Jamal Adams

"PFT Live with Mike Florio Tuesday, August 18th edition of PFTPM. Sticking to my vow to do this once per week indefinitely, that vow will be tested significantly when the regular season gets rolling, but try is the key word. For now, we're in the preseason, the latter days of training camp. Training camp yields to teams just morphing into regular weekly practice sessions. And one question I got today from the folks at the score in Chicago, and I decided to make that a topic for today's PFTPM, the question of why it seems like certain teams will downplay the significance of training camp and preseason injuries. And look, there's absolutely no requirement at this stage of the calendar for any team to say anything about any injured player. The obligation to make an injury report doesn't even arise until the week of the first preseason game. If you're playing on Sunday, you've got to do a report Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then it slides accordingly based on whether you're playing on Monday or Thursday or this year, Wednesday. Until that day comes, three or four days before the first game, you don't have to say a word about any player who is injured. And the only evidence that anyone has is based upon their roster status. If a player is still on the PUP list or the NFI list, we know he's not healthy. For players placed on injured reserve before the roster cuts, he's done for the year. Beyond that, we rely on reporting and we try to read the tea leaves and discern the reliability of the things that the teams will say. And I think it's human nature to a certain extent to downplay it because there's an element of hope that it's all going to be fine. Rarely, rarely does a team right out of the gate say, yeah, it's done. Except when it's just obvious, the Jamal Adams injury, for example, it was obvious from the get go that his season was over based upon the way Vikings players reacted, the way Coach Kevin O'Connell reacted at the time, and at half time of the preseason opener against the Giants. But for the most part, everyone does put on a happy face, but there's a strategic reason for it. Beyond the fact they're not required to do it, again, they're not required to say anything. So it creates a little trough of inside information that lingers until the first injury reports come out. But if you're a team that is all of a sudden scrambling to replace a player, and maybe it's a key player, a key player who plays a position that you don't have a lot of depth on the roster already, what do you do? You keep it quiet so that you can go out and make a move with more leverage in any negotiations. Whether there's a free agent out there that you're hoping to sign, you don't need that free agent to think you're more desperate than you would otherwise seem to be. You try to downplay it. Yeah, we're just trying to add some depth, trying to add some competition. No, we're scared. We're scared. Our guy's injured and we need to have somebody who's going to be here to replace him. There's no reason to wear that on your sleeve if you're a team. If you're looking to do a trade, same argument. Because it all comes down to how badly you need the guy. If the other teams know that you badly need the guy, the price goes up. Think back 10 years ago. In late August, Teddy Bridgewater's torn ACL ended his season for the Vikings, a season where they had some hope going into the first year at their new stadium. They had just gotten to the wild card round. They were a chip shot field goal away from beating the Seahawks and advancing to the divisional round. There was hope. Then all of a sudden, there wasn't. They needed a quarterback. They were desperate. As Rick Spielman, who was the GM of the team at the time, said, nobody's going to cut you a break. They ended up giving a first round pick and a fourth round pick to the Eagles for Sam Bradford, who we thought was going to be the week one starter, but they had no qualms about moving Bradford and pivoting to Carson Wentz. So that's the reality. You want to be coy. You want to be able to address your needs. And you don't want the world to know how desperate you may be to get that guy on your team to replace the injured player whose injury is worse than they're letting on. And it just makes it more frustrating for fans. This is that time of year where you're just waiting for that random bolt of lightning to manifest itself with an alert on your phone that a key player has been injured. And then you wait for the coach to address it and the coach downplays it. And then the reports come out. And even after the reports come out, you'll wonder, is it really worse than what it seems? And sometimes you find out that it is. But there is a method to the madness. It's not just wishful thinking. It's we have to go out and find someone else. And we'd like to find someone else on the most favorable terms possible to the long term and short term interests of the team, period. That's why they do it. And it will continue. And until there is a clear injury reporting requirement that would apply in the preseason, and there is not, which means there is much more inside information in the preseason, which really doesn't matter as to gambling, because I think the way the NFL looks at it, I know I look at it this way. Anybody who's betting on the preseason games, you should just go ahead and call the 800 number that's in fine print at the bottom of the screen, because you've got a problem if you're betting on NFL preseason games. The NFL preseason, one of these days may not just shrink, it may go away. And these are two threads that I think come together for me with the commissioner making the clearest statement yet that the NFL will. He has no doubt the NFL will have teams in other countries. Now, from now until the end of time, or at least until the end of the existence of the NFL, it's pretty broad range. So it's probably a safe bet it'll happen, but still, the clarity from the commissioner was jarring. And so let's take a look at the future of the NFL from two different perspectives. Because the NFL is trying to expand inventory for the regular season. That's no surprise. They want to have more games, more weekends of games, more windows in stand-alone spots where you can put a game and count on 20, 25, 30 million people tuning in. The NFL is the one property in all of media that can gather that size of an audience for a live event. People don't watch network TV the way that they did when I was growing up. I grew up in the days of three channels and PBS. And then that one weird channel that just had syndicated programming. You didn't have many options. The world revolved around primetime TV. Everybody knew what was on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Every day, you knew what was on that night. Your plans to maybe do things were impacted by whether or not there was a show you wanted to watch. Because if you missed it, you missed it. Pre-VCR, you had no way of seeing it, unless you just happened to be in the right place at the right time, when the inevitable rerun aired months later. So, the NFL now has power that some TV shows used to have. No TV show has that power now. The NFL wants to have more of these opportunities to gather 20, 25, 30 million people at once, because the more times you can do that, the more money you make from the networks. So, here's what I see. And I thought of this in the context of the NFL's ongoing effort to slide the split between regular season and preseason one more spot over. It had been 14-6 prior to 1978. Can you think about that? Six preseason games. The full preseason slate was nearly half of the full regular season slate prior to 1978. In 1978, they had two games. 