NFL Reserve/Futures Contracts: 2/5/22
Here are Friday and Saturday’s reserve/futures deals:
Dallas Cowboys
Kansas City Chiefs
Jaguars Hire Doug Pederson As HC
Jacksonville’s winding path toward hiring a head coach is coming to an end. Doug Pederson will land the job, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports (on Twitter). The Jaguars have since announced the hire.
Pederson interviewed twice with the team, which is close to bringing in ex-Vikings GM Rick Spielman for a high-ranking front office position alongside Trent Baalke. Pederson, who led the Eagles to a win in Super Bowl LII, did not coach last season but was connected to multiple jobs during this year’s hiring cycle.
The former Philadelphia HC will soon work with another highly drafted quarterback, and Pederson spoke with Trevor Lawrence on the phone earlier Thursday night, Schefter tweets. While Pederson’s final season with Carson Wentz ended in the Eagles radically changing course, the veteran play-caller will have a chance to work with one of the top QB prospects to enter the NFL in many years.
At the end of this search, the Jags were also linked to recent Raiders interim HC Rich Bisaccia and Buccaneers OC Byron Leftwich. The latter was believed to be in talks with the Jags about a deal last week, but momentum stalled. The former Jacksonville first-round pick may well have bowed out of this search earlier Thursday. Leftwich indeed balked at pairing with Baalke, according to Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com.
Pederson, 54, was the first candidate to meet with the Jaguars during the new in-season interview period. He also met with the Bears and Saints in the weeks following that initial Jags discussion.
Pederson clashed with Eagles management during his Philadelphia tenure, and SI.com’s Albert Breer notes his interest in the Jacksonville job cooled a bit because of the Jags’ commitment to Baalke. But Spielman’s potential arrival — for a position that could outrank Baalke’s — may have been enough to convince Pederson. The two share an agent, Breer adds (Twitter links).
The former Chiefs offensive coordinator went 42-37-1 as Eagles HC, with 2020’s disastrous 4-11-1 season heavily impacting that mark. Still, Pederson oversaw one of the most remarkable playoff runs in modern NFL history. The Eagles won Super Bowl LII as the NFC’s No. 1 seed but did so despite being underdogs in all three playoff games without Wentz. With notable assistance from then-OC Frank Reich, Pederson guided future Jaguar Nick Foles to two dominant performances to close out the Eagles’ championship run. The Eagles did not win 10 games in a season again under Pederson, however, with Wentz not playing up to his MVP-level form of previous years.
The Jaguars are attempting to shake off Shad Khan‘s poor Urban Meyer hire, and the team is in need of upgrades at most positions, having gone 4-29 over the past two seasons. Lawrence represents a potentially high-end centerpiece, adding to this job’s appeal despite the franchise’s struggles for most of the past decade and change. The Jags are also set to hold nearly $60MM in cap space, providing more resources for a rebuild. If nothing else, Khan figures to give Pederson plenty of time after the quick Meyer unraveling.
NFL Reserve/Futures Contracts: 2/3/22
Here are Thursday’s reserve/futures deals:
Philadelphia Eagles
NFL Reserve/Futures Contracts: 2/2/22
Today’s reserve/futures deals from around the NFL:
Jacksonville Jaguars
Kansas City Chiefs
- WR Josh Gordon
San Francisco 49ers
- DL Alex Barrett, OL Alfredo Gutierrez, FB Josh Hokit, CB Ka’dar Hollman, TE Tanner Hudson, WR KeeSean Johnson, WR Austin Mack, TE Jordan Matthews, LB Curtis Robinson, DL Chris Slayton, WR Connor Wedington
Jets’ Cameron Clark Retires From NFL
Jets offensive lineman Cameron Clark is retiring, as ESPN.com’s Rich Cimini writes. Sadly, Clark was left with little choice after missing the 2021 season with a serious spinal cord injury.
[RELATED: Jets, Berrios Discuss Deal]
“Based on the advice of Dr. Andrew Hecht, a prominent orthopedic surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, Cameron will not be able to continue to play football for the New York Jets,” said agent Alan Herman.
Clark, 24, joined the Jets as a fourth-round pick in 2020. However, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte product never saw the field as his would-be rookie year was scuttled by a shoulder injury. Then, this past summer, he suffered a serious spinal cord injury. It was first believed to be contusion — now, doctors know that it’s much more serious.
“A great young man, with a bright future, I am thankful for Cameron’s peace in making his decision, however bittersweet it may be,” head coach Robert Saleh said. “He made it to the league because of his talent, hard work and attitude and I have every confidence that they will all continue to serve him as he transitions to the next step.”
