Here are today’s reserve/futures contract signings from around the NFL:
Standout CFL receiver Eric Rogers is signing with the 49ers, but it was a visit to the Eagles that helped convince him to choose San Francisco. As he explains to Scott Mitchell of the Calgary Sun, Rogers was impressed at a December workout with the Eagles that head coach Chip Kelly took the time to attend and to meet with him despite Philadelphia having a game to play a couple days later. Kelly’s enthusiasm for the Calgary Stampeders star didn’t dim at all when he became the Niners’ new head coach.
“When he got hired by the Niners, he called me two or three hours after it got announced that they were going to hire him,” Rogers said. “He basically told me, ‘I guess I had to come to Cali to sign you since you’re a Cali boy.’ So he still had that kind of recruitment in him like he was at Oregon. He was like, ‘You’re the first player I called and I want you to be the first player I sign at my new job.'”
As we look forward to seeing if Rogers can earn a roster spot and make an impact for the 49ers this season, let’s check in on a few more items from out of the NFC….
The Bills have made a groundbreaking hire, reports Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, as they’ve named Kathryn Smith a special teams quality control coach. Smith is the NFL’s first-ever full-time female assistant coach. She previously served in lesser roles under Rex Ryan with both the Jets and Bills.
Regarding Smith’s hiring, Ryan said, “She has proven that she’s ready for the next step, so I’m excited and proud for her” (Twitter link via The Buffalo News’ Tyler Dunne).
Other coaching news from around the NFL . . .
The 49ers are looking for a new offensive coordinator after firing Geep Chryst earlier tonight name to keep an eye on is Lions run game coordinator Curtis Modkins, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link). Modkins does have OC experience — he worked under Chan Gailey with the Bills from 2010-12 — but he didn’t call plays during that time. With Chip Kelly leading the staff in San Francisco, Modkins wouldn’t call the 49ers’ plays, either.
Here’s more from the NFL’s two West divisions:
While there are no head coaching jobs in the NFL that still need to be filled, many clubs are still tweaking their coaching staffs, making changes among position coaches or hiring new coordinators. Here’s a round-up of the latest news and rumors on those changes from across the league:
Darius Slay wants to sign a contract extension this winter, and he’s putting himself in the best position possible to make that happen. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter), that includes changing agents, with Slay making the move from Relativity Sports to Drew Rosenhaus’ agency, Rosenhaus Sports.
Slay, who turned 25 on New Year’s Day, was a 2013 draft pick, making him extension-eligible when the Lions’ regular season ended. Because he was a second-round pick, coming off the board 36th overall, Slay doesn’t have a fifth-year option on his rookie contract, meaning he’ll be heading into a contract year in 2016 if he and the Lions can’t work something out.
We heard back in November that Slay wanted to sign a contract extension, and while we haven’t heard the same sort of reports about the Lions’ interest in a new deal, one has to assume that the team is eager to get something done. In his third season in the NFL and second as a full starter, Slay recorded 58 tackles and a pair of interceptions, and continued to develop into one of the league’s best cornerbacks.
Pro Football Focus’ grades for corners this year rank only one player above Slay, and that player – Tyrann Mathieu – spent plenty of time at safety as well, and finished the year on injured reserve. Slay’s performance against both the pass and the run placed him slightly ahead of every other corner in the league, per PFF, including top-10 players Richard Sherman, Patrick Peterson, and Chris Harris.
Slay’s contract will be one of many issues to address this offseason for new general manager Bob Quinn. As Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press writes, Quinn has an opportunity to make a major impact in his first year with the franchise, since the Lions have holes on both sides of the ball, and have the cap room necessary to be real players in free agency, if they so choose.
Slay is currently projected to earn a base salary of about $976K in 2016, with a cap hit of approximately $1.683MM.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Few NFL coaching assistants enjoyed a better second half of the 2015 season than Jim Bob Cooter, and the Lions offensive coordinator is being rewarded for his work. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link), Detroit is retaining Cooter as the club’s permanent OC for 2016.
[RELATED: Lions retain Jim Caldwell as head coach]
Cooter took over as the Lions’ offensive coordinator when the team parted ways with Joe Lombardi in October. At the time of the move, the Lions had stumbled to a 1-6 record, and rumors about Matthew Stafford‘s uncertain future in Detroit were swirling. The quarterback had thrown 12 touchdowns to nine interceptions to go along with an 86.8 rating through seven games.
