Month: November 2016

Public spat between Jeff Fisher, Eric Dickerson PR nightmare for Rams

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Right or wrong is impossible to determine under these circumstances, because all we have to work with are the antagonistic perspectives of the only two people involved.

So you can stand behind Eric Dickerson, the Hall of Fame running back who will now distance himself from his beloved Los Angeles Rams because he’s too proud to have his freedom of speech threatened. Or you can stand behind Jeff Fisher, the longtime coach who was letting Dickerson know he cannot expect favors while being critical and allegedly came away thinking an understanding had been reached.

Really, it’s difficult to take sides over a conversation we were not privy to, when we know neither the tone nor the intentions.

Really, all that matters is what came of it: Dickerson feels upset and unwanted, and now he will not be a part of this.
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Elite Mens Jahlil Okafor Jersey Shepard said the conversation between the two occurred Tuesday in the weight room. He didn¡¯t think it was necessary, but it happened.

¡°He just said, ¡®You are a big part of the offense and we need to get you involved,¡¯¡± Shepard said. “He was just apologizing to me, but it is all good.¡±

Watt also retweeted a link to the GoFundMe; as of 12:30 p.m. CT, more than $75,000 had been raised in two days.

“Obviously that doesn’t surprise me at all,” Texans head coach Bill O’Brien said. “J.J.’s somebody who cares very much about the community, individual kids. JJ loves high school football. … And I’m sure he feels horrible about what happened to that young man. And so I think it doesn’t surprise me at all. I think for every one story you hear about J.J. doing that, or [any player] doing that, there’s probably 10 other stories that you’ve never heard about. And I think that’s what makes it pretty neat.”

On Wednesday morning, the Milton family posted an update on Grant’s condition, saying, “The recent scan shows his brain stem has now returned to normal form. … Grant is still breathing over the ventilator which makes us hopeful that at some point he can breath on his own but it will be some time before we get to that point.”

NFL salary cap projected to be more than $140 million in 2015, per report

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The NFL gave teams an update Wednesday on the 2015 salary cap, saying that the number will likely fall between $140 and $143 million, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. That figure is approximately $1.5 million higher than the projection made by the league in December, which pegged the cap at $138.6 to $141.8 million.

NFLPA is also set to release its own estimates this week at the combine, and it is expected to be at the high end of the league’s number. The final official figure from the NFL should be made Bradley Sowell Authentic Womens Jersey public in late February as teams prep for the start of free agency in March.

The salary cap has been rising steadily over the past few years, from $123 million in 2013 to $133 million in 2014. The number is determined by league’s annual revenues, with the players receiving a specified percentage of the pie. That rate is set at 48 percent per the most the most recent collective bargaining agreement in 2011.

Smith was much better over the final four games, throwing six touchdowns against two picks while earning a 2-2 record. The former West Virginia star also had his career-best performance in Week 17 against the Miami Dolphins, completing 20 of 25 passes for 358 yards and a trio of scores without a turnover.

Bowles told reporters at the combine that there’s a chance they might bring in a veteran quarterback to compete with Smith. Maccagnan added that the team did meet with free agent quarterback Josh McCown on Wednesday, according to Seth Walder of the New York Daily News. McCown has also met with the Buffalo Bills and the Chicago Bears.

One factor in Smith’s favor is the lack of talent on the free agent market for quarterbacks. The best options are Brian Hoyer and McCown, both career backups who finally got chances over the past two years. Hoyer is 30 years old and fairly competent, although Braylon Edwards Authentic Womens Jersey he lost his job to Johnny Manziel. Hoyer also had a completion percentage of 55.3, second-worst in the NFL. For comparison’s sake, Smith checked in at 59.7 percent, 27th in the league.

Bush struggled to stay healthy in 2014, suiting up for 11 games and gaining just 297 rushing yards. With defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh needing a new deal, Bush could be on the chopping block. Bush’s release would save Detroit $1.7 million against the cap.

