| Today marks the beginning of something new for the DB. In conjunction with broadcaster Chris Myers, we will now be providing content to our friends at FoxSports.com. The first story – a look at the NFL Playoffs in general and this week’s AFC Wild Card matchups – is up and running and we hope you will go here and check it out. |
| NFC NORTH |
| GREEN BAYQB JORDAN LOVE is still on the mend from getting hit in his elbow. Rob Demovsky ofESPN.com: Both of the Green Bay Packers quarterbacks were feeling the aftereffects of injuries to their throwing arms as they began preparations for Sunday’s NFC wild-card game against the Philadelphia Eagles. For starter Jordan Love, who left the regular-season finale against the Chicago Bears after he banged his right elbow, he said the numbness he experienced in his hand during the game has gone away but his elbow is still sore. “Yeah, it’s more my elbow,” Love said Wednesday. “Recovering [from] that.” For backup Malik Willis, who banged his throwing hand on a Bears player’s helmet in the fourth quarter, he said that X-rays after the game were negative but that he still doesn’t feel as if he has his normal grip on the ball. “I mean, it doesn’t feel normal, no,” Willis said. “I just did whatever they allowed me to do out there today, and we’ll see how it goes the rest of the week.” Both were listed as limited participants in practice. Packers coach Matt LaFleur said Love threw “on a limited basis” in practice. |
| NFC EAST |
| PHILADELPHIAQB JALEN HURTS is unconcussed and ready to go Sunday on FOX. Tim McManus ofESPN.com: – Quarterback Jalen Hurts practiced in a limited capacity Wednesday as the Eagles began their on-field preparations for Sunday’s wild-card playoff game against the Packers, further signaling his progress through concussion protocol. “He looked sharp today,” said left tackle Jordan Mailata. “It was awesome to have him back. He came back with high energy.” Hurts sustained a concussion in the first quarter against the Commanders on Dec. 22 and sat out the team’s final two games of the regular season. Wednesday marked his first practice since the injury. |
| WASHINGTONJosina Anderson with news of interest in OC Kliff Kingsbury: @JosinaAndersonI’m told at least 4 teams have expressed interest in talking with #Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury about their head coach vacancy, per league source. I’ve also heard some league sources are trying to fully ascertain how much Kingsbury really wants to be a head coach this cycle with more time to reflect, given his current circumstances in Washington. @JosinaAndersonUpdate: From gathering input, to expressing interest, to submission of official requests. I’m told the #Saints and the #Bears are the two teams that have officially requested interviews with #Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury, per league source. Kingsbury did spend the 2023 season with Bears QB CALEB WILLIAMS. |
| NFC WEST |
| SAN FRANCISCOIt sounds like it won’t take QB BROCK PURDY, the best bargain in sports the last three seasons, long to get paid. Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com: With their season over, the San Francisco 49ers and quarterback Brock Purdy are, for the first time in his young career, eligible to discuss a lucrative long-term contract extension. And while those talks haven’t begun just yet, Niners general manager John Lynch, coach Kyle Shanahan and Purdy have made it clear that they intend to reach an agreement with the hope that it will be done sooner than later. “I think what we know about Brock is that he’s our guy,” Lynch said Wednesday. “We have interest in Brock being around here for a long, long time. He’s done so much for our organization; he’s won big games and had a little tougher task as we all did this year with some of the things that happened throughout the course of the year. We just never could string games where we were all together and through that, he continued to lead, he continued to play at a high level, so we have every interest in him being around. “We’ll have some time here in the coming weeks to sit together and put our whole plan together. That’s obviously a priority, that position, and we’ll give it that attention.” As the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft, Purdy played his first three years on one of the cheapest contracts in the NFL, a four-year rookie deal worth an average annual value of $934,253. He has one year left on that pact and is slated to count $1.119 million against the cap in 2025. That number is all but certain to rise this offseason as the Niners are prepared to pay