Linebacker Roquan Smith, who has been named second-team All Pro twice, asked the Chicago Bears for a trade. Stacy Bengs/Associated Press
Chicago Bears General Manager Ryan Poles plans to continue to work for a contract extension with linebacker Roquan Smith instead of his request to be traded.
Smith, who is under contract through the 2022 season, is staging a “hold-in” and attending practices without actually practicing until he gets an extension, but Tuesday he made public an official request for a trade.
“Right now my intentions are to sign Roquan to this team,” Poles said after the Bears held a Tuesday practice at Soldier Field. “And we’re going to take it day by day. At the end of the day we’ve got to do what’s best for this organization. But my intentions are to make sure Roquan Smith’s on this team.”
Smith practiced with the team throughout the offseason voluntary and mandatory work, but was not participating on the field when training camp began.
“Unfortunately the new front office regime doesn’t value me here,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “They’ve refused to negotiate in good faith, every step of the journey has been `take it or leave it.’
“The deal sent to me is one that would be bad for myself and for the entire LB market if I signed it”
Smith does not have an agent and is trying to negotiate for himself.
“I’ve been trying to get something done that’s fair since April, but their focus has been on trying to take advantage of me.”
Smith, the No. 8 overall draft pick in 2018, was second-team All-Pro in 2020 and 2021. He is entering the fifth and final year of his rookie contract.
BENGALS: The home of the Cincinnati Bengals will no longer carry the name of team founder and NFL pioneer Paul Brown.
Paycor, a Cincinnati-based provider of human resources software, has bought the naming rights to the stadium in a deal announced Tuesday. The venue will be known as Paycor Stadium.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the development wasn’t a surprise. Team owner Mike Brown – the 86-year-old son of Paul Brown – told reporters last month that selling the naming rights was necessary for the Bengals to be able to compete as a small-market team.
JETS: Right tackle Mekhi Becton will “more than likely” miss the entire season because of another injury to his surgically repaired right knee, Coach Robert Saleh announced.
Becton was having a second evaluation after suffering a chip fracture to his kneecap, Saleh confirmed, during the second play of 11-on-11 team drills Monday.
The initial prognosis was optimistic, but an MRI later in the day revealed more damage to the knee than first expected.
BROWNS: Wide receiver and return specialist Jakeem Grant was carted off the field with what the team fears is a torn left Achilles tendon.
Grant, signed as a free agent during the offseason to improve a shaky return game, got hurt while battling cornerback A.J. Green during a one-on-one passing drill. Grant didn’t land awkwardly, but it quickly became obvious he was badly hurt.
Grant pounded his hand into the grass and writhed in pain on the ground as two trainers came to assist him. He was then placed on a cart and driven into the team’s facility as practice continued.
The 29-year-old is scheduled to undergo further testing.
• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he feels the league needed to keep pushing for a year-long suspension for quarterback Deshaun Watson because of his “egregious” and “predatory behavior” toward women.
Speaking at the owners’ meetings in Bloomington, Minnesota, Goodell addressed the league’s decision to appeal a six-game suspension given to Watson by Sue L. Robinson, a former federal judge appointed by the NFL and NFL Players Association as an independent league disciplinary officer.
Robinson found Watson violated the league’s conduct policy after he was accused by two dozen women of sexual assault or harassment while he played for Houston. Watson has settled 23 of the 24 lawsuits filed by the women, though he has denied any wrongdoing.
The league has been seeking an indefinite suspension and fine for Watson, and felt Robinson’s six-game ban wasn’t enough. Goodell cited the collective bargaining agreement for empowering the league to seek further discipline.
“Either party could certainly challenge and appeal that and that was something that we felt was our right to do as well as NFLPA,” Goodell said. “So we decided it was the right thing to do.”
Watson’s fate now rests with Peter C. Harvey, a former New Jersey attorney general handpicked by Goodell to handle the appeal. Harvey has previously worked as an arbiter in league cases.
Goodell said the league is pushing for a full-year penalty for Watson because of the evidence against the 26-year-old, who was accused of being sexually inappropriate with the women during massage therapy sessions while with the Texans in 2020 and 2021.
TITANS: The Tennessee Titans signed a pair of safeties, adding Adrian Colbert and Elijah Benton.
The Titans also waived cornerback Kenneth George and waived injured safety Michael Griffin II.
The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Colbert has started 22 of 39 games over five NFL seasons with San Francisco, Miami, the Giants, Cleveland and the Jets. Colbert was a seventh-round pick by the 49ers in 2017 out of Texas, and he has forced two fumbles with one fumble recovered and 109 career tackles.
Benton played one game for Cleveland as a rookie in 2020 after going undrafted out of Liberty. He had stints on the practice squads for the New England Patriots, Seattle and the Jets last season.
Griffin limped off the field during Monday’s practice.
BRONCOS: The record $4.65 billion sale of the Denver Broncos to Walmart heir Rob Walton and his daughter and son-in-law was unanimously approved by NFL owners, the expected final step in the transfer from the family of the late Pat Bowlen.
The vote was taken at a league meeting at a hotel in Minnesota, where Walton, his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband, Greg Penner, were introduced to the media by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. With an estimated worth of $60 billion, Walton – the eldest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton – becomes the wealthiest owner in the league.
Walton’s group paid the highest price in history for a sports franchise anywhere in the world. His three limited partners are Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, Starbucks board chair Mellody Hobson and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. All three investors are Black, satisfying an NFL goal to bring more racial diversity into ownership groups, front offices and coaching staffs.
The Pat Bowlen Trust ran the franchise after Bowlen stepped back from day-to-day duties in 2014 because of Alzheimer’s disease. He died in 2019, one month before his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
COMMANDERS: Coach Ron Rivera fired defensive line coach Sam Mills III and promoted Jeff Zgonina from his role as defensive line assistant.
Rivera hired Mills in January 2020 shortly after taking over in Washington, after Mills served on Rivera’s staff throughout his nine-year tenure as the Carolina Panthers’ coach.
Mills’ father, longtime Saints and Panthers linebacker Sam Mills, was enshrined at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, last weekend.
“Very difficult,” Rivera said of the decision. “I’ve known Sam a long time, and he’s a very good football coach, and I really appreciate everything he’s done. He helped us win a division our first year, and just some things got tough last year. But there’s some things that I felt I wanted to change.”
CHIEFS: Cornerback Rashad Fenton returned from the physically unable to perform list, giving him plenty of time to test out his surgically repaired shoulder and ramp up in training camp before the start of the regular season.
RAMS: Coach Sean McVay says he has finalized his contract extension with the Los Angeles Rams.
McVay and the Rams didn’t reveal the terms of the long-expected deal, but the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl reaffirmed his long-term commitment to Los Angeles after practice.
McVay didn’t say exactly when he finalized the deal, but it apparently happened before training camp. The 36-year-old coach is beginning his sixth season in charge of the Rams, and he has been the youngest coach in the NFL throughout his tenure.
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