From that point on, Stafford and the Lions’ offense took off. The team won six of its final nine games, with Stafford completing 69% of his passes and putting up a 105.1 rating, along with 20 touchdowns to just four interceptions.
With Jim Caldwell having been retained as the Lions’ head coach for the 2016 season by new general manager Bob Quinn, the team hadn’t been expected to make a change at offensive coordinator, so Rapoport’s report doesn’t come as a real surprise.
Before becoming the Lions’ offensive coordinator in the fall, Cooter served as the team’s quarterbacks coach. The 31-year-old has also worked for the Colts, Chiefs, and Broncos in various assistant roles.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan filled his season-ending press conference with “generalities and overall nothingness,” writes Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. Still, the executive did elaborate on several topics, including free agent quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick.
“We’d like very much to get him back… We’ll see how this thing works out.”
“Bryce [Petty] has made a lot of progress. We’re kind of excited to have another offseason with him… With Geno [Smith], he’s under contract. We like the progress he’s made.”
Maccagnan also noted that “it’s not impossible” to keep all of their top defensive linemen, including Muhammad Wilkerson, Sheldon Richardson, Damon Harrison and Leonard Williams.
Let’s check out some more notes from the league’s front offices…
The Lions won’t become the seventh team this offseason to make a head coaching change, according to Tim Twentyman of DetroitLions.com. Twentyman tweets that new general manager Bob Quinn and the Lions have decided to retain Jim Caldwell as the club’s head coach.
[RELATED: Lions hire Bob Quinn as general manager]
“After spending a significant amount of time together, it is clear that our football philosophies are very similar,” Quinn said of Caldwell, per Twentyman (Twitter link).
Quinn’s reference to spending “a significant amount of time” with Caldwell since joining the Lions is corroborated by a Thursday report which suggested that the two men had already met “on at least four different occasions.” There was some speculation when Quinn, a longtime Patriots executive, got the GM job in Detroit that he’d turn to one a New England assistant like Josh McDaniels, but it appears the Lions are opting for continuity instead.
Caldwell, a former head coach in Indianapolis, has a 44-36 record in five total seasons as a head coach, including an 18-14 mark during his two seasons in Detroit. After leading the Lions to an 11-5 record and a postseason berth in 2014, Caldwell struggled this season with a roster that no longer featured defensive difference-maker Ndamukong Suh.
Still, the Lions’ performance down the stretch, along with his players’ endorsement, likely earned Caldwell another shot. After a 1-7 start to the 2015 season resulted in the firing of GM Martin Mayhew and offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, Detroit finished strong, winning six of its last eight games.
While the Lions had to cope with losing Suh in 2015, there’s a chance that the club will be without one of its other longtime stars in 2016. Calvin Johnson has indicated he may elect to retire rather than continuing his NFL career, and even if he opts to keep playing, the team may have to do something to address his contract, which will feature a $24MM+ cap hit next year. Johnson’s future is just one of many storylines to watch this offseason in Detroit as we see what kind of roster Caldwell will be presiding over in 2016.
One key figure who appears to be remaining in Detroit along with Caldwell is offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter, who took over for Lombardi during the 2015 season, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. That’s good news for Matthew Stafford, whose performance under Cooter was much improved and quieted speculation that the Lions could move on from their quarterback this winter.
With Caldwell hanging on to his job with the Lions, the Titans appear to be the only NFL club that still needs to make a decision on a new head coach this offseason, barring a surprise change from one of the eight remaining playoff teams. So far this month, the Browns, Dolphins, Giants, Eagles, 49ers, and Buccaneers have hired new head coaches, as our tracker shows. Tennessee could become the seventh team to make a change, though Mike Mularkey is considered a strong candidate to keep that job.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The 49ers announced today that Chip Kelly will be the team’s new head coach, which created a whole new set of questions about whether Colin Kaepernick might have a future in San Francisco after all. After being benched in 2015, Kaepernick, who is owed a base salary of nearly $12MM in 2016, looked like a candidate to be traded or released this offseason.
According to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee (Twitter link), however, Kelly told the Niners in his interviews that he likes both Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert, so the team and its new coach are keeping their options open. Kelly plans to sit down with Kaepernick at some point to determine which direction to go, according to Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com, who tweets that Kelly will make the call on the club’s quarterback.
While we look forward to seeing if Kaepernick can be rejuvenated under Kelly, let’s check out a few more odds and ends from around the NFL….