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Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 10, 2011, 4:45 PM EDT
AP
By all accounts, No. 1 overall pick Cam Newton has kept his priorities in order since getting drafted. He’s been living in Bradenton, Florida at the IMG Academies working on his game and not doing much else.
The director of the facility also notes Newton is doing it mostly by himself.
“We’ve been with him for four months. The only people that have been around him are his family. They mean a lot to him,” Trevor Moawad told the Charlotte Observer.
Newton has been living there with his father and two brothers. There hasn’t been any entourage to speak of. To hear Newton tell it, there isn’t really any way to get off course in a sleepy community.
“You’re down here and it’s like 485 acres of just straight work, basically,” Newton said. “You’ve got three football fields you can pick from. You’ve got every opportunity to be successful. . . . You don’t have any media out here to critique everything you do: ‘Look, Cam’s going to get lunch. Look, he ate a Honey Bun today.”
We have our doubts that any rookie quarterback in this class can be truly successful this year, but Newton easily has the best chance.
He has the most talent and a game that’s hard to prepare for. He’s also seems to be taking the right approach this offseason.
Tweet Posted by Michael David Smith on July 12, 2011, 8:35 AM EDT
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Can Cam Newton start for the Carolina Panthers from Week One? He thinks he can — and he says that if he gets that chance, he’s not going to blow it.
“If the opportunity presents itself, whatever that opportunity is, I’m willing to take it,” Newton told the Charlotte Observer. “Simple and plain. And the last thing that I want or need is if that opportunity presents itself and I’m not ready and I’m not prepared for the opportunity. Because you only get one chance at greatness. If you pass on that, it very well could be no other time. Some people get two times, three times, even four. But you can’t be ticked off if that opportunity presents itself and you look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I failed.’ Or ‘I wasn’t ready.’”
Newton says that if he’s not ready to go from Week One, he’s not going to blame the lockout.
“I had every single opportunity to be successful, working at it,” Newton said. “I got the playbook. And everybody’s in my situation. I would be somewhat disgruntled if every team in the NFL had minicamp and training camps and just the Carolina Panthers didn’t. But everybody is suffering from this.”
In other words, Newton is putting it out there right now: If he’s a bust, there’s no one to blame but Newton himself.
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 12, 2011, 8:30 AM EDT
AP
While the rest of the football world waits for the NFL and NFLPA* to get their act together, the Browns are playing football.
And since there isn’t a lot else going on in the football world this Tuesday, we thought we’d bring you some notes from the fourth “Camp Colt [McCoy], courtesy of Mary Kay-Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, who is on the scene in Austin, Texas.
1. About 30 players showed up for the sessions. They are staying at a resort in Austin, while McCoy brings them around to his favorite barbecue places. The first day compromised of a lot of classroom/tape work, then two hours of practice in 103 degree weather.
2. Rookies Phil Taylor and Owen Marecic met their teammates for the first time. Taylor worked out separately like most of the defense during the offseason, but this was a full-squad session. Marecic was still in classes at Stanford.
3. Cornerback Sheldon Brown is coming off rotator cuff surgery and is limited in practice. He says he’ll be ready when he needs to be.
4. This very well may be our last players-only practice report in a while. Perhaps a decade. Let’s hope so.
Tweet Posted by Michael David Smith on July 12, 2011, 6:54 AM EDT
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The death of Pro Football Hall of Famer John Mackey, whose post-NFL life was a mess of health problems, has fellow Hall of Famer Gale Sayers feeling angry that the league and its players didn’t do more for Mackey.
Sayers told the Chicago Tribune that the NFL could have done more to help Mackey, who suffered from dementia and spent his final years in an assisted-living facility.
“You know, John Mackey died at 60-something [69],” Sayers said. “[The NFL] could have helped him more, I felt. But they didn’t, and the players could have helped more, and it didn’t happen.”
Although Sayers says he personally is doing fine and doesn’t need any assistance, he seems to be angry that the people making money in today’s NFL don’t show more appreciation for the people who built the league.
“There is no question that the game wouldn’t be a game if it wouldn’t have been for those people who played in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s. The players today are on our shoulders. They think they made the game the way it is today. And they didn’t,” Sayers said. “The [pioneers of the game] played for $5,000 a year, or $10,000 or $15,000. They played for that much money so that these players got $10 million or $20 million a year. Today’s players think they did it by themselves. It’s unbelievable how they could think and feel that way.”
