Chuck Pagano proud of team, fans after Sunday’s win

AP

The Colts made it pretty clear that they were playing with coach Chuck Pagano on their minds on Sunday against the Packers when owner Jim Irsay took a game ball directly to Pagano’s hospital room after the 30-27 comeback win over Green Bay.

Pagano, as you’d imagine, was pretty pleased by the way his team came back from 21-3 down to get a win in their first game since Pagano’s leukemia diagnosis. Pagano shared some of his glee in an email to the Indianapolis Star and reading it makes it easy to imagine the celebration that must have happened in Pagano’s hospital room after Mason Crosby’s field goal sailed wide.

“I am so proud of this team, staff, organization, fans, community, etc. (I) could go on and on. I am the luckiest man in the world. I said it when I got this opportunity several months ago and I am repeating it now. The 12th man came through big time along with the TEAM THAT REFUSED TO LOSE. FAMILY!!!! TEAM TEAM TEAM. COMMUNITY.”

We went with a picture of Cedric Benson warming up before the game in a t-shirt with the Chuckstrong message of support for Pagano because the Packers deserve a tip of the cap for wearing those shirts along with the Colts during warmups on Sunday. A classy gesture by the team for a guy who has a lot of people pulling for him in and out of Indianapolis.

AP

Jerry Jones wouldn’t speak specifically about the team’s decision to release Lucky Whitehead, but the Cowboys owner clearly was bothered by criticism of it.

“I’m not going to talk about Lucky,” Jones said Tuesday night, via David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. “I’m going to talk about players.

“I’ve never talked to a player that I didn’t have empathy. If you all [media] have done one thing in my time to criticize me, it is how I will back up a player to a fault. You’ve done it. You’ve done it for years. I will back them up to a fault.”

Jones became emotional as he continued.

“So when we do make a decision around here that’s in the best interest of the team to move on, there’s one thing you can forget about and that is whether you’re being fair or whether you’ve given it consideration of what it means to the individual,” Jones said. “That doesn’t happen around here.

“Thank you guys.”

Virginia police cleared Whitehead of a bogus shoplifting charge but not before the Cowboys decided to release him. Whitehead appeared on the NFL’s transactions Tuesday.

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Tamba Hali went on Facebook Live to clear the air Tuesday night, saying his frustration stems from his desire to win. The Chiefs linebacker talked for almost six minutes, clarifying a series of angry tweets he had over the weekend about a lack of playing time in the playoff loss to the Steelers.

The social media rant was not well received by Chiefs coach Andy Reid, who criticized Hali for airing his grievances publicly.

“Over the weekend, we had a little bit of typing going, expressing my thoughts and my feelings, how I feel about situations,” Hali said. “I think it got blown out of proportion. All I was trying to say is, at the end of the day, I love the game. I want to bring the Kansas City Chiefs a championship. I’ve been here going on my 12th year, and I’ve always wanted to win a championship, and I’ve always given it my all. I’ve always wanted to win a championship, and I’ve always been a part of the equation. What happened last year is I just wanted to win. I think anyone can bear with me and understand that the frustration of losing a game in the playoffs and barely playing. Being a competitor, you just want to win. That was basically what the rant was about.”

Hali played only seven snaps in the team’s playoff loss to the Steelers. He started only two games last season, making 3.5 sacks, the second-fewest of his career, as Dee Ford and Justin Houston solidified starting roles.

Hali said he has talked to the Chiefs and vowed to show up on time for his 12th season.

“I’m all in,” Hali said. “All the guys at the Chiefs understand that I’m one of those guys who loves to compete, and I will continue to compete at a high level. . . .I don’t feel like I’m done. I just want to know where we’re going.”

Hali has appeared in six playoff games in his career, winning only one. He wants a championship before he’s done, and Hali knows time is running out.

“I’m not getting younger,” Hali said. “When I was young, I actually felt like I could play this game forever. Reality has struck. It’s not going to happen that way. I’m not going to play the game forever. There’s going to come a day when I have to be done playing. But time is running out. For us to win a championship, I think coach Reid and his staff has assembled some of the best coaches and players on this team so we can ahead and make a run. We just need to make sure everybody is on board and understand what’s at stake here. It’s real serious business when it comes to football and me. Some people don’t take it that serious. I do.

