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I'm definitely going to be watching.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/32for32x170509/predicting-best-2017-rookie-all-32-nfl-teams

Predicting the best NFL rookie on every team

Rams - WR - Cooper Kupp

Gerald Everett, a pass-catching tight end out of South Alabama who was selected 44th overall, is the most talented rookie on the Rams' roster. But by the end of the year, Kupp, a third-rounder out of Eastern Washington, might end up with the best numbers.

Kupp is a more polished receiver who operates best out of the slot and is primed to establish himself as something of a security blanket for Jared Goff. Kupp joins the Rams after a record-breaking collegiate career in finishing with 6,464 yards. He knows how to put up numbers. -- Alden Gonzalez

Cardinals - S - Budda Baker

If the Cardinals' second-round pick can pick up the multiple defenses that coordinator James Bettcher likes to call, Baker should find himself on the field early and often this season. According to Bettcher, the Cardinals run sub-packages on 79 percent of their defensive snaps, which will give Baker plenty of opportunities to play either slot corner or safety. Baker has the size and quickness to be impactful, but the biggest question is whether his ball skills can translate to the NFL. -- Josh Weinfuss

49ers - LB - Reuben Foster

Operating under the assumption that his shoulder holds up for the full season, Foster will start from the get-go and should instantly improve the league's worst run defense. Foster will probably begin at weakside linebacker next to NaVorro Bowman in the middle, but he'll eventually become the middle linebacker and center of the defense (though maybe not this year). Foster's ability to stay on the field for all three downs gives him a slight edge over fellow first-round pick Solomon Thomas. -- Nick Wagoner

Seahawks - OL - Ethan Pocic

He certainly isn't the most prominent name on this list, but the Seahawks drafted Pocic in the second round with the expectation that he'll compete for a starting job at right guard or right tackle. The Seahawks' struggles up front have been well-documented, and the outcome of the 2017 season rests largely on the team's ability to improve along the offensive line. Pocic's providing an immediate upgrade will be critical. -- Sheil Kapadia
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To read about all the teams click the link below.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/32for32x170509/predicting-best-2017-rookie-all-32-nfl-teams

http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id...wife-espn-icon-chris-berman-dies-car-accident
Tragic. My heart goes out to the goofy bastard. Love or hate him, he's still a human being with feelings. Sad day.

Predicting the Rams 53-man opening day roster

Rams football is finally back…in some capacity at least. We are seeing pictures of Jared Goff and Sean McVay working together on the field which only excites us for the 2017 season. However, let’s not pretend that we don’t enjoy hearing about all of the camp battles that go on through training camp and the pre-season. It may be early, but here is my prediction for the Rams 2017 day one 53-man roster.

Quarterback (2): Jared Goff, Sean Mannion

Last year the Rams kept three quarterbacks on the roster, but that was because they had a rookie QB they drafted No.1 overall that wasn’t quite ready for day one. Now, that QB Jared Goff is going to be the unanimous starter for the Rams, the starting QB at the beginning of last year left in free agency and the Rams still have a backup QB in Sean Mannion who has barely seen in the field, but still remains as a 2015 third round draft pick.

The Rams signed Aaron Murray who is better than just a camp arm, but with the amount of depth the Rams have, there is no way the Rams can afford to keep three quarterbacks. Matt Davis is a UDFA camp arm the Rams picked up that offers mobility to the mix, since he is a year removed from his torn ACL, he might be a practice squad developmental QB.

Cut: Aaron Murray, Matt Davis

Running back (3): Todd Gurley, Malcolm Brown, Lance Dunbar

Going into the running back position and there is another unanimous starter and that is Todd Gurley. Gurley has struggled quite a bit as of late and now with the updated offensive line there shouldn’t be too many excuses for him this season. Malcolm Brown had a limited role last year as a former UDFA that beat the odds and made the roster a couple of years ago. Brown brings power and balanced ball-carrying to the mix to spell Gurley in the goal line situations or just a third down breather.

Over the free agency period the Rams gave a one-year three million dollar deal to Lance Dunbar to fill the “Chris Thompson role”. There is no way the Rams cut him so that leaves in my mind one running spot…on the practice squad. I believe it’s between Justin Davis (signed by the new regime) against Aaron Green (only limited connection to new regime). I am willing to bet Davis will end up winning the battle. With newly drafted FB Sam Rogers, I don’t see a need to keep four running backs. There are too many players that you would be sacrificing for a slot that isn’t a need.

Cut: Aaron Green, Lenard Tillery

Fullback (1): Sam Rogers

The Rams shocked some people and took a fullback in the sixth round of the NFL draft. While many believe the FB position is dying in the NFL, Rogers brings multiple things to the table that would lead us to believe he’s more than a fullback. Rogers is reportedly battling Zach Laskey who has been all around the Rams since 2015 either being on the off-season roster, waived injured or being signed to the practice squad. I believe with Rogers having the sixth round title on his name he is likely to win this job easily, but Rogers is also going to earn it as well. This may be the last of Laskey if he is unable to upset Rogers in this camp battle.

Cut: Zach Laskey

Wide receiver (6): Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Tavon Austin, Josh Reynolds, Pharoh Cooper, Mike Thomas

This is likely the toughest position to predict once you get past the starters. I believe as thought the starting wide receivers will be free agent acquisition Robert Woods and third round pick Cooper Kupp. After that I think Tavon Austin maintains the slot receiver role and then a pair of fourth round picks Josh Reynolds this year and Pharoh Cooper of last year make the roster. The last receiver to make the roster I believe will be former sixth round pick and likely future special teams ace Mike Thomas.

The Rams may not have any all-pro level talents on their roster, but to narrow it down to six is going to be difficult. UDFAs Marquez, Spruce, McRoberts and North all have interesting upside and likely one of two will be put on the practice squad (except Marquez who is ineligible). I believe as though if I could pick the last player to make the roster I would go with McRoberts over Thomas, but with the way Thomas showed off on special teams last year as a gunner, it seems unlikely the Rams let him go.

Cut: Bradley Marquez, Nelson Spruce, Paul McRoberts, Brandon Shippen, Marquez North, Jeremy Tabuyo

Tight ends (3): Tyler Higbee, Gerald Everett, Temarrick Hemingway

The Rams have added three tight ends by way of the NFL Draft in back-to-back seasons, these players appear to be the only that will make the 53-man roster in my opinion. I feel as though any chance Cory Harkey had was lost when the Rams drafted Sam Rogers who will be able to play that FB role Harkey had. Gerald Everett is set to assume the Jordan Reed role, but I feel as though this will be Higbee’s season to shine. Also, expect Temarrick Hemingway to make significant strides in year two.

There are some interesting options at tight end in Travis Wilson and Johnny Mundt who are guys to definitely keep an eye on. I ultimately think that those are the two that could both end up on the practice squad. Bryce Williams, who was a practice squad player last year was waived, so it appears likely one of these two if not both will be on the practice squad. Mundt has his own story as a former top prospect turned into the forgotten man due to injury versus Wilson who is literally a former QB that played in the same conference in college as Mundt.

Cut: Cory Harkey, Johnny Mundt, Travis Wilson

Offensive line (10): Andrew Whitworth, Rodger Saffold, John Sullivan, Rob Havenstein, Greg Robinson, Andrew Donnal, Jamon Brown, Cody Wichmann, Demetrius Rhaney, Pace Murphy

The starters on the offensive line are set from left to right: Andrew Whitworth, Rodger Saffold, John Sullivan, Rob Havenstein and Greg Robinson. That’s five of the nine, I believe that the 2015 draftees on the line will all make the roster. I think the Rams will choose to go with multiple guard/center hybrids then reach to keep multiple tackles. I also believe Andrew Donnal can play tackle if need be, the Rams have Robinson, Havenstein and Saffold that can all fill in at LT if god forbid Whitworth goes down. With Robinson it would be fairly simple, Havenstein would likely go back to RT and Jamon Brown would fill in at RG.

I think there are some intriguing options in Anthony McMeans, Jake Eldrenkamp and Kwayde Miller, but I ultimately believe that the Rams will only keep ten and with that being said keep those ten. I think Eldrenkamp and McMeans would likely find themselves on the practice squad.

Cut: Darrell Williams, Kwayde Miller, Jake Eldrenkamp, Anthony McMeans, Alex Kozan

Defensive line (5): Aaron Donald, Michael Brockers, Dominique Easley, Tanzel Smart, Mike Purcell

With the new defensive scheme coming to the Rams it is likely to phase out some “tweeners” on the team from last year such as Morgan Fox who is a good football player but isn’t big enough to play on the line in a 3-4 and is not fast enough to play at linebacker either. The obvious ones are our presumed three man starting front with Aaron Donald, Michael Brockers and Dominique Easley. Next in line? The sixth round pick Tanzel Smart who can instantly come in and be a one-gap penetrating rotational interior lineman. I only ended up keeping five on the defensive line and decided to go with Mike Purcell who is both younger and likely just as good as Rams free agent signee Tyrunn Walker. Walker’s contract is easy to shed and Purcell gives the Rams flexibility if they find him useful enough he is a restricted free agent next year.

I already mentioned Fox and Walker but UDFAs Casey Sayles, Dimitrius Smith and Louis Trinca-Pasat I feel all have a good chance as a possible practice squad additions. The man that is known as LTP to some tore both his ACL and MCL last year in camp and will likely be back with a vengeance. I think he is a real dark horse to make the roster, but as it stands now is how I see it shaking out, come post-training camp.

Cut: Louis Trinca-Pasat, Casey Sayles, Morgan Fox, Dimitrius Smith, Tyrunn Walker

Linebackers (10): Alec Ogletree, Mark Barron, Josh Forrest, Robert Quinn, Connor Barwin, Samson Ebukam, Ejuan Price, Cory Littleton, Carlos Thompson, Ethan Westbrooks

I know what you’re thinking…10 linebackers? Yes, as a matter of fact most 3-4 defenses keep 10 total linebackers on tap. The obvious ones include my projected starters Alec Ogletree, Mark Barron, Robert Quinn and Connor Barwin. I felt as though the Rams had some tough decisions…or rather have some tough decisions ahead of them. Rams rookie of the year Cory Littleton gets the nod, Carlos Thompson with the connection to Wade Phillips gets him on the roster as well, Ethan Westbrooks has just shown way too much previously to let him go now, Samson Ebukam and Ejuan Price are locks in my opinion and Josh Forrest is a former sixth round pick that has had his head coach talk him up early on.