Tweet Posted by Mike Florio on July 11, 2011, 9:50 PM EDT
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As the NFL and the players attempt to iron out whatever wrinkles remain in the labor negotiations, the lawyers are expected to spend Tuesday dwelling on the details before the principals return to the room.
Both Albert Breer of NFL Network and Sal “45 Down” Paolantonio of ESPN reports that the owners and players, along with Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA* executive director DeMaurice Smith, will be back on Wednesday.
Per Breer, the lawyers for the two sides met for roughly five hours on Monday, after caucusing privately. They’ll get together again tomorrow.
Paolantonio says that mediator Arthur Boylan will monitor progress via e-mail, and that he’s available for “a short phone call or two” if necessary.
Though we respect Boylan’s ability to take his vacation, speaking from the perspective of a guy who’s currently on vacation, there’s plenty of time in the day to take a short phone call or two.
Tweet Posted by Michael David Smith on July 11, 2011, 8:20 PM EDT
AP
Last month we noted that the mother of one of Terrell Owens‘ children was suing him for failing to pay child support. Now the woman’s lawyer says the situation has been handled.
Melanie Paige Smith, who has a child with Owens, filed court papers on June 20 in Atlanta, saying Owens refused to pay the full $5,000 a month he owes. But the Associated Press reports that her lawyer, Randall Kessler, has now filed court papers to dismiss the request that Owens be held in contempt, saying that Owens has made the payments.
There have been conflicting accounts of how many children Owens has. An episode of The T.O. Show featured two of his daughters meeting each other for the first time. Owens said in an interview last year that he has a three-year-old son whom he’s never met because of hard feelings between himself and the boy’s mother. It is not clear whether Smith is the mother of one of those children.
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 11, 2011, 7:34 PM EDT
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One thing that’s easy to forget when considering Adam “Pacman” Jones’ recent troubles: The guy was no lock to make the Bengals roster anyway.
Jones is a nickel back coming off neck surgery. Check that: two neck surgeries. Evan Silva noticed this section from a Bengals.com article:
“Adam Jones indicated in a Channel 9 interview Sunday following his disputed arrest in a Cincinnati bar that he “just had” surgery on the neck he injured last season,” Geoff Hobson writes.
Jones also had neck surgery last October. So unless he was referring to that one (while wearing a neck brace), it appears Jones has undergone two surgeries of late.
We’ve counted Pacman out too early before, but this combination of events could wind up marking his eighth and ninth life as an NFL player.
Tweet Posted by Mike Florio on July 11, 2011, 6:49 PM EDT
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It’s now widely accepted that the last remaining major issue to be resolved between the league and the NFLPA* relates to the rookie wage scale, a formula for paying players taken at the top of the draft far less than they’ve been otherwise making.
The two sides really aren’t all that far apart. Based on a summary of the situation that the NFLPA* recently provided to player reps, a copy of which we have obtained, three main points need to be ironed out.
First, the owners want first-round picks to be subject to a maximum of four-year contracts plus a team option for the fifth year. For the first eight players in round one, the fifth-year pay would be 150 percent of the average salary of a starter at the player’s position, with a minimum of $6 million and a maximum of $12 million. For the next eight players in round one, fifth-year salary would be 125 percent of the average starter, with a minimum of $5 million and a maximum of $10 million. For the second half of round one, pay in the fifth year would be the average salary at the player’s position, with no minimum.
The players have proposed instead as to the first 16 rookies picked a fifth-year option salary based on the average pay for the 10 highest-paid players at the position, which essentially is the same formula used for the transition tag. For the second half of round one, the players have proposed an option-year salary based on the average pay for the 20 highest-paid players at the position.
Next, the owners have proposed an overall dollar limit on rookie contracts of $840 million. This would result in no additional money for players taken in rounds two through seven above minimum salaries (and, presumably, a slotted signing bonus). The players, in contrast, have proposed a total dollar limit of $884 million, which would provide players taken in rounds two through seven a chance to negotiate salaries higher than the minimum salaries.
While the owners want to spend $44 million less per year on rookies, that’s $44 million that would go to veterans and retired players.
Finally, the league wants to impose penalties on rookies who hold out at some point during the term of their rookie contracts. The players oppose this proposal.