Russell Westbrook’s latest triple-double is Oscar-worthy

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How many ways can you statistically spin Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook’s latest amazing performance?

We’ll try for a few.

Westbrook finished with 36 points, 18 assists Byron Maxwell Authentic Womens Jersey and 12 rebounds. That’s his NBA-best sixth triple-double of the season and 43rd of his career, tying Lafayette Lever for seventh all-time. Westbrook’s six triple-doubles are one fewer than the rest of the NBA combined. There have been seven 30-point triple-doubles in the NBA this season. Westbrook has six of them.

It’s Westbrook’s eighth straight 30-point game, the longest such streak of his career.

Westbrook is tied with LeBron James for sixth all time in triple-doubles.

The next player ahead of them is Larry Bird, with 59. If Westbrook somehow keeps up his four-every-six-games pace (and doesn’t rest), he would pass Bird during a six-game Thunder road trip in mid- to late January.

Carlisle on Cuban potentially running for president in 2020:

“My guess would be that it’s less likely to happen than happen, but I’ve certainly been wrong before and only he knows really what’s going on. He owns so many other companies and has so many other interests, it just seems like that would be just a Cameron Wake Authentic Womens Jersey very difficult task to take on.

Saad Yousuf of ESPN Radio Dallas (103.3 FM) contributed to this report.

He set the tone again Friday night, scoring 26 points in 31 minutes. Yet again, Butler has elevated his game to another level after months of hard work in the offseason. He is more confident in his game than he’s ever been, and just as important, his teammates are more confident in him.

Pittsburgh’s latest dilemma: Trade or keep Andrew McCutchen?

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I love the kind of deal the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks completed Wednesday night: the Mariners sending Taijuan Walker and Ketel Marte to the Diamondbacks for Jean Segura, Mitch Haniger and Zac Curtis.

It’s a trade that Kelvin Benjamin Authentic Jersey could turn into a win-win for both organizations or it could easily blow up for either team. All five players are difficult to project moving forward, with Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto selling low on Walker and new Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen selling high on Segura.

Here’s the breakdown:

He suffered a bone infection in his leg in 1948 and spent three weeks in the hospital with periosteomyelitis (inflammation of the bone). In his SABR biography, Branca said the infection eventually settled in his shoulder, which cut into his velocity. It would seem reasonable to speculate that throwing 280 innings at such a young age had an effect as well. After a poor 1950 season, Branca had his last good year in 1951, going 13-12 with a 3.26 ERA in 204 innings.

The Dodgers had a 13 1/2-game lead on Aug. 12, but Kevin Norwood Authentic Jersey the Giants mounted a furious late-season rally and tied the Dodgers to force a best-of-three tiebreaker. Branca started the first game and pitched well, but lost 3-1. The Dodgers won the second game 10-0, setting up the final game at the Polo Grounds. Don Newcombe took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth. He’d already told Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella earlier in the game that he had nothing. Robinson told him to stay in there until his arm fell off. Dodgers manager Charlie Dressen was pacing back and forth in the dugout and had started calling down to the bullpen in the eighth inning.

“He sounded frantic,” Dodgers bullpen coach Clyde Sukeforth told a writer in 1976. “‘Who’s ready? Who’s ready?’ He’d always have a plan for who would relieve, when he would come in, if such-and-such happened, and so on. Not that day.”

In the ninth, after two singles and an out, Whitey Lockman doubled in a run to make it 4-2. Branca and Carl Erskine were warming up in the bullpen.

Jason Garrett once filled in for the injured Troy Aikman and Rodney Peete to trigger a holiday victory

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Last year, when Luck was sidelined for nine games by injuries (shoulder, lacerated kidney), the Colts went 6-3. But that was with since-retired veteran Matt Hasselbeck running the offense.

Tolzien, on the other hand, has thrown exactly one NFL pass in three years.

When Colts coach Chuck Pagano addressed reporters on Monday night, he raved about Tolzien’s preparation.

That’s not the same as raving about a quarterback’s ability John Simon Authentic Womens Jersey to, say, extend a play like Roethlisberger and Luck can as two of the best in the league.

