Vikings defensive lineman Jalen Redmond signed his exclusive rights free agent tender on Tuesday, according to the NFL’s transactions report.
Redmond, 26, appeared in all 17 games for the Vikings last season, starting 15 games. He totaled 62 tackles, six sacks, a forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and five pass breakups.
He entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent, signing with the Panthers out of Oklahoma in 2023. Redmond went on the physically unable to perform list during his first training camp, and the Panthers cut him.
Redmond played with the Arlington Renegades in the XFL in 2024, and then caught on with the Vikings that summer.
In 2024, he played 13 games, with two starts, and recorded 18 tackles, one sack and two pass breakups.
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One of the draft’s top tight ends is continuing a busy stretch this week.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Georgia’s Oscar Delp is visiting with the Buccaneers and Chargers this week.
Delp previously had top-30 visits with the Patriots, Ravens, and Vikings last week.
Delp did not work out at the scouting combine after a hairline fracture was revealed in his foot during a routine X-ray. But Delp was able to work out at Georgia’s Pro Day last month.
An experienced player at Georgia, Delp was on the field for 55 games with 34 starts. He totaled 70 receptions for 854 yards with nine touchdowns. That includes 21 receptions for 248 yards and four TDs in 2025.
In two different rulings issued less than 15 months apart, the internal grievance system created by the NFL and the NFL Players Association found that, essentially, the NFL invited its teams to collude on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts but the teams did not accept.
The first part is stunning, and in many ways unprecedented as it relates to the NFL. In response to the Deshaun Watson contract (five years, $230 million, fully guaranteed), the league sounded the alarm at the 2022 annual meeting.
From the notes of the presentation made to the teams in March 2022: "[I]f guarantees continue to grow in both amount and number of players, then there’s a risk that they become the norm in contracts regardless of player quality . . . That not only has the potential to hinder roster management but set a market standard that will be difficult to walk back. Of course, all Clubs must make their own decisions. But continuing these trends can handcuff a Club long into the future.”
The teams, per both the arbitrator and the three-person appeal panel, ignored this invitation/advice.
The appeals panel recognized that the teams will never admit to collusion, and that circumstantial evidence is “the coin of the[] realm” when it comes to proving it. The panel, however, found insufficient circumstantial evidence to prove that collusion occurred.
The panel dismissed expert testimony regarding the decrease in signing bonuses and guaranteed salary after the league invited the teams to collude. The panel rejected the basic, commonsensical idea that, if the league invited them to restrict guaranteed contracts and if guaranteed contracts were thereafter restricted, the teams must have followed the league’s advice.
It’s a myopic assessment of the real world that borders on the obtuse. The 32 teams operate as a league. They enjoy an antitrust exemption as to the player workforce through a multi-employer bargaining unit. The Collective Bargaining Agreement allows the teams to give players guaranteed contracts. The mere fact that the league would even broach the subject of the teams choosing to not do something the CBA allows them to do is, as the panel found, “improper.”
What other proof is needed to show that the league and the teams colluded?
Beyond that, the appeals panel acknowledged that the text-message exchange between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill after the Cardinals managed to avoid giving quarterback Kyler Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was “inappropriate.” The panel somehow found that Spanos thanking Bidwill for “staying strong” when it comes to not giving Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was not proof of collusion but of an “isolated incident.”
Some would call that “isolated incident” a “smoking gun.”
The appeals ruling ignores the evidence of internal communications within the Broncos organization regarding their negotiations with quarterback Russell Wilson. From the original arbitration ruling, owner Greg Penner told other members of the team’s ownership group that “there’s not[h]ing in here that other owners will consider off market (e.g. like the Watson guarantees).” Later, Penner told his partners that G.M. George Paton “feels very good about it for us as a franchise and the benchmark it sets (versus Watson) for the rest of the league.”
Why would or should the Broncos care what other owners think? The mere fact that the concern was on the radar screen shows that the Broncos were worried about running afoul of the wink-nod understanding that teams would hold the rope on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts after the Watson deal.
Although the panel did indeed find that the league invited teams to collude, what choice did it have? The NFL didn’t just say the quiet part out loud. It put it in writing! Anyone who understands how the NFL works knows what the message was, and how it was received. The Spanos-Bidwill texts confirm it, as do the internal Broncos communications.
And while the Ravens, per the panel, did indeed offer quarterback Lamar Jackson a pair of three-year fully-guaranteed contracts, he didn’t accept them. He wanted a five-year, fully-guaranteed deal, like the one Watson had gotten. The Ravens, to paraphrase Spanos, “stayed strong.”
Did the NFL invite the teams to collude? Yes. Did the teams thereafter accept the invitation? Hell yes.
The NFL suggesting that the teams refrain from doing something that the CBA allows them to do should have been enough. The Spanos-Bidwill texts should have been enough. The Broncos’ internal communications should have been enough.
Now that the league has dodged the collusion bullet, the NFL and its teams will learn from the experience. They’ll never put anything in writing that ever could be characterized as proof of collusion. And it will become even harder — if not impossible — for the NFLPA to prove collusion when it happens.
Even if it will happen. Because the facts of the failed grievance show, in our view, that it absolutely did.
Chris Payton-Jones, a former cornerback in the NFL and UFL, has died. He was 30.
Via Justin Barney of News4Jax, Payton-Jones was involved in a car accident on Saturday night.
Undrafted out of Nebraska in 2018, Payton-Jones played for the Cardinals, Lions, Vikings, and Titans. He appeared in 29 regular-season games, with six starts.
He played for the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL in 2023. He then played for the UFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks in 2024 and 2025.
