2005 NFL Training Camp And Pre-Season Games

[Soulstation1]

this is THE year for the Browns

i got them going 16-0 during the regular season

training camp this week and games next

YEAH!!!!!!

tell us your team, except if you like the cowboys

WTF is up with sticky icky ricky willlliams?

can he give up the chronic for the entire season?

can he :eye: during his four game suspension?

TO is a jackass, the guy always like to rock the boat...

can "superfreak" moss do it in oak-town?

ss1

[Noj]

The Raiders are my team, always have been. I pull for the Rams, too. I'm a homer, even after the teams move away. It's natural. Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels...

The Raiders better score 40+ every game if they expect to win with a defense not much different from last year's team. WTF are we going to do against the run? I haven't been following close enough, I've got to see who's new on defense.

I think Collins will be much better this year, he showed signs late last season that he was grasping the offense. Now he has a great back to hand off to (Jordan). He often throws high, Moss is a perfect target. Moss and Porter will make it tough on opposing secondary.

Edited July 27, 2005 by Noj

[Soulstation1]

i like the lamont jordan pick up and charles woodson is my boy from his michigan days

[Noj]

I read an article about Ricky Williams, some reporter found him living in a tent like a bum in Australia and he'd lost his wallet. He's a can short of a six pack.

[Soulstation1]

i guess nick sabin made a 350 lbs man cry on the practice field yesterday...

what a wuss

Edited July 29, 2005 by Soulstation1

[connoisseur series500]

Linebacker Ted Johnson suddenly announced his retirement, and now the Patriots have to take another look at a position which required attention once Bruscke was placed on the physically unable to perform list. They picked up Chad Brown and Monty Beisel over the offseason, but it will be interesting to see if they sign another linebacker. They may decide to ride with what they've got.

Rodney Harrison is one of several underpaid Patriot players. His agent wouldn't reveal anything, but said he'd be taking the practice field today "a happy man." Must have renegotiated his contract.

Pats will play hardball with Richard Seymour regarding his contract. He's got two years left and the team is close to the salary cap limit.

Players don't sit out games anymore, though they might miss training camp. Seymour doesn't have many options at this stage other than to play.

Interesting to see if they dominate again this year. On paper they are very deep, but there are those intangibles...

If the Browns are going 16-0, then I guess the Pats will go 50-0!

[Aggie87]

For those of you who have been wondering how the Dolphins were able to get Ricky Williams back to the game, look no further:

[Soulstation1]

i heard ricky was hittin' the bong before tonight's game

when do the browns start kicking ass???

[MartyJazz]

Jet fan here and happy about the Ty Law signing, obviously if he's truly recovered. Foot injuries at that position especially mean that the risk is even greater that he'll reinjure. In any event, wonder what this bodes for John Abraham who's sitting out training camp thus far hoping the Jets come up with some huge bucks for a new contract. Man's great but injury prone and has a way of missing big games, i.e., no show come playoff time.

Regarding earlier posts here re Lamont Jordan, how I hated to lose him!!!! Curtis is due for a slide and LJ, I'm afraid, is really going to blossom for the black and silver (ugh!).

[connoisseur series500]

Jet fan here and happy about the Ty Law signing, obviously if he's truly recovered.  Foot injuries at that position especially mean that the risk is even greater that he'll reinjure.  In any event, wonder what this bodes for John Abraham who's sitting out training camp thus far hoping the Jets come up with some huge bucks for a new contract.  Man's great but injury prone and has a way of missing big games, i.e., no show come playoff time. 

Regarding earlier posts here re Lamont Jordan, how I hated to lose him!!!!  Curtis is due for a slide and LJ, I'm afraid, is really going to blossom for the black and silver (ugh!).

←

Pretty accurate assessment.

Personally, as a fan of a big division foe, I am not very concerned about the Jets. I'm not convinced that they are better than they were last year. I think they might even be weaker. The Bills are on their way up. I'd even say they'd be the second place finisher, except there are too many questions at quaterback for the Bills. Jets will finish second. We swept both games from them last year. I don't believe Curtis Martin will have as good a year as last. Pennington's arm is uncertain. LJ was about to bust out, and they got rid of him. Jet's D-line is still first class. Pretty good defence, but not great. Pats have other stronger teams to be concerned about.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

The Ty Law signing is intriguing. When the NFLPA releases the cap implications, we'll find out what the contract really is. The scuttle over on www.patsfans.com is that Law's contract has no signing bonus and a fixed, low first year salary of about $3.4 million with performance-based escalators that could get it as high as $6 million. If this is true, the Jets could simply cut Law and save a bundle if he doesn't perform.

