Dwight Freeney was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. It likely was a year longer than he likely thought he should wait.
No matter, Freeney saw his bust unveiled Saturday after seven Pro Bowls, three All-Pros, an All-Decade Team, 16 seasons, 47 forced fumbles and 125.5 sacks. His patented spin move still is talked about and copied today.
Colts owner Jim Irsay called Freeney “a twirling dervish” in his presentation of Freeney.
Freeney was the first of seven inductees honored Saturday in a ceremony delayed an hour and 45 minutes by inclement weather, and his speech will be hard to follow.
“I want to thank this great game of football for giving me the opportunity to express myself and my creativity to the world,” Freeney said. “I always felt like I was an artist, and the football field was my canvas, and I am forever grateful for that feeling. One of the things that motivated me was never being completely satisfied with myself and my performance. It’s what drove me to continue to improve my skillset and my mission to perfect my craft and try to dominate every Sunday.
“I realized that in order for me to win battles on the field I had to win the internal battles with myself. I had to keep pushing myself not to be complacent or lazy, to not look for excuses for why something didn’t happen but to make it happen.”
Freeney made an impact as a rookie when he set a team rookie record with 13 sacks and led the NFL with nine forced fumbles and 20 tackles for loss. It was one of seven double-digit sack seasons he had.
He did it at 6 foot 1, 268 pounds.
Freeney played 11 seasons with the Colts and went on to spend time with the Chargers, Cardinals, Falcons, Lions and Seahawks, retiring after the 2017 season.
“From time to time, I think about coming out of retirement for just for one more year,” Freeney said. “Until I realize I can’t even catch my 3-year-old running down the hallway with the TV remote in her hand. It’s crazy. I went from chasing quarterbacks in the league to pulling my hamstring in the hallway chasing my kids.”
Freeney credited his mom for teaching him that “life isn’t a straight road; it’s full of peaks and valleys, and navigating through them is the key.”
“If you’re a young, aspiring, future NFL player, let me say this: Football’s not an easy game, and it can seem like it’s an impossible journey,” Freeney said in ending his speech. “But alwa remember that your hard work and sacrifice are the keys to opening the door to your dreams. People will call you too slow, too short, not tough enough, not strong enough. Use those words as fuel to ignite the internal fire that will motivate you and push to places you never thought were possible.
“All those bumps and bruises that make you want to quit. Fighting through that will make you into a better player and a better person. So I hope that you guys can look at my journey, and what I went through, and know that it’s possible to become who you want to be.”
The Falcons announced a couple of new additions to the roster on Thursday.
Quarterback Nathan Rourke and tight end Jordan Thomas have both signed contracts with the team. Quarterback John Paddock and wide receiver Daylen Baldwin were cut loose in corresponding moves.
Rourke opened camp on the Giants roster, but was cut last weekend. The CFL’s most outstanding Canadian player of 2022 spent time with the Jaguars and Patriots last year.
Thomas was a 2018 sixth-round pick by the Texans and caught 21 passes for 223 yards and four touchdowns in 21 games for the team. He also saw action for the Cardinals and Patriots in 2020 and most recently played in the UFL.
Back in June, the Falcons were hit with a relatively light punishment for tampering with three players on the eve of free agency — including quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Atlanta had to forfeit its original fifth-round pick and pay a $250,000 fine. General Manager Terry Fontenot was also fined $50,000.
Speaking to the media for the first time since the NFL’s announcement, team owner Arthur Blank said the Falcons are working to make sure nothing like that happens again.
“So, the tampering situation, we were advised by the NFL that we didn’t dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘T,’ despite our attempt to do that,” Blank said. “There were a couple of procedural mistakes, I think, that were made by the organization. We fully cooperated with the NFL, as we always do in any sort of investigation. They found there were certain things were deficient in the way we handled things with Kirk. We’ve addressed those things internally.
“Find something that’s a problem, you fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and that’s our attitude about it. The NFL is certainly doing their job and doing it well.”
In addition to Cousins, Atlanta was also found to have had contact with Darnell Mooney and Charlie Werner during the two-day negotiation period just before the start of the new league year.
Word came on Monday that the Falcons were planning to sign veteran wide receiver James Washington and the team confirmed the move on Tuesday.
