Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon says quarterback Daniel Jones has earned the full confidence of his teammates, his coaches and ownership.
Irsay-Gordon said a big part of the decision to give Jones a two-year, $88 million contract was his relationship with head coach Shane Steichen are a perfect match — something the Colts haven’t always had with their coach and quarterback.
“That chemistry that a quarterback needs to have with their head coach,” Irsay-Gordon said, via the Indianapolis Star. “I don’t want to name any names, but there are situations where your head coach doesn’t believe in your quarterback, I mean, you’re kind of screwed. I think Shane and Daniel really align.”
Irsay-Gordon thinks Jones provides the kind of leadership Indianapolis needs.
“The quarterback is the CEO of our football team, basically,” Irsay-Gordon said. “I think it also helps our team to have an identity. It helps the coaches and people like Shane know, this is what we can do.”
Colts players completely supported bringing Jones back, according to the owner.
“The rest of the team wanted Daniel back, too,” Irsay-Gordon said. “I think that’s really important to listen to what the team is saying, too, because they know everything. People can laugh, but the players know, and I think their input is important. . . . Daniel, he’s an amazing teammate.”
Irsay-Gordon believes Jones is eager to prove he can rehab from his torn Achilles and become an elite quarterback.
“I don’t think it’s given me pause, since we just signed him for a pretty good chunk of change,” Irsay-Gordon said. “Daniel, the fact that he has that work ethic, that mindset, and what I love about him, too, is we’ve got this platform where he can go out there and prove what he wants to prove. It’s good to have guys that have a chip on their shoulder in a good way.”
PFT Clips
On Sunday, multiple reports pushed the NFL’s version of the ongoing Collective Bargaining Agreement talks with the NFL Referees Association. The NFLRA has pushed back.
“Apparently ‘league sources’ are continuing to put out false and misleading information instead of wanting to meet at the negotiating table,” the NFL Referees Association said in a Sunday night statement to PFT. “The bottom line is our officials work for the wealthiest sports league in America, with profits that far exceed any of the others. That’s normally a point of pride for the NFL. However, our officials are substantially undercompensated when compared to baseball and basketball umpires and referees. Our officials also aren’t even provided the health care benefits that those at 345 Park Avenue have.
“As far as performance pay, we had ‘high-performing officials’ who worked this year’s Championship games and the Super Bowl who were paid less for those games than what they were paid for a regular-season game. That certainly isn’t rewarding performance, as the NFL claims is their goal.”
The real goal, in our view, is to win. To get the best possible terms. To get the NFLRA to cave. It worked against the NFLPA in 2011. It failed, ultimately, against the NFLRA in 2012 — thanks in large part to the Fail Mary.
Meanwhile, the NFL continues to lay the foundation for another round of replacement officials, augmented by an expanded replay system that has been far from perfected in its more limited form. On Sunday night, the league pushed to ESPN (of which the NFL owns 10 percent) the notion that, if/when replacement officials are hired on May 1 in anticipation of a potential lockout, “The opportunity to reach an agreement with our current union becomes a bigger challenge, just from simple economics.”
Why? Because the league will want to foist the expenses of its planning for the nuclear option onto the officials?
If, however, that’s a real deadline, the NFL needs to get the NFLRA to agree to that and to act accordingly. The NFL is a deadline-driven business. If the two sides agree that the deadline isn’t Week 1 but May 1, a deal could be done by May 1.
If, alternatively, the league is currently huffing and puffing with every intention of blowing the officials’ house down by locking them out until they cry uncle, the NFL plans to play Russian roulette with the integrity of the game.
Again.
Will Aaron Rodgers be back with the Steelers in 2026?
The door still seems to be wide open for the 42-year-old quarterback, who helped lead Pittsburgh to the postseason in 2025 and now would be reuniting with his former head coach, Mike McCarthy.
It’s just a matter of Rodgers letting the Steelers know his plans.
To that point, team owner Art Rooney II said on Sunday that he’s expecting to have Rodgers’ answer before the draft begins — in Pittsburgh — on April 23.
“I still expect that,” Rooney told Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday at the annual league meeting in Arizona. “I expect we’ll get an answer before the draft.
“When I talked to him and Omar [Khan] talked to him, he told us he wasn’t going to take as long this year as he did last year [to make a decision],” Rooney added. “I’m not 100 percent sure what that means, but I expect something before the draft.”
As noted by Dulac, the Steelers believe Rodgers’ decision will come down to retirement or returning to Pittsburgh for another season.
