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PHOENIX — The NFL has no intentions to do away with the Rooney Rule, even as pressure mounts from the Florida attorney general and as the league’s diversity initiatives have taken a blow in recent years. Speaking Tuesday, Goodell backed the nearly quarter-century hiring practice.
“One thing that doesn’t change is our values, and we believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League,” Goodell said. “We are well aware of the laws and where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those.”
The biggest point the league would make is that the Rooney Rule is not a hiring mandate but a “best practice.” The fact that there were 10 open head-coach positions this past cycle and zero went to a Black man further emphasizes how the rule is only a requirement for an interview process but not a hire.
What is clear in talking with sources is that the Florida AG letter will not lead to a revocation of the entire Rooney Rule. But it is possible it could impact three of the 32 NFL teams.
The Buccaneers, Jaguars and Dolphins are all located in Florida, and those companies must abide by state and federal law (of course.) If Florida were to pass a law that would effectively ban the sort of “best practice” of the Rooney Rule, then those clubs would have to align with state law.
Next QB contract boom could again reset the market
Start the countdown: We are about 11 months away from what could be the biggest quarterback contract offseason in recent NFL memory.
Dak Prescott set the bar in 2024 with his deal that averages $60 million per year, and we could see multiple players surpass that in a year’s time.
IMAGN Images
The end of the 2026 season marks the first opportunity for the Bears, Commanders and Patriots to sign their high-performing quarterbacks to extensions. Caleb Williams does not have an agent, which can always make for unique negotiations. Jayden Daniels had a record-breaking rookie season and is aiming for a bounce-back year, with his mother, Regina Jackson, serving as his sole agent now. And Drake Maye is the only one of that trio who has gone to a Super Bowl, narrowly missing out on the NFL MVP award.
But it’s not just players from the 2024 draft class. Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud enter this season with high expectations and tens of millions on the line. Both the Panthers and Texans have exercised the fifth-year option on those players, and sources believe both players will not sign extensions ahead of the 2026 season. I do believe, however, that if Young wanted to sign a deal with Carolina this offseason, the team could be amenable to it. But a big year and a booming market ahead would mean Young could leave plenty on the table to do a deal early.
Sam Darnold will have finished his season with no more guaranteed money on the books for the Super Bowl champ, as he will (somehow) only be 29 at this time next year. There hasn’t been much movement on a Baker Mayfield extension in Tampa Bay, and he too could be due an extension if he can return to that first-quarter-of-the-season MVP form.
Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa are on veteran-minimum deals this year with the potential to sign big contracts somewhere with a turnaround season a la Darnold in years previous and Daniel Jones this past season.
And then there’s Lamar Jackson. The Ravens have wanted to get a deal done with the self-represented Jackson but have been unable to. The last time the team negotiated with him, it took years and even saw a trade request before the two sides agreed to a record-breaking deal. Does Jackson do a deal this offseason to top Prescott’s $60 million number, only to be eclipsed by any (or several) of the names above next year? Or does he wait on the market to do much of the negotiating for him and come in over the top in 2027?
Referee labor fight escalating toward potential lockout
I don’t know who is going to blink first, but the NFL is rushing the NFL Referees Association when it comes to the public PR battle in this CBA stalemate.
As we’ve discussed for some time now, the league and refs are hurtling toward a lockout if and when a new CBA is not signed by May 31. The NFL is making contingencies with replacement refs who will be supported by a beefed-up command center in New York. There will be more staffers (likely former officials) monitoring games with the league’s full suite of technology ready to assist the DI, DII and DIII officials who may be on NFL fields this fall.
The NFL wants to give officials a 6.45% pay increase year over year for the six-year term, and the officials want more than 10%. The officials wish to be more aligned with baseball and basketball officials, though the NFL says that comparison makes no sense when considering the length of seasons and demands of the job. League sources say the NFL’s deal is about five times what baseball umpires make on a per-game basis, and that’s for football officials who — nine out of 10 — have full-time jobs away from the field.
The league also wants more training and education for officials, something no fan of the game will say no to. The officials are resisting that and other measures designed to react to lower-performing officials. While the primary function of any union is to protect its members, public opinion won’t be with the stripes on this one.
The refs say they are an integral part of a $25 billion operation and should see more revenue. The NFL says it’s spending more money than ever before on officials, along with rising player and stadium costs.
Once June hits, the deal from the league will get considerably worse, as it has to use money to hire, educate and train replacement refs. For example, illegal-contact fouls are common in the NFL but don’t exist in college. Forget the Fail Mary: we could see flags from New York for something as simple as that.
The league is presenting itself as being ready to play games with replacement officials, and I actually don’t have any doubt it will be better than that miserable September in 2012. The league is better prepared this time around. But that doesn’t mean the results will be good.
