Can't resist a few more lingering thoughts in the continuing aftermath of "Bill-gate,'' perhaps the perfect NFL storm for the cacophony of debate that the 24/7 news cycle generates and thrives on.....
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Ravens safety Haruki Nakamura broke his right ankle on the opening kickoff of Monday night's game at Cleveland.
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern). Sunday 4:15 p.m. Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers
Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner, under fire after parting ways with general manager George Kokinis midway through his first season as GM, denied today that Kokinis had been fired and said he hoped to find a veteran NFL general manager-type like Ernie Accorsi or Mike Holmgren to help shape the organization and help embattled coach Eric Mangini.
By now, I imagine your typical Cleveland Browns fan has started to look back on 1996-98, the three seasons they had no NFL team to follow, with a mixture of nostalgia and fondness. Given the almost constant state of despair Browns fans have resided in since the franchise was re-born as an expansion entry in 1999, who could blame them for remembering those days as relatively pain-free compared to the misery to come?
Seems to me we have nine bad teams in football right now. For all of you in Buffalo, Chicago and Seattle who want me to include your team in this grouping, sorry. You've show too many signs of life to make the Bottom Nine.
It's going on six weeks into the NFL season and a whopping nine teams still have no more than one victory.
DALLAS -- Whoa. I picked a heck of time to skip a Monday-nighter to go to see U2 at JerryWorld. Great game, from the looks of the highlights, with Chad Henne and the Wildcat proving the Dolphins are going to be a factor in the AFC East (one game separates the Jets, Pats and Fish with 11 to play), and Rex Ryan having some holes to plug on his defense. For more on the game, go here and here.
Breaking down Sunday's Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens game (1 p.m., CBS)...
In taking the Braylon Edwards problem off the Browns' hands Wednesday, the New York Jets have made another bold move to win now and win big in the AFC East in the first year of the Rex Ryan era.
Can't resist a few more lingering thoughts in the continuing aftermath of "Bill-gate,'' perhaps the perfect NFL storm for the cacophony of debate that the 24/7 news cycle generates and thrives on.....
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Ravens safety Haruki Nakamura broke his right ankle on the opening kickoff of Monday night's game at Cleveland.
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern). Sunday 4:15 p.m. Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers
Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner, under fire after parting ways with general manager George Kokinis midway through his first season as GM, denied today that Kokinis had been fired and said he hoped to find a veteran NFL general manager-type like Ernie Accorsi or Mike Holmgren to help shape the organization and help embattled coach Eric Mangini.
By now, I imagine your typical Cleveland Browns fan has started to look back on 1996-98, the three seasons they had no NFL team to follow, with a mixture of nostalgia and fondness. Given the almost constant state of despair Browns fans have resided in since the franchise was re-born as an expansion entry in 1999, who could blame them for remembering those days as relatively pain-free compared to the misery to come?
Seems to me we have nine bad teams in football right now. For all of you in Buffalo, Chicago and Seattle who want me to include your team in this grouping, sorry. You've show too many signs of life to make the Bottom Nine.
It's going on six weeks into the NFL season and a whopping nine teams still have no more than one victory.
DALLAS -- Whoa. I picked a heck of time to skip a Monday-nighter to go to see U2 at JerryWorld. Great game, from the looks of the highlights, with Chad Henne and the Wildcat proving the Dolphins are going to be a factor in the AFC East (one game separates the Jets, Pats and Fish with 11 to play), and Rex Ryan having some holes to plug on his defense. For more on the game, go here and here.
Breaking down Sunday's Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens game (1 p.m., CBS)...
In taking the Braylon Edwards problem off the Browns' hands Wednesday, the New York Jets have made another bold move to win now and win big in the AFC East in the first year of the Rex Ryan era.
You might have heard lately that Braylon Edwards is a member of the Bad Guy Club. You don't apply to that club; people apply for you, after checking your credentials for roughly 2.1 seconds. Edwards got in for "off-the-field issues." (I've always wondered: if a guy has an Oedipus complex, but he never thinks about his mom while he's playing, is that an off-the-field issue?)
These were supposed to better days for the Cowboys, Browns and Raiders, with Tony Romo rising from undrafted free agent to Brett Favre clone sans Terrell Owens, Brady Quinn becoming the Robo-QB in Cleveland he was at Notre Dame and JaMarcus Russell showing improvement in Year 3.
I haven't come up with a new word for a while, so I want to throw one out there .. the word is "fanbole" (pronounced FAN-buh-lee).
MINNEAPOLIS -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we try to fathom the latest comeback miracle, and undoubtedly one of the greatest, in Brett Favre's long and eventful 19-year NFL career....
