Packers pursuing Ross Verba, asked in for visit

[motife]

from EPSN's John Clayton, Monday May 1 :

Verba contemplates another run: Former Cleveland Browns left tackle Ross Verba is considering another run at the NFL. He paid the Browns last year to break his contract, and he never landed a job. Verba has taken calls from the Packers, Bucs and Cardinals requesting visits and could be one of the most active free agent players this week.

[gbpackfan]

Wow, if Verba is any kind of shape he could be a very good guard for us. I thought he played T before but he could def. move inside. He has a mean streak to him! If he comes in, his workout will tell a lot.

[Homer Jay]

As I recall he played guard his last year in Green Bay. He wanted to play tackle and that was part of the reason he left. I sure wouldn't mind having that mean streak back on the line. He likes to hit people, almost a D lineman mentality.

[Guiness]

This guy's name has been brought up before, and I don't get what happened to him.

Did he price himself out of the market last year? He was a serviceable starting LT - not like there's an abundance of those around. Why was he not picked up at all, at least as a backup?

The only thing I can figure is he got bad advice from his agent, and wanted $6mil/year or something. I'm not sure, but I think the deal he wanted out of with Cleveland was about $4mil.

[Scott Campbell]

Verba also has a reputation as being a complete prick. All his team mates hated the guy.

Though I wonder what a year waiting by the phone will have done to brighten his disposition.

[packrulz]

Verba left on shitty terms to me. He was bitching about his contract and evidently he wasn't happy in Cleveland either. He can be good but he bitches a lot. I'd sign him if it's cheap.

[mraynrand]

Verba had a reputation for wild parties in Cleveland. He rubbed the ownership and fans the wrong way. Plus, he was a total prick, personality-wise. However, he's very good at getting drinks for your party. Think of him as an out-of-control, alcoholic Mark Chmura.

[Guiness]

You're right SC. I'd forgotten that his nasty disposition apparently left the field, and entered the locker room.

So he's been unhappy with his deal twice. I wonder what he'll do when GB offers him something along the lines of what Klemm got: $500SB, two years minumum salary.

[Homer Jay]

I agree with Scott. A year of waiting by the phone and not collecting an NFL check would tend to change most peoples attitude.

[motife]

Verba was a model citizen and devout Christian and father until he and his wife got a divorce about 2 years ago. That's when he started going nuts. Demanded a new contract from Cleveland, and when he didn't get it, he asked to be released, but the Browns would only do it if he bought himself out of his contract, which Verba did. But he either chose not to sign with another team, or found no attractive offers.

He proceeded to Las Vegas where he went on a huge winning streak gambling, he's evidently a great poker player, winning pots of $500,000 at a time. He had unbelievable parties with showgirls etc. in Vegas, where he lavished money on everybody. My understanding was he was definitely not hurting for funds.

Evidently, he wants back in the NFL now. He was drafted #1 by the Packers in 1997. He was not a very good LT, not quick enough for speed rushers nor big enough for bulls. The Packers moved him inside to guard in his contract year where he played very well, but he left the Packers because he wanted tackle money as a free agent. The Browns signed him and he played Left Tackle there.

[motife]

http://www.deadspin.com/sports/ross-verba/paris-hilton-and-ross-verba-our-lucy-and-ricky-127431.php

5/9/2005

Paris Hilton And Ross Verba: Our Lucy And Ricky
We’re not saying that Paris Hilton’s already decumbent standards are getting somehow lower or anything, but one would think that when you’re on the cover of Vanity Fair, you’d be able to party with a relatively high class of athlete. Nope: Hilton was out boobing it up in Las Vegas last weekend with hockey puck Jeremy Roenick, dopey point guard Bob Sura and former NFL offensive lineman Ross Verba. Oh, and Tara Reid was there too. (Seriously.)

This amuses us greatly, of course, and not just because those three guys are a definitive downgrade from Brian Urlacher or, even, ack, Nick Lachey. In fact, we’re most amused by Verba’s addition to the quintet. Verba, who played for the Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers, came into the league as a noted and loud Christian missionary, talking with much passion about how he found Jesus Christ three days before he was drafted in 1997. That changed pretty quick, particularly when his wife divorced him in 2003. After that, Verba’s reported problems with gambling sent him in an entirely different direction, including once winning $500,000 in a casino and spending most of it on hosting a swimsuit party. Earlier this year, police investigated charges that a woman was drugged and raped at a party at Verba’s Cleveland home.

And now he’s hanging out with Paris Hilton and Tara Reid. (And Bob Sura, of course.) We’re not sure who hurts whose reputation more.

[mraynrand]

"The Browns signed him and he played Left Tackle there."

---

To be fair, he was the best lineman on an absolutely gawdawful O-line. A lot of their plays looked like a chinese fire drill.

[Guiness]

Wow. You weren't kidding.

Also from that article

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, says comedian David Spade, were "going to name the child after the place it was conceived, but it was too hard to say Olive Garden Bathroom Floor."

[motife]

http://greenbaypressgazette.packersnews.com/archives/news/pack_22631008.shtml

Posted Sep. 17, 2005
Ex-Packer Verba leaves football behind
Former Packers offensive lineman Ross Verba walked away from football in June after a contract dispute with the Cleveland Browns. His life has taken a dramatic turn from his early years with the Packers when he was immersed in religion. File/PackersNews.com
By Pete Dougherty
PackersNews.com

Maybe he’s a free spirit; maybe he’s gone off the deep end. Either way, Ross Verba is out of the NFL and might never play football again, even though at 31 he remains a starting-caliber offensive lineman.

