HEADLINES

Month: September 2024

Giants Interview Lou Anarumo For HC Post

January 23rd, 2022 at 10:07am CST by Rory Parks

The Giants are interviewing Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo for their vacant head coaching position today, per Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports (via Twitter). This appears to be the first time Anarumo has ever generated HC interest.

Anarumo, 55, began his coaching career as the RB coach at Wagner College in 1989, and he joined the NFL ranks over 20 years later, becoming the Dolphins’ defensive backs coach in 2012. He was briefly promoted to defensive coordinator partway through the 2015 season and resumed his role as DB coach for the 2016-17 campaigns under Adam Gase.

He served in that same capacity for the Giants in 2018 before being hired as the Bengals’ DC in 2019. When he took the job, Cincinnati was coming off a season in which it finished dead-last in total defense. In his first two years working under head coach Zac Taylor, the Bengals still fielded bottom-10 defenses, and Anarumo’s unit wasn’t much better in 2021 in terms of yards allowed. However, the defense did perform well this year when it mattered most, including last night’s divisional round win over the Titans, which featured three interceptions of Tennessee QB Ryan Tannehill.

Anarumo, a New York native, has ties to the organization that go beyond his one year as DB coach. He and Big Blue’s new GM, Joe Schoen, spent a few years together with the Dolphins, and while Schoen’s connections to other head coach candidates — namely, Bills OC Brian Daboll and DC Leslie Frazier — are more recent and probably more meaningful, the new top exec clearly sees something in Anarumo worth exploring.

Here’s an updated list of the Giants’ HC candidates:

Saints HC Sean Payton Not Certain To Return In 2022

January 23rd, 2022 at 9:57am CST by Rory Parks

After the 2020 season, Saints fans bid adieu to one franchise icon in quarterback Drew Brees. Now that the 2021 season is over, will New Orleans also have to say goodbye to the man who came to town with Brees 16 years ago and helped reverse the franchise’s fortunes?

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, head coach Sean Payton has not yet told the Saints that he is definitely returning for the 2022 campaign. He has been on vacation for over a week, and it sounds as though he is using that time to ponder his NFL future. Rapoport adds that Payton has “gone dark” on several people close to him.

Payton’s desire to go off the grid for a moment seems to have been borne out of his need to recharge after what his confidants tell Rapoport was “an incredibly challenging and difficult season” for him. New Orleans dealt with more than its fair share of injuries in 2021, and Payton was forced to cycle through four different passers in the first year of the post-Brees era. The QB situation was particularly taxing, and it has forced Payton to reevaluate his immediate future.

If he elects not to return to the New Orleans sidelines, Payton would likely not coach another club in 2022, per Rapoport. Instead, as Albert Breer of SI.com suggests, the 58-year-old may choose to follow Brees’ path and become a talking head somewhere, as TV networks have reportedly been gearing up to make a run at him (Twitter link).

Or, he could take a break from football entirely and rejoin the head coaching ranks in 2023 (though in such a scenario, a return to the Saints probably would not be in the cards, and New Orleans would end up trading him to another club). It’s likely that any team in need of an HC at that time would have Payton at or near the top of its list of preferred candidates, and a television opportunity will probably always be there for him whenever he chooses to retire from coaching for good. Indeed, Rapoport says that Payton is not considering official retirement at this point, and that if he steps away, it would only be for a year.

This is far from the first time that these types of rumors have surrounded Payton, who has publicly scoffed at them in the past. But Katherine Terrell, the Saints’ beat reporter for ESPN, suggests that there is real substance to this report (Twitter link). While Terrell believes Payton will be back in New Orleans in 2022, she concedes it is a situation to keep an eye on.

Payton is under contract through 2024 and is one of the league’s highest-paid coaches. It would no doubt be difficult for him to leave the city where he has built a terrific legacy, but it’s worth mentioning that the Saints will once again have an unenviable salary cap situation and do not have an obvious means of adding a championship-caliber QB to the roster. Perhaps Payton will decide that cutting ties now, while his stock is still as high as it can be, is the most prudent course of action.

Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, who has landed a head coaching interview with the Bears, would perhaps be the Saints’ top choice to replace Payton. However, the club would have to conduct a complete search, not only for its own benefit, but to comply with Rooney Rule requirements. And with HC interviews around the league already well underway, New Orleans would have a lot of catching up to do.

