Full transcript of Manti Te’o interview

AP

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o made a 15-minute appearance in the media room at NFL Scouting Combine Saturday. Here’s the full transcript of his comments:

Te’o (taking the stage and laughing): “That’s a lot of cameras.”

Q: How are you feeling?

Te’o: “ I’m kind of tired right now. A long day, medical exams. It’s all part of the process.”

Q: Are you tired of answering all the questions about the (fake dead girlfriend) incident?

“Yeah, about the incident, I’ve said all I need to say about that. How I’m handling it going forward is doing what I’m doing, focusing on the moment, focusing on football and the combine. Not everybody gets this opportunity to be here. I’m sure there’s

thousands and thousands of people who would like to be here in Indianapolis. Just trying to enjoy the moment.”

Q: How much have you been asked about it by NFL teams?

Te’o: “Quite a few teams asked me about it. Some go to certain lengths, some just ask me, ‘Just give me a brief overview of how it was’ then they get straight to business.”

Q: Why didn’t you play well in the national championship game?

“That’s because I didn’t. That’s all on me. I played hard and so did my team, but Alabama had a great game plan and so did we. They executed better than we did.”

Q: Was the other situation a distraction to you leading up to that game?

Te’o: “No.”

Q: Any teams not ask you about it?

Te’o: “No (laughs). They all ask me about it.”

Q: What are they asking you?

Te’o: “Just tell me the facts. They want to hear it from me. Just tell them basically what happened.”

Q: Do you think it might hurt you?

Te’o: “That I don’t know. That I don’t know.”

Q: Could you summarize the facts?

Te’o: “Just I care for somebody and that’s what I was taught to do. Ever since I was young if somebody needs help you help them out. Unfortunately it didn’t end up the way I thought it would.”

Q: Why wait so long to say something?

Te’o: “It was just a whirlwind of stuff. A 22-year-old, 21-year old at that time, just trying to get your thoughts right. Everybody was just kind of chaos for a little bit, so you let that chaos die down and wait until everybody’s ready to listen.”

Q: Do you understand people might doubt your version of events because it took you so long?

Te’o: “That I don’t know, people doubting because I took a while to come out. From our point of view we wanted everything to come out first and then have my side come out. The way we did I felt worked best for me. I’m very grateful for those who helped me to get through that time. I felt it went as smoothly as it could.”

Q: Have you gotten a sense from NFL people it might affect you in draft?

Te’o: “No, not really. They’ve told me that, . . . they’ve wanted to hear it from me what the truth was. They haven’t really said anything about it affecting me.

“Some guys just talk briefly for 30 seconds and the next 14 minutes is all plays and getting down to business. That’s how I prefer it to be.”

Q: Do you worry how you’ll be treated in the locker room, trouble assuming a leadership role?

Te’o: “No. I think I’ve learned the difference between the things I can control and the things I can’t control. And hopefully by doing the things I can control well I’ll have more favor in the other category. Whatever team I go to, I’m just going to be me, I’m going to work hard, I’m going to do my best to help the team win. And whatever happens happens.”

Q: Can you believe the fascination like this?

Te’o: “It’s pretty crazy. I’ve been in front of a few cameras, but not as many as this.”

Q: “What about when it came out, every news channel, lead story. You surprised?”

Te’o: “I was. It got overwhelming at times. The hardest part and I’ve said was just to see, not necessarily my first name, but my last name. Everybody here, you treasure your last name. That’s what you hold dear. That’s something that when you pass on, the only thing that stays with you, stays here is your last name. To see your last name everywhere and know I represented my family and all my cousins and aunties and uncles, . . .

Q: Are you prepared to deal with this for the next couple years?

Te’o: “Oh, yeah. For me, I hopefully I’m just looking forward to getting straight to football. I understand people have questions, but I’ve answered everything I could. For me I’d really like to talk about football.”

Q: Had you planned to go to the Senior Bowl, did this change your mind?

Te’o: “No. I didn’t get that far. I was still worrying about the national championship. I didn’t get that far.”

