49ers Notes: Kaepernick, Eagles, Singletary
Here’s a look at the 49ers as they look ahead to the Seahawks on November 22nd:
- Cam Inman of the Mercury News wonders what’s next for 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. “The handwriting is on the wall,” a league source said of an imminent, offseason breakup between Kaepernick and the 49ers. It’s believed Kaepernick would be willing to restructure his contract if he’s dealt in the offseason, and that might be the likeliest scenario awaiting him, Inman writes.
- So, if a breakup is inevitable, where will No. 7 land? In a separate piece, Inman runs down ten possible destinations for Kaepernick. The list of possible teams for Kaepernick starts with the Eagles, who haven’t been soaring with Sam Bradford. Kaepernick’s dual-threat skills, he argues, would be a better fit for the Philly offense. The Broncos, Browns, Jets, and Texans are among the other teams listed as possibilities.
- The NFL Network took a look at ex-49ers coach Mike Singletary and revealed some interesting stories from his time in SF. CSNBayArea.com looked at a few of the highlights.
Breer’s Latest: P. Manning, Browns, L.A.
There’s a widely-held assumption in NFL circles that Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning will call it a career after the 2015 season and will subsequently find work as an NFL executive, says Albert Breer of the NFL Network in his latest column. According to Breer, Cleveland and Tennessee are frequently mentioned as potential landing spots for the future Hall-of-Famer, with Indianapolis and New Orleans “not to be completely discounted” either.
It’s not clear whether or not Manning would be immediately effective if he were to transition into a decision-making role in a team’s front office so soon after his playing career ended. Still, as Breer observes, “it’s easy to figure someone with Manning’s football acumen would be able to figure things out on the fly, so long as the right structure existed around him.”
Here are a few more items of interest from Breer’s column:
- While the Browns made clear to other teams that they were open for business prior to the deadline, some of their potential trade chips – such as Joe Thomas and Paul Kruger – drew interest, while others – like Barkevious Mingo – didn’t. According to Breer, some potential trade partners had trouble determining “who was carrying the hammer” in Cleveland, since GM Ray Farmer said he’d have to check with other members of the organization before engaging in serious discussions.
- Continuing to address the Browns, Breer notes that, internally, the team doesn’t see chain of command as having been an issue this year, including at the deadline. Other clubs viewed Cleveland as being indecisive “when the heat was turned up” though.
- There continues to be steady progress on getting the NFL back to Los Angeles, according to Breer, who provides an update from this week’s relocation committee meetings. As Breer details, some owners are concerned about allowing a team to bend relocation guidelines in order to move, so that club must provide a strong case that its existing market has failed.
- While there’s no guarantee the Seahawks make a second-half run – as they did last season – the team is confident it still has an impressive core in place. “The guys here feel like once they play for each other the way they know they can, there’s something really strong here,” one Seahawks source tells Breer.
Aqib Talib’s One-Game Suspension Upheld
Aqib Talib lost his appeal and his one-game suspension will stand, as Mike Klis of 9NEWS tweets. That means that the cornerback will be out of action when the Broncos take on the Chiefs this coming Sunday.
Talib was punished for poking the eyes of Colts tight end Dwayne Allen during Sunday’s game and he tried to argue that the poke was unintentional. Talib had an expedited appeal rights to an arbitrator jointly hired by the NFL and NFLPA and a decision was expected to come down on Wednesday. Apparently, the arbitrator didn’t need that long to make his decision. Between Talib and DeMarcus Ware, Denver will be without two of its key defenders on Sunday.
Talib’s one-game suspension will cost him just under $353K. That figure takes into account 1/17th of Talib’s $5.5MM salary for 2015, along with 1/17th of his $500K per-game roster bonuses.
North Notes: Joe Thomas, Bengals, Peterson
We’re a full week removed from the trade deadline, but whispers about the blockbuster deal that didn’t get done on that day – Joe Thomas to the Broncos – continue to linger. For his part, Thomas today denied a weekend report suggesting he and/or his agent asked the Browns to explore the trade market for a possible deal.
“I’m not sure where that report came from, but I can say in no uncertain terms that I never asked the Browns for a trade, that I never talked to them about wanting to be traded, (nor) did any of my representatives talk to the Browns about wanting to be traded,” Thomas said today, per Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com. “From what I understand about how things went, the Browns were contacted by the Broncos and that’s where the trade came from.”
That weekend report also indicated that Thomas wanted the Broncos to guarantee his 2016 and 2017 salaries before agreeing to a deal, which the Browns star tackle also denied.