Kevin

[Soulstation1]

owens is a jack-ass

wtf is up with the steelers, injuries galore in the first couple weeks

i likezzzz when the steelers have problems

go browns!!!!

browns v giants this weekend

ss1

[Soulstation1]

TO stop cryin'

Edited August 12, 2005 by Soulstation1

[Soulstation1]

browns are 1-0

'nuff said

anyone have the nfl network?

i saw some of it last night at a friend's place

ss1

[Aggie87]

Interesting comments from Peter King at SI.com regarding Terrell Owens:

********************

Last week I went to Eagles camp in Bethlehem, Pa., and offensive coordinator Brad Childress asked: "Remember what you said to me last year about Terrell?"

I remembered, of course. Paraphrasing, but not by much, I told Childress, and Eagles coach Andy Reid last year during Owens' first training camp with Philadelphia: "Terrell Owens will be on his best behavior this year. It's his honeymoon year. He'll be the perfect player, the perfect teammate. He's got a lot to prove. Next year's the year it could blow up."

I am about to violate my own 10-day-old rant about the sports media being too T.O.-minded. Here's why: Ten days ago, Owens was not materially damaging the Eagles' chances to win the NFC title in 2005. Now he is, so he's fair game again. I hope this is the last time I need to bash him in this space, but with this lame-brained nut job such as T.O., you never know.

The last straw, which lit my fuse like nothing I've heard in 25 years of covering sports, came last Thursday when Owens said on ESPN that he went off the previous day because Reid told him to shut up. Owens told his coach no one but the people who raised him could talk to him that way. And I thought: What society of enablers allowed this child -- and that is what he is, a child -- to think that in the NFL it is improper for a coach to tell a player to shut up? I just spent three weeks watching NFL teams practice and talked extensively to players and coaches, and I've heard some of the most vein-popping name-calling you'd hear in any workplace. I saw Miami coach Nick Saban browbeat a rookie for forgetting his shoulder pads at practice. I heard Atlanta assistant Alex Gibbs verbally and crudely bash several offensive linemen after a missed assignment. I heard Baltimore offensive coordinator Jim Fassel ream out his offensive line for sluggish play. I saw Green Bay defensive coordinator Jim Bates get in the face of a defensive lineman because he got blocked, questioning the guy's manhood in front of every player in camp.

And Owens is offended because he was told to shut up.

Here are two significant things about the relationship between Owens and Reid.

1. Last year, before the Eagles traded for Owens, Reid didn't trust T.O. as far as he could throw him. Reid and Steve Mariucci had coached on the same Green Bay staff in the '90s and Reid knew if you had trouble playing for Mariucci, which Owens did in San Francisco, you'd have trouble playing for anyone. But Owens passionately pleaded that he was misunderstood, he was a gamer and a great teammate and if the Eagles took him there weren't going to be any problems. And so Reid screwed up. He trusted that Owens was a quality guy.

2. At the end of last season, after the Eagles' Super Bowl loss in which Owens played heroically, he told Reid: "This was the greatest year of my life." Nothing about his contract. Nothing about being underpaid.

So let's go over the basic points of the war between Owens and the Eagles. I maintain that Owens is dead wrong in every aspect, not just one or two.

The Contract: When Owens signed his seven-year, $49 million deal last year, he said nothing about the injustice of it. And why would he? The Eagles rescued him from a bad situation. His original agent, David Joseph, failed to file the requisite papers declaring Owens a free agent after a clause in his 49ers' contract allowed him to become one, and it took a legal fight for Owens to get away from the team he hated. In the end, after openly appealing to play for the Eagles, and spurning the Ravens' interest (when Baltimore offered San Francisco a better deal), Owens won the right to play for the Eagles. In exchange, the Eagles did not make him play under his existing contract, which they had every right to do. They tore up the contract and agreed to pay Owens $21 million in bonus money and salary over the first three years of the deal. That made Owens, along with Marvin Harrison and Randy Moss, one of the highest-paid receivers in football -- behind the other two, but not by much. Owens' new agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said that Owens is not even among the top 10 highest-paid receivers in the game, which is nonsense. Rosenhaus is taking Owens' 2005 salary ($3.25 million) as if it exists in a vacuum, without the approximately $16 million in bonus money due Owens in the first three years of the contract. It is reprehensible to claim a deal that was just fine in year one is suddenly so onerous in year two -- not to mention how absurd it is to ask a team to tear up a contract after the first year of a seven-year deal.

The inability to get along with some of the best people in football: What do Mariucci, Jeff Garcia, Reid and Donovan McNabb have in common? They're all good guys. You can count on one finger the players who've had major problems with Mariucci and Reid. One's vivacious and loquacious, the other reserved and respected. But players love playing for them. And try to name players who've chafed under the leadership of Garcia and McNabb.

