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- Nick Bosa
- 49ers exec departs
- Aaron Donald
- Mike LaFleur
- Jalen Carter
- Dallas Cowboys
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Seattle Seahawks
- Baker Mayfield
- Quick-hitters
I’m fully into camp mode, and we have a ton from the notebook to unload in this week’s MMQB Takeaways. So let’s get to it …
Nick Bosa
Nick Bosa is an underrated piece to the 49ers puzzle. The biggest story of camp in Santa Clara, and rightfully so, has been the fallout of the car accident that head coach Kyle Shanahan was involved in on July 14. At the practice I was at, he was there for part of the session but backed off and took it in from a big-picture view, almost like a personnel man would—which is best illustrated by the fact that he was stationed right next to GM John Lynch the whole time.
That said, if Shanahan can get himself back to a place where he’s able to be at his normal capacity for the regular season—the Niners are hopeful of that—the focus will shift to the players he’s coaching, in particular their age and shelf life as a team.
Trent Williams is 38. Kyle Juszczyk is 35, Mike Evans and George Kittle are 32, and Christian McCaffrey is 30. Fred Warner, who turns 30 in November, is headed into his ninth season. And Bosa, once the young dynamo of this crew, turns 29 in October, is now in his eighth season and coming off a torn ACL that cost him all but three games last year.
Now, as the Niners are and have been built, and even with new DC Raheem Morris coming in—Morris would acknowledge this—the defense goes as the pass rush goes, and the pass rush is and has been built around Bosa for years now.
The good news? Bosa actually thinks he can be better than he was before the injury, and that’s not just an athlete simply trying to channel positive psychology into a devastating injury situation. The Bosa family as a whole has always been hyper-analytical on training and recovery and rehab. So with Nick, you’re dealing with specifics.
It starts with his history. This is Bosa’s third torn ACL. He tore his right ACL in high school, his left ACL in 2020 and his right ACL again last year. And when the surgeon went in to fix the right ACL, he was able to mend more than just that.
“I had a little tendinitis from my high school ACL, and he cleaned that up while he [fixed] my ACL,” Bosa explained. “That’s gone. So it’s like an improvement. So once I’m through this rehab, I feel like my right knee—because that was kind of a chronic issue that I had a little bit, and he cleaned that up in my quad tendon and that hasn’t been an issue at all—could feel better when I’m done with this recovery.”
In turn, that’s one reason he feels faster now than he did before. It’s not the only one.
“You learn something every time you do it, every year really, injury or not, you kind of learn how to prepare a certain way to be at your best,” Bosa said. “When I came off of the one in 2020, it forced me to … I don’t know how to explain it. Honestly, my legs get so big when I have years built up of training them. And it’s not like I trained to bodybuild my legs. They get big. And I feel like, it’s just an observation that I’ve made, coming off that injury in 2020, I was moving better with less mass on my legs.
“This is a speed game, I’m a power rusher, but speed creates power, and the way you can move is everything. So I think there’s something to, ‘I move better when my legs aren’t quite as massive.’ I kind of have that feeling right now.”
Nick Bosa is being gradually ramped up at training camp. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
As a result, the Niners are seeing a quicker, more explosive Bosa on the practice field as he slowly works toward becoming a full participant. And because of that, everyone is excited to get a look at him once he returns to 11-on-11 drills. For his part, Bosa believes he’s still in his prime. He joked, “I should play four more years because I tear my ACL every five years.”
In poking fun at himself, it was pretty clear Bosa believes he’s got a lot left to give. Which, given where the Niners are, would be huge for the team, and for a promising young group of defensive linemen—like Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins, C.J. West and Romello Height—around him.
49ers exec departs
While we’re on the Niners, a quick tip of the cap to outgoing exec Paraag Marathe, who’s leaving the team to focus full-time on the York family’s soccer clubs (Leeds United in England and Rangers F.C. in Scotland). I’m not sure how many people actually know this, but Marathe was very much on the front end of analytics in the NFL.
