NFC Notes: Cousins, Brees, Panthers
Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins could hit free agency next offseason, which would force the team to engage in a bidding war if it wants to retain him, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see Cousins re-sign in 2018, writes Dan Graziano of ESPN.com. The standoff between the Redskins and Cousins isn’t personal, notes Graziano, who expects him to stay with them if they make him the best offer. Otherwise, Graziano runs down a slew of other potential suitors that could make Cousins one of the richest players in the game if he reaches the open market in March. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests that a Cousins derby could look a bit like Hall of Fame defensive end Reggie White’s trip to free agency in 1993, when most of the league pursued him before he signed with Green Bay, as well as the sweepstakes for quarterback Peyton Manning in 2012. Manning drew vast interest before joining the Broncos.
More from the NFC:
- In theory, Saints quarterback Drew Brees is in the same situation as Cousins. Except, Brees has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want to play anywhere but New Orleans, as Mike Triplett of ESPN.com writes. The 38-year-old could have become an unrestricted free agent this offseason and cashed in on a weak QB market, but he instead gave up his leverage by signing a one-year, $24.25MM extension just before the 2016 opener. For a morale boost, Triplett thinks the Saints should do the same thing before the 2017 season kicks off. Then again, since Brees hasn’t given the team any real reason to think he’ll bolt in free agency next year, there isn’t a ton of pressure to get that done.
- Brandon Beane, who spent 19 years in Carolina’s front office before taking over as the Bills’ general manager in May, endorses the Panthers’ decision to bring in Marty Hurney as the interim GM. “Hiring Marty is an excellent move for the Panthers,” Beane told David Newton of ESPN.com. “He knows the organization inside and out and has great relationships with many people in their front office and coaching staff. I wish him nothing but the best in his return to Carolina.” Most of Beane’s tenure in Carolina was spent working under Hurney, who first served as the team’s GM from 2002-12.
- Free agent running back DeAngelo Williams would be willing to pull a Hurney and return to the Panthers, with whom he played from 2006-14, but the club should stay away, argues Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer. Not only do the Panthers have a full complement of running backs (Jonathan Stewart, Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, Fozzy Whittaker and Cameron Artis-Payne), but Fowler points out that Williams has badmouthed the Panthers since his departure and, at 34 years old, has taken a pounding during his career.
Zach Links contributed to this post.
Packers Notes: Allison, Guion, Davis
The latest from Green Bay:
- The NFL announced Wednesday that it has suspended Packers wide receiver Geronimo Allison one game for a violation of its substance abuse policy. Allison was charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession in December and pleaded no contest in April, when he paid a $330.50 fine to reduce the charge to an ordinance violation, per Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. Allison’s Week 1 ban will cost him far more – a $31,764 game check. As a rookie in 2016, the undrafted free agent from Illinois racked up 12 catches, 202 yards and two touchdowns in 10 regular-season games. Allison will enter training camp as the fourth option in a packed receiving corps.
- Defensive tackle Letroy Guion will go to trial next month in Hawaii for intoxicated driving, reports the Associated Press. Guion was arrested in June on a driving under the influence charge, and his attorney is now seeking witnesses to the arrest, according to the AP. Guion had a blood alcohol content of .086 an hour after the arrest and smelled of both alcohol and marijuana at the time. He’s already set to serve a season-opening four-game suspension for a separate infraction – a violation of the league’s performance-enhancing drugs policy.
- The Packers will have a new director of player development with Rob Davis having left the organization, Demovsky tweets. Davis spent 12 seasons as a long snapper in the NFL, including 11 with Green Bay, before embarking on a front office role with the Packers for nine years. He’s on to a “special opportunity,” though team president Mark Murphy declined to say where Davis is headed.
- In case you missed it, the Packers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers have not begun extension talks.
Zach Links contributed to this post.
AFC Rumors: Steelers, Colts, Bolts
Now that they won’t be able to extend running back Le’Veon Bell until next year, the Steelers are focusing on a new deal for left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, according to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com. While there has only been “minimal movement” toward an extension, neither side wants Villanueva to miss a significant portion of the summer, reports Fowler, who notes that talks could ramp up before the Steelers open camp July 27. Given that he’s an exclusive rights free agent who won’t be able to reach the open market until after the 2018 season, Pittsburgh doesn’t have to award Villanueva a raise now. In doing so, though, the Steelers would lock up a player who has improbably become an integral part of their offense since joining the team as a practice squad player in 2014. The former Army Ranger captain debuted in 2015 and has appeared in 32 straight games, starting 26. He started each of Pittsburgh’s games last year and was the only member of its offense to play all 1,083 of the unit’s snaps. As a result, the 28-year-old is hoping for a new contract and hasn’t signed his $615K ERFA tender.
