The Titans announced a significant addition to their front office on Wednesday.
They have hired Dave Gardi as their executive vice president of football operations. Gardi spent the last two seasons as the senior vice president of football initiatives for the Commanders and the previous 21 years in the NFL’s league office.
“We’re thrilled to have Dave join us here in Nashville,” General Manager Mike Borgonzi said in a statement. “He’s extremely respected around the NFL and brings a plethora of experience and valuable perspective, molded together by two decades at the league office, in addition to time on the club side of operations. Dave will make an immediate impact here with the Titans and we’re excited to welcome him and his family to Tennessee.”
Gardi’s hire comes after president of football operations Chad Brinker stepped down last month. The Titans’ announcement of the hire says Gardi will report directly to Borgonzi under the new structure at the top of the organization.
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Defensive end Maxx Crosby’s unexpected return to the Raiders has not included a return to the practice field yet.
Crosby remains out after having knee surgery this offseason, but he was on the field to stretch with his teammates ahead of Wednesday’s organized team activity. Crosby may not do much more than that this spring as head coach Klint Kubiak said that the focus remains on making sure that he’s ready to go when training camp opens in August.
“Yeah, we do. That’s the goal,” Kubiak said. “He’s still the first one in this building every day, working. He’s a leader on our team, and when he’s out there, you feel his presence. And yes, we’re counting on him being there for training camp, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Maxx was ahead of schedule.”
Crosby was set to join the Ravens in March, but Baltimore called off the trade and Crosby returned to the Raiders after a 2025 season that featured some acrimony with the organization. Kubiak said that Crosby’s approach to the offseason has shown he “knows we’re counting on him to be a leader” before and after he’s healthy enough for a full return to action.
Edge rusher Trey Hendrickson was never going to re-sign with the Bengals once he hit free agency. The only question was: Where was he going to sign?
Hendrickson ended up with the Ravens, a day after Maxx Crosby failed a physical with Baltimore to negate a trade with the Raiders.
On Wednesday, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow reacted to his former teammate landing with an AFC North rival.
“Not very surprising,” Burrow said, smiling, via Shelby Dermer of The Cincinnati Enquirer. “I know Trey. I love Trey. I just know how he operates.”
Burrow and Hendrickson were teammates for four seasons, but both were injured last season. The quarterback played only eight games and the edge rusher seven, which are big reasons for the Bengals’ 6-11 record last season.
Both are now healthy, and if they stay that way, Hendrickson will chase after Burrow for two games this season. The teams are scheduled to meet Oct. 25 in Baltimore and Dec. 31 in Cincinnati.
“That’ll definitely be fun,” Burrow said.
But Burrow said it’s always fun when the Ravens and Bengals play, regardless.
“Any time we play the Ravens, that one is circled,” Burrow said. “That goes back years when Lamar [Jackson] and I were a lot younger. That’s always a battle when we get after it.”
The Chiefs signed one of their draft picks on Wednesday.
The NFL’s daily transaction wire shows that they have signed fourth-round pick Jadon Canady. The defensive back is the second member of the team’s draft class to agree to their four-year rookie deal.
Canady played at Tulane and Ole Miss before transferring to Oregon for the 2025 season. He started 13 times for the Ducks and compiled 39 tackles, two interceptions, a tackle for loss and a forced fumble last year.
Canady joins a Chiefs cornerback corps that underwent major changes this offseason and he should factor into the mix for playing time in the slot to open his career in Kansas City.
The Steelers currently have four quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Drew Allar. Steelers coach Mike McCarthy hopes they still have four quarterbacks when the regular season starts.
McCarthy said today that he’d like to see Steelers General Manager Omar Khan find a way to keep all of them into the regular season: Rodgers to start, Rudolph to back him up, and both Howard and Allar as developmental prospects.
“We’ve definitely got four that we love, I can say that,” McCarthy said. “You always have to develop the room. That’s always been the approach. We’re hoping that Omar can get the roster expanded to 55 and we can keep four. It’s a really good room. This is a good place to be, having four guys that can play.”
McCarthy said the rotation behind Rodgers right now is based on the experience of the three backup quarterbacks but that he wants to give all of them plenty of opportunities this offseason while giving Rodgers the right amount of work to keep him fresh and have him ready to start Week One.
“Mason has a lot of experience,” McCarthy said. “We’re trying to develop Will and Drew as well as we can. Will is ahead of Drew, just based on the fact that he’s been here.”
The most likely scenario is that Howard and Allar will compete for a spot on the 53-man roster, and that the Steelers hope the loser of that competition clears waivers and can be brought back to the practice squad. But McCarthy isn’t ruling out all four of them making the regular-season roster.
Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak hasn’t been in his job long, but he’s been in it long enough to know who one of the cornerstones of his team will be this season.
Tight end Brock Bowers had 112 catches for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie, but an early-season knee injury forced him to play at less than 100 percent and miss time during his second year. The 2024 first-round pick had 64 catches for 680 yards and seven touchdowns in 12 games, but it doesn’t sound like any of the knee issues have been troubling Bowers this offseason.
