Antonio Brown is now making a big deal about the helmet he's allowed to wear.
Some players have had to switch helmets because the model they wear is no longer acceptable and won't be certified. But that's not the issue with AB, the model he wears is perfectly fine and acceptable for certification. The issue is that helmets must be newer than 10 years old to be certified for use. AB's individual helmet is 11 years old, and is being told he must switch to a newer copy of the same helmet.
This, to AB, is unacceptable. In fact, according to Adam Schefter, Brown "has told team officials that, unless he gets to wear his old helmet, he will not play football again"
EDIT: Oh my the Mike Silver Twitter thread on this has so many good details. Crucially, this has been going on since spring, so Hard Knocks episode 1 sure scrubbed out this piece of drama too.
I don't actually expect AB will quit football after getting denied his helmet that's as old as a 5th grader, but my lord. This guy's making TO and Ochocinco look chill by comparison.
The guy who lied to get into a Browns tryout returned a punt for a TD last night.
Vid at this tweet: https://twitter.com/NFL/status/11596...
There's basically no chance he makes the roster, but cool storyline anyway.
A few months ago: "Whoa, can you believe the Steelers got rid of AB?"
Now: *awkward silence*
Yeah, his divaness was already getting out of control, but he got traded into a black hole and now the absolute worst is coming out.
Antonio Brown is now making a big deal about the helmet he's allowed to wear.
Some players have had to switch helmets because the model they wear is no longer acceptable and won't be certified. But that's not the issue with AB, the model he wears is perfectly fine and acceptable for certification. The issue is that helmets must be newer than 10 years old to be certified for use. AB's individual helmet is 11 years old, and is being told he must switch to a newer copy of the same helmet.
This, to AB, is unacceptable. In fact, according to Adam Schefter, Brown "has told team officials that, unless he gets to wear his old helmet, he will not play football again"
EDIT: Oh my the Mike Silver Twitter thread on this has so many good details. Crucially, this has been going on since spring, so Hard Knocks episode 1 sure scrubbed out this piece of drama too.
I don't actually expect AB will quit football after getting denied his helmet that's as old as a 5th grader, but my lord. This guy's making TO and Ochocinco look chill by comparison.
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
The Raiders acquired a WR at peak Diva. What could possibly go wrong?
Crucially, this has been going on since spring, so Hard Knocks episode 1 sure scrubbed out this piece of drama too.
Between this and summing up Incognito as having a "dark past," do the Raiders have final approval over the cut of each episode?
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...On March 10th, Jayhawker wrote:The Raiders acquired a WR at peak Diva. What could possibly go wrong?
That thread included these details that I forgot:
Antonio Brown traded to the Raiders for 3rd and 5th round picks. Also the Raiders are giving him an extra $11 million added onto his contact. Not an extension, no extra years, just a pay increase. I'm assuming that pay increase is guaranteed money.
EDIT: Wow, even more than that. They didn't just guarantee the $11 million of new money, they turned existing money into guaranteed.
He went from $39 mil with no guaranteed to $50 million with $30 million of that guaranteed.
Spotrac's numbers confirm these early reports. $30.125m fully guaranteed: $1m of signing bonus, plus fully guaranteed salaries in 2019 ($14.625m) and 2020 ($14.5m).
The guaranteed salary brings to mind the Brock Osweiler contract, in which the guaranteed money could be taken off the original team's books via trade because it's salary. Only the paltry $1m of signing bonus is impossible to move.
Not that anything will happen before this season, but if we're going into the 2020 offseason with this drama, maybe we could see that kind of "take him plus this pick to get him off our cap" deal happen again.
Good article from a couple weeks ago about the Browns and their experience on Hard Knocks, but cast from the angle of what it could mean for the Raiders. Some real choice quotes from Hue "foot in mouth and head up asshole" Jackson.
Good article from a couple weeks ago about the Browns and their experience on Hard Knocks, but cast from the angle of what it could mean for the Raiders. Some real choice quotes from Hue "foot in mouth and head up asshole" Jackson.
Loser, Jackson, mirror show me, what's the difference?
Sashi Brown done cut the guilty with the innocent
Mecole Hardman looks like the real deal. After failing to get him the ball on two consecutive plays in which he was interfered, both of which were called, they called one of those jet sweep touch passes to him and freaking zoomed 22 yards for a TD.
They put up a graphic with his 40 time, 4.33, with Watkins, 4.43, and Hill, 4.24.
They titled it, The Legion of Zoom. That might stick.
Also saw a good use of replay to call a missed pass interference. It was inside of two minutes, so it was a booth review. My guess is that might not have caught had they not been looking at the INT that resulted when the ball was tipped, as the defender fell out of bounds. Live, it didn’t even occur to me that it was PI, but it was pretty clear on replay.
