INDIANAPOLIS—We’re here and ready to roll for six long nights in Naptown, and we’re just getting started in digging through some whispers that’ll run rampant here in the coming days …
• Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles did the right thing by his franchise on Tuesday by leaving everything on the table in telling the media that they haven’t closed the door on anything yet. This way, calls will keep coming on Justin Fields, and on the first pick.
In the end, the idea, if I had to climb inside Poles’s head on this, would be to get the clearest view of all options before executing a plan that’s nearing its final stages. And there were a couple signs on Tuesday that it is, indeed, reaching those final stages. First, so openly talking about trading Fields—and “doing right by Justin”—is not something you’re doing if the plan is to keep him entrenched as the unquestioned starter. Second, Poles acknowledged that the right thing for everyone would be to have closure on Fields sooner than later.
How soon? By the start of free agency (the tampering period starts March 11, the league year opens two days after that) would be ideal. That would both give Fields the chance to turn the page before his new team starts building in earnest, and more teams, naturally, are going to have openings at quarterback now than in four or six weeks, which gives the Bears a more robust market for their 2021 first-rounder.
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One more thing here: I’ve talked to enough Chicago folks over the last few weeks to know the Bears believe they can win with Fields. But this is a unique situation, where they have the first-round pick of the worst team in the league in a year in which a generational talent is coming out at quarterback, one that’ll allow the team to reset the rookie-contract clock at quarterback. And in the end, my bet is still that the chance to do that is too much to pass on.
• The Los Angeles Rams took some losses on their coaching staff this winter (particularly with Raheem Morris and Zac Robinson headed to Atlanta), but they also scored an awfully big win. Hanging on to highly regarded tight ends coach Nick Caley was a coup for Sean McVay.
The continued poaching of McVay’s assistants has been, over the last few years, both a huge endorsement of what’s been built in Los Angeles and also a bit of a burden on a team that’s constantly needed to reshape itself around new staff coming in. But last year marked a sort of shift in how they did it, with McVay going outside a coaching tree that traditionally has been very insular to hire Caley and Ryan Wendell, both of whom have Patriot roots.
Part of it, of course, was that McVay just liked those two. Another was the respect he’s always had for Josh McDaniels and the New England offense, and the thought that adding some layers to the passing game, with Matthew Stafford as its triggerman, and some more diversity to the run game would make the Rams tough to deal with. To be sure, it worked, enough so that the idea of Caley leaving to go run his own offense was very much in play.
Caley traveled to New England for a second interview with the Patriots, whom he worked for from 2015–22, over the weekend of the conference title games, and was offered the Patriots offensive coordinator job by his old staffmate Jerod Mayo. And he was offered it at a very competitive salary, which reflected the respect Mayo has for him.
It was tough to say no. But Caley had such a good experience last year with the Rams, that the idea of leaving was more difficult than turning down a coordinator job. So he stayed, and McVay, as I’ve heard the story, was ecstatic that he did (and McVay showed that emphatically on the phone with Caley when he was told he was staying). In turn, the Rams have since made it worth his while by giving him the pass-game coordinator title that Robinson left behind when he decided to go run his own offense in Atlanta under Morris.
• Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy was great in taking us through the draft class for the Monday morning column, and so here I wanted to highlight the great work that his all-star game in Mobile has done in working through a tumultuous time for such events.
Long story short, there’s been some outside efforts to turn these games into something they’re not, and Nagy’s done the work to make sure the Senior Bowl stays true to its roots as an important player evaluation tool, remains in Mobile and continues to grow as the preeminent showcase for college talent in the sport.
“I think it was our best year by every measure, now being able to sit back and absorb everything,” said Nagy. “First of all, it was a great week with the new coaches. We're getting used to this new format with the blended staffs. That’s worked really well. Operationally, year two of doing that was good. We had a really good group of players this year. The weather obviously cooperated, which is big for us.
“The junior thing is a game changer. We learned some stuff going through the fall in terms of how to engage some of these juniors and get them interested. There were certain positions that really jumped in on it and took advantage of playing in the Senior Bowl.”
The “junior thing” that Nagy is referencing is that, for the first time this year, true juniors were eligible to play in all-star games. The Senior Bowl folks got a heads up that it could be coming back in August, which prepared them for the November announcement—but that doesn’t mean the adjustments made in the fall were final. For one reason or another, for example, the game didn’t land any junior receivers. So that’s one place Nagy’s group can look at as they turn the page to next season.
