HEADLINES

Brandon Copeland

LB Brandon Copeland To Visit Falcons, Giants

March 18th, 2021 at 2:46pm CST by Sam Robinson

Despite suffering a torn pectoral muscle last season, Brandon Copeland has generated some interest as a free agent. The veteran linebacker plans to meet with the Falcons and Giants, per Sirius XM Radio’s Adam Caplan and ESPN.com’s Michael Rothstein (Twitter links).

The Giants visit occurred Thursday, per Caplan, who adds the Falcons meeting will also occur this week (Twitter link). Copeland suffered the chest injury in late October, ending his Patriots season after six games.

A former Lions and Jets contributor, Copeland signed with the Patriots last year. The Pats, who both lost multiple key linebackers in free agency and saw Dont’a Hightower opt out of last season, used Copeland as a starter in four games. Pro Football Focus viewed the five-year vet’s abbreviated work well, slotting him near the top of its 2020 linebacker hierarchy.

The Lions used Copeland as a backup from 2016-17, but he broke into the 2018 Jets’ starting lineup. Copeland worked as a pass rusher that season, recording five sacks and 14 quarterback hits. That marked the veteran linebacker’s only season with more than two sacks. The 2021 season will be Copeland’s age-30 slate.

Minor NFL Transactions: 10/28/20

October 28th, 2020 at 5:40pm CST by Sam Robinson

Here are Wednesday’s minor moves:

Houston Texans

  • Activated from IR: WR Isaiah Coulter

Los Angeles Rams

Minnesota Vikings

New England Patriots

New Orleans Saints

New York Jets

Patriots LB Brandon Copeland Done For The Year

October 26th, 2020 at 12:26pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The Patriots got steamrolled on Sunday when they lost 33-6 to the 49ers, and now they’ll be without a key depth piece moving forward. Linebacker Brandon Copeland has told teammates he has a torn pec and is done for the season, a source told Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com (Twitter link).

Copeland, signed to a cheap one-year deal back in March, is a core special teamer but has also been playing a real role on defense this year. He’s played a decent chunk of the defensive snaps in a few games, and is credited with four starts. His 2020 season will conclude with 12 tackles, one for a loss.

The Penn product signed with the Ravens as an UDFA back in 2013, but he didn’t make his regular season debut until 2015 with the Lions. After two years in Detroit as a special teamer he tore a pec in the 2017 preseason, and signed with the Jets the following year where he earned a big role on defense. In 16 games and 10 starts with New York in 2018, he racked up five sacks, two passes defended, and eight tackles for loss.

Patriots To Sign Brandon Copeland

March 22nd, 2020 at 3:58pm CST by Marc Delucchi

Linebacker Brandon Copeland has come to an agreement with the Patriots on a one-year deal, per Jim McBride of the Boston Globe. Copeland can receive up to $1.1MM in the deal, according to NFL Insider Adam Caplan.

Over his four-year career, Copeland has split his time with the Lions and Jets. While he has only started 14 games over his four-year career (10 of which came in 2018), he has appeared in 60 games accruing 107 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, and 7 sacks.

In 2019, with the Jets, Copeland received a 58.6 player grade from Pro Football Focus, which was the 49th highest grade of 89 qualified linebackers.

Jets Waive QB Luke Falk

October 12th, 2019 at 12:08pm CST by Ben Levine

Luke Falk‘s tenure with the Jets has come to an end. The team waived the quarterback this morning. Taking his spot on the roster is linebacker Brandon Copeland, who had been suspended for the first four games of the season.

With both Sam Darnold and Trevor Siemian out of the lineup, the Jets were forced to turn to the 24-year-old Falk, who had previously been sitting on the organization’s practice squad. He ended up getting into three games for New York, completing 64.4-percent of his passes for 416 yards, three interceptions, and zero scores. The Jets were outscored 20-61 in his two starts.

With Darnold set to return tomorrow vs. the Cowboys, Falk’s days as a starter were clearly over. However, the Jets won’t even keep him around as a backup, instead turning to David Fales. Falk, a 2018 sixth-round pick out of Washington State, will now be looking to join his fourth team in less than two seasons. There’s always a chance he could land back on the Jets practice squad.