Fun start to preseason.
Niners and Jags both sat their first team players and played against teams who ran their first team for the whole 1st quarter.
Ravens smashed the Jags while Dallas just kicked some field goals.
Charles Robinson on how we're about to find out if Hard Knocks is just NFL whitewashed media or not.
He didn't mention All or Nothing, but I definitely see the revisionist history of the Panthers' All or Nothing as part of the same trend. Feels like the NFL asserting a stranglehold on messaging.
Well, duh. These aren't true documentaries. The NFL wouldn't allow that because they can't control that.
Panthers news!
* I finally finished the Panthers' "All or Nothing." Really enjoyed it, though it was damn hard to watch at the end. The season started so good and then completely went to hell. (There were a couple of scenes I couldn't watch because I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want to see it again, dammit.) The signs were all there all along - the Panthers needed a 25-mile FG to beat the Giants, and they lost to damn DC -- but I chose to ignore them. That said, I'm glad they're my team. On to 2019.
* Deadspin's WYTS is out on Carolina. Pretty meh. There's not much to say about the team, honestly: Cam should be so much better, Jerry Richardson is awful, Carolina will go 8-8 already.
* Carolina has a kicker controversy. Some guy named Joey Slye kicked 12 (or so) field goals against the Bears last week. Graham Gano (who was terrible after that monster FG vs NYG last season) is hurt and didn't make the trip.
* There's a non-small portion of the Panthers' fan base that's already lobbying for Will Grier to start at QB. Sigh. This BS again.
Update: Ron Rivera says that Gano's job is safe and that Joey Slye is basically a camp leg. NO CONTROVERSY HERE, FOLKS.
Dak Prescott has reportedly turned down a $30m/year contract offer and is seeking $40m/year.
I think this is inevitably headed towards the franchise tag and negotiating in 2020 or even the 2021 offseason. The main takeaway is that Dak doesn't seem to be in a hurry to make a deal.
Carolina's WYTS sucks should just have been "Just because Cam is big enough to play RB doesn't mean the Panthers were smart to treat him that way all these years". Dude is broken from too much abuse.
The Browns have been practising with pads on a lot this preseason.
“This has been a pretty tough camp for these guys,’’ he said. “I think it’s been kind of a culture shock, but I think they’ve embraced it. We have a lot of guys that are willing to pay the price. We understand that now. A lot of guys have bought in to what we are trying to do.’’
Has he received complaints from his leadership council of players about the constant pads?
“I don’t have a leadership council,’’ he said. “I have me, and that’s it. I don’t get into that stuff either. That’s all a façade for excuses to blame other people. I will take the blame.”
I love this guy.
The implosion of this team is going to be all the more sweet with this setup.
Things might be a little hectic at HBO today:
Antonio Brown is in Napa, I’m told. Though my scavenger hunt of Napa Marriott came up empty (love my job).
Hard Knocks pushing their deadline production back, lol. #Raiders #WheresAB— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) August 13, 2019
Looks like Adrian Peterson will be entering camp, newly incentivised.
A story like this suggests that little has changed since Sport Illustrated published an article about bankruptcy rates among professional athletes in 2009.
I know the NFL covers financial literacy during the Rookie Symposium, but I do wonder whether more could be done. More responsibilities place on athlete's agents? A voluntary/mandatory savings schemes supervised by Players' Unions?
I remember reading a story on one of the financial news sites about Glover Quin a few years back. He and his financial advisor worked out a monthly "allowance" that covered expenses and allowed him to live well but not extravagantly. In the article though, Quin mentioned there were guys in his locker room that would go out after a game and routinely spend 2-3 times his allowance (at least) in a single night. Unreal.
Things might be a little hectic at HBO today:
Antonio Brown is in Napa, I’m told. Though my scavenger hunt of Napa Marriott came up empty (love my job).
Hard Knocks pushing their deadline production back, lol. #Raiders #WheresAB— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) August 13, 2019
I swear they're going to turn it into, "while recovering from foot injury, Antonio Brown finds the time for a little wine tasting".
Trent Williams continues to insist that he will not play for the Washington football franchise.
Washington and Bruce Allen, clearly having learned absolutely nothing from the Kirk Cousins situation, refuse to trade Williams.
Former Washington defensive back Su'a Cravens supports Williams and says he too is battling Washington still over withheld benefits and "mishandled" injuries.
detroit20 wrote:Looks like Adrian Peterson will be entering camp, newly incentivised.
A story like this suggests that little has changed since Sport Illustrated published an article about bankruptcy rates among professional athletes in 2009.
