Brett Favre has told the Packers that he does not want to talk about going to another team, but it appears apparent that he will have to play in another uniform in 2008 if he wants to take the field. The two teams that reportedly want to talk to Favre the most are the New York Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Chris Mortensen of ESPN says that the Jets have been given permission to talk to Favre, while it’s not known if the Bucs have been given the same permission.

Favre spoke to Packers GM Ted Thompson on Thursday, and told him that he is planning on being at Packers training camp over the weekend. He will have to officially apply for reinstatement before he shows up at the camp, and to date he has yet to do that, meaning he may not stroll in till Monday or Tuesday. The Packers will look for a trading partner for Brett, but the other team they make a deal with will have to have already spoke to Favre to make sure he wants to play for them.

The Vikings, along with Tampa Bay, the Bears and Jets have appeared from day one to be the front runners for the QB, and there was also some thoughts to the Panthers being in the mix as well.

By Andy Benoit, www.NFLTouchdown.com

Predicted: 1^st

2007 Record: 7-9 (2^nd NFC South)

Head Coach: John Fox (7^th year)

Roster Quick View

*rookie

**new veteran

Offense

QB: Jake Delhomme Coming off Tommy John surgery that has reportedly increased his arm strength substantially.

RB: DeAngelo Williams Didn’t get enough touches in 2007. Shifty runner who is a quicker version of Emmitt Smith (in terms of style, that is).

FB: Brad Hoover Another FB who always seems to get it done. Signed a three-year contract to finish his career in his home state.

WR: Steve Smith Uninspiring ’07 season, but look who was throwing him the ball. Defenses had better not ease up on this guy.

WR Muhsin Muhammad** Brought back to fulfill the same possession receiver duties that he handled so well his first nine years here.

TE: Jeff King Caught a respectable 46 passes last season. They’ll ask him to block more in ’08.

LT: Jordan Gross Moving over from right side, but he’s played LT before. His feet are quick and his mind is sharp. He’ll be fine as always.

LG: Travelle Wharton Capable of handling the left tackle duties, but the team wanted to give him an opportunity to thrive. So, they slid him over one space.

C: Ryan Kalil Disappointing as a rookie, but coaches did not hesitate to make him the starter early in the offseason.

RG: Keydrick Vincent** Brought in to add some veteran beef to the front five.

RT: Jeff Otah* First-rounder who is too rough around the edges to play the left side. That’s fine––at 340, he’s more of a natural mauler anyway.

—————

QB: Matt Moore One of five undrafted quarterbacks on the roster heading into training camp. Has a long-term future as a backup.

RB: Jonathan Stewart* Highly-regarded power-runner before having surgery on a turf toe injury. He’ll split carries with DeAngelo Williams.

WR: D.J. Hackett** Told he would be the starter when he signed. By “starter,” they must have meant “first guy off the bench.”

WR: Dwayne Jarrett Immaturity is a problem. Can’t you just sense that he’s fast becoming a bust?

Defense

LDE: Tyler Brayton** Never established a niche in Oakland, which is partly why he never established much of a stat line either. Not someone you want starting.

DT: Ma’ake Kemoeatu A good space filler more than anything.

DT: Damione Lewis A pass-rushing specialist, though improvements in recent years justify his promotion to starter. Still, he’s nowhere near the player Kris Jenkins was.

RDE: Julius Peppers Coming off a flat-out awful season. The hope is that a move back to the right side––his college position––will ignite him. It could. And so could his expiring contract.

SLB: Thomas Davis Not in the highest stable of linebackers, but a fearsome playmaker who can be a force in a variety of ways.

MLB: Jon Beason Will be the best inside linebacker in football before Winter Solstice.

WLB: Landon Johnson** Versatile veteran who can really thrive in an ancillary role. Agility and adeptness in coverage are a plus.

CB: Chris Gamble Doesn’t flash amazing speed or quickness––he just plays football extremely well. Receivers have a hard time shaking him.

SS: Chris Harris Solid presence––especially if he forces eight fumbles again this year.

FS: Charles Godfrey* Third-round pick who played CB at Iowa. Panthers are smitten over him.

CB: Ken Lucas Good player but highly unlikely that he’ll be able to keep his job from fast-rising Richard Marshall.

