Jaylon Smith

Packers, LB Jaylon Smith Finalizing Deal

October 6th, 2021 at 5:09pm CST by Sam Robinson

5:09pm: This may not be a done deal just yet. While the Packers are in discussions, Smith has not informed them of a commitment, Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com tweets. Other teams are still pursuing the sixth-year veteran, though Demovsky adds the Packers are the favorites. Still, Smith is believed to want to play in Green Bay, Rapoport adds (on Twitter). That may still be where this is headed, but the process is not finished.

4:32pm: After news of the Packers’ interest in Jaylon Smith surfaced, it appears the linebacker is planning to head to Wisconsin. The Packers and Smith are finalizing a contract, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.

The Giants and Eagles may have had Smith on their radars, according to Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but the former Cowboys defender is expected to land in Green Bay (Twitter link). Smith and Matt LaFleur were both at Notre Dame in 2014, when the former was a sophomore and the latter the Fighting Irish’s quarterbacks coach. LaFleur remains high on the linebacker.

The Packers did win a bit of a bidding war for Smith, but with the Cowboys paying most of his 2021 salary, Rapoport notes this amount to more of a recruiting battle (Twitter link). After spending time in the northern Midwest in college, Smith will head back to Big Ten country. The Cowboys are on the hook for Smith’s $7.2MM 2021 base salary. Despite losing ex-Packer Blake Martinez for the season, the Giants are not believed to have expressed strong interest, Dan Duggan of The Athletic tweets.

Smith made the Pro Bowl in 2019, and his 154 tackles last season finished behind only the Texans’ Zach Cunningham. Still in his age-26 season, Smith has graded as a top-15 linebacker this year, per Pro Football Focus, and should be set to see extensive time on Green Bay’s defense. The Packers have seen mid-offseason addition De’Vondre Campbell deliver thus far; the ex-Falcons and Cardinals starter is averaging 10 tackles per game. Green Bay will have another 2016 draftee join him soon. Campbell went in the 2016 fourth round; Smith — due only to the severe foot injury he suffered in that year’s Fiesta Bowl — lasted until Round 2.

Dallas ended Smith’s five-plus-season tenure Tuesday night, doing so after having added three linebackers — first-rounder Micah Parsons, fourth-rounder Jabril Cox and UFA Keanu Neal — this offseason. Smith played 56% of the Cowboys’ defensive snaps thus far this season, which represents a significant downgrade from his full-time work over the past four years. Leading a linebacking corps that housed injury-prone cogs Leighton Vander Esch and Sean Lee, Smith has not missed a game since his 2016 injury-redshirt year of sorts.

Packers Pursuing LB Jaylon Smith

October 6th, 2021 at 3:14pm CST by Sam Robinson

One of the league’s Super Bowl contenders is going after Jaylon Smith. While other suitors are believed to be in the mix, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com notes the Packers are making a push to sign the former Cowboys linebacker (Twitter link).

Matt LaFleur spent a season at Notre Dame during Smith’s tenure, his 2014 sophomore slate, and remains high on the accomplished defender. The Cowboys released Smith on Tuesday night. LaFleur coached the Fighting Irish’s QBs in 2014.

Green Bay has not been especially high on making splashy moves at its off-ball linebacker spots, but the team has turned to the midlevel free agent market multiple times in the past two years. The Packers signed Christian Kirksey in 2020 and, after releasing him this year, added De’Vondre Campbell.

Despite coming into the league in 2016, Smith is still just 26 and grades as Pro Football Focus’ No. 13 off-ball linebacker through four games. It would certainly add up if multiple teams made strong efforts to sign him. Green Bay holds just more than $7MM in cap space, which ranks 12th in the NFL.

Campbell has proven effective for the Packers thus far, having made 40 tackles in four games and intercepting a pass. He grades as PFF’s No. 4 overall linebacker, though we are still without too large of a sample size. Green Bay also has second-year man Krys Barnes on its defensive second level. Barnes missed Week 4 with a concussion.

Smith spent the past four seasons as a Cowboys starter. Despite a severe foot injury sustained in his final Notre Dame game, the former second-round pick has not missed an NFL game since sitting out his rookie season. Smith produced three straight 120-plus-tackle seasons in Dallas, topping out at 154 in 2020. That total ranked second in the NFL. Dallas, however, hired a new defensive coordinator and changed up its linebacking personnel by drafting Micah Parsons in the first round and signing Keanu Neal. This led to Smith becoming a marquee in-season free agent.

