Panthers To Decline Jarius Wright’s Option
The Panthers will decline Jarius Wright‘s option for 2020, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). The move will save the club $3MM against the cap. 
Had Wright’s option been exercised, he would have been in line for $1MM in guaranteed pay. Instead, he’ll look for work elsewhere after a so-so year. Wright, 31 in November, had just 28 grabs for 296 yards with no touchdowns in 2019. It was a drop-off from his 2018 season – his first with Carolina – when he had 43 catches for 447 yards and one score.
Wright spent his first six seasons with the Vikings and put together a solid stretch from 2013-15, recording at least 430 receiving yards in each of those seasons. But, once Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen emerged, he slipped in the pecking order.
In other Panthers news, the club is reportedly planning to keep Cam Newton as its starting quarterback in 2020. They’ll also evaluate their options when it comes to cornerback James Bradberry, but the pending free agent will be chased by a number of clubs and a reunion with Ron Rivera could be in the cards.
NFL Reinstates Vontaze Burfict
Last month, the NFL “quietly” reinstated Vontaze Burfict from suspension, as Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (on Twitter) reports. Burfict was barred from playing in the last 12 games of the Raiders’ season, but he’s been given the greenlight to play in 2020. 
Burfict has racked up an inordinate number of suspensions and fines throughout his career for safety violations. His most recent – a Week 4 leveling of Colts tight end Jack Doyle – brought down the hammer.
Burfict’s reputation allowed Jon Gruden & Co. to add him on the cheap – a one-year, $1.15MM deal. Now, he’ll hit the free agent market after working to clean up his playing style, Pelissero hears. Burfict’s new agent, Peter Schaffer, says he’s spent months viewing game tape and talking with coaches to make the adjustment. Schaffer says his client is serious about getting back on the field and, this time around, doing things the right way.
The linebacker’s ban marked the longest suspension in league history for an on-field incident. Myles Garrett was served with an “indefinite” suspension last year for his actions against the Steelers, but that amounted to a six-game suspension that was recently lifted.
Burfict’s controversial and dangerous style of play made him one of the league’s most feared players during his time with the Bengals. He was also frequently sidelined by suspensions. Burfict’s only complete 16-game seasons came in his first two years in the NFL. In Year Two, he earned a Pro Bowl nod as he led the league with 171 stops and tallied one interception, one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries, and three sacks.
At this stage, it’s not clear what kind of market Burfict will find. He’ll turn 30 in September and, despite his talent, teams will have to think long and hard about adding him to the mix.
“There were no mitigating circumstances on this play,” NFL VP of Football Operations Jon Runyan said in an open letter to Burfict after the 2019 incident. “Your contact was unnecessary, flagrant and should have been avoided. For your actions, you were penalized and disqualified from the game. Following each of your previous rule violations, you were warned by me and each of the jointly-appointed appeal officers that future violations would result in escalated accountability measures. However, you have continued to flagrantly abuse rules designed to protect yourself and your opponents from unnecessary risk. Your extensive history of rules violations is factored into this decision.”
Falcons To Pick Up Matt Schaub’s Option
The Falcons are expected to exercise Matt Schaub’s $2MM option for 2020, a source tells NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero (on Twitter). This doesn’t completely guarantee his place on the roster in September, but it’s an indication that they intend to keep the veteran as Matt Ryan‘s backup.
[RELATED: Falcons Move On From Vic Beasley]
Schaub, 39 in June, was thrust into action last year when Ryan suffered his ankle injury. In his first start since the 2015 season, Schaub completed 75% of his passes and threw for 460 yards. Still, the Falcons fell short, losing 27-20 to the Seahawks.
Schaub came back to where it all started in 2016 and signed a two year, $3.78MM extension to stay with the Falcons in 2019. He spent seven years as the Texans starter and collected two Pro Bowl nominations in some of his healthier seasons. Since 2014, he’s served as a backup for the Raiders, Ravens, and Falcons.
The veteran is now slated to come back for another year with a reasonable cap hit of $2.375MM. Meanwhile, the offseason could see the departure of mainstays like running back Devonta Freeman. Unfortunately for them, they’re tight against the cap as they look to overhaul their defense. A new deal for tight end Austin Hooper is on the to-do list, but it might not be feasible to give him a multi-year deal at the top of the market.
