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, perIan Rapoportof NFL Network. The team also reportedly signed former XFL quarterback P.J. Walker, per ESPN'sDavid Newton.
Jourdan Rodrigueof The Athletic first reported the likelihood of Newton's release as the team struggled to trade the veteran.
Rapoportnoted 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 anInstagrampost.
Newton will get a chance to restart his career once he is released.
The30-year-oldhad 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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.''
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."
Veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told USA TODAY Sports on Monday afternoon that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are going to be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
Pound, a Canadian who has been one of the most influential members of the IOC for decades, said the Games will likely be moved to 2021, with the details to be worked out in the next four weeks. He said he expects the IOC to announce its next steps soon.
“It will come in stages,” said Pound, 78, the longest-serving IOC member. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”
Neither the IOC nor the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee had announced a decision to postpone as of Monday afternoon.
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WARNING: Health experts warn holding 2020 Summer Games too soon risks spreading coronavirus more
When informed of Pound's comments and asked for an IOC response, spokesman Mark Adams said, "It is the right of every IOC member to interpret the decision of the IOC executive board which was announced (Sunday)."
In that announcement Sunday, IOC president Thomas Bach indicated, for the first time, that postponing the Tokyo Games would be a possibility.
In a letter to the athlete community, he wrote that the IOC would begin exploring alternate ways to stage the Games, including postponement, and plan to reach a decision within the next four weeks. He emphasized that the IOC has ruled out canceling the Games, a stance that was reiterated by key Japanese officials – including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – on Monday.
Representatives of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee did not immediately reply to an email from USA TODAY Sports seeking a response to Pound's comments.
The Olympics would be the latest – and, by far, most significant – sporting event to date to fall victim to the coronavirus, which was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December. Also known as COVID-19, the virus rapidly spread throughout China and across the world in subsequent months, infecting hundreds of thousands of people and causing major disruptions to daily life in numerous countries.
The spread of the coronavirus also has interrupted Olympic qualification procedures and severely affected training regimens, prompting athletes and sports governing bodies around the world to call for the Games' postponement.
"I would have real moral objections, if the situation was the same as it was today, to competing,” swimmer and five-time Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian told USA TODAY Sports on Friday.
Pressure mounted over the weekend as World Athletics, the international federation that oversees track and field, publicly called for the Games to be postponed. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees then took matters to another level Sunday night by announcing they will not send a delegation of athletes to the Tokyo Games unless they were postponed.
Within the next 12 hours, Australia's Olympic Committee released a similar but more ambiguous statement, explaining that its executive board had agreed that "an Australian team could not be assembled in the changing circumstances at home and abroad." And the German Olympic Committee joined its counterparts in Brazil and Norway, among other countries, in publicly urging the IOC to postpone the Games.
The decision to postpone, when finalized and announced by the IOC, will mark a significant milestone. It would the first time the Olympics have been suspended, though the Games have been canceled in times of war.
The 1916 Summer Games were canceled because of World War I, as were the Summer and Winter Games in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II. Boycotts also caused serious complications for the Games in 1976, 1980 and 1984. But in each case, the event itself went on as scheduled.
"I’ve had so many calls with athletes who have been in tears trying to train for their ultimate dream but not wanting to jeopardize their health," American hurdler Lolo Jones wrote on Twitter after Pound's comments. "This was the right thing to do. May the world heal."
Veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told USA TODAY Sports Monday afternoon that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are going to be postponed, likely to 2021, with the details to be worked out in the next four weeks.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
Pound, a Canadian who has been one of the most influential members of the IOC for decades, said he believes the IOC will announce its next steps soon.
“It will come in stages,” he said. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”
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WARNING: Health experts warn holding 2020 Summer Games too soon risks spreading coronavirus more
When told what Pound had said and asked for an IOC response, spokesperson Mark Adams said, via text, "Well, as we announced yesterday, we are looking at scenarios."
On Sunday, IOC President Thomas Bach said he was going to take the next four weeks to decide the fate of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to begin July 24. Bach has ruled out canceling the Games.
The Olympics would be the latest – and, by far, most significant – sporting event to be impacted by the coronavirus, which was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December. Also known as COVID-19, the virus rapidly spread throughout China and across the world in subsequent months, infecting hundreds of thousands of people and causing substantial disruptions to daily life in numerous countries.
Pound's comments came less than 24 hours after IOC president Thomas Bach indicated, for the first time, that postponing the Tokyo Games would be a possibility. In a letter to the athlete community, he said the IOC would begin exploring alternate ways to stage the Games, including postponement, and plan to reach a decision within the next four weeks.
In the hours thereafter, however, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees said they will not send a delegation of athletes to the Tokyo Games unless they are postponed. Australia then alluded to something similar, but in a less direct way. It said the executive board of its Olympic committee agreed that "an Australian team could not be assembled in the changing circumstances at home and abroad."
By Monday morning, the German Olympic Committee had joined its counterparts in Brazil and Norway, among other countries, in publicly urging the IOC to postpone the Olympics.
This would the first time the Olympics have been suspended, though they have been canceled previously during periods of war. The 1916 Summer Games were canceled because of World War I, as were the Summer and Winter Games in 1940 and 1944, due to World War II.
Boycotts also caused serious complications for the Games in 1976, 1980 and 1984. But in each case, the event itself went on as scheduled.
The first wave of NFL free agency truly reshuffled the league deck, with the quarterback position -- per usual -- playing a leading role. Tom Brady's a Buccaneer, Philip Rivers is a Colt, Teddy Bridgewater's a Panther, Nick Foles is a Bear and Marcus Mariota's a Raider. So, what's next at the game's most important position?
Now that the dust is settling on the frenzied portion of free agency, I'm thinking about possible homes for the top quarterbacks in the 2020 NFL Draft. Who fits where? Feels like a perfect time to explore prospect-team pairings.
Before I play matchmaker, though, I want to address one team that you won't find attached to a QB below: the New England Patriots. Obviously, everyone's wondering how New England will replace Brady. But personally, I don't see Bill Belichick and Co. drafting a QB early. I've been told the Pats are very high on Jarrett Stidham, expecting the 2019 fourth-rounder to be their guy next season and into the foreseeable future.
So, with that out of the way, let's get to some hypothetical marriages that would make plenty of sense:
The Bengals are poised to land Andy Dalton's replacement in the 2020 NFL Draft. All signs continue to point to Burrow. A couple months back, there were rumors and chatter about Burrow potentially trying to persuade the Bengals to avoid picking him. I can't see that happening. He is a perfect fit for Zac Taylor's offense and his leadership will be essential in turning around the organization.
One thing to keep in mind: I won't be surprised if the Bengals ultimately decide to hold onto Dalton. Seeing how COVID-19 figures to have a significant impact on the NFL offseason, Dalton's presence would allow the Bengals to avoid rushing Burrow onto the playing field before he's comfortable in his new setting.
The Dolphins were very aggressive in free agency, addressing several needs on their roster. One area they didn't address: quarterback. Bucky Brooks and I had a good chat with Dolphins GM Chris Grier during the NFL Scouting Combine. He mentioned to us that his player personnel staff had spent time studying the QB crop in the 2021 class, as well as the current one. This led us to believe there was an outside chance they could address other needs in this year's draft and pursue their signal-caller in next year's class. Scratch that theory off the list. They've greatly improved their roster with an aggressive free agency approach that will likely take them out of the running for a top pick in the 2021 draft.