You can read about it in the big piece that Peter King had me do on football analytics back in 2017. But in a nutshell, Marathe first arrived in 2001 from the Boston consulting firm Bain with the assignment to reimagine the Jimmy Johnson draft chart. The story goes that what he brought back to then-team president Bill Walsh and GM Terry Donahue more or less justified how Walsh made trades at the helm of the Niners for a decade as head coach.
A quarter century later, Marathe’s mark on the organization has proven indelible.
He survived good times and bad, going from working with Steve Mariucci to Dennis Erickson to Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary, Jim Harbaugh, Jim Tomsula, Chip Kelly and Shanahan. And maybe the most interesting thing, to me anyway, is how he’d be able to win over dyed-in-the-wool football guys who had every reason to stereotype or distrust Marathe as a numbers-cruncher who seemed to outlast everyone else in the organization.
“Paraag is one of the smartest people I’ve been around,” Shanahan said Sunday via text. “You don’t run into people in the NFL who have been in one place for 25 years. Paraag was here for 25 years—that’s unheard of and speaks to how good he is at what he does. He’s a very good friend of mine, one I am grateful to the 49ers for connecting me with, and one I hope is in my life forever.”
“Paraag is just a force for the good,” Jim Harbaugh told me on Saturday. “He’s like an operator for the good, always cutting edge. … He’s a connector. And a great teammate. You just always felt like Paraag had your back. … I mean, just so many examples of him being a resource for the good.”
Harbaugh, you’ll remember, didn’t have the easiest exit from San Francisco, but I really think his respect for Marathe is emblematic of Marathe’s 25 years in the organization.
Outgoing Niners exec Paraag Marathe probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being in football sort of what Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta were in baseball. But he put SF on the cutting edge in analytics.
That was part of a story I did in 2017 👇https://t.co/WrFiv3Idqd
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) August 2, 2026
As I see it anyway, he proved himself a valuable resource in a lot of different ways; perhaps most important is he didn’t try to do someone else’s job. His title over the years shifted. He was COO (2010-13), team president (2014-16) and most recently president of 49ers enterprises and EVP of football ops. Over the last decade or so, he has gotten more involved in Leeds, to the point now where he’s basically operating as owner.
The uniqueness of his skill set—he also co-chairs the NFL’s Future of Football committee—is a big reason why the MLS was considering him as a commissioner candidate until he withdrew from the running last month. And the fact that he’s spent so much time on soccer of late has prepared top Niners guys such as Brian Hampton for his departure.
Still, he’ll be missed. His impact on that team, and the sport, was very real.
Aaron Donald
As we said Friday, there’s a plan in place for Aaron Donald. The 10-time Pro Bowler and three-time Defensive Player of the Year and Rams head coach Sean McVay are very close. They’ve been working through the logistics of a potential return and have a rough timeline in place. I don’t think it’ll happen while the Rams are still in camp at Loyola Marymount, and they’re there through Thursday. Soon thereafter, I’d say everything’s in play.
There’s also the matter of working out a contract that works for everyone, with Donald technically still under contract with the team—he retired with one year and $30 million left on his deal.
Then there’s the plan for getting him back into football shape.
He has been training to get there, so that helps, but hitting bags and sleds isn’t the same as shedding a 315-pound offensive lineman. Which is to say there’s going to be adjustments and acclimation, and the good news for the Rams and Donald is they have a blueprint for that, too, one that was drawn while Donald held out in the summers of 2017 and ‘18.
The 2017 holdout went all the way up to the Saturday before the opener. The Rams sat Donald for that game, then had him playing 67.7% of the snaps in Week 2, eight days after he reported, and 86.1% of the snaps in Week 3. The 2018 holdout stretched until Aug. 31, 10 days before that year’s opener. He played 88.6% of the snaps in L.A.’s Week 1 game against the Raiders, then the team pulled him early in a blowout win in Week 2 to get him a breather.
