The 49ers spent some time with a possible veteran addition to their secondary on Friday.
The NFL’s daily transaction report shows that Jones visited with the 49ers. It’s the first reported visit for Jones since he became a free agent last month.
Jones played in Miami last season and started all 17 games for the Dolphins. He had 77 tackles, an interception and two forced fumbles in those appearances.
Jones was a 2022 fourth-round pick by the Patriots and moved on to the Raiders after being waived in November 2023. He had 136 tackles, seven interceptions, four interception return touchdowns, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery before getting to Miami.
Ole Miss wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling has had a busy itinerary.
He has top-30 visits scheduled with the Vikings, Buccaneers, Bears and Eagles, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports.
Stribling played for three college programs in five seasons.
He played two seasons at Washington State and two seasons at Oklahoma State before moving to Oxford for his final college season. Stribling made 55 catches for 811 yards and six touchdowns last season after 50-catch seasons at each of his first two stops as well.
He ran a 4.36-second 40 at the NFL Scouting Combine.
On September 10, the NFL will play its first-ever regular-season game in Australia (where it will be September 11 at kickoff). While it may be the first time the NFL plays a game that counts in the land of koalas and kookaburras, it apparently won’t be the last.
In a press conference at the location of the Week 1 49ers-Rams game in Melbourne, Commissioner Roger Goodell made it clear the NFL will be back.
“There’s no question that we’re going to be playing here again,” Goodell said, via Reuters. “Our view is that we’re coming here for the long term. We don’t come as a one-off. This isn’t a circus.”
But it sort of is a circus. Because the circus typically comes to town once per year. While that may be enough to fill a stadium, it’s not enough to fully monetize the product internationally.
Look at England. The NFL has been playing regular-season games in London for 20 years. And the NFL is still struggling to get sustainable traction there.
Last year’s Week 1 Chiefs-Chargers game in Brazil — which was streamed globally at no cost by YouTube — had an international audience of 1.2 million.
The U.S. population is in the vicinity of 350 million. The rest of the world has 7.9 billion people. This means that only 0.015 percent of the rest of the planet watched the game.
That’s not deterring the league from rolling the stone up a steep hill, even if some think the NFL should realize that it’s not really working. And it won’t work until international viewership improves, dramatically. That’s where the real money is, as the NFL has learned in its domestic experience.
And so Australia will now become a stop on the NFL’s traveling non-circus circus. It could be an annual thing; asked whether the 2026 game means the NFL could be back in 2027, Goodell said, “It might.”
Might is the key word. In America, the NFL has plenty of it. It wants to get more of it beyond our borders.
It’s obviously a long-term play. The overriding question is how long it will take. And whether, at some point, it’s going to hit a hard ceiling on how big it will be.
The 49ers have added some depth to their defensive line.
Free agent defensive end Cam Sample has agreed to a one-year deal in San Francisco, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
The 26-year-old Sample has played his entire NFL career with the Bengals, who chose him in the fourth round of the 2021 NFL draft.
Sample has been a backup for most of his career, starting just five of the 61 games he has played in. Last year he had two sacks in 14 games.
The Buccaneers have agreed to terms with a pair of cornerbacks on one-year deals.
Kemon Hall is signing with the Buccaneers, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports, and Chase Lucas is also joining the team, Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports.
Hall, 28, spent last season with the Titans.
After being reinstated from an NFL suspension, Hall went back and forth between the active roster and the practice squad. He played 66 defensive snaps and 70 on special teams in four games and totaled nine tackles and a forced fumble.
Hall entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Chargers in 2019. He has also spent time with the Vikings, Saints, Cowboys, Chargers and 49ers.
In 28 games, Hall has recorded 24 tackles, one forced fumble and one recovered fumble.
Lucas, 29, was with the 49ers last season and played 98 defensive snaps and 204 on special teams in 15 games.
The Lions made him a seventh-round pick in 2022, and he has 15 tackles and a pass defensed in 33 career games.
