TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady’s accidental “QB sneak” that made news last week — when he entered the home of offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich’s neighbor instead of Leftwich’s house — did more than provide a few laughs around the NFL.
It led to multiple teams inquiring if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers violated the NFL’s “dead period” prior to the virtual offseason program, the league confirmed Tuesday.
The NFL investigated and determined that no violation of offseason work rules occurred.
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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, NFL players and nonessential personnel are forbidden from entering team facilities and from conducting the league’s originally scheduled offseason programs, which includes classroom instruction and conditioning. Instead, the NFL created a virtual offseason program for teams, which started Monday for teams with returning coaches.
The program is strictly virtual and consists of three weeks of classroom instruction via video conferencing. It also includes virtual workouts and non-football educational programs.
The concern among teams that reached out to the league was that in-person instruction was taking place. A source close to the situation told ESPN last week that Brady was merely coming over to retrieve a playbook, which is consistent with the league’s findings that were first reported by NFL Network.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The selection of Jordan Love in the 2020 NFL draft signified that the end of the Aaron Rodgers era with the Green Bay Packers might come sooner than anyone — including the two-time NFL MVP — figured. Then, when Rodgers’ team ignored the perceived receiver need in a record draft at the position, it suggested a concerted change to the offense.
These are not Rodgers’ Packers anymore.
They’re Matt LaFleur’s — at least in terms of how the second-year coach wants to play.
LaFleur watched his friend and mentor, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, demolish the Packers in the NFC Championship Game with an offensive plan that featured 42 runs and just eight passes. If LaFleur needed a reminder that perhaps he strayed too far from his roots in his rookie season as head coach, that was it.
“I think Matt certainly wants to the run the ball,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said following Day 2 of the draft on Friday. “I think he’s talked to you guys repeatedly about how much he’d like to run the ball and have the pass work off of that.”
A 42-8 run-pass ratio is an extreme that LaFleur isn’t likely to resort to, so long as Rodgers remains at least as effective as he was last season, with a 26-touchdown, four-interception performance in a 13-3 regular season during which nearly every possible break (from injuries to scheduling) went in his team’s favor. But anyone who listened closely to LaFleur from the day he was hired should know how much he values the run.
“I think anytime you can take as much off the quarterback as possible, that only helps them out in the long run,” LaFleur said in one of his first interviews in Green Bay.
The Packers went from leading the NFL in dropback percentage (71.5%) in 2018 to being 13th in the league (63.7%) last season in LaFleur’s first year, according to ESPN Stats & Information. From 2013 to 2018, the Packers had the league’s highest dropback rate, whereas last season, the 49ers ranked 30th, at 52.8%.
Even if the Packers believe Rodgers’ decline has begun, it’s hard to imagine them going to the 49ers’ extreme, given the still obvious ability gap between Jimmy Garoppolo and Rodgers.
Matt LaFleur wants to run the ball to take as much off Aaron Rodgers as possible, and the Packers’ draft selections reflect that commitment. Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Perhaps Gutekunst’s receiver board really didn’t fall in such a way that he could justify reaching for a receiver with his Day 2 picks at Nos. 62 and 94 (AJ Dillon, a bruising running back, and Josiah Deguara, a tight end who looks more like an H-back). Plus, without the fourth-round pick the team used to move up from 30 to 26 for Love, it might have been impossible to move up in the second or third rounds.
Or maybe Gutekunst didn’t view receiver as a major concern the way those on the outside did because he knew of LaFleur’s desire to further shift from past Packers offensive trends.
“I think it’s a little bit the way everything kind of fell early in the draft,” Gutekunst said of the receiver board. “Just didn’t work out that we weren’t able to select some of the guys that we had rated really highly. And once we got to the middle and toward the end of the draft, I just didn’t think there was great opportunity to add a player that was going to make an impact on our roster this year.”
That led Gutekunst to Boston College’s bruising, between-the-tackles running back, Dillon, in the second round and hybrid tight end/fullback Deguara of Cincinnati in the third.
“Matt really wants to tie everything to the run game and off the run game, and these guys will help us do that,” Gutekunst said.
Last season, LaFleur found a way to blend some of what Rodgers liked from former coach Mike McCarthy’s offense with his system, but it wasn’t completely LaFleur’s system.
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Jordan Love describes his emotions one day after being taken by the Packers and what he talked about with Aaron Rodgers.
“I think as we’ve gone through a full season, we have a much better idea of who we are, of what we do well, and now it’s on us to put that plan in place,” LaFleur said after the draft. “If I look back at our Day 1 install from last season to our Day 1 install that is approaching this offseason, it’s night and day different. We have a better identity of who we are.”
Love was picked for the long term, and the same could be said about Dillon if the Packers don’t plan to re-sign Aaron Jones. Jones accounted for more than 1,500 yards from scrimmage and 19 touchdowns last season, and LaFleur will no doubt use him as much as possible again this season, therefore limiting Dillon’s role immediately. The Packers also have Jamaal Williams, who is entering the final year of his contract.
Dillon, however, gives the Packers a bruising back to complement Jones’ explosive style. The 6-foot, 247-pound Dillon showed rare athleticism for his size with a 4.53 40-yard dash and 41-inch vertical, the highest among backs who tested at the combine.
“You don’t hear those numbers come around too often,” said Packers scout Mike Owen, who covers the Northeast. “I had a chance to scout the guy for the Giants right now, Saquon [Barkley], with those kinds of numbers. Now we got AJ Dillon here with impressive numbers also. It’s just God-gifted ability that blessed them with height, weight, speed and athleticism to do that. A lot of people in America wish they had that kind of traits.”
