When the Chiefs play the Saints on Monday night, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the offense will line up against former Kansas City safety Tyrann Mathieu for the first time.
Mathieu signed with the Chiefs as a free agent in 2019 and became one of the pieces that pushed Kansas City to win Super Bowl LIV that season. He was a first-team All-Pro in two of his three years with the Chiefs before they let him walk in free agency, and he signed with New Orleans.
Both head coach Andy Reid and Mahomes praised Mathieu in their respective press conferences on Thursday.
“Phenomenal player,” Reid said. “I’ll vote for him for the Hall of Fame going forward — I don’t have a vote but I would vote for him. He’s a tremendous leader. He actually makes this his home here, so I think when he’s done, he’ll probably come back here. Great kid, great player, brings a lot of energy.”
“[J]ust seeing that type of leader, I think, was something that I will forever remember,” Mahomes said. “The way he inspired guys, the energy that he played with — obviously, he is a great football player — everybody can see that — but he is truly a great leader, one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around. He pushed to get the best out of everybody every single day, he treated practice like games, he tried to get better every single day, and that’s something that has helped me become who I am.
“A great football player, man. I’m hoping that he gets out there, not for me and my sake because he’s a great football player and always around the ball, but I think Kansas City getting to see him come back and be on that field again would be special for the city.”
Mahomes noted that Mathieu’s influence was particularly helpful for him as a young player. The quarterback was in just his third season and second as a starter when Kansas City signed Mathieu.
“I watched him when he was in college and he dominated college football, and then getting into the NFL, and all the great plays that he had made, and then being able to see him on a day-to-day basis — you want to see those guys that are the top of the top and how they prepare every single day,” Mahomes said. “And he was one of those guys that you knew why he was great when you saw him practice and how he went about his business.”
Mathieu started 47 games with the Chiefs over three seasons, recording 13 interceptions with 27 passes defensed and 3.0 sacks.
So far in 2024, Mathieu has three passes defensed with two interceptions, along with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
There’s been plenty of focus on the Jets as a possible landing spot for Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams in a trade, but Aaron Rodgers isn’t the only former Adams teammate who has been on the radar in recent days.
A report also named the Saints as a team that Adams would be interested in playing for and a move to New Orleans would reunite him with Derek Carr. Carr and Adams were teammates at Fresno State as well as in Adams’s first year with the Raiders.
On Thursday, Carr called Adams one of his best friends and said they speak all the time. That includes this week, although he added that the conversations have not been “about what you would probably think.” Carr said he’d love to play with Adams again, but added that he doesn’t think that puts him in exclusive company around the NFL.
“I think all 32 quarterbacks would love to play with Davante,” Carr said in a press conference. “We would welcome that. I don’t know if I’d get in trouble for saying that. I think it’s just everyone kind of knows that.”
Carr declined to answer a question about why Adams would want out of Vegas, but did note that Adams had more than 1,500 receiving yards when they played together in 2022.
Saints head coach Dennis Allen provided an update on tight end Taysom Hill’s condition on Thursday and it didn’t provide much optimism about his availability for Monday’s game against the Chiefs.
Hill missed Week Three with a chest injury and suffered a different injury to his ribs in last Sunday’s loss to the Falcons. He has not practiced this week and Allen said on Thursday, via multiple reporters, that Hill has fractures to the ribs.
Allen said he did not know at this point if Hill is a candidate for injured reserve, which would rule him out for at least four games.
Hill ran for two touchdowns against Atlanta before leaving the game, so the Saints may have to find another complement for Alvin Kamara in the backfield this week.
With Raiders receiver Davante Adams due to make $983,333 in salary each week plus $30,000 for each game in which he’s on the active roster, his remaining compensation could create a cap issue for a team that trades for him. Moreover, the new team might believe the balance due is more than it wants to pay.
As a result, some believe that the Raiders might end up paying some of the money in order to facilitate the trade.
This would position the Raiders to get better trade compensation. The less the new team pays, the more the new team might be willing to give up a better package of picks and/or players.
Then there’s the future. No one will pay Adams $35.64 million in 2025. Unless a new deal is done as Adams comes through the door, the trade will become a part-year rental, as a practical matter. That will impact the value the new team is willing to surrender.
It’s not unprecedented. Teams use cash and cap space to essentially purchase draft picks. In this, if the Raiders pay some of the money, they get better picks — as they try to build their roster into a contender.
If/when the Raiders trade receiver Davante Adams, his next team will need to have one specific issue under control before the deal is done.
The team will need to have enough salary cap space to absorb Adams’s contract.
His salary is $16.89 million. It works out to $938,333 per week. If a team trades for him now, the cap charge for his salary will be 14/18ths — $13.13 million. Each week, it will drop by another $938,333.
Adams also has $510,000 in per-game active roster bonuses. With 13 games left, that’s another $390,000 in current cap space.
The new team will have to take on the remaining salary and per-game roster bonus at the time the trade is made. Which means that, if the team needs cap space, it’ll have to clear space by tinkering with other contracts and kicking the can into future years.
After the deal is done, the team and Adams could work out a new deal. If they don’t, it’ll likely be a part-year rental; next year, his salary shoots to $35.64 million. He’ll be cut before the start of the 2025 league year.
With the Raiders looking more likely to trade receiver Davante Adams, there’s new reporting on his preferred destinations — and they’re not a surprise.
Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Jets and the Saints are high on Adams’ wishlist of potential places to land.
If Adams were to be traded to New York or New Orleans, he’d reunite with one of his previous quarterbacks in Aaron Rodgers or Derek Carr.