14-6 becomes 16-4. It's still 20 games. And that continues for 30-plus years. And it was right around the run up to the 2011 CBA. The commissioner started thrashing the preseason publicly. The quality of play is not up to the NFL's standard. The preseason isn't good enough. Now, that may have been a pretext for the real motivation, which was, let's take some of the preseason and make it regular season. And back in 2010, they wanted to go 18-2. And they put a device in the 2011 CBA that they thought would spark an expansion of the regular season without a new CBA. I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. There was a term that allowed the NFL to reduce or eliminate the preseason if it wanted to at any time without input of the union. The thinking as of 2011 was that when the NFL activated that prerogative, the players would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, well, we're going to lose money on this deal because we share the money now roughly 50-50. What can we do about this? And that's when the NFL says, oh, we have an idea. We can have more regular season games instead. So they never went there because I think they believe the players would have just called their bluff and said, fine, we'll take the loss and divide it by 2,000 players, and you take the loss and divide it by 32 owners and see who would hurts more. So that never happened. But come 2020, we moved it again, that little, it went from 14 and six, 16 and four, 17 and three, and they want to go to 18 and two. And here's the thought I had. Once we get to 18 and two, doesn't it just become a done deal? Doesn't it feel like, let's just get rid of this pre-season stuff all together. Two pre-season games, let's just get rid of it and let's play. Let's play like college football. There's no pre-season in college. They just play. And yes, the teams won't be at their best in the early weeks of the season. You know what? They currently aren't at their best now because of the changes from 2011. No two-a-days, reduced intensity of practice, reduced off-season time. The teams take that first four weeks of the season as kind of like an extension to the pre-season to get their team to where they're trying to make it ultimately go. And the only problem is the wins and losses count in September. And you may miss the playoffs because of a game that you lost in early September and that you otherwise would have won if you'd played that game in mid-October. So we're already there and I'm not advocating for it. I'm just trying to see where the puck is going. And we know it's going to 18-2. And I think once it goes to 18-2, we're all going to have a different feeling about the pre-season. And there will be a point, I think, where most people will just throw their hands in the air and say, let's just get rid of it. We know we're going to get rid of it, let's get rid of it. And I've argued in the past that the union, in lieu of bracing for whatever offer the NFL is going to make on 18-2, the union should just say, hey, we'll go to 20, but here's what we want and have a long list. We'll do it now. Let's just go to 20. You want to get nuts? Let's get nuts. Let's go to 20. We'll go to 20. It's going to happen one of these days. Now, look, is it good for the players? No. Are there devices that can be installed to protect the players? I still think to get to 18, they're going to have to agree to 17 players or 17 games, excuse me, for all players, except for quarterbacks, long snappers, kickers, bunners, to get the players to agree to 18. But I just feel like once we get to 18, it's going to be inevitable at that point. It's not inevitable now because we're at 17, but once it's 18 and 2, we're going to get to the point where the snowball has rolled far enough down the hill that it's big enough to just wipe out the preseason altogether, because that's what the NFL would like to do. Replace preseason with regular season, because when you do that, you replace preseason revenue with far more significant regular season revenue. So that's the length of season side of this. The size of the league side of this, and I've talked about this before, but now is the time to revisit it, because of what the commissioner said. And he said, I have no doubt that teams not one, it will never be just one. Remember when the LA market was empty and Al Michaels said, if the NFL ever goes back to LA, it'll go with two teams, not one. And he was right. If the NFL goes to London, it's going with two teams, not one. If the NFL goes to Europe generally, I think it's going with four teams, not two. And it's not complicated. Two teams in London and then a team in Germany and a team in some other European location. Maybe two teams in Germany, not in the same city, but maybe it's two in London and two in Germany, or two in London, one in Germany, one in Spain, one in France. It's not hard to figure out the potential destinations because we see the cities that have the stadiums that are capable of hosting NFL games. Those become the obvious locations for an NFL franchise. And Simms and I talked about this today, the factors that go into it. They'll find a solution. If they want to do it, they'll find a solution. And the players are going to be stuck with it. Are there going to be guys that don't want to go, live in London, live in Germany, live in Japan if it goes that way more on that in a second? They're going to be guys that don't want to do it. They'll be guys that don't sign with the team that drafts them if they have to go there. There will be things they have to do to make it work for international teams. And there are all sorts of other issues. Travel. They're monitoring the development of supersonic flight. And it's not really development because I already had it with Concord. They're looking to bring it back. That would make things easier when it comes to getting a team from point A to point B quickly. Tax rates, exchange rates, political differences. What's the government of the place where you're going to be living? And even if you're okay with going there, the reality is you're not going to have the kind of short road trip that you now have. For a lot of teams, you tell your family goodbye Saturday afternoon and you're back Sunday night. They start putting teams in other countries. They'll do a three-game road trip to the US. There will be a base of operations somewhere for multiple teams when they're playing games in the US, and then they'll go home. They'll be gone for two weeks at a time or longer. What do you do then? Do you bring your family with you? Do they stay there and hold down the fort? Do they really want to be alone in their home in some foreign land? So there's a lot that's going to need to be figured out. But the big mamu drives everything. And the NFL knows the future of the sport is in globalization. You take the inventory that you have and you take it from a domestic property to an international property and a billion dollar business becomes a trillion dollar business. That's what they want to have happen. They want the rest of the country to become, or the world, excuse me, to become as smitten with pro football as we became with it during those decades where it felt like football would never catch baseball. I remember in the 70s, it was baseball and then football was a distant second. It just systematically become more and more popular. Into the 80s, it became even. By the time we got into the 90s, 2000s, it's not even close now. Baseball has fallen behind basketball and soccer, frankly, as it goes to popularity in the US. They're committed to this. And I think the ultimate end result, and I've had some conversations about this over the years with people in a position of power and influence and who will continue to be in positions of power and influence, right now they like the configuration of 32 teams. It looks good. For a long time, we had, and I remember how most of the time that I followed the NFL in the 70s and the 80s, you'd have a four-team division, you'd have a five-team division. At one point, the AFC Central had six teams in it. They were different sizes in each of the two conferences. And by the time 26 went to 28, and then it went to 30, and that was 31 for a couple of years before the Texans arrived to make it 32 in 2002. What they came up with was a perfect symmetrical grid with eight teams or eight divisions of four teams each. And the formula works well. In theory, if you hold season tickets, you'll see every other team once at least every eight years. Every team is guaranteed to play. Every other team once every four years. If they start adding teams two at a time, that's going to get cock-eyed. What do you do? Do you go 32 to 34? 