Tag: Amani Oruwariye

Jaguars announce 14 players signed to reserve/future contracts

The Jaguars made the addition of 14 players official Tuesday.

A day after the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 2023 season ended, the team signed 11 players to reserve/future deals, according to the NFL’s transaction wire.

More than a month later, the team has finally announced those signings along with a trio of other players. One of those three is kicker Riley Patterson, whose reunion with the Jaguars popped up on the transaction wire a week ago. The other two, tight end Josh Pederson and receiver Seth Williams, spent the 2023 season with Jacksonville.

Reserve/future deals, typically a minimum-salary contract, don’t count against the team’s salary cap or roster limit until the beginning of the next league year. Essentially that means those type of contracts are a way to keep players while roster limits haven’t yet been expanded back to a maximum of 90 players, which will happen when the new league year begins in March.

The notable omission from the list is running back Snoop Conner, who was picked by the Jaguars in the fifth round of the 2022 NFL draft. Here’s all 14 players who were officially added to the Jaguars’ roster Tuesday on reserve/futures contracts:

Jaguars sign CB Amani Oruwariye to practice squad, cut FB Derek Parish

The Jaguars added cornerback Amani Oruwariye, who made 36 starts in four seasons with the Lions.

The Jacksonville Jaguars added cornerback Amari Oruwariye to the practice squad Monday and parted with seventh-round rookie Derek Parish, the team announced.

Oruwariye, 27, was a fifth-round pick for the Detroit Lions in the 2019 NFL draft. In four seasons with the team, Oruwariye played in 53 games and made 36 starts, recording nine interceptions.

After his rookie contract expired, Oruwariye joined the New York Giants on a one-year deal in free agency, but was released by the team at the end of training camp. The Giants re-signed Oruwariye to the practice squad, but cut ties with the cornerback on Oct. 10.

The Jaguars have seen their depth at cornerback dwindle with Gregory Junior and Christian Braswell both landing on injured reserve. Starting cornerback Tyson Campbell suffered a hamstring injury in Week 6, but the team hasn’t yet provided an update on his status.

Parish, 24, was the last of 13 selections made by the Jaguars in the 2023 NFL draft. The collegiate pass rusher attempted to transition to fullback, but also saw preseason snaps and practice time with the Jacksonville defense before he was released Monday.

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Giants restore Cole Beasley to practice squad, release two

The New York Giants have restored WR Cole Beasley to their practice squad, added a veteran OT and terminated the contracts of two others.

The New York Giants made a series of roster moves on Tuesday, beginning with wide receiver Cole Beasley being restored to the practice squad.

The Giants signed Beasley prior to the start of training camp and he appeared destined to make the 53-man roster before suffering a quad injury and being waived as a part of final cuts. He was quickly re-signed to the practice squad with an injured reserved designation.

Due to the designation, Beasley was ineligible to play for the first four weeks of the season.

In addition to Beasley, the Giants also signed veteran offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste to their practice squad.

The 27-year-old Cajuste was a third-round pick of the New England Patriots in the 2019 NFL draft. After four seasons playing under Bill Belichick, he signed with the New York Jets this past May but was waived/injured in early August. A week later, he was released with an injury settlement.

Now healthy, the 6-foot-5, 310-pound Cajuste provides the Giants with a much-needed swing tackle.

In order to clear room on their practice squad for Beasley and Cajuste, the Giants terminated the contracts of cornerback Amani Oruwariye and wide receiver Cam Sims.

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Giants injury report: Andrew Thomas, Azeez Ojulari limited

New York Giants LT Andrew Thomas and LB Azeez Ojulari were limited on Thursday and their status for Sunday’s game is up in the air.

The New York Giants returned to the practice field on Thursday following a scary scene the day prior. Practice squad cornerback Amani Oruwariye was injured on a kickoff drill and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

Thankfully, Oruwariye was back at team facilities for the team’s second practice of the week and had full function in his extremities.

Meanwhile, left tackle Andrew Thomas and right end Darren Waller each returned to practice.

The Giants’ Thursday injury report can be found below:

Did not participate: WR Sterling Shepard (rest)

Limited participant: OL Andrew Thomas (hamstring), K Graham Gano (ankle), WR Wan’Dale Robinson (knee), CB Deonte Banks (calf), LB Cam Brown (ankle), CB Cor’Dale Flott (hamstring), LB Azeez Ojulari (hamstring), S Gervarrius Owens (hamstring), OL Matt Peart (elbow), TE Darren Waller (hamstring/rest)

Full participant: N/A

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Giants’ Amani Oruwariye sent to hospital after ‘scary scene’

Giants CB Amani Oruwariye was injured in a terrifying scene on Wednesday before being loaded into an ambulance and sent to the hospital.