him in line with some of the top-paid passers in the league, though it remains to be seen just how high they’re willing to go. The Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott is the current highest-paid quarterback in terms of average annual value at $60 million per season. Monday, Purdy said he’s “not really sure” whether topping that number is of importance to him, but he did make it clear that he wants to get something done as fast as possible so he can be in the fold when the Niners begin organized team activities in April. “More than anything for me, I want to be able to handle business the right way and do it in a respectable manner and get back to my team as fast as I can to get going,” Purdy said. “That’s my mindset, my focus. And obviously I want to help the team across the board with all the other guys who need to get their deals done, but everybody will handle it the right way and how they need to.” Following a 2023 campaign in which he earned Pro Bowl honors and finished fourth in Most Valuable Player voting, Purdy’s statistical production dipped in 2024 as injuries ravaged his supporting cast. Despite missing running back Christian McCaffrey (Achilles, knee) and receiver Brandon Aiyuk (knee) for most of the season and playing without left tackle Trent Williams, tight end George Kittle and receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. for other, shorter stretches, Purdy finished seventh in the NFL in QBR (68.0), 10th in passing yards (3,864) and third in yards per attempt (8.5) in his 15 games. But Purdy also struggled in a handful of bad weather games and was unable to lead fourth-quarter comebacks in some close and late situations as the Niners tumbled to 6-11. His 1.7 touchdowns per interception was tied for 23rd in the NFL and a significant drop-off from the 2.8 he posted in 2023. Still, Shanahan’s belief in Purdy only increased as he watched Purdy grow into a larger leadership role and continue battling despite the difficult situation around him. “Brock is the leader of our team,” Shanahan said. “I’ve loved these three years with Brock. I plan on being with Brock here the whole time I’m here. Brock’s been a stud. He’s a guy I’ve got a lot of confidence in just as a human, but it starts with what he’s done on the field these last two and a half years. We’re capable of winning the Super Bowl with him. He just almost did, and I know he’s capable of getting the Niners a Super Bowl in the future.” Lynch and Shanahan spent the past couple of days doing exit meetings and going through player and coaching staff evaluations, which is why any Purdy extension talks have yet to begin in earnest. While the 49ers have a history of allowing important contract talks to linger deep into August and even September, as they did with Aiyuk and Williams last offseason, the approach at quarterback figures to be a bit different. For one, Purdy’s contract will involve such a significant raise that it will play a role in how much money the team is able to spend to add to the roster and/or keeping some of its current players. It would behoove the Niners to get a deal done quickly as other top quarterbacks could renegotiate or sign contracts that could alter the market. Also, the 49ers would prefer not to have any spring or training camp practice time without the starting quarterback. How fast might a deal get done? Well, Shanahan and Lynch do have at least some experience negotiating with a quarterback signing a market-setting deal. In 2018, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo signed a five-year, $137.5 million deal on Feb. 8. Wagoner also had updates on three key 49ers with one leaving, one staying and one returning: After the San Francisco 49ers made significant tweaks to the contracts of defensive tackle Javon Hargrave and receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. in recent months, it left questions about whether both players were on their way out. On Wednesday, Niners general manager John Lynch provided answers to those questions, revealing that the team plans to release Hargrave with a post-June 1 designation when the new league year starts in March. There are no such plans for Samuel, however. “Deebo is under contract,” Lynch said. “[He’s] a good player and has done a ton for this organization and we’re not in the business of letting good players out of here.” The 49ers restructured Samuel’s contract in September, a move that meant if the Niners were to trade or release him before June 1, 2025, they would have to absorb a $31.55 million dead money hit on the cap. If they did want to move on from him with a