NFL - NEWS & NOTES

I'm guessing it was related to setting up some kind of account to cover Shazier and his family after football. Ryan will more than likely have no football income after this season. Among the Steelers minority owners are guys like Rob Citrone, David Tepper and Larry Paul - all hugely successful financial gurus. The sooner he gets this money invested the quicker he can create some kind of investment income.

 

Wide receiver Brandon Marshall is taking his first visit with a team since being released by the Giants last month.

Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com reports that Marshall is visiting with the Seahawks. Marshall was released by the Giants after one season with the team in a move that saved them over $5 million in cap space.

Marshall only played five games in his one year with the Giants as an ankle injury landed him on injured reserve. He caught 18 passes for 154 yards in those appearances. Marshall, who turned 34 in March, has 959 catches for 12,215 yards and 75 touchdowns for his career.

The Seahawks lost Paul Richardson in free agency this offseason, which leaves them with Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett, Jaron Brown, Marcus Johnson, Amara Darboh and Tanner McEvoy at wideout. (PFT)

 

Eagles get all their draft picks under contract

The Eagles only had five draft picks this year, which made it easy for them to wrap up the contract signing process quickly.

The team announced on Wednesday that they have signed all five of those picks. They are the first team in the league to have their entire draft class under contract.

Philadelphia’s draft class is made up of second-round tight end Dallas Goedert, fourth-round cornerback Avonte Maddox, fourth-round defensive end Josh Sweat, sixth-round tackle Matt Pryor and seventh-round tackle Jordan Mailata.

Goedert was a prolific receiver at South Dakota State and figures to compete for a similar role alongside Zach Ertz in the Eagles offense. Maddox had a lot of starting experience at Pitt, which should help an Eagles team working to replace Patrick Robinson, and Sweat showed pass rushing potential at Florida State that likely would have led him to get picked earlier if not for knee concerns. Pryor and Mailata, who is making the move from rugby, will try for reserve or developmental roles. (PFT)

 

Kurt Warner adds more details regarding his potential comeback



Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner turns 47 next month. And he recently made clear his potential interest in returning to play, more than eight years after he retired.

“I was actually ready to, for this coming season, I actually talked to a coach and my wife said, ‘Go for it, I think it would be great,’” Warner recently said during a St. Louis Cardinals broadcast. “So I actually talked to a coach about possibly doing it if they needed someone, but then they went out and signed somebody. I don’t think they thought I was serious. So I think we’re completely done now.”

Beyond shouting down the reaction to the news that Warner was actually planning to come out of retirement on the wrong side of 45 as the product of a “REALLY slow news day,” Warner added more details on Twitter in the aftermath of the splash the story created.

“I simply mentioned that I had thrown a text to a coaching friend — saying 1 think I could give him one more yr if he needed me!” Warner said. “This was not — I’m dead set on making a comeback… just friends having a convo!!”

That last tweet may have given more away than Warner had intended. One of his best coaching friends is Ken Whisenhunt, who currently coordinates the offense of the L.A. Chargers. The Chargers signed Geno Smith on April 3, which would mesh with his original comment that the conversation ended when the unnamed team “went out and signed somebody.”

Even though Warner said that he thinks he’s “completely done now,” he’s done enough to get his name into circulation, in the event a team ends up having enough injuries to result in making calls to available free agents. Any team in that predicament can offer a spot to any available inexperienced slappy, or it can tell Kurt to take off his gold jacket and grab a helmet.

Who knows? It could be the final move that makes the “possible” movie on the story of his life into a reality. 20th Century FOX bought the film rights nearly five years ago, but there’s been no indication since then of any progress toward actually making the movie. If Warner can cap the progression from rejected Iowa recruit to NFL camp arm to grocery bagger to AFL star to NFL Europe to out-of-nowhere league and Super Bowl MVP to discarded veteran in St. Louis to placeholder for Eli Manning to late-career star in Arizona to retirement to TV to Canton to a return to the game in the short shadows of 50, the script will write itself. (PFT)

 

Patriots’ Joe Thuney has foot injury, will need surgery



Patriots left guard Joe Thuney is dealing with a foot injury that will require surgery.