Following off with the rest of the linebackers that don’t quite make the 53, Bryce Hager who is a former seventh round pick in his own right and has actually shown some real improvement. Hager is the most likely out of this group to sneak into the roster, especially with his special teams play. After Hager you have Grigsby who actually was on the 53 man roster last season then the rest in which I see Folarin Orimolade as a potential dark horse if he can get the playing time he could challenge Ebukam, Price in preaseason. Overall, I believe Orimolade has the best chance to be on the practice squad.

Cut: Bryce Hager, Reggie Northrup, Cassanova McKinzy, Kevin Davis, Nicholas Grigsby, Folarin Orimolade,

Cornerbacks (5): Trumaine Johnson, Kayvon Webster, Nickell Robey-Coleman, E.J. Gaines, Mike Jordan, Troy Hill*(SUSP)

Five cornerbacks are being kept and it’s basically like seven when you factor in that LaMarcus Joyner and John Johnson can both play the corner position. Early on I know the talks are that Webster will battle Gaines for the starting role next to Johnson, but it is clear as day that Webster is going to start. Webster knew he was going to start which is ultimately why he chose the Rams over the Eagles. The Rams had his old coach in Phillips and a chance to start next to a great corner and on a great defense, while the Eagles had a starting job open next to an average corner. The Rams brought in Nickell Robey-Coleman who gave their team fits last season and he’s a player that likely is the nickel corner when Joyner is playing safety. Last pick I had was Mike Jordan, someone I feel as though has a chance to be a real good corner. He’s a bigger physical guy than his competition and I bet Phillips notices that early on.


Troy Hill, who started some games last year for the Rams really hurt his stock when he was arrested during the season, that arrest will put him on the suspension list for two games and allow him to avoid the final cuts for the time being. Jared Collins, Aarion Penton and Ishmael Adams all are this year’s UDFAs at CB and I don’t feel as though any of them have a shot to make a cut of five which I have. There is some upside on the practice squad, but I don’t see it for them this year and with Blake Countess, I like him a lot, he is just too much like Joyner and Robey-Coleman, so he will either be on the practice squad or cut outright.

Cut: Jared Collins, Aarion Penton, Kevin Peterson, Blake Countess, Ishmael Adams

Safeties (5): LaMarcus Joyner, John Johnson, Cody Davis, Maurice Alexander, Brian Randolph

It is reportedly a fact that LaMarcus Joyner will make the transition to free safety to play alongside last year’s free safety Maurice Alexander, he will now move over to strong safety. The Rams spent a third round pick on Boston College safety/cornerback hybrid John Johnson who is a shoe-in to make the 53-man roster. Lastly, I only had the Rams hanging onto five safeties. The other two were both former UDFAs Cody Davis who is a key special teams contributor and has had some experience on defense and Brian Randolph who could be the big time sleeper who was forgotten after he tore his ACL early in the Dallas Cowboys preseason game last year.

Dravious Wright is this year’s only UDFA safety and while he hits like a brick, I don’t see him offering much more that will entice the Rams into parting with the five I have making the roster. Wright could be a practice squad option along with former Rams practice squad safety Isaiah Johnson. Marqui Christian is likely going to be the last one that can make the safeties, if they keep six I believe he’s on the roster. The problem is that the Rams got better and because of that, they may have to cut a good young player in Christian.

Cut: Dravious Wright, Isaiah Johnson, Marqui Christian

Specialists (3): K Greg Zuerlein, P Johnny Hekker, LS Jake McQuaide

There is zero competition this year for any of these positions and it’s because they are fantastic at what they do. When it’s all said and done Hekker could end up being the greatest punter ever and Zuerlein could end up breaking the longest kick record. McQuaide had competition in newly-signed Andrew East, but that quickly went out the window when the Rams cut him recently. McQuaide was a pro bowler last year so he likely wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway.

Final Starting Lineup:

QB: Jared Goff

RB: Todd Gurley

FB: Sam Rogers

WR: Robert Woods

WR: Tavon Austin

WR: Cooper Kupp

TE: Tyler Higbee

TE: Gerald Everett

LT: Andrew Whitworth

LG: Rodger Saffold

C: John Sullivan

RG: Rob Havenstein

RT: Greg Robinson

DE: Aaron Donald

NT: Michael Brockers

DE: Dominique Easley

WLB: Robert Quinn

ILB: Alec Ogletree

ILB: Mark Barron

SLB: Connor Barwin

CB: Trumaine Johnson

CB: Kayvon Webster

CB: Nickell Robey-Coleman

FS: LaMarcus Joyner

SS: Maurice Alexander

K: Greg Zuerlein

P: Johnny Hekker

LS: Jake McQuaide

KR: Lance Dunbar

PR: Tavon Austin


Thoughts? Let us know your 53-man roster below!

These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/08/jay-cutler-tv-nfl-quarterbacks-offseason-draft-peter-king

Jay Cutler and the Odd Offseason of QB Movement
With the sullen ex-Bear heading to TV, it’s a good time to reset how nonsensical the situations under center have become. Plus more draft fallout, an NBA GM talks football and the sad state of a ’72 Dolphins star
by Peter King

Friday capped the strangest quarterback off-season I can remember. That’s when Jay Cutler, a C-plus quarterback with four or five years left in him (or so we thought) surprised a quarterback-needy league by jumping to the Fox broadcast booth.

Not only is it downright weird to think of the perennially sour Cutler as some future aw-shucks Collinsworth. It’s weirder to think of the 34-year-old Cutler as not good enough to start anymore in the NFL. And weirder still to think of the employed and unemployed at the most important position in sports.

THEY’RE STARTING

Tom Savage, Houston. Six years ago, he lost the job at Rutgers. After Brock Osweiler flunked out, and after Tony Romo picked TV over football, and after the Texans passed on the acidic Cutler, Savage, with two career starts and zero career touchdown passes, will try to hold off first-round rookie Deshaun Watson through a medium-tough September (Jags, at Bengals, at Patriots).


Tom Savage and Cody Kessler (left) will have starting quarterback jobs in 2017; Jay Cutler and Tony Romo will not
Photo: Getty Images (4)

Cody Kessler, Cleveland. The 2016 third-rounder showed promise last year, if you call not turning the ball over while going 0-8 “promise.” He should hold off rookie DeShone Kizer for a while, but such is life on the Browns quarterback depth chart that Kessler might not even be a Brown nine months from now.

Browns quarterback interlude

Cleveland’s QB depth chart in early May of recent seasons

2017: Cody Kessler, Kevin Hogan, DeShone Kizer, Brock Osweiler.
2016: Robert Griffin III, Josh McCown, Cody Kessler, Austin Davis, Connor Shaw, Pat Devlin.
2015: Josh McCown, Johnny Manziel, Thaddeus Lewis, Connor Shaw.
2014: Brian Hoyer, Johnny Manziel, Tyler Thigpen, Connor Shaw.
2013: Brandon Weeden, Jason Campbell, Thaddeus Lewis.

Five Mays. Fifteen different quarterbacks.

Mike Glennon, Chicago. He last started a game three years ago, and the Bears showed so much faith in him that they used four draft choices to move up to pick the rookie quarterback that GM Ryan Pace thinks will replace him, Mitchell Trubisky.

Brian Hoyer, San Francisco. After looking scared in a four-pick playoff embarrassment for Houston 16 months ago, Hoyer slightly redeemed himself in a five-start, 67-percent relief stint with the Bears last year. Still, he’s a Kyle Shanahan stopgap with the Niners.

Josh McCown, New York Jets. The stats don’t show it, but he’s a good quarterback to have on the roster, a team-first guy who might be best suited getting Bryce Petty or Christian Hackenberg ready to play. Whoever plays, the Jets will be in the quarterback market in 2018. All in, in fact.

THEY’RE NOT STARTING

Tony Romo. He knows he could have quarterbacked Houston if he wanted to. But he got a once-in-a-decade offer—walking off the field into a network’s top analyst job, for CBS—which sped his decision.

Jay Cutler. More below. The man with 134 more career passing yards than Kurt Warner and 14 more career touchdown passes than Ken Stabler drew scant interest from the only team that made sense—Houston. That probably told him everything. Cutler’s legacy will be that he underachieved (11 years, one playoff win) while being the most media-repellant quarterback of his era.

Colin Kaepernick. So Kaepernick has bought a place in downtown Manhattan and lives in the big city fairly anonymously. I spent a long draft weekend with the Niners in California, and there are those in the building who think Kaepernick might actually rather do social justice work full-time than play quarterback. He emerges in New York City occasionally for noble cause work, last week donating 100 men’s suits to a parole office in Queens, so recipients, recently out of prison, would look more presentable when going on job interviews.

I haven’t talked to Kaepernick, so I have no idea what his gut is telling him about what to do with his life. But it’s crazy that a quarterback who four years ago was coming off a Super Bowl appearance and looked to be a long-term answer has no team now and no hot NFL prospects that anyone can see.

If I were a pro scout or a GM with a starting or backup quarterback need, I’d be on a plane to New York to have lunch with Kaepernick to ask him where he sees his life going. And if he sees a football future, and if I had a great quarterback coach (Sean McVay with the Rams, Bruce Arians in Arizona), I’d sign him to an incentive-laden contract. Right now.

Robert Griffin III. He’s been unemployed for two months after the Browns cut him. The career of the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year is in more jeopardy than Kaepernick’s. Regardless of what he, his family or Washington owner Daniel Snyder thinks, Griffin’s biggest error was being the anti-Brady.

Instead of simply being willing to be coached hard by proven quarterback developers Mike and Kyle Shanahan (and I understand all the divisive tributaries that go along with that), Griffin and his family thought they knew best. The resulting wedge driven between him and his coaches, on top of the knee injury he suffered in the playoffs in January 2013, have been factors he hasn’t recovered from.