Cowboys Release LB Jaylon Smith

October 5th, 2021 at 7:42pm CST by Ben Levine

The Cowboys are moving on from a former Pro Bowler. The team is releasing linebacker Jaylon Smith, reports ESPN’s Adam Schefter (via Twitter).

The Cowboys will still be responsible for paying the $7.2MM that Smith is owed in 2021, and the team is going to be eating an additional $9.8MM in cap with the move (per ESPN’s Field Yates on Twitter). That chunk of cap comes via Smith’s 2022 injury guarantees, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo (on Twitter), and that significant chunk of money is a big reason why the Cowboys were unable to find a trade suitor. Smith will be eligible to sign with a new team starting tomorrow afternoon.

Despite being relegated to a backup role in 2021, Smith had been playing pretty well for the Cowboys through the first month of the season. The linebacker had started two of his four games this season, collecting 18 tackles. However, after appearing in 104 defensive snaps in Week 2 and Week 3, Smith was limited to only 28 defensive snaps in Week 4.

The 2016 second-round pick evolved into one of the Cowboys most dependable defensive players during his stint in Dallas. He started each of the Cowboys 48 games between 2018 and 2020, including a 2019 campaign where he collected 142 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles en route to a Pro Bowl appearance. However, the play from teammates Keanu Neal and Leighton Vander Esch (as well as a potential increased role for Jabril Cox) made the veteran expendable.

Other than a weak Week 4 performance, Smith has been more than serviceable this season, ranking as Pro Football Focus’ 11th-best linebacker through the first four weeks (via Twitter). A linebacker-needy team will surely be happy to add the new free agent to their squad.

Cowboys Sign Damontae Kazee

March 25th, 2021 at 8:36pm CST by Rory Parks

The Cowboys have agreed to terms with free agent safety Damontae Kazee, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports (via Twitter). Veteran NFL reporter Josina Anderson says it will be a one-year deal (Twitter link).

Kazee visited with Dallas yesterday, and even though he followed through on his plan to visit the Lions today, it didn’t take him long to strike an accord with the Cowboys. Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News reports that the Cowboys’ medical staff was satisfied with Kazee’s recovery from the Achilles tear he suffered in October, and once he passed that test, Dallas was quick to extend a contract offer.

Dallas has been looking for a true free safety for a long time, and it hopes it has found what it’s looking for in the 27-year-old Kazee, whose 10 interceptions from 2018-19 were tied for the most in the NFL. The fit was a good one, as the Cowboys’ new defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn, was Kazee’s head coach for the first four years of his career in Atlanta, and secondary coach/pass game coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. was his position coach in 2020.

Kazee follows longtime Falcons teammate Keanu Neal from Atlanta to Dallas, so Quinn will have several familiar faces at his disposal. Interestingly, Kazee got his first real chance to start at safety due to Neal’s season-ending injury in early 2018, but Neal is expected to play some linebacker in Dallas, and Kazee clearly feels he will have enough snaps to re-establish himself as a ball-hawking playmaker in the defensive backfield.

In addition to Kazee, the Cowboys auditioned Jayron Kearse and Malik Hooker yesterday. The club ended up signing Kearse, and with Kazee now in the fold as well, Hooker will probably need to look elsewhere for his next opportunity.

On a related note, Ed Werder of ESPN.com says that Neal’s double-duty role as an LB/S hybrid could eat into linebacker Jaylon Smith‘s snaps, but that Smith’s roster spot is not in jeopardy (Twitter link). That jibes with a report that was published late last month.

Cowboys Not Planning To Cut Jaylon Smith

February 25th, 2021 at 5:28pm CST by Sam Robinson

Faced with the prospect of franchise-tagging Dak Prescott for a second straight year, and doing so at a $37.7MM rate, the Cowboys are in a crucial stretch now that the window for applying tags is open. The team currently has less than $20MM in cap space.

While restructures will surely commence, the Cowboys do not intend to release Jaylon Smith to create additional cap space, according to Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Shedding the linebacker’s contract would call for less than $1MM saved — in a non-post-June 1 cut scenario — against a $9MM dead-money hit. But if the Cowboys were to designate Smith as a post-June 1 release, they could save $7.2MM this year.

Dallas included Smith in its spree of 2019 extensions, re-upping the linebacker on a five-year, $63.75MM deal. Despite entering the NFL after a severe injury that caused him to miss his 2016 rookie season, Smith became a three-down linebacker with Dallas. Pro Football Focus graded the Notre Dame product as the Cowboys’ top off-ball ‘backer last season, slotting him 45th overall. That ranking provides a partial summary of one of the worst defenses in Cowboys history, and changes should be expected now that Dan Quinn is in charge. Smith and Quinn have already spoken since the former Falcons HC took the Cowboys DC job, per Hill.

