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Eagles Designate Brandon Graham, C.J. Uzomah For Return

February 5th, 2025 at 11:56am CST by Sam Robinson

FEBRUARY 5: Graham views it as likely he will suit up for a third Super Bowl. It should be expected the Eagles activate Graham by Saturday’s deadline, as the 15th-year defensive end said (via FOX Sports’ Jordan Schultz) he is on track to play against the Chiefs.

JANUARY 30: Viewed as likely to miss the rest of the season upon suffering a torn triceps muscle in November, Brandon Graham held out hope for a return if the Eagles booked a Super Bowl trip. Now that Super Bowl LIX will feature Philadelphia, the Eagles will see about a potential comeback.

Graham, who had said before this season he would retire after it wrapped, will practice Thursday. The Eagles designated the 15th-year defensive end and tight end C.J. Uzomah for return. Additionally, the Eagles signed running back Lew Nichols to their practice squad and released tight end Nick Muse.

A Graham comeback would be significant for the Eagles, who have dealt with injuries to both he and Bryce Huff this season. Huff has since returned, though he is playing behind starters Josh Sweat and Nolan Smith in Vic Fangio‘s defense. Graham, 36, had already topped his 2023 full-season totals for sacks and QB hits in 11 games this season. The longest-tenured player in Eagles history was sitting on 3.5 and seven, respectively, in those categories when he went down against the Rams.

As PFR’s coaching trackers have become more prominent, revisiting our IR Return Tracker shows the Eagles with four IR activations left. Teams received two more in the playoffs this year, marking a change from the NFL’s 2022 and ’23 setups under its current format. Graham and Uzomah join return man Britain Covey in the practice window. The team will not activate defensive lineman Byron Young, whose practice window expired this week.

Philly has not produced the prolific sack numbers it carried into Super Bowl LVII, but Fangio’s defense has improved significantly from where it was under Sean Desai and Matt Patricia last season. The Eagles led the league in yards allowed and finished second in scoring. While the Chiefs have not closely reminded of their 2022 offense this season, only eclipsing 30 points one time, the Patrick Mahomes-led unit proved it still had firepower last week by hanging 32 on the Bills. The Eagles having one more pass-rushing option could be significant, as the Chiefs have proven historically reliable in close games.

The Eagles re-signed Graham on a one-year, $4MM deal last March. Having broken Chuck Bednarik‘s record for service time as an Eagle, Graham said to start training camp he would make this season his last. After the injury, Graham was less definitive. But returning in time for the Super Bowl could provide a fitting conclusion — well, should it go the Eagles’ way.

Graham, of course, delivered his signature play in a Super Bowl by forcing a Tom Brady fumble to set up Philly’s game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl LII. The Patriots entered that game having qualified for seven straight conference championships; the Chiefs are now riding the same streak, and the Eagles are all that stand in the way of Kansas City becoming the first team to win three straight Super Bowls. That stands to make a potential Graham return a closely monitored situation.

Uzomah sustained an abdominal injury in Week 17. The former Bengals Super Bowl starter has not played a regular role with the Eagles. A Jets cap casualty in 2024, Uzomah has played in seven Eagles games but has not caught a pass. He would serve as depth behind Dallas Goedert and Grant Calcaterra.

NFL Reserve/Futures Deals: 2/4/25

February 4th, 2025 at 9:40pm CST by Nikhil Mehta

Here are today’s reserve/futures contracts signed around the NFL:

Carolina Panthers

Cincinnati Bengals

Washington Commanders

Hart has not played in the NFL since 2022, but he played 98 games over the preceding eight seasons. He has 67 career starts, mostly at right tackle, but only has one year with a Pro Football Focus grade above 60.0 (subscription required).

Chris Hewitt Parts Ways With Ravens, Joins Colts

February 1st, 2025 at 3:31pm CST by Ely Allen

The Ravens defensive staff was ransacked by opposing coaching staffs last offseason as they lost former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald (Seahawks head coach), defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson (Titans defensive coordinator), and defensive line coach Anthony Weaver (Dolphins defensive coordinator). Baltimore was able to hold on to inside linebackers coach Zachary Orr by promoting him to defensive coordinator, but with so many departed pieces from his staff, a bit of a drop off was expected.

One area in which the Ravens weren’t expecting a drop off was pass defense. Although, like Wilson, Weaver, and Orr, pass-game coordinator & secondary coach Chris Hewitt also received some defensive coordinator interest last offseason, Baltimore was able to retain Hewitt by granting him the additional title of assistant head coach. Unfortunately, after watching an abysmal pass defense handicap the team for the first 10 weeks of the season, the Ravens and Hewitt “agreed to mutually part ways,” per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.

Viewed as a strength of the defense coming into the season, the Ravens secondary returned starting safeties Kyle Hamilton and Marcus Williams and starting cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Brandon Stephens while also adding veteran safety Eddie Jackson in free agency, rookie cornerback Nate Wiggins through the draft, and nickelback Ar’Darius Washington in return from injury. With such outstanding depth, the Ravens looked forward to being able to use their defensive ace Hamilton as a utility defender all over the field and being able to employ Washington in the slot, giving them the potential to field an effective dime personnel most of the time.

Unfortunately, Williams and Jackson took major steps backwards in 2024, both ending the season among the 10 bottom-ranked safeties in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required). Stephens similarly struggled in 2024, ranking as the 100th-best cornerback in the league out of 118 players graded by PFF and getting targeted frequently as a result. Through 10 weeks, Baltimore’s defense ranked dead-last in total defense, despite fielding a league-best rushing defense.