“The other thing I’m going to be very firm and make no qualms about is myself was never involved in any contract discussions with the Denver Broncos, my agent was never involved in any contract discussions, there was never any guaranteed money discussed,” Thomas said. “I was off the grid this weekend, so I was a little surprised to see (the report).”
Let’s round up a few more Tuesday notes from across the NFL’s North divisions….
- The Browns will add running back Glenn Winston and cornerback Charles Gaines to their active roster at some point this week, according to head coach Mike Pettine (Twitter link via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal). Having cut linebacker Jayson DiManche and defensive back De’Ante Saunders yesterday, Cleveland shouldn’t need to make any other roster moves to accommodate the returning players.
- A pair of Bengals players that opened the year on reserve lists returned to practice for the team today, according to Coley Harvey of ESPN.com. As Harvey notes, Cincinnati will now have a three-week window to decide whether or not to activate offensive tackle Cedric Ogbuehi (non-football injury list) and linebacker Sean Porter (physically unable to perform list).
- As Joel Corry of CBSSports.com observes (via Twitter), Adrian Peterson needs at least 1,350 rushing yards and a Vikings playoff berth to keep his 2016 roster bonus from dropping by $2MM. While those may have seemed like tall orders before the season, Peterson – the league’s leading rusher – is currently on pace to exceed 1,500 yards, and Minnesota is tied for first place in the NFC North.
Aqib Talib Facing One-Game Suspension
Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib is facing a one-game suspension for poking the eyes of Colts tight end Dwayne Allen during Sunday’s game, reports Mike Klis of 9News. Talib, who has claimed the eye-poke was intentional, is appealing the penalty, tweets Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com.
As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk tweets, Talib will have expedited appeal rights to an arbitrator jointly hired by the NFL and NFLPA, so a decision on the suspension figures to come by Wednesday. If the ban is upheld, Denver will be without two key defenders – Talib and DeMarcus Ware – for its next game.
Assuming Talib’s one-game suspension sticks, it’ll cost him just under $353K, tweets Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap. That figure takes into account 1/17th of Talib’s $5.5MM salary for 2015, along with 1/17th of his $500K per-game roster bonuses.
Injury Updates: Hankins, Folk, Hicks, Ware
As is often the case on Mondays during the NFL season, there have already been multiple reports of season-ending injuries to key players for contending teams, with the Patriots losing running back Dion Lewis to a torn ACL, and the Colts placing defensive lineman Henry Anderson on IR due to the same injury. Here are a few more of Monday’s latest noteworthy injury updates from around the NFL:
- Giants head coach Tom Coughlin confirmed today that defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins will undergo surgery for a torn pectoral, ending his season, per Dan Graziano of ESPN.com (Twitter link). While New York’s defensive line got a boost this weekend with the return of Jason Pierre-Paul, Hankins’ season-ending injury is another step back.
- Jets kicker Nick Folk has a quadriceps strain, and isn’t expected to play this Thursday against the Bills, a league source tells Adam Caplan of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Connor Hughes of the Journal Inquirer tweets that Billy Cundiff will be among the kickers getting a workout from the Jets as they seek a short-term replacement for Folk.
- The Eagles‘ preliminary diagnosis of the pectoral injury suffered by Jordan Hicks suggests the linebacker should only miss two to four weeks, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. The team is awaiting the MRI results to confirm that diagnosis.
- The Falcons also got good news regarding defensive tackle Tyson Jackson, whose rib injury is a contusion, rather than a fracture, according to Rapoport (via Twitter).
- After re-aggravating his back injury, Broncos pass rusher DeMarcus Ware is expected to miss the next two to four weeks or so, tweets Rapoport.
- Bills defensive tackle Kyle Williams is expected to miss the team’s next two games, a league source tells Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News (Twitter link).
- The Ravens announced today that second-year defensive end Brent Urban has been cleared to return to practice. Urban, who began the season on injured reserve with the designation to return, can now be activated within the next three weeks to avoid landing on season-ending IR.
North Notes: Thomas, Bell, Janis
As expected, the agent for Browns left tackle Joe Thomas, Peter Schaffer, has quickly moved to dispute this morning’s reports that the trade that would have sent Thomas to the Broncos fell through because Denver would not guarantee Thomas’ 2016 and 2017 salaries. Those reports, of course, also mentioned that Thomas asked Cleveland to see if it would be able to trade him. In a series of tweets, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com passes along Schaffer’s response.