The players’ financial proposal would result in savings of $157 million per year, and $1.099 billion over the expected 10-year term of the new CBA.
We’re told that, on Friday, the talks bogged down over the issue of how to pay the first eight picks. Call us crazy, but it seems like the two sides are pretty close to a deal on that point.
It also seems like the league should accept the players’ offer. Why shouldn’t a player taken in the top half of the draft who has played well enough in his first four years get top-1o money at his position if the team wants to keep him for a fifth year?
Again, the owners seem to be banking on the rest of the players eventually selling out the top eight draft picks. And maybe in the end they will, especially since they’re really not fighting over all that much money.
Either way, if this is the only issue left, the two sides aren’t at the five yard line. The ball is practically kissing the plane of the end zone, and both sides simply need to find a way to avoid pulling a DeSean Jackson.
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 11, 2011, 5:20 PM EDT
On Saturday, the lawyer for receiver Hines Ward said his client was not impaired when arrested for a DUI over the weekend. The police report from the incident tells a different story.
Cops who pulled Ward over said he had bloodshot, glassy eyes, according to the Associated Press. He failed a series of field sobriety tests, and was pulled over after Ward’s car hit a curb in Georgia.
We’re a little confused why Ward would so vehemently deny the charges when he knew he failed tests and the police report would inevitably come out.
Not owning up to the charges will only bring about more negative attention.
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 11, 2011, 4:58 PM EDT
Not everyone is feeling optimistic about a labor deal being approved by July 21.
One nameless NFL player that spoke to Pete Prisco of CBSSports.com believes the owners are using the media to pressure players into a deal.
“All that is hype coming from the owners side to try and put pressure on us to do a deal. They want to make us look bad. It’s simply not true. There is a lot of work to be done. They are not close,” the player said. “Consider where that information is coming from, it’s the owners. Their reason is to try and create all this false hope to put more pressure on us.”
While we’d love to know if the player has direct knowledge of daily labor developments, his point is fair to consider. It wasn’t long ago we heard the end of June as a realistic target. Then July 4, then July 15, and now July 21.
The player says he’d be “shocked” if we had a deal in 10 days.
“Do it one-on-one like their predecessors used to do. When Gene Upshaw and Paul Tagliabue went into a room, they got it done. That’s what needs to happen now,” the player said. “The players in there are smart, but they don’t know how to close a deal. As for Goodell, he needs to drop his nuts. He needs to have the power to do a deal. It needs to be two guys in a room.”
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 11, 2011, 4:08 PM EDT
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After one particularly big win during the Patriots’ run early last decade, Bill Belichick warned his players about the media love they were about to receive.
“They’re going to come in here and blow smoke up your ass,” Belichick said according to Michael Holley’s excellent document on the era Patriot Reign. “They’re going to give you b–w jobs, tell you how great you are, they’re going to pile it on thick.”
Belichick finished his talk, looked at his players, and noticed Mike Vrabel’s hand was in the air.
“Yeah, Mike,” Belichick said.
“What was that you were saying about b–w jobs?”
The team died laughing. By all accounts, that moment is Vrabel in a nutshell. He was quick enough to make the joke, and knew he was respected enough by Belichick to pull it off. Vrabel had great instincts on the field and in the classroom; he knew Belichick got a kick out of him.
(As Tom Curran points out in a great piece on CSNNE.com, Vrabel was a world class smart ass.)
There were better Patriots during the team’s three-championship run, but perhaps no player other than Tom Brady embodied the era better. Vrabel was versatile, which Belichick prizes. The new Ohio State linebackers coach lined up at outside linebacker, inside linebacker, and famously at tight end. He could stop the run as well as he could cover.
He was known for his athleticism and leadership. He played with an edge, yet was perhaps defined by his intelligence. Holley wrote how coaches were continually surprised at the amazing recall Vrabel had of formations and tendencies of opponents.
“During his Patriots career, there was no player more respected for his football intellect and revered for his leadership by his teammates than Mike,” Belichick said in a statement Monday. “He was elected a team captain by his peers and is a player who I think everyone knew was destined to become a coach after his NFL playing career was over.
“Mike Vrabel is as well-suited for coaching as any player I have ever coached. He has a tremendous feel for people, players, coaches and what his team needs regardless of the situation. He is outstanding in his knowledge of the game, which contributed to his excellence as a player. I have no doubt Mike will develop tough, intelligent, fundamentally sound winners.”