“. . .I just wanted to clear the air. I’m not looking for more money. I’m not looking for that. I’m not looking for this. I just want to win.”

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Carson Wentz hosted eight of the Eagles’ receivers in North Dakota as they worked and hung out for three days. The most important wideout for him to establish timing with is Alshon Jeffery.

The free agent addition immediately becomes the best receiver Wentz ever has had.

“It’s really nice having a guy like Alshon, not only catch radius, but he has some of the strongest hands I’ve ever seen,” Wentz said, via Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “The thing with Alshon and I, we just have to keep building that chemistry, building that relationship. … You can just see, he’s kind of a different animal, throwing the ball to him. He can cover some ground. It’s nice to have a guy like that.”

The Eagles ranked 24th in red-zone touchdown percentage last season, converting only 27 of 55 possessions inside the opponents’ 20-yard line into touchdowns. They scored field goals on 22 red-zone possessions.

“Alshon has tremendous ball skills,’’ quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo said. “The way he can track a football in the air, go up with one hand and get a ball. The thing that’s very comforting for a quarterback is when a receiver has a big catch radius, where you don’t have to be pinpoint-accurate all the time, because it’s hard. There’s a guy in your face. You’re trying to find lanes. When you can throw a guy open and feel confident that he’s going to be able to extend his hands outside his body to catch the football, that gives you a lot of confidence as a quarterback.’’

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An Ann Arbor, Mich., jury found Cowboys rookie cornerback Jourdan Lewis not guilty of domestic assault, according to John Counts of mlive.com. After a little more than an hour of deliberation, a six-member jury determined Lewis did not criminally assault this girlfriend in March.

Per Counts, Lewis did not take the stand, but jurors heard his side of the story in a video recording of his initial interview with police. Lewis’ girlfriend, Nikole Miller, woke him up when she arrived home to find him asleep with the lights on, angering her. Lewis hit her with the pillow he was sleeping on.

“The pillow I was on, I hit her with it,” he said at one point, but also saying at another point that he “threw” the pillow at her.

Lewis was adamant to police that he didn’t strike her with his hands at any point. Instead, Lewis said Miller struck him after he called her a derogatory name.

Miller initially told police Lewis squeezed her neck when he held her down, but when she was interviewed a second time, that detail changed, according to testimony.

Police officers testified that the apartment didn’t appear in disarray as they would expect in an altercation.

Lewis will join his teammates in Oxnard, Calif., after missing the first two days of practice.

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Chiefs defensive end Tamba Hali expressed his displeasure with the team on Twitter, but Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith isn’t concerned.

That’s partially because Smith believes Hali has proven he’ll always be there for his teammates when it counts, and partially because Smith couldn’t care less about social media at all.

“I didn’t read all of them,” Smith said of Hali’s tweets. “I did hear about it. To be honest, I don’t think it is a huge deal, I don’t want to turn it into anything big. I think Tamba is one of the most unique teammates I have ever had and I mean that in a good way. He is a guy that says what’s on his mind. He is honest. He is sincere. I think I appreciate that about him. Sometimes there are things that are said that just comes out. So, to be honest, I don’t think it is a big deal. I don’t think it’s anything anyone has to worry about. This locker room is as drama free as they come, so I don’t think it will be an issue.”

Smith said he’s personally not on social media, so he doesn’t get involved in the drama that surrounds social media.

“I kind of missed that wave,” Smith said. “That wave passed me by. I remember coming into the league and MySpace was big. I didn’t get on that train and then the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all roads passed me. At this point it is kind of refreshing.”

So we will never see Smith complain about the Chiefs on Twitter. Or on MySpace.

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Ravens running back Kenneth Dixon underwent knee surgery Tuesday that was expected to keep him out 6-8 weeks. Instead, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Dixon will miss the season.

Dixon needed his medial meniscus repaired, not trimmed, requiring a 4-5 month recovery time, according to Rapoport. It was Dixon’s third knee injury in the past 12 months.

Dixon was set to miss the first four games for violating the league’s performance enhancing drug policy.

The Ravens already agreed to terms with Bobby Rainey to take Dixon’s place in camp. Terrance West and Danny Woodhead are the team’s top running backs with Buck Allen and Lorenzo Taliaferro (who is seeing time at fullback as well) also in the mix.