BEREA, Ohio (AP) -- Cleveland rookie cornerback Coye Francies, incensed over a prank, threw a bucket of ice and at least one errant punch during a skirmish in the Browns' locker room.
Two hours before kickoff last Sunday between the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings, I bumped into a Browns fan in the hotel lobby. He wore a bright orange Browns shirt and white Browns cap. In his right hand, he clutched a cigar.
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we absorb a bonanza of Week 1 action and await the Bears-Packers new-look NFC North showdown at a jacked to the gills Lambeau Field ...
Unless you're a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos, you've probably never heard of Nate Jackson. He's a tight end who attended a small college in California and wasn't drafted into the NFL. He's played in 41 games over six seasons and caught 27 passes, two of them for touchdowns. He's made lots of tackles on special teams.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we re-cap the winners and losers of the second week of the NFL's preseason schedule. The games don't count, but the perceptions sure do.....
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we run down the winners and losers of the first full week of the NFL's preseason schedule. The games don't count, but the perceptions sure do.....
Is the New England dynasty over? It's one of the burning issues in pro football as Tom Brady, Bill Belichick & Co. prepare to enter training camp and prepare to reset the clock after a disastrous 2008 calendar year.
This story appears in the May 25, 2009, issue of Sports Illustrated.
CLEVELAND -- This column, eventually, will be about LeBron James and the best moment going in basketball: That moment when James has the basketball and the shot clock's running down and he has to create something. There's nothing quite like it in sports, really. It makes you wish the referee would just give him the ball every time down and put six seconds on the clock and say, "Go."
The NFL Draft has been over for almost 72 hours, which is more than enough time to discern who'll be the impact rookies of the 2009 season. What? You expected us to wait all the way until training camps opened and actual football started being played? Get real.
KANSAS CITY -- I'm going to have 32 opinions on 32 teams here in a few paragraphs, and a few will surprise you. But I've got to start off with a cool story that played a big part in the trade of the weekend -- and, in all likelihood, the trade of the year in the NFL.
The practice of destructive misinformation that is so prevalent during the walkup to the draft is absolutely deplorable.
The Cleveland Browns' decision to shop Braylon Edwards is a head scratcher.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we wrap up the first three games of what is somewhat inaccurately called the NFL's wild-card weekend from a raucous and purple-bedecked Metrodome ...
The beautiful thing about a new sports year is that it gives us another chance to appreciate all of the same old things. So here is 2009 coming right at you, and it's a whole new chance to:
The NFL's hiring and firing season can be a confusing swirl of speculation, conjecture and misinformation, but sometimes a marriage of team and candidate just makes too much sense not to happen. Like Scott Pioli becoming the next general manager of the Cleveland Browns.
Every Monday, SI.com's Ross Tucker will hand out letter grades to deserving NFL parties...
Every Monday, SI.com's Ross Tucker will hand out letter grades to deserving NFL parties...
A few minutes after midnight this morning, new Cleveland starting quarterback Brady Quinn wrapped up his postgame media duties and got ready to leave Cleveland Browns Stadium. Before he did, he lightly slammed his fist on the Browns' locker-room door, a symbolic gesture that matched the mood of his team, and his city.
What is it about the Cowboys that seems to capture so many people's fancy? Capture so many fancy people? Fancy capturing so many people! I mean, is it the arrival of rodeo season or what? Personally I find it kind of a rich boys' team with an apathetic fan base.
The nouveau supermen of the National Football League are capable of both dropping back into pass coverage and bull rushing offensive tackles. They can race around linemen like they are stuck in quicksand, yet jack up tight ends at the line of scrimmage and toss them aside like rag dolls. They are the most feared defensive players in the game today for a variety of reasons and they all have one thing in common: They play outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense.
MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- I have been voting at the Montclair First Ward District 3 polling place for 17 years. Even with presidential elections, we never had a line longer than two or three people. This morning, at 6:48, there was a line of 36 citizens in front of us, many of them New York commuters. One of the poll workers said the normal turnout in this 1,000-voter district for a presidential election was 500 or 600, and she expected "close to 1,000'' today. It took 31 minutes to get through the line, get into the voting booth and make my choice -- time very well spent.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight from Week 9 as we await a Patriots-Colts showdown that features much more "down'' than we're used to in recent years.....
I'm returning to seriousness in my Emailer of the Week Award. No more good guy. Only deep thinkers need apply. Step up, Chris Guhin of Brooklyn because you have driven me to my charts, which is a world I much prefer to the one in which I have to spend most of my time. My charts don't yack on TV like schoolgirls. They don't find people like Joe the Plumber to quote. They don't make up lies and justify them in the name of politics.
