PFT Clips
The Buccaneers have added a defensive player.
Tampa Bay has agreed to a one-year deal with safety Ifeatu Melifonwu, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Melifonwu, 27, spent last season with the Dolphins. He appeared in 16 games with eight starts, recording 53 total tackles with an interception and a sack.
A third-round pick in 2021, Melifonwu spent his first four seasons with the Lions.
Panthers rookie wide receiver Chris Brazzell was injured in Wednesday’s training camp practice and it looks like he’s going to be out for an extended period of time.
Brazzell went down during a 7-on-7 drill and had to be carted off the field. Joe Person of TheAthletic.com reports that the third-round pick suffered an LCL tear that is expected to keep him out for up to eight weeks.
Head coach Dave Canales said that Brazzell was held out of a couple of earlier practices because of knee soreness, although Person reports that the injury is not believed to be related to the previous issue.
“It was just something that kind of started to get sore after the first couple of days, and then we just, he mentioned it to us,” Canales said, via the team’s website. “We started to look at it and we put him through some good recovery stuff and de-loaded him for a couple of days, got him back out there, and he couldn’t finish the day.”
The Panthers saw linebacker Nic Scourton go down with a torn ACL during practice last week, so it has been a rough start to camp on both sides of the ball for Carolina.
The Mike McCarthy era will be different from Mike Tomlin’s 19-year tenure with the Steelers. When training-camp gets rolling, there will be one major change from nearly two decades of Pittsburgh football.
“We won’t do live tackling,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday. “No, I’ve done live tackling in the past. . . . Every drill’s been evaluated. There’s a GPS component behind everything that we do. You know, there’s more stress that we need to apply to our training situations than just going the ground. The footwork’s the priority. It always will be about the feet and everything that we do whether tackling, blocking, you know, ball security, all those things. So the footwork component about it is important.”
The balance is preparation and health of the players.
“You have to assess stress in everything you do,” McCarthy said. “That’s [what] I look at as one of the primary responsibilities of being a head coach, and one of the primary focal points of being in charge of a training regimen for your football team. So tackling is a good way to go. I’ve done it. But I feel like, you know, we’ll be able to get it done in in other ways of training, particularly in our tackling drills, in the team drills. So, injuries are part of the game, you know? And I think you’ve clearly got to do the best you can. And it’s a judgment. You try to reduce risk. So — but we will not live tackle. And we’ll have goal-line, but we won’t live tackle. And it is, you know, that’s one of the harder drills to get that done.”
Tomlin preferred live tackling in training camp. In 2017, for example, he said, "[W]e see the benefits” of intense tackling sessions, and “we’ll continue to do what we do.”
The big change last year wasn’t to change what they do but to when they do it. Tomlin moved practice to a hotter part of the day.
“Wasn’t hot enough last year,” Tomlin said about the plans for 2025 training camp. “To be quite honest with you, heat aids in the development of physical conditioning. It makes it a more stressful environment, and that’s what we go to camp for. We go to camp to get better, and if it’s a little bit more miserable late in the day, man, that’s what we want.”
There will be many differences between the two Mikes. Many of them will be noted and studied. And the ultimate test is whether, when it’s time to play games, the Steelers win their first playoff game since the 2016 season, they regress and miss the playoffs, or they continue a trend of one-and-done postseason appearances.
There might be a reunion in order for a veteran edge rusher and a team in the AFC North.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, the Browns are “strongly considering” re-signing Jadeveon Clowney.
Clowney is in town to visit with the team on Wednesday.
Clowney, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 draft, previously played for Cleveland in 2021 and 2022. He registered 9.0 sacks for the club in 2021. But that number was reduced to 2.0 sacks in 12 games in 2022.
Things ended poorly between Clowney and the organization, as Clowney complained that the Browns were going out of their way to give Myles Garrett favorable matchups to juice his sack totals.
But with the Browns trading Garrett to the Rams, that personal matter is now a non-issue.
Clowney appeared in 13 games with six starts for Dallas last season, finishing with 8.5 sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and 10 quarterback hits.
In his 153 career games for Houston, Seattle, Tennessee, Cleveland, Baltimore, Carolina, and Dallas, Clowney has recorded 66.5 sacks with 120 tackles for loss and 149 QB hits.
The Saints may have suffered a major blow to their defense.
Defensive lineman Bryan Bresee left Wednesday’s opening practice of training camp with a knee injury and NFL Media reports that the fear is that he tore his ACL. If that is confirmed, Bresee will miss the entire 2026 season and the Saints could be on the hunt for more help on their defensive front.
Bresee was a 2023 first-round pick in New Orleans and he started all 15 games he played during the 2025 season. He has 86 tackles, 19 tackles for loss, 14.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles in 49 career games for the team.
The Saints exercised Bresee’s fifth-year option this offseason, so he is under contract for next season.
The Browns have locked up another member of their secondary.
Safety Grant Delpit has agreed to a three-year extension with Cleveland, according to multiple reports.
The initial numbers indicate Delpit’s contract is worth $48 million with $35 million guaranteed.
