Steelers won’t lose pick for Tomlin sideline incident

Pittsburgh won't lose a draft pick for this play.(Twitter.com)

We expected a resolution of the Mike Tomlin sideline incident -- remember that whole thing on Thanksgiving? -- soon, likely by the owners' meetings next week. But the NFL has already taken care of that.

The Steelers announced Thursday the league has "closed the book" on the incident from that Steelers-Ravens game and that Pittsburgh won't be docked a draft pick as a result.

In case you forgot, Tomlin found himself on the field (he claims by accident, some thought it might have been on purpose) while Jacoby Jones was returning a kickoff.

Jones was tackled instead of scoring.

And even though the Ravens won, Tomlin was fined $100,000 for being on the field.

The league said at the time they could still take a draft pick but they won't and, frankly, it's probably the right decision at this point in time.

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Panthers sign WR Cotchery



The Carolina Panthers finally added a target for Cam Newton to throw to Thursday, adding veteran wide receiver Jerricho Cothchery on Thursday. Prior to the signing, the top receivers on the Panthers roster were Marvin McNutt and Tavarres King, neither of whom has caught an NFL pass. They've lost Steve Smith, Ted Ginn Jr., Brandon LaFell, and Domenik Hixon since the end of the season. Cotchery spent the 2013 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was one of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's favorite red zone targets, leading the team with 10 touchdowns. He finished the season with 46 catches for 602 yards.



Well, it's hard to get excited about Cotchery. He'll be 32 years old when the 2014 season starts. He hasn't exceeded 60 catches in any of the past six seasons. He's only exceeded 1,000 yards once in his career, and that was 7 years ago. With that said, SOMEONE has to catch the ball in Carolina. Unless the Panthers make a play for Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson, Cotchery could open the season as the number one receiver on the depth chart. If he's the number one receiver for the Panthers, expect Cotchery to put up numbers worthy of being a WR3/Flex play on a weekly basis. However, the player on Carolina that probably starts to climb his position rankings is tight end Greg Olsen. The depletion of their receiving corps and the non-signing of any other big threats probably makes him a top 5-10 option at the position next season, based solely on the amount of volume he's likely to see.