Here are the latest moves from around the NFL:
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Detroit Lions
Jacksonville Jaguars
New England Patriots
Today’s minor moves:
Arizona Cardinals
Baltimore Ravens
Dallas Cowboys
Green Bay Packers
Houston Texans
New England Patriots
New York Jets
Seattle Seahawks
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
MarShawn Lloyd‘s path back to the Packers active roster has taken an unusual turn. The rookie third-round pick landed on IR in September with an ankle injury. He returned to practice last week but suffered appendicitis only a few days later, putting his activation within the 21-day window in doubt.
Worried that Lloyd wouldn’t be ready to play by his early-December activation deadline, the Packers consulted with the NFL about the best route forward (per ESPN’s Rob Demovsky). That ultimately led to today’s transaction, which is only the start of several transactional machinations. As Tom Silverstein of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes, Lloyd will temporarily join the active roster before landing on the non-football injury list. That means he won’t count against the team’s roster limit until he’s healthy enough to return to the field.
Lloyd doesn’t have a return timetable from this recent setback. While the rookie entered the year as the hopeful RB2 behind Josh Jacobs, there’s a good chance he’ll also behind Emanuel Wilson for the stretch run of the season.
The Texans front office did some work recently to help with their cap situation. The bigger of their two recent moves saw them address the contract of veteran offensive tackle Tytus Howard, per Field Yates of ESPN.
Howard agreed to a restructured contract in which Houston converted $12.88MM of his 2024 base salary (originally worth $14MM) into a signing bonus. The Texans also added two void years onto the end of his existing deal. The adjustments to his contract resulted in the clearance of $10.3MM of cap space for Houston.
Here are a few other restructured deals seen recently around the AFC:
DECEMBER 27: Wilson did not manage to pass through waivers unclaimed, something which would have set him up for free agency. The Patriots have claimed him, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. As a result, Wilson will finish off the season in New England, a team which has endured plenty of turnover at the CB spot this season. The 24-year-old could see immediate playing time as he looks to earn a roster spot for the 2024 campaign. Schefter’s colleague Field Yates tweets the Broncos and Titans (who sit lower in the priority) also put in claims.
DECEMBER 26: Following Patrick Peterson‘s defection to the Vikings, Marco Wilson became an immediate Cardinals starter. He remained a first-stringer entering this season, and the Cardinals were counting on him after the Vikes also lured Byron Murphy from the desert in March. In a new scheme, Wilson’s stock dropped.
Wilson has not played a defensive snap since Week 11, with the Cards relegating the third-year cornerback to special teams duty. They officially moved on from the former fourth-round pick Tuesday, sending him to waivers. Barely $110K remains on Wilson’s 2023 salary; while his rookie contract runs through 2024, no guaranteed money remains on the deal.
Vance Joseph immediately installed the Florida alum as a starter in 2021, pairing him with Murphy as Arizona’s top corners over the previous two seasons. Wilson started in Week 1 of his rookie year and has made 37 starts over the course of his career. That run came to a halt last month. Wilson has allowed 702 yards in coverage this season, per ESPN.com’s Josh Weinfuss; that is 300-plus more than any other Cardinal corner has ceded this year. Despite Wilson not playing defense since Week 11, that yardage number still ranks fourth in the NFL.
Wilson’s quick ascent under Joseph notwithstanding, he has rated outside Pro Football Focus’ top 100 at corner in each of his three seasons. The advanced metrics site slots the 6-foot cover man as the third-worst CB regular this year. Wilson logged 83% and 85% snap rates for the Cardinals in 2021 and ’22, respectively, working as a starter in the team’s wild-card loss to the Rams as a rookie. Wilson still leads Cardinals corners in defensive snaps (694). That total tops Antonio Hamilton‘s snap figure by more than 200. The Cardinals have also used Starling Thomas V as a starter in recent weeks, with third-round rookie Garrett Williams manning the slot.
Hamilton was with the team last season, but the Jonathan Gannon–Monti Ossenfort regime has mostly turned the page from the Joseph-era corners. Arizona, which is finishing up a rebuilding year, has not allocated much in the way of resources to corner in recent years. Peterson started for 10 seasons in the desert, crafting a Hall of Fame-caliber resume, while Murphy was in place for four. The Cards will enter the 2024 offseason with many needs; cornerback remains one of them.
When the Cardinals did not exercise Isaiah Simmons‘ fifth-year option in May, the 2020 draftee was classified as a linebacker. That meant a $12.7MM option call for Arizona’s new regime. Passing on that guaranteed salary moved the hybrid defender into a contract year.
The Cardinals still have Simmons squarely in their plans, but they have not insisted on a position for the versatile player. Jonathan Gannon‘s staff gave the Clemson alum a choice on where to play. He has been operating as a DB for several weeks. This has come during an offseason in which fellow first-round ILB investment Zaven Collins has been given time as an edge defender.
“I told them I didn’t want to play linebacker,” Simmons said, via AZCardinals.com’s Darren Urban. “I felt more comfortable getting back to things I had done in the past. If they came here and said, ‘You’re going to be a Mike linebacker,’ I would’ve done it to the best of my ability. I think they understood that maybe the designed position I was supposed to be at, and I’m happy they let me come in and lock in on one position.”
Simmons has been working at safety during training camp, with Urban adding the former No. 8 overall pick has most often been stationed as a deep defender — rather than in the slot. Last season, Simmons roved around the formation but spent the most time in the slot (45% of his snaps). The fourth-year defender’s 4.39-second 40-yard dash speed has helped him hold his own in the secondary. This will still be a transition for Simmons, who has not played a deep safety role regularly since high school.
