Ex-KC safety reportedly to sign with N.O.

‘No evidence’ found that Browns incentivized personnel to tank

Nearly seven weeks after the NFL’s freeagency period began, former Kansas CIty Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu has a new home. And it’s one familiar to him. Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported Mathieu will sign with the New Orleans Saints in the coming days.

In the previous three seasons, Mathieu helped the Chiefs twice reach the Super Bowl. He was a three-time Pro Bowl player and was a first-team All-Pro in the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

Mathieu, who will turn 30 on May 13, started 47 regular-season games for the Chiefs and had 13 interceptions, 27 passes defensed, three sacks, six quarterback hits and a pair of defensive touchdowns.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Mathieu will receive a three-year, $33 million contract that includes $18 million guaranteed. This is a homecoming for the player nicknamed the “Honey Badger.” He was born and raised in New Orleans.

Mathieu visited the Saints last month, and after this weekend’s NFL Draft, Saints general manager Mickey Loomis was asked if the team had any areas of his roster still to fill. Loomis hinted that Mathieu would be signing.

“One of them, for sure. … You guys can guess that. You probably know it already,” Loomis said, per ESPN.

BROWNS: The NFL handed former Cleveland coach Hue Jackson another loss.

The league announced Monday that it found “no evidence” the Browns purposely lost games or incentivized personnel to do so after Jackson alleged in February the team tried to lose during the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

The league said Monday that a 60-day independent review determined “none of the allegations could be substantiated.”

Former U.S. Attorney and SEC Chair Mary Jo White led the investigative team.

Jackson went 3-36-1 in two-plus seasons for Cleveland before he was fired eight games into the 2018 season. He had claimed Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam incentivized people in the organization to lose over a four-year period. Jackson later softened those comments. The investigation concluded there wasn’t evidence supporting Jackson’s claims the team tanked during those seasons, and the club’s ownership or football personnel “made no decisions deliberately to weaken the team to secure a more favorable draft position.”

The Browns went 1-15 in 2016 and lost all 16 games the following season under Jackson.

White and other lawyers interviewed Jimmy Haslam along with current and former members of the organization.

The league said Jackson initially agreed to meet with investigators before deciding against it.

The investigators had access to Jackson’s public statements and filings and testimony in a prior arbitration proceeding.

The league said the Browns also provided documents, including emails, texts, internal memos and presentation decks to assist the inquiry.

The Browns denied Jackson’s assertions from the start, and are pleased with the findings.

“We appreciate the independent investigation led by Mary Jo White and the Debevoise team which brings closure to these allegations that Hue Jackson publicly recanted shortly after they were made and that we’ve known all along are categorically false,” said team spokesman Peter Jean-Baptiste. Jackson is currently coaching at Grambling. FLORES SUIT: A lawyer for a Black NFL coach who sued the league alleging racist hiring practices told a judge Monday that arbitration is the wrong way to resolve the lawsuit in part because NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be the arbitrator and that would be “unconscionable.”

Attorney Douglas Wigdor said the league was trying to force “behind closed doors” the claims of Brian Flores and two other Black coaches. None of the coaches was present for the Manhattan federal court hearing.

It was the first hearing for a lawsuit Flores filed in February, when he claimed the league was “rife with racism” even as the NFL publicly condemns it.

Flores was fired in January as head coach by the Miami Dolphins after leading the team to a 24-25 record over three years, with two straight winning seasons including the most recent, when a 9-8 record left them out of the playoffs. He has been hired since as an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

His lawsuit was joined last month by two other coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton.