Minor NFL Transactions: 11/18/15
Let’s check in on the latest minor signings, cuts, and other transactions from around the NFL….
- The Broncos claimed center Sam Brenner off waivers from the Dolphins, according to Troy Renck of The Denver Post (on Twitter). To make room, Shelley Smith has been waived (link).
Earlier Updates:
- The Cowboys, armed with several open spots on their 53-man roster, activated linebacker Mark Nzeocha from the non-football injury list and promoted cornerback Deji Olatoye from their practice squad, per David Helman of DallasCowboys.com (Twitter link). Even after adding Nzeocha, Olatoye, and running back Robert Turbin, Dallas has one opening left on its roster.
- The Lions officially placed Josh Wilson on injured reserve today due to a right knee injury, signing cornerback Bill Bentley to take Wilson’s spot on the roster, according to a press release. Bentley, a Lions’ third-round pick in 2012, will help provide depth at a position that his been hit hard by injuries.
- The Buccaneers filled one of the two openings on their 53-man roster today by signing defensive end Lawrence Sidbury, the team announced in a press release. It’s the second time during the 2015 regular season that Sidbury has been added to Tampa Bay’s active roster.
- The Giants have elevated safety Cooper Taylor from their practice squad to their active roster, the team announced today (via Twitter). Taylor started the year on the team’s injured reserve list, but was removed from IR and eventually rejoined the club.
NFL Practice Squad Updates: 11/18/15
Here are Wednesday’s practice squad signings and cuts, with any additional moves added to the list throughout the day:
Baltimore Ravens
- Signed: TE Konrad Reuland (Twitter link via Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun)
Chicago Bears
- Signed: CB Terrance Mitchell (Twitter link via Rich Campbell of ESPN.com)
Dallas Cowboys
- Signed: DB Tim Scott, LB Keith Smith (Twitter link via David Helman of DallasCowboys.com)
New England Patriots
- Signed: TE Joseph Fauria, CB Chris Greenwood, S Brock Vereen (Twitter links via Field Yates of ESPN.com and Doug Kyed of NESN.com)
- Cut: S Dewey McDonald, S Ross Ventrone (Twitter link via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com)
New York Giants
- Signed: WR Ben Edwards, C Shane McDermott (link via Jordan Raanan of NJ.com)
San Diego Chargers
- Signed: WR Donte Foster (Twitter link via Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post)
Seattle Seahawks
- To be signed: WR/CB Douglas McNeil (Twitter link via Adam Caplan of ESPN.com)
- Cut: DL Julius Warmsley (Twitter link via Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times)
St. Louis Rams
- Signed: DT Doug Worthington (Twitter link via Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Signed: G Josh Allen, LB Josh Keyes (press release via team)
Cowboys Sign Robert Turbin
A day after parting ways with one former Seahawks running back – Christine Michael – the Cowboys are bringing aboard another, according to Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post, who reports that the club is signing Robert Turbin.
Turbin, who turns 26 next month, was claimed off waivers by the Browns prior to their first regular season game, despite the fact that he was still recovering from an ankle injury. After sitting out for five weeks, Turbin made his Cleveland debut against the Broncos last month, and appeared in three games for the team before being waived. In those three games, Turbin ran the ball 18 times for 60 yards, adding another eight yards on two receptions.
During his first three NFL seasons, Turbin served as Marshawn Lynch‘s primary backup in Seattle, compiling 928 rushing yards on 231 carries, along with another 427 yards on 43 receptions, from 2012 to 2014. Turbin is the third former Seattle back picked up by the Cowboys this year, who also traded for Michael and claimed Rod Smith off waivers from the Seahawks.
In Dallas, Turbin will join a backfield that has undergone plenty of changes this season, and currently features Darren McFadden, Smith, and Trey Williams. While Turbin figures to start no higher than second or third on that depth chart, he could see his role increase if he gets up to speed quickly and plays well for the Cowboys.
