Jaguars
Jaguars TE Evan Engram is happy to have a new deal in place with Jacksonville and said he is comfortable knowing the team wanted him back just as much as he wanted to remain with them.
“From Day 1, I was on a mission to prove a lot to myself as a player,” Engram said, via Jaguars.com. “I wasn’t expecting the amount of support I got from the fan base and my coaches and the people here. Obviously, my family always has my back, but the love I have here means a lot and it helps me a lot. Obviously, the Jaguars believed in me. They wanted me here as much as I wanted to be here, so I’m blessed and really thankful we got something done. Obviously, the goal was to get a deal done. I knew going into it I was ready to do either one — either play on the tag or get a deal done. The big thing was I wanted security so I could go to work and come out and compete with those guys and have a little security for myself and my family. Everybody that was involved in getting it done, I’m very thankful.”
Engram emphasized that he has a team-first attitude his one-year contract allowed him to have and added that he is looking forward to what the Jaguars can accomplish this season.
“It was a crazy year. It became more about the team than about myself on a one-year deal,” Engram said. “That put me in a place where I knew what I was going out and fighting for every single day, and in the process of that, I put myself in a good position. How much fun we had last year, all the ups and downs … to see how the fan base rallied behind us … makes everything a little more exciting. We’re excited to give them something to cheer about.”
- Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that the Jaguars’ new contract with Engram includes a signing bonus of $12.5 million and a 2023 base salary of $2 million, fully guaranteed. The deal also includes $250,000 per year in incentives.
Texans
Texans QB Davis Mills talked about being on his third offensive coordinator in his third NFL season, as Houston hired OC Bobby Slowik to install a branch off of the Shanahan tree of the offensive system.
“The only thing difficult is just picking up new plays and not having anything to fall back on from the year previous,” Mills said via USA Today’s Mark Lane. “A lot of different offenses across the league run similar concepts, but they’re just calling it different things. Some of it is getting rid of the old verbiage and picking up new terminology. A lot of the other stuff is learning from new coaches, the new guys we have in the room and finding ways to get better.”
Titans
Titans OLB Rashad Weaver is doing some extreme workouts this offseason to increase his strength and is hoping that it all pays off this season as he plans to take the next step in his career.
“There are workouts for three hours in the weight room, where you lay on the ground and say: ‘I hate this’ every day,” Weaver said via the team website. “And on the off days, you go run hills, 50-yard sprints up the hills that are working your speed and your leg strength and your drive. But I know it’s working because I can feel the difference. And, the easiest way to know something is working is when you see the difference or other people see the difference in you and they make remarks about you. For someone like me, it just makes me want to keep going.”
“The biggest thing for me (to focus on) was strength, and that’s where I put a lot of work in this offseason,” Weaver added. “I’d never been a huge weight room guy, but coming off leg injuries in the past, those are things that knock your leg strength back. So now I can go out here and really bully guys and have play strength and play through contact and finish a lot of things that were really just right there last year, and really be better overall. … These are grown men out there.”
- According to Paul Kuharsky, Allegheny County prosecutors dropped an assault case against Weaver stemming from a 2021 incident in Pittsburgh that took place prior to Weaver being drafted by the team.
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