The Falcons announced Washington’s signing and they doubled down on wideouts by also signing Jesse Matthews to their 90-man roster. They waived wide receiver Isaiah Wooden and placed offensive lineman Tyler Vrabel, who is the son of former Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, on the reserve/retired list in corresponding moves.
Washington spent time with the Saints and Colts last year, but did not see any regular season action. He has 114 catches for 1,629 yards and 11 touchdowns in 62 appearances for the Cowboys and Steelers.
Matthews signed with the Texans after going undrafted last year, but spent the entire season on injured reserve.
The Falcons are resonating with their fans again.
Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Falcons have sold out their season tickets. That’s the first time it has happened in nearly two decades.
That traces all the way back to the Michael Vick era. And it means that six playoff seasons (2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017) failed to move the season-ticket needle, even as Matt Ryan won the league MVP award and led the Falcons to Super Bowl LI.
The sellout comes on the heels of six straight non-playoff seasons. And it also happened after the signing of quarterback Kirk Cousins and the drafting of quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
So who was more responsible for the sales? Cousins or Penix? That could go a long way toward determining who will be the loudest if the preferred quarterback isn’t playing in the games.
A recent item from Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com regarding Minnesota’s quest for a franchise quarterback made it clear that they preferred to draft a quarterback in round one but to keep Kirk Cousins as the starter, for 2024 or longer.
That wasn’t the message that was communicated to Cousins.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Scoop City podcast, Cousins said that, at the time he was deciding on his future, the Vikings weren’t planning to draft a new quarterback.
“I don’t think they were ready to go there yet in March,” Cousins said, via quotes distributed by TheAthletic.com. “I think the reality is just that they wanted to give themselves that flexibility. And I remember [coach] Kevin [O’Connell]'s words, which I’m not going to hold them to, were, ‘Hey, if we sign you back, I would think it’s very unlikely that we would draft somebody.’ It was something to that effect. But I also know in the league things change.”
He knows things change from what happened after he signed with the Falcons. Presumably, they told him something similar about not using the eighth overall pick on a player who wouldn’t help the team win this year.
Still, Cousins got more security in Atlanta than he would have gotten in Minnesota. His new contract carries $90 million guaranteed through the first two years, with another $10 million in 2026 that will become fully guaranteed in March 2025.
“I just felt it had been — and was going to be — basically one year, one year, one year,” Cousins said regarding his situation in Minnesota. “I felt like, ‘Yeah, maybe I do want to play in Minnesota another five or six years, but it’s going to be on one-year contracts.’ That’s the plan they’ve chosen that they wanted to walk. I thought, ‘OK, I don’t really want to do that. I’ll do it if it’s my only option.’”
Whether he stays in Atlanta more than one year remains to be seen. Two seems to be the outer limit, unless they plan on sitting 24-year-old Michael Penix Jr. for three seasons.
As mentioned earlier today, the final decision as to when Penix takes over could be made, or at least heavily influenced, by owner Arthur Blank.
Regardless, Cousins will make $62.5 million this year, and he’s guaranteed to add $27.5 million next year. It seems clear that, even though Minnesota and Atlanta both opted for top-10 quarterbacks in the draft, Cousins was never going to get a deal like that one from the Vikings.
Veteran receiver James Washington faces an uphill battle to play in the NFL again, but he is getting a chance.
The Falcons are signing Washington, Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports. Washington spent two seasons with Falcons wide receivers coach Ike Hilliard in Pittsburgh.
Washington has played only two games the past two seasons, with his last coming on Dec. 18, 2022. He has not on a team last season after both the Saints and the Colts cut him in August.
After signing with the Cowboys in 2022, Washington injured his left foot in the spring and fractured his right foot in training camp. He required surgery to repair the Jones fracture.
He has not caught a pass since.
A second-round pick of the Steelers in 2018, he has 114 receptions for 1,629 yards and 11 touchdowns in his career.
In Atlanta, training camp began with quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and quarterback Taylor Heinicke splitting the second-team reps. As soon as Tuesday, when the Falcons get back to work, that could change.
Heinicke knows it’s coming; he said Saturday night that he can “see the writing on the wall.” While some have interpreted that to mean he’s expecting to no longer be a Falcon, the more immediate reality is that he’s likely expecting to not be getting many second-team reps much longer.
The real question is whether a looming Penix promotion will be the end, or the beginning? The question is balancing winning now and winning later. The sooner Penix plays, the better suited the Falcons will be to win later, since he’ll get valuable reps and the game will (in theory) slow down and he’ll get closer to his ceiling, whatever it might be.
