You might have thought that Cam Newton’s last year could not have gotten a lot worse. After signing a one-year deal with the New England Patriots, Newton led the team to a 7-9 record in its first year in the last 20 without Tom Brady at the helm. Along the way, Newton had to deal with a COVID-19 case that seemed to haunt him for the rest of the season. It looks like the Pats will move on from Newton — and now he’s getting heckled at his own football camp. A high school player from Pennsylvania taunted Newton at a 7-on-7 football tournament, telling him, “You about to be poor,” apparently claiming that no team would add Newton to their roster this season. The youngster has since apologized, but the 2015 NFL MVP has to be wondering when things will get better.
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NFL News: The Rumor Mill
Carson Wentz isn’t getting the welcome in Indianapolis that he would have liked. He wore #11 at North Dakota State and with the Philadelphia Eagles, but with the Colts, Michael Pittman Jr, a second-year wide receiver, already had the number. Wentz apparently offered Pittman a stack of cash to change numbers, but as Pittman told TMZ Sports, “I am number 11…I don’t think there’s any deal that is gonna be done.” Wentz had tried what many other veteran players had done when moving on to a new team. Pittman also told TMZ sports that Wentz “asked me very respectfully, and I just appreciated him for that.” Even so, Wentz will have a new number with the Colts.
NFL free agency begins on March 17, which means that if any of the 32 teams want to use a franchise tag to keep veteran players from reaching the open market, they must do it before the tag window closes. The upside for teams is that they do not lose that player but are only committed to that player for one season; the upside for players is that they get a big salary for that one season. The tag window opens on Tuesday and closes on March 9 at 4:00 pm Eastern time. The tags will pay less this season because the salary cap has dropped, thanks to decreased NFL revenues from a season ago.
Perhaps the biggest name attached to the franchise tag is Dallas’ Dak Prescott. For some reason, Jerry Jones (despite the huge stack of cash he made through his natural gas holdings thanks to an immense spike in prices during last week’s winter storm in Texas) can’t find a way to offer Prescott a long-term deal. If Prescott gets to March 9 without an extension, Dallas is likely to tag Prescott again, costing the team $37.7 million against the cap — and if that happens, expect Prescott to leave DAllas after 2021. Dallas went 4-7 after Prescott broke his ankle last year; in the first three Dallas games after he went down, the offense scored exactly one touchdown.
Another big name linked to the franchise tag is Aaron Jones. The Packers tailback is someone who the team would like to bring back, but they didn’t guarantee much of the contract that they put before him during the season. The tag would cost the team $11 million, but the team still has to figure out how to fit that price under the salary tag — and it is possible that Jones might follow in the footsteps of Le’Veon Bell, who sat out a season in Pittsburgh rather than playing for a season under the tag.
Chris Godwin could end up with the tag as well, if Tampa Bay can’t ink him to an extension. It would cost the Bucs about $16.5 million, but given the fact that the team just won a Super Bowl and has one more year with Tom Brady under contract, the Bucs do not want to let any of their offensive weapons go.
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