More on Pittsburgh and two other AFC franchises:
- Bell rejected a five-year offer worth roughly $60MM prior to Monday’s deadline for franchise-tagged players to sign long-term deals. One of Bell’s former Steelers teammates, retired cornerback Ike Taylor, shed some light on the star rusher’s demands Wednesday on NFL Network. According to Taylor, Bell informed him that he wants a contract that reflects his performance as both a No. 1 back and a No. 2 receiver – likely something in the neighborhood of $15MM per year (Twitter links via Mike Garafolo of NFL.com). Bell does have multiple prolific pass-catching seasons under his belt, including his 75-reception showing in 2016. Had the Steelers met his demands, Bell would’ve crushed LeSean McCoy‘s league-leading contract for RBs. The five-year, $40MM-plus deal McCoy signed with the Bills in 2015 continues to stand above the rest, though.
- Indications are that Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri wants to play at least two more seasons, reports Kevin Bowen of the team’s website. Set to turn 45 in December, Vinatieri is the league’s oldest player, but the former Patriot remains one of the game’s premier kickers. He connected on 27 of 31 tries (7 of 9 from 50-plus yards) last season, tying him for the league’s sixth-highest conversion rate (87.1 percent). Vinatieri was also one of five kickers who didn’t miss an extra point, hitting on all 44 attempts. Hanging around for two more years should enable Vinatieri to pass Hall of Famer Morten Andersen as the league’s all-time leader in both points and field goals made, Bowen points out.
- A back injury could sideline Chargers first-round wide receiver Mike Williams for his rookie season, but they should have the weaponry to survive his absence, notes Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com. With Keenan Allen returning from an injury-marred 2016 to complement Tyrell Williams, Travis Benjamin and Dontrelle Inman – all three of whom were productive last year – the Bolts figure to boast a strong corps of wideouts. The Chargers also have an enviable tight end duo (Hunter Henry and Antonio Gates) and pass-catching running back Melvin Gordon, who racked up 41 receptions last season, giving quarterback Philip Rivers plenty of proven targets.
Lions, Stafford Working Toward Deal
Less than a month ago, Raiders quarterback Derek Carr signed a five-year, $125MM extension to become the NFL’s highest-paid player. Carr’s stay atop the league’s earnings mountain might not last much longer, though, as there’s “internal optimism” that the Lions and quarterback Matthew Stafford will agree to a new deal within the next two weeks, reports Stacey Dales of NFL Network (via Chris Wesseling of NFL.com).
Stafford’s entering the final season of the three-year, $53MM extension he signed in July 2013, but his next contract figures to obliterate that pact in value and could surpass Carr’s. The 6-foot-2, 230-pound Stafford inked his current pact after a 20-touchdown, 17-interception showing for him and a 4-12 season for Detroit, and both he and the Lions have been far more successful since.
Stafford helped guide the Lions to a decent 34-30 record and two playoff berths over the past four seasons, and he’s now arguably fresh off the best two-year stretch of his career. Thanks in part to Jim Bob Cooter‘s promotion to offensive coordinator, Stafford tossed 56 TDs against 23 picks and completed upward of 67 percent of passes from 2015-16. He threw 24 scores and a meager 10 INTs last season, when both Football Outsiders and Pro Football Focus ranked him as the league’s eighth-best passer.
Given the 29-year-old Stafford’s strong output in recent seasons, the ever-rising salary cap and the importance of his position, a mega-deal looks like a formality. Lions president Rod Wood implied as much last month, saying he’d be “comfortable” making Stafford the league’s top-paid player and adding, “It’s a premium position, and you need to have a very, very good player at that position to be credible and be competitive, and I think we do have that, and we’re working on getting a deal done.”
Another sizable contract would be the third for Stafford, who had the benefit of entering the NFL as the No. 1 pick in 2009, shortly before the league introduced the rookie wage scale in 2011. His initial deal was worth $78MM over six years and included $41.7MM in guaranteed money. Having established himself as a quality signal-caller since then, the eight-year veteran is on a path to becoming one of the highest earners in league history.
