Minor NFL Transactions: 3/23/20
Today’s minor moves:
Baltimore Ravens
- Signed: S Anthony Levine
Chicago Bears
- Signed: S DeAndre Houston-Carson, S Jordan Lucas
New Orleans Saints
- Signed: DE Noah Spence, LS Zach Wood
New York Jets
- Signed: LB James Burgess, DB Deatrick Nichols
Tennessee Titans
- Signed: LB Nick Dzubnar
Washington Redskins
- Signed: DT Caleb Brantley
AFC Contract Details: Bulaga, Cobb, Collins
Here are the latest contract details as of Sunday night. We will focus on the AFC here.
- Bryan Bulaga, T (Chargers): Three years, $30MM. $19.25MM guaranteed; $10MM signing bonus. Bulaga’s salaries in 2020 ($1.5MM) and 2021 ($7.75MM) are guaranteed. A $2.5MM roster bonus is due on Day 3 of the 2022 league year, Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle tweets.
- Randall Cobb, WR (Texans): Three years, $27MM. $18MM guaranteed; $6MM signing bonus. Base salaries in 2020 ($3.75MM) and ’21 ($8.25MM) are guaranteed; non-guaranteed salary of $7.9MM in 2022. Wilson notes (on Twitter).
- Rodney Gunter, DL (Jaguars): Three years, $18MM. $11.15MM guaranteed; $4.25MM signing bonus. 2020 and ’21 base salaries of $2MM and $4.9MM are guaranteed. Non-guaranteed 2022 base of $5.4MM, per Wilson (on Twitter).
- Vic Beasley, OLB (Titans): One year, $9.5MM. The $9.5MM is guaranteed and includes a $6MM signing bonus. $2.5MM worth of sack-based incentives exist in the deal, Wilson adds (on Twitter).
- Maliek Collins, DT (Raiders): One year, $6MM. $5.75MM guaranteed. Deal includes a $1.5MM sack-based incentive, Wilson tweets.
- De’Vante Bausby, CB (Broncos): One year, $825K. The deal contains no guaranteed money, Mike Klis of 9News tweets.
Minor NFL Transactions: 3/21/20
Today’s minor moves:
Cleveland Browns:
- Signed: CB Donovan Olumba
Denver Broncos
- Re-signed: LB Joseph Jones
Las Vegas Raiders
- Re-signed: RB Rod Smith
Tennessee Titans
- Signed: TE MyCole Pruitt
Contract Details: Quinn, Whitworth, Harris, Lewis
Deals are coming in quickly, so we’ve compiled some important contract details below:
Cameron Fleming (Giants), One year, $4MM, according to Jordan Raanan of ESPN.
Dennis Kelly (Titans), Three years, $17.25MM, $8.75MM guaranteed, $4.75MM signing bonus; salaries 2020: $1.5MM (fully guaranteed), 2021: $4.5MM ($2.5MM guaranteed for injury at signing, fully guaranteed if on roster 5th day of 2021 league year); 2022: $5MM; $400k annual per-game roster bonus, $750K incentives available in 2021-22; $1MM escalator in base salary for 2021-22, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle.
Alex Lewis (Jets), Three years, $18.6MM, $5.6MM guaranteed, $2.5MM signing bonus, salaries 2020: $1.1MM (guaranteed), 2021: $5.8M, 2022: $6M; $2MM 2020 roster bonus guaranteed on 5th day of league year, $400k in annual per-game roster bonuses, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle.
Marcedes Lewis (Packers) One year, $2.25MM; $1.05MM signing bonus, salary 2020: $1.1MM, $9,375 per game active roster bonus, $750K playtime and playoffs incentives available, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle.
Robert Quinn, (Bears): Five years, $70MM, $30MM guaranteed, $3MM signing bonus; salaries 2020: $3MM (fully guaranteed), 2021: $11.5MM (fully guaranteed), 2022: $12.8MM, 2023: $13.9MM, 2024: $12.9MM; $12.5MM fully guaranteed roster bonus in 2020, $100k annual workout bonuses from 2021-2024, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
Titans’ Logan Ryan Holding Out For $10MM/Year
Titans free agent defensive back Logan Ryan stands as one of the best players still on the market. With that in mind, he’s not about to leap at any offer thrown his way.
Ryan is entertaining all offers and he’s willing to consider a short-term deal, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears from someone close to him. However, he’s unwilling to accept anything less than the ~$10MM salary he earned in 2019.
Ryan joined the Titans on a three-year, $30MM contract prior to the 2017 season. He’s been a fixture in the starting lineup ever since. Last year, Ryan finished out with 113 tackles and 4.5 sacks. With a proven track record and the ability to move around the secondary, Ryan figures to find a solid payday in the coming days.
Titans Trade Jurrell Casey To Broncos
The Broncos have landed Jurrell Casey, and it didn’t cost him much. On Wednesday, the Titans agreed to send the defensive tackle to Denver in exchange for a seventh-round pick. 
Casey is on the books for $11.85MM in 2020, with $5.45MM of that sum becoming fully guaranteed this weekend. The Titans were likely to release him, but they found a taker and a small bit of compensation instead.
Casey, 30, missed the final game of the 2018 season with a knee injury and was held out of training camp as he recovered. He passed his physical in time for 2019 and managed to appear in 14 games, all starts. Casey has been first-string for his entire Titans tenure; he has 139 career games and has started in all but two of them.
With this deal, the Broncos have added a five-time Pro Bowler to their defensive line on the cheap. Casey has 51 career sacks from the interior under his belt and an impressive track record of disruption on the line. Last year, Pro Football Focus gave him a 74.3 score – a notch below his usual work, but still good enough to place as the No. 24 ranked interior defender in the NFL.
