Workout Notes: Raiders, Colts, Packers
Today’s workouts from around the league:
- The Raiders worked out linebacker Emmanuel Acho, safety Stevie Brown, safety Chris Clemons, defensive back Chris Hackett, defensive end/outside linebacker Adrian Hubbard, and linebacker Colton Underwood, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle (on Twitter).
- The Colts worked out tight end Cameron Clear, cornerbacks Jeremy Harris and Corey White, and safety Chris Hackett last week, Wilson tweets.
- The Packers worked out wide receiver Ify Umodu, quarterback Matt Behrendt, cornerback Brandon McGee, wide receiver Denarius Moore, and wide receiver Larry Pinkard, Wilson tweets.
- The Bengals worked out defensive backs Brandon Ghee, Robert McClain, and Corey White, Wilson tweets.
- The Chiefs worked out linebackers Thomas Keiser and Andy Studebaker, Wilson tweets.
- The Lions worked out former Falcons linebacker Joplo Bartu, Wilson tweets.
- The Broncos worked out offensive lineman Isaiah Shelton last week, Wilson tweets.
- The Browns worked out safety Sean Baker and linebacker Colton Underwood last week, Wilson tweets.
- The Jets auditioned linebacker Ryan Mueller last week, Wilson tweets.
- Washington worked out defensive back Al Louis-Jean, Wilson tweets.
- The Jaguars worked out defensive back Brandon McGee, according to Wilson (on Twitter).
Josh McCown Likely Out For Season
Josh McCown‘s return to the Browns’ starting lineup didn’t last long, as the veteran quarterback, who has been plagued by health issues all year, went down with a possible broken collarbone during Monday night’s loss to the Ravens. According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, McCown will probably be out for the rest of the 2015 season.
The Browns have yet to confirm the diagnosis on McCown, and Cabot concedes that the collarbone may not be broken, but she hears from a source that the injury is likely serious enough to end the 36-year-old’s season either way. Considering the team has a league-worst 2-9 record, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be rushed back.
If McCown is officially ruled out for the year, the team will have a decision to make on his replacement. Austin Davis came on in relief on Monday night, while No. 3 quarterback Johnny Manziel sat on the bench. However, the club may ultimately decide that seeing what Manziel can do during the season’s last few weeks is too important to keep him behind Davis on the depth chart.
Manziel, of course, was removed from the starting job last week after photos surfaced of him partying at a nightclub in Austin. Reports indicated that the second-year signal-caller lied to the Browns about the photos, though the club never confirmed that.
As for McCown, if this is the end of his season, he’ll finish with fairly respectable numbers. The Browns only won one of his eight starts, but he completed 63.7% of his passes, throwing for 2,109 yards, 12 touchdowns, and just four interceptions. Having signed a three-year contract with Cleveland, McCown still has some guaranteed money left on his deal in 2016, so he’s a good bet to return either as the starter or backup.
Coaching Notes: USC, Payton, Fisher, Fins
It wasn’t an NFL coaching job, but the USC head coaching position was expected to have an impact on the NFL, since a number of the school’s potential candidates were current coaches or coordinators around the league. However, the Trojans announced today (via Twitter) that interim coach Clay Helton will become the team’s permanent head coach going forward, meaning that Chip Kelly and other coaches around the NFL can be crossed off the list.
It sounds like USC did reach out to Kelly to gauge his interest before deciding to move forward with Helton though. According to FootballScoop.com (Twitter link), USC officials met with Kelly last week, but the Eagles head coach prefers to remain in the NFL. Similarly, USC checked in on Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio, who told the Trojans he’s not leaving Oakland, tweets Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News.
Here are a few more coaching-related items from around the league:
- Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com believes that the Saints should “go ahead and start sniffing around” for teams that may be interested in giving up a draft pick or two for head coach Sean Payton, since this winter looks like a good time for an overhaul. La Canfora identifies the Browns, Colts, Dolphins, and Titans as teams that might have interest in Payton, and suggests that the draft pick return could be “substantial.”
- Having lost four games in a row, Jeff Fisher‘s Rams are in a downward spiral, and Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com believes it’s time for the team to make coaching change at season’s end.
- Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald (Twitter link) hears that the decision to fire offensive coordinator Bill Lazor was made by Dolphins interim head coach Dan Campbell, who had “shown signs of displeasure” with the offense during the club’s last few games.
- The Giants could have taken a commanding lead in the weak NFC East division with a win over Washington on Sunday, but the fact that the team couldn’t get it done puts head coach Tom Coughlin on the hot seat, writes Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News.
