With one month to go until round one of the draft, the preference of quarterback Shedeur Sanders is becoming clear.
Maybe.
Last Wednesday, Deion Sanders served as the keynote speaker at ProMat 2025 in Chicago. During the appearance, Deion supposedly expressed hope that Shedeur will be drafted by “New York.”
It’s not entirely clear who heard it, or who reported it. It traces, we think, to a Twitter account belonging to a user named John Sokol, who was attending the conference. The claim that Deion and Shedeur are hoping for New York has been amplified by the usual online aggre-bot suspects who operate under the protocol of ready-fire-aim.
There’s no way to confirm Deion said it. There’s no video that he said it. There’s only a claim from someone who was attending the conference and claims he heard Deion say it.
Maybe he did. It’s just odd that it went unnoticed for five days.
Hopefully, Deion will be asked about it the next time he meets with reporters. And, even more hopefully, we’ll get clarification on which New York team he was referring to. If he was referring to either one of them.
The Bears have added another defensive back to the roster.
The team announced that they have signed Nick McCloud to a one-year deal. They did not announce any other terms of the contract.
McCloud split last season between the Giants and the 49ers. He played in seven games for the Giants and then made eight appearances for the 49ers. He had 25 tackles and a pass defensed across the two stops.
McCloud made 31 appearances and 11 starts for the Giants in 2022 and 2023. He had 71 tackles, an interception, three forced fumbles, and three fumble recoveries in that action.
The slow-moving (for now) quarterback carousel includes a veteran who is in no hurry to make a move — assuming his current team is even inclined to move him.
Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins remains a theoretical trade candidate, if the Falcons will trade him and if he’ll waive his no-trade clause.
There’s a wrinkle that relates to Cousins’s willingness to accept a trade to a new team. He wants to be sure he doesn’t get supplanted by a subsequent draft pick.
Via Albert Breer of SI.com, Cousins hopes “to avoid the situation he found himself in last April when he was blindsided by Atlanta’s decision to take Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick.” As a result, Cousins isn’t willing to take any team at their word. Instead, he wants to see what happens during the draft before deciding whether to waive the clause that prevents the Falcons’ from trading him without his permission.
None of this matters if the Falcons won’t trade Cousins. They might be truly willing to pay him $27.5 million to serve as the backup to Michael Penix Jr. in 2025.
The other question is whether a new team will take on Cousins’s full salary for 2025. If he’s going to be the starter, why wouldn’t they? And if the call comes from a team that still needs a quarterback after the draft ends, Cousins might be able to leverage a better deal from what could be, come early May, a desperate team.
So it’s smart, at this point, for Cousins to wait. As he learned the hard way last year, the quarterback deals made in March can quickly become undermined by the draft picks exercised in April.
The “when” remains to be seen. The “if” is slowly becoming more clear.
As one source in the general vicinity of those who would be in position to know said Sunday, it’s a “safe bet” that quarterback Aaron Rodgers eventually will sign with the Steelers.
Rodgers, if you haven’t heard, spent more than six hours visiting the Steelers on Friday.
We know, we know. Nobody ever knows what Rodgers plans to do. He speaks to only a small handful of people. And those to whom he speaks refrain from flapping their yaps, for fear of being exiled to the island.
But it’s human nature to talk. Everyone tells one person something they weren’t supposed to tell anyone, with the understanding that the person they tell won’t tell anyone. And so on. And so on. And so on.
Regardless, the signs are pointing to Rodgers landing in Pittsburgh for 2025. Could it change? Yes. Again, it’s a “safe bet” it won’t.
It remains to be seen when the announcement will be made. If only there were an event coming up next month in Pittsburgh featuring the guy whose show Rodgers appears on every Tuesday during football season.
Oh, wait. There is.
Russell Wilson beat the Giants on a Monday night in October 2024. He might still be joining them for 2025.
Per multiple sources, Wilson remains on the Giants’ radar screen — even after the signing of Jameis Winston.
It came up because, frankly, we removed the Giants from the list of teams looking for veteran quarterbacks. In response to our assessment that the Giants won’t be pursuing another veteran signal-caller, one source explained that Winston was signed to be the backup quarterback. And that Wilson should not be ruled out.
“They are as much/more looking for a veteran starter than the Browns, definitely more than Vikings,” the source said.
The source added that the Giants technically remain in the mix for Aaron Rodgers, but that it currently “seems unlikely” he’ll go there. (Or, even more technically, stay there.)
Regardless, the Winston deal (at $4 million per year) isn’t a QB1 contract. We thought it meant Winston will be the bridge to a younger guy. He might end up being the understudy to another veteran.
And that veteran still could be Russell Wilson.
A day after adding another quarterback, the Giants have added another receiver.
The Giants have announced — sort of — that they have agreed to terms with veteran receiver Zach Pascal.
