HOUSTON -- While we digest the status of Mike Vick with his battered ribs and wonder if he'll ever play a full season of football again (he's played exactly one 16-game regular season), let's get updated on one team that's been very quiet in the first month of summer camp.
BOURBONNAIS, Ill. -- To Bears coach Lovie Smith, the Olympic competition he watched every night after training camp meetings in his dorm room at Olivet Nazarene University was a vital football lesson for everyone in the game.
NFL player O.J. Murdock apparently focused during his last hours on his glory days as a track and football star at the Tampa, Florida, high school where police say he killed himself.
Before I get to the state of the Texans, and the running back driving fantasy football players crazy, as well as a local boy in Queens having the time of his life and the latest in Bountyville, here's a preamble about the life span of the best prospects in football.
There's an old adage in sports that great players rarely make great coaches.
PHILADELPHIA -- The late March trade that brought middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans to Philadelphia has a chance to be one of the shrewdest moves of the NFL's offseason and should help solidify the middle of the Eagles defense, which got gouged repeatedly in 2011, especially during Philly's stupefyingly bad 4-8 start.
While the entire NFL world has been fixated on every detail and development in his year-plus battle with his neck issues, Peyton Manning wasn't the only player who had his 2011 ruined by injury. His lost season just happened to generate more media coverage than the plight of all other injured players combined, given that his absence set off a chain of events that rendered it the most impactful injury in league history.
Just because I'm not an instant draft-grade guy doesn't mean I can't opine about what we've just seen, and what we're about to see in the next few months. Take the quarterback position. Let's rank the 11 quarterbacks who got picked in the draft in two categories: who will have the biggest rookie-year impact, and who landed in the best spot.
News item: Indianapolis owner Jimmy Irsay says the Colts wanted to work out quarterback Robert Griffin III and were denied by the quarterback's agent.
(Editor's note: A few hours after this column was originally published, Peyton Manning told his agent to start contract negotiations with the Denver Broncos.)
So now, with Peyton Manning in Denver, the Titans and the 49ers have to put the pieces of their broken dreams back together and go on without him.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we digest the doings of the first 24 hours or so of the NFL's always frenzied free agency period...
Peyton Manning parted company with the Indianapolis Colts Wednesday after a glittering 14-year career at the NFL franchise.
updated: Wed Mar 07 2012 15:07:00
The Indianapolis Colts release four-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning rather than pay him a $28 million bonus he is due.
Four-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning is expected to announce today that he will be leaving the Indianapolis Colts, the only team he has played for in his 14-year career.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight from day one of the NFL's underwear Olympics at Lucas Oil Stadium....
While the decision-making process regarding Peyton Manning's future in Indianapolis continues to unfold, new details about his problematic neck issues and his attempts to deal with them have surfaced.
With Peyton Manning's future in Indianapolis just days away from being decided, Colts owner Jim Irsay said Tuesday the team's franchise quarterback still controls whether he will remain with the only NFL franchise he has ever played for, but that the club cannot exercise the $28 million option bonus that is due Manning on March 8.
Once upon a time, we thought we knew how the Peyton Manning story would end in Indianapolis. After a long and record-breaking run as the Colts iconic quarterback, face of the franchise and civic treasure, Manning would finally leave the game behind, slide into a comfortable and over-celebrated retirement and toss the keys to the next young passer unlucky enough to follow his act in the helmet with the horseshoe on it.
With the glow (and the now annual blame-game fallout) of the Super Bowl dying down, we turn our attention to the long NFL offseason, which won't end until teams start reporting for training camp in late July. Here are the 10 questions that most intrigue me as the league transitions into player acquisition and draft evaluation mode....
Let's just come out and say what a lot of people are thinking this Super Bowl weekend: Indianapolis? Really?
updated: Sun Feb 05 2012 10:37:00
Can the emotional stress among viewers of the Super Bowl lead to fatal cardiovascular events? John Lisk reports.
INDIANAPOLIS -- As if the strange coincidence of having the Super Bowl come to Indianapolis just as Peyton Manning's future hangs in the balance and the Colts continue remaking their organization wasn't enough, presumptive No. 1 overall draft pick and potential Manning replacement Andrew Luck arrived here Thursday to add one more layer of intrigue to the mix.
INDIANAPOLIS -- The irony is too rich to miss here this week. The juxtaposition as stark as it could possibly be. Peyton Manning isn't in this Super Bowl, but somehow he still looms over it, with the drama surrounding his future providing a backdrop for a game that's chock full of intriguing storylines.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The next chapter in the Peyton Manning saga could take a decidedly defensive turn.
