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Poll: Which Thursday Suspension Will Have Biggest Impact?

July 3rd, 2015 at 12:18pm CST by Luke Adams

Black Monday is an annual NFL tradition, when coaches and general managers around the league are dismissed on the Monday following Week 17’s games. So why not a Black Thursday? Yesterday, on the Thursday before a holiday weekend, the league announced four suspensions over the course of the afternoon, including three four-game bans for standout players. Those penalties could end up having a real impact on a handful of teams as they pursue postseason berths this season.

Jets defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson and Cowboys linebacker Rolando McClain were suspended four games each for violating the league’s substance abuse policy; Packers pass rusher Datone Jones got one game for violating the same policy; and Chargers tight end Antonio Gates was banned four games for a violation of the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.

Because Jones’ suspension is just for one game, and he hasn’t been a top performer so far in Green Bay, we won’t feature him in this discussion, but the other three players are all extremely important to their respective teams.

Richardson is coming off a Pro Bowl season, and was expected to once again contribute to one of the best defensive lines in the NFL, alongside Damon Harrison and Muhammad Wilkerson. Now, sixth overall pick Leonard Williams will presumably be pressed into starting action immediately, while Richardson sits out the season’s first month.

In Dallas, the Cowboys’ new-look linebacker corps includes offseason signees Andrew Gachkar and Jasper Brinkley, along with Sean Lee, who is returning from a torn ACL. But the team will certainly miss McClain, who ranked as the league’s eighth-best inside linebacker out of 60 qualified players in 2014, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), despite only playing 13 games.

Of course, the most recognizable name among the suspended players is Gates. The future Hall-of-Famer hasn’t earned a Pro Bowl nod since the 2011 season, but he remains a focal point for the Chargers’ passing attack, having racked up 146 receptions and 16 touchdowns over the last two years. Young tight end Ladarius Green, who many observers pegged as a breakout candidate last year, will be tasked with filling Gates’ shoes for the first month of the 2015 campaign.

While all three suspended players are key contributors, their teams have viable replacements, and should be able to get by for a few weeks while they wait for their veterans to return. Still, those players will be missed. Which suspension do you expect to have the biggest impact on that player’s team? Cast your vote in the poll and feel free to weigh in below in the comments section to explain your reasoning.

Which four-game suspension will have the biggest impact on the player's team?
Antonio Gates, TE (Chargers) 45.14% (181 votes)
Sheldon Richardson, DL (Jets) 35.91% (144 votes)
Rolando McClain, LB (Cowboys) 18.95% (76 votes)
Total Votes: 401

AFC Notes: Houston, Chiefs, Ravens

July 2nd, 2015 at 9:54pm CST by Zachary Links

Former Cardinals defensive tackle Dan Williams knows a thing or two about watching a team go from the bottom to the top. Now with the Raiders, the veteran is confident that we will see something similar in Oakland, Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com writes.

“I don’t know how the Raiders were before I got there, but just the fact that the coaches we have now – these guys have a great plan,” said Williams, who signed a four-year, $15MM contract this offseason to help anchor the run defense. “They pretty much laid out the foundation, and now it’s pretty much on the players to buy in. We’ve been doing a great job so far at buying in to what they want us to do.”

Will the new blood in Oakland, including new head coach Jack Del Rio, be enough to turn things around in 2015? Only time will tell. Here’s more from the AFC..

