If 49ers wanted to change kickers, it can’t be Cundiff

At this point, the 49ers almost have no choice but to stick with kicker David Akers.

But if they did decide to bring in another one, their first choice is off the table. Billy Cundiff, who was signed to light a fire under Akers’ seat earlier this month, would be ineliglble to return, according to Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com.

For the same reason disgruntled running back Brandon Jacobs was effectively stashed once the playoffs began (since waiver claims aren’t filed until after the Super Bowl), Cundiff can’t come back to play for the 49ers after they released him Friday.

Akers hit the upright with a 38-yard field goal yesterday, the latest in a series of shaky performances this year, which will doubtless undermine whatever bit of confidence they had left in him.

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Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said before Thursday’s win over the Dolphins that linebacker Vontze Burfict “raises the level” of the team’s defense as part of a discussion of Burfict being thrown back into the lineup at the end of his three-game suspension.

Thursday night was a very good one for the Bengals defense, which turned around from a shaky outing against the Broncos to shut down the Dolphins outside of one play on the first drive of the game. Burfict can’t take sole credit for that turnaround, but the upgrade in play speaks well of his impact even if Burfict had a modest review of his efforts.

“Football shape is different, but I think I did alright,” Burfict said, via the team’s website. “I felt I could have done more, but the coaches had a plan for me and switched me in and out with Vinny [Rey] and Karlos [Dansby] and they did a good job of that. At the end of the game, I started to feel my wind catching up, but every game I’ll feel like I’ll get better and better and get my legs up under me.”

Burfict had three tackles and knocked away a pass intended for Jarvis Landry, but the most important stat is the zero flags thrown against him during the game. Burfict is a big plus for the Bengals defense when he’s on the field and he needs to continue to avoid the personal foul penalties that kept him from being there to open the season.

AP

Some may wonder whether back to back ankle and knee injuries might be enough to keep him off the field, but Russell Wilson does not.

“No doubt,” the Seahawks quarterback told reporters on Thursday. “No doubt.”

He’s been listed as a full participant in practice the last two days, and is wearing a brace on his left knee (in which he suffered some degree of MCL sprain last week). But Wilson said prior to yesterday’s practice he wasn’t limited in any way.

“I feel great,” he said. “I feel great, feel strong. Obviously practiced yesterday, practiced the full practice and everything like that. I’m excited about this week.”

Last week was the first time he’s missed so much as a snap because of injury, so it’s normal for him to want to push through. It will remain interesting to see how effective he can be, because when his mobility is compromised, it takes away a large chunk of the Seahawks offense (as in their touchdown-less loss to the Rams).

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Several years ago, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman took aim at Darrelle Revis in an attempt to make the case that he was the best cornerback in the league.

Revis wasn’t a big fan of that approach, saying Sherman ran his mouth like a girl and the two continued to snipe back and forth through the Super Bowl between the Seahawks and Patriots. Sherman had a laugh at Revis’ expense in that game, but Revis got the last one and a Super Bowl ring.

Revis is back with the Jets now, which means that he and Sherman will be on the same field for a game for the first time since that Super Bowl. Revis isn’t interested in rehashing the past issues between the two players, passing on several questions about Sherman on Thursday while saying he was willing to talk about the Seahawks he’ll be facing off against on Sunday.

“No opinion,” Revis said, via ESPN.com. “We’re not going there. We’re not going there. Seahawks’ offense.”

Revis’ play has been well scrutinized already this season without any commentary from or comparison to Sherman and the reviews haven’t been good, which doesn’t make getting into a slap fight about who’s better seem like too good an idea. Perhaps the feeling will be different if Revis’ side comes away victorious in his second “must-win” game against a team with Sherman in the lineup.

AP

The Panthers are going to be without running back Jonathan Stewart for at least another week, as his hamstring injury keeps him off the field.

Via Bill Voth of Black and Blue Review, Panthers coach Ron Rivera said yesterday that it’s clear Stewart won’t play this week against the Falcons, which will mean another week of Cameron Artis-Payne starting and Fozzy Whittaker in relief.

They were able to survive that two weeks ago against the 49ers when Whittaker ran for 100 yards after Stewart was hurt (Artis-Payne was inactive that day). It was less effective last week against the Vikings.