Those, by the way, were McVay’s first two seasons with the Rams, and both seasons ended with Donald winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award. Donald was, of course, in the heart of his prime at ages 26 and 27 in those years, not 35 and coming back after two full seasons out. But he should have more runway this time. The Rams’ tremendous depth at his position will allow the coaches to rotate him, and those holdouts and their aftermath are examples of how many rules and precedents of pro football simply don’t apply to Donald.
Suffice it to say, I’ll be eager to see how this plays out. And I think we’ll get to do that.
Mike LaFleur
Mike LaFleur is very much his own guy. It was interesting to get to see the new Cardinals coach in charge for the first time on Tuesday. And maybe most interesting to me is seeing how the younger LaFleur brother is really cutting his own image after being around so many strong personalities over the course of his decade and a half in coaching.
Coming from college, LaFleur spent his first seven NFL seasons working his way up under Kyle Shanahan, first in Cleveland, then Atlanta, then San Francisco, working under head coaches Mike Pettine and Dan Quinn in the first two stops. From there, he got his first shot at being a coordinator in following Robert Saleh to the Jets, before serving the last three years as a non-playcalling coordinator for Sean McVay with the Rams.
Now, the one commonality of the five head coaches above is that each has a strong personality, and each could carry the room, so to speak. That raises questions on how prepared someone who didn’t have to do it previously would develop that.
LaFleur, however, has made it a strength through his first seven months in Arizona, mostly just by being himself, which is what has impressed his assistants and players alike.
“You gotta be who you are, you gotta be true to yourself and be your own person,” LaFleur said. “I’m not Sean. I’m not Kyle. I’m not my brother. I’m not Dan Quinn. I’ve been able to learn and take so many experiences from so many good buildings that you’re always going to draw from those guys. But personality-wise, you’ve got to be true to who you are and be authentic. I don’t go around preaching that I’m authentic, but I try to be that way every single day. Because anybody, let alone an NFL locker room, can see through bullshit.”
LaFleur’s quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, affirmed to me that his coach isn’t peddling BS.
“I was definitely impressed with that,” Brissett said. “I think the main thing you see with him, he’s not trying to be his brother, he’s not trying to be Kyle, he’s not trying to be Sean. … And a new head coach, the more you can be yourself, the more people gravitate to you.”
That, as LaFleur said, doesn’t mean he isn’t incorporating elements of his aforementioned mentors. From his brother, he says, he takes a rain-or-shine work ethic—“I’ve never seen someone work like him.” From Quinn, he takes the lesson that the work doesn’t have to be miserable. In Saleh, he admired the ability to distill the complicated and make it simple for the players. And from Shanahan and McVay, there were endless lessons.
🏕️🏕️ 5⃣ from @AZCardinals 🏕️🏕️
🏈 Progress rides on 2023-25 draft picks.
🏈 Secondary a real strength.
🏈 RB too, with Jeremiyah Love set to be eased in.
🏈 OL questions to be answered.
🏈 Jacoby Brissett gets a team to call his own.https://t.co/3HwPaQ2D0M
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) July 29, 2026
“The collaboration and communication, it does not go unnoticed,” he says. “Both buildings keep the main thing the main thing. What’s the main thing? These players and football. And there’s so many aspects to that. But how do we not create our own problems? How do we keep the main thing the main thing? Like, is this a problem or is it not? Let’s not create our own problems. Both those guys do that at such an incredible level.
“And I haven’t even said anything about them scheming and all those things, because they’re very different in that aspect. And obviously those guys are very good at that stuff, too.”
All of it is a part of who he is now as a head coach. But the key? It’s not all of who he is.
Jalen Carter
There’s one thing I’d say about the Jalen Carter deal: congrats to him. The Eagles defensive tackle, who hasn’t been short on talent or trouble, landed the sort of contract I personally figured would be pretty tough for the Philly front office to put in front of him.
