NFL - NEWS & NOTES

Ah-ha, now the light goes on.

NFL should allow for two. Cowboys had a good alternate helmet a couple years back.

 

I believe that was just a decal or they went out of their way to repaint them.

EDIT: Or it could have been before the new rule in the CBA.

 

Pretty sure it was because of the new CBA rule.

 

It definitely was. I was talking about the Cowboys alternates you were talking about may have been from before then.

 

The Steelers had a nice yellow helmet a few years ago to go with their retro uniforms. Why does it matter so much to the league anyways? The teams pay for the uniforms . I personally like the ones that you guys call Dickersons for the Rams which doesn’t make sense because they wore those five or more seasons before Dickerson was even known in College. I know for damn sure they wore those in the 1979 SB against the Steelers.

 

It was for research.

 

This is all the Steelers fault. Bright yellow helmets and Bumble Bee uni's... wtf.

 

Dickerson just sounds better than Ferragamo (shoe designer) ... or Youngblood.

 

How about the Hunters for Fred Dryer?

 

“Works for me.” - Fred Dwyer

 

If weed becomes completely legal, would they allow players to wear number four twenty?

 

Or 1Z? Or 1/8?

 

Atlanta Falcons sign free-agent DT Terrell McClain

Defensive tackle Terrell McClain has a new home after taking a free-agent tour with the Cowboys, 49ers and Dolphins.

The Falcons on Friday signed McClain to a contract, the team announced. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 6-foot-2, 302-pound McClain will provide depth and experience along the interior of Atlanta's defensive line. He joins Grady Jarrett, rookie Deadrin Senat and Garrison Smith, among other defensive tackles currently on the Falcons' roster. (NFL.com)

 

The Bills’ first pick in round one, quarterback Josh Allen, remains unsigned. Their second first-round pick, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, has a contract.

The team announced that Edmunds signed a contract before the second day of the team’s rookie minicamp.

“I’m telling you Tremaine is a freak,” Josh Allen recently said regarding Edmunds, via the team’s official website. “I told him, ‘Just don’t hit me.’ He’s a presence out there because he’s tall and lengthy. He’s just built. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. I’m glad he’s on my team.”

Buffalo traded up from No. 22 to No. 16 to get Edmunds. Earlier in the round, the Bills had traded from No. 12 to No. 7 to get Allen.

The Bills now have only two unsigned draft picks: Allen and third-round defensive tackle Harrison Phillips. (PFT)

 

Redskins rookie UDFA center Sean Welsh from Iowa retires, cites depression and that the love of the game isn't there anymore. He was considered a steal as a UDFA and now we see a good reason why he wasn't drafted. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sour...LjAC&usg=AOvVaw0RpkdB5fWv13hhbWu2DqL0&ampcf=1

 

Matt Patricia's college days are being talked about lately. Apparently, there were 5 witnesses for the prosecution but the victim bailed on the case due to stress. I'll post more on this in one of the "other" threads. That "other" place is not for everyone. Enter at your own risk.

 

Free-agent running back Adrian Peterson is interested in returning to the Saints. Saints coach Sean Payton hasn’t ruled out a reunion.

“This gets back to the notion that we had any argument in Minnesota [during a Week One game against the Vikings],” Payton told reporters on Saturday when asked about the possibility of signing Peterson given the four-game suspension imposed on Mark Ingram. “There was none. I think a ton of him, and that would be the part where if all of sudden we decided, ‘Hey, we’re going to look at additional players that are on the street,’ his name, there will be a few others. We have him on a board right now, who’s available. Veteran running backs stacked on a board graded, but he’s a tough player, warrior, and a great worker and we had a good relationship.”

Peterson signed with the Saints last year, before the Saints drafted Alvin Kamara. Once the regular season began, Peterson became frustrated with his lack of playing time and touches. Eventually, the Saints traded Peterson to the Cardinals.

This year, having Peterson makes sense for the first quarter of the season. When Ingram returns, however, the Saints could be right back where they were in 2017, with three tailbacks, a franchise quarterback, and only one football.

 

Texas police search records for copy of police report in Patricia case



With Lions coach Matt Patricia vowing on Thursday to “clear my name” but with no specifics provided in order to come to the detached, unbiased conclusion that Patricia was falsely accused of aggravated sexual assault in 1996, reporters will now attempt to fill in the gaps by uncovering forgotten or previously unknown facts. The process already has begun.

According to Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press, police in South Padre Island, Texas have begun searching files in storage manually in an effort to locate a paper copy of the police report.

Currently available documents, per Baldas, show that the alleged victim received treatment on the evening of the alleged incident at Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas. Matt Patricia and Greg Dietrich were arrested that same night, and they were indicted by a grand jury four months later.

