NFL Suspends Jets LB Brandon Copeland
Another linebacker down for the Jets. On Wednesday, Brandon Copeland was suspended four games by the NFL for performance-enchanting substances. 
Copeland’s suspension comes on the heels of Avery Williamson‘s season-ending ACL tear, leaving the Jets even thinner in the LB group. The club already signed former Saints and Dolphins ‘backer Stephone Anthony to help fill the gap, but they could go shopping once again for depth.
Copeland is eligible to participate in the Jets’ two remaining preseason contests as well as their remaining preseason practices, but he’ll be barred from playing until Oct. 7, thanks to the Jets’ Week 4 bye.
In 2018, his first year with the Jets, Copeland managed 35 tackles and five sacks. He played the full 16-game slate, including ten starts.
Latest On Chargers, Melvin Gordon
The holdout of Chargers running back Melvin Gordon is expected to continue into the season, sources tell Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). At this stage, contract talks have not progressed as he hoped, and Gordon plans to train in Florida for the foreseeable future. 
Gordon can’t sit out the entire season — or at least, he can’t sit out the entire season if he wants to become a free agent next spring (which he does). If Gordon doesn’t report by November 29, he won’t be eligible to play during the 2019 campaign. At that point, his contract would toll: his $5.605MM salary would simply carry over to 2020, and he’d remain under the Chargers’ control.
Gordon has simultaneously said that he’d like to remain with Los Angeles and formally requested a trade. Meanwhile, “mounting pessimism” exists that Gordon and the Chargers will strike any sort of deal before the regular season gets underway. The Chargers are reportedly offering Gordon something in the neighborhood of $10MM annually, but the former first-round pick is looking for an additional $2-3MM per season.
Gordon, 26, has averaged 907 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground during his four-year career. He’s averaged 46 catches, 395 yards, and three scores via the passing game during that same timeframe. The Wisconsin product was named to the Pro Bowl in both 2016 and 2018.
Minor NFL Transactions: 8/21/19
We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Cleveland Browns
- Signed: WR Braxton Miller
- Waived: TE Mik’Quan Deane
New Orleans Saints
- Signed: OL Fisayo Awolaja
- Waived: LS Nick Moore
Seattle Seahawks
- Signed: OT Brian Wallace
- Waived: S Jalen Harvey
Saints’ Chris Clark Done For Year
This was not how Chris Clark envisioned things going with the Saints. On Wednesday, the Saints announced that the offensive lineman will be out for the season and placed on injured reserve.
Just last week, the Saints inked the NFC South vet to a free agent deal. He was set to compete for one of the Saints’ jobs behind starters Terron Armstead and Ryan Ramczyk and battle with Marshall Newhouse and Michael Ola, but he’ll be shelved for a while after being carted off the field in Sunday’s preseason game.
Without Clark, the Saints can be expected to explore offensive line help once again. Unfortunately, they won’t have much time to vet any of their additions before the start of the season.
Bears Restructure Charles Leno’s Contract
The Bears have converted $7MM of offensive tackle Charles Leno’s base salary into a signing bonus, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com (on Twitter). With that, the Bears have created $5.6MM in cap space, giving them flexibility as veterans get chopped from rosters around the NFL. The revision will also give the Bears $2.8MM in extra breathing room for 2020 and 2021. 
Leno, a 2014 seventh-rounder, inked a four year, $37MM extension with the Bears prior to the 2017 season. Over the course of his five-year NFL career, the 27-year-old (28 in October) has started in all 61 of his contests.
In other Bears news, the club waived Elliott Fry earlier this week, leaving Eddy Pineiro as the last remaining kicker on the roster.
Dolphins Notes: Alonso, Hurns, Walton
The Dolphins are on the goal line for a new deal with wide receiver Jakeem Grant. When finalized, the new four-year deal will take Grant through the 2023 season, giving the Fins serious ability and stability on special teams.
Though he only ranks as the team’s WR4, Grant averaged 13.6 yards per punt return and 29.7 yards per return on kickoffs. The Dolphins might not be a world-class team in 2019, but they’ll have one of the game’s best return weapons for years to come.
Here’s the latest from Miami:
- The Dolphins’ roster crunch will be an interesting one to monitor, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald writes. Among the vets that could be dropped: wide receivers Allen Hurns and Isaiah Ford, linebackers Kiko Alonso and Raekwon McMillan, and right tackle Jordan Mills. An Alonso release, of course, would be a shock, though a club source declined to assure Jackson of his job security. Releasing Alonso would carry $8.2MM in dead money with just $25K in cap savings, but would save Miami $4MM in cash. Meanwhile, trading Alonso would save $7MM against the cap with just $1.3MM in dead money. Despite his past accomplishments, trading Alonso would be no easy task – the team acquiring him would be on the hook for his entire $6.5MM base salary, including the $2.5MM that became guaranteed in March.