post-June 1 designation before his March 23 option bonus is due, they could have decreased that number to cap hits of $10,751,753 over the next couple of years. But while Samuel is coming off a disappointing, injury-plagued season in which he finished with 806 scrimmage yards and four touchdowns (career lows save for a 2020 season in which he played just seven games), he looked more like himself against the Miami Dolphins in Week 16 and said he had “no questions at all” about his future in San Francisco. Hargrave, however, will not be back unless it’s on a significantly reduced contract after the team makes his release official. That can’t happen until March 12 when the new league year begins. He restructured his contract in early December to make a post-June 1 release more palatable for the Niners. The post-June 1 designation means Hargrave will count $8.6 million in dead money in 2025 and $17.485 million in 2026 as opposed to a nearly $25 million hit in 2025 without the designation. Hargrave signed a four-year, $84 million deal with the 49ers in 2023, but he played in just three games in 2024 before landing on injured reserve with a partially torn right triceps. “We do have some challenges and so this doesn’t mean we can’t compete for his services,” Lynch said. “Rather than waiting until post-June 1 and being [out of luck] because free agency already happened, it gives him an opportunity to go see what his market is. And that may include us. … We know Javon. He’s on a good track coming back from his injury. And would we be interested in having him? Of course. Is that something we can come to an agreement on and is it something that fits in our plans? We will see.” Lynch also offered an encouraging update on left tackle Trent Williams on Wednesday. Williams missed the final seven games because of a bruise in his left ankle. Over the final weeks of the season, Williams was seen in the locker room using a scooter to keep the ankle elevated, though he was walking without the scooter Friday before the season finale against the Arizona Cardinals. Lynch confirmed that Williams, 36, intends to return for his 15th season in 2025. |
| AFC WEST |
| LAS VEGASBill Belichick seeks to dampen the tale that he was looking to abandon Chapel Hill before coaching a game. Dianna Russini of The Athletic: @DMRussiniBill Belichick has no plans to return to the NFL, per sources.I’m told his sole focus is on coaching and recruiting for North Carolina, as he continues building the Tar Heels’ future. He’s recruiting today in New Jersey.– – -Charles Robinson of YahooSports.com is not a fan of the way Mark Davis clings to the past: Silver and Black roots. What it means to be a Raider. Understanding “The Raider Way.” These are the ties that suffocate. Another year, another head coach, all in the pursuit of the fading, yellowing images of what a franchise used to be and how it might be again. All setting the stage for the next chapter of the Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, whose biggest problem is not a head coach or quarterback, but an owner who keeps Xeroxing the identity of his father, Al Davis, rather than meaningfully and patiently crafting one of his own. It’s an imitation game under Mark Davis that is now five copies deep and bleached into nothingness — from Dennis Allen to Jack Del Rio, Jon Gruden to Josh McDaniels, and now Antonio Pierce to whoever Davis believes gets his team and legacy closer to a heyday that has sparsely appeared since the turn of the century. That will be six head coaches Davis has hired in the 13 years since he took over the franchise after his father’s death. All of whom came in espousing their own personal understanding about what it meant to be a Raider and promising to recapture a proud history that was growing more distant by the year. In they came, trying to restore The Raider Way. And out they went, with their results most often representing a Raider Way that has been redefined in two decades of damning familiarity — filled with mediocrity, unfulfilled promises and a bloated payroll of defunct coaching hires pushed into the ether. A pattern of results under ownership that, to be fair, wasn’t simply a product of Mark Davis, but also an extension of Al’s final years. Tracing history all the way back to the firing of Art Shell following the 1994 season, which triggered an unfathomable run of what will be 15 head-coach hirings in 31 years once Pierce’s replacement is named. It continues today out of the pursuit of a culture that doesn’t exist — and hasn’t existed consistently — since the mid-1990s. It’s a creeping plague that is no different than Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones still living fever dream remembrances of his teams from 30 years ago. It’s facilitated by an owner in Mark Davis whose wandering impatience from one coach and general manager to the next is no different than what made former team owner Dan Snyder a staggering on-field failure with his Washington franchise. All punctuated by a sudden listlessness at quarterback, which was presented with meaningful resolutions in the 2024 draft but oddly lacked the “Raider Way” aggression to enact a plan. To be clear: This isn’t a criticism of Pierce’s firing. It is a condemnation of the process that created this juncture. Beginning with Davis rebooting the team under Pierce in 2023, after convening with Maxx Crosby, Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs — two of whom aren’t on the roster anymore — and then choosing a head coach who is now gone, too. All setting in motion a 2024 path that veered into a crater — starting with a failure to secure a real answer at quarterback for Pierce, then ending with sending him out to address the media one day before he found out he was being fired. It was a situation so awkward inside the team’s headquarters that, according to sources who spoke with Yahoo Sports, Pierce had already started discussing potential coaching staff changes hours before he learned he was losing his job. The disjointed and embarrassing ending preceded a one-paragraph sendoff: The Las Vegas Raiders have received Antonio Pierce of his duties as head coach. We appreciate Antonio’s leadership, first as an interim head coach and this past season as the head coach. Antonio grew up a Raiders fan and his Silver and Black roots run deep. We are grateful for his ability to reignite what it means to be a Raider throughout the entire organization. We wish nothing but the best for Antonio and his family in the future. Predictably, it paid homage to the Culture That Al Davis Built, with references to Pierce’s “Silver and Black roots” and his “ability to reignite what it means to be a Raider.” Pierce went 9-17 and won four games in 2024. From that vantage, he did indeed embody what it means to be a Raider. Especially under Mark Davis, whose teams now field a 91-137 regular-season record since he took the reins of the franchise in 2011. That’s a .397 winning percentage that — compared with peers that have a similar number of years as principal owner — is worse than everyone but the Cleveland Browns’ Jimmy Haslam (.345) and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Shad Khan (.301). Since Mark Davis took over, The Raider Way hasn’t been all that dissimilar to the Jaguar Way or Brown Way when it comes to actual results. This is what happens when you cling to an identity that is borrowed rather than created. When one of your overriding factors in hiring your next head coach is whether he can recreate the culture of the past. You don’t hear the San Francisco 49ers constantly harping about staying true to the offensive genius of how Bill Walsh constructed the 49ers in the 1980s. The Green Bay Packers aren’t obsessed with chasing coaches who preach the foundational teachings of Vince Lombardi. There is no underlined and oft-spoken mantra about paying homage to something that should be occasionally celebrated on classic NFL Films reels and then turned off when the work of today begins. Are there outliers to this? Certainly. The Pittsburgh Steelers have found a way to remain consistent to their brand of football for decades. So too have the Baltimore Ravens. They regularly address the “Steelers brand of football” or the “Ravens type of player.” But there’s a rub in both of those organizations that eludes the Raiders. They hire good coaches and front-office executives and then get out of the way and let them do their jobs. Chew on this for a moment: In the time span that the Raiders will have made 15 head-coaching hires since 1995, the Steelers will have made two and the Ravens will have made three. As it turns out, it’s a lot easier to sustain and grow a culture with roots when you actually let coaching staffs and front offices develop them. Inside the AFC West, other ownership groups have moved to establish that kind of structure. It’s why the Kansas City Chiefs hired Andy Reid four days after he was fired by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013. It’s why the Denver Broncos turned all of the power in their football operation over to Sean Payton. And it’s why the Los Angeles Chargers — not always considered the most forward-thinking ownership group in the NFL — went after Jim Harbaugh