Copeland joined the Jets last season and ended up having a career year, compiling 35 tackles and five sacks in 16 games (10 starts). In August, he was slapped with a four-game ban for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.

East Rumors: Cowboys, Patriots, Copeland

August 22nd, 2019 at 7:03pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Jaylon Smith extension tethers the emerging linebacker to the Cowboys through the 2025 season, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes the deal will give 24-year-old standout $19MM fully guaranteed at signing. Both this figure and Smith’s AAV ($12.5MM) place him sixth among off-ball linebackers, giving this pact a win-win feel for the Cowboys and a player who recovered from a serious injury to move into lucrative extension position.

Smith will be 30 by the time this contract expires but will only be 27 by the time the guarantees stop in 2022. The deal contains a $5.17MM base salary for 2020, which is fully guaranteed, and a $7.2MM base for 2021. This contract includes injury guarantees for both Smith’s 2021 and 2022 base salaries — $7.2MM and $9.2MM, respectively — and those become full guarantees on the fifth day of each year. Additionally, the deal contains a $500K de-escalator, Florio adds. This will take effect if Smith fails to show for 90% of Dallas’ offseason workouts.

The Cowboys still have the same four key UFAs-to-be as they did to start the week — Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper, Byron Jones and La’el Collins — and Ezekiel Elliott remains a holdout. But the team checked off a key piece of its complicated contract checklist in locking down Smith, who would have been a 2020 RFA.

Here is the latest from the East divisions:

  • More good news for the Patriots‘ wide receiver situation. Demaryius Thomas came off the active/PUP list, Mike Reiss of ESPN.com tweets. This marks a key step for the former Pro Bowler. Thomas is not a lock to make New England’s 53-man roster and can no longer be stashed on the team’s reserve/PUP list to start the season. With Thomas unlikely to play in New England’s fourth preseason game, he has a short time to prove he belongs on the final roster. But the Pats taking him off their PUP list leads NESN.com’s Doug Kyed to project the 31-year-old target will be one of the 53-man unit’s receivers.
  • Josh Gordon‘s return obviously strengthens the Pats’ receiving corps, but it will make their roster crunch more difficult. Gordon, Thomas, Julian Edelman, N’Keal Harry, rookie Jakobi Meyers, Phillip Dorsett and Maurice Harris will not all be on the Pats’ 53-man roster, and Ben Volin of the Boston Globe looks to have Harris on the wrong side of the bubble (Twitter link). The former Redskins auxiliary cog signed with the Pats in free agency and impressed early in camp, but he’s dealing with a leg injury presently. The recent developments involving higher-profile players may push him back to free agency.
  • Brandon Copeland issued a denial in knowingly taking a banned substance, via Instagram. While this could be expected, given how post-PED fallouts usually unfold, the Jets linebacker is out four games. This further thins out the Jets’ edge defender crew, which was already a weak spot for the AFC’s Big Apple franchise. Copeland registered five sacks last season.

NFL Suspends Jets LB Brandon Copeland

August 21st, 2019 at 3:38pm CST by Zachary Links

Another linebacker down for the Jets. On Wednesday, Brandon Copeland was suspended four games by the NFL for performance-enchanting substances. 

Copeland’s suspension comes on the heels of Avery Williamson‘s season-ending ACL tear, leaving the Jets even thinner in the LB group. The club already signed former Saints and Dolphins ‘backer Stephone Anthony to help fill the gap, but they could go shopping once again for depth.

Copeland is eligible to participate in the Jets’ two remaining preseason contests as well as their remaining preseason practices, but he’ll be barred from playing until Oct. 7, thanks to the Jets’ Week 4 bye.

In 2018, his first year with the Jets, Copeland managed 35 tackles and five sacks. He played the full 16-game slate, including ten starts.

