Author: nfltalk

Football has never known a control freak like Bill Belichick, the Nixonian figure who ran the New England Patriots as if their facility was a CIA black site. But four months into Belichick’s new coaching tenure, at the University of North Carolina, there is a stunning lack of clarity about who’s actually in charge.

Belichick was not the obvious choice to revitalize the Tar Heels. Not only does he lack any college coaching experience, he is dour, cold and gruff – traits you imagine might turn off a high school prospect who could choose to play for Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin or another charismatic sideline general instead. Belichick is also 73 and deeply set in his ways, part of the reason why the Patriots fired him in 2023 after 24 years of service. No other NFL team has hired him since: the Atlanta Falcons considered Belichick for their head coaching vacancy in 2024, but wound up passing after Patriots owner Bob Kraft reportedly warned his Falcons counterpart, Arthur Blank, “not to trust Bill”. (The Patriots deny the allegation.)

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That’s not to say that Belichick didn’t have anything to recommend him for UNC. He did, after all, win a record six Super Bowls as Patriots head coach. But so far the most discussed figure in the program isn’t a player, coach or Belichick himself, weirdly. It’s Jordon Hudson, Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend.

Hudson isn’t some trailblazing football careerist. She’s a fresh catch, the product of Maine fishing stock, a former cheerleader and beauty queen. (Incidentally, she’s slated to compete in the Miss Maine USA pageant later this month alongside the competition’s first transgender entrant – a political football this story is nowhere near ready for.) As the coach tells it, the romance started on a 2021 flight from Boston to Miami with Belichick (then 69 years old) striking up a conversation with Hudson (20 at the time) as she was reading a book called Deductive Logic for an undergraduate…

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If there’s anyone out there who has somewhat of an idea of what Shedeur Sanders was going through during the NFL Draft, it’s Tom Brady. The seven-time Super Bowl winner had an ugly draft day in 2000 when he wasn’t selected until the sixth round. 

As bad as things were for Brady, it was worse for Sanders, because Brady wasn’t projected to be a first-round pick. At one point during draft season, Sanders was viewed as a surefire top-three pick, but in a surprising turn of events, he ended up tumbling all the way down to the fifth round when the Cleveland Browns finally selected him. 

Brady was actually watching the draft on Saturday, and we know that because he was watching it with Michael Strahan, who shared a few details of what Brady had to say after watching Sanders fall in the draft.

“I spent time with Tom Brady this past weekend and we watched the draft, and as Tom said, ‘He’s an example, it doesn’t matter when you’re picked,’” Strahan said this week on “Good Morning America.”

What Brady is implying here is that it doesn’t matter where you get taken in the draft, because you’ll have a chance to make the team no matter what. In Sanders’ situation specifically, if he had been taken fifth overall by the Browns, he would be in the same spot he is now: He’d be in Cleveland competing for the starting quarterback job against Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel. 

Sanders is going to make a lot less money as a fifth-round pick, but there’s also less pressure on him. 

One thing Strahan didn’t mention is how Brady the “owner” felt about Sanders the prospect. Brady holds a partial stake in the Las Vegas Raiders, and they were one of several teams that went into the draft with eyes on taking a quarterback. The Raiders had SEVEN different chances to draft Sanders before he was taken at 144th overall, but they passed on him each time. 

Brady has been close with the Sanders…

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During the first three years of Nick Sirianni’s tenure as head coach in Philadelphia, the Eagles didn’t play their rookies very much on offense or defense.

That changed in 2024.

During the Super Bowl season, the top three picks (Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Jalyx Hunt) ended up playing major roles in the championship run. Mitchell was a starter all season, DeJean worked his way into the starting lineup and Hunt worked his way into the edge rusher rotation.

As we look ahead to this upcoming season, let’s try to find roles for the Eagles’ 10-man draft class in 2025:

Round 1-31: Jihaad Campbell, LB, Alabama

The Eagles might have gotten the steal of the draft by moving up just one spot to take a consensus top-15 player at No. 31 overall. But there are many factors that make it really tough to figure out just how much Campbell is going to play during his rookie season and it starts with the reason he slipped to the bottom of the first round. There were some injury concerns.