Jaguars To Decline Jake Ryan’s Option
Marcell Dareus isn’t the only Jaguars defender who will have his option declined. The Jaguars will also decline the 2020 option for linebacker Jake Ryan, as NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport tweets.
Had his option been exercised, $1MM of Ryan’s $5.5MM base salary would have been guaranteed for the coming season. Instead, they’ll wipe that out, and carve out some badly needed cap room.
At the start of the offseason, the Jaguars had just over $1MM in available cap space. By shedding Dareus and Ryan, they’ve carved out a bit of flexibility as they look to keep Yannick Ngakoue and address needs on both sides of the ball.
These were not particularly tough calls, and more cap clearing moves are likely on the way. Tight end Geoff Swaim and oft-injured receiver Marqise Lee are also expected to be dropped. In total, those four moves would save them more than $34MM. They can find even more space by cutting or trading Calais Campbell to save $15MM, though they’d probably prefer to find middle ground with him by way of an extension.
Ryan, who turns 28 this week, missed all of the 2018 season thanks to an ACL tear and played in just two games last year. Before that, he started in 27 games for the Packers between 2015 and 2017.
Jaguars To Decline Marcell Dareus’ Option
The Jaguars will decline Marcell Dareus‘ option, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). The option would have locked in roughly $20MM in salary for the defensive tackle. Instead, the Jaguars will officially turn it down before the Tuesday deadline. 
[RELATED: Looking Back At Blake Bortles’ Extension]
Dareus missed the bulk of the 2019 season thanks to a core muscle injury. In six games, he notched 13 tackles and half of a sack.
The news doesn’t come as a real surprise – the multiple-time Pro Bowler is coming up on his 30th birthday and the Jaguars have a number of needs to address this offseason. By moving on, they’ll clear the bulk of his would-be ~$20MM in earnings; they’ll be left with just $2.5MM in dead money.
The Jaguars acquired Dareus from the Bills midway through the 2017 season, taking on the remainder of his six-year, $95.1MM contract. At that point, Dareus had worn out his welcome with Buffalo coaches and the trade was pretty much a cap dump for Buffalo. The Jags only gave up a late-round draft pick for him.
Unless he’s brought back on a cheaper deal, Dareus will leave the Jaguars after appearing in 30 games (22 starts). Dareus might not have been worth the sizable paycheck for 2020, but that’s not to say that he didn’t deliver at times. In 2018, Dareus’ only full season with the Jaguars that wasn’t compromised by injury, his advanced metrics were roughly in line with his best work in Buffalo. If he’s healthy, he can still be a difference-maker and a quality run-stuffer for some team out there, but he’ll have to sign for something less than ~$20MM per annum.
With Dareus’ salary off of the books, the Jaguars can turn their attention to higher priorities, including a new deal for defensive end Yannick Ngakoue.
Minor NFL Transactions: 2/22/20
We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Chicago Bears:
- Re-signed: LB Devante Bond
Bond was drafted by the Buccaneers in the sixth-round back in 2016, and spent his first few seasons in Tampa, starting a handful of games. He was slapped with a PED suspension in October, and signed with the Bears in December after it was lifted. He’s returning to Chicago on a one-year deal, presumably for the league minimum.
Packers, Mason Crosby Agree To Extension
Mason Crosby will not hit free agency. The Packers are bringing their longtime kicker back on another extension, according to agent Mike McCartney (on Twitter).
The sides agreed to a three-year deal, tethering Crosby to the Packers through the 2022 season. This will be the 35-year-old kicker’s 14th season with Green Bay. The three-year pact is worth $12.9MM, a source told Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (Twitter link). He’ll get $6MM in year one of the deal and $9.5MM through the first two. As Pelissero points out, that makes Crosby the NFL’s third-highest paid kicker.
Crosby, who made $3.2MM in base salary last season, is by far the longest-tenured kicker in Packers history. He’s played in 208 games with the franchise — 64 more than the next-closest Packer kicker. Crosby passed Donald Driver last season for the No. 2 spot among games played as a Packer, now trailing only Brett Favre (255).