“Chris was a beloved teammate and leader in the locker room, who demonstrated the importance of hard work, determination, and resilience throughout his career,” the UFL said in a statement. “As importantly, Chris was always a bright soul who everyone throughout the league enjoyed spending time with off-the-field during his three-year tenure.”
Payton-Jones had retired from football in January.
We extend our condolences to his family, friends, teammates, and coaches.
Ole Miss wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling has had a busy itinerary.
He has top-30 visits scheduled with the Vikings, Buccaneers, Bears and Eagles, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports.
Stribling played for three college programs in five seasons.
He played two seasons at Washington State and two seasons at Oklahoma State before moving to Oxford for his final college season. Stribling made 55 catches for 811 yards and six touchdowns last season after 50-catch seasons at each of his first two stops as well.
He ran a 4.36-second 40 at the NFL Scouting Combine.
The Vikings are spending some time with a potential addition to their wide receiver group on Thursday.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that former Ole Miss wideout De’Zhaun Stribling is visiting with the team.
Stribling played at Washington State and Oklahoma State before moving to Oxford for his final college season. He had 55 catches for 811 yards and six touchdowns in his lone season with the Rebels and had 50-catch seasons at each of his first two stops as well.
Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are the top returning members of a receiving corps that also includes Myles Price, Tai Felton, Jeshaun Jones, Dontae Fleming, and Joaquin Davis.
Having won the CFP National Championship with Indiana in January, running back Kaelon Black has a busy pre-draft schedule.
Black has several teams on his list for pre-draft, top 30 visits, including the Jets, Broncos, Panthers, Colts, Texans, Dolphins, Packers, Vikings, Patriots, and Raiders, a source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT.
He may also meet with the Bengals.
Black played under head coach Curt Cignetti at James Madison for two years before transferring to follow Cignetti to Indiana in 2024.
He rushed for 251 yards for Indiana in 2024 before becoming one of the Hoosiers’ two 1,000-yard backs in 2025, finishing the season with 1,040 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also caught four passes for 36 yards.
Kirk Cousins had multiple reasons to sign with the Raiders. Some substantive, at least one superficial.
“Best jerseys in pro sports I think,” Cousins told the team’s website on Monday. “I remember being in warm-ups once playing the Raiders and our head coach looked at me and said, ‘Those have to be the best jerseys that they are in pro sports.’ And I said, ‘You know what Coach, I have to agree. Those are really sharp.’”
Cousins didn’t specify the team for which he was playing at the time. He has a 3-0 career record as a starter against the Raiders — one with each of his three prior teams.
In 2017, Cousins and Washington beat the Raiders, 27-10. In 2019, Cousins at the Vikings beat the Raiders, 34-14. In 2024, Cousins and the Falcons beat the Raiders, 15-9.
Despite getting the victory in Las Vegas on a Monday night in December 2024, Cousins was benched the next day for then-rookie Michael Penix Jr. Cousins didn’t play again that season.
Now, he’s on track to start for the Raiders in Week 1, unless the Raiders don’t make quarterback Fernando Mendoza the first pick in the 2026 draft and unless Mendoza wins the job right out of the games.
As to his observation about the silver and black jerseys (along with the rest of the uniform), it’s hard to argue. There’s a reason the Raiders’ look has resisted becoming Nikefied in the 14 years since the company took over the apparel deal from Reebok, when change for the sake of change swept through the league.
While the team has needed a fix that so far remains elusive, there’s nothing broken about the Raiders’ uniforms. They’re simple and classic. And they’ve never felt compelled to embrace numbers that look different from the standard football-jersey numbers that were once nearly universal in the NFL.
Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins says he wanted to be a Raider because he wanted to play for new Las Vegas head coach Klint Kubiak.
Kubiak was Cousins’ quarterbacks coach for two seasons and offensive coordinator for one season in Minnesota, on a Vikings staff that also featured Raiders offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko and Raiders offensive line coach Rick Dennison.
“It starts with the coaching staff,” Cousins said in an interview published by the Raiders. “I was really excited to work with coaches I’ve worked with before in Klint Kubiak, Rick Dennison, Andrew Janocko. I had some of my best years playing with them. Coaching is a big deal in this league, so getting around them excited me. I think it’s a team that has a lot of young talent and they’re building something special, and I want to be a part of that.”
Cousins said Kubiak’s work with Sam Darnold last year in Seattle shows how good he is at helping quarterbacks play at a high level.
“I can talk about him all I want, but my actions really show what I think of him, by being here,” Cousins said of Kubiak. “Great football mind, hard working, there’s a humility there that I deeply respect. He’s a great question-asker who wants to do what the quarterback’s comfortable with.”
The in-house Raiders interview didn’t bring up the reality that Cousins is only a placeholder at quarterback in Las Vegas, where Fernando Mendoza is expected to be the first overall draft pick and future of the franchise. But at the moment, Cousins is the No. 1 quarterback on the Raiders’ depth chart, and as long as he has that role, he’s operating in an offense he thinks is a great fit for him.
The Vikings have not started their search for a permanent General Manager to replace Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.
The team fired Adofo-Mensah on Jan. 30, naming Rob Brzezinski as the interim G.M.
During the NFL’s spring meetings last week, Vikings owner Mark Wilf laid out the structure of the search.
He said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN, that a “small, tight group” would advise the Wilf family on the decision, with “input” from coach Kevin O’Connell and chief operating officer Andrew Miller. A “third-party” will also participate in the search, although Wilf said the team won’t use a search firm or a formal consultant.
Instead, the Vikings will contract with a service to reduce an initial list of candidates.
The team won’t begin interviews until after the April 23-25 draft, with Brzezinski, a longtime executive vice president with the Vikings, helping O’Connell run the show.
“He’s done an outstanding job in terms of in the building, building consensus, strategy,” Wilf said, via Seifter.
