Jets take Kenrick Ellis despite pending criminal trial

Every year, a handful of NFL prospects are faced with unfortunate legal entanglements.  The New York Jets devoted a third-round pick to a player who has one.

And it’s a big one.

Per Rich Cimini of ESPNNewYork.com, defensive lineman Kenrick Ellis faces up to 20 years in prison on charges of felony assault.  The trial is set for July 12.

Ellis allegedly broke the jaw and nose of a man during an altercation on the Hampton (Va.) University campus.

The Jets are calling it a “pending legal issue,” which sounds a lot better than “possibly two decades in the clink.”

“Maybe his risk is more than others, but if we didn’t feel he’d be successful here, we wouldn’t have taken him,” G.M. Mike Tannenbaum said, per Cimini.  “It was appropriate to take him where we took him.”

Ellis declined to address the situation, in remarks distributed by the team.  “That is a pending legal issue,” Ellis said.  “I cannot really talk about that right now.  I apologize it is [still] pending.

He wouldn’t even address the status of the “pending legal issue.”  Said Ellis:  “I cannot get into it if there is a trial or anything.  I’m sorry sir.”

Ellis nevertheless thinks his problems are behind him, even if he ends up in a place where he literally may have to worry constantly about what is behind him.

“Yes I am,” he said.  “I am very confident.  A lot of things happened when I was younger.  I am not proud of it but I have learned from it.  It was a learning experience and I have learned from my mistakes.”

Though he won’t talk specifics, he has no problem admitting that, at some point in his life, he did things he shouldn’t have done.

“I am human,” Ellis said.  “I have made mistakes.  I feel like from me making these mistakes I have learned from them and have grown as a person.  I have moved on from the mistakes I have made in the past that I will never do them again.  I am a different person from who I was then. . . .

“I am not perfect.  I have made some mistakes.  At a point I realized, life is too short.  From everything I do to every mistake I made, I learn from it.  I just try to use that to make decisions in the future and make me stronger.  Given that I did make those mistakes makes me the person that I am today.  Which is a better person, much smarter, and more mature.”

Even if Ellis never makes another mistake, he possibly has made just enough of them to prevent him from ever playing pro football.  Though the maximum sentence that is attached to any charge rarely matches the ultimate sanction imposed, a ceiling of 20 years implies a floor that entails real time behind bars.

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Maybe he’s just sucking up to his new quarterback.  Or maybe he genuinely believes it.

Either way, new Ravens defensive lineman Chris Canty would take quarterback Joe Flacco over Eli Manning.

“He won a Super Bowl and he’s one of the best deep-ball passers in the NFL,” Canty said during an in-studio Friday visit to Pro Football Talk on NBCSN.  “Take a look at the tape.”

While Canty credits Eli for being “good in clutch situations when you’ve got to have that fourth-quarter drive,” Canty believes more in Flacco.

“He throws a beautiful deep ball, he throws it only where the receivers can get their hands on it,” Canty said.  “You’re talking about in the vertical passing game and they’ve got some vertical pass threats.  They got Torry Smith.  They’ve got [Dennis] Pitta.  They’ve got [Ed] Dickson.  They’ve got some good weapons for him to use down the field.”

It also was fitting that, with Canty choosing a current teammate over a former teammate as the better quarterback, Canty also picked another former teammate as his favorite quarterback to sack.  “I’m on Tony Romo more than the Dallas media,” Canty said.

For more of Canty’s foray into the national media, check out his full chat with Erik Kuselias below.

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Dr. James Andrews, the renowned surgeon who rebuilt Adrian Peterson’s knee before his MVP 2012 season, and who has said Robert Griffin III is making “superhuman” recovery from his own reconstructive knee surgery, would like everyone to understand something: Peterson and Griffin are the exception, not the rule.

Andrews told Newsday that a couple of high-profile players making great progress from torn ACLs should not be taken as a sign that a torn ACL is the kind of injury that players can always expect to shake off over the course of an offseason and come back as good as new.

“The last thing I’d want people to be thinking is people are coming back quicker and quicker,” Andrews said. “The few individuals that you know of who have come back quickly are what I call ‘superhuman’ athletes . . . There are only a few of those superhuman athletes out there. Their healing potential for some reason is much better than the average patient, but you can’t extrapolate their ability to come back from an injury to the average athlete.”

