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If he had a son, the leader of the free world says he is uncertain he would let him play football. If one of the most ferocious hitters in the game is right, someone will die on a field and the NFL will become extinct in 30 years or less.

From President Obama to Ravens safeties Bernard Pollard and Ed Reed, who agrees with the president, to the litany of physicians directly linking concussions to an acute brain disease showing up in dead NFL players (some of whom committed suicide), the emotion and the logic all tell us the same thing: The most popular sport in America causes irreparable harm to many of its participants, some of whom will stammer through sentences after they retire, lose their memories and have their dinners served to them through intravenous needles.

And again we watched in record numbers, because our medieval need to see the biggest, fastest, strongest men in the world launch themselves like missiles at each other and engage in brain-jarring collisions always defeats the part of our conscience that says enjoying a car accident in pads and helmet is wrong.

If they’re modern-day gladiators, we’re little more than howling, new-millennium Romans — with better-stitched togas and viewing angles. Now armed with more information than ever about football and brain injuries, we think long and hard whether our kids should strap on a helmet and pads.

But we’re glad other parents’ kids do and we conveniently forget that all 110 men voluntarily putting their cartilage and brains at risk on Sunday night are someone’s sons.

Welcome to the Mardi Gras of sanctioned violence, where the two most spine-rattling teams in the NFL collide this weekend on the field that spawned Bountygate, in a city still itching to deck Roger Goodell the way that arrogant judge-and-jury of an NFL commissioner decked their Saints.



For what, they ask in anger? Because some of their players and coaches tried to make a few extra bucks to hurt a guy from the other team and, if they were lucky, cart him off the field? That’s football, Chinstrap Nation screams.

Goodell should just crawl under a hotel pillow and show up for the trophy presentation Sunday because he can’t win. In many ways, he illustrates the quandary of a country questioning its relationship with the sport.

After Obama’s statement to the New Republic, the NFL released its own, maintaining its commitment to the safety and health of its players in an environment that has spawned multimillion-dollar litigation claims against the NFL by dozens of its former concussed players.

But here’s the rub: Almost a year after the Saints were hit with the most punitive suspensions in league history, it’s back to business as usual.

Goodell’s ruling didn’t stand up to an independent arbitrator who happened to be the former NFL commissioner. Sean Payton signed the richest annual coaching contract in league history after his suspension for going along with the pay-for-pain scheme was overturned. Gregg Williams, the mastermind players said ran a similar bounty program in Washington, is just awaiting Goodell’s “indefinite suspension” to be lifted so he can become Tennessee’s new defensive architect.




Super Bowl: NFL confronts the highest stakes - The Washington Post

Of all the topics Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis wanted to talk about at Super Bowl media day, deer-antler spray probably was not on the list.

He declined to directly address in any detail Tuesday questions about a Sports Illustrated report that he sought help from a company that makes the unorthodox product to speed up his recovery from a torn right triceps. Lewis was the NFL's leading tackler in the playoffs after missing 10 regular-season games with the injury.

The company, Sports With Alternatives To Steroids (SWATS), says its deer-antler substance contains a banned performance-enhancer connected to human growth hormone.

The 37-year-old Lewis, who has announced he will retire after playing against the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday's Super Bowl, dismissed the report as "stupidity.''

Sport Illustrated reported that SWATS owner Mitch Ross recorded a call with Lewis hours after the player hurt his arm in an October game against Dallas. According to the report, Lewis asked Ross to send him deer-antler spray and pills, along with other products made by the company.

The magazine also said that when it spoke to Lewis for its story, he acknowledged asking Ross for "some more of the regular stuff'' on the night of the injury and that he has been associated with the company "for a couple years through Hue Jackson.''

Jackson is a former Ravens quarterbacks coach - and later head coach of the Oakland Raiders. Two years ago he stopped endorsing SWATS because his ties to the company violated NFL rules.

"That was a 2-year-old story that you want me to refresh ... so I won't even speak about it,'' Lewis said Tuesday. "Because I've been in this business 17 years, and nobody has ever got up with me every morning and trained with me. Every test I've ever took in the NFL - there's never been a question of if I ever even thought about using anything. So to even entertain stupidity like that. ...''

The NFL didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, and NFL Players Association spokesman George Atallah declined comment.

"The team knew about this report. Ray denies taking anything and has always passed tests,'' Ravens spokesman Kevin Byrne said.

Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said he found out about the SI story during the team's bus ride to the Superdome for media day.

"I have not talked to Ray about that personally,'' Harbaugh said. "What I do know about that is Ray has worked incredibly and extremely hard to get back, so I hate to see anything diminish the work ethic that he's put in to get to where he is right now. And my understanding is Ray has passed every random, you know, substance test that he's taken throughout the course of his whole career. So there's never been a test that's shown up anything along those lines.''

All in all, the topic only added to what already was a week filled with plot lines connected to Lewis.

There is the largely rehabilitated image of a man who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with a double murder after a Super Bowl party at an Atlanta nightclub in 2000. There is the impending retirement, a self-titled "last ride'' for a player widely considered one of the top defenders in NFL history and the Super Bowl MVP in 2001.

And there is his recovery from what was originally thought to be a season-ending injury.

