Raiders Notes: Ruggs, Key, Joyner
The Raiders will kick off their regular season on Monday Night Football against the Ravens tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s round up a few recent items on the Silver-and-Black:
- The 2020 wide receiver draft class was absolutely loaded, and plenty of pundits believed Jerry Jeudy was the cream of the crop. Although no WR had been selected by the time the Raiders were on the board with the No. 12 overall pick, Las Vegas ultimately chose Henry Ruggs over Jeudy and CeeDee Lamb. As Vic Tafur of The Athletic writes, there were Jeudy supporters in the Raiders’ war room, but head coach Jon Gruden wanted his own version of Tyreek Hill, and he saw Ruggs as a player who fit that bill.
- The Raiders selected DE Arden Key, who was once believed to be a first-round talent, in the third round of the 2018 draft. But the LSU product posted just three sacks in three seasons, and Vegas deemed him surplus to requirements in April. He was quickly scooped up by the 49ers, and he did not mince words when asked about his time with the Raiders. “To be honest, I wanted to get out of there,” Key said (via Jacob Hutchinson of KNBR.com). “I been wanting to get out of there. I wasn’t surprised. I was more happy than surprised. I wish it happened a little earlier but, hey, I got what I wanted and I’m good.” Key went on to say that the Raiders’ defensive scheme was a poor fit for him, and while he did not explicitly say so, it seems he is happy to be away from Gruden.
- Count Lamarcus Joyner as another ex-Raider who is happy to be away from the club. The Raiders deployed Joyner — who primarily played safety with the Rams before signing a big-money free agent contract with Vegas — as a nickelback over the past several seasons, and he struggled in that role. The Raiders released him in March, and he signed with the Jets 10 days later. Gang Green will deploy him as single-high safety, and he is pleased with how things turned out. “I’m pretty sure the whole world knows that (I’m happy to be away from the Raiders),” he said. “I made that known. I’m so happy it’s over and I’m here with coach [Robert] Saleh right now” (via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com). Joyner was clear that he didn’t have an issue with Gruden personally.
Matthew Stafford Nixed Trade To Panthers
Shortly after the Rams acquired quarterback Matthew Stafford via trade from the Lions, Stafford admitted that there were teams he did not want to play for. We recently heard that one of those teams was the Panthers, but we did not know how close Detroit and Carolina came to a deal.
As Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports, many believed that the Panthers — who were aggressive in their pursuit and who offered their first-round pick (No. 8 overall), a fifth-rounder, and Teddy Bridgewater — would be the ones to land Stafford. Indeed, the deal was reportedly just about done. But when Stafford learned of his would-be new home, he consulted with his family and told Lions brass that he did not want to go to Carolina.
Though the No. 1 overall pick of the 2009 draft did not have a no-trade clause, the Lions heeded his wishes. The 49ers and Colts were also said to be on Stafford’s list of approved destinations, but Rapoport hears that he would have tried to veto any trade that would have sent him anywhere other than the Rams. If Los Angeles’ offer did not compare with those of other suitors, Detroit probably would not have been able to accommodate the former face of its franchise, but ultimately the Rams ponied up two future first-rounders, a third-rounder, and Jared Goff, which the Lions determined was a good enough return.
By all accounts, Stafford had a terrific training camp, and his first season with his new team kicks off tonight against the Bears (who also pursued a trade for their longtime division rival).
Latest On Deshaun Watson, Dolphins’ Interest
Tyrod Taylor will be the Texans’ starting QB for today’s regular season opener against the Jaguars, and perhaps for the entire 2021 season. But Deshaun Watson — who will be a healthy scratch — is the one generating all the news and rumors.
At least until the November 2 trade deadline, or thereabouts, Watson will continue to watch games from the sideline. Although there has been plenty of chatter that the league could place Watson on the commissioner’s exempt list until his legal dilemma is resolved, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk points out that there is no reason for the NFL to take such action if it doesn’t have to. With the Texans content to pay Watson to sit while they wait for the right trade offer, and with Watson happy to collect a paycheck while never playing another snap for Houston, the embattled signal-caller is effectively on paid leave as it is.
So don’t expect anything to change in that regard unless Watson is traded. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, some of the clubs that expressed interest in dealing for Watson this offseason could become more aggressive around the deadline if their current QB situations prove to be unsatisfactory. Rapoport’s sources suggest that teams like the Dolphins, Eagles, Panthers, and Broncos might revisit Watson talks if need be.
