Article by Rob Newell
With the NFL teams returning
to mandatory (in most players cases) there is finally football activities
happening again which is important when you like myself, can not wait for NFL
football again. That does give the
football beat writers around the league access to some stories that we probably
didn’t need to know about.
Johnny Football retiring the $
symbol for example. How about you get
named the starting QB first then talk about what symbols you may or not be
making. The strangest story for me
though, and as in line with many off-season stories, came out of San Francisco.
Apparently 49ers new Head
Coach Jim Tomsula has decided that the Niners need to revolutionise their
coaching techniques and approach to accommodate the fact that the team is now
made up of the Millennial generation, which apparently means that these players
can not concentrate in sessions for more than 27 minutes before things become
counter productive. When I read this
story I wanted to check the date just to confirm that we had not gone back to 1st
April.
Bill Walsh must be spinning
in his grave at this idea. Just how did
Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott manage to win all those Super Bowls when
they had to endure over 30 mins of coaching in one session. For Jim Tomsula’s sake I hope his new
approach produces some fruit, but I don`t think this story helps Tomsula in
anyway. If the Niners get off to a bad
start I fear this is the sort of thing that will hang around his neck, and the
head coaching reign of Tomsula may not be for long in California.
The other big ongoing story
out of the West, seems to be Russell Wilson and the ongoing contract situation
in the Pacific North West. Wilson has
been saying all along that he does not have a timetable in place and he would
be happy to play out the final year of the rookie contract. Meanwhile, with every other new deal being
agreed for other starting QB’s, it seems Russell Wilson is getting more and
more leverage.
The latest deal was of course
for Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton, who joined the $100 million club. For a player who to date has only won one
playoff game? Whereas Wilson already a
veteran of two Super Bowl appearances and winning one. What then is the worth of Wilson? The other findings suggest Wilson is on
course for a large large pay day, it may be Andrew Luck has a playing role in
this, depending on if his deal is renewed with the Colts before the Hawks redo
Russell Wilson. In the meantime, should Seattle make a third successive Super
Bowl as they are the favourites to do, what impact then on the long term worth
of Wilson?
Meanwhile things are going
quietly in Arizona, but significantly perhaps Carson Palmer is showing very
encouraging signs in return from his ACL injury which should set the Cardinals
on the right path offensively again.
Also rookie running back David Johnson is impressing a lot of people in
camp, may be interesting as season progresses to see how he competes with Andre
Ellington for starting snaps.
Special mention to some of
the feared St Louis Rams defensive line, lead by Chris Long, who recently spent
over 24 hours living on the streets of St Louis to raise money / awareness of
the plight of the homeless in St Louis.
This after it emerged the Rams DL have been donated to a project to
support these people for a while now. At
a time when we hear so many negative stories, and player suspensions, arrests
and DUI’s etc… It is refreshing to hear the other side where NFL players give something
back to their communities. Good work
fella’s!
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