Falcons relief stems from rediscovered run game

Reuters

The Falcons have reason to feel relief, beyond finally getting the much-discussed playoff win.

The fact they found their run game again gives them reason to believe they might get another one.

For all the individual parts of Sunday’s comeback win over the Seahawks, their ability to run the way they used to was the most encouraging.

“It just lets us breathe a little bit,” Falcons running back Michael Turner said, via D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “Now, we can go out there and play the way we’re capable of playing.”

Turner and Jacquizz Rodgers worked well in tandem, combining for 162 yards on 24 carries. The team’s 6.4 yards per carry average on the day was well over their 3.7-yard regular season average. It was also their season high, as they didn’t go over 146 in any regular season game.

In the old days, it would have been all Turner, but Rodgers added an outside component they had lacked, and it looked like a year spent experimenting finally paid off.

That they did it against a Seahawks defense which allowed 103.1 per game in the regular season was better news, but this week’s test is tougher. The 49ers were fourth in the league in rush defense this year, allowing 94.1 yards per game.

“When we have the type of offensive roster that we have, we feel like that we have the ability to throw the football and run it,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “It’s really going to be based on how people try to defend us.”

The 49ers are sound enough they don’t have to trick up their defense to stop people, but getting the run game going early could create opportunities for the Falcons potent passing game.

AP

The Cleveland Browns announced Wednesday they have added five scouts to their personnel department to serve under general manager Michael Lombardi.

Brent Blaylock, Brendan Donovan, Matthew Manocherian and Patrick Moore were brought on to serve as college scouts while Frank Edgerly will be a senior pro scout for the team.

Edgerly has spent the past four years working as a scout for the New England Patriots.

Donovan spent the last two years as the director of on-campus recruiting for the University of Florida. Moore served as an assistant coach for Fordham University from 2007-2011. Manocherian spent the last three years as a scouting assistant for the New Orleans Saints

Blaylock may have the most interesting path to the Browns as he spent the last two years working for Penske Racing. Prior to his time in motorsports, he served for three years as assistant director of football operations for the University of Miami after a year working in the Miami Dolphins operations department.

AP

Jacksonville Jaguars rookie offensive tackle Luke Joeckel had believed he was going to be the first player selected during the NFL Draft in April. It didn’t happen as the Kansas Chiefs selected Central Michigan’s Eric Fisher with the first pick instead.

Instead, Joeckel had to wait an extra 15 minutes before being selected by the Jaguars with the second overall pick.

But when Joeckel’s expectation had been to be the top overall pick in the draft, there was still some disappointment when his name wasn’t the first to be called by Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“At the time it was not the most pleasant thing ever,” Joeckel said on the Draft Tracker podcast at NFL.com.

Joeckel said he’s happy to be with the Jaguars and he believes it’s a good fit for him as well. Eugene Monroe is set to enter the final year of his rookie contract and Joeckel could ultimately replace him on the left side of the line after this season. For now, Joeckel is slated to be the Jaguars right tackle. Still, not being the top pick won’t be something he soon forgets.

“It definitely kind of put a chip on my shoulder, not being the first tackle taken,” Joeckel said.. “Which is a good thing. It’s a good thing to help drive you and help compete against another guy in your same position. A guy that got the first pick in front of me.”

Just don’t expect Aaron Rodgers to share in Joeckel’s pain of falling a whole one slot on draft day.

AP

New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has taken plenty of abuse – most of it justified – from teammates, media and fans alike for his performance as the team’s starter the last two seasons.

Teammates anonymously took shots at the Jets signal-caller last year and have continued to do so well into the offseason.

But not every member of the Jets appears to be down on Sanchez as the team’s starting quarterback. Center Nick Mangold expressed support for Sanchez during a promotional event on Wednesday.

“I believe so,” Mangold said when asked if the locker room supports Sanchez, via Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post. “I haven’t walked around with a pen and paper and taken a poll, but from the feeling I get, the locker room wants to win. Whoever gives us the best chance to do that, we want out there — and at this point, Mark gives us that best chance.”

Sanchez had arguably the worst season of his four-year career last season. He completed just 54.3-percent of his pass attempts with 13 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He also fumbled 14 times and lost eight (butt fumble included) – both career-highs.

