Jacoby Ford and Darrius Heyward-Bey are listed as the starting receivers on the Raiders' first depth chart of training camp.
Coach Hue Jackson talked up Ford all offseason, and he's backed it up by placing the explosive second-year breakout candidate atop the depth chart. As soon as Ford recovers from a broken hand, he will start outside and likely move to the slot in three-wide sets. There's major potential here in return-yardage leagues. Louis Murphy and Chaz Schilens are backing up DHB and Ford respectively. Training camp sensation Denarius Moore could move quickly behind
Derrick Mason believes the Jets have a better chance to win a Super Bowl this year than the Ravens. If Mason proves wrong and Baltimore does win a title, Ray Lewis says hewon’t play another season.
“My son will be a junior this year. I only play this game for another ring,” Lewis told Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com. “If we can win it this year, and I’m being brutally honest with you, if we win it this year, I’m gone to then spend as much time as I can with him. I’m gone to be with my son. And I feel like now we have enough pieces in place to make a good run at the Super Bowl.”
We tend to agree. The offense has questions, but it’s average at worst. The defense should remain stellar. Perhaps most important: The Ravens and Steelers get to fatten up against the NFC West in their out of conference games. That could be the difference between making the playoffs or getting a bye for the AFC North champ.
Vegas has the Ravens at 14-1 to win a title. That makes them the eighth most likely team to win it all, which sounds about right.
That also means the odds are heavily in favor of Lewis playing longer than one season.
Although Crowder is known as one of the NFL’s biggest jokers, PFT has confirmed that Crowder’s comments were serious. Crowder’s plan is to give up playing in the NFL so he can pursue a career in the media.
It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the 27-year-old Crowder changes his mind and returns to the NFL, especially if he realizes soon that he can make a lot more money playing in the NFL than talking about the NFL.
After nearly two weeks of no overt activity regarding free-agent linebacker Ben Leber, all it took was one visit to Seattle to get one of the Seahawks’ division rivals to make a move.
Howard Balzer of the Sports Xchange reports that Leber has agreed to terms with the Rams.
Leber spent five years with the Vikings, following four in San Diego.
The NFL will have a supplemental draft on August 17. As of right now, former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor won’t be part of it.
Jason LaCafora of NFL Network reports that the NFL has sent a memo to all teams regarding the eligible players for the supplemental draft.
Per the report, Pryor isn’t on the list.
That said, LaCanfora reports that Pryor could be ruled eligible at a later date. There aren’t many later dates left; the draft is set to occur in only eight days.
If Pryor is left out, it won’t be a surprise. The NFL has been sending out vibrations over the past several weeks suggesting that it would find a way to exclude Pryor. Ostensibly, the NFL wants to avoid allowing players to become eligible for the supplemental draft by simply quitting school and hiring an agent, even though: (1) Pryor could have entered the April 2011 draft; (2) Pryor left school after his head coach resigned; and (3) Ohio State has since determined that Pryor would not have been eligible for any part of the 2011 season. It’s possible that the league simply wanted to throw a bone to the NCAA.
If he he is indeed left out of the supplemental draft, Pryor is now in a Maurice Clarett/Mike Williams limbo. Pryor can’t transfer to an FCS school and play this year because he has lost all eligibility by hiring an agent. And he can’t enter the NFL. Unless he heads to Canada or the UFL, Pryor will have to sit this one out, entering the 2012 draft pool.
The preseason launches in two days, but Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has yet to practice, after offseason neck surgery. Coach Jim Caldwell addressed the situation on Tuesday.
“Doing well, coming along,” Caldwell said of Manning, in comments distributed by the team. “He’s working extremely hard at it. Doing all the little things that it requires to get him where he wants to be. I think you guys know as well as I do he’s ready to go and will be out there because he is chomping at the bit, that’s for certain.”
So will he be back for training camp? “I’m not certain of that,” Caldwell said.
“He’s doing what the doctor is telling him to do, let’s put it that way,” Caldwell said of Manning. “He is going through his rehab, they have everything mapped out for him and they’re adjusting as it goes so I think he is comfortable with the plan they have set for him.”