Texans Quarterback Interlude

Romo, Cutler, Kaepernick and Griffin have all played in the playoffs in the past six years. The Texans have engaged none in serious contract discussions this off-season.

Ryan Fitzpatrick. Not so stunning he’s on the street. But like McCown, he’s a smart, low-ego guy who’d be a good fit on a team developing a young quarterback.

Here’s the commonality I see: The five teams with weak or unproven starters (Browns, Jets, Texans, Bears, 49ers) all have coaches who want to do it their way—developing players they want to build around. Hue Jackson’s that way. Kyle Shanahan and Bill O’Brien too. And GMs Mike Maccagnan of the Jets and Ryan Pace of the Bears have made it clear they prefer to develop their quarterback of the future, either through the draft or by signing a young free-agent with a spotless record who is totally devoted to football.

Fair or unfair, Cutler’s got a reputation of being an island. When Hue Jackson coached Oakland, he wanted to draft Kaepernick but was trumped by the Niners; now Jackson has shown zero interest in Kaepernick. Coaches want team guys, and they want football devotees. Not all great quarterbacks have had those traits, but look at teams that were desperate for quarterbacks entering this off-season. Houston and Cleveland chose to draft college players with question marks.

Watson and Kizer, those teams figured, will be devoted to football, clay willing to be molded. We’ll see if those choices work. But if you’d told me three months ago the NFL would open 2017 with Romo, Cutler and Kaepernick in occupations other than football, I’d have been stunned.

* * *

On Jay Cutler Taking the Color Job with FOX

Photo: Elsa/Getty Images

Quite a few thoughts, actually:

• Players who have been crappy with the media have gone to work for TV and been good at it. Sterling Sharpe, for one. You know why Sharpe was better than anyone thought he’d be? Because he didn’t care who he skewered, in part. As a player, Cutler had an acidic personality. He was a Negative Nate. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be bad at TV. It actually means he’s got a real chance to be good, if he works at it and stays true to his real opinions.

• What convinced Fox execs in the Cutler audition that he would be good enough to plug in for John Lynch on its number two NFL team? Sounds like it was two things, from the audition Cutler had in Los Angeles with play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt two weeks ago, when they sat in a quiet room on the Fox lot and voiced-over the Arizona-Seattle game from Christmas Eve. “Just being conversational,” Burkhardt said Friday.

“Knowing when to talk and when to shut up. Some guys talk, talk, talk, talk. Jay said his piece and just stopped.” And being prescient, just watching the game. On one play, near the Arizona goal line, Cutler piped up that the pass play failed because Jermaine Kearse was supposed to “rub,” or legally screen, the defensive back, and he missed the rub, and the ball fell incomplete. “There was another play, Carson Palmer to J.J. Nelson for an 80-yard touchdown, that Jay made a great observation,” Burkhardt said. “As soon as they got to the line, Jay knew it.

He said Palmer used his eyes perfectly to move the safety and keep him away from where he wanted to throw. When we got to the last replay, there was a head-on shot of Palmer’s eyes, and then he looked left right at the snap, and Nelson was to the right, and Palmer held the safety there. Palmer threw the bomb and the safety couldn’t get back in time to make the play. Overall, he had some really cool minutiae. He was so conversational.”

• Could Cutler play again? Who knows. “It seemed to me he’s checked out of football emotionally,” Burkhardt said. It’s odd that he isn’t playing, to be sure, but think of this from Cutler’s perspective. He’s made $73 million in the last five years alone. He doesn’t need a big payday. And for much of his eight seasons in Chicago, he’s been beat up behind a shaky offensive line.

Imagine talking to the Jets, for instance, or even Houston, and playing again behind a porous offensive line. With the Jets, he had to be thinking: Okay, I’ll make good money, and I’ll lose, and I’ll get sacked a lot. (And, though I doubt he was thinking this, add in this P.S.: He’d get the crap ripped out of him on the back pages of the tabloids as long as the Jets lost.)

Why do that? Hard to think that would be a lot of fun, particularly considering you could make decent money sitting up in a booth—and maybe discovering a new vocation you actually might like.

• I didn’t know Cutler well, and hadn’t talked to him much since he was with the Bears. But I always thought he blew some good chances in getting to know some of the former quarterbacks who did his games. Troy Aikman, Dan Fouts, Phil Simms, Steve Beuerlein. Cutler used to view those production meetings as necessary evils instead of using them to draw knowledge out of those guys. Cutler was a little too smart for his own good.

• Thought the best game I ever saw Cutler play was on a Monday night in October 2011, when the mediocre Bears faced the then-unbeaten Lions in Detroit and Cutler, in a loss, played as valiantly as a quarterback could play. The Detroit front seven (Ndamukong Suh, Nick Fairley, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Cliff Avril, Lawrence Jackson, etc.) must have hit him 20 times that night.

He had not a moment’s peace. But he completed 28 of 38 passes, threw no picks, and hung in against the most brutal of rushes. Chicago lost, but I thought that was the game of games in a career that had more disappointment than success.

• Eleven seasons, one playoff victory. He had some great moments, and too often we think quarterbacks can lift teams by themselves. But they can’t. However, one playoff win is one playoff win. I expected more out of Cutler when I first saw him play in Denver a decade ago.

* * *

Draft Leftovers

The Titans started a wide receiver run when they made Corey Davis the No. 5 overall pick. Two more were gone in the next four picks
Photo: Elsa/Getty Images

• Every year there are some players with injury questions, and some players ruled undraftable due to injury concerns. There were many this year, and most teams pushed two Alabama players (defensive lineman Jonathan Allen, linebacker Reuben Foster) down the draft board because of shoulder issues. I’ll preface this by saying in 1980 the Cincinnati Bengals drafted USC tackle Anthony Muñoz third overall despite the fact that an injured knee caused 14 NFL teams to flunk him on his physical.

Muñoz became one of the great offensive linemen of all time. Before the draft, one smart scout told me his team wouldn’t draft Foster; the team feared his postseason rotator-cuff surgery would have to be re-done. The Niners, before Foster’s medical re-check with the team, labeled him a 2-minus on their medical scale, meaning they had concerns requiring another examination. After that examination, team physical Dr. Timothy McAdams and the Niners were satisfied with Foster’s healing, GM John Lynch said, and the medical grade was changed to a 2-plus.

“He’ll be fine for training camp,” Lynch said. “We feel as strong as ever about his health, and really, we’ve never wavered. Our medical people are confident in him.” Foster’s shoulder will be monitored as closely as any injury entering training camp, because of everything said about it before the draft and since.

• Many in the league were stunned to see Western Michigan receiver Corey Davis go as high as the fifth pick, where Tennessee took him. We’ll see if that ends up working out for the Titans. But with the draft riches he’s accumulated, and knowing wide receiver was his top priority, GM Jon Robinson figured it was smarter to take his top wideout at five rather than risk missing on the top three before he had a chance to make another pick.

Sure enough, Mike Williams went to the Chargers at seven and John Ross to Cincinnati at nine. And there was the run of the top three wideouts, finished in the first nine picks.

• Arizona and San Francisco and the Jets (and perhaps Cleveland, depending on the rookie season of DeShone Kizer) pushed off their quarterback-of-the-future choices until 2018, when vets Kirk Cousins of Washington and Jimmy Garappolo of New England could be free agents, and the college crop of passers could be better than this year. I like that.

• I covered the New York Giants in the ’80s and wrote about first-round draft pick George Adams, a running back from Kentucky who struggled because of a hip injury for much of his career. He wore number 33. His son, LSU safety Jamal Adams, got drafted by the cross-stadium New York Jets, also in the first round, this year. Jamal’s number with the Jets: 33. “It’s always been a family number,” Jamal Adams said.

• Applause to the Browns, for closing ranks in the first round and keeping alive the perception that they might trade from 12 to two to pick up North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. That, in part, forced the Bears, who wanted Trubisky badly, to deal from three to two and throw in a third draft choice to assure they’d get their man. The Browns at times have been a leaky sieve during drafts. Not this time.

• I repeat: As I pointed out in my column inside the 49ers draft room last Monday, most often when a team gets on the clock during the draft, the other 31 teams don’t know which player that team is going to choose. So it’s easy to kill the Bears for trading three picks to move one spot. Easy, and short-sighted.

• The Jags fell into left tackle Cam Robinson with the 34th pick, and I make him the favorite to beat out Branden Albert (who’s not been at Jacksonville’s offseason program) for the starting left tackle job. Tom Coughlin’s not a big fan of wildcat-strikers.

• Underplayed story of the draft: Seattle drafting a corner (Shaquill Griffin) and three safeties (Delano Hill, Tedric Thompson, Mike Tyson), respectively, at 90, 95, 111 and 187 overall, a clarion call to the not-as-young-as-they-used-to-be back end of the defense—Earl Thomas (age 28), Kam Chancellor (29) and Richard Sherman (29).

* * *

The 1972 Dolphins Are Crumbling

Nick Buoniconti still looks sharp in public appearances, but his doctors believe his Dolphins playing days have taken a major toll on his health
Photo: Getty Images (2)

This week in Sports Illustrated, the magazine is running a story that will really move you, and I wanted to bring you a taste of that story here; The MMQB will run it in its entirety on Tuesday, plus a sort of spinoff tale on Wednesday. You’ve read before about the cracks in the NFL veneer, the old vets, so many of them in a bad state. But what writer Scott Price found is a really punishing story about the man at the heart of the defense for the revered, undefeated 1972 Dolphins.

Nick Buoniconti is now 76, and his body is just completely falling apart, to the point where something like putting on a T-shirt is not just complicated—it’s near impossible. Nick and his wife, Lynn, shared a video with The MMQB, and you can take a look below at just where this old Hall of Famer is today.

Here’s what’s different: This story isn’t Nick Buoniconti has CTE. We’re not at that point yet with the science. This is, Nick Buoniconti’s doctors know something is really wrong with his brain…but no one can tell him anything definitively, and that’s a terrifying place for anyone.

What’s even scarier: Nick brought that story to SI, and when Scott started looking around that revered team he found more of the same. We’ll get to Jim Kiick (the running back who scored every rushing touchdown for Miami in that ’72 postseason) on Wednesday, but first here’s an excerpt of the Buoniconti story, which we’ll give you in full at The MMQB on Tuesday.

