Cam Newton Rumors: Panthers Expected to Release QB After Failing to Find Trade - Bleacher Report

Brian Blanco/Associated Press

The Carolina Panthers are expected to release quarterback Cam Newton on Tuesday after failing to find a trade partner, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.

Releasing the quarterback would save the team $19.1 million in cap space for 2020 and leave just $2 million in dead money, per Spotrac.

The move comes after the Panthers agreed to a deal with free-agent quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. The team also reportedly signed former XFL quarterback P.J. Walker, per ESPN's David Newton.

Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic first reported the likelihood of Newton's release as the team struggled to trade the veteran. 

Rapoport noted the Panthers allowed him to seek a trade at the start of free agency, although the quarterback accused the organization of manipulating the narrative. 

"You forced me into this," he wrote an Instagram post.

Newton will get a chance to restart his career once he is released.

The 30-year-old had been the Panthers' starter every week of his career when healthy from when he was first taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 until the 2019 season.

However, a Lisfranc injury in his foot forced him to the sideline after two rough starts last season. This came after a shoulder injury brought his 2018 campaign to an early end, requiring offseason surgery and a lengthy rehab that continued into training camp.

The Panthers lost both games with Newton as a starter, with the quarterback throwing zero touchdown passes and one interception.

Kyle Allen took over and led Carolina to wins in his first four starts, although the league eventually caught up with him and the team missed the playoffs for the second year in a row. Will Grier started the team's final two games as the squad ended the year with eight straight losses.

Carolina will turn to Bridgewater to begin the new era under Matt Rhule while giving up on a player who has three Pro Bowl selections and an MVP award.

The veteran hasn't looked like himself in over a year, but he averaged over 3,500 passing yards and 22 touchdowns plus 600 rushing yards and seven touchdowns per season from 2011 to 2018. He led the Panthers to the Super Bowl in 2015.

If he can replicate his past production with his arm and his legs, Newton can provide excellent value to a variety of teams still looking to upgrade the quarterback position.

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2020-03-24 15:08:48Z
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Devin McCourty on Brady's exit, why he almost left Pats too - NBCSports.com

Rob Ninkovich warned of a mass exodus in New England if Tom Brady left the Patriots in free agency.

That exodus nearly included Devin McCourty, according to the veteran safety himself.

In an article Tuesday for The Players' Tribune, McCourty admitted he "honestly thought it was time" for him to leave New England as an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

Going into free agency, I was thinking that at this stage in my career, I was ready for a change. I mean, I love New England. But after 10 years and winning three Super Bowls, something inside was telling me that I was ready for a new challenge. And I thought I might have to go elsewhere to find it.

That's a similar mindset to that of Tom Brady, who embarked on his own new challenge last Friday by signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after 20 seasons in New England.

Click here for complete Tom Brady coverage and download the MyTeams App for the latest news and analysis.

McCourty admitted he sensed Brady's exit was coming.

"I found out about Tom leaving the same way y’all did. On Twitter," McCourty wrote. "But I kind of knew when we got closer to free agency and he didn’t have a deal done that he wasn’t coming back.

"It’s still a little surreal because … it’s TOM, you know? He’s been here 20 years. He’s won six rings. He’s the greatest to ever do it. So it definitely won’t be the same now that he’s gone."

McCourty insisted he's "happy" for his longtime teammate, who has "earned the right to finish his career wherever he wants and chase whatever he feels like he needs to chase."

"I’m just glad he’s doing it in the NFC," McCourty added.

Listen and subscribe to Tom E. Curran's Patriots Talk Podcast:

So, what convinced McCourty to sign a two-year contract extension with the Patriots on March 15? You guessed it: His twin brother, Jason McCourty.

"And as much as I wanted a new challenge in my career, I also told myself from the jump that if there was an opportunity to play with my brother again, I would take it," McCourty wrote, admitting that the Patriots picking up Jason's option for 2020 convinced him to stick around. 

McCourty, a perennial captain and the longest-tenured member of New England's defense, arguably is the Patriots' leader with Brady out of town. After his brother signed, McCourty apparently convinced himself that succeeding without Brady would be its own "new challenge."

"People are going to say that because Tom’s gone, the dynasty is over," McCourty wrote. "They’re already burying us, far as I can tell. And that’s fine. Let ’em."

" ... I thought I had to leave New England to find what I was looking for. But it turns out that there is no greater challenge for me right now than leading this Patriots team into a new era and helping ensure that this next wave of players can continue our legacy and build on what we’ve already achieved as a franchise."

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2020-03-24 13:02:54Z
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Joint Statement from the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee - Olympic News - Olympics

The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, and the Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, held a conference call this morning to discuss the constantly changing environment with regard to COVID-19 and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

They were joined by Mori Yoshiro, the President of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee; the Olympic Minister, Hashimoto Seiko; the Governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko; the Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission, John Coates; IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper; and the IOC Olympic Games Executive Director, Christophe Dubi.

