Rasheed Walker's one-year deal with the Carolina Panthers, worth up to $10 million (far below the $25 million per season some expected), stems from several performance and market factors.
Performance Weaknesses His elite pass blocking (top-15 in pass block win rate over three years) couldn't offset consistently poor run blocking grades from PFF (44th, 41st, and 53rd overall among tackles recently). This middling overall profile as a former seventh-round pick deterred big offers despite a thin tackle market.
Short-Term Strategy Walker signed a prove-it contract to bet on himself at age 25, aiming for a larger payday in 2027 free agency after replacing injured Ikem Ekwonu. It's a low-risk move for Carolina needing immediate stability without long-term commitment.
Market Dynamics Despite hype as a top available tackle, no bidding war emerged, possibly due to Packers fans' frustration and his unsigned status earlier in free agency. The Panthers capitalized on this for a bargain stopgap.
WHAT?!?! There's something we don't know, injury or some other facts we don't have yet. He's a legit starting LT who had one marginal year on a $10M "prove it" contract? What did I miss?
He is marginal, but he was definitely the best on the market before Taylor Decker was cut by the Lions.
What I don't understand is marginal guards are getting better contracts.
This one is a head scratcher... Is he his own agent? That's the only thing that would make sense...
WHAT?!?! There's something we don't know, injury or some other facts we don't have yet. He's a legit starting LT who had one marginal year on a $10M "prove it" contract? What did I miss?
Trump reveals story about GOP lawmaker Neal Dunn’s health
President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed Monday that Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) got a terminal diagnosis for a heart problem, prompting concerns about the House GOP’s super-slim majority and leading Trump to connect the congressman to care at Walter Reed Medical Center.
Trump talked about Dunn’s health during a press conference at the Kennedy Center while introducing Johnson, noting the Speaker’s tough job in managing such a small majority. Republicans can currently afford to lose no more than one member on any party-line vote, assuming all members are present and voting.
“We had it up to four,” Trump said of the GOP’s margin, “and then we had a death. And the death is very bad when you have a majority of two or three.”
“We had one man who was very ill, it looked like he wasn’t going to make it. I don’t know. I won’t mention his name,” Trump said, turning to Johnson: “Do you want to mention it? He’ll be proud. Go ahead, tell them the story.”
Johnson said that Dunn had some “real health challenges,” with a “pretty grim diagnosis.” After prodding from Trump, Johnson said, “I think it was a terminal diagnosis.”
“He would dead by June,” Trump said.
“Okay, that’s wasn’t public,” Johnson demurred, as Trump added: “It was a heart problem.”
Johnson said that the diagnosis prompted Dunn, who had already announced he would not seek re-election, to consider retiring back to Florida. A mid-session resignation, though, would further strain the slim House GOP majority, posing difficulties for Republicans in Washington.
Johnson said that Trump suggested getting his own White House doctors involved to help Dunn, and that “within hours” Dunn was in emergency surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Trump later said that “they gave him more stents, and more everything that you could have.”
“The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he’s 30 years younger,” Johnson said.
Trump recalled Johnson calling him with the news about Dunn’s diagnosis.
“I said, that’s bad. Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote,” Trump said.
Trump said Dunn said to the Speaker: “Mike, I’m gonna last this out for the President and you, and however long I live — I mean, it looks like June is the time, but however long I live, I’m going to be voting for you.”
He added, “I mean, how many people are going to say that?”
“I did it for him first and for the vote second. But it was a close second, actually,” Trump added.
It's headlines like this that make me think about Joel Bitonio. While I selfishly want to see a headline that he is coming back to the Browns for another season.. I not so secretly hope I see a different headline that he has signed a one year deal with; Bills/Rams/Patriots/Seahawks/Chiefs. We continually give players a career worth of gloom. For someone like Joel, for everything he gave Cleveland, I wish he could get a ring. 12 years, with only a few highlights is rough.
I felt the same way for Joe T, but in the end he just gave us loyalty to the Orange and Brown.
WASHINGTON—In a testy Oval Office meeting on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Donald J. Trump’s desperate pleas for military aid.
Referring to Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Zelenskyy said, “Iran has cards. You don’t have any cards.”
“You’re gambling with World War III,” he added.
Turning to Vice President JD Vance, Zelenskyy scolded, “Ukraine has kept Russia from attacking NATO for four years, and you haven’t said ‘thank you’ once.”
'Not our war': U.S. allies balk at Trump's Strait of Hormuz demands
Many European governments expressed reservations Monday about providing military support to reopen the crucial waterway.
LONDON — President Donald Trump has berated and threatened America's NATO allies. Now he wants these same countries to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz — and their response has not exactly been enthusiastic.
"This is not our war, we have not started it," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters Monday.
That appeared to sum up the mood among U.S. allies, with leaders from Berlin to London expressing reservations about Trump's demands and indicating they had no immediate plans to provide military support to reopen the crucial waterway.
Iran effectively closed the trade route in response to the American-Israeli assault launched last month. This sent global oil prices surging and threatened an international economic shock, something economists had warned about before the war began.
Trump called upon "countries of the world that receive oil through the Hormuz Strait" to "take care of that passage," as he put it in a Sunday post on Truth Social. In an interview with the Financial Times the same day he went further, warning that NATO would have a “very bad future” if its members did not help free up the strait.
Though often wary of risking Trump's ire, many European governments have been reluctant to be pulled into the war with Tehran.
Some, such as the leftist government of Spain, outright refused the Hormuz demand.
"Spain will never accept any stopgap measures" to keep the strait open, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said, "because the objective must be for the war to end, and for it to end now."
Japan and Australia said they had no plans to send ships to aid Trump's request.
