TEXANS SIGN FORMER LIONS WR QUINTEZ CEPHUS
The Houston Texans have signed free agent wide receiver Quintez Cephus, according to his agents.
SportsTrust Advisors announced the deal on Tuesday but did not disclose any contract terms.
Cephus, 26, missed the entire 2023 season while serving a suspension for violating the NFL’s gambling policy.
He was reinstated by the league in April and signed with the Buffalo Bills, who released him on May 16.
Cephus was a fifth-round pick by Detroit in 2020 and caught 37 passes for 568 yards and four touchdowns in 22 games (six starts) from 2020-22. The Lions released him after his suspension.
REPORTS: G QUINN MEINERZ LANDS 4-YEAR EXTENSION WITH BRONCOS
The Denver Broncos are signing guard Quinn Meinerz to a four-year, $80 million extension, ESPN and NFL Network reported Tuesday night.
Meinerz will be with Denver through the 2028 season, and the deal includes $45 million guaranteed, per ESPN.
In three seasons with the Broncos, the 25-year-old Meinerz has played in 45 games, making 39 starts. He was a third-round pick (98th overall) by Denver in the 2021 draft.
Training camp starts on July 26 for Denver.
CHIEFS ARRIVE TO CAMP EARLY FOR EXTRA WORK WITH PATRICK MAHOMES
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and several rookies reported to training camp as Kansas City sets the course for a bid at history.
Mahomes and the Chiefs are chasing a Super Bowl three-peat and clocked in for the 2024 season well before the official start of Kansas City’s training camp at Missouri Western in St. Joseph, Mo.
Mahomes and the other quarterbacks on the roster know the benefit of getting extra reps with rookies and newcomers, including wide receivers like first-round pick Xavier Worthy and free-agent addition Marquise “Hollywood” Brown.
Worthy could be cast for a bigger role with second-year receiver Rashee Rice facing potential off-field punishment from the NFL for his offseason arrest for street racing and leaving the scene of a wreck in Texas. Police alleged in a warrant stemming from the March 30 crash that Rice was driving in excess of 115 mph and the 23-year-old was behind the wheel of a Lamborghini when he hit the median wall and “caused a chain reaction collision involving four other vehicles.”
Already a faster runner than former Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill, at least on the stopwatch, Worthy ran a record-breaking 4.21-second 40-yard dash at the combine. Hill was timed at 4.29 seconds during his 2016 pro day. Worthy now is rapidly acclimating into an offense focused on spreading around the ball.
“There’s no easing,” Mahomes said of expectations for Worthy. “He’s going to have to be ready to go. We got a lot of competition on this offense. He got a lot of mental work in these last few weeks that he had during OTAs and minicamp, but it’s time to go now. Y’all saw it with Rashee last year and some of the throwing-up days he had. We’re going to push you to the limit and prepare yourself to be ready to go for the season. That’s not just (Worthy). That’s everybody and everybody has to have that mentality when they come into camp.”
Worthy was limited to “mental reps” in OTAs because of a hamstring injury. But head coach Andy Reid said the injury isn’t a factor now and declared Worthy ready to go.
“It was driving him crazy to have to watch,” Reid said of Worthy, the No. 28 pick in the draft. “You don’t want to be the No. 1 pick, come in and be sitting on the bench and watching. He’s a competitive kid that wants to be in there, and we’re gonna get him going.”
Worthy, 21, had his most complete college season as a junior at Texas in 2023, catching 75 passes for 1,014 yards and five touchdowns. He had 26 career touchdown receptions in 39 games and averaged 14.0 yards per catch for the Longhorns.
General manager Brett Veach said Worthy was targeted by the Chiefs for his scoring production and special-teams value. Kansas City moved up 38 spots in a trade with the Buffalo Bills to make the pick. Now it’s up to Worthy to prove Veach right.
“It’s all go. Once you’re here, you’re here,” Worthy said. “I understand definitely what Pat’s saying, and just to build that connection with him is going to be key here.”
BROWNS QB DESHAUN WATSON BACK TO THROWING DAILY
After playing just six games last season and not taking the field after Week 10, Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson said Wednesday that he has resumed a daily throwing program in advance of training camp.
