The NFL has announced the names of the current and former players that will take part in next week’s draft by announcing second-round picks.
The list includes players associated with all 32 teams, including Cardinals running back James Conner. Conner has strong ties to the Pittsburgh area after playing for the Steelers and attending Pitt, which likely made him an easy choice as the Cardinals’ representative.
Former Bears tackle Jimbo Covert, former Cowboys running back Tony Dorsett, former Chiefs defensive lineman Bill Maas, current Vikings tackle Brian O’Neill, former Jets running back Curtis Martin, and former 49ers punter Andy Lee are other Pitt alums who are set to take part.
The hometown team will be represented by four players. Former Steelers Jerome Bettis and John Stallworth will be joined by Joey Porter Sr. and Jr. next Friday.
The other players taking part and their team affiliations appear below:
Falcons: Michael Turner
Ravens: Mark Ingram
Bills: Shane Conlan
Panthers: Jake Delhomme
Bengals: Ken Anderson
Browns: Phil Dawson
Cowboys: Drew Pearson
Broncos: T.J. Ward
Lions: Calvin Johnson
Packers: John Kuhn
Texans: Billy Miller
Colts: Pat McAfee
Jaguars: Paul Posluszny
Raiders: Matt Millen
Chargers: Shawne Merriman
Rams: Tavon Austin
Dolphins: Dwight Stephenson
Patriots: Deion Branch
Saints: Marques Colston
Giants: Osi Umenyiora
Eagles: Brian Westbrook
Seahawks: Cliff Avril
Buccaneers: Ronde Barber
Titans: Jeffery Simmons
Commanders: Mark Rypien
Saints Clips
The Saints have meetings with a couple of wide receivers on the docket for Saturday.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Ted Hurst and Omar Cooper are both slated to visit with the NFC South team.
Hurst had 127 catches for 1,965 yards and 15 touchdowns at Georgia State the last two seasons. He transferred to the school after playing at Valdosta State and is meeting with the Falcons on Friday. Another local prospect, former Georgia defensive tackle Christen Miller, is also in Atlanta.
Hurst is not generally projected to go as early in the draft as Cooper, who starred at Indiana en route to last season’s national title. Cooper is meeting with the Commanders on Friday.
The Saints exercised the fifth-year option on defensive tackle Bryan Bresee’s contract, Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football reports.
The option is worth $13.931 million, fully guaranteed for 2027.
The Saints drafted Bresee with the 29th overall pick in 2023.
He has played 49 games, with 26 starts, in his three seasons, totaling 37 tackles, 2.5 sacks, eight quarterback hits, three pass breakups and a forced fumble.
In 2025, he appeared in 15 games and recorded 37 tackles, five tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks, a forced fumble and three pass breakups.
The Saints’ move to sign Travis Etienne as a free agent last month raised questions about Alvin Kamara’s future in New Orleans.
Head coach Kellen Moore said last week that Kamara is “certainly on the roster and part of the running back room” while adding that there’s enough work for multiple backs in the offense. During an appearance on The Jim Rome Show, Etienne said he’s been part of shared backfields in the past and that he thinks it would benefit both players to share the load this season.
“It just makes it better for both of us,” Etienne said. “Every time we’re out there, we want to feel fresh. It keeps the defense on their toes. They’ve gotta worry about two guys instead of one. I feel like it’s only gonna make the team better.”
A strong ground game would seem to be a good thing to help quarterback Tyler Shough continue to progress in his first full season as the team’s starter and it seems like the two-headed approach may be the one they deploy as they work to create it.
Wide receiver Makai Lemon is expected to be a first-round pick in this month’s draft and he’s making the rounds with some of the teams that could add him to their lineup.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Lemon visited with the Chiefs on Thursday. Kansas City has the ninth overall pick this year.
Lemon is also slated to meet with the Jets, Giants, Commanders and Dolphins. The Jets have the second and 16th picks, the Giants are slated to pick fourth, the Commanders are at No. 7 and the Dolphins have both the 11th and 30th picks. Lemon also spent time with the Saints, who pick eighth, in March.
Lemon had 79 receptions for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns at USC during the 2025 season. He was given the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver.
Offseason programs will start getting underway around the NFL next week.
The ten teams that hired new coaches this offseason will be eligible to start working with their players on Monday, April 6. The Ravens are the only team that has set that as their first day of work while the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Steelers and Titans have set Tuesday as their opening day.
All of those teams will also be able to hold a voluntary minicamp later in the spring. Every team is also scheduled to hold a rookie minicamp and a mandatory minicamp over the course of the next few months.
The first two weeks of work for all teams is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation only. The three-week second phase allows for on-field work, but no full-speed team drills while the third OTA phase allows for team drills, but there is no live contact allowed at any point in the offseason.
Most of the 22 teams with returning coaches will be opening their offseason programs on April 20 or 21. The Broncos have set May 4 as their first day.
At a time when tanking has become a regular talking point for the NBA, the NFL’s approach typically goes like this: See no tanking, hear no tanking, speak no tanking.
Commissioner Roger Goodell was required to break from that habit on Tuesday, when he was asked about tanking at the press conference that capped the league’s annual meeting.
“We obviously keep a keen focus on it, but we don’t see any evidence of that,” Goodell told reporters, via Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald.
He then pivoted to touting the competitive nature of the league, with “players and coaches who want to win, and they’re out there playing their hearts out.”
But the issue isn’t whether the players and (for the most part) coaches want to win. Tanking can happen when owners and executives who make a business decision about the cost of finishing, say, 3-14 instead of 4-13, and the benefit of landing higher in the draft order.
