After becoming a Panther, Nic Scourton hilariously disposes of other 31 teams' draft hats
Nic Scourton will only be needing one hat from now on.
On Friday night, the Carolina Panthers traded up in the second round of the 2025 NFL draft to grab Scourton at the 51st overall spot.
And after learning he'd be headed to Carolina, the Texas A&M pass rusher pulled out his swipe move to dispose of some unnecessary headwear . . .
That swift handwork isn't the only trait the talented 20-year-old will be carrying over with him to the Panthers.
"What I see is bringing in a nasty demeanor, a guy with a chip on his shoulder," Scourton told reporters after he was picked. "And a natural-born leader, and a guy who loves football. I'm coming in to compete for a spot, compete to win a championship. I'm not coming just to say I made it to the NFL. But I think I can add a lot to the defense by just being myself and coming in and working hard."
Scourton recorded a Big Ten-leading 10.0 sacks while a member of the Purdue Boilermakers in 2023. He then transferred to Texas A&M for 2024, where he'd be named a first-team All-SEC selection.
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USA Today
26 minutes ago
- USA Today
Todd. Freddie. Dave, Liam and Josh. Baker Mayfield has played for a plethora of OCs
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As much as Mayfield's journey speaks to resilience and well, the ability to adapt, it is also a marker for good timing on multiple levels. While Mayfield needed a new team in 2023, the Bucs needed a quarterback — and at a team-friendly price — after Tom Brady retired (for a second time) in February of that year. 'We were lucky that Baker was available,' Bucs general manager Jason Licht told USA TODAY Sports. 'Everything was perfect timing. We didn't have any money to spend and he wanted to land somewhere to revive his career. And he saw, just like Tom did, that we had some receivers and we had an offensive line. And the system fit. So. We were fortunate.' The fit included the Bucs telling Mayfield to merely be himself. His reputation as a high-strung lightning rod didn't matter to Licht and Bowles. They wanted authenticity — to go with performance. Still, knowing what he knows now, imagine what he'd tell the 'rookie Baker Mayfield' that might have made a difference. 'Control what you can control,' Mayfield said. 'The thing is, I don't like going back and saying I would do this or that. It's gotten me to this point. You grow and learn from your experiences. I'm not one to say I would change anything. 'Off-the-field stuff, there's certain ways I would handle relationships and what not, just from where my perspective is in life now. I wouldn't have put as much time into certain things. But control what you can. And the thing you can always hang your hat on is how you treat people, and the impression you leave on them. You can always try to make everybody better around you. That's probably what I'd tell myself.' Experience, fortified by adversity, has seemingly been a great teacher for Mayfield. The edge remains. Yet Licht maintains he's seen Mayfield (who signed a three-year, $100 million extension in 2024) more dialed in than he's ever been during his Bucs tenure, which goes a long way in making those around him better. MORE: Michael Penix Jr. shows fight, literally, in Falcons-Titans practice scrap 'He never really had to try to win over the team to become a leader,' Licht said. 'It kind of became natural, just the way he competes. He really wants to win a Super Bowl, obviously, but I just personally have seen — not that he needed to mature — that he also really wants to prove to the detractors that they screwed up by letting him go. 'Cocky is not the word,' Licht added. 'But it kind of is.' Which made me wonder, as our chat neared the end. The Browns had such high hopes for Mayfield when they drafted him out of Oklahoma, then dumped him after four years to hop on the Deshaun Watson train. Paid any attention to the latest Browns quarterback drama? 'No,' Mayfield replied, emphatically. He seemed to carefully measure his words before walking into the weight room. 'That's not my problem,' he said. He had a parting message, though, for the long-suffering Browns fans. 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USA Today
26 minutes ago
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Legends and leaders, meet dumb and dumber: Big Ten's CFP plan is latest college sports bad idea
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It was then, on a conference call with the other power conferences commissioners, where the seeds of this strange undoing blossomed. The commissioners were attempting to figure out a non-conference schedule for the pandemic season, when then-Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren interrupted the conversation and declared, 'We're the Big Ten, we lead, we don't follow' — and hung up. From that moment forward, the moves made by the Big Ten – a group of schools former legendary commissioner Jim Delany once called the 'conscious of college sports' – fundamentally and profoundly altered amateur sports. It wasn't long after the failed conference call that Warren canceled the fall season for the Big Ten, and pitched the idea of spring football and playing two seasons in nine months. Maybe the dumbest idea ever. Stick a pin in that, people. We'll get back to the dumbest of dumb. 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The conference hasn't been this strong in decades, and SEC coaches are begging to play non-conference games against Big Ten schools. So what does Petitti do? Because of scheduling conflicts in Indianapolis, he moves Big Ten media days to Las Vegas. Without the swooning Ohio State media hoard and wall-to-wall coverage from the Big Ten Network, it was a barren wasteland of opportunity. What should have been a time for the Big Ten to walk tall, stick out its chest and stand above everyone else in college football, devolved into tumbleweeds in the desert. There was more energy on the fake beach, a football field away at Mandalay Bay resort. This leads us all the way back to the dumbest of dumb: the Big Ten's proposed super duper, extra large CFP. Not to be confused with another dumb idea: the 4-2-1-3 CFP model that the Big Ten, and only the Big Ten, wants for the new CFP contract in 2026. 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NBC News
28 minutes ago
- NBC News
The Dallas Cowboys haven't won big in 30 years. Or have they?