When the Panthers offense is working correctly, they can use Stewart as someone to A) keep Cam Newton from having to run it so much himself and B) provide a rhythm to their offense which helps set up their deep passing game. Without Stewart, it’s harder for those slow-developing routes to come open, and Newton often takes more shots (as he did against the Vikings, who had eight sacks).

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49ers offensive lineman Anthony Davis left the team over the weekend, without officially retiring. The designation won’t matter; he’ll owe the team the balance of the signing bonus money that he previously received in anticipation of future services.

Specifically, Davis owes $1.235 million for 2016. That figure represents 14/17ths of his allocation for the current year, since Davis was on the team for three weeks of the regular season.

The good news (is there is any) Davis earned $216,176 of his $1.225 million base salary for 2016, which originally was his base salary for 2015.

If he remains retired, he’ll owe the team another $1.5 million in 2017. That’s in addition to, per a source with knowledge of the situation, $1.667 million Davis repaid when he originally retired in 2015.

Unless Davis returns to the team and properly retires, he’ll be unable to play for the 49ers or anyone else in 2016. He has been placed on the exempt/left squad list, the team has sent Davis the so-called five-day letter, and upon the expiration of the five days he’ll be placed on the reserve/left squad list, which shuts the player down for the year.

That’s apparently fine with Davis, who as one source explained it simply isn’t inclined to endure the day-to-day demands of football season. It’s actually honorable that he walked away under circumstances that will force him to pay another $2.735 million on top of the $1.667 million he returned a year ago.

In 2015, Davis could have half-assed it and gotten cut, which would have allowed him for keep more than $4.4 million. In 2016, he could have milked the concussion that kept him out of two games, possibly resulting in placement on season-ending IR. Alternatively, Davis could have embraced his role as a backup, done the bare minimum, collected his full $1.225 million salary, and not paid back another dime.

Instead, he’s gone again. Once he lands on the reserve/left squad list, Davis won’t be permitted to play for the 49ers or anyone else this year. He could be traded to another team in 2017, but if he’s not inclined to play pro football in San Francisco it’s hard to imagine him ever mustering the will to play again.

It’s clear that Davis truly has no interest in continuing to play professional football. Unlike others who have walked away, Davis willingly will give back over $4 million for his freedom from the sport.

AP

Usually, when your head coach makes a direct suggestion, it’s wise to acknowledge it respectfully, at least.

But Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. said he plans to make no changes to his demeanor after his latest outburst, even though Giants coach Ben McAdoo said he should work to keep his emotions in check.

“Nah, I’m not really … I’m in a great place right now,” Beckham said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “Mentally, physically, spiritually, there is not really much that bothers me at all, to be honest. So I’m going to go out and play football the only way I’ve ever known how to play, try my best to be the best teammate you possibly can.

“At the end of the day, you play for the guys that wear the jersey. They’re the ones who take the field with you, who you share the blood, sweat and tears with. I’m just going to go out and be who I am.”

He was then asked if he was concerned he could be a distraction, as his boss said, Beckham blew that off.

“He said, she said,” Beckham replied. “I’m not really concerned about anything but the Minnesota Vikings.”

McAdoo seemed concerned about his team and its star player, after Beckham’s sideline freakout during last week’s loss to Washington, which included losing by TKO in a fight with the kicking net. And while veteran cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie urged Beckham to “never lose that fire,” he also suggested there was a time and place for it.

“But on the sideline there are a bunch of guys and they’re already down and, if a guy looks at you the way we look at you as a leader, keep it in control until we get to the locker room,” Rodgers-Cromartie said. “Throw your helmet all across the locker room so nobody can see. That’s fine. In an atmosphere like [the sideline during a game], keep your cool.”

Beckham seems unconcerned with the advice, so here’s some more for him: Don’t pick fights with equipment that might fight back.

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The Bengals turned in a dominating performance in Thursday night’s 22-7 win over the Dolphins, but coach Marvin Lewis still saw a lot that needs improvement.

Lewis wasn’t pleased that the offense scored only one touchdown, with five field goals.