I've been told by trusted personnel sources around the league that the Dolphins have strong grades on Burrow, Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert. I could see them attempting to move up for Burrow, but I seriously doubt the Bengals will trade the top pick. It's not hard to imagine the Fins making a move up to the No. 3 slot in order to land their preferred choice between Tagovailoa and Herbert. However, I'm not certain which player will top their list. I'll stick with Tagovailoa under the assumption the Dolphins are comfortable with his recovery from hip surgery.
The Chargers made a strong play for Tom Brady, but ultimately lost out to Tampa Bay last week. There have been credible reports -- including one from NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport -- that the Bolts will not pursue any other veteran options (Cam Newton and Jameis Winston are still available) at this time. Head coach Anthony Lynn has a strong affection for Tyrod Taylor, after their experience together in Buffalo. He appears to be the bridge QB to whomever they select in the upcoming draft.
Tagovailoa would be the home run selection, if he were to fall to the Chargers at No. 6. I won't be surprised if Los Angeles looks to aggressively move up and snag the Alabama product. However, here's the problem: If the Bolts get into a bidding war with the Dolphins, Miami has considerably more ammo (draft currency). Herbert would seem to be the most likely option if L.A. sits and picks at 6. He could sit behind Taylor until he's ready to go, either later in the 2020 season or at the beginning of the 2021 campaign.
I won't be shocked if Love goes in the top 10. I also won't be surprised if he falls to the bottom of the first round. Grades are all over the place on the Utah State product. He is the most talented natural thrower in the entire draft. However, due to a variety of circumstances (losing a number of starters, dealing with a new coaching staff and scheme, etc.) his play dramatically fell off this past season. He will need some time to sit and develop, but the payoff could be huge.
Prior to free agency, I felt like his sweet spot was between Pick Nos. 7 and 14. Things have changed since then. The Panthers, picking seventh, have signed Teddy Bridgewater and appear set at the position for the next few years. The Colts, initially picking 13th, traded their top selection to the 49ers for DL DeForest Buckner. That takes another potential landing spot off the table. The Bucs, picking 14th, signed Tom Brady. Logically, signing a soon-to-be 43-year-old QB shouldn't preclude anyone from taking another signal-caller in the first round. However, you don't sign Brady without making an all-out effort to chase a championship in the next two years. Plus, there's an intriguing option that likely won't cost them a first-round selection (see below). That's why I think there's a good chance Love could begin to slide.
Enter the Packers, currently holding the No. 30 pick. Aaron Rodgers is still playing at an elite level. That said, he's 36 years old and there has been some minor slippage in his performance. Green Bay has been blessed to have stability at the position for nearly three decades with Rodgers and Brett Favre. If a talented player like Love slides to the Pack, I think they will pull the trigger and take their time developing Rodgers' eventual replacement. This could lead to another 15-plus years of stability at the position.
As I mentioned above, the Bucs won the Tom Brady sweepstakes in free agency. For this reason, I believe they will give him some help (likely on the defensive side of the ball) in the first round. However, I could see them targeting a quarterback in the second round to eventually take over for Brady. Everyone I've spoken to about Eason believes he'll end up in Tampa Bay. His big arm is a great fit for Bruce Arians' offense and he would be afforded the luxury of time to develop behind Brady. In a perfect world, Eason would sit for two seasons before Brady retires and hands him the reins to the offense.
Hurts is the one quarterback who keeps me up at night. He still has some improvement to make as a passer -- mostly, his ability to throw with anticipation -- but there's a lot to like in this prospect, both as a player and as a competitor. He has the arm strength to make every throw on the field. He can extend plays with his legs and create big plays both throwing and running. He is very smart and his competitive spirit is outstanding. He embodies a lot of what the Raiders have tried to build since Mike Mayock took over as general manager.
The Raiders made an interesting acquisition when they inked Marcus Mariota to a deal in free agency. They made it clear to Mariota that he was coming in as the No. 2 quarterback. He'll have a chance to revitalize his career if Derek Carr takes a step back this fall. However, I still expect Las Vegas to bring in a quarterback in the draft. Hurts will likely go in the second round. The Raiders don't currently own a second-round pick, but I could see them trading out of one of their first-round selections to secure more draft capital.
Fromm is a fascinating evaluation. He doesn't possess a huge arm or special athleticism. His statistics don't jump off the page, but he won a bunch of games at Georgia. He's lauded for his intelligence and leadership. I asked a handful of teams which quarterback was the most impressive in their combine interview and every single one of them mentioned Fromm at or near the top of the list. His physical limitations will limit the number of teams interested in him, but I believe someone will fall in love and take him in the second or third round.
I would love to see him sit and learn behind Drew Brees in New Orleans. Sean Payton has always valued the strengths in a quarterback like Fromm -- smarts, accuracy and decision-making. If not the Saints, I could see the Colts or Raiders being a good landing spot for the Georgia product.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were able to land the quarterback they desired in free agency with Tom Brady. Going after Brady as their next quarterback was a calculated risk for the Buccaneers and turned out to be a great reward. But what if Tampa Bay was unable to convince Brady to come to Florida? Would the Buccaneers have just went back to Jameis Winston? The Buccaneers had a plan in place in case they couldn't land Brady, and as NBC's Peter King pointed out in his weekly Football Morning In America column, Winston wasn't even "Plan B."
Teddy Bridgewater was the quarterback the Buccaneers were going to pursue in free agency if they couldn't land Brady. Winston was in the plans, but he was No. 3 on their priority list. However, being the third option didn't mean Winston was out as Tampa's quarterback since the Los Angeles Chargers were in the running for Brady and Bridgewater had a few teams (Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers) reportedly interested in him.
Bridgewater ended up choosing Carolina, so there was a chance Winston could still end up in Tampa if Brady expressed a desire to go out west. Even if Winston did end up back with the Buccaneers, he was the fallback option.
"Arians loved him as a worker and competitor, and he had hope that he could be saved, and he knew the locker room loved him," King wrote in the column. Tampa couldn't pass up the opportunity to get arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, even if Brady will be 43 in August.
It's hard to blame the Buccaneers for wanting to move on from Winston and try another option at quarterback. Winston had five seasons in Tampa Bay and finished with 111 turnovers (88 interceptions, 23 lost fumbles) in just 72 games. Even though Winston completed 61.6% of his passes, threw for 19,737 yards and 121 touchdowns in his five seasons with Tampa (86.9 rating), the Buccaneers failed to make the playoffs and had just one winning season with Winston as the starting quarterback.
Tampa Bay hasn't made the postseason since 2007 and hasn't won a playoff game since Super Bowl XXXVII (in the 2002 season). The 12-year postseason drought is the second-longest in the NFL (behind the Cleveland Browns at 17 years).
The Buccaneers needed a spark to help resurrect their franchise. What better way to reinvigorate a franchise and its fanbase than Brady?
No disrespect to Winston, but his time in Tampa had run its course.