as their culture builder last offseason, then let him retool everything as he saw fit. This is what the Raiders are dealing with in their own division. They’re facing ownership groups that are not only competent, but also willing and capable of making quality hires, putting those hires fully at the controls of their franchises, and then getting out of the way to let the results speak for themselves. There’s little evidence Davis has ever done that. And now fans are led to believe that maybe Tom Brady — who has never run an NFL franchise from the ownership suite, never coached an NFL team and never spent a single day as a personnel executive or talent evaluator — might be the requisite magic wand to resolve all problems? Mark Davis will continue to be the common denominator beneath all of it. The sooner he recognizes himself as being the roots of his own “Silver-and-Black” problem, the better his chances of taking “what it means to be a Raider” and writing his own unique chapter, rather than Xeroxing another page from decades of disappointment. We could argue that Davis does seem to be inching away from the past. He retained GM Tom Telesco (not part of the Raiders legacy) and is consulting with part owner Tom Brady (again not of the Silver and Black heritage). The trouble with the Raiders has been less than elite quarterbacking and the disruption of Jon Gruden’s program caused by outside agencies. We don’t think it is clinging to the old slogans on the press releases. |
| AFC NORTH |
| PITTSBURGHBrooke Pryor of ESPN.com with Mike Tomlin’s interesting take on Pittsburgh’s long wait since its last postseason win. The last thing members of the Pittsburgh Steelers see before reaching the inner sanctum of their locker room at Acrisure Stadium are steely silver letters mounted on a black cinder block wall. They spell out the same phrase coach Mike Tomlin repeats countless times a day: The Standard is the Standard. With six Lombardis proudly displayed in the trophy case, the established standard of the prestigious franchise is a world championship. But with five straight postseason losses dating back to 2016, the Steelers have fallen short. They enter Saturday’s prime-time wild-card game against the Baltimore Ravens (8 p.m. ET, Prime Video) having finished 10-7 — but on a four-game losing streak that cost them the AFC North title. It’s been eight years since their last playoff win and 14 years since a Super Bowl berth. Tomlin’s lone Super Bowl win was nearly 16 years ago. “What you mentioned is my story,” Tomlin said Monday, asked about the streak of playoff losses. “It’s not this collective’s story. Many of these guys involved do not tote those bags. I happily tote those bags, but it’s not something that I’m going to project on the collective.” Exactly 357 days earlier, Tomlin expressed the same sentiment to the Steelers’ team website ahead of the Steelers’ last attempt to break the cycle, a wild-card loss at the Buffalo Bills. “It’s not their burden to bear,” Tomlin told the site last January. “I don’t ask them to tote my luggage. I don’t project my luggage onto them. … Sometimes you’re kidding yourself if you think history like that is important to guys who weren’t a part of it. It’s not.” Despite the playoff skid, team owner and president Art Rooney II extended Tomlin a three-year contract extension prior to the 2024 season. But Rooney was also firm in his desire to snap the streak in last year’s end-of-season news conference. “There’s an urgency,” Rooney said then of winning a playoff game. “I think everybody, myself, Mike, guys that have been on the team for a while … everybody, we’ve had enough of this. It’s time to get some wins. It’s time to take these next steps.” And yet, despite appearing to take a step forward with a new quarterback room and an 8-2 start, the season-ending slide has seemingly put the Steelers farther away from breaking their one-and-done playoff cycle, let alone from a deep postseason run. The Steelers enter the playoffs in a frustratingly familiar spot as the albatross of the franchise’s longest playoff drought of the Super Bowl era enshrouds the legacy of a proud organization and the future Hall of Fame head coach who famously hasn’t had a losing season. But to the Steelers faithful, never losing means a lot less if their team isn’t winning in the postseason. |
| AFC EAST |
| BUFFALOIf you are looking for a head coach, don’t expect QB JOSH ALLEN to give you a recommendation on his OC Joe Brady. Ryan Phillips of SI.com: Josh Allen has a foolproof plan to ensure offensive coordinator Joe Brady remains with the Buffalo Bills. When asked what Brady brought to the team’s offense this year, Allen made a bold decision. He lied. Shamelessly. Allen said Brady brought, “Nothing. Teams should stay away from him.” |
