NFL - NEWS & NOTES

Man you haven't got paid lol not a good look as a Vikings fan can't help but laugh

 

LOL Lyman

 

Lions second-round choice D’Andre Swift signs rookie deal



Running back D'Andre Swift tweeted a photo of himself signing his rookie contract.

The Lions used the 35th overall choice to select the Georgia running back in the second round.

Detroit has signed five of its nine draft choices, with only first-rounder Jeff Okudah, fifth-rounder Quintez Cephus, fifth-rounder Jason Huntley and seventh-rounder Jashon Cornell yet to agree to terms.

Swift finished his career at Georgia with back-to-back, 1,000-yard seasons. He rushed for 1,218 yards and seven touchdowns as a junior.

The Lions have not had a 1,000-yard rusher since Reggie Bush in 2013.

Kerryon Johnson, who has missed 14 games in his two seasons, led the team with 403 yards in eight games last season and has said he was exited about sharing the backfield with Swift. Ty Johnson and Bo Scarbrough also are in the running backs room.

NBC

 

Ron Rivera collaborating with Dan Snyder on new team name



It’s happening. . . .

Washington owner Dan Snyder is working on a name change for the team, coach Ron Rivera told The Washington Post in a Saturday interview. Rivera hopes the change can happen in the next two months.

“If we get it done in time for the season, it would be awesome,” Rivera told Les Carpenter.

Rivera indicated he and Snyder were discussing a name change even before sponsors such as FedEx, Nike and Pepsi applied pressure to eliminate a dictionary-defined racial slur. Snyder talked to NFL officials about it some 2 1/2 weeks ago, according to Rivera, and the owner is ready to make a change he once vowed would never happen.

The team issued a statement Friday, announcing it was conducting “a thorough review” of the name.

Rivera, who is on vacation, said Snyder has called him to discuss names. Quarterback Dwayne Haskins is among those who support Red Tails as the new name of the franchise.

Rivera did not share any of the possible team names he has discussed with Snyder.

“We came up with a couple of names,” Rivera said. “Two of them I really like.”

The most important criteria for a new name is that it respects Native American culture and traditions and also serves as a tribute to the military, Rivera said. Rivera is the son of an Army officer who grew up on military bases.

“We want to do this in a positive way,” Rivera said, adding they want to ensure the name won’t be “a joke.”

Rivera, who was hired Dec. 31, told a Chicago radio station last week that the team name was “a discussion for another time.” He clarified Saturday, saying he believes the death of George Floyd on May 25 and the protests that followed — the reason for his interview with the radio station — was a separate issue from the dispute over the team name. Rivera added that he did not want to discuss the issue with a radio station in another market.

But Rivera, one of only four minority coaches in the NFL, made clear in the interview with Carpenter that he believes it’s time for the team name to change.

“It was hard to fathom that it was in any way a racist thing, to be honest with you,” Rivera said rooting for the team during the time he spent in the Washington area as a kid. “Now, putting it in perspective, there’s been a change.

“My eyes are wide open.”

NBC

 

NFLPA proposes 80-man rosters for training camp



As the NFL prepares to take 32 teams of up to 90 players each to training camp in a pandemic, plenty of talk has surfaced about smaller rosters being used. The NFL Players Association, which in theory should want as many jobs as possible during camp, has expressed a desire to slash the rosters by 10 per team, from 90 to 80.

That’s a maximum of 2,560 players across the league, 320 fewer spots than the league’s teams would have in any other year.

Teams presumably would be permitted to have even fewer than 80, if they choose. Roster size has always been a maximum, not a minimum.

The union also wants no more than 20 players in a given facility at one time during the initial acclimatization period (training and conditioning) covering the first 21 days of camp. The number doubles to a maximum of 40 during the next phase of 10 days of non-contact practices.

So, basically, teams would have to operate in multiple shift for the first 31 days of camp, if the NFLPA’s recommendation is accepted. The final two weeks of preseason preparation, involving 10 practices (eight padded) would entail the entire roster.

Given this proposed formula, the union’s reasoning for opposing any preseason games becomes more obvious.

None of this becomes official until the two sides agree. But this is another example of the many issues on which agreement will be needed before camps can open, and the clock continues to tick. Loudly.

NBC

 

Is Steelers' first-round defense bound to be even better?

Though offensive standouts such as Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris and John Stallworth have found their way to the Hall of Fame and legendary Steelers status, it was the Steel Curtain defense that was the foundation for Pittsburgh's emergence as a multi-time Super Bowl champion, perennial contender and one of the NFL's storied franchises in the 1970s.

