Category: NFL News

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The Arizona Cardinals are a team in transition. They’ve just gone through an offseason where they cleaned house by firing head coach Kliff Kingsbury and watched as general manager Steve Keim stepped down due to health reasons. Now, they’re slated to begin the 2023 season with a first-time head coach (Jonathan Gannon) and GM (Monti Ossenfort). On top of that, their franchise quarterback, Kyler Murray, is recovering from a torn ACL he suffered late last season. 

Murray has largely been silent on the injury, but recently told the organization’s “Flight Plan” podcast that he’s hoping to turn it into something productive. 

“It’s got to be a positive. There really is no option for it to be a negative,” Murray said, via the team’s official website. “I feel you get your little grace period right after it happens, dwell on it, soak in it, let the feelings take over. After that, (expletive), we gotta go. Life doesn’t stop. The job doesn’t stop. And I’m not going to stop.”

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The Kansas City Chiefs and superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes are guaranteed to leave Los Angeles as winners tonight.

According to ESPN’s Field Yates, Mahomes has already secured the victory for “Best NFL Player” at tonight’s ESPY Awards, with the announcement taking place during the network’s afternoon studio show “NFL Live.”

The win is one of the three dominoes on the line tonight for the Chiefs as they will have to wait for the live show to see if they will also take home ‘Best Team’ and Mahomes for ‘Athlete of the Year.’ Mahomes led the NFL in yards (5,250), touchdowns (41) and touchdown percentage (6.3%) in 2022, winning his second league MVP and Super Bowl MVP while leading the Chiefs to their second Lombardi Trophy in four years.

Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was announced earlier this week as a presenter on tonight’s show and could be there to help celebrate another ESPY victory in the process. Mahomes is also expected to attend, possibly accepting the other award for “Athlete of the Year.”

The ESPY Awards, presented by Capitol One and benefiting the V Foundation, will broadcast tonight at 7:00 p.m. CT on ABC.

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The AFC has been established as the dominant conference, and a big reason why is because of the quarterbacks. Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen are the three favorites to win MVP, Lamar Jackson became the highest-paid player in NFL history this offseason and the conference has a couple of rookies to keep an eye on like C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson. 

It will be tough to make the playoffs in the loaded AFC this season, and some of these quarterbacks are under more pressure than others. Below, we will break down five AFC signal-callers that are under the most pressure in 2023 — for one reason or another. 

The world was split on Tua entering 2022. Even after a career year, you can’t definitively say everyone is sold on him being the guy moving forward in Miami. The Dolphins appear to be, however, as they picked up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. 

Last year, Tagovailoa became the first Dolphins quarterback to lead the NFL in passer rating since Dan Marino did so in 1984. Miami averaged 6.5 yards per play with Tagovailoa as the starter, which were the most by any starting quarterback in the league last season (min. 10 starts). Yes, even more than Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. So why is Tagovailoa under pressure in 2023? Well, as head coach Mike McDaniel so eloquently put it at the NFL Combine, last year he had to convince everyone Tagovailoa was good. Now, he has to convince everyone he’s healthy.

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Every year around a half dozen new teams make the playoffs in the NFL that missed the year before. Touchdown Wire projected five teams to get into the playoffs in 2023 after missing out in 2022 and the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t make the cut.

Here are the five teams they believe have a shot:

New York Jets

Carolina Panthers

Detroit Lions

Indianapolis Colts

Cleveland Browns

Pittsburgh finished the 2022 season at 9-8 despite a rookie quarterback. The Steelers also nearly snuck into the playoffs after a surge after the bye week. Pittsburgh has added multiple new starters to the roster this offseason via free agency and the draft in hopes of finding their way back into the playoffs. If you are looking for a sleeper team to surprise this year, Pittsburgh is a great bet. We would certainly take them over the underachieving Cleveland Browns at this point as well as the Indianapolis Colts who are starting a rookie quarterback.

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Dick LeBeau is the Forrest Gump of the NFL. A Hall of Fame cornerback who played with several other Hall of Famers, LeBeau then enjoyed a lengthy coaching career that included two Super Bowl wins while coaching for and against some of the greatest players in league history. 

LeBeau’s glittering career included presiding over the 2008 Steelers defense, a historically dominant unit that spearheaded Pittsburgh’s sixth Super Bowl victory. The ’08 defense is the focus of a book LeBeau recently wrote that he expects to be available to the public in 2024. The book will be titled A Legendary Defense, an ode to what Steelers coach Mike Tomlin told the unit before it finished off the Steelers’ 27-23 win over the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII. 

“I don’t know whether I’ve got to pay Mike royalties for that or not,” LeBeau joked during his interview with Bryant McFadden on the latest episode of the “All Things Covered” podcast. “It’s going to be worth the wait, I guarantee you that. It’s going to be a great book, I think.” 