Andrews added that even the greatest of athletes can have a long and difficult rehabilitation process after a major knee surgery, and the next NFL superstar to blow out his knee won’t necessarily come back as strong as Peterson did, or as progress as quickly as Griffin seems to be.

“They’re all different,” Andrews said. “There’s still a big spectrum in how they heal and how they come back . . . It’s hard to predict recovery from an ACL surgery, and to say that we’re getting them back quicker than we used to would be false information from my standpoint.”

That’s an important reminder for fans, and for the players themselves: A player who pushes himself to come back on Peterson’s timetable is probably going to do more harm than good. Going from ACL to MVP will always be the exception, not the rule.

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Mike Ditka will be the 14th Chicago Bear to have his number retired. He will also be the last.

The Bears, who have retired the most numbers of any NFL team, have announced that they will no longer retire numbers after Ditka’s 89 is retired at a Soldier Field ceremony this season.

“If there is going to be a last one, there is no more appropriate one than 89,” Bears owner George McCaskey said in a statement.

That means great Bears like Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Richard Dent and Brian Urlacher won’t have their numbers retired, but Hampton told the Chicago Sun-Times that’s fine by him.

“It’s simple math,” Hampton said. “This is a franchise with so many great players. If everybody’s number got retired, it would diminish the honor in a way. I understand. The trap of it all is that if you played for the Bears, you’re one of many. If you played in Tampa, what is there, a handful of guys?”

It’s still possible, of course, that the Bears will change their minds and decide to honor some great player of the future. But for now, the plan in Chicago is to retire retiring numbers.

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Carson Palmer hasn’t been the Cardinals’ quarterback for long, but he already knows one thing: He loves playing for head coach Bruce Arians.

Palmer gushed about Arians to Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports, and he said he can already tell the rest of the team loves the new coach as well.

“I love the head coach,” Palmer said of Arians. “I mean, I love the head coach. He keeps it real. He already has this team wrapped around his finger. And we have some talented players in this locker room.”

Veterans like Palmer don’t often describe offseason workouts as enjoyable, but that’s the way Palmer feels in Arizona.

“When you like the coach and the guys in the locker room, and you know you can still play at a high level, and you feel like you can help take a team to a Super Bowl, and you know you’re job’s not gonna be as hard as it may have been before – it’s just fun,” Palmer said. “It’s been very fun since I’ve been here. And nobody thinks OTAs are fun.”

Nobody thinks Palmer has much of a chance to take the Cardinals to the Super Bowl, either. But Palmer thinks he and Arians are building something special together.

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In 2012, the Saints’ defense fell apart during a season marked by suspensions for the bounty program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. In 2013, one Saints player says, they’re going back to that old Gregg Williams mentality.

Minus the bounties, of course.

Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins says new defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is a lot more like Williams than he was like last year’s defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo. And Jenkins likes the toughness and aggressiveness that Ryan preaches.

“Personality-wise they are very similar,” Jenkins told the Associated Press. “They’re cut from the same cloth in that they know that players and matchups are what defense is all about and they have a lot of personality and they’re aggressive in their play-calling.”

Williams was an assistant to Rob’s dad, Buddy Ryan, and both Williams and Rob Ryan have said many times that Buddy Ryan’s influence was extremely important.

“They’re all from the same school, the Buddy Ryan defense, so there are a lot of similarities between what Gregg was running and what Rob is bringing,” Jenkins said. “But I think Rob has a few more wrinkles with the 3-4 and everything, and I think we’re going to have fun.”

Jenkins says the Saints under Ryan will have a defense that the rest of the league fears.

“There’s a line and you don’t cross it, but you want to get as close to that line as you can,” Jenkins said. “We definitely want to be a physical, feared defense.”

Williams did cross the line. But a physical, feared defense is just what the Saints want Ryan to bring.

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Rams tight end Lance Kendricks is sitting out Organized Team Activities with a knee injury.

Coach Jeff Fisher announced that Kendricks had been dealing with knee issues this offseason and ultimately a knee scope. Fisher said Kendricks is doing well, but he is not participating in OTAs as he rehabs.