Campbell, 21, had shoulder surgery in March to repair a torn labrum. That came after the Combine and before the Alabama pro day. The week before the draft, Campbell actually retweeted a report that he would be ready for his rookie training camp but he and the Eagles have been noncommittal about his timeline since the draft. It seems possible that Campbell could miss the spring and perhaps even some of training camp. So we’ll have to see if he’s healthy.

The other reason it’s really hard to project Campbell’s playing time is we don’t know which position he’s going to major in first. Campbell played mostly off-ball linebacker late in his career at Alabama but was recruited out of high school as an edge rusher. And after Howie Roseman drafted Campbell, he immediately talked up Campbell’s ability to add value as a rusher off the edge. While the Eagles didn’t want to get too deep into their plans to use Campbell, the good news is that veteran…

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Tragedy struck in the life of Denver Broncos Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway on Wednesday. Jeff Sperbeck — Elway’s longtime friend, business partner and former agent — died from injuries suffered when falling from a golf cart reportedly driven by Elway, according to ESPN. 

The Riverside County (California) coroner confirmed Sperback’s death in a press release from the sheriff’s office. Sperbeck suffered injuries Saturday in La Quinta, California, and he was ruled dead Wednesday at a Palm Springs hospital. He was 62.

“I am absolutely devastated and heartbroken by the passing of my close friend, business partner and agent Jeff Sperbeck,” Elway said Wednesday in a statement (via ESPN). “There are no words to truly express the profound sadness I feel with the sudden loss of someone who has meant so much to me. My heart and deepest sympathies go out to Jeff’s wife, Cori; his children Carly, Sam and Jackson; and everyone who knew and loved him. Jeff will be deeply missed for the loyalty, wisdom, friendship and love he brought into my life and the lives of so many others.”

TMZ reported that Elway was the driver of the golf cart when Sperbeck fell and hit his head on asphalt. The incident is still under investigation by the Riverside County Sherriff’s office. TMZ reported that there were no indications that Elway was driving inadequately when Sperbeck fell. 

Sperbeck began representing Elway halfway through his 16-year NFL career in 1990. He also represented over 100 NFL players in a career spanning three decades as an agent and business advisor. 

Elway won the 1987 NFL MVP award in addition to consecutive Super Bowl titles to end his career in 1998 and 1999. He also won a Super Bowl as the general…

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The NFL has handed out heavy fines to the Atlanta Falcons and their defensive coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich, over a prank call to Shedeur Sanders during last week’s draft.

The league fined Ulbrich $100,000 and the Falcons $250,000 for “failing to prevent the disclosure of confidential information distributed to the club in advance of the NFL draft.”

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Sanders was projected as a first- or second-round pick in this year’s draft but teams passed on him until the Cleveland Browns finally picked him in the fifth-round. However, before Sanders was picked he received a call from someone claiming to be New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis suggesting his team would select the quarterback with their next pick.

Related: The draft roughed up Shedeur Sanders. The NFL will demand even more

On Sunday, Ulbrich’s 21-year-old son, Jax, admitted he had written down Sanders’s number after seeing it on his father’s open iPad. Video emerged of Jax Ulbrich and a friend making the prank call to Sanders.

“I’m so sorry I took away from your moment, it was selfish and childish,” Jax Ulbrich wrote on Instagram in a message directed toward Sanders. “I could never imagine getting ready to celebrate one of the greatest moments of your life and I made a terrible mistake and messed with that moment. Thank you for accepting my call earlier today, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

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The Falcons also apologized to Sanders, adding that Jeff Ulbrich “was unaware of the data exposure or any facets of the prank and was made aware of the above only after the fact.”

For his part, Sanders did not seem too concerned about the matter when he spoke about it on Saturday. “It didn’t really have an impact on me,” Sanders told reporters. “Of course, I feel like it was a childish act, but everybody does childish things here and there.”

Sanders’s father is Deion Sanders, who played for the Falcons during his Hall of Fame NFL career…

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