Jerry Jones: Cowboys “running out of time” for playoff run

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You don’t get as rich as Jerry Jones without being good at math.

So when the Cowboys owner looks at his 5-6 team, he realizes time is drawing short if they’re going to make the postseason.

But on his weekly radio show on KRLD-FM, Jones also suggested there are other goals at play as well, goals which sound vaguely Shanahan-ian in meaning.

“Getting it right? We do, yes,” Jones said when asked if the Cowboys have time to fix their season (via ESPNDallas.com). “We’re running out of time as to the playoffs. Do we have enough time? It’s numerically possible, but you got to really step out here this week and do the right things to win a ballgame on the field. You have time to do that.

“Certainly you want to be going into the final weeks of the season, . . . [and] playing at an uptick to play well in the playoffs. But there’s another reason why you want to be playing well, too. You want to be playing well so you can basically look at your core and see where you are with your core and evaluate your core as far as seasons to come.”

While not as blatant as Redskins coach Mike Shanahan’s “evaluate” comments after their loss to the Panthers, it does illustrate an eye toward the future.

In the offseason, all the talk was about “windows,” and if this team doesn’t make a push, Jones may come to the realization it’s already closed.

“I thought we’d be better than this,” said Jones, “although I do realize the kind of competition we have in the league. We got nine teams that are 5-6 or 6-5 in the NFL right now. I knew we were in a league that has a lot of competition, but I thought we would be better.”

He always does. And they haven’t been. Which makes you wonder how long a leash this core has.

AP

It seems like the Scouting Combine was forever ago, but some prospects are heading back to Indianapolis for one of the final steps in the pre-draft process.

According to Tom Pelissero of USA Today, Oregon State defensive end Scott Crichton is among a group of players going back to Indy for a medical re-check.

Players are given vigorous and thorough examinations at the Combine, and teams view those checks as the main benefit of the event. Any players with red flags then are brought back in for a re-check later.

Crichton had a stinger, which was the reason he has to head back, but said he had no serious neck issues.

Assuming the physical confirms that, Crichton could be a second-round selection.

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The NFL Draft kicks off two weeks from tonight and we’ll be looking ahead to it on Thursday’s PFT Live.

Former NFL defensive back Corey Chavous of DraftNasty.com will join Mike Florio to break down the latest about what he’s hearing about how things will play out over three days next month. They’ll take a look at players who could go earlier and later than expected, profile some lesser known prospects and more when Chavous drops by the show.

The NFL schedule was released on Wednesday night and we’d like to hear what PFT Planet thinks about it, the draft and everything else in the NFL. Florio will be responding to those thoughts during the show, so send them in on Twitter — @ProFootballTalk — or give a call to 888-237-5269 to share what’s on your mind. 

Whether you have a question or not, it all gets started at noon ET and you can watch it all live by clicking right here.

AP

In the aftermath of Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s on-field tirade against 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree after the NFC title game, Sherman vowed to stop belittling other players.

Now, Sherman is singing a different tune.

In January, in an item that he wrote for TheMMQB.com, Sherman suggested that he’d be turning a new leaf when it comes to verbally tearing opponents a new orifice.

“No one has ever made himself great by showing how small someone else is,” Sherman wrote at the time.  “That’s not mine.  It belongs to Irvin Himmel.  Somebody tweeted it at me after the NFC Championship Game.  If I could pass a lesson on to the kids it would be this:  Don’t attack anybody.  I shouldn’t have attacked Michael Crabtree the way I did.  You don’t have to put anybody else down to make yourself bigger.”

On Wednesday, Sherman expressed no remorse for his verbal assault on Crabtree.

“I don’t regret anything,” Sherman said during a panel discussion at Harvard Business School, via Ben Volin of the Boston Globe.  “People said I had no class.  What is class in sports?  What exactly is it?  Do I say great game and go cookie cutter?  No.  I don’t think he played a great game. . . .  If it was Larry [Fitzgerald], and the same situation happened, I wouldn’t have said a thing.  Because I respect Larry.”

