NFL Notes: Jadeveon Clowney, Carli Lloyd, CBA Negotiations

Jadeveon Clowney

• According to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, Texans LB Jadeveon Clowney planned to reports to the team this week and sign his franchise tag until he found out Houston was shopping him. 
• Rapoport says at that point, Clowney hit the brakes and has not yet decided how he wants to proceed. He did fire his previous agent, Bus Cook, and met with Dolphins HC Brian Flores. 
• While Clowney cannot sign a long-term deal because the deadline for franchise-tagged players has passed, he can agree to a restructured one-year contract with a clause prohibiting his new team from tagging him in 2020. (Spotrac)

Carli Lloyd

USWNT star Carli Lloyd made enough waves with a viral video of a 55-yard field goal during joint practices with the Eagles and Ravens that she was in contact with two NFL teams, one of which offered her the chance to kick during a preseason game Thursday night. Aside from the obvious conflict with the USWNT’s game against Portugal Thursday night, if Lloyd tries to kick in the NFL, she wants to do it right. 

“If she’s going to do this, she’ll do it — she’ll train in the offseason, she’ll get herself ready so that she just doesn’t do it for the sake of doing it,” Lloyd’s manager James Galanis said via Graham Hays of espnW.com. “If she’s going to do it, she’s going to do it so that she can be a success.”

Lloyd’s 55-yard field goal came with a five-step head start as opposed to the usual two steps NFL kickers get during games. Galanis said the two would train to see if Lloyd’s range stayed the same, then contact NFL team’s for the 2020 season.

The 38-year-old Lloyd has expressed interest before in playing for the USWNT in the 2020 Olympics. However, she’s also been intrigued by the opportunity of being a pioneer as the first female NFL player. 

“We’ll try kicking balls with a couple of steps,” Galanis said. “And if her range is still the same . . . then that’s an important piece we knocked over because we’ll know that she can kick the ball 55 yards with two steps, the same way an NFL player could.

“Once we knock that over, we’ll contact one of the NFL teams and tell them that we’re interested and we’d like to come down and spend some time with their field goal-kicking coaches and let them make some tweaks and fix her technique or adjust her technique. From there, bring in the team, and she can do it live at training in kind of like a realistic situation.”

CBA Negotiations

• According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, the NFL is continuing to push for expanding the season in some form during negotiations. 
• The options the NFL has mentioned include expanding the regular season to either 17 or 18 games or expanding the playoffs, though there’s been no concrete proposal submitted yet. 
• The players continue to oppose the idea of expanding the regular season and are pushing for an expanded share of the revenue, per Graziano. Andrew Luck‘s surprise retirement only strengthened their stance. 
• However, the owners have said they won’t discuss changing the revenue split unless expanding the season is on the table. 
• Graziano says both the owners and players are in favor of reducing the number of preseason games. Graziano adds the players have indicated they’re open to expanding the playoffs. 
• The Washington Post’s Mark Maske confirms the report regarding the shortened preseason, saying it could happen in the not-too-distant future. 
• Maske says the likely focus has shifted to an expansion to 14 teams in the playoffs rather than an 18-game regular season. 
• Under the proposed expansion, seven teams instead of six in each conference would qualify for the postseason with only one team in each conference getting a first-round bye.
• The playoffs could also expand to include at least one game played on a Monday night, which could enhance the NFL’s position during the next set of negotiations for TV rights deals.