I know the NFL covers financial literacy during the Rookie Symposium, but I do wonder whether more could be done. More responsibilities place on athlete's agents? A voluntary/mandatory savings schemes supervised by Players' Unions?
I remember reading a story on one of the financial news sites about Glover Quin a few years back. He and his financial advisor worked out a monthly "allowance" that covered expenses and allowed him to live well but not extravagantly. In the article though, Quin mentioned there were guys in his locker room that would go out after a game and routinely spend 2-3 times his allowance (at least) in a single night. Unreal.
I feel bad for young men from poor backgrounds who blow through all the money of their first NFL contract. They're young, they haven't been taught better, and they're treating themselves after a childhood of going without.
I feel much, much less bad for the guys who blow through their second contract, their third contract, their endorsements, etc. I understand being 22 and eating up your signing bonus. Once you're in your mid 20s, late 20s, you've got the house and all the things, and you're still lighting your money on fire and refusing to become an adult, well, my sympathy drops pretty sharply.
The implosion of this team is going to be all the more sweet with this setup.
Browns fans are numb to pain. The football gods dropped 0-16 on them and they just tanked the damage.
The only way to hurt Browns fans is to give them hope, let them have just enough success to open up their shells, and then the football gods can smite the sh*t out of them again.
Rat Boy wrote:The implosion of this team is going to be all the more sweet with this setup.
Browns fans are numb to pain. The football gods dropped 0-16 on them and they just tanked the damage.
The only way to hurt Browns fans is to give them hope, let them have just enough success to open up their shells, and then the football gods can smite the sh*t out of them again.
This is true, and remember... we went two years not winning a game on a Sunday.
Giants defensive coordinator James Bettcher tells me that training a player’s eyes is perhaps the most important thing when defending against innovative offenses—not just on play-action, but with nearly any deceptive wrinkle that a modern offense can throw at a defense. “All that stuff: Play-action, naked bootleg, it’s all eyes,” he said. “I think you can train eyes. Some guys have dirty eyes and can see ghosts, but you can train them.”
From here.
Is this common parlance in football? I've never heard these terms and I love it.
"My feet is pretty much getting circumcised." - After Burner
mindset.threat wrote:detroit20 wrote:Looks like Adrian Peterson will be entering camp, newly incentivised.
A story like this suggests that little has changed since Sport Illustrated published an article about bankruptcy rates among professional athletes in 2009.
I know the NFL covers financial literacy during the Rookie Symposium, but I do wonder whether more could be done. More responsibilities place on athlete's agents? A voluntary/mandatory savings schemes supervised by Players' Unions?
I remember reading a story on one of the financial news sites about Glover Quin a few years back. He and his financial advisor worked out a monthly "allowance" that covered expenses and allowed him to live well but not extravagantly. In the article though, Quin mentioned there were guys in his locker room that would go out after a game and routinely spend 2-3 times his allowance (at least) in a single night. Unreal.
I feel bad for young men from poor backgrounds who blow through all the money of their first NFL contract. They're young, they haven't been taught better, and they're treating themselves after a childhood of going without.
I feel much, much less bad for the guys who blow through their second contract, their third contract, their endorsements, etc. I understand being 22 and eating up your signing bonus. Once you're in your mid 20s, late 20s, you've got the house and all the things, and you're still lighting your money on fire and refusing to become an adult, well, my sympathy drops pretty sharply.
Everyone should track down and watch the 30 for 30 documentary Broke. It's gotta be a decade old at this point, but I don't imagine it'll ever not be relevant in the US.
Hard Knocks:
* Everyone I saw on ESPN today said they turned this episode off early, and just watching it now I can see why.
* You could sub Frank Calliendo for Gruden and not know the difference.
* Richie Incognito's turning into the villain cameo in the way way background of an MCU movie that you'd only know about if you read an "Easter Eggs in the Latest MCU Movie" article on io9.
* Also, Antonio Brown's turning into "Sir Not Appearing In This Film."
* Ditto to the whole Las Vegas move at this point.
* Oh look, the Raiders resurrected the noted creeper Brent Musberger as their official radio voice. Oh to have been a fly on the wall if he crossed paths with Mina Kimes from the Rams broadcast.
* Also, LA? You..you got the better football team, trust me. You don't have to also whine about the Raiders going to Vegas.
* Mike Glennon reminds me of Preparation H Raymond from Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He and the Peter Man both remind me that there's really nothing backing up Derek Carr if his limbs explode this year.
* I predict the epilogue of this season of Hard Knocks will be, "With the first pick in the 2020 draft, the Las Vegas Raiders select..."
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