Author: Mikesportz
The Pittsburgh Steelers are currently set to pay cornerback Donte Jackson $10.5 million in the 2024 season after acquiring him from the Carolina Panthers. 
That’s a big chunk of change for a player that is largely considered to be an average-at-best starting cornerback at 28 years old. It also appears to be well above the market value for a player of his ilk. PFF grades aren’t a be-all, end-all, but they’re a decent proxy for player performance. Jackson was rated a 64.3 overall last season, the No. 63 cornerback in the NFL. He’s the 17th-highest-paid cornerback. It’s been expected since the Steelers…
ALLEN PARK — Anthony Pittman has played 1,117 special teams snaps since making it with the Detroit Lions as an undrafted rookie out of Wayne State in 2019. But the linebacker and special teams ace is reportedly heading to the the Washington Commanders after not being tendered by the Lions. Pittman was a restricted free agent who the Lions let walk into unrestricted free agency. The Detroit Free Press reported last week that there was interest in re-signing Pittman after the non-tendering decision. Other Lions players who were not tendered new deals and are free to sign elsewhere are…
We haven’t touched on the NFL draft status of J.J. McCarthy in a few days but his stock is soaring. Last week, he was even projected as a top-three pick to the New England Patriots. Mel Kiper Jr., a long-time ESPN NFL draft analyst also said on a podcast that McCarthy is in the mix to overtake Drake Maye for the No. 3 quarterback. Kiper sees Jayden Daniels as the second-best quarterback but the former Michigan football quarterback is making a strong case to be a top-three pick. I think the Chicago Bears should consider him No. 1…
Michigan football QB J.J. McCarthy is trending as a top-5 pick, plus more in our Michigan Wolverines news roundup. We haven’t touched on the NFL draft status of J.J. McCarthy in a few days but his stock is soaring. Last week, he was even projected as a top-three pick to the New England Patriots. Mel Kiper Jr., a long-time ESPN NFL draft analyst also said on a podcast that McCarthy is in the mix to overtake Drake Maye for the No. 3 quarterback. Kiper sees Jayden Daniels as the second-best quarterback but the former Michigan football quarterback is making…
Josh Heupel falls behind SEC rival coaches in The Athletic’s 2024 top-25 college football head coach rankings. Tennessee football is coming off another winning season and a dominant bowl win in 2023. The Vols finished with a 9-4 record, capping off their season with a 35-0 victory over the Big Ten’s West division champion Iowa Hawkeyes. We had the opportunity to see what the 2024 Vols could look like with Nico Iamaleava running the offense in the Citrus Bowl win, but all of that wasn’t enough to move Tennessee’s Josh Heupel ahead of some key SEC rivals. Since coming…
Happy NFL New Year! Just moments ago, at 4 p.m. ET, the 2024 NFL New Year kicked off, which means teams can officially begin signing free agents. Just after the new year began, Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network released a list of the 7 restricted free agents around the league who received tenders, and the only Detroit Lions player to receive a tender is TE Brock Wright, who received a “Right of. What this means for Benito Jones, Anthony Pittman, and others With Wright being the only Lions player to be tendered, this means Benito Jones and Anthony Pittman…
The Penrith Panthers have confirmed they will put the sold out sign up on their first home game of the season this Friday against the Parramatta Eels. The club said the final tickets were snapped up on Wednesday afternoon, with the battle of the west set to headline Round 2 in the NRL. Penrith, who are the three-time premiers, are coming off a disappointing start to the season where they fell short against the Melbourne Storm without troubling the scorers, while the Eels were impressive in a blowout win over the Canterbury Bulldogs during the opening round. …
There’s more to the decision. Namely, a way for the Ravens to save money and avoid a hefty hit against this year’s salary cap. As Graziano noted, “if Beckham is on the Ravens’ roster March 14 (tomorrow), the $50 million 2025 salary would become fully guaranteed.” Even though the Ravens will still absorb a fair chunk of dead-cap cash, Graziano also detailed how under Beckham’s original deal, “the remaining years would have voided and the Ravens would have taken an $11.068 million cap hit.” It looks like Odell Beckham Jr. will be one and done with the Baltimore Ravens. The…
The Toronto Maple Leafs added to their depth at the trade deadline by acquiring matchup forward Connor Dewar from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a fourth-round pick in 2026. The Leafs also dealt Dmitry Ovchinnikov to the Wild, but he will remain on loan with the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. Dewar, 24, is a powerful skater with limited offensive potential (10G, 14P in 57 games) who will most likely play a bottom-six penalty-killing role with Toronto. The Manitoban center had a career-high 11:17 of average ice time and was seventh on the Wild in hits (94) at the…
Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker has always been a trash talker. However, that narrative quickly change to him only doing the trash talking when the Suns are winning after this infamous Luka Doncic quote from the 2022 Western Conference Semifinals. a very rare Podcast appearance by Booker, he and JJ Redick made it perfectly clear in the release of the latest “The Old Man and The Three” episode that Booker has always had this trash-talking element to him. Redick mentions that he remembers “Devin Booker as a rookie was talking s— to me from day one.” “I…