Fitzgerald wants Cardinals to draft Michael Floyd

Posted by Michael David Smith on April 23, 2012, 9:16 AM EDT

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Notre Dame’s Michael Floyd is all over the map in draft projections, with some people seeing him as the best receiver in the draft — better than Oklahoma State’s Justin Blackmon — and others having reservations. Count Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgeraldas one who thinks very highly of Floyd.

Peter King of SI.com talked to Fitzgerald over the weekend and reports that Fitzgerald badly wants the Cardinals to draft Floyd with the 13th overall pick.

Brian Dawkins calls it a career

Posted by Josh Alper on April 23, 2012, 10:15 AM EDT

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After 16 years as an NFL safety, Brian Dawkins has decided to hang up the cleats.

Dawkins was an unrestricted free agent this offseason after his contract with the Broncos expired and he missed all or most of the final five regular season and playoff games of the 2011 season with a neck injury. Dawkins wasn’t expected back in Denver and he announced on Twitter Monday that he won’t be playing anywhere.

“The Lord has blessed me to play in the NFL for 16 years.

Brandon Jacobs linked to New Jersey State Trooper probe

Posted by Michael David Smith on April 23, 2012, 10:15 AM EDT

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Brandon Jacobs was reportedly one of the drivers when dozens of luxury sports cars were escorted by police going over 100 miles an hour down the Garden State Parkway last month in an incident that has some New Jersey state troopers under investigation.

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that other drivers described a dangerous incident on March 30, when two State Police patrol cars with their emergency lights flashing drove in front of and behind a caravan of dozens of Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other cars, all heading to Atlantic City driving way too fast, and all with their license plates covered by tape.

Fifth year option on rookie deals still makes trades less desireable

Posted by Mike Florio on April 22, 2012, 6:37 PM EDT

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Last night, we took issue with the general belief that the rookie wage scale will promote trades at the top of the draft.  While the reduced contract value has made the top-10 picks more attractive (or, perhaps, less unattractive), the teams that hold the picks know that it’s now cheaper to occupy into one of the top spots in the selection process.  Which could increase the price for a trade up.

There’s another dynamic that, we’re told, will be an issue in any trade talks.  The difference between the calculation of the fifth-year option payment for the first 10 first-round picks and the next 22 makes a top-10 pick somewhat less desirable for a team that doesn’t already hold a top-10 pick.

Scout calls Fleener overrated

Posted by Evan Silva on April 22, 2012, 3:33 PM EDT

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Bob McGinn and Tyler Dunne have been churning out info-packed draft prospect rundowns in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel over the past several days. McGinn is tight with a large number of league evaluators, and gets them to talk about players leading up to the draft. Some conversations are on the record, others off. Some reviews from the scouts are negative, and others are positive.

When reading the Journal-Sentinel‘s tight end rundown, one scout’s observations regarding Stanford tight end Coby Fleener caught our eye.