Thus, as the return of Ben Roethlisberger commands the headlines and quandaries abound regarding the reemergence of James Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster following sub-par seasons, it is once more the Steelers defense – rife with burgeoning talent – that kept Pittsburgh in the playoff hunt in 2019 and has it poised to do so once again this upcoming campaign.

Names such as T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Devin Bush are becoming well-known, but it is the collective talent that could lead the Steelers back to the NFL hierarchy. And it is a collection of a first-round talent currently unprecedented in the NFL.

Among the Steelers' projected starters, there are seven first-round draft picks – which would be tops in the NFL.

Bush (Steelers, 2019, No. 10 overall pick), Fitzpatrick (Dolphins, 2018, No. 11), Watt (Steelers, 2017, No. 30), Bud Dupree (Steelers, 2015, No. 22), Terrell Edmunds (Steelers, 2018, No. 28), Joe Haden (Browns, 2010, No. 7) and Cameron Heyward (Steelers, 2011, No. 31) are all returning starters from a defense that led the NFL in sacks (54) and takeaways (38) in 2019.

And this Steel seven of first-round picks is very much the chief reason behind Pittsburgh's status as an AFC North contender. The Steelers relinquished just 18.9 points per game last season (fifth in the NFL) and 304.1 yards (fifth), the first-round-laden defense keeping Pittsburgh in just about every game following a blowout loss to the Patriots to open the season. That was a 33-3 defeat to New England. The Steelers never allowed more than 28 points in a game thereafter.

Steelers Defense

2019 Season
(per NFL Research)
NFL Rank

PPG Allowed 18.9 T-5th

Total YPG Allowed 304.1 5th

Takeaways/Game 2.4 1st

Sacks/Game 3.4 1st

Comp Pct. Allowed 61.1 6th


Pass YPG Allowed 194.6 3rd

Interceptions 20 2nd

Opp. Passer Rating 79.7 4th

Fitzpatrick, Heyward, Haden and Watt were each Pro Bowl picks.

An All-Pro with 14.5 sacks, an NFL-high eight forced fumbles and eight passes defended, Watt was an All-Pro who finished third in AP Defensive Player of the Year voting as he took a large step in establishing himself as one of the finest defensive players in the league. Having also hauled in a pair of interceptions, the three-season pro became just the third player since 2000 – following Jason Taylor (2006) and Terrell Suggs (2011) – with 10 or more sacks, seven or more forced fumbles and two or more interceptions in a season, according to NFL Research.

Almost immediately after he was acquired via trade from the Dolphins, Fitzpatrick proved to be a perfect fit for Pittsburgh. Filling up the stat line with five interceptions, three fumble recoveries and 69 tackles, Fitzpatrick has given the Steelers a playmaker and a presence at safety not glimpsed since Troy Polamalu.

Somewhat quietly, Heyward has been an All-Pro in two of the last three seasons and gone to three straight Pro Bowls. Last season, he racked up nine sacks along with a career-best 83 tackles.

Following career-highs of 11.5 sacks, 17 quarterback hits, 16 tackles for loss and four forced fumbles, Dupree was franchise tagged by Pittsburgh. It was a season in which he truly announced his presence as a premier player and lived up to his first-round status.


And then there's Bush, the last first-rounder of the bunch. He led all rookies in tackles and with six takeaways (four fumble recoveries and two interceptions), making noise in the preseason and never quieting through his freshman campaign. Bush's 109 tackles also led the way for the Steelers and that might well become a standard.

Haden, who matched Fitzpatrick with a team-high five interceptions, was a Pro Bowl selection for the third time, but the first time with Pittsburgh.

Plenty of stats and plenty of talent marked what may have been a pivotal season for the Pittsburgh defense.

Pittsburgh actually has eight first-round draft picks on its defense – most in the NFL, per NFL Research – with defensive tackle Tyson Alualu coming off the bench. Alualu was also a big contributor last season, tallying five starts and 41 tackles, with four for a loss.

A season ago, the Steel seven-led defense kept Pittsburgh in the playoff hunt. The question going forward will be whether the Steelers' burgeoning defense can lead them back to the postseason and amid the AFC heavyweights that they were so long a part of.

NFL.com

 

Hard to imagine and down-right scary for the Central teams if the Steelers could be even better defensively.

 

It's scary for every team in the NFL if there going to better defensively

 

Coaches, General Managers wait for details about 2020 season



If the NFL has a plan for effectively playing the 2020 season, the NFL is doing a very good job of keeping it quiet.

