I’ll be on a aircraft to Indianapolis later right now for the NFL scouting mix. And so the 2025 offseason begins …
I’m undecided how the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford put this entire factor again collectively, but it surely’s going to take some work this week. And that, as I see it, is as a result of Los Angeles, at this level, is working with a quarterback who is aware of what his worth is to the opposite groups.
Throughout the week main as much as Tremendous Bowl LIX, Stafford’s camp acquired permission from the Rams to speak to different groups—so his reps have already had two weeks to check the market and see who’d be prepared to surrender commerce compensation and an enormous, new contract to land the 37-year-old star. It’s solely steeled perception that, given the altering circumstances of quarterback value, he must be among the many 9 signal-callers now on offers averaging over $50 million per 12 months.
The groups you’d suspect would have their hat within the ring have, certainly, thrown their hats within the ring. The New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Las Vegas Raiders and others have proven curiosity.
What’s arduous to know now, although, is what the Rams can be prepared to take to half with Stafford. If it’s a first-round choose, would the aforementioned groups nonetheless be prepared to do a deal at greater than $50 million per 12 months? And if that first-round choose is within the high 10, as is the case with three of the aforementioned 4 groups, would the Rams be prepared to take a 2026 choose as a substitute of 1 this 12 months? And if not, how on the planet do the Rams repair this with Stafford?
Right here’s the truth—final 12 months’s Stafford-Rams compromise was a results of months of failed negotiations on a market correction to his present contract. So the $5 million “elevate” the Los Angeles brass gave him to get him to indicate for camp was actually extra of an adjustment. The edges agreed to borrow $4 million from 2025 and one other $1 million from ’26 to fund it.
Nearly any time you see a workforce do this, it’s principally an acknowledgment from each side of the desk that the settlement is a Band-Assist, and it’s awfully unlikely that the participant will comply with play on the lowered quantity sooner or later 12 months.
Why do it this fashion? Groups do it like this to keep away from the precedent of including new cash to a deal with out including new years. The difficulty on this case is the Rams did that already for Aaron Donald in 2022. And whereas anybody might simply argue {that a} once-in-a-generation expertise deserves that type of exception (and Donald did), it’s simply as straightforward to see why the quarterback that gained a Tremendous Bowl with that generational expertise would ask for a similar remedy.
So right here we are actually, with Stafford having data on what different groups are prepared to pay him, and the Rams sitting there with a powerful, younger roster, and a timeline that doesn’t fairly match up with Stafford’s, and loads of water underneath the bridge.
Can the toothpaste return within the tube after letting a man go searching? Will the Rams be prepared to go to a monetary stage they didn’t earlier than? Or would Aaron Rodgers approaching a less expensive deal (and he could also be prepared to take one to play in L.A.) or Sean McVay’s capacity to maximise, say, Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins at a reduce fee, enchantment to the workforce when mixed with the picks coming again and more money to spend on the remainder of the roster?
It’s a captivating scenario, to say the least.
Nonetheless, Stafford actually likes Southern California. McVay likes having Stafford. And over the subsequent week or so, we’ll in all probability get a greater concept on whether or not that’ll be sufficient to push a wedding that’s labored out rather well for 4 years right into a fifth season.
The reimagination of the Jaguars goes to be fascinating to look at. Liam Coen, 39, is the coach. James Gladstone, 34, is the final supervisor. EVP of soccer operations Tony Boselli is 52, however like Coen and Gladstone, he has no expertise within the function he’s about to fill.
The thought, for Jacksonville, was to do one thing completely different. These hires accomplish that.
So to start out on the logic right here behind pairing Gladstone, who’ll be launched as GM at a press convention Monday morning, you need to roll by means of his connections. He had loads to the Jaguars’ current and future, together with ….
• Sharing a highschool alma mater, St. John Vianney in St. Louis, with Jaguars president Mark Lamping.
• Having Rams GM Les Snead, a former Jaguars scout, as a mentor.
• Having labored with Coen from 2018 to ’20 and once more in ’22 with the Rams.
• He and Coen are represented by the identical company (William Morris Endeavor).