Late in a lost season, a team can legitimately decide to evaluate younger players, or (as the Raiders did in 2025) shut down key players who had been playing with injuries.
Tanking doesn’t happen often in the NFL, in large part because the season is short enough to minimize the number of games during which a bad team is dog paddling through the final legs of a lost season. But it has happened.
The best example of blatant tanking came in 2014, when the Buccaneers removed a large chunk of their starters to start the second half of a Week 17 game against the Saints. At halftime, the Buccaneers led 20-7. The Saints won the game, 23-20.
“Heck, they lost a game on purpose to us at the end of the season prior with [head coach] Lovie Smith,” then-Saints coach Sean Payton said in 2020. “They forced Lovie [Smith] to take his starters out of the game so they could get the one spot to draft Jameis [Winston].”
Payton explained the dynamic during a subsequent visit to PFT Live. The Buccaneers put down the sword to clinch the Jameis pick by removing their best players. The players who were inserted into the game were trying to win. They weren’t good enough to fend off the Saints.
During that same appearance, Payton also mentioned the Eagles’ decision to replace quarterback Jalen Hurts with Nate Sudfeld in a Week 17 loss to Washington, which didn’t give Philadelphia the first overall pick but bumped them higher in the draft order for 2021.
“Nate has been here four years and I felt he deserved an opportunity to get some snaps,” Pederson said after that game.
The value of having a higher pick in the draft is indisputable. In most years, teams sacrifice significant assets to move higher. For the teams that are out of the playoff conversation, the easier — and cheaper — way to move higher is to lose meaningless games.
Still, the first rule of Tank Club is you do not talk about Tank Club. On Tuesday, Goodell had no choice, given the direct question he was asked. In answering the question, however, he flatly denied the existence of Tank Club.
It may not have many members. It may not have annual meetings. But it exists. And, for the most part, the NFL has been able to conceal it.
Why do you think there’s no draft lottery in the NFL? If the NFL had one, it would become yet another money-for-nothing offseason tentpole, with massive ratings for a prime-time game show aimed at fueling hope for failing teams.
But the mere existence of a lottery becomes an acknowledgement of the temptation to tank. As evidenced by Goodell’s response to Tuesday’s question, the league will never do that.
Even if it’s hiding in plain sight.
The Saints had a first-year coach and a rookie quarterback in 2025, and they came out of it thinking they have two of the most important pieces in place.
Although the 6-11 record wasn’t great, the Saints went 5-4 once Tyler Shough stepped in as the starting quarterback, a marked turnaround from their 1-7 start with Spencer Rattler at quarterback. Saints head coach Kellen Moore said on PFT Live that Shough’s rookie season set him up for a successful career.
“It turned into a great journey for him through the entire season,” Moore said.
Moore said that when Shough didn’t beat out Rattler for the starting job at the beginning of the season, he immediately shifted his mindset to doing everything he could on the scout team.
“I’m gonna be the best scout team quarterback in the league. I’m gonna get to test myself, I’m gonna make throws and see if I can make this throw in this situation, do it on the field,” Moore said Shough told him at the time.
Moore said he saw Shough get better over the course of the season, especially with his poise in the pocket and ability to make the right decisions when the play broke down. This year Moore thinks Shough will be better still, thanks to a full offseason, training camp and preseason of working with the No. 1 offense.
“His reps with the core group, he’s not going to be rotating with the rest of the quarterbacks, he’s going to be with the top group and getting a lot of reps with those guys before the start of the season,” Moore said.
If Shough can get better, and Moore can get the rest of the team playing better around him, the Saints may finally return to the playoffs for the first time since Drew Brees was their quarterback and Sean Payton was their head coach.
The league has added a new country to its Global Markets Program, with Italy coming aboard in 2026.
The NFL made the announcement at the annual meeting on Monday, with the Saints and Browns having the first marketing rights in the country. With Italy now a part of the program, the NFL is now active in 22 international markets.
“The expansion of the Global Markets Program in its fifth year highlights the continued focus on global growth for the NFL and 32 teams,” NFL Managing Director and Head of International Gerrit Meier said in the league’s announcement. “The league-wide commitment to the Global Markets Program is helping to accelerate fandom of our league, clubs, and players around the world, deepening our international footprint and bringing our game closer to fans globally.”
Additionally, the Raiders have expanded their international market rights to include Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.
As the GMP program has continued to expand, teams with marketing rights in a country usually have the opportunity to play an international game there. So, the Browns and/or the Saints could be playing in Italy sooner than later.
That’s especially as the NFL looks to expand its schedule, with the stated goal being 18 regular-season games with 16 international games — giving each team one international game per season.
After the Saints signed Travis Etienne early in free agency, head coach Kellen Moore was noncommittal about Alvin Kamara’s future with the team.
On Monday morning, the topic came up again when Moore spoke to reporters from the league meeting in Arizona. A recent restructure to Kamara’s contract did not add any future cap implications for the Saints if they part ways with the veteran and Moore said it’s a “full offseason process” when asked if he expects to have both backs on the team come the fall.
Moore also said “we love Alvin” and that he can envision ways to utilize both backs in the offense.
“He’s certainly on the roster and part of the running back room,” Moore said. “We feel like there’s ways to manipulate all of those guys and put them in plenty of situations. . . . Plenty of running backs play. Obviously we feel fortunate that we were able to acquire Travis in free agency, but there’s still a lot of work there to be had out there.”
With Kamara’s contract squared away, there’s no particular time crunch for the Saints to make a call about keeping both players and it doesn’t appear that they will be rushing to a conclusion on that front.