Mike Reiss of ESPN reports that Thuney has been limited in his participation in offseason work because of the foot injury, and is preparing to have surgery.

The plan is for Thuney to miss Organized Team Activities but be ready in time for the start of the regular season.

The Patriots chose Thuney in the third round of the 2016 NFL draft and he has started all 32 regular-season games and all six postseason games for New England since they drafted him.(PFT)

 

Rams want to wear blue and yellow uniforms more often, but NFL says no



Since the Rams moved back to Los Angeles, questions have raged about which uniforms they should wear: The blue and white of Merlin Olsen in the 1960s? The blue and yellow of Eric Dickerson in the 1980s? The blue and gold of the St. Louis years? Some combination?

The Rams are working on a permanent answer, but in the meantime they’d like to wear the Dickerson-style throwbacks more. The NFL, however, has other ideas.

Rams COO Kevin Demoff says the team has asked the NFL for permission to wear the blue and yellow throwbacks more often, but the NFL limited the Rams to wearing them twice last season. Demoff said he’s working on explaining to the league office that the fans would prefer those uniforms.

“We have spent the year educating them on our fan base,” Demoff told the Los Angeles Times. “We forwarded them all of the fan complaints, the emails we get, so I think they’re well aware of our fans’ preferences.”

Demoff said the Navy blue jerseys the Rams have worn aren’t anyone’s favorite.

“It was always with the idea that we’d be able to revisit it during the offseason when there’s more time to plan,” he said. “Hopefully, they recognize the challenge we have and appreciate the connection the fan base has to the blue and yellow. If we can avoid wearing our Navy jerseys next year, we will.”

It’s a bit odd that the NFL won’t let teams wear whatever uniforms they want, but it appears that the Rams still have some work to do to convince the league to let them wear those Dickerson-style uniforms on a full-time basis. (PFT)
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I like the navy and white, blue and yellow not so much. I do find it funny that a team cant wear the colors of their choosing, but I understand you don't want them changing all the time either.

 

Eagles are trying to go back to the gang green uni's from the Reggie White era and the league said "no" twice. They're still trying to pull it off.

 

Good info, Cat... I didn't know that.

Guess its slow in the newsroom when they are lobbying what color uni a team can wear.

 

it's all about the NFL merchandising, which the NFL controls. the NFL doesn't want teams changing all the time to make the fans buy more stuff that is not going to be their full-time apparel, so they don't want teams to keep changing like LA or Philly. I think Philly wanted it permanently and the NFL said "no" bc of all the Eagles merchandise already out there that isn't the gang green unis etc. The NFL doesn't want to clog up the merchandise aisles with old stuff, new stuff, incoming stuff, and retro stuff just for 1 NFL team and other teams just have home and away unis.

 

I thought a team had to wait five years before making a uni change. Both the Rams and eagles are past that - they should be allowed to make a change.

 

NFL said "no," for the reasons I stated. the NFL doesn't want 2 teams with different jerseys and everyone else staying the same and then other teams want to change and then more teams change years from now. the NFL will not allow for all these changes.

 

I'm not talking about having two different jerseys; I'm talking about changing your jersey. That's permissible every five years.

 

The Eagles don't want to go back to Kelly Green. They want to make it their alternate jersey but they don't want to do it unless the helmet matches and they have been bugging the league for years to be allowed to have a 2nd helmet. It isn't as simple as putting a decal on top like Buffalo and has done among others.

 

screw the Eagles

 

I guess I'm not understanding what the problem with the NFL is. All teams have an "alternate" jersey, don't they? And league rules say you can change unis - regular and alternate - every five years. I don't think the Eagles have changed their alternate uni in a while, have they?

 

I agree with the fans on this one. I like the Dickerson-era unis the most, then the Olsen-era jerseys. The new ones they currently wear... suck balls from behind. The NFL would be foolish to not give merchandise-buying fans what they want in regards to the jerseys and other team paraphernalia.

 

It's the helmet rule. Only one helmet per player all season long. The Eagles aren't gonna trot out there in Kelly Green jerseys with Midnight Green helmets.