Smith led the Cowboys with 154 tackles last season and totaled 142 in 2019, doing so as Leighton Vander Esch battled injuries in both seasons. The Cowboys have Vander Esch signed through 2021. While they can pick up Vander Esch’s fifth-year option by May to lock him down through 2022, the injuries Smith’s three-down linebacker mate has suffered cloud his future compared to where his stock resided after a standout rookie year. Drafted two years apart, Smith and Vander Esch are both 25.

The Cowboys, who have Smith signed all the way through the 2025 season, have until March 9 to tag Prescott. With no other quarterbacks expected to be tagged, Prescott’s tag could run more than $20MM higher than any other 2021 tag. Needless to say, the Cowboys are pushing to extend their quarterback before the tag window closes rather than have that $37.7MM number on their books going into free agency. The sides have been at this for two years now, but the upcoming tag deadline raises the stakes for the Cowboys to avoid the Washington-Kirk Cousins path.

NFC East Notes: Eagles, Washington, Staff, Vander Esch

August 18th, 2020 at 2:55pm CST by Sam Robinson

While the Eagles are not officially holding out hope Brandon Brooks can return late in the 2020 season, they have not shut that prospect down. They placed the Pro Bowl guard on the PUP list, rather than injured reserve. Lane Johnson said his longtime teammate is ahead of schedule and can see him returning from his latest Achilles tear before the season ends, Tim McManus of ESPN.com tweets. Brooks recovered from a January 2019 Achilles tear to return in time for Week 1 last season. Following the same timetable, Brooks could conceivably be in play for a late-December or January re-emergence. As players like Terrell Suggs and Michael Crabtree showed during the 2010s, an offseason Achilles tear is not an automatic season-ender. Of course, Brooks is carrying a bit more weight and suffered his injury later in the offseason. Longtime Eagles left tackle Jason Peters is currently manning Brooks’ right guard position.

As the NFC East teams begin their padded training camp practices, here is the latest from the division:

Doug Pederson is back at work after contracting COVID-19. The fifth-year Eagles HC was the third known coach to test positive for the coronavirus, following Sean Payton and Anthony Lynn. Unlike the Saints and Chargers coaches, Pederson, 52, was asymptomatic.
Leighton Vander Esch has been playing a new position at Cowboys camp. The third-year linebacker has swapped spots with Jaylon Smith, with Vander Esch now playing middle linebacker and Smith shifting to the weak side, Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes. Both players are set to reprise their roles as Dallas’ three-down ‘backers. The Cowboys changed defensive coordinators this offseason, moving from Rod Marinelli to Mike Nolan. Vander Esch is returning from offseason neck surgery.
Washington made a historic business-side hire, naming Jason Wright as team president. A former linebacker who played seven seasons with the Falcons, Browns and Cardinals, Wright is the NFL’s first Black team president and the fourth former player to be named to such a post. While the 38-year-old exec will succeed Bruce Allen, his responsibilities will be exclusively on the business side, John Keim of ESPN.com notes. Washington remains without a nominal GM.
The Cowboys will have a new voice in their quarterbacks room, at least for training camp. Seneca Wallace is working with Dallas’ QBs as a training camp staffer, Jon Machota of The Athletic tweets. Wallace joins fellow recent NFL passers Kellen Moore and Scott Tolzien on the Cowboys’ staff. Like Tolzien, Wallace spent time in Green Bay during Mike McCarthy‘s run.

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.

NFC Notes: Cowboys, Compton, Fales

August 20th, 2019 at 9:45pm CST by Rory Parks

When announcing the new extension for linebacker Jaylon Smith at a press conference today, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sent a clear message to a few other high-profile players who are eligible for extensions. Jones said, via Jon Machota of The Athletic, “[t]he team takes precedent at a point over the opinion or the demand of the individual. The team takes precedent. This was a team move we are talking about today. The team takes precedent. And I’ve got the backbone to keep it that way” (Twitter link).

Obviously, that statement suggests that Jones is going to hold firm on the offers that have been extended to Ezekiel Elliott, Dak Prescott, and Amari Cooper, and as we detailed earlier today, Smith’s extension looks relatively team-friendly. Jones did say that there is “enough pie left” to get deals done with all of them, though he did not have an update on negotiations with the trio.

