Free agent linebacker E.J. Speed is heading to Houston.
The Texans and Speed have agreed to a one-year contract.
Speed was a 2019 fifth-round pick of the Colts and has played his entire NFL career in Indianapolis. For most of his career he played more on special teams than on defense, but two years ago he became a defensive starter, and last year he started all 15 games he was healthy enough to play and was on the field for 98 percent of the Colts’ defensive snaps in those games.
The emergence of Speed as a defensive starter was a big part of the reason that former Colts linebacker Shaquille Leonard quickly went from All-Pro to backup to released in 2023.
Speed is No. 86 on our list of the NFL’s Top 100 free agents.
The NFL will play seven regular-season games outside the United States in 2025.
Although the league has discussed as many as eight international games, the NFL confirmed that the seven teams that have already announced they will give up home games to play overseas will be all of them this year.
Three regular-season games will be played in London, with the Browns and Jets giving up home games to play at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Jaguars giving up a home game to play at Wembley Stadium.
For the second straight year, the opening Friday of the NFL season will be in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the Chargers playing a home game at Arena Corinthians.
Germany will host its fourth NFL regular-season game, and for the first time that game will be in Berlin, with the Colts making Olympiastadion their home.
Spain will have its first NFL regular-season game with the Dolphins playing a home game at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid.
And Ireland will get an NFL game for the first time with the Steelers playing at Croke Park in Dublin.
The league is showing no signs of slowing down on its aspirations for international growth, and 2026 will include the first regular-season game in Melbourne, Australia. It won’t be a surprise if the NFL is eventually playing 16 regular-season games a year outside the United States, with every team in the league traveling overseas once.
Chris Ballard has had a lot of opportunities to find a long-term solution at quarterback during his time as the Colts’ General Manager and he’s tried a lot of different approaches to the position, but none of them have resulted in a clear win for the franchise.
This year’s attempt involves signing Daniel Jones to compete with Anthony Richardson for the starting job leading into the 2025 season. Jones was once seen as the answer for the Giants before injuries and poor play led to his 2024 release and Richardson has had issues on both of those fronts over his first two years in the NFL.
In an interview with the Colts’ in-house media team, Ballard said that he believes that the competition is going to help both players do their best work and that the team is going into it without any preconceived notions about who will wind up on top.
“Between Daniel and Anthony, you’re going to see a really good competition,” Ballard said. “It’s going to be a spirited competition, but I also think it’s going to be one where they help each other to grow too. We thought Daniel’s skillset, and Anthony’s skillset. There’s a lot of similarities there. So offensively, I think that’s going to help our offensive staff, so okay, we don’t have to make these wholesale changes with one guy or the other. We got to make the best decision for the team. Whatever the outcome is, the outcome is based on performance.”
Drafting Richardson fourth overall in 2023 was the biggest swing that Ballard has taken at the quarterback position, so bringing in Jones opens up the door for a pretty damning evaluation of that decision. Whichever way the decision goes, anything other than a trip to the playoffs might make it difficult for Ballard to continue selling himself as the guy with the right vision for the organization.
Stanford G.M. Andrew Luck publicly had said nothing about the multiple misconduct investigations regarding coach Troy Taylor. Privately, Luck had reportedly doubled down.
Less than a week later, Taylor is out. Stanford has announced that Taylor has been fired.
The statement from Luck creates the impression that he simply changed his mind about Taylor.
“Since beginning my role as General Manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program,” Luck said. “It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change. Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor.
“After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program. Coach Taylor has been informed today and the change is effective immediately.”
Taylor’s performance likely didn’t help matters. He was 6-18 in two seasons on the job.
And so now the job is open, very late in the cycle. Which means there’s a chance some other program will suddenly lose its head coach, setting off a ripple effect that will impact multiple schools. Unless Stanford gives the job to someone already on Taylor’s staff.
Luck’s statement acknowledges the possibility of an “acting coach” for 2025.
Quarterback Quinn Ewers is set to work out at Texas’s Pro Day on Tuesday and he has a few visits lined up after he goes through drills in Austin.
Albert Breer of SI.com reports that Ewers is set to visit with the Colts, Raiders, and Cowboys. His visits with the Colts and Raiders would count as their 30 pre-draft visits while Ewers qualifies as a local prospect exempt from that cap with the Cowboys.
Breer reports that Ewers is also expected to meet with the Raiders and Jets ahead of his workout and that he’ll have dinner with the Saints on Monday night.
The Raiders traded for Geno Smith, but may have eyes on taking a rookie to develop behind him. The Colts signed Daniel Jones to compete with Anthony Richardson and the Cowboys have hinted they will draft a quarterback with Dak Prescott’s backups Cooper Rush and Trey Lance moving on this offseason.
Safety Julian Blackmon is one of a handful of players on PFT’s list of the top 100 free agents in the league who hasn’t found a home for the 2025 season, but that may be changing soon.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Blackmon, who was No. 81 on that list, will visit with the Panthers on Monday.
Blackmon has spent the last five years with the Colts after being selected in the third round of the 2020 draft. He started 62 of the 66 games he played over that span.
