Rich Bisaccia stepped down as the Packers’ special teams coordinator on Feb. 17. It came after his assistant special teams coordinator, Byron Storer, took a job as the Browns’ special teams coordinator.
Bisaccia is not retiring, though.
He has agreed to terms to join Clemson’s staff, Tiger Illustrated reports, pending the school’s board of trustees approval of the deal.
Bisaccia has a house in South Carolina.
The Tigers do not have a vacancy, with Mike Reed still on staff. He served as assistant head coach, special teams coordinator and cornerbacks coach last season.
Bisaccia has worked as the special teams coordinator for the Bucs, Chargers, Cowboys, Raiders and Packers. He was also assistant head coach for each of those teams, and in 2021, was the interim coach of the Raiders.
Jimmy Garoppolo could be making a comeback.
Not that he ever left. But he hasn’t been a starting quarterback since the Raiders benched him for Aidan O’Connell midway through the 2023 season.
Now, Garoppolo could be in play to fill the void created by the looming departure of Kyler Murray from the Cardinals.
Via Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com, the Cardinals are interested in Garoppolo. And for good reason. New head coach Mike LaFleur comes from the Rams, where Garoppolo has spent the last two seasons as the understudy to Matthew Stafford.
“That’s his guy,” an unnamed source told Fowler regarding Mike LaFleur’s opinion of Garoppolo.
The Cardinals also have Jacoby Brissett under contract for 2026. He’s due to make $5.44 million in 2026, with another $1 million if he takes 50 percent of the snaps and $1 million more if the percentage lands at 65 or higher. On the fifth day of the 2026 league year, $1.5 million of Brissett’s base salary becomes fully guaranteed.
Per Fowler, the Rams would welcome Garoppolo back as the No. 2 to Stafford. Garoppolo also is in play to replace Malik Willis as the No. 2 to Jordan Love in Green Bay.
Garoppolo has 64 career starts. The bulk of those came during five-plus years with the 49ers. In 2019, he led San Francisco to the Super Bowl.
For a brief time in 2018, Garoppolo was the highest-paid player in the league, at $27.5 million per year. He made $3 million last season with the Rams.
If the Cardinals keep Brissett and sign Garoppolo, it’ll be a reunion — 10 years later — of the quarterbacks who split four starts during Tom Brady’s #Deflategate suspension.
In little more than a week, the negotiating period will begin for impending free agents. And quarterback Malik Willis will undoubtedly be agreeing to terms quickly.
With the Packers having no real shot at keeping Willis as the No. 2 to Jordan Love, the tampering will be even more rampant than usual. A deal may already be done, now that the full week of rampant tampering and excessive consumption of bovine body parts in Indianapolis has ended.
So what will Willis get? One theory is that Willis will land in the range of $20 million to $25 million per year on a two- or three-year deal.
That’s at the lower end of the veteran starter scale. Last year, the Jets gave Justin Fields a two-year, $40 million deal with $30 million of it fully guaranteed. Although Fields played more than Willis (Fields had 50 appearances and 44 starts through four seasons; Willis has 22 and six), Willis played very well in limited opportunities during his two years in Green Bay.
Of course, if enough teams want Willis, the money could go higher. Maybe he could get to $30 million per year.
Last year, Sam Darnold parlayed 14 regular-season wins into $33.5 million over three years with Seattle. But the Seahawks didn’t have much if any competition for Darnold. The more suitors for Willis, the more he can make.
The ideal arrangement for Willis, if the number is south of $30 million per year, would be to have a very low cap number early in the deal and a bigger one later — big enough to give Willis the leverage to force an extension if things go well.
As mentioned earlier in the day, the Dolphins and Cardinals provide an important litmus test for his perceived potential. If neither wants him, it’s a red flag. If both want him, more should get involved. And he could end up with a better deal than expected.
Running back Emanuel Wilson will reportedly hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent next month.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that the Packers have decided not to tender Wilson a contract as a restricted free agent. Any tender offers must be extended ahead of the start of the 2026 league year on March 11.
Wilson has appeared in 41 regular season games and four playoff games for Green Bay over the last three seasons. He has 242 carries for 1,083 yards and seven touchdowns in the regular season and 16 carries for 45 yards in the postseason.
Josh Jacobs and MarShawn Lloyd are set to return at running back for the Packers.
The most storied rivalry in football is generating some good stories.
After the Bears beat the Packers in the playoffs (it was only the third postseason meeting between the franchises), Chicago coach Ben Johnson declared in the locker room, “Fuck the Packers! Fuck them!” Addressing his reaction later, Johnson’s explanation was simple, “I don’t like that team.”
In a visit this week with PFT Live, Johnson was asked to elaborate.
“Who likes the Packers?” Johnson said.
The next question focused on whether Johnson is simply leaning into his job as head coach of the Bears, or whether he truly doesn’t like the Packers.
“The Bears and the Packers, they should not like each other,” Johnson said. “I think it’s as simple as that. And I think that’s gonna make this rivalry, this game, something that people are going to watch here going forward.”
He’s right about that. Even though the NFL tends to market itself, a WWE-style effort to stir things up a bit only makes an upcoming game more compelling. Case in point: Every network and streamer will be jockeying with 345 Park Avenue to televise one of the two games between Chicago and Green Bay during the 2026 season.
But there’s another side to it. Johnson has made Packers coach Matt LaFleur a periodic pin cushion, starting with Johnson’s introductory press conference more than a year ago. Within the high-turnover coaching industry, where relationships among coaches with other teams fuel future employment prospects, open hostility from one head coach to another is rare.
Johnson was asked whether he has talked to LaFleur, who seems to be confused by all of it.
“We don’t talk,” Johnson said.
Does he want it that way?
“I’m good with it.”
Has he tried to reach out?
“No.”
Bears fans love it. The YouTube version of the full interview and the social-media clips drew significant attention, with nearly 600,000 views. Chicago sports radio was buzzing.
So, yes, it’s good for business — ours and the NFL’s — for Johnson to embrace and to reflect the basic reality that the Bears and Packers should not like each other. In an age where players come and go far more often than they did in the days before free agency and the salary cap, the hatred the fans feel toward a rival isn’t shared by the men in uniform.
Johnson is taking a very different approach. To the delight of everyone in Chicago, and Bears fans everywhere.
