Tag: Raiders

Former Saints cornerback Eric Allen will be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame

A former Pro Bowl New Orleans Saints cornerback will be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Class of 2025. Eric Allen is joining the all-time greats:

Another former New Orleans Saints player will be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025. This year it was cornerback Eric Allen, who despite not being the longtime Saint in the class (as opposed to Jahri Evans), was a notable member of the team nonetheless. Allen was a member of the team from 1995 to 1997, where he would receive his sixth and last Pro Bowl nod in his first year with the team.

Allen was an exceptional defensive back who had a legendary career across the three teams he played for, accruing 54 career interceptions, 787 total tackles, and a whopping 40 pass deflections in the three seasons of his career they were tracked, which only goes to show how impressive he was when he was nearing the end of his playing days.

As a major component in the “Gang Green” defense with Reggie White, Jerome Brown, Byron Evans, and many others, he was able to build up a legacy with the Eagles, and ultimately was inducted into their team Hall of Fame as well. A legendary career for the 14-year cornerback, and one that will now forever be enshrined among the greatest to ever play the game.

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Chiefs HC Andy Reid comments on retirement rumors after Super Bowl LIX: ‘I enjoy football’

Kansas City #Chiefs head coach Andy Reid comments on retirement rumors after Super Bowl LIX: ‘I enjoy football’ | @EdEastonJr

The Kansas City Chiefs are in their fifth Super Bowl in six years, continuing unparalleled success under head coach Andy Reid. During Super Bowl media week, the long-time coach is constantly forced to address his future, and this year in New Orleans is no different.

During his press conference on Tuesday, Reid ended the speculation and eliminated the distractions ahead of Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

“I enjoy teaching, so I don’t get caught up too much on all the stats and all that, all the records and all that stuff,” said Reid. “But I enjoy being around the guys. I enjoy football, the game. You can’t put in the hours that we do and not enjoy it. So I really love the game. Yes, I’ll be back.”

Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt indicated on Monday that Reid would return next season and would no longer hold the title as the league’s oldest head coach. The Las Vegas Raiders’ hitting Pete Carroll has given him back that designation, while the AFC West will sport the oldest combination of head coaches projected for the 2025 season.

Saints interim coach lumped into a group of the coaching cycle’s losers

There won’t be any interim coaches retained this coaching cycle, so B/R has that group as one of the offseason’s biggest losers:

The New Orleans Saints have yet to finalize a deal with Kellen Moore to be the next head coach, but the only impediment is waiting for Moore’s season to be over.

That would mean the Saints would pass over Darren Rizzi and no interim coaches will be retained.

The Saints, New York Jets and Chicago Bears all fired their coach midseason and went outside of the building for their newest head coach.

Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton called interim head coaches one of the coaching cycle’s biggest losers. He believes Antonio Pierce’s quick departure from the Las Vegas Raiders could have played a part in team’s reluctance to commit to interim coaches.

A larger contributing factor could be the lack of success of interim coaches in 2024. Pierce had a winning record as an interim coach. The three teams with an interim coach are all picking inside the top-10.

Rizzi may be a part of the loser group, but he doesn’t need sympathy. He’s one of the top special teams coordinators in the league and already has his next job lined up.

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Dolphins will have interest in Marcus Mariota, says NFL insider

The Dolphins are likely to pursue veteran quarterback Marcus Mariota in free agency, says ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The Miami Dolphins’ lackluster backup quarterback situation proved to be a fatal flaw in 2024. ESPN’s Adam Schefter has already reported that the team will have its eye on one veteran as a possible solution.

After saying Monday that the Las Vegas Raiders could be the landing spot for impending free agent Marcus Mariota, Schefter added the Dolphins are also a strong possibility.

“I’ll tell you where else Marcus Mariota is going to be an option: in Miami with Tua [Tagovailoa] — his good friend Tua,” Schefter said on The Pat McAfee Show. “He’ll be an option there. So there could be a little bit of interest in Marcus Mariota between the Miami Dolphins and Chip Kelly and the Las Vegas Raiders. … He’ll have some interesting choices this offseason.”

Mariota, 31, spent the 2024 season with the Washington Commanders — his fourth team in as many seasons. The former No. 2 overall pick already had a two-year stint with the Raiders earlier in his career, but speculation of a potential return is linked to the addition of Chip Kelly, who coached Mariota for two years at Oregon, as the offensive coordinator in Las Vegas.

