Bill Belichick says NFL teams need to be ready for an adjustment period for the players they draft next week.
Belichick says that in all his years in the NFL, he only saw one draft pick who arrived fully prepared to handle his job as a professional: Lawrence Taylor.
“Brady didn’t play his rookie year,” Belichick said on the Pat McAfee Show. “You judge Tom Brady after his first year and you have literally nothing — you’re talking about the greatest player that’s ever played. Lawrence Taylor was a different story. Lawrence Taylor from Day One impacted the team, showed he was the best player on the field, way better than everyone else and built a defense around him from that point going forward. . . . It’s usually not Day One of his rookie year. I would say Lawrence Taylor would be the one exception to that rule.”
Belichick was the Giants’ linebackers coach when they drafted Taylor with the second overall pick in 1981. Taylor’s exploits on the practice field in training camp quickly generated attention, he had two sacks in his first preseason game, and by the end of his rookie year he was named not only Defensive Rookie of the Year but also Defensive Player of the Year.
Lawrence Taylors don’t come along very often, and it’s probably safe to say there’s not a Lawrence Taylor in this draft. For every other draft pick, some patience is necessary.
Several weeks ago, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said he knows where he wants his son, Shedeur, and teammate Travis Hunter to play in the NFL. Deion also said there are specific places he doesn’t want them to go.
Today, Sanders was asked about it by Romi Bean of CBS Colorado.
The clip starts with Bean asking this question: “Everybody’s saying, right, you’re only letting Shedeur and Travis go to only six teams. Is this true? Can we get some insight?”
Responded Deion: “Who said that and did you see me say that? . . . The thing about a lie, a lie is so fast. It can outrun the truth any day. That’s a bold-faced lie. That’s a stupid lie. I have more than six owners that are friends. I have more than six G.M.'s that are friends. You gotta understand I played fourteen and I worked another seventeen I believe in the NFL, NFL Network and . . . CBS. I know a lot of people. Come on. So I would never do that. Before I would disclose — if I was that stupid, I wouldn’t disclose the teams I would want them to play for, I would disclose the several that I wouldn’t.”
Here’s the clip from last month.
“I know where I want them to go,” Deion said. “So, it’s certain cities that ain’t gonna happen. , , , It’s going to be an Eli.”
Before that, Deion said he doesn’t want Shedeur to play in a cold-weather city.
While the list might not be six, he said “I know where I want them to go.” He also said that in “certain cities” it “ain’t gonna happen.”
Whatever the number of places he’ll approve, the fact remains that he’s planning a power play, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Eli Manning in 2004 and, before that, John Elway in 1983.
And to that we say, “It’s about time someone else does it.”
The NFL is in search of a new senior vice president of officiating.
Ben Austro of Football Zebras reports that Walt Anderson is stepping down from the job effective May 1. Anderson is expected to remain in the officiating department overseeing replay operations, though his new role is not finalized.
Anderson spent 24 seasons as an NFL official, including 17 as a referee, before moving upstairs at the end of the 2019 season. He was hired to be the league’s senior vice president of officiating development under Al Riveron and Perry Fewell.
Riveron retired after the 2020 season, while Fewell remains as the senior vice president of officiating administration.
Anderson, 71, was not expected to hold the job long term, but now the NFL will hire its sixth primary officiating head since 2010. Art McNally oversaw the officiating department from 1968-90 before Jerry Seeman held the job for 10 years and Mike Pereira for nine years.
No one has headed the officiating department for more than four years since.
Anderson’s departure clears the way for the NFL to hire his son, Big 12 referee Derek Anderson, as an on-field official, a move that Football Zebras reports was disallowed by the league’s human resources office last offseason.
Defensive tackle Leonard Williams was vacationing in Japan when his agent let him know they had agreed to a three-year, $64.5 million deal for him to return to the Seahawks. Williams jumped on a plane for a nine-hour flight back to Seattle from Tokyo, spent a few hours in town to sign the new deal and celebrate and then jumped on a flight back to Japan to complete his three-week vacation.
