Tag: NFL owners meetings

Ron Rivera is getting ‘tired of it’

Ron Rivera is “tired” of all the negative stories surrounding the franchise. He’s absolutely right. How does he think longtime fans feel?

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbykgy681k112p8 player_id=none image=https://washingtonfootballwire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera is frustrated, and understandably so.

At the NFL owner’s meetings, Rivera expressed his frustrations on the franchise often being the target of bad news. “Quite honestly I’m tired of it, I really am,” Rivera said via John Keim of ESPN.

“But the only way to fix it is winning, and that’s the truth.”

No doubt, Rivera must be tired of hearing about the inappropriate culture at Ashburn, prior to his arrival. But also following his arrival, his first Washington football team was called the uh, lame, “Washington Football Team.” His owner in February was accused on national television of inappropriately touching a woman not his wife. After the allegations, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced another investigation into the sexual climate of the franchise.

I feel for Ron Rivera, I really do. No one would want the past to continually be brought up in your face, when you are attempting to change the culture yourself since your arrival in 2020.

Coach Ron has been here two years, but I must ask, how does he think we feel? I have been following the franchise passionately since the 1969 season.

I grew up watching George Allen have winning years in each of his seven seasons (1971-77). Joe Gibbs made us proud to be Washington fans, during his tenure (1981-1992) coach Joe had one losing season in 12 years! In those years, Coach Joe experienced eight playoff births, five NFC title games, four Super Bowl appearances and three Super Bowl championships.

In the 29 seasons that have followed, Washington has only been to the playoffs six times (1999, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2020). And Gibbs came back for a four-year stint and led Washington to two of those playoff appearances.

I’m tired of the franchise for the past 29 seasons having 18 losing seasons. I’m tired of the franchise for the past 29 seasons winning only two playoff games.

I’m tired of the owner having meddled in signing overpriced, unmotivated free agents, disrespecting the football scouts, coaches and front office to draft a quarterback because his son went to the same high school.

I’m tired of the owner creating a culture that runs off entirely too many good hard-working employees on the business side, being an embarrassment for the sexually inappropriate culture he did nothing to eliminate. And now I am tired of hearing he himself may have inappropriately touched Tiffani Johnston.

I believe Ron Rivera is sincerely tired of his two years with the team. How much more must many of us be tired after the last 29 years?

Seahawks: 6 notes from Pete Carroll’s presser at the NFL owners meetings

Carroll just got done speaking with some reporters. Here are a few notes from that conversation.

The annual NFL owners meetings are currently taking place in Palm Beach, Florida. Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider are among the front office executives speaking with the media today.

Carroll just got done speaking with some reporters. Here are a few notes from that conversation.

Even Andy Reid was asked about Ron Rivera and Carson Wentz

Ron Rivera and Andy Reid are close. Did they talk about Washington’s new quarterback Carson Wentz?

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbykgy681k112p8 player_id=none image=https://washingtonfootballwire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

Andy Reid and Ron Rivera go way back. When Andy Reid took over as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999, Rivera was one of his first hires, making the former Chicago Bear linebacker his linebackers coach.

Rivera spent five seasons in Philadelphia before returning to Chicago as the Bears’ defensive coordinator for three seasons. Five years later, Rivera would get his first chance to be a head coach with the Carolina Panthers.

After Rivera’s second year in Carolina, Reid was fired after 14 seasons with the Eagles and quickly signed with Kansas City, leading the Chiefs to become an NFL powerhouse.

The two old friends remain close, and on Monday, at the NFL’s owner’s meetings, Reid was asked if he spoke with Rivera about Washington’s offseason pursuit of a quarterback.

“I don’t remember talking about the quarterback situation, but we do talk all the time,” Reid said.

J.P. Finlay of NBC Sports Washington and 106.7 The Fan then asked Reid how he thought Carson Wentz would perform in Washington.

“I think he’ll do a good job,” Reid responded and then joked: “Then, I think he’ll run for president after that.”

“He’s a sharp guy, a sharp guy,” Reid said of Wentz.

Rivera and Reid are close, so of course, Washington’s coach asked his longtime friend about Wentz — either before or after the trade. After all, Reid is arguably the best quarterback coach in the NFL.

While Reid was joking about a possible presidential run for Wentz, the new quarterback has the opportunity to be a franchise icon if he becomes the passer to solve the franchise’s longtime problematic issues under center.

