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NFL

Carroll: Healthy Thomas no certainty vs. Boys
9:46 PM ET

  • Brady HendersonESPN

RENTON, Wash. — Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll did not commit to Earl Thomas playing Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys after the All-Pro free safety didn’t practice for the second time this week despite apparently being healthy.

  • Rookie tight end Will Dissly, whose two TDs already match Jimmy Graham’s total in his first year with Seattle, leads a new group of pass-catchers.

Thomas’ absences both Wednesday and Friday were listed as not injury-related. While Thomas was with the team Friday, Carroll cited an unspecified “personal” issue for him not practicing while giving brief and vague answers to questions about Thomas’ situation.

“Yeah, he couldn’t work today,” Carroll said.

Asked if there’s a chance Thomas won’t be able to play Sunday, Carroll said, “We’ll see how he’s doing, make sure he’s OK.”

Asked if his absence was injury-related, Carroll said, “No, he’s got some other stuff we’re working on.”

Carroll then answered in the affirmative when asked if it’s a personal matter with Thomas, saying that’s why he wasn’t elaborating.

Thomas returned from his holdout four days before Seattle’s opener at Denver, and he started that game and on Monday night at the Chicago Bears. Carroll said Thomas made it out of the Bears game fine after playing all but one defensive snap.

The curious situation with Thomas comes as the Seahawks (0-2) are preparing for their home opener against the Cowboys, the team that has been most connected to Seattle in a possible Thomas trade. It was after a Christmas Eve game at Dallas last season that Thomas, a Cowboys fan growing up, chased down coach Jason Garrett and told him to “come get me” if he were to become available.

Thomas declined to speak to reporters when approached Thursday in Seattle’s locker room.

Thomas, who is making $8.5 million in the final year of his contract, publicly urged the Seahawks during his holdout to trade him if they weren’t going to extend him. He cited the money he would stand to forfeit if he continued to hold out into the regular season — $500,000 each week in game checks — as the reason he returned.

But upon that return, Thomas showed all was not forgiven, at least not on his end. He wrote in an Instagram post that the “disrespect has been well noted and will not be forgotten.” When asked after the opener how burned the bridge is between he and the team might be with regards to Thomas potentially remaining in Seattle beyond 2018, he said, “I have no clue. I have no clue. All I can do is just put the best product out there as possible and protect myself until I do get paid.”

Asked if he’ll be able to put his contract dispute behind him and just play, Thomas said at the time, “I’m going to try to do the best I can, try to work my way through it. I’ve got a great team behind me.”

In addition to Thomas, the Seahawks could be without four other starters against Dallas.

Wide receiver Doug Baldwin (knee), left guard Ethan Pocic (ankle) and linebacker K.J. Wright (knee) have all been ruled out. Center Justin Britt (shoulder) is listed as questionable, along with linebacker Mychal Kendricks, although Carroll said the team thinks Kendricks will play despite a sore foot.

Carroll said the team didn’t want to overwork Kendricks in practice this week after he came down awkwardly on his foot. He was limited in practice over the past two days.

Kendricks, who is playing while appealing a suspension over his connection to insider trading, is replacing Wright at weakside linebacker. Wright missed the first two games following arthroscopic knee surgery, and Carroll indicated that he might be out a while longer when he said Friday that Wright’s recovery is “going slow.”

Carroll said Britt will be a game-time decision. Joey Hunt is his backup.

D.J. Fluker is expected to make his Seahawks debut after missing the first two games with a hamstring injury. His return will push J.R. Sweezy to left guard for Pocic. The Seahawks will get middle linebacker Bobby Wagner and right cornerback Tre Flowers back after they missed the Chicago game.

Baldwin will miss his second consecutive game due to the MCL injury he suffered in the opener. He didn’t practice this week, but Carroll was encouraged by how Baldwin has been running.

“Doug ran really well the last couple days,” Carroll said. “He’s going to take tomorrow off. I believe now he’s went four straight days. That’s a really good sign and he’s feeling really good about it. So I don’t know what to tell you about projecting that, but he was weaving and running and changing directions some and all that today, so he’s coming close.”