| THIS AND THAT |
| FINAL QB RANKINGS FOR 2024Jeff Howe of The Athletic has been issuing weekly rankings for the 32 starting QBs. Here is how he stacked them up after Week 18 (we think JORDAN LOVE is high, : Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen closed out the best season of his career with six consecutive weeks at No. 1 in The Athletic’s QB stock report, maintaining his lead over Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson after his own six-week run up top. As we entered the season with a maiden voyage in this quarterback project, the most daunting question was obvious while the answer remained wildly unclear: How was anyone going to leapfrog Patrick Mahomes? Every week, these rankings focused on a confluence of primary factors — current performance, career résumé, future potential and the situations around the QBs. So with Mahomes winning three of the last four Super Bowls, it was going to take something extraordinary for his demotion. Of course, some extraordinary things happened. Mahomes and the Chiefs kept winning despite their uncharacteristic struggles, while Allen and Jackson duked it out in the MVP race for the final three months of the season. And while Joe Burrow played at a higher level than Mahomes, the Bengals missed the playoffs, thereby invoking the situational parameter within his ranking. On the flip side, Aaron Rodgers is a Super Bowl champion and four-time MVP. Mahomes is the only active QB with a superior résumé, but Rodgers finished in the bottom-10 of the rankings and has been in the 20’s since Week 11. His individual performances, with a few exceptions, were to blame along with the Jets’ circumstances and a cap on the 41-year-old’s potential. The Athletic’s Final 2024-25 QB rankings1 Josh Allen2 Lamar Jackson3 Patrick Mahomes4 Joe Burrow5 Jared Goff6 Jordan Love7 Baker Mayfield8 Jayden Daniels9 Sam Darnold10 Justin Herbert11 Brock Purdy12 Jalen Hurts13 Matthew Stafford14 Geno Smith15 C.J. Stroud16 Kyler Murray17 Bo Nix18 Drake Maye19 Bryce Young20 Tua Tagovailoa21 Caleb Williams22 Michael Penix Jr.23 Aaron Rodgers24 Russell Wilson25 Anthony Richardson26 Aidan O’Connell27 Cooper Rush28 Mac Jones29 Drew Lock30 Spencer Rattler31 Will Levis32 Bailey Zappe Along the way, we dove deeper into certain quarterbacks, tapping into valued insight from a host of coaches and executives around the league. Their viewpoints also carried weight in the rankings. Among the topics hit this season: We examined Allen’s MVP surge, Rodgers’ downfall with the Jets, Bryce Young’s midseason revival, Jordan Love’s contract validation, Caleb Williams’ resurfacing flaws and C.J. Stroud’s regression. We hope you enjoyed the first season of rankings as much as we enjoyed putting them together. Let’s close it out by recognizing some of the biggest trends of the year. Biggest preseason riserSam Darnold, on his fourth team in five years, opened training camp as the likely backup to rookie J.J. McCarthy, so expectations ranged from nonexistent to minimal. Sure, Darnold’s pedigree as the No. 3 pick out of USC couldn’t be ignored, nor could coach Kevin O’Connell’s QB-friendly system. But no one could’ve predicted this. Darnold finished fifth in the league in both passing yards (4,319) and touchdowns (35) and finished sixth among qualified QBs with a 102.5 passer rating. Darnold opened the season as the 28th-ranked quarterback, and he rose 19 spots. He’s been a mostly steadying presence for the team that was tied for the third-most wins in the NFL. Star receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison never missed a beat. Despite the meteoric rise, Darnold did dip for a bit, going No. 11 in Week 10 to No. 18 in Week 12. He still finished the season with his only three weeks in the top 10. Darnold will enter the offseason with the potential to become the crown jewel of the free agent market. Biggest preseason fallerAaron Rodgers was still viewed by many around the league as one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks at the start of the season, even coming off the torn Achilles, so the New York Jets QB debuted at No. 5. He remained in the top six for the first five weeks of the season before the evidence became too great to ignore, and he plummeted to No. 15 in Week 6. Rodgers fell to No. 20 in Week 11 and never improved his standing. He finished the season ranked ahead of only two quarterbacks who were expected to open the season as their team’s starter. Rodgers’ 