The NFL owners meetings began Sunday, and reporter Adam Hoge has a view from the top.
NFL owners are thinking about trimming overtime to 10 minutes, and it’s just one of the handful of proposals being floated around in advance of the owners meetings in Phoenix that will take place this week. The vote on a potential move of the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas will take center stage, especially with commissioner Roger Goodell himself was publicly critical of Oakland’s stadium plan. But potential rules changes such as the expansion of coaches challenges and officials reviews and eliminating players jumping over the line of scrimmage to block kicks are among the other rules changes that could be voted on and changed this week.
It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds. Until then, today’s Bullets …
Perhaps it’s early to decide who free agency’s winners and losers are in late March (eight of the top 50 free agents are still on the board and unemployed) but that won’t stop us, will it? NFL.com analyst Howard Schein has a list of nine players who were winners in free agency, including one with ties to the Chicago Bears. New Bears quarterback Mike Glennon checks in at No. 6 on the list, as Schein believes Glennon is a NFL caliber starting quarterback, though he’ll never be a star. He also cited a column he wrote a year ago on why teams should be enticed by a quarterback who started 13 games as a rookie and played well in his limited spurt.
The Arizona Cardinals are putting a positive spin on an offseason in which the team lost five defensive starters to free agency – including cornerback Marcus Cooper to the Bears. Cardinals GM Steve Keim sees the losses as a positive sign the team can replace those players because acquiring them in the first place was proof the scouting department and coaching staff are working well together in identifying and developing talent. “When guys like Marcus Cooper get five-plus million dollars or D.J. Swearinger are getting big contracts, these are guys we took off the street that nobody else wanted,” Keim told the Arizona Republic. “Our personnel department does a fantastic job and our coaches do a good job of developing these guys and getting them ready.”
One-year “prove it” deals were the rage this offseason as teams looked to find value in stop-gaps, while players who signed them embarked on another contract year to set up the search of longer, more lucrative deals next offseason. Howard Fendrich of the Associated Press offers up details behind the strategy from team and player perspectives. Six players in their 20s signed these kinds of deals, including two with Bears ties (Alshon Jeffery, Prince Amukamara) and two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Dontari Poe. But which ones will cash out after the 2017 season?
Most defensive linemen make highlight reels for preying on quarterbacks with sacks and hurries, but there is more to Jonathan Allen’s game than just that. You can see why this play stood out to NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah.
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