Late in the lockout, Manning complained about the lack of access to Colts’ trainers. It remains to be seen whether this has delayed his progress.
Receiver Reggie Wayne thinks that, even without Peyton, the Colts offense is getting better.
“Absolutely,” Wayne said. “I feel like we’ve grown already. A lot of guys are buying into the system, especially the young guys are buying into the system and know what’s going on. We have a game coming up. We’ve got some guys who are excited about that, and even though 18 is not in there, we still have a job to do. Hopefully he can get back sooner rather than later and he can kind of be that extra piece of that puzzle, but there’s nobody with their head down, there’s nobody in the full practice out there just walking through the motions. Everybody is full speed ahead and doing their job.”
They’ll all be able to do their jobs better once “18″ comes back. But if he comes back too late, it may not matter.
The injury that Panthers receiver Steve Smith suffered earlier Tuesday does not look like a major concern.
Steve Reed of the Gaston Gazette reports Smith did not break his finger. Smith’s hand was cut, but x-rays revealed only a dislocation. Smith told reporters he’ll be out 7-10 days, which doesn’t sound like a huge concern.
The Panthers lined up Smith with Legedu Naane and David Gettis in three receiver formations on Tuesday morning. Last year’s second round Brandon LaFell appears to have fallen to the No. 4 role. Carolina figures to use tight endsGreg Olsen and Jeremy Shockey in the passing game quite a bit.
Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on August 9, 2011, 3:47 PM EDT
AP
We hesitate to pass along too many practice reports because things change so much from day-to-day in training. But we’ve heard enough similar reports in Minnesota to pass this one along.
The quarterbacks aren’t the only ones getting criticized. Kyle Rudolph, who has reportedly had a strong camp, had a very rough morning full of drops. The offensive line has struggled in general, and there are questions about how well new left tackleCharlie Johnson will hold up.
This is not an offense a rookie quarterback should be running. Christian Ponderreportedly has looked solid in camp, but has a tendency to just dump the ball off instead of going through his progressions. That’s to be expected for a rookie.
“You know he does a lot of very good things,” Vikings VP Rick Spielman said on PFT Live Tuesday. “There’s no question about the intelligence part and the quick decision-making part. But I think, just like all the rookies or all the new guys, when you start installing your offense and then all of a sudden when you get halfway through training camp, they’re putting in so much that it’ll get a little overwhelming at times.”
With a new offensive coordinator and scheme to install, it could be overwhelming for a lot of Vikings.
This time of year, plenty of players are carted off the practice field. Sometimes, it’s because of a serious injury. Other times, it’s just a precaution.
Folks in Carolina are currently wondering into which category receiver Steve Smith falls.
Joseph Person of the Charlotte Observerreports that Smith has been carted off with an unknown injury. He walked to the sidelines under his own power before leaving the practice area.
Lions backup OT Jason Fox will not need surgery on his injured foot.
Fox remains in a cast, but there is no fracture. It's considered a short-term injury. Meanwhile, starter Gosder Cherilus (knee) returned to a full practice. These are positive steps toward keeping Matthew Stafford upright this season.
Unlike receiver Randy Moss, receiver Terrell Owens has not retired. But T.O. has been forgotten in the two-week free-agent free-for-all.
Owens, who tore an ACL in the offseason (possibly while filming his latest reality show), continues to rehab. We’re told that he’s a couple of weeks away from returning to 100 percent. If that happens, his recovery would be nothing short of remarkable, in light of his age (37) and the normal rehab requirements for an injury of this nature.
Of course, any interested teams would have the final say on whether Owens truly has reached 100 percent. And then there’s the question of whether anyone will truly be interested, given his reputation for ripping apart a locker room.
But if — and that could be a big if — he can run like he used to, a team that needs a deep threat who won’t cost a lot of money could give him a look-see. With the Cardinals hoping to stretch the field and with Moss unlikely to be lured to Arizona, the man who has played for the 49ers, Eagles, Cowboys, Bills, and Bengals could be the answer.