—————

DL: Charles Johnson Has a chance to start, thanks to the dearth of talent at DE. Was only active for two games last season despite being a third-round pick.

LB: Dan Connor* Good player. But not as good Jon Beason. And probably not as good as Thomas Davis. Why exactly did Carolina pick him?

NB: Richard Marshall Crawling with talent; corrects his weaknesses on almost a weekly basis. He can be one of the really good ones.

Key Players Acquired

DL Tyler Brayton (Oak)

OL Milford Brown (Stl)

G Toniu Fonoti (FA)

WR D.J. Hackett (Sea)

S Terrence Holt (Ari)

LB Landon Johnson (Cin)

WR Muhsin Muhammad (Chi)

DT Ian Scott (Phi)

RB LaBrandon Toefield (Jax)

G Keydrick Vincent (Ari)

DT Darwin Walker (Chi)

Key Players Lost

QB David Carr (NYG)

WR Drew Carter (Oak)

WR Keary Colbert (Den)

RB DeShaun Foster (SF)

C Justin Hartwig (Pit)

DT Kris Jenkins (NYJ)

S Marquand Manuel (Den)

DT Kindal Moorehead (Atl)

LB Dan Morgan (NO, retired)

DE Mike Rucker (retired)

QB Vinny Testaverde (retired)

G Mike Wahle (Sea)

It’s always unsettling to see a team with this much roster turnover. Carr was a disaster. Carter and Colbert both underachieved; Muhammad and Hackett are huge upgrades. Foster would have counted nearly $5 million against the cap, which he simply wasn’t worth. They traded Jenkins for mid-round picks. His negative attitude had grown old, but the Panthers will soon realize that he was their most valuable D-lineman. Rucker retired at the right time. So did Testaverde and Morgan. John Fox wasn’t happy with Wahle’s ’07 performance, and the hope is that the bigger Vincent will make the rushing attack more powerful. If he doesn’t then they’ll try Brown or Fonoti. Walker and Scott have both recently been with the Eagles and Bears, though not together. Carolina should be happy if one of them works out. Johnson was a good addition, especially for $10 million over three years.

Read more

It does not look likely that offensive tackle Jordan Gross is going to get his long-term deal from the Panther according to Rock Hill Herald.  The paper points out that Gross is almost for sure going to play out the one-year franchise tender at $7.45 million, then it will be up to the team to either let Gross become a free agent next season, or again slap the franchise tag on him in 09.  The tag in 09 would be worth about $8.94 million, so it would make more sense to get him signed long-term.

Gross has started all 80 games in his pro career, and will only be 28 years old next week, meaning he’s got a lot of years left.  He signed the franchise tender back in March, giving the team and player plenty of time to work out a deal, but yet here with hours left before they cannot negoiate anymore, Gross remains stuck with just a deal that pays him through this season.

Site Editor Matt Loede is joined in this latest Gridiron Gabbin by former first-round pick and now author Jason Peter. The former first-round pick talks about his new book: Hero of the Underground: A Memoir. The book talks about Peter’s addiction to painkillers and drugs that ruined his NFL career. Here is a quick tidbit from the Book:

“When you swallow eighty Vicodin, twenty sleeping pills, drink a bottle of vodka, and still survive, a certain sense of invulnerability stays with you. When you continually use drugs with the kind of reckless determination that I did, the limit to how much heroin or crack you can ingest is not defined in dollar amounts but in the amounts your body can withstand without experiencing a seizure or respiratory failure … when you still wake up to see the same dirty sky over you as the night before, you start to think that instead of dying, maybe your punishment is to live — to be stuck in this purgatory of self-abuse and misery for an eternity.”

Listen to Jason talk about overcoming his addiction as well as his career as a member of the media. Click below to hear this special edition of Gridion Gabbin w/ Matt Loede and Jason Peter.

 

 Standard Podcast [18:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (69)

Surprise! All four of the major NFL magazines, Athlon, Lindy’s, Pro-Football Weekly and Sporting News, picked the Saints to win the NFC South. It’s a surprise to many as both the Panthers and Bucs have had success in recent times and have added good talent recently.