Tom Brady Non-Committal To Playing 2022 Season

January 23rd, 2022 at 8:45am CST by Rory Parks

In advance of the Buccaneers’ wildcard round matchup with the Eagles last week, Tampa Bay QB coach Clyde Christensen said of quarterback Tom Brady, “I’m your typical fan, and I’ll be thinking, ‘is this the last time we’re going to see him?'” (via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times).

It was not, of course, the last time Brady would take the field, as the Bucs handily dispatched Philadelphia to advance to today’s divisional round contest against the Rams. However, Christensen’s comments were a precursor to increased speculation about Brady’s future. As Albert Breer of SI.com tweets, “the drumbeat’s gotten louder on the idea” that Brady could retire after the 2021 season.

As a result of the one-year extension Brady signed last March, he is under club control through 2022, and he affirmed several months after he put pen to paper that he would honor his commitment. Indeed, he has long said that he wants to play until he is 45, and 2022 would be his age-45 season.

However, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears that several of Brady’s teammates believe the current playoff run will mark Brady’s last ride. As one source close to the seven-time Super Bowl winner put it, “Nothing’s been said, but there is a sense among some guys in the locker room that this is it, one way or the other. It’s just little things here or there they are picking up on. Maybe it turns out to be nothing.”

La Canfora is not the only national beat to pass along that type of report. This morning, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com and Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington of ESPN.com also wrote that Brady’s status for the 2022 campaign is very much in doubt. That comes on the heels of longtime Patriots teammate Rob Ninkovich‘s appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up!”, in which Ninkovich indicated he would not be surprised if Brady elected to call it a career at season’s end (video link).

Schefter and Darlington say that Brady is non-committal to playing next year, and that he will take a month or more after the season is over to determine how he feels physically and mentally and to speak about the matter with his family. They also posit that, if the Bucs should repeat as Super Bowl champs, it will increase the likelihood that Brady steps away.

None of this should really be all that surprising. Brady is 44, after all, and his ability to maintain an elite level of performance after all these years is unprecedented. It stands to reason that, at this point in his career, he would want to take some time after the season is over to assess the situation. And as one source told Rapoport, Brady hasn’t thought about 2022 and beyond yet simply because he is singularly focused on the Rams game.

On the other hand, as RapSheet observes, the fact that Brady has not yet definitively stated he will return is a little unusual. Ordinarily, he would have already announced his plan to continue his playing career by this point in the calendar.

Even if Brady does come back, the Bucs will likely look a lot different. The organization managed to retain every starter on the Super Bowl LV squad in its pursuit of a repeat, but that will be impossible to do this year (though Schefter and Darlington report that the Bucs are willing to “bend over backwards” to entice Brady to come back). As Stroud writes, head coach Bruce Arians believes his QB will return for his age-45 season, and with Brady under center, Tampa Bay can remain competitive even if they do have to part ways with a number of other key contributors.

This year, Brady led the league in passing yards (5,316, a career-best) and threw 43 TDs against 12 interceptions. Those 43 touchdown passes were the second-highest total in his career, behind only his otherworldly 2007 campaign with New England.

NFC East Rumors: Cowboys, McClay, Minshew, Eagles

January 22nd, 2022 at 10:16pm CST by Ely Allen

Cowboys’ owner and general manager Jerry Jones participated in an interview with a local Dallas radio station on Friday in which he aired out some of his frustrations with the team’s 2021 season. He vocalized some frustrations about one of the team’s top cap hits, wide receiver Amari Cooper, not playing up to his contract. Charean Williams of NBC Sports wrote a bit about how Jones’s views could affect Cooper’s future with the team.

Jones voiced some problems he’s had with how and when the coaching staff decides to deal with issues plaguing the team, frustrated that these issues aren’t normally addressed until the season is over. While the ESPN article by Todd Archer held some harsh words from Jones, it doesn’t appear at this point that head coach Mike McCarthy‘s job is in jeopardy this offseason.

