Minor NFL Transactions: 3/20/17
Here are today’s minor moves.
- The Patriots released running back Tyler Gaffney, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. Gaffney has an extensive history with the Patriots but hasn’t played in a game. He spent the past three summers with the team, failing to make New England’s 53-man roster out of camp in each. He vacillated between the Pats’ active roster and practice squad last year, so if history is any indication, a reunion at could ensue at some point later this year.
- The Chargers re-signed previously non-tendered defensive end Tenny Palepoi, according to a team announcement. Palepoi missed the entire 2015 season with a foot injury but returned to action in 2016. He had 13 tackles in 13 games but wound up missing the last three contests due to a PED suspension. He still has to finish out that ban by sitting out one game in 2017.
- Another Bolts move: ERFA wide receiver Geremy Davis signed his tender.
- The Panthers announce they’ve re-signed cornerback Teddy Williams to a one-year extension. Mainly utilized in a special teams role, Williams played in only three games last year due to a knee injury. In 2015, he appeared in all 16 regular-season contests for the NFC champions.
- Long snapper Jon Condo re-signed with the Raiders. Condo’s been the Silver and Black’s long snapper since the 2007 season after breaking into the NFL with the 2005 Cowboys. Given that long snappers have a precise salary range — 14 of them earn between $1MM and $1.15MM per year — it’s fairly easy to project Condo’s next contract’s AAV. The 36-year-old is the Raiders’ second-longest-tenured player behind Sebastian Janikowski.
- Cody Parkey will have some competition with the Browns this summer. Cleveland added CFL kicker Brett Maher from the CFL. The 27-year-old hasn’t appeared in an NFL game yet. He’s kicked in Canada for the past three seasons, spending 2016 with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Maher made 41 of 50 field goal tries for Hamilton. Parkey, 24, hit 20 of his 25 attempts and made 20 of 21 PATs.
- The Redskins announced the re-signing of left tackle Ty Nsekhe. Washington placed an ERFA tender on Nsekhe, who at 31 is much older than players normally involved in these transactions. Nsekhe spent the past two seasons with Washington, starting in six games in that span. Four of those starts came last season while Trent Williams was serving a substance-abuse suspension.
- After the Nick Folk signing created a stacked Buccaneers kicker depth chart, the team released John Lunsford, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. Folk and Roberto Aguayo will battle for the Bucs’ kicker job, leaving Lunsford without a role.
Raiders Sign LB Jelani Jenkins
Jelani Jenkins has found a new home. The Raiders announced that they have signed the linebacker. Jenkins’ Raiders pact is for one year, Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com tweets.
The Raiders have been in the market for support at both weakside linebacker and middle linebacker. Jenkins’ best fit may be on the weakside, but it’s possible he’ll see time at both spots.
Jenkins’ best season with the Dolphins came in 2014 when he had 110 combined tackles, 3.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, and one pass defensed. We haven’t seen him replicate those numbers in the last two years, however. In 2016, Pro Football Focus gave Jenkins the worst grade of any linebacker with enough snaps to qualify for ranking. His 31.4 score was hilariously bad, but he had good showings (76.9; 73.2) in the previous two campaigns.
“Raiders Or Bust” For Marshawn Lynch?
Rumors of a Marshawn Lynch return continue to swirl. The potential for Lynch to come out of retirement is “realer than it’s ever been,” a source tells Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). That same source indicates that if the comeback goes down, it’s “Raiders or bust.” 
Lynch hasn’t spoken publicly about the latest round of Raiders rumors, but he fanned the flames this weekend on Twitter. Someone on Twitter recently noticed a 2015 Spotify playlist from Lynch which included a track titled “Oakland Raiders.” Lynch re-tweeted that tweet, giving more momentum to the Oakland talk.
It sounds like there is mutual interest between the Raiders and Lynch, but there’s still the matter of his contractual status with the Seahawks. Seattle owns Lynch’s rights and he would carry a $9MM cap hit if he returns. The Seahawks don’t have the cap room to keep Beast Mode at that rate and they already have Eddie Lacy, C.J. Prosise, and Thomas Rawls at running back. Seattle could cooperate with by trading him to the Raiders, but Oakland may only want to sacrifice something like a conditional seventh-rounder. The reality is that the Seahawks don’t have a ton of leverage in this situation, so the Raiders might prefer to wait for him to get released.
The Raiders are without a starting running back now that Latavius Murray left in free agency. The Raiders presently have Jalen Richard, DeAndre Washington, and Taiwan Jones at running back. One way or another, Oakland is expected to bolster the top of the RB depth chart.