Because all these deals take some sort of translation. We can translate what was widely reported as a four-year, $152 million extension for you …
• Carter was due $3.72 million for this year and $27.13 million in 2027, and all that money—$30.85 million in total—was already fully guaranteed. The new deal gets him a $10 million raise for those two years to $40.85 million, and guarantees all of it at signing. He also is taking home $23.895 million of it this year, meaning while the two-year raise is $10 million, he’s getting $20 million of it moved up a year.
• Carter then has $30 million coming in 2028, and that money vests as fully guaranteed in March 2027. That effectively means that to get out of the deal after two years, the Eagles will be on the hook for a total of $70.85 million, minus any offset money. Which isn’t backbreaking, but wouldn’t be great business given that the team had him under contract for $40 million less for those two years under his rookie deal.
• And in 2029, same sort of deal. Carter is due $36 million (some of which is tied up in per-game, weight and workout bonuses), and that money vests in March 2028. So to get out after three years, the Eagles will have paid $106.57 in total, which, again, isn’t horrible, but also isn’t great business.
From there, there’s a total of $38 million in 2030 and $38 million in 2031 in what amount to team option years at the end of the deal.
* What Vita Vea’s trade request and Jalen Carter’s extension say about the DT market
Add it up and, sure, this deal is backloaded. Forty-two percent of the money is tucked into those final two years, and 62% of the cash is in the back half of the six-year deal. But that Carter got as much as he did guaranteed has to be considered a win considering there were whispers that Philly might wait another year to extend him or even weigh trading him soon.
Now we’ll see if Carter holds up his end of the bargain.
Dallas Cowboys
Brian Schottenheimer’s effort to create the best culture in sports is taking hold. I know he got some grief for the line last year as he took over the Cowboys. But there’s a reality in the way the head coach is building it now—and I could actually see it at their camp on Thursday.
How so? You couldn’t have a conversation for five minutes without being told about how good the group of guys is. The quality of person Dallas is bringing in is a pretty consistent theme to take from the Cowboys’ last 12 months of player acquisitions. Kenny Clark coming from Green Bay, Quinnen Williams from the Jets and Jalen Thompson from the Cardinals were all team captains. First-round pick Caleb Downs was about as clean a prospect as you could possibly get from a character standpoint.
That doesn’t mean Jerry Jones’s team won’t ever gamble anymore. Receiver George Pickens was one, to be sure. It’s more that Schottenheimer wants the overwhelming majority of his core to fit a certain profile—because he knows that goal he set at that introductory press conference isn’t attainable without the right people in the locker room.
And there already is a tangible difference, in that Dak Prescott, who always has been off the charts as a leader, can now take a step back at times.
“I think where he’s feeling blessed is he’s now got guys alongside him—Tyler Booker, Kenny Clark, Quinnen Williams, Jalen Thompson—that can carry the message,” the head coach told me. “He’s not always the one that’s got to speak up. Someone else will speak— ‘Hey, uh … Oh, he’s got it. Okay, cool.’ And that’s what we need … You don’t want to feel the onus, like, ‘I always have to be the one that leads.’ And he leads. It’s natural. But he sometimes literally is like, ‘Okay, you got it, JT, you got it, Quinnen.’”
It remains to be seen what that translates into on the field. But it’s a good sign that after a lot of turnover at the top of the roster, things are going the way Schottenheimer hoped they would a year and a half ago.
Las Vegas Raiders
Along those lines, I got an interesting observation from Raiders GM John Spytek that can take you inside just how closely these teams pay attention to their players. It was when he and I were discussing signing Fernando Mendoza and his rookie class before camp, and having them help build some positive momentum through Klint Kubiak’s first offseason in charge, from the first pick on down.
