For the NFL, it’s been three months full of news. Really, a (mostly) tremendous start to 2023 for a league that manufactures news cycles, even in the off-season. A 38-35 Super Bowl with the re-coronation of Patrick Mahomes and the emergence of a new 24-year-old superstar, Jalen Hurts. The Super Bowl, with the third-biggest audience [more]
HENDERSON, Nev.—Just before noon on Thursday, hours before the start of the NFL Draft, Raiders coach Josh McDaniels popped into GM Dave Ziegler’s office for one last bit of strategy talk. The team’s draft board had been set with finality Wednesday, after three months of debate. The Raiders, after conversations with teams above them about [more]
“I do this for a living, and my mock draft will be no more accurate than yours. We all think that we know, but we really don’t.”–One NFL GM in a text to me last week.I would disagree with this executive. I don’t think I know. Actually, I know I don’t know.Let me tell you [more]
I’m going to top the column today with news that’ll make sports fans in the Washington area weep tears of joy. They’re already weeping. Now, I know the Caps won the Stanley Cup in 2018, and that’s fantastic, and the Mystics won the WNBA a year later, and Nationals shocked the Astros to win the [more]
I have a story for you. It’s a draft story. It’s 39 years old, from my first month covering pro football. On April 30, 1984, I was a rookie beat reporter covering the Bengals for the Cincinnati Enquirer, and I walked into the Riverfront Stadium office of first-year Bengals coach Sam Wyche to do a [more]
I see by the calendar it’s Draft Month, T-minus 24 days from teams getting to open their offseason presents. Since the four marquee players—the first-round quarterbacks—have finished their Pro Days following the Anthony Richardson workout Thursday in Gainesville, I thought I’d tell you how the very top of the draft board stands from what I [more]
PHOENIX – This morning at the annual NFL Meetings at the Arizona Biltmore hotel, NFL owners and top club officials will hear from the future. The future is a man named David Ellison, the CEO of a film and media company called Skydance Media, which will partner with the league and media arm, NFL Films [more]
Thirty-two teams, 32 thoughts on the opening week of the league year.1. Chicago. The Bears traded ownership of the draft to Carolina, then owned the first week of free agency.After a conversation with Bears GM Ryan Poles the other night, it sounds like the trade was almost THE TRADE. Poles told me he had significant [more]
Defensive end Efe Obada will remain in Washington for another year.Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Obada has agreed to sign a one-year deal to stay with the Commanders. The deal is worth up to $3 million.Obada joined the Commanders last season and posted 24 tackles, four sacks, and two passes defensed in 17 [more]
Jalen Ramsey to the Dolphins made too much sense, for both Miami and the Rams. It happened Sunday afternoon. We should have seen it coming for weeks.The trade—Ramsey to Miami for a mid-third-round pick, 77th overall, and an invisible tight end from the 2021 third round, Hunter Long—seems light for the Rams. And it is, [more]
INDIANAPOLIS—Saturday morning, Scouting Combine week, Chicago GM Ryan Poles’ hotel room, 19 stories above downtown Indy, scouts’ clicker in his hands, watching the 2022 Lions on tape. This is college scouting season, but Poles works these days with an eye on looming free-agency, and on the competition too.It’s early in his GM career for Poles, [more]
You learn a lot talking to smart people. Daniel Jeremiah’s a smart guy, and I learned a lot from our conversation Saturday evening. Namely: There is one position of great intrigue entering the Scouting Combine this week in Indianapolis, one position that is an absolute mystery with the draft kicking off two months from today.Quarterback. [more]
Cleaning out the Super Bowl 57 notebook, starting with the incredulity, even a week later, of how Kansas City won—and Andy Reid’s “Beautiful Mind Board:”Three years ago, I rode to work one morning with Andy Reid before the Kansas City-San Francisco Super Bowl. We ended up in his office suite, and I got a look [more]
GLENDALE, Ariz.—For 47 minutes Sunday night in Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City never led. Their quarterback re-sprained his right ankle just before halftime, and the Eagles led by 10 as Rihanna sung to the world, and though the momentum began to change in the third quarter, everything was a chore for the men of Andy [more]
HADDONFIELD, N.J.—The appointment was for 6 a.m. Saturday, and at 5:57, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni rolled his vehicle out of the driveway here in suburban Eagleville. I got in.It’s Super Bowl week, and I feel like the biggest story America doesn’t know is, Who is Nick Sirianni? I don’t know him well either. In my [more]