So which is it, Richard?  Have you learned not to put someone else down?  Or would you — and will you — do it again, to Crabtree and others whom you deem to be unworthy of your respect?

Often inappropriately, Sherman has been called many things in recent months.  One thing he can’t currently be called is consistent.

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Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar says concussions suffered during his NFL career have caused him to develop a speech problem, which in turn led to his dismissal as the color commentator for Browns preseason games.

“I was informed yesterday by the Cleveland Browns and WKYC that I have been replaced as a 2014 preseason game day color commentator,” Kosar said in a statement, via Tom Reed of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I believe that this decision stems from my slurred speech impairment, which is a direct result of the many concussions I received while playing in the NFL.”

Kosar’s slurred speech was noticeable when he was hired for the job, however, which raises the question of why he would get fired for it now if the Browns and WKYC didn’t have any problem with his speech at the time they hired him. It seems much more likely that Kosar’s unprofessional comments during a preseason game last year, and the DUI Kosar got a month later, caused the Browns and WKYC to conclude that he’s not someone they want representing them.

But Kosar believes he’s the right person for the job.

“I would hope that WKYC would reconsider utilizing my in-game talents and overlook my concussion-induced impairment,” Kosar said.

That’s probably not going to happen. But Kosar’s comments will, if nothing else, cause the lawyers for the Browns and the NFL to take notice: At a time when concussion litigation is a major concern in pro football, this is a prominent former player claiming that concussions are costing him the opportunity to make a living now that his playing days are over.

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Several players picked in the first round of the 2011 draft have already found out whether or not their teams will be exercising options for the fifth year of their contracts by May 3, but others are still waiting to see what will happen.

Browns defensive tackle Phil Taylor is in the latter group and he knows what he wants the Browns to do. Taylor would like to have his option, which would set him up to make about $5.5 million, exercised so that he can remain in Cleveland.

“I would love to be here, but that’s not up to me,” Taylor said, via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal. “So we’re going to wait and see what [the front office] is going to do about it.”

Taylor started 15 games last season, but only played 555 snaps as a two-down player used to thwart opposing running games. The switch to Mike Pettine as head coach will bring a different defensive look and could bring Taylor more playing time, but, obviously, Cleveland has to make a call on Taylor before they see how he fits into the new scheme. That option is guaranteed against injury only, which gives the Browns some flexibility but they may prefer the freedom to hold off on any call until the season has played out.

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The CFL has popped up on our radar a few times in recent weeks.

Wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is trying to keep his professional football career going in Montreal and he may be catching passes from former Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein, who is trying to get his own pro career going after being ignored by the NFL last year. The Alouettes aren’t the only team adding familiar names to their roster, though.

The Edmonton Eskimos signed former West Virginia and Dolphins quarterback Pat White last month and now one of his former college teammates has also decided to try his luck in the land of poutine and Labatt’s.

The Toronto Argonauts have announced the signing of former Texans and Dolphins running back Steve Slaton. Slaton’s career started with a bang — 1,282 rushing yards and 10 total touchdowns as a rookie for the Texans in 2008, but lost his starting job the next year and it has been a while since we’ve seen Slaton on the field. He was let go by the Dolphins before the start of the 2012 season and wasn’t part of a team in 2013 either, leaving the 28-year-old with few options that didn’t include using his passport.

Slaton joins former Falcon Jerious Norwood in the backfield for the Argonauts.

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One of the many areas for potential pissing and moaning about the perceived unfairness of the schedule comes from the bye weeks.  Specifically, from the teams that have to play multiple other teams who had two weeks to prepare for the game.

This year, the bye week short straw goes to the Colts, who face three different teams after those teams had bye weeks.

Specifically, the Colts face the Giants after their Week Eight bye, the Patriots after their Week 10 bye, and the Jaguars after their Week 11 bye.  The good news/bad news for the Colts is that they also have a Week 10 bye, which means that the Pats won’t have an advantage when it comes to preparation.  Of course, this means that the Colts won’t get two weeks to prepare for a team that has only one week to get ready to face the Colts.

