Atlanta WR JULIO JONES went to Tennessee on Sunday.

After some internal debate, we put all of our coverage of the trade in ATLANTA.

– – –

Peter King says that taking a COVID vaccine has not been the slam dunk that you would think it might be as a designated ticket to freedom from draconian lockdown measures that restrict ones freedoms:

This is an estimate, and only an estimate. But I’ve heard four to six teams have 60 or more players who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 on the 90-man roster, and about another 10 with at least 40 players vaccinated. To have a normal training camp, without limitations on in-person meetings and social gathering, teams will need approximately 85 percent (the presumed number the league will mandate) players vaccinated. That means 77 of 90 players will have had to be vaccinated by the end of July. As I reported last Monday, one team (as of May 28) had 65 players vaccinated, and there was confidence at the chance to get to 77 before late July.

But some teams—Buffalo most notably—seem to be having difficulty getting players to believe the vaccine is smart for them. I was surprised to read what Giants coach Joe Judge said about his approach to vaccinations with his players Friday: “Everyone has a choice to make, players. So that’s their decision. I’m not getting involved in that. Let them deal directly with the medical professionals.” Now, if Judge means he’s leaving all COVID-related advice in the hands of his medical and training staff, that’s understandable. But at some point, if the Giants aren’t at 85 percent, the coach needs to get involved.

The PGA TOUR was rocked Saturday by the required consequences of its CDC-dictated policy.  Jason Sobel of The Action Network:

At precisely 6:12 p.m. on a glorious Saturday afternoon at Muirfield Village Golf Club, Jon Rahm just barely missed an 11-foot right-to-left curling putt for birdie on the 18th hole, one of the few times his ball didn’t find the bottom of the cup on the back nine.

Even so, he remained all smiles, his third-round 64 giving him a six-stroke lead in pursuit of a successful Memorial Tournament title defense.

By 6:15 p.m., chaos had ensued.

Just a few steps to the right of that 18th green, Rahm was met by two officials wearing protective masks — one of them, we’d later learn, is the PGA TOUR’s medical director. As they started speaking with him, there was immediate concern about… something. After all, tournament officials don’t normally confront a player in this manner, in this public forum, in this situation.

It was eerily reminiscent of the conclusion to last year’s edition of this event. In that one, Rahm had also dominated, cruising to a five-stroke victory – only to be informed afterward that his ball had moved slightly before one of his shots late in the round and he was being assessed a two-shot penalty. He was still the winner, of course, but with a bitter aftertaste.

There’s a certain irony in that situation’s controversy paling in comparison to what was about to be announced in this one.

Within seconds, Rahm screamed and held his head in his hands. The thoughts of anyone witnessing this could have ranged from another post-round penalty to something much grimmer, perhaps regarding his two-month-old baby boy at home. On the CBS broadcast, Jim Nantz called Rahm’s reaction, “Just instant devastation.”

Minutes later, the world would realize just what that devastation was: Rahm had tested positive for COVID-19 and due to PGA TOUR regulations, he would be forced to withdraw from the tournament he was in the process of winning.

This was always the nightmare scenario for commissioner Jay Monahan and the PGA TOUR brass. This was always the bleakest hypothetical question that they wished they’d never have to answer.

For 52 weeks, since the much-hyped Return to Golf, very little had gone awry. The game returned in an apparent safe manner, with competitors and others tested for the virus on a regular basis.

Sure, much like every other part of society, players tested positive — dozens of them over the past year — but only on a handful of occasions when they had already played at least one tournament round and never had it been the leader of the event.

Gradually, spectators were welcomed back, too, first in small percentages of normal capacity, then in large droves, as evidenced two weeks ago at the PGA Championship, when golf’s equivalent of a mob scene swallowed Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka as they tried to approach the final green.

As COVID-19 numbers dwindled and vaccinations became readily available (this week, the Memorial Tournament became the first event to offer on-site vaccine shots to ticket holders), the virus became an afterthought, the Return to Golf finally morphing into a Return to Normalcy that we’d all craved.

The latest news surrounding Rahm should serve as a reminder that the situation might be fluid, but it’s still anything but normal. While the bleakest hypothetical question was answered, so many others continue to linger.

Wasn’t he already vaccinated? We don’t need to go down the rabbit-hole of Reddit message boards to understand that vaccinations are a hot-button issue right now. Many citizens decided to get their shots as soon as they were available; many others have chosen to take a wait-and-see approach.

As I reported Saturday evening, according to a source, Rahm just this week received his first vaccination shot, but only after coming in close contact with a person who’d been positive, so he was placed in the COVID-19 protocol and subject to daily testing.

Why was he allowed to continue playing? According to Andy Levinson, the PGA TOUR’s senior VP of tournament administration, the initial positive result was received at 4:20 p.m., during the third round.

Due to the fact that he couldn’t be tested again while competing, the sample was retested and deemed positive at 6:03 p.m., just as Rahm was hitting his approach shot into the final green. From there, he was allowed to finish the round before receiving the news.

How come another sample wasn’t given? Here’s where Rahm — not to mention Rahm fans, Rahm bettors and Rahm sympathizers — might take the biggest issue. While there is, as Levinson explained, “a very, very, very small chance of false positives,” which would suggest a second test should be administered, not just a retest of the same sample, he also admitted, “Unfortunately, in this case, there isn’t time to establish that. What we do know is that we had an individual who had close contact, he tested positive, we re-ran the sample and came up with a positive result.”

It’s still unclear why Rahm couldn’t have been tested again after the round and only subject to withdrawal upon another positive result.

