Seahawks add Julius Jones

by | Mar 8, 2008 | 2008 NFL Free Agency, Fantasy Football

The Seattle Seahawks have added Julius Jones to their stable of running backs, a move that further minimizes the presence of Shaun Alexander and possibly Maurice Morris.

The Seahawks agreed to terms with Jones, previously of the Dallas Cowboys, Friday night.

Media reports are conflicting about what this does to Alexander’s roster spot. The Seattle Times reports that there is room under the Hawks’ salary cap to carry both backs. Rotoworld.com is reporting that Alexander will likely be a post-July 1 roster cut – a move that would save the team more than $4 million under the cap.

But what is clear is that Alexander’s days as a feature back and a fantasy football stud, at least for now, are over. Alexander had missed nine games the past two seasons. And the Seahawks had already added T.J. Duckett, a big, short-yardage back, earlier in the week.

Jones, on the other hand, comes with fresh legs. He rushed for 1,084 yards in 2006 but had lost time to Marion Barber III in Dallas and was reportedly looking for a fresh start. He’s never had more than 267 carries in a season. But he has shown flashes of the ability to be a franchise back.

He closed the 2004 campaign, his rookie year, with 22 or more carries in each of the last seven games, including a trio of consecutive games where he ripped off 429 yards and five touchdowns on 93 carries.

While it’s speculation at this point, from a fantasy perspective Jones at this point would seem the odds-on candidate to lead the team in carries in 2008, assuming Alexander is eventually released. Duckett, however, could steal many of the goal-line carries, leading to another dreaded running back-by-committee situation.

Seattle coach Mike Holmgren nearly abandoned the running game at times during the 2007 season. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had a great year but the team was eliminated from the playoffs by Green Bay in the divisional round.

Goodell cracks down on cheating, whines about cable access

by | Mar 8, 2008 | Business of Football

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is shooting .500 this week.

He announced plans to crack down on spying with extra inspections and harsher penalties following the embarrassment that was dealing with the New England Patriots taping of opponents this past season.

Inspections, according to media accounts, could be unannounced and would include locker rooms, coaching areas and press boxes, and would utilize a lower standard of proof for imposing discipline.

The loss of draft choices would still be a strong possibility, as happened in the Patriots situation. The team forfeited its first round draft pick next month for violations.

I think some of these rules are a bit overblown. If a team can photograph signals and decode them into something usable while a game is still going on I almost think they should be rewarded. That said, if it’s going to be against the rules the standards should be set, the investigatory techniques should be strong and the punishments should be swift and painful, and Goodell has been in front of this issue.

Goodell’s crack down on cable operators during a congressional hearing earlier in the week was a bit more laughable. He testified, according to Reuters, that the Federal Communications Commission should take strong action against cable companies he claims are using their position in the market to “discriminate against independent programmers” like the NFL Network.

The league has been trying to achieve broader exposure for its network. But it claims cable operators unfairly give their own affiliated channels a leg up through better channel placement and financial terms. Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable offer NFL Network only through added sports programming tiers that cost subscribers extra.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Florida, questioned why the government should get involved in a private business dispute. And Comcast spokesman John Demming said the sports tier is the fairest way to provide the service – those who want it pay for it, those who don’t want it don’t have to pay extra.

Lord knows I’ve had my issues with Comcast. My cable bill skyrocketed after the company took over my local Time Warner outlet. And they subtracted several stations off of my basic package, as well. NFL Network is one of the reasons I switched to DirecTV in the first place.

But why is the NFL, the most successful and powerful of the major professional sports, so adamant about maintaining its antitrust exemption when it comes to negotiating exclusive sports packages, such as DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket – a package that allows fans to watch games outside their regional market – but when things don’t go their way with the basic cable negotiations it’s time for Congress to intervene?

Just curious.

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.