In case you've been sleeping under a rather sizable rock that also happened to lack wifi, you might've heard Tom Brady decided to swiftly end his first stint in NFL free agency by signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, having only one demand of the team in the process; . What you haven't heard yet, however, is how All-Pro wide receiver Mike Evans feels about it. It's a foregone conclusion the 26-year-old would be elated at the thought of catching passes from a six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback, and that is very much the case, with Evans -- it apparently just hasn't sunk in yet.
After all, he's spent the last five seasons of his six-season NFL career playing with longtime friend Jameis Winston, and this is a massive changing of the guard in Central Florida. And while several of Brady's new teammates have voiced their elation via social media, Evans has been absent in that regard, but don't treat his silence as anything but simply that.
In a recent Twitch session, while he enjoyed a game of Fortnite, he finally said his piece.
"It's surreal," Evans said, via The Tampa Bay Times. "He's about to be my quarterback, man. I know you don't know football like that, but I've played six years in the NFL, and I haven't been to the playoffs yet. Tom Brady has won six Super Bowls."
Evans even had a toast to the news.
"Bro, I've been on that Hennessy, man," he said. "I'm drinking -- I've got Tom Brady, you know what I'm saying?"
Winston is still believed by some to be a QB with potential, despite his historically bad 2019 season that saw him rack up 33 interceptions to 30 touchdowns. Although Brady himself had a down year in his final year with the New England Patriots, many attribute that to a lack of talent around him, and the 42-year-old was often seen pleading with his wide receivers to give better effort and to produce when the team needed it most. Neither of those things ever happened, and Brady's production took a big hit because of it -- en route to the Patriots being upset by the Tennessee Titans in the AFC wild card.
Head coach Bruce Arians and general manager Jason Licht believe with a player like Evans as Brady's top receiving weapon, he'll return to form in 2020. Evans hasn't had a single season below 1,000 yards in six campaigns and is only one season removed from a career-best 1,524-yard explosion. Brady hasn't had that sort of talent on hand in years, and the two should have no trouble hitting the ground running.
Unlike the gun-slinging Winston, Brady's surgical approach to offense is what's garnered him not only the aforementioned six Super Bowl rings, but also four Super Bowl MVP awards, 14 Pro Bowl nods, three league MVP honors, five All-Pro designations, and a slew of other salutes. That's a resume Winston -- along with every other quarterback in NFL history -- can only dream of, and now it's the one behind center throwing passes to Evans.
Walker will become the first XFL player to join an NFL team since the upstart football league announced Friday that its inaugural season had been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The signing will reunite Walker with Panthers first-year coach Matt Rhule, who coached Walker for four years at Temple.
The 5-foot-11 Walker was one of the XFL's top players this season and led the Houston Roughnecks to a 5-0 record. He led the league in passing yards (1,338 yards) and touchdown passes (15).
Walker joins a Panthers team that is in the midst of a transition at quarterback as Rhule prepares for his first season in the NFL. The Panthers have agreed to sign Teddy Bridgewater while allowing former NFL MVP Cam Newton to explore options for a trade.
Walker, 25, was one of the best players in Temple history and led the Owls to back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2015 and 2016. He is the school's all-time leader in virtually every passing statistic, including yards (10,668), touchdowns (74) and completions (830).
Temple went 28-19 in games started by Walker, who was the starting quarterback for all 28 of Rhule's wins at the school.
Free agency is finally here and our most recent mock draft (it's No. 29, if you're counting) reflects all the changes that have unfolded in the last week.
Not surprisingly, quarterbacks remain the storyline below, with four going in Round 1, another going in Round 2 and two more coming off the board in Round 3. (This is the first time this draft season we've had seven QBs selected, but the Patriots take a third-round flier on one after watching Tom Brady sign with the Buccaneers.)
Keep reading to see how the other 99 picks end up.
Free agency is finally here and our most recent mock draft (it's No. 29, if you're counting) reflects all the changes that have unfolded in the last week.
Not surprisingly, quarterbacks remain the storyline below, with four going in Round 1, another going in Round 2 and two more coming off the board in Round 3. (This is the first time this draft season we've had seven QBs selected, but the Patriots take a third-round flier on one after watching Tom Brady sign with the Buccaneers.)
Keep reading to see how the other 99 picks end up.
A man stands in front of a countdown display for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, on Monday. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged that a postponement of the crown jewel of the sporting world could be unavoidable.
Jae C. Hong/AP
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Jae C. Hong/AP
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finally conceded that the COVID-19 epidemic might force the postponement of this summer's Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to start four months from now.
Speaking before Parliament, Abe reacted to a Sunday statement by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which said that over the next four weeks it would consider alternative scenarios for the Games, including postponement, but not cancellation.
"This decision by IOC is in line with what I have said, about holding the games in their entirety," he told lawmakers. "In case this becomes difficult, in order to make the athletes our top priority, we may have no choice but to decide to postpone the Games."
Hinting at the dilemma, organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said mulling postponement or any other alternative scenario is "not easy."
For weeks, Japan's government and the IOC stoically clung to the position that any change in the Olympic schedule was unthinkable.
In an interview ahead of the IOC's weekend statement, sports journalist Nobuya Kobayashi said that the government's impassive facade should be taken with a grain of salt. "The government surely recognizes the possibility of cancellation, but they can never admit it," he said.
Japan has more than 1,800 COVID-19 cases, including those that were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Athletes from many nations have been demanding clarification from Japan and the IOC, as their qualifying trials and training camps have been canceled. Sunday, Canada said its athletes would not participate in the Games, unless they were postponed.
But the costs of rescheduling or canceling the games could be enormous. Japan has invested, by some estimates, $28 billion in infrastructure and preparations, while Japanese corporations have sunk billions into sponsorship deals, marketing and advertising.
This week, organizers must decide whether to proceed with the Olympic torch relay. It is set to start on Thursday in northeast Japan's Fukushima prefecture, at a ceremony without spectators.
Chie Kobayashi in Tokyo contributed to this piece.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged for the first time on Monday that the Summer Olympic Games could be delayed due to the coronavirus as countries began threatening to keep their athletes at home.
"If it’s difficult to proceed in its complete form, then we must think about the athletes first and consider postponing," Abe told Parliament.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee told reporters it would not make a final decision for another four weeks.
March 21, 202001:05
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Organizers need to model how delays of one, three and five months would affect the availability of venues and develop contingency plans, committee president Mori Yoshiro said.
"Cancellation would not solve any problem and would help nobody," the international committee's president, Thomas Bach, said Sunday. He added that canceling the games would "destroy" the dreams of 11,000 athletes from around the world.
The games are scheduled to begin July 24. The budget for staging the event has been set to $12.6 billion, organizers have said.
Later on Monday, President Donald Trump praised Japan's preparation for the Olympics, saying the U.S. would follow Abe's lead on deciding whether its athletes would attend the event.
We will be guided by the wishes of Prime Minister Abe of Japan, a great friend of the United States and a man who has done a magnificent job on the Olympic Venue, as to attending the Olympic Games in Japan. He will make the proper decision!
Canada and Australia announced Sunday that they would not send athletes if the games were not delayed. "This is not solely about athlete health — this is about public health," the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committee said while urging organizers to postpone the event for one year.
March 23, 202001:02
The Olympic torch arrived in northern Japan last Friday. Tokyo 2020 director general Muto Toshiro said the torch relay, slated to begin on March 26, will still go ahead.
