INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts are saying goodbye to their starting running back from the past three seasons and are expecting to have franchise quarterback Andrew Luck back with the team when offseason workouts begin in the first week of April.
Colts general manager Chris Ballard met with Frank Gore and told the likely future Hall of Famer that they don’t plan to re-sign him.
“We had a discussion. We had it multiple times during the season. Frank knows we’re at the point where we need to get younger, and I want to give Frank a chance to see what’s out there and see if he finishes in a place he wants to finish it,” Ballard said. “He’s a first-ballot Hall of Fame player. He likes it when you’re honest with him.”
The Colts’ decision isn’t surprising. Gore will be 35 years old in May, and the Colts are in the process of making a youth movement with their roster.
Gore said at the end of last season that he planned to play a 14th season in the NFL while knowing there was a possibility that it wouldn’t be with the Colts.
He arrived with players like Andre Johnson, Todd Herremans and Trent Cole in the spring of 2015 with the thought they would be the final pieces for the Colts to make a run at the Super Bowl after they reached the AFC Championship Game the previous season.
Not only did Gore fail to reach the Super Bowl with the Colts, but he failed to make the playoffs with them in his three seasons. Gore and Luck, who was one of the main reasons the former 49er signed with Indianapolis, played just 22 games together because of injury problems to the quarterback.
The Colts didn’t have team success with Gore, but the running back had individual success. He rushed for 2,953 yards and 13 touchdowns while starting all 48 games during his three seasons. Gore became the Colts’ first running back to rush for at least 1,000 yards in a season since 2007 when he tallied 1,025 yards in 2016. He is only 76 yards shy of passing Curtin Martin for fourth place on the NFL’s career rushing list.
“Hall of Fame back, passionate,” Ballard said. “In just three years, even though most of his career was in San Francisco, he left an impact on the locker room and people like I’ve never seen another player do.”
Ballard and new coach Frank Reich said they are working under the impression that Luck will be with the team when it starts its offseason workouts the week of April 2. Luck, who had right shoulder surgery in January 2017 and missed all of last season, still has not thrown a football, but Ballard hopes the quarterback will be throwing within the next couple of months.
“I think we’ll get there during April and May to where we’re all seeing the progress we want to see,” Ballard said. “Talking to him and talking to the doctors, we’ve all ruled out surgery. I think it’s at the point where we have to make sure. You have to remember that he played for two years banged up. Then he had this whole year off.
“Taking a year where you’re not every day working the motion, it takes time to get back. When is that point? I wish I could give you a date. There’s no drop-down date. Can’t do it. I know this, I believe in the kid. I believe in where he’s at mentally, and he’s going to do some really good things going forward. He’s in a good place.”
Luck’s only practice time since Week 17 of the 2016 season was on a limited basis in October before the team gave him a cortisone shot and shut him down due to soreness in the shoulder. He spent about six weeks in the Netherlands getting rehab on his shoulder and is currently in California working with throwing experts. Luck has used weight balls to work on regaining strength in his shoulder.
The Colts, despite Luck’s long layoff, continue to believe he will be back for the 2018 season.
“Do I have any doubt that he’s going to be ready? No, I don’t,” Ballard said.
INDIANAPOLIS — Randy Gregory is eligible to apply for reinstatement to the NFL, but the Dallas Cowboys are not planning to have their 2015 second-round pick in the fold in 2018.
“We assume worst-case on any situations, whether it’s the money or availability, especially if players are facing suspensions,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “Obviously last year when we knew (Ezekiel Elliott) faced a possible suspension we kept extra running backs, assuming worst case. So we have to move forward, assuming that Randy is not going to be here. If he is here, obviously it’s a big deal. First and foremost for him if he could get himself in a situation where he feels like he could actually play football.”
Gregory has played in two of the last 32 games for the Dallas Cowboys because of multiple suspensions for violating the NFL’s substance abuse program, missing the entire 2017 season.
Gregory gave something of an update via social media Monday: “It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. Patience is key.”