Undrafted in 2017, the 30-year-old Pascal has played for the Colts, Eagles, and Cardinals. He has 169 catches for 2,057 yards and 16 touchdowns in 112 regular-season appearances, with 47 starts.
Pascal appeared in 17 games last season with Arizona, mainly on special teams. He had 68 total offensive snaps and 278 special-teams snaps. He caught no passes in 2024.
In the latest example of a somewhat unusual trend, the Giants posted on their website a blurb crediting the news to “reports.” Instead of simply confirming it. Or debunking it.
Or adding something like this: “The Giants did not respond to a request for comment from the Giants.”
With quarterback Jameis Winston joining the Giants, the group of teams looking for veteran signal-callers is shrinking.
It’s down to three obvious teams: Steelers, Browns, and Vikings.
Others could be looking for veterans, too. But those are the main three.
And the most obvious candidates are Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Joe Flacco, Ryan Tannehill (apparently), and Carson Wentz, who has been linked to the Browns.
Also, don’t rule out a potential Kirk Cousins trade.
Rodgers looms over everything, but as the Winston signing shows some teams are willing to move on. And with the Browns not linked to Rodgers at all (for now), they can move on Wilson or Wentz or whoever they want.
Regardless, the carousel is still spinning. And some big names are still waiting. Or keeping us waiting. Or some of both.
UPDATE 12:00 p.m. ET, 3/23/25: In response to this item, we’ve heard from multiple sources that the Giants remain in play for Russell Wilson.
The two teams in the country’s biggest market will be paying bargain-basement salaries to their veteran quarterbacks.
For the Jets and Justin Fields, the two-year, $40 million deal puts him at the bottom of the list of starters not playing under rookie contracts. For the Giants and Jameis Winston, the base deal is 20 percent of that.
Via multiple reports, it’s two years and $8 million for Winston.
While he can reportedly double it with incentives, the base deal cries out “bridge” quarterback. And it puts the Giants in play to take a quarterback as early as No. 3 in the draft.
If they do, it would most likely be Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. That assumes the Browns won’t take Sanders with the second overall pick.
Regardless of whether it happens in round one or. round two — or if the Giants trade back into the bottom of the first round — it’s looking like they’ll be pairing Winston with a rookie, based on the value of the contract Winston has signed.
And if they don’t, the Giants will have gotten a major bargain with Winston. Then again, it’s basically the same deal he did last year in Cleveland, where he signed a one-year, $4 million deal with up to $4.7 million in incentives.
The Giants are done waiting on Aaron Rodgers.
With Rodgers visiting Pittsburgh on Friday, the Giants have signed veteran quarterback Jameis Winston. Winston has confirmed the NFL Media report.
He joined Tommy DeVito as the only two quarterbacks on the Giants’ roster. They’ll surely add more, possibly through the draft.
Winston recently visited the Giants, along with veterans Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco.
The first pick in the 2015 draft, Winston spent five years with the Buccaneers, four with the Saints, and one with the Browns. He has 105 regular-season appearances with 87 starts. His record as a starter is 36-51.
Winston has thrown 154 touchdown passes, with 111 interceptions.
He has become an engaging and colorful personality. He might be the kick in the ass the Giants need.
The move most likely removed the Giants from the running for Aaron Rodgers, limiting his option to the Steelers, maybe the Vikings, and possibly retirement.
Aaron Rodgers has previously spent time in Pittsburgh, usually in three-hour chunks at the local football stadium. He spent twice that amount of time on Friday, visiting with the local team.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, Rodgers visited the Steelers’ facility for roughly six hours on Friday. Schefter calls it a “positive visit,” and says the two sides will “stay in touch.”
The development remained tightly under wraps until Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette caught wind of it. After he reported it, others mobilized to confirm the news — because it’s never good enough to trust someone else’s reporting, apparently.
The fact that Dulac reported it means someone from the Steelers leaked it. Which could have been a test by Rodgers to see whether the S.S. Rooney has leaks. Indeed, Rodgers has complained in the past about leaks with the Jets.
But every team has leaks. And the fact that Rodgers visited Pittsburgh is something that wouldn’t have remained silent, given the reporting obligation to the league office. It would have been (and eventually will be) on the daily list of transactions. (It didn’t make it to the Friday report.)
The visit by all appearances doesn’t alter Rodgers’s timeline. He’s currently in no hurry to make a decision. We’ve heard that the delay has occurred in large part at the advice of his agent, David Dunn.
No one truly knows what Rodgers wants to do. It’s possible if not probable that he doesn’t know. Steelers, Giants, wait to see whether the Vikings come around, retirement, or wait for a quarterback on a Super Bowl contender to suffer a serious injury.
An expectation emerged that he was ready to go. The Steelers made their offer. And then it all fizzled out.
So the wait continues. Through it all, it’s unlikely there will be any announcements. Just developments. A visit here. A visit there.
And then at some point he’ll sign a contract. Or he won’t.