These, after all, are necessary factors, as a result of they clarify how a relative unknown resembling Gladstone, who hadn’t a lot as interviewed for a GM job earlier than, landed on the workforce’s radar. That stated, my understanding is the Jags went into their seek for a GM, after the abrupt firing of Trent Baalke two weeks in the past, with an open thoughts—and Gladstone legitimately gained the job from there.
It began with the Jags digging into completely different coach-centric fashions, such because the Rams’ mannequin and the Niners’ mannequin, after proprietor Shad Khan declared publicly, after the Doug Pederson firing, what he was searching for. As a part of that, Boselli reached out to Snead, who he’d been pleasant with as a participant when Snead was a younger scout; and McVay, who’d related beforehand with Boselli in 2017 by means of mutual buddy Joe Barry (McVay’s assistant head coach on the time, and Boselli’s school roommate from USC).
What was unanimous from these two, on Gladstone, was that the younger exec, who Snead employed off the teaching employees at Clayton (Mo.) Excessive (the place Snead’s son Logan was taking part in), carried each an distinctive soccer IQ and EQ. That confirmed in Gladstone’s capability, the Rams’ people stated, to absorb data, perceive it, distill it, after which talk it.
Coen echoed that to each Boselli and Khan with out figuring out what McVay and Snead had informed them—the brand new Jags coach stated he’d by no means seen anybody who had the power to speak with coaches and scouts in a means that acquired everybody aligned like Gladstone.
So it was a simple name to deliver him in—as considered one of 10 candidates—for the three-hour digital interviews the Jags arrange for the primary spherical. The workforce brass set it up so the primary 30–45 minutes of that interview was actually not soccer discuss, with extra deal with who the candidate was, and the way he’d arrange a tradition. In that setting, Gladstone was snug, and with out ego or pretense or an agenda for the interview.
He targeted on how he’d constructed trusting relationships with McVay and Snead, which was necessary to Boselli and Khan, figuring out how missing alignment on the soccer facet had value the Jaguars prior to now. And that, plus his data and analysis of the roster, was sufficient to get him by means of to the second spherical, and the four-hour, in-person periods the Jaguars had arrange for his or her finalists.
As soon as there, Gladstone confirmed whole command of the place the Jaguars had been, and had a transparent, concise, detailed plan without cost company and the draft he introduced to the bosses. He additionally rapidly confirmed the connection he had with Coen from Los Angeles. And as Gladstone navigated the interview, it turned clear that the Jags had their man.
A part of it, for positive, went again to one of many first issues Snead informed Boselli about Gladstone—that for a younger man on the rise, he had loads of humility. That was confirmed repeatedly throughout the course of, however possibly most so throughout the digital interview, when Gladstone informed Boselli and Coen how, in his thoughts, in working with scouts and coaches, it’d by no means be about successful an argument, however making assembly folks the place they’re the start line.
That was, actually, an excellent signal that Khan would get his coach-centric mannequin by hiring Gladstone, in that Gladstone and his division’s first focus can be constructing out the imaginative and prescient that Coen and his employees set for them.
As for a way this may all look logistically, I’m informed Boselli, Gladstone and Coen will all report on to Khan. Gladstone will oversee the draft, free company, and all sides of constructing the roster. Coen can be accountable for all the things, and everybody, on the grass (gamers, coaches, and many others.). Boselli, in the meantime, will oversee areas resembling power and conditioning, medical, journey, services and PR, which, the Jags hope, will enable for Gladstone to deal with constructing the roster, and Coen to deal with teaching the workforce—which is what they had been employed to do.
Will it work? I don’t know. That is very completely different.
However I’ll say it’s deliberately that means. The Jags see a altering surroundings within the sport, and never simply on the NFL stage, and wished a forward-thinking, adaptable group to steer them by means of it. They’re betting that Boselli, Coen and Gladstone will give them that, and doing it with out the protection internet of getting earlier expertise beneath them.
Like I stated, it’ll be actually attention-grabbing to see the way it performs out.
I feel Brandon Staley’s going to wind up being a extremely good rent for Kellen Moore in New Orleans. To be clear, it’s about his acumen—keep in mind, in his sole 12 months as an NFL defensive coordinator, he made the Rams protection the NFL’s greatest, and did it regardless of all of the obstacles that COVID-19 created in 2020. Nevertheless it’s not simply that.