“Teddy!” Nick Buoniconti yells across the lobby of The Inn at Spanish Bay, near Pebble Beach.

It is a November Sunday in 2016, past twilight. The Hall of Fame linebacker, 75, but only slightly bent, is sitting with his wife, Lynn, at a polished table. The fresh faces behind the front desk don’t know Buoniconti; it has been 44 years since he co-captained the Dolphins to three straight Super Bowl seasons. He’s not alone: Nearly two dozen greats from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s are here, wandering through the lobby toward the Grand Ballroom for the 26th annual Legends Invitational dinner.

In the next few hours a roster of venerables will pass through—Paul Warfield, Jan Stenerud, Jim Hart—and each will utter a small shock at being remembered at all. This will at first seem odd, but it makes sense once they speak of how they missed out on free agency, or spent years fighting the league for better pensions, or are scrambling now to hack through the thicket of the NFL’s $1 billion concussion lawsuit settlement.

“Teddy!” Buoniconti yells again, and over comes Ted Hendricks, 69, along with his longtime partner, Linda Babl. Hendricks, the 6’7” linebacker, played 15 years in the NFL, partied epically and never missed a game. Nick and Lynn stand.

“How are you doing, Teddy?” Lynn asks.

“Good,” says Ted, grinning. At that, Buoniconti unleashes a deep sigh, one so operatic that at first it seems involuntary; but later, after spending hours with him, one comes to know it as his fallback signal of dismay and, quite often, a looming explosion. Linda’s head pivots.

“How’ve you been?” she says.

Buoniconti doesn’t explain that he can’t figure out how to knot a tie or towel his back. He doesn’t speak of his increasingly useless left hand, the increasingly frequent trips to the emergency room or how, just a few days earlier, he hurtled backwards down a staircase and sprayed blood all over the hardwood, screaming afterward at Lynn, “I should just kill myself! It doesn’t matter!”

“You know,” Buoniconti says.

And he’s right. Like most everyone who’s close to a former NFL player, Linda is living some variation of the same story. They’ve all seen the big-budget concussion movie and the news clips; they’ve read about the deaths of Junior Seau and Dave Duerson; they’re comparing notes on Facebook about the damage caused by repeated head trauma. They study their men. They accompany them to brain studies and name-drop superstar CTE researchers.

“We went to see Dr. [Julian] Bailes last month,” Linda says. “He’s really impressive, as far as one-to-one.”

Buoniconti releases another sigh.

It’s so random. Hendricks has only minor memory lapses. Some of Buoniconti’s Dolphins teammates, meanwhile, are crumbling. Quarterback Earl Morrall, the supersub so key to the Perfect Season, died at 79, in 2014, with Stage 4 CTE. Running back Jim Kiick, 70, lived in squalor until he was put in an assisted care facility last summer with dementia/early onset Alzheimer’s. Bill Stanfill, a defensive end who long suffered from dementia, died in November at 69.

“Everybody’s searching,” Buoniconti says, dropping his voice. “Some go to North Carolina, some to BU, some to UCLA. And it’s all related. That’s why it’s so unnecessary, what the NFL is putting the players through by making us document the neurological deficiencies. Not everybody can afford to go through that. And they say they’ll pay for it—but do you know what that’s like, actually getting the money?”

Ted and Linda leave for the ballroom. Nick and Lynn sit. Hall of Fame Vikings defensive end Chris Doleman stops by. He talks about how even the most familiar routines have become confounding, how he wakes up in his own bed wondering, Am I in a hotel? “And I’m 55,” he says.

“At 55 I was very normal,” Buoniconti says. “I’m not normal anymore.”

This is hard, at times, to believe. Everyone tells Nick he looks “great.” Indeed, he’ll soon get up before a packed ballroom and emcee the night’s program, tick off the names of every co-host, sponsor and speaker, tell war stories.

But few saw Buoniconti teeter as he walked off the stage, perhaps because of the atrophy to his right frontal cortex. Fewer noticed Nick motioning for Lynn as he bolted from the ballroom, perhaps because of his neurodegenerative dementia—or the yet-unspoken opinion that his condition could actually be corticobasal syndrome, complicated by an atypical Parkinsonian Syndrome or CTE or Alzheimer’s. He had to pee. And Lynn had to stand by to unbutton and unzip him and ensure that he’d emerge from the men’s room dry and unexposed.

And no one here saw him before all that, when Buoniconti stood up in the hotel lobby and headed toward the ballroom. “I feel lost,” he said. “I feel like a child.”

The full version of Price’s story on Buoniconti is here at this link...
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/08/...cognitive-decline-nfl-head-trauma-concussions

* * *

Three Post-Draft Questions for Gil Brandt

Brandt has been involved with the NFL draft since 1960, as a young pup with the Dallas Cowboys. Now, traipsing from combine to pro day to pro day to the draft, he gathers information from every team in the game, and herds the top prospects around at the draft.

MMQB: Pretty surprising draft. What surprised you the most?

Brandt: Nothing. Actually, no surprises to me. Two weeks before the draft, I knew there would be a bunch of picks that would shock people. I said then that the eighth pick in this draft could be someone else’s 50th-ranked player, and the 50th player for another team could be your eighth guy.

MMQB: Do you think the Bears made a bad trade, dealing two threes and a four to move up one spot for Mitchell Trubisky in the first round?

Brandt: No. Everyone has what-ifs in every draft. I’m not sure San Francisco didn’t play blind man’s bluff a little bit, but whatever they did, Chicago couldn’t know exactly what was going to happen if they don’t move up to two. I think the Bears were concerned Cleveland had all that ammunition and could move up.

Plus, the agent [for Trubisky] was making it clear he knew his guy would go second. I understand what [Chicago GM] Ryan Pace went through. If you’re not proactive in this league, you die. Without a quarterback, you can’t win. The thing about everybody saying Chicago made a bad move … all those people, if they’re wrong, we’ll never see a retraction. And no one knows now whether it’s a good move or bad move.

MMQB: It seemed like Dallas was the favorite to host the 2018 draft until the league saw the job Philadelphia did. You live in Dallas. You love Dallas. Thoughts on where the draft will be next year?

Brandt: As much as I want the draft to come to Dallas, it’s going to be very hard for Philadelphia to lose the draft after the job that city did. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. That city did a job that was off the charts. And the fans were so great—100,000 people that one day, and I bet there were 99,999 different jerseys, with fans from everywhere.

* * *

• San Francisco CEO Jed York, on whether he regrets not signing Jim Harbaugh to a contract extension before their ugly divorce:

“We tried a lot of times to get an extension done with Jim, and for whatever reason those didn’t culminate. And, ultimately, as successful as it was here, I think Jim is very happy, and he’s doing an unbelievable job at Michigan. We obviously didn’t have success after Jim left. I don’t know that we’d be sitting here with John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan if something happened. And I don’t know if it would have worked long-term if we did get something done.

I regret how we performed the last two years. I regret how the relationship was frayed between me and a coach that did a lot of great things for this franchise. And I actually talked to his brother [Ravens head coach] John [Harbaugh] briefly at the owner’s meetings, and he said, ‘You know, you guys need to get together sometime and have dinner.’ And I said, ‘I’d love to do that.’ I’d love to get together. And I think enough time has kind of passed where you can let whatever issues that were there be buried and just truly be thankful for three great years.

When nobody expected us, certainly in 2011, to beat the Saints the way we did. To get close and be two muffed punts away from going to a Super Bowl in ’11. And just all the things that happened. You know, I’d love to sit down with Jim. Not in front of cameras, not in front of anybody else, but just share an evening with him and truly say thank you. And wish him the best of luck.”

* * *

Things I Think I Think

1. I think we’re left to wonder what-if with Jay Cutler. A lot.

2. I think this is the first what-if: What if he’d signed with Houston, and hands-on quarterback coach Bill O’Brien, this off-season? One of the things about Cutler I’ll miss is the last act of his NFL career—I was pretty sure there would be one, and now it seems unlikely.

Had he gone to Houston, for instance, we’d have been able to see him with good receivers and buttressed by a top-three NFL defense; he wouldn’t have had to be bombs-away Cutler to have a chance to win. I’d have loved to see him play with O’Brien. They’d have butted heads a few time, for sure, but O’Brien would have liked Cutler’s attitude and toughness.

A decade ago I was working on an assignment for Sports Illustrated before Cutler’s first starting season in Denver (after a rookie year in which he’d played some), and Mike Shanahan, his coach, told me this: “Jay thinks he’s just good, but he’s better than good. As time goes on, I think he’ll be great. You know why? He’s not afraid to stand in there and make plays and throw it downfield.

Some quarterbacks, not mentioning names, want to dump it all the time rather than look downfield because the pressure of the game is so great or because they want to protect their quarterback rating. The guys who have confidence, who really believe in themselves, want to be Elway. You can teach a guy to dump the ball off. You can’t teach a Vanderbilt guy to be the MVP of the SEC, which Jay was. He’s got to have something inside him to accomplish that.” That guy was still there. Is still there.

3. I think this is the second what-if: I always will think that Cutler unnecessarily picked a fight with rookie coach Josh McDaniels in 2009 that got him traded from Denver to Chicago. Stupid move by Cutler—even in retrospect, dissing owner Pat Bowlen at the time, and even though McDaniels made some huge mistakes in his ill-fated tenure.

What if Cutler stayed in Denver, and been willing to be coached by McDaniels the way Tom Brady has been willing to be coached by McDaniels? Cutler’s career in Denver could have changed drastically.

4. I think I just realized something about all the ESPN layoffs, thinking about my football Sunday: Do not, I repeat do not, tell me that the “NFL Matchup” show is in danger. That is the one staple to my Sunday morning that I simply cannot do without.

Smart football, put into words the average fan can understand, by really smart and likeable football people—Ron Jaworski, Merril Hoge, Sal Paolantonio. I love that show. It educates without talking down to people. It is a vital part of my football week. ESPN: It must stay. It simply must stay.