NFL

Mayfield carries Browns to first win since 2016

CLEVELAND — Thursday night football turned into a Baker’s Special for the Cleveland Browns.

Rookie Baker Mayfield entered for his debut late in the second quarter and brought the Browns back from a 14-0 deficit to prevail 21-17, snapping a 19-game winless streak dating back to Dec. 24, 2016 — a span of 635 days.

The top pick in this year’s draft, Mayfield went 17 for 23 for 201 yards passing and remarkably caught the two-point conversion that tied the game at 14 with 42 seconds left in the third quarter.

Mayfield entered the game late in the first half after Tyrod Taylor left the game with a concussion and the Jets ahead by two touchdowns.

He guided the Browns to a field goal on his first drive, another field goal after fellow first-round pick Denzel Ward forced and recovered a fumble, then led the Browns on a seven-play, 69-yard touchdown drive to make the score 14-12.

A successful two-point conversion came after offsetting penalties gave the Browns a second try. Mayfield lined up in the slot left. Running back Duke Johnson took a direct snap, ran right and pitched to Jarvis Landry, who threw to an open Mayfield in the corner of the end zone to tie the game at 14.

The play was similar to Philly Special, a pass to quarterback Nick Foles that the Eagles used to win the Super Bowl.

The touchdown was set up by a 29-yard pass from Mayfield to Landry that was both an excellent throw and catch. Carlos Hyde followed with a 1-yard touchdown.

After the Jets retook the lead with a field goal in the fourth quarter, another 1-yard run from Hyde gave the Browns the lead for good.

Baker Mayfield completed his first three passes, including a 14-yarder to Jarvis Landry upon entering Thursday night’s game vs. the Jets late in the first half. Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Taylor had a rough first half, as the Jets frequently had free rushers coming at him. He went 4-for-14 passing for 19 yards and was sacked three times.

On his initial NFL drive, Mayfield completed his first pass, a 14-yarder to Landry over the middle. His second was another dart, to David Njoku for a gain of 17. On his third dropback, Mayfield was sacked and fumbled, but the Browns recovered, and his fourth play was a throw over the middle to Landry for a gain of 16.

He threw incomplete on his last pass, which set up a 45-yard field goal by Greg Joseph, who was signed Monday to replace Zane Gonzalez. The field goal cut the Jets’ lead to 14-3.

Mayfield became the first of the last six No. 1 quarterback picks to come off the bench and lead his team to a score, according to ESPN Stats & Information. JaMarcus Russell, Alex Smith, Eli Manning, Mike Vick and Tim Couch all failed to score.

Cleveland selected Mayfield with the No. 1 pick in April’s draft after he won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma. In his senior season, Mayfield threw for 4,627 yards with 43 touchdowns and six interceptions in 14 games as the Sooners went 12-2 and won the Big 12.

NFL

Seahawks' Wagner, Kendricks set to face Dallas
6:41 PM ET

  • Brady HendersonESPN

RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks expect to have linebackers Bobby Wagner and Mychal Kendricks available for Sunday’s home opener against the Dallas Cowboys, coach Pete Carroll said.

Wagner, Seattle’s All-Pro middle linebacker, is practicing Wednesday after missing the team’s Monday night loss to the Chicago Bears with a groin injury. K.J. Wright, who has missed the first two games following arthroscopic knee surgery, is not practicing.

Kendricks is appealing an NFL suspension that was handed down for his involvement in insider trading. He pleaded guilty to charges two weeks ago and was signed by Seattle (0-2) last Friday as a reinforcement with Wagner and Wright injured.

The NFL typically informs teams early in the week if a player is going to be suspended.

“He’s playing this week,” Carroll said of Kendricks. “That’s what I know.”

Asked if he expects Kendricks to be suspended soon, Carroll said: “I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you on that one. Really, we haven’t been in a back-and-forth conversation about that yet.”

Center Justin Britt’s status is uncertain due to what Carroll called a sore shoulder that he suffered late in the Bears game while diving for a loose ball. Carroll was hopeful that right guard D.J. Fluker (hamstring) and cornerback Tre Flowers (hamstring) will be available against Dallas (1-1).