"When I tore my tricep, the doctor looked at me after I went in the office and she told me that I was out for the year. And I said, `Doc, are you sure?' I said, `Nah.' I said, `Doc, there's no way I'm going to be out for the year with just a torn tricep,' " Lewis said with a laugh Tuesday. "I said, `I've been through way worse.' She was like, `Ray, nobody's never come back from this.' I said, `Well, nobody's ever been Ray Lewis, either.' "

Read More: Ray Lewis avoids talk of report on deer spray - NFL - SI-com

Gregg Williams might want to hold off on his plans to make his triumphant return to the NFL in 2013.

Williams has been given permission to seek employment after being suspended the entire 2012 season for his role as a ringleader in the New Orleans Saints' "Bounty" system.

Not so fast.

According to NOLA-com's Mike Triplett, Joe Vitt's testimony on December 3, 2012 offered an even darker picture of Williams' tactics than previously reported:

Among the most incendiary details that have not been previously reported was Vitt's allegation that former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams once promised rewards to players if they would knock down or take out the knees of assistant coaches from other teams on the sideline when a tackle carried over off the field.

Read More: Should Gregg Williams Be Banished from the NFL? | Bleacher Report

By almost any measure, the National Football League is enjoying another extraordinary year. During the 17-week NFL regular season, the 22 highest-rated shows on television were NFL games. And roughly 155 million people, or half the U.S. population, are expected to watch at least some of Sunday’s Super Bowl.

So it is with good reason that owners and league officials gathering in New Orleans this weekend should be in good cheer. The NFL, in the parlance of business, is killing it.

Underneath the glitter and spectacle, however, the NFL’s $9 billion business faces a significant long-term threat. With scientific studies increasingly linking head injuries with degenerative brain diseases, fans and young people could turn away from the sport, and lawsuits already filed by former players could result in huge liabilities.

To its credit, the league appears to recognize the risks. Under Commissioner Roger Goodell, it has taken a series of safety-related steps in the face of carping by players, ex-players and commentators who say the sport is being sissified.

The league is right to impose new penalties and fines on violent hits. It is right to punish participants in a bounty system that rewarded players for injuring their opponents. It is right to insist that players with concussions aren’t rushed back onto the field. And it is right to consider further changes to the rules and to explore new helmet technologies. These are the types of things that responsible franchise owners do to protect their people and businesses.

Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard had things backwards when he said the NFL could be gone in 30 years as the result of unpopular new rules.

The biggest threat to the NFL is not that hard-core fans will turn away because of these rules, but that more marginal fans will turn away because of the violence that the rules are meant to address.

Football already has a reputation as a kind of crapshoot, with injuries playing a major role in teams’ fortunes and players’ long-term health. It might soon earn the reputation as a sport that young athletes in much of the country avoid. President Obama says that if he had sons, he’d hesitate to let them play football, a view shared by millions of parents across America.

These are not developments consistent with football remaining “America’s game.” And if a player dies as the result of an on-field injury — something that is not unthinkable given the size and speed of today’s players and the glorification of bone-jarring hits, which on rare occasions have left players paralyzed — the game would go through a period of soul searching.

While a downturn in football’s popularity as the result of its violent nature might seem far-fetched, the same could have been said about boxing. Once one of the nation’s premier sports, boxing is now regarded as a brutal niche.

As the NFL community gathers for the Super Bowl, it has every reason to be happy about the incredible success of its undertaking. But it is also appropriately worried about what might lie over the horizon. Owners would be wise to consider the counsel that their coaches often give their players: Just because you are successful now doesn’t mean you should take your future success for granted.

Audible

A coach on the sidelines or in the pressbox electronically transmits instructions for the next play to the quarterback, who relays the information to his teammates in the huddle. On Sunday, when Joe Flacco (Baltimore) and Colin Kaepernick (San Francisco) back away from centre and start barking instructions, they are likely changing that play. They’ve determined the original call won’t be effective against the defensive set, or detected a vulnerability a different play may be better suited to exploit.


Blitz

Defined as “any swift, vigorous attack, barrage or defeat,” this term does not refer to the onslaught of new TV commercials before, during and after the game (nor the onslaught of complaints to the CRTC from viewers forced to watch Canadian ads instead). In football terms, a defence blitzes by sending a linebacker or a defensive back (or both) along with the usual three or four lineman, hoping to overwhelm the offensive linemen and tackle, or “sack” the quarterback.



Bump-and-run

Wide receivers are generally bigger and sometimes faster than the defensive backs assigned to cover them. Still, a successful pass from quarterback to receiver depends largely on timing. To disrupt that, cornerbacks may attempt to impede the receiver by giving him a hard nudge just as he comes off the line of scrimmage. Slowing down the receiver slightly better enables the cornerback to turn and run alongside him downfield.



Read option

This San Franciso play is all the rage: Kaepernick receives the ball from centre, determines in a nano-second what the defence is up to, and either hands the ball to his running back, takes off with it himself, or throws it. Quoting The Wall Street Journal: “Those plays – or even just the threat of them – are quickly turning the mechanical NFL into something more like frenetic, world-class rugby. For a new generation of football addicts, it’s the equivalent of last year’s Higgs-boson moment, when particle physicists finally found the tiny atomic material that forms the universe.”



Red zone

The area between the 20-yard line and the goal line being protected by the defensive team. Effectiveness in this area logically factors into a team’s capacity to win. In the regular season, Baltimore ranked fifth overall in the NFL, scoring a field goal or touchdown 61.2 per cent of the time it reached the red zone. San Francisco was 15th, at 54.7 per cent.