Chiefs HC Andy Reid comments on Tyreek Hill trade at NFL owners meetings

Andy Reid says the #Chiefs didn’t want to play “hardball” with Tyreek Hill in contract negotiations and believes KC can remain competitive without him.

Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid has made his first public comments since the Tyreek Hill trade.

The NFL’s annual owners’ meeting is taking place at The Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida over the next few days. Speaking to reporters ahead of the festivities, Reid was asked about how the team handled the contract situation with Tyreek Hill that ultimately led to his trade from Kansas City.

“You can handle it any way you want to handle it. We handled it the way we did there,” Reid said, via Pro Football Talk’s Charean Williams. “We felt like Tyreek deserved an opportunity. We came in aggressive and then after we got to a point, we just said, ‘Hey, listen, in this day and age, you have issues that you have to deal with with the cap,’ so we felt like it was better to allow him to go ahead and be traded. You can go different routes. You can play hardball with a player and do that, or you can kind of go about the way I did. Or we did.”

There was no love lost between Hill and the Chiefs. No irreconcilable rift. It was simply a matter of doing what was best for both parties. Kansas City felt they’d made a number of aggressive offers to keep Hill, but ultimately came to the conclusion that with salary cap constraints it wasn’t the right move for the team. Instead of trying to play “hardball” and force Hill to play out his contract, the team decided to sell high.

“Listen, the cap never gets far away from your thought process, because you’re always dealing with it,” Reid continued. “So (General Manager) Brett (Veach) has got to sit in there and manage that with his guys and if you want to keep consistency throughout years you’ve got to be able to do that and still stay at a high level. So I love Tyreek Hill. There was no rift between Tyreek Hill and myself. I thought he deserved an opportunity if that’s where he wanted to go. He’s a family man with a few kids, and he’s got to be able to support them now and down the road and this gives him an opportunity to do that. Put him a place where he has a home, and at the same time, it gave us great compensation.”

As for the compensation, Reid believes it’s a big part of why the team will remain competitive. That will allow the Chiefs an opportunity to continue to build around Patrick Mahomes, both with draft capital and the $72.2 million in guaranteed money that they’re not spending on Hill over the next four years.

“Obviously, Patrick’s a big part of that (belief the team can remain competitive),” Reid said. “You want to surround him with good players, but that’s a sticky question, because we did try to sign Tyreek at a certain cost. Once it gets past that, now you can see what we’re doing here with the players we brought in, and we feel they’re very good football players. So we’ll see. I mean the end result is going to be what takes place during the season, but Brett’s building this thing back where we feel comfortable that we can go win on Sundays.”

[listicle id=126210]

In cruel twist, the Chiefs wanted NFL to change OT rules in 2019

Had the #Chiefs gotten their way last offseason, the #Bills would have gotten the ball in OT:

The Buffalo Bills were on the losing end of their AFC divisional-round matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kansas City needed overtime but eventually pulled out an improbable 42-36 win against Buffalo.

Helping the Chiefs do it was some incredible play and coin flip as rules currently stand.

And now for the irony.

There was an item one team in particular put on the agenda  at the NFL owners meeting in the spring of 2019.. The specific discussion was one that would change the league’s OT rules to allow both teams to get a possession of the ball in the extra period.

The team proposing this idea which eventually was not passed or even voted on?

The Chiefs.

There is still a chance going forward that the NFL could end up changing their overtime rules. When that day comes we don’t know and it won’t help the Bills now.

As the story went in Buffalo’s trip to Kansas City, they never saw the ball in overtime as KC went down the field and scored a touchdown to end the contest.

Those are the rules that current stand and it ended up being a cruel result for the Bills.

We’ll wait and see if the NFL allows any rule changes to overtime this upcoming offseason.

[lawrence-related id=95854,95838,95808]

Report: Bills owner Terry Pegula leaves NFL owners meetings due to COVID concern

Report: #Bills owner Terry Pegula leaves NFL owners meetings due to COVID concern:

Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula was in attendance at the NFL owners meetings on Tuesday which are taking place in New York City until he was forced to leave.

The reasoning for that is because of a close contract COVID situation unfolding for him.

According to The Athletic, Pegula had to depart because he was in close contract with his daughter’s tennis coach who attended her wedding this past weekend. The coach tested positive for COVID-19:

Worth noting: It is understood that Pegula has not tested positive for COVD-19 himself. This is just a safety precaution.

Bills co-owner Kim Pegula, Terry’s wife, is not representing the team at the meetings, which are taking place Tuesday to Thursday. She is not there according to the Buffalo News.