The Panthers are a good team that had a lot of injuries in 2007. On top of that they gambled a bit in the draft and traded a 2009 1st round pick so they could get two 1st round picks, which they used on RB Jonathan Stewart and RT Jeff Otah.

The Bucs are coming off of a 9-7 division title with pretty much the same team intact and some decent additions from free agency and the draft.

OK, so the Falcons don’t deserve to be in this conversation, but the last place team in the NFC South has won the next year in every year of it’s existence so far. Should the Falcons be considered then?

Hmmm

Panthers GM Marty Hurney is speaking out about the rumor that Brett Favre’s agent threw out that his client may want to play again in 2008 - for the Carolina Panthers. The rumor was thrown out Wednesday, the day that the story broke that Favre wanted to come back and play again, putting the Packers between the biggest rock and hard spot they have ever been.

Hurney said the following about the rumor: “I don’t know where these things come from.” Guess that means that the Panthers GM, as of yet anyway, has not spoken to anyone connected to Favre about the chance of him coming to Carolina in 2008. As it stands, the Panthers seem fine with giving QB Jake Delhomme a shot at trying to come back off of Tommy John surgery and giving it a go at close to 100 percent.

On Thursday we threw out a few teams we thought may have an interest in Favre, and while the Panthers were on the list, we thought it was somewhat of a long shot. Still heading the list includes the Buccaneers, Bears, Jets, and even the Eagles, who would of course have to make a major move with current QB Donovan McNabb to make something like that happen.

For now, Favre still maintains that all the hoopla that came out about him on Wednesday is just a rumor, but where there is smoke there’s fire, so look for there to be a lot more, one way or another, coming out this week when everyone returns from their holiday weekend.

Just as we threw out some teams earlier where Brett Favre may end up if he really does want back in the league adn the Pack does not want him back, one source is reporting that Favre’s agent wants him to play for the Carolina Panthers. ProFootballTalk.com is reporting that Favre’s agent Bus Cook, is privately saying that the Pack QB wants to play for the Panthers.

Now right now the Panthers have Jake Delhomme as their starter, but he’s coming off Tommy John surgery, and it’s not a 100 percent for sure that he’ll be able to handle the rigors of a full season. The story says that they don’t know why Favre would want to go to Carolina, but that he may think that it’s the best place for him to step in as the starter, or maybe Favre since its somewhat close to his home in Mississippi

Trust us, this will be the first of many team names that pop up when it comes to where the Favre jet will land this season. That is if he really does want to come back, and the Pack either releases him or works out a trade deal.

Brett Favre just ruined the Packers front office July 4th holiday.

The gun slinging QB now wants to do the very thing that just about everyone that knows anything about football knew all along - he never wanted to walk away. Favre has thrown out rumblings about wanting to return, and the Packers and GM Ted Thompson are now caught in the toughest rock and hard place he and the franchise have ever been in.

Do the Packers move Favre, the face of the franchise and the most popular player in team history? Or do they allow Favre to come back, again, and take away and stop the progress of what many think the future of the franchise is - former first round pick QB Aaron Rodgers? What would you do?

The Packers have reportedly told Favre to ride off in the sunset, enjoy the life away from the game. But after the teams gut wrenching defeat to the Giants in the NFC Title game, doesn’t Favre deserve another shot? Sure, he told the world in March he was ready to walk away, but you could tell in that interview that the fire still burned bright, and that he could walk out on that field today and still be as effective as he was one season ago.

The bottom line though is this - the Pack does not want Favre back. So where does he go from here? If Favre wants to play again, it likely will have to be in another uniform, and what a trip that would be. There are more than a few teams that would want to employ Favre for one major title run, and here they are in a nutshell:

Chicago - A rival for many years, the Bears have a top-notch defense, but an offense that can’t find its way out of a paper bag. Would adding Favre make them a Super Bowl contender? Maybe. Maybe not. But tell me those two games vs the Packers this season wouldn’t be a lot of fun.

Tampa Bay - Jeff Garcia is whining about wanting a new deal. The Bucs are an older team coming off a South division title a season ago, and if Favre was out there for the taking, I would bet that Jon Gruden would dump Garcia for a second for Favre and a true shot at a Super Bowl run in the town that’s hosting the game.

