Matt Leinart recently stirred up a debate about jersey numbers when he said he refused to let USC give his retired No. 11 to recruits who wanted it. At Oregon recently, a similar question came up with the opposite conclusion.
Dylan Raiola, who previously started at Nebraska and transferred this year to Oregon, will wear No. 8 for the Ducks. Oregon doesn’t officially retire numbers, but the No. 8 jersey has been considered special at Oregon since Marcus Mariota won the Heisman Trophy wearing it, and when Dillon Gabriel wore No. 8 in 2024, it was with Mariota’s blessing. Raiola didn’t take the No. 8 jersey until both Mariota and Gabriel said it was OK.
“The last two people, if you look at it, who wore it were Dillon Gabriel and Marcus Mariota,” Raiola said in a video published by Oregon. “So before I even thought about wearing it, I called Dillon and I asked him, and then I actually asked him if I could have Marcus’s number and I called Marcus and I was blessed with the opportunity to wear it.”
Raiola, Gabriel and Mariota are all from Hawaii and have formed a connection over that, as well as their status as Oregon quarterbacks wearing No. 8. Raiola previously wore No. 15 at Nebraska as part of his effort to emulate Patrick Mahomes, but now it’s a couple of his Oregon predecessors he seeks to emulate in the No. 8.
Commanders Clips
Flag football is still football. Even without contact, a risk of injury remains.
And it was clear on Saturday that, for the active NFL quarterbacks in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, there was much more activity than target practice in seven-on-seven drills.
Watch this clip of the things Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was doing. Cutting, spinning, falling, diving. Ditto for Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels.
Grant Paulsen of 106.7 The Fan in D.C. had this to say during the games: “Jayden Daniels is playing receiver, running routes, juking guys. [Team USA] is playing like it’s an NFL playoff game. Biggest day of their careers. There have been collisions. I just can’t believe the Commanders are cool with this.”
There was, at one point, a vague sense that Daniels was hoping the team would tell him not to do it — and that the team was hoping Daniels would decide not to do it. The all-important third year of his career to date is coming, and any injury would have complicated his effort to fully prepare for the football season to come.
In the end, and as far as we know, none of the active NFL players were injured. Former Patriots and Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski pulled a hamstring after catching a pass for a two-point conversion on the first drive of his team’s first game. For active players, a hamstring injury could mean weeks of rest and rehab, with the offseason program coming very soon.
So, yes, there’s a risk. It’ll be there during next year’s Fanatics Flag Football Classic. It’ll be there if/when USA Football decides to hold a competition to determine the participants in the U.S. men’s national team for the 2028 Olympics. It’ll be there for the Olympics, which will happen days before the opening of training camps.
The NFL seems to be willing to accept that risk in pursuit of the reward that comes from further globalizing the game. The individual teams are going along with it, with silent reluctance. The players, for the most part, don’t think about injuries until they happen.
Still, the risk is there. And quarterbacks, as we saw on Saturday, are far more involved in flag football than standing behind the action and throwing passes.
Darrell Green, the Hall of Fame cornerback who retired after a 20-year career with Washington in 2002, still wants to compete at the age of 66. And he thinks he can do it, in flag football.
On a weekend when a major flag football event in Los Angeles will feature big-name NFL players, Green will be a couple hours away in Chula Vista, participating in national team trials for USA Football. If he does well, he can earn a roster spot on Team USA at the flag football world championships in Germany this summer.
“I’m going to give it my best and I’ll walk away with my head up, either way,” Green said.
Callie Brownson, senior director of high performance and national teams for USA Football, says Green will be given a legitimate chance like all the others who qualified for the tryouts.
“Darrell qualified through our digital combine. He’s later in his career than the other trials participants, but his testing results were impressive,” Brownson told the Associated Press. “Our coaches and staff felt he deserved a closer look. . . . He’s a rare athlete who has stayed in shape and is ready to compete this week.”