The N.F.L., faced with increasing concern about the toll of concussions and confronted with litigation involving thousands of former players, is planning to form a partnership with General Electric to jump-start development of imaging technology that would detect concussions and encourage the creation of materials to better protect the brain. The four-year initiative, which is expected to begin in March with at least $50 million from the league and G.E., is the result of a late October conversation between Commissioner Roger Goodell and G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, a former offensive tackle at Dartmouth. When Goodell explained his idea of getting leading companies in innovation to join the N.F.L. to accelerate research, Immelt said he wanted to help.

After years of insisting there was no link between head injuries sustained on the field and long-term cognitive impairment, the N.F.L. has altered rules, fined and suspended players who hit opponents in the head and contributed millions of dollars for the study of head injuries.

“Is this their way of defending themselves with this cloud over the sport? I’d be lying if I told you it had nothing to do with it,” Kevin Guskiewicz, the founding director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at the University of North Carolina, said of the initiative.

Guskiewicz is a member of the league’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee and the chairman of a subcommittee focused on safety equipment and playing rules. He will work with the N.F.L. and G.E. to identify areas of focus.

“They’ve got to protect their image right now; the headlines are not good headlines,” he said, referring to the league. “Football has an image problem. There is some of that. But I do think the N.F.L. is smart to partner with some major technology gurus.”

On Thursday, the league announced that, beginning next season, independent neurological consultants will be on the sidelines at every game to help detect head injuries. But the initiative with G.E. represents the N.F.L.’s most aggressive collaboration with private industry in pursuit of resolutions to some of vexing player safety issues: determining if some players are predisposed to head trauma; diagnosing and gauging the extent of head injuries and detecting the chronic effects of concussion; and improving equipment to insulate the brain during play.

“Research sometimes has a longer time frame,” Goodell said in an interview. Referring to G.E., he added: “These might have a shorter time frame. One, because some products may already be in existence, particularly on the imaging side. Two, they have a pretty big plastics business; maybe there’s some form of plastics that could be used for better protection.”

Later, he said: “It could be a seismic shift in the sense of great organizations coming together to solve important problems for society. That’s a good thing.”

The expectation is that new technologies could spring from the collaboration within a few years.

“If they were to be putting more focus on technology for concussion management, that’s obviously a good thing,” said Stefan Duma, who teaches at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and created the STAR helmet ratings system. “I would expect that to bear fruits. We’re definitely not 10 years away. I would expect in a two- to five-year window you could have some real advances in imaging’s ability to see concussions. Helmets are the same way.”

Chis Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and the co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine, said the initiative by the N.F.L. and G.E. displayed “considerable investment in an area that needs it.”

Nowinski added: “We’re so close to having tracers to be able to diagnose this in living people with accuracy. Who knows what the next 10 years looks like? The clinical trials we may be able to start soon, and the actual hope for effective treatment, it’s all real.”

The initiative will be two-pronged. The first part, financed by at least $30 million over four years, will focus on specializing imaging equipment to detect head trauma. G.E. is a leader in diagnostic equipment like magnetic resonance imaging, but while those devices have been tailored to the study of diseases like multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s, they have so far not been honed for traumatic brain injuries like concussions.

A study released last month suggested that positron emission tomography, known as PET scans, could one day be used on living patients to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease affecting athletes, soldiers and others who have sustained repeated blows to the head and concussions. The study’s size was too small to be conclusive.

The hope is that the machines could forecast who might sustain concussions, and then show in real time the degree of brain injury and recovery. That could provide guidance on when it is safe to return players to games.

As players have become more aware of concussions, the number of reported concussions has risen slightly, according to the N.F.L.’s injury surveillance system. In 2009, there were 199 reported concussions throughout the preseason and regular season. In 2012, there were 217. Those numbers do not account for the hundreds of smaller, subconcussive hits that players take.

“Technology in neurology is fairly advanced,” said John Dineen, the president and chief executive of G.E. Healthcare. “We can see a number of different pathologies. But in the area of trauma, we still have work to do. We have to be able to improve the technology, we’ve got to specialize these cameras and lenses. If we’re

Every offensive team has forty seconds from finish of a play up to the snap. Game clock would be halted at the finish of an incomplete passing action, if a player goes out of bounds, or during the calling of a penalty.



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The San Francisco 49ers were unable to finish the job against the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII. Not everyone in the Niners' locker room was ready to accept the loss. "They got away with one," running back Frank Gore said, via The Associated Press. "We showed we were the better team. It was just a couple plays here, a couple plays there."

The 49ers fell behind 28-6 early in the third quarter before mounting a furious comeback that ultimately fell short. Gore certainly did his part, finishing with 110 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries.

Gore also had the Niners' final play of substance, a 33-yard run around the left end that set up San Francisco with first-and-goal from the Ravens' 7-yard line with just over two minutes to play.

The Niners had four cracks at the end zone, but they didn't get it done. It was the defensive stand that showed the Ravens were the better team. Gore obviously doesn't agree.




Frank Gore: San Francisco 49ers 'were the better team' - NFL-com

At its peak last night, the audience of last night Super Bowl reached 164 million. But one thing those viewers didn't bet on was the lights going out in the Superdome.

It happened in the second half and left the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens waiting the twilight. The root cause of the 34 minutes of darkness remains under investigation, although on Monday, Superdome executive Doug Thornton shed some light on the blackout. He said it was tied to a sudden shutdown of one of the main electrical lines powering the Dome.