Q: Who are some of the teams you’ve met with?

Te’o: “I’ve met with the Texans and I met with the Packers.”

Q: Why didn’t you attempt to go see a girl you cared so much about?

Te’o: “I did. We made plans, obviously it didn’t work out.”

Q: How many more teams do you expect to talk to and which ones?

Te’o: “I don’t know, I’m not sure. I know I’ll be meeting formally with 18 more teams. I don’t know specifically who they are. I’ll find out soon. I’m meeting with 20 total.”

Q: What are you telling teams you bring to the table as a player?

Te’o: “I think what I bring to the table is a lot of heart, a lot of energy and somebody that works hard. Somebody who hates to lose. I always say, ‘I hate losing more than I love to win.’ The reason why I love to win is because I don’t have to go through that feeling of losing. It’s those times where I lose that feeling that will stick with me. For teams I tell them, ‘You’ll always get somebody who’s humble, works hard, doesn’t say much and will do everything it takes to win.’”

Q: Have any lingering regret over all this?

Te’o: “I could have done some things different, obviously, done a lot of things different to avoid all this stuff. But throughout my experience my senior year, I wouldn’t do anything different.”

Q: Has this been embarrassing?

Te’o: “Oh, definitely. For anybody to go through, it’s definitely embarrassing. When you’re walking through grocery stores and you’re kind of like giving people double-takes to see if they’re starting at you ,it’s definitely embarrassing. I guess it’s part of the process, it’s part of the journey. You know it’s only going to make me stronger and it definitely has.”

Q: Have you gotten past the point of being embarrassed about it?

Te’o: “Oh, definitely. It definitely has gone. Obviously I’m here. If I was still embarrassed I wouldn’t be standing in front of you.”

Q: Can you understand what NFL teams are trying to get at?

Te’o: “Yeah, they want to be able to trust their player. You don’t want to invest in somebody you can’t trust. With everybody here, they’re just trying to get to know you, get to know you as a person and as a football player. I understand where they’re coming from.”

Q: Does that make you feel you’ve got a hurdle to overcome in the honesty department?

Te’o: “It could be a hurdle, but it could also be a great opportunity to show who you really are. That’s the way I’ve approached it and it’s been a great growing experience for me.”

Q: Ravens have been mentioned a lot as a destination for you. How much would you like to follow Ray Lewis?

Te’o: “Aw, definitely, whatever team I go to, but definitely the Ravens. Ray Lewis, I’ve grown up watching Ray Lewis. Just watching his intensity, his passion for the game, his love for the game, his work ethic. Everything in a linebacker that you want to be is in Ray Lewis, from leadership qualities, all that. He’ll be definitely missed in Baltimore and in the NFL as a whole.

“If I get to go to Baltimore, it will definitely be some big shoes to fill, but an opportunity I’ll be honored to have.”

Q: What’s different about you now?

Te’o: “For me I’ve learned just to be honest in anything and everything you do, from the big things to the small things. Secondly, to keep your circle very small and to understand who’s really in your corner and who’s not. I think going off of the season my team and I had, there’s a lot of people in our corner. Then when Jan. 16 happened, there’s a lot of people in the other corner. I just learned to appreciate the people that I have that are with me and to just make sure you always try to turn a negative thing into a positive.”

Q: What’s been the toughest moment since all this came out?

Te’o: “I think the toughest moment, to be honest with you, was a phone call that I got from my sister where she told me that they had to sneak my own family in their home because there were people parked out in the yard and stuff like that. That had to be the hardest part.

“And for me, something that I’ve always had a problem with is when I can’t do something about it; I can’t help. To know that my family was in this situation because of the actions I committed was definitely the hardest part for me.”

Q: As a player what kind of challenges can you anticipate at the next level?

Te’o: “The game gets even faster, a lot more complex. What I have to do as a player is I have to remember why I’m playing this game. It’s the same game I played when I was a little kid on the streets, same thing, football’s still the same shape. Obviously people are going to be professionals. This is where the best play. But as long as I don’t stray too far from who I am and what I believe in, I think the journey will be worth it.”

