Chiefs To Re-Sign WR Tajae Sharpe
Tajae Sharpe did not have a role with the Vikings or Chiefs last season, but Kansas City kept the veteran wide receiver on its practice squad. The Chiefs will retain Sharpe for the 2021 season.
The former fifth-round pick agreed to a deal to stay with the Chiefs, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. The sides agreed to a one-year contract, Herbie Teope of the Kansas City Star tweets. This will be Sharpe’s sixth NFL season.
Kansas City’s receiver group will look different than it has over the past three seasons, with Sammy Watkins opting to leave for Baltimore late last week. Watkins had operated as the Chiefs’ No. 2 wideout (when healthy) since 2018. The Chiefs, however, did re-sign Demarcus Robinson for a second straight year and have Mecole Hardman and Byron Pringle still on the roster as well.
The Vikings cut Sharpe in December; he did not catch a pass with Minnesota. Sharpe did not play in any Chiefs games and hit unrestricted free agency earlier this month.
Sharpe’s best season remains his 2016 rookie year with the Titans, when he caught 41 passes for 522 yards and two touchdowns. Sharpe, 26, surpassed 300 yards in 2018 and ’19, bouncing back somewhat from a season-nullifying injury in 2017.
Minor NFL Transactions: 3/29/21
Today’s minor moves:
Atlanta Falcons
- Signed: G Josh Andrews
Cleveland Browns
- Re-signed: CB Brian Allen
Indianapolis Colts
- Re-signed: C Joey Hunt
Washington Football Team
- Re-signed: T David Sharpe
Steelers Re-Sign P Jordan Berry
After going into the 2020 season without Jordan Berry as their punter, the Steelers restored their usual order at the position by adding the veteran around the midseeason point. The team is bringing Berry back for another season.
Berry re-signed with the Steelers on Monday. It’s a one-year deal. Should the veteran specialist make Pittsburgh’s 53-man roster, it will be his seventh season with the team.
The Steelers previously extended Berry to keep him in 2018 and, a year later, gave him a two-year contract that ran through 2020. However, the team cut its incumbent punter and went with longtime Chief Dustin Colquitt going into last season. The Steelers backtracked on Colquitt after five games and brought back Berry, who punted in the team’s final 11 contests and its wild-card game.
Berry, who turned 30 earlier this month, averaged a career-best 45.8 yards per punt last season. While he was not with the Steelers for the first five games last season, the former UDFA has never missed a game when under contract.
Cardinals Re-Sign S Chris Banjo
Chris Banjo will return for a third season with the Cardinals. The team announced it re-signed the veteran safety to a one-year deal.
One of the NFL’s most experienced special-teamers, Banjo has operated in such a role for eight seasons now. The former UDFA played with the Packers and Saints before signing with the Cards in 2019. Banjo joins safety Shawn Williams in agreeing to terms with Arizona on Monday.
Last season, the Cards asked more from Banjo than his previous teams have. He started a career-high four games and made 48 tackles — nearly 30 more than he had previously registered in a season — after injuries to Budda Baker and Jalen Thompson limited the team’s safety corps.
Banjo’s career-high 436 defensive snaps cut his special teams workload down a bit from 2019, but with Williams coming to Arizona to join Baker, it would appear the Cards are retaining Banjo to work on their specialty units.
Giants To Sign Danny Shelton
We heard that Danny Shelton was visiting with the Giants on Monday, and that visit apparently went well. The veteran defensive tackle has agreed to terms on a deal with New York, his agent Drew Rosenhaus told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
Financial terms weren’t immediately available, but it’s a one-year contract. Shelton had signed a two-year, $8MM pact with the Lions last offseason but made it only halfway through that before he was released. This will already be the fourth NFL team for the 12th overall pick of the 2015 draft. He was drafted by Cleveland, traded to New England, signed with Detroit, and is now on his way to New York.
He’s still only 27, and although he never unlocked the potential you’d hope for as a 12th overall pick, he’s been a solid clogger of running lanes in the middle. In 12 games for the Lions in 2020, all starts, he had 37 tackles as a sack.
He had three sacks in 2019 with the Patriots, showing at least a tiny bit of pass-rush upside. After losing Dalvin Tomlinson to a big deal from the Vikings in free agency, the Giants will be counting on Shelton to help replace him as a cheaper option in the middle of the defensive front.
Steelers To Sign Rashaad Coward
The Steelers’ offensive line group continues to shuffle. Pittsburgh is expected to sign free agent lineman Rashaad Coward, a source told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link).