Japan's Health Ministry reported 1,801 confirmed cases of the virus on Monday, including 712 from a cruise ship, with 49 deaths.
Worldwide, more than 335,000 people have been infected and more than 14,600 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Linda Givetash
Linda Givetash is a London-based producer for NBC News.
Arata Yamamoto
Arata Yamamoto has been a NBC News producer in Tokyo since 1993.
Inside the Buccaneers' decision to chase the greatest quarterback of all-time, and the conversation when they knew it was a done deal. Plus, details surrounding the trades of two high-profile wide receivers, the new-look Colts and more from a strange week in the NFL amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
A transaction this big is always delicate, and so there were moments of disbelief along the way this week—a week that seemed more like a month—for Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians and GM Jason Licht.
By Wednesday afternoon, of course, they knew. I knew. You knew.
But nerves lingered among the handful of guys who were in the office over a tense few days. They were trying to sign Tom Brady, after all, and landing an icon of that level brought the promise that everything from the team’s ability to convert on third down and in the red zone, to the national perception of the franchise was about to change. And then Brady, in the midst of a 90-minute call with Licht and Arians, coolly broke the unrest.
Hey babe, we’re gonna have a lot of fun. This is gonna be a lot of fun.
There was maybe an hour left in that conversation, and still plenty to discuss after Licht handed the phone over to Arians. But as for moments they’ll remember a few years down the line, that was one for the guys in charge in Tampa. It was done.
Brady was about to become a Buccaneer, something that would’ve been hard to fathom when the quarterback left the Gillette Stadium FieldTurf for the last time two months ago, and an idea even Licht and Arians themselves saw as more of a far-fetched hypothetical than real plan for replacing Jameis Winston until last month.
And so it was that when Arians hung up with Brady Wednesday night, he turned and said to Licht, “I think we have a quarterback.”
The Bucs didn’t just get a quarterback; they got the greatest one to ever play. What he’s got left, and he’ll be 43 on opening day, remains to be seen—as does what becomes of the great Patriot dynasty he leaves behind. All the elements of what’s ahead will be fascinating, and we’ll have plenty of time to discuss them.
Here, we’re gonna tell you the story of how the Bucs got here, how months and months of work built toward a tense few days, and how it was capped with an unlikely ending: a franchise that ranks 32nd in all-time win percentage landing a historical No. 1.
***
As the rest of the world shut down, the NFL, for better or worse, kept chugging along. So we did too, and the result, in this week’s MMQB, will be…
• A look at Brady’s final days as a Patriot
• Deep insight into both sides of the Stefon Diggs trade
• A real look at why DeAndre Hopkins is no longer a Texan
• How you should process an aggressive week from the Colts
But we’re starting with the week that everything changed, from a football perspective, on Florida’s gulf coast.
***
After the Bucs went through final cuts as they assembled Arians’s first 53-man roster over Labor Day Weekend in 2019, one thing jumped right off the page at the personnel staff in its plans for the future: There was just one quarterback under contract for 2020, and none under contract for 2021. That one was Ryan Griffen, a career backup set to turn 30 in November.
So while the hope was still there for the Bucs that Winston would break through under Arians, and that Tampa would be re-upping with him before March, Licht, director of player personnel John Spytek and director of pro scouting Rob McCartney had to prepare for that not to happen. Which set into motion those three, and the team’s pro scouts, monitoring quarterbacks on expiring deals, and guys who could be available via trade in 2020.
That part of the process is fairly standard for a personnel department trying to anticipate a future need, even if the stakes are raised when such a need is at quarterback. And that just positioned the Bucs to consider life without Winston.
How did the scouts see Brady? They went back a couple years to trace regression in Brady’s arm strength, and didn’t see a discernible difference in that department in 2019, as compared to ’17 or ’18. He was still poised and patient and had great feel in the pocket. In fact, if one thing stuck out, and Licht did two tours as a New England personnel man, it was that what Brady was running, because of attrition around him, didn’t look like the Patriots’ offense.
That made it a little bit of a tougher evaluation. Still, it stood out that New England was producing despite all that—and showed that Brady remained capable of elevating his teammates to the point where an undermanned unit ranked 15th in total offense and seventh in scoring. And while Licht doubted Brady would make it to the market (Arians was more optimistic on that all along), there was resolve in the front office that the Patriots’ QB could still play.
The season ended with Winston throwing for more passing yards than anyone else in the NFL—and throwing 30 picks. The stage was set.
Offseason, Week 1
Arians’s message to his players in their December 30 breakup meeting was direct: We’re a playoff team if this turnover ratio flips next year. Indeed, Tampa ranked 28th in that category in 2019, with a minus-13. And while Arians wasn’t pointing fingers in that auditorium, it wasn’t hard to find the facts. The Bucs had 41 turnovers. Winston was directly involved in 35 of them, with the 30 picks and five lost fumbles.
The players left the room and the coaches finished up work that week, and that Saturday night, Brady and the Patriots hosted the Titans in the wild-card round. It caught more than one staffer’s attention how the broadcast ended, with Jim Nantz and Tony Romo raising the issue of Brady’s future, how he’d structured his contract and how they’d expected he’d be playing in 2020 but not necessarily with New England. The seed was planted.
The coaches took two weeks off, then reconvened a couple weeks before the Super Bowl. Arians had an assignment for offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, QBs coach Clyde Christensen and offensive consultant Tom Moore: Spend the rest of January breaking down the 2019 tape of a group of seven or eight available quarterbacks, with Philip Rivers, Ryan Tannehill, Teddy Bridgewater and Andy Dalton among them. Then go back and look at some of 2018 too, and come back with a list of which ones are better options than Winston.
Arians got to work himself, looking at about half the film the other three did, but doing it with more purpose, because he knew exactly what he was looking for. And Licht directed his scouts to do what he planned to and keep their opinions to themselves, so the coaches’ reports would be untainted.
The coaches and scouts then gathered for planning meetings just after the Super Bowl. The consensus top three among Arians’s staff and among Licht’s staff were the same. And the coaches felt like two quarterbacks in the group would be worth moving on from Winston for. Brady was one of the two.
Assessing the fit
Arians’s report back was similar to Licht’s. As he looked at Brady’s tape, the veteran coach—who’d historically worked with big-armed Clydesdales like Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer and Andrew Luck—saw a quarterback who could make every throw his offense required.
He also saw where Brady was being held back. The feeling was that with more speed and explosiveness around him—which the Bucs could give him with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, O.J. Howard and Cam Brate—Brady wouldn’t be forced to hold the ball like he had his last year in New England, where he had slower skill position talent on hand.
Arians has a saying with his quarterbacks that’s well-worn in football circles: You never go broke putting money in the bank. It took a while for it to register with Winston. Conversely, that mindset basically explains Brady’s point guard–like approach to the position. And where some saw Arians’s bombs-away style as a weird fit for Brady, the coaches saw where they could have Brady putting that money in the bank, hitting faster receivers on the move, running through zones rather than sitting stationary in them.
That, of course, isn’t to say one way is better than the other. Brady’s success in the Patriots offense over the last 20 years, with scores of heady receivers hooking up underneath based on coverage, speaks for itself. This, though, could be something new and exciting for Brady, that would work within Arians’s offense, and accentuate the quarterback’s strengths as a distributor.