Blackmon had 300 tackles, 10 interceptions, 1.5 sacks, 21 passes defensed, two forced fumbles, and four fumble recoveries during his time with the Colts.
A day after adding another quarterback, the Giants have added another receiver.
The Giants have announced — sort of — that they have agreed to terms with veteran receiver Zach Pascal.
Undrafted in 2017, the 30-year-old Pascal has played for the Colts, Eagles, and Cardinals. He has 169 catches for 2,057 yards and 16 touchdowns in 112 regular-season appearances, with 47 starts.
Pascal appeared in 17 games last season with Arizona, mainly on special teams. He had 68 total offensive snaps and 278 special-teams snaps. He caught no passes in 2024.
In the latest example of a somewhat unusual trend, the Giants posted on their website a blurb crediting the news to “reports.” Instead of simply confirming it. Or debunking it.
Or adding something like this: “The Giants did not respond to a request for comment from the Giants.”
Publicly, Stanford football G.M. (and former NFL quarterback) Andrew Luck has said nothing about the multiple investigations of Stanford coach Troy Taylor. Privately, Luck has apparently made his position known.
Dan Wetzel of ESPN.com notes in a column regarding the situation that his colleague who broke the story of the Taylor situation, Xuan Thai, also reports that Luck met with the Stanford football team on Thursday, and that “Luck doubled down on standing by his coach.”
Per an industry source, Luck spoke to reporters on Wednesday, at the Stanford Pro Day. He gave no indication of any issues with the program or Taylor — even though the ESPN.com report landed roughly two hours later.
“Luck sounded sincerely enthusiastic about the program’s direction and didn’t indicate any issues hovering over Taylor,” the source said.
As Wetzel explains, Luck is the new face of the program. Unlike other college programs (like North Carolina) where the G.M. works for the coach, Taylor works for Luck.
Beyond the behavioral issues that prompted the pair of investigations into Taylor, he’s 6-18 in two seasons. That alone would suggest the ice is getting thin. And while it’s way too early for Luck to be in any sort of jeopardy at the school where he was a superstar, he’s currently skating a figure eight while everyone else is hearing the cracks spread under Taylor’s feet.
The Colts are set to hold a quarterback competition between a pair of first-round picks who have underwhelmed to this point in their careers.
Anthony Richardson was a Colts first-rounder in 2023 and he’s as close to an incumbent as there is after starting 11 games last season. Daniel Jones had a longer run as a starter for the Giants after being selected in 2019 and his run continued with a contract extension, but a lot of losses and injuries are the lasting memory of a stint that ended with his release during the 2024 season.
Linebacker Zaire Franklin believes that facing off this offseason will benefit both players. During an appearance on NFL Network, Franklin cited his own experience as the foundation for that belief.
“Competition brought out the best in me in my career,” Franklin said. “When I came in, with Darius Leonard, Bobby Okereke, Anthony Walker, E.J. Speed, those guys made me better every single day. I learned so much from their game, and they learned from me. That’s part of the reason why we were so successful because we were able to grow together. So, competition’s going to help everybody. Obviously, I still love Anthony, still believe in Anthony, but I know Daniel Jones is going to help elevate that room, too.”
The winner of the competition will get a chance to change narratives that have built up around him while the loser may find it hard to convince other clubs that they are a viable option at the position moving forward.
Andrew Luck might be wondering what he’s gotten himself into.
The former Colts quarterback, who shocked the football-following world with a sudden retirement in August 2019, became the G.M. of the Stanford football program last year. And he already has a mess on his hands.
As reported by Xuan Thai of ESPN.com, Stanford has conducted two investigations regarding the conduct of football coach Troy Taylor. The first ended in February 2024, with Taylor signing a warning letter. The second ended in July 2024.
Taylor, per documents obtained by ESPN.com, allegedly “bullied and belittled female athletic staffers, sought to have an NCAA compliance officer removed after she warned him of rules violations and repeatedly made ‘inappropriate’ comments to another woman about her appearance.”
An unnamed source told ESPN that Taylor is an “equal opportunity asshole,” but that his behavior more often targeted women.
“I willingly complied with the investigations, accepted the recommendations that came out of them, and used them as a learning opportunity to grow in leadership and how I interact with others,” Taylor said in a statement issued on Wednesday, via ESPN.com. “I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively and collegially with my colleagues so that we can achieve success for our football program together.”
Said a school spokesperson in a separate statement: “Stanford believes in upholding the highest standards of behavior in the workplace. . . . The University received complaints regarding Coach Taylor and a third party investigated the matter thoroughly. Last summer, the University took appropriate measures, Coach Taylor received coaching, and he has committed to nurturing the respectful working environment that is essential to the success of all our athletics programs.”
Luck didn’t respond to a request for comment from ESPN.com, even though Luck is Taylor’s immediate supervisor. Luck also served on the committee that hired Taylor in 2022.
Making sure Taylor complies with the school’s expectations becomes one of the most important things Luck will be doing during his first year on the job. And if Taylor in any way fails to act the way the school expects, Luck needs to be ready to initiate immediately the effort to dismiss Taylor.
The controversy adds separate pressure to Taylor’s success, or lack thereof, on the field. Stanford was 3-9 in his first season, and 3-9 last year.