5. I think Christian McCaffrey made a few positive impressions at the Panthers’ rookie camp, particularly when he was split wide and ran efficient and fast routes. One impression came after he signed his rookie contract, with $10.7 million in signing bonuses, meaning, if he handles life right, he’ll have some form of security for the rest of his life.

“He celebrated by going to bed,” Joe Person of the Charlotte Observer reported. Said McCaffrey: “I signed, tried to get some sleep to get ready for [practice]. Never get comfortable.”

6. I think Phil Simms has handled his demotion a lot better than I’d handle mine.

7. I think this was the most interesting statement I have heard in the past week. It came from Gil Brandt, when we were talking about the 49ers’ draft, and I asked him about Alabama linebacker Reuben Foster, selected 31st overall by the Niners. “Foster’s the most competitive linebacker I’ve seen come out of the draft since Jack Lambert,” said Brandt, who has studied 58 drafts.

Still haven't heard of any other candidates to replace Director of Pro Personnel Ran Carthon. They need to nail this hire!!!



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2017 Los Angeles Rams Preseason Schedule Dates, Time, TV Channels

We’ve got our full calendar for the 2017 season.

by 3k May 9, 2017, 12:47pm CDT

[www.turfshowtimes.com]

The NFL has released the full 2017 NFL Preseason schedule today, and with it the four-game slate for the Los Angeles Rams:

2017 Los Angeles Rams Preseason Schedule
Opponent Date Time TV

v. Dallas Cowboys Sat., Aug. 12 9pm ET/6pm PT CBS/Univision
at Oakland Raiders Sat., Aug. 19 10pm ET/7pm PT CBS/Univision
v. Los Angeles Chargers Sat., Aug. 26 8pm ET/5pm PT CBS (national)
at Green Bay Packers Thu., Aug. 31 7pm ET/4pm PT CBS/Univision

Things are going to be moving fast and furious in August. We’ll get the roster trimmed from 90 to 75 players after that nationally televised “Battle for LA” third preseason game. Sometime in early September, we’ll have an official 53-man roster for Week 1 along with the practice squad. And with training camp starting at the end of July, we’ll have plenty to look for in these four preseason games.

Each of the first three offer legitimate, compelling arguments for Rams fans to tune in. From McVay’s first action as head coach of the Rams to the lead-in for QB Jared ‘s first action in a season opener to the multitude of roster battles coming, this is hardly as jump-over preseason.

The 2017 Los Angeles Rams offseason will be over in less than four months...

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/plaxico-burress-advice-for-nfl-draft-class/

Letter to the NFL Draft Class
PLAXICO BURRESS
RETIRED / NFL



Dear NFL Draft Class,

If you’re looking for somebody to feed you a bunch of bullshit about how great you are now that you’ve been drafted, or to give you the “don’t spend all your money” speech like they’re sharing some kind of secret with you, you can just X out this window now and move on, because you won’t get that here. You can go out into the real world and learn for yourself the hard way. Be my guest.

But if you want the juice — if you want to know how it really is — I won’t cut corners. I’ll give it to you straight.

I know you see my name, and you probably think, That’s the guy who shot himself.

Don’t lie … it’s O.K.

I am that guy.

That’s one of the reasons you should listen to me. Because I’m living proof that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. You could have it all — you could be living the dream — and then one stupid decision can change everything.

But before I get to that, I wanna talk to you about trust.

Yes.

Trust.

I bet you got a lot of people making you feel really special right now. You made a lot of “friends” your last year in college and during the draft process, didn’t you? Cats from the old hood hit you up like you’re still boys. Cousins you didn’t even know you had came out of the woodwork talking about how they’re so proud. And everybody’s a financial advisor, an entrepreneur or whatever — or has a friend who is.

I won’t tell you who to trust. I can’t. Because the only person who can make that decision is you. The only advice I can really give you is to trust your gut, not your heart.

It won’t be easy. When dudes from the old hood come calling, you won’t want them to think you’re too good for them all of a sudden, right? So maybe you’ll be a little generous. And when your family reaches out, you won’t want to seem like you’re turning your back on them. So you’ll throw them a bone, because they’re family.

Your heart will tell you to take care of people. That’s good. That means you’re a good person. But before you take your checkbook out, ask yourself, Would this person be there for me if I was broke, or if I wasn’t in the NFL?

I know that’s not an easy question to answer, but that’s the best way I can put it. You’ll have some tough decisions to make. But even if you’re really careful, you still might have to get burned to learn.

Like I did.

In 2000, when the Steelers drafted me with the eighth pick and I became a millionaire overnight, I already knew what my first priority was going to be. I had some family members who had fallen on hard times. Some were about to get evicted from their house because they couldn’t make rent, so I helped them out. Others also needed money to pay bills — to keep the water on, keep the lights on, pay the mortgage.

So I took care of them, because they were family. And I was always taught that family was more important than anything.

I also had a group of guys — my best friends from the hood. They’d been there for me through everything. Real G’s. So after I got paid, I bought a big house, and they all moved in with me. There were like seven of us, and we each had our own rooms.

To most people, that sounds crazy — like I was just giving money away to my friends. But I did that for them because those were my guys. I would have done anything for them, the same way they would have done anything for me.

So I took care of my family, my closest friends, and myself.

And you probably think you can guess who was there for me and who disappeared when I basically lost everything.


PHOTO BY FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP IMAGES

You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to lose money in a bad investment or give money to somebody you shouldn’t. Almost everybody does. Which is why you need to take it upon yourself to learn about how money works and how business works.

Don’t expect somebody else to teach you.

When the Steelers drafted me, they basically handed $5.5 million to a kid who had never even had a bank account. I came from the hood. I didn’t know anything about money or how it worked. I thought that when I got to the NFL, somebody would teach me about money and about business.

But nobody did.

I went to the rookie symposium with all the other rookies, and people came in and talked to us about finances and how to act like a pro and all that. But they also had us put condoms on bananas — no lie, they brought out baskets of bananas and baskets of condoms, like it was an eighth-grade health class. It felt like they spent more time teaching us about STDs and how to conduct ourselves in public than about how to protect ourselves from scams, risky investments and other financial dangers.

After the symposium, I could put a condom on a banana, but I still didn’t know how to write a check.

I’m not blaming the NFL. At the end of the day, it was my life and it was my money, and I should have taken the necessary steps to educate myself to protect what I had earned — and so should you. Because you’re going to be a target. I’ve been sued more times than I’d like to count. Sometimes, people sued me because I owed them money — which was a result of me being a bad businessman and not managing my finances well.

But sometimes I felt like I was getting sued just because I had money.

Trust me … there will always be somebody trying to slide in and get a piece of what you got. Whether you like it or not — it comes with the territory.

Even though I had hit a few financial speed bumps along the way, all in all, life in the NFL was good. I was taking care of my friends and family, and I was also taking care of myself. In 2005, I left the Steelers for the Giants and signed a $25 million contract. I caught the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLII.

I had it all — money, fame, a Super Bowl ring. I was ballin’, on the field and off. I was living the dream.

Then, in 2008, I took a gun into a New York City nightclub, and everything changed.

I had owned a gun since my rookie year, and I almost always had it on me. But that night, I left my house in New Jersey without my gun and met one of my teammates at an Applebee’s to get something to eat. After we ate, we were going to go pick up another teammate before going into the city.

But you know how when you leave your house, you have like a checklist? You check your pockets like, Phone, wallet, keys … O.K., I’m good. And if you leave your wallet or your phone at home, you feel kind of naked because you’re so used to having it on you. It’s a part of you.

That’s what it felt like that night when I didn’t have my gun. I usually had it on me. So that night, before we picked up my teammate and went into the city, I decided to go home and get my gun.

Looking back, I realize that carrying a gun gave me a false sense of security. I thought I was protecting myself when, as it turned out, I was doing the opposite.

When we got to the club, I got patted down at the door, and the security guard lifted my shirt up and saw my gun tucked into my belt. He was like, “O.K., if you’re gonna carry a gun, we gotta be with you the whole night.”

I said, “A’ight, cool.”

So they let me through the metal detector and into the club.

My friends and I stood at the bar for like five minutes, and the place was packed wall to wall. The security guy suggested we go upstairs, where we could get a table and chill and it wouldn’t be so crazy. So we did, and he led the way.

The stairway was narrow and dark and everything was black. I had a drink in my left hand and I was walking right behind the security guard. The music was loud and I could feel the bass thumping the stairs under my feet. But I could barely see and I guess missed a step and my foot slipped.

My gun came unhooked from my belt and went sliding down my right pant leg. My instant reaction was to catch it before it hit the floor, and I reached down with my right hand to grab it. And I guess my finger hit right on the trigger, because it went off.

The music was so loud that nobody actually heard the gun discharge, but I knew that it had because I saw the flash of fire through my jeans.

I didn’t even feel anything, so my first thought was, Oh shit, I hope I didn’t hit anybody. I looked around, and not only was nobody hit, they didn’t even knew what had happened. So I thought everything was cool.

Then, my jeans started to feel wet, so I looked back down at my leg. I was wearing a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors, and the toe was completely red, covered in blood. The bullet had gone through the skin and some muscle on my right thigh. It came out without hitting any arteries or bone, but there was a lot of blood.

I turned back to one of my teammates and said, “We need to go to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“I just shot myself.”

He kind of blew me off like I was messin’ with him. Then he looked down at my leg and his eyes got real wide.

“Oh, shit….”

And we left.

A couple of days later, when the news got out that I had shot myself, it was chaos. There were news vans lined up and down my street, helicopters circling my house — it was crazy. I eventually got arrested for criminal possession of a weapon, but I didn’t think anything was really going to happen to me. I figured I had permits and all that. Plus, I hadn’t hurt anybody but myself. I didn’t think there was anything to really punish me for.

But there were a few things I didn’t know that I should have.

My gun had been registered in Florida, where I had a house at the time, but the registration had expired. It wasn’t registered at all in New York. So my gun wasn’t as legal as I thought it was. Also, I didn’t know that there was a state law in New York that called for mandatory jail time for carrying a loaded handgun without a valid New York license.

But even with all that in mind, a little part of me still thought, I’m good. I’m Plaxico Burress. I’m an NFL player. A Super Bowl hero. It’s not like they’re not gonna throw me in jail, right?