Why did they have to inform him right there? When Rahm was first told about the result, right there off the 18th green, in view of spectators and CBS cameras and in front of a live television audience, it seemed discourteous at best, a ham-handed decision to spotlight him at the worst possible moment.

Think of the alternative, though: Rahm walks past a wall of fans on his way to sign the scorecard – maybe he wears a mask, maybe he doesn’t; maybe he fist-bumps a few fans, maybe not – and then the public is alerted of the news afterward. What took place was a bad look, but the alternative might’ve been worse.

How come he can’t compete alone? In the early days of COVID-19, some players who’d tested positive, then later retested as negative, played competitive events as a single, but that doesn’t apply to this specific situation. Much like Rahm’s two-stroke penalty at this event last year, the rules are the rules — and they can’t simply bend when we want them to adjust for the sake of what feels right.

Just as the PGA TOUR can’t decide that a ball which moves before impact wasn’t advantageous and therefore isn’t subject to penalty, it similarly can’t rule that just because a player is leading by a half-dozen strokes and is likely going to win, the policy should be adjusted in his favor.

Each of these is a worthy question, but it’s the insinuation of the final one which is currently gnawing at so many: Essentially, if Rahm is a big, strong, healthy professional athlete who remains asymptomatic, then why can’t he continue to ply his craft in a safe environment?

The obvious answer, of course, is that Rahm’s life isn’t any more valuable than the elderly volunteer marshal or the susceptible spectator. Perhaps more troubling is the notion that some PGA TOUR professionals – and let’s be careful not to stereotype all of them – have approached the pandemic with relative insouciance in comparison with a large part of society.

On Sunday, I spoke with a tournament official from an event that was contested within the past two months. During that week, the official had a small gathering with players and asked how many were vaccinated. The answer? “None. It just wasn’t part of their calculus.”

If anything, the nightmare scenario which unfolded for Rahm this weekend should serve as a wake-up call for his peers, the fans and everyone else associated with tournaments moving forward.

So if teams don’t hit the threshold there will still be tests and occasional positive results and quarantines that will effect game results – even though COVID will have retreated even more as an actual severe threat.

NFC NORTH

CHICAGO

This will be interesting – what if the Bears go on the market?  John Breech ofCBSSports.com:

The Chicago Bears have been in the NFL since the league’s first year in 1920 and in that time, the team has only been owned by one family, but that could soon be changing.

According to Jim O’Donnell of the Daily Herald in Chicago, there could be a sale coming in the near future and that’s because there’s some “internal strife going on among family members to sell … now.”

The principal owner of the team is 98-year-old Virginia Halas McCaskey, who is the daughter of Bears founder George Halas. The NFL legend ran the team until his death in 1983 and at that point, Virginia took over as the head of the franchise.

The team has a board of directors made up of eight individuals and currently, five of those eight are members of the McCaskey family.

At this point, selling the team would basically serve two purposes. First, it would allow the McCaskey family to cash-in on their investment. The Bears are worth an estimated $3.5 billion and if that’s what they end up selling for, it would create a huge profit for the family. To put the team’s current value in perspective, just consider this: George Halas only paid $100 for the team in 1920.

By selling, it would also potentially put the Bears in better shape for the future. Soldier Field is in serious need of a facelift, but that’s not going to be easy to pull off due to the high cost that would come with trying to renovate the stadium. If Soldier Field can’t be updated, there’s a chance the Bears could move outside of Chicago to Arlington Park, but that would only happen if the team can get a new stadium built there. Whether they fix Soldier Field or build a new stadium, it’s not going to be cheap and bringing in a deep-pocketed owner would help the cause.

According to O’Donnell, the three most likely candidates to purchase the team would be Pat Ryan, Jeff Bezos and Neil Bluhm. Ryan is a billionaire and he’d likely have the best shot at landing the Bears because he’s already a minority owner (he also has the right of first refusal to buy any part of the team that the McCaskey’s might sell). Ryan is well known in Chicago and already has the football field and basketball arena at Northwestern named after him. Not to mention, he’s one of the eight people that sits on the Bears board of directors.

It used to be next to impossible to become an NFL owner and that’s mostly because teams were never for sale (plus, you have to be a billionaire to be able to afford one), but if the Bears end up on the market, they could join several other teams like the Broncos and Chargers who could eventually be for sale in the next few years.

GREEN BAY

CEO Mark Murphy acts surprised and disappointed that he and GM Brian Gutenkist put in place when they made the surprise pick of JORDAN LOVE has divided Packers fans.  Jelani Scott of NFL.com:

Any time the future of an all-time great hangs in the balance, the eventual resolution will have an impact on nearly everyone attached to said player.

With the uncertainty surrounding Aaron Rodgers continuing to loom large, Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy shared on Saturday that the ongoing saga has taken a toll on the Green Bay faithful.

“The situation we face with Aaron Rodgers has divided our fan base,” Murphy wrote in his monthly column for Packers.com. “The emails and letters that I’ve received reflect this fact. As I wrote here last month, we remain committed to resolving things with Aaron and want him to be our quarterback in 2021 and beyond. We are working to resolve the situation and realize that the less both sides say publicly, the better.”

Since reports of the star quarterback’s private displeasure with the club became public on draft day, there has been no shortage of speculation, discussion and criticism as it relates to the 37-year-old’s relationship with team brass.

Rodgers’ decision to skip voluntary OTAs certainly did nothing to quell such chatter. Nor did Matt LaFleur saying last week that he doesn’t know if the future Hall of Famer will attend mandatory minicamp when it opens June 8.