“I’m obviously like trying to enjoy my vacation, but I was also in free agency,” Williams said, via Curtis Crabtree of FOX 13. “So it was almost hard to enjoy my vacation because I’m like so involved in like, what’s going on in free agency? Like, what’s going to happen? Like, where am I going to end up? All those things. And then, you know, I’m getting a call from my agents at one point, and they’re thinking that it’s not going to be Seattle, and then they call me back, you know, the next morning or even the same day and they’re like, ‘OK, it might be Seattle.”
Williams, 29, wanted to stay in Seattle even after the Seahawks fired coach Pete Carroll.
“I think I built relationships here,” Williams said. “You know, I was obviously sad about Pete leaving. He was a great coach, a big part of the reason why I made the transition to come to Seattle. He’s a big part of me coming here and we’ve had that USC connection. He was a fun coach to play for. But even outside of the coaching staff, I’ve built relationships in the locker room as well. And, you know, I kind of wanted to continue with that.”
The Seahawks acquired Williams from the Giants last October for a pair of draft picks. He appeared in 10 games with the Seahawks, totaling 41 tackles with four sacks and 11 quarterback hits.
He became the first player in modern NFL history to play 18 regular-season games in a single year.
Tom Brady’s time in Tampa Bay was largely successful. He might have helped encourage the success by taking cash out of his own pocket.
Via JoeBucsFan.com, former Buccaneers guard Ali Marpet recently claimed that Brady offered incentives to teammates for one specific thing.
Appearing on the Wam Bam podcast, Marpet offered the offensive line a bonus if one specific type of play reached a certain level of success.
“[Brady] took our starting offensive line to the side and he’s like, ‘Hey, if you guys can get a screen to go for more than 15 yards, I will give you $1,000 cash each,’” Marpet said. “‘That is for you guys, so every time that we get that, I will be happy to make that payment.’”
Marpet said there were “multiple” plays that met the standard for payment.
“Tom just knowing how guys are wired and what goes a long way and inspiring and getting the most out of his guys,” Marpet said.
The issue of offering players off-the-books incentives became the focal point of the Saints bounty scandal of 2012. Programs like this technically run afoul of NFL’s rules, even when they aren’t premised on potentially incapacitating opponents.
It’s unlikely the NFL will do anything about it. It’s also unlikely that similar incentives aren’t commonly employed on a wink-nod basis within NFL locker rooms.
It was comical, to say the least, to see some in the media twist themselves into knots to praise the Commanders for bringing four top quarterback prospects in for a visit on the same day.
From my perspective, it makes no sense.
What’s the point in having Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy, and Michael Penix in the building on the same day? The only argument we’ve seen is that they want to see how the four will interact.
Why? Who cares? When will the four of them ever be together again?
It might be an interesting sociological experiment, but it squanders the opportunity to get to know each player individually.
Our guess is that owner Josh Harris wanted to be present for the visits, and that they were lined up on a day when he was available. That’s just a guess. I wouldn’t expect the Commanders to admit that, because to admit that would be to acknowledge that Harris has a significant voice in the final decision the Commanders make.
News flash: He does.
He already sat in on the meetings with quarterbacks at the Scouting Combine. This is a major decision, and he fully intends to participate in the making of it. But also to be able to plausibly say his football people made the decision.
It’s not a criticism. It’s an effort to make sense of the nonsensical. If the reason for bringing all four of them in on the same day isn’t that Harris wanted to carve out one day to meet with all of them, there’s no reason to do it this way.
Wednesday’s latest #LongRead from ESPN.com, regarding All Things Belichick includes a claim that, as mentioned earlier, could/should be its own headline.
“If the Falcons had hired Belichick, the reported $25 million annual salary owed him by the Krafts for the upcoming season would have been offset by [Falcons owner Arthur] Blank,” ESPN.com writes.
