Football Page 997 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Report: The NFL Asked The Patriots To Make Themselves Look Guilty
And the Patriots complied! Ballghazi by this point is a stacked farce, where every new outrageous development only serves to obscure why we were supposed to be outraged in the first place. But one very paradoxical question still looms large: If the Patriots, as they maintain, shouldn’t be punished b...

Report: NFL And Pats Participating In "Back-Channel Conversations"
The NFL and New England Patriots find themselves in a messy dispute that has the potential to irreparably damage the league. The NFL levied a harsh punishment upon Tom Brady and the Patriots based upon middling evidence, and are basically making up league rules on the fly. Meanwhile, Tom Brady’s app...



Coach Allows Player Held Responsible For Sex Crime To Start Every Game
Elon defensive back Adrian McClendon started every game last season despite taking a plea deal one year ago on sexual battery charges, the Elon Pendulum reports. McClendon is accused of groping a woman against her will and with force in March 2014; his deal with prosecutors led to the sophomore plea...

Odell Beckham Jr. Says NFL Players Should Be Paid More
Giants receiver and Madden cover boy Odell Beckham Jr. was asked by the Huffington Post what one thing he would change about the NFL. He took a second to think, then answered, “I think that we should make more money, personally.”...

Robert Kraft: The NFL Hasn't Been Fair To The Patriots
Patriots owner Robert Kraft has clammed up since his team was hit with significant discipline for its alleged ball-deflating ways, with the pushback against the NFL coming from third parties, on social media, and in a 20,000-word rebuttal/manifesto that would’ve made Ted Kaczynski proud. No longer: ...


La'el Collins Nearly Didn't Make It Out Of The Draft
Former LSU offensive lineman La’el Collins had one of the most bizarre NFL draft sagas in recent memory. A surefire first- or second-round pick, Collins’s status was upended when he was named in connection with the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Brittney Mills. A paternity test for Collins ha...

Tom Brady's Appeal Goes <i>Hard</i> After Roger Goodell
Tom Brady has appealed his four-game suspension for being “generally aware” of two Patriots staffers’ schemes to illegally deflate footballs, and we learned this morning that the appeal will be heard by none other than Roger Goodell himself. That hearing is going to get really awkward when Goodell i...

Former Titans Player: Aaron Hernandez Said He'd Kill Me In A Game
Former Titans cornerback and current CFL nomad Ryan Mouton had a story to share Thursday. When the Patriots and Titans played in 2012, Mouton laid out Aaron Hernandez after a catch, knocking off the tight end’s helmet. Believe it or not, Mouton claimed Hernandez threatened the defensive back....

Roger Goodell Reserves The Right To Screw Over Tom Brady Again
With Tom Brady appealing his four-game Ballghazi suspension, Roger Goodell has the power to select who will hear that appeal. And he has three choices. He could pick one of his own employees; he could acquiesce to the union’s and Brady’s request that he choose an independent, third-party arbitrator;...

Tom Brady Appeals Four-Game Suspension
As expected, the NFLPA filed an appeal on behalf of Tom Brady over his four-game suspension for his role in the Patriots’ ball-deflation schemes....

Pats' Ballghazi Defense: "The Deflator" Was Just Trying To Lose Weight
The New England Patriots have officially fired back at Ted Wells’s Ballghazi report, in the form of an impenetrable Wordpress page that might as well be titled Loose Balls: The Truth About PSI. The site contains an attempt by one of the Patriots’ lawyers to fisk Wells’s report, and although it’s an ...

ESPN Grills Gronk About Patriots' Balls
Cheerful ogre Rob Gronkowski and Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. swung by ESPN this morning to plug some stuff about the Madden cover, but Jay Crawford and Chris McKendry (rightfully) took the opportunity to lob Ballghazi-related questions at Gronk, who answered them by talking about how he likes ...

Urban Meyer's New Contract Has Some Massive Buyout Clauses
There doesn’t appear to be anything especially crazy in Urban Meyer’s new contract, but along with a salary bump that at least nominally makes him higher-paid than Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the defending college football champs locked in some nice buyout figures, should Ohio State decide to fire h...

What's Going On With Philip Rivers?
Because of their quarterback’s age and their potential relocation, the Chargers are coming to terms with the fact that Philip Rivers’s time there might be nearing an end. But with Marcus Mariota spending the day dining with San Diego coaches and executives, rumors are flying that the timeframe for R...

Lawrence Phillips Named A Suspect In The Death Of His Cellmate
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released a statement today naming former Nebraska and St. Louis Rams (and Dolphins and 49ers) running back Lawrence Phillips a suspect in the death of his cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison over the weekend. From the statement:...

Latest NFL Draft Fluff: Marcus Mariota Is The No. 1 Pick Now, I Guess
Ask any football writer—the beat guys, not the draftheads—what sort of coverage they hate the most, and they’ll tell you it’s draft speculation. Ask any football writer what sort of coverage gets the most sweet, sweet pageclicks, and they’ll tell you it’s draft speculation. People love this shit, a...