The worst NFL offseason distractions before training camp, ranked

We’re more than halfway through the NFL offseason, and teams are wrapping up their spring workouts. That means we’re about to head into the six-week dead part of the season. At this point, the newsiest things that can happen will be more about off-the-field stuff, and if it’s making big news, there’s a decent chance that it’s not going to be a good thing. Those are the things that cause distractions. 

Merriam-Webster defines distraction as “an object that directs one's attention away from something else.” That kind of works in football, but it’s a little different. For this, we’re going to define distraction as “anything that a player or coach does that impacts the team.” That’s loose enough (and correct enough) of a definition, and it should cover all of our bases here. 

These are five of the biggest distractions that we’ve seen this year, and four of them have unfortunately become kind of common. 

5. Tier V: The Aaron Rodgers of it all

• This year: Aaron Rodgers
• Other big ones: Aaron Rodgers

8. A very deliberate delay … Again

A good rule of thumb is that a franchise wants to make sure its quarterback position is figured out before it starts spending money and focusing on the other parts of the team. You’ll have teams like this year’s Browns, Jets, and Cardinals, who are rebuilding and getting the supporting cast figured out, but in general, the quarterback is a big priority … because, duh. 

However, we’ve had a phenomenon during three of the past four offseasons where Aaron Rodgers has held teams (and the NFL, kind of) hostage while he decides what he’s going to do next. 

In 2023, he went on a darkness retreat to decide whether or not he was going to retire. He ultimately decided that he wasn’t going to retire, but he also wasn’t going to play for the Packers. Instead, he said he wanted to play for the Jets.

Then there was a month-long period where New York and leverageless Green Bay were figuring out a trade. The trade happens, yada yada yada, Robert Saleh has a man crush on Rodgers during Hard Knocks, yada yada yada, he tears his Achilles four plays into the season. 

Luckily, two years later, when Rodgers was deciding what to do after his time with the Jets came to an end, it wasn’t nearly as performative. 

He was a free agent for the first time in his career, and he was toying with the Vikings, the Giants, and the Steelers before he decided on Pittsburgh at the beginning of June, 2024.

Then there was this year. The Steelers hired Mike McCarthy (Rodgers’ head coach in Green Bay), and were trying to see if he was going to come back and play another year. He finally signed with them on May 16 … two months after the draft and while there were no other real starting quarterbacks available.

You could tell me that this year’s ordeal was something that both sides had agreed to and that Pittsburgh knew they were going to get Rodgers going into free agency and the draft … but that doesn’t really work for any of his other episodes. 

Luckily, there’s only one Aaron Rodgers, so there’s only one team that actually has to deal with him every year. Also, he said that 2026 will be his last ride.

My heart chooses to believe that … but my gut tells me that he’ll end up finding a way to stick around, and it’ll probably have to do with him not wanting to retire the same year as other potential first-ballot Hall-of-Famers.

Regardless, his decision-making process has put several teams behind the eight-ball later in the season than they needed to be. 

Tier IV: Very public (alleged) infidelity

• This year: Mike Vrabel
• Other big ones: N/A?

7. Mike Vrabel missing a third of the draft

Was Mike Vrabel the first football coach to cheat on his wife? No. Was he the first one to get caught shortly after losing in a Super Bowl, and have it be highly publicized because the woman was an NFL Insider? As far as I can remember, yeah … Definitely.

The early part of this offseason was all about Diana Russini and Vrabel’s alleged affair. It seemed like every week for about two months, there was another little bit of news that dropped that was worse than the first.

It was the pictures of them in Arizona. Then, their complete denial and fabrication of something different. Then, more pictures of them from 2020. Then, more pictures from 2021 and an apparent babymoon. Then, a terrible Spotify playlist that Russini made that was only shared with a person named Mike.

All of that culminated in Vrabel not being with the Patriots during day three of the draft (he was at counselling), which was where they made six of their nine picks this year.

On top of that, he was missing press conferences, having press conferences that were mostly focused on that, and having his future with the team questioned … It was just a whole lot of stuff, and you’re crazy if you think that this whole thing didn’t impact the Patriots’ offseason in some type of way.

Tier III: Guys who want/ed out

• This year: A.J. Brown and Brandon Aiyuk (Kind of?)
• Other big ones: Antonio Brown (2019), Julio Jones (2021)  

6. A.J. Brown

The Eagles’ left tackle, Jordan Mialata, was asked about the A.J. Brown trade. He said, “ … thank God it's over. It was a slow pain of just, is he in, is he out?  We didn't really know, and that really wasn't our focus as a team, our team, especially on offense.”

When there is a lot of talk about a player wanting out, and that player has either said or shown that he wants out, a team will play it down like it’s not a big deal … But they know it, and it’s something that gets talked about. 

Just because coaches and general managers say that it’s not a problem or that it's not a distraction doesn’t mean it’s true.

Now, obviously, that depends on the caliber of player. Jakobi Meyers requested a trade from the Raiders last August. I’m sure guys in the locker room were aware of it, but that’s a little different than what Brown did for the past nine months. 

5. Brandon Aiyuk

Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers are in a weird spot. They paid him a bunch of money in 2024, and then his knee got annihilated in Week 7. They put him on the PUP list in July of 2025, and then voided the guaranteed money for 2026 five months later.

They said it was because of a lack of communication and participation from Aiyuk. Apparently, they wanted him to come to their facility for meetings and stuff (which makes sense), but he never did. So they said he wasn’t fulfilling his end of the contract and cut the cord … Kind of…

It seemed like they were going to release him at the end of the season, but they didn’t; he’s still on their roster. 

