The Dolphins are bringing in a player who’s familiar with their new General Manager and head coach.
Miami has claimed defensive tackle James Ester off of waivers, according to the league’s daily transaction wire.
Ester, who entered the league as an undrafted free agent in 2024, has spent the last two seasons on the Packers’ practice squad. He was waived by the club earlier this week.
Dolphins G.M. Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley were both previously with the Packers, giving them some inside knowledge about Ester.
Ester, however, has not yet appeared in a regular-season game.
Last month, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced legislation aimed at ensuring free, over-the-air access by citizens of a given state to all nationally-televised games involving the teams headquartered there. Naturally, then, she was dismayed to learn that the Packers-Rams game on Thanksgiving Eve will be streamed exclusively by Netflix.
“As the cost of just about everything continues to rise, the NFL is once again asking Wisconsinites to spend their hard-earned money on another streaming service,” Baldwin said. “Enough is enough. My ‘For the Fans Act’ would stop this exact scenario and prevent Wisconsin families from being forced to pay for Netflix just to watch the Packers play this Thanksgiving.”
The development comes at a time when the NFL is facing unprecedented political pressure, on multiple fronts. The Department of Justice is investigating whether the NFL has exceeded its current broadcast antitrust exemption. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, through the op-ed pages of his Wall Street Journal and the back channels of government, has pushed the question of whether the existing exemption should be scrapped.
In Wisconsin, the Packers-Rams game to be played the night before Thanksgiving will be televised by network affiliates in Green Bay and Milwaukee. The rest of WI will be SOL, absent a Netflix subscription. That same dynamic will apply to any Packers games on Prime Video.
Whether the For the Fans Act goes anywhere remains to be seen. Regardless, the complaints about requiring fans to pay to watch standalone NFL games is here to stay, until further notice.
Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst said earlier this month that the team expects edge rusher Micah Parsons to return early in the 2026 season after recovering from a torn ACL, but did not put any more specific time frame on how much time Parsons could miss.
A report on Thursday does a little more on that front. Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Parsons is a candidate to open the season on the physically unable to perform list.
If that’s the case, Parsons will not be able to play in the first four weeks of the regular season. He would be able to return to practice during that window, which would be important because remaining on the PUP list into the regular season would mean Parsons was not participating in training camp practices.
A clearer sense of when Parsons will be available will come well before Week 1 and the Packers will find out which games Parsons might miss when the NFL schedule is released on Thursday night.
Wide receiver Brenden Rice is on to Green Bay.
According to multiple reports, the Packers have claimed Rice off of waivers. The Raiders waived Rice when they signed linebacker Cameron McGrone this week.
Rice, who is the son of Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, joined the Raiders’ practice squad late last season. He also spent time on the practice squads of the Seahawks and Patriots after being waived by the Chargers in August.
Rice was a 2024 seventh-round pick by Los Angeles and he appeared in three games during his rookie season. He played three offensive snaps and 10 special teams snaps over those appearances.
The teams involved in the NFL’s first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game have been set.
Netflix will televise a game between the Packers and the Rams on Wednesday, November 25. The NFL also plans to hold three games on Thanksgiving and at least one game is expected to be played on Black Friday.
This is the second Rams game to be announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal. They will also face the 49ers in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1. That game will also be broadcast by Netflix.
It is the first Packers game to be revealed so far. If history is any guide, it will be one of multiple standalone games for Green Bay.