The Jets have to get better quarterback play next season regardless of who is the starter. Mangold said he liked what he saw from Sanchez during the team’s offseason program and thinks it will be a tall task for rookie Geno Smith to supplant Sanchez as the Jets’ starter.

“Mark had a little bit better idea of the ideas and of seeing things, which are things Geno is going to have to work his butt off on,” Mangold said.

AP

Earlier today, Tom Curran of CSN New England gave an ominous assessment of the manner in which the investigation regarding a death of Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez’s “associate” could unfold.

It’s apparently unfolding.

The victim has officially been identified as 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, and his death has been ruled a homicide.  According to FOX 25 in Boston, police have determined that four men — including Hernandez and Odin Lloyd — were in a vehicle together after leaving a bar, and that only three of the men returned to Hernandez’s home.

Per the report, and supplemented by tweets from Ted Daniel of FOX 25, forensic evidence collected by police places a vehicle “driven by” Hernandez at the “crime scene.”  It’s unclear whether the crime scene was the location where Lloyd’s body was found, or whether the crime (i.e., the site of Lloyd’s murder) occurred elsewhere.

FOX 25 also reports that Lloyd sent a text to a friend referring to Hernandez.

Our mildly-educated guess is that more evidence of text messages and other electronically-created footprints will be used to further piece together the puzzle.

AP

Regarded as a potential deep threat, Vikings first-round receiver Cordarrelle Patterson has something that arguably will be even more valuable over the balance of his career, if he keeps it — the ability to get open at the top of his route.

Veteran Greg Jennings praised Patterson for what Jennings calls “that definitive step,” which creates separation from the defensive back.

“I remember coming out [of college],” Jennings said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com.  “I had that definitive step.  That kind of gets washed out because everything they teach you is that they want everything to look the same.  The definitive step starts to kind of fade away, but that’s what creates that separation.  I just told him, do not lose that.  Because the more I see him do that, the more I remember when I used to do that and create so much, even more separation.  I’m starting to creep that back in. . . .

“That’s a gift. You can’t really teach that.  He has it.  And I remember, that was me.  I was coming out and sticking everything.  And the coaches were like, ‘We just want to round it, we just want to round it.’  Slowly but surely, I started rounding everything.  The route still looks good, but it just doesn’t have that crispness about it.”

As for Patterson’s speed, that’s a given.  “If you see the back of his jersey, you might a well stop running, because it’s over,” Jennings said.

The Vikings have been trying to keep expectations low for Patterson as a rookie.  With first-round phenoms like Randy Moss in 1998 and Percy Harvin in 2009, too much pressure to excel could turn Patterson into another Troy Williamson.  Vikings fans would surely settle for something in between, since that would mean the offensive has discovered balance.

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The Dolphins got their Mt. Rushmore today, and three of them were easy:  Shula, Marino, Csonka.

The only discrepancy between Pro Football Talk and PFT Planet came on the question of whether Bob Griese or Jason Taylor should get the fourth spot.

Watch the video, hear the debate, check out the voting results, and chime in below.

Along the way, feel free to argue for or against our decision to omit team founder Joe Robbie from the list of finalists.

AP

In the post-bounty NFL, players and coaches aren’t supposed to say publicly the stuff they undoubtedly scream privately.  Titans safety Bernard Pollard didn’t get the memo.  Or he doesn’t care.

Bet the latter.

“I don’t care what they have to say,” Pollard said regarding those who may criticize him for using such blunt language, via Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean.  “If they feel like we’re going to carry guns and knives and try and stab people and try and kill them, shame on you. You are an idiot.  For us, when we say kill, we want to go out there and knock the [heck] out of people, we want to hit you.  And for me, we’re going to help you up because I’m going to knock you back down.  I have been at plenty of pee-wee football games where I have seen my son, my daughter, and you hear parents, you hear women, white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, telling their sons, ‘Kill them! Telling their daughters, Kill them!’

“Do I believe they mean kill them?  Literally kill them?  No.  So if you have never played this game before and you want to take that and run with it, go ahead.  Shame on you.  You’re a fool.”