- Several weeks ago, with his team scuffling along at 2-5, head coach Bill O’Brien didn’t exactly look safe in Houston. Four wins later though, Texans owner Bob McNair is giving O’Brien credit for the team’s success, telling Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, “I think he’s doing a fine job.”
AFC Notes: Collins, Manning, Browns
Star linebacker Jamie Collins has been out of the Patriots’ lineup since the end of October because of an illness, one that president Jonathan Kraft isn’t worried will spread throughout the team, per Mike Petraglia of WEEI.
“Jamie’s getting better and getting stronger every day,” Kraft said Sunday. “I know people in non-football life that end up with really bad viruses and get knocked out of their professional lives for a while.”
Continued Kraft, “This was something that doesn’t have us worried about the physical infrastructure at the facility. There wasn’t anything related to Jamie’s issues that had anything to do with the facility.”
Kraft’s words indicate that Collins’ illness isn’t MRSA, a staph infection-causing disease that has affected NFL teams in the past. Most recently, it ended the season of Giants tight end Daniel Fells in October.
Collins returned to practice Friday, so it appears he’ll be back in game action sometime this season.
And now a look at some of the Patriots’ AFC counterparts, including their Sunday night opponent:
- Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, currently on the shelf because of a plantar fascia injury, is eager to return to the field as soon as possible. The team doesn’t share in his eagerness, though, and it’s causing friction between the two sides, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports. Regarding the possibility of a healthy Manning backing up Brock Osweiler, a source told La Canfora, “We know this much — he’s not going to go quietly. He’s going to have to be dealt with.”
- After briefly losing his job to Johnny Manziel, Josh McCown is back as the Browns’ starting quarterback – which he’s ambivalent about, according to Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal. While McCown relishes playing again, he isn’t pleased that his opportunity comes at the expense of Manziel – whom the Browns benched because of off-field issues. “You understand that you have a job to do, and the coaches make the decision and tell you you’re playing and you move forward accordingly,” said McCown. “But at the same time, I’m in the room with [Manziel] every day, and we’ve built a relationship. I’m a big advocate of his and a fan and a friend as well.”
- The Browns have noteworthy free agents-to-be in safety Tashaun Gipson, tight end Gary Barnidge and receiver Travis Benjamin. If they only re-sign one, it should be the 25-year-old Gipson, writes Tom Reed of Cleveland.com. Gipson hasn’t been as sharp this season after leading the AFC in interceptions in 2013 and ’14, which could drop his price. That’s something Reed believes the Browns should look to capitalize on after they couldn’t reach a long-term deal with Gipson last offseason, when he was coming off a Pro Bowl campaign.
Sunday Roundup: Marrone, Martin, Keenum
As the afternoon games get underway, let’s take a look at some news and notes from around the league:
- We heard earlier today that Jaguars OL coach Doug Marrone will be viewed as a top head coaching candidate this offseason, and Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com explains why. As Florio writes, Marrone, who became available after opting to terminate his relationship with Buffalo last year, came on the market “a little too unexpectedly” for teams to scrap their existing plans at the time. Now, however, with a high number of potential head coaching vacancies and a relatively small number of truly qualified candidates, Marrone will be an attractive option, especially given that the Bills are doing less (record-wise) with more talent under Rex Ryan than they did under Marrone.
- Former NFL agent Joel Corry tweets that there is no need to speculate as to whether the Buccaneers will put the franchise tag on Doug Martin, as the nearly $12MM cap number for a franchised running back is too steep in today’s NFL. The last time the tag was used on an RB was in 2012, when the Ravens tagged Ray Rice and the Bears tagged Matt Forte. The cap number for a franchised RB at the time was $7.7MM.
- ESPN’s Chris Mortensen tweets that, even though the NFL has apparently closed the book on whether the Rams should be penalized for last week’s concussion controversy surrounding Case Keenum, the NFL Players Association is continuing its own investigation.
- In his latest mailbag, Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com looks at what the Browns might expect to receive if they were to trade Johnny Manziel at this point, and he notes that the best the Browns could hope for is a future pick conditioned on Manziel’s active status and number of starts.
- After the Lions promoted Isa Abdul-Quddus to a starting role and moved James Ihedigbo to the bench, they began to see a noticeable improvement from the back end of their defense, as Kyle Meinke of MLive.com observes. Abdul-Quddus is not as physical as Ihedigbo, but he covers much more ground and has established himself as a quality option in the team’s secondary, particularly in light of the recent injury to Glover Quin. Adbul-Quddus, who signed a one-year deal with Detroit last year, may be putting himself in line for a multi-year pact this offseason.
- David Moore of The Dallas Morning News examines the futures for Cowboys defensive backs Byron Jones and Morris Claiborne, predicting that Dallas plans to move Jones to safety moving forward, thereby increasing the likelihood that the team retains Claiborne.