Then, when I came out of my arraignment hearing, my attorney looked at me and said, “We got a problem … Mayor Bloomberg just went on TV and said you should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

And I swear I said, “Who’s Mayor Bloomberg?”

That’s how little I knew about everything that was going on.

Turns out he was a the mayor of New York City, and he had zero tolerance for guns. He didn’t care about touchdowns or Super Bowl rings. He didn’t care who I was. He wanted to bring the hammer down on me.

And after I plead guilty to gun possession charges in August 2009, I got sentenced to two years in prison.


PHOTO BY STEVEN HIRSCH/AP IMAGES

I know you’re probably sitting back, thinking, Nah, something like that won’t happen to me.

That’s what I thought, too.

And it happened to me.

I went from being an NFL superstar to basically being put in a cage for 17 hours a day. I cried so many nights that I lost count. I thought about all the playground legends from my hood who were better athletes than me, but they stayed in the hood doing the same things they had always done, smoking the same things they had always smoked and getting caught up in that life.

But not me. I got out. I earned my way out. I had worked my whole life to get to where I was, and I threw it all away with one stupid decision. Now I was serving food in the prison cafeteria, mopping floors and cleaning toilets.

That puts things into perspective.

If you take one thing away from reading this, I think it should be that you’re not as special as you think you are. You’re not more important than anybody else just because you play in the NFL.

And I know how special you feel right now. When I was still in college at Michigan State and I was about to go pro, my phone rang one day and the guy on the other end said, “Yo, wassup, Plax?” — like he had known me forever — “I’m coming to Michigan to see you. I want you to sign with me.”

It was Master P.

He had started an agency — No Limit Sports — and he was repping pro athletes.

I was maybe 21 years old, so I was kind of wiggin’ out, like, Yo … this is Master P —the ice cream man — calling me up, basically saying, “Come ride wit’ me.”

I felt like I had made it before I had even made it. I felt special. I felt important.

And I felt that way every day until I got sent to prison.


PHOTO BY HEATHER AINSWORTH/AP IMAGES

You know what the worst part about going to prison was? I served 22 months, and some of the same family members whose bills I had been paying for years never even came to visit me. It wasn’t until about 60 or 90 days before I got out that I started getting letters from them, asking if they could come to some games when I got back into the league.

I was like, No f***ing way. You ain’t coming to nothing.

And when I got out, I stopped paying their bills. I went my separate way. To this day, I haven’t even talked to them. It’s sad that some members of my family are no longer in my life. But I had to ask myself that difficult question:

Would they be there for me if I was broke, or if I wasn’t in the NFL?

And they had proven to me that they wouldn’t be.

I trusted my heart — I had taken care of them because they were family — and I got burned. I learned that there are always people out there looking to use you for your money or your fame.

It just hurt a lot because it was my own family.

My friends were there for me, though. The guys from the old hood who I had taken care of when I got paid came and visited me in prison. They’re still my boys to this day. They stuck with me through everything, even when there was nothing in it for them. Their love and support was unconditional. That’s real.

Like I said, I can’t tell you who to trust. I won’t tell you to trust your friends over your family. That’s just how it worked out for me. There is no perfect formula. It’s different for everybody.

I always hear retired guys who have been through some shit in their lives say things like, “I wouldn’t change a thing because it made me who I am today.”

But would I change anything?

Hell yeah, I would.

I wouldn’t have shot myself in the damn leg. I wouldn’t have even gone home to get my gun that night. I would have known the laws on carrying a gun in NYC. I would have been smarter.

I can live with having lost some money because I trusted the wrong people, or because I wasn’t educated enough on how money and business worked. I learned some lessons the hard way, and that’s O.K.

But at the end of the day, I lost two years of playing the game I love when I was in my prime. I lost millions of dollars. I lost valuable time with my wife and children. I even missed the birth of my daughter, who was born while I was in prison. I basically lost everything all because of one stupid decision.

And a lot of what I lost, I’ll never get back.

I can’t take back what I did. But my goal is to educate young players coming into the league so they don’t make the same mistakes. You’ll have a lot of people giving you advice, and it’s going to be tough to sort through the bullshit. So if you ever need somebody to talk to — somebody who’s gonna give it to you straight — hit me up on Twitter @plaxicoburress. I’m always down to help.

In the meantime, good luck. You’re in the NFL. And if you make the right decisions, you have a great life ahead of you. Just do your thing, be smart … and ball out, man. Because you’re living the dream.

Just don’t f*** it up.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/09/nfl-minnesota-vikings-sam-bradford

It’s Good to be Sam Bradford
Selected first overall in the last draft without a rookie wage scale, Bradford has enjoyed uncommon leverage and amassed a fortune
by Andrew Brandt


RantSports

In a business tilted toward management, the number of NFL players who win in the business of football can be counted on two hands, if not one. Players are squeezed coming into the league by fixed-rate contracts that can’t be renegotiated for three years.

On their way out, players are often left with only one-year deals (see Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles) that eventually turn into zero-year deals. If they are lucky, players will have contract leverage once in their career; a chosen few find themselves in that position twice; even fewer still—elite quarterbacks usually—might get three bites at the leverage apple.

But one quarterback who has never been categorized as “elite” is now enjoying contract leverage for an extraordinary third time, with three different teams. Sam Bradford is fast becoming a hero to the labor side in the business of football.

Sam the Man

Bradford’s timing was invaluable to his financial picture. He was the top pick in the 2010 NFL draft, a year before the current collective bargaining agreement was implemented and rookies were locked into a pay scale.

Cam Newton, the first pick of the 2011 draft, received $22 million guaranteed—barely 40% of Bradford’s eye-popping $50 million guaranteed with the Rams. Even now, the top overall pick in the draft earns less than $30 million guaranteed, roughly 60% of Bradford’s first deal in 2010.

Bradford, who played behind what can charitably be described as a subpar offensive line in St. Louis, struggled with injuries during his time with the Rams. In 2015, when the team approached him about a significant pay cut in the final year of his rookie deal, he refused. So the Rams found a willing trade partner in the Eagles, who took Bradford in exchange for Nick Foles and a second-round pick.

Bradford’s career earnings from the Rams: $65 million.


CBS Sports

The Eagles’ Missed Opportunity

When adding important players on expiring contracts, two discussions should occur concurrently for the acquiring team: 1) trade negotiations with the offering team, and 2) contract extension negotiations with the player’s agent to ensure more than a 16-game rental. At the time of the trade, the Eagles had a golden opportunity to reduce Bradford’s $13 million number for 2015 and extend his contract at a team-friendly rate.

Bradford’s options at the time were to 1) stay with the Rams, who were trying to forge a substantial pay cut and looking for other options; 2) be traded to the Browns, who were, well, the Browns (although I see reason for hope now); or 3) be traded to the Eagles and a coach (Chip Kelly) who had just guided Nick Foles to a Hall of Fame-like season. Getting Bradford under contract for the long term in Philadelphia shouldn’t have been difficult.

For whatever reason, the Eagles did not request or demand an extension upon the trade, shifting all the leverage to Bradford. His agent, Tom Condon, used it strategically. After a 2015 season with mixed results, the Eagles re-upped Bradford for $18 million fully guaranteed in 2016 (a $5 million raise from his bloated rookie contract) and another $4 million guaranteed as part of $18 million in 2017.

Although the Eagles then mortgaged valuable resources to draft Bradford’s eventual replacement (Carson Wentz), Bradford received an $11 million signing bonus to ensure his status as a starting quarterback at least through 2016 . . . although it would not be for the Eagles.

Bradford’s earnings from the Eagles: $24 million.


Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Minnesota Misfortune

The fortunes of two NFL teams changed dramatically last August when Teddy Bridgewater’s gruesome knee injury set off a chain reaction. The Eagles wrangled a first-round pick from the Vikings for Bradford, inheriting his $7 million salary for last season and $18 million for 2017. Bradford had already received his $11 million bonus from the Eagles, earned essentially for some offseason workouts and a couple minicamps.

Bradford kept the Vikings in playoff contention for most of 2016 and now—for the second time in three years—he enters a contract year making top dollar with leverage to forge yet another favorable extension, this time from the Vikings.

With Bridgewater’s injury continuing to be a factor, the Vikings chose not exercise an option on Bridgewater’s contract (we’ll discuss that in a future column). This creates another leveraged opportunity for Bradford entering his contract year.

The Vikings will soon be coming to Bradford to offer more money and more years just like the Rams and Eagles—teams that each paid at least $24 million to a quarterback who never made the Pro Bowl.

Bradford’s earnings from the Vikings through 2017: $25 million

Total Earnings for Bradford through 2017 (through 8 seasons): $114 million

Rams Head Coach Sean McVay gets interviewed before he throws out the 1st pitch at the Dodgers vs Pirates game.

Watch McVay Interview

RAMS SIGN C ANTHONY MCMEANS TO UDFA CONTRACT

New Mexico State's McMeans was PFF's second highest graded center last season.

MIKE CAHILL

[www.profootballfocus.com]

Over the last three seasons, Rams’ centers have given up a total of 74 QB pressures. Rams’ centers finished 2016 with the most given up (30) and with the third most in 2014 (27).

Anthony McMeans had 1,084 pass blocking snaps during his career at New Mexico State and only allowed 17 total QB pressures. McMeans has not allowed a sack since the last week of the 2015 season and did not allow a single QB hit in his entire career.

McMeans played every snap in 21 of 24 games he started at NMSU. The three games he did not play every snap, he missed only one play in each.

Running to either side of McMean’s blocking produced an average of 5.4 yards per carry on 134 rushing attempts. New Mexico State running backs also averaged a touchdown on every 6.4 carries by scoring 21 touchdowns on either the left or right of McMeans.

Rams don't draw rave reviews from draft experts
May 2, 2017

• Alden GonzalezESPN Staff Writer

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angele...ams-dont-draw-rave-reviews-from-draft-experts


The highest-graded team in the draft by Mel Kiper Jr.: The Los Angeles Chargers.

The lowest-graded team in the draft by Mel Kiper Jr.: The Los Angeles Rams.