Coward was a restricted free agent who was not tendered by the Bears, leaving him free to sign with any team. Coward is an interesting player, since when he entered the league as an UDFA out of Old Dominion in 2017 he was a defensive end. He was on defense during his rookie year with Chicago (mostly on the practice squad), and then made the switch to offensive line the following year.
In 2019 he was thrust into starting action despite still being very new to the position after Kyle Long went down with an injury. He started ten games at guard that year. This past season he appeared in all 16 games and started five at left guard, playing just over 30 percent of the offensive snaps.
Since he’s still only 26 and only just recently started playing guard, it’s an intriguing low-risk signing for the Steelers with some upside. Considering they’ve already lost significant pieces of their offensive line like Maurkice Pouncey and Matt Feiler this offseason, it can’t hurt to start throwing darts.
Cardinals To Sign Shawn Williams
The Cardinals are adding another piece to their defense. Arizona has agreed to terms with veteran free agent safety Shawn Williams, a source told Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (Twitter link).
Financial terms weren’t immediately available, although Pelissero reports it’s a one-year pact. Williams, a 2013 third-round pick, has spent all eight seasons of his NFL career with the Bengals so far. There’s some familiarity here, as Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph was Williams’ defensive backs coach in Cincinnati for a couple of seasons.
It’s the second addition to the secondary in recent days, as Arizona also just signed cornerback Malcolm Butler on Thursday. Williams played sparingly his first couple of years in the league, but then blossomed into a full-time starter. From 2016-19, he started 57 of the 58 games he appeared in.
In 2018 he had an impressive five interceptions, and in 2019 he had 114 tackles. This past season he suddenly fell into the coaching staff’s doghouse, and mostly only played on special teams. He was suspended for a game back in December for stepping on an opponent. The Georgia product will turn 30 in May.
Colts To Sign Julien Davenport
The Colts have agreed to sign Julien Davenport to a one-year contract, according to a source who spoke with NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero (on Twitter). Specific terms of the ex-Dolphins tackle’s deal are not yet known.
Davenport spent the first two seasons of his career with the Texans, including the 2018 season in which he started 15 games. He was then traded to the Dolphins as part of the 2019 Laremy Tunsil trade. Between ’19 and ’20, he saw his role in the Dolphins’ offense dip. After starting eight games for Miami in 2019, Davenport appeared in just 5% of the offensive snaps last year, despite dressing for every game.
The 2017 fourth-round pick out of Bucknell will now join up with the Colts, who need support at left tackle. But, of course, Davenport is no Anthony Castonzo. In that aforementioned ’18 season with the Texans, Davenport allowed a league-high 67 total pressures. The Colts’ next starter may come early in the April draft, where the Colts own the No. 21 overall pick.
Saints To Sign Tanoh Kpassagnon
The Saints have agreed to a two-year deal with defensive end Tanoh Kpassagnon. Financial terms of the deal are not yet known, but this is likely a low-cost — and potentially high-reward — signing for the Saints
Kpassagnon was a second-round pick of the Chiefs in 2017. Selected in between Patrick Mahomes and Kareem Hunt, the edge rusher has yet to live up his draft billing. Midway through his tenure at Villanova, Kpassagnon switched from tight end to defensive end and put himself on the NFL radar. After notching 9.5 tackles for loss and six sacks in 2015, he turned in an even stronger senior season – 21.5 TFL and eleven sacks, en route to first-team All-America honors.
The 6’7″, 289-pound athlete has spent much of the last four years as a deep reserve, but he started in 15 games for the Chiefs last year. And, in 2019, he notched a career-high four sacks. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are set to move forward with Jarran Reed and Frank Clark on the edges.
Chiefs Re-Sign Daniel Sorensen
The Chiefs have re-signed safety Daniel Sorensen, per a club announcement. The two sides were said to be closing in on a one-year deal last week. On Monday morning, they made it all official. 
Sorensen, one of the longest-tenured members of the team, was a key piece of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl runs. Since joining the team as an undrafted free agent back in 2014, the BYU product has appeared in 94 games with 32 starts. All in all, he has ten interceptions, 25 passes defensed, four forced fumbles, and 3.5 sacks to his credit.
Sorensen spent four years as a reserve before cracking the starting lineup in 2017. This past year, he saw time in 15 games with eleven starts, racking up 91 tackles, five passes defended, two forced fumbles, and three interceptions (including one pick six). And, for the second straight year, the 31-year-old played on 100% of the snaps in the Super Bowl.
In other Chiefs news, Andy Reid & Co. inked ex-Seahawks defensive tackle Jarran Reed over the weekend.