Coaching Notes: Giants, Chargers, Lions
With less than a month remaining in the NFL regular season, we’re getting to that time of year when every poor performance by a sub-.500 team can raise questions about a head coach’s job security. A few coaches, in particular, are on the hot seat after bad Week 13 showings, so let’s round up the latest on a handful of situations around the NFL….
- The Giants aren’t the sort of team that would fire a head coach – particularly one with two Super Bowl wins under his belt – for clock management. However, at some point, after so many terrible losses this season, “the accumulation of disappointment erodes even the most formidable reservoir of goodwill,” writes Dan Graziano of ESPN.com in his discussion of Tom Coughlin.
- Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch may love Coughlin, but the head coach is making their choice on his future easier with a series of bad losses, writes Gary Myers of the New York Daily News.
- Jordan Raanan of NJ.com identifies 13 potential head coaching candidates for the Giants in the event that the team decides to replace Coughlin at season’s end.
- Wholesale changes to the Chargers‘ coaching staff are necessary, according to Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com. That could mean parting ways with head coach Mike McCoy, though Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune hears from a highly-placed source that team management has mulled the possibility of retaining McCoy and making changes to his staff on both offense and defense.
- While the Lions would like to get a permanent general manager in place before deciding on the future of head coach Jim Caldwell, sticking to that plan may result in the team missing out on some top candidates, as Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press observes. At the very least, the club likely wouldn’t be involved in the first interview window for assistants on teams with first-round byes.
AFC East Notes: Dolphins, McDaniels, Burgess
Within his latest column, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald explores several of the personnel decisions facing the Dolphins in the coming weeks and months. Jackson suggests that the team would like to add at least one defensive end, though that doesn’t rule out the possibility of Olivier Vernon and/or Derrick Shelby returning. Quinton Coples is also in the club’s plans for 2016, albeit at a reduced salary, says Jackson.
While defensive end is one key situation worth monitoring in Miami, the Dolphins will also face decisions on cornerback Brent Grimes, linebackers Koa Misi and Earl Mitchell, running back Lamar Miller, and pass-catchers Rishard Matthews and Jordan Cameron, as Jackson details.
Here’s more from out of the AFC East:
- Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald also looks ahead to the Dolphins‘ offseason, writing that the team’s greatest areas of need are at defensive end, middle linebacker, and cornerback. As Salguero observes, with the club set to hire a new head coach and coaching staff, many of the decisions Miami makes in the next few weeks will determine the direction of the franchise for the next several years.
- Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is generating “a lot of buzz” as a potential head coaching candidate, writes Ben Volin of the Boston Globe. Having already had one head coaching job that went south, McDaniels will have to be selective this time if he has the opportunity to interview for offseason vacancies. Volin suggests that the Lions may be a fit for McDaniels, if Detroit looks to replace Jim Caldwell.
- British rugby star Tom Burgess, who worked out for the Giants last week, also auditioned for both the Jets and Bills, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link). If Burgess is serious about giving the NFL a shot, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him land a reserve/futures contract at season’s end with one of the teams trying him out this month.
2016 Cap Outlook: Dallas Cowboys
Through the 2015 NFL season, Pro Football Rumors has been looking ahead to the 2016 offseason, gauging the salary cap situation for a number of teams with significant cap charges for next season. The cap for 2016 hasn’t been set yet, but we can still assess the salary commitments made by a club and determine whether or not that club will be in good financial shape going forward.
In addition to evaluating each team’s overall cap situation, we’ll focus in on a few key players who may be candidates to be extended, restructured, or released by their current teams. These lists aren’t comprehensive, and depending on a player’s 2015 performance and health, he could drop off one of these lists – or be added to one – as the season goes on. For now though, these are some players to watch.
Using data from Over The Cap, we’re making our way through NFL teams in order of total salary commitments for 2016. Today’s team is the Dallas Cowboys, who currently have the eighth-highest total for their ’16 cap.
Let’s dive in….
Top 10 cap hits for 2016:
- Tony Romo, QB: $20,835,000
- Tyron Smith, LT: $14,000,000
- Brandon Carr, CB: $13,817,000
- Dez Bryant, WR: $13,000,000
- Tyrone Crawford, DT: $8,750,000
- Jason Witten, TE: $8,612,000
- Orlando Scandrick, CB: $7,782,271
- Sean Lee, LB: $5,950,000
- Doug Free, RT: $5,500,000
- Cole Beasley, WR: $3,356,000
Current 2016 cap number for top 51 players: $140,409,470
With the cap figures on extensions for Smith and Bryant set to increase significantly in 2016, many of the Cowboys’ top cap numbers belong to key contributors, which is generally a good thing. Still, it can sometimes provide a more difficult path to clearing room.