- Dolphins running back Mark Walton will serve no further jail time for his three 2019 arrests, as Barry Jackson and Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald write. Under the terms of his plea deal, Walton will be under six months of non-reporting administrative probation and must take four hours of driving school after pleading guilty to reckless driving. Still, an NFL suspension remains possible.
- Both Mills and left guard Chris Reed have been bumped from the first-string unit in practice, according to Jackson and Beasley. That’s a bad sign for Mills’ job security and perhaps a bad sign for Reed’s future with the team. The Dolphins, in theory, could cut Reed to save $1.2MM against just $500K in dead money. Meanwhile, his $1.425MM option year for 2020 includes no guarantees.
Saints To Sign LB Will Compton
The Saints have agreed to sign free agent linebacker Will Compton (Twitter link via John Keim of ESPN.com). Terms of the deal are not yet known. 
[RELATED: Saints Sign T Chris Clark]
Compton played for the Redskins from 2013-17 and was a full-time starter as recently as 2016. However, his 2017 was marred by injury and he played only 79 defensive snaps for the Titans last year in his first and only season in Tennessee.
With the Saints, he may be able to provide depth, experience, and special teams help. However, he has limited time to make his case before 53-man roster cuts in early September.
Falcons Meet With Julio Jones’ Agent
The Falcons and Julio Jones could once again be ready to make progress on a new contract. On Wednesday, the wide receiver confirmed that his agent, Jimmy Sexton, is in town to discuss an extension with the club (via D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). 
Throughout the summer, we’ve heard that the Falcons and Jones were on the verge of a deal. The belief was that Jones’ contract would be signed just as soon as the ink dried on Michael Thomas‘ new pact worth up to $100MM, but three weeks have passed since the Saints star secured the bag.
For his part, Jones has remained patient and played the part of a good soldier by reporting for duty in July.
“Mr. Blank gave us his word. … That’s golden,” Jones said in June. “His word is that it’s going to get done. … There’s no stress on my end. I’m not thinking about it. [Blank] makes it easy for me to go out and just work every day and not have one of those situations where there’s a holdout or anything like that.”
Jones’ 7,994 receiving yards since the 2014 season are the most any player has ever compiled in a five-year span. A new deal would be expected to position Jones as one of the highest-paid wide receivers in the NFL in multiple categories.
Minor NFL Transactions: 8/20/19
Today’s minor moves:
Buffalo Bills
- Signed: OL Erik Magnuson
- Placed on IR: OL Garrett McGhin (ankle)
Indianapolis Colts
- Signed: RB James Williams
- Waived: DE Dadi Nicolas
Kansas City Chiefs
- Signed: WR Jalen Tolliver
- Waived: G Abdul Beecham
Los Angeles Chargers
- Released: LS Mike Windt
Miami Dolphins
- Signed: WR T.J. Rahming
- Waived/injured: WR Saeed Blacknall
San Francisco 49ers
- Signed: WR/KR Chris Thompson
Seattle Seahawks
- Signed: OL Landon Turner
- Placed on IR: G Demetrius Knox
Cowboys Sign Jaylon Smith To Extension
The Cowboys have reached a long-term extension with linebacker Jaylon Smith, sources tell Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo of NFL.com (on Twitter). Smith has been vocal about his desire for a new deal, and he’s got one in place with days to go before the regular season.
Clarence E. Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that it’s a five-year, $64MM pact (Twitter link), but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. Smith was under contract for about $1.3MM this year and would have been eligible for a restricted free agent tender in 2020, and the extension did not subsume those amounts. So, as Todd Archer of ESPN.com tweets, Smith is now playing under a seven-year, $69.7MM deal, and Smith will be under club control through 2025. David Moore of the Dallas Morning News tweets that the extension does include $35.5MM in guaranteed money, but it looks like a fairly team-friendly pact overall.
Still, it’s a good day for Smith, who recently said that he never wants to play for another team. “I want to be a Cowboy. I want to be a Cowboy for the rest of my life,” Smith said last week. “Understanding what they’ve done for me, taking a chance, taking a risk. Now they’re getting the return on their investment. It’s a beautiful thing to be a Dallas Cowboy.”
Indeed, the Cowboys took a gamble on Smith by selecting him in the second round of the 2016 draft. When he was healthy at Notre Dame, Smith was viewed as a top 10 pick. However, severe knee injuries caused his stock to plummet. At the time, it was speculated that Smith could drop like a stone due to medical concerns, but the Cowboys rolled the dice and pounced on him with the No. 34 overall choice.
Smith missed all of 2016 and played mostly as a part-timer in 2017. Then, last year, he came back with a vengeance. Smith graded as the league’s No. 6 off-ball linebacker last season, per Pro Football Focus, making a career-high 121 tackles and registering four sacks. Between Smith and 2018 first-rounder Leighton Vander Esch (No. 4 on PFF’s 2018 linebacker performance list), the Cowboys have one of the NFL’s best three-down linebacking duos.
Of course, there’s still plenty of work for the Cowboys in the coming days with Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, and Amari Cooper all eligible for extensions.