Despite the apparent disconnect between all parties, Murphy was not shy about voicing his support for general manager Brian Gutekunst, who will continue to play a pivotal role in this situation in the coming months.

“I have tremendous confidence in Brian Gutekunst,” he stated. “In his relatively short tenure as our GM, he has completely turned around the fortunes of our team. He has put together a talented team (last year we had the most players voted to the Pro Bowl) that has a 28-8 record over the last two years, after consecutive losing seasons in 2017 and 2018, and has played in back-to-back NFC Championship games. Moreover, he has a great working relationship with Head Coach Matt LaFleur. He and EVP/director of football operations Russ Ball have managed our salary cap smartly and have us well positioned for the future.”

We know and understand the view of some Packers fans that in 2020, a team coming off an NFC Championship Game appearance was in a critical window with an aging QB and needed a key first round pick to provide immediate impact to push to the top.  The kind of picks that T TRISTAN WIRFS and S ANTOINE WINFIELD were for the Buccaneers in that draft.  And instead, Gutenkist and company squandered the pick (and another that was traded to jump up) on QB JORDAN LOVE whose contributions would lie in the future, after the current window closed.

If indeed there is a divide in Murphy’s emails, are there really fans who would try to fashion the argument that Rodgers is a highly-paid ingrate who now should be run out of town immediately for being hurt by Green Bay’s manuverings.

Is the fan base “divided” or better described as “up in arms” over Green Bay’s brain trust?

– – –

Peter King attempts to broker a parting between Rodgers and the Packers as he does a lot of “thinking” about what agent David Dunn is up to:

I have a bridge-building idea for the Aaron Rodgers dilemma. The more I think about it, the more I think, Why not?

The idea: The Packers commit to trade Rodgers, pacifying the angry quarterback—but the deal would not happen till next spring. Rodgers, in turn, agrees to give the Packers one more season in exchange for being allowed to transition to a new team before the 2022 draft.

Packers president Mark Murphy, who’s got to be Henry Kissinger here (look it up, kids), must be searching for an exit strategy. If I were in Murphy’s chair, I’d undertake another secret mission to meet with Rodgers and agent David Dunn, just the three of them, and propose one more year of Green Bay employment with the knowledge that Rodgers and Dunn could give the Pack a list of teams the QB would be willing to play for in 2022.

I think Rodgers and Dunn would want the quarterback’s freedom if he’d give the Pack one more season. And maybe that’s not entirely out of the question. But there is an historical omen that I think would make Murphy draw the line at 2022 freedom for Rodgers. Unlikely though it is, imagine Rodgers being a free agent next March, and Minnesota GM Rick Spielman swooping in to sign a player who’d love to stick it to the Green Bay front office by playing for the arch-rival—a haunting memory-relic from 13 years ago with Brett Favre. My bet is that would make Murphy say, “No chance we’re releasing him.”

When Favre was demanding his freedom from Green Bay after coming out of retirement in July 2008, then-GM Ted Thompson insisted he wouldn’t cut Favre loose. He knew Favre would likely sign with Minnesota or Chicago, and Thompson didn’t want to be hung in effigy in Wisconsin. He held firm, and Favre got traded to the Jets before eventually ending his career as a Viking. So wouldn’t it make sense for Rodgers, after this season, to give the Packers four destinations in the AFC, and let Green Bay GM Brian Gutekunst make the best deal for the franchise?

If all sides agreed, the deal could be announced in mid-June. The Pack could enter training camp with the MVP in place, in his prime.

I would bet Rodgers, today, is solid on never playing for the Packers again, so maybe this is useless. But Rodgers might view this as the best way to get through an unfortunate situation.

Why I think it makes sense for Rodgers

• His words. He told Kenny Mayne two weeks ago he loves his coaches, his teammates and the fans, and he has spoken with reverence about the history of the Packers. This compromise allows him to prove it. Lots of fans would find his words to Mayne hollow if Rodgers is home in California in September and Jordan Love gets blown out on opening day at New Orleans. I doubt Rodgers wants a bridge-burning exit from Green Bay.

• His best championship chance. The Packers are 28-8 in Rodgers’ last two seasons in Green Bay, and there’s little doubt Green Bay is the place he’d have the best chance to win a Super Bowl this year. With Rodgers, I’d say it’s a Tampa Bay-Green Bay tossup for home field in the NFC playoffs. Is there any place in the AFC where Rodgers would have as good a chance to win his second ring in 2021? No, and it’s not close.

• His personal fortune. Rodgers won’t subject himself to massive fines and money losses if he reports and placidly goes on with a final year in Green Bay. This isn’t the biggest thing with him, but imagine his boycotting the Packers and the team coming after his $6.8-million roster bonus from the spring. It’s one thing to not earn money in the future. It’s another to pay back millions.

• His management of a bad situation. If he shows up, there’d be a relatively peaceful season. Rodgers could talk about the situation once, then no-comment everything else the rest of the season. The story would be wallpaper. Loud wallpaper, but wallpaper.

• His last big contract. Rodgers gets one more payday, a big one, with his new team in 2022. (More in a minute on that.)

Why it makes sense for the Packers

Murphy’s a pragmatist, and he has to be that above all as the caretaker of this franchise. No matter how many times he thinks, Aaron would never hold out and hold us hostage, does he know that? No. Rodgers is willful. Back him against a wall, and Murphy doesn’t know how he’d react. But it would not be good for the team.