But rival GMs tell Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports that a trade is highly unlikely, which obviously doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Rapoport hears that the criminal side of the situation is still weeks away from a resolution, and we already knew that Watson’s deposition for the civil suits will not take place until February 2022. As one exec put it, “How does anyone make that trade now? Who does it? You don’t know what you are getting and as soon as you get him the league steps in and puts him on the Exempt List. You think they want him on the field right now? We’ve checked with the league, and they have no idea when any of this will be cleared up.”
Still, the Dolphins loom as a potential trade partner. As Florio reports in a separate piece, it was not Watson’s uncertain availability that prevented Miami from swinging a deal for the three-time Pro Bowler recently, it was the asking price.
Texans GM Nick Caserio is determined to get as much for Watson as possible. We have heard that Caserio is seeking three first-round picks and at least two second-rounders, though Adam Schefter of ESPN.com says Caserio wants a combination of six players and picks. Regardless, it’s a massive price tag, and while the Dolphins were apparently willing to take a big gamble, they were not prepared to go quite as far as Caserio would like.
But if Watson is not indicted, and if Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa should struggle over the season’s first few weeks, perhaps Houston and Miami can find a middle ground before November 2.
Colts QB Carson Wentz To Start Week 1
Colts QB Carson Wentz will be under center for the regular season opener against the Seahawks this afternoon, as Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com write. A Week 1 return was looking more and more likely for Indy’s new signal-caller, and his presence will obviously be key in the Colts’ push for a return to the postseason.
Wentz underwent surgery on August 2 to deal with an old broken bone in his foot that had chipped and splintered. The Colts initially announced a vague five- to 12-week timetable, and according to Pelissero and Rapoport, the wide range of possible return dates was because no one knew until Wentz went under the knife what type of surgery he would require.
If doctors needed to insert a screw to secure the splintered piece of bone, Wentz would have missed two to three months. Luckily, the bone fragment was simply removed, and Wentz’s recovery proceeded without complications.
Head coach Frank Reich said Wentz will not be limited in any way, though the offensive play-calling may be just a bit more conservative than it normally would be.
“As far as what he can do, he can do everything,” Reich said. “What will we actually call? Will we keep the reins on a little bit? Probably. Probably so. I just think that makes sense. I just think we’ll manage it. We’ll be smart.”
Wentz will be protected by All-World left guard Quenton Nelson, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Nelson underwent foot surgery of his own in August, but he subsequently battled a back issue that put his Week 1 status in doubt.
Unfortunately, left tackle Eric Fisher will not suit up today, as Schefter notes in a separate tweet. That means Julie’n Davenport will be protecting Wentz’s blind side.
Injury Notes: Fisher, Cannon, Wagner
The Colts were hoping for a Week 1 return for new LT Eric Fisher, who has been rehabbing from the torn Achilles tendon he suffered as a member of the Chiefs in January. According to Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star, Fisher had a real chance to suit up for the September 12 opener against Seattle, but his recent positive test for COVID-19 has seriously complicated matters.
Fisher’s positive result has forced him to quarantine for 10 days — which suggests he is not vaccinated — so he is unable to continue his rehab at the team facility. As such, there is no way for the Colts to comment on his availability until he is activated off the reserve/COVID-19 list. Until he is ready to go, Indy will roll with Julie’n Davenport at left tackle.
Let’s take a look at several other injury-related items:
- Texans OL Marcus Cannon was recently activated off the PUP list, and as veteran NFL reporter Aaron Wilson tweets, there is optimism that Cannon could be ready for Week 1. Houston acquired Cannon in a March trade with the Patriots, but the 33-year-old underwent knee surgery in June and had been recovering ever since. For now, Houston is set to deploy second-year pro Charlie Heck at RT, but Cannon could push Heck for that job while also providing valuable depth at multiple spots along the O-line.
- The Seahawks have been without LB Bobby Wagner for the past few practices, but there is no cause for alarm. Per head coach Pete Carroll (via Curtis Crabtree of Pro Football Talk), Wagner is simply recovering from a minor knee procedure similar to those he has undergone in recent preseasons. The future Hall-of-Famer has missed just two games over the past six years.
- The fact that Broncos OL Brett Jones landed on IR prior to final cutdown day suggested that his season was over, and that turned out to be the case. Mike Klis of 9News.com recently tweeted that Jones suffered a torn biceps in the team’s second preseason game and required season-ending surgery. Jones, who appeared in 61 games (19 starts) with the Giants and Vikings over the past five seasons, just signed with Denver in July.