The Chargers, who took receiver Mike Williams and guard Forrest Lamp with their first two picks, got an "A," tied with a Patriots team that did not have a first- or second-round pick. The Rams, who had tight end Gerald Everett, among others, rated higher than most draft boards, were the only team to wear a "C-".

Time will be the ultimate decider, but history is not on their side.

The Washington Post recently took a very interesting route towards analyzing the success of teams' drafts, utilizing Pro Football Reference's all-encompassing stat Approximate Value. The Post took the cumulative Approximate Value for the first five years of each player drafted from 1996 to 2016 and compared it to the expected Approximate Value for each draft slot, making it easy to compare teams based on the difference ("AV Gap").

Mel Kiper Jr., ESPN: C-

It would be a lot easier to stamp this draft grade "INCOMPLETE" and move on, because so much of it is wrapped up in Jared Goff. He is the reason they didn't have a first-round pick in 2017, and I certainly don't think it's fair to close the book on him. He had no chance last year with a lack of blocking (run or pass) and stone-handed pass-catching. If Sean McVay can unlock Goff's talent, then last year's grade and this year's grade look a lot better. In the meantime ... Aside from the Goff issue, I just consistently saw the Rams' selections as a little bit rich. I like the plan -- go get pass-catchers for Goff -- but the value just suffered a little. I had Everett at No. 111 on my board, and he went at 44. I really like Cooper Kupp but would have gone with Chris Godwin or Josh Malone before him. Josh Reynolds can make great plays on the ball even while covered, but it was another case in which the Rams had him a bit higher than I did. John Johnson has some solid tape, but he didn't test well, and size is a question mark. I had him down as a likelier Day 3 pick.

Chris Burke, Sports Illustrated: C

This was kind of a bizarre draft for the Rams, who didn't have a Round 1 pick because of their trade to take Jared Goff last year. After sitting out Thursday's proceedings, GM Les Snead then spent three of his first four picks on pass catchers -- TE Gerald Everett (a reach at 44), WR Cooper Kupp (No. 59) and WR Josh Reynolds (No. 119). Reynolds may be the best of the bunch, and he very well could wind up the No. 1 receiver before long on what's now a muddled receiver depth chart. Versatile safety John Johnson (No. 91) and DT Tanzel Smart (No. 189) should see time early in Wade Phillips' defense. OLB Samson Ebukam (No. 125) also could, as a pass rusher. But the Rams really overloaded at the skill positions, which is an unusual choice for a rebuilding team.

Rob Rang, CBS: C+

With 2016 No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff struggling as a rookie, it was obvious that the Rams needed to find him more dynamic weapons. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, after the massive trade up last year to land the former Cal product the team was missing its first round pick to do so -- a problem exacerbated with a surprising early run on pass-catchers. The Rams responded by using three of their first four picks on weapons for Goff, landing joker tight end Gerald Everett with their first pick (No. 44 overall), Eastern Washington's Cooper Kupp with their second (69) and Texas A&M's vertical threat Josh Reynolds (117) with their fourth selection. Despite his small school background, Kupp (whose father and grandfather both played in the NFL) is far and away the most polished of the group, standing out against Pac-12 and Senior Bowl competition.

Chad Reuter, NFL: B-


Tight end was a need position for the Rams, and Gerald Everett's ability to get off the line smoothly is quite impressive. They might consider him a receiver. It might have been a tick early for him, however -- not unlike when they chose Lance Kendricks a bit early in 2011. Cooper Kupp's feet are as quick as any in the draft, even if his 40 time wasn't great. Third-round safety John Johnson is liked by scouts for his ability to handle multiple roles in the secondary. The Rams couldn't help but build up their offense with a solid receiver in Josh Reynolds, and got a potential pass-rush specialist in Samson Ebukam -- two solid picks. Getting fullback Sam Rogers in the sixth will help Todd Gurley and the special teams units. The Rams needed to find a cornerback (or two), but couldn't meet all their needs in eight picks. Jared Goff will be given the opportunity to excel with this talent around him.

Doug Farrar, Bleacher Report: B-

Taking Everett with the 44th overall pick seems like a reach, especially since the Rams had no first-round pick. The Kupp pick seems more in line, and he'll help Jared Goff immediately. The real steal in this receiver haul might be Reynolds, a thin target who needs to bulk up and fill out his route tree. However, he has the acceleration to take cornerbacks and safeties all the way downfield. Smart and Price are interesting undersized hybrid players for Wade Phillips.

Coaching, Coaching, Coaching

Since we were picking so late and at the behest of my family, I waited this year to study our picks after they were made. I tried to forget what I read and simply watched each player based on film study to determine the impact each could make in a McVay offense. In short, each have skills that will require a ton of refinement to translate to NFL success.

I will start with Kupp. He's not a tremendous athlete but he's a natural hands catcher, has top notch receiver instincts, sets up his routes well, and competes his ass off. It will take time to develop the necessary chemistry with Goff because precision is the name of his game.
I suppose you could line him outside occasionally if he were to draw a third level db, but I wouldn't do it regularly. He ain't no Jordy Nelson. No, Cooper is a dangerous slot man and by his second year can become a go to guy especially in high leverage situations when you need a first down.

Gerald Everett is a project in every way. He's a good athlete and a talented prospect, but he has a ton to learn and doesn't have an imposing frame. I suppose if anyone can get rookie success out of him, it's McVay...but only when he gets schemed into a great playcall that allows him to use his athleticism in space. While he's a willing blocker, he has so much to learn about technique and needs a couple years in an NFL weight room to truly be effective. I predict he will have glorious moments as a rook, but he needs a lot of development before he should be mentioned in the same sentence as Jordan Reed. With that said, he does have the necessary talent to get there one day.

On to Reynolds, the wiry long strider. I will say this, he makes terrific adjustments to the ball on long patterns. This is a natural instinct that can't be taught and why so many speedsters never make it in the NFL. However, if I were a defensive coordinator, I'd press his ass all day long. He knows how to stem his routes but won't fool many good corners in the NFL. He competes well with the ball in the air, but needs to add a dozen techniques to his arsenal for me to trust him outside more often than a couple unexpected bombs a game. Give him a couple years and you may be looking and Brandin Cooks.

As I said, each have good role player traits that should someday make them players who excel in the McVay offense. With that said, those who are lauding rookie impact are setting themselves up for disappointment. This draft was about a long ranged overhaul. The game is too complex to count on these youngsters to compete with seasoned, NFL conditioned vets. While I like each pick, pump the breaks on the high early returns I keep reading.

Hey Ramly!

Just a curious question I wonder about...

Family of rams, who did you love more during their stays here? Who was a bigger impact to you as a fan of the Rams & Football? Also... Why? I'm torn between the two. Give me your thoughts, share your stories!

Marshall Faulk or Erick Dickerson?

It doesn't have to be amazing, but everyone lives near something cool. Share your photos.

About 2hrs from me... Peggy's Cove. Just outside Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Since the 2017 draft there has been a lot of discussion on the Rams selections, and none more so on the failure to draft Forrest Lamp. Now for the record I was a "Lampian" and was very excited about the possibility of grabbing him with our 37th pick. (Heh.....excited enough that I was on board with trading up to get him even though it would cost valuable picks that we sorely need.)

So you can imagine my elation when he fell to us at our pick only to be immediately followed by complete disgust in ignoring him and negotiating a trade back.

At any rate since that time I have had some time to cool off a bit and take another look at the situation. It has occurred to me that in some ways we may be better off now with the two players we got (Everett and Johnson) than if we had stayed at #37 and taken Mr. Lamp.
Actually I seem to go back and forth on this one so hence this thread......

So how about it? If we somehow had a do over which scenario would ya'll prefer? Lamp @37 or Everett and Johnson?
And please include your reasoning for the choice you like.

~ArkyRamsFan~

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/w...even-if-mitchell-trubisky-ends-up-being-good/

Why the Bears' draft trade is bad, even if Mitchell Trubisky ends up being good

You don't get medals in football for trying, you get them for results. And the decision by the Bears to trade up for Mitchell Trubisky will ultimately be judged on the results. If Trubisky is a good quarterback, Chicago general manager Ryan Pace will be applauded for doing what he had to do to get a franchise quarterback. If Trubisky stinks, it won't really matter, because Pace's bags will be packed for him.

So it's easy to just throw your hands in the air and wait to find out whether Pace made the right move. But it's also important to point out that process matters too in these things. And the process for Pace and the Bears in acquiring Trubisky was severely flawed.

Let's look at a few reasons why.

The trade itself
The Bears shook up the draft when they moved from No. 3 to No. 2 to take Trubisky . No one saw the trade coming, except the 49ers, and they sure didn't see the Trubisky pick coming. No one did, not even Trubisky. That's fine, because you want to make sure your plans aren't picked up on by other teams.

Spending too much time with Trubisky -- and by all accounts the Bears did not do that -- might have set off some red flags with teams like the Browns, who were also interested in Trubisky.

But it's pretty obvious that they negotiated against themselves on this one. An interview with 49ers GM John Lynch last week on ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike" sort of solidifies that idea too.

Lynch was asked how the trade went down and said that he heard from Pace ahead of the draft, with Pace talking about staying in touch because the two GMs were picking right next to each other for several days. Then Pace called back the day before the draft.

"The day before the draft, Ryan called back again and I could tell the urgency had heated up and he said 'There's a scenario here in the first round where there's some teams that I understand want to get up to two. Have you had conversations?' And I said, 'Yes, indeed we have, with multiple teams,'" Lynch recalled. "At that point, he said 'We want the opportunity, will you call me if those things heat up.' And so I said, 'Yeah, Ryan, we had this discussion, absolutely.'

"The next day, the morning of the draft, he called back again. And at that point he was ready to go. So those talks started and meanwhile there were a couple other teams who were interested and it kept getting better."


Ryan Pace most likely could have stayed at No. 3 and still gotten Mitchell Trubisky. USATSI

So while Lynch did tell Pace there were other teams calling about the pick (and swears those teams were real), he also, according to his account of things, didn't try and leverage Pace into making a deal. Pace was pushing things right along all by himself, ensuring that the two sides could make a deal. That is the definition of negotiating against yourself.

