Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson signed a new contract earlier this year and he will play the first season of the deal with a new number.
The Bears announced that Johnson will wear No. 1 this year. Johnson wore No. 33 for his first four seasons in Chicago, but is moving back to the number he wore while in college at Utah.
Johnson is not the only Bears player changing numbers. Wide receiver Tyler Scott will wear No. 10 and give up No. 13 to new teammate Keenan Allen. First-round pick Caleb Williams wore the same number at USC, but the quarterback showed off his No. 18 Bears jersey at an introductory press conference last week.
Running back D’Andre Swift will wear No. 4 after wearing No. 0 with the Eagles last year while safety Jonathan Owens will wear No. 36. Owens wore No. 34 with the Packers last year, but the Bears retired that number in honor of Walter Payton.
Jets edge rusher Jermaine Johnson will be welcoming a former Florida State teammate to the club this year.
The Jets took quarterback Jordan Travis in the fifth round of the draft to serve as a developmental piece behind Aaron Rogers and Tyrod Taylor as he returns from the broken leg that dashed hopes of a national title in Tallahassee last year. Johnson, who was a first-round pick last year, said Travis has been keeping him updated on the “awesome rate” of his rehab and shared his belief that the union between player and team is “a perfect situation for us, perfect situation for him.”
“He gets to sit behind Tyrod and Aaron and learn from Tyrod’s perspective and Aaron’s perspective, and then also I mean they have a killer quarterback just in the stable learning from those guys,” Johnson said, via NFL Media. “So it’s good for everybody and I just thought it was perfect for both sides, so why not, and sure enough when the opportunity came around they grabbed him.”
Travis won’t be seeing much of the field in 2024 if all goes according to plan, but making the most of his opportunity to learn after returning to health would give him a chance at a possible role in the future in a league that’s always looking for capable quarterback play.
Wide receiver Darius Slayton was in New York on Wednesday, but it wasn’t because he changed course on attending the Giants’ voluntary workouts.
Slayton has not been with the team as he looks for a contract extension or adjustment from the Giants heading into the 2024 season. He came into town to receive an award from the United Way for his work with the community and said he’s “enjoyed my time as a Giant and I’d like to remain a Giant” into the future.
Giants General Manager Joe Schoen said that drafting Malik Nabers in the first round was not a sign that the team is looking to move on from Slayton, who received a roster bonus in March and is in the final year of his current contract. Slayton said his representatives are talking to Schoen and that he is “confident” that the situation will be rectified before dragging into training camp or the regular season.
“I don’t think it will get to that point,” Slayton said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “Like I said, it’s been good, constant communication throughout the whole process. It’ll be resolved soon.”
Slayton had 50 catches for 770 yards and four touchdowns for the Giants last season. He has been the Giants’ leading receiver in four of his five seasons with the team.
It’s rare for teams to rip up the remaining years on a player’s contract and replace them with more. It’s so rare that there was widespread confusion that Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s new two-year deal was an extension to the two years on his existing deal.
The reality is that, like the Rams did with Aaron Donald two yers ago, the Chiefs ripped up the two years that were left and put two new years in. The Chiefs gave Kelce a $4 million raise for 2024, no strings attached, pushing his salary to $17 million. For 2025, the $17.5 million he’s due to make becomes fully guaranteed on the third day of the 2025 league year.
The seeds for the contract fix were planted during the season, we’re told. Kelce’s representatives communicated their feelings to the Chiefs during the 2023 season.
Those feelings trace to comments made by Kelce to Vanity Fair last summer.
“My managers and agents love to tell me how underpaid I am,” Kelce said at the time. “Any time I talk about wanting more money, they’re just like, ‘Why don’t you go to the Chiefs and ask them?’ . . . You see how much more money you could be making and, yeah, it hits you in the gut a little bit. It makes you think you’re being taken advantage of. I don’t know if I really pressed the gas if I would get what I’m quote-unquote worth.”
He didn’t have to press the gas with a holdout. He said on the New Heights podcast that holding out isn’t his style.
And while there was never any serious talk that he’d retire, the notion that Kelce could graduate to his post-football life had to at least cross the team’s mind. He’s already making a shitload of money away from the field. For $13 million, he could have decided it’s not worth it. For $17 million, he has decided it is.
