With one month to go until round one of the draft, the preference of quarterback Shedeur Sanders is becoming clear.
Maybe.
Last Wednesday, Deion Sanders served as the keynote speaker at ProMat 2025 in Chicago. During the appearance, Deion supposedly expressed hope that Shedeur will be drafted by “New York.”
It’s not entirely clear who heard it, or who reported it. It traces, we think, to a Twitter account belonging to a user named John Sokol, who was attending the conference. The claim that Deion and Shedeur are hoping for New York has been amplified by the usual online aggre-bot suspects who operate under the protocol of ready-fire-aim.
There’s no way to confirm Deion said it. There’s no video that he said it. There’s only a claim from someone who was attending the conference and claims he heard Deion say it.
Maybe he did. It’s just odd that it went unnoticed for five days.
Hopefully, Deion will be asked about it the next time he meets with reporters. And, even more hopefully, we’ll get clarification on which New York team he was referring to. If he was referring to either one of them.
The Bears have added another defensive back to the roster.
The team announced that they have signed Nick McCloud to a one-year deal. They did not announce any other terms of the contract.
McCloud split last season between the Giants and the 49ers. He played in seven games for the Giants and then made eight appearances for the 49ers. He had 25 tackles and a pass defensed across the two stops.
McCloud made 31 appearances and 11 starts for the Giants in 2022 and 2023. He had 71 tackles, an interception, three forced fumbles, and three fumble recoveries in that action.
The slow-moving (for now) quarterback carousel includes a veteran who is in no hurry to make a move — assuming his current team is even inclined to move him.
Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins remains a theoretical trade candidate, if the Falcons will trade him and if he’ll waive his no-trade clause.
There’s a wrinkle that relates to Cousins’s willingness to accept a trade to a new team. He wants to be sure he doesn’t get supplanted by a subsequent draft pick.
Via Albert Breer of SI.com, Cousins hopes “to avoid the situation he found himself in last April when he was blindsided by Atlanta’s decision to take Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick.” As a result, Cousins isn’t willing to take any team at their word. Instead, he wants to see what happens during the draft before deciding whether to waive the clause that prevents the Falcons’ from trading him without his permission.
None of this matters if the Falcons won’t trade Cousins. They might be truly willing to pay him $27.5 million to serve as the backup to Michael Penix Jr. in 2025.
The other question is whether a new team will take on Cousins’s full salary for 2025. If he’s going to be the starter, why wouldn’t they? And if the call comes from a team that still needs a quarterback after the draft ends, Cousins might be able to leverage a better deal from what could be, come early May, a desperate team.
So it’s smart, at this point, for Cousins to wait. As he learned the hard way last year, the quarterback deals made in March can quickly become undermined by the draft picks exercised in April.
The “when” remains to be seen. The “if” is slowly becoming more clear.
As one source in the general vicinity of those who would be in position to know said Sunday, it’s a “safe bet” that quarterback Aaron Rodgers eventually will sign with the Steelers.
Rodgers, if you haven’t heard, spent more than six hours visiting the Steelers on Friday.
We know, we know. Nobody ever knows what Rodgers plans to do. He speaks to only a small handful of people. And those to whom he speaks refrain from flapping their yaps, for fear of being exiled to the island.
But it’s human nature to talk. Everyone tells one person something they weren’t supposed to tell anyone, with the understanding that the person they tell won’t tell anyone. And so on. And so on. And so on.
Regardless, the signs are pointing to Rodgers landing in Pittsburgh for 2025. Could it change? Yes. Again, it’s a “safe bet” it won’t.
It remains to be seen when the announcement will be made. If only there were an event coming up next month in Pittsburgh featuring the guy whose show Rodgers appears on every Tuesday during football season.
Oh, wait. There is.
Russell Wilson beat the Giants on a Monday night in October 2024. He might still be joining them for 2025.
Per multiple sources, Wilson remains on the Giants’ radar screen — even after the signing of Jameis Winston.
It came up because, frankly, we removed the Giants from the list of teams looking for veteran quarterbacks. In response to our assessment that the Giants won’t be pursuing another veteran signal-caller, one source explained that Winston was signed to be the backup quarterback. And that Wilson should not be ruled out.
“They are as much/more looking for a veteran starter than the Browns, definitely more than Vikings,” the source said.
The source added that the Giants technically remain in the mix for Aaron Rodgers, but that it currently “seems unlikely” he’ll go there. (Or, even more technically, stay there.)
Regardless, the Winston deal (at $4 million per year) isn’t a QB1 contract. We thought it meant Winston will be the bridge to a younger guy. He might end up being the understudy to another veteran.
And that veteran still could be Russell Wilson.