Adams reportedly requested a trade earlier this week.
The Saints would likely have to do some maneuvering to fit Adams in under the cap on his current contract. Via Katherine Terrell of ESPN, New Orleans has $3.265 million left in cap space for this year whereas Adams is owed $13.13 million in remaining base salary for 2024.
Adams is currently dealing with a hamstring injury and missed last week’s win over Cleveland. He has recorded 18 catches for 209 yards with one touchdown so far in 2024.
He ended last season with 103 catches for 1,144 yards with eight TDs.
In most cases of a potentially serious knee injury, an MRI is performed no later than the next day. The results are then announced or leaked.
In the case of Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice, an MRI on his injured knee was performed on Monday, per a source with knowledge of the situation. The results, however, have been neither announced nor leaked.
All signs point to a serious injury; the Chiefs feared a torn ACL. Post-game comments from coach Andy Reid strongly indicated that the team was expecting bad news. The absence of any news does nothing to change that vibe.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, “there remains uncertainty over the extent” of the injury. There will be more testing and evaluation, including a second opinion. “No answers are expected until next week,” Schefter reports.
The Chiefs have no obligation to say anything for now. They play next Monday night against the Saints. The first injury report will be issued on Thursday. They’ll be obligated to say he didn’t practice, due to the knee.
They can do the same thing on Friday and Saturday before ruling him out for the Week 5 game. Unless it turned out to be a short-term thing (unlikely), they’ll likely place him on injured reserve before the next game, opening up a roster spot.
Regardless, the wait for official word regarding Rice’s injury continues.
The Chiefs are bracing for bad news on Rashee Rice, but head coach Andy Reid did not have a confirmed diagnosis when he spoke to reporters in his Monday news conference.
“As far as Rashee’s injury goes, we’re still testing him on things here,” Reid said. “So, I don’t have a definite [diagnosis] for you right now. But we will get it to you. He’s not going to be available, obviously, this week. So we’re going to make sure we get all the tests that need to be done, done. And then we’ll let you know on that.”
Rice is feared to have torn his ACL. He was hit after quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw an interception in the first half of Sunday’s eventual win over the Chargers.
A second-round pick in last year’s draft, Rice had become Mahomes’ go-to receiver in the early going of this season. He recorded 24 receptions for 288 yards with two touchdowns in the first three games.
Already without Hollywood Brown, the Chiefs currently have Xavier Worthy, Mecole Hardman, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Justin Watson, and Skye Moore at receiver on the 53-man roster. They have Justyn Ross, Nikko Remigio, and Montrell Washington at receiver on the practice squad.
After winning their first two games in impressive fashion, the Saints have dropped their last two by giving up late fourth-quarter leads.
Sunday’s 26-24 loss to the division-rival Falcons was plenty disappointing for New Orleans quarterback Derek Carr.
“It hurts,” Carr said in his postgame press conference. “You try your best not to be so angry about it, but you hate losing. You hate losing, especially close ones. They just stink. I thought positively, we ran the ball, we threw it effectively. Compared to last week, I thought we got better, but just like Debo [Paulson Adebo] said, it’s not good enough. We got to do better, and obviously, it wasn’t enough to get a win today.”
Carr and the Saints took a 24-23 lead with Alvin Kamara’s 1-yard touchdown run with a minute left in the fourth quarter. But a defensive pass interference penalty put the Falcons in position for a game-winning 58-yard field goal.
Last year, the Saints also started out 2-0 before dropping a pair of games to fall to 2-2. The club was up and down for the rest of the season, though they did win four of their last five to finish 9-8 — just missing out on the postseason.
But Carr doesn’t think 2024 will be a complete reflection of 2023.
“I’ll say that just as a team, we’re just in such a much better place than last year,” Carr said. “Last year, everything was new, and we’re all figuring each other out. This year, we know who we are, and we know what we’ve earned. We’ve earned 2-2. That’s what we’ve earned. It’s not good enough. Not good enough in our organization to be .500. That’s never the standard for us, and that will never be acceptable as leaders. That’s just not acceptable here.
“We hold that standard, but at the same time, there’s no pointing fingers. It’s all people pointing their thumb at themselves saying, ‘I will do that better, I will do that better, I’ll do that better, and we’re going to be better.’ We’ve been here. We know the mindset and the work it takes. We know that it doesn’t get easier as you go forward. Having that experience to go off of last year is a benefit, honestly, because we’re going to rally together. I know one thing, our team’s going to get tighter, and we’re going to be more unified going forward, even more so than today. We’ll keep going and hopefully build on getting a win, get back in the win column.”
The Saints will be on the road again to play the Chiefs on Monday night in Week 5.
Saints tight end Taysom Hill returned to the lineup on Sunday after missing last week’s loss to the Eagles with a chest injury, but he wasn’t able to finish the game after an injury to a similar part of the body.
After the game, Saints head coach Dennis Allen offered an update on Hill’s condition. Allen said that Hill did not aggravate the earlier injury and suffered an injury to ribs on the other side of his body.
Hill ran for two touchdowns before leaving the 29-27 loss and that left Alvin Kamara, who is dealing with a rib injury of his own, to carry the load in the backfield the rest of the way.
The Saints also saw linebacker Willie Gay leave the game with an injury and opened it without linebacker Demario Davis, guard Cesar Ruiz, and center Erik McCoy. McCoy is on injured reserve, but the team will hope to get some or all of the others back for their Week Five trip to Kansas City.