And I can’t stress this enough: the obscene amount of money being wagered on these games means there is quite literally more on the line than ever before. The integrity of the game is paramount to this entire society. Our uniquely Western conspiratorial mindset will not allow for replacements to be subpar and create inequitable results. Pete Carroll couldn’t kick a meaningless field goal last season without being accused of illicit doings by bettors. What’s going to be the reaction when an unknown staffer buzzes from New York to place a consequential flag on the field with a one-score game?
It benefits everyone for both sides to have good-faith negotiations.
18-game season not happening any time soon
As much as the league may want to rush to do a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association, both sides must want to come to the table. As it stands on this first day of April, I would be floored if an 18th game is added to the regular-season calendar by the 2028 season at the absolute earliest.
Goodell noted Tuesday the NFLPA is in no rush, saying new executive director JC Tretter is just getting back into the saddle with the union. But there is much more to future negotiations than the players union finally having a permanent executive director installed.
Tom DePasso, the NFLPA’s general counsel with more than four decades of experience, announced his retirement more than a year ago. Tretter must hire a new general counsel who will lead the players in negotiations with the league.
Tretter made his impact with the union with the controversial report cards. He took an analytical approach to surveying players across all clubs to create those report cards. (Though the league would argue it is not exactly scientific or analytical enough.) The point being, Tretter has shown a propensity for taking in voices and data from across thousands of members. That collection will also take time.
IMAGN Images
The union should not wish to rush to negotiations with a league that is very prepared to get that 18th game. The NFL also wants to expand its international slate of games, which is currently capped at 10 and will see nine games played outside the United States in 2026. The NFL has to collectively bargain for more regular-season and international games, but it has shown it has no problem adjusting the schedule to fit the current selection of games it has.
This year, there will be games played on every day of the week but Tuesday. The Niners and Rams will open the season in Melbourne. And the NFL has already talked with NBC about potentially having more Wednesday season openers after establishing it this year with the Seahawks (to accommodate the Australia game).
It was with all that in mind that I asked Cowboys owner Jerry Jones about the league’s incredible growth. Jones is one of sports’ most masterful businessmen, and the NFL is on pace for $25 billion in revenue. Is there anything to hogs getting slaughtered?
“When the ducks quack, feed them,” Jones said. “And we have that demand for our games. And because of the hard work and great players that we have, we have great demand. We should address it, respond to it and feed it.”
Seahawks sale still early, with one intriguing name floating
There was very little discussion among owners about the future sale of the world champion Seattle Seahawks. Sources tell me it’s still early in the process for a sale that will, without a doubt, set a record for an NFL franchise and reach at least $7 billion.
Getting the names of people with verifiable interest in the Seahawks is hard to come by. But I had two sources mention L.A. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer as a potential future bidder. Ballmer, the longtime Microsoft CEO, has homes in the Seattle area, and there’s no question he has the funds. He has a net worth of more than $120 billion, according to Forbes, making him one of the 15 most wealthy humans on earth.
But one source said “he’s really a hoops guy” and that there would be surprise if Ballmer cast his lot for an NFL team. These deals are extremely complex and take time, so we are far from any resolution.
Bears nearing decision point on stadium — and Indiana is real
We are just a few months away from Decision Day for the Chicago/Indiana Bears. The franchise is ready to get moving on a stadium, and at some point in the coming months the it will decide between remaining in Illinois or moving to Indiana.
I don’t get the impression Bears president Kevin Warren is bluffing about Indiana, either. For a while it was reasonable to assume Indiana and all its tax breaks were being used against Illinois. But after a few days at the league meetings, I would not subscribe to that assumption.
Goodell did not express a preference for where the Bears decide to build a stadium. The focus of the league is for the Bears to get a state-of-the-art stadium, wherever it may be. But it is hard to believe the league wants to see a founding member team like the Bears move across state lines, even if it would just be for 10 or so home games a year.
No matter what the league may desire, the Bears are going to do what’s best for the Bears. And that may very well mean having a new stadium in Hammond, Indiana
NFL exploring centralized scouting data model amid rising costs
A few weeks ago, the NFL sent a memo to teams informing them the league is requesting proposals from scouting data vendors that can best serve “the priorities of club alignment, economic efficiency and competitive equity.”
In short, teams have complained for more than a year that pricing for scouting data has become too expensive. So the league will begin accepting RFPs this month from potential vendors who could begin to work exclusively with all 32 teams beginning in the 2027 season.
Companies like Pro Football Focus, the 33rd Team, Sumer Sports and Sports Info Solutions are among the potential vendors, according to sources.