"All we know is we had an interruption in service," Thornton said.

Thornton said power from the electrical company, Entergy, was being fed into a substation, which split the electrical feed into two main lines running power to the stadium. It was the main "A" line that went dark without warning.

"It sensed abnormalities in their substation and it shut the power to the Superdome," Thornton said. "Frank, we lost the A-Feed," one man replied.

It happened some 90 seconds into the third quarter, and we were in the NFL command center interviewing for "60 Minutes Sports," Frank Supovitz, the man in charge of Super Bowl game day operations.

As soon as it went dark, Supovitz calmly announced, "Alright, we lost lights."

The moment it happened, a sense of uncertainty filled the room.

"What does that mean?" Supovitz asked.

"That means we have to do the bus tie."

"What does that mean?"

"That means about a 20-minute delay."

The power outage played havoc with the CBS broadcast. Play by play announcer Jim Nantz's microphone was dead, as was that of analyst Phil Simms.

Super Bowl advertisers light up the blackout
Super Bowl power outage: What went wrong?

It was left to sideline reporters Solomon Wilcotts and Steve Tasker to tell millions of viewers what was happening inside the half-lit stadium.

Read More: www-cbsnews-com/8301-18563_162-57567578/behind-the-scenes-in-the-nfl-control-room-during-super-bowl-blackout/

If you’re a football fan, at this point cover your eyes. Every time a new study is released talking about brain health and the NFL, the news just gets worse and worse. The latest such study to hit the academic press, which studied former NFL players living in Texas, revealed that 40 percent of the subjects researchers examined showed some signs of cognitive impairment. Published on the JAMA Network and conducted by the Center for BrainHealth and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the study looked at 34 former NFL players with a mean age of 61.8 years. However, there is some good news. Many of the symptoms displayed in the study were consistent with depression. According to Dr. John Hart Jr., the lead author of the study, many of the players did not even associate their symptoms with depression — which is very much treatable with medication. “You’ve got to ask for symptoms of depression,” said Hart according to Deadspin. “Those guys kill themselves and they’re not going to come in with a group of symptoms and say, ‘I’ve got this problem.’” So, if players can recognize their symptoms for what they are, improvement in quality of life can be achieved for NFL retirees living with problems. However, this was the first study to make a link between impairment and damage to the connective white matter in the brain. Either way, though there seem to be some reasonable steps that can now be taken to help those already suffering, the study just raises more questions for the long-term health of football. Ultimately, it looks like that the number of hits a player takes leading up to and during an NFL career invariably makes future cognitive issues dangerously more likely.

Read more at: NFL Players Have Cognitive Impairment in Retirement at 40 Percent Rate According to Study | Sports Spotlight | NESN-com

Chris Ford was always there for his good friend, Walt Sweeney, so it was only fitting that the two spent some happy – and clearly emotional – hours together the day before Sweeney died.

Big Walt the football player passed away last Saturday at his home in San Diego, and Chris the real estate man was there Friday – the two old buds from Cohasset reminiscing about anything and everything that crossed their minds.

“I was passing around to him and his friends some pictures of my wife, who had passed away,” Ford recalled Wednesday. “I said, ‘Walter, I know you always had a little spot in your heart for my wife, Karen. You had a crush on her.’ He smiled and said, ‘Yeah, I guess I did, Chris.’

“I said, ‘Just keep in mind, if you get up to see The Big Guy ahead of me and you run into Karen, remember, she’s mine.’ He said, ‘Well, I think I’m gonna get up there ahead of you, Chris, and we’ll see what happens.’”

Although it hurt to lose his friend just four days earlier, Ford laughed heartily at the exchange. Sweeney had found the humor in it, too.

“He could laugh about it,” Ford said. “He kept his sense of humor right through.”

Sweeney, whose wife of 30 years, Nanci, died of cancer last March, did get to see The Big Guy first. Cancer of the pancreas and liver was detected 14 days into 2013. Less than three weeks later he was gone. The former Cohasset High School, Syracuse University and professional football standout was 71.

“When he told me, I said, ‘I think you’re a victim of your famous tolerance for pain.’ He never missed a game or a snap in 13 years of pro ball, 181 games. After one game, they discovered he had broken his forearm in the first quarter and he just kept playing.’’

Sweeney is a legend in his native Cohasset, where he was a linebacker on defense and high-scoring running back fueling the offense on the high school football team that was coached by Evie Dorr and went undefeated (9-0) in 1957. He was a big kid, 6-3, 215, when he graduated in 1959.

Ford was a second-string center and first-string defensive end on that storied squad.

After his days at Cohasset High, where he also played basketball and ran track, Sweeney starred at Syracuse University and was picked No. 2 overall by San Diego in the 1963 American Football League draft.

Read more: Former NFL standout from Cohasset remembered - Quincy, MA - The Patriot Ledger

The storylines in Indianapolis were never-ending.

Andrew Luck was the No. 1 pick. Coach Chuck Pagano battled leukemia. Offensive coordinator Bruce Arians was named the 2012 Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year. The 12-month turnaround from two wins to 11 was completely unexpected.

Lost in the shuffle was the status of linebacker Dwight Freeney. The 11-year veteran has made it seven Pro Bowls, is a three-time first-team All Pro and is the all-time franchise leader in sacks. There should be more talk about a player with those credentials possibly leaving the organization that drafted him No. 11 overall in 2002.

"It would be great to finish off my career as an Indianapolis Colt," Freeney told NFL-com's Austin Knoblauch on Thursday. "I've been there my whole career, and I don't know anything different. ... Ideally, it would be great to stay there. But it is a business, so we'll see.

"Right now, I'm just thinking about Indianapolis until they tell me otherwise." He'll be told otherwise sometime soon. At least he should be. Freeney never quite adjusted to being a 3-4 linebacker after playing his first 10 years as a 4-3 defensive end. He was a liability in coverage and managed just five sacks. That's a career-low outside of 3.5 sacks in 2007 when he played just nine games. A pass-rushing linebacker is high on the list of Colts' needs this offseason and Robert Mathis made the transition much better.

Freeney believes he'll be back, but is that realistic? He watched Peyton Manning, Dallas Clark, Joseph Addai and Gary Brackett walk out that door last year. And Freeney knows his career is nearing an end regardless of what jersey he wears on Sundays.

This is the next era of Colts football and it's hard to see how Freeney fits.












Dwight Freeney wants to retire with Indianapolis Colts - NFL-com

The NFL has reinstated Gregg Williams after suspending him for his role in the New Orleans Saints' bounty scandal, and the Tennessee Titans have added him to their coaching staff. The NFL ended Williams' indefinite suspension Thursday and approved the Titans' one-year contract with Williams. Tennessee also announced in the same release that Williams had been hired as a senior assistant coach for its defense.

The league issued a statement saying that commissioner Roger Goodell cited several reasons for reinstating Williams, including that Williams accepted responsibility for his role in the bounty program, and pledged to never be involved in any pay for performance system and to teach safe play and respect for the rules.

"The commissioner emphasized that Williams must fully conform to league rules and will be subject to periodic monitoring to confirm his compliance," the NFL said in its statement.

Williams, suspended indefinitely in March 2012, is the last person involved in the scandal to be reinstated by the league. New Orleans coach Sean Payton had his suspension lifted Jan. 22. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis was suspended for eight games and assistant head coach Joe Vitt for six. Four current or former Saints players were also suspended after an investigation found the club had a performance pool offering cash rewards for key plays, including big hits. The player suspensions eventually were overturned.

Williams coached for the Saints between 2009 and 2011 and was hired as defensive coordinator by the St. Louis Rams in January 2012 before being suspended. Williams had been free to look for a new job in the NFL since the playoffs started, and now he is returning to the team where he got his start in the league back in 1990.

The Titans scheduled a news conference for Thursday afternoon with Williams expected to be on hand along with Titans coach Mike Munchak.

"I have known Gregg for over two decades and have seen him work his way up from a quality control coach to a head coach," Munchak said in a statement. "He will bring a great deal of defensive knowledge and energy to our staff. The decision to bring him here only came after going through a thoughtful and thorough process."

How well this move works remains to be seen, but Munchak faces a must-win situation going into his third season as head coach.

The Titans missed the playoffs in his first season on a tiebreaker in 2011 before slumping to a 6-10 record in 2012. Fans have not been happy that Munchak has kept Jerry Gray as his defensive coordinator after a season in which Tennessee set a franchise record by allowing 471 points, gave up at least 30 points in seven different games and ranked 27th in yards allowed. Munchak previously made only one move on his defensive staff, firing linebackers coach Frank Bush and moving Chet Parlavecchio from assisting with special teams to linebackers coach.

Williams will be working with Gray, the same man he took with him to Buffalo when he was hired as the Bills head coach in 2001 after four seasons as Tennessee's defensive coordinator under then-coach Jeff Fisher. Gray also worked with Williams at the Washington Redskins between 2004 and '07 before Williams worked with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2008 and then with the Saints.














NFL reinstates Gregg Williams, Tennessee Titans hire him - ESPN

When Jacoby Jones scored two touchdowns in the Super Bowl just over a week ago, he provided another ray of hope for those draft hopefuls who don't find themselves on the seemingly endless list of bowl games or in the weekly slate of primetime matchups through what becomes an autumn of football struggle.

As a junior at Lane College in 2005, Jones' team went 0-10. That had followed a 3-8 season in '04. For those players the weeks and months leading up to an NFL draft are what they make of it.

Boulder native Will Pericak knows this. Pericak was a four-year starter for Colorado, a hometown guy who arrived on campus as a tight end, but was switched to the defensive line just days into his redshirt year.

The Buffs finished 1-11 this past season, on the receiving end of almost weekly blowouts. They were 3-10 in 2011, 5-7 in 2010 and 3-9 in 2009.

"It definitely didn't help being on a team that finished 1-11," Pericak said. "But at the end of the day, what you put on tape shows the NFL what you're about, that you'll play hard, regardless of the circumstances, that you'll run to the ball, do what you can to make some plays."

And the NFL scouts made the requisite trips to Boulder, but it was more due diligence than anything else really, the Buffs were not must-see, that's just the way it goes. Pericak was certainly on the radar, as a four-year starter at a BCS program would be, but in recent weeks he has picked a good time to pump up his status.

He went to the East-West Game last month and impressed scouts with his ability to play with power and quickness against plenty of offensive linemen with draftable grades. Several scouts said in the three days of work in full pads leading up to the all-star game, Pericak consistently flashed the ability to make plays.