- In a series of three articles, Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com reexamines the Eagles‘ offseason decisions, offers his thoughts on the Jets‘ rebuilding process, and previews the 2016 class of free agent tight ends.
North Notes: Manziel, Ansah, Bears
Browns offensive coordinator John DeFilippo isn’t sure if recently demoted quarterback Johnny Manziel will be active for the team’s game against Baltimore on Monday. However, DeFilippo won’t rule out Manziel playing again this season and is encouraged by the second-year man’s on-field progress, according to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
“I like what I’ve seen,” said DeFilippo. “I really do. Even the jump he made from the Cincinnati game to the Pittsburgh game was a huge jump. I think we’d all agree on that. I think Johnny has played enough football where we know what we have in him.”
DeFilippo went on to state that he believes Manziel can still be a franchise quarterback, which looks unlikely for a player whose career has been defined by off-field problems and on-field inconsistency. To his credit, Manziel did have the best game of his short NFL tenure – a 33-of-45, 372-yard showing in a Nov. 15 loss to the Steelers – before the Browns benched him for poor conduct away from the field.
Now the latest from the NFC North:
- Lions defensive end Ziggy Ansah helped make Thanksgiving 2015 a miserable one for the Eagles in a 45-14 shellacking on Thursday. The third-year man tortured Philadelphia for 3.5 sacks, giving him an NFC-best 11.5 for the season. Ansah said afterward that he drew motivation from the fact that the Eagles passed on him in the 2013 draft, per The Associated Press. Ansah wanted to be an Eagle, but they chose offensive tackle Lane Johnson fourth overall instead. Ansah, who went to Detroit one pick later, faced off against Johnson on Thursday and got the better of the matchup. “It felt very good beating him and getting to the quarterback,” Ansah said.
- Given the Bears’ recent resurgence, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com wonders whether defensive coordinator Vic Fangio will join offensive coordinator Adam Gase as a potential head coaching candidate in the offseason (Twitter link). After a rough start to the season that featured four losses in six games, the Bears are 3-2 since their bye week. Fangio’s defense has played a key role, giving up fewer than 15 points per game during that stretch. That includes stymieing rival Green Bay in a 17-13 road win Thursday.
- If Gase departs in the offseason to become a head coach, he likely won’t be able to take quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains with him, according to Dan Pompei of Bleacher Report (via Twitter). Loggains is under contract next year and would likely be the Bears’ choice to take over for Gase.
Johnny Manziel Lied To Browns About Photos
6:42pm: Manziel’s latest career-altering incident was precipitated by a late-night stay at a nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, after he attended the Michigan State-Ohio State game, Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com reports. Patrons at the club were prohibited from taking photos while Manziel was in attendance, Cabot notes.
Adding to the Browns’ serious stance on their recently promoted then-demoted quarterback: the team preferred Manziel stick around Cleveland and lay low during the team’s bye week, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). When the 22-year-old signal-caller defied their wishes and sharply deviated from their plan, the Browns felt “betrayed.”
1:52pm: It turns out that Johnny Manziel wasn’t just benched for an apparent relapse into partying. After seeing recent photos of Manziel drinking during his bye week in Texas, the Browns confronted the quarterback and he told the organization that they were old pics, according to Jay Glazer of FOX Sports (via PFT). Not only that, but Manziel also instructed his friends to lie if they were asked about the photos.
Manziel, of course, was demoted to No. 3 on the depth chart earlier this week with Josh McCown sliding into the starting role. Austin Davis will serve as Cleveland’s No. 2 option in Week 12, should McCown get injured or falter. Still, coach Mike Pettine insists that the team has not discussed cutting Johnny Football loose.
A primary concern about the footage that showed Manziel partying in Austin is that it comes after the QB checked himself into rehab earlier this year. However, Pettine declined to comment on whether the team would encourage Manziel to go back to rehab, pointing out that it’s a privacy issue.
A week ago, the Browns had announced that Manziel would be the team’s starting quarterback for the rest of the season, in order to evaluate how he fits into Cleveland’s plans for 2016 and beyond. That question will remain unanswered if Manziel sits on the bench down the stretch, but according to Pettine, the need to discipline Manziel was “too important,” and outweighed the need to evaluate him.
Extra Points: Martin, Manziel, Kelly, Coaches
As we progress into Thanksgiving night, here’s some news from around the league, beginning in Tampa Bay.
- Buccaneers running back Doug Martin is set to hit the open market after this season, but it sounds like he wants to stay put. “I love Tampa. I built a house here,” Martin said, according to Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com (on Twitter). When asked if Tampa is his No. 1 priority, the tailback responded in the affirmative. On Tuesday, coach Lovie Smith called the fourth-year back a “priority” for the team in the offseason.
- Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link) hears that the decision by Browns coach Mike Pettine to bench Johnny Manziel is part of an overall power struggle between Pettine and GM Ray Farmer. Farmer and others within the organization would like to see Manziel continue on as the starter in 2015, but Pettine doesn’t believe that Manziel has made any strides towards getting his act together. Cole speculates that Pettine could move to trade or cut Manziel in the offseason and that could lead to a showdown between the coach and GM.
- Black coaches around the league are concerned with the lack of black offensive coordinators or quarterback coaches, Cole hears (video link). There are only three black OCs — Hue Jackson (Bengals), Edgar Bennett (Packers) and Harold Goodwin (Cardinals) — and only Jackson calls plays for his team. Cole goes on to mention how there are no black quarterback coaches and how the coaches that spoke to him are observing a key avenue for potential promotions being largely cut off for black coaches.
- Months after a Chip Kelly–Marcus Mariota reunion didn’t end up transpiring in the draft, the embattled Eagles coach could end up instructing him again, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk writes. Should Kelly be interested in coaching the Titans, whose placement of Mike Mularkey as head coach Florio views as a temporary status considering his past, the teams could work out a trade if Jeffrey Lurie is willing to part with Kelly after what’s looking like a disappointing season concludes. A trade or Kelly forcing his way out of Philadelphia could be in play, Florio offers.
Sam Robinson contributed to this report
Pettine: No Discussion Of Cutting Manziel
A day after demoting Johnny Manziel from the starting quarterback role to No. 3 on the depth, Browns head coach Mike Pettine spoke to reporters, including Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, about the decision. Pettine’s comments today came about 24 hours after he told the media he was “very” disappointed in Manziel after video footage surfaced of the 22-year-old partying at a nightclub in Austin, Texas.
While there was plenty of speculation that this week’s decision spelled the beginning of the end of Manziel’s tenure in Cleveland, Pettine insisted that the move was “absolutely necessary to maximze his chance for future success” (Twitter link). The head coach views the demotion as a hurdle – rather than a “dead end” – for the second-year quarterback, adding that the team didn’t discuss the possibility of cutting Manziel (Twitter links).
A primary concern about the footage that showed Manziel partying in Austin is that it comes after the QB checked himself into rehab earlier this year. However, Pettine declined to comment today on whether the team would encourage Manziel to go back to rehab, pointing out that it’s a privacy issue (Twitter link).
A week ago, the Browns had announced that Manziel would be the team’s starting quarterback for the rest of the season, in order to evaluate how he fits into Cleveland’s plans for 2016 and beyond. That question will remain unanswered if Manziel sits on the bench down the stretch, but according to Pettine, the need to discipline Manziel was “too important,” and outweighed the need to evaluate him (Twitter link).
Josh McCown will start for the Browns this coming Monday, with Austin Davis backing him up.
Browns To Start Josh McCown At QB
A week after declaring that Johnny Manziel would be the team’s starting quarterback for the rest of the season, the Browns announced today that Josh McCown is returning to the starting lineup for Week 12. The decision comes in the wake of head coach Mike Pettine telling reporters that he was “very” disappointed in Manziel after video footage surfaced of the second-year QB partying at a nightclub in Austin, Texas.
“Josh McCown will be the starting quarterback on Monday night against the Ravens,” Pettine said in a statement. “I informed the quarterbacks of that decision after I sat down and spoke with Johnny, Flip (John DeFilippo) and Kevin (O’Connell) after practice today. Johnny will be the third quarterback. I’ve spoken to Ray (Farmer) and Jimmy (Haslam) to inform them of my decision, and they are in full support.
“Everyone in this organization wants what is best for Johnny just like we do for every player in our locker room. I’m especially disappointed in his actions and behavior because he has been working very hard. The improvements from last year to this year have been tremendous but he still has to consistently demonstrate that he has gained a good understanding of what it takes to be successful at the quarterback position on this level. It goes well beyond the field. We are going to continue to support him in every way possible, but at this point, we’ve decided it’s best to go with Josh as the starter going forward.”
Not only will Manziel not be starting this Monday, but he’ll find himself third on the depth chart. According to the club, Austin Davis will be McCown’s backup, and will be the next man up if the veteran struggles or goes down with an injury.
In the wake of Manziel’s latest off-field incident, his future in Cleveland has become increasingly murky. While he remains under contract through the 2017 season, with a team option for 2018, Manziel appears to be running out of chances to become the long-term answer at the quarterback spot for the Browns.