Rodgers completed 65.7 percent of his passes for 3,322 yards with 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions for the Steelers, helping the club go 10-7 and win the AFC North. But the postseason loss to the Texans was ugly, with Rodgers finishing the contest 17-of-33 for 146 yards with one interception. He also took four sacks.
Pittsburgh currently has Mason Rudolph and Will Howard on their roster at quarterback.
When it comes to the labor fight between the NFL and its game officials, the NFL Referees Association is operating with one hand tied behind its back. In part because the league has its hands deep in the pockets of multiple major media outlets.
Earlier today, Adam Schefter of ESPN — which is now partially owned by the NFL — posted a tweet that shared the league’s one-sided characterization of the ongoing negotiations. On Sunday night, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network posted multiple tweets framing the controversy from the perspective of management.
“The NFL has offered its game officials a six-year labor deal with a 6.45% annual growth rate in compensation, while the NFLRA is insisting on 10% plus $2.5 million for marketing fees the league regards as worthless, sources say,” Pelissero tweeted. “The union also continues to resist changes the NFL is insisting upon, including shortening the ‘dark period’ after the Super Bowl, deploying underperforming officials to spring leagues for extra reps and ending a seniority-based system for playoff assignments. ‘We want to pay for performance,’ source said.”
As to the reality that the NFL needs full-time officials, Pelissero posted this: “The NFL has made a proposal to make some officials full-time, but have met ‘staunch resistance’ from the NFLRA, source said. In essence, from the league’s standpoint, the union wants officials to make substantially more money without any substantive changes to their jobs or hours and with a system that rewards seniority, not performance.”
There’s no indication that Pelissero sought a response from the NFLRA before presenting the information that clearly has come from the league. But that’s how things tend to work these days. Instead of seeking out the other side affirmatively, reporters will present one side and then wait for the other side to respond elsewhere.
There are always two sides to every story. But if the officials are somehow being so clearly unreasonable that they won’t engage in fair, evenhanded negotiations with the league in an effort to advance the best interests of the game of professional football, the NFL shouldn’t lock them out. It should get rid of them.
Most recently, the NFLRA said that the league sent to recent negotiation sessions officials without the authority to negotiate. The NFL has yet to respond to that contention. If the NFLRA’s position is accurate, who’s being clearly unreasonable?
Instead of playing ping-pong P.R., making selective leaks while telling all teams to say nothing, the NFL should focus on working this out. The NFLRA should, too. The integrity of the game is, or at least should be, paramount for both of them.
It seems that one side has been far more focused this weekend on finding ways to apply public pressure to the other.
Earlier this month, the Browns agreed to terms with defensive end A.J. Epenesa on a one-year deal worth up to $5 million. The contract will not be signed.
Via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN, the Browns decided not to proceed. Specifically, they weren’t “comfortable finalizing the deal after his physical.”
It’s a somewhat tame way of saying Epenesa failed the physical, and it’s no different than the decision the Ravens made regarding defensive end Maxx Crosby. Other teams have, on plenty of occasions, made the same decision.
The development comes 11 days after word of the deal first emerged. During that time, Epenesa could have agreed to terms with another team, one that may have been comfortable with whatever caused the Browns not to proceed.
Now, the 2020 second-round pick of the Bills will revert to the open market.
In six NFL seasons, all in Buffalo, Epenesa has appeared in 91 regular-season games, with 19 starts. He has 24 career sacks.
The Giants are releasing kicker Graham Gano, Connor Hughes of SNY reports.
The move was expected after the Giants signed veteran kicker Jason Sanders and will save the team $4.5 million in salary cap space.
The Giants also have Ben Sauls on the roster at the position.
Gano, who turns 39 next month, spent the past six seasons with the Giants. However, he played only 23 games the past three seasons because of injuries.
In five games last season, he went 9-of-10 on field goals and made all nine extra points.
Gano made 87.4 percent of his field goals and 96.2 percent of his PATs in the 73 games he played with the Giants.
An Eagles’ trade of wide receiver A.J. Brown has felt “inevitable” since March. The question seems more of when, not if, with a post-June 1 trade a possibility.
Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman revealed nothing on Sunday.
“I understand that there’s interest in the A.J. Brown story,” Roseman said, via Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philly. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a home under a rock. But my answer to any question on A.J. Brown is that A.J. Brown is a member of the Eagles. From my perspective, anything you ask me about A.J. Brown, I’m going to go right back to that answer. But I understand the interest. I put on TV and I see that there’s interest. But my answer is A.J. Brown is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Roseman proceeded to answer multiple questions about Brown with the same answer: “A.J. Brown is a member of the Eagles,” according to Eliot Shorr-Parks of WIP94.com.