NY Jets - The Jets have had an active offseason trying to upgrade both sides of the ball, but adding Brett would be the biggest pickup the team has ever had. Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens would have no choice but to take a back seat to Favre, who would quickly become the toast of the Big Apple.

Carolina - Many feel that after Tommy John surgery Jake Delhomme will never be 100 percent again. If that’s the case, the team has only marginal backups to turn to, and Favre would easily step in and take over the Cats. Again though, the Panthers likely are not a Super Bowl contender with him, so moving here would not be likely.

Philadelphia - Here’s an interesting one. The Eagles are a team that already have an established QB in Donovan McNabb, but other than one Super Bowl appearance, McNabb has never truly been able to get the birds over the top. Would adding Favre get them there? Again, who knows, but the franchise would be reborn if they get Favre and deal McNabb elsewhere.

By Andy Benoit - www.NFLTouchdown.com

Down the road. Oh, down the road. Hard to imagine how great they’ll both be. But you know what? We don’t need to think down the road; they’re actually ready now. Both of them.

One of them you’re familiar with. He’s the one out west who burst onto the scene on Monday Night in Week 1 last season before going on to claim NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors. The other you’ve heard of but may not have yet encountered. He’s the one back east who terrorized opponents after the leaves turned.

They’re both ready, which means we need to be ready. The debate is in place. Preemptive as it may seem, it is a debate that will fully legitimize by the end of this season. It will touch the sports bars, message boards, talk radio shows – you name it. It’s a debate that football purists will grow to love. Fans on both sides will be fervid in their stance.

It is inevitable – these guys are just too damn good. Initially, it will be Who is the game’s best inside linebacker. But there might simply be too much talent between the two for the debate not to spill over into Who is the game’s best defensive player period. Ultimately, this debate will be what we take away from the rookie class of 2007.

Does this all sound iffy? Perhaps then you need to meet the subjects.

Patrick Willis

The good news for the rest of the NFL is that it wasn’t as easy for Patrick Willis as he made it look. Really.

“At first it was really hard. I was frustrated, I didn’t understand how the 3-4 worked,” he says. “It was tough…I had some discussions with my coaches, it didn’t go too well and I remember just telling myself ‘either I learn it or I don’t play’ or ‘I learn it or I go home.’”

As the 11th overall pick he actually thought he’d be told to go home?

“That’s what I thought. As time went on, the older guys said, ‘Patrick you got picked high, you aren’t going to be sent home.’”

For a long time, home had been Bruceton, Tennessee, where Willis grew up as the oldest of four children. But for the past four years of his life, home had been Lafayette, Mississippi, where he was the middle linebacker in the Rebels’ 4-3 defense. At Ole Miss, Willis was the man of the house.

Blessed with preternatural ball instincts and the type of speed they say you can’t coach, he became one of the fiercest tacklers in the SEC. Coming out, coaches and scouts also raved about his leadership and tenacity. A caveat, however, were concerns about his diagnostic abilities and instincts – concerns the rookie did little to dispel when forced into a foreign 3-4 scheme early in training camp.

“I came in thinking that I could just use speed, agility and learn it, and that wasn’t the case at all,” Willis says. “It took me learning the game from a whole other perspective…it was an awakening.”

Now, a grain of salt is needed here. After all, Willis recorded 50 tackles through his first five games, making any serious talk about his initial struggles akin to griping about Mozart not writing his first cantata until he was 17. Willis was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year after finishing the season as the league’s leading tackler (174) and being one of just 35 players to play every snap for his team on his side of the ball.

This past spring, while speaking about other personnel on the roster, 49ers head coach Mike Nolan casually stated to a group of reporters that “Patrick Willis is arguably the best defensive player in the league.”

More telling, perhaps, is the high praise Willis draws from venerable assistant head coach/defense, Mike Singletary, a Hall of Fame linebacker: “To me, he’s definitely a throwback to what the game really used to be all about. He’s about working hard, making it hard and being a team player.”

This isn’t to say that Willis is not without flaws. His coverage skills are solid, but factor out his raging athleticism and you see they’re really closer to average. He could also stand to make more plays at or behind the line of scrimmage in run defense, something that will come with experience and an improved supporting cast.