34 to 36? 36 to 38? 38 to 40? Yeah, I think it would start with two London teams. There would be one assigned probably to the AFC East and one assigned probably to the NFC East. Just to make the trips the shortest, because every year the other teams in the AFC, Bills, Jets, Dolphins, Patriots, would have to fly to London to play a home game. So you could start that way, and then you could take it from there. You could add two other European teams. Maybe you put them in the North, AFC and NFC North. And then I make the end result. And it may take decades to get there. To me, the perfect end result would be a four-team European division in one conference, and a four-team Pacific division in the other conference. And you may even want to reconfigure the conferences. And I think I tried this at one point. Hell, I can't remember. But I think I tried to figure out, with the Mississippi River as the rough dividing point, you'd want the other 16 teams in a given conference to be geographically close to the Pacific teams. And you'd want the other 16 teams in the conference with the European division to be geographically close there because we got to take into account the playoffs. Playoffs? If you got a Pacific division team hosting a playoff game, you don't want to drag a team from New York all the way to Japan or wherever the Pacific teams would be. And you could probably throw a Mexico City team into that mix. But that would be the end result. And then I think once they get to 40, it's done. It's over. Because, look, there's a real question as to whether or not they're going to have the talent to have 40 NFL rosters, starting with quarterback. It's already hard to fill out depth charts for 32 teams. But again, money drives this bus. And the determination to turn the NFL into a global powerhouse will push this thing forward. And they like to take baby steps. And it will be 18 and 2, maybe 19 and 1, and then eventually 20 and 0. And on the expansion side, it'll be 32, 34, 36. And maybe they'll just finally go from 36 to 40 and just be done with it. But these are all things that will unfold after I am gone. They haven't added a team since 2002. It's the longest stretch the NFL has ever gone without expanding. I feel like it's just a matter of time before it's on the table. And then once it's on the table, we know it's going to happen. And you could argue that the commissioner's comments, that he has no doubt that there will be teams in Europe, or at least in other countries, that puts expansion on the table without putting... What else could it mean? You're going to relocate teams? You're going to have fan bases nervous that they're the one that's going to get the tap and go to London? I think, and I'm glad I kind of talked this through, I think the big takeaway is expansion is now firmly on the table without anyone saying expansion's on the table. It's on the table. Tom Brady blazed the trail. Troy Aikman is taking advantage of it. And I thought it was odd. It's a reflection of this new reality where you're going to have prominent broadcasters who are in a position to talk about all teams who are employed by or own a piece of one of the franchises. And after talking about and writing about the fact that the Tom Brady rules now apply to Troy Aikman, which acknowledges the existence of a conflict of interest, the commissioner has said, what conflict? Well, the conflict that prompted your office to say that Tom Brady and now Troy Aikman can't attend practices and can't enter the facilities of the other teams, the teams they don't own as to Brady or work for as to Aikman. There are people in the league who are quietly encouraging me to continue to point this out and quietly agreeing with everything I say about it. It's a given that this all started because the NFL allowed it. And the NFL never should have allowed it, ever. And there's also a sense that everyone is going to be fine with it until the Raiders become a powerhouse. Then people are going to be running around hair on fire saying, oh, we got to do something about this. Well, you had your chance. You had your chance and you let Tom Brady double dip. And I mentioned this because in the aftermath of the extension of the Brady rules to Troy Aikman, I was told there's a strong belief in the Seahawks organization that the Raiders don't hire Clint Kubiak to be their new head coach without the extended access that Brady had to Kubiak. Last year, as the Seahawks emerged as a force in the NFC, Brady working for Fox, which even though they've blurred the lines between the AFC and NFC package, Fox is still predominantly NFC games. Brady was in a position to work postseason games involving the Seahawks, late afternoon games involving the Seahawks, in a position to legitimately talk to Clint Kubiak, get to know Clint Kubiak. And even though it's not a formal interview, you're developing a level of comfort, a rapport that you otherwise would not be in any position to develop. It gives the Raiders and by extension the Dolphins, an opportunity to hone their searches with the benefit of the knowledge acquired and the relationships built by Brady and Aikman. Now, with Aikman, it all just kind of popped up at the end of the year. He tapped into the relationships he already had, the things he had learned doing Packers games, a level of comfort with John Eric Sullivan, who became the GM, a level of comfort with Jeff Haffley, who became the head coach. No other teams have access to that kind of real-time information. You're in a position where you're just not the fly on the wall, watching the guy do his job. You're sitting there talking to him about it. You're in the room where it's all happening. And you've got this other gig where you're filing away for future use. Anything and everything, you may be picking up while doing your high-paying network job. Do we really want that? Is that really fair to all of the teams? It's not an issue yet because the Raiders haven't want to play off game since 2002 and the Dolphins haven't want to play off game since 2000. The minute these moves start bearing fruit, if they ever do, and I think it'll happen in Miami before it happens in Las Vegas, but the minute these moves start bearing fruit, that's when people are going to be saying, whoa, hey, whoa, whoa, how did this happen? How do we allow this? Remember the reaction last year when we saw the incredible shrinking Tom Brady, when he realized he was on screen, the Monday night game between the Raiders and the Chargers with the headset, suit and tie, tablet, hit the button. Too late, Tom, everybody saw you. And people who had otherwise not understood the conflict were like, oh, oh, well, wait now. Oh, wow. Hey, how about this? So look, this is not some hollow fringe theory. This is a natural reality of how the NFL currently operates. And as I've mentioned, multiple teams troubled by this, paying attention to it, and wondering why and