John Lynch, the GM in San Fran, wants to trade him. At the post-draft press conference, he was asked about Aiyuk. He smiled, held up his phone, and said, ”No new update right now. You know we’re available. Give us a call … The situation didn’t work itself out here. That’s not to say that it can’t be rekindled somewhere else. And we’d be happy to do something with anyone if the opportunity presented itself.” That makes sense too. If you can get even a half-smoked pack of cigarettes for him, at least it’s something. 

Maybe this is a distraction for the 49ers, and maybe it’s not. Aiyuk wants out, but every other team either forgot Lynch’s phone number or they’re refusing to trade for the guy, and they’re hoping that the 49ers will just release him.

Who knows? It’s gotten to a point where Jayden Daniels ( the Commanders’ quarterback and Aiyuk’s quarterback at Arizona State) is getting semi-asked about him during their minicamp.

I would argue that this whole thing is a distraction purely because the weirdness of the whole thing is impossible to ignore. It’s a mess.

Tier II: Hold-outs/ins

• This year: Jacoby Brissett (lol), Josh Sweat, Vita Vea
• Other big ones: Le’Veon Bell (2018), Micah Parsons (2025), Emmitt Smith (1993)

4. Jacoby Brissett

Hold-outs and hold-ins are the biggest and most common distractions in the offseason. Guys want to get paid, and they’re not going to risk injuries at practice. So they either don’t show up to the facility at all, or show up to the facility and don’t practice. 

Sometimes it ends up being totally fine, you reach a deal, everyone is peachy come Week 1, and James Cook ends up leading the league in rushing yards … But sometimes Haason Reddick goes to Japan, misses the entirety of training camp, requests a trade, and then doesn’t play until Week 8.

You have to think the Cardinals are hoping for the former. Jacoby Brissett sat out during the Spring because he wants more money. On one hand, sure … that kind of makes sense. He’s not the kind of cat that’s built to start 17 games at this point in his career, and he should try to chase the bag for as long as he can.

On the other hand, yikes. Are the Cardinals really going to give a QB2 caliber player a bigger contract when they have Gardner Minshew and Carson Beck waiting in the wings? This will be a very fun and very not-exciting situation to monitor at the end of the Summer.

3. Josh Sweat

Oh, the Cardinals are also dealing with a potential Josh Sweat hold-in, too. He was training by himself during OTAs, but when it came time for minicamp, he didn’t practice. Matt LaFleur said that it wasn’t injury-related, that he wasn’t worried about it, and that it was more about not wanting to run a guy through something physical on his first day at the facility. That seems very convenient, but I’m skeptical when it comes to coaches saying things … especially when it’s a new coach, and we have no idea if he’s a liar or not. 

The fact is that the situation isn’t perfect, and typically, the guys who get traded or hold-in/out aren’t in perfect situations. 

2. Vita Vea

News came out on Wednesday, June 17, that Vita Vea was holding-in for a new contract with the Buccaneers. If you had to have a player on your team hold-in during the Spring, you would be delighted if it were your veteran run-crushing nose tackle, because those guys don’t do much of anything during practices in shorts and shells. 

However, if this does linger, that could be a big issue. The Eagles just gave Jordan Davis a three-year contract for $78 million, so we know that elite-tier nose tackles are worth a lot to teams. If the Buccaneers hit a wall with Vea, it’s going to change the attitude of that defense in a big way. 

It really feels like getting that defensive line to be comfortable with each other is going to be important. Especially since Rueben Bain, their first-round pick, is a defensive end. Having Vea there to give the kid some confidence would be huge going into the season. 

Tier I: Crime

• This year: Woof
• Other big ones: Look around

1. Rashee Rice, Jonathan Cooper, Alaric Jackson, and Stefon Diggs

In real life, there are about a billion different crimes and a billion different punishments. In the NFL, you can lump every crime into three categories: Killing a person, beating a person, and car stuff. 

Murder will put you in actual jail, and you’ll either miss time (Leonard Little) or you’ll just be out of the league (Henry Ruggs). Unfortunately, beating a person and car stuff are lumped into the same pot, and there’s a mixed bag of punishments. You can miss a few games, or you can miss no time at all (for car stuff, it depends on whether you crash and what you crashed into).

This is easily the worst distraction. No bones about it. On the football side, you’re missing time. On the human side, you’ve got a whole lot of problems, but also, your teammates are worried about you …. And maybe if they aren’t actually worried, they’re going to be asked about you regardless. It’s bad.

Let’s knock Stefon Diggs out of the way first. He was accused of some pretty bad assault stuff in December 2025, but he was found not guilty in May. Unfortunately for him, that meant that his legal status was up in the air during free agency, and no one grabbed him. 

Does that really matter? Probably not. Veteran free agents like him sign either right before or during training camp pretty often … But he did miss a wave of some decent-sized money.

The Chiefs’ wide receiver Rashee Rice has been dealing with some car stuff for the past couple of years, and he violated his parole this spring and went to jail for 30 days. Apparently those 30 days lined up with the recovery for a knee surgery that he had, so he wasn’t going to participate in Spring workouts anyway… But you also would rather rehab your knee in a professional setting rather than, you know … jail.

At the beginning of June, Jonathan Cooper, the Broncos’ edge rusher, was arrested twice in one week for beating a person. They excused him from minicamp because of that. We’ll see what happens with that one. 

Alaric Jackson is the Rams’ left tackle. He was also arrested at the beginning of June for beating a person. The Rams cancelled their minicamp anyway, but that doesn’t stop this from being a thing that they’re going to have to deal with … especially since they decided to draft a backup quarterback in the first round instead of someone that could actually be useful for them this year. 

It’s not really fun to talk about NFL players who are doing bad stuff off the field, but it happens, and it can be a real doozy …  I disavow crimes, by the way. 

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