Drafted by the Steelers, but barely used until he got to New England, Vrabel will ultimately be remembered as one of the catalysts to New England’s title run.
“He is a champion in every sense of the word and I’m confident all of these qualities will make him a great coach,” Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli said Monday. “I cannot overstate my respect for him as a person and a football player. If there were a Hall of Champions, Mike Vrabel would be a first ballot selection. ”
Vrabel won’t make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but that’s not the point. Those Patriot teams weren’t about the stars. Heck, Brady is the only surefire Hall of Fame player from the run. (Richard Seymour, Adam Vinatieri, Ty Law, and Rodney Harrison will have arguments.)
Vrabel stuck out, even on a team greater than the sum of its parts. On this day, he deserves a little smoke blown up his ass.
Tweet Posted by Mike Florio on July 11, 2011, 4:05 PM EDT
AP
When word broke of Pacman Jones‘ latest arrest, we pointed out that, if he remains on probation for any of his past guilty pleas, he could be facing a separate problem.
Unfortunately for Pacman, he has not yet completed probation in Las Vegas due to charges arising from the NBA All-Star weekend rainmaking, which led to some gunshooting.
Per the Associated Press, Clark County District Attorney David Roger will review whether Pacman violated the terms of his probation. Roger said that a decision to pursue, or not pursue, the matter may not come for “weeks.”
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jones had served only five months of a one-year probation term.
Typically, an effort to prove the violation of a probation order entails a much lower legal standard than “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” And that would make it easier for Roger to put Pacman what New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls “the slammer.”
That’s why it was even more important for Pacman to constantly avoid any situation that could potentially lead to a claim that he jeopardized the probation order that kept him out of jail. Early Sunday, he failed. It remains to be seen whether that means, after more than 10 legal problems since joining the NFL, he’ll finally do time.
Tweet Posted by Mike Florio on July 11, 2011, 3:36 PM EDT
Whenever folks leave their jobs on terms characterized publicly as voluntary, it’s common if not routine to wonder whether it wasn’t voluntary at all. Today’s candidate for game that should be known as “The Pursuit of Other Interests” is Redskins’ COO Dave Donovan. The team has announced that Donovan is returning to the firm at which he practiced law before becoming a full-time employee of the Redskins.
Per our friends at CSNWashington.com, Donovan disclosed the decision during a Monday staff meeting.
“We want to thank Dave for his years of service with the Redskins,” owner Daniel Snyder said in a statement issued by the team. “Even though he is returning to the law firm where he worked prior to joining the team, he will continue to consult with the Redskins as he did prior to joining the organization. We look forward to continuing our relationship and wish him the best of luck in his new position.”
Said Donovan: “I have had a great six years with the Redskins. It has been an experience I will always appreciate and never forget. For personal reasons, I am returning to partnership in the law firm that I left in 2005. I am thrilled that I will have the ability to continue my relationship with the Redskins. I would like to thank Dan Snyder and all coaches and staff who I have worked with over my time with the team.”
Generally speaking, working in-house for a client is regarded within the legal community as less stressful and demanding than working at a private law firm, where the competing interests of multiple clients, the pressure to generate revenue via billable hours with no reward for efficiency, and often vicious office politics make life a lot harder. And so at first blush it will be reasonable to infer that, for whatever reason, the relationship between Donovan and the Redskins simply wasn’t working.
It’s also impossible not to wonder whether the move represents a shift by Snyder away from the aggressive pursuit of the team’s legal rights. On Donovan’s watch, the team decided to sue season-ticket holders — and Snyder launched a highly unpopular lawsuit against the City Paper. On that point, only time will tell.
Either way, the fact that so many people have been pushed out of their employment with fairly vanilla explanations being offered means there’s always a chance that there’s something intriguing lurking behind every fairly vanilla explanation that ever is offered when someone leaves a job.
Tweet Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 11, 2011, 2:45 PM EDT
AP
Former Cardinals scout Dave Razzano made waves this weekend when he criticized his former employee in how they handled Kurt Warner’s retirement.
“Warner’s people told me he wanted to continue playing but decided to retire after being low-balled,” Razzano wrote.
Warner was due $11.5 million coming off a season where he led the Cardinals to a playoff victory before losing to the Saints. The idea that the Cardinals didn’t do enough to entice Warner to return is hardly new. Still, Warner took offense to the suggestion.