In 2024, Mariota took snaps in three games with the Commanders and finished the year with four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Earlier this year, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier told reporters that the team made an effort to sign a free agent passer in 2024.

“We were in on a number of topflight backup quarterbacks in the league,” Grier said. “We were runner-ups for a couple of them that we wanted to get here, and for some financial restraints and compensatory pick stuff, we just couldn’t go to those, to the prices. But all of those guys wanted to come here. It’s a position we do not take lightly.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if Mariota was one of the quarterbacks who talked with the Dolphins before opting to play elsewhere. Between the one-year, $6 million deal he signed and the opportunity to compete with a rookie for snaps, the Commanders offered opportunity and pay to Mariota that the Dolphins would’ve had a hard time matching.

While the urgency to address the quarterback depth has been raised for the Dolphins after backups went 2-4 in Tagovailoa’s absence last season, many of the same challenges could arise in 2025. The Raiders have significantly more salary cap space and no entrenched starter in place.

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Dolphins QB coach may reunite with Pete Carroll as Raiders OC

The Dolphins have retained most of their staff, but Pete Carroll landing in Las Vegas could mean the departure of one assistant.

Miami Dolphins quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator Darrell Bevell interviewed for the Las Vegas Raiders’ offensive coordinator position Tuesday, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

Earlier this week, the Raiders officially introduced Pete Carroll as their new head coach.

Carroll previously spent 14 seasons as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks where Bevell was his offensive coordinator for seven seasons. During that run from 2011 to 2017, the team had a run of five straight trips to the playoffs, including two Super Bowl appearances and the franchise’s only Super Bowl win.

In his time since working with the Seahawks, Bevell was the offensive coordinator and interim head coach of both the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars. He joined the Dolphins’ staff in 2022, shortly after the team hired Mike McDaniel as head coach.

The Raiders are on the hunt for a quarterback of the future after starting Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell, and Desmond Ridder in 2024. Las Vegas finished No. 29 in the NFL in scoring.

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Pete Carroll could be part of the greatest coaching division in NFL history

Pete Carroll, Andy Reid, Sean Payton, and Jim Harbaugh are all coaching in the same division. It’s hard to comprehend how great the four coaches are.

If you love the NFL and its history, you have to be excited about seeing the news that Pete Carroll will coach the Las Vegas Raiders. Carroll will coach in the AFC West, going up against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. He will try to slow down the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers, two teams which made the NFL playoffs this past season. If you stop for a moment and consider the four coaches who make up the AFC West coaching contingent, it is hard to think of another time in NFL history when one division had four great all-time head coaches.

The mid-1980s NFC East had three all-timers: Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys, Bill Parcells of the New York Giants, and Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins. The 2025 AFC West, however, will have four all-time greats.

Pete Carroll, Andy Reid, and Sean Payton have all won the Super Bowl. Carroll is the only man alive to have won the Super Bowl, Rose Bowl, and college football national championship. Andy Reid has won three Super Bowls and should become — in a few years — just the fourth man ever to win 300 NFL games as a head coach. Jim Harbaugh is one of a select few men who have won a college football national championship and coached in a Super Bowl.

All four men — Carroll, Reid, Payton, and Harbaugh — have coached in multiple conference championship games. All are in the top 95 on the NFL head coaching wins list.

Pete Carroll, Sean Payton, and Andy Reid are all in the top 20 for all-time NFL head coaching wins. They all have 170 or more wins.

The list of statistics and milestones goes on and on and on. This might be the best division of coaches in the history of the NFL.

New Orleans may be running unopposed for remaining HC candidates

As the coaching dominos continue to fall, the New Orleans Saints may have no competition for their top remaining candidates:

The New Orleans Saints lost their top head coach candidate, Aaron Glenn, to the New York Jets, but they aren’t at risk of losing any others on their list. They’ll have their pick of Joe Brady, Mike McCarthy, Mike Kafka, Anthony Weaver and Darren Rizzi.

The dominos were expected to fall quickly after Glenn and Ben Johnson were free to sign, and that’s exactly what happened.

