OTAs produce interesting story lines across the NFL involving quarterbacks getting involved — or staying away

The NFL has entered the final phase of the offseason program, with four weeks of organized team activities featuring seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 drills.

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It’s important to remember that OTAs are about teaching the playbook and practice style to rookies and free agent signees, and setting the baseline for training camp. They are not a reflection of what’s going to happen on the field this fall, since OTAs are practices without pads or contact.

They are also voluntary, so it’s not a big deal when most players miss them — except when it comes to quarterbacks, who occupy a unique leadership position and carry outsized importance on the team. Here is a look at the quarterbacks making news by skipping OTAs and competing for starting jobs:

▪ Of all the offseason story lines, did we miss a potential contract squabble between the Chargers and Justin Herbert? He wasn’t present at either practice open to the media the last two weeks, with Trey Lance and DJ Uiagalelei running the offense.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Herbert, 28, was angling for a new deal. With the top quarterbacks making $50 million-$60 million per year, Herbert is set to make $60 million combined over the next two. I imagine he’s not keen on making $24 million in 2026 after making $56 and $60 million the last two years.

Herbert, who has a no-trade clause, has led the Chargers to the playoffs in three of the last four years, and has taken a beating with injuries. If anyone deserves a raise, it’s him.

▪ One quarterback who definitely is skipping OTAs over a contract dispute is the Cardinals’ Jacoby Brissett, penciled in as Kyler Murray’s replacement after starting 12 games last year.

Brissett is under contract for $5.44 million this year plus $2 million in incentives. The next-lowest paid veteran starting quarterback is the Jets’ Geno Smith, making $19.5 million this year, followed by Malik Willis and Aaron Rodgers at $22.5 million. Jarrett Stidham and Davis Mills are making more than Brissett as backups.

A league source said the Cardinals have shown a willingness to give Brissett a small raise but nowhere close to Smith’s salary. It’s not a crazy ask by Brissett, who despite a 1-11 record played decently last year, throwing 23 touchdowns against eight interceptions and helping tight end Trey McBride and wide receiver Michael Wilson achieve career seasons. And $20 million is the going rate for low-end starters — the same amount Justin Fields got last year from the Jets. The Cardinals also are asking Brissett to take a beating as the quarterback for a team potentially playing for the No. 1 pick.

The Cardinals hold most of the leverage once mandatory minicamp and training camp begin, but are currently 29th in cash spending for 2026 and can easily afford an extra $10 million to get Brissett back in camp.

▪ Rodgers is officially back in Pittsburgh, signing a one-year deal reportedly worth up to $25 million with incentives. He reunites with Mike McCarthy, his former coach in Green Bay with whom he spent parts of 13 seasons, winning a Super Bowl and reaching two other NFC Championship games.

Rodgers, 42, participated in voluntary OTAs this past week, which is a win for the Steelers. Last year, he didn’t sign and practice until minicamp in mid-June. In announcing that this 22nd season will be his last, Rodgers also launched a retirement tour that will put the spotlight squarely on himself throughout the fall. The Steelers unfortunately don’t play any NFC North opponents this year, and the tour launches in Week 2 in Foxborough, takes a midseason jaunt to Paris, and ends with games at Tennessee and Baltimore.

▪ In Atlanta, former No. 8 overall pick Michael Penix can only watch from the sideline as he rehabs a torn ACL from November and Tua Tagovailoa leads the offense. Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski is used to holding quarterback competitions from his time with the Browns, and Penix is expected to start seven-on-seven work soon. But given Penix’s rehab and Tagovailoa’s thicker résumé, I’d be surprised if Tagovailoa doesn’t win the job.

▪ The Browns are still the Browns, and their new, 60-year-old coach doesn’t have much patience for it. Second-year quarterbacks Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders threw interceptions in Wednesday’s practice, and Todd Monken didn’t sugarcoat his thoughts.

“We threw interceptions in seven-on-sevens, for God’s sakes,” said Monken, a first-time NFL head coach. “I mean, who does that? There’s no pass rush. It was embarrassing.”

Monken has offered plenty of praise for Gabriel and Sanders, but it would be surprising if Deshaun Watson isn’t named the starter for training camp. It’s a lot easier to switch from Watson to Sanders than the other way around.

