The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
Saints center Erik McCoy has missed more games than he’s played over the last two seasons.
McCoy missed 10 games in 2024 with elbow and groin injuries before missing another 10 last season with a torn biceps. That’s left a hole at a key spot on the New Orleans line too often, but McCoy does not believe that there’s much he can do beyond hoping for better fortune in 2026.
McCoy said he’ll do anything he can to lessen injury risk, but that “the play where I tore my bicep was something I’ve done a million times” to illustrate that injuries in the NFL come down to the “luck of the draw” more than anything else. Given that feeling, McCoy said he won’t alter his playing style in hopes of being on the field more often.
“There’s always going to be an awareness, but you can’t play with an awareness, you know what I mean?” McCoy said, via Luke Johnson of NOLA.com. “It’s kind of just got to be reckless abandon, and whatever happens happens. I’m going to keep that same mentality. I don’t want to be a guy that plays timid, that plays soft, that plays afraid to get hurt. If I play like that, I should quit football.”
McCoy went to the Pro Bowl after starting all 17 games in 2023. The Saints would welcome a reprise on both fronts in 2026.
It took some time, but defensive end Cam Jordan and the Saints agreed on a contract that will keep the veteran in New Orleans for a 16th season.
Jordan said that will also be his final year in the NFL, but he’s not just back for a retirement tour. During an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio, safety Justin Reid called Jordan one of the first people that comes to mind when you think of the Saints and that his presence is significant to what the team is trying to build in 2026.
“Huge for the culture of the team, hard worker, still productive going into Year 15-16, whatever it is,” Reid said. “I think that aside from his production on the field, which he still has a healthy engine running, I think that he’s so good for the defensive line and the defense in general just by bringing that veteran leadership, that consistency. Having a Hall of Fame guy in the locker room that guys can bounce questions off of, they know what it looks like. ‘Hey, if I want to play this long, it looks like Cam Jordan. Do what he does.’”
Jordan had 10.5 sacks last season, so there’s a number of ways that he can benefit the Saints in a swan song that could include his first trip to the playoffs since 2020.
Former NFL linebacker Keith Mitchell has died, Texas A&M athletics announced on Thursday. Mitchell was 51.
His cause of death is unknown.
The Saints signed Mitchell as an undrafted free agent in 1997, and he played five seasons in New Orleans. In 2000, Mitchell earned Pro Bowl honors.
He played with the Texans in 2002 and was with the Jaguars in 2003 before his retirement.
Mitchell totaled 408 tackles and 19.5 sacks in 94 career games.
He was inducted into the A&M Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015 after a four-year career that saw him earn All-Southwest Conference honors in 1995 and an All-Big 12 nod in 1996. He made 34 career sacks for the Aggies, including 14.5 during his senior season.
Before the Texans nearly made it to the AFC Championship for the first time in franchise history, they started the year 0-3. Then, they shook things up by abruptly cutting safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
It was a surprising move, especially since the Texans (who acquired Gardner-Johnson in a trade with the Eagles) made no effort to re-trade him. They simply cut ties with him.
The Texans never provided a clear explanation of why Gardner-Johnson, who had just won a Super Bowl in Philadelphia, needed to go. In a new interview with Tim Graham of The Athletic, Gardner-Johnson supplies his side of the story.
According to the player, things started to go sideways at training camp in West Virginia, after a confrontation with “the GM’s friend.”
“If y’all going to cut me, cut me,” Gardner-Johnson said. “But I’ll give nobody reasons to cut me. I haven’t. I don’t. I’m not a cancer. There’s nobody in this locker room that says, ‘Chauncey’s a problem.’ The media loves me. The only thing that’ll do it is something that triggers somebody that has a say in the building that can alter somebody else’s mind. That happens every time.
“That’s how I got [cut] in Houston. One person that’s not technically a part of the organization called me a B-word at Greenbrier. I get out my body; he says something to the GM, and the next thing I’m cut.”
The Texans declined to comment for Graham’s story. Still, the objective timeline doesn’t exactly support the effort to connect the training-camp incident to Gardner-Johnson’s release.
The Texans were at The Greenbrier from August 4 to August 7. The Texans cut him on September 23, a full 47 days after leaving West Virginia.
It had been reported that Gardner-Johnson struggled to learn the Houston defense, and that he “finger-pointed” in lieu of accepting responsibility for his mistakes. Another report indicated that the team had become exhausted by his complaints.
Whatever the reason for his exit from the Texans, Gardner-Johnson has never stayed in one place for very long. Picked by New Orleans in the fourth round of the 2019 draft, the Saints traded him to the Eagles after three seasons. After one year in Philly, he signed with the Lions. After one year with the Lions, he returned to the Eagles. After another year with the Eagles, he was traded to the Texans.
Cut after three games in Houston, Gardner-Johnson landed on the practice squad in Baltimore. One week later, the Ravens released him.
The Bears signed him in late October, and he finished 2025 in Chicago. Then, Gardner-Johnson signed with the Bills.
Seven seasons. Six departures. Gardner-Johnson can say it’s not him — and maybe it isn’t. Still, he’s made six exits in less than four calendar years (the Saints traded him to the Eagles on August 30, 2022).
On several occasions, Gardner-Johnson aired grievances after his departures. He called his year with the Lions “hell,” and he claimed he was “lied to.” He said the Eagles traded him after the team won Super Bowl LIX because they were “scared of a competitor.”
He complained to Graham about his week in Maryland: “They sign you in the middle of the night with the plan for you to play that week, then literally 14 hours later they trade for a safety and tell you, ‘Oh, we’re going to start him and keep you on the practice squad.’ I’m a Super Bowl champion!”
Despite his performance in 11 games with the Bears, Gardner-Johnson told Graham that he knew the Bears wouldn’t re-sign him.
“I’m a firecracker, but let’s take the body of work: never legally been in trouble; never physically harmed a person,” Gardner-Johnson said. “But I haven’t been a captain ever in my life. They say, ‘You gotta lead the right way.’ My definition of leading is winning. . . . There’s a lot of captains in this league — and I want this to come out — that’s just for jersey sales. I can show you three, four captains right now that I wouldn’t get behind. Why would I get behind anybody that doesn’t believe in himself? I’ve played for plenty of false captains, but I gotta fake it, like, ‘That’s my leader!’”
He knows that people already think the Bills will cut him. Bills GM Brandon Beane was nevertheless willing to roll the dice on Gardner-Johnson, after both doing the research on the player and making sure he understands the ground rules.
“We talked about just making sure, ‘You’ve got to be a good teammate,’” Beane said. “We don’t want any cheap shots in practice or anything like that. You want to keep it in between those lines, but you do want his edge.”
Implied in that message is that Beane concluded Gardner-Johnson has a reputation for not being a good teammate, and for taking cheap shots in practice.
So far, the Bills seem to like him. Defensive coordinator Jim Leonard calls Gardner-Johnson a player who “loves football,” and who “loves being in the building.”
The challenge isn’t to be in the building. The challenge is to stay in the building. Gardner-Johnson vows that he will.
“I’m going to win the next two out of three Super Bowls,” he told Graham. “How? Look where they placed me at. Look who’s my quarterback. If I got a fucking fighting chance, it’s over with.”
Frankly, that’s the kind of fire the underachieving Bills need from their new “firecracker” safety. And maybe it’ll be enough to have a “C” on Gardner-Johnson’s jersey when he walks onto the field for Buffalo’s Week 1 game at, yes, the Texans.
