Today’s practice squad transactions:
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Today’s practice squad updates around the NFL:
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Denver Broncos
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Las Vegas Raiders
Los Angeles Chargers
Los Angeles Rams
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Washington Commanders
The Broncos are bringing in the veteran running back Ahmed after he spent four years in Miami. Ahmed’s biggest role came in four starts as an undrafted rookie back in 2020 in which he rushed for 319 yards and three touchdowns over six games. He served as a reliable backup for the Dolphins for the past few years.
The Chargers released Jefferson yesterday, but they’ll keep him around on the practice squad with today’s signing. The veteran adds some quality depth to the roster.
Tuesday’s practice squad transactions:
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Denver Broncos
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Los Angeles Rams
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
New England Patriots
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
Washington Commanders
Woods joins the Falcons’ practice squad after a workout last week that also included veterans Kwon Alexander and Rashaan Evans.
The Browns are adding Freeman after the seven-year veteran was released by the Cowboys before the regular season. Freeman could potentially pitch in as the team keeps working without Nick Chubb.
Yeast becomes the next former-Rams defensive back to join the Panthers. Current Carolina defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero used to serve as the secondary coach in Los Angeles, and Yeast joins Jordan Fuller, Nick Scott, and Troy Hill as former students of Evero to sign a deal with the Panthers.
Chosen’s time off the Dolphins’ practice squad could be a short one. Chosen was called up as a standard gameday elevation twice in the first two weeks of the season, reaching his limit for the year. If the team re-signs him to a new practice squad contract, his count should start over.
Reagor saw 11 games and a start last year for New England, catching seven passes for 138 yards as a deep threat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the Patriots will be giving him similar opportunities this year after this release.
Pierre played a big part in the Steelers’ secondary in 2021 and 2022, starting six games and logging an interception in each season. His role was extremely reduced last year with the arrivals of Joey Porter Jr.. and Patrick Peterson, but his experience could be crucial in a position room that only rosters five cornerbacks as Cameron Sutton remains on suspension.
Graham Gano‘s injury changed the Giants’ gameday procedure, costing them dearly in a narrow loss to the Commanders. After not attempting any extra points once Gano went down, the Giants will make their expected addition.
With Gano set to miss at least four games, New York worked out four kickers. The team, however, will take another course. The Giants are signing Greg Joseph off the Lions’ practice squad, per his agency. The team must keep Joseph on its 53-man roster for at least three weeks due to poaching him off another team’s P-squad. Gano is now on IR, per a Giants announcement.
The Giants initially attempted a free agency path here, with NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo indicating the team worked out Zane Gonzalez, Randy Bullock, Riley Patterson and Tanner Brown. Instead, it will be Joseph, who will head to team No. 3 this year. Joseph signed with the Packers early this offseason but did not make their 53-man roster, joining the Lions’ practice squad as Jake Bates insurance. But an immediate opportunity will come his way in New York.
Joseph, 30, spent the past three seasons as the Vikings’ kicker. He drilled a 61-yard game-winning field goal to beat the Giants in Week 16 of the 2022 season. Like Gano, who made a 63-yarder to beat the Giants as a Panther in 2018, Joseph will make his way to the NFC’s New York franchise.
Joseph made 86.8% of his field goals in 2021 but did not clear the 80% barrier in either of the past two seasons. He made 80% of his tries last season, missing three from between 40 and 49 yards, and saw the Vikings take a different route this year.
As for Gano, this is the second time he has landed on IR in as many seasons. Gano has suffered two injuries since the Giants gave him a three-year, $16.5MM extension ($11.34MM guaranteed) in September 2023. Gano, 37, missed nine games last season. The Giants will hope to have their regular specialist back from his hamstring injury this season, but they will need to use an IR activation to make that happen.
Bullock served as the Giants’ Gano replacement in six games last season, while Patterson could not secure a spot as the Commanders’ kicker in the preseason. (Gonzalez has not kicked since the 2021 season.) The Commanders, who settled on Austin Seibert as their latest kicker, became the first NFL team to win a game despite scoring zero touchdowns to their opponent’s three.
The Rams have settled on their starting kicker. The team announced that they’ve waived Tanner Brown, meaning sixth-round rookie Joshua Karty has won the kicker competition.
Karty is coming off a standout career at Stanford. The kicker earned a pair of first-team All American nods while converting 85 percent of his field goal attempts and 98.6 percent of his extra point tries. That performance helped elevate him above the standard grouping of undrafted kickers, with Karty being the first kicker off the board (and one of only two overall alongside Cam Little) during the 2024 draft.
