We’re less than three weeks out from one of my favorite weekends of the year. For now, we’ve got the first set of takeaways of April 2025 …
Titans and Cam Ward
Take the Tennessee Titans’ decision to cancel their Wednesday workout with Shedeur Sanders for what it is. Plainly, my sense is it’s a powerful sign of the conviction they’ve built in Cam Ward’s worthiness as the first pick in 17 days. It also backs up what I’ve heard—that it would take a historic offer to move them to trade the pick and pass on the Miami quarterback.
I’m not saying the Cleveland Browns are on the clock at No. 2 quite yet. But we’re getting there.
And I think we’ll look back on this as being pretty remarkable in that the Titans came into the process not wanting to predetermine anything with the first pick. They wanted to do 30 visits and combine interviews, and have a big pro day presence for each of the four guys under consideration (Ward, Sanders, Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter and Penn State DE Abdul Carter), and do private workouts with, at a minimum, the quarterbacks.
Now, a trade was always unlikely, mostly because of the makeup of the draft class. With the Titans’ roster being what it is, their revamped brass couldn’t afford to come out of April without a blue-chip centerpiece, be it a quarterback or otherwise. Since there appear to be just two nonquarterbacks at that level in the class—with a significant drop-off after Hunter and Carter come off the board—the value of picks at Nos. 4, 5 and below is diminished significantly. Which would also kill any appetite the Titans have to drop past that line.
So there was a natural limitation all along to what the Titans would be willing to do with the pick. But that all appears to be moot now, anyway, with how Ward has emerged.
And to be clear, Sanders didn’t do anything wrong, nor did Carter or Hunter. I believe, again, all this will show itself to be more about what Ward did right. The more teams I’ve talked to that have studied Ward, the more I hear they found a guy with a different level of ability from the rest of the quarterbacks in the class. There are questions, of course. One is how a guy who played four years at two schools before this year could ascend from Day 3 pick to No. 1 in a single year. But a deeper dive for the teams looking at him has allayed some of that concern.
How? It’s a question I’ve asked a lot of folks over the past few weeks. The answer, mostly, is that the player NFL evaluators were looking at as a Hurricane in 2024 was actually there previously—it was just in flashes at Washington State in ’22 and ’23. This year, the wild inconsistency started to fade, with Ward’s own growth and a more talented team around him.
Is he what Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye were coming out last year? The overwhelming majority would say no.
But clearly, the Titans are comfortable with where they are.
Goodell’s future
Roger Goodell isn’t going anywhere. In October 2023, the NFL commissioner agreed to a three-year extension that would take his stewardship of the league through March ’27. It was the fifth contract Goodell had signed to run the league, following deals in ’06, ’09, ’12 and ’17. There was also an assumption that it could be the final one, in that some league folks, at the time, ruminated the extension, affording the NFL time to find a successor.
A year and a half later, Goodell certainly isn’t operating like a guy playing out the string.
At last week’s owners meetings, he was integral in keeping the push play ban alive and pushing the kickoff adjustments over the goal line.
On the former, an agreement to rework the wording of the ban through study of the pre-2005 rule (which prohibited offensive players from pushing or pulling teammates) breathed new life into the Green Bay Packers’ proposal, and Goodell was integral in using that to delay a formal vote on the matter until May. I believe it’s because the commissioner believes NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills’s concerns that a catastrophic injury could result from the posture of players on the play are well-founded—and he knows the liability associated.
On the latter, skepticism built at the start of the league meeting that the tweaked kickoff proposal would pass. At issue was moving the touchback line from the 30 to 35, which many coaches thought was too punitive for kicking the ball into the end zone. An alternative was raised to move the kicker back from the minus-35 to the minus-30. Facing those headwinds, Goodell was determined to get the original proposal through, wanting to add more kickoff returns to the game. The owners voted it through 25–7.