Q: Players have been arrested, had drug issues, does it bother you that you’re under the same scrutiny as guys who have been in jail?

Te’o: “Everybody makes mistakes and one of the positive things about what I went through is I’ve learned to empathize with those who are going through the same thing. Those who are going through some hard times, who are getting attention that they don’t necessarily want. It just taught me to always give somebody the benefit of the doubt and say, ‘You never know, you never know what’s going on with a person.’”

Q: What about the difference between situations?

Te’o: “That’s something I don’t believe I can comment on.”

Q: Did you consider legal action against Ronaiah Tuisasosopo?

Te’o: “I think that’s the worst thing you could do. Both families are going through chaos. There’s not only people camped out at my house, there’s people camped out at his house. I went through what I went through and he went through his own share of stuff.

“I think that’s the worst thing for me to do is to do that. Always try and forgive. If you forgive, you’ll get the majority of the blessings. I always try to forgive and it’s definitely benefited me.”

Q: Are you dating anybody in real life?

Te’o: “No, not right now.”

Q: When your sister called about sneaking parents in, what was your emotion?

Te’o: “Just why? It should never get that way. As people we have to realize that we’re all people, somebody is somebody’s son, somebody is somebody’s daughter. And I try to picture it that way. Would you want somebody doing that to your son? Would you want somebody doing that to your daughter? If not, why do it? Through this whole experience I’ve learned that.

“Since I’ve experienced it, the things I see, the things I do, I try to always think ‘That’s somebody/s son. That’s somebody’s daughter. That’s somebody’s mom, dad. Whatever I do try to base what I do off of that.”

Te’o: “In closing, I’d like to thank everybody for being here. It’s been a hard but tremendous ride for me and my family and the University of Notre Dame. I’d like to thank my parents, my family, my friends, the University of Notre Dame and everybody who supports me. I couldn’t do it without all of you.

“Hopefully after this I answered the things I needed to answer and we can move on with football. So thank you, everybody.”

AP

New Eagles coach Chip Kelly has said he can adjust his style and run a different system in the NFL than he ran at Oregon. Former Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski says he’ll have to.

Jaworski, who analyzes film in his work with ESPN, said on 97.5 The Fanatic that Kelly, who has no NFL experience at all, is much more likely to adjust his offense to the realities of the NFL than to revolutionize the NFL by bringing his spread offense to the next level.

“It’s going to be interesting to see if this style of offense projects to the NFL,” Jaworski said, via Phillymag.com. “I’m going to say no.”

Jaworski says there are fundamental differences between the way Oregon could exploit weaker defenses in college and the way an NFL defense would attack an offense like Kelly’s.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Yeah, it worked in college,’” he said. “But then I looked at a game like Stanford. Stanford, a good defensive football team, shut them down. I hope it works. I like the innovation, but I think it’s going to be very difficult. The NFL is a different league with fast players that have all week to prepare for you. At the collegiate level, you have 20 hours to prepare for that Oregon offense. Take out three hours of game time. You’ve got 17 hours in the course of a week to practice and prepare for that style of offense. It kills you in college. But in the NFL, these guys work 17 hours a day. A day, not a week – 17 hours a day getting ready, so there’s no secrets.”

Kelly’s system will certainly be different in the NFL than it was at Oregon. The question is how different. If Jaworski is right, it will need to be very different.

AP

In an interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio last weekend, Bills quarterback E.J. Manuel said that he found the Bills offense was easier to learn than the one he was in at Florida State and he’s picking it up quickly as a result.

If that’s the case, it’s the one thing Manuel can rest easy about when it comes to his transition to the NFL. Bills offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett didn’t address that claim directly on Tuesday when he spoke to reporters, but he did make it clear that he thinks Manuel has plenty of work to do in order to get himself ready to play at the professional level.

“Everything,” Hackett said, via the team’s website. “He’s a young man that’s got to work on a lot of things from footwork to progressions to plays to formations, everything. Defenses in the NFL are obviously a little different. He’s got to work on that too. He’s got to work on everything.”