The rookie had an especially strong showing during the Rams’ preseason opener. Karty connected on both of his field goal attempts plus the game-winning extra point. Most notably, he got all of the team’s looks at the position, so the writing was on the wall for the other kicker on the roster.
Brown went undrafted out of Oklahoma State last offseason. He spent the entirety of his rookie campaign on the Rams practice squad, failing to leap the likes of Lucas Havrisik and Brett Maher. Brown should get another shot following 2021 and 2022 campaigns where he nailed 88.6 percent of his FG tries.
Here are Thursday’s reserve/futures deals:
Los Angeles Rams
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Commanders
The Rams did a bit of work yesterday in moving towards the 53-man deadline. Here are the additional moves the team made today to get down to the max roster number to start the season:
Waived:
Waived/injured:
Released:
It appears that fourth-round rookie draft pick Stetson Bennett won out in the battle for the backup quarterback job, leading to the expendability of Rypien and Winn. Youth similarly won out at the running back spot as rookie Zach Evans and second year backs Kyren Williams and Ronnie Rivers beat out the veteran backup in Freeman. On defense, Copeland is bit of a surprise after starting nine games last year for the Rams.
The special teams room is quite intriguing for now. The room was looking to hold three rookies before the above waiver of the undrafted Oklahoma State kicker Brown. Seventh-round rookie punter Ethan Evans and undrafted rookie long snapper Alex Ward remain on the roster, but without Brown, the Rams will need to look into adding a new kicker out of the free agent market. Or they may attempt to follow the recent trends and trade for one.
With Jordan Fuller finally making a healthy return after missing most of the 2022 season on injured reserve, the Rams should be set at one of their safety spots. Fuller had started all 28 games he’d appeared in over his first two years, and he’s stood out so far this offseason in OTAs and minicamp. The battle for who will start next to Fuller, though, has become a situation to watch in Los Angeles, according to Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic.
There appears to be two second-year players at the forefront of the race: last year’s sixth-round pick Quentin Lake and seventh-round pick Russ Yeast. Lake got a late start to his rookie year after starting the season on the reserve/physically unable to perform list. Once activated, he played almost exclusively on special teams until the team’s season finale in Seattle. Yeast also started off mainly on special teams before earning a good number of defensive snaps late in the year. He made his first career start in that same Seattle game.
Lake and Yeast will both get significant run with the first team in an effort to determine a starter. A dark horse in the competition could be rookie seventh-round pick Jason Taylor II. The Oklahoma State product had an impressive 99 tackles last season to go along with six interceptions for the Cowboys. While each player should get a strong chance, it’s believed that Yeast has the early edge.
Here are a couple other rumors coming out of LA:
The Rams continue adding to a massive rookie class. After drafting 14 prospects last weekend, Los Angeles has announced the signing of a prodigious 26 undrafted free agents:
With former kicker Matt Gay now residing in Indianapolis, the Rams have resolved to a kicking competition between Brown and Dunn. Brown had a stellar year with the Cowboys converting 22 of 23 field goal attempts and making all 42 of his extra points. Dunn had an even better 2022, rebounding after 5 missed field goals in 2020 and six misses in 2021. He converted 28 of 29 field goal attempts in 2022 and, over five years with the Wolfpack, never missed one of his 200 extra point attempts.
Gay wasn’t the only special teamer Los Angeles lost. After losing Matthew Orzech to the Packers in free agency, the Rams will give Ward a run at the position. After drafting punter Ethan Evans in the seventh round, Los Angeles is set to have a full rookie special teams unit.
Winn joins the quarterback room behind Matthew Stafford, Stetson Bennett, and Brett Rypien. He threw for nearly 3,000 yards as a sixth-year senior for the Skyhawks with 18 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. The Rams also signed Burmeister, a former starting quarterback at Virginia Tech who transferred to the other coast. Based on his listing with the Rams, he’ll be attempting to switch positions in the NFL.
With only eight linebackers under contract in a base 3-4 defense, the Rams supplemented heavily from the rookie class, drafting three and signing five more undrafted. They similarly added some significant depth at defensive back, drafting two and signing eight more undrafted.
The Rams have a substantial 40 rookies occupying roster spots on the current 90-man roster (which only holds 89 players as of right now). This seems to be a bit emblematic of the Rams recent all-in strategy that resulted in a Super Bowl but left them with a top-heavy roster with hefty contracts. Regardless, it presents many young rookies with clear opportunities for roster spots and playing time.