The league is learning the hard way that a microscopic foe can be much more imposing than a 300-pound lineman, as a sudden slew of staph infections has sacked several football players
Kernels of conventional gridiron wisdom were crushed again in Week 6, ground into dust by the millstone of truth that is the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
First thought after Cleveland's rout of the Giants on Monday: Maybe there's no best team in football.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we take in a Week 4 that turned into a veritable points-palooza in so many NFL locales (six of Sunday's early eight games saw the winner score 30 points or more) ...
Every Monday, SI.com's Michael Lombardi will hand out five letter grades to deserving NFL parties...
Two weeks into the NFL schedule and already some preconceived notions and preseason perceptions are dying off one by one, or rapidly becoming out of date. Harsh reality has begun setting in on any number of fronts. What we thought we knew has been replaced by what we've seen so far.
LeBron James should never wear a New York Yankees cap or don the blue-and-silver colors of the Dallas Cowboys, as far as some cranky Cleveland sports fans are concerned.
Breaking down Sunday's Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns game (8:15 p.m., NBC)...
If at all possible, you don't want to start 0-2 in the NFL. It's not a death sentence, but since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams in 1990, only 19 teams have climbed out of an 0-2 hole to make the playoffs. That's 19 teams in 18 seasons of play, or about one per year.
The glory of the AFC is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen? (Samuel II, almost).
Peering into my Roger Goodell-autographed crystal ball -- it's actually more oblong-shaped -- just hours before the NFL kicks off its regular season with the Redskins-Giants showdown at the Meadowlands, here are 10 things I foresee unfolding this year.....
There are very few phone calls during our existence that are truly life-altering. For no fewer than 1,000 players on the cut line, one of those calls could be coming on Saturday, when NFL teams have to cut their rosters to 53 players. Take it from a guy who's been there, it is utterly amazing how disappointing a two-minute conversation can be.
It's that dangerous time of the summer for NFL starting quarterbacks. With the regular season less than 10 days away, keeping or getting your No. 1 QB healthy becomes every team's most vital objective. All else pales by comparison.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The problem with preseason football, other than the fact it's preseason football, is you never have any idea what it means. Never. Having said that, I am questioning all the love I've thrown the Browns way this off-season. It would impossible not to, after being in the house for the first 17 minutes -- which took about four days -- of Cleveland's preseason loss to the Giants here Monday.
If they were to ever make a movie of the Philadelphia Eagles 2008 training camp, there would be only one logical working title: Fight Club II.
BEREA, Ohio -- Braylon Edwards admits nothing in his first three NFL training camps really came close to preparing him for what the Cleveland Browns are experiencing this summer. Until this year, Edwards thought the Browns preseason would always be filled with more questions than answers, and played out amid an ever-present backdrop of controversy, distraction, or football misfortune.
SI.com has dispatched 10 writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country. For the complete schedule of postcards, click here.
There might be a Lito Sheppard trade between now and training camp, and Jerry Jones might pay dearly for Chad Johnson before Labor Day. But it's May, and the offseason personnel side of the business is mostly over.
Don't know if you've heard, but the color that will be all the rage in the NFL this fall is brown. Cleveland Brown. It'll be everywhere. Just watch.
Ten years ago next month, the Indianapolis Colts selected quarterback Peyton Manning first overall in the NFL draft, bypassing Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf and almost single-handedly changing the course of a franchise that had posted just two playoff seasons in the previous decade.
Of the four new head coaches in the NFL this year, no one is taking over a team that fell further in 2007 than John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens, which nose-dived to 5-11 last season after their magic carpet ride of a 13-3 finish in 2006. Not even the woebegone one-win Miami Dolphins or the sad-sack Atlanta Falcons threw it in reverse last year to the tune of eight fewer victories.
In terms of getting better quickly, nobody in the NFL improved more dramatically in 2007 than Cleveland (six more wins than 2006), Green Bay and Tampa Bay (five each). With the league's offseason re-distribution of talent in full swing, and the draft still six weeks away, here are the five teams I think have done the most to better their lot in the NFL:
Before we review the first full week of the NFL's free-agency period, a few quick points: We're going to avoid the hackneyed "winners and losers'' headings because there are no final results posted in March, at the very beginning of personnel acquisition season. We'll give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to teams, based on whether we can make sense of their offseason moves and if they strike us as reasonable and well-thought out decisions, or not. We either get it, or we don't.
At about 8:15 Saturday night, I asked Cleveland general manager Phil Savage (The Man Without A 2008 Draft) how he felt after completing one of the craziest 48 hours in free-agency history.
With the NFL's free agency period open for business, here's our quick takes on the early action. Check back periodically for the latest developments. ...
