Falcons ink three defensive linemen

by | Mar 8, 2008 | 2008 NFL Free Agency

Get your Super Bowl tickets now.

The Atlanta Falcons have reportedly signed three defensive linemen. Tackle Kindal Moorehead and end Simon Fraser combined for 33 tackles and two sacks last season and end Rashard Moore was out of the league last season. He played for New England in 2006.

Wake me up when the draft starts.

12-year-old denied coaching job, settles for autograph

by | Mar 8, 2008 | College Football

Who can’t get a kick out of this story. Joshua Irizarry has been a West Virginia football fan since he was 4 and now 12, he’s apparently pretty clever at tricking his opponents in local sandlot games. When Rich Rodriguez left the Mountaineers program for Michigan, Irizarry thought he’d apply for the job.

While WVU President Mike Garrison ultimately chose Bill Stewart to man the head coaching position, he expressed admiration for Irizarry’s spunk. “The lawyer side of me appreciated the arguments he used for why he should be considered for the job,” he told the Associated Press. “The father side of me recognized a young man with a lot of determination and ambition.”

Irizarry, who lives 500 miles away from campus in Southington, Conn., was excited to receive his consolation prize, a written response from Garrison and an autograph from Mountaineer running back Noel Devine.

Good luck to Irizarry in pursuing future coaching ambitions and kudos to Garrison for showing that administrative side of the game still has a human side.

Bears bag Brandon Lloyd

by | Mar 7, 2008 | 2008 NFL Free Agency

The Chicago Bears were allegedly $32 million under the salary cap heading into free agency. But the team hasn’t done much to use that spending cash.

“If money is the bottom line, I don’t want that player,” Bears GM Jerry Angelo said at the NFL Scouting Combine, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

And Angelo has spent the past two weeks proving that true. The Bears did re-sign stud linebacker Lance Briggs.  But beyond that, they traded quarterback Brian Griese and allowed wideout Bernard Berrian to join division rival Minnesota after having cut Muhsin Muhammad.

While both players were flawed they’re quite a bit better than those the journeymen team officials added to replace them. They didn’t even match the Baltimore Ravens offer of four years, $4.9 million for special teams pro-bowler Brendon Ayanbadejo.

Futhermore, they’ve taken Angelo’s comments further with the moves they’ve made to, ahem, fortify their wide receiver position. Their immediate answer to losing Berrian and Muhammad was bringing Marty Booker back. He’s a fine player and he might get them 50 receptions. But his average yards per catch has decreased dramatically each of the last two years.

Now, on Friday afternoon, they dug even deeper for a retread, grabbing off the scrap heap former 49er and Redskin Brandon Lloyd. Lloyd, a big-buck addition in Washington two years ago, has missed nine games the last two years. He contributed just 25 catches during that span. Even when he was good back in 2004 and 2005 he wasn’t THAT good, with 43 and 48 catches respectively and uninspiring yards-per-catch averages and touchdown numbers.

Granted, it’s a one-year contract and odds are he didn’t have to pay that much. But it’s going to be a long year in Chi-town if these are the best wideouts they plan to add to a running game still hampered by trading the wrong back a year ago.

Fantasy ups and downs

by | Mar 7, 2008 | 2008 NFL Free Agency, Fantasy Football

A couple weeks into free agency it’s time to take a look at the impact the signings so far have had on the fantasy football landscape. Some of them – the Randy Moss re-signing, for instance – are pretty straightforward. But a few of the deals will have ramifications beyond the signees themselves.
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Non-Favre news … mostly

by | Mar 7, 2008 | 2008 NFL Free Agency, NFL Breaking News

I was too broken up by Brett Favre’s retirement announcement Thursday to notice much of what else went on throughout the day. I still think he’s going to come back, but after the press conference, I feel somewhat less strongly about that opinion. He did look like someone who was just plain ready to move on with life. If that is the case more power to him. He had a fantastic career, was extremely entertaining in doing so, and he deserves most of the accolades he’s getting. He goes down, in my opinion, as not the best quarterback of all time (my vote is Joe Montana), but he’s certainly in that top echelon.

Onto other NFL news: Defensive tackle Warren Sapp officially announced his retirement as well. He’s been overrated for a few years now but certainly made an impact in his prime, helping Tampa Bay go from chump to champ. Punter Sean Landeta, who last played in 2005, hung up his single-bar facemask. And Steve Christie … think about it … yeah, the kicker from Buffalo that also hasn’t played in three seasons, also decided to hang it up, signing a one-day contract with his former team. What’s with these guys that have been out of the game forever – especially kickers – pretending anyone cares whether they have officially retired or not? (more…)