Beyond that, the prospect of quarterback certainty in 2022 would motivate Green Bay to do what every team should be doing in the first 17-game season anyway. Whenever the Pack is up by 20 or down 20 in the last 10 minutes, give Jordan Love the last two or three series of the game. Give Love the Week 18 game if the Packers’ playoff spot in secure. That prevents overuse of a 37-year-old quarterback and could give Love 100 or so important snaps entering 2022.

The Packers need to extend an olive branch for a situation—whether they acknowledge the reality of it—that could turn into a football and fan disaster in 2021. This is that olive branch. It’s a face-saving thing for both sides.

Contractually, too, it makes sense. Rodgers was paid that $6.8-million roster bonus in March, and he’s due a base salary of $14.7 million this season. He has two years after this season left on his contract. If he’s traded next spring, the dead cap hit for Rodgers on Green Bay’s cap in 2022 would be $17.2 million. Rodgers would have two seasons left at $25.5 million per. But it’s probable, in the event of a trade, a team would sign Rodgers to a big deal putting him somewhere north of $40-million a year, and I’d guess the term would be three or four years, perhaps with some cap-easing phony years on the end of the contract.

If the offer is made and Rodgers says yes, it’s a win-win for everyone. If the answer’s no, well, Murphy tried. And then we’d know exactly how much Rodgers dreads putting on the green and gold ever again

NFC EAST

DALLAS

Charles Robinson of YahooSports.com sees Coach Mike McCarthy squarely on the hot seat before his second year commences.

The outside world has been against Mike McCarthy for a while now. That puts him in a familiar zip code as a Dallas Cowboys head coach.

Jason Garrett resided there for years. Wade Phillips, Dave Campo and Chan Gailey all rented in that neighborhood for years. Even Bill Parcells briefly wandered through. Pretty much every Dallas coach not named Jimmy Johnson was mired in some state of deep criticism since the franchise’s last Super Bowl win nearly 26 years ago. The only thing that might differentiate them is how quickly they landed on that real estate.

McCarthy got there quickly, thanks to a 2-7 start in 2020 that had some speculating whether he might be team owner Jerry Jones’ first one-and-done coach following a massively disappointing season.

A few months later, not a lot has changed. At least not from the standpoint of oddsmakers, some of whom have posted McCarthy as the betting favorite to be the first coach fired in 2021. Is it a fair assessment? Probably not, especially when you rehash the totality of bad luck that McCarthy had last season (we’ll get to that in a moment).

The pessimists have correctly pinpointed the reality of pressure and how much McCarthy is facing next season. Not just because of his poor first year. And not because he vouched for now-fired defensive coordinator Mike Nolan last season. It’s because of one fundamental change that occurred this offseason and what it means for the Dallas Super Bowl window.

McCarthy enters 2021 with the second-highest paid quarterback in the NFL, in the wake of Dak Prescott’s four-year, $160 million deal signed this offseason. That carries an abundance of expectations that only a small fraternity of head coaches can speak to. Indeed, not only is Prescott going to be under a different microscope this season, but his head coach will be, too. McCarthy has to make this all work as perfectly as possible around Prescott — or stand accused of wasting a $40 million season from a contractually minted franchise quarterback.

This is low-key one of the NFL’s staunchest realities for head coaches — the fact that quarterbacks are now eating up such a significant piece of salary cap space, having even one disastrous season with them instantly pitches the head coach into a perilous trajectory. Not just with the media and fans, but also with team owners who expect to consistently achieve top-level results when they’re fielding one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league.

That puts McCarthy into a new space in 2021. It’s very different than last offseason, when McCarthy had a clean record and the Cowboys were still see-sawing with Prescott at the negotiating table. Back then, few thought that Dallas would run into the buzzsaw of injuries that it faced in 2020. And there were even a few stragglers who cast doubt about whether Prescott could land in the $40 million per season category. Flash forward one year and McCarthy’s record has a significant first-year smudge on it, while Prescott enters the season perched as the second-highest paid player in the league, trailing only the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes. If that’s not enough to telegraph how important this season is for McCarthy, take some time and absorb that Prescott is only on a four-year deal. That’s four shots to make his $40 million annual salary worthwhile. And all of them are going to weigh heavily on the head coach.

To be fair, the annual pressure is always like that in Dallas. Every season has to count for something. And when it doesn’t, it’s only natural that the head coach becomes the guy who catches the majority of the heat, especially when the team owner is the general manager and the only truly fireable guys left are usually the head coach or the quarterback. That’s also what makes 2021 unique for McCarthy. In a traditional franchise, the three likeliest pink slips in the face of disaster are the general manager, head coach and quarterback. In Dallas, only one of those three can be fired for at least the next few years.

Jerry Jones won’t fire himself. And he can’t fire Prescott after locking him into $126 million guaranteed money. All of this leaves one man who can be swapped out in the face of agony in 2021. And we all know who it is.

That doesn’t necessarily mean McCarthy should be the odds-on favorite to be the first guy fired next season. Not when you consider the maddening injury spate last season was out of his hands — and the coronavirus robbed him of some important chemistry-building time last offseason. Indeed, even if you skewer his choice of defensive coordinator (for which McCarthy deserves a mountain of criticism), it was hard to accurately weigh Dallas’ 2020 season. The injuries were that awful.

There’s also history to consider. Jones hasn’t fired a head coach after two seasons in more than 20 years — last doing it after the 1999 season, when he parted ways with Gailey. And Jones is coming off a remarkable run of patience with Garrett, who remained in place for nine-plus years and survived spiraling criticism at various points in his tenure. Even McCarthy has a track record that suggests there are better things in store in his encore performance, given that the Green Bay Packers took a big leap from Year 1 to 2 under his guidance.