Let’s check out more from the NFC:

Free agent linebacker Will Compton will work out for the Saints, as John Keim of ESPN.com tweets. Compton, who played for the Redskins from 2013-17, was a full-time starter as recently as 2016. However, his 2017 campaign was marred by injury, and he played only 79 defensive snaps for the Titans last year in his first and only season in Tennessee. He would provide experienced LB depth in New Orleans, and he could also contribute on special teams.
Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press examines the Lions‘ backup QB situation, noting that presumptive QB2 Tom Savage missed his seventh straight practice on Tuesday (Savage is in the concussion protocol). That has meant more reps for David Fales and Josh Johnson, but Birkett says the Lions are unlikely to carry three QBs. So if Savage cannot be medically cleared by next Saturday, he could be cut. Fales looked sharp in the team’s last preseason game while Johnson struggled, so Fales may have a leg up if Savage can’t get healthy.
The 49ers fear that rookie wide receiver Shawn Poindexter suffered a torn ACL in Monday’s preseason win, as Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area writes. Poindexter, a UDFA from Arizona, appeared to be a prime practice squad candidate, and the club has already signed WR/KR Chris Thompson to take Poindexter’s place on the 90-man roster.

Cowboys Sign Jaylon Smith To Extension

August 20th, 2019 at 2:48pm CST by Zachary Links

The Cowboys have reached a long-term extension with linebacker Jaylon Smith, sources tell Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo of NFL.com (on Twitter). Smith has been vocal about his desire for a new deal, and he’s got one in place with days to go before the regular season.

Clarence E. Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that it’s a five-year, $64MM pact (Twitter link), but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. Smith was under contract for about $1.3MM this year and would have been eligible for a restricted free agent tender in 2020, and the extension did not subsume those amounts. So, as Todd Archer of ESPN.com tweets, Smith is now playing under a seven-year, $69.7MM deal, and Smith will be under club control through 2025. David Moore of the Dallas Morning News tweets that the extension does include $35.5MM in guaranteed money, but it looks like a fairly team-friendly pact overall.

Still, it’s a good day for Smith, who recently said that he never wants to play for another team. “I want to be a Cowboy. I want to be a Cowboy for the rest of my life,” Smith said last week. “Understanding what they’ve done for me, taking a chance, taking a risk. Now they’re getting the return on their investment. It’s a beautiful thing to be a Dallas Cowboy.”

Indeed, the Cowboys took a gamble on Smith by selecting him in the second round of the 2016 draft. When he was healthy at Notre Dame, Smith was viewed as a top 10 pick. However, severe knee injuries caused his stock to plummet. At the time, it was speculated that Smith could drop like a stone due to medical concerns, but the Cowboys rolled the dice and pounced on him with the No. 34 overall choice.

Smith missed all of 2016 and played mostly as a part-timer in 2017. Then, last year, he came back with a vengeance. Smith graded as the league’s No. 6 off-ball linebacker last season, per Pro Football Focus, making a career-high 121 tackles and registering four sacks. Between Smith and 2018 first-rounder Leighton Vander Esch (No. 4 on PFF’s 2018 linebacker performance list), the Cowboys have one of the NFL’s best three-down linebacking duos.

Of course, there’s still plenty of work for the Cowboys in the coming days with Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, and Amari Cooper all eligible for extensions.

Jaylon Smith Wants To Stay With Cowboys

August 14th, 2019 at 2:47pm CST by Sam Robinson

As gridlock continues on the Cowboys’ top tier of extension candidates, other key starters wait as well. Jaylon Smith profiles as a unique member of the latter group, with his 2016 rookie season delaying his service-time clock. The fourth-year linebacker is set for restricted free agency at season’s end.

Smith does not want to take the free agent route. The emerging dynamo expressed a desire to stay with the Cowboys throughout his career.

“I want to be a Cowboy. I want to be a Cowboy for the rest of my life,” Smith said, via The Athletic’s Jon Machota (on Twitter). “Understanding what they’ve done for me, taking a chance, taking a risk. Now they’re getting the return on their investment. It’s a beautiful thing to be a Dallas Cowboy.”

The former Notre Dame star has successfully recovered from the severe knee injuries that threatened his career coming into the 2016 draft. He graded as the league’s No. 6 off-ball linebacker last season, per Pro Football Focus, making a career-high 121 tackles and registering four sacks. Smith and 2018 first-rounder Leighton Vander Esch (No. 4 on PFF’s 2018 linebacker performance list) comprise one of the NFL’s best three-down linebacking duos.

By virtue of his 2016 spent on the Cowboys’ NFI list, Smith is due to be a 2020 RFA. The Cowboys would be expected to place a second-round tender on him. But he is extension-eligible now, joining Dallas’ big three (Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper), Byron Jones and La’el Collins in that regard. Smith, 24, expects a Cowboys extension at some point.

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