▪ No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza is repping third behind Kirk Cousins and Aidan O’Connell, but the Raiders are already hyping him.

“(He has) not disappointed,” new coach Klint Kubiak said. “He’s no BS, he’s all ball. Anything that you put in front of him, he’s going to attack it. Anything new, he spends extra time on. You can tell he fixes things from one day to the next.”

The Raiders likely will start the season with Cousins, but history says the job will be Mendoza’s by mid-October.

▪ On the injury front, the Bills’ Josh Allen is participating in practices following offseason ankle surgery, while the Patriots’ Drake Maye and the Titans’ Cam Ward are back after suffering shoulder injuries at the end of last season that didn’t require surgery. The Chiefs keep talking about Patrick Mahomes being ahead of schedule from his torn ACL and LCL in December, and he is reportedly practicing drop-back drills and playing golf again. The Broncos’ Bo Nix is still out following a second ankle surgery, and his availability for June minicamp is in question.

The 32 NFL owners (or their representatives) met in Orlando for a quick one-day spring meeting where they discussed a handful of minor items:

▪ They awarded Super Bowl LXIV to Nashville, to be held in February 2030, at the Titans’ new domed stadium that is scheduled to be ready for the 2027 season. It’s a big deal for a relatively small town, but Nashville has plenty of hotel rooms (projected 81,000 by Super bowl time), an energetic, walkable downtown, and proved to the NFL it could handle a big event when it hosted the 2019 draft.

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Nashville jumps in the Super Bowl line behind Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Las Vegas.

An interesting note about the Titans’ setup: The new Nissan Stadium is being built in the parking lots of the current stadium, and a team source said that because they are so close together (94 feet), the old stadium won’t be imploded. Instead, it will have to be disassembled piece by piece.

▪ The owners also awarded the 2028 NFL Draft to Minneapolis, following next year’s draft in Washington, D.C. The league stumbled upon a terrific idea when it started moving the draft to different cities, becoming a way to reward cold-weather communities for spending public dollars on stadiums. Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Buffalo are probably next in line to host.

▪ An increase in international games in 2027 to a maximum of 10, the most allowed by the collective bargaining agreement (the NFL is holding nine in 2026), passed a vote. It is not determined yet if all 10 will be league-sanctioned games, or if it will be nine plus a Jaguars home game, as the team has been doing for the last decade.

If the NFL wants to hold more than 10 international games, it has to bargain with the NFL Players Association. Expect that negotiation to happen in conjunction with an 18-game schedule, perhaps as soon as next offseason.

Owners also voted to do away with the ability to protect two home games each year from being played internationally, putting all games up for grabs. The protections made it more difficult to construct the schedule and denied international markets premier games.

There was an interesting symmetry this past week, as Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores intensified his employment lawsuit against the NFL just a few days after the death of former longtime coach Sherman Lewis.

Lewis, who died May 15 at age 83, won four Super Bowl rings as an assistant with the 49ers and Packers and spent 12 seasons as an offensive coordinator, mostly in Green Bay. Yet Lewis was continually passed over for head coaching jobs, serving as one impetus for the creation of the NFL’s Rooney Rule in 2002.

Flores, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit against the league, Dolphins, Broncos, and Texans in 2022 alleging racial discrimination in hiring practices, and has won several victories to keep the suit in federal court instead of private arbitration. This past week, Flores served subpoenas to 25 teams and more than 1,000 discovery requests to obtain hiring records and leaguewide communications related to the discrimination claims.

A 15-year member of the Patriots’ staff (2004-18), he has been unable to get another head coaching job despite going 19-14 his last two years with the Dolphins, and building a top-10 scoring defense the last two years in Minnesota. But he keeps ratcheting up the pressure on the NFL — and keeps winning.

Rashee Rice certainly has plenty of talent, scoring 15 touchdowns in 28 career games, and the Chiefs under coach Andy Reid have been plenty patient with players with checkered pasts, such as Tyreek Hill and Frank Clark.

But their patience may be just about up with Rice, who finds himself back in jail for 30 days after violating his parole by testing positive for marijuana. The sentence stems from Rice pleading guilty to two third-degree felonies from a 2024 street racing crash in Dallas, which also earned him a six-game suspension last season.