It’s still unclear how the USA flag football team for the 2028 Summer Olympics will be chosen, and whether participating players will come from current NFL rosters, from the USA Football flag squad, or some combination of the two. Even if Green can make Team USA for this summer’s world championships, he’d be an extreme long shot to make the Olympics at age 68. But Green didn’t shy away from challenges in his NFL career, and he won’t start now.
The Commanders entered the offseason wanting to get Jayden Daniels another wide receiver alongside Terry McLaurin. That’s still on the list of priorities.
The first choice was apparently Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce, who re-signed with Indianapolis just before it became legal for teams to negotiate with free agents. According to John Keim of ESPN, a source said Pierce “absolutely” would have signed with the Commanders if he had reached free agency.
Realistically, however, if the Commanders were going to out-bid the Colts for Pierce, they would have made sure Pierce’s agent knew that before he re-signed with the Colts. Teams and agents talk all the time, and Pierce wouldn’t have signed with the Colts just before the start of the negotiating window unless he had a very good idea of what other offers would be out there once the window officially opened. So while the Commanders may have wanted Pierce, that doesn’t mean they would have gotten him, even if Pierce had waited long enough to let them make him an official offer.
With the Commanders still needing a No. 2 receiver to complement McLaurin, 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk would be an obvious choice. Daniels and Aiyuk are close friends and were teammates at Arizona State, and they’d love to play together again. Aiyuk is still under contract to the 49ers, but they have said they’ll move on from him this offseason. When the 49ers officially move him, Aiyuk would make a lot of sense in Washington.
The Commanders could also draft a wide receiver, and there are still veterans available in free agency Jauan Jennings, DeAndre Hopkins and Keenan Allen. It’s a position where the Commanders would still like to fill a need, even as free agency slows down.
Wide receiver Dyami Brown is back in Washington, but he thinks he’s a different player than he was in his last stint with the team.
Brown signed a one-year deal to join the Jaguars in free agency last March after spending his first four NFL seasons with the Commanders and returned to his previous team on a one-year deal that was officially announced on Thursday. During a press conference that followed the announcement, Brown was asked how he feels he’s grown over the last 12 months.
“Really just mentally,” Brown said. “I understand the game a little bit more than what I have in the past. I took the steps to learn from other people like Jakobi Meyers, [Brian Thomas Jr.] out there. I had some people that helped me around — even the quarterback [Trevor], just learning from him — that took the game into another level and different viewpoint for me.”
Brown didn’t light up the box score — 20 catches for 227 yards and a touchdown — in his 14 games with the Jaguars, but he closed out the 2024 season with 14 catches for 229 yards and a touchdown in Washington’s three playoff games. That came with Jayden Daniels throwing the passes and the Commanders would love to see Brown pick up where he left off with the quarterback.
The Commanders are keeping one of their key contributors around.
Washington announced on Thursday that the club has extended safety Jeremy Reaves’ contract through the 2027 season.
Reaves, 29, has effectively spent his entire career with Washington. While he entered the league as an undrafted free agent with the Eagles in 2018, he was waived by the organization during roster cuts and landed with Washington’s practice squad.
Since then, Reaves has appeared in 81 games with 19 starts for Washington over the last eight seasons. In 2025, Reaves appeared in all 17 games with eight starts, tallying 91 total tackles with five tackles for loss, seven passes defensed, and an interception.
Reaves was on the field for 62 percent of Washington’s defensive snaps and 55 percent of special teams snaps in 2025.
Reaves was a first-team All-Pro and was selected to the Pro Bowl as a special teams player in 2022.
If, like me, you have little interest in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (West Virginia didn’t make it, again), there’s something else on TV during round two.
On Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET, Fox will televise the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, which has been relocated from Saudi Arabia to Los Angeles.
The format changed, too. In lieu of three teams full of current and former NFL players and random celebrities, one of the three teams will be the U.S. men’s national flag football team.
