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NBC Sports
5 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Despite knee issues, Taylor Moton confident he has more good years ahead
Panthers right tackle Taylor Moton turns 31 next month and has had some recent injury issues. The Panthers, though, didn't draft his heir apparent. He heads into the final year of his contract looking for another one. 'Looking forward, I do believe I have another contract in me,' Moton told Joe Person of 'But right now my focus is on the 2025 season and making sure I do whatever I can to have the best season I can for everybody involved.' Moton was a part of a 2017 Panthers draft class that also included Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel and Harrison Butker. Moton, who has played 129 games with the team, hopes to finish his career where he started it. His health will have the final say in how long he plays. Moton began his career appearing in 120 consecutive games before a triceps injury last October kept him out two games. He missed a Week 17 games with a knee issue and was limited during the offseason program with a minor pectoral injury. His knees are the biggest concern, though the athletic training staff has come up with a plan to help keep him on the field. 'It's chronic stuff. Most linemen deal with it,' Moton told Person. 'But it's just figuring out what we can do to make sure it's limited and I'm still able to explode off it, which right now I can and I feel like I can in the future. After a while, you start learning more about it and what can we do to make sure it's as little of an issue as possible. I feel like I'm moving like I was when I was younger.'
New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Panthers OT Taylor Moton thinks he still has good years — and another contract — ahead of him
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Given Taylor Moton's expiring deal and aging knees, there was some talk during the offseason about whether the Carolina Panthers would consider drafting a successor for their soon-to-be 31-year-old right tackle. That didn't happen this year and might not next, depending on how general manager Dan Morgan decides to handle Moton's contract situation. However, there could be an intriguing option with close ties to Moton … provided Morgan is willing to wait 16 years for Thomas Moton to become draft-eligible. Advertisement Moton's only child turned 5 in June. And while Thomas wasn't overly big as an infant, his growth chart suggests he could wind up in the identical big-and-tall suits as his 6-foot-5, 325-pound father. 'He has definitely filled out,' Moton said. 'Because now he's 70 pounds, which I think is the average 8-year-old or so.' Thomas Moton participates in at least one recreational sport for every season, and his dad has enjoyed watching them all. However, Moton isn't ready to be a full-time Little League dad yet, not with some meat still on the bone of his playing career. 'Looking forward, I do believe I have another contract in me,' Moton said recently. 'But right now my focus is on the 2025 season and making sure I do whatever I can to have the best season I can for everybody involved.' Moton would love to finish his career with the team that took him in the second round pick as part of a 2017 draft class that also brought Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel and Harrison Butker to Charlotte. Butker's stay was brief. Not so with Moton, who began his career by playing in 120 consecutive games, including 104 starts, before a triceps injury last October sidelined him for two games. Moton's durability and blocking prowess led the Panthers to sign him to a five-year, $85 million extension before the 2021 season. The team remains bullish on Moton's abilities, but some in the organization question how he'll hold up health-wise in his 30s. In addition to the triceps injury last year, Moton also sat out a Week 17 game at Tampa Bay with a knee issue. He was limited during OTAs and minicamp with a minor pectoral injury. However, Moton's knees seem to be the most significant cause for concern, although he believes the training staff has a good plan in place to keep him productive. 'It's chronic stuff. Most linemen deal with it. But it's just figuring out what we can do to make sure it's limited and I'm still able to explode off it, which right now I can and I feel like I can in the future,' Moton said during a phone interview with The Athletic. Advertisement 'After a while, you start learning more about it and what can we do to make sure it's as little of an issue as possible. I feel like I'm moving like I was when I was younger.' The analytics say Moton is still performing at a high level. According to Pro Football Focus, Moton allowed one sack in 538 pass blocking snaps in 2024. By comparison, Panthers left tackle Ikem Ekwonu gave up seven sacks in 593 pass block snaps, per PFF. Ekwonu had the better run blocking grade, while Moton's 80.5 pass blocking grade ranked 19th among 140 tackles. When center Austin Corbett signed with the Panthers in 2022, he viewed Moton as one of the best pass-blocking tackles in the league. He's since revised his thinking. 'Now the thing that's changed is I think he's the best pass-blocking tackle by far,' Corbett said. 'To be able to watch his consistency over my three seasons with him, the things that he does — I don't know why he's not being talked about (more). Awesome.' Dave Canales didn't go quite that far when discussing Moton at the NFL owners meeting in April. The Panthers coach likes what Moton brought to the right side of the line during Canales' first season in Carolina. 'He still plays really good football,' Canales said. 'He's an excellent pass protector. He's great on the front side of those runs. He moves people. So until those things are not apparent, we love having him.' After Moton had his contract restructured in each of the past three years, Morgan and executive vice president of football operations Brandt Tilis resisted doing so again this offseason. Instead, they've indicated they'll allow Moton to play out the final year of his contract, despite a $31.3 million salary-cap number that accounts for 11.2 percent of the team's cap. 