This week’s fined players list includes seven players from five teams: Johnny Jolly, Al Harris and B.J. Raji from the Green Bay Packers, Darnell Dockett from the Arizona Cardinals, Jeff King from the Carolina Panthers, Kamerion Wimbley from the Cleveland Browns and Clint Session from the Indianapolis Colts.
The three Packers were fined $5,000 each: Jolly for unnecessary roughness for head-butting Minnesota running back Chester Taylor, Harris for unnecessary roughness for grabbing a helmet-opening to make a tackle and Raji for a major facemask violation.
Wimbley was fined the most, $7,500 for roughing the passer when he struck Chicago Bears’ Jay Cutler in the face. The other three were fined $5,000 each. Dockett was fined for a helmet-to-helmet contact in a game with Carolina, King was fined for striking a player wearing opponent team’s NFL jersey and Session was fined for striking 49ers quarterback Alex Smith in the knee area.
Players should take care while practicing. Do not follow Indianapolis Colts cornerback Marlin Jackson, who tore the ACL in his left knee during Wednesday’s practice and had to miss the rest of the season.
The unfortunate cornerback tore two ligaments in his right knee about 12 months ago and had surgery during the offseason. He has already missed the team’s last three games after injuring his left knee in Oct. 4’s game against the Seattle Seahawks.
He is just as unfortunate as his team. The Colts placed linebacker Tyjuan Hagler on injured reserve just a day before because of ruptured biceps. Also they will play this weekend’s game against the Houston Texans without safety Bob Sanders, who wore back his Colts jersey and returned to field after missing first five games but got injured again last week while playing against the San Francisco 49ers.
When it seemed that there was no ending to troubles caused by the gay slur Larry Johnson posted on his Twitter account and repeated it to reporters the next day, there comes the improvement.
At least the former two-time Pro Bowler will lose less money as the Kansas City Chiefs agreed to cut his suspension in half, saving him about $315,000.
Thanks to the efforts of Johnson’s agent Peter Schaffer, who brought the team’s conjunction with the NFL Management Council and the NFL Players Association, now Johnson won’t worry about losing his job in Kansas City.
With the now one-week suspension, Johnson will still miss this week’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars as well as all team activities. But after Nov.9, he will return in his Chiefs jersey to finish his last 75 yards rushing to become the team leader.
Schaffer said both sides will benefit from the settlement. He may be right. At least for this moment, Johnson, as a professional football player, keeps his job in the team and saved a lot of time that would be spent in looking for a new team, and the Chiefs have a reformed player who has the potential to become the next Priest Holmes.
With 1, 000 tickets remained to be sold by Thursday afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals were given 24 hours of extension to sell out their tickets to avoid local blackout. They made it.
The Cardinals announced Friday in time that the game against the Carolina Panthers has been sold out, and it was the third time of the season the Cardinals have to announce sellout of tickets in extension hours. But anyway they have managed to sell out the games and the defending NFC champions will see as many audiences, some of which will surely wear they beloved players’ Cardinals jerseys, as they have expected.
With this Sunday’s game being sold out, the Cardinals has made a record of selling all 38 games at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, which opened in 2006.
With 1, 000 tickets remained to be sold by Thursday afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals should have been blacked out on local television as league rules require games to be sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff.
Fortunately the NFL decided to give the team 24 more hours as extension to deadline. I guess it will not be difficult for the team to sell out tickets within 24 hours as the game against the Carolina Panthers in Glendale is anyway worth watching.
Besides, the Cardinals have sold out all 37 games played at University of Phoenix Stadium, which opened in 2006. But for this season, partly because of economic depression, many fans sought to buy cheaper NFL jerseys and spent less on tickets, and the Cardinals have received 24-hour blackout deadline extension from the league for three games.
After reports came out that the Tennessee Titans owner prefers Vince Young to Kerry Collins to be the team’s starting quarterback, Coach Jeff Fisher knew that he cannot keep the identity of his starting quarterback secret until kickoff Sunday. But he still wanted to keep it for another 24 hours at least.