Kubiak called Bowers a “standard bearer” for the organization and had a colorful description of what’s impressed him most about Bowers on the field.
“He’s kind of a football robot, in a good way,” Kubiak said at a Wednesday press conference. “He’s a football robot from heaven. You know, he’s a Cadillac out there. We gotta get the most out of Brock. Wherever he goes, he’s been successful.”
The Raiders have followed up the Bowers selection by taking running back Ashton Jeanty and quarterback Fernando Mendoza in the first round of the last two drafts. If all goes as hoped in Vegas, the trio will be the centerpiece of a lot of winning during the Kubiak era.
The Lions signed free agent wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, the team announced Wednesday.
The team also signed Greg Dortch earlier this offseason for depth purposes.
Wilson, 30, spent last season with the Dolphins, appearing in 10 games with five starts. He caught five passes for 44 yards, while seeing action on 206 offensive snaps and 21 on special teams.
Wilson entered the NFL as a sixth-round pick of the Cowboys in 2018, and he spent four seasons in Dallas. In 2021, he caught 45 passes for 602 yards and six touchdowns. That prompted the Dolphins to sign Wilson to a three-year, $22.1 million deal.
He has never had even a 300-yard season in his eight seasons.
In his career, Wilson has 126 receptions for 1,524 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The Patriots signed undrafted rookie defensive tackle Travis Shaw, the team announced Wednesday.
In a corresponding move, the Patriots cut long snapper Niko Lalos.
Shaw, 21, played his first three college seasons at North Carolina (2022-24) before transferring to Texas for the 2025 season. The 6-foot-5, 334-pounder appeared in 50 games with one start during his college career.
He finished with 68 tackles and two fumble recoveries.
Last season at Texas, Shaw played in 13 games with one start and finished with 13 total tackles.
Lalos, 28, signed with New England on March 16. He originally entered the NFL as a rookie free agent defensive end with the Giants out of Dartmouth in 2020.
The 6-foot-5, 269-pounder began his rookie season on the practice squad. He was elevated to the active roster for three games before the Giants signed him to the active roster in December. Overall, he played six games and finished with five tackles and a fumble recovery during the 2020 season.
Lalos spent the 2021 season on the Giants’ practice squad and spent time on the Saints’ practice squad in 2022, 2023 and 2024. He was also with the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL.
Colts cornerback Charvarius Ward considered retiring from the NFL at the end of the 2025 season, but he opted to go the other way and returned for a second season with the club.
Ward only played in seven games during his first season in Indianapolis as three concussions caused him to miss significant time. Ward also dealt with the death of his daughter in 2024 and said on Wednesday that “his heart was super heavy” because of that loss. He said it “got to the point in training camp where it had got real hard for me” to keep going through the associated mental and emotional challenges.
Ward said that he feels in a better place on those fronts and that his offseason workouts showed him that he was still capable of playing at a high level.
“I just feel good,’ Ward said. “I’ve just been working on myself, and I didn’t want to finish my career like I finished last season. A lot of stuff happened out of my control. Emotionally, I wasn’t ready like I thought I was going to be ready. Getting my fam out here with me this season, they’re going to be close with me this year, and I think that’s going to help me out a lot. Just being whole and happy.”
The Colts traded for Sauce Gardner during the 2025 season, but he missed time with a calf injury and the duo didn’t get to play together after the deal. Changing that would be a step in the right direction for Ward and the Colts.
Aaron Rodgers announced on Wednesday that 2026 will be his last season in the NFL. The 42-year-old, four-time MVP signed a one-year deal to reunite with head coach Mike McCarthy in hopes of a last hurrah.
Rodgers called it a “full circle” moment to play for McCarthy for the first time since 2018.
That settled questions about how Rodgers viewed McCarthy after Tyler Dunne wrote a story for Bleacher Report in 2019 detailing friction between the quarterback and the coach that dated to earlier in their relationship. Rodgers indicated Wednesday that he is back in Pittsburgh only because McCarthy is the coach.
After Mike Tomlin’s departure, Rodgers said he suggested to General Manager Omar Khan that the Steelers consider McCarthy.
“I encouraged him for an outside perspective to interview Mike,” Rodgers said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “Not thinking that he even would, honestly, just because the way the league goes and the trend, it’s kind of like whoever worked with Sean [McVay], Kyle [Shanahan] or one of those guys. Matt [LaFleur] now gets a lot of looks and multiple guys in those trees have.
“But then when it became more serious, I was thinking, ‘Wow, that’d be a really interesting thought to come back and play with Mike.’”
Rodgers has played for three teams over the past four seasons. He thought it was going to four in five seasons after Tomlin stepped away, admitting “there was some doubt [about a return to Pittsburgh] for sure.”
“When he said he was stepping away, that was an emotional moment just because we all love him so much and care about him, and I thought that was probably it for me in Pittsburgh,” Rodgers said. “But when the decision was made to hire Mike, I started opening my mind back up to coming back.”
Rodgers’ 22nd season will be his final season, absent a change of heart next offseason, giving him a final chance for a second Super Bowl ring. He and McCarthy won their only championship in the 2010 season.