Possibly even moreso, it’s the expertise he’s had at simply 42 years outdated.
Too typically, I feel guys change into head coaches and don’t brace themselves sufficient, with employees hires, for what’s forward. The job is completely different than being a place coach or a coordinator, and with out somebody that’s been in that seat available, and in a outstanding function, to assist navigate it, even the very best and brightest can get slightly misplaced.
So the truth that Staley was in Moore’s footwear, as a fast-rising 30-something changing into a head coach for the primary time, is invaluable. Most challenges Moore will see, Staley’s already skilled, and both succeeded or failed with, and needed to study within the aftermath of being fired.
After which, there’s the place he went by means of that means of examination after the Los Angeles Chargers let him go—over the previous 12 months in San Francisco. As assistant head coach/protection, Staley started working carefully with Kyle Shanahan, and see how Shanahan has created an unmistakable fashion of play and customary for the Niners, and the way he’s unapologetically himself. He additionally acquired to attach with Shanahan on a few of his failures, with Shanahan relating his personal bumps alongside the highway to changing into a head coach in Washington and Cleveland.
Staley additionally started working with and be taught from the personnel employees in San Francisco, with GM John Lynch and his administrators, Tariq Ahmad, RJ Gillen and Josh Williams, and EVP of soccer operations Paraag Marathe. And he acquired to know Mike Shanahan, too, who went by means of a equally brief first shot at being a head coach. All of which provides to the expertise Staley had in 2020 with the Rams.
Moore will get the advantage of all that, with a man he is aware of rather well, who runs the scheme that was reverse his in 2024 for the Philadelphia Eagles’ run to a world title (Vic Fangio’s system is the muse for what Staley’s protection does).
Firstly, Staley will assist Moore in mapping out the weeks and months forward, and what to prioritize when 1,000,000 issues are coming on the new head coach, with the Tremendous Bowl having created the type of shorter timeline on the offseason that Staley’s shut mates Kevin O’Connell and Jonathan Gannon handled in recent times. Over time, loads of different issues will come up through which Moore can lean on Staley.
Ultimately, I feel all that makes the rent a extremely stable, self-aware one for Moore. And one that ought to give the Saints a greater shot at hitting the bottom working in his first 12 months.
I don’t see why Kirk Cousins can be motivated to facilitate a commerce for the Falcons, nor do I imagine that Atlanta goes to maintain him on the roster as a backup. The important thing date on this saga stays St. Patrick’s Day. That’s as a result of, on March 17, a $10 million roster bonus for 2026 vests as absolutely assured.
So whilst you might take a look at this now and say the workforce has already paid $62.5 million for 2024, and can be on the hook for a lot of the $27.5 million (minus no matter one other workforce will give him for ’25) both means, the additional $10 million isn’t a mandatory value for Atlanta. In easy phrases, you’d be taking a look at both footing a invoice at a contact over $26 million and turning the web page to Michael Penix Jr., or hanging a held-hostage quarterback over the ’24 first-round choose at a price of $37.5 million (minus what a workforce would give him in ’26).
Cousins, after all, can see the maths there the identical because the workforce can, so all he actually has to do is look ahead to the Falcons to chop him free. And that’s what I count on him to do, as a result of if he’s reduce, he’s extra engaging to different groups than he can be as a commerce goal—each as a result of they wouldn’t have to surrender something to get him, and since he’d doubtless come for the veteran minimal of $1.3 million.
In that circumstance, a workforce such because the Cleveland Browns or Rams, each of whom have head coaches who had been with Cousins as offensive coordinators, might see very actual alternative in not simply touchdown Cousins, however the alternative getting him at that quantity would offer to construct round. I’d think about that concept would enchantment to Cousins himself, as effectively.
So, yeah, there’ll be some saber rattling between now and mid-March right here, and I’d count on the Falcons, as they need to, to see artistic methods to commerce him, and get something again for him.
However even when they discover one, Cousins has a no-trade clause.
Which implies they’d want his cooperation. And I don’t suppose they’ll get it.
