Patriot forever? Mankins ends contract drama with six-year deal

Posted on August 11, 2011 by admin

All of the contract contentiousness between the New England Patriots and All-Pro guard Logan Mankins is finally over.

NFL Network’s Michael Lombardi confirmed Wednesday that the Patriots have signed Mankins to a six-year contract. By signing Mankins to the long-term deal, the Patriots also lowered the six-year veteran’s salary cap number, according to Lombardi. The story

Patriots owner Robert Kraft hinted to reporters early Wednesday that Mankins, who was set to play under a one-year, franchise-tag tender contract worth $10 million, would soon be signed to a long-term deal.

“Probably you’ll see our good friend, Logan Mankins, will be signed up soon, hopefully, to be a Patriot for life,” Kraft said, according to the team’s website.

The value of the six-year deal was not known, but a source told the Boston Herald that Mankins will be the highest-paid interior offensive lineman in the league.

Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday that the Patriots got some help in paying Mankins from recently acquired defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. Citing a source familiar with the deal, the website reported that Haynesworth, who was due to earn $5.4 million in 2011, reduced his base salary to $1.5 million.

He can earn the money back in incentives, including $1 million if he plays in 20 percent of the plays and an additional $590,000 when he hits 45 percent, 50 percent, 55 percent, 60 percent and then 65 percent, according to the report. He can also earn $400,000 if he makes the Pro Bowl.

Haynesworth was traded from the Washington Redskins to New England for a late-round draft choice. The Patriots could not be reached for comment.

A first-round draft pick of the Patriots in 2005, Mankins sat out the first eight weeks of the 2010 season after holding out over his status as a restricted free agent. Mankins signed his tender and reported to the team on Nov. 2 and started the final nine games of the season.

He was still named as a starter in the Pro Bowl, his third career selection.

Mankins had criticized the Patriots organization just before starting his holdout on June 14, 2010, the day before the team’s minicamp began. He said the club asked him to play in 2009, the final year of his original five-year contract, and they would address his contract concerns after that season. He also said he wanted to be traded.

“Growing up, I was taught a man’s word is his bond,” he said in June 2010. “Obviously, this isn’t the case with the Patriots.”

He later apologized.

Mankins also was one of 10 players who were plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit filed against the NFL a few hours before the lockout began.

“All I know is,” Kraft said Wednesday, “any face-to-face discussions I’ve had (with Mankins) or any private discussions have all been positive.”

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Packs’ Matthews: I played second half of 2010 with broken leg

Posted on August 10, 2011 by admin

Green Bay Packers Pro Bowl linebacker Clay Matthews played the second half of the 2010 season and all of the postseason with a broken leg, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported.

Matthews, who had 13.5 sacks during the season and 3.5 more during Packers’ run to the Super Bowl title, mentioned the injury while answering a question about how much the Packers will miss departed defensive lineman Cullen Jenkins, who signed with the Philadelphia Eagles.

“I don’t make a big deal of it,” Matthews said Tuesday. “(It happened) some time in the middle of the season. You can’t do anything about it. I was just taking practices off and showing up on gameday and giving it my all.”

Matthews was listed on the injury report every week from Week 9 through the NFC Championship Game as probable with a shin injury, which in fact was a lower-leg stress fracture.

Jenkins’ presence last season seemingly helped Matthews, who had 14 of his 17 sacks during the 15 games that Jenkins played. In the five games Jenkins missed because of injury, Matthews made just three sacks.

“I also had a stress fracture in four of those games,” Matthews said. “But nobody knows that. I had a stress fracture in my leg. A sore shin as you guys call it, but that’s all right. Obviously, I’m not making excuses. Cullen is a terrific athlete, and we’re definitely going to take a hit in our defensive line, but at the same time I think they have confidence in the guys coming up.”

Matthews, who also has struggled with hamstring issues during each of his first two NFL seasons — both of which resulted in Pro Bowl berths, took a different approach to his offseason training this year, including much more cardiovascular work. As a result, he arrived at Packers camp weighing six pounds less than in 2010.

