Month: May 2018

Broncos’ John Elway deposed in Colin Kaepernick collusion case

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Broncos general manager John Elway is the latest NFL executive to be deposed in connection to Colin Kaepernick’s collusion case against the NFL, according to 9NEWS.

Elway answered questions for an hour at Broncos headquarters on Tuesday as the former 49ers quarterback grievance continues. Kaepernick and lawyers representing the league and the players union attended the deposition as well.

Chris Christie spent six years pushing for legalized sports betting.

Now, the former governor says New Jersey lawmakers shouldn’t waste any more time. He thinks people should be allowed to place wagers here as soon as possible.

“We should allow Monmouth Park to start taking bets on Memorial Day,” Christie told NJ Advance Media in a phone interview.

Hard Knocks, HBO’s Emmy-award winning documentary series that annually chronicles an NFL training camp, is heading to Cleveland this summer.

While that’s great news for fans — who doesn’t want an inside look at the start of No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield’s career? — it might not be good news for the Browns themselves. And head coach Hue Jackson should be especially wary.

Two of the last four head coaches (Mike Smith, Jeff Fisher) featured on Hard Knocks were fired by season’s end, while only five of the 12 teams that have appeared on the series made the playoffs. Neither of the last two playoff teams, the 2013 Cincinnati Bengals and 2015 Houston Texans, made it out of the wild-card round. None of the last three teams (Texans, Rams and Bucs) improved upon their previous season’s record — though that’s a low bar for the winless Browns.

Still, it will be interesting to see how HBO frames the upcoming season.

Their biggest concern, obviously, is his maturity, which hampered his preparation during his two years in Cleveland and was a distraction for the Browns.cowboys_093

Nashville named 2019 NFL Draft host city

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The NFL will kick off the 2019-20 season in Music City.

Nashville has been selected as the host city of the 2019 NFL Draft, the league announced Wednesday at the owners’ meetings in Atlanta.

The report noted that cities under consideration for the 2019 and 2020 drafts include Las Vegas, Denver, Kansas City and a combination bid from Cleveland and Canton, Ohio. The 2020 draft site has not yet been named.

A sub-plot to the Thomas story is the fact that he’s a Texas native who grew up a Cowboys fan and was an All-American for the Texas Longhorns. After a Seahawks road victory over the Cowboys in December, Thomas ran to the entrance of Dallas’ locker room and yelled to coach Jason Garrett, “If y’all have the chance, come get me.”

Thomas tried to defuse the resulting media fallout by saying, “The biggest thing when I say ‘come get me’ is, I don’t literally mean ‘come get me now.’ I’m still in the prime of my career. I still want to be here, but when Seattle kicks me to the curb, please, the Cowboys come get me.”

Foster, a former league-leading running back with the Texans and now a rap musician performing under the name Bobby Feeno, told USA TODAY Sports that such views are widely held among NFL owners.

Todd Bowles, Jets: Credit the Jets for not being too quick to dismiss Bowles while general manager Mike Maccagnan overhauls the roster. But this could head to a Gus Bradley-in-Jacksonville situation, where the patience runs out in Year 4 before a potential breakthrough.

Known as a freakish athlete, Franklin was clocked running the 40-yard dash in 4.19 seconds earlier this year. The record set at the NFL combine is 4.22 seconds set by current Bengals wideout John Ross in 2017.

But the rumor mill had been fueled, and not helping matters were rumblings during the draft that the Cowboys (and at least one other team) had made a pitch for Thomas, but the offer reportedly was not enough to entice Schneider.ravens_154

Carson Wentz plans to still be aggressive while being cognizant of protecting himself

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It certainly doesn’t come as any surprise that Eagles head coach Doug Pederson wants to make sure his quarterback that was the MVP favorite entering the final month of last season is available and playing every Sunday. He won’t always have a backup capable of picking up the slack quite like Nick Foles managed to last season.

While Wentz’s knee injury last December against the Los Angeles Rams was a rather fluke non-contact injury as he planted to dive for the end zone, he was still putting himself in a vulnerable position diving headfirst between a pair of defenders. Wentz did take numerous shots last year and has the mobility to create yards on his own when opportunities are presented to him. The trick is finding the balance of avoiding the big hits – like Russell Wilson manages to do with the Seattle Seahawks – as opposed to taking numerous shots – like Robert Griffin III did in Washington before injuries piled up.