“They’re not a loud group and it’s not that they’re not a confident group, they just, they’re about their business,” Spytek told me. “I see them interact with the veterans. I see them sit together. I think it’s interesting as I’ve gotten older in this, when you and I were in college, there were no cell phones, right? So everybody, when you just sat at a table for instance, it could be like a small thing sitting and having lunch, there was nothing to do except interact with your teammates. So you did it.
“And then it’s like you have the cell phone come in and all the different social media. And we know this generation, they’re just staring at their phones all the time. And then you see these guys sitting around having lunch, having breakfast and the phones are down and they’re hanging out. And you see groups of veterans and rookies hanging out, I think that’s a cool thing.
“But just the way that they’ve worked, the way that they’ve attacked it, the way that they’ve integrated into what we’re trying to build here. And every day we talk about team-first approach, you’ll see it when you come in here, the price of admission here, the first one is team-first approach. And that to me is what the great football teams are about.”
So I was there on Sunday and saw the sign, and indeed, the first line under “Price of Admission” was “Team-First Approach” (that was followed by “Shocking Effort” and “Relentless Will to Win”). And I just thought it was kind of cool how Spytek went about seeing that the young guys are paying it.
🏕️🏕️ 5⃣ from @Raiders 🏕️🏕️
🏈 Mendoza checking boxes early.
🏈 Offensive core living up to expectations.
🏈 Questions lingering at WR and OG.
🏈 @CrosbyMaxx anchoring an improved front 7.
🏈 Secondary experience is a 🔑.https://t.co/b9JuRTUqwP
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) August 3, 2026
Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks’ roster is outrageous. Maybe I’ll wind up with egg on my face for writing this. Maybe I was a prisoner of the moment on my first training camp stop. But my lord …
It really hit me when I stood by a sled where defensive coordinator Aden Durde had the edge guys working on being violent with their hands. And the first thing I thought about was how they lost a defensive end, Boye Mafe, who got $20 million per year elsewhere yet still go four deep at the position, with DeMarcus Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu, Dante Fowler and Super Bowl hero Derick Hall. Then I thought about how that’s not even the strongest position of their defensive line—with Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II inside.
After that, you can consider how many of the best players on their teams, guys like receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (24 years old), cornerback Devon Witherspoon (25), tackle Charles Cross (25) and cornerback Byron Murphy (23), are still ascending. We’ll have a story soon on how Sam Darnold may be, too.
Now, there are questions. They’re replacing Kenneth Walker, Coby Bryant and Riq Woolen; they drafted Jadarian Price, Bud Clark and Julian Neal with their first three picks in April’s draft to help with that. They’ll also replace Kubiak, who did fantastic work last year, with 49ers import Brian Fleury. And the division they play in remains a murderer’s row.
But when you go to their camp, there’s really no doubt how they won it all last year. There’s a mural in the building of the Seattle skyline with the words, “A style no one wants to play” emblazoned across it. That, of course, is referencing the ethos of the team, not the talent. It would go too, though, for opponents having to deal with the monsters on that roster.
They were, and are, that good. (And coach Mike Macdonald and GM John Schneider deserve a lot of credit for that.)
Baker Mayfield
I’m fascinated to see the next steps in the Baker Mayfield saga. The Buccaneers quarterback has been pretty deliberate in making his feelings known on his contract extension saga. He set a deadline of the start of camp, knowing the team has done recent long-term deals for its own players (Tristan Wirfs, Luke Goedeke, Zyon McCollum) after that. The team didn’t make the progress he had hoped, so he shut it down and told anyone who’d listen he felt disrespected.
“I think I’m a franchise quarterback. I’ve been told I’m a franchise quarterback. It’s been said publicly from ownership down here,” Mayfield told reporters. “And so to not have a deal done is very disappointing. But I said the deadline was a deadline, and I addressed the team to let them know I meant that. It’s all ball. I’m with these guys.”
Mayfield then said that the idea he was creating a distraction would only be a way of making him an “easy scapegoat,” and said that the idea it could bring the team together might be a “negotiating tactic” by the team.