“This offseason, I put an emphasis on really coming in here in great cardio shape and make sure I had done everything that I possibly could to say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to prevent injuries,’” Matthews said. “That’s the nature of the beast. You’re going to get injured in this game, but I feel good. I feel good about where I’m at headed into my third year and feel like I can definitely outdo what I’ve put on paper and on film the last two years.”

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Feeling rejuvenated, RB Portis believes he can make impact

Posted on July 16, 2011 by admin

About to turn 30 and coming off a pair of injury-riddled seasons, it’d be fair to conclude Clinton Portis’ best days are in his rearview mirror.

Don’t tell Portis that. The veteran running back will be a free agent when the NFL lockout is lifted, and he’s confident he has quality football ahead of him.

“For myself, I think (age is) just a number. You’re saying I turned 30, but I had a slate of two years where I really haven’t done anything,” Portis told ESPN 980 on Friday. “So right now, I feel good and feel better at this point than I have in a long time, just feeling like I’m completely healthy, just feeling like things are totally healed. And now that I know what I need to do and what I need to get accomplished, I’m fine with that.”

Portis was originally selected by the Broncos in the second round of the 2002 NFL Draft. He’s had several elite seasons in the years that followed in both Denver and with the Washington Redskins, but the NFL grind seems to have worn on the University of Miami product. Injuries limited him to just 13 games the past two two seasons.

And while durability concerns are now part of the Portis package — injury history is one of the reasons the Redskins cut ties with him in February — the back looks at the missed time since as a blessing in a way.

“The injuries the last two years has really been a lot of rest for myself,” he said. “And with the lockout going on this year, I had the opportunity to go out to Arizona and fully recover and train and straighten out some of the things that were ailing me that I didn’t even have a clue of.”

Portis has an open mind about where he would like to play next season, though years of losing in Washington have him itching to join a contender.

“Any team I can help. I think I have choices, but any team that I can help that’s really a contender,” he said. “I would love to go to … .I’ve always been a fan of Drew Brees, I’ve been a fan of Philip Rivers, I think the young kid down in Tampa (Josh Freeman) is going to be great. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Michael Vick, it’s a lot of guys.

“I just want to go to an organization that’s kind of stable and going to have a set offense and running with what they’re familiar with.”

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Police arrest Bengals CB Jones, who denies he resisted them

Posted on July 11, 2011 by admin

Bengals cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones spent eight hours in a Cincinnati jail Sunday morning after being arrested on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct while intoxicated and resisting arrest, but he steadfastly denied any wrongdoing.

“I hadn’t been drinking,” Jones told WCPO-TV after he exited jail. “I was with my wife. It was her birthday.

“It don’t make no sense,” added Jones, who’ll be arraigned Monday. “There is no reason why I should have got locked up. No reason.”

Police said Jones, 27, needed to be escorted out of a downtown Cincinnati bar after repeatedly being asked to calm down. Jones went outside but allegedly yelled profanities and gestured wildly, leading police to arrest him. Jones allegedly tried to escape his handcuffs, so two officers had to restrain him before taking him to Hamilton County Jail around 3 a.m.

Jones, who’s wearing a neck brace while he recovers from an injury that ended his 2010 season, questioned how he could resist arrest in his physical condition.

“I just had surgery,” Jones told WCPO-TV. “So why would I be resisting arrest? It doesn’t make sense for me to resist arrest.”

It’s Jones’ second run-in with police in Cincinnati. Last fall, they questioned him after he drove his vehicle over a downtown curb to avoid an obstacle, but they later apologized to him, saying it was a mistake and he’d done nothing wrong.

Jones, whose NFL career has been marred by his off-the-field troubles, acknowledged Sunday “the only thing I can do is apologize,” but he vowed, “I’m going to take this to another step.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Jones said. “… I did not yell profanities at the police, and at the end of the day … I’m the bad guy.”

A Bengals spokesman told The Associated Press the team had no comment. The team is prohibited from having contact with Jones because of the NFL lockout.

It’s just the latest off-the-field issue for Jones. He was arrested six times and involved in 12 instances requiring police intervention while with the Tennessee Titans from 2005 to 2007. He was suspended for the 2007 season under the NFL’s personal-conduct policy.