The Colts have a fourth situation in which an opponent has extra time to get ready.  Ten days before their Week 17 game at Tennessee, the Titans play on a Thursday night.

Other teams with multiple post-bye opponents include the Patriots (Bengals and Colts), the Chargers (Chiefs and Raiders in consecutive weeks), the Packers (Dolphins and Bears), the Bears (Packers and Vikings in consecutive weeks), the Vikings (Panthers and Buccaneers), the Buccaneers (Redskins and Falcons), the Saints (Ravens and Steelers), and the Cardinals (Broncos and Eagles).

With eight teams facing two teams each after byes and the Colts facing three, that leaves 10 teams who’ll play the full season without facing a team that had two weeks to get ready.  They are the Jets, Bengals, Steelers, Jaguars, Texans, Cowboys, Falcons, Panthers, Seahawks, and 49ers.

Yes, the Seahawks and the 49ers, regarded by many as the best two teams in the NFL, won’t have to face a team that had a week to prepare until, at the earliest, the divisional round of the playoffs.  If/when (when) they both make it that far.

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After 21 seasons as the Lions’ kicker, Jason Hanson retired in 2013. Now he’s back. Sort of.

The 43-year-old Hanson would probably be a better option than either of the two kickers currently under contract to the Lions, John Potter and Giorgio Tavecchio. But when the Lions brought Hanson to their minicamp this week, it wasn’t to lure him out of retirement. It was because special teams coordinator John Bonamego wanted to get Hanson’s perspective on how the Lions’ two young kickers looked.

“He just wanted another set of eyes for the guys they want to kick,” Hanson told the Lions’ website. “He wanted my opinion – somebody else to give feedback to him. They have a short time to look at the guys, to see if they feel they have the guys they want or if they want to look at other people. . . . I appreciate that he wants another set of eyes. While I’m out there, they’re asking me stuff. I’m glad to help them any way I can.”

Hanson added, however, that there’s only so much you can tell from watching a kicker at a minicamp. After all, there are lots of guys who can boot 50-plus-yard field goals in practice. The key is finding a kicker who can do it consistently, when a game is on the line.

“Here’s the problem: everybody’s good,” Hanson said. “If you brought them in, they’re good.”

Unfortunately for the Lions, it’s unlikely they’ll find any kicker as good as Hanson, one of the best in NFL history.

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The Falcons’ dismal 2013 season was marked by injuries to several of their key players, including linebacker Sean Weatherspoon.

Weatherspoon missed seven games with a foot injury that put him on injured reserve for half the season and then he missed the final two weeks of the season after hurting his right knee. Weatherspoon didn’t need surgery, but he had platelet rich plasma therapy and said that the team is easing him back into the mix because he hasn’t fully recovered from the knee injury at this point.

“I’m feeling good. It’s been a process,” Weatherspoon said, via Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. “The season was rough. I’ve been feeling pretty good, though. I’ve been working with the training staff non-stop, about four or five days a week. Just been getting after it, doing whatever I can do to get my body feeling good so I can, you know, get back to where I’m feeling where I’m at my top [form]. … I feel, I would say, probably 80 percent. I’m working hard and just looking forward to getting back to 100 [percent].”

The Falcons are taking a similarly restrained approach with wide receiver Julio Jones‘ return from last year’s foot injury and getting both players back to full speed in time for next season will be vital to their chances of bouncing back into the playoff mix.

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There are overhauls, and then there’s what the Buccaneers did to the roster this offseason.

The Bucs hired a new General Manager (Jason Licht) and a new coach (Lovie Smith), dumped their most expensive player (Darrelle Revis) and a talented-but-troubled wide receiver (Mike Williams).

They also brought in free agents in droves, giving the team a new look to go with their new uniforms.

With Josh McCown in place at quarterback, the Bucs might use their top pick to fill other needs, but franchise passers are hard to pass, if they think this class contains one.