The surprise isn't that the Indianapolis Colts finally followed through and dismissed head coach Jim Caldwell on Tuesday. It's that they even considered retaining him for 2012 in the first place.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we wrap our brains around the new realities that the divisional playoffs have wrought: The Giants and 49ers move on, and the Packers and Saints don't. There's nothing like the plot twists you get in the NFL's postseason....
Grading out the performances from the Ravens' 20-13 nailbiter win over the Houston Texans in Sunday's AFC divisional matchup.
BALTIMORE -- The ball tumbled toward the earth, to a spot nearly 70 yards from where Sam Koch, the Ravens punter, had put his foot to it. Jacoby Jones, the Texans returner, allowed it to hit the turf. Then he thought better of it and tried to catch it mid-carom. Almost immediately, he would wish that he hadn't.
1. It's a brave new world for both teams.
Sign me up for the notion that the NFL's divisional playoff round typically makes for the best weekend of the season, with the league's elite eight pairing off in four bursts of high-stakes elimination football. Here are eight of the best storylines that provide a backdrop of the action on tap:
We're down to the final eight teams in the NFL playoffs, and that means there are only 16 potential matchups remaining for Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium next month in Indianapolis. Don't worry, I did the math so you don't have to. Here's a pregame storyline or reason to care about each and every Super pairing, as we rank them from most intriguing to least appealing. As always, your results may vary...
Grading out the performances from Houston's dominant 31-10 win over Cincinnati Saturday night in AFC wild-card action.
HOUSTON -- J.J. Watt, the 11th overall pick in last April's draft, had 48 tackles and 5.5 sacks during the regular season and was a central reason the Texans were able to sustain the Week 5 loss of star pass-rusher Mario Williams. For most of the first half of the Texans' first-ever playoff game, though, Watt was quiet, and as Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton dropped back to pass with a minute left in the second quarter and the game tied 10-10, it seemed as if he would remain that way. Mike McGlynn, Cincinnati's right guard, was yielding to him no ground. Dalton zipped a pass toward fellow rookie star A.J. Green, and that pass happened to be directed in the airspace above the 6'5", 288-pound Watt's head.
1. The Texans are in the playoffs for the first time, but with a dark cloud hanging over the season.
Can you imagine Peyton and Eli Manning both quarterbacking teams in the glitzy New York market? That's one possible outcome in the high stakes chess match to be waged by the Indianapolis Colts and their iconic quarterback over the next three months.
And so the NFL's costliest injury ever claims two more victims. Is there any end to the resulting fallout of Peyton Manning's pain in the neck?
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we break down the NFL's 12-team playoff field from as many angles as occur to us...
The Indianapolis Colts have fired both vice chairman Bill Polian and his son, general manager Chris Polian, on Monday, SI.com's Don Banks confirmed through a source close to the situation.
1. The Saints will beat the Ravens in the Super Bowl. May as well start off with a prediction bound to lead to angry responses, right? This one's not so much an indictment of the Packers, who might be on the verge of becoming a dynasty again, as it is an admission that the Saints are really, really good. Almost all of that confidence comes from Drew Brees' continued spectacular performance. The Saints took Green Bay to the wire in Week 1. On the other side of things, even with the AFC road likely going through New England, the Steelers and Ravens have the best mixes of offense and defense. Baltimore has had Pittsburgh's number this season and looks poised to take the AFC North crown. That means the Steelers might have to win in Batimore to get to the Super Bowl, which the Ravens won't allow.
DENVER -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight in a Week 15 that fairly well turned things upside down in an NFL that officially just stopped making sense, at least for a day....
As it slowly became clear that quarterback Peyton Manning would not be healthy enough to play for the Indianapolis Colts this season, his teammates embraced the following rallying cry:
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight in a Week 14 that had more than its share of frantic finishes, like the ones that unfolded in Washington, Tennessee, Cincinnati and Detroit...
Looking ahead at three points that should be key factors in the last month of the NFL pennant race:
Don't weep for Jack Del Rio. The just-fired Jaguars head coach was playing with house money. Or at least Wayne Weaver's.
The end for coach Jack Del Rio came sooner than Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver had hoped. The owner, one of the most patient of his ilk in the NFL, had planned to make a decision on Del Rio's future at the end of the season. But the Jags had played so haplessly on offense, and Del Rio couldn't turn the ship around in any tangible way, and there was just no hope in a town that goes week-to-week to sell tickets. So Weaver fired Del Rio today in the midst of his fourth straight non-winning season -- on a day when it was also revealed that Shahid Kahn will buy the franchise and keep it in Jacksonville.