  • Joel Corry of CBSSports.com looked at Justin Houston‘s situation with the Chiefs and attempted to hammer out a fair contract solution for both sides. Ultimately, Corry suggests a deal worth $81.25MM with $48MM guaranteed and $28.375MM fully guaranteed at the time of signing. The deal is a happy medium of the average of five highest-paid non-quarterbacks, average of five-highest paid defensive players and average of three highest-paid pass rushers while holding true to KC’s contract preferences and conventions. The deal would also provide the Chiefs with $8MM+ of some badly needed salary cap relief. At present, KC has just $550K in salary room.
  • The Ravens have been trending younger and younger in recent years and Jeff Zrebiec of The Baltimore Sun wonders if that trend will continue in 2015. it’s hard to tell where things will be at for Baltimore since we’re so far away from the 53-man cutdown, but it’s possible that the streak will come to an end this year. At this time last year, the Ravens had nine players who were on the wrong side of 30. This year, they have ten, including key pillars such as Joe Flacco, Dennis Pitta, Terrell Suggs, and Steve Smith.
  • Matt Calkins of U-T San Diego fears that everything is falling apart for the Chargers. So far this offseason, the Bolts have watched Philip Rivers turn down a contract extension, Eric Weddle declare that this is last season in San Diego, and now veteran Antonio Gates has been hit with a four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing policy. As all of this goes on, the possibility of relocation lurks over the franchise and its loyal fans.

Extra Points: Gates, McClain, Supplemental Draft

July 2nd, 2015 at 4:03pm CST by Zachary Links

A look at the latest from around the NFL, including notes relating to this afternoon’s rash of surprise suspensions..

  • The four suspensions handed down this afternoons are likely the final ones today before the holiday weekend, Albert Breer of NFL.com tweets. Of course, there could always be more suspensions lurking around the corner on Monday.
  • The cases of Antonio Gates, Datone Jones, Sheldon Richardson, and Rolando McClain have all gone past the appeals phase, so those penalties are final, Breer tweets.
  • Fifteen NFL teams were on hand for the Pro Day workout at West Georgia for Dalvon Stuckey and Darrius Caldwell, Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post tweets. Among the teams in attendance are the Cardinals, 49ers, Packers, Raiders, Titans, Jets, Dolphins, Lions, Seattle, Chargers, Falcons, Rams, Bucs, and Washington (link). Stuckey, a defensive tackle, signed with FSU but never played a snap for them. He wound up at West Georgia where he had 4.5 sacks, nine tackles for a loss, and three forced fumbles in 2014. Caldwell, who is entering the supplemental draft due to academic issues, was initially an Illinois recruit. He had an eye-popping 12 sacks and 18.5 tackles for loss last season.

Antonio Gates Gets Four-Game Suspension

July 2nd, 2015 at 3:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Yet another suspension has been announced by the NFL, as the Chargers confirmed today (via Twitter) that tight end Antonio Gates will miss the first four games of the 2015 season. The penalty was handed down due to a violation of the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances, tweets Albert Breer of the NFL Network.

“We are tremendously disappointed for our team and our fans as well as Antonio, but no more disappointed than Antonio is with himself,” the Chargers said in a statement. “Antonio is a member of the Chargers’ family and we will continue to support him 100-percent. We have the utmost confidence he will stay in excellent shape for the season and be ready to go when he returns in Week 5. While it’s unfortunate to not have him to start the season, we have complete confidence our tight end group will continue to play at a high level.”

For his part, Gates also released a statement, confirming that he tested positive for a substance that he was unaware was on the league’s banned substance list.

“I have always believed that ignorance is no excuse when it comes to these issues, and I take full responsibility for my actions,” Gates said. “I’d like to express my sincere apologies to the Chargers, my teammates, coaches, fans and the league who have always supported me and expected and gotten nothing but the highest level of integrity from me.”

Gates, the Chargers‘ all-time leader in catches, made it known after the 2014 season that he was not considering retirement. In fact, he stated that 2015 might not even be his last season. Now, for the first four weeks of the season, the tight end position will be held down by understudy Ladarius Green, someone who many feel is a future star.

Latest On Los Angeles Relocation

June 30th, 2015 at 6:54pm CST by Connor J. Byrne

In the latest development that could eventually lead to the NFL’s return to Los Angeles, Raiders owner Mark Davis and Chargers owner Dean Spanos spent Tuesday in LA meeting with Mayor Eric Garcetti and other officials regarding their joint plan to build a stadium in Carson, Calif., according to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times.

