On Friday, the Cowboys reportedly “made a push” for Cooper Kupp before an update only a few hours later that the team was not the likely landing spot for the veteran wide receiver. Kupp instead agreed to a three-year, $45 million deal with the Seahawks later Friday night.
Adam Schefter of ESPN today provided more detail to his back-to-back reports about the Cowboys’ overture to Kupp that ultimately led to nothing.
“Last Thursday, the Cowboys reached out about Cooper Kupp and they were interested,” Schefter said on his podcast, via Clarence Hill of All City DLLS. “Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, who I understand it, were on the phone with Cooper Kupp talking to him about the idea of coming to Dallas, and it was floated out there. And then the Cowboys heard the numbers, and they were at numbers that the Cowboys weren’t going to get to.”
The Cowboys have not spent big money on a free agent since giving cornerback Brandon Carr a five-year, $50.1 million deal in 2012. They weren’t going to spend it on a No. 2 wide receiver after signing Lamb to a four-year, $136 million deal last summer.
Kupp went where the money was, leaving the Cowboys with Parris Campbell as their only outside free agent addition at the position.
Cooper Kupp has made it official with the Seahawks, as the team announced on Tuesday that the receiver signed his contract.
A Washington native, Kupp told John Boyle of the team’s website that “it feels like a full-circle moment” as he put pen to paper.
“The biggest thing is just the people that this organization has brought in,” Kupp said. “That was the selling point that Coach Mike [Macdonald] brought, that John [Schneider] had talked about; it was about the people. All the players I talked to, just the culture of this organization, the winning culture of this organization, that’s something I wanted to be a part of.
“It’s that culture, it’s a culture of winning. For a long time, the 12s have made this a renowned environment to play in. It’s always something you prepared for when you came up here. It was my favorite thing walking out of the locker room and breathing the Northwest air. It’s like, ‘Man, this is just a special place to be.’ You go out there and you’ve got the fans creating such an electric environment. They’ve always been cheering against me, now I get to be a part of that.”
Kupp, 31, had spent his entire career with the Rams. The 2021 AP offensive player of the year and MVP of Super Bowl LVI, Kupp has caught 634 passes for 7,776 yards with 57 touchdowns.
The Seahawks are looking at some help for their offensive line.
Per Mike Garafolo of NFL Media, Dillon Radunz is taking a free-agent visit with Seattle on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Radunz, 26, just completed his rookie contract with the Titans. A second-round pick in 2021, Radunz appeared in 54 games with 31 starts for Tennessee over the last four seasons. He started 11 games in 2023 and 15 contests in 2024.
If the Seahawks sign Radunz, he’d reunite with run game coordinator/offensive line coach Justin Outten. Outten served as Tennessee’s running backs coach and run game coordinator in 2023 and the Titans’ tight ends coach in 2024.
The Rams made it to the divisional round in the 2024 playoffs, giving the Eagles their biggest scare of the entire postseason. The Rams, and the rest of the NFC West, could be ready to make some noise in 2025.
When the NFL reconfigured the 32 teams into eight, four-team divisions in 2002, the league prioritized variety over parity. Every year, eight of the 17 games for every given team are determined by a joint rotation. One cycles through the three other divisions in that team’s conference, and the other flips through the four teams in the other conference.
For the Rams and the NFC West, the click-clack of the schedule rotation lands this year on the AFC South and the NFC South. Arguably the two weakest divisions in the league, the formula gives the Rams, Seahawks, Cardinals, and 49ers a chance to fatten up their records — the same way the NFC North did a year ago, when the Lions, Vikings, Packers, and Bears faced the teams of the AFC South and the NFC West.
Because the Rams won the division, they’ll get the slightly tougher overall draw, with games against the first-place teams from the NFC East (Eagles), NFC North (Lions), and AFC North (Ravens). The Seahawks will play the second-place teams from those divisions (Commanders, Vikings, Steelers). The Cardinals face the third-place teams (Cowboys, Packers, Bengals), and the 49ers draw the fourth-place teams (Giants, Bears, Browns).
Last year, only one NFC West team made the playoffs. This year, the NFC West could be looking at two or three playoff teams — and the champion might be able to compete for a bye.
For a team like the Rams, not having to go to Philly or D.C. or Detroit in January would be a massive advantage. Given that they kept quarterback Matthew Stafford, added receiver Davante Adams, and enjoy a young and ascending defense, the Rams could be in the mix for the kind of regular season that could put them in line for a Super Bowl berth in 2025.
Thanks in large part to the schedule rotation, which will make up nearly half of their games.
After eleven years, four Pro Bowls, and 61.5 sacks with the Cowboys, DeMarcus Lawrence has signed with the Seahawks. His number (90) remains, and it has been promptly reissued.
The Cowboys have assigned No. 90 to newly-signed defensive lineman Solomon Thomas.
The team doesn’t retire numbers, and even if it did Lawrence didn’t have the kind of career that would qualify him for that consideration. But there wasn’t even a short-term set-aside for the number he wore during his extended stay with the Cowboys.
