The Eagles have agreed to terms with free agent offensive tackle Kendall Lamm on a one-year deal, Peter Schrager of NFL Media reports.
Lamm, 32, will compete to replace Fred Johnson as the swing tackle on Jeff Stoutland’s offensive line.
He had back surgery Jan. 3.
In 2024, Lamm played 15 games with seven starts, seeing action on 511 offensive snaps and 63 on special teams.
He played four seasons in Houston, two in Cleveland and one in Tennessee before joining the Dolphins before the 2024 season.
Lamm has appeared in 119 games with 44 starts.
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.”
It’s one thing to say, “The tush push must go!” It’s another thing to come up with a specific formulation of the rule that accomplishes that objective.
The Packers have submitted a proposal that would ostensibly end the short-yardage play that the Eagles have perfected.
Here’s the language that the Packers have submitted: “No offensive player may . . . immediately at the snap, push or throw his body against a teammate, who was lined up directly behind the snapper and received the snap, to aid him in an attempt to gain yardage.”
If the rule will be enforced as written, there’s a clear flaw in it. It prevents pushing the ballcarrier “immediately at the snap.”
The Eagles usually don’t push quarterback Jalen Hurts “immediately.” The play begins as a quarterback sneak, with a push from behind to get Hurts (and the ball) past the line to gain or the goal line.
So even if at least 23 other teams are willing to support Green Bay’s proposal, the revised rule as written doesn’t really solve the problem.
That’s the challenge. Coming up with specific language that eliminates the targeted behavior.
The problem began when, in 2006, the league removed the rule against pushing the ballcarrier. Sixteen years later, teams like the Eagles (and the Bills) began using the ability to push a ballcarrier strategically, from the snap.
Pulling the ballcarrier remains against the rules. If the “tush push” is to be pushed out of the rulebook, the easiest solution would be to turn the clock back to 2005.
Another possibility would be to prevent pushing the ballcarrier in the tackle box. Or within five yards of the line of scrimmage.
Regardless, a rule banning a teammate from “immediately” pushing the ballcarrier won’t matter. The Eagles would keep running the quarterback sneak — and they’d be careful to make the pushing of the quarterback not “immediate.”
Right tackle Lane Johnson became the longest-tenured member of the Eagles when defensive end Brandon Graham announced his retirement this week and Johnson is set to hold onto that title for a while.
Johnson signed a one-year extension with the team that puts him under contract in Philadelphia through the 2027 season. It would be Johnson’s 15th season with the team and he said this week that “it’s very possible” for him to be playing at a high level at 37.
Johnson said he loves “the challenge of being an older player” and the work that has to be done in order to remain on the field, especially because ankle issues earlier in his career had left him wondering if he would be able to keep playing.
“You know, a few years ago when I was coming back from all these surgeries, I thought my body was going to start failing or going downhill,” Johnson said, via Reuben Frank of NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com. “But I just think with the strength and conditioning program we have here and the stuff we do in the offseason, I feel really good. So, yeah, as long as I’m feeling good and I feel like I can contribute, I think I’ll continue to play. It’s all I’ve really known. I just love my football family. I’m an only child, so my brothers are here and have always been in the locker room, and that’s how I feel.”
Johnson has missed minimal time in the last few seasons and his play has remained strong, so the question may shift from making it to 2027 to whether there’s another contract in his future.
When the Eagles last played an overtime game, against the Bills during the 2023 season, Philly benefited from the regular-season rule that guarantees a possession for the team that kick offs to start overtime — if the team that receives scores a field goal. The Eagles now want the guaranteed possession for the kicking team even if the first drive of overtime results in a touchdown.
We addressed the issue earlier today, making the point that the potential expansion of regular-season overtime to up to 15 minutes shows that the concerns that fueled the 2017 shrinkage of regular-season overtime to 10 minutes (propping up and protecting Thursday Night Football) no longer apply.
The proposal, which seemed last month to be destined to be made by the Competition Committee and not by any one team, isn’t expected to result in a significant uptick in snaps, if passes. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Eagles believe the adoption of the postseason two-guaranteed-possessions rule along with a 15-minute overtime will add only 30 plays per year.
The extra plays will happen only if/when a game goes to overtime and the team that receives the opening kickoff scores a touchdown on the first drive.
But what about the possibility of a pair of touchdowns and a third drive? It’s believed that the team that scores a touchdown on the second drive of overtime will go for two in lieu of giving the other team an opportunity to win the game with a field goal. So there typically won’t be a third drive, if the first two result in touchdowns.
That’s the ultimate attraction of tweaking the rule for the regular season. Eventually, a game will come down to a two-point conversion that will determine the game.
And the wind seems to currently be blowing in the direction of the proposal passing, with regular-season overtime matching postseason overtime, but for the fact that in the regular season there can indeed be a tie.
Zack Baun had no intention of going anywhere this offseason and the Eagles had no intention of letting him go.
Baun joined the Eagles on a one-year deal last offseason and was named a first-team All-Pro and finalist for defensive player of the year before intercepting a pass to help the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Given that success, it was no surprise that the Eagles and Baun moved quickly to stay together on a three-year deal.