Pericak also had to do it against several players who had the benefit of bowl game practices, basically an extra two month of football in some cases. The Buffs played their season finale — a 45-32 loss to Utah — on Nov. 23.

"Absolutely it helped to go there, it's all about the practice," Pericak said. "The game, sure they want to see you perform and your family can see you, but the week, those practices, are really important. Especially for a guy like me.

"I don't really know what they thought of me before that, and I think there was some rustiness when I first got down there, but I hope I showed them I can practice well, play well. You want to make some plays, win some of those 1-on-1s."

Pericak also has the benefit of versatility on his side of the ledger as well. Much like Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe played up and down the defensive line in his collegiate career at Cincinnati — that certainly helped his draft cause before the Broncos took him with the 36th pick of the draft and he went on to start every game of his rookie season — Pericak has done much the same in his career.

He has played defensive end, lined up directly across from opposing centers, a nose tackle spot in the Buffs' 4-3 scheme and has line up at the other defensive tackle spot — the 3-technique, in the gap between the guard and tackle, usually slightly closer to the guard.

And with all the situational defense teams play these days, with different rotations in the defensive line with their base, nickel (five defensive backs) and dime (six defensive backs) packages, any player who can fill multiple roles with some effort could carve out a roster spot.

"I hope that's the case," Pericak said. "I played defensive end this past season because we had a need there, and the coaches through it would be good to show everything I could do. Hopefully some people see what they wanted to in that."

Pericak's pro day, along with the rest of the Buffs draft hopefuls — tackle David Bakhtiari and tight end Nick Kasa were invited to the NFL scouting combine, which opens on Feb. 20 in Indianapolis — will be March 13 in Boulder.

The past month has been the stuff of fairy tales for Kent Richardson.

The former West Virginia University and Rickards High defensive back signed a future/reserve contract with the Cleveland Browns on Jan. 3.

Richardson, 25, played in the Arena Football League for two years after graduating from WVU in 2010. While the competition level between the two leagues differs, Richardson said all the work and experience he has put into playing in college and the AFL have helped prepare him for the NFL.

“That’s what everyone is doing in the AFL, attempting to make it to the NFL,” Richardson said. “This really has molded me as far as the person and player I am.”

Richardson was determined to make the most of his time with the AFL, and gain as much experience and time on the field as possible. In his final season with the Philadelphia Soul, he recorded a league-leading 14 interceptions. He was also named AFL Defensive Back of the Year.

He worked out with the Browns in early October, after the AFL season ended. But this wasn’t his first encounter with NFL recruiters. He tried out at the Green Bay Packers’ mini-camp, and recruiters from the Browns attended his NFL Pro Day at WVU in 2010. Although he didn’t make the cut during the Packers’ mini-camp, he received encouraging words from the position coach, who told him he was good enough to one day play in the league.

“Most people I came in contact with post-college career and when I was working out knew the talent and skill set I had,” he said. “I didn’t want to sell myself short by quitting. I figured if I work hard enough, doors would open.”

While Richardson remained optimistic about his future playing football, he also kept a back-up plan. He graduated with a degree in marketing from WVU, and spent his spare time looking for marketing and research jobs on the Internet. Richardson’s lifelong friend and mentor, Duron Owens, said he has known Richardson would make it to the NFL since he first shared his dream with Owens in the eighth grade. “I can remember when we had a talk on the porch one day, and I asked him how far he wanted to pursue his dream. He said, ‘I want to go all the way,’” Owens, 47, said. “To some people, it probably came as a surprise, but to me it never did. He was so driven and motivated to succeed.”

Even in high school, Richardson’s talent was evident. He made first team All-State and All-Big Bend.

To stay in shape, Owens and Richardson would lift weights, run, train and practice together. Owens said he has watched Richardson grow athletically and personally, and finds his humility inspiring.

“It feels so good to see him go all the way from playing on the local fields here, watching him on TV at West Virginia, watching him on the computer playing arena football, then seeing him actually reach that final step,” Owens said. “I’m at a loss for words.”

For now, Richardson is focusing on training and conditioning to ensure he is in the best shape possible when he begins practicing with the Browns.

“It’s amazing to get this chance,” he said. “There’s no room for error.”








www-tallahassee-com/article/20130212/SPORTS01/302120028/Rickards-grad-Richardson-keeps-NFL-dream-alive

Are you ready for a Super Tuesday? The NFL is. As a matter of fact, the league is preparing for just about anything when it comes to Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium, where weather could change just about everything about the game, including the day and time.

A TV industry source told the Daily News that the league has discussed the possibility of changing the day of the game if severe weather were to be forecast to hit the New York/New Jersey area on Super Bowl Sunday. According to the source, these contingency plans gained life when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell asked what would happen if weather caused mass complications on the day of the game.

That source said that while delaying the game is a possibility, playing it the Saturday before isn’t going to happen, although it was considered at the meeting. “You can’t move the game ahead a day (Saturday). It would be a logistical nightmare and the commissioner knows that. The game can be moved into the next week. That can be done,” the source said. “It would be like knowing on the day of a World Series game there would be heavy rain at 8 (p.m.) then trying to start it at 4 (p.m.). You couldn’t do it.”

Saturday is also a traditionally poor day for television ratings, the source said, and Fox — which is carrying the game — would much prefer it be played on, for example, the following Tuesday.

