Wade Phillips, a three-time former NFL head coach, has taken a leave of absence from his current position as head coach of the UFL’s San Antonio Brahmas.
The UFL announced on Wednesday that Phillips will step aside for personal reasons.
Offensive coordinator Payton Pardee will serve as the interim head coach for the balance of the 2025 season.
“The UFL is extremely grateful for the leadership that Wade has delivered to the UFL as head coach of the San Antonio Brahmas,” UFL president and CEO Russ Brandon and UFL executive V.P. of football operations Daryl Johnston said in a statement. “The credibility that he has brought to the UFL as a Head Coach validates what we are building as a league. This coaching legend has the respect of everyone in the league as well as throughout the entire football community for his dedication and accomplishments as a coach for over 50 years. If and when Wade is ready to return to the sidelines, the entire UFL Family will be there to cheer him on.”
Phillips coached the Houston Roughnecks of the XFL in 2023. When the XFL merged with the USFL in 2024, Phillips became head coach of the Brahmas. He led San Antonio to last year’s UFL championship.
Phillips’s coaching career began in 1969, as a graduate assistant at the University of Houston. He joined his father, Bum, in 1976 as defensive line coach of the Houston Oilers.
In 1981, he followed his father to the Saints, where he spent five seasons as defensive coordinator.
He has served as head coach of the Broncos, Bills, and Cowboys. He also worked as an interim head coach with the Saints and Falcons. After his NFL career concluded in 2019 as defensive coordinator of the Rams, he was out of football until the XFL came calling.
Veteran cornerback James Bradberry is in Buffalo on Wednesday.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that Bradberry is paying a visit to the Bills facility as he looks for a place to play in 2025. Bradberry was released by the Eagles earlier this year.
Bradberry missed the entire 2024 season after tearing his Achilles last summer. He started 37 games over his first two seasons in Philly and was named a second-team All-Pro after the 2022 campaign.
Bradberry played two years for the Giants before moving on to Philadelphia and he opened his career as a 2016 second-round pick in Carolina. Bills head coach Sean McDermott and General Manager Brandon Beane were both in the Panthers organization at the time.
Bradberry has played in 125 regular season games across all three stops and has 478 tackles, 19 interceptions, three sacks, four forced fumbles, and four fumble recoveries for his career.
The NFL’s young quarterbacks aren’t so young anymore.
Baker Mayfield, the first overall pick in the 2018 draft, turns 30 today. (Happy birthday.) Others aren’t far behind.
Within the next 21 months, the top four quarterbacks in the NFL will exit their twenties. First up is Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, on September 17. Next will be Bills quarterback Josh Allen, on May 21 of next year.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow gets there next, on December 10, 1996. Less than a month later, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson arrives in Club 30.
All five are in their prime. All five will keep achieving at a high level. Four of them are chasing their first Super Bowl win.
And while Mayfield isn’t in the same category as the other four, he’s closer than most realize. And the Buccaneers are quietly loaded for another potential division title — and maybe plenty more.
The first rule of Tank Club is don’t talk about Tank Club. In more ways than one.
Teams shouldn’t talk about it while they’re doing it. And the league prefers that it never be discussed after it has happened. Or after it hasn’t happened and the implications of it not happening become obvious.
Entering the final weekend of the 2024 regular season, the Patriots would have secured the first pick in the 2025 draft with a loss. Given the timing of the firing of coach Jerod Mayo (i.e., within an hour or so after the game ended), the decision to wipe the slate clean had been made.
And so, for the Patriots, a win would have meant nothing. A loss would have meant everything.
In the days preceding the draft, rumors were rampant that the Bills wanted to lose the game. That the Bills wanted to keep the Patriots from getting the first overall pick in the draft.
It wasn’t just pettiness from the Bills. They were protecting themselves against the Patriots parlaying the top pick into a player who might be a problem for the Bills, twice per year, for years to come.
Both teams seemingly tried to not win. The Patriots went with Joe Milton III at quarterback. (Starter Drake Maye was questionable with a hand injury.) The Bills, who had nailed down the No. 2 seed and had nothing to gain or to lose, benched quarterback Josh Allen for Mitch Trubisky. Late in the third quarter, after the Patriots took a 17-16 lead, Trubisky took a seat for third-stringer Mike White.
Mission accomplished, for Buffalo. Pats win. Bills lose. And New England’s potential clinching of the first pick in the draft melted into the reality of the fourth overall selection.
As the draft inches closer, the consequences of that game become more clear. The Patriots could have secured a massive haul of picks and/or players by trading down from the No. 1 spot to a team that covets Miami quarterback Cam Ward. Or New England could have stayed there, taking Colorado cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter or Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter.
Instead, the Patriots will get none of those things. No windfall for trading down from No. 1. No Travis Hunter. No Abdul Carter. All because they won when they shouldn’t have.
Some coaches firmly believe that tanking in all forms has very real consequences to the overall culture and psyche of a program. That losing breeds more losing, and winning breeds more winning. In this specific instance, however, a win by the Patriots — at a time when they already planned to fire their head coach — kept them from securing the kind of boost they won’t get as a result of winning. And it’s one of the most critical realities of late-season games for teams that have no shot at the playoffs.
In many situations, it makes far more sense to lose than to win. For the league, it makes perfect sense to ignore it completely. In an age of widespread legalized gambling, it’s more important than ever that the NFL sell the notion that every team is trying its damnedest to win every game. (Even when it isn’t.)
After the meaningless Week 18 win, the Patriots finished the 2024 season at 4-13 instead of 3-14. Who cares? They also ended without the first overall pick in the draft. Every Patriots fan should care about that. Because it has kept the franchise from having a potential franchise-altering moment if it could have traded down from No. 1 — or if it could have landed Hunter or Carter.
After former NFL cornerback Vontae Davis’ unexpected passing, Vernon Davis said his brother’s death was a mystery. It remains that way more than a year later.
The Broward County Medical Examiner released its autopsy report on Davis on Friday, listing the cause of death as “undetermined,” per Hal Habib of The Palm Beach Post.
Davis was found unresponsive at his grandmother’s home in South Florida on April 1, 2024. Vernon Davis has said Vontae collapsed after getting out of the sauna.
Police said foul play was not suspected.
Vontae was 35 years old.
The Dolphins made him a first-round pick in 2009, and he was in his 10th season when he abruptly retired during a game with the Bills. He spent six seasons in Indianapolis, earning two Pro Bowls.
