Monthly Archives: July 2016

Washington Redskins

Dorsett’s role to expand in Colts’ three-WR offense

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Along with the coordinator change, the organization’s recent personnel moves dictate an adjustment. With receiving tight end Coby Fleener out of the picture and 2015 first-round draft pick Dorsett healthy, it behooves Chudzinski to take advantage with a three wide-receiver attack.

Around The NFL’s Making the Leap series had already identified Moncrief’s as the NFL’s most likely breakout candidate at wide receiver. The transition to three wide receivers as the base offense should allow Dorsett the opportunity for a featured role in his own right.

Chudzinki recently noted that Dorsett has the ability to be a “big-time playmaker,” a sentiment that was pervasive among the Colts’ offensive coaches last summer.

Don’t let Andrew Luck’s disappointing, injury-ravaged 2015 season obscure this offense’s potential. With Moncrief and Dorsett playing full-time snaps, Luck is fully capable of returning to the 2014 heights which saw him lead the NFL in touchdowns while finishing third in passing yards.

The Cowboys left Big D for Oxnard, Calif. on Thursday in anticipation for the start of training camp, but one notable player wasn’t with them.

Suspended linebacker Rolando McClain was not on the team’s charter to the Golden State, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Thursday. The Cowboys do not yet have an explanation for his absence.

McClain was suspended 10 games in June for violating the NFL’s policy against substances of abuse. He was also suspended four games for violating the same policy to start the 2015 season.

The Vikings have built their organization the right way. Their general manager Rick Spielman has been with the team since 2006. Over the last two years, he’s helped transform the roster to fit coach Mike Zimmer’s feisty personality. They are cresting as a budding NFC superpower just in time to move into their new stadium.

Washington Redskins

Seahawks extend Pete Carroll through 2019

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The NFL’s oldest head coach at age 64, Carroll began negotiating with the Seahawks back in February. He was entering the final season of a three-year deal signed after leading Seattle to the Super Bowl XLVIII title.

Carroll’s new contract should serve to silence speculation that he might be prepared to walk away after the 2016 season, handing over the reins to assistant head coach/offensive line Tom Cable.

@Seahawks Thrilled to announce we have reached an extension with Super Bowl winning coach @PeteCarroll ! #GoHawks

Paul Allen (@PaulGAllen) July 27, 2016
After mixed results with the New York Jets and New England Patriots in the 1990s, Carroll reached a football epiphany as the architect of the USC Trojans dynasty last decade. Having reinvented himself as one of the NFL’s most philosophically open and psychologically agile figure, he has rivaled Bill Belichick as the league’s best coach over the past half-decade.

Under the tenure of Carroll and Schneider, the Seahawks have been a bold, unconventional organization, assembling a deep roster by capitalizing on cost-effective young talent. By end of the 2015 season, Seattle became the first team to top Football Outsiders’ DVOA metrics for four consecutive seasons, comprising the most successful era in franchise history.

Overseeing an annual superpower and nascent northwest dynasty, Carroll has earned the right to walk away from the Seahawks on his own terms.

New head coach Ben McAdoo worked with a similarly versatile slot receiver and returner in Green Bay in Randall Cobb.

With the Giants (like many teams) expected to play out of a three-receiver set much of the time in 2016, Shepard could be in line for significant playing time should Cruz struggle to come back from the torn patellar tendon and calf surgeries which prematurely ended his last two seasons.

Thanks to Aaron Rodgers, the mystery of Peyton Manning’s ‘Omaha’ call has finally been solved.

For years, football fans everywhere have tried to solve the riddle of the ‘Omaha’ call, only to come up empty. The frustration has finally come to an end though because Rodgers spilled the beans during a recent appearance on the HBO show Any Given Wednesday.

Washington Redskins

J.J. Watt undergoes surgery to repair herniated disc

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The Houston Texans’ most valuable asset is in danger of missing the entirety of training camp.

NFL Media’s Mike Garafolo, however, expressed a slightly more pessimistic timeline. Per a source informed of Watt’s prognosis, Garafolo reported that the recovery could take up to 10 weeks, which means the defensive star would miss regular-season games.

The Houston Chronicle was the first to report the news.

Although Watt has yet to miss a game in his five-year career, he’s now racing against the clock to get his body in football shape for the season opener. After playing through a broken hand and severe groin injury last year, he underwent sports hernia surgery earlier this offseason.

With Brock Osweiler, Lamar Miller and rookie speedsters Will Fuller and Braxton Miller adding playmaking ability to a punchless offense, Texans have been a trendy pick to capture the AFC South crown and perhaps even make a run at the Super Bowl.

For that dream scenario to have a chance of playing out, they will need the game’s most dominant defensive force at full strength.

“The NFL’s investigation concluded that Hardy violated the Personal Conduct Policy by using physical force against Nicole Holder in at least four instances,” the NFL said in April of 2015.

Hardy spent nearly all of the 2014 season in Carolina on the Commissioner’s Exempt List until pending criminal charges against Hardy were adjudicated.

The Jaguars have spent the 2016 offseason loading up on defensive talent and becoming a trendy pick for the playoffs. Adding a lightning rod like Hardy, one the least popular players of the last decade, would only put the spotlight more on the team.

A few friends who know a thing or two about a rivalry with Pittsburgh will be at Saturday’s #OrangeOut. Will you?
— FC Cincinnati (@fccincinnati) May 10, 2016

“Cincinnati and Pittsburgh is probably one of the nastiest rivalries in football,” Peko told the soccer team’s website. “Whenever we play Pittsburgh, everyone wants us to beat them. That’s how I feel when it comes to soccer. Hopefully we can get this big win.”

Of course, Cincinnati’s soccer team will be hoping that their game doesn’t end like the Bengals’ game in January did, because that would involve two players pulling a Burfict and Jones and getting red carded at the worst possible time to cost their team a win.

The game in Cincinnati starts at 4 p.m. ET.

Julian Edelman reportedly has second foot surgery, likely out until camp