NFL Practice Squad Updates: 2/1/22
Here are Tuesday’s practice squad updates:
Los Angeles Rams
- Signed: DB Antoine Brooks, WR Warren Jackson, TE Kyle Markway
- Placed on practice squad injured list: DB Sharrod Neasman
- Released: K Ryan Santoso, LS Carson Tinker
Bengals WR Auden Tate Reverts To IR
Despite returning to practice ahead of the Bengals’ wild-card game, Auden Tate will not be in uniform when the team takes the field for Super Bowl LVI.
Tate’s practice period expired Tuesday without a roster move, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. This means the veteran wide receiver will revert to IR, a move that ends his season. Tate has not played since Week 7.
A thigh injury led to Tate’s IR placement in early December. The fourth-year wideout had battled that issue in the weeks leading up to that move, but the former seventh-round pick did not play much of a role this season. Tate caught three passes for 39 yards and a touchdown this season.
A shoulder ailment ended Tate’s 2020 season, and an MCL sprain in December 2019 wrapped his most promising season. After catching 40 passes for 575 yards in 2019 — during a season A.J. Green did not play — Tate has compiled just 189 yards since.
The Bengals have invested significant draft capital in the receiver position, taking Tee Higgins in the 2020 second round and adding likely Offensive Rookie of the Year Ja’Marr Chase fifth overall this year. Tate, who is set for free agency in March, will likely attempt to bounce back with another team next season.
NFL Reserve/Futures Contracts: 1/31/22
Today’s reserve/futures deals from around the NFL:
San Francisco 49ers
- OL Alfredo Gutierrez, FB Josh Hokit, TE Tanner Hudson, WR Austin Mack, LB Curtis Robinson, DL Chris Slayton, WR Connor Wedington
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- P Sterling Hofrichter, OT Jonathan Hubbard, WR Travis Jonsen, WR Vyncint Smith, WR Austin Watkins
NFL Practice Squad Updates: 1/31/22
Today’s practice squad updates:
Cincinnati Bengals
- Released from the Practice Squad/Injured List: K Elliott Fry
Raiders Hire Dave Ziegler As GM, Josh McDaniels Expected As HC
The Raiders have announced the hiring of Patriots director of player personnel Dave Ziegler as their new general manager. That means that the official hiring of Patriots OC Josh McDaniels as head coach is right around the corner, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter).
Though McDaniels was a late entrant in this year’s coaching cycle — his only interview, which just took place yesterday, was with the Raiders — he became the frontrunner for the position as soon as he was connected to it. Indeed, he reportedly told the team that he would not accept its interview request unless he was going to be offered the job.
Now 45, McDaniels is best known for his lengthy and tremendously successful run as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, first from 2005-2008 and then again from 2012-2021. Of course, he had the privilege of working with QB Tom Brady for almost all of that time, but the work that he did with rookie passer Mac Jones this year also earned him plenty of positive attention. His ill-fated tenure as Broncos head coach from 2009-10 is well in the rearview mirror at this point, and his leaving the Colts at the altar in the 2018 hiring cycle did not seem to deter other clubs from wanting to bring his talents as an offensive guru aboard (though it is worth keeping that jilting in mind until he puts pen to paper).
Assuming he does finalize a deal with Las Vegas, he will inherit QB Derek Carr, who has one year remaining on his current contract. We recently heard that the Raiders’ HC hire would impact Carr’s future in the silver-and-black, but as Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network tweets, there is “mutual admiration” between Carr and McDaniels, so it could be that an extension for the soon-to-be 31-year-old passer is in the offing.
Obviously, Ziegler will have some say in that. In his previous post with the Patriots, he revamped the team’s scouting department and free agency strategy, as Cameron Wolfe of NFL.com (on Twitter) notes, and he has received a considerable amount of credit for New England’s quick rise back to competitiveness after a disappointing 2020, the first year of the post-Brady era. His philosophy differed from predecessor Nick Caserio and will likely stray from recently-deposed Raiders GM Mike Mayock‘s approach.
Ziegler and McDaniels first worked together with the Broncos in 2010, and the former joined the Pats’ scouting department in 2013 and gradually rose up the ranks (2021 was his first as director of player personnel, a promotion he received after Caserio left Foxborough to become the Texans’ GM). Ziegler has been viewed as McDaniels’ GM-of-choice for awhile now, and it appears that the partnership will soon make its way west.