There’s no great reason for concern about Hackett’s assessment of the first-round pick nor are Hackett’s thoughts reason to suspect Manuel won’t be the starter this year. You wouldn’t expect any player to come from the college ranks as a finished product, especially not a quarterback who is going to be dealing with faster defenses capable of showing more looks than he was exposed to before coming to the NFL. You’d expect even less to hear one of his coaches say that all was well before a significant time has been spent working with the rookie.

If Hackett’s saying the same things about Manuel in August, there will be more of an impact but, for now, it sounds like Manuel’s pretty much where he’s supposed to be in his progression to the NFL game.

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Hundreds of players will get cut by NFL players before the start of the regular season, and most of those players will keep working out and hoping for another chance at making it in professional football.

But some of those players may try to make it in professional wrestling.

Jim Ross, who works with World Wrestling Entertainment in talent development, has a meeting scheduled with the NFL Players Association today in which he’ll make the case that football players who lose their jobs on NFL teams should be informed that a second career in pro wrestling may be available to them.

“Everybody doesn’t make the 53-man roster,” Ross told Alex Marvez and Jim Miller on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “Some guys are going to be looking for work, and we’ve got some job openings. Maybe we can put the synergies of those two entities together and create something wonderful some day.”

From the WWE’s perspective, it’s easy to see why this makes sense: Pro wrestling needs big, strong, agile athletes, and football produces lots of those. And some of the guys cut by the NFL would bring name recognition from their playing days into the wrestling ring.

There’s also a long history of athletes dabbling in both wrestling and football, from Bronko Nagurski to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and dozens of others in between. If you’re a football player who couldn’t quite make it in the NFL, you could do worse than turning to wrestling.

Reuters

Colts owner Jim Irsay can be quirky.  At times, unpredictable.  At other times, a little belligerent.  And he’s taken a few shots at yours truly, who has taken a few shots at him.

But when there’s a cause that would benefit from the donation of funds, he’s typically at the front of the line.

Irsay has pledged to donate up to $25,000 to the tornado relief effort in Moore, Oklahoma, matching contributions made by the general public.

Donations can be made through the Colts’ official website or the Colts’ page on the American Red Cross site.

Before anyone complains that $25,000 is a drop in the bucket for a billionaire, keep this in mind:  It’s still $25,000.  How many other billionaires out there aren’t giving 25 cents to the effort?

So we applaud Irsay’s efforts, we encourage other billionaires, millionaires, thousandaires, and hundredaires to do what they can, and we’ll be glad to publicize other efforts by other NFL teams to raise money to help folks whose insurance policies will take them only so far through this time of intense crisis.

AP

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has been engaged for more than a month in the intricate task of saying enough to protect and advance his business interests, but not saying things that would undermine and jeopardize his legal interests.

That balancing act entered a new frontier on Tuesday, when Haslam addressed his fellow owners at the quarterly meetings in Boston.

As Gantt pointed out, Haslam also offered to provide private explanations to any owner who wants more than the five-minute presentation Haslam made to the full league ownership.

Before any owner takes him up on that offer, the owner needs to consider the possibility of becoming a potential witness, at some point down the road.  Since no one outside of federal law enforcement currently knows the contents of files and computers seized last month at Pilot Flying J headquarters or communications secretly recorded by a company employee that weren’t included in the 120-page affidavit in support of the issuance of the search warrant, it’s unknown whether the Justice Department has or will have enough evidence to target Haslam personally.  If Haslam is indicted, anything Haslam has said to anyone — including privately to other owners — can be used against him.

This means that other owners could find themselves being interviewed by federal prosecutors and, possibly, being subpoenaed to testify.

The chances of that happening are slim, but the lawyers currently on retainer for Haslam and the other 31 owners are compensated handsomely to keep an eye on every possible worst-case scenario.

Thus, if Haslam wants to keep his fellow owners out of this mess, he’ll not make good on the offer to provide private explanations.  And if his fellow owners want to stay out of this mess, they won’t accept.

