Cardinals Could Trade David Johnson, Want To Retain Kenyan Drake
We heard a lot of Cardinals news yesterday, including that general manager Steve Keim said the team won’t be cutting running back David Johnson. Releasing Johnson would result in an astronomical $16.2MM dead cap hit, essentially making it impossible. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean Johnson will be back in Arizona in 2020, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network cautions (Twitter video link).
Rapoport says that the Cardinals could look to trade Johnson this offseason, looking for a deal where they would eat some of his salary. He also floated the possibility of Arizona attaching a draft pick with Johnson to get a team to take on his deal, similar to what the Texans did with Brock Osweiler a few years ago. Johnson’s reps certainly did a great job negotiating his contract, and it’s now one of the most burdensome pacts in the entire league. Just a couple of years ago Johnson was viewed as one of the best running backs in the league, which earned him a three-year, $39MM deal.
He cratered immediately after signing it, and he struggled with injuries last year. Even when he was healthy he simply wasn’t a difference maker, and the team pretty much completely stopped giving him the ball late in the year. Down the stretch he took a backseat to Kenyan Drake, who the Cardinals acquired in a trade with the Dolphins.
Speaking of Drake, Rapoport also said that the team wants to keep the impending free agent in the desert, either with a new deal or on the franchise tag. Drake dominated during the second half of the season with Arizona, rushing for 643 yards and eight touchdowns in only eight games while averaging 5.2 yards per carry. If the Cardinals aren’t able to work something out with Drake and he walks, maybe Johnson will be able to salvage his career, but right now it looks like he won’t be regaining his featured role in Kliff Kingsbury’s offense anytime soon.
Antonio Brown To Attend Combine, Wants To Meet With Teams
The NFL Scouting Combine is when the offseason truly starts to heat up, with all sorts of discussions being had by team executives. There’s a lot of wheeling and dealing going on, and Antonio Brown is hoping to use the event to jumpstart his currently derailed career.
Brown plans on attending the combine and meeting with teams there, he told TMZ Sports. He’ll “be out there ready to get things back on the right page,” the embattled receiver declared. Brown has been striking a more conciliatory tone recently, and he seems to realize that he has a lot of work to do to get back in the league. Even if he does go to the combine and is able to pitch himself to teams, he might not find that receptive of an audience. Brown had received “little or no interest” prior to being dropped by agent Drew Rosenhaus, a source told Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com.
Florio also notes that Brown has yet to hire a new agent. Even if he manages to convince a team that he has turned a corner and is ready to put the past behind him, there are still several hurdles. The league’s investigation into a lawsuit that accuses Brown of sexual assault is still ongoing, and he very well could be facing a suspension for that.
He’s also currently out on bail after an arrest for battery and burglary. There’s very real potential for league discipline stemming from that incident as well. It’s hard to ever predict what’s going to happen with Brown, but it would be a surprise if a team signed him anytime soon.
NFC Notes: Falcons, Quinn, Freeman, 49ers
Falcons coach Dan Quinn managed to save his job by rattling off some wins down the stretch last year. If his team has a repeat performance in 2020, he won’t be so lucky. It’s the consensus of just about everyone that Quinn will be fired if Atlanta doesn’t get things turned around next year, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank more or less confirmed as much in recent comments to the media. Blank wouldn’t divulge the exact number of wins he was expecting, but he did say “yep,” when asked if making it back to the postseason was the standard he was setting, via Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. “I can definitely say that’s right.”
Blank went on to say some nice things about Quinn and the team’s turnaround in the second half of the season, but it’s clear that Quinn will be on a short leash. Just about everyone thought he was a goner before the Falcons finished the year 6-2, so perhaps he’ll pull a rabbit out of his hat once again. The former Seahawks DC fired both of his coordinators after a lackluster 2018 campaign, and it didn’t help much right away. Matt Ryan is already 34 and Julio Jones is 31, so Blank’s impatience makes a lot of sense as he wants to capitalize on the core that took his team to the Super Bowl just a few short seasons ago.