“He’s got some limited amount of exposure,” Pagano said, “but he’s a pro.”

Quarterback Robert Griffin III is still not ready to play with full contact, as he recovers from a broken coracoid bone, and Cody Kessler is in the concussion protocol. That puts Josh McCown back on the field. McCown’s last win as a starter was Oct. 11, 2015.

The Steelers have finally healed up for the most part, but tight end Xavier Grimble’s quad injury is sneaky important. Starter Jesse James averages 14 receiving yards per road game, and Ladarius Green has started slowly recovering from offseason ankle surgery. Grimble (10 catches, 98 yards, one touchdown) might be their most explosive pass-catcher from the tight end spot, and his status for Thursday’s game in Indianapolis is in question. Running back DeAngelo Williams (knee) and wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey (midfoot) are unlikely to play.

While the Texans have quite a few nagging injuries, their starters have been relatively Johnathan Joseph Authentic Womens Jersey healthy this week. Running back Lamar Miller, who has been dealing with injuries and had been limited for the past three games, had 24 carries for 104 yards on Monday night against the Raiders, which is the most carries he has had since Week 6 against the Colts. With backup running backs Jonathan Grimes, Alfred Blue and Tyler Ervin dealing with injuries, Miller’s return to full strength comes at a good time.

Shoot, rookie Clint Longley once came off the bench on Thanksgiving to relieve an injured Roger Staubach to spark the Dallas Cowboys to a comeback win against Washington. Jason Garrett once filled in for the injured Troy Aikman and Rodney Peete to trigger a holiday victory. And look at Garrett now. He’s coaching the Cowboys on Thursday.

But those moments are far and few between. The Longley moment was in 1974. Garrett’s came in 1994.

Gregg Popovich on Donald Trump: ‘There are a lot of fearful people, and for good reason

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Gregg Popovich is heartfelt towards his players, funny (if short-tempered) towards the media, and generally a perceptive and thoughtful person. Along with Stan Van Gundy, Steve Kerr and others around the NBA, Popovich has not hesitated to voice his disappointment that Donald Trump was elected president last week.

Last Friday, Popovich said “we are Rome” while describing Mitch Richmond Authentic Womens Jersey how he was “sick to his stomach” about Trump’s electoral victory. On Thursday, the five-year Air Force veteran expressed further disappointment in the election.

“It’s still a disorienting situation, when you thought you lived in a certain kind of country with certain values that were held in esteem and find out those values aren’t very important to half the country,” Popovich told reporters.

All eyes will be on Prescott as he makes his first start with a now-healthy Tony Romo as his backup. Of course, all eyes have been on the rookie anyway, so to think his approach will be different now is kind of foolish. Prescott has had answers for every question. Dez Bryant has two 100-yard games in the last three weeks. Jason Witten is a big factor in the passing game again. Elliott can also make plays in the passing game. If the Ravens can slow down the Cowboys’ run, the Cowboys have more ways to beat the Ravens. They will complete the AFC North sweep in 2016. Cowboys 31, Ravens 22

What happened? He fractured both the tibia and the fibula. In other words, the lower leg bones in his right leg were broken between his ankle and knee. That end result left his leg bent gruesomely in different directions.

A lot of time passed before they quit tending to Joe and got him off the field and on his way to Ognjen Kuzmic Authentic Womens Jersey the hospital. Jay Schroeder took over at quarterback. Nobody knew at the time that Theismann would never play again.

the Bills gunner could change the momentum and direction of a game with one hit

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Whereas the modern NFL is a passing league with more emphasis on outscoring opponents, in Tasker’s day it was all about slowing the game down and focusing on field position. Back then, the Bills gunner could change the momentum and direction of a game with one hit, and essentially helped turn prioritizing field position into an effective strategy. Whether it was sticking a hit on a punt returner the moment they caught the ball, blocking a punt, forcing a fumble, or breaking through tackles for long kick return, Tasker turned special teams into a valuable asset as well as an art form. No one else in the league came even close to doing what he did. But he wasn’t particularly focused on perfecting the skill position; he Pat Edwards Authentic Womens Jersey was simply capitalizing on an opportunity to play football. Tasker knew he’d only get on the field for maybe 20 to 25 snaps per game. So every time he stepped in for a play, he intended to make the most of it.