The rosters for the other two teams were sent on Wednesday, in a draft conducted by the Founders (led by Tom Brady and Jalen Hurts) and the Wildcats (led by Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow).
Joining Brady and Hurts on the Founders will be: Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty, Saints running back Alvin Kamara, former Patriots and Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski, Buccaneers safety Antoine Winfield Jr., Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith, free-agent receiver Stefon Diggs, free-agent pass rusher Von Miller, free-agent safety Damar Hamlin, former NFL defensive back Patrick Peterson, and boxer Terence Crawford.
Beyond Daniels and Burrow on the Wildcats are: Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, free-agent receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Rams receiver Davante Adams, free-agent receiver DeAndre Hopkins, Chargers safety Derwin James Jr., Hall of Fame linebacker Luke Kuechly, Steelers safety Jalen Ramsey, Logan Paul, and someone who goes by the name iShowSpeed.
The rosters don’t include Browns defensive end Myles Garrett or free-agent receiver Deebo Samuel, who had previously been announced as participants in the game.
The U.S. men’s flag football team is led by Darrell “Housh” Doucette III, who made waves after the Olympics added flag football by declaring that he’s a better option for the assignment than Patrick Mahomes.
More recently, Doucette said he hopes flag players will have a fair shot to represent the country in the Olympics. They’re sort of getting it this weekend, and they’ll surely be taking it seriously.
If the NFL players don’t, the end result could be a realization that maybe the guys who know the rules and realities and strategies of flag football may be better suited to being on the Olympic team.
Chris Paul will be back with the Commanders for a fifth season.
The team announced that they have re-signed the guard on Thursday morning. The team did not announce any of the terms of the deal.
Paul was a seventh-round pick in 2022 and he started eight games over his first three seasons. He moved into a full-time role with the first team as the left guard last year and could be in line to start again in 2026.
The move means the Commanders have all of their primary offensive line starters back for the 2026 season. They’ve also re-signed reserves Andrew Wylie and Trent Scott.
Fox is bringing out the big guns for the Fanatics Flag Football Classic.
On Monday, Fox announced that Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen will call the action. They previously formed the No. 1 NFL team on Fox, until Fox threw $37.5 million per year at Tom Brady and demoted Olsen, who is widely regarded as a better game analyst than Brady.
Brady isn’t available this time around, because he’s one of the players.
The three-team tournament is scheduled to be televised from 4:00 p.m. ET until 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 21. It will be competing directly with the second round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Two teams of current NFL players, former NFL players, and random celebrities will compete against the U.S. men’s national flag football team. Tom Brady and Jalen Hurts will captain one team (coached by Sean Payton), and Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels will captain the other (coached by Kyle Shanahan).
Teams will be selected from the pool of said current NFL players, former NFL players, and random celebrities.
The game had originally been scheduled for Saudi Arabia. It was moved after war broke out in the Middle East.
Cornerback Nahshon Wright’s play with the Bears during the 2025 season landed him a contract with the Jets and it earned him the most performance-based pay in the league for last year as well.
The NFL announced that Wright earned more than $1.44 million in performance-based pay. The bonus more than doubles Wright’s base salary for the season.
Wright signed with the Bears after being released by the Vikings last April. He was named to the Pro Bowl after recording 80 tackles, five interceptions, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries during the regular season.
The performance-based pay fund is part of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement to compensate all players based on a formula encompassing their playing time and salary. It paid out more than $542 million for the 2025 season.
Browns safety Ronnie Hickman earned over $1.293 million for second place and tackle Elijah Wilkinson earned over $1.272 million for his work with the Falcons. Wilkinson has since signed with the Cardinals.
Panthers safety Nick Scott, former Commanders guard Chris Paul, Ravens guard Andrew Vorhees, Vikings defensive end Jalen Redmond, Steelers guard Mason McCormick, Chiefs defensive back Chamarri Conner, and Patriots safety Craig Woodson make up the rest of the top 10 recipients of performance-based pay for 2025.
