Gruden Signals Raiders Won't Be Big Spenders
Jon Gruden seemed to indicate the Raiders wouldn’t be overly aggressive in free agency this offseason during a recent podcast interview, per Scott Bair of NBC Sports. “Obviously, we’re not looking to add players at the end of their career. We’re looking for blossoming young players. Those guys usually don’t get to free agency, so the pickings are slim”, Gruden said, adding “we’ll see where the market goes, but you don’t want to spend all the money you have on a few free agents. You want to try to keep some of that money available in case a trade might develop during the draft.” Gruden separately again emphasized the possibility of making a trade, saying “I think there’s a lot of potential for trades.”
Raiders Nearing Deal To Play In Oakland For 2019
The Raiders are nearing a deal that will allow them to play in the Oakland Coliseum for at least one more season, according to Phil Matier of the San Francisco Chronicle. An announcement is unlikely to be made this week, tweets Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review Journal, but it could come next week.
The Raiders are expected to pay a $7.5MM fee to play in the Coliseum in 2019, a price tag that has been agreed upon for some time. Additionally, the deal will come with an option that would let the Raiders spend the 2020 campaign in Oakland, as well. Per Matier, that option is something of an insurance policy, a fail-safe in case the Raiders’ Las Vegas stadium isn’t ready by its scheduled 2020 launch date.
Reports emerged in late January indicating the Raiders would stay in the Bay Area for 2019, and the club reportedly reached an agreement to play in San Francisco’s Oracle Park, the home of MLB’s Giants. That accord ran into issues, however, as the 49ers refused to waive their territorial rights to the San Francisco area.
The NFL, meanwhile, reportedly preferred the Raiders share the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium for the 2019 campaign. While the Niners and the Raiders discussed the viability of such a setup, it’s not clear how serious the discussions were, per Matier.
Raiders Targeting Kyler Murray?
- The Raiders have three first-round picks and there has been speculation that they could target a quarterback early in the draft, despite the presence Derek Carr. The Raiders, King hears, are fascinated with Murray. If that’s the case, he wonders whether Oakland might flip Carr to to the Jaguars, Dolphins, or Redskins and select the Oklahoma star. If that happens, Murray could wind up playing his first home games on the field of the Oakland A’s.
Latest On Raiders’ Oakland Discussions
The Raiders have missed the NFL’s Super Bowl LIII deadline for resolving their 2019 stadium situation, but they may be closing in on finalizing this saga.
The likelihood that, after all of the talk of a move elsewhere following Oakland’s lawsuit, the Raiders will play in Oakland has increased. More discussions are on tap next week, with a near-future resolution in sight.
“We’ll talk against next week. Again, this will come to a conclusion one way or another in the next week or so,” Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Board executive director Scott McKibben said, via Scott Bair of NBC Sports Bay Area. “It’s fair to say that discussions have been meaningful and productive and, after the update with our board, things are progressing.”
Oakland and the Raiders had been discussing a $7.5MM lease for 2019, the franchise’s final lame-duck season before its Las Vegas move. Although the Raiders previously walked away from that deal after the city’s lawsuit, playing at the Coliseum for the $7.5MM amount is back on the table.
It appears the prospect of the Raiders playing at the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park home has been scuttled. The 49ers refused to waive their territorial rights. Although, Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area notes NFL bylaws indicate the league’s 30 non-Bay Area owners could supersede the 49ers in this case, that is not expected. Normally, relocations require a two-thirds majority vote; in this case, all 30 other teams would have to approve of the Raiders playing in San Francisco. A precedent of teams moving into markets already housing other teams is not one the NFL wants, per Maiocco.
Additionally, the seven opponents set to face the Raiders in the Bay Area may well have objected to sharing a sideline with the Raiders on game day, Maiocco adds. That would have been the case at Oracle Park.
Raiders Hire Former Jets OC John Morton
The Jets’ offensive coordinator for one season, John Morton will return to an NFL sideline after missing the 2018 season. The Raiders announced they hired him as a senior offensive assistant.
Morton will find his way to a Jon Gruden‘s staff. While Gruden and Morton have not worked together as coaches, they have been in the same organization multiple times.