Here are a few more notes on the NFC East, starting with another item out of the Lone Star state:

  • Cowboys’ vice president of player personnel Will McClay reached an agreement with the team, signing a three-year contract extension to remain with the Cowboys earlier this month. Those who follow the franchise know McClay plays a large part in the Dallas front office. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport was the first to report it on Twitter, ending speculation that the longtime-Cowboy staffer may pursue one of the open general manager positions.
  • After the Eagles’ Week 18 loss in a meaningless game against the Cowboys, quarterback Gardner Minshew, who started the game as Philadelphia wanted to rest an ailing Hurts, gave an interview in which he detailed a meeting from earlier in the season that he had with head coach Nick Siranni. After leading the Eagles to a win over the Jets in Week 13, Minshew questioned Sirianni on what it would take to beat out Hurts for the starting job permanently. Mike Kaye, of NJ.com, reveals how Minshew gained some insight on his position with the team, as well as some perspective from being on the team to begin with.
  • Following the Eagles’ playoff loss in Tampa Bay, 11-year veteran and four-time first-team All-Pro Jason Kelce suggested that this past NFL season may be his last. As a guest on a Philadelphia sports-radio show Thursday, Sirianni gave a peek inside his own negotiations to keep Kelce active. “I sent him two kegs of beer yesterday,” Sirianni revealed. “As long as he wants to go, we want him to go. And I’ll be trying to convince him every single day that I can to come back and play.” In an NBC Sports article, Dan Roche detailed the rest of a very complimentary conversation with the Eagles’ head coach.

Jags’ GM Backs Eberflus for HC

January 22nd, 2022 at 8:39pm CST by Ely Allen

The Jaguars have had a bit of turbulence as they try to replace Urban Meyer, but a favorite has emerged as Colts’ defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus was the first candidate to be invited back for a second interview. An important aspect of Jacksonville’s search, Eberflus has received a strong backing from Jaguars’ general manager Trent Baalke, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports. 

Baalke has a reputation for being a difficult general manager for head coaches to work with. Back when Baalke was the 49ers’ general manager in 2014, many reports of clashes with Jim Harbaugh littered the season, which ended with San Francisco and Harbaugh parting ways. This has made the search for a new head coach difficult as La Canfora reports that top candidates for the job are “only seriously considering it if assured Baalke would be out following the draft.” Baalke has been accused by sources of trying to prize his job security while securing a head coach.

Baalke first endorsed University of Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, but, after O’Brien interviewed for the position, Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan‘s son, Tony Khan, and a high-ranking official with the team shared their issues with O’Brien’s history of toxicity.

With O’Brien out of the running, Baalke set his sights on Eberflus. The four-year defensive coordinator in Indianapolis has overseen a top-10 scoring defense in three of his four seasons calling the defense. Eberflus’s defense was exposed by the very team he’s interviewing for when the Colts’ allowed 26 points in a must-win Week 18 loss to the Jaguars that eliminated Indianapolis from postseason contention.

Jacksonville’s willingness to seriously consider the candidate Baalke prefers points to them potentially wanting to keep Baalke as general manager. If this is the route they follow, it will likely tie Baalke’s future to Eberflus’s. There are still several candidates alive in this search, though. Keep track of the situation by following our 2022 NFL Head Coaching Search Tracker.

David Bakhtiari Not Playing Vs. Niners

January 22nd, 2022 at 6:37pm CST by Ely Allen

Nine-year veteran tackle David Bakhtiari missed nearly the entire 2021 NFL season after tearing his ACL on New Year’s Eve during the 2020 season. Unfortunately, he will have to continue waiting to play in his first playoff game since January of 2019, as the team announced, via Twitter, that he will be inactive for tonight’s game against the 49ers. 

Bakhtiari had made a return for the Packers’ regular season finale, making the start in Detroit, but only playing 40% of the team’s offensive snaps. Head Coach Matt LaFleur shook off the early exit in a postgame press conference stating, “I wouldn’t say it’s anything we’re concerned about,” but it appears some continual discomfort throughout the week will keep the two-time All Pro from making a postseason return, just yet.

In the absence of Bakhtiari this year, the Packers have employed Elgton Jenkins at the blindside tackle position. Despite the reshuffled offensive line and several other injuries to key players, Green Bay still secured a first-round bye and homefield advantage. They will work tonight to extend their season another week and give Bakhtiari at least one more chance for a postseason return.