These are just two examples of Goodell getting into the weeds after nearly two decades in charge, intimately involved in all the game’s details, as he is in the league’s bigger-picture business matters, which are far more relevant to the 31 owners he answers to. Another would be how he literally whipped votes overnight at the 2023 spring meeting to pass a kickoff rule adjustment that a lot of the football folks hated (it led to last year’s sea change).
A lot of it points back to Goodell’s drive to improve health and safety for players, something he’s told confidants that he sees as a primary piece of his legacy as commissioner.
Anyway, the NFL’s compensation committee, which negotiates Goodell’s contracts, met last week, and I’d think they’d have discussed starting to plan the next extension for the commish, which would likely come at some point in 2026. That, of course, is presuming Goodell wants to keep going as commissioner.
He’s 66 now. He’ll be 68 at the expiration of his current contract. He’s now been on the job for 18 years and seven months, meaning he’s outlasted predecessor Paul Tagliabue (who served in the role for 16 years, 10 months), but is still well short of Tagliabue’s predecessor Pete Rozelle’s tenure (29 years, nine months). With a multiyear extension, he’d also become the first NFL commissioner to serve into his 70s.
But based on how he operated this week, it sure doesn’t look like that’ll be a concern. His energy for the job hasn’t waned much.
Colorado pro day
“The Showcase” at Colorado was a fun event, but it didn’t really move the needle much. That’s not a bad thing, by the way. It’s just the reality of what a pro day usually is. NFL folks get there—at one of the final touchpoints they have with prospects—and simply look to confirm everything they’ve watched on tape, saw at the combine and have otherwise been able to ascertain in studying prospects.
As such, Hunter was seen as one of the two best prospects in the draft going into Friday’s workout. He still is now. Sanders, conversely, was seen as a solid quarterback prospect needing to find the right NFL fit on Thursday night. He still is now.
“The quarterback didn’t spin it great—he threw it well, you just don’t have the tight spiral with velocity, but he showed good accuracy, a good deep ball,” one AFC exec in attendance said. “The other guy is a great. He wasn’t going to work out, he did and he looked great. Was out there with no gloves, looked fast, explosive, really, really explosive.”
The exec continued, on Sanders, “With a top-five pick, you want him to look like Troy Aikman, Justin Herbert. He’s not that, but he’s a little bigger than I thought he’d be, standing next to him. There’s just no elite trait there, other than he’s really instinctive, and he knows how to play, and does a lot of things well. He’s also got some things to clean up.” And on Hunter, he said, “His ball skills are rare, his burst, his acceleration, he can go from 100 to 0, it’s just movement that’s different than anyone else. … He can do whatever he wants.”
Another AFC exec there texted, on Sanders, “It matched the tape [in my opinion]. Started a little slow, but then got in a rhythm. Ball placement was good overall. Never had a wow arm on intermediate or shorter stuff, he threw a better ball on deep throws—tighter and it comes out with more velocity.” This exec then said, in the limited work Hunter did, you couldn’t see a ton, but the “natural, easy hands and really good feet” were apparent.
So with all this established, I’d be surprised if Hunter makes it out of the first three picks and floored if he makes it past No. 4. There’s just no reason, other than taking a quarterback, to pass on Hunter for anyone other than Carter, if you’re a team with enough deficiencies on your roster to land a top-five pick. Period. End of story.
Obviously, the dynamic with Sanders is completely different. A third AFC exec described his pro day like this: “Very efficient workout. Nothing special, stayed within what he does well and was solid.” And I think that’s the encapsulation of the evaluation for NFL teams. You have to have an offense that can lean into what Sanders does well, as a tough, accurate, smart, instinctive quarterback who can’t quite put on a cape the way some NFL quarterbacks can.
Julio Jones’s retirement
Julio Jones’s retirement announcement wasn’t exactly what anyone envisioned, but he still deserves his due here. The Atlanta Falcons legend announced the decision quietly last week after spending 2024 out of football and catching just 11 balls for the Philadelphia Eagles in ’23. That’s a good shot of reality for the rest of us, too, on how hard the game is on even the greatest players, to the point where Jones’s last thousand-yard season was a half decade ago.
