Today’s minor moves:
Detroit Lions
- Waived: CB Desmond Lawrence
Miami Dolphins
- Re-signed: OL Jake Brendel (ERFA)
- The Lions have an opening at tight end after the departure of Eric Ebron to the Colts. The team thinks 2017 rookie Michael Roberts could fill that role, Tim Twentyman of detroitlions.com writes. Roberts only caught four passes during his first season in the league, but the fourth-round pick does offer intriguing upside. As a senior at Toledo, he hauled in a whopping 16 touchdowns.
The Cardinals have added not just one, but two quarterbacks off of the waiver wire. On Thursday, Arizona was awarded QB Brandon Doughty from the Dolphins and QB Alek Torgersen from the Lions, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets.
The signal callers join starter Sam Bradford and primary backup Mike Glennon on the Cards’ QB depth chart. Of course, the Cardinals will not carry more than three QBs on the final roster, so Doughty and Torgersen will be competing for one spot. There could also be additional veterans or rookies (both drafted and undrafted) thrown into the mix.
Torgersen played his college football at Penn before hooking on with the Falcons as a UDFA in 2017. He missed the final cut and hooked on with the Redskins’ taxi squad before finishing out the year in Detroit.
Doughty, a seventh-round pick of Miami in 2016, re-upped with the team on a reserve/futures deal in January before being handed a pink slip this week. In his final year at Western Kentucky, Doughty completed 71.9% of his passes for 5,055 yards with 48 touchdowns against just nine interceptions.
The latest NFL Draft news:
- Linked to Leighton Vander Esch for several weeks this offseason, the Steelers met with the Boise State outside linebacker on Monday night, Tony Pauline of Draft Analyst reports. Pittsburgh has used first-round picks on either inside or outside ‘backers in four of its past five drafts. Three of those players remain on the team, but only two will be able to play this season. Ryan Shazier has been declared out as he attempts to recover from his frightening spine injury. Pauline wrote in March that Vander Esch won’t get past Pittsburgh at No. 28.
- Next up for Vander Esch met the Cowboys on Wednesday morning, James Palmer of NFL.com tweets. After that, he has the Cardinals and every team picking between No. 12 to No. 24, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Aside from the aforementioned clubs, the teams picking from No. 12-24 are the Bills (twice), Redskins, Packers, Ravens, Chargers, Seahawks, Lions, Bengals, Bills, Patriots, and Panthers.
- LSU pass-rusher Arden Key met with the Saints and Lions before his pro day on Wednesday and will visit with the Bengals on Thursday, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Due to injuries, key only started in eight games last year, but he still finished out with 33 tackles, 5.5 for loss, four sacks, and a forced fumble. He is widely projected to be a first round pick later this month.
We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Chicago Bears
- Re-signed: WR Josh Bellamy (RFA)
Dallas Cowboys
- Signed: K/P Brett Maher
- Waived: WR Brian Brown
Detroit Lions
- Waived: QB Alek Torgersen
Indianapolis Colts
- Re-signed: OL Jeremy Vujnovich (ERFA)
Miami Dolphins
- Signed: T Roubbens Joseph
- Waived: QB Brandon Doughty
Matt Cassel will join a seventh NFL team, reaching an agreement to sign with the Lions, Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com report ( Twitter link).
The Bob Quinn– and Matt Patricia-run team will bring in a veteran to work behind Matthew Stafford. Both were with the Patriots when Cassel worked behind Tom Brady during the 2000s.
Released by the Titans last month, Cassel is entering his age-36 season. He has not been a regular starter since his days with the Chiefs. But he did make several starts with the Vikings and Cowboys before becoming Marcus Mariota‘s backup and serving in that role the past two years.
The Lions have 2016 sixth-round pick Jake Rudock on their roster. Rudock was drawing trade interest last year and has worked behind Stafford over the past two years. Cassel is going into his 14th NFL season. He’s made 81 starts, with his teams going 36-45 in those, and is a career 59 percent passer with 104 touchdown tosses and 81 interceptions.
