Tag: pro football

When will the NFL realize the Kaepernick issue isn’t going away?

Most of my younger readers have probably never heard of Frank Serpico.

He was a New York City police officer whose campaign against police corruption was chronicled in the 1973 movie “Serpico.’’ He was played by Al Pacino. It’s a very good movie, by the way.

Anyway, it turns out Serpico is now 81 and still an idealist.

He turned out at a rally Saturday of about 75 mostly minority police officers who gathered in Brooklyn wearing black shirts reading “imwithkap.’’

Kap, of course, is Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who remains unsigned after refusing to stand for the national anthem last year.

Continue reading “When will the NFL realize the Kaepernick issue isn’t going away?”

Horrific practice underscores Bortles’ shaky status with Jaguars

Ryan Mallett of the Baltimore Ravens showed Friday that quarterbacks sometimes have a meltdown in training camp.

He threw “at least five interceptions,’’ according to reports from the Ravens’ training camp, and almost threw two more.

“Tell (offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg) to tell Mallett to throw to the guys wearing the purple (offensive) jerseys,” Terrell Suggs said.

Mallett even threw a white towel in the air after the last one.

Blake Bortles of the Jaguars matched it Saturday night in the team’s first padded practice before more than 4,000 season-ticket holders invited to practice.

Continue reading “Horrific practice underscores Bortles’ shaky status with Jaguars”

Gruden’s constant hints of coaching return now beyond tiresome

It won’t be long before Jon Gruden will have more years in the broadcast booth than he spent on NFL sidelines as a head coach.

Gruden coached 11 years in the NFL, four with the Raiders and seven with the Buccaneers. He won one Super Bowl.

Now he’s entering his ninth year as an ESPN announcer, and by 2019, his announcing career will have lasted as long as his coaching career. And then maybe even longer.

That means his coaching career is probably over. Teams aren’t likely to hire a coach who hasn’t been on the sidelines for nine years.

And the Bucs are putting him in their Ring of Honor, a sign they think his coaching days are over. But for some reason, Gruden likes to keep his name in the coaching mix. It sounds like an ego thing.

Continue reading “Gruden’s constant hints of coaching return now beyond tiresome”

Arians’ new book, like the man himself, is a breath of NFL coaching fresh air

In the new book by Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians called “The Quarterback Whisperer,’’ Arians compliments Chuck Pagano of the Indianapolis Colts while giving a not-so-positive evaluation of many of his colleagues.

‘’There are a lot of assholes in the world of coaching – backstabbing is common and a lot of guys have personal agendas – but Chuck isn’t one of them,’’ Arians wrote in the book he did with Lars Anderson. “He’s a good, decent, hard-working man who is also a hell of a coach.’’

Most coaches wouldn’t talk about their fellow coaches the way Arians did.

But then Arians isn’t most coaches. He speaks his mind.

That is why his book is interesting. He doesn’t sugarcoat things.

Continue reading “Arians’ new book, like the man himself, is a breath of NFL coaching fresh air”

NFL’s scheduling greed is finally taking a toll

Is the NFL suffering from oversaturation?

That is a question asked a lot last year when the NFL’s TV ratings dropped, although the league blamed first-half plummet on all the interest in the presidential election.

That’s why the ratings will be watched closely this year.

But it’s not the only barometer the NFL and its broadcast partners will be watching. The league also has to be concerned that advertisers aren’t rushing to make buys even before the season begins.

According to Advertising Age, some insiders say the ad buys are the softest since the 2008 recession.

Continue reading “NFL’s scheduling greed is finally taking a toll”

Leftwich faces impossible task grooming Gabbert into legit quarterback

Imagine an NFL team drafting a quarterback with a top-ten pick twice in nine drafts.

Imagine that both of them are busts.

And imagine that one of them winds up coaching the other one.

Sounds a bit far-fetched, but that’s happening with the Arizona Cardinals this year.

Byron Leftwich, the seventh pick in the 2003 draft by the Jaguars, was hired as Arizona’s quarterbacks coach by Bruce Arians in the offseason.

Continue reading “Leftwich faces impossible task grooming Gabbert into legit quarterback”

Reid’s hands look like they were all over Dorsey’s abrupt firing

Clark Hunt was, as they say, to the manor born.

He’s the grandson of flamboyant oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, who was once one of the richest men in the world – if not the richest – and had 15 children with three wives. The J.R. Ewing character in the TV series “Dallas’’ was loosely based on his life.

Clark also is the son of late Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, who changed pro football by co-founding the American Football League, which led to the merger with the NFL and the creation of the Super Bowl. He even named the game after a kid’s toy called the Super Ball. Lamar was very down to earth, always wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks and never showing the trappings of wealth.

Clark, now 52, was No. 1 in his class at SMU and took over running the Chiefs when his father died in 2006.

Clark, though, is showing that being smart and rich doesn’t always translate into being a good owner. Or from doing dumb things. In a family run business, the third generation is often the one that has problems keeping things on the right track.

Continue reading “Reid’s hands look like they were all over Dorsey’s abrupt firing”

Bashing of Kaepernick continues to know no bounds

Colin Kaepernick is like the guy at the county fair who sits above a tub of water while fair goers throw balls attempting to dunk him in the water.

Trying to dunk Kaepernick remains a popular sport in the NFL and the media these days.

In what amounts to blaming the victim, Kaepernick gets bashed for teams not signing him after he refused to stand for the national anthem. He doesn’t get saluted for standing on principle.

The latest bashing was by Albert Breer of The MMQB, who quoted a 49ers employee – it wasn’t clear if the employee is still with the team – bashing Kaepernick’s work habits. Kaepernick is gone, but the 49ers can’t stop taking shots at him.

Breer said the employee told him Kaepernick wouldn’t stay late at the facility, saying he would take the work home instead.

Continue reading “Bashing of Kaepernick continues to know no bounds”

Time to look back … and time to look ahead

From typewriters and linotype machines to computers and the Internet.

Those were just some of the changes I’ve seen in the news business during my six decades of writing for newspapers.

So now, in another sign of the changing times, I’m starting my own website.

On this site, I plan on commenting on current events – giving my opinions and observations – as well as talking about how things used to be.

I won’t try to say things were better back in the day. Times change and you have to change with them. Which is why I am now blogging. But they were definitely different.

Sometimes, I feel like a buggy-whip maker driving a race car because things have changed with the speed of light.

Continue reading “Time to look back … and time to look ahead”