NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?! - The Offseason

[Grandpa Troll]

There's some talk of Holt coming here.

.............

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says drafting a wide receiver isn't a priority this year, even after the departure of Terrell Owens.

"One of the reasons that I made the decision on Terrell Owens was because I thought so much of our young receivers. Not only Roy Williams ... but our other young receivers -- Miles Austin, Sam Hurd, those are guys that will now have a chance," Jones said Thursday night. "It would really have to be a real opportunity for us to go there.

"The good news with our team right now is we can go about any direction we want to in the draft and pick the best player."

Owens was released last week and later signed with the Buffalo Bills.

Jones, a former Arkansas Razorbacks player, was in Little Rock to be honored by Easter Seals as its 2009 Arkansan of the Year. He was accompanied by three Cowboys: quarterback Tony Romo, tight end Jason Witten and running back Felix Jones.

There were reports of a rift last season between Romo, Witten and Owens. Reporters were not permitted to talk to Romo or Witten on Thursday night.

Jerry Jones did speak briefly to reporters about next season.

"We've got a great core base put together. We've made some changes in the offseason. We think that's going to really be very helpful -- both sides of the ball and on special teams," he said. "We've got a chance to get as many as nine players in the draft, and we'll need about 80 percent of those to be players."

I think Holt could help contribute Slowwhand

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Choosing the sales pitch from Bill Belichick over that of Mike Tomlin, free agent wide receiver Joey Galloway has agreed to a one-year contract with the New England Patriots.

Hmm...same as with Fred Taylor, I wonder how much he's got left?

On the other hand, I'd say this offense is better on paper than NE's 2007 lineup:

Moss | Welker | Galloway | Greg Lewis
Chris Baker | Watson | Thomas
Taylor | Maroney | Morris | Faulk

Defense looks better at the corners with Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden signing, plus last year's rookies looked decent before they got hurt. Still need to refill at OLB and S, and some fresh blood on the O-Line might be nice, but I guess they need to do something with all their draft picks.

[Grandpa Troll]

Hmm...same as with Fred Taylor, I wonder how much he's got left?

On the other hand, I'd say this offense is better on paper than NE's 2007 lineup:

Moss | Welker | Galloway | Greg Lewis
Chris Baker | Watson | Thomas
Taylor | Maroney | Morris | Faulk

Defense looks better at the corners with Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden signing, plus last year's rookies looked decent before they got hurt. Still need to refill at OLB and S, and some fresh blood on the O-Line might be nice, but I guess they need to do something with all their draft picks.

I agree Koy

Does look encouraging

[SlowwHand]

Browns WR Stallworth kills man with car (AP) - 16 hours ago

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth hit and killed a pedestrian with his Bentley on Saturday morning on a busy causeway linking Miami and Miami Beach, police said.

[Tuberski]

Stallworth’s accident victim was ‘family man’

By ANTONIO GONZALEZ, Associated Press Writer 6 hours, 25 minutes ago

• Buzz up! 1652 votes
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In this Nov. 6, 2008 file phot…
AP - Mar 14, 2:40 pm EDT

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MIAMI (AP)—Mario Reyes was a family man, a loving husband and father. He came to South Florida from Cuba as a teenager and became an overnight crane operator in Miami.
Still, his family said he couldn’t afford a car and was forced to take the bus to work. Saturday, police said he was killed when a Bentley driven by Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth collided with him on a causeway linking Miami and Miami Beach.
Reyes was headed to the bus stop.
“He spent all his free time with his family,” Reyes’ brother-in-law, Francisco Fajardo, told The Associated Press on Sunday. “He was on his way home.”
Reyes had worked all night at his job with the shipping company Bernuth Agencies, located just feet from the crash. The phone rang unanswered at the company on Sunday.
His family and co-workers said he had clocked out only minutes before the accident around 7 a.m.
“When the time came for him to leave, he grabbed his stuff and headed to the bus stop out front,” co-worker Renier Calana told The Miami Herald. She worked with Reyes unloading cargo containers from the Port of Miami.