The Super Bowl fallout has all but settled, and the start of the scouting combine in Indianapolis is less than two weeks away. As the NFL offseason cranks to life, here are a dozen burning questions that serve to start the debate in 2008:
For a league that has always prided itself first and foremost on knowing how to make the savvy public relations move, the NFL's decision to allow both NBC and CBS to simulcast the NFL Network's broadcast of the New England-New York game was a master stroke.
MORE GAME PLANS: N.Y. Giants at Buffalo | Kansas City at Detroit | Cleveland at Cincinnati | Green Bay at Chicago | Houston at Indianapolis | Oakland at Jacksonville | Philadelphia at New Orleans | Atlanta at Arizona | Tampa Bay at San Francisco | Miami at New England | Baltimore at Seattle | N.Y. Jets at Tennessee | Washington at Minnesota
The Jaguars, Buccaneers and Browns are a combined 28-14 this season. Tampa Bay has qualified already for the playoffs, while Jacksonville and Cleveland could do so as early as this weekend.
Four hours into the 2007 season, Phil Savage pulled his car out of the Cleveland Browns Stadium parking lot and into city traffic, sharing the streets with the sullen, the fatalistic and the downright livid. The routine had become familiar to Savage since he took over as general manager of the Browns in 2005: Watch the team lose, head downstairs and drive past fans in their Tim Couch and Courtney Brown jerseys, ancient reminders of a franchise's mistakes still raw to the touch.
NEW YORK -- Week XI, with V topics:
BALTIMORE -- If Romeo Crennel and his upstart Cleveland Browns go on to reach the playoffs this season -- and at 6-4 they may well be on their way -- perhaps they'll look back to Sunday's game against the Ravens and realize their drive to the postseason began in earnest with as close to a life-after-death experience as the game of football allows.
NEW YORK -- Week 10 was odd. The Cowboys exerted their control on the NFC East, and the Giants spit the pressure bit in the second half; no surprise there. The Rams looked like the Martz-era Rams and won their first game. The Lions looked like the Mornhinweg-era Lions and lost their third game.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight in a Week 10 that can't possibly produce any Patriots-related controversy. Can it? Bill Belichick and his guys are on their bye week ...
The Cleveland Browns have placed guard Seth McKinney on injured reserve, according to clevelandbrowns.com.
MORE GAME PLANS: Eagles-Redskins | Buffalo-Miami | Rams-Saints | Jaguars-Titans | Falcons-Panthers | Broncos-Chiefs | Vikings-Packers | Bengals-Ravens | Lions-Cardinals | Bears-Raiders | Cowboys-Giants | Colts-Chargers
In 18 years covering the league, I've reported from 43 different NFL stadiums. Here are my top 10 favorites:
We interrupt Hype Week to bring you news from the other 30 teams in the NFL. Actually, just one team. The Packers.
Maybe Michael Vick's year of bad karma started this whole mess. Or maybe this is just the NFL's now-normal state of affairs for teams not named the Colts or Patriots. But I can't recall when the state of quarterbacking seemed quite so patchwork, so temporary. It's as if missing your starting passer for some length of time has become the most typical of mid-season predicaments in the NFL.
MORE GAME PLANS: Dolphins-Browns | Texans-Jaguars | Bengals-Chiefs | Rams-Ravens | Eagles-Jets | Redskins-Packers | Titans-Bucs | Patriots-Cowboys Panthers-Cardinals | Raiders-Chargers | Saints-Seahawks
Trent Edwards, QB, Buffalo: The rookie enjoyed an outstanding debut against the Jets. He completed 22 of 28 passes for 234 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Though those numbers aren't staggering, the poise and efficiency Edwards displayed during his first start was impressive. Edwards may give the Bills a brighter future than J.P. Losman.
MORE GAME PLANS: Dolphins-Jets | Browns-Raiders | Rams-Bucs | Vikings-Chiefs | Colts-Texans | Cardinals-Ravens | Lions-Eagles | Bills-Patriots | 49ers-Steelers | Bengals-Seahawks | Jags-Broncos | Panthers-Falcons | Giants-Redskins | Cowboys-Bears | Titans-Saints
Once, not so long ago I swore that if Team A beat Team B at the beginning of the season, I would not rank Team A below Team B, no matter how much better we knew Team B was. Fair's fair was my intellectual approach. So how do I handle Cleveland-Cincinnati, a yardage freak show of a game? The Bengals beat Baltimore in the first week while Cleveland got blown out by the Steelers, in Cleveland yet. What's the verdict? Will I be granted a release from my pledge, assuming things are going to change pretty soon anyway?
Thoughts on Week 2 in the NFL, now that we're finally clear of all camera-related controversies ...
This story originally appeared in the Jan. 19, 1987 issue of Sports Illustrated.
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