Per a league source with knowledge of Belichick’s contract and his separation agreement from the Patriots, neither claim is true.
As to the first part, it could be a technicality. Often, highly-compensated coaches officially get a salary from the team and unofficially receive compensation from related companies. This keeps the overall coaching-salary curve under control.
As to the second part, we’ll defer to others to report the actual information. All we know is that there wouldn’t have been a dollar-for-dollar offset as to whatever amount the Patriots owe Belichick for 2024.
This specific report appears along with the broader claim that Patriots owner Robert Kraft gave Blank negative information about Belichick, influencing Blank’s decision not to hire Belichick. Why would Kraft prevent himself from avoiding some of the financial obligation to Belichick if/when Belichick had gotten another job?
The two claims are inconsistent. The only plausible explanation is that Kraft was willing to eat the full obligation to Belichick in order to keep Belichick from thriving with the Falcons.
Would Kraft be try to avoid paying Belichick in order to keep him from getting a job? That seems highly unlikely, quite frankly.
Free agent running back J.K. Dobbins spent four seasons playing for John Harbaugh. He will spend 2024 playing for Jim Harbaugh.
Dobbins has agreed to a one-year contract with the Chargers, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
It reunites Dobbins with former Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman in Los Angeles.
Dobbins was cleared to return to football activities last month, having completed his rehab from a torn Achilles in Week 1.
Injuries have plagued his career.
After rushing for 805 yards and nine touchdowns as a second-round pick in 2020, Dobbins tore an ACL in training camp in 2021. He missed all of that season and the first two games of the 2022 season. Another knee injury knocked him out for six more weeks in 2022.
He has played 24 of a possible 67 games in his career, rushing for 1,347 yards and 12 touchdowns on 234 carries. He averages 5.8 yards per carry in his career.
The Chargers have Gus Edwards, Isaiah Spiller, Elijah Dotson and Jaret Patterson on their depth chart at their position.
Free agent running back Rashaad Penny visited Seattle on Wednesday.
Could a reunion with the Seahawks be in his future?
The team made Penny a first-round pick in 2018, and he spent the first five years of his career with the Seahawks. He left for Philadelphia in free agency a year ago, signing a one-year, $1.35 million deal.
Penny, 28, played only three games last season, seeing action on 31 offensive snaps and seven on special teams.
Injuries slowed his career in Seattle, and in his six-year career, Penny has played only 45 of a possible 99 games. He has 348 carries for 1,951 yards and 13 touchdowns in his career.
Kenneth Walker III, Zach Charbonnet and Kenny McIntosh are the current running backs on the team’s roster.
Dolphins cornerback Jalen Ramsey is working out on his own at his home in Tennessee.
He gave fans an up-close look at his workouts in the weight room in his garage and in drills on a field during a 12-minute YouTube vlog premiere. It was posted on the first day of the Dolphins’ offseason program Monday.
“It’s a big thing being self-made. I do a lot of things by myself,” Ramsey said, via Omar Kelly of SI.com. “I get it in by myself, but I definitely got a team in the background helping me with everything I’ve got going on.”
Ramsey, who has no workout bonuses in his contract tied to his participation in the team’s voluntary offseason program, said he spends his offseasons working on strength, speed, agility and technique.
“You’re not going to see me going against anybody. I’m not competing against anybody on the field,” Ramsey said. “You’ll see me . . . trying to perfect my craft. I like to put on a performance no matter what I’m doing.”
Ramsey, who said this is the first offseason in three years he is not rehabbing an injury, watched the Dolphins’ offseason program after the trade from the Rams in 2023. But he did not participate until training camp. That could be his plan again this year.
“Y’all are going to get to see what I envision an offseason looking like for me to be in tip-top performance for where I want to be,” Ramsey said. “I’m super excited for that. It’s going to be my first offseason like that since the year before the Super Bowl in L.A. That was one of the best years of my career.”