“Patrick is not special yet,” says Singletary. “He will be. What will make him special is his work ethic and his humility.”

It’s hard to visit with Willis with coming away impressed. The 23-year-old – who addresses everyone as sir or ma’am – speaks with a sense of humility that is so pure, so genuine, you wonder if he even knows how gifted he is.

“I think there’s so much more to the game that I’m yet to learn,” Willis says. “I think that last year was just a scratch of the surface.” As he gains a better understanding of NFL offenses and builds up more wisdom behind the almost eerie calm that he exudes on the field, Willis won’t be able to avoid a collision with greatness.

Asked what people will be saying about his weak-inside linebacker five years from now, Singletary replies “Don’t know. Scary thought.”

Jon Beason

There aren’t a lot of players who can come out of Miami after three years, be drafted in the mid-twenties of the first round, wear number 52 and dominate at the middle linebacker position. In fact, so far, there have been only two. Chances are, you’ve heard of the first one. And, chances are, you’ll be hearing a lot more of the second.

“When I went to Miami, people wanted to compare me to Ray Lewis,” says Panthers second-year star Jon Beason. “I look at him and when I talk to him, that fire he has, he’s the one who controls that locker room. If I can be that guy where they say ‘Oh, Ray’s passed the torch’…”
Beason cuts himself off and chuckles at the road he’s about to go down.

“Or, or, maybe, um, you know, (where people say) ‘this guy, he’s starting to look like Ray’ – because Ray’s still playing with fire…”

(Good save, young ’Cane)

“But you know, I definitely want to have that type of impact, were a guy leads a team on a defense.”

Perhaps the 23-year-old from Miramar, Florida is the second coming of Ray Lewis. Or, equally as intriguing, what if he’s the first coming Jon Beason?

Only a limited number of NFL fans have witnessed the magnificence of the 237-pounder. After all, Charlotte, North Carolina is not exactly where the NFL’s hype roars loudest. Beason and the Panthers appeared on national television just once last year – if you count a Saturday night matchup on NFL Network as national television. While America was looking away, Beason was blowing up blockers, choking passing lanes and recording tackle on top of tackle (he finished the season with 140, third in the NFL).

Physically speaking, Beason has all the prerequisites of a luminous NFL linebacker. His quickness in all four cardinal directions is terrific. He’s strong and fundamentally sound, which allows him to consistently win battles at the point of attack. And, most enticing of all, his athleticism seems to augment as he closes in on the ball. That is, he finishes plays with violent authority.

“I like to consider myself to be a fast linebacker, sideline to sideline, make plays, chase the ball,” Beason says. “And when I’m in the middle, I have an opportunity to make every one.”

Beason takes great pride in being the middle piece in Carolina’s front seven – “In a 4-3 defense, the Mike’s the guy,” he says – but it wasn’t until Week 5 that he had his opportunity to play inside. An outside linebacker at Miami (and a safety and running back in high school), Beason began his NFL career on the weak side. He was asked on the Wednesday before a trip to New Orleans if he could slide to the middle, where he’d be responsible for orchestrating the defense.

“That first game…I made a bunch of mistakes,” he recalls. “We had to call timeout a couple of times, I didn’t get the signal or didn’t make a check or made some coverage mistakes, maybe a different gap, but I can play hard, and that factors.”

That day, it factored into a game-high 13 tackles and a Carolina victory, prompting the coaching staff to make the obvious decision of turning the long-term deed to their defense over to the prodigious rookie.

“Jon is the quarterback of our defense,” says Panthers linebacker coach Ken Flajole. “We rely on him to customize the call from the sidelines if he sees an alignment, stance, formation, etc. He has natural instincts for playing the game. He understands what the offense is trying to accomplish…and has a great feel for lanes that take him to the play.”

Never mind down the road – what will we see from Beason in 2008? “Right now I’m working extremely hard, training even harder than I did last year, just because of the simple fact that everyone talks about the sophomore slump,” Beason says. “I know by any stretch of the imagination I’m not a fluke. I want to be one of the top guys every year, right up there with the best of them.”

