Today’s practice squad moves:
Dallas Cowboys
- Signed: WR Dennis Houston, DE Mika Tafua
Green Bay Packers
- Signed: WR Travis Fulgham
- Released: S Mike Brown
Tennessee Titans
- Signed: LB Wyatt Ray
Here are Thursday’s minor moves:
Los Angeles Rams
- Signed off Browns’ practice squad: CB Shaun Jolly
- Signed off Chiefs’ practice squad: TE Kendall Blanton
- Waived: LB Keir Thomas
- Waived via injury settlement: RB Trey Ragas
Pittsburgh Steelers
- Promoted: OLB Delontae Scott
Tennessee Titans
- Placed on IR: OL Jamarco Jones
- Promoted: TE Kevin Rader
The Rams eyed Jolly as a UDFA target this year, Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic tweets. The Appalachian State product instead landed with the Browns. This move comes after the Rams placed Troy Hill on IR. The team also is uncertain to have Decobie Durant this week; Durant sustained a hamstring injury in Week 3.
A Kansas City-area native, Blanton will leave his home town again but rejoin a Rams team that carried him on its active roster or practice squad from 2019-21. Rams tight end Brycen Hopkins ran into a three-game suspension this week.
Jones vied for the Titans’ starting left guard job, which Rodger Saffold‘s cap-casualty cut vacated in March. Despite signing Jones to a two-year, $4.8MM deal in free agency, the Titans gave the gig to former UDFA Aaron Brewer. Although Jones has not played this season, he must miss four more games because of this transaction.
SEPTEMBER 22: Hart’s appeal was unsuccessful. The eighth-year offensive lineman will serve his one-game suspension.
SEPTEMBER 21: Hart’s post-game altercation was with Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, reports Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com (on Twitter). During Hart’s appeal hearing today, it was alleged that Simmons spit on Hart, leading to the skirmish.
During altercation postgame with Simmons, Hart inadvertently made contact with a Titans assistant coach, leading to the one-game suspension levied by NFL vice president of operations Jon Runyan.
SEPTEMBER 19: The NFL handed Bills tackle Bobby Hart a one-game suspension Tuesday. A fight following the Bills’ Monday-night win over the Titans led to this ban.
NFL VP of football operations Jon Runyan‘s suspension letter to Hart indicates the veteran lineman threw a punch at a Titans player postgame. The punch struck a Tennessee coach in the head. This unnamed Titans assistant coach had attempted to separate the players.
Hart, 28, is in his second season with the Bills, but the former starter spent time with the Titans last year. In between Bills stays, Hart played in three games with the Titans.
The Bills signed Hart in March 2021, but he did not make their 53-man roster and landed on the Dolphins’ practice squad. Soon after, Hart re-signed with the Bills via a practice squad deal. He ended up with the Titans after the team poached him off Buffalo’s P-squad in October. After Tennessee demoted Hart to its P-squad, Buffalo made the same transaction by signing Hart to its active roster in November. The Bills circled back to Hart in free agency earlier this year.
A former seventh-round pick, Hart has done well for himself by making it into an eighth NFL season. The Florida State product was a multiyear right tackle starter for the Giants and Bengals. He has settled in as a backup. Monday night’s blowout led to Hart seeing some fourth-quarter snaps. Hart made one Titans start in 2021.
Today’s practice squad moves:
Arizona Cardinals
- Signed: WR Andre Baccellia, WR Stanley Berryhill, WR C.J. Board, CB Nate Hairston
Baltimore Ravens
- Signed: LB Brandon Copeland
Buffalo Bills
- Signed: WR Tanner Gentry
Carolina Panthers
- Signed: DT Frank Herron
Houston Texans
- Signed: OL Tre’Vour Wallace-Simms
Los Angeles Rams
- Signed: C Matt Skura
New England Patriots
- Signed: K Tristan Vizcaino
New York Jets
- Signed: OL Adam Pankey
- Released: OL Chris Glaser
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Signed: DL Khalil Davis
Tennessee Titans
- Signed: OL Christian DiLauro
Washington Commanders
- Signed: DT Donovan Jeter
- Placed on IR: OL Nolan Laufenberg
Today’s minor transactions:
Carolina Panthers
- Signed off Bills practice squad: RB Raheem Blackshear
- Signed to active roster: LB Arron Mosby
Cleveland Browns
- Promoted: LB Jordan Kunaszyk, DE Isaac Rochell
Houston Texans
- Promoted: OL Jimmy Morrissey
- Placed on IR: LB Kevin Pierre-Louis
- Placed on NFI: OL Justin Britt (story)
Kansas City Chiefs
- Signed off Rams practice squad: DE Benton Whitley
Los Angeles Rams
- Suspended: TE Brycen Hopkins
Pittsburgh Steelers
- Suspended: S Damontae Kazee
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Promoted: DT Deadrin Senat
Tennessee Titans
- Placed on IR: RB Trenton Cannon, DB Chris Jackson
Kazee was suspended three games for violating the league’s policy on substances of abuse. After signing with the Steelers this offseason, he landed on injured reserve after the preseason. Per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor (on Twitter), Kazee will be allowed to serve his suspension while he’s on IR.