Yes, they gave Kirk Cousins $90 million guaranteed over the next two years. But they can hold the total expense to $62.5 million, if he’s traded after the current season. If the Falcons pivot to Penix before 2025, that’s the likely outcome. (Yes, Cousins has a no-trade clause. His choices might be to waive it and play or flex it and sit.)
Watch the owner, Arthur Blank. If he wants Penix’s path to the starting job to be accelerated, those who work for Blank will have to decide whether to resist or relent.
Cousins is cleared to practice, but (we’re told) he’s still not 100 percent after tearing an Achilles tendon last season. As Penix gets more reps in practice — and if he plays at length in the preseason and plays well — the Falcons could decide to toss Penix into the fray. The players might make it impossible to keep Penix under wraps, depending on how he performs.
Ultimately, the coaching staff and front office might want to play Cousins and wait on Penix. Again, ownership could have a major say in what ultimately happens.
Because ownership typically has a major say in decisions like this, far more often than they’d ever admit.
Back to Heinicke. Why trade him? After last year, it’s clear that there’s value in having three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. The Falcons might need him at some point. Alternatively, the Falcons might be able to trade him to someone who will develop an acute requirement for a competent player at the most important position on the field.
In recent days, we’ve tried to shift some of the focus regarding quarterback contracts from APY (and only APY) to cash flow. As to the four-year window from 2023 through 2026 and 2024 through 2027, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the cash-flow king.
As to the four-year period that ended in 2023, the winner was Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
Per a source with knowledge of the numbers, Prescott earned $157.4 from 2020 through 2023. Deshaun Watson made $131.2 million. Kirk Cousins and Matthew Stafford each earned $130.5 million. Mahomes got $122.4 million.
Prescott’s high cash-flow number happened despite that fact that his contract has an APY of $40 million — $15 million below the top of the market.
Prescott doesn’t appear on either of the lists moving forward because his contract expires in 2024. Whenever he signs a new one (and he will, with the Cowboys or someone else), he’ll surely spring back up the list.
Patrick Mahomes has seen plenty of items on his cell phone device in recent days about quarterbacks from other teams making more and more and more money. Because the media has generally accepted new-money annual average as the universal currency for ranking player pay, it looks like Mahomes is woefully underpaid.
The three-time Super Bowl winner, whose worst outcome in any of his six seasons as a starter is losing in overtime of the AFC Championship, has a new-money APY of $45 million. Three quarterbacks (Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love) are at $55 million. Five others (Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts) are north of $50 million.
But there are other ways to look at these contracts. One way is to focus on the cash to be paid in the coming years.
And from 2023-26, as well as 2024-27, one player still leads the way in four-year cash flow. It’s Mahomes.
Here’s the four-year cash flow from 2023 through 2026, per a source with access to the numbers:
1. Mahomes: $210.6 million.
2. Lamar Jackson: $208 million.
3. Deshaun Watson: $184 million.
4. Joe Burrow: $181 million.
5. Daniel Jones:: $160 million.
6. Justin Herbert: $157 million.
7. Jalen Hurts: $157 million.
8. Kyler Murray: $153 million.
9. Josh Allen: $136 million.
10. Matthew Stafford: $121.5 million.
With recent deals included, here’s the four-year cash flow from 2024 through 2027:
1. Mahomes: $215.6 million.
2. Burrow: $213.9 million.
3. Jared Goff: $193.6 million.
4. Tua Tagovailoa: $186.1 million.
5. Jordan Love: $186 million.
6. Hurts: $184 million.
7. Herbert: $182.6 million.
8. Kirk Cousins: $180 million.
9. Jackson: $179.2 million.
10. Trevor Lawrence: $155.5 million.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the player will cash every check. Jones, for example, has little chance of making the $160 million he was due to earn from 2023 through 2026. Ditto for Cousins and his $180 million in Atlanta.
It’s still a factor. An important one. Along with other important factors, like signing bonus, full guarantee at signing, practical guarantee at signing, and the number of years until the team can activate an escape hatch from the rest of the deal.
For some reason, the media at large only ever looks at new-money APY.
Yes, Mahomes still lags on that factor. But he was due to make more than anyone from 2023 through 2026. And he’s due to make more than anyone from 2024 through 2027.
And that’s still a bargain for the Chiefs and for the NFL.