Consider the Cowboys’ division rivals in Washington, for instance — Scot McCloughan and co. can quickly clear $16MM+ in cap space by parting ways with Robert Griffin III in the offseason. Outside of Carr’s deal, the Cowboys don’t have many potential short-cuts to gaining big chunks of cap room this winter, so it’ll be interesting to see what moves the team makes if it needs extra space.
Candidates for extension:
- Barry Church, S
Church isn’t the only player the Cowboys will consider extending this offseason. Travis Frederick, who currently rates as the league’s best center, according to Pro Football Focus’ grades, will be extension-eligible, and the team will certainly try to lock up its Pro Bowl center sooner or later. Church, however, is the only obvious extension candidate whose cap number could be reduced with a new deal.
Of course, the Cowboys’ ability to get something done with Church without increasing his 2016 cap charge will depend on whether the two sides can agree on his value. I wouldn’t consider Church one of the NFL’s top safeties, but he has started every game for Dallas since the start of the 2013 season, and his box-score stats have been impressive — he averaged 122 tackles in 2013 and 2014, and has racked up another 78 this year. If the Cowboys think they can extend him without giving him a significant raise, that would be a deal worth exploring.
Candidates for restructure:
- Tyrone Crawford, DT
- Tony Romo, QB
- Orlando Scandrick, CB
- Tyron Smith, LT
- Jason Witten, TE
The most ideal contracts for restructuring, from a team’s perspective, are ones without much future dead money, and ones where the cap hits in future seasons don’t increase too significantly. The deals for Crawford, Romo, and Smith don’t exactly fit that bill, but the sheer size of them makes them logical candidates to be reworked if the Cowboys need to create significant cap savings. Dallas could clear close to $5MM in cap space by restructuring Crawford’s contract, nearly $6MM by restructuring Romo’s, and over $7MM by restructuring Smith’s.
Still, if they can avoid it, the Cowboys would be wise to avoid reworking those deals and pushing more dead money to future years. Romo’s, in particular, is starting to look unwieldy, and even if owner Jerry Jones thinks his quarterback still has four good years left in him – which is debatable – the team would be wise to minimize the risk on those later seasons as much as possible.
Smith’s deal is a solid candidate for a restructure, and so is Scandrick’s, which has a significantly higher cap charge in 2016 than in future seasons. Witten’s is a trickier case — the veteran tight end had 703 receiving yards in 2014, the lowest mark of his career besides his 2003 rookie season, and he’s on track for about the same number this year.
With his production on the decline, Witten’s cap hit will rise to $8.6MM in 2016. The club could ask him to take a pay cut on his $6.5MM base salary, perhaps giving him the opportunity to earn back some of that amount in incentives, but given how much he has meant to the franchise on and off the field over the last decade, that may be a conversation the Cowboys prefer to postpone for another year. A restructure could accomplish that.
Candidates for pay cut or release:
- Brandon Carr, CB
- Andrew Gachkar, LB
As noted earlier, Carr seems extremely unlikely to return to the Cowboys with the Cowboys’ third-highest cap number next year. Of course, I wouldn’t have thought he’d still have the team’s second-highest cap hit in 2015 either, so I can’t say with 100% certainty that the Cowboys will adjust his deal or cut him. But the club’s leverage will certainly increase this winter — if Dallas had parted ways with Carr last winter, it would have created less than $1MM in cap savings. This time around, the team could clear nearly $6.4MM from its cap by releasing him, so he’ll be under more pressure to accept a reduced salary if he wants to remain in Dallas.
As for Gachkar, his $1.9MM cap number isn’t exactly a huge drain on the Cowboys’ 2016 cap, and we usually focus on players with cap hits of $2MM+ in this space. But given how little he has played on defense for the Cowboys this year, Gachkar looks like a release candidate, unless the team is fine with paying him that salary for his contributions on special teams. Dallas could create $1.3MM in cap savings by cutting him.
Contract information from Over The Cap was used in the creation of this post.
Draft Updates: Ramsey, Goff, Underclassmen
With five weeks remaining in the NFL regular season, not many teams are looking ahead to the draft yet, but the NCAA year is winding down and many underclassmen are determining whether or not to declare their intent to enter this year’s draft class. Here’s the latest on a few prospects:
- Florida State defensive back Jalen Ramsey and his family have spent “meaningful time” vetting potential agents as he considers entering the draft, tweets Rand Getlin of Yahoo! Sports. That’s no surprise, considering Ramsey is a potential top-10 pick.
- A pair of receivers, Florida’s Demarcus Robinson and Pitt’s Tyler Boyd, are strongly considering entering the draft, according to Getlin (Twitter links). Getlin adds that one of Boyd’s family members has been looking into possible representation.
