NFL News & Rumors Digest

The conversation on the sideline would have gone something like this… Campbell to Moore has just smoked McKelvin for another huge play and Chan is talking with the Bill’s DC a.k.a. the two headed monster.

THM: We require to turn the dogs loose, he’s acquiring scorched!

CG: No. Feel about it. That kid’s a rookie, he aint gonna beat ‘em once more, just tell Leodis to give him a bigger cushion…

The two headed monster walks away in disgust screaming for McKelvin. Chan continues to play the game…

Numerous hope that scenario or something close to it played out last Sunday at the Ralph. Oh I want so considerably for the rumors (fantasy to be much more accurate) to be true. The grand chess match does exist and we sit behind one of the players. 1 of the puppet masters attempting to win the game before it starts. The game outside the game.

For the very first two games of the season the Bills have been on a mission to stop the run. Who could blame them, they had to shut people up. Based on its level of media attention in the preseason, Al-Qaeda in the caves of Pakistan knew the Bills had an abysmal run defense last year and it wasn’t likely to improve considerably.

So quit the run they did. You could see it in every single factor they did defensively, and of course the opponents were ripe for it. But everybody is nonetheless asking, exactly where is the pass rush? What happened to that taste of “Light’s out” we got in the preseason? I didn’t expect him to do it for a full game, but a couple times at the begin each and every week would be very good. We saw he has at least that considerably burst left. Forget Merriman, the other guys we have pass rushed far better than this last year! And where are all the exotic blitz packages the ‘Stash’ just had to be conjuring up all summer? Some thing is not proper, they need to be holding back!

If 1 were to think the rumors this has been Chan’s strategy all along. Lull the Patriots into a false sense of security on our pass rush, appear typical, show them nothing. No stunts, no schemes, absolutely nothing they can program for, even if it makes Campbell appear like the second coming of Brady. Leave them to think the rush they have seen so far this year is what we will rely on. Then this Sunday, eliminate those shackles and let the dogs loose! A complex symphony of human juggernauts hurled at the living Ken doll from all directions. Forget catching their players sleeping, catch their coaches sleeping. Cut off the head of the snake, or at least make it scratch its chin.

I’m not confident if this is the situation, but whether Chan planned it or not, it confident does not look like the Bills have a pass rush.

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It’s possible that the lockout will only price us one preseason game.  Unfortunately, it will also kill 1 of the finest shows on televsion for a year.

Peter King of SI.com reports there will be no Tough Knocks this year.

The news hardly comes as a surprise considering the timing of the end of the lockout.  NFL Films also seemed to be struggling to get a team to agree to do the show.

Let’s just hope it returns in 2012.

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Texans coach Gary Kubiak is currently in Baghdad, spending five days touring military bases as component of a USO Tour.

And he’s obtaining the identical question that every single coach, owner, player, and media member related with the NFL is getting on a every day basis.

“The question we get the most is, ‘Will we have football this season?’  I tell them, ‘Yes, we’re going to have football this season!’”  Kubiak told John McClain of the Houston Chronicle Sunday by phone from Iraq.

The experience has produced a deep impression on Kubiak, who is on the trip with Ken Whisenhunt, Jim Mora, and Jim Mora Jr.

“Before I came here, I spoke to some who had created this trip, and they told me it would change my life, and they were proper,” Kubiak stated. “This is one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I’ve met so many fascinating soldiers. I feel like I’m thanking them for everybody back house. I have so much respect and admiration for the sacrifices they make to defend us.”

What Kubiak is doing overseas is terrific.  As we celebrate our nation’s independence this weekend, we’d also like to pause and send thanks to all the troops at property and abroad who have sacrificed to support make this country what it is.

Photo courtesy of USO.

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ESPN’s Chris Mortensen has squeezed out a couple of tweets this morning regarding a portion of Roger Goodell’s PFT Live interview that was sufficiently compelling to make it onto the ESPN cablewaves on Wednesday.  For those of you who missed it, Goodell did not remove from the table the rumored choice of shutting down all company operations in the event the lockout is lifted by the courts.

Mort reports that which Goodell didn’t say — a full shutdown won’t take place.

“As prominent NFL man says, please ignore idea becoming floated that NFL could shut down business if lockout lifted,” Mortensen writes on Twitter.  “Not a chance, he says.”  Mortensen later dismissed Goodell’s failure to take the choice off the table by saying without elaboration, “I wouldn’t use it as a barometer of what’s actual here.”

For clarity, we by no means said the league had decided to shut down if forced to open the doors to players.  We reported that it was an choice becoming discussed.  And we stand by that, even if the choice is being discussed solely as a way to vent the frustrations of billionaires who are accustomed to getting their way and who haven’t really frequently in the past 62 days.  And we assumed (incorrectly, as usual) that Goodell would dismiss the possibility with the same clarity that he has dismissed the concept of replacement players.  When he didn’t, the story grew legs.

Since some in possession of cheeseheads produced of tinfoil believe that the league planted the rumor with PFT so that we’d ask Goodell the question and that he’d then give an obtuse response aimed at scaring the players, here’s our take on what happened.  We feel Goodell opted in response to the question to resort to the league’s talking point when it comes to the post-lockout rules that would be imposed, and that he didn’t realize his failure to particularly say “there won’t be a total shutdown” would be regarded as newsworthy.  He does a lot of extemporaneous speaking, he was shuttling between appointments on Wednesday, and he can’t be expected to be pitch best each and each and every time.

So we feel the league is now attempting to control the scenario by leaking that a total shutdown isn’t an option.  It is a intelligent move, for a selection of factors.  Apart from consistently growing fan anger and frustration, the NFL doesn’t need the 3 judges in St. Louis who’ll determine no matter whether to problem an order that the players ought to be permitted to return to function to feel that the league is devising methods for defying an order that the players need to be permitted to return to work.  If that happens, the three judges in St. Louis could be far more inclined to order that the players should be permitted to return to work.

That’s ultimately why I thought Goodell would respond to the question by taking the shutdown alternative off the table, and that’s why I now think that the league has decided to leak the notion that it won’t happen to Mort.

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One year on the sidelines and a number of desperate teams looking for quarterbacks could wind up making Marc Bulger a popular man when free agency eventually starts. NFL.com’s Michael Lombardi writes that he expects the Cardinals to “go hard” after Bulger when he’s available.  That’s no surprise.   A bit more notable: Lombardi “would fully…

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