Watson added that his throwing sessions have included passes to wide receiver Amari Cooper, who did not participate in mandatory minicamp in June amid a contract dispute.
“For me to even be back throwing the football is my top point that I’ve been locked in with,” said Watson, who participated in the minicamp.
Watson did not say if he has been cleared as a full participant when training camp begins for veterans on Tuesday.
Watson, 28, came away with a displaced fracture in his right shoulder during a Nov. 12 game against the Baltimore Ravens. Shoulder issues also prevented Watson from playing three previous games.
Watson’s injury issues led to Joe Flacco making five starts and rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson making three, while P.J. Walker made two and Jeff Driskel made one.
In his six games during the 2023 season, Watson threw for 1,115 yards and completed 61.4 percent of his passes. He had seven touchdown passes with four interceptions.
Watson has passed for 16,756 yards with 118 TDs and 45 interceptions over six seasons with the Houston Texans (2017-20) and Browns. He was acquired by Cleveland in advance of the 2022 season after he did not play in the 2021 campaign following a trade request and multiple sexual harassment allegations.
KALEN DEBOER EMBRACES ELEVATED EXPECTATIONS AT ALABAMA
Nick Saban coached at Alabama for 17 seasons. Successor Kalen DeBoer has had the job for about six months, but knows there is no honeymoon period for a program with perennial national championship aspirations.
“This program is special, and I take it as a great honor to be the one that gets to do everything we can to carry on the great tradition,” DeBoer said Wednesday at SEC media days in Dallas.
“… It’s been just an awesome blessing to be a part of this program, to continue to have that expectation on us. The alternative is to be at places where there aren’t expectations.”
Winners of six national championships and nine SEC titles under Saban, the Crimson Tide enter a new era under in Tuscaloosa under DeBoer, 49.
He guided the Washington Huskies to a 14-1 record last season, falling to Michigan in the CFP national title game. His overall record is 104-12 including time at NAIA Sioux Falls (2005-09), Fresno State (2020-21) and Washington (2022-23).
“I would not trade my journey for anything,” said DeBoer, who also spent time as the offensive coordinator at Southern Illinois, Eastern Michigan and Indiana. “It gives me an appreciation for where I’m at. It gives me an appreciation for the people I have around me.”
DeBoer inherits a team that finished 12-2 after defeating Georgia in the SEC Championship game and losing to Michigan in the Rose Bowl.
“We had a great winter, great spring, and really looking forward to the season that lies ahead,” he said.
Alabama opens against Western Kentucky on Aug. 31. The schedule gets tougher with a Sept. 14 trip to Wisconsin and a Sept. 28 home date with Georgia.
By DeBoer’s count, the Tide return five starters on offense and five on defense. They lost two players to the transfer portal but picked up 14 others.
“I think we’ve brought in some players to help add to, again, not just the depth but also to build and have an elite level of starters on the football field for us when Aug. 31 comes around,” he said.
“I think their mindset of just going 1-0 and winning the day is something that I preach to them, and they’ve taken on that challenge. They show up, they put in the extra work, they try to — they understand that everyone is doing the same things, you’ve just got to do it better and do it more often than those that we’re going to be competing against throughout the season.”
BILLY NAPIER: FLORIDA ‘ON SCHEDULE’ DESPITE ON-FIELD RESULTS
On the hot seat entering his third season in Gainesville, Billy Napier insisted Wednesday that Florida’s rebuild is “on schedule to some degree.”
The Gators went 6-7 with a Las Vegas Bowl loss in Napier’s first season and 5-7 in 2023. The coach Napier replaced at Florida, Dan Mullen, went 34-15 in his four seasons on the job, a loss total Napier is danger of matching before October due to a highly challenging schedule.
The pressure is on Napier, who was a successful Group of Five-level coach at Louisiana before taking over at Florida. Before taking the podium at SEC media days Wednesday in Dallas, Napier spoke with a smaller group of reporters.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” Napier said. “I think ultimately, timing is everything. When we took the job, what we inherited, the work that needed to be done, I think we’re on schedule to some degree. Should we have won a couple games down the stretch? Would I have liked to close some of those games out in the fourth quarter? Absolutely. But the reality is, I think from a systems standpoint, a process standpoint, in-house, the culture, I think we’ve made tremendous progress.”