“2set record straight: I did NOT retire due 2 anything $$$ related!” Warner wrote. “I retired because I sacrificed enough for the game & didn’t want to do it anymore!” (We’ve edited some words for clarity.)
There is room here for both statements to be true. If Warner was primarily concerned about money, he would have played and/or pushed the issue. He had many avenues to do so. Instead, he retired in January.
With that said, the Cardinals may have had an opportunity to make Warner’s decision tougher if they had acted more aggressively before his final decision arrived.
(Hat hip to ESPN.com’s Mike Sando.)
Tweet Posted by Mike Florio on July 11, 2011, 1:41 PM EDT
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By all accounts and appearances, the rookie wage scale remains the biggest issue that currently is preventing the NFL and the players from striking a deal. The stalemate arises in part from the league’s insistence that teams should be permitted to sign first-round picks for up to five years, and from a proposed schedule at the top of the draft that would pay Panthers quarterback Cam Newton only $34 million over five years. (We’ve actually heard the base deal will be as low as $25 million over five years.)
The league has dug in, in large part because the league surely believes that the players eventually will cave. And it’s easy to argue that they should. The ability to sign first-round picks for up to five years doesn’t mean that they all will sign five-year deals. The same dynamic that has resulted in teams holding the first few picks grossly overpaying in the hopes of getting the players into camp will get those teams to agree to four-year contracts, if that’s what it takes to get the top picks signed.
But to the extent that a compromise is needed, here’s an idea that’s currently making the rounds. For first-round picks, the contracts would have a three-year base term. After the third season, the teams could then pick up an option for one more year, at a predetermined level of compensation based on performance. Alternatively, teams could pick up two more years, at a much higher rate of pay. (If the player has been a bust, the team can at that point simply walk away.) The terms of the fourth-year and fifth-year options would be subject to negotiation, with hard ceilings on the most that could be paid.
Then again, why does there need to be a hard ceiling on what a player would be paid in years four and five? If the first overall pick is on track for the Hall of Fame after three NFL seasons, why should his pay in years four and five be artificially restricted?
This gets back to a point we’ve been making for weeks. The league seems to be crafting proposals that go beyond merely solving the problem of paying windfalls to players who ultimately do nothing to earn their money. At some point before the first-round picks spend five years in the league, we’ll all know whether they deserve big money. Thus, the league should not insist on locking those first-round picks up for five full years at a level of pay that doesn’t compensate great play.
In this regard, the league is banking on the possibility that the growing sense of inevitability will eventually prompt enough of the players to say, “Screw it. It only affects a handful of players, none of whom are me.” But if the league is truly concerned about a win-win deal that is fair to everyone over the long term, the league will uncross its arms and think of creative ways to prevent Cam Newton from becoming the next JaMarcus Russell without punishing Newton if he becomes the next Peyton Manning.
Until that happens, blame the league for the current state of the talks.
Tweet Posted by Michael David Smith on July 11, 2011, 1:31 PM EDT
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Add Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson to the list of people who think Philadelphia should be the landing place for Plaxico Burress.
“Plaxico Burress just came out to California, me and him just spent some time together and catching up,” Jackson told Stephen A. Smith on ESPN Radio in New York, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “I think he would love to come play for the Eagles, come play with me and Vick. He already kind of had a connection with [Michael] Vick, with him being in prison and him kind of talking to him before. So it might be a connection, I’d love it. But regardless, I wish the best for him, and if he was to come to Philadelphia I think it would be a dangerous combination.”
Jackson said that he views Burress as being in a similar situation to the one Vick was in before the Eagles signed him, and in Jackson’s view, things couldn’t have gone any better with Vick.
“It was a dream come true,” Jackson said of playing with Vick. “I’ve always had so much respect for him. And for him going through what he’s been through and still be able to get a second opportunity and making the best out of it, first of all I’ll say for the Eagles to believe in him after all the other teams just doubted him and said he couldn’t do it, and for myself to actually watch and witness the every day hard work, the things he was doing in the community, for myself it was really like a dream come true.”
And now Jackson thinks playing with Burress could be another dream come true.
Note: Smith didn’t ask Jackson about the anti-gay slur he used in another recent radio interview. Smith’s interview with Jackson took place on Friday, after Jackson used the slur but before it was widely publicized.
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