The Tremendous Bowl at all times has an absolute mess of sponsored interviews with little or no substance, however Sean Payton dropped a priceless little piece of knowledge to Kay Adams throughout the week. And that was that he felt just like the Denver Broncos wanted to discover a “joker” for the offense—which, briefly, means a queen on the chessboard that may be moved round to mess with the protection at will.
In New Orleans, he spent his first draft choose on one, taking Reggie Bush second in 2006. Two years after that, he traded second- and fifth-round picks for one more one in Jeremy Shockey. Two years after that, the Saints took Jimmy Graham within the third spherical, and the previous Miami hoops star grew into that sort of participant. Then, in 2017, he discovered one other one within the third spherical in Tennessee working again Alvin Kamara.
these guys illustrates the imaginative and prescient—that it doesn’t must be a man at a sure place, however slightly somebody who may be moved everywhere, and matched up, and used to create complications for the protection from the second the huddle is damaged.
So I wished to have some enjoyable with this, and regarded on the veteran market, and didn’t actually discover a man who might be that type of participant. And that introduced me to the draft class.
I feel there are a handful of men who, underneath Payton’s tutelage, might be that sort of man. The one which’s most blatant, to me no less than, can be Michigan tight finish Colston Loveland, who can play all around the formation, and develop into the point of interest of an offense. Miami tight finish Elijah Arroyo is one other in that style, large, lengthy, athletic, and toeing the road between his listed place and simply being a supersized wideout.
Ohio State tailback TreVeyon Henderson can be within the Bush–Kamara class—a do-everything again who can flip a routine play into an explosive play on a dime. And Mizzou receiver Luther Burden III hasn’t absolutely tapped into his potential but, and will have some rising as much as do. However he’s explosive with the ball in his palms, and acquired it loads of alternative ways in school.
Anyway, Payton searching for that type of weapon is a cool story line to control over the subsequent two months. Shoutout to Adams for getting that out of him.
Kevin Patullo was the best offensive coordinator rent for the Eagles. Let’s begin right here—he’s been prepared for a short while now. Two years in the past, when Shane Steichen landed the Indianapolis Colts job, it was between Patullo and Brian Johnson to switch him, and Patullo was additionally thought of as an choice to be Steichen’s OC in Indy. After the way in which 2023 ended, and Johnson was let go, the Eagles, for apparent causes, didn’t really feel like they might go along with one other inside OC rent.
And with all that, I’m positive there was some frustration.
However Patullo will get factors for being a loyal soldier, and for the robust relationships he’d constructed that carried him by means of that. Moore—who wound up being the exterior rent final 12 months to switch Johnson—would let you know himself that Patullo was integral in melding techniques and making the brand new Eagles offense straightforward for gamers who had been going by means of one other coordinator change. And for Nick Sirianni, who introduced Patullo with him from Indianapolis again in 2021, the brand new OC was a priceless sounding board all through.
Which brings us to the opposite factor of this that shouldn’t be neglected. The gamers, and particularly Jalen Hurts, deserve some consistency. For Hurts, particularly, the 2025 rent can be his fifth offensive coordinator in six seasons, and doubtlessly the sixth play-caller he’d work with. Add to the three OCs he had in as a few years at Alabama, plus the season at Oklahoma, and that’s 10 play-callers in a decade as a school participant and professional.
Hurts would let you know there’s been some profit to taking part in in so many techniques, however there’s additionally the psychological toll it takes, on each the quarterback and everybody round him, to undergo a lot change. Patullo’s offense, after all, gained’t be precisely the identical as Moore’s, but it surely must be good for everybody to not have to start out from zero once more within the spring.
And that is one other nod to considered one of Sirianni’s nice, understated strengths—he’s often acquired a fairly good concept of what his gamers want within the second. It positive looks like, on this case, hiring Patullo was simply what the physician ordered.
The Chargers’ edge rusher scenario bears watching. Khalil Mack turned 34 over the weekend and is a free agent. Joey Bosa hits 30 this summer time, has missed 23 video games the previous three seasons, final made it by means of a full season with out lacking time in 2019 and has $25.36 million in nonguaranteed money on his contract for ’25. Tuli Tuipulotu is simply 22 and had 8.5 sacks final 12 months, rising as a pleasant piece for the long run. And Bud Dupree is a stable, reasonably priced participant for subsequent 12 months, however is now 32 years outdated.