Per Kim Pegula’s social media account on Twitter, the wedding took place in Ashville, NC.

The Bills, in some form, will potentially now attend the meeting virtually.

Bills Wire will provide any future updates on the situation.

[lawrence-related id=90604,90610,90601]

NFL owners unanimously approve Dan Snyder’s buy-out of Washington co-owners

With a unanimous 32-0 vote, Daniel Snyder was approved to buy out the remaining shares of the Washington Football Team and take total control.

The news came out last week that not only was Washington Football Team owner Daniel Snyder refusing to sell the team, as so many fans wished he would, but rather he was making a move to buy-out the co-owners of the team and taking a 100% controlling stake.

After a number of co-owners reported were looking to sell their shares of the team, which amounted to approximately 40% of the franchise, Snyder sent a request to the NFL for a $450 million debt waiver so that he could purchase the remaining shares and take full control of the franchise.

On Wednesday at the NFL Owner’s Meetings, that request was unanimously approved with a vote of 32-0.

10 best phrases and stories from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is always good for a quote or headline. Here are 10 of Jones’ best phrases and stories.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is at it again.

Jones, who is also the Cowboys’ president and general manager, is alleged to have said owls like to make love with chickens — somehow an analogy for what happens when times are insane. Of course, Jones spun it with his folksy Arkansas style, just as he has with many stories and phrases since buying the team in February of 1989.

Here are 10 of the best stories and phrases from Jones.

The Bill Belichick loophole is gone now, thank goodness

Good riddance.

Last season, Bill Belichick used a dead-ball penalty loophole to burn time off of the clock in a late game situation against the Jets.

After the game, he had a good laugh about it and said the loophole should (and probably would) be closed once the league discusses new rule changes during the offseason’s owners meetings.

It turns out that, once again, Belichick was right. The rule did change. It officially happened today.

As part of newly approved regulations from out of the league’s owner meetings, the Bill Belichick loophole is now closed. The league’s competition committee approved a new rule that prevents teams from burning down the game clock by committing multiple dead-ball fouls with the game clock running.

Good on the league to nip this thing in the bud before it ever ballooned into something major

Unfortunately for Belichick, he became a casualty of the loophole before the rule was changed. It was used against him by Titans head coach and former Patriots assistant Mike Vrabel in the playoffs last year in their win on the way to the AFC Championship Game. Go figure.

It’s gone now. And with it, we’ve lost maybe the only thing we’ve ever seen make Belichick crack (somewhat?) of a smile.

Oh well. The league is better for it.

The NFL missed an opportunity by not approving the onside kick alternative

BOOOOOOOOO

Well, football fans, it looks like we’re going to have to wait for the 4th-and-15 idea to make the wretched onside kick obsolete in the NFL.

NFL owners were mulling over a bunch of potential rule changes and creating an untimed 4th-and-15 down from the kicking team’s 25-yard line as an alternative to the onside kick was one of them. Last week, it actually seemed possible that the league would end up doing it.

This week, apparently that has changed. At least for now. The owners are scrapping the rule change and tabling the conversation for another time, according to reports from NFL Network. Basically, close but no cigar.

Listen, man. If anyone from the NFL is reading this: GET IT TOGETHER. This is the right thing to do. Go ahead and do it.

The league is right to consider an alternative to the onside kick. Simple math says so.

Pretty much no one recovers onside kicks these days — well, except the Falcons. Because they have Onside Kick God Younghoe Koo, but still! Everyone else struggles.

The all-time recovery rate on onside kicks is 13.2%, according to NFL Operations. But that number has dropped to around 10% since 2018 because of new kicking rules.

Meanwhile, teams have been generally better than that over the last few years at converting on fourth and long.

Come on, NFL. This is a no-brainer. We’ve got to be honest about onside kicks — they’re not fun, they’re anticlimactic and they’re dangerous. Fourth and 15 plays are not only safer, but they also bring more actual excitement to the game.

It’s really a win-win for everyone. And it’s not like the onside kick would be gone — there’d just be a new alternative to it. So, if a team wants, they could still use it. I’m speaking to you here, Falcons fans. There’s no good reason not to get this done.

This is a chance for the NFL to do something out of the box and exciting, so of course they’re going to pass on it for now. But there’s still a chance. The league just needs to stop playing around and do it.

[jwplayer hz6BKwCb-q2aasYxh]