2016. Cronin observes in a full-length piece that Ngakoue had a pass-rush win rate of 21% as an edge rusher last season, which ranked higher than Griffen (17%) and Hunter (15%).
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com notes that the Vikings plan to sign Ngakoue to a long-term deal after the 2020 season (video link). While Minnesota will have a number of other contract issues to address, pairing Ngakoue and Hunter together for the foreseeable future will be an indubitably tempting proposition.
Saturday afternoon has brought some kicker developments. While the Titans worked out Stephen Gostkowski, the Buccaneers brought in Tennessee’s longtime kicker.
Ryan Succop visited the Bucs on Saturday, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. The Titans released Succop earlier this year, concluding a six-season Tennessee stay for the veteran.
Saturday’s session also featured Cody Parkey, per The Athletic’s Greg Auman (on Twitter). The former Bears kicker is at the Bucs’ facility for COVID-19 testing, with Auman noting he is expected to work out for the team in a few days. The Bucs appear to be planning to add to their current kicker competition or replace one of the current participants.
Tampa Bay has not enjoyed such kicker continuity in many years. The Bucs are currently holding a competition between Matt Gay and Elliott Fry. An 11-year veteran, Succop certainly has accomplished more than the two Tampa Bay kickers. Succop, 33, kicked in only six games last season, however, with injuries impeding him at multiple junctures.
Succop made just 1 of 6 field goals in his final Titans season, which began and ended on IR. The Titans stashed Succop on their IR list to start the season because of a knee injury and placed him on season-ending IR late in the season. Prior to that rocky slate, however, Succop played in every game for the Titans from 2014-18. He made at least 83% of his field goals in each of those seasons.
Parkey’s last significant role came with the Bears in 2018, but after his “double doink” miss, the Titans brought in the veteran during their search for a stopgap while Succop resided on IR. Parkey played three Titans games last season, going 3-for-3 on field goals. Parkey, 28, was a full-time kicker in four of the previous five seasons.
The Bucs have not featured the same primary kicker in a season since the 2011-12 campaigns, when Connor Barth held that job. Headlined by its second-round Roberto Aguayo miss, the franchise has spent the better part of a decade trying to find some stability at this spot. Gay, a 2019 rookie, went 27-for-35 on field goals last year and missed five extra points. The Bucs signed Fry, who has never kicked in a regular-season game, this offsesaon.
While Succop brings considerable experience, Gostkowski is certainly the more accomplished option. It will be interesting to see if the Bucs consider Tom Brady‘s longtime teammate as well, should the Titans and the veteran kicker not agree to terms.
Here are Saturday’s minor moves:
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
San Francisco 49ers
Stephen Gostkowski booked his first workout since his Patriots release. The 14-year veteran auditioned for the Titans on Saturday, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets.
The decorated kicker has a home in Tennessee, per Yates. Last month, Titans GM Jon Robinson said the team was looking into the Pro Bowl specialist.
A hip injury ended Gostkowski’s 2019 season and brought his lengthy New England run to a close. Gostkowski tore the labrum in his left hip last season but said in April he was improving. Should he prove healthy, the 36-year-old would obviously be an attractive option for kicker-needy teams.
Tennessee went through a brutal year on the kicker front in 2019. Although the Titans voyaged to the AFC championship game, they did so without much help from their field goal specialists. The Titans used four kickers last season. The group combined for an abysmal 8-for-18 make rate. The last of these kickers, Greg Joseph, did not attempt a field goal in the regular season and went 1-for-1 in the playoffs. Joseph and rookie UDFA Tucker McCann are the kickers on the Titans’ roster.
The Patriots’ all-time leading scorer, Gostkowski made four Pro Bowls and two All-Pro teams between 2006-15. He made at least 82% of his field goal tries in 12 of 14 seasons.
One of the league’s premier position battles will not be settled, at least publicly, until the Bears suit up for their regular-season opener.
Matt Nagy said Saturday he will not declare whether Mitchell Trubisky or Nick Foles has won the job prior to the Bears’ Week 1 game. The Bears will travel to Detroit for their 2020 opener.
Ordinarily, a team featuring a quarterback competition would name a starter by the time its third preseason game comes. With the COVID-19 pandemic prompting the NFL to scrap the preseason slate, the Bears will attempt to keep their decision in-house. Though, the clubhouse leader here will stand to see more reps than the likely QB2 in the coming days.
The Bears acquired Foles from the Jaguars to push Trubisky, who has not worked out to the team’s liking. The Bears passed on Trubisky’s fifth-year option in May.
Foles, 31, is also coming off a down year, suffering a broken collarbone in Week 1 and being replaced by sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew shortly after he recovered from the injury. Foles, however, has a significant experience edge on Trubisky, who dropped from third in QBR in 2018 to 28th last season. While Foles has not shown much outside of Philadelphia, his two late-season runs with the Eagles — involving a Super Bowl LII MVP award and a wild-card win over the Bears a year later — certainly dwarf Trubisky’s accomplishments.
Trey Burton‘s attempt at a rebound season may be on hold for a bit. The recent Colts addition suffered a calf strain Saturday, Frank Reich confirmed.
The former Eagles and Bears tight end will miss time, with Reich categorizing him as week-to-week. Burton did not put any weight on his injured leg upon being helped off the field, Stephen Holder of The Athletic tweets.
This marks a familiar bad break for the seventh-year veteran. Burton’s Bears tenure ended early because of injuries, with a calf malady ending his 2019 season. Burton also underwent surgery for a sports hernia issue last year.
After a 569-yard, six-touchdown debut in Chicago in 2018, Burton amassed just 84 yards in eight games in his second Bears season. The Bears released him in April. He signed with the Colts on a one-year deal for the veteran minimum soon after.
Burton, who played for Reich in Philadelphia, profiles as the Colts’ No. 2 tight end. The team did not bring back Eric Ebron but has longtime staple Jack Doyle in place as a starter. The Colts also have Mo Alie-Cox on their active/PUP list, so Burton’s setback may require a stopgap tight end signing at the very least.