The good news is, down the line, no one will remember that.
We’ll remember the years he was the very best at his position. We’ll remember the bold draft-day trade and how he, impossibly, delivered on the massive bet the Falcons made on him that April. We’ll remember the magical 2016 season, when his quarterback, Matt Ryan, won MVP and Atlanta made it all the way to the Super Bowl. We should also remember the all-time catch he made in that Super Bowl that should have put the New England Patriots away.
Jones retires at 16th all time in receiving yards (13,703), 27th in receptions (914) and tied for 61st in touchdown catches (66). But none of those numbers truly encapsulate exactly what Atlanta got when it moved up 21 spots to take him with the No. 6 pick in 2011. The trade came at a time when such daring transactions were very rare in a risk-averse NFL—and some of the best stories I’ve heard on who Jones is came from the research I heard the Falcons did on it.
The story starts with the Falcons coming off the field after a 48–21 playoff loss to the Packers. Then-GM Thomas Dimitroff lamented to coach Mike Smith how the team seemed stuck on the second tier, with three winning seasons, two playoff berths and no playoff wins in their three years together. Dimitroff and Smith agreed they needed more firepower and had to be aggressive about finding it.
A couple of months later, they met Jones in Tuscaloosa, at a hotel across the way from Alabama’s practice facility. They hadn’t traded up yet, so at first Dimitroff wondered whether Jones’s seeming indifference was due to the fact that the Falcons were picking 27th. But as the conversation moved, and receivers coach Terry Robiskie got Jones joking a little, the GM realized that wasn’t really it.
It was what Nick Sahan had told Dimitroff about Jones—how he was “unaffected.” It was a compliment, to be sure, and Saban’s way of saying that regardless of anything going on around him, he’d be the same steady, tough, reliable guy. Once Dimitroff recognized it and that Jones simply wasn’t going to grovel or beg, he knew he had his guy.
And while the Falcons were comfortable taking either Jones or A.J. Green in a trade up, it was Jones they wanted, because his hard-edged style coming out of Saban’s program perfectly fit what they were trying to build. Adding that to the talent, Dimitroff didn’t blink in trading the 27th pick, a 2012 first-rounder, an ’11 second-rounder, and fourth-rounders in both ’11 and ’12 to go up to No. 6 and get the Tide star.
“The combination of size, speed and pure athleticism was very rare,” Dimitroff said Saturday. “When I watch a receiver, a corner, a pass rusher, it’s what you’re looking for. I looked at Julio, the route running, the stop/start ability, how he adjusts to coverage, how he creates separation, how he adjusts to the ball. He moved around, at 6'3", like he was 5'11". Watching him, I was like, This cat is outrageous.”
He was, and the payoff was immediate. In his second year, the Falcons broke through and made it to the NFC title game. In his sixth year, they got to the Super Bowl. Along the way, he made seven Pro Bowls and five All-Pro teams, went over 1,400 yards five years in a row, and fell six yards short of making it six consecutive years in 2019.
From there, the beating he took from playing a physical style in a physical game caught up with him. He missed half his final season in Atlanta, then was traded to Tennessee.
But by then, his mark had been made. Dimitroff said to me over text, just before we talked, that he believed that Jones is “respectfully to the process, a first-ballot Hall of Famer.” And I’d agree—because for nearly a decade he was among the very best at his position.
Even if things didn’t end quite the way anyone wanted.
Joe Milton trade
The trade of Joe Milton from the New England Patriots to the Dallas Cowboys shows that college tape is still the most valuable thing. The motivator behind the trade is pretty understandable. New England wanted, in Mike Vrabel’s first year, to give Maye the best environment possible in the quarterback room. They actually communicated that to Josh Dobbs before signing the veteran, believing Dobbs could be a valuable resource to the second-year stud, and telling him that they’d likely move Milton before the draft to assure him he’d be the backup.
Milton’s not a bad guy. But he wants to be a starter. He spent six years in school and is already 25 years old. Unless you think he’s going to evolve into a star, really, if that room was going to be built to accelerate Maye’s development, Milton wasn’t going to be a fit.