'I think we're fine either way. We can leave the contract how it is, and we're fine from a cap perspective,' Morgan said at the NFL combine. 'Obviously, we love Taylor. We love everything about him. But right now we're just going to stay put and Brandt, myself and Dave, we'll get together at the right time and talk about his future in terms of long term.' Advertisement Moton's preference would be to stay with the Panthers. His parents relocated to Charlotte about the time Thomas was born, and he also has family in nearby Gastonia. 'I have a lot of family here. I love the city. I love it here, and it's been home for quite a while,' he said. 'But things like that, I fall back to control what I can control. And that's just having the best year I possibly can for the guys, for the organization, for the city. For a lot of reasons. It's important to me.' Moton also likes the direction the team is headed under Canales and Morgan, whom he called a 'tremendous GM.' The Panthers successfully rebuilt the offensive line last season by signing free-agent guards Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis, then kept the line intact by bringing back Corbett, center Cade Mays and Brady Christensen, one of the team's most versatile linemen. 'I love the group we have right now. I'm so happy the whole offensive line is coming back. That's something in this league (that is) very unusual,' Moton said. 'To not just have the starters coming back, but all the other people ready to go behind us, it's awesome.' Moton took great pride in his Ironman status. His streak of 104 consecutive starts is the longest in franchise history, topping those of Mike Minter (94), Jordan Gross (84), Greg Olsen (82) and Julius Peppers (78). He aims to get started on another one. 'It hurt that my body gave out and it couldn't perform anymore. That definitely was a blow,' he said. 'But you get this adversity in your life and the next step is, what do we do to conquer this adversity, get back on track and do everything we can to make sure that adversity isn't a problem anymore?' Some of those steps involve precautionary measures, such as wearing braces on his arms and legs. Moton, who turns 31 in August, also stays in close contact with the training staff with the goal of playing a full season — and then some. Advertisement 'My body's been feeling good. No triceps problems right now, no knee problems,' he said. 'The knees have been feeling good and excited about doing whatever I can (to play) 17 games plus — plus playoffs. Every play is a sprint, but the whole season is a marathon.' The Panthers haven't made the playoffs since Moton's rookie season, when he played in every game as an extra blocker/eligible tackle and a regular on the extra point/field goal team. Moton struggles with the fact that the Panthers haven't been back to the postseason since. 'It hurts. Losses suck. You feel for all the staff and coaches, personnel, everybody that put so much time and effort into this to not get the result that they deserve,' he said. 'Same thing with the players — we're always working our butts off, doing everything we can. So to fall short, it makes it that much more disappointing.' Moton doesn't have big vacation plans this summer. He'll go to the beach for a few days and host his annual youth camp next weekend in his hometown of Lansing, Mich. Otherwise, Moton will continue training for his ninth NFL season while enjoying time with his son, who has started playing flag football — aggressively at times. 'He's loving being on defense tracking down the flags. Sometimes it's more than just grabbing the flags,' Moton said with a laugh. 'So he's got a little bit of toughness to him, which I appreciate.' Like father, like son.
USA Today
19-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Steelers Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu make ESPN All Quarter Century Team
Former Steelers Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu make ESPN All Quarter Century Team Looking back over the last 25 years, the Pittsburgh Steelers have had so many great players, it's hard to narrow down the best. But ESPN undertook the daunting task of doing it for the entire league and put together their All Quarter Century teams for offense and defense. They named one Steeler legend on each side of the football to the team. On offense, Alan Faneca made it as one of two left guards. He shared the distinction with Steven Hutchinson. Here's what they had to say about Faneca. A stalwart at left guard for the Steelers before late-career spells with the Jets and Cardinals, Faneca missed only one game from 2000 on -- and that was due to rest in a meaningless Week 17 contest in 2001. His six first-team All-Pro selections are more than any other left guard this quarter century. Moving to defense, edge defender T.J. Watt got snubbed but safety Troy Polamalu was there as the team's strong safety. He joined Ed Reed, Brian Dawkins and Earl Thomas as the four safeties. This was how they broke down Polamalu's career. Polamalu flying all over the field epitomized what NFL teams began prioritizing with modern safeties. He is fifth among safeties with 103 passes defensed since 2000. He also had 80 run stops (tackles to stop runs short of a successful play), which is third among all defensive backs since 2000.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Arrest warrant issued for former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on attempted murder