A terrifying scene unfolded at New York Giants practice on Wednesday during a kick return drill when cornerback Amani Oruwariye went down an needed immediate assistance.

Oruwariye was immobilized by the training staff, placed on a backboard and carted to a nearby ambulance where he was transported to a local hospital.

The good news — if there is any after such a unsettling incident — is that Oruwariye was moving his arms and hands as he was carted away.

“He had movement in all his extremities and was taken to Hackensack Medical Center for further evaluation. The results of the evaluation and testing were negative, and Oruwariye was cleared to return to the team’s facility,” the Giants said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.

The 27-year-old Oruwariye was signed a one-year contract in March and later released as a part of final cuts. He was re-signed to the team’s practice squad, where he remained through the first week of the regular season.

Oruwariye was originally a fifth-round pick of the Detroit Lions in the 2019 NFL draft. He had spent the first four years of his career in Detroit before becoming an unrestricted free agent earlier this year.

In 53 career games (36 starts), the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Oruwariye has recorded 173 tackles (143 solo, four for a loss), two fumble recoveries, 24 passes defensed, and nine interceptions. He was leading the NFL in interceptions before suffering a thumb injury in 2021.

In 2022, Oruwariye earned a Pro Football Focus grade of just 30.0, which was the worst of his career. His highest overall grade came as a rookie in 2019 with a 71.4.

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Stock up, down after Giants’ 32-24 preseason loss to Jets

Whose stock is up and whose is down following the New York Giants’ loss to the New York Jets in Week 3 of the preseason?

The New York Giants closed out their preseason with an injury-riddled 32-24 loss to the New York Jets on Saturday night.

The game itself — and the injuries — were overshadowed by the Jets debut of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who got into it with Giants linebacker Jihad Ward at one point. Both refused to talk about the incident after the game.

For several players, it was their final opportunity to earn a spot on the 53-man roster and, potentially, the final game of their career. Others played hard and opened eyes, potentially earning them a roster spot — either with the Giants or elsewhere.

Whose stock is up and whose is down after the preseason loss? Let’s take a look.

Giants-Jets preseason Week 3: Offense, defense and special teams snap counts

The New York Giants lost their Week 3 preseason game against the Jets. Here are the snap counts on offense, defense and special teams.

The New York Giants dropped their preseason finale to the New York Jets, 32-24, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Saturday night.

The game marked the Jets on-field debut for quarterback Aaron Rodgers but the real story, at least in Giants land, will be the injuries.

The Giants saw eight players go down to injury during the game with seven of those failing to return. It’s a situation that will have an impact on the team’s cuts next week.

There’s a lot to break down and a lot to go over but before we look ahead, let’s look back. Here are the snap counts that contributed to the Giants’ loss.

Offensive snaps: 74
Defensive snaps: 59
Special teams snaps: 30

Offensive lineman Korey Cunningham and cornerback Amani Oruwariye took the full load of snaps, which tells you the Giants wanted to get one last long look. Ditto offensive tackle Matt Peart.

Linebacker Oshane Ximines also saw a significant amount of playing time and that may call into question his future with the team. Of course, the Giants were also running low on numbers due to injury and that obviously factored in.

Wide receiver Sterling Shepard seeing time on special teams is also curious.

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Studs and duds from Giants’ preseason loss vs. Jets

The New York Giants fell to the New York Jets, 32-24, on Saturday night and here’s a look at the studs and duds from the game.

The New York Giants closed out their preseason on Saturday night with a 32-24 loss to the New York Jets, but that’s not the story of the night.

With reserves heavily featured and fighting for roster spots, the Giants saw seven players fall to injury. The vast majority of those didn’t return and a couple looked severe.

How that influences the team’s decisions on Tuesday remains to be seen but it will likely result in some waiver claims.

As far as the game itself, it was a typical late-preseason contest with more bad football than good.

Here is a look at several studs and duds (and studly duds) from Saturday night’s preseason loss.

Madden NFL 24 ratings for the Detroit Lions secondary

Quite a few changes in the Lions secondary and the Madden ’24 ratings seem to like the changes

The secondary for the Detroit Lions is going to look much different than it did a year ago. Players such as Jeff Okudah, Amani Oruwariye and DeShon Elliot are now gone and have been replaced with players such as Cameron Sutton, Emmanuel Moseley and C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

It’s been no secret that the Lions secondary has been somewhat of a liability for a while now. However, they look to be better on paper now with players such as Sutton and Moseley on the roster.

