NFL News Updates

Author: nfltalk

  • Lions GM Brad Holmes: I always had more optimism than the outside world about Jared Goff

    Lions GM Brad Holmes: I always had more optimism than the outside world about Jared Goff

    When Lions General Manager Brad Holmes got the job in Detroit, he quickly got to work on one of the biggest trades in NFL history: Sending Matthew Stafford to Los Angeles for Jared Goff and two first-round draft picks. A year later, when Stafford won the Super Bowl with the Rams, it looked like the Rams won the trade. Three years later, with the Lions coming off back-to-back NFC North titles, it looks like a trade that both teams won.

    Holmes, who worked for the Rams before he got the Lions job, said on PFT Live at the league meeting that while some people thought Goff’s contract was just a throw-in on the trade to make it work for salary cap purposes, Holmes himself always believed in Goff.

    “I’ve always said, I had more optimism than probably the outside world did, just because I knew him so intimately well,” Holmes said of Goff. “All the work that we did with him coming out in the draft and all the early success, I was right there with that early success and, I always said when I was with the Rams, when we lost that Super Bowl people ready to really just write them off. And I was like, look, he’s so young and he still has so much left in them that, I had a lot of optimism that he was going to continue to develop and continue to mature and continue to get better. Again, you don’t have a crystal ball. You never know how far it’s going to go, but I’m so very happy for him because he’s put all the work in.”

    Holmes acknowledged that in his first year as Lions GM, trading a quarterback to his old team and promptly seeing his old team win the Super Bowl while his new team went 3-13-1, that was tough. But he was happy for his old bosses with the Rams, Les Snead, Sean McVay and Kevin Demoff, and said all of them have given him credit for helping them get there, while also congratulating him for what he’s done with the Lions.

    “When we did the big trade, the Goff-Stafford trade, I had a pretty good idea that they…

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  • ‘He played us like a drum’: Inside Kevin Willard’s turbulent Maryland departure

    ‘He played us like a drum’: Inside Kevin Willard’s turbulent Maryland departure

    In a first year that ended in a 71-53 NCAA Tournament Round of 32 loss to Alabama in 2023, new Maryland coach Kevin Willard had complaints. Plenty of them.

    He was quick to tell anyone who would listen how much better things were in the Big East, the league he had just left after 12 seasons at Seton Hall. The scheduling, the travel, the emphasis on college basketball above all else. 

    Willard had issues with the Big Ten’s schedule and travel situations, which would only get worse when USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington officially joined the conference, but it didn’t raise alarms early on the way maybe it should have. Many Maryland boosters and athletic department staffers were already used to dealing with similar complaints from Mark Turgeon, Willard’s predecessor, who frequently complained about the school’s decision to leave the basketball-fabled Atlantic Coast Conference for the Big Ten in 2014. 

    The hope was that Willard would settle in at the Big Ten school and get it back on track to the heights of the Gary Williams era that resulted in a 2002 national championship. 

    In hindsight, though, Willard’s comparisons to the Big East should have been a sign. Over the next two years, there were consistent whispers that Willard wasn’t particularly happy at Maryland and was frustrated that the perceived “basketball school” didn’t devote more resources to his program. It all came to a head in an ugly, more than week-long public saga that finally ended late Saturday night when Willard marked his return to his beloved Big East as Villanova’s new head coach. 

    Maryland basketball’s collapse continues: Two ‘Crab Five’ stars hit transfer portal after Kevin Willard exits

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  • ‘Tush Push’ getting banned? Eagles’ Nick Sirianni explains why these head coaches ‘better vote’ to keep play

    ‘Tush Push’ getting banned? Eagles’ Nick Sirianni explains why these head coaches ‘better vote’ to keep play

    Getty Images

    The fate of the “Tush Push” is in the hands of the owners this week at the NFL’s annual league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. There, the decision on whether to ban the play made famous by Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles has been formally put forward. In the lead-up to the vote, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni was asked about the proposed change and relayed that he “better” have three votes in the play’s favor from his former assistants-turned-head coaches across the league. 

    “We’ll see how it goes,” Sirianni told NFL Media on Sunday. “All I will say about it is (Jonathan) Gannon, (Shane) Steichen and (Kellen) Moore better vote for it. They are in the (head coach) position right now because of that play. So all three, I better have those three votes right there and the Eagles’ vote. I at least know we have four.”