Latest On Cowboys, Greg Hardy
The latest on Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy:
- When asked about a contract extension for Hardy on Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones only spoke hypothetically, as Clarence E. Hill of the Star-Telegram writes. “Greg knows what’s expected and nobody is more aware of the scrutiny and nobody is more aware, now ever more so, of what we expect of him,” Jones said. “The good news is we go forward. We see if we get what’s expected of him, which I fully anticipate you would get. But we see how and what’s expected of him and we go from there. We don’t…as a practice, discuss detail of extending or not extending. I’ll give an indication, but that’s about it. So we’ll leave it for that. I have no reason to think that Greg won’t do what’s expected of him throughout the year.”
- Hardy wasn’t just late for a team meeting on Thursday, as previously reported — he missed it entirely, according to a source who spoke with David Moore of The Dallas Morning News (on Twitter). Hardy, of course, was only fined for that transgression and not suspended.
- The Cowboys need to move on from Hardy next year, Rick Gosselin of The Dallas Morning News opines. Gosselin feels that whoever signs the defensive end will be in for a firestorm and, therefore, he is not worth the trouble.
Cowboys Cut Christine Michael, Corey White
It’s been a busy day of roster moves for the Cowboys, who cut Brandon Weeden to pave the way for Tony Romo‘s return earlier today. Now, the team has waived two more players, according to Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who reports (via Twitter) that running back Christine Michael and cornerback Corey White are being released.
Michael, who turned 25 last Monday, had been expected to get an increased workload after Joseph Randle was demoted and then released, but it was the veteran, Darren McFadden, who ended up taking many of those carries. In five games with the Cowboys, Michael ran for just 51 yards on 15 attempts, adding a single reception for two yards.
According to Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times (via Twitter), the Seahawks, who traded Michael to the Cowboys earlier in the year, are still expected to receive a conditional pick from Dallas as a result of that swap, since the running back was on the Cowboys’ active roster for enough games.
White, a fifth-round Saints pick in 2012, started 19 games with New Orleans the past three seasons, including nine last year. However, he didn’t see the field much during his time with the Cowboys in 2015.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link), Michael and White were cut for both “playing and locker room reasons,” though Ed Werder of ESPN.com (Twitter link) hears from a Cowboys source that they’re “not bad kids” and were cut based on their on-field performance. Regardless of the Cowboys’ motives, the club will now have multiple open roster spots to work with, as Week 11’s game against the Dolphins approaches. Michael and White, meanwhile, will be subject to waivers.
Cowboys Waive Brandon Weeden
With Tony Romo on his way back to the active roster, the Cowboys won’t be carrying three quarterbacks, and Brandon Weeden is the odd man out in Dallas. According to a press release, Weeden has been released by the Cowboys today.
Weeden, 32, entered the season as Romo’s backup, and looked good in relief of the injured starter in Week 2, completing all seven of his passes for 73 yards and a touchdown, as Dallas secured a 20-10 win over the Eagles. However, Weeden was up and down in his next three starts, throwing just one touchdown in those games, as the Cowboys lost all three.
Matt Cassel, who usurped Weeden on the Cowboys’ depth chart last month, will remain on the club’s roster as Romo’s backup going forward. As for Weeden, he’ll have to pass through waivers before becoming a free agent. Assuming he goes unclaimed and hits the open market, he’d become a viable veteran option for any team that has its quarterback go down with an injury within the next few weeks.
East Notes: Vernon, Hardy, Dolphins
Defensive end Olivier Vernon, who has had to step up for the Dolphins with Cameron Wake out for the season, didn’t have a sack on Sunday against the Eagles, but he had an impact on the game, recording a handful of quarterback hits and hurries.
Vernon’s latest solid performance has Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald wondering why the Dolphins aren’t more inclined to engage in at least preliminary extension talks with the defender’s camp during the season. Vernon isn’t the Dolphins’ only notable free-agent-to-be, and Miami doesn’t make a habit of discussing new deals during the season. However, as Salguero writes, waiting until the offseason and having to decide whether it’s worth using the franchise tag on Vernon could cost the team much more.