Saints To Sign DTs Jaleel Johnson, Montravius Adams
The Saints are expected to sign DT Jaleel Johnson, according to veteran NFL reporter Aaron Wilson (via Twitter). The Texans released Johnson as part of final cutdowns last week.
Though Johnson signed a modest one-year, $1.3MM pact with Houston this offseason, his ouster came as something of a surprise given his generally strong performance in training camp and the preseason. Texans GM Nick Caserio elected to go in a different direction, and New Orleans was quick to pounce.
The Saints will be without DT David Onyemata for the first six games of the season due to a PED suspension, and the club lost fellow D-lineman Jalen Dalton — who had been having a good summer as well — to a season-ending injury. That opens the door for Johnson, a run-stuffer who appeared in all 48 games for the Vikings over the past three seasons (including 16 starts in 2020) to come in and compete for snaps.
Montravius Adams is also hoping to carve out a role for himself in the Big Easy. Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reported (via Twitter) that the Saints are signing the former Packers third-rounder, who signed with the Patriots in March but who could not crack New England’s final roster.
Adams entered the league with tantalizing raw ability and physical tools, but he played in less than 600 snaps over the course of four seasons in Green Bay. Last year, he was limited to eight games due to a sprained toe, and he did not do quite enough this summer to stick with the Pats.
With Onyemata sidelined, Adams and Johnson will jockey for playing time alongside Shy Tuttle, Malcolm Roach, and Christian Ringo.
Seahawks S Quandre Diggs Holding In?
Sep. 5: Diggs may not be holding in after all. A source tells Adam Jude of the Seattle Times that Diggs is merely staying away from the practice field as he works to finalize an insurance policy to protect him in case he should suffer an injury this year. Diggs himself has said that he will be on the field for the Seahawks’ regular season opener next week, if not sooner.
“As soon as this little business thing that I gotta do, as soon as it’s done — signed, sealed, delivered — I’ll be back at practice,” Diggs said. “But, I mean, I wouldn’t call it a ‘hold in.’ I would say I’m just getting some things cleared up and I’ll be back with my teammates pretty soon.”
Aug. 29: The Seahawks and safety Jamal Adams finally agreed to a long-term extension earlier this month, clearing one major item off of Seattle’s agenda. The team is still in a holding pattern with left tackle Duane Brown, and now Adams’ running mate at safety, Quandre Diggs, is staging a hold-in of his own, as Brady Henderson of ESPN.com observes.
Diggs is entering his platform year, and we heard back in July that the 28-year-old DB was seeking a new deal. No reports on negotiations between the two sides have surfaced, and Henderson says its unclear if the Seahawks want to give Diggs a new contract at this point. The club is taking a similar stance with respect to Brown, though the ‘Hawks are now said to be exploring some sort of compromise that allows Brown to increase his 2021 compensation without adding years onto his existing deal.
Diggs, who held himself out of practice this week, was acquired by Seattle in a pre-deadline deal with the Lions in 2019, and he has been well worth the fifth-round choice that the Seahawks sent back to Detroit. He played in just five regular season contests for the ‘Hawks in 2019, though he did pick up three interceptions in that span. Last year, he enjoyed perfect attendance, racking up five picks and 64 total tackles en route to his first career Pro Bowl bid. Pro Football Focus assigned him a middling 63.1 overall grade, good for 52nd out of 94 qualified players, but his on-field impact belies that ranking.
When it consummated the trade, Seattle picked up the three-year, $18.6MM contract that Diggs had previously signed with the Lions. The $6.2MM AAV on that deal is now the 19th-highest figure in the safety market. While he will certainly not eclipse, or even get close to, Adams’ $17.5MM AAV, a $12MM/year contract seems to be a reasonable ask.
Head coach Pete Carroll addressed the matter on Friday, saying, “I think [Diggs is] making a bit of a statement now, but I have nothing for you to update. He deserves to do that.” Last night, Carroll was non-committal when asked if he thought Diggs would return to practice this week (Twitter link via Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times).
Diggs has taken to Twitter to express his thoughts, saying, “Can’t deny me what I deserve,” and Adams spoke out in support of his teammate. “He deserves it and hopefully we can get that done,” Adams said. “I’m not the GM, so I don’t know when. His time is going to come. They’re going to do right by him.”
As it stands, Diggs is due to earn $5.95MM in base salary in 2021. He had a $100K offseason workout bonus and can earn another $100K in per-game roster bonuses.