The situation underscores the importance of durability when it comes to running backs. It starts with not getting injured. It continues with finding a way to play while injured. It’s the one thing that separated Emmitt Smith from his peers, it’s the one thing that helped Lynch be who he was in the Seattle offense, and it’s the one thing the Seahawks need from 2018 first-rounder Rashaad Penny.

“It was an important element in his makeup and background,” coach Pete Carroll told reporters regarding Penny’s durability.

The Seahawks are confident in Penny’s durability at the next level, even though he wasn’t exactly a workhorse in college. Though he had 289 carries in 2017 (for 2,248 yards and an average of 22.2 carries per game), Penny had only 136 attempts in 2016 (for 1,018 yards and 9.7 carries per game), 61 in 2015 (4.3 carries per game), and only two as a freshman in 2014.

“He’s had a couple years of production,” G.M. John Schneider told reporters. “He had 1,000 yards last year. That’s not a concern at all. He had some really interesting analytics and stats about him with durability, run after contact, run after first contact. He actually, of this group [of running backs], was number one in both categories.”broncos_024_4933cc041e82f353-180x180

Seahawks trade up to take a punter

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The Seahawks continue to make news in the fifth round.

Fifth-round UCF product Shaquem Griffin is a passionate, driven locker room leader coming off a two-year run as a college starter in which he recorded 33.5 tackles for loss, 18.5 sacks, a pair of interceptions and 166 tackles. He was his conference’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2016 and a second-team All-American in 2017, and he followed that up by dominating his position with a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine.

Griffin—who is already garnering praise for his work in organized team activities—has a star-level ceiling, which is great news for Seahawks fans considering that he cost the team only a Day 3 pick.

One day, he might even make such a large impact that most of us will forget that he’s doing so with one hand.

At the moment, that gives the Colts 11 picks in this draft.

Attorneys for free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick deposed Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider over the past two days as part of Kaepernick’s ongoing collusion grievance against the NFL, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Thursday.

Kaepernick was scheduled to work out for the Seahawks in April. However, Schefter reported the team indefinitely delayed the workout upon learning Kaepernick wouldn’t commit to ending his protest during the national anthem.

Speaking to reporters, Carroll didn’t definitively rule out the possibility of the Seahawks signing Kaepernick, per the News Tribune’s Gregg Bell:

Seattle re-signed Austin Davis and added Stephen Morris this offseason to back up Russell Wilson, which likely eliminates any prospect of Kaepernick landing in the Pacific Northwest ahead of the 2018 NFL season.broncos_071_e39a365157dd20b5-180x180

Tom Brady stands by his “very old helmet,” which NFL will soon prohibit

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The NFL has prohibited players from wearing certain helmet models that did not perform well in safety testing, and one of those models is the one Tom Brady has worn for years. But Brady isn’t giving his helmet up easily.

Brady says he’s going to take advantage of the NFL’s grandfather policy that will allow players who wore the Riddell VSR-4 helmet in 2017 to wear it again in 2018. He says he likes the helmet, he’s comfortable with it, and doesn’t want to give it up.

He didn’t last after he was arrested for killing his girlfriend’s Yorkshire terrier in 2015.

Shembo later, though not initially, asserted that it was a reaction to the small dog biting him; he also admitted to kicking the dog more than once.

However it played out, the Falcons, you may recall, once had a player who was connected to dog abuse, and they weren’t going to let a lowly fourth-round backup drag them into that PR mess.

Green downplayed the existence of any lingering hard feelings during a recent visit to PFT Live.

“There’s no real beef,” Green said. “There’s no real beef off the field. There’s just two competitors. Got in the heat of the moment. Stuff happens. When you’re playing, it’s sports man. You know, tempers go crazy sometimes, and sometimes you can’t control emotions. I couldn’t control mine that day. [I’ve] got to do a better job of that.”

Green insisted he’ll never let that happen again. Since the Jaguars and Bengals aren’t scheduled to play this season, Green won’t have to deal with Ramsey. Not that Green would shy away from a rematch.