How will ownership receive that? How about the front office?
It’s interesting because it’s rare you hear a player spill details and speak so publicly on what he thinks his team is thinking on a contract. And I appreciate the honesty, to be sure, and respect that Mayfield always thrived on disrespect, real or perceived.
That said, until Mayfield spoke out, and after he told the team he was planning to play his deal out, I know they were still open to discussing a new contract over the weeks to come. In fact, I think it was pretty likely they were going to keep trying up until Week 1.
Whether or not this would change that, I don’t know.
Quick-hitters
And with a week of camp in the books, it’s time to get you to the quick-hitters to wrap up …
• Jadeveon Clowney going back to the Texans is perfect. Yes, there was a little bit of a depth question behind Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter. No, I don’t think they necessarily needed to add someone of Clowney’s caliber. But they did, which is pretty frightening.
• Speaking of reunions, I like Deebo Samuel Sr. going back to the Niners, but obviously not how they got there—with former first-round pick Ricky Pearsall out for the year. San Francisco knew quickly trouble was brewing with Pearsall. He tried to rehab his PCL injury from last year without surgery, and that’s a long, laborious process. That he had swelling that early in camp was a sure sign that bad news was coming. That’s why San Francisco reacted so quickly in getting Samuel in the fold.
• The video of Drew Brees Facetiming Sean Payton to ask him to present him for induction into the Hall of Fame was absolutely priceless. I’m glad the Saints were able to get that for the rest of us to enjoy.
“I can’t believe you just did that” 🥹@DrewBrees asks @SeanPayton to present him at the @ProFootballHOF
🎥: @GregBensel pic.twitter.com/GKJniyiJLj
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) July 30, 2026
• While we’re there, it’d surprise no one if Taysom Hill found his way to Denver. That said, regardless of what happens, the 35-year-old is leaving a unique legacy after nine years in New Orleans. The cool part, to me anyway, is this is a guy who didn’t fit into any box or prototype, yet loved the game enough to find a way to stick around long enough to make the most of his talent. Which is something everyone can appreciate.
• I’d still say that Devon Witherspoon gets done in Seattle. Then Christian Gonzalez signs long-term in New England—as we’ve written here, both are represented by the same guy (Reggie Johnson), which adds an interesting dynamic to the negotiations. For now, though, I don’t know exactly when these two contracts get done. There’s still a divide with both.
• I was in college when Korey Stringer died suddenly at Vikings training camp. I wound up doing a big story on the Ohio State alum’s passing, and how it might affect the sport, for the school paper that fall. Two days after Stringer died, Northwestern safety Rashidi Wheeler passed away during an afternoon workout, which was part of my calculus on the whole thing, too. I can’t believe it’s been 25 years, and I do think the impact of Stringer’s death still reverberates in the NFL, and specifically in the rules governing practices and camps. Here’s hoping his family has found some peace in his memory.
• Love that Tucker Kraft is progressing so quickly in returning from his torn ACL. I think there’s a world where he creeps up on Cardinals star Trey McBride in the argument for the league’s best tight end by the end of the year.
• I know there’s been a lot of talk about it. But I wouldn’t expect Roger Goodell to have much appetite for leaving his post as NFL commissioner anytime soon.
• The dueling Bijan Robinson–Jahmyr Gibbs negotiations are much more complicated than what you’re seeing at corner with Gonzalez and Witherspoon. Why? Because the two are legit Swiss Army knives as players, and the running back market has stagnated for a long time—with the Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey contract revisions tough to apply to a big second contract, and big second deals stuck at around $16 million per. It’s tough to argue that Gibbs and Robinson aren’t worth a lot more than that. But it’s also tough to peg just how much more.
• And to wrap up, here’s the rest of the first swing of my camp tour: Broncos, Chiefs, Texans, Lions, Bengals, Colts, Bears, Packers, Vikings, Browns and Bills. So, seven down, 11 to go before I get to go home for a few days.
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