Other inactives for the Packers listed for the game tonight were safeties Shawn Davis & Vernon Scott, linebacker Jonathan Garvin, and wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling. The 49ers will be without cornerbacks Ambry Thomas & Deommodore Lenoir, safety Jarrod Wilson, running back Trey Sermon, linebacker Marcell Harris, offensive lineman Jaylon Moore, and defensive lineman Maurice Hurst. Packers’ cornerback Jaire Alexander is expected to play tonight after being listed as questionable.

Matt Rhule Eyeing Michigan Job

January 22nd, 2022 at 6:00pm CST by Ely Allen

With next season looking more and more like a make-or-break year for Matt Rhule, the Panthers’ head coach may be making anticipatory moves to stay employed. Jason La Canfora, of CBS Sports, reported that Rhule, and potentially other head coaches in the NFL, may set their sights on the University of Michigan opening, should current head coach Jim Harbaugh be drawn to Las Vegas. 

Harbaugh is currently negotiating with Michigan after he led the Wolverines to their first College Football Playoff appearance and their first outright Big Ten Championship since 2003. He had signed an extension at the start of the season to secure him in Ann Arbor through 2025, but, with mounting interest from the Raiders, the negotiations are giving Michigan a chance to convince him to stay. The Raiders are searching for a new general manager as well as head coach, following the departures of Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden. Harbaugh isn’t the only target in Vegas, though. He’ll have to compete with interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who, despite a season of turmoil, led the Raiders to a Wild Card spot in the playoffs. Jerod Mayo and DeMeco Ryans have also been mentioned as candidates.

Rhule’s interest in heading back down to the college ranks of coaching have not quite been a secret. Sources have informed La Canfora that Rhule was watching the situations at Penn State and LSU closely, in case a beneficial opportunity presented itself.

Rhule got his first head coaching opportunity at Temple in Philadelphia, where he had spent years as an assistant under Al Golden. He took his first Power 5 opportunity as the head coach at Baylor, following the scandal that led to Art Briles‘s dismissal. He took the Bears from 1-11 in his first season to 11-3 in his third season and rode that success straight to the NFL.

There are still many situations that need to play out. Harbaugh would have to leave Michigan. Rhule would have to decide to put his name in the ring for the vacancy at Michigan. Michigan would have to determine that Rhule is the best candidate for the position. None of this is guaranteed, but, if it all plays out, look for Carolina to be added to our 2022 NFL Head Coaching Search Tracker.

Steelers DC Keith Butler To Retire

January 22nd, 2022 at 4:17pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Steelers are not planning to replace their offensive coordinator, but they will have a new defensive leader next season. Longtime DC Keith Butler informed the team he is retiring, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.

Butler has been in place as Pittsburgh’s DC since Dick LeBeau‘s 2015 exit. The Steelers delivered up-and-down work during Butler’s tenure, but they had trended upward during the second half of his stay. Butler, 65, has been with the Steelers since 2003, working as the team’s linebackers coach for over a decade prior to his promotion. The Steelers had given Butler a one-year extension in 2021.

A former Seahawks starting linebacker in the 1970s and ’80s, Butler has been an NFL assistant since 1999, when he broke into the league as linebackers coach for the expansion Browns team. In Butler’s 19 seasons in Pittsburgh, he oversaw the work of numerous standout linebackers — from James Harrison to LaMarr Woodley to Ryan Shazier to T.J. Watt — and was part of three Super Bowl staffs as a position coach.

While the Steelers’ defense came up short in some home playoff spots during Butler’s tenure, the unit also did plenty to help the team into postseason fields in recent years. The Steelers remain on a stellar streak in the sack department, having led the NFL in this category five seasons running. This year, Pittsburgh’s 55 sacks — an NFL-record-tying 22.5 from Watt — were four more than any other team’s total. That helped an offensively limited team back to the playoffs. This season’s Steelers defense was less impressive as a whole, ranking just 24th in yards allowed. But Butler’s troops had ranked in the top six in this category from 2017-20.

With the Steelers expected to make their first quarterback transition during Mike Tomlin‘s tenure, the 15-year veteran HC will be tasked with making a key hire that will spearhead a veteran defense. Tomlin made a change on the offensive side last year, replacing Randy Fichtner with Matt Canada.

Minor NFL Transactions: 1/22/22

January 22nd, 2022 at 4:01pm CST by Sam Robinson

Here are Saturday’s minor moves:

Buffalo Bills

Los Angeles Rams

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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