“I knew that was the only way I could be part of the team,” Tasker said. “Early in my career, when the rosters were expanded to more than 36 guys, there was room at the bottom on the rosters for guys to just cover kicks. I got in on that. I knew that I wasn’t going to get on the field over Andre or James Lofton, and I wanted to be on the team. And I was successful at it.”

“Tasker is an intriguing candidate because he doesn’t necessarily incite passion as with some other polarizing candidates,” said Clark Judge, writer and host of the Talk of Fame Network and an at-large selector. “There’s a lot of grey area there. It has nothing to do with him, it has to do with what he played—which is special teams.

“With the Hall of Fame, it comes down to numbers, numbers, numbers. Like sacks. We know double-digit sacks over the course of a season is a high number. What do we know about special teams tackles? We don’t.It’s difficult to measure what Tasker did, because there aren’t exact stats to measure.”

“In this day of advanced stats, there are more sophisticated numbers,” Judge later added, “but people on the outside don’t know about them and don’t care. The only numbers we really hear about with special teams is punt averages, return yards, and field goal percentage.”

Marv Levy is among those Hall of Famers who want Tasker to join them.

Still, Judge believes that special teams doesn’t get the respect it deserves. In Rashean Mathis Authentic Womens Jersey the 53-year history of the Hall of Fame, only one two special teams players have been inducted—pure place kicker Jan Stenerud, in 1991 and Raiders punter Ray Guy, in 2014. For Guy, it took more than a quarter-century to get there. (Guy was a senior candidate, meaning he had been out of the league for at least 25 years and involves a different voting process than Modern Era candidates.)

Mark Gaughan, a sportswriter for The Buffalo News for the past 32 years, was in the room for those discussions during the 12 years he sat on the Hall of Fame Selection Committee.

Anthony said he doesn’t think Jackson meant to use the word “posse” in a racial connotation

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James’ business associate, Maverick Carter, took issue with Jackson’s use of the word in an interview Monday with ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, and James echoed those thoughts Tuesday.

“I had nothing but respect for [Jackson] as a coach for what he was able to do,” James said. “Obviously he was at the helm of Authentic Joe Klecko Jersey (the team featuring) my favorite player of all time, (Michael Jordan), and also being there growing up and watching him with the Lakers, but I got nothing for him,” James said of his level of respect for the New York Knicks president.

Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has swung 19 trades in the 40 months since Brad Stevens was hired in July 2013. When Ainge goes a short stretch without a move, some of the other general mangers across the league start wondering what he’s plotting.

“It was different for me coming over here from Authentic Joe Namath Jersey Dallas. But I knew we had right coaches, we had the right approach from [management] upstairs. We just had to get the group of guys who wanted to win and play for one another,” said Crowder.

“That’s what happened with all the trades — there was a lot of turnover that first year, I remember we had like 40 different players. It was just the guys buying in and coaches really being patient, and the front office putting it together.”

Crowder is eager to see, when healthy, what this Celtics team can do.

“Hard work pays off. We put a lot of work into it. We play for one another, we fought for one another, even when we had a losing record [early after Crowder’s arrival]. It’s starting to pay off. But we never want to forget where it started. And it started from just working.

“We had to work to win a game. I remember it was just so damn hard to win a game here. You have to build off that and that’s what we tried to do, just keep building, keep working.”

And, if you’re Ainge, keep trading.

Anthony hadn’t read Jackson’s comments on James in the Q&A but said he was “briefed” on the matter before speaking with the media.

Tony Romo is 78-49 as a regular-season starter for the Cowboys

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Tony Romo is 78-49 as a regular-season starter for the Cowboys

It is Feb. 6, 2017, and the Cowboys have a decision to make.

