Late last month, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman indicated on social media that he would remain at his current job for 2026.
Reports soon followed that Freeman had received an enhanced contract from the university, helping keep him around.
Nevertheless, rumors that an NFL team could hire Freeman in this coaching cycle have persisted.
However, Freeman is still not expected to depart South Bend.
Adam Schefter of ESPN noted on Tuesday that despite garnering interest from several pro teams, Freeman is expected to remain at Notre Dame for 2026.
Freeman, 39, has compiled a 43-12 record in his four seasons with the Fighting Irish since taking over for Brian Kelly.
His name appears likely to come up for potential NFL jobs as long as he remains successful at the college level.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti is hoping two reach an agreement on a new contract with quarterback Lamar Jackson within the next two months.
“I want him to be my quarterback,” Bisciotti said of Jackson today.
Jackson has two years remaining on his contract, with salary cap hits of $74.5 million in both 2026 and 2027. Bisciotti said he hopes Jackson will agree to a long-term deal that lowers those cap numbers while guaranteeing him more money in the future, but that if Jackson doesn’t agree, they can restructure the contract with void years to lower the $74.5 million cap number.
“If he doesn’t want to do an extension, then we throw those $74 million into void years and Lamar’s coming back at the same cap number he was last year,” Bisciotti said. “You can play with that money all you want. That’s not what we want. We want another window and Lamar knows that, and I think he’s amenable to doing something that mirrors the last deal he did. The annual number will be a little higher, but I hope it’s plug a new number into the same contract he signed and move on.”
Bisciotti said Jackson understands that General Manager Eric DeCosta has good reasons for wanting to get a deal done before the start of free agency in March.
“The urgency of that matters to me because we’ve got free agents and I don’t want to go into free agency with that hanging over our head,” Bisciotti said “I made that clear to Lamar and I think he was very appreciative of my stance and hopefully willing to work with Eric and not get this thing dragged out into April.”
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti and General Manager Eric DeCosta held their first press conference on Tuesday since the firing of head coach John Harbaugh and the questions about that move involved one about quarterback Lamar Jackson.
Bisciotti was asked if he spoke to Jackson before letting Harbaugh go and Bisciotti said that he spoke to “a bunch of the veterans” last Monday about the possibility of a change. He then went into further detail about his conversation with Jackson.
“You’ve gotten know Lamar about as well as I have,” Bisciotti said. “Lamar is really, really a non-confrontational person. When I spoke with him Monday night, he said to me, ‘Everybody’s saying I have a problem with [offensive coordinator Todd] Monken. I don’t really a have a problem with Monken. I don’t know where that comes from.’ And he said, ‘I hear that I’ve got a problem with Harbs, and I don’t have a problem with Harbs. I don’t know where that comes from. We gotta make changes, probably, but that’s probably more for you and [DeCosta].’”
Bisciotti said that he let Jackson and the players know that “your opinion matters,” but said earlier in the press conference that he’d been discussing the move with DeCosta for several weeks. He pointed to the number of big leads the Ravens have blown in recent seasons and said the team has underperformed relative to its seeding in the playoffs.
“I don’t think the players had a large part of my decision,” Bisciotti said. “My partners here, that’s an 80-20 thing. I don’t think I’d be a very good leader if I didn’t ask the top players in my organization that have been here the longest. No, Lamar didn’t have an outsized part of my decision. My decision, I think by Monday, was pretty much set. I think by the time I got off the phone with Lamar, I had told him that I think my position was pretty set.”
Bisciotti thinks the team has the most attractive coaching opening in the league at the moment and the presence of a two-time MVP quarterback is likely one of the selling points he has in mind as the team looks for their next head coach.
The Ravens have completed another head coaching interview.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores met with the team on Tuesday. It’s the first head coaching interview for Flores in this cycle and he has also drawn interest from other teams as a defensive coordinator.
The Vikings have expressed a desired to have Flores back and PFT reported Monday that they are confident he will be back if he does not land a top job somewhere else.
The Ravens have also interviewed former Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, former Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Broncos quarterbacks coach/pass game coordinator Davis Webb, and Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph during their search for John Harbaugh’s successor.
Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter was expected to be a popular name in this year’s head coaching cycle and that expectation has proven to be correct.
Albert Breer of SI.com reports that Minter is set to interview with the Cardinals and Titans about their vacancies on Tuesday. He’ll then have a lot of other meetings over the rest of the week.
There was already word that the Browns, Ravens and Raiders wanted to interview Minter and Breer adds the Dolphins, Giants, and Falcons to that list. Minter is expected to make his way through the entire group with two interviews a day on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Minter’s defense was a major reason that the Chargers advanced to the playoffs the last two seasons and he ran the defense for Michigan when they won the national title in 2023. Given the level of interest in him right now, it won’t be a surprise if he’s running an entire team in the near future.