All of that suggests that while McCarthy’s seat might be hot, it’s not so hot that he should be considered a danger to be fired right out of the gate. But if the totality of 2021 is a disappointing rehash of last season — even with injuries — it’s hard to see McCarthy surviving that kind of failure, especially inside an NFC East that’s in a state of flux. The Cowboys are the favorites at +100 to win the East, according to BetMGM. It’s a division filled out with three other franchises that are fielding starting quarterbacks who could all be swapped out by 2022.

That is the pressure. Looking at an NFC East and seeing that Dallas unequivocally has the best quarterback, but also looking at Prescott’s salary layout and realizing that he’s paid more than the other three starters combined. The onus is on McCarthy to maximize that financial commitment, whether it’s developing or managing or commandeering the pieces around Prescott to make sure they all fit.

That’s what 2021 is about for McCarthy. That’s what he has to get right. He has the $40 million quarterback. And now it’s part of his job to make that paycheck worth it.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

WR JULIO JONES is heading up the interstate to Nashville.  Mike Florio ofProFootballTalk.com:

The deal is done, or at least the agreement is.

The Falcons have announced that the team has agreed to terms on a trade that will send receiver Julio Jones to the Titans. Atlanta gets Tennessee’s second-round pick in 2022 and fourth-round pick in 2023. The Titans get Jones and Atlanta’s sixth-round pick in 2023.

Jones, as the Falcons note in their press release, exists as the franchise’s all-time leader in receptions, receiving yardage, and 100-yard games. He’s a seven-time Pro Bowler, a two-time All-Pro, and a member of the NFL’s all-decade team of the 2010s.

He appeared in 135 games with the Falcons, catching 848 passes for 12,896 yards and 60 touchdowns.

Jones presumably will be required to pass a physical before the transaction becomes official. The Titans will also need to do a little salary-cap magic to absorb Jones’ $15.3 million charge foe 2021. Barring something entirely unexpected at this point, Jones is a Titan.

Peter King on how it went down:

The market for Jones wasn’t as hot as the Falcons thought it would be. Baltimore was interested before the draft but with Sammy Watkins arriving in free agency and Rashod Bateman and Tylan Wallace coming in rounds one and four of the draft, the Ravens dropped out. New England never had serious interest in committing $38 million to a 32-year-old receiver. Seattle was interested, but not for huge money. Tennessee was the last and best shot. But a source close to the deal told me there were three other teams involved in the last week, but none willing to give what Tennessee gave. That included taking on the entire amount Jones is owned through 2023.

That source also told me the key to getting the trade done was Tennessee’s willingness to add a second pick to the deal Sunday morning in a call between GMs Terry Fontenot of the Falcons and Jon Robinson of the Titans. Credit to Fontenot here. The rookie personnel czar, I’m told, reasoned that there was a huge difference between second-round picks. Tennessee, he thought, quite likely will have a pick in the fifties next year, and told Robinson he needed more to get the deal done. Makes sense. Tennessee’s second-round pick was 61st overall in 2020, and 53rd in 2021.

Robinson was willing to add another pick—but not without getting a lesser pick back. So in the Sunday call, after some negotiating, Robinson agreed to swap a four in ’23 for a six in ’23, and Fontenot signed off on it.

There will be much debate over the terms of the deal, and why the Falcons got primarily a late-second-round pick after getting a second-round pick for the forgettable Mohamed Sanu at the 2019 trading deadline from New England. I’ll give you 38 million reasons why the Falcons couldn’t get more. Jones is a fantastic player when healthy, but the combination of what he’s owed, plus the fact he doesn’t practice much now and missed nearly half the season last year, kept his future value down. I was told Sunday night that Atlanta owner Arthur Blank, who can be a demanding boss, did not press Fontenot for a better return than what he got.

When I spoke to Robinson on Sunday afternoon, he said judging Jones’ health “was big in the decision. Missing time last year, what were the circumstances surrounding that? And based on our evaluation of him, he’s healthy and doesn’t look like he’s lost anything to us.”.

Florio on the final terms:

Billionaires always get whatever they want. Almost.

Falcons owner Arthur Blank wanted a first-round pick for receiver Julio Jones. He isn’t getting one.

The Titans, as expected in league circles a week ago, are getting Jones for a second-round pick. It looks like the compromise will be an extra late-round pick or a flip-flopping of selections, like the Falcons did when sending a second-round pick and a fifth-round pick to the Ravens for tight end Hayden Hurst and a fourth-round pick.

But it’s not a first-round pick. Yes, ESPN reported at one point that a first-round pick was on the table. What wasn’t reported at the time was that the Falcons would have sent both Jones and as much as a second-round pick to the team that put a first-round pick on the table.

Blank was holding out for a first-round pick because the Falcons got a second-round pick for receiver Mohamed Sanu and, as noted above, gave up a second-round pick for Hurst.

What’s being overlooked by those who are wondering why some other team didn’t trump Tennessee’s offer is that Jones comes to town with a $15.3 million guaranteed salary for 2021 (unless Atlanta is paying some of it, which it had been refusing to do). Jones also will want a new contract, either now or after the 2021 season.

With $38.326 million owed to Jones over the next three years, that’s $12.77 million annually. And that’s less than half of the top of the market.

While Jones may have to re-establish himself before cashing in, he definitely will be looking to do so. The Titans need to be ready for that possibility. With receiver A.J. Brown eligible for a new contract after the 2021 season, the Titans may have to a pair of receivers looking for big paydays.

More from Charean Williams:

On Sunday, everything came together to make the star receiver a Titan, pending a physical.