And let’s be clear in saying you won’t find many people who think Milton will be a star.
The return that the Patriots got for him is a good indication of that. They essentially moved a seventh-round pick (217th overall) up 46 spots into the end of the fifth round (171st overall) in return for Milton. Per the old Jimmy Johnson draft chart, the difference in those two picks is 18.8 points, which is roughly the value equivalent of the 181st pick. Milton was taken 193rd, which says teams value him the same way now they did a year ago.
So, in the end, the Week 18 show that Milton put on against the Buffalo Bills’ backups did not supersede six years of college tape from Michigan and Tennessee, and rightfully so. It shouldn’t, and didn’t. This is the Cowboys taking a flier on raw physical ability the same way the Patriots did a year ago, because, with a 10-year vet at quarterback, they don’t have to build the room the same way that New England does with a guy going into Year 2.
I’ve also heard some people ask why you’d avoid putting competition in the room to push Maye, and I’d look at that the other way around. From what I’ve been able to gather, I don’t think he’s the type of guy who needs to be pushed. It might help marginally, but at this stage of his career, I understand why the Patriots feel like the bigger payoff would come with putting a mentor in the room for him.
I think, adding it all up, this is logical for everyone involved.
Giants’ draft plans
While we’re there, the way the New York Giants have built their quarterback room, it sure looks like they’ll be turning to another position at No. 3. We can start with the makeup of the contracts that New York gave Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. Wilson has an incentive package of $10.5 million, and $8 million of it requires him to play more than half the Giants’ snaps, with the other $2.5 million based on stats that he’d have a hard time hitting without that. Winston, meanwhile, has $4 million in incentives that begin kicking in at 43% playing time.
(Winston’s deal, since it hasn’t been reported, has $250,000 incentives for 43%, 50%, 60% and 70% playing time, a 92.5 passer rating, a 65% completion percentage, 15-plus TDs and an 88.0 passer rating, 2,200 yards and a 88.0 rating; and $500,000 incentives for 50% playing time and reaching the playoffs, 70% playing time and the playoffs, 55% playing time in a playoff win with 30% in the regular season, and 55% playing time in two playoff wins and 30% in the regular season.)
The bottom line is that both of those guys are not just fighting for their careers as starters, but each has their money directly tied to how much they play.
Then, there’s the personalities of the guys. I think both are, deep down, good guys. But each is used to being a starting quarterback. Winston was the No. 1 pick 10 years ago. At that point, Wilson had already won a Super Bowl. Wilson’s never been a backup. Winston has, but he has the persona of someone who’s been a starter his whole career. Josh McCown, Tyrod Taylor, or even Dobbs, this is not.
Now ask yourself: If you were taking a quarterback at No. 3, would you build a room this way?
I think the answer to that is probably no.
That, by the way, doesn’t preclude anything on Day 2, because taking a Jaxson Dart or Tyler Shough later comes with a totally different context. The context with a guy taken in the top five, generally, is that he’s going to wind up playing (look at how the Titans have set up their quarterback room). The context with a second- or third-round quarterback is more often that he’ll redshirt a year, and you’ll see after that, which would be fine here with Wilson and Winston operating on one-year deals.
Ideally, then, Hunter would slide into the Giants’ laps at No. 3, with New York having a need at both corner and receiver. If it’s Carter, it’s a bit more complicated, with the team so invested already in Kayvon Thibodeaux and Brian Burns on the edges. But, to me, that would qualify as a good problem to have, like the “problem” the Giants once had in juggling Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora and Mathias Kiwanuka. Carter could play off the ball on early downs, as he did as a Penn State freshman and sophomore, and down in passing situations.
My understanding is the team sees all that as workable. And so, if I had to guess right now, I’d say they’d love Hunter, they’d love Carter and they’ll look at quarterbacks on Day 2.