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“We could hear the impact,” she said. “We all ran out, and he was lying there unconscious in the middle.”
Reyes, 59, was near a crosswalk but it’s unclear if he was crossing legally. Police said Stallworth has not been charged and was cooperating with the investigation. Officers drew blood to test for drugs or alcohol, which is routine. Results from the test could take anywhere from three days to three weeks, authorities said.
While police were investigating the crash, Reyes was taken to a trauma center.
His family was notified after he arrived, told only that “there had been an accident.” Rushing to the hospital, they could only hope and pray for the best.
“When we got there, it was too late,” Fajardo said. “He was gone.”
As his family tells it, Reyes was like so many other Cuban-Americans in Miami.
He was born in Cuba and left the island as a teenager for a better life in the U.S. He couldn’t afford to go to college, and instead paid the bills by working numerous construction jobs.
Reyes was an avid baseball fan, particularly fond of the local Florida Marlins and his native country Cuba, which is competing in the World Baseball Classic tournament now. He often spoke of growing up in Cuba, and loved to tell stories of the “old days.”
Reyes leaves behind his wife of almost 20 years, Catalina, and the couple’s 15-year-old daughter, Daniela. They live in a southwest Miami home owned by Fajardo, which they share with his family.
Reyes’ wife and daughter were too distraught to speak Sunday.
“Our family is in shock,” Fajardo said. “They don’t really want to talk.”
Police would not say where Stallworth, 28, was coming from or where he was headed. A message seeking comment was left on the voicemail of his agent, Drew Rosenhaus. The Browns said in a statement they were aware of what happened but would not comment until the investigation is complete.
Stallworth signed a seven-year, $35 million contract with the Browns as a free agent before last season but hardly played because he was hurt. He was scheduled to receive a $4.75 million signing bonus Friday.
Stallworth, who previously played for New England, Philadelphia and New Orleans, finished last season with just 17 catches for 170 yards. He was slowed all season by a nagging hamstring injury and made just seven starts for the Browns.
Stallworth had his best season with the Saints in 2005, when he made a career-high 70 receptions for 945 yards and seven touchdowns. He was drafted in the first round (No. 13 overall) by the Saints in 2002. Stallworth played college football at Tennessee.

[SlowwHand]

Prayers are with the family, and Stallworth. If he's any kind of decent, he must be feeling very bad.

[SlowwHand]

Prayers are with the family, and Stallworth. If he's any kind of decent, he must be feeling very bad.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

*giggle*

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d80f48fa8&template=without-video-with-comments&confirm=true

The trade that sent Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs appears to be only the first phase of some major wheeling and dealing by the New England Patriots this offseason.

The second phase, NFL sources say, is likely to involve a trade that would send Carolina Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers to the Patriots in exchange for the second-round pick (34th overall) they received from the Chiefs on Feb. 28.

According to league sources, the Patriots and Panthers are hoping to complete the deal at some point between the March 22-25 NFL owners meetings and the start of the draft on April 25.

[...........]

Also, according to NFL sources, there is a third phase to the Patriots' offseason strategy. They would like to further beef up their linebacking corps by adding an inside linebacker in the draft. They are known to believe that USC's Rey Maualuga would be a great fit for their scheme, especially when paired with Jerod Mayo, their 2008 first-round pick who was the NFL's top defensive rookie.

So....

Warren - Wilfork - Seymour
Peppers - Maualuga - Mayo - Thomas

That said...no way it can happen. They need to stop taunting me. The Pats can't afford him.

[SlowwHand]

He's screwed.

Donte Stallworth Reportedly Had a .14 BAC
Friday, March 20, 2009
Posted By Spencer Hall 11:00 AM
The Miami Herald and its broadcast partner WFOR are reporting that Donte Stallworth was legally drunk at the time of the accident that ended the life of Miguel Reyes, though the Miami police aren't confirming any details in the ongoing investigation. (WSVN has similar news though they quote their sources more vaguely, saying he was "one to two times" over the legal limit at the time of the accident.)

The toxicology results will formally come out today, but advance reports confirm the obvious: Stallworth is in massive legal trouble here. According to WSVN, the likely charge for him will be DUI Manslaughter, a class 2 felony in the state of Florida that carries with it a 15-year maximum jail term. If prosecutors opt for this, no matter what happens, a conviction would mean some time for Stallworth. At 29 years old, jail time would likely end his NFL playing career.