But overall, the metrics were good. The game had 133 players invited to the combine, which was an all-time high, and a good tick up from the 124 they had invited last year. Anecdotally, Nagy said a lot of team guys told him this year’s rosters were the best they’d seen in Mobile, which was, of course, aided by the influx of juniors. And there were juniors, like Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson, who really helped themselves, and should be powerful case studies for next year’s players who’ll be mulling whether they want to play.
So all in all, a really good year for the Senior Bowl.
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• The Kansas City Chiefs’ plan to tag, and potentially trade, cornerback L’Jarius Sneed follows what GM Brett Veach did five years ago with Dee Ford during the same offseason they were on the other end of such a deal to acquire Frank Clark.
Sneed’s tag will run Kansas City $19.8 million, and likely mean a long-term deal would cost a trade partner somewhere north of $22 million per year. Over his four years, Sneed has proven to be worth that—and the Chiefs have shown how much they think of him with how Steve Spagnuolo would use him inside and out, and at times have him travel with the top receiver on other teams.
Why wouldn’t the Chiefs just sign him themselves? Well, for one, with the prices being what they are for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and, if he sticks around, Chris Jones, plus an offensive line that’s pricey and has a couple more guys up for extensions, there’s only so much money to go around. They also have great young depth at the position (Trent McDuffie, Jaylen Watson and Joshua Williams). And there are injury concerns on Sneed.
So it would be interesting to see exactly what Kansas City can get for Sneed, who’s steadily improved and is coming off his best year.
• New England Patriots director of scouting Eliot Wolf shed real light into a shift in the team’s process on the personnel side on Tuesday, explaining how the team is going from a role-based grading system to one more centered on player value.
This is significant, because I do believe it’s an area that cost New England in recent years. Bill Belichick would sometimes draft or sign players into very specific jobs—say, a bigger corner (Joejuan Williams, Brandon Browner) who might cover tight ends, a heavier back to attack lighter defensive fronts (LeGarrette Blount), or even kicking-game pieces to take advantage of certain rules. And for years, it allowed the Patriots to leverage Belichick’s situational mastery as a coach.
It fell apart later in his run in New England when the Patriots lacked the cornerstone pieces you need to win in the league, as guys like Dont’a Hightower, Stephon Gilmore, Nate Solder, Rob Gronkowski and, of course, Tom Brady cycled off the roster.
So my perception of Wolf’s message here is that he and his staff will be going best-player-available early in the draft, leaning toward premium positions, to build a new foundation.
• The Denver Broncos are playing nice with Russell Wilson right now, but few believe there’s any way the 12-year vet is back in Denver next season. A clean break is probably best for everyone, and I’d expect they add an affordable vet (since they’ll be paying Wilson $39 million for 2024, minus whatever a new team gives him, it’s hard to see anything splashy)
and look hard at either trading up for a quarterback in the draft or taking one at No. 12.
This is Sean Payton’s chance to hit reset at quarterback. I don’t see him passing on that.
• For what it’s worth, I think the Cincinnati Bengals are going to do what they can to re-sign Tee Higgins long-term. I believe they’ll consider letting him play on the franchise tag, at a lump-sum total of $21.8 million for this year. I also think teams could come along with big offers for Higgins, offers that, absent a long-term deal in Cincinnati, might be tough for the Bengals to pass on.
As we mentioned in the Monday column, the price of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Higgins over the long-term could hover around $110 million a year in new money. Which is a lot.
• I wouldn’t make much of the Arizona Cardinals’ social media post Tuesday on Kyler Murray. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised, after 2019 and 2022 quarterback drama on social media for the team around combine time, if Arizona was trolling everyone with this latest post.
Arizona OC Drew Petzing built a really good rapport with Murray last year, and it sounds like Murray’s pretty excited to build off that.
• New Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris was pretty definitive in saying that his team would be aggressive at quarterback this offseason. Fields could be an option. Kirk Cousins, too.
• Speaking of the quarterbacks, they arrived here today. And so the interviews that’ll take place the next couple nights at Lucas Oil Stadium will be pretty important.