“The main objective of the NFL and the host committee is to be prepared for any and everything, with regard to weather,” Al Kelly, the president and CEO of the New York-New Jersey Super Bowl Host Committee said in a statement last Friday. “We have been planning for all possibilities and are creating various contingency plans to deal with each potential situation.”

League spokesman Brian McCarthy wouldn’t discuss possible changes to the Super Bowl date. “We plan on playing the game as scheduled, on that Sunday. That’s what we’re focused on, that’s where we believe we’ll end up,” he said. “It’s premature to talk contingency plan.”

McCarthy added that any decision to change the timing of the game would come from the league office, not from the host committee.

Shifting the date of the Super Bowl would have rippling impacts across the city. Fans attending the game would need to extend their travel plans, booking last-minute hotels and changing flights and special transportation arrangements to bring people to and from the game would have to be switched at the last moment, to name a few of the possible issues. The other side of that equation is that systems set up for Super Bowl Sunday might not be able to handle the capacity crowds in the event of a blizzard.

The New York/New Jersey Super Bowl is the first open-roof cold-weather Super Bowl to be played since the game’s inception. Many questioned the decision to have the Super Bowl in New York given how the weather could affect the game and the logistics surrounding it. Though Goodell has continued to express confidence that the game will be executed successfully, he did admit earlier this month that Super Bowl XLVIII will be a test case for future cold-weather Super Bowls.

Read more: NFL would delay Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium if severe weather is in forecast - NY Daily News

-- Super Bowl Monday. Super Bowl Wednesday.

Surely that sounds better than Super Bowl PPD.

The NFL says it's ready for next year's title game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Feb. 2, no matter the weather. Even if it means moving the game from its traditional Sunday spot.

Concerns about contingencies arose recently for two reasons: Next year's Super Bowl will be outdoors at a cold-weather site for the first time and the Northeast is still recovering from a monster snowstorm that hit last weekend; the lights went out in the Louisiana Superdome during the Feb. 3 game, causing a 34-minute delay and some anxiety about whether it would resume.

Several published reports said the NFL has discussed changing the day of the game if weather complications arise. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wouldn't offer specifics, but said Wednesday the league will make whatever changes are necessary.

"We have had contingency plans for the previous 47 Super Bowls," McCarthy said. 'We expect to play all games, including the Super Bowl, as planned. ... We will be prepared if we have to make adjustments."

The date of the Super Bowl has never been changed. But plenty of regular-season games have because of weather. When the Metrodome roof collapsed after a snowstorm in 2010, dates and sites changed for several Minnesota Vikings home games.

Changing the date of a Super Bowl could be dicey. If a blizzard hit on a Saturday, the day before the game, it might be possible to move it to the following Tuesday, allowing time to dig out roads and parking lots. If a storm was forecast for Super Bowl night, then perhaps playing Saturday would be an option. Compounding this would be travel, hotel and broadcast concerns. "The main objective of the NFL and the Host Committee is to be prepared for any and everything, with regard to weather," Al Kelly, president of the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, said in a statement. "We have been planning for all possibilities and are creating various contingency plans to deal with each potential situation."

Kelly also said the current snow cleanup effort is being upgraded to make sure the stadium crew is ready for anything.

"MetLife Stadium has excellent snow clearing procedures," Kelly said. "Both states - New York and New Jersey - and New York City have strong track records preparing for and handling adverse weather conditions and we have every confidence that we will be prepared."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said the league will be able to deal with whatever weather emergencies might arise.

"We will be prepared for the weather factors, and this community can do that," Goodell said in his state of the NFL news conference in New Orleans on Feb. 1. "But the game of football is made to be played in the elements. Now we hope they're not extreme on one hand, but we'll be prepared for that if that's the case."

The National Weather Service said the average high in nearby Newark, N.J., on Feb. 2 is 39.8 degrees and the low is 24.2. The average precipitation on that date going back to 1931 is about one-eighth of an inch.

The only significant precipitation during a Super Bowl came in February 2007 at Miami. Playing in a rainstorm, Indianapolis and Chicago committed four turnovers in the first quarter.

The record low for a Super Bowl kickoff is 39 degrees when Dallas beat Miami in January 1972 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.







Y! SPORTS

You have to give the NFL credit: It has the absolute best business deal. It's so good, in fact, that even the most devious monopolist would have a hard time finding an industry that compares. The NFL's monopoly includes an antitrust exemption, which has gone a long way toward creating $9 billion in annual revenue, and the most convenient and cost-effective farm system in sports: college football. The best part about that farm system? It doesn't cost the NFL anything.

But wait, there's more: The NFL gets to collude with the NCAA on player eligibility, which means the two entities can force players to spend three years in college no matter how detrimental it might be to the professional and personal well-being of those players.

The system is self-serving, hypocritical and borderline socialistic. College programs use it to create continuity and remain relevant. The NFL uses it to ensure the prepackaging of stars at the amateur level and provide a steady flow of recognizable talent to a sport with an attrition rate that's just slightly better than what you'd find at your local drive-thru window. In other words, it's backslaps all around for everyone but the guys doing the labor.

Why does this matter? Because four 2013 juniors -- Jadeveon Clowney, Teddy Bridgewater, Marqise Lee, Cyrus Kouandjio -- would be top 10-15 picks in the April draft if they were allowed to leave college and pursue their chosen profession. Clowney would be the No. 1 pick, no questions asked, and he would pocket a few pennies less than $24 million -- guaranteed -- before summer if the system had the best interests of its athletes in mind.