AP

The 49ers expect rookie linebacker Reuben Foster to be a full participant for the start of training camp, according to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee.

San Francisco took a cautious approach with Foster in the spring as he rehabbed from shoulder surgery, holding him out of team practices.

During the draft, some teams worried about the February surgery Foster underwent to repair his right rotator cuff. He feel to 31st, where the 49ers were comfortable in selecting him.

Foster has remained at the team training facility after the offseason program ended.

He will compete with Malcolm Smith at weakside linebacker.

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The Raiders placed linebacker Ben Heeney and tight end Cooper Helfet on the non-football injury list Tuesday.

Heeney ended last season on injured reserve after a Week Four ankle injury, but a non-football injury would indicate this is a different injury. Heeney did not fully participate in the team’s offseason program.

Heeney began last season as the starting middle linebacker, but he lost his job after two games and tore the deltoid ligament in his right ankle two weeks later.

Helfet signed with the Raiders’ practice squad last October. He played 24 games with the Seahawks in 2014-15, with 25 career receptions for 315 yards and two touchdowns.

The Raiders can activate either player at any time.

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The Bengals decided not to part ways with cornerback Adam Jones this offseason after he was arrested in January after an altercation at a Cincinnati hotel, but team owner Mike Brown says that parting ways with Jones did come up for discussion.

Jones pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor to settle the case and was suspended one game by the league last week. Brown said Jones “has misstepped from time to time,” but that he admires many things about the player and said he made the call to keep him on the team.

“I’m not going to say something wasn’t discussed, something wasn’t considered,” Brown said, via Joe Kay of the Associated Press. “But what we did is what we did, and I’ll take responsibility for it. We’ll see how it turns out in the end. It if turns out well, I’ll be pleased. If it doesn’t, then blame me.”

The topic of drafting running back Joe Mixon also came up during the team’s preseason luncheon and Brown, who previously wrote a letter explaining the Mixon pick that was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer, said he doesn’t “see what’s served by denying someone his opportunity.”

Bob Costas didn’t share the same view during an appearance on CNN last weekend when he said that the Bengals “seem to have been running a halfway house for miscreants” at points in their history. Brown took issue with that (and showed his age) by saying he isn’t “Ma Barker” and that the team does not have “the James boys and Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger” in their locker room.

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While researchers admit their methodology isn’t exact and they’re not predicting rates for the future, the latest study regarding the link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy shows a strong correlation.

Via Rick Maese of the Washington Post, researchers at Boston University who are studying brains donated by families of former NFL players said that 110 of the 111 donations showed signs of CTE.

While that’s not a random sample reflecting the entire sport (the donations come largely from players who were struggling with some issue or had committed suicide), the big numbers do alarm those studying the issue.

“Obviously, this doesn’t represent the prevalence in the general population, but the fact that we’ve been able to gather this high a number of cases in such a short period of time says that this disease is not uncommon,” neuropathologist Ann McKee said. “In fact, I think it’s much more common than we currently realize. And more importantly, this is a problem in football that we need to address and we need to address now in order to bring some hope and optimism to football players.”

All told, the Boston University study covered 202 brains donated by families of men who had played some level of football. CTE was discovered in 177 of them (87 percent). The 99 percent of former NFL players was the highest level. The study also showed CTE in 3-of-14 who played at the high school level (21.4 percent), 48-of-53 who played in college (90.6 percent), 9-of-14 who competed semiprofessionally (64.3 percent) and 7-of-8 who played in the CFL (87.5).

McKee said the study provides: “overwhelming circumstantial evidence that CTE is linked to football.”

The league has pledged to devote $100 million and resources toward the effort, and spoke at the league meetings this spring about specific research into helmet safety.

“We appreciate the work done by Dr. McKee and her colleagues for the value it adds in the ongoing quest for a better understanding of CTE,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement provided to PFT. “Case studies such as those compiled in this updated paper are important to further advancing the science and progress related to head trauma. The medical and scientific communities will benefit from this publication and the NFL will continue to work with a wide range of experts to improve the health of current and former NFL athletes. As noted by the authors, there are still many unanswered questions relating to the cause, incidence and prevalence of long-term effects of head trauma such as CTE.  The NFL is committed to supporting scientific research into CTE and advancing progress in the prevention and treatment of head injuries.