It’s too murky at this point to know what has befallen them in the interim. A Super Bowl run? A late-season fizzle? A season done in by an ultimately overmatched defense? Regardless, the Cowboys enter the offseason with the same beautiful quandary they carried with them throughout their season. They’re confident in Prescott as their quarterback of the future, but also confident that Romo is still one of the best in the game.

The second was a 29-yarder Desmond Trufant Authentic Womens Jersey on New Orleans’ game-tying TD drive in the final minutes. Cooks again got separation behind Roby, and Brees hit him with a back-shoulder throw. Cooks turned and caught it before being driven out of bounds.

The last was the TD catch. Cooks faked inside and turned upfield to get separation behind both Roby and Ward. And Brees tucked it into Cooks before they both converged on him in the end zone.

“We got some good looks for what we’re trying to do, and he got by all those guys. So at that point, you’re wanting the completion — I wasn’t wanting to overthrow any of those,” Brees said of the way all three passes required Cooks to Devonta Freeman Authentic Womens Jersey make catches in traffic. “‘Let’s get the completion and make sure we secure the big play.’ And Brandin came up with three huge catches.”

Cooks had a monster game the last time he faced Thursday night’s opponent, the Carolina Panthers. Cooks caught seven passes for a career-high 173 yards and the 87-yard TD in a 41-38 victory in the Superdome in Week 6.

The Saints will be at Carolina this time, and Cooks hasn’t been quite as potent outside of the Superdome. He has exactly 22 catches at home and on the road this year, but he has 471 yards and five TDs at home vs. 223 yards and one TD on the road. However, this remains an enticing matchup for New Orleans’ passing game against a Panthers secondary that is a little healthier than last month but still vulnerable.

Jozy Altidore, Bobby Wood and 18-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder Christian Pulisic are all expected to start

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On the attacking side, Jozy Altidore, Bobby Wood and 18-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder Christian Pulisic are all expected to start, with the latter two emerging as U.S. fixtures only this year.

Whoever plays for the U.S. in this latest version of the Columbus Clasico, amid the political overtones, will be well-aware of the history here. Klinsmann noted in his prematch press conference that he’d invited several former national-teamers Jimmy Foxx Youth Jersey to speak to his players this week, including Columbus Crew coach Gregg Berhalter, his top assistant Josh Wolff and club ambassador Frankie Hejduk — all veterans of multiple World Cups.

“That was pretty awesome,” Kljestan said. “That was a good moment for the team to look back on what we have done in the past that has made us successful. And I think the young guys really enjoyed that.”

Lionel Messi remains confident Argentina will reach the 2018 World Cup after their loss against Brazil in Belo Horizonte.

But in addition to individual failings, they are not playing well as a unit. That wonderful Coutinho goal, the moment that changed the match, is a clear example.

In the second half, as Argentina had to chase the game, both Otamendi and Funes Mori had moments when they looked horribly exposed. Pablo Zabaleta at right-back was also too slow to get a grip on Neymar. Argentina urgently needs a new crop of defenders.

When Brazil coach Tite called up his first squad for the two rounds of qualifiers in September, the big surprise was the inclusion of Paulinho, an expensive flop at Tottenham who is now playing his club football in China.

But Tite knew what he was doing. He and Paulinho worked together with great success at Corinthians, and the coach was well aware of the midfielder’s all-around virtues. This match was a showcase.

Paulinho, top, proved decisive at both ends of the pitch, helping marshal Lionel Messi and scoring Brazil’s third.
When Messi was threatening to run amok in the early stages, it was Paulinho who dropped to fill in space and help out with the marking. And in the second John Kruk Youth Jersey half, with Argentina forced forward, gaps emerged for him to push on in search of goal. He was unlucky with a shot cleared off the line, but Paulinho was not kept waiting for long, arriving in the box in trademark style to rifle home goal No. 3 and round off a memorable night for Brazil and their new coach.