Minor NFL Transactions: 8/29/21
We will keep track of all of today’s minor moves here. Cutdown day is set for 4pm ET on Tuesday, August 31. Teams must cut their roster sizes from 80 to 53 by that time:
Philadelphia Eagles
- Cut: TE Cary Angeline, DE JaQuan Bailey, RB Elijah Holyfield, WR Marken Michel, LB Rashad Smith
93% Of Players Vaccinated
93% of the NFL’s players have been vaccinated, as the league’s chief medical officer, Allen Sills, recently stated (Twitter link via Mark Maske of the Washington Post). That is a sizable increase from the last update we received back in July, when 68% of players were said to have been vaccinated.
Although teams cannot officially punish or cut players for failing to get the vaccine, the NFL has done everything in its power to convince its workforce to do so. For instance, vaccinated players have only been required to get a COVID test once every two weeks, while unvaccinated players have to get tested every day. Also, vaccinated players are only forced to miss time if they test positive, and even then, they can return after two negative tests taken 24 hours part. Unvaccinated players, meanwhile, are required to stay away for at least 10 days if they test positive, five days if they are a close contact of someone who tested positive, and five days if they miss a test.
The Delta variant has caused some problems among a few clubs, but the high vaccination rate has helped limit those issues to “clusters” as opposed to true outbreaks (Twitter link via Maske). Still, the league will continue to see positive tests in vaccinated players, just as society as a whole is experiencing. In light of that, the NFL is willing to test vaccinated players every week instead of every two weeks, as Judy Battista of NFL.com tweets. The union is continuing to push for daily testing, which the NFL eventually conceded to in 2020.
The NFLPA has thus far resisted the league’s attempts to compel players to get the vaccine, and though union president J.C. Tretter claimed that the NFL never requested such a mandate, the league adamantly refutes that claim, per Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. While we wait to see if the league and union ultimately come together on that issue, the league has dangled yet another carrot for the vaccine holdouts.
As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk writes, regardless of whether the league increases testing frequency for vaccinated players to once a week, only unvaccinated players will be required to submit to game-day testing. So if an unvaccinated player tests positive on game day, they will miss at least that game — probably more, as they will be forced to sit out for 10 days — and any unvaccinated close contacts will miss the game as well.
With teams required to slash their roster sizes from 80 to 53 players by 4pm ET on Tuesday, you can be sure that any unvaccinated bubble players will be at a greater risk of being cut.
Colts WR T.Y. Hilton To Miss Time; OT Sam Tevi Suffers Torn ACL
Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton is expected to miss multiple weeks due to an injury sustained in practice on Wednesday, as Stephen Holder of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). Adam Schefter of ESPN.com says Hilton is dealing with an upper back/neck malady, and it is unclear exactly how long he will be sidelined (Twitter link).
Hilton, of course, is a team icon who currently ranks third on the Colts’ all-time receiving yards list. He has spent his entire career in Indianapolis since being selected in the third round of the 2012 draft, though it appeared this offseason that a divorce may be in the cards. The team let Hilton hit the open market, and he received a strong offer from the Ravens. He was on the verge of signing with Baltimore — who offered him considerably more money — before an 11th-hour call from Colts owner Jim Irsay convinced him to change his mind.
Indianapolis was looking forward to fielding an intriguing collection of WR talent with Hilton, Michael Pittman, Parris Campbell, and Zach Pascal. Campbell, a 2019 second-rounder, has played in just nine games in his pro career due to injuries of his own, and Pittman is entering his second professional season. So Hilton’s experience will be beneficial to this group, and Holder notes in a separate tweet that he and QB Carson Wentz — whose Week 1 availability is also up in the air — were starting to build real chemistry in practice.
If Hilton is indeed forced to miss regular season action, another roster spot for players like Dezmon Patmon, Ashton Dulin, and Mike Strachan could be there for the taking. The Colts could also peruse the cuts that will soon be coming en masse for other options.
In other unwelcome news, Colts offensive tackle Sam Tevi has suffered a torn ACL and will miss the entire 2021 season, as Mike Wells of ESPN.com tweets. In Wells’ estimation, Tevi was on the roster bubble anyway. Eric Fisher, who will ultimately step in as the club’s starting left tackle, may not be ready for the start of the season, but Julie’n Davenport has taken the bulk of first-team reps at LT recently, and it sounds as if Indy prefers to deploy Davenport as the swing tackle once Fisher returns.