AP

Apparently, Bears linebacker Lance Briggs is still getting used to the new look of his defense.

For the first time, he’s out there without a number of long-time co-workers, particularly linebacker Brian Urlacher.

And when he was asked about missing another unsigned free agent, Israel Idonije, Briggs replied “I miss everybody, you guys,” and he walked away from the media, according to John Mullin of CSNChicago.com.

Prior to that, in his first interview of the offseason, Briggs talked about the challenges of trying to fill in as a leader and a signal-caller for the defense for Urlacher, something he admitted was “very different.”

“It just means continue to be me. I’m just vocal now,” Briggs said. “I didn’t call the plays before and now I’m calling the plays. I just have a lot of respect, . . .

“I’ve been spoiled for the last 10 years.”

The on-field adjustment shouldn’t be hard for Briggs, but reading between the lines makes it seem like he’s still not 100 percent on board with the absence of Urlacher, a stance management seems to be fine with. That said, stepping into a leadership role was a significant move for Briggs, which should help eventually allow them to move on.

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When the Steelers hired Todd Haley as their offensive coordinator last year, many people predicted that he and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would get along about as well as oil and water.

There were a few moments where things were less than placid, but the two men were able to play nice in the public eye for the most part as the team finished 22nd in the NFL in points per game. That doesn’t mean they saw things eye-to-eye, however, and Roethlisberger admits that he made some requests for changes to the offense in 2013. Others made similar requests and Roethlisberger says that it has resulted in an offense that everyone’s excited about.

“There’s been some changes this offseason in some of the offensive philosophies, playbook and some things that I think are good,” Roethlisberger said, via Alan Robinson of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “It’s some compromise from all the different position coaches, the running back coaches, the line, and quarterback coaches. I think we’ve taken a little bit of everything and made it a lot better. You can ask anybody on offense that, including coaches, and they’ll tell you that we all like the way the offense is and where it’s going.”

The departures of Mike Wallace and Rashard Mendenhall guaranteed a different look on offense in Pittsburgh before we even heard anything about larger schematic changes. Roethlisberger didn’t get specific about any of the changes, though we suspect it is safe to rule out any talk of him running the read option once the regular season rolls around. Whether or not it means less dinking and dunking, though, is a question that we’ll have to wait to have answered.

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During a wide-ranging and entertaining (except when I was talking) segment of Tuesday’s PFT Live, former Patriots V.P. of player personnel and Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli reacted to the recent comments from former Dolphins assistant coach Tim Davis regarding former Dolphins head coach and current I’m-not-going-to-be-the-Alabama-coach Alabama coach Nick Saban.

Davis called Saban “the devil,” and Pioli called Davis out on that.

Reminded that Saban said in response that he was “terribly disappointed” by the comments, Pioli agreed.  “I’ve got to be honest, I was terribly disappointed,” Pioli said.  “You know, I know Nick Saban, I’ve worked with Nick Saban for a number of years back in Cleveland.  First of all, I didn’t like it for Nick.  I know Nick is a tremendous coach and he’s a tough worker and he’s a tough boss but I know a lot of people who are tough bosses.

“I’ll say this about Nick, though:  I think he’s tough but he’s fair. He doesn’t ask anything of people that he hasn’t done himself or that he won’t do himself.”

Pioli also pointed out the inconsistency between the subsequent claim from Davis that it all was a joke to the lack of an apology from Davis.  There’s another inconsistency that undermines the comments; Davis worked two years for Saban at Miami, and then later accepted another job with Saban at Alabama.

“[Davis] spends a year out of football, can’t get a job, Nick creates a position at the University of Alabama to help a guy who’s been unemployed he shows his loyalty to the guy, brings him in, creates a position, pays him. This guy made the choice to come work for Nick and now a couple years later, he’s bashing a guy who really helped him,” Pioli said.  “And to me this is something within the industry that I really struggle with, Mike, because I’ve see it happen to Bill Belichick, I’ve seen it happen to Bill Parcells, I just don’t understand the mentality of people who are given opportunities, they seize the opportunity, they get paid, and then some time in the future they start to air dirty laundry or their hard feelings toward someone. I just don’t understand why people can’t keep their mouths shut and move on.  So, to me, it’s one of these trends in sports that I see, that I just, truly
disappoint me.”

