Latest On Texans’, Panthers’ GM Search
We heard several weeks ago from Ian Rapoport of NFL.com that the Texans, who tried but failed to hire Patriots exec Nick Caserio as their GM this spring, were planning to operate without a GM in 2020. But Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears differently.
La Canfora says the Texans remain interested in Caserio, who is still a desirable GM candidate. Indeed, La Canfora reported back in October that Houston was expected to hire Caserio in 2020, after his contract with New England is up, which is one of the reasons why Rapoport’s report from earlier this month was a bit of a surprise.
But if the Texans do hope to hire Caserio this offseason, they could face some competition from multiple clubs, including the Panthers. Per La Canfora, Panthers owner David Tepper wants to speak with several coaches and executives with ties to New England, and he was among those who reached out to former Patriots executive Jack Easterby last year.
Coincidentally, Easterby ultimately became Houston’s executive vice president of team development, but La Canfora says Tepper could pursue him and/or Caserio in 2020. Of course, the Panthers currently employ Marty Hurney as GM, and Hurney is a part of the team’s head coach search following Ron Rivera‘s recent firing. But Tepper wants to add multiple people to his front office, and Hurney’s role could change as a result.
One way or another, Caserio will almost certainly not return to New England, and he could have a number of options available to him. Indeed, Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network says that the team’s extension talks with Caserio have gone nowhere, and the Patriots are bracing for a number of defections from their front office (video link).
In related news, Tepper has officially sold his minority interest in the Steelers, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Browns To Retain Freddie Kitchens, OBJ?
For most of the last two decades, Browns fans would have been content to head into Week 15 with the 6-7 record they have today. But the 2019 iteration of the team entered the season with a star-studded roster and sky-high expectations, so the sub-.500 mark has left a sour taste in Cleveland’s collective mouth.
Since rookie head coach Freddie Kitchens has been unable to coax the expected results out of his club, which has often looked undisciplined and sloppy, speculation as to his future with the Browns has run rampant. It would not be a surprise to see GM John Dorsey part ways with Kitchens this offseason in favor of a more experienced head, but as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com writes, that is not the current plan.
Rapoport says the team’s 4-1 record over the past five games has gone a long way towards saving Kitchens’ job. He adds that, barring a “horrific collapse or circumstance to end the season,” the Browns will go into 2020 with Kitchens as their head coach. Team management remains supportive of Kitchens, for whom growing pains were expected, and it sounds as if Dorsey and ownership will exercise patience.
Like Kitchens, star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has disappointed this season, and recent reports surrounding him have led some to wonder if he will be back in Cleveland next year. But as Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports writes, Beckham does not plan to request a trade this offseason. OBJ is, however, interested, to see what changes are made to the Browns’ staff and scheme, and if those changes — or lack thereof — are not to his liking, he could ask to be dealt.
If Dorsey does choose to deal Beckham, the Jets could be in play, and per Ralph Vacchiano of SNY.tv, OBJ is not afraid of returning to New York, despite his experiences with the Giants (video link). Gang Green would presumably not be Beckham’s first choice, but the market itself would not be a deterrent for him.
49ers’ D.J. Jones Out For Season
The hits keep coming for the 49ers. On Thursday, head coach Kyle Shanahan announced that defensive tackle D.J. Jones will miss the rest of the season thanks to a serious ankle injury. The Niners placed Jones on IR and they’re expected to fill his spot on the roster on Friday.
This news comes at an inopportune time for San Francisco, as the team is likely to be without Richard Sherman and Dee Ford for multiple games, and Weston Richburg and Marquise Goodwin were recently placed on IR. Jones, while not a household name like Sherman and Ford, has started all eleven games in which he’s appeared this year, and he has served as a solid run-stuffer in the Niners’ excellent defense.
The 49ers selected Jones in the sixth round of the 2017 draft, and he cracked the starting lineup for the first time in 2018, starting four out of the 10 games in which he saw action. This year, he became a fixture along the interior of the D-line and also recorded the first two sacks of his career.
The good news is that the injury to Jones could open the door for Kentavius Street to make his long-awaited debut, according to Shanahan. Street, a fourth-round selection in the 2018 draft, only fell to the fourth round because of an ACL tear he suffered before the draft, and although he showed flashes in the 49ers’ preseason slate this year, he was forced to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery in September. The surgery went well, and the team recently designated Street as a candidate to return from IR.
Latest On Patriots’ Video Investigation
6:24pm: Roger Goodell confirmed the Patriots’ history with illegal videotaping will be factored into this process, adding that the league will take its time during the investigation into this matter (Twitter links via Ian Rapoport of NFL.com).