Hopkins was also suspended three games for violating the NFL’s policy on substances of abuse.
Another Takkarist McKinley relocation is on tap. The veteran pass rusher, who had caught on with the Titans’ practice squad last week, is now L.A.-bound.
The Rams will sign McKinley off that Tennessee taxi squad, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. This move will reunite McKinley with Rams DC Raheem Morris, who formerly served as a Falcons assistant head coach and interim HC during McKinley’s time in Atlanta, and signal a return to Los Angeles. McKinley, 26, is a UCLA alum.
A former first-round pick, McKinley has bounced around the league since his Falcons stay ended during the 2020 season. He was claimed three times on waivers after that Falcons cut; the 49ers, Bengals and Raiders claimed him that year. The young edge defender landed with the Raiders, but an injury prevented him from playing any games.
Last year, McKinley caught on with the Browns, who used him mostly as a rotational player behind Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney. Late in a 2.5-sack 2021 season, McKinley went down with an Achilles tear in late December. That took the five-year veteran out of the mix for several months, but interest picked up around training camp. Although the Titans lost Harold Landry to an ACL tear just before the season, they chose not to promote McKinley to their active roster to prevent this Rams poaching.
With Von Miller now in Buffalo, Leonard Floyd anchors the defending champions’ edge-rushing corps. Considerable uncertainty exists behind Floyd. The Rams have Justin Hollins and former third-round pick Terrell Lewis as their top non-Floyd options on the edge. While McKinley is far from a sure thing at this point in his career, which has taken a downturn since some late-2010s Falcons production, he has made 27 career starts and totaled 20 sacks. Thirteen of those came between the 2017 and ’18 seasons. Morris was on Atlanta’s staff throughout McKinley’s time with the team.
This has been a rather interesting, as far as practice squads go, day for the Titans’ P-squad. Prior to losing McKinley, Tennessee signed safety Andrew Adams off the Steelers’ taxi squad and added cornerback Terrance Mitchell off the Patriots’ 16-man squad.
A Buccaneers contributor for the past four seasons, Andrew Adams is joining a third team since his Tampa stint ended. After signing with the Giants earlier this year and then landing with the Steelers’ practice squad, Adams is now a Titan.
Tennessee is signing the veteran safety off Pittsburgh’s practice squad, per ProFootballNetwork.com’s Aaron Wilson (on Twitter). Adams, 29, is a six-year veteran who has spent time on the Giants and Bucs’ active rosters. He will be on the Titans’ 53-man roster Wednesday.
Although Adams’ Giants deal did not lead to a spot on their 53-man roster this year, the former UDFA has made 35 career starts. He opened his career by moving into New York’s starting lineup, during the team’s most recent playoff season (2016), and was an 11-game starter for Todd Bowles‘ first Tampa Bay defense three years ago.
The latter bump came after Adams intercepted four passes with the 2018 Bucs. Adams played all 20 Bucs games during their 2020 Super Bowl-winning season, working as a backup behind Jordan Whitehead and Antoine Winfield Jr., and started three games last year for the team. Pro Football Focus graded Adams as a solid safety last season, on 214 defensive snaps. He worked extensively as a Bucs special-teamer as well, seeing time on more than 60% of Tampa Bay’s special teams snaps from 2020-21.
The Titans have two solidified safety starters, in Kevin Byard and Amani Hooker, but the team placed backup A.J. Moore on IR last week. Lonnie Johnson, who has bounced from cornerback to safety over his career, has also been with three teams this year (Texans, Chiefs, Titans). Joshua Kalu, who caught on with the Titans just before camp, is the AFC South team’s other backup safety.
Josh Gordon looks set to see action for a fifth NFL team. The Titans used one of their game-day elevations on the veteran wide receiver Monday, bumping him up to their 53-man roster ahead of their Week 2 Bills matchup.
The ex-Browns, Patriots, Seahawks and Chiefs pass catcher signed with the Titans’ practice squad shortly after his Chiefs release. Kansas City wanted to keep the former All-Pro target on its P-squad, but Gordon (via TitanInsider.com’s Terry McCormick) viewed Tennessee as a better opportunity.