And as all this indicates, the wheels were turning on how the whole thing would look.
The legal tampering period
The Bucs didn’t waste time reaching out to Brady’s camp, with the focus, by Monday, on landing the new free agent. Brady was still a day away from announcing his departure from New England, and thus there was still plenty of speculation that the Patriots and their resident legend would reconcile at the 11th hour. But the signals Tampa got from Brady’s people indicated otherwise.
“You made a very good decision to call,” agent Don Yee told the Bucs. And that conversation led the Bucs to believe that money wasn’t really a huge of concern of Brady’s—mostly because it didn’t come up in that initial talk. In fact, all Yee said was that there were boxes that needed to be checked, and Tampa appeared to be checking them.
Yee did, of course, eventually lay out terms to the Bucs, and he would to the Chargers too. Brady wanted a two-year commitment, backed by guarantees. He had a rough ask for $30 million per year, but that was flexible. The big thing was he wanted to allow for his new team to add to its roster where it saw fit.
The deal that wound up being hammered out reflects all that. Brady has a $10 million roster bonus and $15 million base in each year, all of it fully guaranteed. And in both years (we’ll detail this later in the column), he got $2.25 million in performance incentives, and $2.25 million in playoff-related incentives. That means he’s assured of $25 million in each year, with the chance to get to $29.5 million.
Knowing where he’ll be the next two years was important for Brady (hence, the no-trade clause). But the Bucs also never got the feeling that doing the deal this way put a hard end date on Brady’s career—he seemed pretty open, in fact, to the idea of continuing to play for more than two years (hence the no-tag clause in the contract).
The start of the league year
Now, we can get back to the phone call. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, very few staffers were in the office on Wednesday, as the league year began—Licht, Arians, Spytek and cap czar Mike Greenberg were among them. And even if the whole thing was 99% of the way over the goal line, the conversation was one that nobody involved will soon forget.
Arians and Licht were taken aback a bit by the level of research Brady had done, having thoroughly studied the Bucs’ offense and personnel, while explaining, then showing, that he’d kept an eye on Arians’s offense through the years. Licht loved the thought that went into what Brady was saying. Arians got juiced listening to the quarterback’s enthusiasm—to the point where it almost seemed like Brady was selling himself to the Bucs.
Of course, he didn’t need to, and groundwork for how the whole thing would work was being laid. For one, the terminology in Tampa won’t change much based on a premise, which Brady agreed with, that it’ll be much easier for a high-level learner like Brady to pick up something new than it would be for more than 20 other players to adjust to him. But that doesn’t mean Arians won’t change some things.
With Palmer, who was 33 when he started working with Arians in Arizona, there was a fairly simple process of melding what the quarterback knew with what the coach would do. Palmer might have said, “We used to do it like this.” And Arians might have responded, “Actually we stopped doing that because it caused this problem.” In other cases, Palmer would give Arians a concept he loved. Arians might have said, “Yup, we have something just like that.” Or they’d adjust to Palmer. (That came into play, in particular, in third-down and red-zone concepts.)
The idea of it was to collaborate with the quarterback, while keeping the offense simple for everyone else in it. Palmer wound up loving that part of it, and Brady indicated to the Bucs, after going through it, that the idea of that was one of things he was most excited about.
Oh, and as for how excited Brady is? If things improve in our country in time for there to be OTAs this year, the Bucs expect him to be there—after he missed those his last two years in New England.
Done deal
Arians faced Brady twice as a Browns assistant, six times with the Steelers and once with Colts. And even though it’s been seven years since they shared a field, memories he’s got burned in his head from field level over those years—of No. 12 dropping dimes, fist pumping and getting after teammates—give him a pretty good tell on the competitor he’s getting, just the kind he wants. And the kind that, by the way, won seven of those nine games.
Licht, through two tours in New England, had just a casual relationship with Brady over the years. But what he saw in Foxboro over the six seasons they both worked there isn’t hard to recall (Spytek saw it, too, in his time as a Michigan teammate of Brady’s). The bar, in Tampa, is about to be set a little bit higher—and the excitement that other players expressed to the staff over the last few days indicates everyone’s ready for it.
Is age a concern? It’d be hard for it not to be. But the Bucs are banking on a quarterback that they view as of a different breed, who’s already broken old norms by winning championships at 37, 39 and 41 years old. And the hope here is that he’ll leave a legacy in Tampa, in setting a new standard, that’ll last for far longer than he plays.
And yes, all of this is just the ideal that Tampa’s chasing in adding Brady.
Either way, as Brady himself said, seeing how it all turns out should be a lot of fun.
***
Belichick called Brady a “special person” as well as “the greatest quarterback of all-time.”
Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports
BRADY'S NEW CONTRACT AND HIS OLD COACH
Here is the breakdown of the two-year, $50 million contract that Brady signed …
2020: $10 million roster bonus, $15 million base, $4.5 million in incentives. 2021: $10 million roster bonus, $15 million base, $4.5 million in incentives.
Performance incentives (in each year): $562.5K each for a top 5 finish in passer rating, yards, TDs, completion percentage and yards/attempt, capped at $2.25 million.
Team incentives (in each year): $500K for playoffs, $750K for a playoff win, $1.25 million for making the NFC title game, $1.75 million for making the Super Bowl, $2.25 million for winning the Super Bowl.
A minimum of 224 attempts is required for performance incentives, and 75% playing time for team incentives.
There are two interesting things here. First, the gross total of the deal, $50 million, is actually less than that of the Patriots’ extension offer last summer (that was $53 million over two). The difference? Brady’s money is guaranteed this time, and that’s really what he wanted from New England eight months ago—an assurance for the years he was signing for. Second, those incentives are very similar to the ones he had in 2018 with the Patriots, when the team built them into his deal in lieu of giving him a raise.
And that doesn’t feel like an accident. It feels more like a driving home of the point he’s tried to make before, that it was more about a team’s commitment to him than it was about the raw dollar amount in the contract, something that permeated Brady’s final days as a Patriot.
It was right after the first of the month, right after the combine on March 2 or 3, when Belichick and Brady had that ballyhooed phone conversation. Whether you want to believe it was business as usual, or where things really went wrong, what we know now is that it was the final substantive discussion between team and player about Brady continuing forward with the team.
And I’ll say what I was saying at the time: I do believe there were terms under which Brady would’ve returned, and terms under which Belichick would’ve had him back. But my sense is that Brady learned that day that the terms for each didn’t match up, and maybe he knew that much, in the back of his mind, all the way back in August.
Either way, after they hung up, Brady wasn’t going to beg for his job back and Belichick wasn’t going to drive to his doorstep to recruit him. Which ultimately spelled the end for the most successful coach/quarterback partnership in NFL history, and maybe the most prosperous coach/player pairing in sports history.
So things are icy now.
But on that, I’ll leave you with this: Those two guys will be OK. Their careers will play out, and when it’s over they’ll reconcile. Why? Because there’s no one more disciplined at separating his personal and professional relationships than Belichick. And in a team-issued statement, you could see Belichick subtly moving Brady from one category to the other last week.