Here’s more from the NFC as we head into the weekend:
- We heard earlier this week that Falcons running back Devonta Freeman could be on the chopping block, and Blank certainly didn’t do anything to quash that story. “Well, I love him, too,” Blank said of Freeman in McClure’s same piece. “But this has nothing to do with love. It has to do with building a roster. The salary cap is not unlimited.” That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, and that doesn’t bode well for Freeman’s chances of sticking on the roster. “Sure, I love what [Freeman] brings to the team. I also know we’ve drafted well and we’ve got some really good backups now today. We’ll see how all that works out,” he continued. Freeman has three years left on the five-year, $41.25MM pact he signed with Atlanta a couple years ago, and he seems increasingly unlikely to be back with the team in 2020. As of right now, it looks like the team will be moving on. The Falcons can save around $3MM against the cap by releasing him, but they’d still be taking a significant dead cap hit by shedding his expected $6.5MM salary.
- 49ers linebacker Kwon Alexander tore a pec in November, and was expected at the time to miss the remainder of the season. He improbably battled his way back with remarkable speed, and ended up being activated off injured reserve for San Francisco’s playoff run. Not only was Alexander dealing with the pec issue, he also played in the playoffs and the Super Bowl with a significant bicep injury that required surgery, sources told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). Rapsheet reports that Alexander underwent the procedure on his bicep Friday, and will make a full recovery for the 2020 season. The 49ers signed him to a big contract last offseason, and he’s one of their leaders on defense. This kind of grit shows why. Alexander has been bit by the injury bug recently, as his 2018 season in Tampa was cut short by a torn ACL. Hopefully he can stay healthy this year as San Francisco gears up for another run.
Browns, Joe Schobert To Talk Extension Again
It looks like Joe Schobert might be getting an extension offer from the Browns after all. We heard back in November that the two sides had discussed a deal, but then a month later there was a report Cleveland wasn’t interested in extending him and was prepared to let him walk in free agency. 
A lot has happened with the franchise since then, including the firings of head coach Freddie Kitchens and GM John Dorsey, and now Schobert returning seems like a real possibility. Andrew Berry is in charge of the front office now, and Schobert said in a recent interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio that he’d already met with the new general manager, via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal. Berry “said he’d be reaching out and talk to my agent over the course of the next couple weeks,” Schobert revealed.
Interestingly, Schobert confirmed that Dorsey’s firing helped spark hope of an agreement again. “[Berry and I have] communicated since [he’s] been hired, which kind of had broken down, I think, with the previous regime,” he said. The linebacker reiterated that he wants to stay a Brown, but was willing to move on as well. “If both sides can reach an agreement, then that’d be great. I’d love that, but you never know.”
Berry had declined to reveal whether he’d speak with Schobert’s reps at his introductory press conference, but it sounds like he will. As Ulrich points out, Berry was the vice president of player personnel in Cleveland back in 2016 when the Browns drafted Schobert in the fourth-round, and that connection certainly doesn’t hurt. The Wisconsin product has been playing at a high level the past few years, and he made the Pro Bowl in 2017. He started all 16 games this past year, racking up 133 tackles, four interceptions, two sacks, and nine passes defended.
Minor NFL Transactions: 2/14/20
We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Washington Redskins
- Released: DB Kenny Ladler, DE Chris Odom
Ladler spent some time with Washington in 2018, and then was signed off the street for Week 17 this past season, playing almost the entire game. Odom was on and off the practice squad and appeared in four games this past year, racking up two sacks.
Cardinals ‘Very Optimistic’ About Re-Signing LT D.J. Humphries
The Cardinals weren’t very good this past year, but the first season of the Kliff Kingsbury/Kyler Murray partnership was by all accounts a modest success relative to expectations. They now have a pivotal offseason ahead of them, and it sounds like locking up Murray’s blindside protector is a priority. 
Arizona GM Steve Keim said during a recent radio interview with 98.7 FM that he’s “very optimistic” about the team’s chances of bringing back left tackle D.J. Humphries, via Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic. Keim added that the entire organization is “very confident” that Humphries is “one of the better tackles” in the league. The Cardinals drafted Humphries in the first round back in 2015, and his career got off to a very shaky start.