Johnson went to the Chicago Bears, and the offensive coaches started coming off the board. The Las Vegas Raiders are rolling with Pete Carroll, and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ wild coaching search is ending with Liam Coen.

The Dallas Cowboys are the only other vacancy, and all signs point to them promoting offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to head coach.

This would leave the Saints as the only remaining team without a head coach. Even with the Cowboys still open, none of the Saints candidates have met with the Cowboys. Even if Dallas copied everyone on the list, New Orleans would still have McCarthy to themselves, at the least.

New Orleans wasn’t going to rush their interviews; they couldn’t if they wanted to, due to a rare winter snowstorm slowing travel in the Southeast. Now, they can be as patient as they want.

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Christian Wilkins’ injury probably cost the Dolphins a 3rd round pick

The Dolphins are still going to get a compensatory pick for losing Christian Wilkins, but his foot injury probably downgraded it a bit.

When the Las Vegas Raiders gave defensive tackle Christian Wilkins a four-year, $110 million contract in free agency during the 2024 offseason, a third-round compensatory pick for the Miami Dolphins seemed an inevitability. Now it looks unlikely.

After playing in only five games with the Raiders, Wilkins suffered a foot injury that required season-ending surgery. While the NFL’s compensatory picks formula isn’t affected by a player struggling on the field, play time does factor in significantly.

Wilkins was on the field for just 22.2 percent of the Raiders’ defensive snaps in 2024, which likely dropped the compensation headed back to Miami from a third- to a fourth-round pick in the 2025 NFL draft.

The NFL won’t officially award compensatory picks until March and OverTheCap’s projections aren’t a guarantee. Last year, OTC correctly projected 27 of the 36 compensatory selections. The other nine were the correct team, but a round off the mark.

Wilkins isn’t far below OTC’s projected cut-off that separates third-round picks from fourth-rounders.

The good news for the Dolphins is that they’re likely to get a third-round pick thanks to the five-year, $100 million deal Robert Hunt received from the Carolina Panthers. And while several other contracts cancel out, DeShon Elliott’s two-year, $6 million deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers should give Miami one more pick just a few spots ahead of Mr. Irrelevant.

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Saints defensive assistant named to Shrine Bowl coaching staff

One current Saints defensive assistant has been named to the 2025 East-West Shrine Bowl coaching staff. Matt Giordano will be working with the DB’s:

New Orleans Saints defensive assistant and former NFL safety Matt Giordano has been named to the East-West Shrine Bowl coaching staff for the 2025 event. He’ll be responsible for coaching the defensive backs on the East Team.

Giordano played out his college career at Fresno City College and California-Berkley, before he was ultimately selected by the Indianapolis Colts in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL draft.

Over his nine-year NFL career, he played four seasons for the Colts, one season for the Green Bay Packers, one season for the Saints, two seasons for the then-Oakland Raiders and his final season with the then-St. Louis Rams.

As far as his coaching career goes, he started up as the Buchanan High School head coach in Clovis, California from 2016-21, also seeing time at Fresno State as a volunteer assistant (2022) and with the Saints from 2023 to present. He played under Dennis Allen on the Raiders and reunited with his old coach to work in the secondary.

It will be interesting to watch what the future holds for Giordano, with the Saints expected to make several changes within the staff and the team roster over the offseason.

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Raiders close to stealing front office member from the Chargers

The Raiders are bringing in the Chargers’ assistant general manager for a second, in-person interview.

Chargers assistant general manager Chad Alexander will fly to Las Vegas on Monday for a second, in-person interview for the Raiders’ general manager position, according to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.

Before coming to Los Angeles, Alexander spent five years as the Jets’ director of player personnel. He played a key role in New York drafting Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner, the 2022 Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year.

Before joining New York, Alexander spent 20 seasons with the Ravens, most of which was with general manager Joe Hortiz. He worked in various roles, from an area scout to serving as Baltimore’s Assistant Director of Pro Personnel in his final nine seasons.

Alexander attended the NFL’s Front Office & General Manager Accelerator Program in Dallas last month.

If Alexander is hired, it would be the second consecutive year in which the Raiders hired a general manager from the Chargers’ front office. Last year, they hired Tom Telesco, who was fired after one season in Las Vegas. Telesco was with the Bolts for 11 seasons.