“I am extremely grateful for what he did for our team and for me personally,” Belichick wrote. “Sometimes in life, it takes some time to pass before truly appreciating something or someone but that has not been the case with Tom. He is a special person and the greatest quarterback of all-time."
There, Belichick was saying what he never would have said about Brady while Brady was on his team. But with Brady gone, Belichick was freed from his self-imposed policy to say what he’s probably felt for a long time. And it reminded me of a story Drew Bledsoe told me a few years back.
Bledsoe couldn’t stand Belichick, for obvious reasons, after all that went down in 2001, and didn’t go back to Foxboro for years after his retirement as a result. Then, in 2011, he was elected to the team Hall of Fame. As part of his trip for his induction, Bledsoe went out to a practice, and was nervous about seeing Belichick, not knowing what he’d say. And then, as he made his way to the field, he saw him.
Over came Belichick with a smile on his face. He asked about Bledsoe’s kids. He asked about his wife. He asked about his burgeoning wine company. He was warm and engaging, and a totally different guy than Bledsoe remembered playing for, and the two have been friendly since.
So somehow, despite all the animus the last couple years, I think Brady and Belichick will eventually look back on all this, laugh and probably tip a couple remembering how they used to dominate the hyper-competitive world of pro football.
***
HOW THE DIGGS DEAL HAPPENED SO FAST
I know we covered it earlier in the week, but the trade of Stefon Diggs from Minnesota to Buffalo continues to fascinate me. So here’s some more on the deal that sent Diggs to the Bills, packaged with a seventh-round pick, for first-, fifth- and sixth-rounders in this year’s draft, and a fourth-round pick in 2021.
• Diggs’s tweet on Monday, believe it or not, actually did spark talks. The receiver posted at 2:46 p.m. ET, in the wake of the Kirk Cousins extension: “It’s time for a new beginning.” The cryptic message led to a handful of teams calling Minnesota, which had all but put Diggs off-limits ahead of the trade deadline.
• The Bills had done their homework on Diggs, because they’d been aggressive with the Vikings before the trade deadline in October, calling several times about his availability. One thing that helped: Buffalo college scouting director Terrance Gray was working for the Vikings when Diggs was drafted, so he helped provide insight into what makes Diggs tick.
• The Bills reached out to the Vikings around 4 p.m. ET, about an hour and 15 minutes after Diggs’s tweet. In the fall, Minnesota had given off the vibe that it would’ve taken two 1s, or maybe a 1 and a 2 to pry Diggs away. After a few calls, it was clear the Vikings—mostly because this wasn’t an in-season situation—had softened just a little on their stance.
• After a few calls back and forth, the Vikings mentioned Percy Harvin as a model for the trade. In 2013, Minnesota got first-, third- and seventh-round picks from Seattle for Harvin. That was a little rich for the Bills’ blood, but they could get in the ballpark. In the 9 p.m. hour, the Vikings asked teams involved for their best offers.
• By then, the herd had been thinned. The Patriots were one suitor, but events of the day caused their interest to cool. Franchising Joe Thuney put cap space at a premium for New England. And as Brady’s departure started to look more likely, trading for a veteran receiver made less sense.
• At 9:45 p.m., the Bills called the Vikings back with the framework for what wound up being the deal. The logic for Buffalo? Emmanuel Sanders might’ve been the best free-agent option out there for the Bills at a need position, and Sanders was six-and-a-half years older. And if you packaged the picks involved—the Bills resolved not to deal a 3—then it only would’ve gotten Buffalo from 22 overall to about 18 or so, which might not be high enough to get a Jerry Jeudy or CeeDee Lamb in April.
• Diggs would be more ready than a rookie for Buffalo, and addressed specific needs beyond just the need at the position. The Bills’ inability to beat press coverage hurt the team down the stretch, particularly against New England and Baltimore. Diggs’s specialty? Beating corners 1-on-1 off the line. And he brings a big-play element that should help unlock Josh Allen’s most tantalizing trait—his howitzer of a right arm.
• The Vikings, conversely, have plenty of time to shore up what’s now a hole on the roster. The receiver class in this year’s draft is deep. With the 22nd and 25th picks, the Vikings can move up or down, and find someone to pair with Adam Thielen without having to do anything panicky.
• Cap-wise, this one works both ways. The Bills have a ton of space. The Vikings don’t. So Minnesota gets room to maneuver, maybe keep safety Anthony Harris (if the right trade doesn’t come along) and start to plan with young stars like Dalvin Cook. Buffalo, meanwhile, has been judicious with its financial flexibility, and this was a rare chance to get a good No. 1 receiver at a cut rate. The 25-year-old is signed for the next four years for just $47.5 million.
In the end, the deal worked for both sides. Which is probably why a deal prompted by a tweet was possible to do in about six hours.
***
WHY THE TEXANS HAD TO TRADE HOPKINS
Let me start here: I get the shock over the Texans’ return for DeAndre Hopkins. The Texans got a 2, took on David Johnson and his contract, and swapped 4s with the Cardinals, and Arizona walked away with a player who’s been first-team All-Pro three years running. And that doesn’t seem like much when you consider that Diggs and Odell Beckham fetched first-round picks, plus additional draft capital, and Brandin Cooks twice was traded for a 1.
But all that ignores the rest of the story, which explains why Houston couldn’t get more for a player of Hopkins’s caliber. So here’s that…
• Hopkins wasn’t looking for an extension; he was looking for a raise on his existing contract, which has three years left on it. And word other teams had gotten was that he wanted around what Julio Jones got, more than $20 million per year. If you’re the team trading him, that makes it exponentially more difficult to move even a star player—Antonio Brown would be Exhibit A there. Last year, the trade market for Brown crashed when it became clear he wanted a similar adjustment to what Hopkins is asking for. Brown wound up getting it. The $39 million he had left over the three remaining years of his contract was bumped to about $50 million, and that happened without any years being added to the deal. Which is why the Raiders were able to get him for a third- and fifth-round pick. Very few other teams were willing to do what they did.
• There was friction with Hopkins inside the organization, and really it had everything to do with Monday-to-Saturday. On Sundays, he was exemplary. The rest of the week, his practice habits (he didn’t practice much at all) became a problem, and because he was such a big star he had the ability to carry teammates in the wrong direction—guys who might not be able to turn it on come game day as easily as he could. And that was, if not easy, manageable. That said, it’s one thing to keep a guy who may not totally align with the program on an existing contract. It’s another to reward him with a new contract with three years left on that deal, and have to handle the message it sends to the locker room. And those intangible elements, by the way, are central to how EVP Jack Easterby is trying to help O’Brien rework the organization.
• The Texans have big contracts coming up. Deshaun Watson will eventually get paid, whether it’s this offseason or next. And if he’s not signed before Patrick Mahomes, then Houston will likely be negotiating with him at astronomical numbers, even compared to where the top of the QB market is now. Laremy Tunsil’s another big-box deal the team is working on, and an adjustment to Hopkins’s deal (Hopkins likely wasn’t showing up without one) would likely be considered in those negotiations, which will almost certainly make Tunsil the NFL’s highest-paid offensive lineman. And then there are others, like linebacker Zach Cunningham and (if healthy) receiver Will Fuller that the team needed flexibility to take care of.