The Dallas Cowboys traded for Jones in 2008, but he got into trouble again, drawing a six-game suspension for an alcohol-related scuffle with a team-provided bodyguard. The Cowboys released Jones after the 2008 season, and he sat out the next year before signing a two-year deal with the Bengals in May 2010.

Jones appeared in five games for Cincinnati last season, totaling 14 tackles and one interception. He also returned a fumble for a touchdown before a neck injury ended his campaign.

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Chiefs’ Vrabel retiring to join OSU’s football program

Posted on July 10, 2011 by admin

Veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel has decided not to return to the Kansas City Chiefs this season, choosing to retire after 14 NFL campaigns to accept a role with Ohio State’s football program, Sports Radio 810 WHB tweeted Friday.

The radio station’s tweet provided no further details, but profootballtalk.com reported Friday that there is a “very good chance” Vrabel will call it quits and that “an announcement could made as early as this coming Monday,” according to a source.

The New England Patriots shipped Vrabel and quarterback Matt Cassel to the Chiefs in February 2009 in return for the No. 34 overall pick in that April’s draft.

Vrabel, 35, was part of three Super Bowl-winning teams in his eight years with the Patriots from 2001 to 2008.

Over the past two seasons with the Chiefs, Vrabel started 30 games and logged 73 total tackles, with two sacks and three forced fumbles. He spent his first four seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers after they drafted him in the third round of the 1997 NFL Draft out of Ohio State.

Vrabel, one of 10 players named as a plaintiff in the Brady et al v. the National Football League et al antitrust lawsuit, has 704 tackles and 57 sacks in his career, along with 11 sacks and 17 forced fumbles.

Vrabel was arrested and charged with theft at the Belterra Casino Resort in Florence, Ind., in April. He was released from jail after posting $600 cash bond later Monday morning. He released a statement through his agent after the incident.

“It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and I take full responsibility for the miscommunication,” Vrabel said. “I feel comfortable that after talking with the appropriate parties, we will resolve this matter.”

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lljhg – Roethlisberger can’t rule out foot surgery despite progress

Posted on June 26, 2011 by admin

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger says the broken right foot that hampered him throughout much of last season has almost fully healed, but there’s a chance he’ll require surgery if the pain returns, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Saturday.

“It’s doing really good. It’s healed up,” Roethlisberger said. “Obviously, it helps when I’m not cutting and planting and doing all of these different activities. It’s really come a long way. I haven’t had too many problems with it recently.”

Roethlisberger suffered through much of 2010 with the foot injury, which he aggravated during a game against the Buffalo Bills in November, saying “there were times during practice and games where I didn’t feel like I’d be able to walk.”

The seven-year veteran and two-time Super Bowl winner wore a cleat fitted with a pair of metal plates both in games and practices, right up through the team’s loss to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV. He didn’t miss a snap last season because of the injury, throwing for 3,200 yards and 17 touchdowns.

“I could have had surgery (after last season), but according to the doctors, it would have been a really nasty process because of where the break was. It was better off trying not to do anything,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s going to be something where we’re just going to have to, in essence, play it by ear. If it continues to be as painful as it was at the end of last year, then I’m going to probably have to have the surgery.”

Roethlisberger has been able to focus on football this offseason, free from off-the-field issues that plagued him a year ago. He recently told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he gathered offensive players for workouts earlier this offseason but kept the proceedings undercover.

“We’ve worked out, linemen, running backs, tight ends, everybody. All of the offense,” Roethlisberger said. “… We’ve had some good progress, just to kind of refresh people’s memories on audible calls or no-huddle calls, little things like that.”

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Titans’ Johnson has big money in mind, prepared to hold out

Posted on June 25, 2011 by admin

The Tennessee Titans were able to effectively placate star running back Chris Johnson last year and entice him to report for the 2010 season by adding an additional $1.5 million to his $500,000 base salary.

The situation will come to a head again this summer whenever the NFL lockout ends, and the solution is bound to be more complex.

