Around the League: McCarthy Interviews in Carolina, QBs Shuffle, AP Passes Sweetness, Bad Browns, More

As Brett mentioned earlier in today’s Cubs Bullets, we’re doing our annual closing up of shop for Christmas Day. And since I didn’t want to leave you on the sour note highlighting the heavy lifting Bears GM Ryan Pace has to do to fix one of the NFL’s worst offenses, I figured now would make for a decent time to take a quick trip around the NFL.

  • The Carolina Panthers are wasting little time in getting the head-coach interview carousel spinning:
  • ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports the Panthers interviewed ex-Packers Head Coach Mike McCarthy. Carolina has to wait until the regular season ends to interview coaches employed with other teams, so it makes sense to check in with McCarthy to pass the time. I’d love to be a fly on the wall hearing McCarthy explain how the Packers are on the cusp of earning the top seed in the NFC playoffs with a first year head-coach with just one year of coordinator experience just one year after they fired him from his post.
  • Elsewhere on the Panthers beat, Defensive Backs Coach/Interim Head Coach Perry Fewell has been asked to interview (and will) for the vacant head-coaching position, reports The Athletic’s Joseph Person. Interviewing Fewell will satisfy the Rooney Rule, but I hope he gets a real chance in this process. Fewell has been a long-time coach in the league and his secondary units have long been pretty good. Here’s hoping he knocks it out of the park during the interview process.
  • Another Person report:
  • Will Grier will start under center (again) for the Panthers. I guess we can consider the Kyle Allen experiment over, but that’s just where the intrigue begins for the Panthers. As things stand now, Carolina owns the eighth pick in the draft. They could be in a position to draft Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama) or Justin Herbert (Oregon) if either drops past quarterback-needy teams such as the Dolphins, Jaguars, or Chargers. Or it is possible that Tagovailoa, Herbert, and Joe Burrow (LSU) will all be off the board when the Panthers are on the clock. And there is always the possibility the Panthers crawl back to Cam Newton for one more year if he proves to be healthy.
  • REMINDER: The Bears play the Panthers (and the rest of the NFC South) in 2020, so we’ll keep an eye on what happens here from a coach and quarterback perspective.
  • Caveat warning: It’s a Jason La Canfora report, but sources have informed the CBS NFL insider that the Raiders “will do heavy due diligence”  on the 2020 quarterback class. And with the possibility of a quarterback getting drafted being on the table, the Raiders could look to move Derek Carr. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Jon Gruden want to groom a new signal caller as the team preps for its first season in Las Vegas, but this veteran quarterback class figures to be loaded. Then again, we have seen Gruden’s Raiders move Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper to clean house and allow him to build a team more in his image.
  • I’ll always remember Carr as the first guy we wrote about getting the big-money quarterback contract. The Raiders blueprint was awfully intriguing back in 2017. Pay your star pass-rusher, ace receiver, and stud quarterback with big-time deals,  then build around that group in the draft. It’s a heckuva concept, but the breakup is soon to be complete.
  • I wonder if Khalil Mack would vouch for Carr if the option became available.
  • Oh, so you thought the Bears’ draft issues were problematic:
  • Because everyone loves playing the “what-if” game with the Bears, let’s have some fun and do it with the Browns. Misery loves company, right? Here are some notable first-round players they passed in in this span:

  • 2013: WR DeAndre Hopkins (27th overall)
  • 2014: DT Aaron Donald (13th overall), Dee Ford (23rd overall)
  • 2015: RB Melvin Gordon (15th overall), Landon Collins (33rd overall)
  • 2016: DL Kenny Clark (27th overall)
  • 2017: RB Christian McCaffrey (8th overall), CB Marshon Lattimore, QB Patrick Mahones (10th overall), QB Deshaun Watson (12th overall)
  • Here are the quarterbacks who were drafted in the first two rounds of those drafts who  the Browns have passed on selecting since 2013: Teddy Bridgewater  (2014, 1sr), Derek Carr (2014, 2nd), Dak Prescott (2016, 4th), Mahones, Watson.
  • Can we talk about how the Texans drafted Watson with a pick acquired from the Browns? Because I feel as if we don’t talk about that enough.
  • A not-so-weird flex:
  • Happy returns are on the horizon for the Texans defense:
  • View this post on Instagram

    @jjwatt is back at practice. #WeAreTexans

    A post shared by Houston Texans (@houstontexans) on

  • All-world defensive game-changer J.J. Watt has been designated for a return from injured reserve. Watt was placed on IR earlier in the season because of a pectoral injury, but the Texans (and Watt) are confident enough that the star defender will hold up when he returns to the field. Because Watt isn’t eligible to return to play this week in the regular-season finale, he and the Texans will roll the dice on Wild-Card Weekend.
  • Kirk Cousins getting trolled at every corner probably isn’t fun for Kirk Cousins:
  • The Steelers’ quarterback situation is worth monitoring:
  • No, Ben Roethlisberger isn’t coming to save the day in Chicago. But keeping tabs on what Pittsburgh does could be informational as how things could go in Chicago. Do the Steelers draft a quarterback who can be the heir apparent? Will they trade for a legitimate backup? Or is it possible they would dive into the free agent market to find help? Mason Rudolph and “Duck” Hudges have proven to be non-answers for a team that would have locked down a playoff spot by now had it been blessed with a better backup quarterback option behind Roethlisberger.
  • Posting before you can say the Bears are going to be the sixth team Ryan Fitzpatrick throws 4 TD in a game for:
  • Washington running back scored his 111th rushing touchdown on Sunday. Not in one single game, because that would be some sort of record. But all-time … which is still a lot. Peterson passed Walter Payton for fourth all-time in the process:
  • written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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