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In Michael Clayton's rookie season, he had 1,193 receiving yards on 80 receptions with 7 TDs. Since then, he's had a total of 1,029 receiving yards on 87 receptions and 1 TD in 3 seasons.

"I'm interested in Clayton, too. I don't care who else is," coach Jon Gruden said Monday. "We're going to keep our best players, and I'll leave it at that. We've had a real competitive camp, and Mike has done some good things. People call all the time about all kinds of things.

"I thought he played well. He showed what a physical perimeter player he is. He made a great catch on an inside route for a first down away from his body. The touchdown catch was a hell of a catch. He ran a great route. It was good."

That's not to say the Bucs won't entertain trades, but at receiver they are dealing from strength. The Bucs have to cut five players to reach the 75-man limit today and must get down to 53 players by Saturday.

It makes no sense to shop him unless it's to Oakland since Al Davis likes to make awful deals. Otherwise, how much are they going to get for the guy in return? Not much.

He's in a contract year so maybe he plays well and you get more value out of him than you did in the past few years. But don't make the mistake of re-upping and overpaying the guy. Let Al Davis do that...

Posted by edsfootball at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to a report on ESPN, the Arizona Cardinals were going to name Kurt Warner their starting QB. After Matt Leinart's poor performance (4-12, 3 INTs, 2.8 QB rating) in week 3, it made sense to name Warner the starter. In fact, heading into 2008, I thought Warner should have been the starter.

Who led the NFL in 2nd-half passing TDs in 2007? Tom Brady? No. Peyton Manning? No. Tony Romo? No. Kurt Warner? Yes. Kurt Warner's performance on the field last year earned him the right to start once Matt Leinart was healthy again.

Apparently, Ken Whisenhunt doesn't take kindly to rumors about decisions that haven't yet been announced. So much so that he has announced that Matt Leinart is still the starting QB.

"It's still the same," Leinart said Monday of his status.

"Nothing has changed," coach Ken Whisenhunt echoed.

This move is not in the best interest of the football team. It seems to me that he's making the move more to be stubborn and prove the point that he's in "control" of the team. Kurt Warner gives Whisenhunt the best opportunity to win football games.

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode (and, quite frankly, everything in life can always be related to Seinfeld) where George Costanza was going to break up with a girl. However, when the girl came into the diner to meet George, she mentioned that she ran into Lloyd Braun or someone who told her George couldn't commit. Even though he really wanted to break up with her, he decided that he couldn't do that when someone else said he would.

Ken it's o.k. to break up with Leinart even though Chris Mortensen said you would.

Posted by edsfootball at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chad Johnson has a partially torn labrum and has decided to play through the injury.

"I've talked to a lot of people who have played with this injury," said Johnson, who wears a protective harness on the shoulder. "They didn't get surgery, and they played and had a successful season. So I'll be fine."

Johnson said he lobbied coach Marvin Lewis to let him play against the Colts, but was turned down.

"I asked Marvin to play Thursday, not to prove a point but to show that I'm ready to go," Johnson said. "And he told me no, there's no need. I already got hurt in one preseason game, there's no reason for another. I will be ready for the opener."

Last year, Kellen Winslow Jr. played with the same injury and wore a harness. Winslow finished 2007 with 82 receptions and 1,102 yards.

I admire (yes, admire) Johnson for his toughness and grit to play through the pain. Although he claims to have asked Lewis to play in a meaningless pre-season game to show he's "ready to go", I wonder if the injury is a little more severe than is being reported since the Bengals are reportedly shopping Rudi Johnson for a "real receiver." As always with Ocho Cinco, stay tuned...

Posted by edsfootball at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tom Brady has yet to play in the pre-season with a foot injury. He says he will be ready to play when the regular season starts.

"If I don't play [Thursday, when the Patriots play the Giants in their preseason finale] then I'll be ready for Kansas City," Brady said on an appearance on WEEI Radio's Dennis & Callahan Show.

Fortunately, for the Pats and Brady, playing the Chiefs is kind-of like extending the pre-season. The Pats should be favored by double digits (and closer to 20 than to 10) in this game. Brady has the opportunity to work off any rust then.

And if you were sick of all the media attention focused on Brett Favre in the off-season, imagine the hype that will surround the Patriots week 2 matchup (Patriots 2008 schedule).

Jets vs Patriots. Mangini vs Belichick. Now, Favre vs Brady.

Posted by edsfootball at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Williams, the 14th overall 2008 draft pick, was supposed to play LT for the Bears and help bolster their offensive line. And then it was reported that he might miss the 2008 season after suffering (reaggravating) a back injury.