Although Kelce made a point to emphasize he’ll be with the Chiefs for two years, 2025 falls squarely in the “to be determined” category, on both sides. For Kelce, if he gets offered (for instance) $30 million to star in an action movie that shoots in Bora Bora from August to November of 2025, he’d tap out. For the Chiefs, the three-day window before the 2025 salary becomes guaranteed gives them a window to make a fair assessment as to whether significant slippage has started for Kelce, who turns 35 on October 5.
If the Chiefs didn’t want to at least preserve the option, the 2025 salary would be fully-guaranteed from the get-go. And if this was just a funding issue for next year, the guarantee could have vested immediately after the next Super Bowl.
It’s a clear opportunity for the Chiefs to make an assessment and a decision after the season. Kelce will be doing it, too.
Given the way things have been going for him off the field, opportunity might knock loudly enough within the next nine months for him to answer. And open the door. And exit, stage football.
The Bears say taxpayers paying for a significant portion of their proposed new stadium would benefit the stat of Illinois. The Illinois governor’s office isn’t buying it.
Top aides to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker met with Bears officials on Wednesday, and afterward the governor’s office released a statement saying it does not support the Bears’ proposal.
“As the Governor has said, the current proposal is a non-starter for the state,” press secretary Alex Gough said in a statement after the meeting. “In order to subsidize a brand new stadium for a privately owned sports team, the Governor would need to see a demonstrable and tangible benefit to the taxpayers of Illinois. The Governor’s office remains open to conversations with the Bears, lawmakers, and other stakeholders with the understanding that responsible fiscal stewardship of tax-payer dollars remains the foremost priority.”
The Bears want about $2.3 billion in taxpayer money for their proposed stadium project, which would include building the stadium itself and major renovations to infrastructure surrounding the stadium. The mayor of Chicago supports the proposal, but without the governor’s support the Bears face a very uphill climb to get it done.
In Ezekiel Elliott’s rookie season of 2016, the Cowboys went 13-3 and had home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. Aaron Rodgers, though, turned a third-and-20 with 12 seconds left into a 35-yard gain and a game-winning field goal with no time left, giving the Packers a divisional round upset.
That’s as close as the Cowboys’ running back has come to the Super Bowl. A long way away, in other words.
But Elliott’s dream has not died.
In his ninth season, Elliott has returned to the Cowboys to try to do what he hasn’t done.
“I’m here to chase a dream,” Elliott said Wednesday night, via Joseph Hoyt of lonestarlive.com.
The last time the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, Elliott was six months old. They won two playoff games during Elliott’s first seven seasons.
He had other offers but wanted to rejoin Dak Prescott in Dallas in hopes of turning back the clock.
“It was just important to get back here,” Elliott said, “and finish what I started.”
Elliott currently sits atop the depth chart at the position for the Cowboys.
Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in a Sept. 21 practice. He had surgery at the end of October.
The Cowboys expect Diggs to be ready for the start of training camp.
In Diggs’ absence, DaRon Bland set an NFL record with five interception returns for touchdowns.
The return of Diggs gives the Cowboys a pair of ball hawks at corner.
“I mean, a lot of people are not expecting what Tre is gonna come back with,” Bland said of Diggs on Wednesday, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. I know what Tre is gonna come back with. It’s going to be something dangerous. Can’t wait.”
Diggs, 25, made 11 interceptions in 2021, returning two for touchdowns and earning All-Pro honors.
After we dared to point out the sharp drop in attendance from the 2023 Colorado spring game to the 2024 version, the haters took their knives out — ignoring the fact that I led the charge last September to get Deion Sanders to the NFL as a head coach.
After the 3-0 start for the Buffaloes was followed by a 1-8 finish, the notion of Deion jumping to pro football seems like a pipe dream, especially since he consistently has said he doesn’t want to do it.
It’s therefore with some degree of trepidation that I dare to point out the kerfuffle that has emerged in Colorado over quotes to former Colorado safety Xavier Smith to TheAthletic.com regarding his decision to transfer. Smith said that Sanders “never even tried to get to know me,” and that Coach Prime “was destroying guys’ confidence and belief in themselves.”