Lawrence stirred up a fracas with Micah Parsons last week, after declaring that Lawrence knew he’d never win a Super Bowl in Dallas. His subsequent message of positivity to the team and its fans didn’t erase that. And the Cowboys were willing to quickly erase the fact that he wore No. 90 for more than a decade.
Thomas has worn No. 94 during his NFL career with the 49ers and Jets and No. 92 with the Raiders. He wore No. 90 at Stanford. No. 94 (worn by greats like Charles Haley and Demarcus Ware) was previously issued to Marshawn Kneeland, a second-round pick in 2024. No. 92 was avaiable.
Free agent running back Travis Homer is re-signing with the Bears on a one-year, $2 million deal, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
He re-joins a running back room that includes D’Andre Swift and Roschon Johnson.
Homer, 26, spent the past two seasons with the Bears. He played 26 games and had nine touches for 34 yards with eight special teams tackles.
Homer saw action on 81 offensive snaps and 419 on special teams the past two seasons.
He spent his first four seasons with the Seahawks after they made him a sixth-round pick in 2019.
In his career, Homer has 144 touches for 951 yards and three touchdowns with 39 special teams tackles.
The Seahawks are hosting wide receiver Michael Gallup on a free agent visit, Aaron Wilson of KPRC reports.
Gallup took a visit to Washington last week.
Gallup, who is attempting a comeback after retiring last offseason, was released by the Raiders from the reserve/retired list earlier this month.
Gallup, 29, signed a one-year contract worth up to $3 million with the Raiders last April. He was expected to compete for the team’s No. 3 receiver job.
But after participating in the Raiders’ organized team activities and minicamp, Gallup abruptly called it quits.
He had 266 receptions for 3,744 yards and 21 touchdowns in six seasons with the Cowboys, who released him March 15, 2024, in a cost-cutting move.
Gallup tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee late in the 2021 season, but the Cowboys still signed him to a five-year, $57.5 million deal before the 2022 season. He could not get back to where he was before the injury, though, catching 73 passes for 842 yards and six touchdowns in 31 games in 2022-23.
The Dolphins are adding a former first-round pick.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports Miami has agreed to a one-year deal with cornerback Artie Burns.
Burns, 29, spent the last three seasons with the Seahawks. He appeared in just four games last season, playing 51 defensive snaps and 55 special teams snaps. In 2023, he played 14 contests, playing 23 percent of defensive snaps and 46 percent of special teams snaps in games played.
The Steelers selected Burns at No. 25 overall in the 2016 draft. He’s played 90 games with 39 starts over his career, recording 38 passes defensed and four interceptions.
A South Florida native, Burns also played his college ball at Miami.
The three-year, $100.5 million contract signed last week by new Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold is, in reality, a one-year, $37.5 million deal with a team-held option for 2026 and 2027.
One specific aspect of that option raises the stakes for Darnold in 2025.
With $17.5 million in injury guarantees that will vest if he’s unable to pass a physical in early February 2026, Darnold becomes an obvious candidate to be benched late in the season, if the Seahawks don’t win enough games and/or if Darnold doesn’t play well enough.
We’ve seen it, on an annual basis. In 2022, the Raiders did it to Derek Carr. In 2023, the Broncos did it to Russell Wilson. In 2024, the Giants did it to Daniel Jones.
Last year, the factors lined up perfectly for Darnold. J.J. McCarthy landed on injured reserve in August, knocking him out for the entire season. Darnold was never at risk of being yanked — including during or after dropping a three-interception turd against the Jaguars, which made it six turnovers in back-to-back lackluster wins over otherwise overmatched AFC South teams.
This year, the bar is higher. He won’t unlock a second year if he doesn’t perform well enough in the first one. And he could end up taking a seat for Sam Howell if, come December, it becomes clear that the Seahawks will be moving on — and if they decide not to risk being on the hook for $17.5 million.
The Seahawks agreed to a contract with wide receiver Cooper Kupp last Friday to continue an offseason marked by splashy moves.
They traded quarterback Geno Smith and wide receiver DK Metcalf, released Metcalf’s fellow wideout Tyler Lockett, and signed quarterback Sam Darnold. They also added defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, re-signed linebacker Ernest Jones and made other moves, but none of them has been a significant attempt to address one of the team’s weakest spots from 2024.
General Manager John Schneider hinted that the team had a plan to upgrade their offensive line in February, but the only addition has been a depth player in Josh Jones and Schneider said last week that he knows there’s more to be done.
“Yeah, the offensive line. Definitely, we need to [address it]. Everybody sees it,” Schneider said, via Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune. “I get it with the offensive line, the offensive-line stuff. Talking about the fans, I mean, I get that. “I have empathy for that, big time.”
The Seahawks were bidders for guard Will Fries, which Schneider referenced while saying they wanted to have a free agent in for a physical. Fries, who is coming off a broken tibia, signed with the Vikings instead and Schneider said the alternative was to “start panicking and paying other guys who aren’t quite as good.”
Schneider went on to say that you “have to have discipline in your spending,” but that discipline will lead to little celebration if Darnold is running for his life in September.