how the league has allowed this thing to emerge. Let's see how Clint Kubiak does for the Raiders. They've had a revolving door, 2015. Jack Dorio, 2018. John Gruden, 2022. Josh McDaniels, 24. Antonio Pierce, 25. Pete Carroll, 26. Clint Kubiak. This is the first time that they've made a hire with the full benefit of Tom Brady as an owner of the team for the full season, leading up to the hiring process. Giving him a level of insight and comfort with Kubiak that no other team that was considering him could ever have. It is a huge benefit to the Raiders. And Aikman's status with Monday Night Football is a huge benefit to the Dolphins. And by the time the NFL decides to do anything about it, what are you going to do? Because if you try to fix it later, you're going to have to admit you screwed it up in the first place. Because it's only broken to the point where it needs to be fixed because you broke it when you allowed this dynamic to unfold. All right. We didn't address this today on PFT Live. There were too many other things to get to. And there's too much time and careful selection of words, I think, that goes into the latest developments in Brian Flores' case. Now, Pablo Torre and I are planning to do a deep dive to help everyone get up to speed on the Flores litigation. Where it came from, what's happened, where it's going, and what it means. As part of that process, I put on the fedora with the little reporter hat, the little reporter flag, a little, what is that, a little note card sticking out. I pretended to be a reporter to try to gather some more information about the case. And something that I recently came across and thought would hold until Pablo and I taped this, and it didn't, Daniel Kaplan reported about it yesterday, but I had some more stuff beyond what he reported. In the Flores case, now that the discovery process is unfolding in court, where the parties have a lot more flexibility to gather information, especially from people who aren't parties to the action. If the Flores case had landed in arbitration withdrawal by the NFL, it would have been very difficult if not impossible for Flores lawyers to get relevant information from the files of others who aren't directly tied to the league. And that's important because the headline from yesterday, Corn Ferry, search firm. Now this came from Kaplan's report. I hadn't heard this part, that the document in question was generated in connection with a Raiders coaching search. What I was told and what Kaplan has reported is that in the stack of documents that Corn Ferry produced, and it wasn't some giant haystack. That's one of the things about practicing law. They will dump thousands of documents and you will be required to go through them one at a time to find the needle. For Corn Ferry, I think it was less than a thousand documents. They were produced. So you still go through them all, one at a time. And one was found that is believed to be a smoking gun. And it prompted Flores and his lawyers to immediately seek leave to amend his complaint to add one or more theories of liability based on this document. Now, the document is currently under seal. And here's how this works. When you get into a piece of civil litigation, especially when it deals with corporations, private businesses, et cetera, the two sides will work out the general terms of a protective order that will allow these documents that the parties are entitled to under the rules of civil procedure. But to the extent that there's some stuff that maybe has sensitive proprietary information in it, we don't want this stuff to be open season, to be handed out to the public, to be filed in court without special protection. So, and it's usually the lawyers representing the company being sued. They want a protective order that then allows them to designate certain documents as falling within the protections of that confidentiality agreement. So what happens? Well, the company tends to over-designate. And things that really aren't confidential, things that really don't deserve to be treated with care and not released to the public, they get designated. So what happens next? There's a fight. And a judge has to decide whether or not that's a document that really does fall within the spirit of the confidentiality order. So that's where that document is currently caught. It's a one-pager. It has sparked this effort to amend the complaint. As we mentioned in the PFT item on it, one source with knowledge of the document characterized it as insane. And chances are we're going to find out at some point what it says. Unless the NFL shows up with a literal Brinks truck and buys out Brian Flores with a settlement. And it's enough money that he doesn't refuse it. Because I could see Brian Flores, and I've mentioned this before, I could see him taking the position, I'm not settling. I'm not settling. And it's easy to say it until that, that mound of cash gets bigger and bigger. If it's eventually as big as the cash that Walter White and his wife kept in the storage locker, at some point, you're going to say yes. So this could expedite the, you know, the bulldozer full of cash that will get Brian Flores to say yes. Or maybe he holds firm. If he holds firm, if they don't try to settle it, if they can't settle it, a document could be critical. Now, obviously, and this is the way the legal system works, no matter what the document is, especially in today's world, where truth just doesn't matter. The other side is always going to have an explanation. Plausible or implausible, true or untrue. They're always going to have something. That's one of the skills of the lawyer. You come up with the best possible argument. Okay, we got this document, we got this one page. Here's this one page. And this one page kills our case. What do we say about it? Give me a minute here. And then they come up with something. To downplay it. To call it fake. All the stuff we've seen play out in our public life. That's one of the reasons why all of the stuff that we've seen politically is so exhausting. I lived that for 19 years where the sky is blue, but the other side will come up with a way to characterise it as not being what it clearly is. Because that's how it works. That's how an adversarial process works. So the bottom line is, case is moving forward. Rulings are expected in the coming weeks, but this one document from Corrin Ferry could shake up the whole thing. And the reason why it's important. And I ask anyone out there to set aside their political inclinations and just to understand and accept a few basic truths. One, the federal government and most states have a human rights law that prohibit discrimination on the basis of various protected characteristics, including race. And regardless of what anyone out there is going to say about DEI, the law has been on the books for years. And that law is at the center of the attack on the NFL's traditional hiring practices. And look, you can rely on the same old arguments that just knee-jerk get thrown. There are statements from Troy Vincent, the NFL Executive VP of Football Operations, quoted in Flores' lawsuit that acknowledge there's a problem when it comes to the concentration of black players in the NFL and the concentration of black coaches. And he's admitted to it. You may not even need the Cornferry document, frankly. So how is this ever going to change? We've seen the NFL spin its wheels for 20 plus years, trying to make the Rooney rule effective. And I think that the league office, the league office cares who the coaches of the teams are. They don't care. It's the individual owners who, I believe, understand the broader significance and importance of complying with the Human Rights Act, of not allowing race to be a direct or indirect factor in the hiring decisions. I