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on a charge of attempted murder. CNN affiliate WSVN previously reported the news and has since provided a copy of the warrant to CNN. Authorities in Miami-Dade County are seeking to arrest Brown after gunshots were fired at an amateur boxing event in May. CNN has contacted the Miami Police Department for comment. CNN has also contacted Brown for comment. In a post on X on Friday, Brown posted a video of himself on a bicycle, with the hashtag '#lovefromthemiddleeast.' Brown posted on X last month that he had been 'jumped by multiple individuals who tried to steal my jewelry and cause physical harm to me.' He said police released him after hearing his side of the story. Videos posted on social media showed a chaotic scene – including crowds running from what sounds like two gunshots. According to the warrant, an off-duty officer working inside the venue where the event was being held went outside where people had told him there had just been gunshots. Once outside, he said he saw Brown in a fight with another man. Per the warrant, 'several' people attending the event told the officer that Brown had been the shooter, although police did not find a weapon on Brown when he was patted down. The warrant states that officers found two spent shell casings and an empty gun holster at the scene. According to the warrant, detectives later determined through surveillance footage at the venue and speaking to witnesses that Brown punched a man during a 'large physical altercation,' and 'several other individuals' started to attack the man until security intervened. The warrant says that Brown later appeared to take the gun of a security officer and ran after the man he had punched, who had just walked away from the enclosed area. Cell phone video obtained from social media shows Brown with the gun in his hand approaching the man, and the video captures sound of two gunshots, according to the warrant. Brown played for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2010 to 2018, where he emerged as one of the NFL's top receiving threats and twice led the league in receiving yards. He was later traded to the Oakland Raiders, who released him from his contract after various on- and off-the-field issues before the start of the 2019 season. He split his final three NFL seasons with New England and Tampa Bay, and his career ended with Brown stripping off his jersey, pads and gloves, while walking off the field during the Buccaneers' 2021 Week 17 game against the New York Jets. Brown announced his retirement a few months later. CNN's Jill Martin and Jada Furlow contributed to this report.
NBC Sports
18-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
NFL has shown no inclination to have a draft lottery
The NFL loves to make money when it's not supposed to be making money. When it comes to offseason cash grabs, there's one bridge the league has shown no inclination to cross. A draft lottery. The NBA's recent draft lottery, which saw the Dallas Mavericks overcome 1.8 percent odds to win the rights to 18-year-old Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, sparked claims that the lottery was rigged. (No lottery has ever been rigged.) It also sparked arguments in some circles that the NFL should have a draft lottery. And, as we've argued in the past, the NFL should have one. Beyond the intense interest a draft lottery would generate (it would land somewhere between the show-about-nothing draft and the show-about-nothing schedule release), a lottery would create a system that would reduce the incentive to tank by not guaranteeing the first pick to the worst team. Here's the problem. Merely having a lottery legitimizes the reality that, at some point in a lost season, it's good to be bad. With the NFL stubbornly pushing the notion that every team tries its best to win every game of every regular season, anything that would crystallize the perception that losing leads to winning would take a sledgehammer to the façade of competitive integrity. One way to eliminate that would be to give, for example, each of the 18 non-playoff teams an equal shot at the first pick, the second pick, and so on. The only risk from that approach would be the possibility that an owner of a team with a snowball's chance of scaling the playoff mountain a 5.5 percent shot at a potentially transformational talent. Unlike the leagues that have lotteries, the NFL maintains a clear firewall between being at the bottom of the standings and the top of the draft order. While it's obvious that the worst picks first, the league prefers to draw as little attention as possible to the very real strategic benefit of embracing the suck. What's the difference between 2-15 and 3-14? What's the difference between 3-14 and 4-13? A lost season is a lost season, and no one will care about the final number of wins. The only way to make chicken salad in such a chickenshit circumstance is to let nature take its course. Or, as the case may be, to nudge nature along a little by using late-season games to 'evaluate' young backups. The temptation to tank is very real. Some firmly believe that it should be avoided because it introduces losing into the culture of the team. Some don't care about that. (Which is one of the reasons why they keep losing.) In 2014, the Buccaneers clearly tanked in the second half of a Week 17 game against the Saints to ensure that a double-digit lead evaporated, delivering the top pick in the 2015 draft. The cost of trading up highlights the value of not having to. If the Jaguars had finished with the second overall pick and not the fifth overall pick, they wouldn't have had to give up next year's first-round pick (among other things) to get Travis Hunter. The 2024 finale also introduced counter-tanking to the equation. Plenty believe that the Bills threw their Week 18 game against the Patriots to keep a division rival from landing the No. 1 overall pick. (Buffalo started quarterback Mitch Trubisky in the game, and removed him for no apparent reason for Mike White late in the third quarter, after the Patriots had taken a 17-16 lead.) Winning that game hurt the Patriots. They could have traded the rights to the No. 1 overall pick (quarterback Cam Ward) for multiple other picks and/or players. And they still could have gotten tackle Will Campbell, plus a lot more stuff. The NFL doesn't want anyone to connect losing games and getting dibs on the sorting hat process. Having a draft lottery acknowledges the link, making it harder for the NFL to perpetuate the ruse that every team tries to win every game, every week of every year. Without that concern, the NFL surely would have a multi-network, three-hour, prime-time event from the league meetings in March that would draw 10 million or more viewers to see where the bouncing balls will land — and that could be sold to the highest bidder at a massive profit.