So the primary query is whether or not Mack can be again. The second is whether or not a compromise may be reached with Bosa, with $12.36 million of that $25.36 million due on March 12 within the type of a roster bonus. If each are gone, the third query can be whether or not the workforce would then search for a youthful program match, like possibly Philly’s Josh Sweat—who’s had his personal harm points, however doesn’t flip 28 till subsequent month.
It’s an attention-grabbing spot to be in for a workforce that made main strides in Jim Harbaugh’s first 12 months, and a protection, underneath Jesse Minter, that discovered its basis in establishing robust, arduous edges for its entrance seven.
The excellent news? These are high-end issues to have popping out of a coach’s first 12 months.
The franchise tag construction places the Chiefs in a troublesome spot with two free brokers. That is one thing we’ve introduced up through the years—the way in which the NFL classifies gamers for tags isn’t precisely equitable. And this 12 months, the quirks related hit the AFC champions head on.
First, you’ve gotten guard Trey Smith. As a result of offensive linemen are grouped collectively within the tag calculation, slightly than damaged up by particular person positions (the way in which defensive linemen are), guards and facilities take pleasure in being assigned what’s basically a deal with quantity—which might be like if safeties had been grouped with corners. Because of this, Smith’s tag quantity will doubtless be over $25 million, which is effectively previous the marketplace for high guards.
Then, you’ve acquired linebacker Nick Bolton. Due to the proliferation of three–4 defenses—which play defensive ends from a two-point stance on early downs, and name them outdoors linebackers—the linebacker quantity relies on what high edge rushers make, slightly than what conventional off-ball linebackers get. So Bolton is grouped along with guys resembling T.J. Watt, Brian Burns and Rashan Gary, and his tag quantity will doubtless high $27 million—means, means over what the highest off-ball linebackers make.
Ultimately, as I see it, that leaves Kansas Metropolis with little selection however to barter in good religion with these guys, figuring out there’s little stopping them from attending to the market, and figuring out that these guys’ greatest transfer in all probability is to go to the market.
Which is simply one other factor that makes an already difficult offseason for this period’s dynasty slightly tougher.
One attention-grabbing dynamic to look at as draft season ramps up is the connections/edges coaches coming from school to the professionals may have. Final 12 months, the Chargers mined these in a really large means. Junior Colson and Cornelius Johnson had been with Harbaugh and Minter at Michigan, safeties coach Chris O’Leary (who’s since left) was with Joe Alt and Cam Hart at Notre Dame, and linebackers coach NaVorro Bowman was with Tarheeb Nonetheless at Maryland.
This isn’t a brand new factor, both. A era in the past, Pete Carroll used his institutional data from teaching 9 years at USC to assist GM John Schneider construct a loaded roster in Seattle. A era earlier than that, Jimmy Johnson did the identical, coming from Miami and establishing the powerhouse Nineteen Nineties Dallas Cowboys.
So who might have that type of benefit on this 12 months’s draft?
New Raiders OC Chip Kelly spent final 12 months at Ohio State, and the six earlier than that at UCLA, giving him intimate data of gamers by means of the Midwest and West Coast, beginning with the blokes he coached. The nationwide champion Buckeyes have extra gamers invited to the mix (15) than anybody else, so the brand new Carroll–John Spytek regime in Las Vegas must be well-positioned each with that group, UCLA gamers, and people who performed towards Ohio State and UCLA over the past two or three years.
Equally, new Cincinnati Bengals DC Al Golden returns to Cincinnati after three seasons working Marcus Freeman’s protection at Notre Dame. The Irish play a nationwide schedule, and Golden needed to recreation plan towards the Georgia, Penn State and Ohio State offenses within the playoffs. So his personal guys—resembling cornerback Benjamin Morrison, security Xavier Watts, linebacker Jack Kiser and defensive lineman Howard Cross III—can be well-scouted for Cincinnati, as will Notre Dame opponents resembling Penn State tight finish Tyler Warren, Ohio State’s Egbuka and Georgia working again Trevor Etienne.
