Eddie Hill, who spent six seasons playing running back in the NFL, has died at the age of 67.
The Dolphins announced on Monday that Hill died. Hill had been battling brain cancer for several years.
After playing his college football at Memphis, Hill was selected by the Rams in the second round of the 1979 NFL draft. After two years with the Rams, Hill was traded to the Dolphins.
In his NFL career Hill had 120 carries for 443 yards, 26 catches for 171 yards, and 17 kickoff returns for 330 yards.
The Dolphins reportedly won’t be using the franchise tag on safety Jevón Holland. Holland also thinks that the Dolphins are ready to let him walk.
Via Adam Stites of USA Today, Holland believes the team’s recent social-media posts mean that he’s not in the organization’s plans.
“Transparently, seeing the Dolphins post things like the Valentine’s Day stuff or like any kind of edit and things like that,” Holland said on his podcast, Breakin’ House Rules. “You can see guys that may not be here next year or may be somewhere else are just not in it. I’m following them on Instagram, right? And I’m not in none of this [expletive] no more. I’m like, OK, they’ve kinda moved on.
“I get it. I understand the decision to do that because I would do the same if I was in the same position. But from my perspective, I’m just watching it like — I get it, but like, OK, this is the effects of being a free agent. Your team, or what was your team, starts to phase you out, in a way.”
Beyond the social-media messages, Holland would know if the Dolphins were trying to re-sign him. If there’s been no effort to do it by now, there likely won’t be — especially with the Scouting Combine a/k/a Tampering Central starting this week.
Holland, 24, was a second-round pick in 2021. At the time, Brian Flores was the head coach. That puts the Vikings on the radar screen for a potential reunion between Holland and Flores.
Soon-to-be-free-agent quarterback Aaron Rodgers has two factors regarding his next team. One is obvious. The other becomes a lot fuzzier, and it will limit his options.
First, as Rodgers said, they have to want you. That’s true for any transaction. If the team doesn’t want the player, it’s hard for the player to play for the team.
Second, as Rodgers also said, it needs to be a “good team.” So which teams would qualify?
Several teams are likely if not definitely looking for 2025 starters: The Steelers, Browns, Titans, Raiders, Giants. Which of those is “good”?
The objective assessment is irrelevant. Rodgers’s opinion is the only one that matters.
Of course a “not good” team can become a “good” team if Rodgers plays well. But he didn’t apply that caveat. He said a “good team,” presumably with or without him.
From that list, who’s “good”? The Steelers are the best. They made the playoffs in 2024, without the kind of high-end quarterback performance that Rodgers could provide.
The Titans are in a weak division, and Rodgers could allow them to compete with the Texans for the AFC South title. The issue in Nashville continues to be the presence of 13-year Packers executive Chad Brinker as the latest guy with final say over the football operation. Does he want a Rodgers reunion? Does Rodgers, given his well-documented feelings about the Green Bay front office, want Brinker?
The Browns could be a “good team.” It’s harder to make that argument when their best player wants out, however.
The Giants seemingly need more help than Rodgers could supply to compete with the Eagles, Commanders, and Cowboys.
Other teams are possible. The Vikings would have to decide whether to roll with 2024 first-rounder J.J. McCarthy or roll the dice on a year with Rodgers (which would continue the Brett Favre career arc). The Rams could be interested if they trade Matthew Stafford, even if Stafford is four years younger and currently better. (Both Minnesota and L.A. seemingly fall within the “good” category.)
The Colts could want an in-house alternative to Anthony Richardson. The Saints still haven’t made a firm decision about Derek Carr. The Dolphins need a better backup to Tua Tagovailoa. (That said, having Rodgers around would be less than ideal for Tua.) And the Seahawks could, in theory, decide to shift from Geno Smith to Rodgers. (While G.M. John Schneider worked for the Packers when Rodgers was drafted, coach Mike Macdonald has said repeatedly that Smith is their guy.)
In the end, Rodgers might have to relax his definition of “good team” to be the “best of the not-objectively-good teams that want me.” It still remains to be seen whether anyone will.
Really, there’s a chance that no one does. It’s been more than a week since the Jets announced Rodgers will be released, and there’s yet to be a report regarding any team that intends to pursue him.
We’ll likely find out more next week, when the NFL descends on Indy for the Scouting Combine and Rodgers’s future becomes one of the hottest topics. If teams are interested, someone will say something to someone else at some point.
Until then, there’s no clear reason to think that the first of Rodgers’s two factors will be satisfied.
The Dolphins are not expected to use the franchise tag on safety Jevón Holland, Cameron Wolfe of NFLMedia reports. That would allow Wolfe to hit free agency as the top player at his position.
The franchise tag at Holland’s position is expected to be $19.6 million and the transition tag $15.6 million.
After the Dolphins didn’t extend Holland’s contract before the 2024 season, when he made $3.37 million, it was expected he would hit free agency in 2025.
The Dolphins’ other starting safety, Jordan Poyer, also is scheduled to become a free agent.
The Jaguars could have interest in Holland with defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile having been on staff in Miami for three seasons with Holland.
Holland, a second-round pick in 2021, has totaled 301 tackles, five interceptions, 25 pass breakups, five forced fumbles and five sacks in his career.
How strong is the word “Olympics”? Strong enough to make millions pay attention to sports that, for the ensuing three years and 50 weeks, they don’t care about.
Sprinter Noah Lyles hopes to change that. And the 2024 gold medalist plans to start the process by racing Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill.
“Something that’s constantly on my mind is how to keep track relevant,” Lyles told NBC News. “Track and field has a great reputation inside of the Olympics, but in the marketing sense, when it comes to the U.S., it’s just fallen short a few too many times.”
Lyles also has a selfish motivation, in light of the lack of enduring and widespread fame that comes from winning gold and becoming regarded as the fastest man on the planet.
“I want to be more than just a runner because there’s enough runners,” Lyles said. “But who’s the performers?”
So one way to perform, in Lyles’s mind, would be to race — and beat — someone far more famous who plays the most popular sport in America.
“I’m not here to play around,” Lyles said. “I’m dead serious about this. I’m going to bring everything I got for this.”
He’s willing to take the heat for the perception that he’s lowering himself to race someone who isn’t a world-class sprinter.
“I get a lot of hate from people who don’t believe that I should be racing him,” Lyles said. “And they’re like, ‘This is beneath you.’ Well, apparently it’s not, because here we are.”
Some would say that, in reality, it’s beneath Hill.
Although the details about Tyreek vs. Noah (or Noah vs. Tyreek) haven’t been announced (including, you know, distance), Lyles’s effort to hype the TBD footrace includes boasting that he plans to set a new world record.
“I’m more thinking about, ‘Dang, I have an opportunity to break the world record along with beating Tyreek’,” Lyles said. “So Tyreek better be ready, because if a world record gets dropped on his head, he ain’t gonna be able to hear nothing.”
Whether that’s enough to get people fully invested in the race remains to be seen. Maybe they should stage an argument on Bourbon Street, too.