He had no update on when receiver Doug Baldwin might be back from the MCL injury that kept him out Monday night and the second half of the opener in Denver.

“Doug had a good weekend,” Carroll said. “He’s real positive about it, but there’s nothing to say about when he’s returning at this point.”

Kendricks started at weakside linebacker for Wright on Monday night and finished with three tackles, a sack and a pass breakup in Seattle’s 24-17 loss. He played 54 of 66 defensive snaps as the Seahawks spelled him on occasion with a three-safety look given that he had so little time — only practicing twice with the team last week — to learn their defense.

“He did a really nice job,” Carroll said. “He missed one huge opportunity on the sideline when he went for an interception on the flat route, but other than that he did a good job. He blitzed well, he covered well, he ran to the football well. Coming brand new into our game [last week], he did a great job. I was really pleased.”

Asked if the Seahawks feel a sense of urgency heading into Sunday’s game at CenturyLink Field, Carroll said “heck yeah,” but added that they feel that way every week.

“It’s obvious that we need to get kick-started,” Carroll said, “and this is the best place to do that.”

NFL

Book: Brady considered 'divorce' from Belichick

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady felt trapped in the offseason and was not sure he wanted to play anymore for the only NFL coach he has ever had, Bill Belichick, according to a new book on Belichick’s life.

“If you’re married 18 years to a grouchy person who gets under your skin and never compliments you, after a while you want to divorce him,” a source with knowledge of the Brady-Belichick relationship told ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, author of “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” after the 2017 season.

“Tom knows Bill is the best coach in the league, but he’s had enough of him. If Tom could, I think he would divorce him.”

Based on interviews with 350 people (Belichick did not cooperate), the book, due out Sept. 25, reports Brady was so upset with his coach that he still wasn’t certain in late March if he would return to the Patriots. “But in the end, even if he wanted to, Brady could not walk away from the game, and he could not ask for a trade,” O’Connor wrote. “The moment Belichick moved [Jimmy] Garoppolo to San Francisco, and banked on Brady’s oft-stated desire to play at least into his mid-forties, was the moment Brady was virtually locked into suiting up next season and beyond. Had he retired or requested a trade, he would have risked turning an adoring New England public into an angry mob.”

ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and several Boston outlets had reported on the escalating tension between Brady and Belichick during last season, much of it revolving around the coach’s decision to reduce the team access that had been granted to Alex Guerrero, Brady’s business partner and fitness coach. Belichick was no longer giving his quarterback the most-favored-nation status he’d enjoyed in the past. New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman recalled in the book that Belichick told him years earlier about a disagreement Brady had with a Patriots strength coach over equipment. “Belichick said, ‘If Tom Brady wants it, Tom Brady gets it,'” Cashman said. “If you get a player at that level, you get him what he needs, even if the strength coach says otherwise.”

Brady was the league’s only starting quarterback who didn’t attend voluntary OTAs in the spring; he was also angered by the Malcolm Butler benching in the Super Bowl LII loss to Philadelphia. Asked by broadcaster Jim Gray in late April if he felt appreciated by Belichick and owner Robert Kraft (the quarterback maintains a close relationship with Kraft), Brady responded, “I plead the Fifth! … Man, that is a tough question.”

The transactional relationship between the five-time champs, Brady and Belichick, had been reduced to a staredown that didn’t surprise those in the quarterback’s camp. According to the book, Brady’s family long felt Belichick would push out his longtime franchise player before he was ready to retire. Brady’s sister Nancy is quoted telling people that her brother believed “Belichick will definitely do to him someday what the Colts did to Peyton [Manning].”

According to a new book on Bill Belichick’s life, Tom Brady was so upset with the Patriots coach that he still wasn’t certain in late March if he would return to the team. Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire

Brady started worrying for his job almost immediately after Belichick cited his age and contract status — and the coach’s own desire to be “early rather than late at that position” — when the Patriots drafted Garoppolo in 2014. One New England assistant said the general feeling among staff members around that time wasn’t that Belichick’s system could make Super Bowl quarterbacks out of all 32 NFL starters. “But if you gave us any of the top 15, we could do it,” the assistant said. “I don’t think the coaches view Tom as special as everyone else in football does. Mr. Kraft thinks Tom is the greatest gift ever, but the coaches don’t.”