Matt Patricia has called defensive plays for the past eight years, doing so in New England during two seasons before he became the Patriots’ DC. But he will cede that responsibility in his first season with the Lions.
Detroit’s new head coach will delegate play-calling duties to new Lions DC Paul Pasqualoni, Patricia said (via Kyle Meinke of MLive.com).
While Patricia will still weigh in on defensive and offensive plays at times, the primary responsibilities for defensive calls will go to Pasqualoni. An on-and-off NFL assistant over the past 13 years whose primary connection to Patricia was at Syracuse in the early 2000s, Pasqualoni initially hired Patricia as a graduate assistant when he was the program’s head coach. He’ll now receive his biggest NFL assignment since 2010.
“Coach Pasqualoni will be calling the defense, and he’ll be running it from that standpoint,” Patricia said this week. “In general, I’ll call whatever I need to offensively, defensively or special teams. But yeah, he’ll be in charge.”
The 68-year-old assistant coached Boston College’s defensive line over the past two seasons and served as an NFL DC from 2008-10, with the Dolphins and Cowboys. The Lions ranked 19th in defensive DVOA in Teryl Austin‘s final season.
- The Lions dangled Eric Ebron up until the deadline for his fifth-year option to vest before ultimately releasing him. Bob Quinn elaborated about why the former first-round pick ended up as a free agent instead of netting the Lions a draft pick in a deal. “I guess the general response that I got was, ‘The number’s too big,'” Quinn said, via Kyle Meinke of MLive.com, of Ebron’s then-$8.25MM cap figure attached to the 2018 option. “The salary that came along with the fifth-year option was something that we weighed, you know, really up until the last minute, to be honest. It was just one of those things that we knew was coming down the pike, we obviously had some trade conversations with a few teams that didn’t work out.” Ebron ended up with the Colts on a two-year, $13MM pact.
- Not receiving any compensation for Ebron, the Lions are targeting picks via trades prior to this draft. Detroit holds just six picks. “That’s something that’ll definitely be in the talks I’d say, a week or two leading up to the draft — try to get more picks,” Quinn said, via Meinke. The Lions have a basic draft allotment, holding all their own picks save for the sixth-rounder they surrendered for Greg Robinson last year.
Some details on recent free agent deals (all links via Twitter):
- Tyrann Mathieu, S (Texans): $2MM base salary in 2018. $4.5MM signing bonus, $500K worth of per-game bonus (via Mike Jurecki of ArizonaSports.com).
- Kevin Pamphile, OG (Titans): $1MM base salary, $400K guaranteed. $850K worth of incentives (via ESPN’s Cameron Wolfe).
- Ben Watson, TE (Saints): One year, $2MM. $645K signing bonus/guaranteed (via Nick Underhill of The Advocate).
- Marcus Sherels, CB/PR (Vikings): Worth $1.4MM, base salary $1.05MM. $250K signing bonus, $500K guaranteed, $100K workout bonus (via ESPN’s Ben Goessling).
NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero also has signing bonus/guarantee details on players who signed one-year deals: TE Levine Toilolo $400K (Lions), LB Pernell McPhee $350K (Redskins), QB Brandon Weeden $90K (Texans), CB Leon Hall $45K (Raiders).
Some teams use the franchise tag to buy some time to negotiate with their players on a long-term deal. That doesn’t appear to be the case in Detroit with Ezekiel Ansah. Appearing on PFT Live, general manager Bob Quinn alluded to taking a wait-and-see approach with the fifth-year defensive end. 
“We’re hoping he stays healthy, has a productive year and we go from there,” Quinn said.
Quinn said it is about new head coach Matt Patricia being able to get to know Ansah through the off-season program before the team makes a decision about a long-term deal. The fact that Ansah has been inconsistent early in his career — sandwiching a pair of double-digit sack seasons in 2015 and 2017 with a two-sack campaign in 2016 — also surely factors into the decision to wait.
Though he wants Patricia to become familiar with the defensive end through the offseason program, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio also writes Ansah isn’t likely to attend the offseason program with a long-term deal.
The 2015 Pro Bowl selection has until July 16 to sign his franchise tender, which will pay him an expected $17.14MM.