Who Should I Start? Miles Sanders or Irv Smith Jr.

Friday, May 17, 1:52 PM

The Carolina Panthers were saying there was still room for running back Miles Sanders in the RB room after trading up in the second round of last month's NFL draft to take Jonathon Brooks as the first RB off the board. But that was before the team signed former Seattle Seahawks RB Rashaad Penny, who was with Panthers head coach Dave Canales in Seattle. Sanders lost the starting job to Chuba Hubbard last year amid the worst season of his career. It's hard to envision another team wanting to trade for Sanders and his contract, although the Panthers showed this offseason that they're willing to eat money to move on from underperforming players. The 27-year-old Sanders is now listed as third on the team's RB depth chart behind Hubbard and Brooks, making him undraftable in standard 12-team leagues this fall.

Tuesday, March 12, 1:08 PM

Cincinnati Bengals free-agent tight end Irv Smith Jr. reached an agreement on an undisclosed one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs on Tuesday, according to a source. Smith had a lot of potential when he entered the league as the Minnesota Vikings' second-round pick in 2019 out of Alabama, but he hasn't lived up to the hype. The 25-year-old had his best season in his second year in the NFL, catching 30 of his 43 targets for 365 yards and five touchdowns with the Vikes in 2020. In his first and only season with the Cincinnati Bengals last year, he had 18 catches on 26 targets for 115 yards and one touchdown in 12 games. In Kansas City, Smith will merely be serving as tight end insurance behind the aging Travis Kelce.