63.0 completion percentage was his lowest since 2019, but he actually finished with more yards (3,897) and touchdowns (28) and fewer interceptions (11) than in his final season with the Packers. Rodgers’ future is very much up in the air. Whether he wants to continue playing and if the Jets would want him back remain open questions. He may still be an asset for a veteran team that believes it’s a QB shy of the playoffs, but Rodgers will have to play much better than he did amid the Jets’ chaos. Biggest midseason riserCarolina Panthers QB Bryce Young’s turnaround was one of the most spectacularly unexpected stories of the season. The 2023 No. 1 pick was benched after coach Dave Canales’ second game. And although Young’s performance justified the demotion, it raised significant questions about Young’s future with an organization that has made more than its recent share of impulse decisions. It’s not like the Panthers benched Young with a definitive timeline for his return to the field, either. Young only got his job back after Andy Dalton injured his hand in a car accident. And yet, Young played well down the stretch with 15 touchdown passes, five touchdown runs and six interceptions over his final 10 starts. They were also 4-6 during that stretch, which is no small feat for a team that had lost 22 of its previous 25 games. Canales has had a nice history with his quarterbacks, so it was surprising to see it start so poorly. But now that Young is entering the offseason playing his best football, the Panthers will be an intriguing team entering 2025. Biggest midseason fallerIt was supposed to be C.J. Stroud’s year. It never played out that way. The Houston Texans QB debuted at No. 7 and soared to No. 3 just a week later. That’s where he remained for most of the first half, including as late as Week 9, but Stroud steadily fell the rest of the way. His ranking worsened in eight of the final 10 weeks, all the way down to No. 15. Stroud’s numbers were down across the board. He completed 63.2 percent of his passes for 3,727 yards, 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 87.0 passer rating. His rookie numbers were superior in every category, which is even more noteworthy considering he played two fewer games in 2023. The Texans need to build a better offensive line because the pressure was the main deterrent to Stroud’s success. The injuries didn’t help, either. And yet, Stroud and the Texans are back in the playoffs. There are plenty of reasons to remain bullish on Stroud. Best rookieThis wasn’t difficult. Jayden Daniels opened the season at No. 22, jumped to No. 13 by Week 6 and into the top 10 in Week 9. The Washington Commanders QB closed the season with three consecutive weeks at No. 8. Daniels completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,568 yards, 25 touchdowns, nine interceptions and a 100.1 passer rating; he added 891 rushing yards and six touchdowns. He was so composed in tense moments, highlighted by four game-winning drives. Daniels’ Hail Mary against the Bears was an all-time moment, but the late drives against the Eagles and Falcons were more meaningful and should provide optimism the rookie is capable of repeating the feat in the playoffs. Caleb Williams had a rocky season, but the Chicago Bears QB still put up some numbers for a team that went through a ton of adversity. Bo Nix wasn’t asked to carry the Denver Broncos, but he carried his weight to end their playoff drought. Drake Maye was often lost in the chaos in New England, but the young Patriots QB showed evidence of being a special player. Finally, Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr. created momentum for next season with his solid play in three starts. It’s shaping up to be a great draft class. |
| 2025 DRAFTTwo of the expected top picks in the upcoming draft will not be in Green Bay to shake hands with The Commish. Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com: Colorado stars Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter will not attend the April 24 draft in Green Bay. Colorado head coach Deion Sanders said during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the school will host a draft-day party at the CU Events Center. The event will allow fans to celebrate with two players Deion Sanders predicts will be two of the top-three picks in the draft. “We’re going to do it in Boulder, Colorado, and celebrate it with the fans in the gymnasium,” Sanders said while promoting a new season of Coach Prime. “We’re going to pack the house. It’s going to be phenomenal. But those two will probably go in the first two to three picks.” |