• There’s also the argument over the value of a top receiver vs. other positions, and it’s worth noting that Sean Payton and Bill Belichick both traded away Brandin Cooks, the Steelers dealt Brown and the Giants probably aren’t looking back at the Odell Beckham trade with much regret. Receiver trades get a lot of attention because it’s much easier to judge how good they are versus, say, a left tackle or a pass-rusher. And usually the team shipping the receiver out gets grief—the Giants and Steelers sure did last year. The truth? The truth is it’s much easier to draw a correlation between winning and investment in the lines of scrimmage than between winning and having a great No. 1 receiver.
Now, all of this said, this might wind up being a disaster for Texans. I don’t know one way or the other. I’d just reason that the conventional wisdom being thrown around about the trade is more than a little shaky, given the conditions in place, and how big-time receiver deals have gone in the past.
And I’d say all that thinking that having Hopkins should great for Kyler Murray, and Kliff Kingsbury should be a better fit for Hopkins as a coach. I’m told this deal came out of the blue for the Cardinals; they didn’t even discuss it in Indy, and it’s a good gamble for them. Arizona’s just entering the window it has to spend with a quarterback on an affordable rookie contract, and the idea of Hopkins running through the secondary on scramble plays with Murray holding the trigger is a scary one, for sure.
But if we’re calling this what it is, then the whole picture should be taken into account.
So what’s next for Houston? What’s next is Watson firmly in place as the face of the offense, a role that I’d tell you the Texans are pretty comfortable with.
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Buckner, who had 1.5 sacks in the Super Bowl, will bolster an Indy pass rush that was just 24th in QB pressures.
Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
COLTS STICK TO THE PLAN
Because they went 7–9, it’s easy to think the Colts headed into this offseason having lost all the momentum they’d gathered before Andrew Luck retired—momentum driven by a fast-improving roster with young All-Pros like Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard, and the work that GM Chris Ballard and coach Frank Reich had done in establishing a new program.
This week proved they wouldn’t agree with that. Ballard’s had cap space to work with the last few years, but he’s focused on value signings like, for example, corner Pierre Desir (2017), defensive lineman Denico Autry (2018) and tight end Eric Ebron (2018). Some have worked, others haven’t, but the veteran market has been navigated with a focus on maintaining flexibility.
Why? Because blue-chip-players generally aren’t available in free agency. And when one becomes available, you want to be free to pursue him.
That’s where DeForest Buckner came into the picture for Indy. The Colts had a crying need for pressure players for their defensive front, and that’s just what Buckner is. He was probably one of the two best players in the Super Bowl (Nick Bosa was the other) before Patrick Mahomes took over in the fourth quarter. He had 12.5 sacks in 2018, was second-team All-Pro in 2019 and just turned 26 last week.
So the Colts spent some of the cap space they’ve hoarded (and the 13th pick in the draft) on Buckner, because, again, he’s way better than what’s normally out there. And then they addressed the hole that Luck left with some more of that cap space, without compromising their breathing room going forward (they’ll absorb all $25 million of Philip Rivers’s money in 2020; none of the cap charges are being mortgaged).
Ultimately, I think this leaves the Colts in pretty good shape. They have Buckner. And now they have a little time to find the successor for Rivers, a good thing given that they were very unlikely to take a quarterback with the 13th pick in the first place.
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Gurley, who played just 73 games for the Rams, leaves as the franchise’s sixth-leading rusher.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
TEN TAKEAWAYS
1) Last week, after Todd Gurley was released, the Rams put out this video to thank him—“Forever a part of our history.” And within a couple hours, a personnel director texted me with a link to it, saying, “This is incredibly sad. The guy’s like 25.” (Indeed, Gurley turns 26 in August.) That running backs have the longevity of gymnasts isn’t a new idea to anyone. But I guess I’d never really thought of it quite that way before. The Rams did what they had to do. It was either eat the $7.55 million roster bonus for 2020, and accept that they paid $34.5 million over two years for a declining player; or commit to this year, and look forward to assuring he’d make at least $45 million over three years, with the chance things get worse. That was really it. (He proved untradeable because of the guarantees in his deal, his injuries and his recent performance.) And so the Rams moved on, taking the hit for a terrible contract, but with the knowledge that it may have just been the price of doing business with a player who was a big figure in the team’s move from St. Louis, the construction of Sean McVay’s program in L.A. and Jared Goff’s development.
2) The Niners’ trade of Buckner was an interesting one—and again shows how San Francisco looks at moves like this with a global picture of their roster in mind. Do they love Buckner as a player? Yes. But they already paid Dee Ford, will be looking at a huge deal for Nick Bosa down the line, and had Buckner and Arik Armstead coming up for deals virtually simultaneously. They couldn’t pay everyone. Buckner’s probably a better player than Armstead, but it was close enough to where they could consider what each might bring home as an asset. And Buckner, a year younger and with a year left on his contract, was worth more in that regard. So they keep Armstead, land the 13th pick in the draft and, with a few bucks saved (the difference between what Armstead and Buckner will make) kept another important piece of their defense in safety Jimmie Ward. All the way around, the idea was making the best of the situation in front of them. This is also why, by the way, after Brady got word of his interest to the Niners earlier this month, the only way I believe it would’ve happened (and I’ve said this in a few different places the last couple weeks) would’ve been if some team came along and blew San Francisco away with an offer for Jimmy Garoppolo.
3) It was a weird week for NFL teams, no doubt, in trying to navigate the early stages given the state of things in our country. I talked to one GM who was running the show from his dining room table and one doing it from his home office. I talked to another who had his top lieutenants and two cap guys in the office, with all the pro scouts and coaches (even the head coach) working from home. A third had his pro scouts, his cap people and his head coach in-house, but everyone else operating remotely. We mentioned above that the Bucs just had Licht, Spytek, Greenberg and Arians in the office. And there was another team that had, for the most part, everyone in. Each team did it a little differently. Some teams in states where more strict coronavirus measures were taken had no choice. Others tried to take social distancing as seriously as they could. And for all those in personnel departments—this being their busy season—this is just the start. As we get closer to the draft, the practice of putting a board together, holding meetings, collecting medical information, and finalizing scouting reports, among other things, will be different than ever before. And someone brought this up, too—what if a GM gets quarantined the week of the draft? These, of course, pale in comparison to issues facing other people in our country. But they will have to be addressed going forward. And the league and union have started working on that—the required release of medical records for free agents is part of it—knowing there are still a lot of hurdles ahead.
4) The Jets have long planned to revamp their offensive line, and GM Joe Douglas, not yet a year into the job, wasted very little time taking action in that area. With a limited budget, the team re-signed guard Alex Lewis, and signed tackle George Fant, guard/center Josh Andrews and center Connor McGovern, all of whom are considered smart, athletic and competitive, and all of whom remain in their 20s. The addition of Greg Van Roten veered a little—the ex-Panther is 30—but he’s also a more mobile lineman who’ll fit into Adam Gase’s wide-zone scheme. And I’d bet more help is coming in the draft, maybe with a long-term left tackle early in the first round. Regardless, the line Sam Darnold lines up behind in 2020 is going to look a lot different than the one that protected him last year, which, again, was pretty much the plan going back to when Douglas took the job last spring.