Or maybe Ochocinco will lobby for a Batman-and-Robin sequel in Foxboro. (That could be the quickest way for Chad to be a former Patriot.)
Either way, Owens could be signed by Week One. If, and only if, there’s an interested team that concludes his knee has sufficiently healed.
Both Bell and Harrison are 28-year-olds entering their sixth NFL seasons, and the two of them were actually traded for each other last year, with Harrison going from Cleveland to Philadelphia in exchange for Bell.
Bell’s best NFL season was his rookie year with the Broncos in 2006. He joined the team as an undrafted free agent and surprisingly was proclaimed the best running back in training camp by coach Mike Shanahan, and he ended his rookie year with 157 carries for 677 yards and eight touchdowns. Since then, however, he’s bounced around the league and only been productive at one stop, in New Orleans in 2009.
Harrison had a great college career at Washington State and was selected by the Browns in the fifth round of the 2006 NFL draft. He was mostly a role player in Cleveland, but he briefly emerged as a workhorse at the end of the 2009 season, with an incredible 106 carries for 561 yards and five touchdowns in the Browns’ last three games.
In 2010 Harrison lost his starting job to Peyton Hillis and was an afterthought in Cleveland, but after the Browns traded him to the Eagles he had a couple of solid games, carrying 11 times for 109 yards against the Redskins and 21 times for 99 yards against the Cowboys.
Jahvid Best is the Lions’ No. 1 running back, but there’s a good chance that both Bell and Harrison will make the Lions’ roster as backups.
Jerry Rice is widely regarded as the best wide receiver ever to play the game, but he says he wasn’t the most talented. Randy Moss, Rice says, was more talented.
And Rice doesn’t mean that as a compliment.
On ESPN Radio this morning, Rice said he always had a hard time watching Moss because Rice hated to see a player so naturally gifted not making the most of those gifts.
“It was hard for me to swallow because I was not as talented and I had to work harder,” Rice said. “To see a guy with that much talent not give it 100 percent, it was almost like a little slap in the face. But Randy was Randy.”
Rice said he wonders what kind of player Moss would have been with a better work ethic.
“He could have been one of the greatest if he had worked just a little bit harder,” Rice said. “I don’t think he wanted to give it 100 percent. You never knew what you were going to get with Randy. Sometimes you’d get the unbelievable guy, the amazing guy. Other times you’d get the guy that took a couple plays off.”
In Rice’s view, the unbelievable, amazing guy didn’t show up to work often enough.
At first listen, defensive end Richard Dent’s Hall of Fame induction speech didn’t include any mention whatsoever of 1985 Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan or head coach Mike Ditka.
As it turns out, I heard (or, more accurately, didn’t hear) correctly. Dent indeed snubbedRyan and Ditka.
John Mullin of CSNChicago.com confirms the apparently intentional oversight, explaining that Ryan “was hard on” Dent and that Ditka and Dent “had a frequently contentious relationship.” Despite being a Hall of Famer himself, Ditka didn’t show up for this past weekend’s ceremonies. Mullin writes that Ditka also frequently referred to Dent as “Robert,” apparently in a successful effort to get under Dent’s skin. (At least Ditka used a different name of the male gender, unlike what a guy like Bill Parcells may have done.)
As Dent once told Mullin: “Ditka was the reason we won a Super Bowl, and the reason we didn’t win three.”
Still, if Ditka was the reason the Bears won a Super Bowl, then Dent wouldn’t have been Super Bowl MVP but for Ditka. And thus Dent may not have been a Hall of Famer.
So why not bury the hatchet once and for all? Ryan and Ditka are old-school coaches, and anyone who has played for old-school coaches typically realizes with the passage of time that, even though old-school coaches can be gigantic pains in the butt, they’re simply trying to get their players to be the best players they can be.
I noticed this clearly during his speech, and the snubbing of Mike Singletary too. But I had no idea that it was on purpose. It seemed almost everyone on Da Bears loved at least one of the two coaches and Samurai Mike. Guess not.
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