can see owners saying, okay, yeah, I understand that, but I'm still going to hire the person I want to hire. I'm still going to hire the person that I'm most comfortable with. The numbers speak for themselves. And if this Corn Fairy document helps breathe tangible life into the presumptions that the raw numbers have created, yeah, it's the only way the problem is ever going to be solved. Again, that's why it's important. We're not going to have any type of legislation directed to the NFL. There's not going to be regulation, especially not in this climate. The only way to force the NFL to change its ways is to, number one, have a public trial where all the warts, all the dirty laundry is available for the world to see. And that's going to end with a verdict that is crippling financially to the NFL, or at least to one of the teams. Some massive verdict. Maybe a verdict that forces the guy to sell the team that owns it. It's the only way that behavior is going to change. That's true of all corporate America. You got to hit them in the pocketbook. They're going to keep doing what they do until something forces them to not do it. And if the government isn't going to force them to not do it, the only way to force them to not do it is with a financial obligation that makes them connect the dots between what we're doing and how much it's costing. That's when the behavior changes. That's why this is important because it's the only way to fix this problem. Because what do we otherwise see? The commissioner, the Super Bowl press conference, word salad about the situation. We forget about it. Next season plays out. Next hiring cycle plays out. Ten vacancies, no black coaches hired. Commissioner talks at the Super Bowl press conference. Word salad again. Lather rinse repeat. Groundhog Day. And sometimes the press conference actually lands on Groundhog Day year after year after year. And nothing ever changes. The only way it's ever going to change is if Brian Flores sees this thing all the way through to conclusion. Trial in open court. Verdict against the teams that are proven. And hey, maybe they win. Let's see. Let's have the day in court before a neutral jurist, not the commissioner. And they're still trying to push that. They're still trying to push that arbitration issue as to a few of the claims. They still won't let it go, even though the presiding judge has basically said, can we let this go and get on with the case? We're going to have a neutral party, neutral jury that will hear it all and make a decision. And I think it's important because there's no other way to address the issue. No amount of talking is ever going to address the issue. And again, set your political leanings aside and understand what the law requires and understand that it's undeniable. And don't give me the, where are all the white cornerbacks bullshit. It's undeniable that given the percentage of black players in the NFL and the skills and the knowledge that you develop as a player and understanding the game, and then you look at the representation all the way up to offensive coordinators and coaches, the numbers tell us something is off. And the only way we're ever going to get to the bottom of it and effect change is through the Brian Flores case. All right, let's answer a few questions before we wrap this up. Christian, what do we got? Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian close. They know who we mean. Molly Sadwasser, do you think the Rams hype is justified, especially if Aaron Donald comes back? How often do these super teams work out? From a Die Hard Seahawks fan who doesn't think they're getting enough recognition after winning the Super Bowl. Hey, we've seen the super teams. Remember 2011, the dream team after the Eagles got very aggressive after the lockout. Vince Young, who was brought in to backup Mike Vick, called it a dream team. I remember 2000, Washington, after they made it to the playoffs in 1999, Dan Snyder went out and got Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith. It felt like they were destined to win it all. They didn't make it to the playoffs in 2000. Now, the wild part is injuries, and I do not ever want to be accused of malokioing. But come on, a year ago, we didn't know that Matthew Stafford was going to be ready for week one. I don't know what the hell they did to get him healthy, but it felt like a lost cause. Tweaked his back, as I recall, like at home in between the offseason program and the started training camp, and he was messed up. Made it through the whole season. Is he going to make it through another whole season? Is Miles Garrett going to make it through a whole season? Get to these guys, especially non-quarterbacks, wrong side of 30. The flaw that we pointed out yesterday, the criticism that will be inevitable of the decision to use the 13th overall pick on Ty Simpson, who if all things go well, won't play this year. Devontae Adams missed time at the end of last season with a hamstring injury. Pukinakua plays the position with a level of physicality that could get him injured. What do they have behind those guys? They tried to trade for AJ Brown, which means they would have traded Devontae Adams. They could have taken Malachi Lemon with the 13th overall pick. Malachi Lemon. I might get my, I think Malachi Lemon. Anyway, they could have taken a receiver. Any of the receivers on the board could have traded down if they thought they wanted to pick up a few extra picks and play the game of, we can get this guy a little bit lower. At the time that they were on the clock, the Eagles were trying to move up to get Lemon. So that's where they could have a problem. Devonte Adams gets hurt again. If Puka gets hurt, passing game could take a hit. Injuries are gonna be the key. And the problem is, if and when Donald comes back, it's just gonna raise that bar even higher for everyone. Maybe they welcome it. Maybe they'll thrive under those circumstances. Hell, they're gonna have seven primetime games this year. They got a bunch of standalone games. They're the darlings of the NFL. They've supplanted the Chiefs as the darlings of the NFL. And yeah, if you're the Seahawks, hey, it's great. You use that as motivation. I remember there was a year the Bills were picked to win the Super Bowl. I think it was the year, there've been a couple of years obviously, but I think the year after the Bengals made it, the Bengals were, or the Bills were regarded as the favorites to win it all. They'd probably been the favorites going into the season a couple of times. But it's like, we've never even been there. Like, why are we carrying this burden? Pick on the teams that were there. Pick on the team that won it. The Seahawks are in a great position. They can use all of this Rams hype as motivation. Where do the Rams get their motivation from? All right, next question. Chad Nivette. How much does fan perception actually matter in CBA talks between ownership and players as we've seen in the past and in other sports both sides try to court the public, but does that ultimately change either side's goals and concessions in talks? I think that, look, there's clearly value in getting the public on your side or they wouldn't try to do it. We've already seen the commercials that Major League Baseball is putting out there, where they get random fans and ask them, does baseball need a salary cap? It's so ridiculously obvious what they're trying to do. It's offensive, frankly, to the union that they're stooping to that. But I remember back in 2011, before and during the lockout, all of a sudden, anytime we'd ask for someone from the league office to come on PFT Live, there they were, Jeff Pash, here he is, Roger Goodell, here he is. Multiple heavy hitters showing up to make the case for why the NFL was doing