Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter 3m
LB Vontaze Burfict's extension with Bengals is a four-year, $20 million deal, including $7.6 million this year.
Now that is a turnaround.
Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter 3m
LB Vontaze Burfict's extension with Bengals is a four-year, $20 million deal, including $7.6 million this year.
Now that is a turnaround.
Huh. Looks like the Seahawks will not be repeating as SB champs...
The ol' FU with the surprise stick it up your ass combo. Johnny don't take no shit.
I am frankly rooting against the guy. His attitude is that of a blowhard. He's got some talent, but to me, not enough to do the crap he does.
He does seem to be a dick.
I'm amazed at how small he is. He's listed at 6' (5-11& 3/4, actually), but he plays smaller than that. Drew Brees is the same size, but Brees was light years better than this kid. Manziel strikes as the kind of player that will smooshed before he can ever learn the NFL game.
Word is that Sam Bradford tore his ACL in the 3rd preseason game...
That's a tough pill for Rams fans and it makes the Seahawks and 49ers jobs much easier.
Now confirmed. Bradford out for season with ACL. Rams need to find a starting QB who can stay healthy.
Bradford: The last of the big rookie QB contracts.
Randall Liu @RLiuNFL 2m
Redskins S Brandon Meriweather suspended 1st 2 games of regular season for 6th violation of player safety rules
I wonder if his contracts should just be for eight games and then he gets bonuses if he actually plays in more.
Pats traded Mankins to the Bucs for a TE and a 4th rounder next season. Not sure how bad this deal is for either side. heh
He was a free agent after 2014. They saved more than $5mil against the cap this year by trading him.
Seahawks/Carroll fined $300,000, will lose 2 2015 minicamp practices for excessive contact in 2014 minicamp. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...camp/14646221/
Leave it to ESPN to be wrong outright.
Josh Gordon appeal denied. He gets one year suspension. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300...ded-one-season
He also misses the entire 2015 preseason because the league feels like bein extra shitty.
Applied a no imagination reading of their rules to his results. His A test was positive (over the limit), his B test sample was negative (under the limit). Under Baseball, Olympic or US Military testing, the B sample would clear the subject though there is some debate about the B sample because the NFL doesn't routinely measure concentrations in the B sample (just uses it to confirm presence of objectionable material). I presume from what I have read that Gordon's team insisted on a concentration level measure for the B sample.
It looks bad for the League to have Rice back by Game 3 and Gordon gone for the year. The League is dumb for taking the black eye when it might have been avoided. Gordon would be at fault if he refused to deal, not to mention the original problem of inhaling the weed.
The reason the decision took so long, it would seem, is that the parties were negotiating something less than a year. Oddly, however, there were reports today that said Gordon's side refused to negotiate. That would leave open the question of why a formulaic ruling took so long to conclude.
Unfortunately for Gordon, compared to Baseball, Olympic or US Military testing, the threshold is very low. This was the carrot the NFL was dangling in front of the NFLPA when trying to get HGH testing rolling with Goodell still hearing appeals.
Yup, everyone else's threshold is 150ng, NFL is still using 15ng, which is the old standard that the other organizations realized was unreasonable and somewhat ridiculous. Problem is, in return for keeping up with the times, the NFL wanted the NFLPA to sign off on them being the judge, jury and executioner wrt HGH penalties. The players smartly refused, so the NFL refused to adopt a change the other bodies pbmax mentioned have all decided is better.
Gordon is the collateral damage, but I can't help but feel like he was doomed anyways with the DUI he racked up while this was going on.
DUI would have meant probably an 8 game ban for him anyway.
The problem the League faces is that the letter of the law says a year. But given the mitigating circumstances and the Rice situation, where clearly the punishments need to be adjusted, it was a good case to reach an agreement.
I cannot see the advantage to Gordon to not negotiate, take an all or nothing approach on appeal. If he did, then he must be relying on the Courts. If he had no backup plan, then he is a fool.
He certainly seems to be a fool.
I don't know why him and the Rice situation are so closely tied in the media. It seems like a straw man to me, there is no relationship between the two events, except proximity in time. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) Rice was not charged, and there is no evidence at all that he actually knocked her out. Rice's punishment seems to me to be a little like Ben R's, he was given a suspension because he 'tarnished the shield'. Shouldn't Gordon's suspension be compared to Reshad Jones, or Lavon Brazill?
While there's no official report that he knocked her out, the video of him dragging her out of the elevator by the arm sure made it look like she was out cold.
I actually "know" Rice by three degrees of separation. His story from a friend of a friend of a friend: He hit her, but never knocked her out. But she was almost blackout drunk to begin with and slapping him in the face and basically daring him to do it because she knew he couldn't. The reason for the fight? She wanted to stay and get even more wasted and waste more of his money in the casino and he noped her. When you see him dragging her like that out of the elevator, it's because she's conscious and just refusing to stand up like a pouting child. It's possible he just made up that story for his buddies, but if it's true, the 2 game suspension is pretty punitive for something that he's legally allowed to do. And yeah, they are both stupid for getting drunk in the public eye.
Comparing Rice and Gordon is apples to oranges. Gordon left college under dubious circumstances and has been disciplined by the league before. Rice has never had another incident afaik.
The argument that he hit her, but not hard enough to knock her out is too precious for words.
Rice is dumb enough to get baited into a criminal act by someone spending his money. That is a special kind of fool. The kind of fool who can be manipulated by someone who is nearly blackout drunk. If this story is even partially true, he is dumber than he first appeared to be. That he isn't smart enough to leave that trouble behind that night, indeed, that he is dumb enough to stay with it, should be reason enough to get a larger suspension.
They both should have spent the night locked up.
But I am not comparing Rice and Gordon as people. I am comparing the punishments for their actions. Rice hit someone and gets 2 games. Gordon, apparently from a contact buzz (which seems almost too ludicrous to believe but I have not seen any insistence to the contrary) gets 1 year.
While I somewhat agree with you in your assessment of Rice, you have to know there are some pretty big caveats in there. It wasn't just anyone manipulating him, it was his fiance. She was nearly blackout drunk, and so was he. That makes it a very volatile situation. I doubt there are many of us who can not say we had a drunken squabble with out gf/fiance/wife/lover/etc and said and done some pretty regrettable things.
Of course. But the more you lean on the blackout/gambling/spending side of the problems with the fiancé, the less well Rice comes off. The question becomes when did he exercise worse judgement, hitting her or getting involved with her? So its a caveat that cuts the same way. He (and she) is an idiot.
But the NFL doesn't have the job of fixing Rice's choice of girlfriends. It needs a punishment that hurts more than 2 paychecks. His reported remorse does nothing to explain his unsound judgement.
I am actually more amenable to the idea that Gordon deserved the year because of multiple mis-steps (even if those mis-steps were more about a low threshold than an uncontrollable habit). Perhaps that is correct. But Rice deserves more precisely because this is who he chooses to spend time with. He's not recreational user of wedding buffets and she isn't some random drunk with alcohol-fueled courage.
NFL now changes it's domestic violence policy
Goodell puts 6 game suspension on 1st offense, lifetime on 2nd