Ravens’ Ayanbadejo rips Patriots for Spygate, “gimmick” offense

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Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo watched the Patriots beat the Texans, and he wasn’t impressed.

Ayanbadejo, whose Ravens will travel to New England on Sunday for the AFC Championship Game, wrote on Twitter during the Patriots-Texans game that he thinks the Patriots’ offense is a “gimmick,” and that the Patriots do things that he views as cheap shots.

New England does some suspect stuff on offense. Can't really respect it. Comparable to a cheap shot b4 a fight

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Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013

Are you watching the game pats vs texans? If so you see the hurry snap offense catch em b4 they set up. It's a gimmick.

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Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013

Although Ayanbadejo plays linebacker, he actually won’t see much of the Patriots’ offense on Sunday: Ayanbadejo is almost exclusively a special teams player, and he didn’t get a single snap on defense on Saturday against the Broncos. But Ayanbadejo didn’t only talk about the Patriots’ offense. Ayanbadejo also brought up the Spygate scandal, when the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick were disciplined by the league office for taping opposing coaches in violation of league rules, and the fact that New England cut wide receiver Tiquan Underwood the day before the Super Bowl last year.

You know the same organization that did spygate and cut a guy the day b4 the Super Bowl

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Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013

It’s surprising that Ayanbadejo, an intelligent man who’s well respected around the NFL, would choose to give the Patriots bulletin-board material heading into the AFC Championship week. Perhaps Ayanbadejo was trying to fire up his own teammates. He has certainly assured that the Patriots will be fired up to see him on Sunday.

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Saints defensive tackle Nick Fairley has been visiting doctors recently for opinions about a heart condition that created concern about his ability to continue playing in the NFL.

It looks like the consensus is that it is better for Fairley to put his career on hold. The Saints have placed Fairley on the reserve/non-football illness list, which means he will not be playing football for the team this season.

Coach Sean Payton said earlier this month that Fairley visited with three doctors and that at least one of them told him to stop playing football.

The Saints also have the option not to pay Fairley while he is on the list. Fairley signed a four-year, $28 million contract with the Saints after recording 6.5 sacks for the team last season, but Monday’s news casts serious doubt about whether he will be on the field during the life of that deal.

Taco Charlton seemed like a perfect fit with the Cowboys, what with a name like taco in a Tex-Mex crazy area. So who would have guessed the defensive end’s first endorsement deal would come from a soda company?

Big Red announced in a press release Monday that it had signed Charlton.

“I love my name and I actually do love tacos,” Charlton said in the release. “Although I am new to Texas, I quickly learned that nothing goes better with tacos than Big Red, so I’m excited to partner with such a unique, iconic brand.”

When Charlton arrived in DFW, he received offers of free tacos for life and one local pizza place even named a taco pizza after Charlton. Charlton, whose Twitter handle is @TheSupremeTaco, went on a taco tasting tour around the area soon after arriving.

Charlton’s given name is Vidauntae, but his grandmother nicknamed him “Taco” because he was premature and making a “run for the border,” which was a Taco Bell slogan airing at that time. 

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The judge apparently wasn’t a Star Wars fan.

According to Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com, Vikings wide receiver Michael Floyd was sentenced to a day in jail after a Scottsdale judge found him in violation of his house arrest for drinking kombucha tea.

Floyd was prohibited from drinking alcohol as part of his sentence for a December DUI in Arizona, which led the Cardinals to release him. He said he violated the alcohol tests that were a part of the terms of his house arrest (which was transferred to Minnesota) by drinking the tea, which he didn’t realize contained alcohol.

The Vikings bought that explanation, but the Scottsdale judge didn’t care. Floyd also has to serve the remaining five days of his house arrest.

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Michael Strahan is unconcerned about Odell Beckham Jr. skipping the Giants’ organized team activities, pointing to Beckham’s work ethic and commitment to football.

“I’ve seen this kid work,” Strahan said at the Just Rivals.com Golf Classic, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN. “I’ve talked to him this offseason. His head is where it needs to be.

“Everybody gives him a hard time about missing a little OTAs. Hell, I didn’t go to those things, so I’m the wrong person to be sympathetic for people who are giving him a hard time.”