- Sources close to Cal quarterback Jared Goff indicate that there’s a 99% chance he’ll enter the draft, and wide receiver Kenny Lawler is expected to declare as well, writes Tony Pauline of DraftInsider.net. Bengals receiver Marvin Jones has been a common point of comparison for Lawler, per Pauline.
- Boise State edge defender Kamalei Correa, who has received second-day grades, has been interviewing agents and is very likely to enter the draft, says Pauline. Maryland defensive lineman Quinton Jefferson and San Diego State cornerback Damontae Kazee are also likely to enter the draft, according to Pauline.
- Indiana guard Dan Feeney, Mississippi State defensive tackle Chris Jones, and Mississippi defensive back Tony Conner are waiting to hear back from the advisory committee before making a decision on the draft, per Pauline.
- Ole Miss tackle Laremy Tunsil, defensive lineman Robert Nkemdiche, and receiver Laquon Treadwell are all expected to enter the draft, says Pauline.
- Other underclassmen considering making the jump to the NFL, according to Pauline:
- Texas A&M defensive end Daeshon Hall
- Alabama cornerback Eddie Jackson
- Louisville safety Josh Harvey-Clemons
- Mississippi tight end Evan Engram
NFC Notes: Lacy, Forte, 49ers, Kilgore
After back-to-back 100-yard games, Eddie Lacy didn’t see much action on Thursday night against the Lions, which seemed like an unusual call on the Packers‘ part, even though Lacy didn’t do much with his handful of carries. However, it seems Green Bay’s decision wasn’t solely based on Lacy’s on-field performance.
According to Rob Demovksy of ESPN.com, Lacy and fellow running back Alonzo Harris missed curfew on Wednesday night in Detroit. The violation of team rules resulted in a demotion for Lacy and a lost roster spot for Harris, who was cut just hours before the game in favor of practice squad back John Crockett.
When I passed along word earlier this afternoon that the Packers brought in former Broncos running back Montee Ball for a workout today, I noted that the Green Bay backfield situation was worth monitoring. That’s even more true in the wake of Demovsky’s report.
Here’s more from around the NFC:
- Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel adds a few more names to the group of players who worked out for the Packers today, tweeting that wide receivers Jamel Johnson, Deon Long, and Kevin Vereen also got auditions.
- Matt Forte has been with the Bears his whole career, but is prepared to move on this offseason if they don’t offer him a contract, writes Chris Wesseling of NFL.com. “There’s nothing I can do, really, except play football,” Forte said. “The decision on whether I stay or whether I go is not really up to me. It’s whether I get offered a contract extension, which I haven’t been offered one and doesn’t really look like it. If not, I go into free agency. So I’m pretty much satisfied with either way it goes.”
- Addressing the reassignment of team president Paraag Marathe, which was reported earlier today, 49ers CEO Jed York has issued a statement via the club’s website. As expected, York presents the decision as one that Marathe was involved in making. “Despite how some have chosen to portray this transition in the media, I want you to know that Paraag has been and will continue to be an instrumental member of this organization,” York said in the statement.
- 49ers center Daniel Kilgore is expected to make the trip to Chicago this weekend as a part of the active roster, but the 49ers still need to move him from the physically-unable-to-perform list. Head coach Jim Tomsula hinted that the move would occur on Saturday morning, according to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee.
NFC East Notes: Cowboys, Eagles, Riley
As bad as the Cowboys have been this season, their 3-8 record only puts them two games out of a tie for first place in the NFC East, where no team has more than five wins. As the division’s four teams try to work their way up to .500, let’s round up the latest out of the East….
- Within his weekly round-up of notes from across the NFL, Albert Breer of the NFL Network examines the Cowboys‘ search for Tony Romo‘s eventual replacement, suggesting the team will consider targeting a quarterback in this year’s draft.
- Breer also spoke to Eagles defensive tackle Fletcher Cox about players-only meeting, with Cox offering the following assessment: “When you start having players-only meetings, that’s when you know things are going south. I’ve been around that before. We aren’t gonna be having any players-only meetings.”
- Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie still believes in head coach Chip Kelly and his plan for the team, according to Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News, who doesn’t expect Kelly to go anywhere this offseason.
- After injuring his foot in practice on Thursday, Washington linebacker Perry Riley will undergo surgery to repair a stress fracture, writes Mike Jones of the Washington Post. Riley, who is coming off his best stretch of the season, is expected to miss three to six weeks, so there’s no guarantee he’ll play again this year.
Latest On 2016 NFL Salary Cap
Earlier this week, we heard that NFL executives had been informed by the league office that 2016’s salary cap for teams is expected to be in the range of $147MM-155MM, an increase over this year’s $143.28MM figure. Today, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reduces the gap on that estimate, tweeting that the league’s estimate projected a cap between $150MM and $153.4MM.