The respective outlooks in Oakland and San Diego, the cities for the Raiders and Chargers, currently appear bleak. Businessman Floyd Kephart’s stadium proposal to keep the Raiders in Oakland has not been looked on positively, per Farmer, who notes that the Chargers don’t believe they can legally get a stadium initiative on the ballot in San Diego until the tail end of 2016 at the earliest. Moreover, the Chargers don’t have confidence that a stadium initiative would be well received by the San Diego community.

Further complicating matters is that the Chargers and Raiders aren’t the only teams eying California-based relocation. Rams owner Stan Kroenke has his sights set on Inglewood and is competing with the the other two teams’ Carson plans. The league would like a pair of franchises in LA as early as 2016, which would make at least one of the Chargers, Raiders or Rams the odd club out.

In Missouri, Rep. Jay Barnes asked a judge Tuesday to block Gov. Jay Nixon from working on plans for a new stadium in St. Louis, the Associated Press reported. Barnes and other lawmakers claim that the plans for a new stadium are illegal because the hypothetical facility wouldn’t be located next to St. Louis’ convention center, which state law requires.

“The governor does not have the authority to spend taxpayer dollars for an illegal purpose,” said Barnes.

If the Rams do ultimately gain league approval to relocate, Farmer writes that the deep-pocketed Kroenke wouldn’t have any difficulty financing his $2 billion planned stadium.

It’s currently unknown when there will be a resolution for the three teams, according to Farmer, who lists the end of the regular season, Super Bowl week and March’s owners meetings as potential times for owners to vote on proposals by Davis, Spanos and Kroenke. For its part, the league is hoping only two of the Raiders, Chargers and Rams apply for relocation, although it appears likely that all three will.

Extra Points: Los Angeles, Raiders, Titans

June 29th, 2015 at 9:29pm CST by Zachary Links

It appears that the league is getting a little more stringent on Adderall prescriptions, as Albert Breer of NFL.com tweets. Today, the NFLPA sent a reminder to agents today on players needing to have a certified psychiatrist evaluate them to get therapeutic use exemptions for ADHD. Players wanting to use the popular ADHD medication have to have TUEs for it renewed by August 10th, otherwise they will not be able to take the medication. Over the years, we have seen several players suspended for using Adderall and similar ADHD meds, including Bruce Irvin, Aqib Talib, and Haloti Ngata. Here’s more from around the NFL..

  • Despite some reports over the weekend to the contrary, the NFL is not considering delaying the Los Angeles relocation process by a year, a source tells Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal (on Twitter).
  • At some point, Oakland will probably have to choose between the Raiders and the Oakland Athletics, Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle write.
  • Paul Kuharsky of ESPN.com wonders if Kenneth Adams IV is becoming the face of the Titans‘ ownership group. Rumors continue to fly of the team ultimately being sold, but Kuharsky gets the feeling that Adams wants to remain an NFL owner. Adams is the lone person in the five-member ownership group who works for the team and who is a Nashvillian.
  • The trial for Saints cornerback Brian Dixon has been pushed back again and is now scheduled for Aug. 3, according to online court records obtained by Evan Woodbery of The Times-Picayune. Dixon was arrested March 29 for resisting arrest without violence following a traffic stop in Miami Beach. The 25-year-old, who signed with the Saints as an undrafted free agent in 2014, played in all 16 games for New Orleans last season.

Latest On NFL’s Los Angeles Relocation

June 28th, 2015 at 6:36pm CST by Dallas Robinson

In yesterday’s San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper’s editorial board added a bit of intrigue to the NFL’s plans for relocating a team to Los Angeles. Referencing an owner’s meeting scheduled for August, the board writes speculation has arisen that the owners may vote the entire process back by one year, allowing the situations in San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland to “percolate.”

For his part, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk isn’t entirely buying said speculation, going as far as to opine that the Union-Tribune, which has a vested interest in seeing San Diego retain an NFL team, could have simply “conjured” the news. Either way, such a delay in the process would have negative consequences for San Diego, writes Florio. A scenario could exist where the Raiders and Rams both move to L.A. and the Chargers stay in San Diego; such moves would obviously be a negative for the Chargers, as they’d have to compete financially with two teams in their area.

