Category: NFL News

The Indianapolis Colts have spent their offseason re-signing players from their 2023 squad, and now it’s DeForest Buckner’s turn. The Colts announced Monday morning they have extended their highly-productive defensive tackle.

The Colts didn’t include any details about the extension. According to multiple reports, Buckner will be paid $46 million to stay another two years in Indy. His current deal ends after the 2024 season, so he’s tied to the Colts through 2026.

Buckner, 30, is entering his ninth season in the NFL, and his fifth in Indianapolis. He was drafted seventh overall by the San Francisco 49ers in 2016, and he has more than lived up to the expectations of that high draft slot. Over his career, he’s racked up 166 solo tackles, 32.5 sacks, 42 tackles for loss, 87 QB hits, and six forced fumbles, plus three elections to the Pro Bowl. The Colts acquired Buckner by trade in March 2020, sending their first-round draft pick to the Niners as compensation.

The Colts have signed defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to an extension reportedly worth $46 million over two years. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)

The Colts, who have now brought back 10 players from the 2023 squad, went 9-8 in 2023, which isn’t a result most teams would willingly want to repeat. But head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard have a good reason to want to try again with the same group of players in 2024: Anthony Richardson. The Colts took Richardson, a quarterback, fourth overall in the 2023 draft. His start was a bit rocky, but they believed in Richardson’s ability to grow into the role.

Unfortunately, Richardson sustained a shoulder injury in Week 5 and eventually underwent surgery that caused him to miss the rest of the season, so it’s hard to blame the Colts for wanting a do-over on 2023. And by re-upping Buckner, wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., cornerback Kenny Moore, and others, they’re setting themselves up well even if Richardson struggles a bit in his return.

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Despite publicly requesting a trade, Tee Higgins doesn’t see himself playing for another team in 2024. The Bengals receiver, who has been in pursuit of a new contract, does not think that Cincinnati will trade him before the start of the upcoming season. 

“We’ll see. I do anticipate (playing for the Bengals in 2024),” Higgins said, via Fox19. “I’ve grown a love for Cincy that I didn’t think I would. Looking forward to it.”

Higgins’ desire to stay in Cincinnati is nothing new; he just wants the team to commit to him long term. He’s currently slated to play the 2024 season under the franchise tag that will pay him $21.816 million this season. 

The Bengals haven’t ruled out re-signing Higgins, but the two sides reportedly haven’t discussed a new deal since last offseason, which led to Higgins requesting a trade earlier this offseason that has led to non-stop speculation about his future with the team. 

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As the draft approaches, most of the takes focus on how great a guy will be. Few will risk a decade of reminders that they were wrong to doubt a player who ended up being great.

Tiki Barber is willing to roll the dice when it comes to former Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

“J.J. McCarthy thing, I’m tired of hearing it,” Barber said Friday on his WFAN radio show, via Matt Ehalt of the New York Post. “Stop with the J.J. McCarthy thing. His film doesn’t say he’s a first-round quarterback. His film doesn’t say, ‘I need to get rid of all my assets and go draft this guy,’ because a lot of what he does doesn’t translate. The scheme that he ran at Michigan — and maybe this is an indictment on the scheme and not necessarily on him — but it didn’t highlight the things that you need to do, second-, third-level reads, multiple combo routes that you have to get correct. He didn’t do any of that stuff. They were run-based and he thrived in it because he was good at — that’s what Jim Harbaugh wanted him to do.”

Barber thinks the McCarthy hype boils down to Harbaugh, now the head coach of the Chargers, hoping that each of the four picks ahead of L.A. at No. 5 are quarterbacks. That will give the Chargers, as Harbaugh has said, essentially the first overall pick in the draft.

“The J.J. McCarthy thing, to me, is a smokescreen,” Barber said. “He’s getting inflated because Jim Harbaugh won’t stop talking about him. Now all of a sudden, he’s a top-four quarterback? I don’t buy it.”

With the Giants potentially taking a quarterback at No. 6, Barber wants his former NFL team to stay away.

“Not happening,” Barber said. “I’m just saying. Not happening. I don’t want him. Not happening.”

The truth is it’s impossible to know with certainty which players will thrive and which won’t at the NFL level. It’s notable that the league office, which wants the best of the best prospects at the draft, invited McCarthy to attend. (He declined.)

The league…

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The Giants will get back to work next Monday and they added a linebacker to their roster ahead of the start of the voluntary portion of their offseason schedule.

According to multiple reports, they have signed Matthew Adams to their 90-man roster. There’s no word on the terms of the deal.

Adams made one start while playing in every game for the Browns last season and was a core member of their special teams units. He had 17 tackles and a forced fumble in those appearances.

The Colts drafted Adams in the seventh round in 2018 and he spent four years with them before moving on to the Bears in 2022.

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A solid amount of this year’s top prospects have accepted invitations to attend the 2024 NFL Draft. All told, 13 prospects are slated to attend the draft, which be will held in downtown Detroit from April 25-27. 

As you can see, the list of attendees is impressive. It’s headlined by the last two Heisman Trophy winners — quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels — and also includes several of the draft’s other top prospects, including wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. 

Here’s a look at the prospects who have accepted invitations to attend this year’s draft. 

CB Terrion Arnold, Alabama QB Jayden Daniels, LSUWR Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State OL JC Latham, Alabama DL Laiatu Latu, UCLAQB Drake Maye, North Carolina CB Quinyon Mitchell, ToledoWR Malik Nabers, LSUWR Rome Odunze, Washington DL Darius Robinson, Missouri WR Brian Thomas Jr., LSULB Dallas Turner, Alabama QB Caleb Williams, USC 

Each prospect is surely hoping to hear his name called during the first night of the draft. However, there is usually a player or two who has to come back for the second night of the draft after not being picked in the first round. Joey Porter Jr., for example, attended last year’s draft but was not selected in the first round. Fortunately for Porter, he didn’t have to wait long on the following Friday night after he was selected by the Steelers with the first pick in the second round. 

One notable absence from the list of attendees is J.J. McCarthy, the former Michigan quarterback who is expected to be a first-round pick. 

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New NFL rule opens door for Eagles to bring back black helmets originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

A new NFL rule has opened the door for the Eagles to bring back their black helmets as a second alternate for the 2025 season.

The league sent out a memo to teams on Wednesday announcing that all teams will be able to have a third helmet design in 2025. Teams going through a redesign will be allowed to have a third in 2024.

The NFL finally allowed a second helmet for the 2022 season, replacing a one-helmet rule that was initially in place for safety but that had been outgrown by the success of the league.

Here’s more from today’s memo to clubs about the third helmet design. The memo notes: “If either alternate color helmet is paired with a Classic uniform, the helmet colors and designs must be historically compatible.” pic.twitter.com/ulQqS7WffV

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) April 10, 2024

If you remember, the NFL allowed just one helmet per player for years, which slowed down the Eagles’ process of bringing back their fan-favorite kelly green jerseys. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie always said that he wanted to bring back kelly green jerseys as an alternate but only with a matching kelly green helmet.

When the rule was changed before the 2022 season, Lurie said kelly green would be returning for the 2023 season but they needed some time to work with Nike on nailing the classic shade because it wasn’t in the company’s current color palette. For 2022, the Eagles still wanted to take advantage of the two-helmet change so they added a black helmet in addition to their regular midnight green helmet.

But then last season, the Eagles finally unveiled their kelly green helmets, which meant they couldn’t have a black one too.

Lurie has for a couple years hoped the league would expand the rule to allow three helmets. Here’s what he said at the 2022 owners meetings in Palm Beach, while announcing black as a stop-gap option:

“We’re also allowed in the…

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