LeBeau shared one of the main reasons why Pittsburgh’s 2008 defense was so successful. That season, the Steelers defense — led by Hall of Fame safety Troy Polamalu and Defensive Player of the Year James Harrison — allowed just 13.9 points per game. The unit led the league in scoring, passing, third-down efficiency, red zone efficiency, and was second in rushing. 

“You could all tackle, and you all wanted to tackle,” LeBeau told McFadden, a former Steelers cornerback who was one of the key members of that defense. “Defense is always going to be about finding the guy with the ball and getting his butt on the ground. It was like kicking a beehive when that ball was snapped. You were after that ball and you did not miss tackles.”

While his career as a coach is Hall of Fame worthy, LeBeau was inducted as a player in 2010, largely on the strength of his 62 career interceptions…

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The Arizona Cardinals lost defensive lineman J.J. Watt to retirement this offseason after two seasons. He led the team with 12.5 sacks. Now he has moved on, is a minority owner of an English soccer team and will be doing TV work for CBS next season.

Could he come out of retirement?

Appearing on the podcast “Green Light with Chris Long,” a former NFL offensive lineman, he left the door open for a return under very specific circumstances.

“If they want to throw out $20 million for one game, I’ll show up, no problem,” he said. “I’ll suit up for one game, $20 million.”

The problem, though, is he is not working out to be fit for the NFL. He does what he calls are “vanity workouts,” working out to look good on the beach.

He is not in a condition to take on NFL offensive linemen.

They say everyone has a price. Watt named his. No one will come to him with it, so it is safe to say we have seen him play his last NFL game.

An offer for Cardinals fans

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If there’s any NFL player out there who seems to have a pretty good idea of which teams might turn into a Super Bowl contender this year, it’s definitely Ndamukong Suh. 

After going through his first nine seasons without winning a playoff game, Suh started to get more selective about who he was signing with and that decision has definitely paid off over the past few years. The five-time Pro Bowler has played for three teams over the past five seasons and ALL THREE TEAMS have made it to the Super Bowl at least once. 

The run started in 2018 with the Rams, and then two years later, Suh won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers. He then followed that up with another Super Bowl appearance last year after he signed with the Eagles. 

Suh is a free agent this year who’s looking to play for a winner and based on his recent track record, he’ll likely end up signing with a team that has a serious chance of making the Super Bowl. 

Although we don’t know which team Suh will eventually sign with, we do know one that he likely WON’T be signing with and that’s the New York Jets. During a visit to “The Rich Eisen Show” earlier this offseason, Suh was asked if he thought the addition of Aaron Rodgers would make the Jets a Super Bowl contender and he answered with one word: NO. 

“Do I believe they will be a Super Bowl contender [with Rodgers]? No,” Suh said. 

Suh thinks Rodgers is one of the five toughest quarterbacks in the NFL, but he doesn’t think the four-time MVP will be leading New York to the Super Bowl. 

“I think Aaron Rodgers is amazing and I think he is a great quarterback,” Suh said. “But there are a lot of things that have to transpire to be able to become Super Bowl contenders. I understand that they have an elite defense, but I’m not sure where their overall offense is right now, and adding just one particular piece, it’s a little bit different.”

Suh does have a history of…

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The Carolina Panthers have whipped themselves up a pretty tasty dish on offense. They added one of the NFL’s most respected offensive minds as their head coach, a heralded up-and-comer as their coordinator, the top quarterback prospect of the 2023 draft and a handful of capable pass catchers.

But do they still need a cherry on top?

Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton suggested that they could certainly use it—in the form of a three-time First-team All-Pro. Moton lists the Panthers as one of five teams that would become “instant” playoff contenders if they signed free-agent wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins:

This offseason, the Panthers have created a quarterback-friendly situation for the 21-year-old [Bryce Young].

Carolina hired Jim Caldwell, a former quarterbacks coach, passing game coordinator and lead skipper, and retired 17-year NFL quarterback Josh McCown to coach the position.

On top of that, the club signed wideouts Adam Thielen, DJ Chark Jr. and tight end Hayden Hurst. According to ESPN’s David Newton, running back Miles Sanders could see an expanded role in the short passing game.

Hopkins and Thielen would be a quality veteran duo for Young’s development. The rookie signal-caller completed 65.8 percent of his passes in three years at Alabama. He should be able to move the ball with two sure-handed wideouts on the outside, which may result in a playoff run.

For all the additions the Panthers have made to the unit this spring, they’re still without a clear No. 1 option in the passing game. Thielen, Chark, Terrace Marshall Jr. and even second-round pick Jonathan Mingo could all conceivably have a shot at being the top target.

So while a 31-year-old Hopkins may not be the same Hopkins from years past, he’d certainly fortify the top of the pecking order and give Young a proven game changer to throw to.

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