Albert Breer of NFL.com (Twitter link) has heard rumors of a different scenario, one where the Rams move to Los Angeles for the 2016 season, while the second spot in Inglewood remains open (for how long is not known) so that the Chargers and Raiders maintain leverage. In a second tweet, Breer says that situation could get more complicated if the city of St. Louis is able to come up with a suitable financing plan for a new stadium.

We heard on Friday that the league is exploring temporary venues in L.A. in the event that a club moves to Southern California for the 2016 season.

Sunday Roundup: Chargers, Kalil, Pryor

June 28th, 2015 at 12:37pm CST by Rory Parks

As the stadium saga in Los Angeles continues to unfold, more and more speculative pieces are written in an effort to uncover the intentions of the primary players in the drama and to predict how the league’s landscape will be altered within the next couple of years. Matt Calkins of The San Diego Union-Tribune, for instance, writes that Chargers counsel Michael Fabiani, whose negotiating tactics have made him widely-loathed by Chargers fans and San Diego officials, has a method to his madness.

As Calkins writes, the NFL does not really care which team or teams end up in Los Angeles, as long as it is satisfied that whatever arrangement ultimately unfolds maximizes the league’s profits. So if Rams owner Stan Kroenke ends up moving his team to LA, and stadium negotiations are going well in San Diego but poorly in Oakland, the league may decide that the Raiders should join the Rams in LA, leaving the Chargers with no leverage in its talks with San Diego.

Therefore, it is important for Fabiani that discussions with the city not go too well at the moment, even if it makes him appear arrogant and diabolical. And if the team ends up staying in San Diego, it is likely that most Chargers fans would be willing to forgive and forget.

Now let’s have a look at some links from around the league:

  • Speaking of the Los Angeles dilemma, David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Chargers, who have made nine unsuccessful relocation proposals across San Diego County since 2003, have ostensibly met the league’s relocation criteria of exhausting all local options, which gives the team a strong argument in support of its potential move to LA. However, that argument may not have as much weight as the Chargers hope, as critics of the move say that “many of the stadium proposals were flimsy, the time period included the worst recession in 70 years and public support for a stadium had been poisoned by the infamous Chargers ‘ticket guarantee’ at Qualcomm stadium.”
  • Matt Kalil will get every chance to keep his starting left tackle job in 2015, but as Ben Goessling of ESPN.com writes, if Kalil is fully healthy this year yet continues to struggle, the Vikings will have a hard time bringing him back at his $11.1MM option figure.
  • Even though Terrelle Pryor has stated his intention to move from quarterback to wide receiver, and even though the Browns explicitly stated that Pryor would try out for the team as a wide receiver, Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com believes that we will see Pryor under center at some point in training camp. Grossi notes, however, that he is only expressing an opinion and has not heard anything to that effect from the organization.
  • John Keim of ESPN.com believes that Logan Paulsen will likely make Washington‘s final roster, as he is the best blocking tight end on the team and therefore serves as a nice complement to Niles Paul. However, Keim writes that Washington remains interested in adding to its tight end corps.
  • Ryan O’Halloran of The Florida Times-Union projects playing time for each of the Jaguars newcomers on defense and wonders if time has already run out on receiver Bryan Walters. Walters was signed as a free agent in March, but missed most of the team’s OTAs due to a hamstring injury. His best chance to make the team is by winning the punt return job over Ace Sanders and Tandon Doss, but without a long resume to lean on, he needs to be on the field.

 

West Notes: Chargers, Raiders, 49ers

June 24th, 2015 at 5:58pm CST by Zachary Links

Rams running back Tre Mason admits that he wasn’t thrilled to learn about the Rams’ selection of Todd Gurley in this year’s draft.

“I was in shock, really, because I thought I did a good job last year,’’ said Mason, according to Joe Lyons of the Post-Dispatch. “At that time, with a pick like that, it’s a replacement.’’