Pro Football Focus rated Simmons as a top-40 cornerback last season. This marked a step up from the unique talent’s 2021 assessment, when linebacker was his primary role. In addition to 409 slot snaps, Simmons also played 297 snaps in the box, 110 on the defensive line and saw a bit of work as a boundary corner and as a safety last season. With Budda Baker back in the fold and Jalen Thompson also signed long term, the Cardinals are preparing three-safety looks under Gannon and DC Nick Rallis. With both Simmons and Collins at new positions, the Cardinals have UFA additions Kyzir White and Krys Barnes as the early starters at inside linebacker.
This year’s free agency classes at safety and linebacker largely struggled to cash in, save for top-market players like Tremaine Edmunds and Jessie Bates. Steep value drop-offs took place as those respective markets sorted out. Simmons, 25, will have a chance to create a market for himself. Considering the Cardinals’ safety allocations — Baker at $14.1MM per year, Thompson at $12MM AAV — Simmons sticking at safety may lead him out of Arizona. Then again, Baker made a trade request this offseason and does not have any guaranteed money on his deal for 2024.
While the three-safety alignment gives the Cardinals options in the slot, they are looking for a second cornerback opposite Marco Wilson. Rallis said (via Urban) the team is “not close” to determining its No. 2 cornerback. The Cardinals let Byron Murphy walk in free agency; he followed Patrick Peterson‘s path by joining the Vikings. A former fourth-round pick who has made 26 starts in two seasons, Wilson is a lock to be one of Arizona’s starting corners.
Arizona re-signed Antonio Hamilton, who made five starts last season, and added Rashad Fenton in free agency. Fenton’s guarantee ($1.5MM) tops Hamilton’s ($76K). Sixth-round pick Kei’Trel Clark has received first-team reps during camp, per Urban. Third-rounder Garrett Williams remains on the Cards’ active/NFI list after suffering an ACL tear during his final season at Syracuse.
The Rams’ celebration period for their Super Bowl LVI victory over the Bengals has wound down, and it’s time for Los Angeles to start gearing up for a potential repeat. There’s a bit of work to do on the offensive line with the retirement of left tackle Andrew Whitworth and the departure of right guard Austin Corbett in free agency.
According to ESPN’s Sarah Barshop, the Rams have long hoped that 2018 third-round pick Joseph Noteboom would eventually be prepared to fill in when Whitworth finally hung up his cleats. He’ll likely get that opportunity this season. Barshop also mentions that head coach Sean McVay said during minicamp that a competition will take place for the vacant right guard spot. Bobby Evans has been penciled into that starting role since Corbett left for Carolina, but the Rams were reportedly ecstatic to land Wisconsin guard Logan Bruss in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Expect Bruss to push Evans for the starting right guard job this summer.
Here are a few other rumors from around the NFC West, starting with a note out of last year’s fourth-place team in the division:
Following Jeff Gladney‘s tragic death last week, the Cardinals have a glaring need at cornerback. They had signed Gladney in March, going ahead with a second chance for the former Vikings first-round pick. But Gladney and his girlfriend died in a car accident May 30.
Byron Murphy remains the Cardinals’ top cornerback, but uncertainty surrounds the versatile cover man. The circumstances have moved the Cardinals toward a familiar face. Kliff Kingsbury said Tuesday (via SI.com’s Howard Balzer) the team has been in contact with Robert Alford, who played for the Cardinals last season after missing two full years due to injury.
Alford is 33, however, and missed four games last season after his two-year absence. The Cardinals hosted the veteran defender in March, doing so not long after signing Gladney. Circling back to Alford would be reasonable, given his familiarity with Vance Joseph‘s scheme, though there are several available corners who would be upgrades on what Arizona rosters now.
“That’s a tragic situation and we understand that, but we’re always trying to improve our roster,” Kingsbury said of the Cards’ cornerback circumstances. “And that’s a position that we’d like to bring in a few more veteran players that we could before training camp, and so we’ll see what’s out there in the next couple of weeks.
“… We’ve been in contact with Rob and we’ll just kind of see how that plays out.”
The Falcons drafted Alford in the 2013 second round and used him as a 76-game starter. Alford, whose pick-six in Super Bowl LI gave Atlanta a 21-0 second-quarter lead, signed a four-year, $38MM extension during that 2016 season. After the Falcons made Alford a cap casualty in 2019, the Cardinals signed him. But a broken leg and torn pectoral muscle, respectively, sidelined him for the 2019 and ’20 seasons. He started five Cards games last season, intercepted a pass and fared much better in coverage than he did in 2018. Passers compiled a collective 81.7 rating with Alford as the closest defender last season — a far superior mark to the 138.5 figure Alford allowed in 2018.
With Murphy absent at Cardinals OTAs Tuesday, Jace Whittaker frequently joined 2021 starter Marco Wilson with the first unit, Balzer adds. It would be stunning if the Cards did not add at least one vet here. The likes of Jackrabbit Jenkins, Kevin King, Joe Haden, Trae Waynes and Xavier Rhodes lead the group of outside coverage players available. An Alford Arizona return might be accompanied by an agreement with a member of this quintet. Either way, Gladney’s death will force the Cardinals to act at cornerback.
Here are the 2021 draftees to sign their rookie contracts Thursday:
Arizona Cardinals
Dallas Cowboys
Jacksonville Jaguars