Beckham spent most of the offseason in Los Angeles working with his personal trainer. The receiver showed up for the Giants’ mandatory minicamp earlier this month and is expected to report to training camp with his teammates July 27.

The Giants hope Beckham’s career is as productive as Strahan’s was. In 15 seasons with the Giants, Strahan had 141.5 sacks and was inducted in to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.

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Falcons running back Devonta Freeman’s contract has been a storyline since Super Bowl week with Freeman making it clear he wants an extension as he moves into the final year of his rookie contract.

Freeman said recently that he believes “something special is coming” and the guy who would ultimately be paying the salary associated with any deal supports that viewpoint.

During an appearance with Jamie Dukes and Mike Bell on 92.9 The Game on Monday, Falcons owner Arthur Blank was asked about contract talks with Freeman. Blank said that he expects a deal with Freeman will be completed soon.

Blank added that General Manager Thomas Dimitroff and coach Dan Quinn will be doing the legwork on negotiating a deal. Dimitroff said in May that he expected conversations about the extension to heat up heading into camp, so it looks like that timeline is shaping up as an accurate one.

Khalif Barnes keeps showing up on the Saints’ transaction wire, but he also keeps returning. The Saints have listed the veteran offensive lineman in their transactions 11 times the past 10 months.

“It was unfamiliar territory, but, as crazy as it sounds, I knew they weren’t really letting me go,” Barnes said, via Josh Katzenstein of the New Orleans Time-Picayune. “It was just their demeanor and how they would do it.

“It was a weird sense of loyalty on both sides.”

Barnes, a second-round pick of the Jaguars in 2005, played four seasons in Jacksonville and seven in Oakland with 117 career starts. He spent a few days with the Saints last season but never played. Barnes went from 358 pounds when he tried out for the Saints last August to 315 pounds for a tryout at the Saints’ rookie minicamp last month.

It was Barnes’ first rookie minicamp since 2005.

Barnes, 35, will compete to fill in for left tackle Terron Armstead, who is expected to miss at least the first six games of the regular season after shoulder surgery. For Barnes, just making the active roster will prove an accomplishment after seeing his name on the waiver wire so many times.

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Former Ravens first-round pick Matt Elam was arrested twice this offseason, but he is no longer facing criminal charges in either of those matters.

According to multiple reports, authorities in Florida have dropped drug charges against Elam related to a February arrest. Theft and battery charges stemming from a May incident were dropped last week.

Elam was arrested in Miami-Dade County after a traffic stop on February 26. He was charged with marijuana possession, possession with the intent to sell or deliver and possession of a controlled substance after police found marijuana and oxycodone in the vehicle.

Elam played safety for the Ravens for the last four years, but the team did not pick up their option on his contract for the 2017 season. He became a free agent in March as a result and has not drawn any reported interest, although that could potentially change now that Elam is no longer facing charges.

Jameill Showers still is most well known for being the quarterback Johnny Manziel beat out for the starting job at Texas A&M. Yet, while Manziel is out the NFL, Showers still has a job, albeit at a different position.

Showers will try to make the Cowboys’ active roster at safety after making the move to defense during the 2016 season.

“That was the talk that me and coach [Jason] Garrett had in October whenever he first asked me to move was, we want you to focus on safety because you do well there, and it’ll give you a chance to move up on special teams,” Showers said. “He was like, ‘We don’t want to put you in a position where you’re a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation.’ I definitely respect it, and I’m trying to work hard for it.

“I’m excited about it. I think it’ll give me more opportunities to play, especially special teams, things like that. I think it just kind of puts more on my resume as far as a football player, even if things don’t work out here or wherever. Or even if they do, I’ll have more that I can do. That’s what I heard is the more you can do, the longer you stay type of deal.”

Showers spent two seasons on the practice squad, playing multiple positions, including quarterback. He had not played safety since he was a freshman in high school when the Cowboys approached him in the middle of last season about converting to defense full time.

Showers has found the hardest part of the change is not being able “to eat like a quarterback anymore.” He weighed 230 pounds as a quarterback. He needs to get down to 215 to play safety with still a few more pounds to lose.