“We’ve been talking for probably 2-3 weeks here, back and forth with Atlanta,” Robinson said via Jim Wyatt of the team website. “My hat’s off to (Fontenot). This is his first big trade. He was great to work with, and he has a great career ahead of him. So I appreciate working with him, and dealing with him. But we had discussions back and forth the last couple of weeks, and it kind of picked up in intensity yesterday, and then finally found some closure on it this morning.

“We’re excited to add Julio to the football team, and he’s excited to be a part of what we have going on in Nashville. It’s a big day for our team.”

The deal, which will have Tennessee trading its 2022 second-round pick and a 2023 fourth-round selection to Atlanta in exchange for Jones and a sixth-round pick in 2023, still is not complete. Robinson suggested the Titans still have to work through some things with the salary cap to comply with NFL guidelines.

The deal is close enough, though, that both sides have acknowledged an agreement is in place.

The seven-time Pro Bowler, who has 12,896 receiving yards and 60 touchdowns in his 10-year career, will join A.J. Brown, Derrick Henry and Josh Reynolds among others in Tennessee.

“He’s big. He’s fast. He’s tough,” Robinson said of Jones. “He’s great with the ball in his hands. He’s a willing blocker. I think a lot of the things that we ask of our receivers, which all the locals know, is get open, catch and block. He certainly checks those boxes and has done it as a high level for a lot of years in the National Football League.

“We did our due diligence with the film work and the evaluation about what he might add to the team, and we’re excited we were able to get some closure with it today.”

Robinson added that he hopes “we’ve bolstered [the team] today by adding Julio.”

ESPN put their experts on the case:

What’s your gut reaction to the trade?

Turron Davenport, Titans reporter: This trade makes too much sense for the Titans. They found the ultimate balance on offense last season with a 2,000-yard rusher in Derrick Henry, a 1,000-yard receiver in A.J. Brown and another receiver in Corey Davis who finished just 16 yards short of 1,000. Jones takes the offense to the next level. Although he is 32, he’s going to face the most single coverage he has ever seen as a pro and will have a young rising player in Brown on the opposite side of him. I don’t think the compensation is too rich for the Titans. Injury could be a factor, but Jones should bounce back from last season, when he missed seven games with a hamstring injury. This is a great deal for the Titans.

Michael Rothstein, Falcons reporter: It’s a trade that was expected to come down — the question was just what team and what terms — but it’ll still be a jarring one for Falcons fans because Julio Jones is such a franchise icon. More and more, however, star players are not finishing their careers with the teams they are most known for, so this is basically what should have been expected.

Jeremy Fowler, national NFL writer: The big win for the Falcons is dumping Jones’ entire $15 million guaranteed salary in 2021, because this was a cap and cash move above all else. Some teams wanted Atlanta to absorb part of the payout, and that was a non-starter. The Titans waited this out, so they didn’t give up a massive haul and can restructure a few contracts to make room for Jones, instantly changing the complexion of the offense in the process

Dan Graziano, national NFL writer: My reaction is pretty clinical at this point, considering how long we knew this was coming. No surprise that it happened, where he ended up or what the compensation was. The Falcons had to trade him, everybody knew they had to trade him, they got about as much as they could have hoped to get and they got him out of the conference. The Titans had a crying need at receiver and got the best player they possibly could to fill it — as long as Jones is healthy.

Seth Walder, sports analytics writer: It creates a disjointed offseason for the Falcons. Atlanta entered 2021 with a choice: run it back with an offense that still has serious upside and hope for minimal defensive regression, or tear it down and draft a rookie quarterback. Either was justifiable, but it’s a lot harder to pull off the former without Jones. Instead of committing to either philosophy, it might end up in no-man’s-land.

What’s your grade for the trade from the Falcons’ perspective?

Rothstein: B. The Falcons were unlikely to get a first-round pick and made this move, at least in part, because of their major cap issues and Jones’ request to be traded. So with those factors at play, getting a second- and fourth-round pick while sending back a sixth-round pick was about as good of a haul as Atlanta was likely to get.

Fowler: B+. Second- and fourth-round picks in exchange for a sixth-rounder is pretty strong, all factors considered. That Atlanta had less than $1 million in cap space and couldn’t pay rookie draft picks without significant moves probably cost it leverage. But some people around the league were skeptical the team could get more than a third-round pick. The Falcons did just that.

Graziano: B-. Again, this was about the best they could have hoped to do for a 32-year-old player who missed about half of last season and always seems to have some sort of physical ailment these days. They found a team to pay the whole salary (critical, since the reason they had to deal him was financial) and they got him out of the NFC. Considering they had to get this done and had to get it done now, they did fine.

Walder: C+. I disagree with the notion of trading Jones while trying to still win with Matt Ryan. But once the decision to deal him was made, the return was near the top of what Atlanta could have reasonably expected.

What’s your grade for the trade from the Titans’ perspective?

Davenport: A. This is a trade that is going to make the Titans’ offense capable of matching firepower with any team in the AFC. They can gash teams with the rushing attack, but now they have the necessary weapons to engage in shootouts with the likes of the Chiefs and Bills. Giving up the picks they did is not much, especially considering Tennessee is also likely to get compensatory picks in the 2022 draft.

Fowler: A-. Can’t fault a team for maximizing a two-year window with the game’s best receiver of the past decade. This speaks to the Titans’ loose plans to expand the passing game — Derrick Henry is still the guy, but Tennessee must evolve, and this reinforces that. The downside: Tennessee just acquired a 32-year-old who was hurt for much of last year. There’s always calculated risk in that, no matter the talent.

