The latest news from around the division.
NFL analyst: Commanders still need edge rusher – Serena Burks, USA Today
Like the Cowboys with WR2, Washington still needs to fill one major position.
The free agency frenzy died down over a month ago, and the 2025 NFL draft concluded this past Saturday. After the conclusion of the draft, NFL teams began signing undrafted free agents and inviting them to mini-camps for further evaluation. But even in adding new faces and players to their teams, no team in the NFL did everything it needed to do this offseason.
The Washington Commanders are no different; they made some great moves, but there is one position they didn’t handle. Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacchiano says the one need the Commanders didn’t answer was with an edge rusher.
Biggest need: Edge rusher
They needed help off the edge even before they lost Dante Fowler and his 10 ½ sacks in free agency, and it’s been their No. 1 need all offseason long. Yet GM Adam Peters doesn’t seem to be very concerned. His only edge signing was Deatrich Wise, who turns 31 in July and had eight middling seasons in New England. They seemed like they were in a perfect position in the draft to grab an edge rusher in the first round, but they went offensive line instead. In fact, they didn’t take any edge rushers at all. So it’s really unclear where their pass rush is going to come from this year.
He’s not wrong, in this case. The Commanders’ pass rush last season wasn’t great, and losing Dante Fowler hurts. Frankie Luvu has promise, but he’s not a true edge rusher. He did have eight sacks last year, plus 99 tackles, including 12 tackles for a loss. He also had an interception and recovered two fumbles. A veteran linebacker, Luvu can help on the edge, but it’s not his forte.
Adam Peters can still add to the roster should he find a solution to this problem; the final 53-man roster won’t be set until August. But if he doesn’t bring in anyone else, the Commanders better have a plan for their pass rush, or it’s going to be a repeat of last year, only worse without Fowler.
Phil Simms’ No. 11 to stay retired with Giants amid Abdul Carter search – ESPN
New Giant Abdul Carter can’t get a jersey number.
First, Lawrence Taylor. Now, Phil Simms.
For Abdul Carter, the toughest part about being in the NFL might be finding a uniform number.
Carter’s hopes of bringing the famed No. 56 of Taylor out of retirement were rebuffed last weekend by the Hall of Fame linebacker, who respectfully urged the New York Giants rookie to make his own mark instead.
Simms then entered the picture when he said on FanDuel TV that he would be open to unretiring his No. 11 so that Carter, or fellow Giants first-round pick Jaxson Dart, could wear it.
“I told some of my friends and people around me, ‘I’d let him have it in a second. Can you just help it a little or make it better?’” Simms said. “I think it would be a lot of fun. It wouldn’t bother me.”
Carter, who wore No. 11 at Penn State, seemed keen on the idea, writing on social media: “It would be an HONOR.”
But those hopes evidently were short-lived.
Simms told longtime New York Daily News writer Gary Myers on Friday that he was “outvoted by his family” and his No. 11 will remain retired by the Giants.
Eagles GM Howie Roseman on repeating as Super Bowl champs: ‘We understand that 2025 is a new year, and we haven’t won a game yet’ – Kevin Patra, NFL.com
It’s a new year and every team has yet to win a game.
The Philadelphia Eagles hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in February, pulverizing the back-to-back champion Kansas City Chiefs. Philly enters 2025 keenly aware that the Super Bowl performance guarantees nothing moving forward.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman told Adam Schein on Thursday on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio that his club is preparing to be the hunted.
“We understand that 2025 is a new year, and we haven’t won a game yet,” Roseman said. “In 2025, we’re going to have to do our best and work our hardest to have the kind of season that we’re looking for, and nothing in the past is going to guarantee future success.”
The Eagles won their first Super Bowl in 2017, knocking off the dynastic New England Patriots. Philly couldn’t replicate the success of that club, going 9-7 each of the next two years and quickly bowing out of the postseason before sinking to 4-11-1 in Doug Pederson’s final season.
The 2025 version of Philly Super Bowl winners is vastly different than that initial iteration. For one, there is stability under center with Jalen Hurts. The Super Bowl MVP is the clubhouse’s clear leader, and his contract ensures he’s going nowhere soon.
Roseman also points out that this team is much younger, particularly on defense, with a core that can grow together. He also boasted about the pieces he’ll be able to add in the coming years to sustain success.
“You’ve got to take the lessons we learned from that 2017 team and what we did there and this is a different group for sure, but also, you know, we’re building it a little bit differently,” the GM said. “This is a young team. I think we have two players projected on our defense that are over 25 years old. We’re extremely young, our core guys, they’re all in their twenties, so this isn’t like we’re just putting the band back together to make one last run, like we feel like we’ve got an opportunity here to continue to build our core players and keep our core guys together. We’ve got a lot of picks next year already, expecting comp picks, and we’ve made two trades to get picks from other teams, so we’re looking at a minimum of 12 picks next year, which is huge for us to keep supplementing.”