The scouting data referenced can relate to a lot of manually tracked statistics for college players. These vendors have advanced analytics like linemen double teams, coverage grades, forced missed tackles or even snap counts for players at lower-level schools. As shared in the memo, the league feels “the scouting data vendor environment is becoming economically inefficient and potentially misaligned with our shared commitment to competitive equity.”
I’m told the memo is unrelated to the recent layoffs at PFF after the company was just sold to Teamworks. The issues with costs have been brewing for nearly a year.
In the memo, the league says it seeks “the ability to support a centralized, league-wide scouting data collection and distribution model,” “the opportunity to integrate with emerging league data initiatives” like Next Gen Stats and Hawk-Eye Skeletal Tracking, and the “flexibility and scalability to meet club football operations needs now … and in the future … leveraging custom machine learning and AI analytics tools.”
Teams have been told not to enter into any new agreements with scouting data vendors for the next year while this process plays out.
A.J. Brown trade talk? Not so fast
In case you haven’t heard, A.J. Brown is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles. That franchise isn’t engaging in anything publicly to move him. And the New England Patriots and head coach Mike Vrabel aren’t going to negotiate for him at the coaches breakfast table.
I would be surprised if Brown is moved before the draft. The next soft deadline to deal the All-Pro receiver would be the opening night of the draft, so that Philly could get a first-rounder and then some to add to its roster. But because of the salary-cap ramifications of dealing Brown before June 1 — it costs the Eagles $20 million more to deal him before that date — it has always made more sense to trade him in the summer.
Dallas Goedert to re-sign with Eagles, per report: What TE’s return means for potential A.J. Brown trade
Carter Bahns
I don’t get the impression that a deal will be struck on June 2, for what it’s worth. And there could be other teams that show interest in Brown as a more realistic deadline nears.
Early read on QB battles: no clear answers yet
Nine years ago at my previous employer, I wrote an inside look into the world of quarterback competitions. My takeaways from that piece were that a lot of smart coaches have a lot of different ideas about the best ways to conduct a true QB competition. It’s hard, as there are different ways to skin the cat.
I tried to get an early look at four anticipated quarterback battles this year. The Las Vegas Raiders will draft Fernando Mendoza, and they are quick to tell everyone they would prefer him to sit and learn behind a veteran. That’s all well and good until Mendoza’s talent becomes undeniable to his teammates in training camp and the preseason. If he is outshining whatever veteran Vegas brings in — and that may very well be Kirk Cousins — then it will be difficult to keep him on ice.
The Vikings wanted to avoid a position catastrophe at quarterback, so they signed Kyler Murray and Carson Wentz to go along with J.J. McCarthy. I wanted to know how Kevin O’Connell would structure this competition this summer, but he wouldn’t take the bait.
“When it’s time to truly start counting reps and logging throws, I know we have some of the best in the business around this table to do that,” O’Connell said as he was surrounded by the great Vikings beat reporters. “There will be a time and place for that.”
Kevin O’Connell addresses Kyler Murray vs. J.J. McCarthy QB battle; Could Carson Wentz crash the party?
Tyler Sullivan
In Cleveland, I feel counting how many days certain quarterbacks appear in the building when they don’t have to is useless and will not impact who gets what reps in June, July and August.
The Browns absolutely want a competition at QB this summer, and I believe head coach Todd Monken will take the guy who gives him the best chance to win — contract or fan reaction be damned. It does seem like it will come down to Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders, and those training camp tweets from the immaculate Browns beat detailing every single throw will be my drug of choice. But no one is getting anointed anytime soon.
That doesn’t mean Dillon Gabriel doesn’t have a chance, but I would place his odds of winning the starting job below those of the other two. And we are still a few weeks away from my mock draft, but I don’t think I’ll be sending a quarterback to Cleveland in the first round.
As for Atlanta, it can only be a competition if there’s a healthy body going up against Tua Tagovailoa. The Falcons are mum about a timeline for Michael Penix Jr.’s return to full health, but I anticipate Tagovailoa will get the first-team reps to start camp as Penix continues to recover. I think the former Dolphin winds up being the Week 1 starter simply by default there, and his play will determine whether he keeps the job or goes to the bench for a second consecutive franchise.
Odell Beckham Jr. makes his intentions clear: back to New York
You gotta hand it to Odell Beckham Jr. He wants to play for the New York Giants, and he’s forcing the issue.
OBJ, a Phoenix resident, found his way to the league meetings this week and spent time with John Harbaugh. There is very little question he wants to return to Big Blue after taking a year off from football.
I don’t get the sense any true, substantial contract talks have taken place between the two sides. If anything were to happen, I would imagine that would take place after the draft.
No matter if a deal materializes or it’s just wishful thinking, Beckham is showing folks everywhere that close mouths don’t get fed.