Rodgers and the Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers seem plenty confident that Aaron Rodgers will land there. I can’t say one way or another whether it’ll happen this week (though Pat McAfee has a big event in his hometown of Pittsburgh set for Wednesday). But after being around the Steelers’ brass a little last week in Florida, they don’t seem overly stressed about it not happening.
If he’s not coming, the Steelers, I believe, would be (or should be). T.J. Watt’s turning 31 and needs an extension. Minkah Fitzpatrick’s turning 29 and another deal could be on the horizon for him, too. Cam Heyward’s nearing the end. DK Metcalf’s on a third contract.
The time is now.
Now, the Steelers have never been a franchise to grovel, so I hardly expected to see them in Palm Beach in some state of desperation. But if you follow their actions, rather than just their words, it shows that things are setting up for Rodgers to step right in. He’s worked with Metcalf. He’s met with Mike Tomlin, and Arthur Smith’s offensive staff—and talked a lot of football with those guys on his visit.
Like we said a few weeks ago, the word’s been that he’s looking for a culture that’s like Green Bay, and no one fits that description better than Pittsburgh does.
So now, what’s left is for Rodgers to finally trade vows with the Steelers.
And it sure doesn’t look like they’re expecting to be left at the altar.
McCarthy and the Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are going forward with J.J. McCarthy. And to me, the interesting part of all this—the offers made for Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones to stay, then the exploration of a Rodgers union—is how it reflects where Minnesota is with its roster now.
Over the past couple of years, the Vikings slowly shed the cap debt left by the previous regime, which had built aggressively and won a bunch. They progressively got younger. They kept chipping away in flipping positions over, and now have a core of players (Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, Christian Darrisaw, Jonathan Greenard, Dallas Turner) in the primes of their careers coming off a 14-win season.
What the willingness to spend at quarterback tells me is that they’re moving to a new phase of the build, where they can legitimately chase a championship.
And to do that, I think—and this is just my opinion—the brass felt like it had to give that core that won 14 games a year ago every possible chance to be the best it can be at the most important position on the field. McCarthy might be able to do that, but it was a little hard to project based on the four months of developmental time he lost, and the weight he lost over that time, to bet everything on him.
Now, that’s the spot they’re in, and I know they’re encouraged by where he is now, versus where he was six months ago. They’ll have the spring to take a really hard look at that progress and, since they didn’t add competition, McCarthy will be able to gobble up all the reps and show he’s ready to handle that.
I’m excited to see how it plays out (and we’ll have plenty more on this in the weeks ahead).
Miami Dolphins’ window
If I were the Miami Dolphins, I’d think about trading Tyreek Hill. But before we get to that, here’s to Terron Armstead, who is retiring after an illustrious 12-year career. He’s a good example, for this time of year, of why teams will gamble on traits. Ahead of the 2013 draft, Armstead, out of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, was best known for running a 4.71 40-yard dash at 306 pounds at the combine.
A dominant player for the FCS level, that sprint, a combine record for offensive linemen, showed to New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and GM Mickey Loomis that Armstead had the explosiveness to hang in the NFL (31 reps on the bench showed he had the power). Adding that to the clean character profile Armstead had, and New Orleans saw a worthy bet.
Five Pro Bowl selections later, the third-round pick paid off in turning out to be one of the best left tackles of his generation. It’s a pretty cool story, with the added bonus that Armstead’s selection was actually announced at the draft by Saints legend Steve Gleason.
O.K., so here’s the other piece of it—it’s a sign that the window might be closing in Miami.
Armstead turns 34 this summer. Before hanging ’em up, he was one of six Dolphins making more than $12 million per year. Three more—Hill (30), Jalen Ramsey (29) and Bradley Chubb (28)—will be 29 or older at the start of camp and have missed significant time over the past two years. Meanwhile, Tua Tagovailoa is now off his rookie contract, and there is some cap debt to manage from the aggressive building over the next few years.
Also, it’s hard to imagine either Ramsey or Chubb, when the time comes, will bring a big return to help reset the team’s roster. I believe Hill still can. What’s more, you have a young player at his position, 25-year-old star Jaylen Waddle, who can soften the blow of a potential departure.