The Eagles signed veteran wide receiver Hollywood Brown to a one-year, $5 million deal in March. He would join DeVonta Smith as the team’s top two wide receivers if Brown departs.
The Eagles also signed free agent wideout Elijah Moore.
The Patriots have been the favorite to eventually land Brown, who has not made the Pro Bowl in either of the past two seasons. He had 1,079 receiving yards in 2024 and 1,003 receiving yards in 2025.
The Eagles are adding a former first-round pick to their defense.
Via multiple reporters, General Manager Howie Roseman said at the annual league meeting on Sunday that Philadelphia is signing edge rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka to a one-year deal.
Tryon-Shoyinka, 26, was the No. 32 overall pick for the Bucs in 2021. He spent his first four seasons with Tampa Bay before signing a one-year deal with Cleveland last offseason. He was then traded to Chicago midway through the season.
In 16 total games last year — eight for the Browns, eight for the Bears — Tryon-Shoyinka registered 22 total tackles with one tackle for loss and a pair of QB hits.
He’s appeared in 82 total games with 45 starts, registering 15.0 sacks with 22 tackles for loss and 37 quarterback hits.
During the week of the Scouting Combine, word emerged of a potential contract impasse that was described, at the time, as potentially resulting in left tackle Trent Williams being released by the 49ers. It didn’t happen then, it hasn’t happened since, and there’s no sign it will be happening in the future.
Instead, the 49ers seem to be very optimistic that everything will work out.
“We’ve had good communication throughout,” G.M. John Lynch said Sunday, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. “I would say in the last week it’s kind of intensified and feel like we’re on the precipice of something good happening, but we’ll see. Don’t want to make any statements that, like, ‘Hey, we’re right there,’ because these things have felt like that before, but I do feel like we’re in good communication and hopeful.”
Williams has a 2026 compensation package of $33.06 million. The 49ers didn’t pick up a $10 million option bonus, pushing his cap charge to $46.341 million. A new contract could reduce that number significantly by converting much of his base salary of $32.21 million into an option bonus.
“This one’s never got ugly,” Lynch said. “It’s been very straightforward, direct. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance to that situation. He’s one of the great players, I think, to ever play the game, but there’s a reality with his age. It’s like, how do you thread that needle and how do you find a deal where everyone’s taken care of and happy?”
The 49ers surely prefer not to pay him $33 million this year, none of which is currently guaranteed. The question becomes determining a structure that also gives them the ability to keep him around for 2027, and possibly beyond.
This one isn’t about Williams wanting more. It’s about the 49ers not wanting to pay $33.06 million.
Consider how it all began, with this tweet from Adam Schefter of ESPN on February 24: “With five-time All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams scheduled to carry a $39 million cap number this season, he and the 49ers currently are struggling to find a contractual solution, per league sources. If the two sides can’t bridge their differences in their standoff, Williams would be expected to join this year’s free-agent class, making him one of the premier players available.”
Again, it didn’t happen then, it hasn’t happened since, and there’s no sign it will be happening in the future.
The lack of a deadline for making a large payment or guaranteeing the salary has given the 49ers leverage. They owe him nothing until the Week 1 rosters lock. By the time the situation with Williams comes to a final head (if it ever does), other possible suitors may have made other plans and/or spent their available cash on other players.
Time is on the team’s side. The breathless notion from late last month that a split could be imminent was, if nothing else, a signal to the rest of the league (undoubtedly from Williams’s camp) that it would be wise to hold back some money, in the event Williams eventually becomes a free agent.
Browns General Manager Andrew Berry drafted two quarterbacks last year and he could add another one to the mix next month.
While speaking to reporters from the league meeting in Arizona, Berry called it “wholly realistic” that the Browns will add another quarterback to the roster. Shedeur Sanders closed out last season as the starter and fellow 2025 draftee Dillon Gabriel also started games for Cleveland. Deshaun Watson missed the entire season after tearing his Achilles twice, but is also in the equation.
Berry said all routes to acquiring a quarterback are open, but that they do have an idea of what kind of quarterback they’d like to add.
“Our lean would be if we do add someone to the quarterback room, it would be someone who’s a younger player most likely,” Berry said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “But I can’t state that definitively because I don’t know what the next couple of weeks will hold.”
The Browns have met with Ty Simpson, who is in the running to be the second quarterback selected and will be one of many options for the team to add options at quarterback in the draft.