“In 2016, the NFL pledged $100 million in support for independent medical research and engineering advancements in neuroscience related topics. This is in addition to the $100  million that the NFL and its partners are already spending on medical and neuroscience research.”

The authors of the studies have admitted some limitations, pointing out that the game has changed in recent years from equipment changes to rules. But the sheer size of the numbers still stand as worthy of further study.

AP

The Jaguars may not be sure if Blake Bortles is their quarterback for the long term, but they seem to be pretty certain that Brandon Linder is the guy they want snapping the ball.

Jacksonville announced that they have signed starting center Brandon Linder to a five-year extension.

“It was something we wanted to get done so now we can just ball,” Linder said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union. “We knew after OTAs we wanted to talk. In the past two weeks [we] got some traction.”

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the Jaguars have signed their starting center to the deal is worth up to $51.7 million. The deal also reportedly includes $24 million in guaranteed money.

Linder’s deal puts him at the very top of the salary scale for centers with his average salary per year coming in above what Travis Frederick got in his 2016 extension from the Cowboys.

Linder, who was selected in the third round of the 2014 draft, opened his career at guard in Jacksonville before moving over to center last season. He made 14 starts and it would appear he made a strong impression on Doug Marrone, who was his position coach before moving up to head coach after Gus Bradley was fired last season.

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Former Cowboys defensive end Willie Townes died Saturday, according to Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News.

Townes, 74, had a recent heart attack and later was discovered to have pancreatic cancer. He was under hospice care at his Dallas-area home.

Townes is best known for his sack of Bart Starr in the Ice Bowl, forcing a fumble in a game that decided the 1967 NFL championship. George Andrie scored on the 7-yard fumble return, though the Packers won 21-17.

“He came home from the Ice Bowl and his hands were still frozen,” Sandra Clark, Townes’ ex-wife, told Horn. “Then the skin began peeling off. They hurt him for the rest of his life. But Willie had a high threshold for pain.”

Townes played five seasons, four with the Cowboys and one with the Saints, including the 1969 season he missed with an injury.

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The Lions did not win the NFC North in 2016. But if you shop at TJ Maxx in Chesterfield Township, Michigan, you can get a shirt that claims they did.

The store says it received the shirts, which were printed when the Lions were in NFC North contention but not intended to be sold after the Lions lost to the Packers in the last game of the season, by mistake.

“As you know, it is a fairly common practice that vendors print team sports t-shirts in advance of an important game anticipating a winning outcome,” Doreen Thompson, vice president of global communication for the TJX Companies, wrote in an email to the Detroit Free Press. “In this instance, we believe that one of our vendors may have inadvertently included the Detroit Lions t-shirt in with other goods intended for our local area stores. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the normal procedure for officially licensed merchandise bearing the wrong team’s name is for it to be shipped to charities in other countries. In this case, a mistake was made.

“A limited number of shirts are printed in advance for a variety of clubs,” McCarthy wrote. “We’ve been in contact with the manufacturer to ensure these shirts are pulled.”

The shirts were on sale for $4.99, and could make a great gift for the Lions fan in your life, alongside the 2013 team calendar.

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The Panthers are down to one Charles Johnson on the roster.

The team announced on Tuesday that they have waived wide receiver Charles Johnson with an injury designation. The wideout, who signed with the team this offseason, had surgery on his right knee.

Johnson spent the last three seasons with the Vikings and caught 60 passes for 834 yards and two touchdowns.

The Panthers also announced that they have waived defensive end Ryan Delaire after a failed physical. He played six games last season and ended the year on injured reserve with a knee injury.

Carolina also signed center Greg Van Roten, who played in 10 games with the Packers during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. He has also spent time with the Seahawks, Jaguars and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts.

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The Saints are signing offensive lineman Kristjan Sokoli, his agent, Brett Tessler, tweeted.

Sokoli was a sixth-round pick of the Seahawks in 2015 and has played offensive line and defensive line. He played eight plays, all on special teams, as a rookie.

The Seahawks waived Sokoli on Aug. 30, 2016, and the Colts signed him to their practice squad as a defensive end on Sept. 26. He was promoted to the active roster on Dec. 19. The Colts waived him June 15.

The Saints will try Sokoli in the offensive line, according to Tessler.