In more normal circumstances, Verba would be preparing for a return to Green Bay this week to play the Packers, the team that selected him in the first round of the 1997 draft. But in June, he paid back a $465,000 roster bonus and walked away from a $2.925 million salary so the Cleveland Browns would release him after new General Manager Phil Savage refused to give him the pay raise that he says the team’s previous front office had promised.

Verba wants to be paid like an elite left tackle, and if no one is willing, he has no desire to play football. Two years after going through a traumatic divorce, he’s living a nomadic, fast-lane life off the money he made in football and investments, a lifestyle that’s landed him in gossip columns and the news several times in the past year.

That’s a 180-degree turn from the born-again Christian who in his four seasons with the Packers would engage almost anyone walking past his locker in a conversation about God.

“He travels all around the country,” said Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman Barry Stokes, one of Verba’s best friends and a former teammate in Green Bay and Cleveland. “You can’t get a hold of ol’ Verbs these days.”

Actually, Stokes, who’s an off-beat character himself, says he talks to Verba every week or two. He said there’s no telling whether Verba will play football again, but that he first talked about quitting three years ago and has his hands in numerous business ventures.

“I wouldn’t give back half-a-million dollars and then go play again,” Stokes said. “From that perspective, all signs say (a return to football) won’t happen.”

Though Verba became a free agent in June, the Packers never seriously considered pursuing him this offseason, even though they were guard desperate. If they weren’t going to pay elite guard money to either of their Pro Bowl-caliber free agents, Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle, they weren’t going to pay Verba. New GM Ted Thompson wanted bargain-type players at that position, and Verba was anything but.

Also, Verba was upset when the Packers moved him to guard in 2000, his free-agent season. He was a disgruntled player all that year, then had a tumultuous final two seasons with Cleveland after signing with the Browns as a free agent in 2001.

“With time, I thought he would have been a solid guard,” said Packers offensive line coach Larry Beightol, who coached Verba in 1999 and 2000. “He played OK for us there, but in his mind, he always thought he was a better tackle than he was a guard. When that’s your mind-set, you’re not going to be as good as you could be if you threw your heart and soul into something.”

On the surface, the most stunning development with Verba is his change in lifestyle, though it turns out he showed signs of intense inner conflict even as a rookie.

In his rookie year with the Packers, every Friday afternoon he attended a Bible study with fellow rookie Ryan Longwell and the team chaplain. The three often met at Verba’s house. That same year, he also displayed a hell-raising streak.

“He struggled with Christian beliefs,” said center Mike Flanagan, who was with the Packers all four of Verba’s seasons. “He was all one way or all the other.”

Verba got married during training camp of his second season and by then seemed immersed in religion. He attended Bible studies regularly, and in the locker room encouraged teammates and reporters to embrace Christianity. He remained that way for the rest of his tenure with the Packers, though interestingly, he never stayed in contact with his offensive linemates after he left for the Browns in free agency.

By 2003, he had two children and was in his third season with the Browns when his wife, Jill, blind-sided him with divorce papers.

“When your wife who you thought loved you goes her own way and you get divorced, what do you do?” Stokes said. “I can’t put myself in that situation.”

The divorce apparently triggered a change in Verba from family man to high-life bachelor, though even while with the Packers he’d shown an affinity for expensive pastimes such as casino gambling.

In the last year, police investigated two separate incidents at parties in his suburban Cleveland house. Verba wasn’t involved in either incident, and no charges were filed, but both were highly publicized in Cleveland.

Also, he twice made news for high-stakes spending in Nevada. Last spring, Verba and Stokes put up $50,000 each to pay the entry fee for the son of Stokes’ agent in the Big Stakes golf tournament in Mesquite, Nev. David Ping, the agent’s son, and his partner won the tournament, so Verba and Stokes split half of the $3 million winnings, pocketing $750,000 each. After the tournament, Verba told a reporter he was definitely going to be a contract holdout with the Browns.

Then in July, more than a month after the Browns released him, Verba got mentioned in a gossip column in the Las Vegas Review Journal for outrageous spending after winning a $500,000 jackpot. He reportedly spent most of the money on a lavish pool party that included giving seven women $10,000 each for participating in a swimsuit contest.

“I saw him at one spot in his life,” Longwell said, “and it’s the polar opposite of where he is now.”

Stokes said: “Give him more time. He has to go out and do his own thing.”

Verba tells Stokes that he’s prospering financially because of real-estate and oil investments, and his latest venture is a possible movie deal. Even in his early days with the Packers, Verba showed interest in ventures outside of football, though he also was prone to exaggeration and a suspect source of information.

Though he showed a mean competitive streak on the field and won over quarterback Brett Favre on his first day of training camp in ’97 by getting in a fight with a defensive lineman, he never was a player who loved football. So perhaps it’s not that big a surprise that he might walk away from the game.

“He’s always been about the money, there’s no question about that,” Flanagan said.

[packrulz]

All I can say is wow! If Verba's not 100% football I don't want him. Thanks for the info motife.