The Cowboys are not allowed to have contact with Gregory, who was the 60th overall pick in 2015. He slipped in the draft because of off-field woes. He played in 12 games as a rookie but did not record a sack. He played in the final two games of the 2016 season and had one sack.
The Cowboys do not play a role in reinstatement. That comes from Gregory and his agent. Jones said it has been difficult for the Cowboys since they have not been able to keep tabs on Gregory.
“At the same time we obviously invested in Randy and wish nothing and hope for nothing but the best for Randy,” Jones said. “I know he’s on a journey and I know he’s trying to get his off the field situations worked out and he’s certainly got a lot of skill as a football player. But first and foremost he has to get himself personally and his physical well-being off the field in a good place.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers on Monday got younger and cleared nearly $6 million in salary-cap space by releasing starting free safety Kurt Coleman and defensive end Charles Johnson.
Coleman, who will turn 30 in July, was scheduled to count $5,150,000 against the 2018 salary cap. Releasing him cleared $2.65 million in cap space.
Safety Kurt Coleman was released by the Panthers on Monday, saving the team $2.65 million against the salary cap. Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
Releasing the 31-year-old Johnson, who signed a two-year extension last year worth $9.5 million, cleared another $3.25 million in space.
Coleman in 2016 signed a three-year extension worth $17 million with $7 million guaranteed. He originally joined the Panthers as a free agent in 2015, leading the team with seven interceptions. He had only four interceptions in 2016 and none this past season when he was named a team captain for the first time.
Johnson was suspended four games this past season for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs. He was inactive for the playoff game against New Orleans for an unspecified reason.
Johnson didn’t have a sack this past season, the first time that has happened since his rookie year of 2007, when he played in only two games as a third-round pick out of Georgia. He’s had five sacks the past three seasons after having 8.5 in 2014 and 11.0 in 2013.
Carolina had just shy of $20 million in salary-cap space before the releases.
WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — If declining TV ratings are a problem for the NFL, its players would like to know what can be done about them.
NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith told ESPN on Saturday that he has recently met with executives at several of the league’s broadcast partners, including CBS, NBC and Fox, to discuss issues related to the game. Entering his 10th year as leader of the players’ union, Smith is looking ahead to the next round of collective bargaining negotiations and wants the players to have a greater voice in what he describes as the league’s “macroeconomic” issues, including the way it presents itself to the public.
“I think that the ratings information is significant and important. If we don’t pay attention to it, I think that we do so at our own peril, from a macroeconomic standpoint,” Smith said Saturday in an interview before his son Alex’s lacrosse game at the University of Hartford. “Certainly, I recognize that we’re lucky that over 30 of the top 50 shows were NFL broadcasts. But I think that you ignore at your own peril not so much just the decline in football, but the overall decline in ratings for most television shows and particularly sports broadcasts.”
Smith pointed to the success the NBA is having right now and a desire to find out more about what’s behind it.
“I think that it’s important to take a look at what’s going on in basketball, because for the most part, I think they are the only sport that more and more people are watching,” Smith said. “And my hat’s off to what they do and how they do it in the NBA. I think that you could make the argument that a lot of their programming is fresher, hipper. They do, I think, a great job of marketing their individual players, sometimes at a time when the [NFL] looks for ways to take their star players off the field. I would be interested in better understanding the relationship between the broadcast partners and the NBA, what that relationship is like, how they do their TV deals, their rights deals.
“But I think that, given the year-over-year ratings issue in football, it begs the question, ‘Should we be doing something different?’ And that might mean the restructuring of the season in a way to make it more fan-friendly.”
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith is spending the offseason evaluating the issues facing the league and how they affect the players. Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports
Pressed on specific ideas to restructure the NFL season, Smith said he would like to find ways to better feature the best games and maybe even eliminate some that don’t hold the public’s interest.
“You look at the ratings, and you see that marquee matchups buck the trend on declining ratings,” Smith said. “And you also know that there’s groups of games, and let’s just say preseason games to start with. … It’s hard to find a fan that wants to buy a preseason ticket or wants to watch a preseason game. So to me, you’re being intellectually dishonest if you don’t want to look at both of those issues.
