Bengals
After a rocky first year of his contract, Bengals S Geno Stone took a pay cut to remain with the team in 2025. Stone brought up the pending contract extension for DE Trey Hendrickson as a reason he was willing to take less money.
“This is a business and they’re trying to do what’s best for the team, and I understand that,” Stone said, via Jay Morrison of SI.com. “I want to do what’s best for the team, too. If that’s able to get Trey back or get him signed, I’m gonna do it.”
Stone said he spoke with new DC Al Golden and specifically named his pursuit angles as something he needs to clean up if he wants to have a consistent spot on the defense.
“I sat down with Al, and it was about my tackling angles and things like that. And I’ll agree with that. I got put in situations last year where I didn’t have the best pursuit angles. That’s something I want to work on as much as I can and get as many reps as I can now through camp. That’s my main emphasis this year.”
Browns
Browns GM Andrew Berry has noted that the team had no plans to draft two quarterbacks, but talked about the importance of the position and believes it was worth it to pick up QB Shedeur Sanders in the fifth round.
“Shedeur, we talk often about quarterback being the most important position in the sport,” Berry said, via Pro Football Talk. “We felt like it wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks, but we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value, and we didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. He was a good, solid prospect at the most important position. We felt like it got to a point where he was probably mis-priced relative to the draft. The acquisition cost was pretty light, and it’s a guy that we think can out-produce his draft slot. So I wouldn’t say it’s any more than that. . . . I may hesitate to characterize it as a blockbuster; that’s not necessarily how we thought of the transaction, but we are excited to work with him.”
Berry was then asked why Sanders was still available so late in the draft.
“I can’t speak to why the market priced him the way it did,” Berry said. “We had our own internal valuation, in terms of how we viewed the skill set and the equality of the player. Once it got to a point where it felt like it was at a pretty steep discount, we just felt like, especially relative to the alternative ways we could use the selection, this made the most sense.”
Ravens
- The Ravens took DE Mike Green at No. 59 overall in the second round. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler cites multiple teams that took Green completely off their draft board because of multiple sexual assault allegations against him.
- According to Fowler, Baltimore felt comfortable with Green after vetting him in the pre-draft process.
- An evaluator compared Ravens Green to former Steelers OLB James Harrison, and another believes landing in Baltimore was best for Green: “You can drop a guy like that into a sound culture easier than at a place that is rebuilding without leadership.” (Mike Sando)
- Regarding first-round S Malaki Starks, one exec called his floor “super high” and said he was the best player available at the time of the Ravens’ pick. (Sando)
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