NFL News & Rumors Digest

The Buffalo Bills have signed wide receiver Stevie Johnson to a multi-year contract extension, the team announced Monday.

The Bills did not initially announce terms of the deal, but a club source told NFL Network’s Albert Breer that it is for 5 years and $ 36.25 million, including $ 19.five million guaranteed. Johnson is set to get $ 24 million over the 1st 3 years of the deal.

At a news conference announcing the extension Monday, Johnson emphasized that he in no way had much interest in playing anywhere else.

“I knew where I wanted to be, so it wouldn’t have created any sense to go see if this team wanted me or if that team wanted me,” Johnson mentioned. “It doesn’t matter. What’s the point of searching if you know where you want to be, and this is exactly where I wanted to be.”

Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who signed a six-year, $ 59 million contract extension in October, was just as pleased.

“I’m fired up,” Fitzpatrick mentioned in a conference call. “This shows a lot about Stevie, and this shows a lot about where the Bills are headed. Getting our go-to guy in the receiving corps and becoming a massive playmaker for us, it was a must in terms of re-signing him.

“We’ve created a great relationship. To be able to continue that and see that develop for the next couple of years is going to be fantastic. (Coach) Chan (Gailey) and (common manager) Buddy (Nix) have a plan in spot and this shows that we’re on the correct track. We’re going to maintain the guys that perform, and continue upon what we’ve carried out.”

The news came immediately after Johnson seemed to refute reports of a deal through Twitter Sunday night.

Johnson would have grow to be a free agent had the two sides not reached a deal. Negotiations have been going on for some time, with the team thinking about putting a franchise tag on the receiver if a deal had not been reached. Monday is the final day teams can apply the tag to prospective free of charge agents.

“It’s a very good day for us,” Nix mentioned. “Our football team got greater. 1 of our philosophies coming in is that we wanted to keep our good players right here. We had been in a position to do that with Steve Johnson. It goes with no saying what he’s done the past two years, and I feel it’s just going to get better.”

Johnson, 25, caught 76 passes for 1,004 yards and seven touchdowns in 2011, his fourth pro season. The receiver was a seventh-round choose in the 2008 NFL Draft and started just 1 game prior to breaking out in 2010 with 82 catches for 1,073 yards and ten touchdowns.

The Related Press contributed to this report

(About:) This article was distributed by Syndicated Sports news wire and aggregation service, For more NFL news see: Bills keep away from using tag by signing Johnson to 5-year extension.

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Five NFL players were featured in a recent advertisement for an Exxxotica Expo 2011 party in Miami last month.  The dilemma: They were in uniform.

“The NFL office works on behalf of the clubs to safeguard their intellectual property rights in matters such as this” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told ABC-7 in Chicago, who broke the story.

The players in the ad who were said to be “hosts” of the party: Chiefs cornerback Brandon Flowers, Bears safety Significant Wright, Chiefs safety Eric Berry, Texans cornerback Kareem Jackson, and Raiders wideout Jacoby Ford.  (Here’s the ad.)

“Our legal team is reviewing the ad. In general, organizations not affiliated with the NFL or its clubs may not depict a player in his uniform” said McCarthy.

The Bears said they are “troubled” by Wright’s usage and believe it is an inappropriate use of their logo, so they alerted the league about it.  They pointed out that often players are unaware their images are employed in such events, but ABC-7 calls Wright a “fixture” of the Miami party scene.  Rookies like Daniel Thomas and Corey Liuget were also in the ad.

The event was billed as the official launch party for the Expo, which will take location in the Chicago region in July. It is said to be the world’s largest gathering of porn stars in the world.

We know the NFL is losing advertisers since of the lockout, so maybe they need to embrace this as an opportunity.

What’s a lot more successful (and American) than football and porn?

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For years, the NFL has cringed at the possibility that Congress would deem the league’s drug-testing procedures to be insufficient, pushing the entire protocol under the jurisdiction of the World Anti-Doping Agency.  With the players’ union now decertified and the league facing the threat of an involuntary resumption of football activities, the NFL is contemplating enlisting WADA voluntarily.

Judy Battista of the New York Times reports that the league has spoken with WADA regarding the achievable transfer of the program to the agency that oversees the testing of Olympic athletes.  The program could consist of blood testing for HGH, with testing for recreational substances deferred to the teams.

In response, the players could challenge the league-wide testing as a violation of antitrust laws, a position that likely would be unpopular from both a political and P.R. standpoint.

The league’s willingness to expose its players to a much more stringent testing program that removes the NFL as the ultimate judge as to those who are and aren’t disciplined marks a departure from what some had perceived as an approach that had sufficient teeth to be credible but not sufficient teeth to catch each and each and every cheater, particularly when it comes to HGH.  And the not-so-subtle message to players could be this:  “You’ve killed the Wicked Witch of the East.  Take pleasure in the Wicked Witch of the West.”

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It might be strange for a tough guy, but Chris Cooley doesn’t care. The Redskin likes making pottery for his gallery.

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