“When you do look at playoff games, when you do look at whether they’re division rivalries or games that have a level of significance, those games are not only exciting and people still want to watch them, but those marquee games are still big-time, high-viewership games.”
He suggested a model with fewer regular-season games and another round of playoff games.
“It doesn’t mean that that’s necessarily what you’re going to do, but we are at a point where we the union aren’t going to be this sort of silent other third party out there who’s not involved in the business of football from a stadium, media, Sunday, offseason standpoint,” Smith said. “We’re just not going to do it anymore.”
Smith’s point in meeting with broadcast executives is to establish the NFLPA as demanding a say in vital underlying issues central to the future of the game. He has yet to engage ownership in talks regarding the next CBA but seems to be announcing that, once those talks do start, he would like to be addressing issues more fundamental to the game’s structure and future than the players may have been invited to discuss in the past.
“The reason I’ve reached out is because I’m interested in finding out what our broadcast partners think about our game,” Smith said. “And I want to make sure that we have an environment where not only they are providing important input but so are we, and that we’re all thinking about long-term viability rather than just short-term impacts on revenue.”
“I think that it’s important to take a look at what’s going on in basketball, because for the most part, I think they are the only sport that more and more people are watching. And my hat’s off to what they do and how they do it in the NBA.”
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith
Smith held forth on a number of topics during a roughly 45-minute interview.
• On player health and safety, Smith said he wants to continue to looking at ways to incentivize coaches and teams. Smith said the NFL is very good at establishing punishment structures for players who violate rules, but less willing to look at the extent to which coaches and teams might be complicit.
“For example, if at the end of the year you have a team that’s got the largest number of penalties for X, Y and Z — unnecessary roughness, unsportsmanlike conduct — should we start considering what’s the impact on the coach stakeholder or the franchise stakeholder?” Smith said. “And that might include what impact that might have with them on draft order. Then you have a regime where everybody’s incentivized.
“Take a defensive player who’s coached or taught repeatedly that, if you can’t break up the pass, separate the receiver from the ball — and we know they’re being coached that way. When the incident happens on the field, if it’s too early, too hard or too high, there’s going to be a penalty and the player’s going to get fined and blah blah blah, blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, it seems to me that you’re still leaving out two other stakeholders, right? The coach that taught him to do it and the team that wants him to do it. And you don’t necessarily take into consideration that the player has not only been told to do it, but he knows if he doesn’t do it, he may not be playing and somebody else who is willing to do it might take his place. That’s a lack of aligned incentives.”
He also took the opportunity to take some further shots at NFL investigators who, he believes, have performed poorly in past disciplinary situations involving players.
“If it’s true that Mary Jo White is involved in the current investigation of the Panthers, I have a question because I know that she falsely accused players in Bounty[gate],” Smith said. “And things that she said to the press were either knowingly untrue or there came a time when we all knew they weren’t true. If it’s true that Lisa Friel is involved in the investigation of the Panthers, then I know for a fact that someone who ignored the conclusions of her own investigator [in the Ezekiel Elliott case] is involved in the investigation of an owner. Neither of those two things should give anyone a level of confidence in the integrity of the investigation.
“So at the very least, it seems to me that the league as a whole and their partners, the players, deserve to have the results of the investigation of the Panthers released publicly before the sale. And that’s simply because, if the premise of the personal conduct policy is the integrity of the league, why shouldn’t we have the same level of transparency that occurs in player investigations occur here?”
“What is happening there can most charitably be described as an anomaly,” Smith said of MLB. “And so, have I been talking with agents in baseball and with our brother/sister union MLPBA to look at what’s going on there? Absolutely. Because anomalies like that in a quote-unquote free-agent market are disturbing.
“We have economic mechanisms like the [spending] minimums. But hypothetically, if the anomaly that is occurring in baseball is motivated by the desire of some owners and some teams, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you’ve got an economic mechanism to prevent it. No economic mechanism is going to prevent a deliberate decision to affect the market. So my takeaway from what’s happening in baseball is that it reminds you at that times, people can make decisions or might want to make decisions that are, in the short term, somewhat self-centered but might end up negatively impacting their sport in a significant way.”