On a Hollywood red carpet last week, Jerry Jones, the owner of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, was asked about his team's upcoming season. 'If we get that offensive line rolling,' Jones told an interviewer, 'we'll have a good team.' What counts as a "good" season is more subjective in Dallas than anywhere else — and it's why, ever since Jones purchased the team for $140 million in 1989, there has been no other North American professional sports franchise quite like the Cowboys. Since they won Super Bowls in 1992, 1993 and 1995, the Cowboys have not advanced to a conference championship game in 30 years, the fourth-longest active drought in the NFL. That lack of on-field performance would typically doom a franchise's relevance. Not the Cowboys. Since the 1996 season, Dallas has employed eight head coaches, irked several of its biggest superstars during drawn-out contract negotiations and lost 13 of its last 18 playoff games. Yet with Jones keenly keeping them in the conversation, they have won the mindshare of a global audience. The reason Jones was strolling the red carpet was the premiere of "America's Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys," a Netflix docuseries about Jones and his team's decades of drama. It began streaming only days after Sportico ranked the Cowboys as the NFL's most valuable franchise, with a worth north of $12 billion. Last year, CNBC also ranked Dallas as the NFL's most valuable team, while Forbes named it the world's most valuable sports franchise. The Cowboys' value and mystique have been perpetually increased by Jones, 82, who carries official titles of owner, president and general manager of the team while also serving as its chief ringmaster, one uniquely attuned to what fans want. "I do believe if we're not being looked at, then I'll do my part to get us looked at," Jones said at the Netflix premiere. "The beautiful thing for networks, if you will, streaming companies, is that the NFL is a 365-day-a-year interest factory. A lot of programming you have to spend as much ... to promote it as you to do make it. The Cowboys are a soap opera 365 days a year. When it gets low, I'll stir it up." And few teams capitalize on and court that attention like they do. Despite their 7-10 record in 2024, 13 games involving the team still ranked among the 100 most-watched prime-time telecasts of last year, which tied with Kansas City for most among all NFL teams. To no surprise, six Dallas games will be broadcast nationally and in prime time this season, second only to Kansas City. According to Fanatics, the global sports merchandise retailer, the team ranks among the five best-selling teams on its platform, across all sports, since 2023. Dallas' merchandise has been sold in more than 110 countries. The Cowboys have reached the divisional round of the playoffs, one round away from the NFC championship, four times since 2009, only to lose all four times. Last year, their playoff hopes were doused by midseason after an injury to quarterback Dak Prescott. And yet they remained the NFL's hottest ticket in 2024. On StubHub, the online ticket retailer, the Cowboys sold not only the most tickets of any team, but they did so overwhelmingly — selling 63% more tickets than the second-ranked team. Entering this season, few are buying Jones' team as a title contender. Only 1% of futures bets on DraftKings Sportsbook have been placed on the Cowboys to win the NFC championship, according to a company spokesperson. Still, that hasn't depressed demand to watch Dallas play, with the team selling more tickets entering the 2025 season than any other team — including 40% more than the even the second-ranked Buffalo Bills, according to a StubHub spokesperson. It costs 89% less to watch Buffalo, a Super Bowl contender featuring the reigning Most Valuable Player in Josh Allen, on the road this year than the Cowboys, according to the company. The spokesperson wrote that the Dallas spike may reflect several factors, "including the team's national fan base and widespread brand recognition." Beyond the revenue they bring in, the Cowboys have understood how to win the attention economy, too. The latest Netflix docuseries isn't the streamer's first foray into the Cowboys' culture. After the docuseries 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' debuted in the summer of 2024, it was ranked in Netflix's global top 10 for English TV for four consecutive weeks, and it was ranked among the top 10 U.S. TV shows for five straight weeks, according to the company. It wound up ranked in the top-10 TV list for 27 countries — proving yet again that the team's success or failure on the field are only notionally connected to its popularity. (It has been renewed for a third season.) In 2010, the Cowboys topped Nielsen's media-exposure rankings in part by producing the largest gross audience during nationally televised games. More than a decade later, that exposure transcends borders. In 2024, one firm's analysis of Google search data suggested that more Google searches per month were Cowboys-related than there were any other team. Much of that interest could be attributed to decisions stoked by Jones. In the winter, his promotion of the team's offensive coordinator to head coach was received unfavorably locally. He has prolonged contract talks in recent seasons with Prescott and receiver CeeDee Lamb before he reached deals on the eve of the regular season. The situation has led to calls for Jones to step down as the general manager overseeing the roster but kept the Cowboys a nonstop sports-talk topic. This month, the cycle has repeated again with star defender Micah Parsons. Since Parsons, who is seeking a lucrative new contract, asked for a trade this month, Jones has regularly held media briefings during the team's preseason practices and offered cryptic updates. On the red carpet, Jones acknowledged that when he bought the Cowboys in 1989, he personally had only a fraction of the required money to actually pay for them, relying on borrowed money to make up the difference, and that once he was in charge, he was "winging" running an NFL franchise, losing what he said was often $1 million per month. But what Jones knew, instinctually, was how to keep eyes on his team. When the Cowboys opened a new stadium in 2009, it included a new innovation. To walk from their locker room to the field, Cowboys players had to use a tunnel that passed between a pair of glass-walled lounges from which high-paying fans could watch. 'It is wonderful to have the great athletes and the great players, but there's something more there," Jones said last week. "There's sizzle, there's emotion, and, if you will, there's controversy. That controversy is good stuff in terms of keeping and having people's attention.'
