NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?! - 08/09 Season

[ramseya]

The Rudi Johnson cut is puzzling. In 04, 05, and 06, he played every game, and quietly churned out 1454, 1458, and 1309 yards, scored 12 TDs in each of the three seasons then, because of getting injured for the first time in 4 years, he gets cut, replaced by Chris Perry who has never played a full season even as a backup and has never had more than 61 attempts.

Carson Palmer has got to be mad. There's no running threat anymore.

and Rudi went to Detriot for a physical.

[Jaguar]

Rudi's 1309 yard season was frankly pretty crappy. Many backs can get a lot of raw yardage if given the ball 341 times.

3.8 yards per carry is a fairly ugly number for someone playing with a top-tier passing offense. 2.9 yards per carry, his 2007 number, is unspeakably bad.

Kenny Watson last season clearly played better than Johnson has played for several years.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'd like to see the Falcons get Anderson.

[SlowwHand]

Anderson is a little long in the tooth.

[SlowwHand]

ALLEN PARK, Mich. - The Detroit Lions signed former Cincinnati running back Rudi Johnson to a one-year deal and released running back Tatum Bell.

[snoopy369]

Jags’ Collier shot, has life-threatening injuries

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP)—Jacksonville Jaguars offensive tackle Richard Collier was shot and critically wounded outside an apartment building early Tuesday as he and a former Jacksonville teammate waited for two women they had met at a nightclub, police said

[Zopperoni]

Apparently, Tatum Bell took off with Rudi Johnson's bags:

New Lions running back Rudi Johnson said former Lions running back Tatum Bell stole two of his bags from the locker room Monday.

Johnson said when the bags were returned Tuesday, they were empty – missing his identification, credit cards, about $200 in cash and some undergarments.

“All this happened once he got released,” Johnson said Wednesday as he came off the practice field. “He came here to get some stuff out of his locker. That’s when he scooped the bags up. Some real shyster, conniving stuff, man.”

From: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...0903043/&imw=Y

Nice Photoshop of the incident below

[-Jrabbit]

Tatum Bell has broken one of the unwritten laws of the locker room.
I guarantee he will never play another snap in the NFL.

...and yes, great photoshop job.

[snoopy369]

Unwritten? I'd consider "Thou shalt not steal" to be written. Written in stone.

[Ming]

The latest...
(This stuff is so unbelievable, you couldn't make it up )

Tatum Bell denies he ripped off Rudi Johnson


In a telephone interview with the Detroit Free Press, Tatum Bell denies he intentionally took the bags of the man who has replaced him as a Lions running back, Rudi Johnson.

"I ain't no thief," Bell told the Free Press. "I ain't never been one, and I ain't never going to be one. It was all a misunderstanding."

Added the released ball carrier: "You can ask anybody I played with for all my years or anybody that know me, man. They know I ain't never stolen nothing from nobody or had those kind of intentions."

Johnson told Detroit sports media on Wednesday the team had a surveillance tape of the Lions locker room that showed Bell taking his bags. Bell's version is that another former teammate asked Bell to get a backpack he had left at the Lions practice facility, leading Bell to mistakenly take Johnson's equipment.

"I come to found out that the bags weren't whose I thought they was," Bell told the Free Press. "It was just an honest mistake, man."

Johnson said he didn't believe Bell's version, but joked about the matter: "So he got a bunch of my underclothes. What he's going to do with that, I don't know . . . If anybody's got some Perry Ellis boxers for sale, you know where they came from."

And I was surprised to hear on Mike and Mike this morning that they actually believe him.

Unbelievable...

[SlowwHand]

He ain't no good talker, either.

[Zopperoni]

And Daunte Culpepper ain't no player anymore:

Farewell NFL

When free agency began this year, I had a new sense of excitement about continuing to rebuild my career in the same way that I had rebuilt my knee after my catastrophic injury in 2005. Unfortunately, what I found out was that the league did not share any of the optimism about me as an Unrestricted Free Agent that I expected. In fact, there was an overwhelming sense that there was no room for me among this year’s group of quarterbacks; whether in a starting, competing or a backup role. No matter what I did or said, there seemed to be a unified message from teams that I was not welcome to compete for one of the many jobs that were available at the quarterback position. It seems that the stance I took in both Minnesota and Miami regarding my rights as a person and player has followed me into Free Agency.

After taking a long look at my career and my personal convictions, I have decided to begin early retirement from the NFL effective immediately. Since the beginning of training camp I was told that my opportunity would come when a quarterback gets hurt. I cannot remember the last time so many QB’s have been injured during the preseason. I have been strongly encouraged from family, friends and league personnel to continue to be patient and wait for an inevitable injury to one of the starting quarterbacks in the league. I would rather shut the door to such “opportunity” than continue to wait for one of my fellow quarterback’s to suffer a serious injury. Since I was not given a fair chance to come in and compete for a job, I would rather move on and win in other arenas of life.

The decision I made in 2006 to represent myself rather than hire an agent has been an invaluable experience. I now understand why so many people within the NFL community are uncomfortable with a player really learning the business. The NFL has become more about power, money and control than passion, competition and the love of the game. Regardless of this shift, player’s rights are still supposed to be a part of this league. Since I will not be given the opportunity to honor the memory of Gene Upshaw by wearing a patch on my uniform this year, I will instead spend some of my energy applying what he taught me about standing up for what is right and not sitting down for what is clearly wrong.

I want to thank my family and my fans for their unwavering belief in me as a person and a player. I embraced both the peaks and the valleys of the game and my career. I am a better person today as a direct result of the experience of playing in the NFL. I can now focus on the enjoyment of watching some of the greatest athletes in the world play the game I love without the distraction of waiting for those elusive return phone calls.

Thankfully,

Daunte Culpepper

From: http://blogs.nfl.com/category/adam-schefter/

[snoopy369]

Maybe he can become an agent now

[ramseya]

God damn Culpepper is such a drama queen. He's like Terrel Owens, Randy Moss, and Chad Johnson rolled into one, with a good measure of Freddie Mitchell.

[Jaguar]

It's possible that Tatum never plays another down in the league. As I understand it, stealing from teammates is considered completely unforgivable, and far worse than scumbaggery off the field. He might find that nobody will even interview him.