They do have sufficient needs that trusting McCown for a year might be the prudent call. You can read the full preview by clicking right here, and tell us in the poll below which direction they should lean.

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The 2014 schedule taps the Cowboys and the Bears to play on consecutive Thursdays, against other foes on Thanksgiving and each other seven days later.

As it turns out, it’s not unprecedented.

In 2007, the Packers and Cowboys got together in Dallas on a Thursday night, seven days after the Packers played in Detroit and the Cowboys hosted the Jets on Thanksgiving.

The Cowboys won the battle of 10-1 teams, which created a ton of interest in the then-two-year-old NFL Network Thursday night package but also resulted in criticism of the relegation of a great game to cable TV.

It’s likely the Packers-Cowboys game has become largely forgotten because of another NFL Network game from later in the year that was sufficiently significant to prompt the league to simulcast it on NBC and CBS.

On the final weekend of the regular season, the Patriots faced the Giants for a game that had zero playoff ramifications but extreme historical implications.  The undefeated Patriots edged the Giants, 38-35, becoming the first team in league history to complete the regular season with a 16-0 record.

For the Giants, the shot of confidence that came from giving the Patriots all they could handle helped fuel a postseason run that included wins at Dallas, at Green Bay, and in the Super Bowl over the Patriots, stopping them from a 19-0 finish to the season.

At a time when Seahawks fans may be rightfully grousing about the lack of prime-time home games beyond Week One (that’s what happens when Oliver Reed’s advice from Gladiator is ignored), it could be worse.

Peter King of TheMMQB.com explains that the runner-up to the final schedule had the defending champions playing three road games in a row, with trips to St. Louis, Washington, and Kansas City.

The game at FedEx Field would have occurred on a Monday night, requiring the Seahawks to play only six days later at Arrowhead Stadium.

Per King, that’s 11,010 air miles over a 15-day stretch.  It’s quite possible, if not likely, that the Seahawks would have dipped into owner Paul Allen’s vast resources and set up shop somewhere east of the Mississippi for all or part of the fortnight plus a day away from the Pacific Northwest.

Still, extra days away from home would have been an extra burden for a team that already has plenty of schedule disruptions, thanks to its status as the defending NFL champions.

NFL senior V.P./broadcasting Howard Katz admitted that, absent a better schedule, the league quite possibly would have gone with that one.

“I think so,” Katz told King.  “We didn’t want to.  We were hopeful that we’d find a better one.  I think we would have, and we did.  If we had to play it, I think we would have had an interesting discussion with Roger [Goodell] about it.  We had many interesting discussions in this room about it — whether it was a fatal flaw or not.  I didn’t deem it fatal, but we were hoping we could find a way out of it.”

They ultimately did, balancing the various conflicts and other factors and sifting through more than 500,000 possible schedules and coming up with a winner after Katz and three others (NFL V.P./broadcating Onnie Bose, NFL senior manager of broadcasting Jonathan Payne, and NFL senior director of broadcasting Michael North) spent 70 days working hard to come up with a winner.

It’s in many ways a thankless job, with inevitable criticism no matter how much time and effort is spent to make the process as fair as possible for all 32 teams.  And the criticism will come from fans or players or front offices that don’t like one thing or another about a given team’s schedule.  Last year, the Bills complained about facing too many teams coming off of bye weeks; it’s likely only a matter of time before someone gripes about that this year.

Actually, since the draft should be today but have been moved back two weeks, that will be our next schedule-related project.

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The Seahawks and cornerback Richard Sherman are talking about a contract that will keep Sherman in Seattle for the long term.

Mike Florio of PFT reported earlier this week that the goal is to get a deal done before the draft gets underway in two weeks, but that the two sides have yet to reach a consensus on any terms at this point in the negotiations. Albert Breer of NFL Network spoke to Sherman on Wednesday and asked him if his goal was to become the highest paid cornerback in football and the man who has loudly proclaimed his superiority to other corners in the league said the value of the deal would be a sign of respect.