what it was doing and holding a hard line with the players. So, you know, day in and day out, the human beings that are at the front lines of these negotiations, they're going to be influenced by all sorts of things. And if the public is against you and everywhere you look, you're feeling it, you're seeing it, you're hearing it, is it going to wear you down and get you to take a lesser offer when nut-cutting time arrives? The thinking is yes. Whereas if you feel like the fans are for you, you've got the wind at your back going to do these negotiations. And we know how it goes in the NFL. It's always the players' fault in the eyes of most fans. It's not the owners' fault. Players being too greedy. How much is enough? Well, ask the owners. They're the ones with the super yachts. Ask them how much is enough. Ask them whether or not they're being stewards of this franchise, or whether or not they see this as an asset that can be ripped of any and all profit and fund the lifestyle that no player ever enjoys. And the players are the ones. And people say, well, the owners take the business risk. Hey folks, there's no business risk at this point. This isn't some startup that has a 10% chance of succeeding. You know, the only real question with these valuations, how long is it going to take you to make your money back? But note closely, you think he's not going to make back his $9.6 billion, however much of that is coming out of his pocket. You think he's not going to make that back sooner rather than later as the owner of the Seahawks. So it's hard for the players, hard for the players. The owners do a very good job of keeping everyone on the same page. Anybody steps out of line, they get fined. There's no conflicting messages. They do it the right way. They know how to do it. They did it in 2011. If they have to do it again in 2031, they will. All right, let's answer a couple of more before we wrap this up. CDs, country pickings, which country or countries do you think would be the first to get expansion team? I've already addressed this. I think it's going to be London. There's two NFL-ready stadiums in London, Tottenham Hotspur and Wembley. That's how it would start. One team in the NFC, one team in the AFC, headquartered in London. Now, it would make more sense to have those two teams in the same division. It really would, but that puts a huge burden on the other teams in that division. The easiest thing to do is, like I said earlier, one London team in the AFC East, one London team in the NFC East, and you could configure the schedule so the two teams in London are guaranteed to play each other twice if you want to. You could make the schedule however you want. But ideally, long-term, the London teams would be in the same division. But I think that's what would happen. That would be my prediction. The next move we see is going to be two teams in London, one in the AFC East, one in the NFC East. I think I'll live long enough for that. We'll see. Next question. Matthew Sibley, what's your over-under on the Vikings this season? I really don't know. They fall into that bucket. I've got the teams that I think are going to be very good, the teams that I think are going to be very bad, and then this swath in the middle where I just don't know. The Vikings were nine and eight last year somehow. They got hot after they were done. After they got blown up by the Seahawks, it was over. And then they turn it around and they blow out Washington, they run the table and we had forgotten about them by the time the dust settled. But Christmas Day with Max Brosmer at quarterback, they ended the Lions playoff run. I think that all things considered and not knowing what Kyler Murray is ultimately going to be, I'd say eight and a half makes sense because I think it could go either way. And they could win a lot more than eight and a half games. They could lose a lot fewer than eight and a half. But I think that falls perfectly into this realm of we don't know what they're going to be. But there is reason to think they could be pretty good. There's also reason to think that this is just a house of cards that one good gust of wind is going to blow over. Right, do we have any others or is that it? Tom Marshall. Is the best scenario for everyone involved that Aaron Donald plays only half a season? You know, it kind of feels like it's moving toward Donald not being there week one. As of a couple of weeks ago, the thinking was he was going to make a yes or no decision by last Monday, the 10th. And if it was yes, you had enough time to get him ready for week one, 30 to 40 snaps against the 49ers in Melbourne, and off we go. Now that we've seen the can get kicked from early last week by Donald to late last week into this week. And along the way, he shows up for another tryout, because he's still trying to figure out if he's still going to be Aaron Donald. And he's not going to know that he's going to be Aaron Donald until he's practicing with the Rams and ultimately he won't know until he's playing in games. See, he's trying to make an all or nothing full season decision with incomplete information. And I think at some point he has to be willing to come back to see how it feels and to tap out if he decides that it's not where it needs to be. The problem is he may not be willing to tap out. Once he writes that check, Aaron Donald the football player is going to do everything he can to honor that check even if, and you know, everybody's a film expert now. People have access to the All 22. You're going to have people saying he's not the same Aaron Donald. And I've said before, he could be less than he was, but still be more effective on the stat sheet because he's got Miles Garrett there. I just think that it comes down to this. Why are you coming back? Are you coming back because you love football and you want to play football and you missed it for two years and Miles Garrett was the magnet that pulled you off the couch? Not that Aaron Donald. If you see his workout videos, he's not sitting around on the couch. But if Miles Garrett is the thing that pulls you back, then you're back. We're not in this two month, two and a half month limbo of, is Aaron Donald going to come back? He'd be back already. He'd be back and he'd be working himself into final football shape with the team, if he was truly coming back because he loves it. I think that the longer this lasts, I'm starting to think he's going to not do it. And watch as I say that, the announcement's probably already come out today that he's decided to come back. We'll have to strike all of this from the tape. But the ultimate deadline is the Tuesday after week 13. And this will linger. If he doesn't give us a definitive statement, this will linger. And even if he says no, we're still going to watch Instagram to see how he's working out. We're still going to have the ear to the ground. Because the temptation is still going to be there. And I think it's the short-term potential regret of coming back and not being the guy that he was. That's where ego gets in the way. And the long-term regret of having everything set up and not doing it. Climbing all the way to the top of the high dive, stepping all the way out to the end, and looking down at the water, and wanting to jump and deciding, I'm good. That's what he'll have to live with if he doesn't do it. It's a tough spot. If it wasn't a tough spot, he already would have made a decision. All right, what else do we have? I think that's it. That's it. Okay, thank you. It was productive. Tuesday edition of PFT PM, now over. We'll do it again next week. Until then, every weekday morning, you'll see us on PFT Live, 7 a.m. Eastern and around the clock. Doors never close. We have no locks coming anytime at profootballtalk.com. Have a great day."

