During a recent edition of #PFTPM, the five-week hiatus answer to PFT Live, I mentioned the Jets are gaining momentum in the chase for running back Dalvin Cook. During a more recent interview with Jets reporter Paul Esden, Jr. Cook’s agent, Zac Hiller, was asked to respond to my suggestion that the Jets are indeed picking up steam.
Hiller said nothing to contradict the notion that the Jets are very interested in Cook, or that Cook is very interested in the Jets. Cook has said he wants to win a Super Bowl, and Hiller’s comments make it very clear that Cook believes he could win one with quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the other great players on the roster.
The key remains doing the deal. As with receiver DeAndre Hopkins, none of the interested parties have persuaded the player to accept an offer. Cook, like Hopkins, might be waiting for his market to heat up — possibly with the arrival of another team. Possibly due to a starting running back suffering an injury.
Regardless, three teams in the AFC East bear watching for Cook: the Jets, Dolphins, and Patriots. Whichever one gets him will keep him away from one of the other two. At some point, that could get an all-in owner to direct his football personnel to up the offer and get it done.
The Miami Dolphins have a great offense. Their defense could be as good. Maybe better.
Veteran defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah recently declared that there’s basically no limit to what Miami’s defense can be.
“I’ll say we can be as good as we want to be ,” Ogbah told Aaron Wilson of KPRC2, via NFL.com. “I’m excited about this defense. We’ve got [defensive coordinator] Vic [Fangio] coaching us up. I can’t wait. It’s been a long time coming. This year, I feel like this is the year. We can be as good as we want to be. I’m ready to go out there and dominate.”
It will take dominance to emerge as the champion of the AFC East, arguably the best top-to-bottom division in football.
“Our division is tough now,” Ogbah said. “But we’re excited, we love the competition. We’re ready to go. We don’t look at nobody [else]. We compete against ourself.”
One key factor for everyone involved — Ogbah included — is the ability to play.
“It’s all about health,” he said. “This game’s all about being healthy. I’m excited. I’ve been doing the right things with my body, taking care of my body, just making sure I’m ready and fit to last the whole season.”
Injuries limited Ogbah to only nine regular-season appearances in 2022. The prior year, he appeared in all 17 games, matching a career-high 9.0 sacks.
Beyond Ogbah, the Dolphins have Bradley Chubb, Christian Wilkins, and Jaelan Phillips on the defensive line. Jalen Ramsey has joined a secondary that already featured Xavien Howard and Jevon Holland. With Fangio drawing up and calling the plays, they could indeed be a great defense.
Again, given the difficulty of the schedule for all AFC East teams (in addition to playing each other twice, they all play the Chiefs, Chargers, Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants), it could be that only one team makes it to the postseason — even though any of them could be good enough to climb the playoff tree to the Super Bowl.
Last month, receiver DeAndre Hopkins visited the Titans and Patriots. Since then, he has played the waiting game.
Via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com, Hopkins is waiting for another team to enter the mix . If that happens, his value could increase.
Obviously, this implies that neither the Titans nor the Patriots have made him an offer he can’t/won’t refuse. Per Reiss, both teams have indeed made offers — and the Titans have been “more aggressive to this point.”
It’s unclear whether another team will emerge before camp opens. Hopkins could choose to wait until a veteran currently on a team gets injured or displays ineffectiveness, creating on-the-fly interest in his services. If, as many believe, Hopkins isn’t a fan of practice, waiting until the season approaches to sign could be enticing to him.
Still, at some point, he needs to get ready to make an impact right away, especially since his eventual contract will include incentives based on playing time and/or production.
Reiss also notes that, if it ultimately comes down to the Patriots or the Titans, Hopkins could ask himself which one gives him a better chance to reach his incentives and max out his earnings. His experience with Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien could be a plus in that regard.
After the Vikings released Dalvin Cook, dumping his $10.4 million salary for 2023, it seemed Cook was determined to go to a team that would give him the best chance to make back as much of that money as possible. Before long, however, Cook began talking about hoping to win a championship.
That’s when a sense emerged that the Dolphins and Jets had become the top contenders for Cook — especially when he was asked to elaborate on the teams that could help him get his hands on a Lombardi Trophy and he specifically mentioned those two teams .
The Dolphins are interested, at their price. The Jets have more interest than most realize, because of running back Breece Hall’s ongoing ACL recovery and because they’re already gone all in by trading for quarterback Aaron Rodgers. And there’s a net gain to being the team that gets him, since that team keeps him away from the other.
Enter the Patriots, who could keep Cook away from both of them by signing him. While they have Rhamondre Stevenson, the Patriots have long favored having a stable of tailbacks. James Robinson, signed early in the offseason, didn’t work.
If the goal is to be the best team in the division, which could be critical to getting in the playoffs at all given the overall difficulty of the schedules for the four AFC East teams, the Patriots could be (perhaps should be) thinking about snagging a guy who otherwise will make one of two division rivals better.
New England’s pursuit of free-agent receiver DeAndre Hopkins has been open and obvious. If they’re considering Cook, they’re acting in more characteristic fashion, letting their plans not be known to anyone.
Owner Robert Kraft has made clear he wants to win a seventh Super Bowl, now . And to the extent that there’s an internal back-and-forth about spending , here’s a way to prove to everyone that the Patriots can spend, baby .
Bills quarterback Josh Allen recently asked the media to stop talking about last month’s drama with receiver Stefon Diggs. In talking about why the media shouldn’t talk about it, Allen talked about something that hadn’t been talked about before.
One of the biggest lingering questions was whether Diggs walked out of the facility before a mandatory minicamp practice, or whether he was told to leave. According to Allen, coach Sean McDermott “asked [Diggs] to go home .”
That’s very significant, for two reasons. First, it shows that something went haywire during the conversations about issues that Allen insists are no big deal. Second, it puts the team’s characterization of the situation in a much different light.
The media first became aware of the incident when McDermott disclosed that Diggs was absent from mandatory minicamp, adding that McDermott is “very concerned ” about the situation. Then, after Diggs’s agent said the player is in Buffalo and will be attending the practices, the team said that Diggs left the building before the day’s practice started.
That night, Diggs went to social media with this message: “I just be letting people cap . If them lies help you sleep better tell em big dawg.” We didn’t know who he was referring to, or what the lie supposedly was.
Thanks to Allen, we’ve now got a pretty good idea. Diggs rightfully believed the team and its coach were mischaracterizing the circumstances surrounding Diggs’s departure from the building.
Why would anyone believe that everything is fine, based simply on the fact that Diggs was back the next day? (Coincidentally, or not, the Bills canceled the third day of the minicamp.) Beyond whatever damage needed to be repaired for whatever preceded McDermott telling Diggs to go home, there’s even more damage arising from Diggs being told to go home and then being painted as a guy who stormed out.
Allen has every reason to try to get the media to not pay attention to this. The issue won’t make the Bills any more likely to win a championship. If anything, having the story keep coming up and coming up will make it harder for the team and Diggs to get past the situation.
Still, it’s a story. It’s worth talking about. Allen’s desire to get the media to not talk about it makes it even more interesting to talk about, especially since Allen supplied a piece of news that wasn’t previously known.