The Packers let fullback Danny Vitale leave in free agency for the Patriots. Some envisioned Vitale filling the role that Kyle Juszczyk does for Shanahan in San Francisco, but LaFleur put him on the field for only 170 snaps in 15 games. Deguara might be a better fit for that kind of role.
“There really wasn’t a position that I didn’t play on offense,” said the 6-foot-2, 242-pound Deguara, who ran a 4.72 40. “I played a little slot receiver. I played a little in-line tight end. I was off the ball. I was in the backfield. I did a lot of different things, and I think that helped me a lot throughout this process, and I think it shows my versatility in this game.”
This might go down as one of the most unpopular drafts in recent Packers history, at least in real time. Even when Gutekunst’s predecessor and mentor, Ted Thompson, picked Rodgers in 2005, it was understandable because Rodgers was viewed as a potential No. 1 overall pick, and Favre was waffling about retirement. This time around, Gutekunst has a team that came within a game of the Super Bowl, despite the lack of weapons for Rodgers. Gutekunst added only one receiver, Devin Funchess on a prove-it ($2.5 million) deal, essentially swapping him for Geronimo Allison, who signed with the Lions.
“It’s funny the reaction, especially to the draft and free agency,” Gutekunst said. “I saw Ted for years. People were just all over him about the drafts and free agency. Really what matters to me is the team we put out there each fall and how they do. That’s what I’m most concerned with.”
METAIRIE, La. — While the New Orleans Saints are closing in on a deal with quarterback Jameis Winston, they doubled down on their investment in current backup Taysom Hill.
The Saints are signing Hill to a two-year deal, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter, which will take the place of the one-year, $4.641 million tender they had previously offered him as a restricted free agent. The deal is worth $21 million, including $16 million fully guaranteed at signing, plus $1 million more in performance incentives.
Hill posted a message on Instagram on Sunday, saying, “I’ve had this dream since I was a little kid of playing in the NFL. The New Orleans Saints made that dream a reality. … Thank you NOLA.”
Hill, 29, did not sign an offer sheet with any other NFL teams before last week’s deadline for restricted free agents, which gave the Saints exclusive negotiating rights. Depending on how they structure the new deal, they could create some extra salary-cap space to help make room for Winston.
Yahoo Sports was first to report the details of Hill’s contract.
Regardless of Winston’s pending arrival, Saints coach Sean Payton has made it clear that he believes the versatile Hill could potentially succeed Drew Brees as New Orleans’ starting quarterback. But in the meantime, part of the reason the Saints are interested in adding a veteran QB like Winston is so that they can continue to use Hill in his vital role as a QB/RB/WR/TE/FB/special-teams standout.
“Taysom’s earned this opportunity to be our 2 [at quarterback],” Payton told WWL Radio last month after former Saints backup Teddy Bridgewater signed with the rival Carolina Panthers. “But he also has earned the opportunity to play and help us win football games as a ‘one.’ And what I mean by that — whether you call him a receiver, a tight end, a specialist, also a quarterback — yeah, he’s gonna play.
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“He’s too good a football player [not to be on the field]. He’s one of our better football players.”
Hill has only attempted 15 passes in his three-year NFL career — including a 50-yard completion in New Orleans’ 26-20 playoff loss to Minnesota in January. He is 7-of-15 passing for 169 yards with zero touchdowns and one interception.
But the 6-foot-2, 221-pounder has run for 410 yards and three touchdowns and has caught 25 passes for 265 yards and eight touchdowns in 42 games, including in the playoffs.
Hill’s best game was arguably his most recent one — that playoff loss to the Vikings, when he completed the 50-yard pass, ran the ball four times for 50 yards and caught two passes for 25 yards, including a touchdown.
Hill told Schefter earlier this offseason that he planned to consider his options in free agency but was “in no hurry to leave New Orleans.”
“As I look at my career, I have goals and I have a vision for myself as to what I can be in the NFL,” said Hill, who has always made it clear that he wants to be a starting NFL quarterback. “And there has been nothing that has been said, or I’ve never been treated in any way that would lead me to believe that the vision I have for myself is not the same vision that Coach Payton has for me, as well as the other guys on staff.”
Hill got a late start to his NFL career since he went on a two-year church mission to Australia after high school, then spent five years at BYU, where he suffered a total of four season-ending injuries. But he was impressive enough as a dual-threat QB at BYU to finish his career with 6,929 passing yards, 43 TD passes, 2,815 rushing yards and 32 rushing TDs. He began his NFL career as an undrafted rookie with the Green Bay Packers in 2017 before the Saints claimed him off waivers on cut-down day.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts selected University of Washington quarterback Jacob Eason in the fourth round (No. 122 overall) of the NFL draft on Saturday.
Eason was the sixth quarterback taken in the draft, behind Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts.
Finding a quarterback of the future was something the Colts had to address at some point because Philip Rivers, Jacoby Brissett and Chad Kelly will all be free agents at the end of the 2020 season. Colts general manager Chris Ballard said during his pre-draft news conference, and reiterated again on Friday night, that they were not going to force the issue in selecting a quarterback in the draft.
But having Eason, who some projected as a possible first-round pick, still available in the fourth round was an opportunity the Colts couldn’t pass up. He’ll have the opportunity to sit and learn from Rivers, who is headed into his 17th season, in 2020.
There’s also the possibility that Eason could be the primary backup quarterback next season with Brissett’s status with the team up the air after he struggled last season as Andrew Luck’s replacement.
Eason, who transferred to Washington after spending his first two years at Georgia, threw for 3,332 yards, 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions last season with the Huskies.
