The Sports Xchange

The New Orleans Saints reportedly decided to release pass rusher Junior Galette on Friday.

Galette, who has 22 sacks over the past two seasons and just signed a four-year, $41.5 million contract last September, is being investigated by the NFL for two alleged assaults.

The team did not announce or explain the move, which is expected to be made after Galette passes a physical this weekend. He also has been recovering from a torn pectoral muscle.

Galette told The Times-Picayune the decision by the Saints is “the worst call they’ve ever made. It was a terrible call to kick me when I’m down.”

The NFL has talked to Galette about his arrest in January for domestic simple battery, and the league is now investigating a 2013 video that purportedly shows Galette striking a woman with a belt during a scuffle in South Beach, Fla.

Galette, 27, was not charged in the domestic violence incident, which allegedly took place on Jan. 5 at his home in Kenner, La.

The beach video came to light last month, and the Saints forwarded it to the NFL.

—The Tampa Bay Buccaneers placed cornerback C.J. Wilson on the reserve/retired list.

Wilson lost two fingers in a fireworks accident on the Fourth of July.

Wilson, 25, had been slated to begin his second season with the Bucs. He appeared in two games for Tampa Bay in 2014, playing primarily on special teams and recording four tackles. Wilson is in the final season of a two-year deal that carries a non-guaranteed base salary of $585,000 for the 2015 season.

The Buccaneers also waived linebacker Jared Koster, an undrafted rookie.

—Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Sean Smith was suspended for a violation of the NFL’s substances of abuse policy.

Smith will miss three games stemming from his guilty plea to DUI charges in April.

A third game was added to Smith’s suspension beyond the two-game ban called for in the collective bargaining agreement. That policy includes additional discipline for aggravating circumstances, including property damage. Smith’s car struck and broke a light pole.

Smith can participate in all workouts until the start of the regular season and is eligible for all preseason games.

—Defensive tackle Derek Wolfe tested positive for performancing enhancing drugs and was suspended by the NFL for the first four games of the 2015 season and is eligible to return to the Denver Broncos’ roster on Oct. 5.

Wolfe said he took a medication in the offseason that did not boost performance in any way and claimed he was unaware it was on the NFL’s banned substances list.

—Minnesota Vikings cornerback Jabari Price was suspended without pay for the first two games of the regular season for violating the NFL substances of abuse policy.

Price, 22, pleaded guilty in April to careless driving following his December arrest for DWI.

Price, the Vikings’ seventh-round pick in 2014, will be eligible to return to the Vikings’ active roster on Monday, Sept. 21. He will miss games against the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions. He appeared in 14 games last season, mostly on special teams.

—The Miami Dolphins released quarterback Josh Freeman, apparently satisfied with Matt Moore and McLeod Bethel-Thompson behind Ryan Tannehill.

Freeman, 27, was a first-round pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 and started 59 games for them over his first five seasons.

The Buccaneers released him in October 2013 after the relationship between the player and the team soured, and Freeman has bounced from the Minnesota Vikings to the New York Giants to Miami over the past two years. Since the Bucs released him, he has played in one game — a start for the Vikings after he joined them in 2013.

—The Green Bay Packers released cornerback Bernard Blake, an undrafted rookie out of Colorado State who signed with the team on May 8.

The Packers drafted cornerbacks Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins with their first two picks in May and have eight cornerbacks on the roster as they prepare for the opening of training camp next week.

—As expected, the Baltimore Ravens placed tight end Dennis Pitta on the physically unable to perform list.

The team also put defensive back Terrence Brooks on PUP.

Pitta, 30, is entering his sixth season but has played in just seven games the past two because of hip injuries. He is still not recovered from a fractured and dislocated right hip.

Pitta has not been cleared medically and coach John Harbaugh said it’s not a foregone conclusion. He signed a five-year, $32 million deal after emerging in 2012 as quarterback Joe Flacco’s go-to receiver.

—The Jacksonville Jaguars signed second-year wide receiver Greg Jenkins.

The 6-foot-1, 205-pound Jenkins has appeared in six career games since entering the league as an undrafted rookie with the Oakland Raiders in 2013. As a rookie, the former Alabama State quarterback returned six punts for 49 yards (8.2 average) and 10 kickoffs for 221 yards (22.1 average).

—The Buccaneers are working on new deals for right tackle Demar Dotson and linebacker Lavonte David.

Dotson and David hope to finalize new contracts before the start of training camp next week. Rookies will report Monday and the rest of the team on July 31.

Dotson recently changed agents, hiring Joby Branion to replace Greg Hobbs, whose last attempt to reach a deal resulted in Dotson’s two-week boycott of the offseason voluntary workouts.

Dotson, the Bucs’ longest tenured player, signed a three-year, $4.5-million contract extension in 2013 that is slated to pay the three-year starter $2.5 million this year and $1.75 million in 2016. Faced with a series of fines that could have reached $100,000, the 29-year-old Dotson ended his boycott in time to attend the team’s mandatory minicamp.

David, 25, the Bucs’ leading tackler the past three seasons, is in the final year of his rookie contract and is set to become a free agent at the end of the 2015 season. He signed a four-year, $3.596 million contract as a second-round draft pick (58th overall) out of Nebraska in 2012.

—Junior Seau’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony next month will not include a speaking part for his daughter Sydney, as planned, and no member of the family will give a speech honoring the late linebacker.

The New York Times reported that the Hall of Fame informed the family that Seau’s induction would not be anything like those of the living inductees. Each Hall of Famer is presented by a person close to them — coach, teammate, family member — in what typically becomes a moving tribute to the achievement and the player, coach or contributor being honored.

“It’s frustrating,” Sydney told the Times. “The induction is for my father and for the other players, but then to not be able to speak, it’s painful. I just want to give the speech he would have given. It wasn’t going to be about this mess. My speech was solely about him.”

Hall of Fame spokesperson Joe Horrigan said the circumstances surrounding Seau’s death — a shocking suicide in his home — and family suggestions that concussions played a role had nothing to do with the format.

Seau will be presented as a lengthy video tribute plays. His daughter, Sydney, whom Seau asked introduce him before his death, will speak in the video put together by NFL Network.

—Veteran Wes Welker wants to continue playing in the NFL, but former teammate Champ Bailey is concerned about the wide receiver’s history of concussions.

Welker saw his role diminish with the Denver Broncos in 2014 after he suffered a concussion in the preseason — his third in roughly a nine-month span after two in 2013.

“I don’t want Wes to play for my own personal reasons. I’ve seen him get concussions. It scares me,” Bailey told Fox Sports. “I think he can still play, but I don’t want him to play because of these concussions.

“This thing is no joke. It’s a serious thing when you start talking about your head. And for him to have to worry about that at a young age that he is now, he has to think about that for years to come, and I just hope he hangs it up and not strap it up again.”

The 34-year-old Welker spent the past two seasons with the Broncos and last year had 49 catches for 464 yards and two touchdowns in 14 games. In 10 NFL seasons with the Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots and Broncos, he has 890 receptions for 9,822 yards and 50 touchdowns.

Welker is still a free agent as NFL training camps are getting ready to open. Welker has said he has been cleared to continue his NFL career by one of the country’s leading concussion experts, Dr. Stanley Herring of Seattle.