Last season marked his most accurate as a pro, with the veteran specialist connecting on 91% of his field goal attempts. Crosby made connected on fewer than 82% of his field goal tries in 2017 and ’18, with the latter season marred by a rough day in Detroit when he went 1-for-5. Crosby missed just two field goals in all of 2019, also making 40 of 41 extra point attempts. For his career, however, Crosby’s 81% make rate ranks just 46th all time — behind 21 of his active peers.
The Packers still have Bryan Bulaga and Blake Martinez looming as free agents, but they have locked down their second-longest-tenured player. While Crosby is not the NFL’s oldest active kicker, he has been in his current post longer than all but two kickers — Adam Vinatieri in Indianapolis and Stephen Gostkowski in New England. Both players began their respective runs with their current team in 2006; the Packers used a sixth-round pick on Crosby a year later.
Ravens To Extend DC Don Martindale
Despite going 14-2 last season, the Ravens will return both their offensive and defensive coordinators for the 2020 season. They hope to keep defensive coordinator Don Martindale for longer than that.
The Ravens reached an extension agreement with Martindale on Saturday, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). It’s a three-year deal that Rapoport’s sources initially said would make Martindale the league’s highest-paid DC, meaning that he would be taking home around $4MM per year (Sirius XM Radio’s Adam Caplan tweeted that 2019’s top DC salary was around $3.5MM).
Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears that Martindale was given a significant payday but that he will actually earn $3.25MM/year (Twitter link). Therefore, as Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com observes, Martindale is not the league’s highest-paid DC, but he is in the top 25% of his peers.
One way or another, he has been rewarded handsomely for his success in Baltimore. While the Ravens expect Martindale to be a top candidate on the 2021 head coaching carousel, they are taking care of him in the meantime.
Martindale has been with the Ravens for eight seasons, the past two as their defensive coordinator. After a slow start in 2018, his unit took off and became one of the league’s best. The Ravens ranked fourth in defensive DVOA last season, after their 2018 unit finished third in that metric.
Baltimore stayed on that level despite losing C.J. Mosley, Terrell Suggs and Za’Darius Smith in free agency. This helped Martindale book an HC interview with the Giants, and more interest will likely come Martindale’s way next year.
The 56-year-old assistant previously served as Baltimore’s linebackers coach for six seasons, a gig that helped him ascend back to the DC level after his previous time in that role — with the 2010 Broncos — did not go well. Denver’s 2010 defense ranked last in points and yardage, and Martindale did not coach in 2011. But he spent the bulk of the last decade becoming one of the NFL’s highest-regarded assistants, and the Ravens will have the luxury of using their Martindale-Greg Roman tandem to help forge another Super Bowl push next season.
Jets Sign WR Josh Doctson
Josh Doctson has found his next gig. The Jets announced today that they’ve signed the former first-rounder.
The 22nd-overall pick in the 2016 Draft spent the first three seasons of his career with the Redskins. Even in his best season, Doctson put up underwhelming numbers, hauling in 44 receptions for 532 yards and two touchdowns in 2018.
The Redskins predictably declined his fifth-year option last offseason, and the organization ended up moving on from the receiver at the end of the 2019 preseason. He quickly signed with the Vikings, but he landed on injured reserve in late September. He returned and appeared in a single game for Minnesota before getting released in late November. Doctson hasn’t had a reported workout since that time.
The Jets receivers depth chart could look a whole lot different next season. It sounds like Robby Anderson will be testing free agency, leaving the team with Jamison Crowder as their only reliable option.
Jaguars Exercise Options On WR Chris Conley, S Jarrod Wilson
The Jaguars picked up team options on a pair of players yesterday. The team announced that they exercised their team options on wideout Chris Conley and safety Jarrod Wilson.
Conley, a 2015 third-round pick, spent his first four seasons with the Chiefs. He inked a deal with the Jaguars last offseason, and he proceeded to set career-highs across the board, finishing with 47 receptions for 775 receiving yards and five touchdowns. The option will keep him in Jacksonville through the 2020 season.
Wilson joined the Jaguars as an undrafted free agent back in 2016, and he’s emerged as a dependable starter for the organization. In 16 starts last season, the 26-year-old led the team in snaps played (1,186) and tackles (73). He also contributed a pair of interceptions and six passes defended. The option keeps him under contract through the 2021 campaign.