Delpit was previously entering the final season of a three-year extension he signed with the club in late 2023.
A second-round pick in 2020, Delpit missed his rookie season due to a torn Achilles suffered at practice in late August. He has since appeared in 78 games with 68 starts for Cleveland, tallying seven career interceptions with 21 passes defensed. He’s also registered 6.5 sacks, 25 tackles for loss, and 17 quarterback hits.
On Tuesday, the Browns also agreed to a two-year extension with cornerback Denzel Ward.
49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall is dealing with more knee problems.
The team said that Pearsall is out of practice on Wednesday because of swelling in his knee. The issue is related to the PCL injury that Pearsall suffered last year.
Pearsall was limited to nine games last season and he also missed time due to a hamstring injury.
The team said, via multiple reporters, that they are exploring all options to deal with Pearsall’s swelling and that there is some “concern” about the nature of the injury.
Christian Kirk remains sidelined by a calf injury, so the 49ers are short on healthy wideouts at the moment. If either injury leads to an extended absence, the 49ers may be in the market for some more help at the position.
The start of training camp means the Browns’ quarterback competition between Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson is about to heat up.
But things are effectively status quo from the offseason program as practices get underway this week.
“Yeah, nothing’s really changed,” head coach Todd Monken said during his Wednesday press conference. “We anticipate alternating. First of all, all four quarterbacks are going to compete. They all won’t get equal reps. Obviously, we will alternate, just like we did in the spring, Deshaun and Shedeur with the ones.”
Aside from Sanders and Watson, second-year QB Dillon Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green are also on the team’s roster. They may not be at the top of the depth chart right now, as Monken mentioned, he’s expecting them to be a factor.
“Obviously, [if] you don’t have as many opportunities, you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities you get,” Monken said. “But you never know how it’s going to go at any position. Minor injuries are a part of training camp. So, guys go down, their shoulder’s a little sore and Dillon comes in and plays well — or another position.
“Again, we have to divide the reps up according to the depth chart. In a perfect world in camp, me personally, I would prefer the ones get 50 percent, the twos get 33 percent, and the threes get 17 percent, and somewhere the other guys have got to fill in. Can you always count on that? No. So, the more those guys, you start to see them with the ones, you can kind of anticipate they’re our starters.”
Monken said the Browns don’t have to choose who will be the starter until the beginning of the regular season. He’s planning on playing starters in the preseason, beginning with the Aug. 15 matchup with the Bears.
“We’ve got to see what we’ve got, especially at quarterback,” Monken said.
As for that final choice, Monken noted repeatedly that it will be a performance-dictated conclusion.
“Ultimately, I’m not going to decide who the starter is. They decide by their play. Their play decides who the starter is,” Monken said. “I don’t have any preconceived notions of how they’re played in the past or how they’re going to play. I only can, with my eyes, judge. And guys have got to play well around them. I think we’ve shored up some things up front. We’ve added some weapons on the perimeter, so I think that’s going to help.
“But they’ll decide who plays — I don’t decide who plays, the players decide who plays.”
The Bengals may have a significant injury concern with one of their key defensive players.
Defensive end Shemar Stewart was carted off the field after suffering an apparent leg injury during 11-on-11 drills at Wednesday’s practice.
Video posted by Caleb Noe of WCPO shows Stewart’s left leg buckling before he went down.
Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer noted Stewart was not able to put any weight on his left leg while leaving the field. The Bengals’ medical staff examined him briefly on the field before calling over the cart to take Stewart inside.
The No. 17 overall pick of last year’s draft, Stewart appeared in eight games with five starts as a rookie. He tallied one sack with two tackles for loss and four QB hits.
The Bills debuted their new “Nickel City” alternate uniforms earlier this week and the feedback has been — to put it mildly — generally negative.
Quarterback Josh Allen has had enough of that, bringing up the issue unprompted at the end of his Wednesday press conference.
“And stop hating on the jerseys, guys,” Allen said after having finished an answer about the team’s mentality with a new head coach in Joe Brady and a new stadium.
Allen quickly clarified that he wasn’t necessarily talking directly to the assembled media members. But he did have a message to the larger public about the uniform and the team in general.
“I don’t know if you guys are hating, I don’t know, I don’t see anything,” Allen said. “They’re great. I honestly — speaking of new, it’s a new look, it is, I understand that. We’ve got to be new. And I think these jerseys are kind of symbolic of that. And I’m excited to wear them.
“We had a lot of people that put in a lot of hard work for these jerseys. And it symbolizes a lot of newness. And that I am excited about.”
When a reporter noted Allen seemed to be taking the issue personally, he again noted the larger theme of the season for Buffalo.
“Listen, everyone — I’ve heard a lot of comments about the jerseys. I enjoy them,” Allen said. “I think it’s very symbolic of what we want to do and what we want to be. I understand people want the old jerseys and the old helmets, and all that. But at some point, too, we are moving forward. We have to move forward and do something new. And that’s what we’re doing.”
That was effectively Allen’s mic drop, as he got up and left the podium to end his presser.