But it doesn't work that way. This is a world of servants and the served, and the players are clearly at the mercy of those they serve. The bosses make the rules, so the bosses reap the benefits. These players -- with South Carolina's Clowney as their hypertrophic, outsized mascot -- are being punished by a ridiculous rule that has more to do with the collective profits of the two overarching entities than the players' best interests.

What will the players do? They'll go back to school. They have no choice. Oh, they could unionize. Or they could get together and decide en masse to spend a year training at an IMG-like academy, where the tab can be picked up by an agent while they work out and give their brains a rest from the pounding. But there's nobody rebellious enough to organize that. Asked about the prospect of Clowney skipping his junior year to avoid injury, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "If money was his only goal in life, then he couldn't play. And he might not get into a car before next year's draft, so he wouldn't get into a car wreck and get injured."

Or, to be more realistic and less flippant, Clowney could look at the example of teammate Marcus Lattimore, who carried the ball 249 times for Spurrier as a true freshman, tore the ACL in his left knee as a sophomore and injured his right knee as a junior. He didn't get into a car wreck, but those terrible injuries might end up destroying a potentially lucrative career. Contrast that with Eagles running back Bryce Brown, whose off-field issues limited him to 104 carries in barely more than one college season with two schools but who might end up making a small fortune in the NFL.

But the system as it stands works for the NFL, which doesn't have to create a league to train an annual influx of young but talented players, and it works for the NCAA, which gets to sell Clowney jerseys and keep the profits, and it works for $3.3 million a year to college coaches like Spurrier. It just doesn't work for the few players who have the misfortune of being good enough to make money off their talent before the system decides it's time.

Here's an idea: How about we let the professional general managers and player-development gurus decide who's ready to play in the NFL? How about instituting a system like the one proposed by ESPN Insider's Chris Sprow, which would base draft eligibility on participation standards -- snaps for a defensive end like Clowney, carries for a running back like Lattimore, pass attempts for a quarterback like Bridgewater -- rather than the arbitrary three-year benchmark currently in place? Granted, it would require a paradigm-altering thought process. First, dispense with the idea of college football players at this level being in school for the school. That's an idea that sounds good but frequently has no basis in reality. We'd like to believe that someone like Clowney will embrace the college life and grow as a human and a scholar, but that's just the paternalistic, cosmetic spackle we spread on the wall when we're talking about someone we don't know. If it were us, or our son, we'd want him to get on with his life, avoid a senseless injury and get paid the most for what he does the best. Prodigies in any other field -- figure skating, technology, music -- are encouraged to do this, but for some reason college athletes are held to some Olympian standard that makes everyone feel good but manages to assiduously avoid reality.

(PayPal founder Peter Thiel, an iconoclastic sort, has a program where he hands out $100,000 annually to 24 students under 20 to skip college and start their own businesses. Thiel is intent on challenging the assumption that higher education is sacrosanct, and he's targeting academic geniuses, not athletic ones.) If a participation clause makes a coach like Spurrier (not to pick on Spurrier, but still) think twice about giving a freshman 249 carries, great. He can still go ahead and do that, but he does it knowing he stands a good chance of losing the kid after his sophomore year.

The average career in the NFL lasts 3.5 years. For the sake of argument, let's be generous and triple that for a top-10 draft pick. By taking away that one year of peak earning and athletic prime -- a year Clowney or Bridgewater must unnecessaril

Charles Woodson is on the market.

The Green Bay Packers released the 36-year-old defensive back Friday with two years left on his contract.

“We are grateful for all that Charles has given to the Green Bay Packers over the past seven years,” general manager Ted Thompson said. “He has been an integral part of the Packers’ success, and our Super Bowl title in 2010 would not have been possible without his contributions. A once-in-a-generation talent as a player, he is also a great leader and ambassador for the organization off the field.”

The Packers clear about $10 million in cap space by releasing Woodson. Carl Poston, Woodson’s agent, said the veteran wasn’t done yet.

“The Packers told Charles they’re going in a different direction,” Poston said. “Charles told me he still wants to play — for a Super Bowl contender.”

Woodson signed a five-year deal before the 2010 season that was worth as much as $55 million. He missed nine games during the 2012 regular season because of a broken right collarbone and played in two postseason games for the Packers in his seventh year with the franchise.

“We had a good run,” Woodson wrote to ESPNWisconsin-com.

Woodson was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2009 and the Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1998. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Oakland Raiders, who drafted him out of Michigan with the No. 4 overall pick.

He’s the only player in NFL history with touchdowns off interceptions in six straight seasons, a feat he pulled off each year from 2006 to 2011, and leads the league with nine touchdowns off interceptions since 2006. He went to the Pro Bowls in 2008-11.

NFL: Packers release Woodson | Duluth News Tribune | Duluth, Minnesota

The 2013 NFL offseason provides quite a long layoff for many of the more notable NFL stars after a long and draining season. While Rob Gronkowski and Tony Romo have continued their trend of typically being in the spotlight, other athletes find ways to spend their time in some capacities.

In many cases, players spend their offseasons away from a practice field. Though, that can't be said for every player.

Here is a look at how some of the biggest names in the NFL have spent their offseasons.


Pictures: How Are NFL Stars Spending Their Offseasons? | Bleacher Report