“I’m really happy with what Showers has done,” Cowboys secondary coach Joe Baker said. “He’s turned his body from a quarterback body into a defensive back body, which looks a lot different. You can tell he looks slimmer. He’s moving a lot better. The whole athleticism part of it is so much different at that position, and so I’m really proud of how he’s worked. He’s still got a ways to go, but movement-wise in terms of his backpedaling, changing direction, all those things we do as defensive backs, he’s really doing a nice job.”

The Cowboys lost two safeties in free agency, with Barry Church and J.J. Wilcox departing. That gives Showers a better chance to make the active roster than what he otherwise would have had, but he still faces an uphill battle with far less experience than his competition.

So while I’m on vacation from PFT Live, I’m not really on vacation. On most weekdays, I’ll post a podcast-only edition of PFT Live.

Monday’s 45-minute, fast-paced tour of the NFL is available now.

Find it free of charge (as always) at Apple Podcasts, audioBoom, and wherever else you can get the PFT Live podcast.

If you like it, subscribe to it. Tomorrow, you’ll have another one locked and loaded, typically by lunch time.

Now back to my vacation. Which is basically my usual day-in, day-in existence.

The goal is to induce envy; I think the emotion you’re actually feeling is pity.

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The Jets currently aren’t good. And they seem to be embracing the opportunity to be as bad as they possibly could be. And their season-ticket holders don’t seem to have a problem with that.

As explained by Brian Costello the New York Post, a survey of Jets season-ticket holders shows that they have no objection to the team’s apparent tanking.

Question: “What do you think of the Jets’ current plan to get rid of older, expensive players and sacrifice the 2017 season in order to get a high pick in 2018?” Of the 110 who responded, 79 percent approved of the approach. Still, 80 percent of those who responded will still root for the Jets to win.

But that’s not because of the current owner. Fifty-six percent of the season-ticket holders said they don’t approve of the job Woody Johnson is doing. For them, the good news is that his brother, Christopher Wold Johnson, will eventually be doing that job, once Woody becomes the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Some think that could be better for the Jets, putting someone/anyone else in charge of what could be a long-overdue turnaround of the franchise.

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Sometimes, Gronk being Gronk isn’t suitable for television.

Via the Boston Globe, last week’s roast of former Red Sox star David Ortiz ended up not being shown on NESN over the weekend due to concerns about the over-the-top nature of many of the jokes. Some of those were told by, or referred to, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Others referred to former (and now deceased) Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.

Jimmy Traina of SI.com has posted the video of Gronkowski’s routine, which likely prompted The Situation to say, “Man, that was awkward.”

“Anthony [Mackie] played Falcon in Captain America: Civil War. Anthony, you were terrible, dog. It was the worst I’ve seen a Falcon look since the second half of Super Bowl LI,” said Gronkowski regarding the game in which he was unable to participate due to injury. “I don’t even need to play the f–king game, and I’m still going to the Hall of Fame! And that superhero, you know, that Falcon, the superhero. That’s the black guy. You know, who can even fly when he’s not being chased by the cops? That’s his super power.”

That wasn’t the only potentially offensive joke Gronkowski told: “You wanna know why Jews do play football? To get their quarter back, you cheap f–k.”

And then there was this one, possibly from the Christmas album and apparently in reference to Ortiz’s reputation for showing up late to his endorsement appointments: “David, thanks for showing up on time to all the Dunkin Donuts shoots. I had a blast jackin’ off for two hours in your green room every time. Hopefully you never use those pillows on your breaks.”

Hopefully, Gronk will never do standup comedy again.

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The Rams are trying to sell fewer tickets this year. And the plan does not include simply showing highlights of the 2016 Rams.

According to Vincent Bonsignore of the Orange County Register, the Rams are trying to cap ticket sales in the 70,000 per game range, to alleviate crowding at concession stands and in parking lots.

The Rams sold more than 70,000 season tickets last year, and made 80,000 or more tickets available to games last year. That’s far from capacity at the Coliseum (93,607), but the Rams heard from their customers that the “fan experience” was compromised by the sheer amount of people.

