Pasquarelli recovering, still watching football

by | Oct 17, 2008 | NFL Media

ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli occasionally gets criticized by observers for getting too close to some sources and letting it affect his reporting but he also has a keen eye for the game.

So I’d wondered a couple times where he disappeared to during the last offseason.

Pasquarelli had quintuple bypass surgery around the Super Bowl last season and then three weeks later contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an illness that attacks the peripheral nervous system.

So he’s watching games from his couch rather than the pressbox, a fact he was obviously frustrated by when he made a guest appearance on Chris Mortenson’s Mort Report on ESPN Radio Friday night.

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Wrong veteran got traded on deadline day

by | Oct 15, 2008 | NFL News, NFL Random Thoughts

Tony Gonzalez is 32-years-old. He’s in the middle of his 12th season with the Kansas City Chiefs. During those 11-plus seasons he’s played in 179 of a possible 181 games. He’s caught 841 passes for 10,075 yards and caught 68 touchdowns while becoming a serviceable blocker as well.

After a couple seasons where his yardage and touchdown numbers fell, he played 16 games in 2007, catching 99 passes for 1,172 yards and five scores, showing he was far from done.

Gonzalez arrived in Kansas City in 1997. During his rookie year, the Chiefs went 13-3. They were upset in the divisional playoff round by Denver, but Gonzalez must have thought that the NFL was a piece of cake. That was the end of a collection of playoff runs for the Chiefs, however. In the five years that followed, the Chiefs won seven, nine, seven, six, and eight games.

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NFL trade deadline likely anti-climatic … again

by | Oct 14, 2008 | NFL Random Thoughts

The NFL trade deadline will pass this afternoon with likely little more than a shrug and a yawn.

Dan Patrick discussed this topic on his morning radio show. Part of the problem is that the season is so young that most teams don’t know yet whether or not they are contenders. Sure, the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs know they aren’t going anywhere this year and you have heard the names Tony Gonzalez, Larry Johnson, Roy Williams and Jon Kitna mentioned in talks.

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Alexander could get a shot in Washington

by | Oct 13, 2008 | NFL Breaking News

With Ladell Betts out for a couple weeks the Washington Redskins might sign Shaun Alexander.

The former Seahawk running back is scheduled to meet with the team on Tuesday and will sign if everything goes according to plan, according to the NFL Network and ESPN.com.

Betts’ injury is not considered serious, but ya’ gotta have someone in case Clinton Portis goes down. The former league MVP hasn’t been good since 2005 when he rushed for almost 1900 yards and scored 28 touchdowns.

The guy won me a couple of fantasy football championships over the years but paid a heavy toll on his body. The guess here is that he pops around the league trying out for any team that loses a back for a season or two before hanging it up for good. He’d garnered interest previously from Cincinnati and New Orleans but neither team chose to offer him a deal.

NFL refs continue poor performance

by | Oct 12, 2008 | NFL Random Thoughts

During the Sunday night game tonight the San Diego Chargers got hosed out of an interception when referees rules that the interceptor went to the ground on his own rather than as a result of contact from a New England Patriot.

The call, clearly incorrect to anyone watching, apparently meant that the ground could in fact cause an incompletion as opposed to a tackle via contact when it can’t.

This particular mishap came at a point when the Chargers were dominating the game so it didn’t have an impact on the outcome, a 30-10 win. But forgive San Diego and coach Norv Turner for being sensitive to such situations. After all it was San Diego that lost a game after Ed Hochuli missed a call in week two in Denver when a clear fumble by Jay Cutler was ruled an incomplete pass.

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