Here’s more from around the NFL’s East divisions:
- Head coach Jason Garrett didn’t want to go into any specifics about a report on Greg Hardy being late for a Cowboys‘ meeting last week, but he also didn’t deny it happened, as Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com writes. “Suffice it to say that we have standards here with the Cowboys, that if a player were to miss something or be late for something, we address it in-house, and we address it the right way,” Garrett said. According to Archer, the penalty for such a transgression would be a fine, per team rules.
- With a game against the Dolphins on tap this weekend, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones admitted in an appearance on 105.3 The Fan that his team previously tried to hire Dan Campbell as its tight ends coach, according to Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Twitter link).
- The Dolphins are hosting former Patriots linebacker Cameron Gordon for a visit today, tweets agent Brett Tessler. While the Michigan product spent some time on New England’s roster, he has yet to appear in an NFL regular season game.
- Jets quarterback Geno Smith exercised poor judgment once again in the wake of last week’s loss to the Bills, and it’s the latest example of why he doesn’t have a long-term future with the organization, according to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News.
- Several Philadelphia News staffers, including Les Bowen and Paul Domowitch, evaluated the performance of Chip Kelly as the Eagles‘ general manager, with none of the 23 poll respondents giving Kelly better than a C grade.
NFC Notes: 49ers, Cousins, Lockette, Lions
Offensive lineman Daniel Kilgore and wide receiver DeAndre Smelter will begin practicing for the 49ers this week, head coach Jim Tomsula confirmed today (Twitter link via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle). Once they begin practicing, the Niners will have a three-week window to decide whether or not to activate Kilgore from the PUP list and Smelter from the NFI list.
Here’s more from around the NFC:
- Asked whether Washington has engaged in contract talks with quarterback Kirk Cousins, whose current deal expires at year’s end, head coach Jay Gruden said that the team will “keep that in-house for now,” tweets Master Tesfatsion of the Washington Post. Gruden added that the team would love to retain Cousins, but said “that’s up to [GM] Scot [McCloughan], Kirk’s agent and Kirk” (link via John Keim of ESPN.com).
- Despite suffering a significant injury that required neck surgery, Seahawks wide receiver and special-teamer Ricardo Lockette expects to play next season, writes Jayson Jenks of the Seattle Times. At the time of the injury, there was concern that Lockette’s career could be over, but he has high expectations for himself, telling Jenks he aims to be a Pro Bowler in 2016.
- After shaking up their offensive coaching staff last month, the Lions are hiring Arizona State senior offensive analyst Ryan Silverfield as an assistant offensive line coach, a league source tells Thayer Evans of SI.com. Detroit parted ways with a pair of offensive line coaches when the team fired former offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, and didn’t replace both assistants immediately.
- Following the team’s seventh straight loss, Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link) takes a look at an increasingly tense Cowboys locker room, with a focus on Dez Bryant and Greg Hardy.
Update On Greg Hardy’s Contract
Greg Hardy‘s one-year contract with the Cowboys is more than a little complicated — while it contains a base salary of just $750K, the deal also has $9.25MM in per-game roster bonuses, money that Hardy would only see for each game he’s active. Additionally, Hardy was entitled to a $1.31MM workout bonus, and could earn another $1.8MM via incentives.
Hardy has already earned that workout bonus, which, as Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap explained earlier this year, acted as something of a signing bonus. Following a four-game suspension, Hardy has played in four contests, meaning he’s taken home about $176K in base salary and and roughly $2.312MM in roster bonuses. The incentives had remained a mystery until now, as a source tells Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that Hardy was scheduled to earn $500K for eight sacks, $1MM for 10, $1.4MM for 12, and the full $1.8MM for 14. Hardy already has four sacks through four games, so if he were to continue this pace, Dallas would end up paying the $1.4MM bonus.