“The environment in the building was spectacular,”Rams vice president of ticket sales Jake Bye said. “But what we learned was that the tradeoff at times came in ways that sometimes compromised the fan experience. The ability to purchase concessions in a quick orderly manner. Or the challenge of parking around the building, which was strained by putting that many people in the building.

“Now that we have a year’s worth of research in that building and seeing how NFL fans behave and when they arrive and what gates they are going through and what items they are buying at concessions stands, we can really take all that information and be so much smarter in how we approach the building and delivering the best experience in year two compared to year one.”

The Rams drew more than 80,000 for five games, and more than 90,000 for the opener. And they’re keeping the option to sell more tickets for certain opponents (i.e. the ones people want to see).

But trying to rein in the number of tickets available should help keep the supply and demand in control, and also give them a chance to head off talk that a potentially bad product simply isn’t going to bring fans in the gate, since it’s not new and shiny anymore.

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The Buccaneers will no longer be a slave to the elements.

According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the Bucs are making progress on the construction of their new indoor facility, which is scheduled to open by the start of the regular season.

In recent years, they’ve had to use the nearby indoor baseball stadium, and they used to use a parking garage during their Super Bowl season. But through the years, the unpredictable Florida weather has long been an issue for them, which is why their owners decided to spend $20 million of their own money on the new facility.

Bucs coach Dirk Koetter has coached in plenty of hot places (Arizona State, Atlanta, Jacksonville), and believes the new building should help his team last.

“And one thing that’s become very apparent, I’ve heard other coaches who coach in the south and the Southeast talk about it, is over the course of a season, the heat does take a toll on your players,” Koetter said. “It takes the elements out. Also, it can help you manage the heat. It gives you a sterile environment when you bring guys in to work out. It gives you a turf field. It’s something that I’ve pushed for. I thank the Glazer family for making it happen.”

The facility will also include 3,500 bleacher seats, which they’ll use during training camp.

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More will be known about the fate of Vikings receiver Michael Floyd when we returns to court at 4:30 p.m. ET regarding allegations that he violated the terms of his house arrest. For now, it’s clear that the prosecution is not inclined to cut him any slack.

“He’s in violation and should serve the rest of his jail time,” Caron Close told Brian Murphy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Floyd received a 120-day jail term after pleading guilty to extreme DUI in Arizona. He served 24 days in custody, and he then was permitted to finish the time on house arrest. Presumably, the prosecutor will be taking the position that the full 96 days that Floyd was due to serve on house arrest should now be spent behind bars.

If that happens, Floyd would unavailable for all of training camp, the preseason, and into the regular season. Though he currently faces a minimum suspension of two games for the DUI guilty plea, he otherwise would be permitted to participate in practices and preseason games.

Floyd admits that he tested positive for alcohol; he claims that he had been drinking kombucha tea, and that he didn’t know it contains alcohol. His BAC was measured at 0.055 percent, which means that it contained a lot of alcohol or that he drank a lot of it.

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The Eagles hired Mike Groh as their wide receivers coach this offseason, which set Groh up for a reunion when the Eagles signed wide receiver Alshon Jeffery to a one-year contract as a free agent in March.

Groh was Jeffery’s position coach with the Bears from 2013-15 and Jeffery turned in his two best NFL seasons in the first two years of Groh’s tenure in Chicago. During a recent discussion of Jeffery’s work this offseason, Groh said that the wideout looked the best he has since their first season working together.

“He and I have a history together, so he knows what I think, and I understand the way that he works and goes about his business,” Groh said, via ESPN.com. “I think the spring that he’s had is as good as he’s had since maybe 2013. Pleased with where he is physically, mentally I think he is in a good place. He’s coming in here and learning a new system and working on the chemistry with Carson [Wentz] and everything like that, but it’s been a good spring for him.”

Jeffery had 89 catches for 1,421 yards and seven touchdowns in 2013 and followed that up with 85 catches, 1,133 yards and 10 touchdowns the next year. Injuries have limited him to 21 games and 106 catches over the last two seasons and surely played a role in his signing a one-year deal with Philly this offseason.

If getting back together with Groh and a productive offseason lead to a rebound on the field this fall, Jeffery will likely be looking at longer deals if he’s back on the open market in 2018.