Graziano: B+. It’s hard not to like the impact this can have on Tennessee’s 2021 offense — assuming Jones is healthy. The price is the price, and who knows, maybe that 2022 second-rounder would have been an impact player. But this is a win-now team with an offense that’s ready to crush, and this can only help.

Walder: B+. Even though I don’t consider the Titans quite among the top teams in the AFC, their contention window is open now, and it makes sense to go for it while that’s the case. Jones may be 32, but he fills a major need, they aren’t paying him a ton and he’ll be cheap if they keep him in 2023.

NFC WEST

LOS ANGELES RAMS

Peter King on the greatness of DT AARON DONALD:

For a man who just turned 30, and who has played just seven NFL seasons, Aaron Donald is verging on some very hallowed ground.

In 2019, the NFL released its 100-year all-time team. There were seven defensive tackles on it: Joe Greene, Randy White, Buck Buchanan, Bob Lilly, Alan Page, Merlin Olsen and John Randle. Check out the number of All-Pro first-team nods each of the players had—and I’ve included Donald on the list, to show where he fits in:

7: White, Lilly

6: Page, Randle, Donald

5: Olsen

4: Greene, Buchanan

• All-Pro is the true measure of greatness. Pro Bowls are nice, but not at all meaningful when five and six players in a position group drop out because of injury/indifference/Super Bowl. Donald making six straight first-team All-Pros means he’s one of the two best defensive tackles in the game as voted on by a panel of 50 Associated Press voters who cover the game closely, each year from 2015 to 2020.

• Every one of the seven named to the NFL’s all-time team earned at least one first-team All-Pro nod in his thirties. White earned three.

• Buchanan earned his first first-team awards in the AFL from 1966-69, when there were nine or 10 teams. Most of Lilly’s and Olsen’s awards came in the 16-team NFL of the sixties. The NFL had 26 or 28 teams for most of Page’s and Greene’s awards, and the league was 28 or 30 teams when White and Lilly were named first-team.

• So if Donald is named first-team All-Pro twice more in his career, he’ll have earned the distinction of being the most honored defensive tackle in NFL history, and he’ll have done it against the most competition, in a 32-team league, of any of the all-time greats.

• Donald has earned PFF’s top-rated defensive interior grade in the NFL for six straight years.

I like his chances to top them all.

Is the DB the first to notice that Donald is heading to a top rank in this listing that is literally nothing but Lilly White Cowboys.

AFC NORTH

PITTSBURGH

Bill Cowher has his autobiography out and even long-time Steelers scribe Ed Bouchette, now with The Athletic, finds some new stuff.  This on Cowher’s departure from the Steelers:

Cowher told me for a previous story in The Athletic that he quit the Steelers after the 2006 season because of family reasons, especially his wife Kaye. He provides more details in the book. They had bought a home in the summer of 2005 in Raleigh, N.C., where they intended to go after his retirement from coaching. Instead, Kaye talked to her husband about it and she moved there in the summer of 2006 with their youngest daughter, Lindsay, a high school sophomore (the other two were in college), to the house they bought in her native North Carolina.

Cowher detested the loneliness of being in his Fox Chapel home alone with their cat for all of the 2006 season. He decided at the end to quit coaching with one year left on his contract and join his wife and daughter in North Carolina. His agent, Phil de Picciotto, attended Cowher’s final press conference at Steelers headquarters and told me that it didn’t have to end that way, which made it sound as if it had something to do with money.

“I don’t think Phil even knew what I was going through,” Cowher told me last week. “I didn’t expose myself to anybody. It was about my wife being happy. Kaye made sacrifices and she held our family together and getting the kids to colleges. If she wasn’t in a good place then I wasn’t in a good place. But I didn’t need that to come out (back then). It didn’t need to be part of it. She never mandated and told me I needed to do this or do that. It was me having to make that decision. I don’t think I shared with anybody until this book what I was going through.”

• He is more open to writing about Kaye and his family than he is even about his days with the Steelers.

“She was just a tremendous supporter of mine,” he told me. “She was the backbone of our family. She kept everything in perspective. The kids never lost sight of the fact that she said ‘Listen, your father’s got a job just like everybody else.’ They went to school and after every one of those AFC Championship Game losses they were the first ones at the bus stop.”

The most poignant parts of the book come when Cowher writes what he and they went through after he retired from coaching.

In 2007, Kaye discovered that a mole had become cancerous and had it surgically removed; tests showed the melanoma did not spread at the time. In 2009, Cowher reveals for the first time, Kaye was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. Then, in 2010, it was discovered that the melanoma had spread. Cowher details what the next several months were like taking care of her as her health deteriorated. In March of that year, they had flown to Pittsburgh to join a trial for fighting the disease before Kaye finally asked to stop and go home. While they were in Pittsburgh, Cowher’s mother called to say his father was in the hospital on a respirator. Bill visited his dad and said goodbye for the final time. On July 23, Kaye died at age 54.

“Certainly 2010 was not easy when I came back up to Pittsburgh and said goodbye to my dad for the last time, and literally said goodbye to my wife for the last time three months later,” Cowher told me. “It was very very tough.”

AFC SOUTH

TENNESSEE

The Titans are doing an experiment with a college wrestler.  Turron Davenport ofESPN.com:

The Tennessee Titans have signed three-time All-American wrestler Adam Coon to play on the offensive line.

Coon compiled a 116-15 record in college while wrestling at Michigan but never played football for the Wolverines. A four-time high school state champion in wrestling, Coon was named the Detroit Athletic Club High School Athlete of the Year as a senior in high school.