Details have been scarce. Beyond a memo sent four weeks ago to all teams regarding the three-tiered protocol for facility and stadium access (a protocol that the NFL Players Association quickly said it hadn’t endorsed), teams haven’t gotten much guidance. In recent days, far more details have emerged regarding things the union wants to do this season, several of which concern the folks responsible for putting football teams on the field for games that count.

One head coach has expressed misgivings about moving forward so quickly at a time when the pandemic has created so much uncertainty. “The worst thing that happened,” the coach said, “was the draft was a success, so the Commissioner thinks he’ll be right on moving ahead toward the season.”

Exacerbating the concern is the lack of information, a vacuum that currently is being filled by news of requests from players that will serve only to make a coach’s job harder, from no mandatory hotel stays during camp to no 11-on-11 activities in practice. If the league agrees to ditch 11-on-11 activities and if that extends to walk-through practices, coaches will lose a valuable teaching tool. This will require coaches to teach in other ways. The sooner they know whether that will happen, the more time they’ll have to strategize.

Currently, they don’t know much.

“I would love to be told what we can and can’t do,” the coach said, “so we can plan and figure things out. . . . When the league office sets boundaries, they just think you magically know what to do.”

A General Manager from a different team expressed concern about reduced rosters for training camp, explaining that the easiest way to accommodate 90 players safely would be to practice at the stadium, which has multiple locker rooms. “It’s inevitable players will get it,” the G.M. said of the virus, “the key is to have a strong bullpen.”

The G.M. echoed the concern that the league isn’t giving enough information to teams.

“The communication from the league has been virtually nonexistent,” the G.M. said. “Most head coaches and General Managers get info from [PFT] or Twitter.”

As the post-July 4 push toward training camp begins, the people running the league should heed these concerns and involve coaches and General Managers in the process of creating the rules and, more importantly, letting them know what the rules will be, so that they can figure out how best to get their football teams ready to play in September. Otherwise, the football that we get, if we get football, may not be football that’s very good.

NBC

 

Packers CEO Mark Murphy on the pandemic: “Time is no longer on our side”



The Packers don’t have a traditional owner. CEO Mark Murphy is the closest they have to one. And with not many owners talking publicly about the challenges confronting the NFL in a pandemic, anything any of them say (even one who isn’t really an owner but close enough) is significant.

Here’s what Murphy said about the current situation in a monthly online column posted Saturday: “With training camps set to start in less than a month and with COVID-19 showing no signs of slowing down, the Packers will have to make several difficult decisions in the coming weeks. Since the pandemic arrived earlier this year, NFL teams have had the benefit of time. Unlike professional basketball, hockey and baseball teams who were either in the middle of their seasons or about to start, we were in the beginning of our offseason. NFL teams were able to handle free agency, the draft and their entire offseason programs virtually. We’ve made decisions along the way, but the major ones we’ve been able to put off until we have more information. With so much uncertainty, it has made sense that we have not made decisions until we absolutely have to. As we near the start of training camp, though (rookies will start practice on July 21 and veterans on the 28th), time is no longer on our side.”

He’s right about that. Time isn’t on the NFL’s side. Agreements need to be struck with the union, and decisions need to be made about the contours of training camp, the preseason (if there is one), and the regular season.

With July 4 now in the rear-view mirror, it’s expected that the process will accelerate dramatically this week. It has to, or it will be impossible for rookies to start practicing on July 21, or for the rest of the team to be ready to go on the 28th.

NBC

 

Devin McCourty: Preseason games less important than safe start to camp



A vote of NFLPA team representatives last week recommended scrapping preseason games entirely this summer in favor of increased practice time for teams that haven’t worked on the field at all this offseason.

The preseason has already been scaled back to two games for each team, but the number of games isn’t of vital interest to Patriots defensive backs Devin and Jason McCourty. Jason McCourty said on their podcast that “it hurts” when those games are taken away because players make teams in those contests, but agreed with his brother that other things are more important right now.

“For us as players we still want to know ‘How is everything going to function and work?’ Don’t get me wrong, everybody is working towards that and building,” McCourty said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. “There’s calls and everything. But I think that’s more important than whether there’s four preseason games, two preseason games, no preseason games. All that stuff will work itself out. All that stuff matters if the first phase of us being back in training camp is going well. If that doesn’t go well, then there is no anything. For me that has been more my focus. I haven’t really cared what the preseason games look like.”

The McCourtys aren’t alone in asking questions about what the return to business is going to look like and the time to come up with answers is running short.