Latest On Ezekiel Elliott
Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott may have had a role in a fight at a Dallas bar on Sunday, but police are halting the investigation because they can’t find the victim and witnesses aren’t cooperating. Rebecca Lopez of WFAA_TV first reported the Dallas Police Department would suspend the investigation, and the DPD subsequently issued a statement confirming it (Twitter links).
“The assault offense that occurred July 16th at the Clutch Bar located at 2520 Cedar Springs Road has been suspended due to the lack of a complaint,” announced public information officer Melinda Gutierrez. “Dallas detectives made several attempts to contact the victim through various ways but at this time have not been able to make contact. To date no witnesses have come forward to provide any additional information about this incident.”
This is the second positive development regarding this incident for Elliott, whom fellow bar patron Michael Huffman defended afterward, claiming that the Cowboy didn’t do anything wrong. While it looks as if Elliott will escape legal ramifications for this matter, the NFL is presumably still looking into it, and it’s continuing to investigate domestic violence allegations him from 2016. Elliott’s bracing for a suspension stemming from the abuse claims.
Latest On Jaguars’ Dante Fowler
Jaguars defensive end Dante Fowler is facing misdemeanor charges of simple battery and mischief as a result of a Tuesday arrest, but that wasn’t his first run-in with the law during his two-year NFL career. In fact, Fowler has committed 10 traffic violations since December 2015, reports Mike Kaye of First Coast News (Twitter links). What’s more, Fowler was arrested in Miami Beach in March 2016 and charged with misdemeanor counts of assaulting a police offer and resisting arrest without violence, according to Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times.
The arrest report states that Fowler hindered police from trying to break up a crowd in front a bar, as Auman details. Fowler “ignored verbal requests to move off the road,” writes Auman, and, when an officer put his arm on Fowler’s, the Jaguar said “Get the [expletive] off me” and swung his arm backward “in an obvious attempt to strike” the officer, the report indicates. “Numerous officers” then had to escort Fowler out. Despite that, the misdemeanor charges against him were dropped in December 2016, after he completed a pretrial intervention program for first-time offenders.
Now that Fowler has multiple off-field blemishes on his resume, it could lead to a harsher punishment from the NFL. Even if the authorities let Fowler off relatively scot-free for his latest arrest, the league may hand the 22-year-old a suspension. That would temporarily deprive the Jaguars a defensive starter and represent another setback in the career of Fowler, the 2015 third overall pick who missed his rookie season with a torn ACL and was involved in an unbecoming incident last year in which he was caught on video watching a fight between his girlfriend and ex-girlfriend. The league was aware of it, calling the images “disturbing,” but it didn’t punish Fowler.
AFC Notes: Steelers, Jets, Cousins, Texans
Having not yet signed his exclusive rights free agent tender, Steelers left tackle Alejandro Villanueva training camp status is in question, writes Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Villanueva signed a waiver that enabled him to participate in voluntary practices during the spring, but he indicated at the time that he’ll follow his agent’s advice regarding camp. With that in mind, the former Army Ranger captain could sit out if his representative, Jason Bernstein, suggests it. As Fittipaldo points out, though, Villanueva doesn’t have much leverage and will have no recourse but to play for the ERFA tender amount ($615K) if the Steelers don’t take it upon themselves to award him a raise. Unfortunately for the O-line stalwart, he won’t be eligible to cash in as an unrestricted free agent until after the 2018 season, when he’ll already be 30 years old.
More from the AFC:
- “It’s hard to argue with” the idea that the Jets are tanking “when everybody else sees all the stuff that’s going on,” wide receiver Quincy Enunwa admitted on Sunday (via Zach Braziller of the New York Post). Whether the Jets actually are tanking is debatable, but it’s clear they’re rebuilding. The team has released a slew of veterans, including receivers Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker, since last season. When healthy, those two were above Enunwa on the team’s depth chart. Enunwa is now the Jets’ clear-cut No. 1 option, having broken out as a third-year man in 2016 with 58 receptions, 814 yards and four touchdowns.