President Bach and Prime Minister Abe expressed their shared concern about the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and what it is doing to people’s lives and the significant impact it is having on global athletes’ preparations for the Games.

In a very friendly and constructive meeting, the two leaders praised the work of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee and noted the great progress being made in Japan to fight against COVID-19.

The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating. Yesterday, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is "accelerating". There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour.

In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.

The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present. Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.

###

The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit independent international organisation made up of volunteers, which is committed to building a better world through sport. It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of 3.4 million US dollars goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.

###

For more information, please contact the IOC Media Relations Team:
Tel: +41 21 621 6000, email: pressoffice@olympic.org, or visit our web site at www.olympic.org.

Broadcast quality footage

The IOC Newsroom: http://iocnewsroom.com/

Videos

YouTube: www.youtube.com/iocmedia

Photos

For an extensive selection of photos available shortly after each event, please follow us on Flickr.

To request archive photos and footage, please contact our Images team at: images@olympic.org.

Social media

For up-to-the-minute information on the IOC and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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2020-03-24 12:47:00Z
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Joint Statement from the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee - Olympic News - Olympics

The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, and the Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, held a conference call this morning to discuss the constantly changing environment with regard to COVID-19 and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

They were joined by Mori Yoshiro, the President of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee; the Olympic Minister, Hashimoto Seiko; the Governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko; the Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission, John Coates; IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper; and the IOC Olympic Games Executive Director, Christophe Dubi.

President Bach and Prime Minister Abe expressed their shared concern about the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and what it is doing to people’s lives and the significant impact it is having on global athletes’ preparations for the Games.

In a very friendly and constructive meeting, the two leaders praised the work of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee and noted the great progress being made in Japan to fight against COVID-19.

The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating. Yesterday, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is "accelerating". There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour.

In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.

The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present. Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.

###

The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit independent international organisation made up of volunteers, which is committed to building a better world through sport. It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of 3.4 million US dollars goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.

###

For more information, please contact the IOC Media Relations Team:
Tel: +41 21 621 6000, email: pressoffice@olympic.org, or visit our web site at www.olympic.org.

Broadcast quality footage

The IOC Newsroom: http://iocnewsroom.com/

Videos

YouTube: www.youtube.com/iocmedia

Photos

For an extensive selection of photos available shortly after each event, please follow us on Flickr.

To request archive photos and footage, please contact our Images team at: images@olympic.org.

Social media

For up-to-the-minute information on the IOC and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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2020-03-24 12:44:12Z
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Dallas Cowboys dead money skyrockets with Travis Frederick retirement - The Landry Hat

Dallas Cowboys center Travis Frederick announced an unexpected retirement. The move costs the Cowboys more than $11 million in dead cap.

On August 14, 2016, Dallas Cowboys center Travis Frederick signed a $54.6 million contract that would see him through the 2023 season. That was the plan anyway.

Frederick entered the NFL as the 31st overall selection in the 2013 NFL draft (Dallas traded back from the 18th pick for the 31st and 74th picks). The pick was panned by most draft experts suggesting Dallas reached for their new center (this assessment was particularly interesting giving how SI.com loved the Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams and J.J. Wilcox picks and how they thought Brian Schwenke was as good as Frederick – Spoiler Alert: Schwenke started 30 games in his NFL career).

Current Raiders general manager Mike Mayock had a third round grade on Frederick. It is safe to say that Frederick vastly outperformed those expectations with five Pro Bowls and one first team All Pro selection.

Frederick’s second contract included only a $3.25 million signing bonus which was amortized over five years. This should mean that $650,000 would be the dead money on his contract now that Frederick has announced an early retirement.

Yet, the Cowboys are on the hook for just a little more than $11.3 million in dead money paid in full in 2020. The Cowboys will no longer pay his $7 million salary but will only save $600,000 with Frederick determining that his Guillain-Barre Syndrome diagnosis was preventing him from performing at a high level.

The reason for the increased dead money stems from two contract restructures Frederick and the Cowboys worked out. The first came in 2017 when Frederick converted $12.925 million of his base salary to a signing bonus to create $10.34 million in cap space. The second occurred in 2018 when he converted $8.7 million of his salary to a signing bonus to create $6.96 million in cap space.

Those moves were necessary at the time, or so it seemed, for the Cowboys to massage the always fluid cap. The adage that there is always room to manipulate the cap is true but so is the adage that the bill comes due.

The Cowboys small signing bonus offer to Frederick was the correct move to make. They guaranteed more than $18 million in his contract with most tied to future salary. But the temptation to push cost into future years has caught the Cowboys to the tune of $11 million in dead cap space in 2020.

With the cap expected to rise with the new CBA signed due to the new revenue streams and player allocation of all-revenue, the Cowboys would be wise to limit the conversion of salary to signing bonus in the future.

Wide receiver Amari Cooper‘s new contract smartly had only a $10 million signing bonus. We will see how disciplined Dallas will be once Cooper’s salary rises to $20 million next year.