Gruden was a young Packers wide receivers coach for two seasons in the 1990s. An NFL receiver hopeful, Morton spent time on Green Bay’s practice squad in 1993. Gruden also paved the way for Morton’s post-playing career in the league, giving him a job as a Raiders executive in the late ’90s.
Morton, 49, joins Kirby Wilson and Taver Johnson as new Raiders hires.
Wilson also has a history with Gruden, serving as running backs coach for his first two Buccaneers teams. Wilson has since coached running backs with five other teams. In total, the 57-year-old assistant has now been on an NFL staff as running backs coach for nine NFL franchises since 1997. His most recent gig turned out to be a one-year role, serving on one-and-done Cardinals coach Steve Wilks‘ staff.
The Raiders will bring Johnson back to the NFL after a 15-year hiatus. Set to become the Raiders’ assistant defensive backs coach, Johnson has been a college assistant since 2005, rising to positions of Miami (Ohio) and Temple DC. In 2018, Johnson coached Ohio State’s cornerbacks. He was a Browns assistant in 2004.
Morton, whose lone Jets offense ranked 28th in total yardage, clashed with Jets coach Todd Bowles and had issues with some Jets coaches. He will have a chance to rebuild his coaching reputation with a rebuilding team.
Raiders Increasingly Likely To Play 2019 Season In Oakland
There has been a great deal of chatter in recent weeks as to where the Raiders will play next season, but it looks increasingly likely that they will remain in Oakland for one more year. The Raiders had previously agreed to pay $7.5MM in rent to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to play their 2019 homes games at the Coliseum, but they began looking for alternate sites when the city of Oakland filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
However, we heard just last week that the Coliseum is willing to honor the prior agreement, and today, Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the two sides have engaged in productive talks. Scott McKibben, executive director of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, said, “I will confirm that we, late last week, started sitting down and talking with the Raiders about the potential of a 2019 season deal. In my view, the discussions have been meaningful and productive.”
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com confirms (on Twitter) that the Raiders do appear to be focused on playing the 2019 season in Oakland, and he says the club must make every attempt to work out a deal with the Coliseum before moving on to other options. Nonetheless, a report from NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic last week indicated that, while the 49ers have thus far refused to give up their territorial rights to allow the Raiders play in San Francisco’s Oracle Park — home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants — it is believed that the NFL will be the party making the final call in that regard. As such, there is still an outside chance that Oracle Park could be hosting Raiders games next season.
And other cities want in on the action as well. In an odd bit of news, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dalton Johnson reports that Birmingham, Alabama, and Tucson, Arizona are trying to team up to share the Raiders next season. Birmingham city councilor William Parker said, “[t]he fans in Alabama love football. Obviously, the people in San Francisco and Oakland don’t want them and there’s a fan base here for the Raiders.”
Parker’s city, though, looks like it may have to content itself with the AAF’s Birmingham Iron for the time being, as it currently appears that the Raiders will have one last hurrah in Oakland before heading to Las Vegas in 2020.
Raiders DB Coach Derrick Ansley Joins Titans
- Raiders defensive backs coach Derrick Ansley is joining the University of Tennessee staff in a similar role, NBC Sports’ Scott Bair writes. Ansley will reunite with head coach Jeremy Pruitt, who he served with while with the University of Alabama. Last year was Ansley’s first in the NFL, and the Raiders reportedly were happy with the job he did with the team’s young defensive backs.
Josh Gordon, Martavis Bryant May Apply For Reinstatement By May
Suspended NFL wideouts Josh Gordon and Martavis Bryant may be able to apply for reinstatement by May, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (Twitter link).
Both Gordon and Bryant are suspended — not banished — from the NFL, which, as Pelissero note,s in an important distinction given that banishment would have lead to a one-year minimum absence from the league. However, both pass-catchers’ suspensions are indefinite in nature, so there’s no clear timeframe on when they can attempt to re-enter the NFL.
Nevertheless, if both Gordon and Bryant execute their treatment plans in accordance with the league’s wishes, the NFLPA may begin to “lay groundwork” for returns in May, per Pelissero. Such a plan could could potentially put both players back on the field by training camp, something Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reported — at least, in the case of Gordon — on Wednesday.