“We’re moving the football, but we need to finish more drives with touchdowns,” Lewis said. ‘Occasionally you’re going to get stopped, but we have to make sure we’re not doing things to stop ourselves and that we finish more drives.”

Also needing improvement is the Bengals’ running game, as Jeremy Hill averaged just 3.4 yards a carry, while Giovani Bernard averaged 1.8 yards a carry.

‘When you aren’t very good at something, you usually concern yourself with trying to get better at it,” Lewis said.

The 2-2 Bengals got a big win against a bad opponent on Thursday night, but they know they have work to do.

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Cornerback Byron Maxwell being benched was one of several lineup changes the Miami Dolphins elected to make prior to Thursday night’s game with the Cincinnati Bengals.

In Maxwell’s place, the Dolphins started second-year cornerback Tony Lippett instead.

According to Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald, Maxwell said he was told early in the week that he would not be starting against the Bengals. He ultimately didn’t end up playing a snap – on defense or special teams – joining Matt Moore and Dallas Thomas as the only Dolphins not to play.

So what was his reaction to the decision?

“It doesn’t matter,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell said it didn’t matter if he was angry about the decision or not either.

Lippett unsurprisingly struggled against one of the premier wide receivers in the league in A.J. Green.

Green caught 10 passes for 173 yards and a touchdown against the Dolphins as Lippett was frequently the target of Cincinnati’s attack.

Miami acquired Maxwell via a trade from the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason and he started the first three games for the team before being sat against the Bengals.

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The Miami Dolphins gained 81 yards and scored a touchdown on their first two offensive plays of the night against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Their offense then went into hibernation the remainder of the night. They gained just 141 yards the rest of the night, averaging just 3.4 yards per play on their final 41 plays of the game. Ryan Tannehill passed for 189 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and had a lost fumble as well as the Dolphins lost 22-7 to the Bengals.

“One of the worst performances I’ve seen from our offense in a long time,” Tannehill said.

Through four games, the Dolphins are averaging just 17.8 points per game offensively and have a minus-5 turnover ratio. They rank 27th in points per game and 23rd in total offense.

“We have to get it fixed soon and by soon, I mean Monday,” Tannehill said. “It’s gone on too long. There’s no more excuses, no more waiting, it’s got to be important to everyone who steps on that field and we have to get it fixed right now.”

Tannehill is in his fifth season with the Dolphins. And yet, the same type of mistakes and errors show up way too frequently. As Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald notes, Trevor Siemian of the Denver Broncos passed for 312 yards and four touchdowns against the Bengals just four days ago in his third career start. And Tannehill, in his fifth season, is still remarkably inconsistent.

The play of Miami’s offensive line certainly didn’t help Thursday night in Cincinnati either. Regardless, the Dolphins have to be much better offensively and have to figure out some way to improve to remain competitive this year.

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Running back C.J. Spiller could have taken the balance of his fully-guaranteed $1.7 million salary from the Saints and waited for an inevitable injury to strike at the tailback position for a contending team in, say, late December or early January.

Spilled opted not to delay his return to the NFL, choosing to sign with the Seahawks, who have a short-term need while Thomas Rawls recovers from a leg injury.

Unless the Seahawks are paying Spiller more than $100,000 per week (and if they were, it surely would have been leaked by now), he’s essentially working for free. More importantly, he’s putting himself at risk of injury for no additional compensation.

That’s his right, but it still doesn’t mean it makes much sense. When Rawls heals, Spiller will have a hard time getting on the field — and he won’t be available if someone else with a contending team gets injured. (Unless he gets cut.) Until then, Spiller risks the kind of injury that would make him less attractive to other teams in 2017.

For now, Spiller is getting up to speed in Seattle, where everything is new. It’s so new that he doesn’t know what his role will be.

“I just got here so we haven’t really got into that I’m still swimming I guess you can say,” Spiller told reporters on Thursday. “I’m still trying to get things learned. Places learned, the meeting rooms and all that stuff. So we really haven’t gotten in depth considering I just got here on short notice.”

Seattle may indeed be the right fit for Spiller, and it could work out perfectly for him. At a time, however, when there’s a push to get players to treat football like the business that it is, it wasn’t the best business decision for Spiller to return so quickly, for no more money than he already was going to make from the Saints.