“Whenever that time comes, I’ll be ready for it,” Green said.

Ramsey will be, too. Along with the rest of us. Who knows? Maybe it will happen in the 2018 postseason.broncos_132_92e71f65b633c255-180x180

Rabalais: Saints can weather Mark Ingram’s suspension, but they will need a little good luck

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Rabalais: Saints can weather Mark Ingram’s suspension, but they will need a little good luck More The New Orleans Saints figured out Monday they can do without tight end Cory Fleener. They’ve got four months to figure out how to do without Mark Ingram for four games. The NFL on Tuesday handed the Saints’ veteran running back a four-game suspension for violating the league’s performance-enhancing substances policy.

Seahawks have a few options if anthem policy changes More Caption Close NFL owners are scheduled hold their annual spring meetings in Atlanta later this month and they are reportedly considering a policy that would allow individual teams to mandate whether players stand during the national anthem, according to Mark Maske of the Washington Post. No decision has been made, Maske writes. The current league policy requires players to be on the sideline during the rendition of the anthem, though players aren’t required to stand. The anthem policy was reportedly discussed at the annual league meeting in March, but no policy change came as a result.

He completely shot down notion the Patriots may have had contact with the Giants to move up the board to the No. 2 spot which they held, in an attempt to land Baker Mayfield.

Mara was asked by host Chris Russo about the one offer the Giants got that made GM Dave Gettleman think about trading down.

Given Jack Mills, who represents Mayfield, planted the seed it could have been the Patriots, saying on another podcast the team expressed interest in moving up to draft the Heisman Trophy winner, who was ultimately taken first overall by the Cleveland Browns.

According to the lawsuit, Richardson’s work performance was criticized by Quinn as far back as January 2016, shortly after Quinn’s hiring, even though he was unfamiliar with Richardson’s work.

The lawsuit cites three violations of the State of Michigan’s Ellitott-Larsen Civil Rights Act — for race discrimination, age discrimination and retaliation. Mannarino, of Farmington Hills-based Gasiorek Morgan Greco McCauley & Kotzian, also claims Richardson’s firing was retaliation for a workers’ compensation claim. He hurt his shoulder carrying equipment earlier in December.sharks-021

Report: Jets believe Sam Darnold could start Week 1

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Reduced to simplest terms, the Jets quarterback competition this summer will be Sam Darnold vs. Sam Darnold.

Forget about Josh McCown vs. Teddy Bridgewater vs. the rookie. Gang Green will give the No. 3 overall pick of the 2018 draft every opportunity to be the Week One starter without unnecessarily rushing his development.

One year after the Jets practically begged Christian Hackenberg to win the starting job, they might get their wish with a different young quarterback.

White’s size, athleticism and run-after-catch ability enticed the Bears to use the No. 7 overall pick on the West Virginia product. Injuries wiped out his entire rookie season, and he’s been on the sideline for all but a handful of games. The 25-year-old compiled 21 receptions for 193 yards and zero touchdowns in his three-year career.

The Bears upgraded their receiving corps this season, adding Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel and second-round selection Anthony Miller. White will have to fight to earn playing time under Matt Nagy’s new staff.

Some of the best players in NFL history fell through the cracks of the draft and didn’t get a shot in the NFL until they were signed as an undrafted free agent. Players who weren’t originally drafted include Hall of Fame quarterbacks like Kurt Warner and Warren Moon. Recently retired players like Tony Romo and former Steelers linebacker James Harrison were also originally signed as undrafted free agents.

Active players who went undrafted include Eagles defensive end Michael Bennett and Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri. Basically, for teams looking in the right place, there could be a diamond in the rough out there, and if you’re really lucky, your team could make a Warner-like discovery and find a Hall of Fame quarterback. Several teams have already signed an undrafted quarterback, including the Panthers, Vikings, Bengals and Buccaneers.

With that in mind, let’s get to the full list of undrafted free-agent signings. The list will be updated periodically until each team officially announces their undrafted free-agent class, which should happen by the end of the week.

The first sign there was trouble in the Super Bowl factory came in January. That’s when a bombshell report by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham hit.tigers_135-115x115