His rookie season was a disaster, as he couldn’t move past third-string on the depth chart and was inactive for all 16 games. He started his second season at right tackle, starting 13 games. He was the left tackle the following year, but knee issues limited him to only five appearances. In 2018 he started nine games at left tackle before another knee injury ended his season. This past year he finally stayed healthy, starting all 16 contests.
Humphries received solid grades from Pro Football Focus, and the Cards clearly don’t plan on letting him walk. When asked about using the franchise tag on him, Keim indicated he would rather work out an extension. “You always want to tie up your players that you feel good about and you want to come to an agreement moving forward to a longer-term deal than having to use those things,” he said. McManaman thinks that Arizona will have to pay the 26-year-old around $14MM annually.
Falcons Could Move On From Devonta Freeman
The Falcons are heading into a pivotal offseason. Dan Quinn managed to save his job at the last minute with some wins down the stretch, but if he doesn’t get the team back to their winning ways in 2020 he’ll almost certainly be getting the boot. 
Atlanta unsurprisingly appears ready to shake things up in the coming months, and at least one big name is on the chopping block. Running back Devonta Freeman‘s status with the team is “up in the air,” and release is an option, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter video link). As Rapoport points out, the Falcons could save around $3MM in cap space by releasing him outright. We heard back in October that the Lions and Falcons discussed a potential Freeman trade after Kerryon Johnson went down, and Rapoport now reports they “very strongly” considered trading him last year.
Freeman is set to earn a base salary of $6.5MM in 2020 with a cap hit of $9.5MM, and the Falcons would take a significant dead cap hit even though they’d also save some money. He inked a five-year, $41.25MM deal back in August of 2017, making him one of the league’s highest-paid running backs, and so far it hasn’t worked out too well.
He has struggled to stay healthy, appearing in only two games in 2018. Freeman, who turns 28 next month, has three years left on his deal but seems very unlikely to make it to the end of the pact. If he were released, the two-time Pro Bowler wouldn’t have too much trouble finding a new home. The Falcons have Brian Hill and very little else behind him, so they could be a candidate to draft a running back early come April if they do move on from Freeman.
Extra Points: 49ers, Free Agency, Brown, Linehan
The 49ers just lost a Super Bowl in devastating fashion, and now they have to shrug it off and turn their attention to the offseason. San Francisco is in a bit of a cap bind, so they’ll have to get resourceful this spring. They made a big splash last cycle by doling out big contracts to guys like Kwon Alexander, Dee Ford, and Tevin Coleman, and general manager John Lynch recently signaled they won’t be nearly as aggressive this time around. “Those days aren’t happening anymore,” Lynch said, via Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports. “We can’t go to the grocery store and say, ‘I’ll have that, I’ll have that, I’ll have that.’ It is more like, ‘I’ll have that, but I might have to put that back.’ There are tradeoffs.”
Lynch and Kyle Shanahan probably have a trick or two up their sleeve and won’t stand completely pat, but don’t expect them to be big spenders. The 49ers currently have 22 guys set to be free agents, including some high profile ones like Emmanuel Sanders, Arik Armstead, Matt Breida, and Jimmie Ward. It’s likely they won’t be able to re-sign everybody. They’ll mostly be running it back with the same group of guys, and will be counting on Jimmy Garoppolo to guide them back to another Super Bowl.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Antonio Brown has already been dropped by his agent, and now he’s being dropped by an attorney. Brown’s counsel defending him against the rape allegations in Florida has filed a motion to withdraw as his lawyer, according to Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic (Twitter link). So far Brown is only facing a civil suit and not any criminal charges over the alleged sexual assault, and this is hardly a surprising development given Brown’s propensity to cycle through those around him. The embattled receiver is currently out on bail from burglary and battery charges.