Rice’s incarceration couldn’t have come at a worse time, as he reportedly had a clean-up surgery on his right knee this past week, not knowing he had violated his parole. Now he will not only miss the Chiefs’ offseason program, but he won’t be able to rehab properly while jailed.

The Chiefs are still thin at wide receiver behind Xavier Worthy, and were counting on Rice to be a big part of their offense. Even if they don’t release Rice, the Chiefs clearly can’t trust him, and now have an even bigger need at the position.

Kansas City likely will explore veterans Stefon Diggs and Deebo Samuel, and could mess up the Patriots’ plans by getting in on the A.J. Brown sweepstakes.

Bill Belichick sat down for the “Pardon My Take” podcast for more than an hour recently, and clarified the meaning behind “No days off,” which he chanted at the Super Bowl parade for the 2016 Patriots. The phrase quickly became the Patriots’ unofficial motto, exemplifying the Patriots’ workmanlike attitude during the glory years, and also the gloomy, joyless pursuit of championships that seemed to envelope the team.

“What it meant to us was, when you come to work, you go to work. You don’t come to work and dillydally around and like, ‘I was here, I broke a sweat, I showed up,’ and go home. That’s a day off,” Belichick said. “I’m not saying, like, ‘Don’t take a day off.’ We’re saying, ‘Don’t come to the stadium and take a day off.’ And so, the ‘No days off’ was when you come in here, man, we expect your best and we expect you to work at it.”

“I’m sure it sold towels and some, you know, beer mugs or whatever.”

The Titans created another unforced error this past week when they announced Ramon Foster as their new sideline radio reporter, replacing former coach Dave McGinnis, who died last month.

Foster is certainly qualified, as a former University of Tennessee star, 11-year NFL player, and current Nashville radio host. But he played his entire career as a Steeler with no ties to the Titans, and local fans were upset with the choice, particularly with the team set to close Nissan Stadium in January against the Steelers.

The Titans seemed to acknowledge that they blew it, announcing they also will use a rotating cast of franchise heroes on the sideline, including Kevin Dyson, Brad Hopkins, Marc Mariani, and Ben Jones.

What is up with the Georgia Bulldogs and their driving habits? The program has had at least 30 driving-related arrests and incidents under coach Kirby Smart, including a fatal car wreck involving current Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter. Now linebacker Nolan Smith, another Eagle and former Bulldog, was arrested May 15 for driving 135 miles per hour in Georgia. Smith has just 10.5 sacks over three seasons since the Eagles made him the 30th overall pick. They might want a mulligan over triggering his fifth-year option for 2027, guaranteeing him $13.75 million … Maybe it’s just coincidence, but the Ravens were always one of the NFL’s most injured teams under John Harbaugh, whose players often complained about the intensity of his practices, and now his Giants have suffered two torn Achilles during OTAs (defensive tackle Roy Robertson-Harris and undrafted rookie cornerback Thaddeus Dixon) … Cardinals linebacker Mack Wilson said he was “in a dark place” last season as he described injuries that limited him to eight games — a rib fracture and punctured lung that required a tube in his chest. “It was tough for me, coming out of the hospital, having to sleep sitting [expletive] upright for three weeks,” the former Patriot said … Kubiak said “the goal” is to have Maxx Crosby ready for training camp coming off his knee injury, noting the defensive end is “still the first one in this building every day.” But given the state of his meniscus, which forced the Ravens to cancel a blockbuster trade, Crosby is probably going to have to be carefully managed this year … Not surprisingly, the new deal for the Dolphins’ De’Von Achane has a lot of fluff. His “four-year, $68 million contract” is really a five-year deal, and it’s really just $17.4 million over the first two years, then “we’ll see.” It’s a nice deal for a running back, but the Dolphins certainly didn’t go crazy … Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba revealed on social media his trophy littered with mistakes, with an engraving for, “Defensive Player of The Year.” The NFL is sending him a new trophy, but how does a league that generates $23 billion in revenue mess up that badly? … If anyone deserves a raise this year, it’s Super Bowl-winning quarterback Sam Darnold, set to make $27.5 million with the Seahawks … The Titans hired Dave Gardi this past week as executive vice president of football operations. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Gardi is a former 21-year league office executive who sent the initial letter to the Patriots in 2015 informing them that their footballs were found to be underinflated during the AFC Championship game win over the Colts.

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