Shadeur Sanders, Colorado’s quarterback, went on the offensive, posting on X (via ESPN.com) that Smith “had to be very mid at best.”
That prompted the predictable social-media back-and-forth, culminating in: (1) Colorado receiver Kaleb Mathis posting a video of himself beating Smith in practice; (2) Smith’s new teammate at Austin Peay, Jaheim Ward, pointing out that Mathis had only 38 receiving yards in 2023; and (3) Deion Sanders re-posting Ward’s career stats with the observation, “Lawd Jesus.”
Another social-media account criticized Shedeur for attacking Smith, while also pointing out that Colorado was 4-8 in 2023.
“He will be a top 5 pick,” Deion Sanders said in response, regarding Shedeur. “Where yo son going ? Lololol I got time today. Lololol.”
Many folks with significant social-media followings adhere to the maxim “don’t punch down.” It’s surprising to see Shedeur and Deion roll around in the mud in response to the kind of basic blowback that goes with the territory they occupy.
Criticism is inevitable. The more sensitive someone seems to it, the more others will revel in getting the target’s goat.
Jets defensive end Jermaine Johnson II was a first-round pick in 2022, but his rookie season didn’t go as expected. He made no starts, played 312 defensive snaps in 14 games and totaled 2.5 sacks.
His second season went better than expected with 748 defensive snaps in 17 starts, 55 tackles, 7.5 sacks,16 quarterback hits and a Pro Bowl berth.
Johnson, though, said he has proved nothing.
“All the success in the world is leased and rented. It’s never owned,” Johnson told NFL.com. “So yeah, you can enjoy the little accolades or success you have, but if you don’t grind and bust your butt and go to work again and again and again, you’re going to lose it. It’s going to get repo-ed, so to say. So just understanding, OK, cool, I had a decent year, not to my standard for myself, so I know I’ve just got to go back to work and work even harder and just keep a level head. Keep the highs not too high, the lows not too low, and keep having confidence in myself and showing up for my teammates.”
The Jets lost Bryce Huff, whose 10 sacks led the team last season, but traded for Haason Reddick. The former Eagles edge rusher had 11 sacks and 23 quarterback hits last season.
Javon Kinlaw is another veteran newcomer to the Jets’ defensive line.
“When we’ve got a player, an electric and legendary, in my opinion, player like Haason, you can’t help but get better,” Johnson said. “I’m excited to get out there, work with him, learn from him. I know he’s got so many nuggets of information and knowledge he can share with me, and kind of just show me things that I don’t know. He’s so level and so humble, and I’m just excited to have a guy like that on the other side from me.”
Bills owner Terry Pegula has apparently commenced succession planning by transferring a “small percentage” of the team to his daughter, Laura.
Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com reports on the development.
The move comes in the aftermath of co-owner Kim Pegula’s heart attack that has left her incapacitated. Terry and Kim had owned the team on a 50-50 basis. In March 2023, Terry became her guardian, with many of her assets placed in a trust.
Not long thereafter, Terry “transferred a small percentage of the Bills to Laura to satisfy a league policy that aids in succession planning,” per the report.
Given the league’s requirement that every controlling owner submit an annual succession plan that names the person who would take over if the controlling owes dies or becomes legally incapacitated, this implies that Laura is the named successor to Terry. While that can change, it points to Terry eventually assigning the team to Laura.
Laura is Terry Pegula’s daughter from a prior marriage. Jessica, the daughter of Terry and Kim, also has expressed a desire to become involved in management of the team.
At this point, the big decisions will apparently be made by Terry. It’s important that he have a clear and firm succession plan in place. Pat Bowlen, the late owner of the Broncos, divided the team among his seven children but put none of them in charge. That eventually resulted in the sale of the team. Similarly, Titans founder Bud Adams divided the equity in his team among the three branches of his family tree without putting any of them in charge, creating years of uncertainty and understated acrimony with the league over the question of control.
Whatever Terry Pegula does, it’s important for him to have a clear plan in place before he dies or becomes unable to make such decisions.