Now, it would be painful, to be sure, to lose a guy who’s meant so much to how Mike McDaniel has built his program over the past three years. But at this point, with Armstead gone and significant questions on the roster (fingers crossed for Miami on second-year man Patrick Paul at left tackle), the hard question they have to ask themselves is whether they can win a championship with the current group.
If the answer is no (and I’m not saying it is), then it makes sense for the Armstead decision to set off a plan for McDaniel and GM Chris Grier to rebuild around Tagovailoa on the fly.
Getting a haul of picks for Hill would be a sensible place to start.
Quick-hitters
Time for some quick-hitters, and we’ll dive right in with some draft nuggets. With plenty more to come over the next two and a half weeks …
• It will be interesting to see where the first pure corner (after Hunter, of course) goes. This is not a great corner class, and that means the top guys could get pushed up a bit for teams in need that fear help won’t be around later. I’d say at this point it’s a toss-up between Texas’s Jahdae Barron and Michigan’s Will Johnson for the first corner off the board. Barron’s the more versatile piece for a second, whereas Johnson’s the big, long prototypical outside corner.
• The most interesting pocket of picks for Sanders, I think, would be from Nos. 6 through 9, where you have three teams (Raiders, Jets, Saints) that don’t need to take a quarterback, but could take one. Of those three, my sense is New Orleans would be most likely to take Sanders. If he gets past that group, though, he could really slide.
• After sitting in on Falcons owner Arthur Blank’s media session at the owners’ meeting, I still think a trade of Kirk Cousins is possible for draft weekend. As we’ve said, Cousins would rather see what teams do in the first round of the draft before accepting a trade. And he can make it so, since he has a no-trade clause in his contract.
• While we’re there, I’d say the Falcons feel very, very good about taking Michael Penix Jr. last year, based on what’s available in this year’s class. If it works out, it’s a good lesson that having too many answers at quarterback is a good problem to have. One thing I’ve said from the start here is that if Penix winds up being an elite player, no one will care about the rest.
• I hate saying anyone is “rising” or “falling” on “draft boards” because it doesn’t work that way. That said, when I sketched out a mock draft for myself this week, I had Arizona WR Tetairoa McMillan going in the 20s. I’d say, again, that I wouldn’t be surprised if Texas’s Matthew Golden is the first (non-Hunter) receiver to go, and McMillan is there when the playoff teams are picking.
• So who will be the first nonquarterback to go after Hunter and Carter? I think Georgia’s Jalon Walker has a shot to be that guy. He’s also indicative of the flaws in this year’s class. His size is far from ideal, which illustrates how teams are going to have to compromise on traits this year way earlier than they usually do.
• The offensive tackle dynamic is interesting that way because you have a couple of guys at the top of the heap, in LSU’s Will Campbell and Missouri’s Armand Membou, who are short of being Joe Alt–type prototypes. Then, you have Ohio State’s Josh Simmons, who is the prototype in so many ways, but has limited tape playing at that level, is coming off a torn patellar tendon, and has some growing up to do (not a bad guy, just needs to mature).
• There’s a good amount of buzz around Shough, the 25-year-old Louisville–Texas Tech–Oregon product. He spent seven years in college, two of them backing up Justin Herbert, and has four degrees. He’s a super interesting prospect and another one I can’t wait to dive into.
• Along those lines, Dart as a fallback plan for quarterback-needy teams in the second round is interesting since only one of them can have him.
• We need to stop talking about Arch Manning like he’s definitely coming out next year. The family’s history indicates he won’t rush to the NFL. Evidence shows quarterbacks have a better shot in the league the more they play in college. And Arch himself waited his turn for two years at Texas, in an era when players routinely bolt at the first sign of having to spend time on the bench. I’d be surprised, in the end, if he winds up in the 2026 draft class.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Takeaways: How Cam Ward Emerged As the Likely No. 1 Draft Pick.
