Jumbo Package: Alabama Football is taking a peek into the Transfer Portal again

In the only real piece of “news” surrounding Alabama’s football program at the moment, the Tide is making a strong run at a solid offensive lineman grad transfer:

The battle for Vanderbilt offensive tackle transfer Tyler Steen should play out next month as his father, Daris, tells 247Sports that his son is expected to visit Alabama, NC State, LSU, Penn State in March. Trips to UCLA, USC and Kentucky are also possible.

Steen, who 247Sports currently pegs as the nation’s No. 34-ranked transfer, started over 30 games while with the Commodores. He has experience working at both right and left tackle, which has made him one of the most uncommitted coveted prospects in the NCAA’s transfer portal.

There’s no relation to former Tide OL Anthony Steen, but Tyler is an experienced SEC player who was once a 3-star recruit out of St. Thomas Aquinas. Steen is thought by most to be going to Virginia, but Alabama could be looking for him to provide depth and competition to both tackle spots after both Evan Neal and Chris Owens have moved on from the team.

J.C. Latham and Amari Kight are likely the frontrunners for the job, and 5-star second-year man Tommy Brockermeyer is a wild card, but past that, the Tide lacks much depth for pure tackles. Dameion George and Kendall Randolph have both played tackle, but are built more like interior guys.

Moving on to the NFL, the Dolphins have made a phenomenal hire in their effort to finally give some support to young star QB Tua Tagovailoa:

According to multiple reports, the Dolphins are working on a deal that will make Bevell their quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator.

Bevell also closed out the 2020 season as an interim head coach in Detroit, so he gives first-time head coach Mike McDaniel an experienced hand on his first staff. Bevell was the offensive coordinator for each team before before taking on the temporary head coaching jobs. He’s also run the offense in Seattle and Minnesota and was the Packers’ quarterbacks coach in the early 2000s.

Darrell Bevell has a long track record of being a well-known QB coach and a creative, balanced offensive mind. Bevell was the driving force behind designing the Seattle Seahawks offense in the early years of Russell Wilson’s career, working with the young QB’s strengths and weaknesses to design an insanely efficient NFL offense based on a lot of college concepts at the time.

This is an absolutely excellent hire for a Dolphins team trying to invest in a better offense than the gross, vanilla playcalling we saw the last two seasons.

22. New England Patriots – WR Jameson Williams, Alabama: No reason to waste (more) time before remedying 2019’s first-round mistake with WR N’Keal Harry. Williams might be a top-10 pick had he not torn an ACL in the national championship loss to Georgia. He’s a burner who was remarkably productive in 2021, averaging 100 receiving yards and a TD catch per game. The Ohio State transfer didn’t play with Pats QB Mac Jones in Tuscaloosa, but – as soon as he’s healthy – he has the goods to develop into the dominant target this team has long lacked.

Another day, another NFL mock draft. Evan Neal is getting slotted in as the #1 overall pick more and more often, and Jameson Williams is typically the only other Alabama player getting projected (Man, how far we have come from Wallace Gillberry going undrafted to feeling like it’s a light class with “only” two first round picks).

This time, Williams is being mocked to the Patriots. The sportswriters are really just leaning in to the Alabama-New England pipeline at this point.

“Coming back with a vengeance, for sure,” Henry told “Pro Football Talk.”

After winning the rushing triple crown by leading the NFL in rushing attempts, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns in 2019 and 2020, Henry was well on his way to doing that again in 2021. But the former Alabama All-American suffered a foot fracture in the eighth game of the season

“This year was the first time in my career where I had a significant injury and missed time during the season,” Henry told NFL Network on Saturday while making media appearances during Super Bowl week. “That’s never happened before. I was off to a good place, which really doesn’t matter. What really matters is being here and playing in the big one, which we came up short, so just being fueled from that, continue to work like I’ve always done and have vengeance in my mind of coming into next season hungry, ready to attack and have a great year.”

Derrick Henry’s unconventional style as a running back has led to doubts at every level, and he’s continued to dominate the sport year after year after, whether it was high school, college, or NFL. And while a broken foot finally proved he is at least partially mortal, he’s still been amazingly healthy over his career for a position that takes so much punishment.

Henry has been the best running back in the world for a couple of years now, and there’s no doubters at “the next level” left. At this point, we just get to watch to see how long he can keep it up.

The NFL’s 2021 season concluded on Sunday when the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in Super Bowl LVI. During the league’s 2021 business year, teams paid 174 players at least $10 million.

Eighteen of those players came from Alabama high schools and colleges. One of them made the Pro Bowl, two made the All-Rookie team and seven missed at least four games apiece in the 2021 season

Jonathan Allen leads the way with a nice income of $31M this year as he pulled in the signing bonus from his new contract. Amari Cooper, Marlon Humphrey, Jaylen Waddle, Dalvin Tomlinson, Julio Jones, Ryan Kelly, Cam Robinson, Patrick Surtain II, Landon Collins, DeVonta Smith, and Derrick Henry all got paid in the range of 8 figures this year as well.

Talk about a recruiting pitch for Nick Saban.