Photo via Pro Football Rumors on Instagram.
Raiders To Meet With LB Jelani Jenkins
Free agent linebacker Jelani Jenkins is expected to visit the Raiders this week, sources tell Adam Caplan of ESPN.com (on Twitter). This marks Jenkins’ first known free agent visit of the month. 
[RELATED: Mark Davis “Dead Set” On Las Vegas]
The Raiders are looking for help at weakside linebacker and middle linebacker. Caplan hears from teams that Jenkins profiles more as a weakside ‘backer, which is the position he primarily played with the Dolphins.
Jenkins made some noise in 2014 when he had 110 total tackles, 3.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, and one pass defensed. From there, he saw his role gradually decrease. In 2015, he had 71 total tackles and three passes defensed. Last year, Jenkins appeared in nine games and accumulated 29 tackles.
In 2016, Pro Football Focus gave Jenkins the worst grade of any linebacker with enough snaps to qualify for a ranking. His 31.4 score was exceptionally bad, but he had much better showings (76.9; 73.2) in 2014 and 2015.
Contract Details: Taylor, Cook, Willson
The latest contract details from around the NFL:
- Tyrod Taylor, QB (Bills): Taylor earns an additional $500K if the Bills make it to the divisional round of the playoffs in 2017, which becomes $1MM if they advance to the AFC Championship, and $2MM if they advance to the Super Bowl. The same package of incentives applies to 2018 (via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk).
- Jared Cook, TE (Raiders): Two years, $10.6MM, $1.6MM in incentives (effectively a one-year $5.3MM deal with $800K in incentives) (Twitter link via Ben Volin of The Boston Globe).
- Luke Willson, TE (Seahawks): One year, $1.8MM, $1MM in incentives (Twitter link via Aaron Wilson of The Houston Chronicle).
- Kayvon Webster, CB (Rams): Two years, $7.75MM. Salaries of $2.75MM (guaranteed), $3MM. $1MM 2017 roster bonus guaranteed, $500K 2018 roster bonus guaranteed. (Twitter link via Wilson).
- Sean Spence, LB (Colts): One year, $2.5MM. $750K signing bonus. $500K in incentives (Twitter link via Wilson).
- Kendall Wright, WR (Bears): One year, $2MM. $250K signing bonus. $2MM in incentives (Twitter link via Wilson).
Latest On Lynch, Peterson
- Saturday night, as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk writes, retired running back Marshawn Lynch retweeted a message in which someone noticed that a musical playlist put together by Lynch contains a track entitled “Oakland Raiders.” The playlist was created in September 2015, but Florio believes the fact that Lynch went ahead and retweeted the message further legitimizes the Lynch-to-Raiders rumors.
- Meanwhile, new Raiders acquisition Cordarrelle Patterson is actively recruiting free agent running back and former Vikings teammate Adrian Peterson to join him in Oakland, as Ben Goessling of ESPN.com writes. However, the latest reports about a Peterson/Oakland match suggest that Peterson has more interest in the Raiders than the Raiders have in him at the moment.
Mark Davis “Dead Set” On Las Vegas
This will not come as much of a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, but Raiders owner Mark Davis is reportedly “dead set” on moving his club to Las Vegas and has abandoned all pretense of hearing out plans to keep the Raiders in Oakland. Elliott Almond of The Mercury News writes that Davis has not met with Oakland officials in over a year, and he did not speak with Assistant City Administrator Claudia Cappio two weeks ago, when Davis listened to Cappio and other officials make a pitch in Florida to other NFL owners.
Indeed, Davis has not so much as commented on the stadium plan put forth by Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott, though as Almond reports, sources familiar with both plans say Oakland could still have a chance to win over enough owners to keep the team where it is. Some owners, apparently, still have concerns about “funding infrastructure” in Las Vegas.
We learned last week that the Raiders will likely not have a lease agreement for a proposed Las Vegas stadium in place before the league owners meet later this month. Nonetheless, the absence of a finalized lease agreement does not mean the league owners will be precluded from voting on the relocation proposal. Instead, they could conditionally approve the relocation as long as the lease adequately addresses issues that are important to the league.
While Davis’ apparent reluctance to even consider Oakland’s overtures will surely anger and frustrate Bay Area fans, Almond reports that Lott’s plan has a fair share of flaws and has been met with skepticism by key league executives. Plus, the city’s proposal is still six to eight months away from being fully complete, which means that Oakland’s fading hopes are contingent upon league owners either postponing the relocation vote or voting against the move altogether, the latter of which seems highly unlikely.