Some (including myself) have theorized that with the Cowboy stumbling through something of a lost season, they could cut Hardy now, not only ridding themselves of an off-the-field headache, but saving themselves a decent chunk of money in the process. Unless the club seriously plans to re-sign Hardy after the season (which seems increasingly unlikely given his behavior), there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to keep him on the roster.
In Florio’s piece, he writes that Hardy’s sack-based incentive is the “only…aspect of compensation [that] hinges on Hardy being on the roster through the end of the regular season,” arguing that the Cowboys wouldn’t save that much money by cutting Hardy. Based on my reading of the contract, that’s not the case. If Hardy were to be waived tonight, for example, Dallas would would be off the hook for not only the $1.4MM in incentives, but also $4.625MM in per-game roster bonuses (eight remaining games multiplied by $578,125).
In total, the Cowboys could save $6.025MM of a contract which had a maximum value of about $11.3MM — not exactly chump change. Even if one disregards or overlooks the moral case for waiving Hardy, the financial ramifications are clear: Dallas would clear out ample cap space by cutting Hardy in the coming weeks, especially before he begins reaching his incentives.
NFC Rumors: Forte, Jeffery, Hardy, Avril
Matt Forte‘s free agency bid’s played a role in the Bears running back’s recovery timetable, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
The soon-to-be 30-year-old dual-threat back suffered a sprained MCL two weeks ago and, similar to a pitcher in the last days of his contract with a non-playoff-bound team, Forte won’t rush back.
“That’s [a factor], if not the most important factor — the future,” Forte told reporters, via Dan Wiederer of the Chicago Tribune. “Because if you go out there for one game and then ruin the rest of your season and maybe your career, then that’s a big factor. There’s a lot of football left to be played. So you don’t want to chance it for one game.”
Forte’s in the fourth and final year of a $30.4MM pact, his second with the Bears, and as of now looks to be the top option in the 2016 running back class, along with Chris Ivory.
Florio does speculate Forte would be more inclined to return to the field sooner if the Bears decided to offer him a third contract.
Here’s some more news coming out of the NFC locales.
- If the Bears were observing a healthy contract year from Alshon Jeffery, the decision to re-sign the fourth-year wideout to a lucrative, long-term extension wouldn’t be difficult, Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune writes. Jeffery’s been on and off the injury report this season, missing four games, and this week’s served as a microcosm, with the ex-second-rounder dominating Monday night only to miss practice time this week with his third leg-muscle injury this season. Campbell offers that the Bears could place some escalators in Jeffery’s possible extension revolving around playing time. “You have to bet on the player that he’s going to get healthy,” former GM Mark Domenik said. “When you start to bet that your guy is going to be hurt, if you think that, then you probably shouldn’t sign him. Move on and do it with a clear conscience.”
- The release of the domestic violence photos in association with the Greg Hardy case a day after the Cowboys defensive end saw this incident expunged from his record illustrates how the NFL likely wanted that information out there, per Ben Volin of the Boston Globe. The Mecklenburg (N.C.) County District Attorney’s office and the Charlotte Police Department informed the Globe they did not release the photos, and the NFL, due to its independent investigation, was the only other entity with access to the photos and transcript, Volin writes.
- Rumors connected Rod Marinelli to a potential return to Tampa Bay prior to signing a three-year extension with the Cowboys in January, according to Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. Marinelli has connections to both the Bucs, who employed him as their defensive line coach from 1996-2005, and Lovie Smith, whom Marinelli worked for from 2009-12 with the Bears.
- Prior to his father’s death, Cliff Avril told him he would only play in the NFL for 10 years due to health reasons, Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times notes. The 29-year-old Seahawks defensive end’s in his eighth season. “And I plan on it,” he says. “Unless something crazy happens and they’re offering me some ridiculous amount of money.” Avril said. “Then he’d probably tell me to keep playing.”