"Ben BabyAug 18, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseBen Baby covers the Cincinnati Bengals for ESPN. He joined the company in July 2019. Prior to ESPN, he worked for various newspapers in Texas, most recently at The Dallas Morning News where he covered college sports. He provides daily coverage of the Bengals for ESPN.com, while making appearances on SportsCenter, ESPN's NFL shows and ESPN Radio programs. A native of Grapevine, Texas, he graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in journalism. He is an adjunct journalism professor at Southern Methodist University and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).Multiple AuthorsIT WAS SUPPOSED to be a routine dropback.In the New York Giants' preseason opener against the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday, starting quarterback Jaxson Dart dropped back and was looking left at his downfield options. On his right, chaos was looming.Running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. drifted a bit too far right, tried to reverse course and slipped. Vikings safety Jay Ward sprinted toward Dart and leveled the quarterback. All Tracy could do was crane his neck backward while kneeling on the turf as Dart was crushed at the midfield logo.Dart went through the concussion sideline exam and later returned. That didn't stop Giants coach John Harbaugh from saying, "There's no way he should have been hit there. It just shouldn't have happened. It was a basic protection."The preseason play highlighted one of the most overlooked aspects of football: a running back's role in pass protection. Typically, the glory and grandeur for ball carriers depends on the number of yards and touchdowns they produce. But a running back who can block is invaluable, especially in the modern game. It's a skill that can secure a spot on the 53-player roster, earn offensive reps and even extend contracts.— NFL (@NFL) August 15, 2026 And at its core, it sums up the nature of football."It's mano a mano," said Bengals running back Samaje Perine, who is one of the better backs at pass protection in the league. "Everybody else is covered up by linemen. It's just me and you, and may the best man win."IN 2014, PERINE set the NCAA single-game record with 427 rushing yards in Oklahoma's win over Kansas. While he hasn't been as prolific in his 10-year NFL career, he still has been effective, averaging 4.5 yards per carry or more in five of his past six seasons.But the primary reason he has earned nearly $14 million in his career is what he does when he isn't carrying the ball."As a running back, you can't be one-dimensional," Perine said. "If you can only run the ball and if you're not that [No. 1] guy, then your chances of staying in the league go down a lot."So I've learned that just the more you can do, the longer you can stay in."What Perine and other effective pass-blocking running backs excel at is typically referred to as a "jet" protection -- where the offensive line will slide to block any defenders and the running back picks up an extra blitzer.But here's what that actually looks like: a defender who weighs 200 pounds or more sprinting toward a player who is stationary and bracing for impact.After his rookie year in 2017, Aaron Jones was at a charity event during Super Bowl week and ran into Brian Westbrook, an All-Pro running back who played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 2002 to 2009. Jones had one question: How do you get better in pass protection?"He was like, 'That's your mom in the pocket,'" Jones recalled. "'Are you going to let him touch your mom? Are you going to let him hit your mom?'"I was like, 'When you think about it like that, you're right.'"Jones wasn't the only running back to gain counsel from a veteran during an early stage in his career. Before New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson went to the Senior Bowl in 2021, ex-Dallas Cowboy DeMarco Murray, then Stevenson's position coach at Oklahoma, told him that being a proficient pass blocker would generate more interest from teams.Murray was right. Stevenson was drafted in the fourth round and is set to enter his sixth season with the Patriots.And when Stevenson and other running backs execute a pass block to perfection, it can lead to big things from their offense."The underrated part about pass blocking is picking up a pass block and watching [Patriots quarterback Drake Maye] sit back there with time and throw a [deep ball]," Stevenson said.Zach Allen, the Denver Broncos' 6-5, 285-pound defensive end who had seven sacks last season, has noticed something different about the 6-foot, 227-pound Stevenson."We played the Patriots, we did a stunt and I wrapped, and Stevenson was right there," Allen said. "Usually, you just bull the running back, but I gave him that first contact and I was like, 'OK, I might have to work to a side against him.' Powerful guy."A big body and he takes pride in it. It's easy to see when a guy doesn't."WHEN THE 2024 season opener was on the line, Baltimore Ravens running back Justice Hill had one of the most daunting tasks in football: blocking Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones, one of the game's fiercest pass rushers.Hill, despite being 8 inches shorter and 115 pounds lighter than Jones, had to keep Jones off Lamar Jackson on back-to-back plays to give the Ravens a chance to win. And Hill did his job. Jackson nearly threw the game-tying pass at the end of regulation in a 27-20 loss.The clip went viral as Hill received praise for one of the game's unsung jobs."Obviously I'm not the biggest guy, but it just takes a mindset of like, 'You're not going to get to my quarterback, and I don't care how big you are, how small you are,'" Hill said.What makes pass blocking as a running back unique is that it is one of the more teachable skills in football. The calculation is pretty simple."It's probably 90% grit, 10% technique," Perine said. "Because at the end of the day, you just have to get in the way."That is always easier said than done, especially when facing someone like Derwin James Jr., the Los Angeles Chargers' 6-2, 215-pound safety."Most everybody else, they'll run at you, but then they'll break down at least a little bit to give you a chance to think what you're going to do," Perine said. "Him? He doesn't care. He's just going to run full speed straight into you, torpedo style."But a lot goes into that 10% of technique. At the beginning of each game week, Bengals assistant coach Justin Hill will spend considerable time identifying defensive fronts, patterns and what makes different players effective as a pass rusher. Any edge gleaned that can give the quarterback an extra split second is valuable."It's not just about being physical at the point of attack," Justin Hill said. "It's also about you got to be smart enough to understand what the different looks are."And sometimes, looks can be deceiving. The Giants thought it was Jamal Adams who was going to be blitzing on the play that dropped Dart."I didn't really think I would have a free rush, but our big nickel -- Jamal -- he sold it, so the protection slid to him," Ward said. "The back so happened to get ready to go into a route and ... he didn't think he had anyone [to block] and he seen me come late, and he couldn't adjust."Aaron Jones said pass blocking is a two-part process, with the first part being able to understand