Gary Kubiak's voice sounded defeated, deflated on the phone from Jacksonville, where his team had just defeated the Jaguars with a heavy heart. For the final 31 minutes of the 20-13 victory, the Texans' quarterback was rookie T.J. Yates, playing his first NFL game. The backup quarterback: tight end Owen Daniels. Nine years ago, Daniels had thrown six passes as a redshirt freshman at Wisconsin, but now this was the Houston backup plan if Yates, suddenly the most important player on the franchise, went down.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight from a Week 12 in the NFL that helped separate the pretenders from the contenders as December looms....
In a league where the quarterback news cycle never really ends, we've got plenty to chew on again this week: Matt Schaub out for the time being and maybe longer in Houston, with Matt Leinart getting an unexpected chance to restart his career for the first-place Texans; Tyler Palko taking over for the injured Matt Cassel in Kansas City; John Skelton's continued emergence in Arizona, and his outperforming of injured starter Kevin Kolb thus far.
Only a flake would doubt the Curse of Doug Flutie.
I was talking to Houston GM Rick Smith Monday afternoon about the Texans' 7-3 start, leaving them with the AFC's top seed through 10 weeks. "People say we're in this great spot 'if the season ended today,' '' Smith told me, "and it doesn't. There's a lot of football to play. There's a lot that can happen.''
The Houston Texans had been riddled since their 2002 inception with a persistent statistical pandemic they just couldn't shake. Year after year Houston's weak, sickly defense simply could not stop opposing passers. And if you can't stop opposing passers, you can't win games in the NFL -- no matter how many stars you have on offense.
As NFL regular seasons go, the one we thought we might not have in 2011 (see lockout, protracted) hasn't been half-bad. But it is almost half gone. So as November arrives, it's time for our annual midseason review...
Like it or not, and many find it an awkward situation at best, the race in reverse that is the Andrew Luck sweepstakes will be one of the dominant and most frequently updated storylines in the second half of the NFL's 2011 season.
Seven weeks into the NFL's regular season doesn't begin to tell the whole story, but it's plenty long enough to spot the trends of underachievement surfacing in 2011. This week's Indianapolis at Tennessee game throws a spotlight of sorts on the not-getting-it-done set, what with this year's poster child of underachievement -- Titans running back Chris Johnson -- being on one sideline, and Team Underachievement, aka the winless Colts, occupying the other.
What's the biggest win in the 10 seasons of the Houston Texans?
Just two short years ago, the top story as the NFL's regular season unfolded was the Indianapolis Colts and their pursuit of a perfect record. The Colts opened that year 14-0, and then inspired a national debate by taking their foot off the gas after Christmas, choosing to rest their players for the playoffs rather than chase perfection.
We can stay past closing time, debating the leading sports region in American right now. It's a good time to be a Wisconsinite. The Brewers won a franchise-best 96 games this past season, the Packers, the defending Super Bowl champions, are currently undefeated; so are the Wisconsin Badgers, currently No. 4 in the nation. Boston might be fixated on the supernatural collapse of the Red Sox, uncovering the mystery of which pitchers consumed which caloric treats where and when. But over the past decade, Beantown teams have won titles in bulk, as if shopping at Costco. If the Rangers win the World Series, Dallas will hold another championship parade, barely four months after feting the Mavs.
Lions coach Jim Schwartz and 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh may not be best buddies these days, but they do share one thing in common -- they and their 5-1 teams are far exceeding expectations so far this season.
This is one of those where-to-begin Mondays. I could begin with Al, or with so many of his cockamamie first-round decisions combining in some bit of cosmic grid karma to make grown men cry in Houston. Or with the Raiders' NorCal neighbors beating a 3-1 team by 45 points. Or with Tim Tebow ... he may not be great, but he sure is fun to watch, and he lifted the black cloud from over the Broncos in one zany half of football. Or with the Eagles, who have gone from Dream Team to Keystone Kops in one sorry month. Or with the Packers, who cannot be stopped. Or with a tight end whose story is better than his talent, which is saying something.
Here is a buried aspect of the bye-week season: It makes jumping on the previous week's surprises a bit more tricky. You really have to be sure that one-week wonder isn't merely that and is capable of more big weeks going forward.
Of all the weird, inflated passing numbers in the first three weeks of this bombs-away NFL season, don't lose sight of one of the strangest.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Peyton Manning is still on Indianapolis' active roster and could return this season.
ColdHardFootballFacts.com breaks down Sunday's Houston at New Orleans game (1 p.m., CBS).
Week 1 is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: You never know what you're going to get.
HOUSTON -- Arizona Cardinals offensive tackle Brandon Keith is listed at 6-feet-5, 335 pounds, which means it takes considerable strength to move him once he makes up his mind to stand his ground. Yet in a preseason game against the Texans last year, Keith may as well have been a shower curtain. That's how easily defensive end Mario Williams swiped him aside on his way to the quarterback.