Vic Beasley To Sign With Titans
Vic Beasley is leaving the Falcons organization to sign with the Titans, according to Dianna Russini of ESPN. The 8th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft has spent his entire career in Atlanta up to this point. Ian Rapoport of NFL.com adds the deal is for one-year, includes $9.5MM in guarantees, and maxes out at $12MM.
The 27-year old edge rusher seemed poised to be one of the best edge rushers in football just a few seasons ago. In 2016, just his second professional season, Beasley led the league with 15.5 sacks and 6 forced fumbles but has yet to approach replicating that production since. While still a competent starter over the past few seasons, Beasley clearly hopes that another elite season of production could line him up for a massive payday next offseason.
After playing a more situational role in 2017 and 2018, Beasley returned to a prominent role in Atlanta’s defense last season. In 2019, he recorded 42 tackles, 12 quarterback hits, 8 tackles for loss, and 8 sacks, but graded as just the 88th highest graded edge rusher (out 107 qualified players) by Pro Football Focus.
Titans Re-Sign Dennis Kelly To Three-Year Deal
The Titans lost Jack Conklin when he agreed to sign a big contract with the Browns, and they weren’t about to let a second offensive tackle walk out the door. Tennessee is re-signing Dennis Kelly with a three-year deal, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
The pact is worth $21MM with Kelly getting $8.75M guaranteed, Yates reports. Conklin had been the team’s starting right tackle, and it seems like Kelly will likely slide into that role. Kelly would provide a steady if unspectacular transition, as he has been with the team for a while. He has served as their swing tackle behind Conklin and Taylor Lewan recently, starting at least four games in three of the past four years.
Titans beat-writer Paul Kuharsky cautioned in a tweet that it’s not guaranteed Kelly starts however, and he could remain their third tackle depending on what else they do. It’s possible Tennessee will add competition for him in the draft. A Purdue product, Kelly was originally drafted in the fifth-round by the Eagles back in 2012.
He started ten games as a rookie but missed his entire sophomore season. Just before the start of the 2016 campaign he was traded to the Titans in exchange for Dorial Green-Beckham.
Titans To Tag RB Derrick Henry
Shortly after the Ryan Tannehill extension news surfaced, the Titans will move to the next phase in their offseason plan. The team will use its franchise tag on Derrick Henry, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Twelve players have now been tagged — most since 21 were in 2012.
The Titans will now have their centerpiece players locked up for 2020. Tannehill and Henry spearheaded the franchise’s first trip to the AFC championship game in 17 years, and the latter authored a historic playoff run. The move to tag Henry will cost $10.3MM.
While this decision will likely send Jack Conklin into free agency, the Titans have gone from potentially losing both Conklin and Henry to keeping a core player — at least for the 2020 season. Henry turned 26 midway through his playoff rampage and would have been an interesting free agent, factoring in his bruising dominance with a lack of impact in the passing game.
Henry led the NFL with 1,540 rushing yards and totaled 18 touchdowns last season. Splitting time with DeMarco Murray during his first two seasons, Henry started slowly in 2018 before finishing strong and closing a 1,000-yard season. He turned in one of the most dominant stretches by a running back in years during the 2019 stretch run to help the Titans go from being shut out in Denver to notching upset playoff wins in New England and Baltimore.
This tag also places Henry in rare territory. In the past eight tag periods, Henry and Le’Veon Bell are the only running backs to receive the tag. The latter played on the tag in 2017 but skipped the 2018 season in protest of it, forfeiting $14.5MM. Henry has not said how he will proceed on the tag, but he and the Titans have until July 15 to agree on an extension. Considering how most of the high-end running back contracts have played out in recent years — including Bell’s Jets pact — Henry’s negotiations will be interesting.
Ryan Tannehill Agrees To Extension With Titans
The Titans have agreed to terms on a contract extension with quarterback Ryan Tannehill, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. A source informed Jeff Darlington of ESPN that the contract extension spans four years and worth a maximum of $118MM. The deal reportedly includes $62MM in fully guaranteed money and $91MM in partial guarantees.
This extension not only frees up Tennessee to use the Titans on another free agent (like running back Derrick Henry), it also takes them out of the running for impending free agent Tom Brady. Obviously, Brady’s free 
agency has been the largest storyline of the offseason and the many ties between the Titans regime and the Patriots only furthered those rumors.
Per Darlington’s report, Tannehill’s new contract makes for the sixth-highest full guarantee of any quarterback and would rank as the seventh most valuable contract for a quarterback by average per year value (slotting behind Matt Ryan and ahead of Kirk Cousins). Darlington added in a later tweet that Tannehill’s contract includes $17.5MM in full guarantees in 2020, $24.5MM in full guarantees in 2021, $29MM guaranteed for injury (that converts to full guarantees on the fifth day of the previous league year), and a $27.5MM base salary in 2022.
Tannehill followed a unique path to his nine-figure contract. After stalling out in Miami the Dolphins traded him to the Titans last offseason alongside a 2019 sixth-round pick for a 2019 seventh-round pick and 2020 fourth-round pick in a relatively underreported move. Tannehill entered the season as the team’s backup to Marcus Mariota, but as Mariota failed to take another step forward, Tannehill stepped in and led Tennessee on a late-season charge into the postseason where they upset the Patriots and nearly upset the eventual Super Bowl champion Chiefs.
In just 12 regular-season games (10 starts), Tannehill completed 70.3 percent of his passes and led the league in quarterback rating and nearly every yards per attempt statistic. Most valuably for Tennessee, his strong play out of play-action paired perfectly with their bruising running game (led by Henry). While Henry is still set for free agency, the Titans have gained new leverage now that their franchise tag is no longer necesarry for their quarterback.