Stallworth is reportedly brokenhearted over the incident, Reyes' family is still in mourning, and this is just 8,000 kinds of miserable sadness that could have been prevented with one easy step: calling a cab. Debate a lot in this case if you want, but don't debate one thing: none of this would have happened as it did if Stallworth had called a cab. Even at exorbitant Miami Beach cabbie prices, 70 bucks to get over the bridge and back to your hotel would have been a lot cheaper in every way than what happened here.

[Ben Kenobi]

Belichick also makes another good trade

2nd round pick (34) from the KC Chiefs for Vrabel and Cassell.

Don't forget that Belichick picked up Cassell for a 7th round pick, and got Vrabel for nothing, when he was cut from the Steelers.

Buy low, sell high.

[Supr49er]

I'm amazed that pro athletes don't hire drivers and limos.

[OzzyKP]

Nope, just HHS Director nominees.

[Theben]

$70 is a helluva lot less than $30 million.

[SlowwHand]

It's a lot cheaper than a future asking "Would you like fries with that?", assuming that his financial planning was as derelict as his driving responsibliy.

[Grandpa Troll]

NFL owners passed four player safety rules for next season on Tuesday and adjusted the calls on the kind of tackle that injured Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the 2008 opener.

Defenders who are knocked to the ground no longer can lunge into quarterbacks if the play is still going on. Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard did just that on the hit that ended Brady's season almost before it began, and NFL officiating director Mike Pereira placed such plays in the player safety category.

"We're trying to make the game safer for the guy getting hit and the guy doing the hitting," said Pereira, who plans to retire this year.

That adjustment was not a rule change and did not require an owners vote. But four other rules were adopted by the 32 teams:

--The initial force of a blindside block can't be delivered by a helmet, forearm or shoulder to an opponent's head or neck. An illegal blindside block will bring a 15-yard penalty.

--Initial contact to the head of a defenseless receiver also will draw a 15-yard penalty.

"Our clear movement is to getting out of the striking in the head area," Pereira said. "We're reading about injuries that say spinal and vertebrae. We've got to try something."

--On kickoffs, no blocking wdge of more than two players will be allowed.

--Also on kickoffs, the kicking team can't have more than five players bunched together pursuing an onside kick.

Pereira, commissioner Roger Goodell and the two heads of the competition committee -- Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay and Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher -- repeatedlyave emphasized that the players themselves sought many of these alterations.

"There were no changes in the injury numbers, but when it comes to player safety, we try to stay proactive," McKay said.

Players also tend to police themselves once the league starts fining or suspending them for illegal hits. Last season, there were two suspensions (Jets safety Eric Smith for hitting Arizona receiver Anquan Boldin, and Tampa Bay cornerback Elbert Mack for a tackle of Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan) and a $25,000 fine (Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson for a hit on Buffalo quarterback Trent Edwards) in the first five weeks of the schedule.

After that? None.

Pereira was dismayed by the lack of progress in curbing horse-collar tackles. There were 24 called in 2008, up from 12, but there also were 47 league fines handed out for them.

"That's just too high a number," he said. "We have not been effective in terms of stopping the tactic."

Such tackles will be a point of emphasis with officiating crews in 2009.

So will holding penalties, on which the variance of calls from crew to crew has been huge. Pereira's office is compiling a tape that will be shown to officials, coaching staffs and players.

"It's one area we need to find consistency from crew to crew," he said.

Asked about the ratings for each crew last year, Pereira said they averaged 98.1 percent accuracy, down slightly from 98.3 in 2007. Naturally, he wants that number as close to 100 percent as possible.

"We had some train wrecks and train wrecks hurt you," he said, referring to Ed Hoculi's blown call on Jay Cutler's fumble in a Week 2 game between Denver and San Diego, and to the Week 11 win by Pittsburgh over San Diego 11-10 in which a late Steelers touchdown wrongly was negated. "They hurt perception. It was hard getting through Week 2. That's what we have to avoid this year."

The owners could make that easier by passing a rule allowing video replay to be used to determine whether a play similar to Cutler's is an incomplete pass or a fumble. That vote is expected Wednesday