Posted by Darin Gantt on September 17, 2012, 3:11 PM EDT
AP
The Redskins got a double dose of bad news Monday, as coach Mike Shanahan said that defensive end Adam Carriker and outside linebacker Brian Orakpo were both out for the season with injuries suffered Sunday.
According to Rich Campbell of the Washington Times, Carriker suffered a quadriceps tendon tear, and Orakpo tore a pectoral muscle in the loss to the Rams.
They knew initially the prognosis on Carriker wasn’t good, as Shanahan said yesterday “It doesn’t look good,” for the defensive end.
It’s perhaps more troubling for Orakpo, who had surgery on the same area earlier this year.
There’s not exactly a lot of available talent on the street to replace them, though pass-rusher Andre Carter has been making the rounds.
UPDATE 3:20 p.m. ET: PFT confirms that Orakpo’s surgery will be this week.
Posted by Josh Alper on September 17, 2012, 2:27 PM EDT
Getty Images
The Bears got back to business on Monday by making a change on their offensive line and updating the status of running back Matt Forte, likely hoping that would get people looking forward to Week Three instead of looking back to the loss to the Packers.
That might take another couple of days because while coach Lovie Smith was doing the housekeeping, cornerback D.J. Moore was talking about Cutler. And his comments didn’t do much to kill the notion that there is the potential for serious problems between the quarterback and his teammates in and out of the locker room. Moore first joked about how much coverage there’s been of Cutler yelling at left tackle J’Marcus Webb last Thursday, but then veered into a criticism of the quarterback’s sideline demeanor.
“I don’t think you can act like that, though. To make it seem like it’s just my fault or what not, I think it’s just wrong, though honestly,” Moore said, via Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. “I would feel a certain way if he did me like that, to make it seem like, ‘Well, the reason I’m having a bad game is because is what you’re doing and not about me taking accountability for myself because I’m throwing these type of passes and doing these type of reads.’ It’s a tough situation.”
It’s a bit more honesty than we were expecting to see from a current member of the Bears on the Cutler issue as players tend to tread carefully when it comes to slagging teammates publicly. Moore doesn’t speak for everyone in the locker room, but his willingness to say it tells you that there isn’t much uneasiness about speaking one’s mind about the quarterback.
Moore went on to hit on something that gets to the heart of how this will wind up playing out. Moore predicted Cutler would connect on a few passes and people will stop talking about what happened in Green Bay. If Cutler and the Bears win his behavior will get filtered differently, the same way it gets filtered differently for other quarterbacks with a resume that gives them more leeway to point fingers when things go wrong.
Posted by Mike Florio on September 17, 2012, 7:39 AM EDT
AP
Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco wasn’t the only member of the team to sound off on the absence of the locked-out officials after Sunday’s loss to the Eagles. Linebacker Ray Lewis did the same.
“[T]he game is played the way the game is played, but there’s some serious calls the refs missed,” Lewis said in the locker room, via WNST.net. “And that’s just the way it is, man, all around the league. And that, for our league to be what it is, we have to correct that. Because these games are critical. And guys are giving everything they got all across the league, but there are calls that the regular refs, if they were here, we know the way calls would be made. For the conversations to be had the way they had on the sidelines saying ‘If the real refs were here, that could would have been made.’ That shouldn’t happen. That shouldn’t be the case around the league. But it is. And we have to deal with it.”
Lewis then complained specifically about a decision to reverse a call on the field that Eagles quarterback Mike Vick had fumbled the ball when trying to throw it. And that’s where Lewis undermined his broader point, because it’s clear that Vick was trying to throw the ball. Indeed, he was able to flick his wrist and put a partial spiral on the supposed fumble.
But Ray’s message seems to reflect a growing sentiment among players that the regular officials should return. “The time is now,” Lewis said. “How much longer are we gonna keep going through this whole process? I don’t have the answer, I just know across the league teams and the league are being affected by it. It’s not just this game, it’s all across the league. And so if they want the league to have the same reputation it’s always had, they’ll address the problem. Get the regular referees in here and let the games play themselves out. We already have controversy enough with the regular refs calling the plays.”
As more high-profile players speak out, the question becomes whether more will do the same — and whether a tipping point will eventually be reached. Until then, look for the league to continue to hunker down, circle the wagon, and wait for the locked-out officials to cry uncle.
The Saints weren’t able to keep the Panthers pass rush at bay in Sunday’s loss.
Said Buccaneers DT Gerald McCoy, “We had some good takeaways, but those turnovers also covered up a lot of stuff we didn’t do today. We’ve got to learn to keep our foot on the gas.”
The Cardinals were able to create a pass rush using just their pass rush on Sunday.