Johnson, set to receive just $800,000 in 2011, is preparing for a much more prolonged holdout if need be and remains committed to joining the game’s highest-paid running backs, according to those who have been in contact with him.

The idea of another “band-aid” deal, after three highly productive seasons, isn’t appealing to Johnson, and a contract in the range of the $5 million per season extension that Jamaal Charles signed with the Kansas City Chiefs last season isn’t what he’s thinking, either.

Johnson has talked in the past about wanting to join the ranks of those garnering $30 million in guaranteed money, and if the free-agent cash begins flying around in a furious manner post-lockout, don’t expect his desire to wane.

Johnson is signed through 2012 on his rookie contract, and although that deal doesn’t provide fiscal leverage, his presence is imperative to the Titans’ offense. Tennessee is in a tricky spot, with quarterback Vince Young departing and rookie Jake Locker perhaps in line to start right away despite losing all offseason to the lockout. And top wide receiver Kenny Britt has had off-the-field trouble throughout the offseason, making Mike Munchak’s first year as coach already more unusual than anyone would expect as he steps in for the departed Jeff Fisher.

All those subplots could hang over the Titans entering training camp, but Johnson’s situation would be paramount among them. This impasse has the potential to rival cornerback Darrelle Revis’ protracted standoff with the New York Jets last summer unless the sides can agree to a compromise soon after the lockout. It’s difficult to envision a running back of Johnson’s stature playing for less than $1 million per season.

Eventually, the sides will have to find common ground on more than a year-by-year basis. Perhaps they can find a two- or three-year solution, with guaranteed money on the front end, to bridge the gap. Regardless, whenever the lockout ends, expect this dance between Johnson and his employers to be renewed.

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Do wholesale NFL jerseys business online is good

Posted on February 25, 2011 by admin

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Bears LB Urlacher upset about crackdown on illegal hits

Posted on November 19, 2010 by admin

Count Brian Urlacher among the non-believers when it comes to the NFL’s new stricter guidelines on illegal hits.

The Bears linebacker expressed his thoughts in an interview with the NFL Network following Chicago’s 16-0 win over the Miami Dolphins on Thursday night. Asked his feeling on the large fines being dished out around the league, Urlacher didn’t hold back.

“I don’t like the rule, I don’t think any defensive player likes it,” Urlacher said. “It’s not going to effect the way we play. We’re still going to try to separate the ball from the player, that’s what we do as defense. We’ve been taught that since we were kids, that’s what we’re going to try to keep doing.

“If we get fined, we’ll appeal it, and then we’re going to have to pay, but we’re going to keep playing hard and fast.”

Urlacher, speaking passionately, expressed a feeling that defensive players are being placed in a no-win situation.

“What can you do though? It’s a dictatorship,” he said. “If (NFL Commissioner Roger) Goodell wants to fine you he’s going to fine you, that’s the way it goes and that’s just the way it is.”

The 11-year veteran singled out defensive backs as being in an especially vulnerable position.

“I wouldn’t want to be a DB in the NFL,” he said. “They’ve got no chance. There’s no contact down the field, but fans want to see points. That’s what people say.”

Urlacher isn’t the first decorated NFL veteran to question how the league decides fines.

Pittsburgh Steelers saftey Troy Polamalu, a former All-Pro, told NFL Network, “There needs to be a more democratic process in the fines he has been handing out.”

“If you want to appeal those fines, you appeal to the same people, so it’s like if I’m given a ticket by a police officer for speeding I’d have to appeal it to him, not to a judge,” Polamalu added. “I think the process could be cleaned up. I think current players should be involved, as well as former players, as well as front office people, coaches involved as well.”

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Patriots rule out RB Taylor, three others vs. Steelers

Posted on November 15, 2010 by admin

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — New England Patriots running back Fred Taylor has been ruled out of Sunday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers because of toe injuries to both feet.

Taylor already has missed five games this season.

The Patriots also said Saturday that guard Stephen Neal will join Taylor on the sideline because of a shoulder injury. Neal had started all eight games this season.

Safety Jarrad Page (calf) and nose tackle Myron Pryor (back) also will miss the game against the Steelers

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