Schaffer says Denver and Cleveland never discussed Thomas’ contract, adding that if the Broncos were willing to give up a first-round pick for Thomas, they had no intention of cutting him, so there would have been no need to discuss guaranteed salaries. Furthermore, Schaffer says neither he nor Thomas asked the Browns to pursue a trade, and he is frustrated that this morning’s news made Thomas–who expressed surprise that he was almost traded, and said he would have been crushed should the deal have happened–look like a liar. Former NFL agent Joel Corry weighed in as well (via Twitter), noting that even if Thomas did ask for his 2016 and 2017 salaries to be guaranteed, that should not have killed the trade unless Schaffer convinced Denver that a holdout was coming next year.
Now let’s take a look at some more notes from the league’s north divisions:
- Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says the Steelers, who typically refuse to entertain in-season extension talks with their players, may have to make an exception for Le’Veon Bell, who underwent season-ending knee surgery on Friday. Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweets that Bell is on target to return right when the 2016 season begins, but Kaboly points out that any complication would make it an in-season return. If the Steelers then choose to wait until the end of the season to negotiate with Bell, it could be too late, as the talented back would be eligible for free agency. As such, Pittsburgh may have to bite the bullet and discuss an extension with Bell in the midst of the 2016 campaign.
- The Steelers will not, however, discuss an extension with Bell until they at least get some idea of how his knee handles game action, as Corry tweets. La Canfora agrees, tweeting that although the team feels “very good” about how Bell will recover, they will shelve extension talks for a while, particularly since they will likely need to address Antonio Brown‘s contract in the near future as well.
- In his latest mailbag, Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com explains why he believes Tashaun Gipson will not be with the Browns in 2016, and he looks at the dilemma head coach Mike Pettine faces in deciding whether Johnny Manziel or Josh McCown should be under center for the remainder of the year.
- Jeff Janis, the Packers‘ seventh-round selection in 2014, is the only member of the team to amass 78 or more receiving yards in a single game during the last month. However, as Michael Cohen of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes, Green Bay has shown a strange reluctance to consistently include Janis in the game plan, despite the team’s offensive struggles. Cohen takes a look at Janis’ journey to this point in his career as he awaits an opportunity to prove himself on a weekly basis.
- Matt Vensel of The Star Tribune describes how the Vikings, who again looked to the later rounds of the draft to address their biggest offseason need, the offensive line, have been hurt by that strategy this year. Vensel goes on to explore the team’s history of seeking out late-round gems to fill out its O-line.
No Joe Thomas Deal For Broncos, Browns
SUNDAY, 8:20am: Ian Rapoport of NFL.com adds, in a series of Twitter links, a little more context to the deal that nearly sent Thomas to the Broncos. Our Zach Links wrote a few hours after the trade deadline passed that the deal broke down, at least in part, over a holdup on converting Thomas’ remaining salary for 2016 and 2017 into guarantees. Rapoport reiterated that report this morning, noting that the trade fell apart when the Broncos would not guarantee as much as Thomas wanted.
Furthemore, Rapoport says that although Thomas certainly does have strong feelings for the Browns, he did ask Cleveland to explore potential trades prior to the deadline. As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com writes, that news, along with the report that the trade did not happen because of Thomas’ push for guaranteed money in 2016 and 2017, does not mesh with Thomas’ recent statement that he would have been crushed and surprised if the deal had been consummated. Although Thomas may release another statement in light of these reports, the fact remains that he is still a Brown and is under contract through 2018. He is due to make $8.3MM, $8.8MM, and $8.8MM over the next three seasons, respectively.
MONDAY, 3:20pm: Troy Renck of the Denver Post and Mike Klis of 9News (Twitter links) both dismiss the idea that the Broncos didn’t finalize a deal because they ran out of time or didn’t have the cap space, suggesting it was the Browns’ asking price that made Denver balk.
Russini adds (via Twitter) that the Broncos were offering a fifth-round pick and the Browns wanted a third-round pick, though it’s not clear how those selections fit into her previous report (noted below). According to Klis (via Twitter), the Browns wanted a first-rounder and at least one other early-round pick, which was too rich for the Broncos.
MONDAY, 3:07pm: Moments before today’s 3:00pm CT trade deadline, the Broncos were “racing” to restructure contracts in order to create the necessary cap room to accommodate a trade-deadline addition, reports Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (via Twitter). However, it appears that deal fell through, or the team simply ran out of time.