Florida was seen as behind the times when Napier was hired. The program opened a new state-of-the-art practice facility in 2022. The Gators were also involved in an NIL melodrama with quarterback Jaden Rashada, as the sought-after prospect revoked his commitment when a reported $13.85 million NIL agreement fell through. Rashada is now suing the school and Napier.
“(College football has) changed significantly every six months, every season, every offseason,” Napier said. “Not only are we trying to create culture at Florida; we’re building new facilities, we’re creating infrastructure.
“You go back to the very beginning, you’re hiring a staff, you’re trying to improve the roster. The game continued to evolve while we’ve been doing that, so that’s where the challenge has been.”
Florida stuffed its nonconference schedule with in-state rivals. The Gators open at home against Miami. After its first two SEC games against Texas A&M and at Mississippi State, they host UCF, expected to be one of the better teams in the Big 12 this year. And as usual, they end the regular season against rival Florida State, which will be in Tallahassee this year.
“It’s a unique year,” Napier said. “I think ultimately when you think about all the P4 teams, each conference represented to some degree, two teams from the ACC and the Big 12, it’s an incredible opportunity, and I think it’s going to be huge. Each one of those matchups is critical. We have a ton of respect for each one of those teams and coaches, and it’s part of the schedule that everybody likes to talk about.”
Napier will be relying on Graham Mertz, who’s returning as the starting quarterback. Mertz had a statistically middling campaign for Wisconsin in 2022 (57.3 percent passing, 2,136 yards, 19 touchdowns, 10 interceptions) but improved his game by a large margin with the Gators last year, completing 72.9 percent of his passes with a 20-3 touchdown-interception ratio.
Mertz said the idea of his coach being on the hot seat and the pressure to perform in 2024 is just chatter.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Mertz said. “For us, and I always tell my guys every day, ‘Look, we can focus on what people are saying or we can focus on what we are doing.’ I think that’s where, regardless of what you are doing in life … if you’re worried about external things, that’s where your focus is, that’s where all your energy is gonna go.
“For my team and my guys, I see a group of guys that are all striving to get a little bit better every day.”
TEXAS QB QUINN EWERS ON NFL WAIT: ‘WANT TO BE REMEMBERED’
Quinn Ewers considered entering the 2024 NFL Draft before returning to the Longhorns and a crowded quarterback room at Texas based on a self-assessment that kicked back a decisive verdict.
He wasn’t ready.
“I think one of the main things for me was getting more experience under my belt,” Ewers said Wednesday in Dallas at SEC Media Days. “There is a line of demarcation for guys who really have success in the league and, obviously, there are some guys that have rare accounts of it not being this way, but there is a line, kind of 25. Twenty-five (college) starts – you see a jump in how their career went. I just kind of wanted to give myself a better chance to have a long and successful career in the NFL.
“I don’t want to be a guy that just comes and goes. I want to be somebody who is remembered.”
Ewers, 21, will make his 23rd career start on Aug. 31 in Texas’ season opener against Colorado State. Week 2 brings a road game to Ann Arbor to play defending national champion Michigan on a schedule that ends with a Nov. 30 trip to Texas A&M and features traditional Texas rival Oklahoma and a home game against Georgia on back-to-back Saturdays in October.
Ewers passed for 3,479 yards with 22 touchdowns and six interceptions last season but began his college career at Ohio State. He transferred after one season and enrolled at Texas in January 2022, but he already had an education in Michigan football.
“To be the best, you’ve got to play the best. We’re all fired up to go up to Ann Arbor,” he said. “It’s actually my second time going up there. I was up there when Ohio State played ’em back in 2021. It’s going to be cool to go back up there and see, and now I understand the hatred that Ohio State has for them. I understand the rivalry.”
Still No. 1 on a depth chart that includes Arch Manning, Ewers’ evolution stands out to the Texas coaching staff.