Last season, Sutton had three interceptions and 15 pass deflections. It was a career year for the six-year veteran. He’ll transition his career to the Lions as one of their top cornerbacks. In Madden ’24, he earned a rating of 77 overall. That’s the same rating that was given to Emmanuel Moseley. For Moseley, he had 5 pass deflections and an interception before tearing his ACL last season. If healthy, both players should be the top options for the perimeter of the Lions’ defense.

Above is the rest of the cornerback rankings for Detroit. Surprisingly, Will Harris is rated much higher than Jerry Jacobs. For Harris, he did have the best year of his career in 2022 while earning 68% of his defensive snaps at nickel. He earned 10 starts on the season and his PFF grade of 63.7 was 66th best out of 235 corners in the NFL.

As for Jacobs, he logged 8 pass deflections and an interception last season. While his 55.8 overall grade from PFF is lower than Harris’, it’s worth noting that Jacobs tore his ACL in week 14 of the 2021 season. He spent the start of the 2022 season on the reserve/PUP list. There’s potential for Jacobs to take snaps from Harris this season, if healthy.

The fastest cornerback on the roster is a tie between Khalil Dorsey and Jarren Williams. Both players are listed with 93 speed for the video game. That could be noteworthy when you’re running a kick-off or punt and need a speedster to get down and make a tackle.

Speaking of tackling, the hardest hitter in the Lions secondary is rookie defensive back Brian Branch. He earned an 86 rating for hit power. As for the rest of the safeties, the top-rated safety is C.J. Gardner-Johnson with an 84 overall rating.

The next closest to Gardner-Johnson are free safeties Kerby Joseph and Tracy Walker. It shouldn’t be surprising to see Joseph have such a rise up the rankings after posting 82 tackles, 8 pass breakups and four interceptions as a rookie.

For Walker, there’s potential for him to emerge as a starter in the video game and on the field in real life. He’s coming back from a torn Achilles and much of what we’ve seen through social media is that he looks to be 100% healthy or close to it.

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As for the rest of the safeties, it’s somewhat surprising to see Brian Branch listed as one. Especially since it seemed like the Lions drafted him to play cornerback. On my draft board for the 2023 NFL Draft, I had Branch listed as my top safety. With a 75 overall rating, Branch is the highest-rated rookie safety in Madden ’24.

Each day that passes, EA Sports releases a new set of rankings for each position group. With these rankings of the Lions secondary, there’s plenty to feel good about with how deep the Lions are at with the safety position. Meanwhile, they’ve got more consistency at cornerback this year than they have in the past. It’ll be fun to see how this group gels in Madden ’24 and for the upcoming season.

Every NFL draft pick coached by James Franklin

Zac Stacy, Jordan Matthews, Saquon Barkley, Micah Parsons, and every other NFL draft pick who played for James Franklin.

[autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] got his first head coaching opportunity with Vanderbilt after the 2010 season despite previously being the head coach-in-waiting at Maryland. The Commodores are not necessarily known for producing a tremendous amount of NFL talent, but Vanderbilt managed to send a few players off to the next level by way of the NFL draft under the guidance of Franklin, who has experience as an assistant coach in the NFL.

In the years Franklin was the head coach at Vanderbilt, from 2011 through 2013, Vanderbilt had seven players drafted. And a few more who would go on to be drafted later on out of Vanderbilt were brought into the program initially by Franklin and his staff. The seven players drafted from Vanderbilt from Franklin’s three seasons with the program is the most draft picks from Vanderbilt in a three-year span in school history since 1957-1969 saw 11 players selected by NFL teams, in the days of a draft lasting at least 20 rounds.

Since arriving at Penn State in 2014, Franklin has seen a growing number of his players go on to be drafted by NFL franchises, including an offensive rookie of the year in running back [autotag]Saquon Barkley[/autotag] in 2018 and a defensive rookie of the year in linebacker [autotag]Micah Parsons[/autotag] in 2021.

Here is a look at every player drafted by an NFL team that had James Franklin as a head coach in their last game before being drafted, beginning with Franklin’s time at Vanderbilt.

And once you are done checking out this list, here is a list of every Penn State player drafted in the first round of the NFL draft since Penn State joined the Big Ten.