Coon has no college football playing experience but was an all-state linebacker in 2012 at Fowlerville High School in Michigan and was an honorable mention offensive lineman in 2010 and 2011.

How big is this guy?  Well, he wrestled in the 286-pound weight class.

Left out of his biography above is his gold medal in the 2019 Pan-American Games and his silver in the 2018 World Champions.  This in Greco-Roman wrestling.

But recently, he failed to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

Brian Flores wants you to know that QB TUA TAGIALOVA was just being humble when he said he didn’t know the playbook.  Kevin Patra of NFL.com:

Tua Tagovailoa made headlines last week when he noted he didn’t know the playbook “really, really good” during his rookie season.

The admission created waves, but coach Brian Flores dismissed the issue Friday, saying the quarterback is comparing his understanding from then until now.

“Honestly, I just think he’s comparing last year to where he is right now — and I get it. I understand that,” Flores said, per the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

“I think he’s thinking about where he is right now versus that time a year ago, just reflecting. and that’s good because this time of year is about reflection, and where you are now versus six months ago.”

Flores compared it to his own coaching evolution.

“I remember being a first-year position coach and going into next season saying ‘I should have been better last year, I’m better now,'” he said, per NFL Network’s Mike Giardi. “We all understand where he’s coming from.”

The Dolphins spent the offseason buffering Tua, signing free agent Will Fuller, using a first-round pick on receiver Jaylen Waddle, a second-rounder on offensive lineman Liam Eichenberg and a third on tight end Hunter Long. It’s not wholly unlike how the Buffalo Bills added pieces to help Josh Allen improve to an MVP-caliber level last year.

The Dolphins are banking on Tagovailoa improving on his up-and-down rookie season. Knowing the new playbook better and getting on the same page as his teammates are the first steps in proving the organization’s faith correct.

NEW ENGLAND

QB CAM NEWTON, once considered indestructible, got hurt in a non-contact practice.  Nick Shook of NFL.com:

New England’s intriguing quarterback situation just got a little less optimistic.

Cam Newton suffered a slight bone bruise in his right hand during OTAs on Friday after banging it on a helmet, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported. The injury is not considered serious but could limit his participation in the Patriots’ on-field work until training camp, Rapoport added.

Newton exited the session to spend considerable time with trainer Jim Whelan and one of the team doctors, per NFL Network’s Mike Giardi. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels also checked in on the veteran before returning to work with the other three Pats quarterbacks. Newton later took a knee and watched his teammates participate in drills.

We’ve learned in recent years how an unfortunate collision between throwing hand and headgear can cause issues for quarterbacks. Last season, it happened to Jared Goff late in the season, forcing the Rams to turn to backup John Wolford before Goff was able to return in the postseason.

Luckily, it’s only June, which means he could be out of next week’s minicamp but has ample time to recover before training camp.

As for the other big name under center, Mac Jones, he might not be at 100 percent, either. Jones was uneven in his play Friday and was wearing a sleeve on his right calf, which appeared to bother him on a couple of occasions, Giardi reported.

A day after McDaniels fielded questions regarding both signal-callers and spoke about the importance of using this time to lay a foundation, we’ve received less-than-encouraging reports on the two. Again, though, it’s only June. We’ll monitor their status before starting to become concerned.

THIS AND THAT

LOCKER ROOM ACCESS

In the wake of COVID, it looks like the NFL will keep its locker rooms closed at all times to all media.  Peter King tries to make the case for them to be open to the compliantly vaccinated:

Now, when the Washington Post reported Friday the NFL is likely to have closed locker rooms again this year, I thought that was wrong. Vaccinated reporters—even if the league mandated they be masked—should not be closed out of any locker room this year. Period. You might be reading this now and say, “Who cares?” Many of you don’t. But you can’t tell me the quality of the coverage didn’t suffer last year in the NFL, and the insight wasn’t as keen as in 2019. Example: Post-Super Bowl, KC-San Francisco, I’m in Andy Reid’s office after the game and he’s drawing 2-3 Jet Chip Wasp, the play that broke open the game in the fourth quarter, and he’s going step by step through it. When we’re done, I go to Patrick Mahomes and he walks me through his decision-making on the play. All that’s in this column five hours later. Fast forward to this past Super Bowl, KC-Tampa Bay, I get Bruce Arians, Todd Bowles and Ron Gronkowski on the phone after the game. Insight on the game, of course. But no real flavor.

Do you need to see the drawing of 2-3 Jet Chip Wasp? Of course not. Is seeing the play outlined and dissected good for you, the reader? Good for the Kansas City fans celebrating their first Super Bowl in a half-century? Good for football lore? Good for football? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And if locker rooms are closed (I’m told that decision hasn’t been made with finality), so much of that is lost.

This is not whining. This is reality. I’ll be gone soon; I turn 64 this week, and soon you’ll throw brickbats at someone else in this space. But no matter who it is, understand that decisions like closing off important avenues to information will lessen your enjoyment of the game. I can’t tell you how. I can just tell you it will. The little asides you’ll miss, the inside information you’ll miss, the further enjoyment of the game, after the game, you’ll miss.

I’m empathetic to Osaka. No one wants to see her not play tennis. So let’s figure out a way she can play the game and we can watch her, and hear her in smaller bites than maybe we’d like. I’m okay with that. But let’s not use this, and living in the time of COVID, to change how the media does its job overall. It’s not necessary, and it’s certainly not good for football.

A small step forward in baseball, media will now be allowed to bump into players on the field before the game.  Still closed lockers.

So something other than ZOOM, but not in the locker room could/should be possible.

Think of the flash areas that soccer has used for years.