Mason, who tied for the team lead in touchdowns last season as a rookie, eventually shook that off and focused on doing the best that he can, regardless of who else is there at his position. Of course, it’s not a given that Gurley will be healthy, so the opportunities could still be there for Mason in 2015. Here’s more out of the West divisions..

  • The city of Carson, California held a town hall meeting on Monday night to discuss the proposed stadium that would house both the Chargers and the Raiders. However, Carmen Policy, the man by the two teams to spearhead the effort, was not present for it, and neither were the Raiders, as Carson mayor Albert Robles told XTRA 1360 in San Diego. “My understanding is that Carmen was supposed to be there, but he missed his flight and was not able to make it,” Robles said (transcription via Mike Florio of PFT). “And it was supposed to be his presentation, and I tried to wing it as best as I could. But Mr. Policy did apologize, he did convey his regrets, he said that he would make up for it.” The Raiders’ absence is particularly interesting as the team is considering a financial plan that could make a new stadium in Oakland viable for them.
  • If the Chargers are leaving town, then owner Dean Spanos owes it to the city of San Diego to come clean, Nick Canepa of U-T San Diego writes. While it would be tough for local Bolts fans to hear that their team is skipping town, that bit of honesty would at least end the figurative torture for SD residents. Canepa wonders if Spanos’ silence goes beyond a PR ploy. He suspects that the owner could simply be using stall tactics to find out of the league will be ready to put a team (or teams) in Los Angeles in 2016.
  • Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com assessed the 49ers‘ offseason and gave them a less-than-stellar grade of a C-minus. Things obviously haven’t gone San Francisco’s way this offseason with Anthony Davis, Justin Smith, Chris Borland, and Patrick Willis all retiring. On top of that, NaVorro Bowman is attempting to come back from knee surgery and Ahmad Brooks could be on his way out if charges are pressed against him. And, while it hasn’t gotten as much attention as the mass retirements, SF also took a risk by trading away punter Andy Lee, who is an all-time great at his position. On a positive note, Gutierrez gives the Niners credit for adding deep threat receiver Torrey Smith on a five-year, $40MM pact ($22MM guaranteed).

Stadium Updates: Tuesday

June 23rd, 2015 at 2:59pm CST by Luke Adams

PFR’s Zach Links passed along the latest updates last night on stadium talks for the Raiders and Chargers, two candidates to relocate to Los Angeles in 2016. While things have been quiet – at least by comparison – on the St. Louis front recently, Oakland and San Diego remain in the news today. Let’s check in on today’s stadium-related items:

  • Today’s meeting between NFL officials and San Diego’s top stadium negotiator – detailed below – went well, with the two sides planning on scheduling a follow-up meeting for late July, Garrick writes for the Union-Tribune. Per Garrick, the conversation today was a more general discussion about the city’s stadium proposal, rather than focusing on getting the Chargers back to the negotiating table.

Earlier updates:

  • Real estate developer Floyd Kephart met Monday’s deadline to send details of his plan for a new Raiders stadium to the city of Oakland and Alameda County, and now officials will have 20 business days to accept, reject, or ask Kephart for clarifications on his proposal. As Bill Williamson of ESPN.com writes, Kephart feels good about the plan, and hopes to get feedback by next week. Land, infrastructure cost, and debt-transfer issues are the biggest potential roadblocks to overcome for the project, says Williamson.
  • Kephart on his stadium plan, via Williamson: “I think we delivered a good product. If we can get a little bit of movement from the city and county at this stage and a little bit of movement from the Raiders at the next stage, we can get a deal. It’s not nearly as complicated as what’s going on in San Diego.”
  • Speaking of San Diego, mayor Kevin Faulconer spoke to commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday about his city’s efforts to build a new Chargers stadium, according to David Garrick of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Faulconer spokesman Matt Awbrey indicated that the conversation lasted 45 minutes, adding that the city’s top negotiator, Chris Melvin, is scheduled to meet with NFL officials today to explain San Diego’s position on environmental approvals and a public vote.
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