The case was due to go to trial on October 21, 1997. The prosecution’s witnesses included (beyond the alleged victim) a nurse, a doctor, a police detective, a police officer, and a friend of the alleged victim. Obviously, however, prosecutors did not believe that a conviction could have been obtained without the testimony of the alleged victim, who chose not to testify, citing the stress of a trial.

The Free Press reports that, although a medical examination occurred of the alleged victim, it’s unknown whether DNA samples were obtained from the defendants.

The search for more facts will continue, with the key question being whether the alleged victim will choose to tell her story now, and then whether her story seems credible and persuasive. If that happens, Patricia may have to do something more than generally state that he is innocent.

Again, he may be. Absent proof to the contrary, he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence and the benefit of the doubt. But if there’s contrary proof, professional journalists will be looking for it.

And that’s really what journalism in sports is, or at least should be. The vast majority of the “reports” that emerge every single day amount to advance notice (often as brief as a matter of minutes) of a transaction that is about to be announced by a team or the league office. True journalism entails finding out things that otherwise aren’t known, and won’t be.

Although Lions receiver Golden Tate has objected to the fact that the 22-year-old incident has become a story, Patricia is a public figure whose life is and will be, to a certain extent, an open book. A criminal prosecution for felony sexual assault is a matter of public record, no different (but much more serious) than property transactions, divorce paperwork, and death certificates.

The fact that the Lions didn’t know about the incident before hiring Patricia creates added interest, and his decision to address the situation publicly with a general denial but no specifics opens the door to a search for more.

If it’s a false accusation, Patricia actually should welcome the opportunity for the facts to come out now. “While I’m thankful on one level that the process worked and the case was dismissed, at the same time I was never given the opportunity to defend myself or to allow to push back with the truth to clear my name,” Patricia said Thursday.

Professing innocence into a vacuum of facts doesn’t clear anyone’s name. Proof does. The search for specific proof continues, in part because Patricia and the Lions have declined so far to provide any. (PFT)

 

Golden Tate sounds like a dumbass who is contributing to a sort "old-boys-network". I understand about being "a team" or whatever, but the reporter is correct when pointing out just how important it is to look into these sorts of things and the matter is on public record. I'm surprised that New England or Detroit didn't do its part in looking into his background. Companies that hire people for lesser money will do a more extensive background check on their candidates.

Or maybe they did know and just don't give a shit.

Here's another thing. The incident is 22 years in the past. It seems like this was a one-time thing and it happened during college (the place where you earn an education while still doing really stupid shit). Matt Patricia appears to be a good person, who probably made a really big ONE-TIME mistake during his stupid years. He has had every opportunity (a somewhat high-profile job that would reel in listeners) in the 22 years since to clear his name or report his version of the incident, but he hasn't. He just wanted it to go away and be forgotten. Who wouldn't? I don't blame him for that. But with these variables added up, it seems to me he was in the wrong that day. This is based on reading the reports (police/medical), how the case was dismissed and also how it was never brought again until recently.

He must be presumed innocent, by law. But as we all know, the court of public opinion is alive and well.

 

Legendary coach Chuck Knox dies at 86



Chuck Knox, a head coach renowned for impressive turnarounds of three NFL franchises, has died at the age of 86.

Knox served as head coach of the Rams, Bills and Seahawks and is the only coach ever to win the Associated Press Coach of the Year award with three different franchises.

Born in the suburbs of Pittsburgh in 1932, Knox was a lineman at Pennsylvania’s Juniata College in the early 1950s and immediately went into coaching after he graduated. He had stints as an assitant coach at Wake Forest and Kentucky and then became an offensive line coach, first for the Jets in the AFL and then for the Lions in the NFL.

In 1973 Knox got his first head-coaching job and got instant results, taking over a team that had gone 6-7-1 the year before and finishing 12-2 in his first season. Knox won at least 10 games in all five of his seasons with the Rams, but his teams faltered in the playoffs, he never reached the Super Bowl, and he left the Rams after the 1977 season.

His next stop was the Bills in 1978, and once again he turned around a lowly franchise, improving them to 11-5 by his third season. But Knox again fell short in the playoffs, and was again gone after five years.

In 1983 Knox went to the Seahawks and did perhaps his best coaching job yet, taking over a franchise that had never made the playoffs in its brief history and reaching the AFC Championship Game in his first season. But in nine years in Seattle, Knox never made it that far in the playoffs again. After leaving Seattle he had one final coaching stint back with the Rams, but he was unsuccessful.

Known as “Ground Chuck” for his reliance on the running game, Knox was an old-school coach with an old-school approach, an approach that allowed him to mold three teams into winners. (PFT)

RIP...