Some would say Pollard is the fool for so brazenly using the kind of tough talk that underscored the one-year banishment of former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who coincidentally now works for the Titans.  The bounty scandal has driven “kill”-type comments out of the NFL mainstream, prompting strong reactions in those rare situations where, for example, Titans defensive coordinator Jerry Gray refers to firing up the “Gator Truck” or Bills defensive lineman Mario Williams says that he always hears defensive coordinator Mike Pettine say “Kill ‘em or hurt ‘em,” one day before saying Williams has actually never heard that.

Pollard’s defiance almost guarantees that he’ll hear from the league office, where Commissioner Roger Goodell is striving to make the game safer.  Or to at least make the game appear safer.

“I really don’t care what the Commissioner is doing,” Pollard said.  “I don’t think he has ever played football, he has never played in the National Football League and he has never walked in my shoes.  And I haven’t walked in his either.  I don’t know what he has to say about me, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t care what he has to say about me.  I know that we have to have that mentality to play the game. You have to be [ticked] off, and you have to do some things to [tick] other people off. . . .  If you don’t like that, I’m sorry for you.  We’re not going to change, and we’re not going to apologize.”

Of course, Pollard is the same guy who declared that the NFL will be gone in 30 years, presumably due in large part to the mentality he so fiercely embraces.  The end result is the kind of maddening inconsistency that helps explain why Pollard has bounced from team to team (to team to team) during his career.

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For three of the spots on the Bills’ Mt. Rushmore, the process was easy: Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and O.J. Simpson.

For the last spot, things got slightly more complex.

I gave it to receiver Andre Reed, and PFT Planet awarded it to defensive end Bruce Smith.

Check out the video of the segment from the Pro Football Talk on NBCSN discussion, featuring Frank Wycheck, Ross Tucker, Erik Kuselias, and yours truly.

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Last week, former NBA coach Phil Jackson called the term Redskins “highly offensive.”  This week, a former NHL coach of Native American origin agreed with the assessment.

“I’d be very offended,” former Sabres and Islanders coach Ted Nolan told Tim Graham of the Buffalo News regarding the prospect of being greeted with a label the D.C. football team insists is an honor.

“There are certain things you can’t call black people or Chinese people or Jewish people. We as Native Americans, or First Nation people as we’re called in Canada, we find it offensive, too,” Nolan said.

“Sure, the Redskins name has been around for generations, but when you’re a person of that race and someone calls you a redskin, they don’t know why they’re saying it, where the word comes form or what the word means,” Nolan said.

“I never did like the word. And that’s where the president of the United States lives.  It doesn’t compute.”

With that, Nolan becomes the most prominent Native American with ties to the sports world to speak out against the name.  His words could influence other Native Americans to abandon their nonchalance regarding the term, causing opposition to become more organized — and to expand.

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Controversial Chargers physician David Chao recently resigned his post with the team due to health concerns, along with a desire to spend more time with his family.

The decision apparently was influenced by a fairly important external development.  According to Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today, a pair of San Diego hospitals had barred Chao from performing surgeries.

“I have been informed that Dr. Chao has lost his surgical privileges with the only two hospitals he had surgical privileges with: Scripps Mercy [Hospital] and Scripps [Memorial Hospital],” an attorney said in a sworn declaration submitted in connection with a pending lawsuit against Chao.  “This has led, apparently, to Dr. Chao resigning his position with the Chargers. This will also inevitably lead to the closure of . . . Dr. Chao’s surgical practice.”

Chao’s attorney disputed the claim, arguing that Chao still had a page on the hospitals’ website.  And then Chao disappeared from the hospitals’ website, according to Schrotenboer.  A spokesperson for the facilities declined comment.

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The Mt. Rushmore process moves to the AFC West on Friday, with the team that has won the division the last two years.

The Broncos, who once won a pair of Super Bowls with John Elway on the field, is now shooting for another one (or more) with Elway running the football operation.

It’s a given that Elway will have one of the spots.  Vote for him and up to three others from the 12 finalists below.

We’ll pull the sheet off the mountain, as we always do, on NBCSN’s Pro Football Talk.