To me, these are the kinds of issues that may assist make and break draft courses, within the data these coaches have on who the gamers are, and never simply who to go all-in on, but additionally who to keep away from. Alongside these traces, come the tip of April, it’ll be enjoyable to dive into what the Bengals and Raiders did—and possibly even what they selected to not do.
We’ve acquired your quick-hitting takeaways, because the offseason ramps up, with 2025 now absolutely underway for all 32 groups …
• We’ve all mentioned the quantity of cap area groups such because the New England Patriots, Raiders and Washington Commanders have. One workforce I feel is in an attention-grabbing spot? The Inexperienced Bay Packers, with almost $40 million to work with, and possibly extra if Jaire Alexander is gone. GM Brian Gutekunst has been extra aggressive than Ted Thompson was (the Za’Darius Smith–Preston Smith splurge was an instance), and has room to make a splashy transfer or two.
• That stated, there’s a lack of difference-makers on the free-agent market, and that’s the results of an exploding wage cap. With the latest escalation, and the expectation it lands round $280 million in 2025, most groups don’t have any concern getting their core gamers signed. So the blokes that make it to the market typically, with few exceptions, aren’t at that high stage. And if there’s an opportunity one does, he’s often traded forward of time.
• That’s why the Commanders’ 2024 spending is an efficient instance of creatively method a altering market. Washington hit the center of the market arduous, with hits approaching gamers who had backgrounds with coaches Dan Quinn (Tyler Biadasz, Dante Fowler Jr., Dorance Armstrong, Bobby Wagner), Kliff Kingsbury (Zach Ertz), Anthony Lynn (Austin Ekeler) and Shane Toub (Nick Allegretti). Washington didn’t get stars, but it surely crammed holes and created a basis off which the brand new employees might work.
• Alongside these traces, new coaches in New England and Las Vegas might use connections on their staffs equally. Between Josh McDaniels, Thomas Brown and Terrell Williams, plus head coach Mike Vrabel himself, there are ties to the Raiders, Rams, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Tennessee Titans in New England. On Carroll’s employees, guys resembling Chris Beatty, Bob Bicknell and Joe Woods, the Raiders have hyperlinks to the Chargers, Bears, Patriots, Bengals, Saints and Browns.
• The information, by way of my buddy Mike Garafolo over at NFL Media, on Nolan Smith Jr. taking part in by means of a torn triceps within the Tremendous Bowl is one other good instance of what these guys undergo to compete. I don’t know what that individual harm looks like, however I’d think about it’d be one that might be fairly robust for an edge participant to handle in-game.
• This story out of Western New York is true up there with the 2021 Waffle House sanction among the many greatest fantasy-football punishments I’ve ever seen.
• We’d talked about on Tremendous Bowl Sunday the chance that Moore would deliver Staley and Doug Nussmeier to New Orleans as his coordinators. And the Nussmeier story is fairly cool in that it’ll get the Saints new OC near his son Garrett, who’s returning to LSU for a second 12 months as beginning quarterback subsequent 12 months. I’ve spoken with scouts who imagine Nussmeier would’ve been the primary quarterback taken this 12 months had he declared.
• The James Prepare dinner contract scenario is a tough one for the Buffalo Payments, particularly with the way in which offers for Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs and Derrick Henry labored out final 12 months—making the positional-value argument rather less arduous and quick. On one hand, Prepare dinner performed fewer than half the Payments’ offensive snaps final 12 months. On the opposite, he turned maybe their most impactful ability participant with a team-high 239 touches.
• The Sam Darnold scenario nonetheless deserves watching in Minnesota. And in a bizarre means, I might see J.J. McCarthy’s weight being an element—he misplaced a bunch going by means of the knee surgical procedures of the previous six months, and so returning to his preventing weight will play a component within the Minnesota Vikings’ confidence (and there may be confidence there) that they will go ahead with him.
• Talking of linemen, all the very best to Zack Martin as he retires after 11 years as a Cowboy. It’s wonderful that he got here into the league because the man Stephen Jones satisfied Jerry Jones to go on Johnny Manziel for, and now he’s leaving it as fairly probably the very best guard of his period, and a nine-time All-Professional. His look ahead to Canton shouldn’t be any longer than it takes him to change into eligible for induction.