According to Dianna Marie Russini of ESPN.com (Twitter links), the proposed trade would have sent Browns left tackle Joe Thomas and a fourth-round 2016 pick to Denver in exchange for the Broncos’ first- and second-round picks in 2016. Russini suggests that it’s not clear whether the two sides were in agreement on that proposal before the deadline — it sounds as if it was close, but couldn’t get finalized before the deadline.
Cleveland head coach Mike Pettine confirmed to reporters moments ago the Browns didn’t make any trades (Twitter link via Albert Breer of the NFL Network).
The Browns were reportedly considering deals for several of their veteran players in advance of today’s deadline, including Thomas, Alex Mack, Paul Kruger, and Barkevious Mingo. A report this afternoon indicated that the team wasn’t likely to complete a major trade, so perhaps the Broncos made an unexpected last-minute push to try to land Thomas.
This wasn’t the first time the two teams had discussed a potential Thomas trade, with at least one report this morning suggesting that Denver offered a first-round pick for the standout tackle earlier in the season. With both Ryan Clady and Ty Sambrailo out for the year, the Broncos could have used a stalwart lineman like Thomas to protect Peyton Manning‘s blind side the rest of the way, but the Browns’ asking price was steep.
AFC West Notes: Broncos, Chargers
A look around the AFC West as Friday wraps up. . .
- Despite entering last Sunday 6-0, there was skepticism regarding whether the Broncos were true Super Bowl contenders. But their defense erased it in suffocating a lethal Packers offense, writes Troy Renck of The Denver Post. In their 29-10 rout, the Broncos made the NFC’s best quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, look far below average in holding him to a shockingly low 77 yards on 22 attempts. Thanks in part to its destruction of the Rodgers-led Packers, Denver’s defense is atop the league in sacks, points per game, yards per game and yards per play, and Chuck Pagano – the head coach of the Broncos’ next opponent, the Colts – is well aware of the unit’s dominance. “When you put the tape on, they are very reminiscent of the 2000 (Baltimore) Ravens,” Pagano said. “They have talent on all levels.”
- Broncos cornerback Chris Harris, one of the driving forces behind their their success, doesn’t see much parity in the NFL. “There are probably five teams that can win a Super Bowl each year. And everybody else is just there, really,” he told Lindsay H. Jones of USA Today. In assessing the league’s four currently undefeated teams – including his own – Harris said, “If you’re 7-0, you’re mainly good because you’re great. But you’re also good because you’ve got some games where it’s just a huge mismatch, and that isn’t the goal.”
- Chargers general manager Tom Telesco bought low last offseason when he signed cornerback Patrick Robinson to a one-year, $1.25MM contract, a move that now looks like one of the best value pickups of the 2015 free agent class. The sixth-year man has held opposing quarterbacks to a horrid 45.9 passer rating the 23 times they’ve thrown his way, per Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune. That rating is easily the best among Chargers corners. Brandon Flowers, their most established CB, has been torched to the tune of a 136.5 rating on 45 attempts this season.
AFC Notes: Benjamin, Cobb, Steelers
Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap ran down the top wide receivers in the 2016 free agent class, including Browns speedster Travis Benjamin. Benjamin is on pace for over 1,200 yards and eight touchdowns on the year, but he doesn’t have a history of this production and will have to shed concerns that he is a flash in the pan. Fitzgerald estimates that he’ll get a deal in the range of Julian Edelman, Doug Baldwin, and Emmanuel Sanders. That tier generally has a floor of about $4.5MM per year with perhaps $1MM or $2MM more depending on production.
- Interim coach Mike Mularkey says that running back David Cobb most likely won’t be activated to the Titans‘ roster until next week, as Terry McCormick of TitanInsider.com tweets. McCormick (link) adds that the Titans may have to make roster move at cornerback this week with cornerbacks Jason McCourty and Blidi Wreh-Wilson ailing.
- Doran Grant told Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (on Twitter) that a couple of teams were looking to sign him off of Pittsburgh’s practice squad and he indicated that’s why he was promoted to the Steelers‘ 53-man roster.
- Ty Sambrailo, who was converted left tackle before hitting the IR, probably isn’t the Broncos‘ left tackle of the future, but his college coach believes that he can come back strong, as Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com writes. “I still believe Ty can be a 12- to 15-year player in the NFL,” said Colorado State coach Jim McElwain, now the coach at Florida. “He’s athletic and he’s nasty. It’s just going to take him awhile to get his strength where he needs to be.” It remains to be seen whether that will be the case for Sambrailo and, if it is, whether that will happen in Denver.