NFC South Notes: Bucs, Falcons, Saints

March 27th, 2019 at 7:59pm CST by Dallas Robinson

While previous reports have indicated the Buccaneers plan to retain Gerald McCoy, the veteran defensive tackle may actually not be safe, especially given head coach Bruce Arians‘ most recent comments to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “He’s not as disruptive as he was four years ago,” Arians said. “But he’s still pretty disruptive. He’s still a good player….I got to evaluate him. I mean, guys at a certain age, it’s different. Usually, the age they get paid the most and production (doesn’t) match. We’ve got to find that out.” McCoy, 31, ranked fourth among defensive tackles with 21 quarterback hits in 2018 and finished as the NFL’s No. 28 interior defender, per Pro Football Focus. He’s signed through 2021, but Tampa Bay won’t incur any dead money by releasing McCoy (and would save $13MM against the cap).

Here’s more from the NFC South:

  • The Buccaneers had interest in edge rusher Brandon Copeland before he re-signed with the Jets, Jenna Laine of ESPN.com tweets. Tampa Bay ranked 28th in the NFL with 31 sacks a season ago, so the club can certainly use some extra help in getting pressure. However, the Bucs have already signed Shaquil Barrett to a one-year deal, so Copeland could have been viewed as redundant. Copeland. who also drew interest from New England, Washington, and Detroit, only landed one year and $1.25MM from New York, so Tampa Bay could have probably outbid Gang Green if it had serious interest.
  • Franchise-tagged defensive tackle Grady Jarrett will be a “Falcon for life,” team owner Arthur Blank told D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Atlanta will control Jarrett through at least the 2019 campaign after franchising him, but that will come at a heavy cost: $15.209MM, a figure that makes Jarrett the NFL’s sixth-highest-paid interior defender. Jarrett, who has started 44 games over the past three years, will likely target an average annual value closer to Fletcher Cox‘s $17.1MM and a full guarantee package in excess of $50MM. Atlanta currently has less than $5MM in available cap space; an extension for Jarrett would lower his 2019 cap charge and increase the Falcons’ available funds.
  • Saints general manager Mickey Loomis will no longer be involved in running the NBA’s Pelicans, reports Jeff Duncan of NOLA.com (Twitter link). Loomis, who’s been the Saints’ GM since 2002, took over as the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations in 2012. However, there was reportedly some concern within the Saints’ franchise that Loomis was being “spread too thin,” according to Darin Gantt of Pro Football Talk. The Pelicans are in the process of hiring a new GM, one who will report directly to Saints/Pelicans owner Gayle Benson.
  • Nick Easton‘s four-year deal with the Saints is worth $22.5MM but contains only $4MM in guaranteed money, tweets Josh Katzenstein of the Times-Picayune, who adds Easton received a $2MM signing bonus. As Mike Triplett of ESPN.com suggests (via Twitter), Easton’s deal is essentially a one-year deal with a series of options in 2020 ($5MM), 2021 ($6MM), and 2022 ($7.5MM).

Contract Details: Dennard, 49ers, Fins, Jets

March 25th, 2019 at 10:23pm CST by Sam Robinson

Here are the latest contract details from around the league:

Jets Re-Sign Brandon Copeland

March 25th, 2019 at 10:42am CST by Zachary Links

The Jets have re-signed outside linebacker Brandon Copeland, according to a team announcement. The club also retained tight end Neal Sterling, per the press release. 

Copeland, who had a career-high five sacks in 2018, also drew interest from the Patriots, Redskins, and Lions during the free agent period. Ultimately, he decided to return to the Jets, where he enjoyed the most productive season of his career.

After going undrafted out of Penn in 2015, Copeland spent three seasons with the Lions as a special-teamer, topping 300 ST snaps in both 2015 and 2016. He suffered a torn pectoral the following year and missed all of the 2017 campaign, and subsequently signed a one-year deal with Gang Green in 2018. Last year was a breakout season for Copeland, as he saw action on a career-high 611 defensive snaps and tied for the third-highest sack total on the Jets’ roster.

The Jets may still be in the market for edge rush help, but Copeland’s return will go a long way towards addressing that void. They’re also still in the hunt for cornerback and center help, so the re-signing of Copeland could allow them to prioritize those needs moving forward.

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