Eventually, the team was able to turn things completely around, but it required the team to cut Jackson and bench Williams. This moved Hamilton and Washington back into the safety positions and moved Humphrey more into a nickelback role, opening the door for more opportunities for Wiggins on the outside. The defense ranked at the top of the league in many categories over the last seven weeks of the regular season as a result, but it appears the damage was already done.

Following the rocky start to the 2024 campaign, Hewitt’s time in Baltimore came to an end. Hewitt had been in Baltimore since 2012, when he was first hired as defensive backs coach. After eight years in that role, he was promoted to pass defense coordinator for two years before adding secondary coach to his title for two more. This was his first and only season with the assistant head coach moniker, which he took over from Weaver.

Luckily, Hewitt has quickly rebounded. Three days after Pelissero’s initial report, the NFL Network reporter has followed up with the announcement that Hewitt has been hired as pass game coordinator/secondary coach for the Colts. It will be only the second NFL franchise Hewitt has worked with in his long coaching career.

Hewitt will fill the role left vacant when defensive backs coach Ron Milus was dismissed. He joins defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo and linebackers coach James Bettcher as new additions to the defensive staff in Indianapolis.

Jaguars Meet With Grant Udinski; Team Requests OL Interview With Austin Gund

January 31st, 2025 at 9:57pm CST by Adam La Rose

Three more of the league’s offensive coordinator vacancies were filled on Friday. The Jaguars are among the teams who have yet to fill their OC position, though, and their search process is ongoing. So far, their search has been less than exhaustive, with the team only interviewing two candidates, Commanders quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard and Rams pass game specialist Nate Scheelhaase, to replace Press Taylor.

A third interview took place today, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, as the Jaguars hosted Vikings assistant offensive coordinator and assistant quarterbacks coach Grant Udinski. At only 29 years old, Udinski has been on a meteoric rise through the coaching ranks.

After going undrafted in 2019 as a defensive end out of Towson, Udinski traveled to Waco, TX, where he served for a year as a graduate assistant under then-Baylor head coach Matt Rhule. The next year, Udinski followed Rhule to Carolina as a coaching assistant for the Panthers, where he remained for two years.

Under the advice of Vikings passing game coordinator and tight ends coach Brian Angelichio, who had worked with Udinski for two years in Carolina, Minnesota hired Udinski on as assistant to the head coach/special projects in 2022. After a year in that role, Udinski was promoted to assistant quarterbacks coach, and this season, he added assistant offensive coordinator to his title, as well.

It’s not uncommon to see young coaches quickly rise through the ranks on offensive coaching staffs, but those phenoms are usually former quarterbacks with a high understanding of offensive schemes and philosophies. It’s strange to see so much offensive responsibility handed to a man who only seven years ago was playing defense at Towson as a walk-on. It probably doesn’t hurt that he was a CoSIDA academic first-team all-American with high marks at both the undergraduate and master’s levels of his education.

The Jaguars are not alone in their interest in Udinski, either. Today’s interview was Udinski’s fifth for an offensive coordinator role this offseason. A popular name, Udinski first interviewed twice with the Seahawks (a job that went to Klint Kubiak), then interviewed with the Patriots (a job that went to Josh McDaniels) before interviewing with the Buccaneers (a job that went to Josh Grizzard) and the Texans. While there’s a chance that the Houston and Jacksonville jobs may, too, fall out of his reach, it seems clear that Udinski’s trajectory is not slowing. The young coach is likely to find a home as a coordinator soon.

Despite having not hired an offensive coordinator yet, the Jaguars are reportedly actively looking to fill one of their position coaching jobs on the offensive side of the ball. Per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, Jacksonville requested permission to interview Bills offensive/offensive line assistant Austin Gund for what he called “their open offensive line coaching position,” which seems to indicate that incumbent offensive line coach Phil Rauscher will not be returning to the role. Jordan Schultz of FOX Sports adds that the team has requested to interview 49ers assistant offensive line coach Cameron Clemmons for the job, as well.

Here’s a breakdown of the Jaguars’ search to fill the offensive coordinator position:

  • Chip Kelly, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach (Ohio State): Team has interest
  • Tavita Pritchard, quarterbacks coach (Commanders): Interviewed 1/29
  • Nate Scheelhaase, pass game specialist (Rams): Interviewed 1/29
  • Grant Udinski, assistant quarterbacks coach (Vikings): Interviewed 1/31

Ely Allen contributed to this post.

Chiefs WR Skyy Moore Returns To Practice

January 30th, 2025 at 5:43pm CST by Ben Levine

Skyy Moore could be activated to the 53-man roster just in time for the Super Bowl. The Chiefs announced that the wide receiver has been designated to return from IR and was a limited participant at today’s practice.

Moore landed on injured reserve back in October thanks to a core muscle injury. Even with Marquise Brown and Rashee Rice sidelined, Moore struggled to carve out a role on the 2024 Chiefs prior to his injury. In six games, the wideout only garnered three targets without a catch.

At one point, Moore was expected to be a major part of Kansas City’s post-Tyreek Hill solution. He was limited to only 22 catches as a rookie, although he showed some promise in the postseason when he hauled in five receptions and a touchdown. He saw a somewhat larger role as a sophomore, appearing in more than half of the Chiefs’ offensive snaps in 14 games. Still, Moore was limited to only 21 catches while getting lapped by the likes of Rice, Justin Watson, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the depth chart.

Following a lost 2024 campaign, Moore’s future in Kansas City is very much in doubt. The team added Xavier Worthy to their wide receivers room this past offseason, and while many of the team’s veteran WRs are set to hit free agency (including Brown, Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, and JuJu Smith-Schuster), their initial acquisitions were already an indictment on Moore.

With Brown having made a return from injury in time for the playoffs, the Chiefs current depth chart is pretty much full. Considering how much time Moore has missed, he’ll face an uphill battle to garner a Super Bowl roster spot.

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