Gordon, whom the Patriots acquired at midseason from the Browns, is scheduled to become a restricted free agent next month, so New England will soon need to decide at what level it will tender the 27-year-old. Bryant, meanwhile, was traded from the Steelers to the Raiders during the draft, but was subsequently cut and re-signed in September. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent in March, but clearly shouldn’t be expected to find a new team until later this summer, at the least.
Raiders Rumors: Oakland, SF, Carr, Cook
An offer for the Raiders to play in Oakland in exchange for $7.5MM in rent remains on the table, as Michael Gehlken of the Review-Journal writes. The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is willing to honor the agreement, despite the fact that the city of Oakland has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
“We have always wanted them to come back and play the last season here,” McKibben said Tuesday. “Keep in mind the Coliseum Authority that I work for and represent is not in this lawsuit. The lawsuit has been filed by the city of Oakland. The role that I have taken is I’ve got a lot of jobs to save for a season or two. We would love to see them play here for the fans and the sponsors and the media exposure and all the various constituents that are impacted by this.”
Here’s more out of Oakland:
- The 49ers are still not expected to waive their territorial rights for the Raiders to play in San Francisco, sources tell Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). On top of that, the mayor of San Francisco has come out against the Raiders playing at Oracle Park, which makes SF even more unlikely. At this point, it’ll be either Oakland or Levi’s Stadium for the Raiders, Rapoport hears.
- Derek Carr’s $19.9MM base salary for 2019 became fully guaranteed on Wednesday, as Field Yates of ESPN.com (on Twitter) notes. The Raiders could explore other QB options this offseason, but a Carr release is not a real possibility anymore.
- Jared Cook is unlikely to return to the Raiders, Vic Tafur of The Athletic opines. Coach Jon Gruden indicated that Cook was in the team’s plans at the Super Bowl, but Tafur believes that he likes tight ends Darren Waller, Lee Smith, Derek Carrier and practice squad TE Paul Butler enough to let Cook go elsewhere in free agency. Talent-wise, the Raiders might like to have Cook back, but he should find a competitive market in March. Cook was named to the Pro Bowl as an alternate after he hauled in a career-high 68 catches for 896 yards and six TDs.
Eagles Will Pick Up Nick Foles’ Option
The rumors surrounding the Eagles-Nick Foles situation appear accurate. The Eagles informed the Super Bowl LII MVP they are going to pick up his $20MM option, Tim McManus of ESPN.com tweets.
Rather than hitting free agency, Foles remains under Eagles control. However, this is likely the start of an extensive process.
Foles is expected to pay $2MM to free himself from this option and become a free agent, but the Eagles in turn are then rumored to be planning a rare tag-and-trade strategy. Philadelphia’s target is somewhat modest: a third-round pick. But that draft choice would likely come in the 2019 third round, rather than the 2020 draft in a compensatory scenario. Foles, 30, is expected to sign the franchise tender immediately. It would be worth approximately $23MM.
This is a complicated scenario for a player who almost certainly will not be part of the 2019 Eagles, but the franchise is likely going to take the chance another team will part with draft compensation to acquire Foles.
The Jaguars make sense, possessing a veteran-fueled defense held down by Blake Bortles. Former Eagles quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo is now the Jaguars’ OC. The Jags will have to perform considerable cap gymnastics to make this work, though. A new Foles contract will be expected to be authorized by whichever team trades for him.
To some degree, the Redskins fit the profile of a Foles buyer — although, they might be aiming lower in a veteran pursuit — and Pat Shurmur coached Foles in Philadelphia. Neither of these teams will be sought as a trade partner, however, with the Eagles not eager to trade another quarterback within the NFC East like they did when they shipped Donovan McNabb to Washington in 2010.
The Dolphins are also moving on from their longtime quarterback, but they are not likely to be big spenders in free agency and are eyeing a rebuild centered around a 2020 first-round passer. Denver is in need of a long-term answer, too, after receiving below-average 2018 work from Case Keenum. But the Broncos targeting a first-round quarterback adds up better than replacing Keenum with Foles. Despite Derek Carr‘s presence, the Raiders might be a long-shot possibility, Eliot Shorr-Parks of 94 WIP writes, adding Mike Mayock is a “big believer” in Foles.
They of the NFL’s worst cap situation ($13MM over the projected salary ceiling), the Eagles will need to know they have a bidder willing to part with appropriate compensation before tagging Foles. The early consensus is the Jaguars will be that team.