Speaking of the Saints, they’re surely happy about this development. They’ll get a dollar-for-dollar credit for Spiller’s salary in Seattle. From the Saints’ perspective, then, it was a perfect business decision.

AP

The Dolphins scored on their second offensive play Thursday night.

For the rest of the night, the Dolphins got steamrolled.

With wide receiver A.J. Green and the defensive line leading the way, the Bengals overwhelmed the Dolphins and went on to win, 22-7. Mike Nugent kicked five field goals, and the Bengals defense made it so the offense didn’t have to lament settling for those field goals.

Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw a 74-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills with 9:04 left in the first quarter, and the Dolphins didn’t score again. The Dolphins’ makeshift offensive line was no match for the Bengals defensive front.

It was not one that will go on the Thursday Night Football highlight reel, nor the Dolphins’ highlight reel. Tannehill was 15-of-25 for 189 yards and was sacked five times, twice by Carlos Dunlap. In the fourth quarter Bengals defensive tackle Geno Atkins basically threw Dolphins guard Jermon Bushrod back into Tannehill for a sack, and that summed up the night.

Eight of the Dolphins’ first nine possessions were four plays or fewer. The Bengals had the ball for 21:36 in the first half and 38:02 for the game.

The Bengals had 362 total yards. The Dolphins had 222.

Green had 10 catches for 173 yards and the game’s only touchdown. He was over 100 yards in the first half. Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton was 22-of-31 for 296 yards.

The Bengals are 2-2 and are at the Cowboys on Oct. 9. The Dolphins are 1-3 and next host the Titans.

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Texans Pro Bowl defensive end J.J. Watt underwent back surgery Thursday that’s expected to keep him out for the rest of the season, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported.

The Texans officially placed Watt on injured reserve Wednesday.

Watt missed all of training camp and the preseason after having surgery to repair a herniated disc in July.

The Texans are 2-1 and host the Titans Sunday.

AP

Everything has been a struggle for the Dolphins except third down defense.

The Bengals keep kicking field goals and keep feeding A.J. Green, and they lead 19-7 in the third quarter. Mike Nugent has four field goals.

The Bengals think they should have more touchdowns than the one they have, but their defense has made it so they’re comfortably in charge. Andy Dalton keeps feeding Green, who had eight catches for 123 yards in the first half and had another big catch on the Bengals’ first field goal drive of the second half.

Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill was just 3-of-9 for 83 yards in the first half despite getting 74 on his second throw, a touchdown to Kenny Stills. The Dolphins have moved the ball in the third quarter but the Bengals defense tightened and sacked Tannehill out of field goal range to end the Dolphins’ first drive.

Midway through the third quarter, Carlos Dunlap has two of the Bengals’ three sacks.

AP

The Dolphins have no answer for Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green.

Thanks to some stalled Bengals drives and timely defense, the Dolphins are still in the game. They trail at halftime, 16-7.

Mike Nugent has three field goals for the Bengals, who are angry they didn’t score a touchdown off a Carlos Dunlap strip sack late in the first half.

Green has eight catches for 123 yards. He had five for 80 yards and a touchdown on his first five targets. The Dolphins can’t stop Green but have slowed the Bengals’ run game and forced Andy Dalton to go away from Green on some third downs.

Besides a 74-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills on their second play and third-down defense, not much has gone right. The Bengals had the ball for nearly 22 minutes in the first half and own a huge edge (239-122) in total yardage as well.

Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill was just 3-of-9 for 83 yards despite getting 74 on his second throw.

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There are times that Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green just makes it look easy.

On the second drive Thursday night, for example.

Tightly covered along the sideline by Dolphins rookie Xavien Howard, Green just outjumped him and came down inbounds on a 51-yard gain. Two plays later Green caught a 19-yard pass from Andy Dalton, then two plays after that he caught a short pass, gave Tony Lippett a stiffarm and turned it into a 7-yard touchdown.

That score gave the Bengals a 10-7 lead late in the first quarter. Through 12 minutes, Green has five catches on five targets for 80 yards.

The Dolphins took a 7-3 lead on a 74-yard bomb from Ryan Tannehill to Kenny Stills on their second play from scrimmage.