As always, the NFL's first Sunday provided a lot of entertainment, and some notable storylines. Andrew Perloff offers his thoughts on Week 1's early contests. Check back for his reaction to the late games when they're done.
We have seen this move from Jack Del Rio before. And strangely enough, the last time he blind-sided us by cutting his starting quarterback just days before the season opener, things worked out very well for the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
No matter that it's Labor Day and that no real games took place over the weekend. Things are happening. The NFL doesn't take a holiday when others do.
The prediction business is a foolish and risky game in the ever-changing NFL, but hey, somebody's got to do it. So here goes, 20 bold predictions as we stare down the start of the 2011 regular season:
SI.com is previewing all eight divisions throughout the week in anticipation of the 2011 season kicking off. (Send comments to siwriters@simail.com)
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we creep within 15 days of the NFL's regular-season opener in Green Bay....
SI.com has dispatched writers to report on NFL training camps across the country. For an archive of all camp postcards, click here.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we run down the winners and losers in Week 1 of the NFL's preseason. The games don't count, but the perceptions sure do....
SI.com has dispatched writers to report on NFL training camps across the country. For an archive of all camp postcards, click here.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Surveying the NFL landscape from a Maryland hotel room early on a Tuesday morning:
updated: Tue Jul 12 2011 07:27:00
Texas residents aren't shy about their love of the Lone Star state and its rich history, as CNN's Ed Lavandera reports.
So I wondered aloud last week, in a few forums, whether the Indianapolis Colts might have some second thoughts about a long-term deal with free-agent quarterback Peyton Manning, given the fact that he's 35 and has had two neck procedures in the past 16 months. I called Colts president Bill Polian last week, and didn't hear back, and I just figured the Colts were laying low on a sensitive subject.
As the NFL's labor fight rolls into a third full month, I can't imagine the lockout is more excruciating anywhere than in Houston, a city that last tasted the postseason in 1993, far and away the league's longest drought.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Blaine Gabbert shrugs when asked about the good fortune of actually having a Jaguars playbook in his possession.
While the labor skirmish drones on, let's focus on one item in Monday's column that brought some email and Twitter chatter: the move of Mario Williams from defensive end in the Texans' former 4-3 defense to a rush outside linebacker in new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips' 3-4.
Thu. Sep. 8 Saints at Packers 8:30 PM
On March 18, New England offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien flew to Fort Worth to work out TCU quarterback Andy Dalton.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Dispatches from the Jets' 17-16 last-second conquest of the Colts in an AFC first-round playoff game at Lucas Oil Stadium, a game that started ever so slowly but reached thriller status by night's end ...
Grading out the performances from the Jets' thrilling 17-16 road win over the Colts ....
After weeks of uncertainty and speculation, the end of the Vince Young era in Tennessee started coming into view for the first time on Tuesday, after Titans general manager Mike Reinfeldt and the team's executive VP/general counsel Steve Underwood returned from their end-of-the-season organizational meeting with owner Bud Adams in Houston.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we take in a 16-game NFL Sunday in which 16 teams entered game No. 16 with their Super Bowl chances still alive ...
With the NFL's postseason tournament beginning in just one week and a full 10 games figuring in on playoff berths or positioning, consider Week 17 the mad scramble before the madness.
Musings, observations and the occasional Week 16 insight as the NFL's 12-team playoff field continues to come into focus ...
Quick-hitting insight from today's 1 p.m. games ...
PITTSBURGH -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we review a captivating Week 15 of playoff-implication football ...
A special Monday night doubleheader edition of musings, observations and the occasional insight as we watch the Favre-less Vikings fall 21-3 to the road-weary Giants in Detroit, while the Ravens hang on by their fingernails to outlast the Texans 34-28 in an overtime thriller ...
CHICAGO -- Musings, observations and the occasional Week 14 insight as we take in the wild winter carnival between the cold-weather Patriots and the cold-weather Bears at the big snow globe known as Solider Field ...
Quick-hitting insight from today's 1 p.m. games ...
If you believed preseason predictions, then the NFL's Week 14 storylines illustrate just how wrong you were. Don't feel bad. No one could have expected the strange twists and numerous turns that 2010 has taken. And all of it seems to be wrapped up tidily in this week's pivotal games.
Five things we learned from the Colts' 30-28 win over the Titans on Thursday night.
Quick-hitting insight from today's 1 p.m. games ...
BALTIMORE -- Musings, observations and the occasional Week 13 insight as we await the Steelers-Ravens bi-annual bare-knuckle slugfest in the AFC North at M&T Bank Stadium Sunday night....
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