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The latest
NFL’s most indispensable offensive players for the 2019 season | NFL.com
9) Travis Kelce, TE, Kansas City Chiefs
Yes, Patrick Mahomes is amazing and makes everyone better. But Kareem Hunt is gone. And who knows what’s next for Tyreek Hill? Kelce is the best pass-catching tight end in the game today. Even the mighty Mahomes would have issues adjusting to life without his tight end’s amazing hands, ability to get open and dominant ways on third down and in the red zone.
Kansas City’s defense remains a huge question mark, so the Chiefs will have to keep scoring points in bunches. And Kelce, who just set career highs in catches (103), yards (1,336) and touchdowns (10), is absolutely critical to this attack.
Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill frequently offered his thoughts on Twitter before he was suspended by the team on April 25.
Hill last week met with Lisa Friel, the NFL’s Special Counsel for Investigations, as part of the league’s inquiry following a child abuse probe by Johnson County and Kansas officials involving Hill and his fiancee, Crystal Espinal.
There may soon be resolution to this situation as there is a chance Hill will be with the Chiefs when they open for training camp, which begins July 26 in St. Joseph.
On Sunday, Hill returned to Twitter in response to something he saw.
Of 2018’s magnificent seven, six are currently significantly underpaid — only Wentz, who signed a $128 million extension this spring, has received a deserved raise so far. Meanwhile, Mahomes is only in his third year and already has an MVP award under his belt. Goff will only cost $8.9 million against the cap this fall after leading his Rams to an NFC title.
NFL Look-Ahead: Which new faces in new places will have biggest impact? | The Denver Post
Fredrickson: The Chiefs get a solid “A” for aggressive moves to fill secondary needs through free agency (Mathieu and cornerback Bashaud Breeland) and the draft (safety Juan Thornhill and cornerback Rashad Fenton). Plus, the rich got richer when they picked first-round wide receiver Mecole Hardman as another speed burner at quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ disposal. I’d hand out a “B” for the Chargers, though, with no splashy free agent additions poised to contribute immediately other than linebacker Thomas Davis (a three-time Pro Bowler with the Panthers). The Chargers also went defense-heavy in the draft to further bolster an already impressive unit.
Every NFL Team’s Riskiest Move This Offseason | Bleacher Report
Kansas City Chiefs: Installing Damien Williams as Starting Back
This isn’t because Williams cannot be a starter for the Chiefs. He may well flourish in the role. It’s just that other options are on the roster, like Darrel Williams, Carlos Hyde and rookie Darwin Thompson. A good, healthy offseason competition may have uncovered a better option.
Here are the 3 best offensive players in Clemson football’s best decade | Greenville News
Wide receiver: Sammy Watkins
Overall, Clemson’s wide receiver of the decade is Watkins. In his final season, he caught a Clemson season record 101 passes for 1,464 yards with 12 touchdowns and helped lead Clemson to its first ever BCS Bowl win – a victory against Ohio State in the Orange Bowl. Hopkins has morphed into the better NFL receiver, but if we are just talking Clemson, the answer is Watkins, who is Clemson’s all-time leader in receiving yards.
Unless Lock ends up becoming the quarterback savior they’ve been so desperate for, the Broncos will find it difficult to make it out of a division that includes both Patrick Mahomes and Philip Rivers. Given just how frustrated Sanders has been in recent years as the Broncos have continually operated without a starting-caliber quarterback, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him bolt as soon as his contract permits him to. If Sanders is able to make it back onto the field and demonstrate his effectiveness at age 32 after a major injury, he should be able to find a contender willing to sign him.
Around the league
Ezekiel Elliott meeting with Roger Goodell on Tuesday | NFL.com
The meeting comes after an incident at a Las Vegas music festival in May, in which Elliott had a confrontation with a security guard. The running back was briefly detained but never arrested after the security guard fell after being nudged by Elliott.
“Definitely, I don’t think it was a good fit for me,” Cooper said. “I don’t think I was really able to showcase my skills there for whatever reason -- extenuating circumstances, I’ll call it. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to reach my heights and I kind of knew that I needed to be gone in order to do some of the things that I really wanted to do as an NFL player. ... I felt like there are things that I wanted to do out there on the field during the games, certain plays that I wanted to be called, certain routes that I wanted to run that just weren’t a part of the game plan.”
The NFL’s best position groups ahead of the 2019 season | Pro Football Focus
Over the last couple of weeks, we at PFF have compiled a list of the best position tandems in the NFL. From dominant pass-catchers to stingy cornerbacks, here, you can find the NFL’s best position groups ahead of the 2019 season.
Steelers’ James Conner: ‘I’ll have a similar role’ in ‘19 | NFL.com
“I’ll have a similar role. I’m healthy, first and foremost, I’m 100 percent healthy now. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Conner said of his workload this year. “But we got talent in that room. We got Jaylen Samuels who’s a tremendous receiver, a talented runner. We got Benny Snell. We know the work that he did at Kentucky. He’s a hard-bodied runner, so all those guys will get touches. It’ll be fun this year just seeing those other guys being successful.”
Jared Lorenzen’s family says former NFL QB is battling kidney, heart issues in ICU | CBS Sports
“On Friday, June 28, Jared began playing a bigger, more important game than he’s ever played before. Jared had not been feeling well for a few weeks, and that finally caught up with him. He was brought to the hospital and fairly quickly was admitted to the ICU. Jared is battling an infection, kidney and heart issues. He is fighting with everything he has, and his immediate family is by his side. We will attempt to update as often as possible, but please respect that some aspects of this journey are private matters.”
Former Super Bowl MVP Mark Rypien Arrested On Domestic Violence Charge | Sports Illustrated
Former Washington Redskins quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Mark Rypien was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence Sunday, according to Spokane, Washington County Jail records.
In case you missed it at Arrowhead Pride
Cell video obtained by TMZ shows former Chiefs RB Kareem Hunt talking to police
There had been rumblings on Twitter Monday morning that former Kansas City Chiefs and current Cleveland Browns running back Kareem Hunt had been in some kind of altercation in Cleveland over the weekend; now video of Hunt talking to police has emerged, via TMZ Sports.
Summer of Spags: 2-read coverage rules and permutations
2-read — sometimes called Palms, Cloud, or Nick Saban’s Cover 7 Clamp — is a common split-safety pattern-matching scheme. In it, the defense can account for four vertical routes anywhere on the field and still drive quickly on bubbles and out routes. This ability to take away the dreaded “four verticals” and still be able to close quickly on some underneath routes makes this a very versatile and dependable coverage.
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