“Whatever they feel I am due. I will take it as respect,” Sherman said. “It’s all about respect in this game and the only way people show respect is the dollars. We’ll see what happens.”

Darrelle Revis got $12 million for this season from the Patriots and Aqib Talib got $26 million in guaranteed money (although some is guaranteed for injury only), which sets the bar Sherman would need to clear to become the best-paid corner in football. Franchising Sherman for the 2015 season would lead to a salary close to what Revis got in New England, which raises the likelihood that he’ll wind up being very well respected if he and the Seahawks can agree on a deal this offseason.

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Bills WR Stevie Johnson could be at a crossroads.

The Dolphins are turning over every stone for CB help.

Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski wouldn’t talk to reporters, but he seemed in good spirits yesterday.

The Jets were the only New York team to host TE Eric Ebron on a visit.

The Ravens open the season with three division games, including two in a five-day span.

The Bengals are apparently ready for prime time.

Browns NT Phil Taylor is still in the dark as to whether the team will use the fifth-year option on him.

The Steelers are still a prime time fixture, with five night games.

The Texans will get a chance to see former QB Matt Schaub on Sept. 14.

The Colts’ first-round draft pick is already on the roster, and hoping to prove himself worthy.

The Jaguars open with four of their first six games on the road.

The Titans need CB help, according to one expert.

Broncos QB Peyton Manning would make a good gym teacher.

The TE crop in this year’s draft could yield some benefits for the Chiefs.

The Raiders have the league’s toughest schedule by the numbers.

Chargers QB Philip Rivers knows his team will have a tough December.

The Cowboys have one easy option decision to make, and one tougher one.

The Giants are working to develop a Green Bay vibe with their offense.

The Eagles hosted Alabama S Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.

The Redskins are still a prime time draw, with three national appearances.

The Bears figure to draft competition for their third WR spot.

New Lions WR Golden Tate is learning to communicate with QB Matthew Stafford.

The Packers come out of their bye week with four home games in five weeks.

The Vikings will play five open-air games in the final two months of the season.

The Falcons are putting an increased emphasis on run defense.

Former Panthers CB Captain Munnerlyn took a friendly shot at his old teammate DeAngelo Williams.

Saints C Tim Lelito hopes to take the next step this season.

The Buccaneers need more from their defensive line.

The Cardinals got stuck with the early bye week.

Sometimes it’s hard to see a plan with the way the Rams have handled WRs.

The schedule gives 49ers LB NaVorro Bowman a chance to make most of the division games.

Seahawks CB Richard Sherman was part of a discussion on race at Harvard.

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Herschel Walker is 52.  The trade that sent him to Minnesota for a truckload of players and draft picks turns 25 this year.  And Walker says he can still play in the NFL.

That’s what he told Jarrett Bell of USA Today.  But at least Herschel’s delusions of grandeur are, well, somewhat reasonable.

“I couldn’t take every snap,” Walker told Bell.  “But running backs nowadays don’t play every down.  Now they send in the choir section. . . .  Physically, I can still do it.”

Walker may have learned how to talk big from the man who once owned his rights with the USFL’s New Jersey Generals.  And Walker said that Donald Trump would be good for the Buffalo Bills and the NFL.

“He would be a great owner, and a credible owner,” Walker said of Trump.  “He may rub some people the wrong way, but you can’t argue with his success as a businessman,” Walker said. “You want an owner with some flair. He knows how to promote.”

Walker’s connection to Trump extends to The Celebrity Apprentice, where Walker was a contestant in 2009.  Walker could end up being Trump’s NFL apprentice; Walker didn’t rule out joining Trump, if Trump buys the Bills.

First, Trump needs to buy the Bills.  Before Trump can buy the Bills, Trump needs to make an offer for the Bills.  Before Trump makes an offer for the Bills, Trump needs to quit talking about making an offer for the Bills and, you know, make an offer for the Bills.