10:01am: For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the Patriots are involved in another scandal involving prohibited filming of another team. Jeff Howe of The Athletic offers a useful summary of the details, which are fairly straightforward.
Essentially, the Patriots’ media production team was filming an episode of “Do Your Job” during the Bengals-Browns game on Sunday. “Do Your Job” is a series of features highlighting less visible members of the organization, and this episode focused on a day in the life of a New England pro scout.
The film crew obtained the necessary credentials to follow that scout to the Cleveland press box for the game (scouts routinely do advance scouting of an upcoming opponent from the press box, and the Patriots play the Bengals this week). Unfortunately for the crew, part of the B-roll that they shot included footage of the Cincinnati sideline, and NFL teams are prohibited from shooting video of coaches on the sideline.
The Patriots acknowledge that they should have done a better job advising the crew of league protocol, and they also concede that they should have informed the Bengals and the league of their intentions prior to the game. In a statement, they accepted full responsibility for the crew’s actions, and Howe suggests that some members of the team’s production wing could lose their jobs.
Howe also says that a Bengals staffer recognized what was happening and shot an eight-minute video of the Patriots crew’s monitor before reporting it to NFL security. The league is now in possession of that video, along with all footage the Patriots shot for this episode of “Do Your Job,” which New England promptly turned over.
All of that makes it sound like an innocent oversight. However, sources tell Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic that the eight-minute video focuses exclusively on the Bengals sideline and includes “a direct view of the sideline as players run on and off the field and coaches make signals for plays.” Those sources suggest that the footage does not include inadvertent glimpses of the sideline during an interview with the scout, but rather an extended shooting of the sideline.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick immediately distanced himself from the incident and was reportedly furious when he learned about it. Per Howe, Belichick said, “I have no involvement in this and no knowledge of it, and so I really don’t have any idea what exactly is going on. I can tell you that we’ve never, as a coaching staff and me personally, have never viewed any video footage at all of anything that those production people have done, other than what’s shown on public television or something like that. But we don’t have anything to do with what they do, so I really don’t have much knowledge of the situation at all.”
The league has not announced a timeline for its investigation, though as Ben Volin of the Boston Globe tweets, it may be difficult for the Patriots to avoid some sort of sanction given their dubious past. For what it’s worth, Belichick was fined $500K and the Patriots were stripped of a 2008 first-round draft pick when they videotaped the Jets’ sideline from an unauthorized location during a 2007 game.
Luckily for Pats fans, though, the league apparently does not believe that this incident rises to the level of the original Spygate, as Mark Maske of the Washington Post tweets.
Saints Place Sheldon Rankins On IR
After learning yesterday that defensive lineman Marcus Davenport would be undergoing season-ending surgery, the Saints have been dealt another blow. Per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins has a significant ankle injury that will knock him out for the rest of the season (Twitter link). New Orleans placed Rankins on IR and signed defensive tackle T.Y. McGill, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets.
Rankins left the Saints’ difficult loss to the 49ers on Sunday with the injury, and his absence will be missed as the club tries to climb back into one of the NFC’s top two seeds. The 2016 first-rounder is unfortunately no stranger to the training room, as he has also suffered a broken fibula and a torn Achilles in his young career. He played a full 16-game slate in the 2017-18 seasons, and in 2018, he broke out with eight sacks. But he tore his Achilles in the divisional round of last year’s playoffs, and he did not return to the field until Week 4 of the 2019 campaign.
Luckily for the Saints, the defensive front is perhaps their deepest positional group. But given that linebackers A.J. Klein and Kiko Alonso also dealing with injuries, the front seven as a whole has suddenly become something of a question mark.
NFL Practice Squad Updates: 12/11/19
Here are today’s practice squad comings and goings:
Carolina Panthers
- Signed: WR Bobo Wilson
New England Patriots
- Signed: K Josh Gable, DE Eric Lee, S Adarius Pickett
Oakland Raiders
- Signed: TE Paul Butler, LB Te’von Coney, C Kyle Kalis
- Released: TE Cole Wick
San Francisco 49ers
- Signed: CB Jermaine Kelly
Seattle Seahawks
- Signed: RB Xavier Turner
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Signed: WR Trevion Thompson
Minor NFL Transactions: 12/11/19
We’ll keep track of all of today’s minor moves right here:
Carolina Panthers
- Promoted: LB Ramik Wilson
Oakland Raiders
- Signed: DL Olsen Pierre, TE Eric Tomlinson
- Promoted: CB Nick Nelson
Seattle Seahawks
- Promoted: CB Ryan Neal
NFC East Notes: Shurmur, Vander Esch, Eagles
Giants head coach Pat Shurmur is clearly on the hot seat, and everything we have heard this year suggests that he could be fired at season’s end. And as Paul Schwartz of the New York Post writes, the sentiment for bringing Shurmur back for the 2020 season is dimming within the organization because there is simply no concrete reason to suggest that he should be retained. Previous reports indicated that Shurmur could keep his job simply for the sake of giving young QB Daniel Jones some continuity, but Schwartz says the cons of keeping Shurmur outweigh that potential pro.