The Table is Set

If you haven’t already linked the two, go ahead and do so. It would be wasteful not to. The inside linebacker is the sexiest defensive position in football. It’s where the schematic adjustments derive and the most tackle opportunities reside. The past 10 years, football fans have not had an opportunity to debate who is the game’s most dominant inside linebacker. Ray Lewis, then eventually Brian Urlacher, left no doubt.

Lewis, however, is 33 and has lost the oomph that made him legendary. Urlacher remains the class of the position, but chronic neck and back pain seem destined to change that. Seattle’s Lofa Tatupu and Houston’s DeMeco Ryans are both stars in their own right, though the former tends to play reckless at times, and the latter is still learning to make impact plays on a consistent basis.

Insert the aforementioned second-year gems. Both have mastered their responsibilities and have surpassed the towering expectations coming from within their own organizations. Both are über-talented to the point that, by the end of this season, they’ll be without a single exploitable weakness. Given that they both represent the rookie class of ’07, a career full of comparisons seems unavoidable.

“(Jon’s) a good football player. I like him as a person as well,” says Willis. “He’s real aggressive, he just makes plays. He reminds me of myself a lot.”

Asked if the association with the more heralded Willis is annoying, Beason, a man as competitive and honest as you’ll find, ponders the question. “It would have earlier before I met him.” He goes on to cite how Willis came into the league with more experience and did not have to beat out a veteran, but rather, was awarded his starting inside job on Day One.

“I can take all that stuff and be bitter about it,” Beason says, “but meeting Patrick at the (NFL Rookie) Symposium, he was in my small group, he’s such a good dude, such a hard worker, he deserves everything that’s happened for him.

“I’m always going to compete to be the best…but if people want to say my name in the same breath as his, that’s fine by me. It’s good company because I like his game. If I didn’t think he was a good player it’d be another thing, but he’s great.”

Yeah, but who is The Best?

In the NFL, there is always a list of players that come back after subpar seasons to light it up the following year. Most of those players either are coming off an injury, move to another team that fits them as players better, or just finally “gets it” within the team and system they are in. Below are a list of players we think will be back in 2008, and these may be players that make it back to where they were, or players that make it there for the first time.

1. Marc Bulger QB Rams - Last season the Rams slumped to 3-13, and this after a coming off a strong end to 2006. Bulger had a tough time behind a line that was beat up by injuries most of the year, and by a running game that struggled with Steven Jackson hurt a good part of the year. While the Rams take a turn to get better in 2008, Bulger will too, and he should bounce back from his 07 season that saw him throw for 2392 yards, 11 TD’s and 15 picks.

2. Julius Peppers DE Panthers - Peppers all but vanished for the Panthers in 2007, putting up just 2.5 sacks and getting beat up by the media around the country for being a player that was nowhere to be found. He’s making the move to right end, which should help right off the bat, and the Panthers defense will look overall to be a much better unit in 2008, and with it Peppers could return to being a force on defense for the cats.

3. Laveranus Coles WR Jets - With an uncertain QB situation and some injuries to deal with, Coles was not the explosive player the Jets have come to count last year, as he slumped to just 55 catches in just a handful of games. With a better O-line, whoever is throwing the ball in the Big Apple will have more time to throw, and that should right away put Coles up above the 11.7 yards per catch average he had last year and six scores.

4. DeAngelo Hall CB Raiders - This is a classic case of a player moving to a new team with a new deal in hand, and having a big season. That’s what’s ahead for Hall, who will be as good if not better than the Pro Bowl form he’s shown in the past. The Raiders have some playmakers in their secondary, and Hall will fit the bill and be a big time player for them in 2008.

5. Frank Gore RB 49′ers - As the Niners had a tough 2007, Gore followed. He still ran for 1102 yards, but didn’t have that dominant season that the team and many around the league thought he would have coming of a big 2006 that earned him a huge deal. This is a case though of others playing better around Gore in 2008 as well. If the Niners do that, he’ll have a big comeback season.

6. Vince Young QB Titans - We’re on the Young bandwagon, and can’t believe that this guy will stay in rut that he was for a large portion of the 07 season. Let’s remember though, he was a big part of the reason why the Titans did make the postseason, and despite the only 9 throwing TD’s and 17 picks, he still has a special ability with his legs, and with the Titans growing as a team, Young’s third season in the NFL will by far be his best.