Baun said he was “playing so confidently that I knew I was going to make a play” in the late stages of the season and that has him excited about what he’ll be able to accomplish in his second season playing for defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
“I think about what we did in one year with so many new pieces, coaches and players included, and I think about my own personal development in that same sense, where if I can move off the ball and play inside linebacker and do what I did and that was my starting point, I’m excited about this team and this defense moving forward,” Baun said, via the team’s website. “I’m really excited to build on what we did last year.”
The 2024 season set a high bar for a lot of Eagles and Baun won’t be the only one trying to make sure that the team can reach it again in 2025.
The Eagles didn’t draft edge rusher Azeez Ojulari, but it’s not surprising that they were interested in signing him as a free agent this offseason.
They got a chance to see a lot of Ojulari over the last four seasons while he was playing for the Giants and he went to college at Georgia, which is something that has been appealing to the Eagles on the defensive side of the ball for some time. Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Kelee Ringo, and Nolan Smith were all Bulldogs before being drafted by the Eagles and Ojulari said this week that he’s excited to be back with so many familiar faces.
“It’s amazing having that chemistry and brotherhood with those guys, it’s just amazing to come back here and just keep it going on,” Ojulari said, via the team’s website. “We got so many Georgia guys here. Nolan, that’s my brother for real. All of them are my brothers, but Nolan, since we’ve been in the same room since Georgia, I’m probably more close with him. But I’m close with all of them – we all share that brotherhood and the relationship we have is amazing. I’m ready to be here now.”
Running back Saquon Barkley and recently signed cornerback Adoree’ Jackson are former Giants teammate of Ojulari’s, so the transition to his new home should be a fairly simple one once Ojulari gets Vic Fangio’s defense down.
In 2017, when the NFL was still trying to reconcile short-week football with player health and safety, the league reduced regular-season overtime to 10 minutes. Eight years later, a proposal from the Eagles would return the overtime duration to 15 minutes.
Although it’s not an official proposal from the Competition Committee, it’s on the docket for a vote at the upcoming annual meeting. The Eagles have suggested both a 15-minute extra session and the fairly new postseason overtime approach, which guarantees a possession for each team.
It remains to be seen whether the proposal gets any traction. Most coaches would prefer the overtime rules to be the same for the regular season and the playoffs. (Of course, the rules will never be identical, given the possibility of regular-season ties.)
Guaranteeing a possession for both teams makes a 10-minute overtime impractical. One team could consume most of the time with a methodical touchdown drive, leaving the other team without a fair chance to match the score.
The fact that any mention of pushing regular-season overtime from 10 minutes back to 15 wasn’t immediately dismissed shows how much things have changed regarding the effort to justify the Sunday-Thursday turnaround. In 2017, the league was very sensitive to any and all criticism of short-week football. Indeed, the change from 15 minutes to 10 happened because the Buccaneers played nearly a full 15 minutes of overtime on a Sunday against the Raiders before playing on a Thursday night against the Falcons.
Now, it’s likely that most won’t even mention the fact that the overtime proposal entails turning the clock back to the possibility of a team playing up to 75 minutes on a Sunday and up to 75 minutes on a Thursday. That’s two and a half games, with only three days off in between.
Bottom line? The ship has sailed regarding any and all pushback to short-week football. Once the NFL tripped over the somewhat disingenuous and incomplete notion that the injury rate for games played on the Thursday after a Sunday is no different from the injury rate for games played on the Sunday after a Sunday, the debate ended.
The Thursday night cash cow was given permanent status. The pig kept getting fatter. And the hog continues to stave off slaughter.
The NFL released the list of team-proposed changes to playing rules and bylaws on Wednesday and they include a proposal made by several clubs to change procedures used for footballs used in the kicking game.
Current rules call for those balls — known as K-Balls — to be prepared by teams during a 60-minute window on the day of games with three such balls being delivered to officials for use that day.
In the proposal, the Ravens, Browns, Texans, Eagles, Raiders, Vikings, and Commanders argue that the process “continues to put stress on NFL equipment staffs during the critical pregame period on game days” and calls for a change that would allow the balls to be prepared ahead of time.
NFL rules currently allow for balls used outside of the kicking game to be prepared in advance. The proposal adds that the same pregame inspection process would be applied to both sets of footballs in order to assure that no team is manipulating the balls to their advantage.
Any changes would need to be approved in a vote of all 32 teams with 24 votes needed to pass.
The NFL could expand regular-season overtime to 15 minutes and guarantee both teams the opportunity to possess the ball, if a new rule proposal passes at the upcoming league meeting.
The rule change was proposed by the Eagles, who said that overtime in the regular season should be more like overtime in the playoffs.
The league’s summary of the rule change reads as follows: “By Philadelphia; amends Rule 16, Section 1, to align the postseason and regular season overtime rules by granting both teams an opportunity to possess the ball regardless of the outcome of the first possession, subject to a 15-minute overtime period in the regular season.”
Under current rules, the team that receives the overtime kickoff can win a regular-season game by scoring a touchdown on its first possession. Only in the playoffs would the other team then get an opportunity to score after giving up an opening-possession touchdown, but the proposed rule would make that the case in the regular season as well.
And the current rules also limit overtime to 10 minutes in the regular season. The proposed change would start overtime with 15:00 on the clock, as is the case in the postseason. The difference is that in the regular season the game would end in a tie if the score is still tied after one 15-minute period, while in the postseason there are no ties and the teams keep playing if the game is tied after 15 minutes.