Now, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Chris Williams is ahead of schedule and will likely return in the second half of 2008. The bad news is Chris Williams has said that the Bears knew about his herniated disc at draft time.

"I had a herniated disc before I got here," Williams said after watching practice Sunday afternoon at Halas Hall. "We knew that. Everyone knew that. It just was a thing where most people it doesn't affect. It wasn't affecting me so if nothing is broke, you don't fix it. Then something happened in practice that second day, the disc started moving and that caused some problems."

Most GMs would respond to this with a prepared statement and then try to move past this. Instead, Bears GM Jerry Angelo called an impromptu press conference with Bears beat writers.

"Nobody was trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes," Angelo said testily. "Nobody is covering their ass."

"Nobody is twisting the truth or embellishing it," Angelo said. "I could give a [bleep]. I could give a [bleep]. If we screwed up, I would tell you, 'We screwed up.' Hey, if we said this was 50-50 and we just rolled the dice, I would tell you that."

"We're just giving you the minutiae now of everything, which we normally don't do. We don't get into that, the nitty-gritty of everything we do, for reasons like this. We don't want to get into these witch hunts. OK? But let's clear the air."

It looks like Angelo has been hanging around with Lou Piniella and Ozzie Guillen too much. Just let it go Jerry.

Posted by edsfootball at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So far, Matt Ryan has played well in the pre-season. He has completed 61.5% of passes (32-52) for 277 yards. In those 52 pass attempts, he has only thrown 1 interception.

Aug. 9: 9/15, 113 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT
Aug. 16: 8/16, 62 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT
Aug. 22: 15/21, 102 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT

Matt Ryan's solid play has earned him the starting QB gig. Is it too soon?

I think the Falcons are making the right move. With or without Matt Ryan at the helm, the Atlanta Falcons are going to be awful in 2008. Although using a #3 pick doesn't guarantee success (see Harrington, Joey), Ryan is the Falcons QB of the future.

It makes a lot of sense to me to let the QB of the future get experience in the present so that when the team has a brighter future, their QB will be better-positioned to help lead them.

Posted by edsfootball at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the main reasons the New York Giants are defending Super Bowl Champions was their ferocious pass rush. The Giants led the NFL with 53 sacks in 2007. Now, they will be without the generators of 22 of those sacks in 2008.

Michael Strahan retired earlier in the year although he hinted that he would have returned for $8 million. He had 9 sacks in 2007.

Now, Giants DE Osi Umenyiora, who had 13 sacks in the regular season and 7 in the post-season, has ligament damage in his left knee and will miss the 2008 season. Tom Coughlin said that early indications were that Osi “did not suffer ligament damage.” Umenyiora had an MRI Sunday and that wasn’t the case.

However, an MRI Sunday found a torn lateral meniscus, Dr. Russell Warren told the team. The two-time Pro Bowl choice will have surgery Tuesday and be sidelined for the season.

This is not the first time Umenyiora has required surgery to repair cartilage damage in his left knee. He underwent arthroscopic surgery for the same problem at Troy State.

According to Gary Myers of the Daily News:

There is only one call to make: Bring back Michael Strahan.

The Giants need to reach out to Strahan, one of their all-time greats, and sweet-talk him back from retirement. GM Jerry Reese surely has his number as one of his Fave Fives.

It makes sense to give Strahan a call and Strahan may even be able to get the money he initially wanted. Otherwise, the Giants' run may be one and done.

Posted by edsfootball at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Whether or not a track star can make the transition from the track to the football field is a crap shoot. However, in a world where an athletic quarterback with no receiving experience (Matt Jones) was drafted in the first-round because of his size and athletic ability, it makes sense to give Usain Bolt, the world's fastest human, a shot as Gil Brandt writes for his NFL.com column:

Someone asked me the other day what I thought about the idea of making Olympic gold-medal sprinter Usain Bolt a football player. Let's put it this way: If Hall of Fame general manager Tex Schramm and I were still running the Cowboys, we'd be in Jamaica right now waiting for Bolt's plane to land.

That's not to say anyone can predict what the fastest human being alive might do on a football field. But in a sport that places such a premium on raw speed, why not take a chance on a guy who just shattered world records?

Of course, Brandt's opinion is partly based on their success with drafting speedster "Bullet" Bob Hayes with their 7th-round draft pick in 1965. But asked would Bolt make a successful transition, Brandt says:

There's no way of knowing for sure. He's got a tremendous body. The thing that would concern me is that he's such a long strider. Those long legs help him run fast, but they wouldn't do a lot of good making cuts.

That said, he could probably fly past most any cornerback. If he had any hands at all, he'd be scary. Certainly worth giving him a look if you're a team in need at receiver.

You never know when you might strike gold.

Posted by edsfootball at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)