49ers Sign Dekoda Watson
The 49ers have signed free agent linebacker Dekoda Watson, his agent, Peter Schaffer, announced on Instagram. It’s a three-year, $6MM deal, tweets Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
San Francisco is the sixth NFL team for the 29-year-old Watson, who originally went to the Buccaneers in the seventh round of the 2010 draft. Since then, Watson has appeared in 89 games, made seven starts and picked up four sacks. As a member of the Broncos in 2016, he played a 16-game slate for the second time in his career and worked almost exclusively as a special teamer. While Watson only played 3.8 percent of the Broncos’ defensive snaps, he saw action in 84 percent of their special teams plays.
Denver had hoped to retain Watson, who instead joins newly signed Rams cornerback Kayvon Webster as the second key special teamer to leave the Mile High City this week. Watson also drew interest from one of the 49ers’ NFC West rivals, the Seahawks, and visited the Raiders while in the Bay Area on Friday, according to ESPN’s Adam Caplan (Twitter link).
Latest On Marshawn Lynch
Here we go again. Marshawn Lynch, reportedly, is pondering a comeback and the Raiders are thinking about acquiring him. At the moment, however, the Seahawks are still in control of his rights.
A few things have to go down before the long-rumored Lynch-to-Oakland rumors can come to fruition, but it all starts with the running back himself. Lynch is in a bit of a holding pattern and is still deciding whether he wants to come back, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. Lynch does in fact have the itch to play though and is already in shape. Interestingly, Garafolo hears (Twitter link) that Lynch stopped by the Seahawks’ facility, but it “was more of a personal visit than anything.”
Lynch’s contract called for him to earn $9MM in 2016 and that would be his default salary for this season if he were to return. The Seahawks won’t have room for him with Eddie Lacy, C.J. Prosise, and Thomas Rawls already on the roster and it’s not clear if the Raiders will be willing to pay that salary. Oakland is looking to extend Derek Carr and Khalil Mack in the near future and that kind of addition could limit them financially.
Photo via Pro Football Rumors on Instagram.
Raiders To Pursue Marshawn Lynch?
Remember those flirtations between the Raiders and Marshawn Lynch from last year? Sounds like things could be picking up again. The Raiders are giving serious thought to acquiring Lynch, either through trade or by his release, league sources tell ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter and Josina Anderson.
[RELATED: Raiders To Sign Jared Cook]
“It could really happen,” one source familiar with the situation said. One source with knowledge of the situation told Mike Florio of PFT there is a “very good chance” that Lynch will return to football.
The Raiders would have to work out a trade with the Seahawks in order to get Lynch, since they still own his rights. In theory, the Seahawks could also cut Lynch as a courtesy to the tailback. The Seahawks don’t really need Lynch anyway now that they have Eddie Lacy, C.J. Prosise, and Thomas Rawls.
There’s also the matter of convincing Lynch to continue playing football. He was adamant about staying retired last year, but it’s an idea he has considered, sources say. Last September, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported Lynch would consider playing during the 2016 campaign, and while that never happened, any lingering interest in returning to the league could manifest itself in 2017.
Oakland did indeed attempt to wrangle Lynch from the Seahawks via trade in 2016, and a deal nearly came together, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. However, Lynch ultimately decided to stay retired. Now that he’s taken a full year off, Lynch could potentially consider to re-enter the NFL for one more go-round with the Raiders, but those same talks — including the enticement of Lynch himself — will have to take place again.
One issue in negotiations might be the Raiders’ reluctance to send draft compensation to Seattle, as Oakland may only want to sacrifice something like a conditional seventh-rounder, per Rapoport (Twitter link). Additionally, the Raiders are trying to conserve cash and cap space in order to facilitate extensions for Derek Carr and Khalil Mack, so paying Lynch $9MM — the figure he was set to earn under his Seahawks contract — would be problematic.
Lynch wasn’t himself in 2015, as nagging injuries forced him to miss nine games. The year prior, however, Lynch was as productive as ever, as he rushed for 4.7 yards per carry and managed a career-high 13 touchdowns on the ground. Lynch is still only 30 years old.
In other Raiders running back news, Schefter and Anderson hear that Adrian Peterson also remains a possibility for Oakland. That interest still appears to be coming from the Peterson camp, however, as the ESPN scribes report Peterson would like the chance to join a talented Raiders squad.