“I’m going to assume that as long as we can keep this thing a mystery, the better chances we have. There’s clearly a difference in skill-sets between the two quarterbacks. That’s obvious,” Fisher said Wednesday. He said the same day he would announce the starter Thursday.
The coach originally planned to stick with Collins for all season, but after 0-6 start, a lot of people are asking for change. As Collins did not lead the team to the win, they assume a different quarterback wearing the same team’s NFL jersey, such as Young, could give better chance to a win. Will he get the chance to prove the assumption? We see it Thursday.
In order to spark at a hearing Wednesday on head injuries, the League Commissioner Roger Goodell plans to tell congress that the league will offer free follow-up medical work to 56 players formerly wearin NFL jerseys who reported dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other memory-related problems regardless of the cause.
Former coach of the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka, also said Tuesday that he and his Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund will work on an expanded medical program.
All of these happened after a recent studay, conducted for the NFL by researchers at the University of Michigan, uggested that retired pro football players may have a higher rate than normal of Alzheimer’s disease or other memory afflictions. According to lead author David Weir, who is among the witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing, the results show the topic is worth further study, but the NFL have stressed another indication fo the result: it does not prove a link between playing football and later mental troubles.
The San Francisco 49ers Coach Mike Singletary announced Monday that Alex Smith will be the team’s starting quarterback for following games, giving the former No. 1 overall pick the opportunity he had been waiting for.
The previous starter Shaun Hill was benched in his 49ers jersey after the first half of the Niners’ a 24-21 loss at Houston on Sunday and then Smith came in to give the offense a much-needed jolt of energy and efficiency. He nearly led San Francisco (3-3) back from a 21-0 deficit by completing his first six passes and finishing 15 of 22 for 206 yards and three touchdown passes to tight end Vernon Davis.
“As far as will Shaun Hill be back and all this other stuff, we’re not going to be a flavor-of-the-month kind of thing where, ‘Let’s see, this guy will be this week, this guy will be next week,”’ Singletary said. “I wanted to make the decision based upon who I feel gives us the best chance to win.”
As the No. 1 draft pick out of Utah in 2005, Smith had not played in nearly two years after reinjuring his surgically repaired throwing shoulder three days before last season’s opener. This Sunday, he will start his first game since Nov. 12, 2007, and the team he will play against is the same team he faced at his career debut in 2005: the Indianapolis Colts.
The Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin made his second career start a support to his incredible performance in his first career start against the Kansas City Chiefs. By catching six more passes for 171 yards and two long touchdowns, he just played the important role a starter should play in Cowboys 37-21 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night.
Dallas (4-2) had been alternating wins and losses, needing overtime to beat Kansas City last time out. Now the Cowboys have consecutive wins and this was their first against a winning team. Everyone seemed to have given their best overall performance. Tony Romo did not make any careless mistake and the special team broke the game open with a 73-yard punt return for a touchdown by Patrick Crayton.
The young player kid from Monmouth College showed he could be the new deep threat after Terrell Owens took off his Cowboys jersey. He had a team-record 250 yards and two touchdowns while playing against the Chiefs and added another two touchdowns of 59 and 22 yards on Sunday.
On Friday, the Washington Redskins front office said that the team’s head coach Jim Zorn will keep his job for the rest of the season. Such statement eventually ended all the rumors about Zorn’s quitting and Jerry Gray’s being the succeeding coach.
Executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said in his ESPN980 radio show: “Jim Zorn is the head coach of the Washington Redskins and will be for the rest of this season, and hopefully into the future.” The statement was made after the unexpectedly strong vote of confidence was delivered on Friday morning despite last week’s loss to previously winless Kansas City Chiefs.
Cerrato did not deliver a similar message to Zorn in person, but it seemed unnecessary anyway. “I don’t necessarily have a reaction to that because I am the head coach,” Zorn said. “I want to be here for the next 10 years. That’s my story.”
And what is the reaction of the players in Redskins jerseys? They just welcomed the news as they have been tired of answering endless questions about their coach’s job. At least for now they can focus on preparing for Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
