NFL Notes: Bills, Colts, Jets, Raiders, & Vikings

Bills

Bills GM Doug Whaley said they made serious runs at two offensive linemen in recent weeks, but they just couldn’t get deals in place.

“To put it bluntly, everybody’s celebrating our victories, but we’ve had some losses in this free agency” period “and it happened to be on the offensive line,” Whaley said Tuesday, via Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News. “We had targeted two guys and we just couldn’t get them. Unfortunately for us, it looks like we didn’t try, but we did try and just weren’t successful.”

According to Carucci, the two targets that the Bills missed out on were Packers RT Bryan Bulaga and Saints G Jahri Evans.

Colts

• Colts GM Ryan Grigson and HC Chuck Pagano told reporters on Tuesday that they’re still keeping an eye on a few defensive free agents.
• Stephen Holder mentions that the Colts are probably waiting for prices to drop with a few players.

Jets

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that the Jets have filed tampering charges against Patriots owner Robert Kraft after he made some comments about CB Darrelle Revis on Monday.

Here’s what Kraft said:

“I speak as a fan of the New England Patriots,” Kraft said Monday, via Tom Curran of CSN New England.  “We wanted to keep him, we wanted him in our system.  We have certain disciplines and we had hoped it would work out.  It didn’t.  We just don’t think about the short-term decisions.  For example, next year we have three very good young defensive players coming up [for contracts] and we have to factor that we just don’t look at this year, we look out at the next few years.  We’ve done okay doing that.

“[The Jets] are the team that drafted him. I think he feels a great commitment there, so we understand his going back and we’re sorry he didn’t stay with us.”

• Jets GM Mike Maccagnan said that they are still pursuing a few players in free agency. (Rich Cimini)
• According to Maccagnan, running back is “a good priority” and hinted that they could target a running back in the draft. (Rich Cimini)

Raiders

Raiders HC Jack Del Rio said that he expects Latavius Murray and Trent Richardson to compete for the starting running back job.

“I think it will be a competitive situation,” Del Rio said, via Bill Williamson of ESPN. “…What I saw when we brought him in and talked to him was a young man that was hungry to kind of leave that portion of his career behind him and start fresh. My challenge to him was, ‘Look, I don’t want you to worry about anything other than coming in here and competing your butt off every day. Come in here and be a great teammate. Come in here and find a role on special teams. Come in here and just grind every day with the hunger you had as a freshman at Alabama.’”

Vikings

Vikings HC Mike Zimmer said there’s “no chance whatsoever” that they’ll trade WR Cordarrelle Patterson.

“No, no chance whatsoever,” Zimmer said, via 1500ESPN.com. “Cordarrelle is a young, emerging player who was with his third coordinator in three years. Quite frankly, we need to do a good job of figuring out how we can use him better and he needs to understand where he’s supposed to be, the routes and everything.”

• GM Rick Spielman said that they are “trying to work through” contract restructure with LB Chad Greenway. (Alex Marvez)
• Spielman added that they would like for Greenway to finish out his career in Minnesota. (Alex Marvez)