https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/2025-nfl-free-agency-buzz-panthers-running-back-jonathon-brooks-shelved-for-all-of-2025-051015840.html
How worried are the Carolina Panthers about the future of 2024 second-round draft pick Jonathon Brooks? It might be worse than we’ve been led to believe.
Here are three NFL nuggets after the first day of the NFL’s new year:
What is Carolina’s plan for RB Jonathon Brooks this season?
It hasn’t been a secret that the second ACL tear in the right knee of Carolina Panthers running back Jonathon Brooks is extremely concerning. The way the Panthers are tackling it might shed some light on how concerned the franchise is right now.
The Panthers are signing running back Rico Dowdle to a one-year deal, strongly pointing to a plan that appears to be leaning into sitting Brooks for the entirety of the 2025 season. To err on the side of caution and put together a plan over the next 18 months offers Brooks a chance to enter training camp in 2026 both completely healthy and as confident as possible about his right knee.
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Even taking that approach, a league source indicated there’s a lot of concern about Brooks’ development in all of this. While last year’s 46th overall draft pick is extremely young (he won’t turn 22 until July), he will have played very little high-level football by the time he hits the field for the Panthers again. Brooks had only 54 touches rushing and receiving his first two seasons as a backup for the Texas Longhorns, then another 212 his junior year, before eventually tearing the ACL in his right knee and entering the draft. That was followed by only 12 touches as a rookie for the Panthers before tearing the ACL again.
That’s not a lot of football development over a four-year span. And now there’s a very real question over whether Brooks will ever have access to his considerable ceiling again if his right knee is diminished.
The Panthers are taking the most careful approach possible. But any presumption that Brooks is ever going to bounce back and become the player Carolina hoped it was drafting is as shaky as ever.
Potential trade targets for Kirk Cousins: Browns, Steelers
I was a little surprised Wednesday when I heard definitively from two league sources that the Falcons wouldn’t be releasing Cousins by Sunday to avoid triggering $10 million in fully guaranteed 2026 salary via a roster bonus. But after spending time making additional calls, the motive seemed clear: The Falcons see that there aren’t enough veteran bridge quarterbacks to go around right now, and they’re not inclined to pay Cousins his guaranteed 2025 salary of $27.5 million and resolve some other team’s problem by releasing him.
If that sounds like the Falcons are putting some teams into their crosshairs for a squeeze, it’s because they are. Specifically, the Cleveland Browns and possibly the Pittsburgh Steelers, depending on what happens with Aaron Rodgers.
Right now, the Falcons are operating with two pieces of information. First, they know the Browns want to bring in another quarterback to balance out the position and Cousins would be the most familiar — having worked with head coach Kevin Stefanski — and cost-effective option if he were to be cut loose by Atlanta. Second, the Falcons know some on the Steelers’ coaching staff really would rather not have to turn back to Russell Wilson in 2025, and there’s a chance that if Rodgers were to choose the New York Giants or retire, Pittsburgh could view Cousins as an emergency option.
The sense I get: If they have no other option, the Falcons would be fine keeping Cousins as a backup, given the reality that they’re paying him in 2025 regardless, and he doesn’t have a history of throwing a fit if he’s presented with a challenge. That doesn’t mean Cousins is happy with the direction this is heading. He wants to start somewhere in the NFL next season, and he told Falcons owner Arthur Blank as much when they met last week. But Blank and the Falcons’ front office are taking the stance that they’re paying Cousins good money and there’s nothing saying they have to pay him while also making him happy by releasing him and helping another franchise.
The exit here is the offering of some kind of asset the Falcons would be happy with, at which point they’d surrender Cousins via trade and pay most if not all of his 2025 salary. And the target seems to be the Browns.
Meanwhile, the Browns’ response is to do what they’re doing right now: Lining up a visit with Wilson, scheduled for Thursday, and keeping their options open with a back-burner player like Joe Flacco and potential draft options.
Ohio State RB Quinshon Judkins now a first-round pick?
With Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty a lock and North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton a strong possibility to land in the first round of the forthcoming NFL Draft, you can now feel some buzz building over Ohio State’s Quinshon Judkins coming out of the scouting combine. So much so, there’s a chance the league sees a trio of first-round running backs for the first time since 2018, when Saquon Barkley, Rashaad Penny and Sony Michel were all drafted inside of the first 31 picks.
You can see at least one marker of a lean into the rookie running back class in how the free-agent running back class is unfolding, with virtually all of the best available running back talents struggling to land anything more than bargain one-year deals, low-lighted by the modest signings of Najee Harris with the Los Angeles Chargers, Rico Dowdle with the Carolina Panthers and Javonte Williams with the Dallas Cowboys.
The reason: Teams love the talent of the incoming running back class, and they think there may be even more high-end juice than originally thought.
The big winner of that assessment appears to be Judkins, who raised eyebrows among multiple high-ranking talent evaluators when he ran a 4.48second 40-yard dash at 6-feet and 221 pounds. He also showcased explosiveness with a 38.5-inch vertical and 11-foot broad jump, while lighting up interview rooms with his personality. One evaluator I spoke with told me that Judkins’ reps advised him not to work out at the combine after the Buckeyes won the college football national championship. He declined that advice and did a full workout, rather than waiting for Ohio State’s pro day. Given his penchant for playing a physical brand of football that illustrates his love for contact, teams were pleased to see him show up and compete at the combine when others would not.
All of it reminded teams of the Ole Miss true freshman who was one of the best running backs in the country in 2022 and capable of playing in the NFL as a 19-year-old before he transferred to Ohio State.
Keep an eye on Judkins potentially scooting into the first round of the draft to a team that mirrors his style of play at the position and has a need for a long-term running back solution (*cough* Pittsburgh Steelers).
https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/2025-nfl-free-agency-buzz-panthers-running-back-jonathon-brooks-shelved-for-all-of-2025-051015840.html