As Albert Breer of the NFL Network observes, the projection teams get in December typically comes in a little lower than the final figure, so we can probably assume that the cap will eventually land around $153MM. Breer passes along the projected franchise-tag amounts for a hypothetical cap of $153MM, which predictably come in just slightly below the figures provided by Joel Corry of CBSSports.com last month — Corry was projecting a $154MM cap.
While teams can start making tentative plans based on the latest cap estimates, agents and players may prefer to wait things out. According to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link), many players and their agents would rather see where the cap lands before signing new contracts, out of concern that those new deals will quickly become outdated, with the cap on the rise. Cole identifies Buccaneers running back Doug Martin and Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins as two players exercising patience, even though their clubs wouldn’t mind getting something done prior to free agency.
As Over the Cap’s team-by-team cap projections for 2016 show, there are currently two clubs – the Dolphins and Saints – whose salary commitments put them over the cap for ’16 already. OTC’s figures are based on a $150MM estimate, but since Miami and New Orleans each have more than $154MM in salary on their books, they’d still be a little over the cap even if it lands on the high end of the league’s projections.
Minor NFL Transactions: 12/4/15
Here are Friday’s minor transactions from around the NFL, including practice squad moves:
- With Karlos Williams having been ruled out of this weekend’s game for the Bills, the team is elevating running back Mike Gillislee to the 53-man roster from their practice squad, tweets Mike Rodak of ESPN.com. Buffalo has yet to formally announce Gillislee’s promotion — a corresponding move will be required when it becomes official.
- The Ravens have re-added safety Nick Perry – not to be confused with the Packers linebacker – to their practice squad, per Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun (Twitter link). Offensive lineman Marcel Jones was cut from the 10-man unit to accommodate the move.
North Notes: Packers, Ball, Bears, Lions
After having rounded up some Friday items out of the NFL’s West divisions earlier today, let’s turn our attention to the North divisions….
- After not getting much production from their three running backs last night, the Packers had former Bronco Montee Ball in for a workout today, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Eddie Lacy has been disappointing this year, and James Starks only had 15 yards on nine carries on Thursday night, with the team giving rookie John Crockett – promoted earlier in the day from the practice squad – five carries as well. While there’s no deal at this time with Ball, Green Bay’s backfield situation could be worth keeping an eye on.
- The Packers also tried out a wide receiver today, bringing in J.J. Worton for an audition, tweets Wilson. The former UCF wideout is about a year removed from a torn ACL. Quarterback Zac Dysert auditioned for Green Bay as well, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
- After publishing the first part of his conversation with George McCaskey earlier this week, Dan Pompei has part two available today, in which he talks to the Bears chairman about increasing the regular season to 18 games (McCaskey’s not in favor) and asks whether the team would be willing to give up a home game to play an international contest (McCaskey’s really not in favor).
- In addition to working out a handful of kickers this week, in case Matt Prater was unable to play on Thursday night, the Lions also took a look at wide receiver Greg Salas, tweets Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post. A fourth-round pick in 2011, Salas has spent time with several teams, recording a total of 43 regular-season receptions for the Rams and Jets.
- The Browns worked out former Southern Utah punter Brock Miller, according to Wilson (Twitter link).
Pigskin Links: Ware, Lions, Manning, Jaguars
Here at Pro Football Rumors, we deliver up-to-the-minute news on NFL transactions and high-quality original analysis. Each week, we also feature some of the best blog articles from around the web in our regular feature, Pigskin Links.
We’re looking for interesting reads on all things football from blogs of all sizes. While PFR is dedicated to player movement, Pigskin Links is open to pieces on all areas of the game. If you would like to suggest your blog post (or someone else’s) for Pigskin Links, send us an email with the link and a brief synopsis at PigskinLinks@gmail.com.
Here’s this week’s look around the football blogosphere:
- Arrowhead Pride breaks down Spencer Ware‘s excellent first start for the Chiefs.
- NFL Spin Zone says Lions defenders Ezekiel Ansah and Darius Slay are budding stars.
- Spunkmeyer On Sports examines possible destinations for Peyton Manning if he leaves Denver.
- Black And Teal isn’t ready to give up on the Jaguars‘ playoff hopes.
- Today’s Pigskin wouldn’t be surprised to see Johnny Manziel eventually land in Dallas.
- Fueled By Sports identifies the top fantasy football pickups for Week 13.
- Sports Central made their predictions for Week 13.
- Hogs Haven is prepared to move on from the Robert Griffin III era in Washington.
- Buffalo Wins discusses reaching a breaking point with Bills coach Rex Ryan.
Got a great football blog post that you want to see featured in next week’s Pigskin Links? Email it to Zach or tweet it to him: @ZachLinks.