Sanders, Saints agree on deal
Free-agent wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders has agreed to a two-year contract with the Saints, New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis said Saturday.
The 5-foot-11 Sanders, who turns 33 next week, caught 36 passes for 502 yards and three touchdowns for the 49ers last season. He also started all three of San Francisco's postseason games, catching five passes for 71 yards.
His contract is said to be worth about $16 million with bonuses that could push the total value as high as $19 million.
The Saints struggled last season to find consistent production from a receiver other than all-pro Michael Thomas, who caught an NFL-record 149 passes for 1,725 yards and nine touchdowns.
Free agent Ted Ginn Jr., who turns 35 next month, ranked second among Saints receivers with 30 catches – behind running back Alvin Kamara (81), tight end Jared Cook (43) and running back Latavius Murray (34).
The Saints hoped to get more production from 2018 third-round draft choice Tre’Quan Smith, but he struggled with an ankle injury that sidelined him for seven full games and parts of two others, and had just 18 catches for 234 yards and five TDs.
New Orleans may well have missed out on a top-two seeding in the past NFC playoffs because of their inability to defend Sanders in a 48-46 loss to San Francisco in early December.
Sanders caught seven passes in that game for 157 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown. He also threw a 35-yard touchdown pass on a trick play.
When the playoffs began a month later, New Orleans was seeded third despite being in a three-way tie with San Francisco and Green Bay for the NFC's best record at 13-3. The Saints then lost their payoff opener to Minnesota. In other moves:
All Philip Rivers really wanted was a chance to play one more NFL season.
So when the Indianapolis Colts gave him a shot, the eight-time Pro Bowler took it.
The 38-year-old Rivers officially ended his 16-year tenure with the Chargers by signing the $25 million deal he agreed to earlier this week.
“I still love to play, I know I can play at a high level,” Rivers said, acknowledging he was ready to walk away from football if he received no offers. “It was one of those things where we said if there's nothing out there, then that's our answer. But if there's an opportunity with a team … it ended up being with this organization and that made it that much more exciting.”
Running back Kenyan Drake’s agency says he will sign his oneyear, $8.5 million tender to stay with the Arizona Cardinals.
The Cardinals placed the transition tag on Drake earlier this week, which meant the player could negotiate a deal elsewhere but Arizona had the right to match the offer. Drake's agency, SportsTrust Advisors, announced that he would sign.
The 26-year-old Drake came to the Cardinals in a mid-season trade from the Miami Dolphins. He was productive in eight games, running for 643 yards and eight touchdowns, including a four-touchdown game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 15. He also caught 28 passes for 171 yards.
The Pittsburgh Steelers added tight end Eric Ebron on a two-year deal, as well as guard Stefen Wisniewski, who won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs.
And Pittsburgh made a rare indivision trade, acquiring backup defensive tackle Chris Wormley and a seventh-round pick from Baltimore for a fifth-round pick in this year's draft.
Ebron, 27, is one season removed from a breakout 2018 in which he caught 13 touchdown passes to make the Pro Bowl for the first time in the process. He struggled last year while dealing with a lingering ankle injury that ended his season in late November.
Longtime Vikings standout defensive lineman Everson Griffen, 32, is leaving Minnesota.
Griffen's agent, Brian Murphy, announced they ended talks with the Vikings “because they have to spend their money elsewhere and we decided to now focus our attention on free agency.”
The longest-tenured player on the team, Griffen had 741⁄2 sacks in 10 seasons.