    Gannon (Cardinals) and Steichen (Colts) were both hired as head coaches in 2023 and Moore left the organization just this offseason to become the head coach of the New Orleans Saints. Given that the “Tush Push” has been a key part of Philadelphia’s success over their tenures and, in part, helped them ascend to these roles, they — in theory — should be strong supporters to keep it around. 

    However, there are detractors of the “Tush Push,” including the Green Bay Packers, who were the ones to officially put forward the topic of banning the play. Earlier this offseason, Packers CEO Mark Murphy wrote in a Q&A on the official team website that he is “not a fan of this play” and there is “no skill involved,” while also admitting that it’s essentially an automatic first down or score with a yard or less to gain. Bills coach Sean McDermott also expressed concerns about player safety regarding the play…

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  • Rattlers blow out Sugar Skulls as Nick Davila joins Ring of Honor

    Rattlers blow out Sugar Skulls as Nick Davila joins Ring of Honor

    Guy goes in-depth on Nick Davila heading to Rattlers Ring of Honor

    Arizona Rattlers head coach Kevin Guy explains former Rattlers quarterback Nick Davila’s upcoming Ring of Honor induction.

    After a few glitches to open the 2025 Indoor Football League season, the Rattlers settled in and blew out the rival Tucson Sugar Skulls 56-28 on Sunday, March 30, before 9,345 fans at Desert Diamond Arena.

    The Rattlers unveiled their 2024 championship banner, then, after the fans sang the national anthem a cappella due to a technical issue, the Rattlers’ offense needed a few plays to get into a rhythm.

    It was a quick fix.

    Quarterback Dalton Sneed, needing only a few days of practice, showed why he was the IFL championship game MVP last year, knocking off the rust and leading the Rattlers to a 35-10 halftime lead.

    Other than a fumble exchange between Sneed and running back Ron Brown Jr., and an interception he threw during a lackluster third quarter, the Rattlers were clicking as if it was late in the season and the championship on the line.

    “Maybe it was nerves in that first quarter, jumping off sides,” Sneed said. “Or that exchange. It’s little things, but it’s a sense of focus. We have to be locked in. We can’t allow our emotions to be so hyped up that we’re not thinking clearly.

    “I tell these guys all the time, ‘Practice like we play.’ When we step out in practice, we should be of the midset that, ‘OK, here’s the first drive. The expecations is to score.’ Calm down and be us. Nobody can stop us but ourselves.”

    Sneed threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in the half. The defense made a quick statement with Ethan Caselberry intercepting Jordan Ambrose on Tucson’s opening drive and returning it 40 yards for a score.

    Nick Davila honored

    Legendary former quarterback Nick Davila was inducted into the Rattlers’ Ring of Honor at…

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  • Brock Purdy: 49ers were tired last season

    Brock Purdy: 49ers were tired last season

    As the 49ers’ 2024 season wound down, defensive end Nick Bosa tried to find a bright side to missing the playoffs.

    Bosa said he was looking forward to having a full offseason after seeing the previous three truncated by the team’s deep postseason runs. They made it to at least the NFC title game each year and Bosa said it was “definitely a grind” to miss out on having more time off.

    Quarterback Brock Purdy likely agrees with Bosa’s feelings about a longer offseason. During an appearance on the Built 4 More podcast, Purdy said he thought fatigue played a big role in the 49ers’ drop to 6-11 last season.

    “And then last year, man, guys were tired,” Purdy said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “That season is no joke, and when you go from July of training and everything, all the way to the end of February, and then you really get five weeks off or so [until] you’ve got to report back, and then you’re going again, guys are tired. They’re still beat up, their bodies.”

    The 49ers will have more time to recuperate this year, but they’ll also have to adapt to significant changes to the roster on both sides of the ball if they are going to return to the top rungs of the NFC.

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  • NCAA committee denies Colorado-Syracuse spring game: Potential avenues, roadblocks for future scrimmages

    NCAA committee denies Colorado-Syracuse spring game: Potential avenues, roadblocks for future scrimmages

    Colorado and Syracuse won’t scrimmage together this spring, after all.

    Despite the pitch from Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders and the quick social media acceptance from Orange coach Fran Brown, the two sides were denied a waiver for a joint spring game, the Division I FBS oversight committee announced Friday.

    Denying a joint scrimmage is a blow to spring football, which has otherwise become nerfed in importance nationally as major schools cancel their games with coaches hoping to make it through spring without a major injuries and transfer defections. 

    The NCAA’s explanation mostly focused on timing. Most schools already planned their spring practice schedule and didn’t have the opportunity to match Colorado. The Buffaloes would have a competitive advantage in recruiting for their spring game that other schools would lack. The NCAA also brought up academic concerns, which is important but always funny reasoning in the 2025 revenue sharing and NIL landscape.

    Those are all workable roadblocks into the future, and the oversight committee said as much in a memo obtained by The Athletic.

    “The committee agreed to discuss, during a future meeting, a concept that could permit joint practices.”

    There seems to be growing support for the idea.

    Houston coach Willie Fritz told CBS Sports earlier this spring that he’s tried to get the idea implemented “for years” to compete against other teams in spring ball.

    “You’ve got a 50% less chance of guys getting injured,” Fritz said. “I think it’d be something that’s neat for the crowd to see. You could probably use to help your collective as well. I think it’d be awesome, good for both teams. One year they go to your place, the next year you go to the other place. I think it’d be something you’d get even…

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  • Zach Wilson eager to develop under “phenomenal coach” Mike McDaniel

    Zach Wilson eager to develop under “phenomenal coach” Mike McDaniel

    During his time with the Jets, Zach Wilson took plenty of criticism for never becoming the franchise quarterback he was expected to be as the second overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft. But the Jets also took plenty of criticism for not developing Wilson. And Wilson says that in Miami now, he’s in a place where he can continue to grow as a quarterback.

    Wilson said Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel is everything he wants in a coach who can bring out the best in him as a quarterback.

    “I think just extremely raw, his ability to just be completely himself every single day is I think what you want in a coach,” Wilson said. “Somebody that is going to give you exactly the same guy every single day and obviously he’s a phenomenal coach and shows how much he cares and invests in you, and so those are some of the qualities I’m just the most excited for.”

    Backup quarterback for the Dolphins is one of the most scrutinized jobs in the NFL, given the injury history of starter Tua Tagovailoa. But when asked if he feels pressure, Wilson said he’s ready for whatever comes at him.

    “I don’t know if it’s pressure, I mean luckily I’ve played in a lot of games in the NFL so far, and so it’s just the ability to step in and make the offense feel like nothing’s changed from a leadership standpoint, just command of the huddle getting guys the information they need on each and every play and not skipping a beat kind of mentality going in there that everyone feels comfortable that they’re able to completely do exactly what they’ve been doing,” Wilson said.

    The Dolphins hope they never need to turn to Wilson. But he thinks that he’ll fit right in with McDaniel’s offense.

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  • Fort Myers’ 3-star tackle Joel Ervin commits to University of Miami football

    Fort Myers’ 3-star tackle Joel Ervin commits to University of Miami football

    Fort Myers offensive lineman Joel Ervin on the 2024 Big 15

    An interview with Fort Myers offensive lineman Joel Ervin, who is uncommitted.

    Miami has been busy in March, and they put a bow on the month by landing a commitment from an elite local offensive tackle.

    More: SWFL roundup: High school results through Thursday play

    Fort Myers’ Joel Ervin named the Hurricanes on Saturday evening, becoming the seventh Miami commitment of the 2026 cycle. He previously committed to Louisville on March 8, but decommitted a few weeks later.

    Ervin took unofficial visits to Miami and Florida State before walking back his commitment with the Cardinals. Ervin posted a photo from the Hurricanes’ practice facility on Saturday morning before announcing his commitment. He was slated to take official visits to Kentucky, Miami, Florida, and USC this summer, but says his recruitment is now shut down.

    “The moment I decided was after today—just seeing how much of an impact Coach Mirabal makes on those guys,” Ervin told CaneSport. “And just seeing those guys compete made me want to be a Hurricane… I’m going to shut down my recruitment. I’m really excited, and I can’t even express it.”

    Ervin began his junior year unranked by most major recruiting services but debuted on The News-Press’ Big 15 at No. 8. He joins Miami’s class less than a year later as a 3-star and Top-100 tackle in the nation.

    Who is OT Joel Irvin, Miami Hurricane commit?

    School: Fort Myers

    Commitment: Miami

    Height, Weight: 6-6, 280 pounds

    247Sports Composite Grade: 3-Star, No. 100 player in Florida, No. 60 offensive tackle in the country.

    What to Know: Ervin was named to the News-Press 2024 All-Area Offensive First Team as a junior after helping the Green Wave average more than 300 yards of offense per game on the way to their first district title since 2019. He named the…

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