The All-Pro version of Gordon is long gone. His run of suspensions saw to that. The 2013 first-team All-Pro is entering his age-31 season and is coming off a 2021 slate in which the Chiefs used him sparingly. But Gordon, who has seen substance-abuse suspensions define his career, made it through last season without incident. The talented pass catcher now looks to contribute with a Titans receiving corps still adjusting to post-A.J. Brown life.
Tennessee traded Brown after three seasons and used a first-round pick on Treylon Burks. The Arkansas product joins 2022 trade acquisition Robert Woods, fifth-round rookie Kyle Philips and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine as the Titans’ top receivers. Although Burks submitted an uneven offseason and was set to be eased into rookie-year work, he played well as a part-timer in Week 1. Playing 37% of the Titans’ offensive snaps, Burks caught three passes for 55 yards. Philips moved into a more regular role and caught six passes for 66 yards in his debut.
Gordon played 12 Chiefs games last season, catching five passes for 32 yards and a touchdown. The mercurial weapon did not play in 2020, with off-field struggles again intervening, but did contribute during much of the 2018 Patriots’ Super Bowl-winning season (720 receiving yards, three TDs in 11 games) and totaled 426 yards in 11 2019 contests — with the Patriots and Seahawks.
The Titans have quite the task ahead of them as they’re set to take on the Bills in Buffalo on Monday Night Football tomorrow. Their task just got a bit more challenging as they’ll have to defend quarterback Josh Allen without starting cornerback Kristian Fulton, according to the team’s Week 2 injury report.
After spending most of his rookie season on injured reserve, Fulton established himself as a starter on the Titans’ defense last year, recording two interceptions and 14 passes defensed. Fulton left plenty of room to improve in Year 3, but, after suffering a hamstring injury, Fulton’s improvement will have to wait at least another week.
Without Fulton, the Titans have a few options for who to start opposite rookie second-round pick Roger McCreary, who earned a starting spot with Fulton this offseason. Last year’s first-round pick, Caleb Farley, made his return last week after suffering a torn ACL in Week 6 of last season. Farley was pushing McCreary for the starting job opposite Fulton but McCreary ended up victorious in that position battle. Elijah Molden also pushed for the starting job, but he remains on injured reserve for now. Behind those two, Tennessee will have to employ backups Joshua Kalu, Chris Jackson, and undrafted rookie Tre Avery.
The Titans also listed two key backup players as “out” on the injury report. Dontrell Hilliard was set to back up star running back Derrick Henry, but a hamstring injury will hold him out this week. The report also gave the “out” status for backup offensive lineman Jamarco Jones, who competed for multiple starting jobs on the inside of the line this offseason.
In the absence of Hilliard, Henry will be backed up by rookie fourth-round pick Hassan Haskins and veteran reserve back Trenton Cannon. Without Jones, the Titans still have some strong backup options on the offensive line. Dillon Radunz was in the running for those interior line starting positions this offseason, as well, and Corey Levin and Dennis Daley add to the depth of the position in Tennessee.
Dealt a tough blow with Harold Landry‘s injury, the Titans are adding a piece to their edge-rushing equation ahead of Week 2. Takkarist McKinley is joining Tennessee’s practice squad.
A former first-round pick, McKinley has been on the radar for a bit now. The Cardinals and Cowboys hosted McKinley on visits during training camp. McKinley, 26, is attempting to bounce back after a December Achilles tear ended his Browns campaign.
While McKinley’s stock has fallen since his early NFL days, he does bring a high draft pedigree (26th overall in 2017) and considerable experience (60 games, 27 starts). The former Falcons draftee has 20 career sacks, though 13 of those came between the 2017 and ’18 seasons.
Landry’s loss left the Titans without their top edge defender. Although the team has rising star defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons anchoring its pass rush, Landry has been Tennessee’s top sack artist for years. Bud Dupree is now in place in that role, with supporting casters Rashad Weaver — a 2021 fourth-rounder — and Olasunkanmi Adeniyi rounding out the rotation. Adeniyi started alongside Dupree in Week 1, but Weaver accumulated two sacks in a rotational role.
Despite McKinley’s sack totals dropping in recent years, the UCLA product has continued to generate interest. The 2020 season showed that. After attempting to trade McKinley ahead of that year’s deadline, the Falcons waived him. Claims kept coming in for McKinley, who saw the Bengals, 49ers and Raiders take a look. After failing physicals with Cincinnati and San Francisco, McKinley did catch on in Las Vegas. However, a November groin injury ended his Raiders tenure without any game action.
The Browns signed him in 2021 and used him in 11 games. McKinley notched 2.5 sacks and a forced fumble with Cleveland, working mostly as a rotational player behind Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney. To clear room on their 16-man practice squad, the Titans promoted defensive back Chris Jackson to their 53-man roster.