Even in Italy, whose Prime Minister Georgia Meloni has previously cast herself as something of a Trump-whisperer, the government declined to get involved.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters that "diplomacy needs to prevail."
Others asked for Trump to provide more information.
Europe needed to understand Trump's “strategic goals. What will be the plan?” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said.
In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticized by Trump for not taking part in the initial attack on Iran.
Starmer told a news conference Monday he was "working with all of our allies, including our European partners," to "restore the freedom of navigation" as quickly as possible.
"Ultimately, we have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure stability on the market," he said. "That is not a simple task."
But Starmer made it clear that he would not be drawn into “the wider war,” and that any Hormuz mission should be a broader effort — including the U.S. and Gulf states — rather than something for NATO.
There are other proposals on the table, such as top European diplomat Kaja Kallas on Monday floating a similar deal to the one in 2022 that ensured Ukraine could export grain amid Russia's invasion.
But ultimately, European skepticism over Trump's Hormuz demand seemed to stem from their wariness of the war itself.
"The European answer must be: the way to end the problem is to end the war, not to join it," said Sven Biscop, a director at the Egmont Institute, a Belgian think tank. He said the main thing was "not be intimidated by threats on NATO" by Trump.
Asked for comment on the European reaction, the White House directed NBC News to comments made by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who told reporters that these countries should help out because they "are benefiting greatly from the United States military taking out the threat of Iran."
She added that "the president is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more to help the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so that we can stop this terrorist regime from restricting the free flow of energy."
Despite several ships being bombed as they attempt to cross the strait, Iran denies it has closed the narrow neck of water entirely. After the U.S. and Israel launched the war, it said it would attack vessels from those countries or their allies.
"From our perspective the Strait of Hormuz is open, and only closed to enemies," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on Telegram.
The wrangle over the strait marks the latest point of tension between the Trump administration and Washington's historic friends across the Atlantic.
Last year, the president refused to rule out using military force to seize the Danish autonomous island of Greenland.
He eventually said in January that he would not deploy the military to take Greenland, which sits in a strategic location amid the melting ice floes frequented by Russia and China, and has a wealth of natural resources.
However the damage had already been done, with officials and expert observers across Europe aghast that their most powerful member — which they fought alongside in World War II — would countenance using force against them.
Other presidents, such as President Barack Obama, have urged NATO members to pay more toward their militaries, and their administrations have been frustrated with Europe's perceived reliance on Washington to take care of its postwar defense.
However, none have done so as publicly or brusquely as Trump.
I thought Watson's cap relief was supposed to be ~$40m. Hopefully this isn't all the cap relief we're getting from guys that were injured.
I dove in a little deeper a few days ago. I won't bore you with the whole conversation, but this part is pertinent, AI gave me an answer with some vague terms, so I asked for a little depth...
explain: "minor predefined offsets over five years as per the policy structure"
"Minor predefined offsets over five years as per the policy structure" refers to how some NFL player injury insurance policies spread a small portion of the cap relief across multiple future years, rather than applying the entire amount in one lump sum. Policy Design These policies often include a clause where, after the primary credit hits the next league year's cap (e.g., 2026 for Watson's 2025 miss), the insurer amortizes a remaining balance—typically around $5 million annually—over five years to match the contract's guaranteed money structure and avoid overwhelming a single year's cap.
It also explained that these terms must be in the original policy. Teams cannot arbitrarily decide how to spread the payment after the fact.
5 years x5 million =25 million Then... 25+17 (the reported lump sum) =42 million
I mean, I guess this may be a strong possibility?
Trump backs FCC chair’s threat to pull licenses of news outlets over Iran war coverage
US president on social media said he was ‘thrilled’ that Brendan Carr was looking into broadcasters’ licenses
Donald Trump reinforced comments made by Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatening the broadcast licenses of news organizations that report unfavorably on the war in Iran.
In a Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump said he was “thrilled” that Carr was “looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations. They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES …”.
Carr wrote in a post on X on Saturday that broadcasters “that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr’s comments drew a rebuke from both Democrats and Republicans noting the first amendment protects news organizations from government censorship. Trump’s comments suggest he will widen his campaign against the media.
Trump described Iran as a “master of media manipulation”, noting – correctly – that AI-generated images had flooded the internet, which news organizations are cautiously navigating. But he then claimed that Iran is “working in close coordination with the Fake News Media” in disseminating these images, describing one in which a US aircraft carrier is shown falsely to be burning at sea.
“The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary and a former Fox News host, lambasted the press at a media availability Friday for what he claimed was unfavorable news coverage. Hegseth barred press photographers from the briefing, reportedly because some photos published of Hegseth have been deemed “unflattering”.
Singling out CNN by name, Hegseth said: “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
It is not the first time Trump has threatened broadcasters’ licenses. Trump railed against an ABC News reporter who asked him about the Epstein files last year. “I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong,” Trump replied. “And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should take a look at that.”
In February, Carr called for broadcasters to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary “by airing patriotic, pro-America content that celebrates the American journey and inspires its citizens by highlighting the historic accomplishments of this great nation from our founding through the Trump Administration today”.
I watched a re-play of San Fran VS Jacksonville this evening and I focused on our new addition Mr Davis. I came away pretty impressed. He was very disruptive the entire game. He does not play like a guy who weighs 310, very quick and appears to have a legit motor. I believe the game was the 4th of the season. I hope to find a few more re-plays of San Fran to watch to him again. Could be a very good signing, maybe the worm is turning. Go Browns!!
I am not worried about our pitching. We are one of the better staffs in the American League. Our weakness is we are left handed bat heavy. We need more from the right side that can drive the ball on a regular basis.