5) There’s no question which players are most affected by the current set of circumstances that NFL teams are in: It’s the injured guys. Cam Newton is one good example, in that few GMs or coaches would be ready to roll the dice on trading for him to start at the money he’s slated to make ($19.1 million) without having team doctors get a good look at his right shoulder and left foot. Likewise, Jadeveon Clowney’s lengthy medical history (he’s had microfracture surgery) is difficult for teams to get comfortable with if getting him in-house is impossible. So those guys could be stuck in a situation where they either have to sign deals that expose them to some risk, or just wait out the quarantining before finding a new home. And even with guys who are healthy, teams are protecting themselves. In fact, I heard that one club is agreeing to pay just one-third of new players’ signing bonuses based on independent physicals, with the other two-thirds payable when the team doctor can clear him. Weird times, indeed.
6) As for the draft, and we’ll get more into the complications teams are facing there in the weeks ahead, guys who weren’t invited to the combine are in a tough spot. Without physicals on the books, and without an ability to visit teams and meet with team doctors, players are going to need their agents to be creative in getting clubs all the information they need ahead of the draft.
7) Speaking of Newton, it sure seems like music has stopped on the quarterback carousel, and he, Jameis Winston, Joe Flacco and Andy Dalton still don’t have chairs. One of the aforementioned issues for Newton is there for Dalton too: He’s still on a roster, and has a sizable financial number ($17.7 million in cash) for 2020. Another of Newton’s issues, durability, will come up with Flacco. With Winston, given his off-field issues, an inability to visit teams and discuss his growth as a person is a hinderance. So where would there be spots for these guys? New England appears to be off the board now, with three quarterbacks on the roster and little cap space to work with. And the Chargers seem content to move forward with Tyrod Taylor, while taking a hard look at drafting a young quarterback in the top 10. So it seems like the best shot for these guys might be finding a place where the starter is either older (Pittsburgh?) or on shaky ground (Washington?), which worked out nicely for Tannehill last year.
8) Count me among those who think Melvin Gordon made the wrong call holding out last year—something that’s been proven out with what he got (or didn’t get) in free agency. But I’ll interpret the final result of this (a two-year, $16 million deal with the Broncos, after turning down more from the Chargers last summer) a little differently than most. I actually think holding out was the right idea. I just think he did it a year too late. Gurley got paid after his third year, and Zeke Elliott held out to make sure he’d get his after Year 3, too. Atlanta’s Devonta Freeman didn’t hold out after three years, but he did press the issue and wound up getting paid. And Saquon Barkley will be eligible for a deal in 2021 and should do all he can next year to get his big second contract right then and there. Here’s the thing—after three years, it’s easy for a team to look at it and say, “We probably get three or four more good years out of him,” swallow hard and do a contract with a star back. After four years? It’s that much more difficult, which is why you see so few non-first-rounders hit the market coming off their rookie deals actually cash in. This will get more difficult, of course, with stronger rules against holding out in the new CBA. But if there’s one group of players that should take that kind of hard line, it’s running backs.
9) Good for Malcolm Jenkins, getting to go “home” to New Orleans to finish his career. I remember Ohio State coach Jim Tressel telling me when Jenkins came out in 2009 that his first-round corner prospect was the best leader he’d ever had. And those words foreshadowed what was ahead. In five years in New Orleans before leaving for Philly, a young Jenkins was twice named a captain, and matured into a field general too with the position switch to safety. Since being in Philly, he’s been a captain every year the team has had them (Chip Kelly didn’t have formal captains). And that leadership is one reason why Saints coach Sean Payton counts losing Jenkins in free agency in 2014 as his biggest personnel misstep in almost a decade-and-a-half at the helm. In rectifying that one, Payton’s bringing in a guy who should be a strong unifying force (as linebacker Demario Davis has been) for a fast-improving defense.
10) It was amazing to see the number of ex-Patriots going from Foxboro to Detroit and Miami this week. As the Lions dealt away disgruntled CB Darius Slay, Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn imported defensive tackle Danny Shelton, linebacker Jamie Collins and safety Duron Harmon. And the Dolphins signed linebackers Kyle Van Noy and Elandon Roberts and center Ted Karran, in addition to bringing on ex-Eagles linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill, a 2016 Patriots draft pick who wound up cut but spent camp that year with Brian Flores as his position coach. My first instinct looking at all this? That they are are paying guys Bill Belichick wouldn’t. But then, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time, Belichick did the same thing, in bringing players like Bryan Cox and Roman Phifer (integral parts to his first title team) with him from the Jets.
SIX FROM THE SIDELINE
1) I like the idea of the NBA playoffs being in the summer. Here’s the thing, though: You’d think that would mean working something out with the union, as far as the players still getting their time off. So would that mean, if the Finals were backed up two months, that the start of the 2020-21 season would be moved back that far too?
2) A basketball player just transferred from Harvard to Ohio State, which must mean Ohio State is MUCH harder to get into than when I was applying to college.
3) I have to think that baseball is going to be the sport hit the hardest when things return to normal. So much of that sport’s viewership is based on people’s habits, and I can still remember how hard the 1994 strike was for MLB. I’d imagine this would be the same, and maybe worse because of how much trouble it now has attracting young fans, and the potential competition from the NBA.
4) After looking around on college sports cancellations, am I right to say the last Division I activity for the academic year that hasn’t been called off yet is SEC spring football practice? And that totally makes sense, right?
5) Bombshell is a crazy movie, and worth checking out, especially in an election year.
6) My one coronavirus observation is pretty straightforward. One of the few positive memories I have of 9/11 was how, for at least a couple weeks, everyone put their swords down and as a country we seemed to come together. It didn’t last that long, and since I was a senior in college, maybe I didn’t have the best context for what I was observing, but it sure did seem like there was an effort by everyone to pull in the same direction. And I just haven’t gotten that feeling this time around, which is sad, and sure seems like a step backward for all of us.
BEST OF THE NFL INTERNET
Give Gurley this: He had a sense of humor about it.
…And he was on fire all week.
Again, tailbacks, get yours while you can.
No matter what you think about what’s coming next for Brady and Brees… this was pretty funny.
Joe Haden going to bat for Darius Slay.
Roethlisberger had to be going for the Unabomber look, right?
Good on the league for doing that.
The Rams were just one of the teams that got creative when they were told they couldn’t announce deals (later in the week, that changed).
When you make history on social media, you get a spot in this space.
Chase Daniel remains a financial king. And the Tweet King remains the Tweet King.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Two things this week …
1) Since we’re settling into the offseason now, we’re going from All-32 back to Ten Takeaways in the column. It’ll make this whole thing a little breezier of a read for now, but I’ll still make an effort to take care of every fan base that I can. Also, if you’re reading this deep into the column, you’re obviously both a sick person and a big fan. So for both reasons, we’re always open to your suggestions on how we can make the whole thing better—especially during the offseason, when we’ve got a shot to mess around a little bit with the format.
2) It was good to see Sean Payton being so public with his coronavirus diagnosis, in an effort to get more people to take the situation more seriously (which, of course, will accelerate our course back to normalcy). And yeah, I do think it’s a little messed up that we need people like Kevin Durant and Tom Hanks to get it to really have it hit home with certain corners of the population. But at this point, based on where we all are, every little thing can help, so good on all those people for not being afraid to use their positive tests to get everyone going in the right direction.