“He’s changed his body, he looks great, he understands the system,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said of Ewers on Wednesday. “But the thing I’m probably most proud of him about is his leadership. This guy is exuding confidence right now, and there’s nothing better for anybody in your organization, for anybody in your building to walk in and to say, there’s our guy, and our guy is exuding confidence. He’s carrying himself the right way. He’s doing things the right way, not only on the field but off the field. He’s our leader, and we can unequivocally say that about Quinn Ewers, and I’m proud to have him with us today.”
AS STEVE SARKISIAN GUIDES TEXAS INTO SEC, ‘THE KEY WORD IS RESPECT’
Steve Sarkisian has experienced Southeastern Conference football before, but the magnitude of his current school’s move to the conference hit him before he arrived at media days Wednesday in Dallas.
“So we flew in this morning, we landed, and we get off the plane, we get in the Sprinter van and we got a police escort to media days,” Sarkisian told reporters before cheekily quoting the SEC’s official motto. “‘It just means more?’ It just means more right there. The fact that we had a Sprinter van with a police escort to come to this was tremendous.”
As the nation’s premier football conference welcomes Texas and Oklahoma to its ranks this summer, the head coach of the Longhorns was sure to make it clear that he doesn’t expect to paint the league burnt orange right away.
“As far as our transition into the Southeastern Conference, I think the key word is respect,” Sarkisian said. “We have a ton of respect for this conference. We have a ton of respect for the teams, the coaches, the players and the fans. This is the elite conference in college football, and we’re fortunate enough to be part of it.
“We won’t do anything without having a level of respect of who we play, where we’re playing them, the types of players that they have, the coaching that they have, and I think on the flipside of that, we have to go earn their respect. We’re not going to get anything in this deal. Nothing is going to be free. We’re going to have to go earn the respect of our opponents, the opposing coaches, the opposing fans, and that’s going to be kind of on the forefront of what we do.”
Sarkisian, the former Washington and Southern California head coach, spent 2016 as an offensive analyst for Nick Saban at Alabama and 2019 and 2020 as his offensive coordinator before taking over in Austin. Saban attended SEC media days despite retiring last winter, and Sarkisian expressed his gratitude for the future Hall of Famer helping save his career.
“I would not be standing here today without you and what you’ve meant to my career, to my life, and I can’t thank you enough, and the impact that you’ve had on our game has been second to none, and I just can’t thank you enough,” Sarkisian said to Saban. “I want to be able to publicly do that to you, Coach.”
As for Saban’s earlier declaration that Texas “is not gonna run the SEC,” Sarkisian joked, “Yeah, I gotta talk to him about that.”
Texas joins the SEC coming off its best season in more than a decade. The Longhorns made the College Football Playoff for the first time, where they fell to Washington in the semifinals. They brought back quarterback Quinn Ewers and have Arch Manning, nephew of Peyton and Eli, waiting in the wings.
“We’ve been fortunate to coach some pretty good quarterbacks. We’ve been fortunate to do it for some decades now,” Sarkisian said of his program. “We’ve been fortunate to have some really good quarterback rooms, and I think the Manning family is pretty well aware of that.
“I think they trained Arch to try to put himself in the best position to try to play in the best conference in America and then ultimately put himself in the best position to further his career playing in the National Football League.”
DJ PICKETT, 5-STAR DB IN CLASS OF 2025, COMMITS TO LSU
DJ Pickett, a top-10 prospect in the Class of 2025, committed to LSU on Wednesday evening.
The five-star athlete is ranked as the No. 6 overall player and No. 2 cornerback in the country, according to the 247Sports composite. Pickett also plays on offense at Zephyrhills High School in the Tampa area.
LSU won out for Pickett over finalists Miami and Oregon.
In announcing his commitment to On3, Pickett said LSU secondary coach Corey Raymond was a major reason for choosing the Tigers.
“If you’re a DB, and Coach Raymond’s at LSU, I feel like that’s the right place to be at,” Pickett said. “That tells you everything right there.”
LSU entered the day already ranked No. 6 in the 2025 recruiting cycle by 247Sports. Pickett is the second five-star to commit to Brian Kelly, joining top quarterback and top overall prospect Bryce Underwood.