the protection scheme."And then it comes to a want-to and a fight," he said. "So, I would say part of it is understanding protection, and the next part is having the willingness to do it."Now we know every protection is not going to be perfect, but if you get in there and fight and you hit them first, that negates a lot of their charge. Now you're just hand fighting and standing in front instead of this guy hitting you. A lot of times when you get up there and you make that contact, it slows it down and it makes your job a lot easier."BEING A RELIABLE pass blocker and adding value to teams will be paramount across the NFL over the next couple of weeks. As teams prepare to trim their rosters from the 90-player limit in training camp down to the allotted 53 roster slots for the regular season, protecting the quarterback could prevent a running back from being cut."It's crazy how long that can extend your career," Justice Hill said. "If you told me my second year when I felt like s---, 'You'll be playing here,' standing here at eight years, I wouldn't have believed it."So yeah, just keep doing those little things, and it pays off long term."Hill didn't mean to minimize it, but "little things" probably wouldn't fit Harbaugh's definition of pass protection."If you're going to be on the field on third down or second-and-long, so-called pass downs, you have to be a great pass protection guy because you're going to be throwing the ball a lot," he said. "So, that'll be a requirement."When Jones entered the league in 2017 with the Green Bay Packers, he immediately knew what it would take to stick in the NFL. Inside the team's running backs room was a sign that said it all: "If you can't protect, you can't play here.""That goes to say, 'Hey, this is a $100 million man back here at quarterback,'" Jones said. "'If you can't protect, we can't trust you to be in that league. You're going to get him hurt and that's our investment.'"And along with their ability to pick up yards when needed, that's why Jones, Perine and so many backs have remained gainfully employed. When the rosters are trimmed, many others will follow suit because they have learned one of the biggest truths in football."As long as you're in front of your guy when the quarterback gets the ball off," Perine said, "then that's all that matters."Jamison Hensley, Jeff Legwold, Mike Reiss and Kevin Seifert contributed to this report."

"Published August 17, 2026 07:39 PM The Vikings lost safety/linebacker Jamal Adams to a torn quad tendon during Saturday’s preseason opener at the Giants. And even though the recently-signed Adams will not play this season, he’ll be a big part of the team in 2026.“Just from what he had meant to us in such a short amount of time, he’s had such a great impact,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters regarding the 10-year veteran. “I compliment [G.M.] Nolan [Teasley] for, you know, that was — Nolan was really excited about making that move, and just the dialogue between him and myself and [defensive coordinator Brian Flores], and then watching Flo, you know, put together the plan of attack for him and a real role that was kind of really coming together.”Teasley knew Adams from their time together in Seattle.“He’ll have that procedure to have that fixed, and then he’s gonna be with us all season long,” O’Connell said regarding Adams. “I think it’s really important that Jamal knows, and I’ve talked . . . both to him and his family, about just his impact on this organization, his ability to help young players, his ability to be a real beacon of energy, and once, obviously, he’s gonna be focused on getting healthy and getting the initial early stages of his rehab going, but we’re gonna have him with us. You guys will see him around, see him out here, see him around the building. Because he’s a Minnesota Viking now, and we want to make sure that he knows how important he’ll be to our players and team.”It’s unfortunate that Adams won’t be able to play, but the team’s willingness to embrace him will help fill the void created by a season that was lost before it even began."

"Published August 17, 2026 03:29 PM The Vikings placed safety/linebacker Jamal Adams on season-ending injured reserve on Monday and head coach Kevin O’Connell detailed the specific injury that landed him on the list a little later in the day.Adams suffered a non-contact injury in last Saturday’s game against the Giants and initial word was that it affected his knee. On Monday, however, O’Connell said that Adams actually tore his right quadriceps. It’s an injury that Adams is all too familiar with. He tore his left quad while playing for the Seahawks in Week 1 of the 2022 season and missed the rest of the year. He returned to action in 2023, but missed the first three games of the regular season and has talked about how long it took him to feel back to himself after the injury. Adams, who turns 31 in October, is now looking at another long rehab if he plans to continue playing beyond this season."

"We track the biggest injury updates and recovery timelines as teams navigate a brutal start to the NFL preseason Aug 17, 2026 at 10:55 am ET • 1 min read Getty Images NFL preseason Week 1 is officially in the books, and not many teams were left unscathed. Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota suffered a sprained MCL that should hold him out for the remainder of the preseason, Minnesota Vikings defensive Swiss Army knife Jamal Adams suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Meadowlands, Houston Texans backup signal-caller Graham Mertz tore his ACL, and the Arizona Cardinals are dealing with several notable issues.Winning the war of attrition is important for any Super Bowl contender, and a major injury could derail any team's season. Unfortunately, it happens every year, and sometimes before we even reach the regular season. Below, we will break down all of the notable injuries from around the league as we enter the second week of the preseason. New York Jets Aug. 17: New York Jets star running back Breece Hall went down untouched after making a catch. ESPN's Rich Cimini said it looked like a possible groin injury, as trainers were examining Hall's upper right leg. Jets head coach Aaron Glenn didn't seem too worried, telling reporters afterward, "I don't think it was a big deal." Arizona Cardinals Aug. 16: The No. 3 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft had an explosive preseason debut, rushing for 58 yards on 11 carries, and turned three receptions into 14 yards. However, he left with what was determined to be a high ankle sprain. Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur initially said that Jeremiyah Love "could have returned" to action, but two days later said the rookie would not practice this week or play in Week 2 of the preseason. High ankle sprains are issues that can linger, so it's fair to speculate about his status for the season opener on Sept. 13. Aug. 14: It turns out the Cardinals' top two picks from this year's draft were injured in the preseason opener, but the news is much worse for No. 34 overall pick Chase Bisontis. The Texas A&M product unfortunately tore his MCL, and will miss his entire rookie season. Bisontis was viewed as one of the top interior linemen in this past class, having played snaps at both guard and center. Now, he is forced to turn his efforts to recovery."