INDIANAPOLIS—It’s time for our first daily quick-hitter notes from the combine column. Starting now, one a day until Friday. Let’s go …
• The ball remains in Aaron Rodgers’s court, with his looming decision likely to break the seal on big-box quarterback decisions across the league.
When’s it coming? That’s anyone’s guess. My understanding is he hasn’t even really communicated with the Packers of late, so the circle of people who know when the white smoke is going to show itself is very, very small. And in his availability with Green Bay reporters on Tuesday, Packers GM Brian Gutekunst flashed just a little discomfort with the situation in saying that, really, the team wanted a decision by the start of the league year.
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That’s March 15. Two weeks from tomorrow. And the fact that Gutekunst is willing to draw that line (the last couple years, the Packers have told Rodgers to take all the time he needs), and say that the Packers are leaving their options open is in stark contrast to where Green Bay has been the last two offseasons.
Obviously, as we noted Monday morning, Green Bay’s willingness to offload Rodgers is one reason for that. Another, as I see it, is the knowledge that if a trade is going to happen, the sooner the Packers get to shop Rodgers, the better. It only takes one, but I’ve talked to a couple teams who think, because of Rodgers’s haul of nearly $60 million for 2023, Green Bay won’t get a first-round pick for its future Hall of Fame quarterback.
• The Eagles have their coordinators, and one hire is a little more surprising than the other.
The slam dunk was on the offensive side, where Brian Johnson was promoted from QBs coach to replace new Colts coach Shane Steichen. The 36-year-old is considered a rising star in the profession, and the writing was on the wall here after Johnson walked away from a chance to join Frank Reich’s big-money staff in Carolina.
The curveball was the hire of 39-year-old Seahawks assistant Sean Desai to be defensive coordinator. There’d been a likelihood that Philly defensive passing-game coordinator Dennard Wilson would be promoted, which seemed to increased when linebackers coach Nick Rallis went with Jonathan Gannon to Arizona.
So what to make of it? Two things. One, for one reason or another, Desai is a darling of the analytics community (it’s why he landed an interview in Cleveland), and the Eagles are definitely one of the league’s more advanced teams in that area. Two, he’s a disciple of Vic Fangio’s, and given their druthers (and better timing), Fangio would’ve been the Eagles’ first choice to fill the role (he was gone to Miami before Gannon got the Arizona job).
But in the end, this keeps the Eagles staff youthful, smart and energetic, a mix that’s worked pretty well for Philly through Nick Sirianni’s first two years in charge.
• Loved Cincinnati director of player personnel Duke Tobin’s response Tuesday to rumblings he may trade Tee Higgins: “They want a receiver, go find your own.”
I have no doubt the Bengals want to keep the 24-year-old star and, in a vacuum, I think there’s a deal there to be done. What’s more interesting here is how Cincinnati gets something done with Higgins that’ll work around looming extensions for Joe Burrow (this offseason) and Ja’Marr Chase (next offseason). That’s also why, until the ink is dry on a new deal for Higgins, teams will continue to sniff around, the way they did with Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf, Deebo Samuel and, yup, AJ Brown last offseason.
• Texans GM Nick Caserio said, on the subject of being at the mercy of which quarterback winds up going first in the draft, “We’re not necessarily worried about what other teams around us are doing.” I get his point—they’re focused on what they can do at No. 2.
That said, it’s hard not to think of the decision by Lovie Smith to go for two at the end of Houston’s Week 18 game against the Colts right now. Davis Mills wound up hitting Jordan Akins to convert that one and beat Indianapolis. And if you think tanking is worthless, you should consider how that one throw affected Houston’s position. In the end, it could end up costing it draft picks to trade up to the first pick, or even the quarterback they really want, a heavy price to pay for closing out the Smith era on a high note (Lovie, of course, can laugh about that now).
• Leonard Fournette arrived in Tampa to play with Tom Brady three years ago, he stayed in Tampa because of Brady, and now he’s leaving Tampa because Brady’s not there anymore. He’s also going to have value for someone who may not want to pay what it’d take to get a Josh Jacobs or Saquon Barkley or Tony Pollard on the veteran market. And if those three all get tagged? That’d be even better for the ex-Jag and soon-to-be-ex-Buc.
• Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said Tuesday that Dallas will “more than likely” use the franchise tag on someone, but didn’t say who, and that illustrates why teams wait until the deadline to actually put the tag on players. By doing that, the Cowboys can work on deals with Pollard and Dalton Schultz, while holding the tag over both. Once we get past the March 7 deadline, obviously, that dynamic changes.
• I asked around a bit on the Bears trading the first pick, and a couple things came back. One was that most teams looking to move up will likely want to at least get the medicals back on the top quarterbacks, and get a chance to work them out privately (though Washington, for example, moved up for Robert Griffin III in 2012 before working him out). Another was that a good starting point for giveback on the pick would be two first-round picks and two second-round picks.
That return, by the way, was at the core of the package Denver sent Seattle for Russell Wilson last March.
• At this point, Tampa Bay’s Kyle Trask, the Atlanta’s Desmond Ridder and Washington’s Sam Howell are slated to at least get a shot to start for their teams. I think each of those clubs will add competition somewhere along the line, but I’d bet that competition comes at a more affordable price than guys like Daniel Jones or Geno Smith will command, which, at least on paper, should allow the Bucs, Falcons and Commanders to get their quarterbacks plenty of help.
• Hoping for the best for outgoing Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, who’s set to take the year off. Frazier’s a really good dude, and universally respected by his peers, and it’s too bad he never got a second shot after his first swing at being a head coach was felled, at least in part, on the Vikings missing on 2011 first-round quarterback Christian Ponder.