Other notable material in the book includes:

Deflategate

  • In the early days of the case, Belichick was among the Patriots officials who had “serious doubts” about Brady’s claim he had no involvement in the potential deflation of footballs used in the January 2015 AFC Championship Game victory over the Colts.

  • One person close to Brady said his entire family was “miffed” at Belichick for telling reporters to ask the quarterback about his preferences on game balls, and “very miffed” at Kraft for reluctantly announcing in 2015 that he wouldn’t fight Brady’s four-game ban. Of the notion Belichick had initially dumped Deflategate in his quarterback’s lap, one close friend of Brady’s said, “I thought Bill handled it terribly, especially when it involved a guy who’d done everything to help your career as a coach, and you hung him out to dry.”

  • Brady told friends that his weak answer to the press conference question about whether he was a cheater — “I don’t believe so” — didn’t betray a consciousness of Deflategate guilt, but rather thoughts of the earlier Spygate conviction and his belief that at least some of the suspicions over the years about alleged Patriots black-ops tactics were likely true.

Spygate

Urban Meyer/Aaron Hernandez

  • While coaching the University of Florida, Urban Meyer warned at least one NFL team that it should not draft his talented but troubled tight end, Aaron Hernandez. Meyer told that team, “Look, this guy’s a hell of a football player, but he f—ing lies to beat the system and teaches all our other guys to beat the system. With the marijuana stuff, we’ve never caught this guy, but we know he’s doing it. … Don’t f—ing touch that guy.” An official with that NFL team said he was taken aback when Meyer’s friend, Belichick, drafted Hernandez in the fourth round. “I never understood that,” the official said.

Bill Parcells

  • Parcells and Belichick had repaired much of the damage to their relationship caused by Belichick’s stormy departure from the Jets after 1999, but Parcells is quoted in the book questioning why his former defensive coordinator’s game plan in the Giants’ Super Bowl XXV upset of Buffalo ended up in Canton. “I don’t know whose idea that was to put it in the Hall of Fame,” Parcells said. “If anything should be in the Hall of Fame, it should be [offensive coordinator] Ron Erhardt’s game plan. We had the ball for 40 minutes and some seconds. That takes work, consistent play. We were only on defense for 19 minutes. To me, we had a good game plan against them. It was well thought out, a couple of things we did, the two-man lines in that game. But I’m not diminishing anything. I’m just telling you. I don’t know how that happened. I’m not knocking anyone here.”

Nick Saban

  • Though the longtime friends formed a devastating tandem in 1994, when their Browns’ defense allowed a league-low 204 points, Belichick and Saban had their moments in Cleveland. Saban had little use for Belichick’s restrictions on his assistants’ access to reporters, and for Belichick’s conservative philosophy on defense. “Nick was so pissed with Bill,” recalled Pro Bowl defensive end Rob Burnett. “He wanted to do so many things and he was hamstrung by Bill. I used to meet with Nick all the time, and Bill would not bend as far as changing defenses. He stayed as vanilla as ice cream. … To Nick I was like ‘Oh, man, remember in training camp when they couldn’t block us on this blitz?’ He goes, ‘I know, I know. But sometimes I put it in the game plan and Bill won’t run it on Sundays.’ … At the end, it wasn’t the best relationship.”

Giants

  • George Young, longtime Giants general manager, made it clear the team’s defensive coordinator, Belichick, would never succeed Parcells. “I was there when [Young] said it,” recalled personnel man Chris Mara. “He said, ‘He’ll never become the Giants’ head coach.’ … George, like others, said, ‘This is an ex-lacrosse player. He’s a disheveled-looking mess most of the time.’ George was big on that other stuff as far as appearance, which is why he was so high on Ray Perkins, who took command of everyone around him and was a born leader. I just don’t think he saw that in Bill Belichick.”

Belichick’s father
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