AP

The Panthers signed wide receiver Dale Moss on Wednesday, the NFL disclosed in its transactions.

Moss, 24, was waived by the Bears on June 10. The 6-4, 197-pound South Dakota State product entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with Green Bay in 2012. He  played basketball in college before transitioning to football in 2011.

Moss is the nephew of Johnny Rodgers, the 1972 Heisman Trophy winner for Nebraska.

In a corresponding move, the Panthers waived-injured another wide receiver, R.J. Webb. The nature of his injury is unknown. Webb signed with the Panthers on May 13 after trying out with the club during its rookie minicamp. The 25-year-old wideout played for Furman University from 2005 through 2009.

The Panthers have 13 wide receivers, with Steve Smith and Brandon LaFell the starters.

AP

It’s been a day since the latest now-I’ve-seen-everything story emerged in the NFL, and there’s still not much clarity regarding the investigation involving the death of an “associate” of Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.

But as Tom Curran of CSN New England explained on Wednesday’s edition of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN, the process could still lead to an unfavorable outcome for Hernandez.

“[T]here’s so much to plow through and I think right now we’re at the table-setting stage,” Curran said.  “There’s a sense that law enforcement is getting all its ducks in a row and then they’ll spill them on the table to put a case together.”

The Patriots remain tight lipped, both publicly and privately.

“Not a word,” Curran said regarding the team.  “This is a period of time that the NFL kind of shuts down.  I’m not sure even if [coach] Bill Belichick is in the country right now.  I know he had a European vacation planned; he may be out of the country.  Given the circumstances and the way this could conceivably go, because it’s not pretty, he might be in a situation where he might have to come back.  I think that this is a serious situation that bears a lot of close watching over the next couple of days.”

The process, as Curran separately explained in writing, will entail a sweeping examination of all available and relevant evidence.

From the CSI-style stuff that modern juries now expect to see to electronic information harvested from cell phones and computers to surveillance systems that may have been in place at the industrial park where the body was found or at Hernandez’s home, plenty of potential proof is floating around.  Curran says that investigators will instruct cellular providers to freeze any information in place, in the event that any of the witnesses try to destroy his or her phone.

And any attempt by any of the witnesses to erase or eliminate electronic evidence won’t look good when the time comes to determine whether folks are guilty of any crimes.

At this point, it’s unclear how many crimes were or may have been committed, beyond the most obvious one:  Murder.  In the coming days and weeks, more information will likely surface.  For now, it’s still possible that things will go poorly for Hernandez.

AP

In his first season in Atlanta after nine years in St. Louis, Steven Jackson is ready to get fewer carries. But Jackson thinks the carries he does get are going to lead to more wins.

Jackson says he’s ready for a lower quantity of carries but higher quality carries — meaning, he thinks the Falcons are going to have a lot of fourth-quarter leads, and they’re going to hand off to Jackson a lot to protect those leads.

“This offense has so many weapons that I’m going to get quality carries,” Jackson said. “I’m going to have opportunities — they may not be 25 carries a game, but they’re going to be quality carries that allow me to close out a game.”

That would be great news for Falcons coach Mike Smith, who said that in addition to Jackson running the ball, the Falcons will incorporate Jackson into their passing game as well.

“He’s a guy that can catch the ball out of the backfield, does a good job with checkdown screens, and he’s a big guy,” Smith said. “When he gets his shoulders going north and south, he’s a tough guy to tackle. We plan on hopefully getting him in space quite a bit, with him catching the ball out of the backfield.”

As both a runner and a receiver, Jackson should be an upgrade over last year’s No. 1 running back, Michael Turner. The presence of Jackson makes an already good offense better.

AP

The Cowboys have unanswered questions at safety, but at least they have them all under contract at the moment.

According to Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com, the Cowboys agreed to a deal with third-rounder J.J. Wilcox Wednesday.

That leaves only their top two picks, first-round center Travis Frederick and second-round tight end Gavin Escobar without deals.

Wilcox could challenge for a starting job this year among an odd lot of players in the secondary there, but his speed (he’s a former receiver and running back at Georgia Southern) and hitting ability figures to lead to a role on special teams in the short term.