- With Josh McCown, Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty as the Jets’ choices under center, Enunwa seems unlikely to benefit from high-end quarterback play this year. But with the Redskins unable to lock up Kirk Cousins beyond the upcoming season, that could change in 2018. The Jets will have upward of $80MM in cap space next offseason, which could make them a suitor for Cousins if he becomes a free agent, notes Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. However, considering Cousins will be entering his age-30 season in 2018, Cimini doesn’t see him as a fit for the young Jets.
- Texans running back D’Onta Foreman has a July 31 court date in Texas stemming from his arrest this past weekend on misdemeanor drug and gun charges, but a postponement is likely, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. Foreman will be out of state then with the Texans, who begin training camp in West Virginia on July 25.
Armonty Bryant Gets Four-Game Suspension
The NFL has suspended Lions defensive end Armonty Bryant four games for violating its substance abuse policy, reports Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter link).
This is the third suspension in the past year for Bryant, notes Birkett, who suggests that it’s time for the Lions to cut bait on the soon-to-be 27-year-old. Detroit re-upped Bryant back in March, but as a minimum salary benefit deal with a meager $40K signing bonus, escaping the contract would be easy for the club.
Bryant, whom the Lions claimed off waivers from the Browns last October, appeared in just five games in 2016 (all with Detroit), but he did tally an impressive three sacks during his short campaign. In the best season of his four-year career, 2015, Bryant totaled 14 appearances and 5.5 sacks.
With Bryant at least temporarily out of the picture, the Lions look even thinner at defensive end behind starters Ezekiel Ansah and Kerry Hyder. They’re currently set to enter the season with Cornelius Washington, Anthony Zettel and late-round rookies Jeremiah Ledbetter and Pat O’Connor among their reserves at the position, as Roster Resource shows.
Panthers Likely To Name Marty Hurney Interim GM
The Panthers are set to bring back former general manager Marty Hurney to take over for the fired David Gettleman. Hurney is meeting with Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, according to NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero, who reports that the club will hire Hurney on an interim basis if the interview goes well. Hurney would run the Panthers through 2017, and the team would use that time to vet full-time candidates (Twitter link).
Hurney works for ESPN Radio in Charlotte, but he previously served as the Panthers’ GM from 2002-12 and oversaw three playoff teams – one of which earned a Super Bowl berth. The Panthers went just 80-85 during that span, but Hurney was nonetheless responsible for bringing in a few of their current linchpins in Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly, Thomas Davis and Greg Olsen.
In reuniting with Hurney, the Panthers would pass on reported GM candidates in their own director of college scouting, Jeff Morrow, Titans director of player personnel Ryan Cowden and Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen. However, those three (and others) could still be possibilities down the line for the Panthers, who look poised to turn to Hurney, head coach Ron Rivera and director of team administration/salary cap specialist Rob Rogers in a temporary power structure, as Albert Breer of The MMQB tweets.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
Panthers, Davis Have Discussed Extension
Before his stunning firing as Carolina’s general manager on Monday, Dave Gettleman reportedly wasn’t in any hurry to sign Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis or tight end Greg Olsen to contract extensions. However, speaking with Kelsey Riggs of WCNC on Tuesday, Davis revealed that he and the Gettleman-led Panthers did discuss a new deal.
“We had actually engaged in contract talks. They presented something and we presented something back and we were just in the process of negotiating,” said Davis, who added that it’s “really sad and disappointing” and “unfair” that the contract situations of him and Olsen have been partly attributed to Gettleman’s ouster.
Talks with Gettleman “were going well,” according to Davis, who’s “thankful that the organization is willing to do it.” Given that the organization is led by owner Jerry Richardson, who reportedly counts Davis among his favorite players, odds of an extension seem high.
Despite Davis’ advanced age, the 34-year-old presented a compelling argument for a new contract last season, his 11th as a Panther, when he secured his second Pro Bowl nod. That honor came after Davis logged his fifth 16-start campaign, led Panthers defenders in snaps (1,009) and totaled 106 tackles, three interceptions, two fumble recoveries and a touchdown.
While Thomas’ rating at Pro Football Focus was less impressive than his traditional numbers – the outlet ranked his performance a middling 43rd among 88 qualified linebackers – it’s clear he has established himself as both a dependable player and a heart-and-soul member of the franchise. Beyond that, there could be further incentive for the Panthers to extend Davis. By locking him up past 2017, they’d perhaps reduce his current cap hit ($8.25MM).