Monthly Archive 2025年3月5日

It’s still not clear if the Philadelphia Eagles will be visiting the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win, but one Kansas City Chiefs player has already gotten to make the trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Harrison Butker was at the White House on Thursday where he got to visit with President Donald Trump.

The Chiefs kicker “stopped by” the White House, according to Fox News, which makes it sound like it wasn’t exactly a planned visit. During his trip, Butker got to meet with Trump in the Oval Office and we know that because White House Communications Adviser Margo Martin posted a photo of the meeting on social media.

Butker also stopped by the White House press briefing room where he posed for a few photos.

The Chiefs kicker was a staunch supporter of Trump leading up to November’s election.

“I’m supporting the president that’s going to be the most pro-life president, and I think Donald Trump is the most pro-life president,” Butker said in October, via Fox News. “That’s a topic that is the most crucial topic for me. I want us to be fighting for the most vulnerable, fighting for the unborn, and that’s what we should prioritize.”

Butker made headlines in May of 2024 for a controversial commencement speech he gave at Benedictine College.

This is the third straight year that Butker has visited the White House. In 2023 and 2024, he got to make a trip to Washington D.C. to celebrate the Chiefs’ wins in Super Bowl LVII and Super Bowl LVIII. This time around, the Chiefs didn’t win the Super Bowl, but Butker still decided to make a trip.

The Chiefs were aiming to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls, but they came up short in a 40-22 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. As for the team that did win the Super Bowl, the Eagles are expected to visit the White House once they’re invited and Trump has said they’ll be invited, but as of Thursday, no invite had been sent out. You can read more about the Eagles’ possible visit to the White House.

The Kansas City Chiefs don’t plan on allowing pending free agent right guard Trey Smith from testing the open market this offseason. CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reports the three-time defending AFC champions plan to use the franchise tag on their Pro Bowl guard, which would lock him into a $23.4 million one-year deal that is fully guaranteed.

Doing so also gives the Chiefs more time to negotiate a long-term deal. This move is the fourth in a series of deals in which general manager Brett Veach has heavily invested in Patrick Mahomes’ offensive line. Kansas City made All-Pro center Creed Humphrey the league’s highest-paid player at his position with a four-year, $72 million contract, and they signed right tackle Jawaan Taylor to a four-year, $80 million contract in the 2023 offseason. Left guard Joe Thuney is also on a big five-year, $80 million deal, and he was pressed into duty at left tackle at the end of the season.

2025 NFL franchise tag tracker: Bengals’ Tee Higgins tagged second straight year ahead of free agency
Cody Benjamin
2025 NFL franchise tag tracker: Bengals’ Tee Higgins tagged second straight year ahead of free agency
Smith, who earned his first Pro Bowl selection at 25-years-old in the 2024 season, tied for the NFL lead in the most pass blocking snaps without allowing a sack this past season, 665. He was tied with Thuney, his own teammate, for the league lead in that category. Smith has also been durable, starting 67 of a possible 68 games in his four-year NFL career. The Chiefs will need to invest in reinforcing both of their offensive tackle spots this offseason so that Thuney can go back to left guard and so Mahomes can stay upright.

The three-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback was sacked a career-high 36 times in 2024, and Mahomes was sacked a single-game, career-high six times in the Chiefs’ 40-22 Super Bowl LIX loss against the Philadelphia Eagles. Kansas City now has the interior of its offensive line secured with Smith, Humphrey and Thuney, but their offensive line is far from a finished product this offseason. The unfortunate thing for the Chiefs is they may have to put up with Taylor, who is the NFL’s most penalized player (31 penalties) since coming to Kansas City in 2023, for one more year. Cutting Taylor, who has $20 million in guaranteed salary for 2025, would leave the Chiefs eating $34.8 million in dead money while shrinking their 2025 cap space by $7.4 million. The Chiefs can release Taylor and save $20 million in cap space in 2026.

The biggest decision facing the New Orleans Saints this offseason was whether Derek Carr would be returning for another year and based on what general manager Mickey Loomis and new coach Kellen Moore had to say at the NFL Scouting Combine this week, it seems that Carr will be back in New Orleans for a third season with the Saints.

During his press conference on Wednesday, Loomis was asked about the team’s quarterback situation and he seemed confident that the Saints can win games with Carr.

“We feel like we’ve got a guy we can win with, and we’re excited about it,” Loomis said, via ESPN.com.

That’s as close as anyone in the organization has come to saying that Carr would return. Questions have been swirling about Carr’s future for multiple reasons. For one, the quarterback has a $51.48 million salary cap hit for the 2025 season, which is a huge number for a team that’s currently $47 million OVER the cap, according to latest numbers from Overthecap.com. And let’s not forget, Carr made it clear in January that he wouldn’t be taking a pay cut to help the team. There was also some question about whether new coach Kellen Moore wanted to move forward with Carr as his quarterback. During his introductory press conference on Feb. 13, Moore sounded non-committal about sticking with Carr, but at the combine this week, Moore seemed a lot more enthusiastic about the idea.

“We feel fortunate to have Derek here, the experience he has. He’s a big-time quarterback in this league,” Moore said Wednesday, via ESPN.

Carr put up impressive numbers with the Saints last season in 10 games of action, but those numbers went down whenever the Saints played a good team. Carr faced three playoff teams during the 2024 regular season and not only did the Saints go 0-3 in those games, but they averaged just 13 points per game. When facing non-playoff teams, Carr went 5-2 with the Saints averaging 29.4 points per game.

The Saints have to be salary cap compliant by March 12 and if Carr is sticking around, that could make life easier for them. Although Carr has a $51.48 million cap hit, the Saints can pick up nearly $31 million in cap space by pulling off a simple restructure of Carr’s contract.

Loomis hinted that a contract restructure would probably be coming for Carr.

“There’s no secret to that and his is a big number, so we’re going to hopefully be able to maneuver,” Loomis said.

Carr is due a $10 million roster bonus on the fifth day of the league year in March and once he receives that, he’ll have made over $200 million for his career. As noted by the Associated Press, Carr will make some unfortunate history when that check hits his bank account, because he’ll become the first player in NFL history to earn more than $200 million, but have zero playoff wins to show for it.

There have been 14 quarterbacks in NFL history who have earned at least $200 million in their career and all of them have at least one playoff win, which is something that Carr doesn’t have. The 33-year-old has one career playoff start, which came with the Raiders, and he lost that wild-card game 26-19 to the Bengals back in January 2022.