A 2011 second-round draft pick, Kendricks played in all 16 games last season, starting 14, and had 42 catches for 519 yards and four touchdowns.

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In four NFL seasons, Mike Goodson has totaled 160 carries for 722 yards and three touchdowns, with seven fumbles. Those aren’t exactly the kinds of numbers that would seem to justify the three-year, $6.9 million contract the Jets gave him this offseason.

And that’s before we get into his off-field problems.

Goodson was arrested last week on drug and weapons charges, and that kind of issue arising apparently came as no surprise from NFL people who knew Goodson’s background. ESPNNewYork.com quotes a scout from another team saying of the Jets, “Do these guys do background checks?” The Jets say they do, in fact, investigate players before signing them, although they declined to comment specifically on Goodson’s past.

That past, according to ESPN, includes a slew of lawsuits over everything from child support to repeated failure to pay his rent to refusing to pay the bill after buying jewelry on credit to skipping his car payments.

Goodson has been sued by three different women for child support for a total of six children he fathered with them. He also didn’t pay a $56,465 bill at a jewelry store, and after the store sued him, the amount he owed was garnished from his Raiders paychecks. And when Goodson was playing for the Panthers, he failed to pay his rent so often that he was sued for it three times and received two eviction notices. Goodson was also sued by a man who sold him a $49,000 Mercedes and said Goodson didn’t make the payments.

So either the Jets knew all that about Goodson and wanted him anyway, or they signed him without fully exploring his background. It’s tough to say which would be worse.

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With last year’s leading receiver, Michael Crabtree, out an estimated six months with a torn Achilles tendon, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh says he’s confident someone will step up to fill the void.

Harbaugh isn’t totally sure who that “someone” will be, though.

Harbaugh said on 95.7 The Game that he believes the most likely candidates to take Crabtree’s place in the offense are last year’s first-round pick A.J. Jenkins and this year’s fourth-round pick Quinton Patton as well as Ricardo Lockette, who has never played in a game for the 49ers but spent most of last year on the roster and has reportedly looked good in practices.

“We’ll put Jenkins, Patton, Ricardo Lockette at the same position and let them compete and emerge,” Harbaugh said. “The good news is that somebody will emerge because they have to.”

Harbaugh also said he believes the 49ers have a lot of depth at the receiver position.

“Then on the other side, Anquan Boldin, Chad Hall, Marlon Moore has been doing some really nice things in the offseason,” Harbaugh said. “Joe Hastings will compete on the other side. Kyle Williams eventually will come back from his injury. He’s doing real well, coming along very nicely. And Mario Manningham — probably a little bit later than Kyle, but he’s on track to be healed up and ready to go, as well. A real good chance for some young guys to emerge, get some reps and contribute. I very much anticipate that will happen.”

For the 49ers, it needs to happen. Crabtree was the 49ers’ best wide receiver and a big reason that Colin Kaepernick settled into the starting quarterback job so smoothly last year. He won’t be easy to replace, but the 49ers have no choice but to find someone who can do it.

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Former Bears, Lions and Rams defensive tackle Dick Evey passed away Thursday at age 72 in Knoxville, Tennessee, multiple media outlets reported.

A three-time letter winner at Tennessee, Evey was the Bears’ first-round pick in 1964 (No. 14 overall). He played six seasons for Chicago before moving on to Detroit (1970) and Los Angeles (1971) to finish out his career.

At the time, Evey was Tennessee’s fourth-ever first-round pick and its first since 1953, when the Browns took future Hall of Famer Doug Atkins. Evey and Atkins were teammates for Evey’s first three seasons in Chicago.

Evey’s daughter told the Knoxville News Sentinel that her father, who suffered from an illness, was a member of the 88 Plan, a program designed to help retired NFL players pay for the treatment of medical conditions such as dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Dave Costa a four-time AFL All-Star in the 1960s, has died at the age of 71, according to the Broncos’ website.

A defensive tackle from Utah, Costa was selected by the Rams in the 1963 NFL draft and by the Raiders in the 1963 AFL draft. Costa ultimately decided to go with the Raiders, where he came in second place in AFL Rookie of the Year voting.

Costa had his most successful seasons in Denver, where he played from 1967 to 1971 and was chosen to the AFL All-Star team in each of his first three seasons. Costa played for the Chargers in 1972 and 1973 and finished his career with the Bills in 1974.

