Free-agent receivers Snead, Meredith set to visit Ravens
Recommendation on catch definition moves forward
Even after signing Michael Crabtree and John Brown, the Ravens still aren’t done looking at available receivers.
The team is set to host restricted free agent wide receivers Willie Snead and Cameron Meredith with the crux of their visits expected to take place today.
Snead, 25, played last season with the New Orleans Saints. Meredith, 25, was with the Chicago Bears, but he missed the entire 2017 season because of a knee injury. Both Snead and Meredith got originalround tenders from their respective teams. That means if the Ravens sign either play to an offer sheet and the Saints and Bears decline to match it, the Ravens would get the player and they wouldn’t have to give either team draft pick compensation.
Per the NFL Players Association, the Saints entered Wednesday with approximately $17 million of salary cap space and the Bears had nearly $23 million.
Snead, an undrafted free agent out of Ball State, had 141 catches for 1,879 yards and seven touchdowns in 30 games during the 2015 and 2016 seasons. But he served a three-game suspension last year because of a DUI arrest and he also struggled with a hamstring injury. He played in just 11 games, catching eight passes for 92 yards.
Meredith caught 66 passes for 888 yards and four touchdown passes in 14 games in 2016. He tore his ACL last preseason.
The Ravens’ receiving corps includes Crabtree, Brown, Chris Moore, Breshad Perriman, DeVier Posey, Quincy Adeboyejo and Tim White.
The Ravens also agreed to a four-year deal with Ryan Grant on the first day of free agency, but they backed out of it because of concerns about his ankle. Catch proposal: The NFL’s catch rule would get less complicated if team owners approve recommendations from the powerful competition committee.
One of the first orders of business when the league’s annual meetings begin Monday in Orlando, Fla., will be a proposal by the committee to clarify what is a catch. Commissioner Roger Goodell said during the week of the Super Bowl he would urge simplification of the rules.
“Catch/no catch is at the top of everyone’s minds,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s football operations chief, said Wednesday before outlining the committee’s recommendations.
The owners will be asked to vote on clarifications that eliminate parts of the rule involving a receiver going to the ground, and that also eliminate negating a catch for slight movement of the ball while it is in the receiver’s possession. No calls in the last few years have caused more consternation than overturned catches in key situations, including those by Dez Bryant, Jesse James and Austin Seferian-Jenkins.
“We were at the point as far as players and particularly coaches who asked, ‘Why is that not a catch?’ ” Vincent said. “We talked to fans, coaches and players and we asked the groups, ‘Would you like this to be a catch?’ It was 100 percent yes.
“Then we began writing rules that actually apply to making these situations catches.”
Here’s what would constitute a catch if the owners approve the competition Monday-Wednesday: Annual league meeting, Orlando, Fla. April 2: Clubs that hired a new head coach after the end of the 2017 regular season may begin offseason workouts. April 16: Clubs with returning head coaches may begin offseason workout programs. April 20: Deadline for restricted free agents to sign offer sheets. April 26-28: NFL draft, Arlington, Texas. committee’s alterations: control of the ball; getting two feet down; performing a football act or; performing a third step. Georgia pro day: After growing up as a Patriots fan, Lorenzo Carter said it was “kind of surreal” to find New England coach Bill Belichick leading positional drills at Georgia’s Pro Day on Wednesday.
This was no time to be star-struck. Those linebacker drills, also organized by Lions coach Matt Patricia, were Carter’s chance to validate his standing as a player expected to be selected in the first two days of next month’s NFL draft.
“You go out there and you see them but at the end of the day it’s football,” Carter said. “It doesn’t matter who’s out there across from you or who’s coaching you, you have to go out there and execute.”
Carter and Davin Bellamy showed off their versatility by participating in the linebacker and defensive line positional drills, hoping to prove they’d fit in 3-4 or 4-3 schemes in the NFL.
Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and Falcons coach Dan Quinn also attended the pro day. All 32 teams were represented by coaches, scouts or other personnel, including Atlanta general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
Georgia linebacker Roquan Smith, a probable first-round pick, said it was “pretty awesome” to perform for Belichick and Patricia, who he described as “pretty much legends of the game, doing it a long time and knowing what it takes to succeed at the next level.” Smith, the Butkus Award winner, said he has been invited to attend the draft in Arlington, Texas. Patriots re-sign Slater: The New England Patriots have re-signed special teams captain Matt Slater.
Originally drafted in the fifth round in 2008, Slater has spent 10 years with the team. He has been selected to the Pro Bowl as a special teamer seven straight times.
Slater has 136 career regular-season special teams tackles, with 14 more in the postseason. Vikings bring back kicker: The Minnesota Vikings have re-signed kicker Kai Forbath to a one-year contract after a strong finish to his 2017 season.
The deal maintains the stability the 30-year-old Forbath has brought to the position since replacing Blair Walsh midway through the 2016 season.
Forbath has missed eight of 53 extra points in 23 games with the Vikings, and he endured some mini-slumps in 2017. But he made a career-best seven field goals from 50-plus yards last year, and he made three of four in the NFC divisional round playoff win over his former team New Orleans. That included makes from 49 and 53 yards in the fourth quarter against the Saints.