Mariucci disciplined Owens for preening on the Dallas Cowboys' star at Texas Stadium; that was the end of their relationship. Garcia-to-Owens was the second-most productive NFL aerial connection between 2000 and 2003 (behind only Peyton Manning to Marvin Harrison), but Owens sniped in the press at Garcia for having a poor arm and not getting the ball to him enough.

Reid supported Owens when little brushfires came up and kept his mouth shut when Owens did silly things like criticize the coach for running physical training-camp practices last year. The Eagles coach didn't even rebuke Owens when he criticized McNabb (not by name) for getting tired late in Super Bowl XXXIX. But when Reid got in Owens' grill last week for skipping a mandatory autograph session at camp and mouthing off to offensive coordinator Brad Childress, suddenly Reid was the enemy and got double-barrelled by Owens on Pardon the Interruption and at halftime of the Packers-Chargers game on ESPN that night. All McNabb did was fight with Reid and Eagle ownership to bring Owens to Philly 19 months ago. Last year, I interviewed Owens and McNabb together in the dorm suite they shared with Dhani Jones at training camp for a Sports Illustrated piece. Every time I asked Owens a tough question, McNabb piped up with something like, "Judge him on what he does this year, not what happened in the past." McNabb was an excellent shield. Which brings us to ...

Being a bad teammate: Last year, McNabb lobbied the Eagles to sign Owens. He invited Owens to his home in Arizona to work out in the offseason and to bond. When Owens broke his leg, McNabb and his parents (his father is a church deacon) went to Owens' home and prayed with him that he'd recover. A couple of days after the season, Owens said he wasn't the one who got tired late in the Super Bowl, a direct shot at McNabb's controversial weariness late in Super Bowl XXXIX. We could go over the other little pissy things between the two, but why bother? McNabb battled to convince the Eagles this doofus could fit in on a straight-laced team and he combined with him to take the Eagles to a Super Bowl. Now Owens chooses to bash McNabb in the press instead of talking to him man-to-man about whatever problem he has with him.

Listen to what Garcia told me last year about Owens: "T.O. didn't communicate with his teammates directly. He communicated through the press. The public way T.O. demonstrated his emotions just wasn't healthy. He created a huge sense of destruction within the team. When you talk to people who've been on his team, you never hear the words 'teammate' or 'team player.'" When someone ghost-writes McNabb's autobiography in 15 years, I guarantee you McNabb will be saying something very similar.

The inability to exist under the current NFL salary structure: Some guys get mad at their contract, and they figure: Well, can't fight city hall. Gotta report and play. Owens gets incendiary. Talking to his buddy -- and semi-mediator in this dispute -- Freddie Mitchell the other day, I was left with the belief that Owens will never be truly happy until he's paid like a quarterback. Owens feels the system has chewed him up and spit him out. In effect, that's what Mitchell told me. How sad. I haven't heard Owens say much about union issues, and I don't see Owens up front with other player/leaders like Troy Vincent on the collective bargaining agreement. Do contracts in the NFL favor teams because they allow clubs to cut players at any time in the offseason without being obligated to pay them the rest of the contract? Yes. Of course they are. But it's the system, the same system that has put $40 million or so in Owens' bank account over the term of his career. And I'm being conservative with that figure. If you don't like the system, work to change it. Owens took advantage of the system one season -- to make more than $9 million with the Eagles -- and then, the next year, when it didn't fit him to his liking, he bitched.

Here's my bottom line, and it's what I told Mitchell: In 2004 Owens signed a contract through 2010 with the Philadelphia Eagles, his dream team with his dream quarterback. The contract makes him the third highest-paid receiver in football over the first three years of the deal. In 2005 he can't live with the contract. Owens gets no sympathy from me.

Go back to the Eagles on Wednesday, T.O., shut that massive piehole, play football and try to prove to some of us who think you're the worst kind of problem with American sports today that we're wrong. Please.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

"twoo"

[Soulstation1]

anyone pick up madden 2006?

[Soulstation1]

holy smokes

randy moss smokes a little weed..........

that's a f'n shocker

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2137525

[MartyJazz]

Well, I know it's preseason and if given the hypothetical choice, I would take an 0-4 preseason with NO injuries over practically any alternative, but as a Jet fan I had to like watching Pennington last night against the Vikes. Arm strength (such as it is) seemed there and the vaunted accuracy was also present. Now if we could get Abraham into the fold and if (a big IF), Ty Law is back, we might be able to make some noise in the AFC. Especially, and this is a very unusual oddity, we don't get to face the Pats until December (!). No head to head until very late in the season, kind of amazing in a league that's set up to have one and ones within small 4 team divisions.