Schwartz does not offer an update on Big Blue’s plans for GM Dave Gettleman, and the fact that the Giants have historically practiced patience with their GMs and knew that they were tasking Gettleman with a rebuilding job could mean that he is safe for 2020. But will the team trust him to hire another HC since the Shurmur hire has flopped, or will ownership just clean house and start afresh? All options are definitely on the table.
Let’s take a swing around the NFC East:
- Cowboys linebacker Leighton Vander Esch has not played since November 17 due to a neck injury, and while there has been some improvement, the 23-year-old is still not ready to practice, as Todd Archer of ESPN.com writes. The club is not ready to put Vander Esch on IR just yet, but it sounds like that could be a possibility.
- The Eagles may have lost WR Alshon Jeffery for the season, and as Bo Wulf and Zach Berman of The Athletic write, Nelson Agholor‘s status remains up in the air. Agholor sat out the team’s Monday night win with a knee injury, so Philly may need to make more than one WR roster move. Old friend Jordan Matthews just signed with the 49ers, so Berman believes it’s more likely that the team will promote one or two of their taxi squad wideouts than sign a free agent. Wulf, though, names a few players on other practice squads that the Eagles could poach.
- Speaking of Jeffery, Eliot Shorr-Parks of 94WIP.com says the Eagles have no choice but to release the veteran wideout if they cannot find a trade partner for him (which seems highly unlikely). Because the team guaranteed Jeffery’s 2020 salary earlier this year in order to create more cap room, cutting Jeffery will result in an enormous dead cap number of over $26MM in 2020. That seems like an impossible pill to swallow, even if the club were to designate him as a post-June 1 cut to spread out the dead cap money over two years, but Shorr-Parks believes the team will indeed cut Jeffery if he cannot be traded.
49ers Sign CB Dontae Johnson, WR Jordan Matthews
With Richard Sherman likely to miss multiple games, the 49ers have made a move to bolster their CB depth. NFL Insider Adam Caplan reports that San Francisco is re-signing veteran corner Dontae Johnson (Twitter link).
Johnson and the 49ers are quite familiar with each other at this point. The Niners selected the NC State product in the fourth round of the 2014 draft, and he was a full-time starter for the club as recently as 2017. But he has become something of a nomad, and in 2019 alone, he’s spent time with the Chiefs, Chargers, and 49ers. He played in two games for the Chargers before being cut, and San Francisco promptly scooped him up. He primarily served as a special teams contributor in his five games with the 49ers before they cut him last month.
He may see a little more action on the defensive side of the ball for the next couple of weeks, but it would still be surprising to see him get a ton of snaps. Meanwhile, fellow corner Jason Verrett, who has been on IR since Week 4, is eligible to return if the 49ers want to open his practice window.
After the Johnson signing was reported, we learned that the 49ers are also reuniting with WR Jordan Matthews, per Matt Barrows of The Athletic (via Twitter). Matthews signed a one-year, $1.8MM contract with the team this offseason, though he did not survive final cuts. He was brought back to San Francisco in early October but played in just one game and did not record a catch. He then caught on with Philadelphia and played in two games for the WR-needy Eagles before they parted ways with him.
The 49ers put Marquise Goodwin on IR yesterday, so Matthews will take his roster spot, but as the sixth WR on the roster, he’s unlikely to see much playing time. Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets that the team formally placed Weston Richburg on IR, opening up space for Johnson.
Saints Sign Noah Spence
The Saints have lost Marcus Davenport for the season, and they may have lost Sheldon Rankins for the year as well. In an effort to bolster their thinning front seven, the team has signed Noah Spence, per Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network (via Twitter).
The Buccaneers selected Spence in the second round of the 2016 draft, but he did not live up to his draft status. He did put up 5.5 sacks in his rookie campaign, but his sophomore season was largely lost to injury and he didn’t really produce in 12 games in 2018. Tellingly, Tampa Bay waived him prior to the start of the 2019 regular season.
Spence worked out for the Bears and Redskins after being cut by the Bucs, and he ultimately signed with Washington in September. However, he lasted just two months on the Redskins’ roster before being waived again. He picked up one sack in a limited role for Washington.
But with Davenport gone, New Orleans could use some pass rushing depth. Spence still provides some upside in that regard, so it’s a logical move for the Saints.