Next: The 10 most memorable Cowboys games since 1989

Smart teams limit the amount of dead cap. From 2011 through the 2019 season, Dallas had $173,275,828 in dead cap according to Spotrac which is the fifth most in the NFL over that time.

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2020-03-24 11:00:00Z
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QB Tua Tagovailoa posts video of him throwing football ahead of draft - ESPN

11:58 PM ET

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who is recovering from a hip injury, posted a video to social media on Monday that shows him throwing during drills.

"Practicing social distancing with the long ball today. Feels good to spin it again. #Process," Tagovailoa wrote on Twitter.

He also posted videos to his Instagram account that show him throwing the ball and working on his footwork.

Tagovailoa was medically cleared for all football activity after a four-month scan came back all clear, sources told ESPN's Laura Rutledge earlier this month.

Tagovailoa's season at Alabama ended in November, when he sustained a posterior wall fracture and dislocated hip.

He is expected to be a top-five pick in April's NFL draft, with ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. projecting him to go at No. 3 to the Detroit Lions.

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2020-03-24 04:04:26Z
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Lantern carrying Olympic flame in vehicle will replace torch in Japan - ESPN

3:25 AM ET

• Associated Press

TOKYO -- The Olympic torch relay will start Thursday as planned in northeastern Fukushima prefecture -- but with no torch, no torchbearers, no public, and little ceremony.

There will be an Olympic flame -- that arrived on Friday from Greece -- carried in a lantern and transported by a vehicle along what organizers hope will be empty roadsides, and with curious onlookers practicing social distancing to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

National broadcaster NHK has reported the plan, as has Japanese news agency Kyodo.

Organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto was to explain the full details later on Tuesday.

"I wish at least a runner could get in a car with the flame on the route,'' Akio Oguchi, who was planning to run in the Nagano area, told Kyodo.

The Olympic flame is lit last Thursday in a handover ceremony in Athens, Greece. Flown to Japan, it arrived the next day to a country that Tuesday had 1,128 confirmed cases and 42 deaths attributed to the coronavirus. ARIS MESSINIS/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The Tokyo Games and the relay have been caught in limbo since International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said four weeks were needed to decide on an inevitable postponement of the planned opening on July 24. He has ruled out a cancellation.

Kyodo says the new name to replace "Torch Relay'' will be "Torch Visits.'' Under any name, it could be a very short event -- or the longest if it runs into 2021.

The Canadian and the Australian Olympic committees have already they will not send teams if the event remains scheduled for July. Other nations have followed suit, forcing the IOC and Japanese organizers to adjust plans, but create a mild farce as they attempt to hold on to others.

The Australian Olympic Committee is a bellwether. Its president is John Coates, a close ally of Bach, and also the head of an IOC inspection team that has visited Japan dozens of times. Coates is self-quarantined because of the virus, but his CEO Matt Carroll stated Australia's position on Monday after a teleconference with the executive board.

"We have decided a plan towards hosting of the games in 2021 in Tokyo,'' Carroll said.

Australia's official statement says "Australian athletes should prepare for a Tokyo Olympic Games in the northern summer of 2021.''

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1 Related

The four-week waiting period will sort out the details for a decision that's likely already been reached -- at least by several large national Olympic committees. Now the IOC needs time to negotiate with broadcasters and sponsors, and also convince Japan to come along.

As of Tuesday, Japan had 1,128 confirmed cases and 42 deaths attributed to the coronavirus. The situation in Japan seems almost normal with ordinary daily activity continuing, a stark contrast to Europe and the United States.

The IOC had income of $5.7 billion in the last four-year Olympic cycle (2013-2016), and 73% was from selling broadcast rights. About half of that comes from U.S. network NBC. The IOC also has reserve funds of about $2 billion and insurance to cover loses.

Japan is footing most of the bills for hosting the games, and is likely to pay most of the added costs. Details of the agreement signed in 2013 between the IOC and Japan is available in the 81-page Host City Contract.

Japanese organizers say officially they are spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics, but a national audit says it's at least twice that much. The expenditures are all public money except $5.6 billion in a privately funded organizing committee operating budget.

Bent Flyvbjerg, an author of "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games,'' described the IOC as a "monopoly'' in an email to the Associated Press and said it needs to be regulated and share more of the costs.

He said the IOC needs to "pick up a larger part of the bill for the games, which the IOC profits from. It is an economically unhealthy arrangement, which generates all sorts of inefficiencies and waste.''

He added: "Tokyo and Japan will pick up the added cost, unless the IOC makes an exception and expands the reserve fund, which is what the IOC should do from an ethics point of view.''

Flyvbjerg's study has found the Olympics have the ``highest average cost overrun of any type of mega-project."

In the study, Flyvbjerg wrote: "For a city and nation to decide to stage the Olympic Games is to decide to take on one of the most costly and financially most risky type of mega-project that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril."

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2020-03-24 07:36:03Z
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