NBC

 

All of Daniel Snyder’s three minority partners want out.

Earlier today, we reported that Fred Smith and Dwight Schar have been trying to sell their interest in the franchise. The Washington Post reports that Robert Rothman wants out, too.

Per the Post, the there minority partners want out “in large part because they are ‘not happy being a partner'” with Snyder.

The Post says that the trio, who purchased their equity in 2003, owns roughly 40 percent of the team. Past reports have suggested that Schar and Rothman own 15 percent each, and that Smith has five percent. The team declined comment to the Post.

Per the Post, the owners have hired an investment banking firm to conduct the search for buyers. It’s our understanding that, as to Smith and Schar, efforts to find a buyer have been ongoing but unsuccessful.

NBC

 

NFLPA membership voted on a conference call this week in favor of not playing any preseason games ahead of the 2020 season, NFL Network's Mike Garafolo reported Friday.

The vote came as a result of discussion within union leadership on whether it would be smart to play any preseason games, and after two days of time to mull the current situation regarding a return to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic, players decided in favor of a longer runway for preparation for the NFL's regular season. The NFL, meanwhile, maintains a desire to trim the preseason schedule from four games to two in an effort to create a longer ramp-up period for players.

The league believes it is its right within the current collective bargaining agreement to set the preseason schedule, per Garafolo.

"It's clear that the union and the league are not on the same page with regard to the length of the preseason right now," Garafolo said during his report on NFL NOW.

Training camps are set to begin in late July, and this week the NFLPA laid out a potential four-stage plan of protocols for a unique preparation period that would replace the preseason.

The first stage would be medical physicals for all players upon reporting to camp, which would last three days, per NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. The following 21 days would make up the second stage, a strength and conditioning program to prepare the players' bodies for a return to football activity. From there, teams would move to a third stage that would resemble OTAs in which players would participate in 10 days of non-contact, non-padded practices before eventually shifting to a 14-day fourth stage that would be focused on what camp traditionally looks like, with potentially 10 total practices with a maximum of eight padded practices.

That total of 48 days would immediately precede Week 1, replacing preseason games with the longer preparation period desired by the NFLPA.


Understandably, there are concerns from players on the safety of operating while the COVID-19 pandemic continues spreading in many areas of the country.

"The players I'm told are expressing a number of concerns on this call," Garafolo said during an earlier report on NFL NOW. "Not the least of which, is if there's so much concern about this virus right now, why are we returning to work, period? And I was told that one of the medical experts said that is something you're going to have to decide on an individual basis. Basically, are some players going to opt out based on risk factors and just how they're feeling about themselves and their family? So that is something to watch going forward."

As with everything, this remains a developing situation. For now, though, we'll continue to wait for a definitive decision on the preseason.

NFL.com

 

The rookies and borderline players need a couple of preseason games.

 

Well, let the smack talk begin, lol and wow.

 

Sounds very confusing to me

 

I think they are confused or at least dumbfounded as to what to do. Crazy how things are developing every day. I thought by now the Pandemic would be going away, now its risen its ugly head again and the world, not just the NFL, doesnt know exactly what to do, imo.

 

Adequacy, accuracy of testing hover over NFL’s return

As the NFL and NFL Players Association try to hammer out an agreement on the protocols for training camp, the preseason (if there is one), and the regular season, testing continues to be the one factor that will most dramatically impact the execution of the final plan.

It needs to be readily available. It needs to be reliable. It needs to be fast. For now, there’s no guarantee that all three boxes will be checked.

The powers-that-be have believed for months that, by August or September, rapid-result testing based on saliva or a finger prick will be available. Last week, the the director of the National Institutes of Health expressed optimism that a test producing results in less than an hour will be available before football season begins.

“We want to see Americans have a chance to have some normal experiences of enjoying life,” Dr. Francis Collins told a Senate subcommittee regarding the availability of testing in time for the first kicking of a football. “I do believe this should be possible.”

Currently, that’s not the case — as evidenced by the delayed test results for the Washington Nationals.

The NFLPA wants daily testing at the outset of training camp, with frequency re-evaluated based on the rate of false negatives. The union also wants to move as quickly as possible from the mid-nasal swab to a saliva-based test.

Ideally, all players, coaches, and other key personnel will be tested on a daily basis. It’s critical to keep out of the facility, the locker room, the practice field, and/or the stadium anyone who may have the virus. Even with daily testing, false negatives have been an issue in other settings; a false negative could light the fuse on an outbreak for an NFL team.

NBC