NFL Notes: Trades, 18-Game Season, Jaguars & Jets

Trades

Earlier this week, the Patriots managed to complete two separate trades. One of them was with the Lions, who hired former Patriots executive Bob Quinn as their general manager.

Bill Belichick explained that his relationship with Quinn likely played a role in completing the trade for LB Kyle Van Noy but the Patriots’ head coach explained that there are a lot of teams somewhat reluctant to trade right now.

“I mean it could, yeah,” Belichick said, via Phil Perry of CSN New England. “I mean, you know, there are a lot of teams that don’t . . . they seem kind of reluctant to trade — this time of year, especially. But it’s one of those things that came up fairly quickly and just worked out. It wasn’t something we had talked about or anything like that previously. As I said, it kind of came up so we were able to work it out.

“Look, Bob’s great to work with. But we made another trade with another team in our conference so if it’s there to be made, it’s there to be made. If it’s not, it’s not.”

18-Game Season

• Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that the NFL Players Association is bracing for an eventual push from the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell to expand the regular season to 18 games.
• According to Florio, there’s a belief that the drop in ratings for NFL games will actually make the league more intent on growing the number of games.
• NFLPA has resisted the idea of expanding the season, citing the impact on player’s health but Florio mentions that everything is likely negotiable and the NFL could offer things like expanded rosters, a larger cut of revenue and/or neutral arbitration.
• Recent reports have mentioned that the NFL is expected to approach the union about an extension of the current CBA, so this is something to keep an eye on.

Jaguars

• Michael DiRocco of ESPN writes that the Jaguars’ No. 1 priority in free agency and the draft should be offensive line help with their current unit continuing to struggle.

Jets

Jets DL Sheldon Richardson mentioned that seeing time at outside linebacker should help his odds of securing a better contract at some point.

“I think it’ll give me more money. Just to be honest,” Richardson said Friday, via the New York Daily News. “My film don’t lie. You took a three-technique that was drafted in the first round and put him at outside linebacker and he held his own, that’s just building up a resume for that.”

• Rich Cimini of ESPN writes that if the Jets end up with a top-10 pick and have a strong conviction on a quarterback, he believes they should take him, even after they invested draft picks in Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg in recent years.
• However, Cimini isn’t so sure GM Mike Maccagnan would pull the trigger on another quarterback and bail on Hackenberg after one year.