Additionally, while it was probably smart not to tell Lynch who he was taking (because then maybe Lynch uses that to call Cleveland for a higher price), Pace probably could have saved himself on the move up if Lynch knew he was getting Solomon Thomas anyway.

The trade up wasn't cheap . While two third-round picks and a fourth-round pick isn't an exorbitant amount to land a franchise quarterback, it's not that simple either.

Opportunity cost
The picks that the Bears gave away could end up being really quality pieces and/or players. Let's start with the No. 111 pick, which the 49ers promptly used to move up from No. 34 to No. 31 and grab Reuben Foster. That could have been the Bears, and they could definitely use a standout linebacker.

Even if they don't make that trade, the players being taken in the range of the actual pick include safety Tedric Thompson (No. 111, Seahawks) and wide receivers Dede Westbrook (No. 110, Jaguars), Josh Reynolds (No. 117, Rams) and Mack Hollins (No. 118, Eagles). You think the Bears could use another offensive weapon for one of their two quarterbacks?

Their future third-round pick, actual number TBD, could easily end up being a top-75 pick. It's very likely. That could be a starting player out of the gate for another team.

The one that really stands out to me is the third-round pick the Bears gave up this year, No. 67 overall. The 49ers flipped that pick to the Saints, who snagged running back Alvin Kamara out of Tennessee. Even though the Bears have Jordan Howard, Kamara would be a strong addition to this roster.

More important, the 49ers picked up a future second-round pick from the Saints for the trade, along with pick No. 229. The latter pick ended up being Adrian Colbert, a cornerback out of Miami. If he ends up being any good, remember how they got him. And if the Saints end up going 7-9 for a fourth straight season, remember who the 49ers take with their top-50 pick next year. New Orleans picked No. 42 overall this past season and could very well give up a similar pick to the 49ers next season. The draft is a crapshoot, but there were some seriously talented players available at No. 42 this year.

The Glennon factor
The biggest surprise about the Bears and Trubisky was the fact that Pace just went out in free agency and signed Mike Glennon to a pretty hefty contract . Anyone who saw the money knew that Glennon wasn't guaranteed to be the starter in Chicago for more than a single year. But he was finally signing somewhere to be the guy, for at least a season, and that's likely out the window. Combining these two quarterbacks puts a pretty big wrench in the plans on a couple of different levels.

For starters, there's the obvious: competition. If Glennon struggles early or if the Bears aren't winning out of the gate, there will be substantial pressure to play Trubisky. Pace has stated repeatedly that Glennon is the starter, but depth chart lip service in May becomes worthless once August and September roll around.


Will the Bears stick with Mike Glennon if the team struggles early? USATSI

Pace knows the construction of this roster better than anyone else, because he largely constructed it. But there is certainly the possibility of a Glennon-Trubisky battle early on managing to fracture the locker room. The same goes for the team refusing to play Trubisky if the Bears are struggling.

At the very least, Pace has done a disservice to Glennon by signing him, presumably promising him an opportunity to play and then making a huge splash by drafting a rookie quarterback.

Oh, and he didn't tell Glennon he was doing it. The incumbent got to find out about his competition while at a Bears draft party held at Halas Hall. Bet that wasn't awkward at all. No wonder he feels cheated on .

Not telling anyone at all
The decision not to tell Glennon was bizarre. But the reported decision to not tell coach John Fox about the move up to draft Trubisky? That was just wild. It has been repeatedly mentioned that Fox was "heavily involved" in scouting Trubisky and that's probably true.

Maybe Pace even told Fox before the draft, before the pick or before the trade. It's irrelevant, because it's pretty obvious that the coach and the GM in Chicago aren't working hand-in-hand at the moment.

Pace isn't required to tell Fox every move he's making, but his goal should be providing the best possible team for Fox to coach up and that has to require some input from Fox.

The lack of harmony has a bit of "Grigson-Pagano" to it, albeit with less public sniping and fewer wins. Pace might outlast Fox in Chicago, but it's not a good look to have these public issues happening while the team is trying to acquire a franchise quarterback and get the ship righted.

It just doesn't scream "harmony" or "competent."

The final take
Again, maybe it all works out of the Bears. The Seahawks drafted a quarterback (albeit in the third round) the same offseason they signed Matt Flynn to a big free-agent contract and got blasted for picking Russell Wilson (who actually kept Glennon on the bench at NC State for two years). That worked out pretty well.

But the investment here in Trubisky isn't a single third-round pick, it's a fourth-round pick, too, and another third-round pick next year.

Pace will be fine with the move if Trubisky becomes a top-10 or top-15 quarterback some time in the next two or three years. But ultimately the process that led to the selection was badly flawed. The Bears shouldn't be rewarded for their decision-making in that respect, regardless of how this whole thing pans out.

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Get voting ROD!

Rams rookie TE Gerald Everett goes from overlooked to 'beast'

Alden Gonzalez

LOS ANGELES -- Gerald Everett's mother was sitting way up in the nosebleed section, but eventually he spotted her from the stage down below. And once he did, Everett never took his eyes off her. This was December, the day of his college graduation. He thought back to the promise he made as a high school senior -- that he would finish his degree no matter where this football thing took him. He thought about that junior year, when the scouts finally started showing up and his name kept popping up and he actually considered leaving the University of South Alabama a year early.

Briefly, until he ran it by his mom.

"She just gave me that look," Everett said, laughing. "I went back and told my mom that I wasn’t coming out early; that I would stay and graduate first."

Everett, who turns 23 on June 25, eventually earned his degree in communications, four months before the Los Angeles Rams selected him in the 2017 NFL draft. Everett was the 44th overall pick; the fourth tight end off the board -- after O.J. Howard, Evan Engram and David Njoku, respectively -- and the very first player the Rams chose.

Back when he made that promise to his mother, Alicia Wise, his path to the NFL was severely muddled.

Everett didn't play high school football until his senior year. He pursued basketball as a sophomore and junior, changing course because he remained 6-foot-3 and the Division-I offers weren't coming.

They never arrived in football, either.

Everett took his SATs late, about a week before National Signing Day, and major programs were put off by the thought of giving him a scholarship that he wouldn't eventually qualify for. Everett instead committed to Bethune-Cookman, but never liked the fit. He left, was cut from a community college in Kansas, transferred to another one and quickly lost two years. He transferred again to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, roughly 150 miles from his home in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and finally played an entire season in 2014. Then the program was shut down.

Everett kept going.

"I just wanted to prove those doubters wrong," he said in a phone conversation. "I knew the talent that I had, and I just knew that I was one of those late bloomers in football. And I just needed a little more time to truly find myself at that hybrid, wide-receiver-tight-end position. It just took some time, I guess."

In two years at South Alabama, Everett caught 90 passes for 1,292 yards and 12 touchdowns over a stretch of 24 games. He was an All-Sun Belt Conference selection each season, forcing 46 missed tackles from 2015 to '16, more than any tight end in the nation according to Pro Football Focus. He is freakishly athletic, a monster after the catch and a mismatch nightmare for linebackers and safeties. He can stretch the deep middle of the field, can line up anywhere -- inline, backfield, slot, outside -- and can create immediate separation. But he is also raw.

The Rams, who interviewed Everett at the scouting combine and during a top-30 visit, like the dynamic he can form with Tyler Higbee, another athletic move tight end who was taken in last year's fourth round.

They don't care that Everett came from a smaller school; they don't care that it took him so long to even find that smaller school.

"What I saw out of it was a guy who was persevering -- that's how I looked at it," said Rams national scout Ted Monago, who started to closely follow Everett immediately after the 2016 draft. "I looked at it as someone who has some grit about themselves, who wants to prove he can play at a higher level."

South Alabama's head coach, Joey Jones, first knew Everett was a legitimate NFL prospect in the fall of 2015, after he added 40 pounds of muscle and was thus no longer a tweener. But Everett, 243 pounds at that point, still needed refinement. He wasn't blocking well initially. So at one point, Everett asked the following question: "If I told you you had the rest of the year to block your ass off, and somebody's going to pay you $2 million, would you do it?"

Everett dedicated himself to blocking for the rest of that winter and ensuing spring. When he showed up for his senior year, Chase Smith, who had switched from coaching offensive linemen to tight ends, saw Everett as a willing blocker with elite strength.

That's when Smith knew.

Everett knew on Sept. 19, 2015, his third game for South Alabama. The Jaguars played against San Diego State, and Everett caught eight passes for 164 yards and a touchdown in an overtime win. The other signature game was the opener of the 2016 season, which ended with Everett catching the winning touchdown to give South Alabama its first victory against an SEC school.

"If you can find me a more athletic guy that can run routes, catch the ball, have these strong hands and get yards after the catch, I want to see him," Jones said. "I’m not saying he’s going to be better than any tight end ever in the NFL, don’t get me wrong. I’m just telling you this guy’s a beast."

When rookie head coach Sean McVay got on the phone to congratulate Everett on being drafted, Everett told McVay he wanted to be his new Jordan Reed, which is precisely what the expectation is, unfair as that might be.

Nobody got more yards out of his tight ends last season than McVay, the former offensive coordinator for a Redskins team that featured Reed and veteran Vernon Davis at tight end. The Rams, last in the NFL in yards each of the past two seasons, badly needed to add targets for Jared Goff but were without a first-round pick. Still, they traded down from 37th overall -- and passed on the chance to take receiver Zay Jones or guard Forrest Lamp -- because they wanted an extra third-round pick and because they liked the thought of drafting Everett a little bit later.

There are concerns about Everett's blocking ability, but Smith will tell you he has the desire to someday excel at it.

There have been critiques about the crispness of his routes, but Jones sees someone who comes out of his breaks in one swift step and thinks those reports are "a little overblown."

There are questions surrounding the fact that Everett played at a smaller university and didn't consistently face elite-level collegiate competition, but Monago believes one should "be careful with saying that."

"Yes, the NFL is big-school driven," he said. "But let’s not lose sight of kids, of players, who make the transition because of what they have inside, knowing that they can play."

[www.espn.com]

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"If Woods isn't open on my first read" "I look for Everett on the skinny post then Gurley in the flat"