In all five of his seasons with the Broncos, Costa was chosen as the team’s defensive captain.

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A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed by two massage therapists against Brett Favre, the Associated Press reported Friday.

The lawsuit stemmed from allegations that Favre, who played for the Jets in 2008, sent suggestive text messages sent to one of the masseuses. The Jets and another club employee were also named in the suit.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed by the therapists’ attorney, according to the AP.

The Jets released Favre, who indicated he was retiring, after the 2008 season. However, the quarterback came out of retirement to play for the Vikings in 2009 and 2010.

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Washington coach Mike Shanahan says quarterback Robert Griffin III isn’t just a good young quarterback. Griffin is, according to Shanahan, a unique talent who has the potential to be the best ever to play the game.

Shanahan told Albert Breer of NFL Network that players like Griffin come along so rarely that a blockbuster trade like the one Washington pulled off to draft Griffin is a bargain.

“That’s why you give up two 1s and a No. 2 for him. You give those things up because you see something very, very special,” he said. “You see what type of athlete he is and what type of ability he has. He can make every throw on the field, he’s extremely bright, he’s got great work ethic, and he’s got passion for the game. Those are the things you look for. Now, the rest is taking it to the field.”

Most quarterbacks improve significantly in their ability to read NFL defenses and run NFL offenses after their rookie seasons, but Shanahan said that even if Griffin doesn’t get any better, he’ll be one of the all-time greats simply by playing the way he played last season.

“If Robert plays like he did [in 2012] the rest of his career,” Shanahan said, “he’ll go down as one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game.”

That’s high praise, but it’s not unreasonable to think that Griffin can be a truly great player. Which is why Shanahan’s No. 1 priority has to be making sure Griffin gets healthy and stays healthy.

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While it’s probably too soon to claim progress, considering the two sides haven’t agreed on much to date, there is at least some movement between the NFL and the NFLPA on HGH testing.

According to Albert Breer of the NFL Network, the league submitted a new proposal in April which will keep alive the hope for player testing in 2013.

The proposal reportedly did not include game-day testing, which was part of previous NFL suggestions.

Union officials relayed the news to player representatives this week on a conference call, and they’re working on a counter-proposal which could be in the league’s hands in the next week.

Considering the contentious nature of previous talks, it’s probably wise to take this one with a grain of salt.

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Everyone’s looking ahead to the Memorial Day weekend, but there’s still some business to do before everyone heads out to enjoy the next few days.

One of those things still on the to-do list is the Friday edition of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN. Ravens defensive tackle Chris Canty will join Erik Kuselias for a conversation about his adjustment to Baltimore after playing for the Giants the last few years. We’ll find out how Canty thinks the defense is coming together after losing several key contributors from last year’s team and whether his experience with the Giants last season gives him any insight into the best ways to defend a Super Bowl title.

With Mike Florio off in Cleveland waiting for his close-up, Pete Najarian will join Kuselias to round up all the biggest news from around the league this week.

It all gets started at 5 p.m ET on NBCSN.

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The news of Rams guard Rokevious Watkins‘ one-game suspension for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy seemed to come at the worst possible time for the second-year guard.

After showing up to camp overweight last year, Watkins was able to win the starting left guard job but an ankle injury in the first week wound up wiping out the rest of his season. The suspension this year is just for one game, but it’s hardly a pattern of reliability for a player the Rams were looking to as a starter on the offensive line this year.

It doesn’t sound like the team’s lost their faith in him, however. Coach Jeff Fisher wouldn’t offer any details about why Watkins was suspended, but he did say that he thinks the league erred in suspending his player.

“I’ll say this, we’ve been aware of it for quite some time,” Fisher said, via Joe Lyons of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I’m not going to go into specifics of the suspension. We respect the league’s decision, but personally and respectfully, I disagree with the suspension and the circumstances regarding the suspension. That’s my opinion, but we’ll honor the league’s decision.”

Players in the substance-abuse program who test positive are usually suspended for four games, which suggests Watkins violated the policy in another way. That could mean an arrest or other run-in with the authorities, although those details mean less going forward for the Rams than Fisher’s willingness to go on the record in support of his guard.