Randy Gregory went from signing a Buccaneers free agent pact to not reporting to the team. This preceded rumors about retirement, and the free agent pass rusher has not been connected to a team since his Bucs exit.
The Seahawks have since shown interest, with ESPN.com’s Field Yates noting Gregory met with team brass Wednesday. Gregory has a connection to the Seahawks, having played under Seattle DC Aden Durde when the latter was Dallas’ D-line coach. Durde and Gregory overlapped in 2021, a season that reignited the former second-round pick who has battled substance-abuse issues for much of his career.
That Dallas season led Gregory to Denver, but the Broncos’ 2022 pact did not pan out. The 49ers did not re-sign Gregory after trading for him before last year’s deadline, leading to a Bucs one-year agreement in April. Gregory, 31, then no-showed Tampa Bay’s minicamp and training camp. Todd Bowles said in July he had not spoken with Gregory since his signing. The Bucs moved on in mid-August.
Suspended four times (under a 2011 CBA harsher toward substance abuse), Gregory resurfaced in 2020 and started 11 games for the Cowboys in 2021. The Nebraska alum totaled six sacks and a career-high 17 QB hits that season, doing so despite missing five games due to injury. Gregory was on the verge of re-signing with the Cowboys, only to back out of an agreement at the 11th hour due to contract language. He ended up with the Broncos for the same terms (five years, $69.5MM, $28MM guaranteed at signing) but underwhelmed on that contract.
Early in Sean Payton‘s first season, the Broncos traded Gregory to the 49ers in a pick-swap agreement involving sixth- and seventh-rounders. To secure even that return, Denver needed to pay almost all of Gregory’s 2024 base salary. Gregory finished with 3.5 sacks and 10 QB hits between his time in Denver and San Francisco last season. He did not tally a sack or a QB hit in the 49ers’ three playoff games; a 49ers reworking removed the 2024 and ’25 seasons from Gregory’s Broncos-built contract.
The Seahawks showed interest in Gregory back in March, doing so before reports of a lawsuit — filed against the NFL and the Broncos — surfaced. The suit pertains to restricted usage of social anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, per Gregory’s camp, but it did not look like he would return to the NFL after his odd Bucs partnership fizzled before it began. The Seahawks will still kick the tires on a player who has shown talent in spurts but one who has proven wildly unreliable.
Well, I guess this proves that teams truly just don’t care at all about a player’s past history in the slightest.
Guy’s a bum. He hasn’t shown any effort in years.
As a Seahawk fan please do not sign this guy.
How’s that saying go?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me a dozen times….
He really seems like a perfect NY Jet.
Well it’s high time that someone give him a shot…
I think his chances have gone up in smoke.
This is a fun one. Gregory, no coincidence, it’s a team in a state that legalized his breakfast cereal.