Edited August 20, 2005 by MartyJazz

[Soulstation1]

what about coles coming back at wr?

chad always seems to get hurt

[ajf67]

SoulStation, don't worry about the Steelers. Our guys will be back for the regular season. We're going to win the division again and then be playing long into January.

[MartyJazz]

what about coles coming back at wr?

chad always seems to get hurt

←

Yeah, Chad is brittle but assuming that if he does get hurt, it's not for the entire season, then Fiedler is a very adequate backup. As for Coles, it looked like he and Chad had never been parted. They're made for each other. He'll be far more productive within the Jets system than he was for the Skins.

[Soulstation1]

[Soulstation1]

browns laid the smack down on the lions today

2-0

[trane_fanatic]

49ers offensive lineman Thomas Herrion dies at 23 after game

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2139454

----------------------------------------------------------------------

DENVER -- San Francisco offensive lineman Thomas Herrion collapsed in the locker room and died Sunday morning, shortly after the 49ers played the Denver Broncos in a preseason game. He was 23.

Herrion, a 6-foot-3, 310-pound guard, was on the field for San Francisco's 14-play, 91-yard drive that ended with a touchdown with 2 seconds left.

Players had finished listening to coach Mike Nolan address them in a postgame meeting when Herrion collapsed. Medics administered CPR on him and took him to an ambulance that rushed him to a nearby hospital.

Niners linebacker Julian Peterson told the San Jose Mercury News players were holding hands in postgame prayer when Herrion "just toppled over."

Nolan told the Mercury News the team's medical staff "immediately went to him" when Herrion collapsed.

"We were all told to stay back so the medical staff could do their work," he said."

About three hours later, 49ers spokesman Aaron Salkin confirmed that Herrion had been pronounced dead. The cause of death was not immediately known.

49ers official statement

"Thomas Herrion, a first-year guard on the 49ers, collapsed in the locker room following the game. He was immediately treated by team physicians, the medical staff and paramedics. He was then transported to St. Anthony Central.

"We received word a short time later that he passed away. This is a colossal tragedy for the 49ers and the entire NFL community.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that television footage showed Herrion walking off the field after the 49ers' touchdown drive, with nothing apparently wrong. According to the paper, Herrion's face gave no sign of distress in the footage.

"This is a colossal tragedy for the 49ers and the entire NFL community," Salkin said. "We still do not know all the details. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Herrion family."

The death comes a little more than four years after offensive lineman Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings died of heatstroke during a training camp practice on a day during which the heat index soared to 110.

Since Stringer's death, NFL teams have increased their efforts to teach players about hydration and how to manage the heat. They have been experimenting with sensors to measure players' core body temperatures, although those by themselves wouldn't be able to prevent a heat-related death.

Temperatures were in the mid-60s with 50 percent humidity Saturday night in Denver, although experts say heatstroke can occur even in cool conditions.

After the game, Nolan said he had no comments about San Francisco's 26-21 loss to the Broncos.

"There are more important things on our mind than the game," he said. "Right now, our thoughts and prayers are with Thomas Herrion."

Shortly after that statement, the Niners got dressed and boarded buses that took them to the Denver airport for their flight back to California. Salkin said coaches notified players of the tragedy at the airport.

"Last night before we boarded the plane, the coaches grabbed our team together and gave us the news," Niners defensive lineman Marques Douglas told ESPN Radio on Sunday morning. "At that time, we just kneeled and prayed. We had a moment of silence for him. We knew that, the team knew that it was in God's hands."

Herrion was in his first year with the 49ers, after having played in NFL Europe with the Hamburg Sea Dogs.

Herrion, a first-year player with the 49ers, played college ball at Utah and spent part of last season on the San Francisco and Dallas practice squads. He also played this season with the Hamburg Sea Dogs of NFL Europe.

"He was extremely loved and liked by many people in the locker room," Douglas told ESPN Radio. " a jovial guy who loved to joke around. Just a guy who loved life."

The native of Fort Worth, Texas, started every game at left guard in the 2003 season for Utah and was a team captain, when current 49ers quarterback Alex Smith played his sophomore season at quarterback.

Herrion had four siblings -- two brothers and two sisters.

Stringer's death was thought to be the first of its kind in the NFL. In 1979, St. Louis Cardinals tight end J.V. Cain died of a heart attack during training camp. Chuck Hughes, a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, died of a heart attack Oct. 24, 1972, during a game in Detroit against the Chicago Bears.

In April, Arena Football League player Al Lucas of the Los Angeles Avengers died of a spinal-cord injury he endured while making a tackle.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.