- Scott Linehan is resurfacing in the college ranks. The former NFL offensive coordinator is being hired as LSU’s next passing game coordinator, according to Bruce Feldman of The Athletic (Twitter link). Linehan had served as the Cowboys’ OC for four seasons before getting canned after the 2018 campaign. He spent this past year out of football, and is now latching on with the defending national champions. Interestingly, he’ll be replacing Joe Brady at LSU, the 30-year-old whizkid who recently became the Panthers’ offensive coordinator. Linehan, who caught a lot of flak during his last couple of years in Dallas, has also served as the OC for the Vikings, Dolphins, and Lions. He was the Rams’ head coach from 2006-08.
Extra Points: Redskins, Agholor, Spagnuolo
The Redskins and Ron Rivera are making a historic hire. Washington is hiring Jennifer King as an offensive assistant, a source told Adam Schefter and David Newton of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The news of the potential hire was first reported by Rhiannon Walker of The Athletic (Twitter link). King will now be the first full-time African American female assistant coach. As Schefter points out there’s some familiarity here, as Rivera had hired King as a summer intern when he was with the Panthers. It furthers a trend we’ve seen developing the past couple of years, as women continue to make more inroads into the coaching ranks. Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians has been a champion of female coaches, and he hired two women to full-time coaching positions on his staff before last season. King also coached with the Arizona Hotshots of the short-lived AAF.
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Eagles fired offensive coordinator Mike Groh after the season ended, and it looks like they could be headed for a lot of turnover on that side of the ball. Receiver Nelson Agholor is “unlikely to return” next year, writes Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer. A first-round pick back in 2015, Agholor just finished the fifth-year option on his rookie contract, and is slated for unrestricted free agency. He missed the last month-plus of the 2019 campaign, but was pretty much always a full-time starter for Philly when healthy. He struggled with inconsistency and drops, but also had plenty of good moments with the Eagles. He scored eight touchdowns in 2017, and had at least 736 yards in each of his last two full seasons. Despite the sometimes maddening inconsistency, the 26-year-old USC product should draw plenty of interest on the open market.
- Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo just won another Super Bowl, and he earned a ton of praise for his work with Kansas City’s defense. The unit made major strides from last season after he took over, and it sounds like he hopes to parlay the success into another shot at a head coaching gig. “Oh, certainly,” Spagnuolo told Zach Gelb of CBS Sports Radio when asked if he’d be interested in being a head coach again, via Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com. “Listen, that desire and passion never changes. But I will say this . . . I’m a blessed man to have the job I have. If it’s not in God’s plans, I’m OK with that. But I’ve always kept preparing myself that way. It would be great if it happened, and if not, again, I’m very fortunate to be where I am.” The thought would’ve seemed like a huge reach a year ago, but Spags bounced back in a big way. He first rose to prominence as the Giants’ defensive coordinator, and his success in New York led to him becoming head coach of the Rams. He was fired after going 10-38 in three years as St. Louis’ head coach. He also served as New York’s interim coach for four games in 2017 after Ben McAdoo was fired.
Colts Make Staffing Additions
The Colts are just about finished rounding out their coaching staff for 2020. We heard earlier this week that they had hired former Eagles OC Mike Groh to be their new receivers coach, and now we have a few new additions to pass along. They’ve hired Brian Baker as defensive line coach and Tyler Boyles as assistant to the head coach, with Parks Frazier being promoted to offensive quality control coach.
They also named Kevin Patullo as their pass game specialist. Patullo had previously been receivers coach, but was reassigned when Groh was hired. Baker is a longtime veteran of the coaching game with 36 years in the business under his belt. Most recently, he served as an associate head coach and defensive line coach at Alabama last year. He spent 19 years as an assistant in the NFL from 1996-2014. Boyles is more of a fresh face who spent the past handful of years at Middle Tennessee State. This will be his first NFL experience.
Frazier had previously served as assistant to the head coach, the role Boyles was just hired for. He came from the college ranks as well, and interestingly also had a stint at Middle Tennessee in 2015. Overall Indy is retaining both of their coordinators, and Frank Reich has had very little turnover on his staff since taking over.