Looking at it that way, it really is disappointing that Davis would fire public shots at Saban, in jest or otherwise.  If Saban was “the devil” or something close to it, Davis knew it based on their time together from 2005 to 2006 — and yet Davis signed up for another tour of duty in 2008.

And if it was all a joke, it was a bad joke from a guy who benefited from Saban’s willingness to hire him not once, but twice.

The ultimate message is fairly simple.  If you have a problem with your current boss, find a new one.  And if you had a problem with a former boss, try not to accept another job offer from him.

AP

The Titans start their OTAs next week and it looks like they’ll get full participation from quarterback Jake Locker at the sessions.

Locker has spent the offseason recovering from shoulder surgery after suffering multiple dislocations of his left, non-throwing shoulder during the 2012 season and says that he has healed up enough that he expects to have no limitations when he joins his teammates on the field next week. While Locker stopped short of the rave reviews about his physical condition that we’re accustomed to hearing at this time of year, he made it clear that he feels ready for everything the Titans will throw at him.

“I don’t know a whole lot about it as far as if it’s supposed to be better or stronger, but I can tell you it feels better and just the same as it did before I got hurt,” Locker said, via Terry McCormick of Titans Insider. “I haven’t had any problems with it. I haven’t had any moments with it where, I’m like, ‘Aw, man, I can feel that,’ or ‘it slipped a little bit.’ It feels great. It feels normal and I’m excited about that.”

Any growth for the Titans as a team this season will likely require growth from Locker as an individual. It’s helpful, then, that he won’t have anything holding him back physically as he takes on the full leadership role for the team’s offense in his third NFL season.

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Though it wasn’t on the agenda — between rubber-stamping Super Bowl sites and giving each other money — yesterday’s NFL owners meeting also included an apology.

According to Jarrett Bell of USA Today, new Browns owner Jimmy Haslam offered an explanation to his business partners about the recent federal investigation of his trucking business, and told them about steps he was taking to fix the problem.

“I thought it was important,” Haslam said. “We’re partners in the NFL. I wanted to address them face-to-face.”

His fellow owners were apparently touched by the five-minute talk, in which he apologized for any negative attention he brought to the league.

“I know he feels a sense of embarrassment,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. “He said they’re going to do everything they can to get it under control and put it behind them, and that he felt bad for the attention that it brought to the Cleveland franchise and the NFL, and he was going to make it right.”

“He is the new kid in town in terms of NFL ownership,” Giants co-owner Steve Tisch said. “And to sort of deal with an issue like this in the first quarter is impressive.”

The league passed him through a vetting process before he was allowed to buy the Browns, and nothing came up then. And it sounds like his business partners were impressed by his willingness to open up to them, which included an offer for private explanations if anyone needed them.

AP

Said Bills offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett of his work with rookie QB E.J. Manuel, “Footwork is tied into everything. Everything is within your footwork. It’s a very big learning process. For us, we use our footwork, we use our progression, and we move up in the pocket.”

Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill says he has made significant progress: “Last year at this time my head was spinning. I was just trying to figure out how things worked. I didn’t really know how the day went, how the offseason went, how practices went.”

Patriots QB Tom Brady is getting plenty of work with WR Danny Amendola.

Jets RB Mike Goodson is charged with a gun crime, but his lawyer says he’s confident he’ll be able to show that the gun wasn’t Goodson’s.

Former Ravens and Browns owner Art Modell could get a clearer path to the Hall of Fame.

Bengals WR Mohamed Sanu had his first full-speed practice since recovering from a stress fracture in his foot.

Browns QB Brian Hoyer got $250,000 guaranteed on his new contract.

Steelers S Troy Polamalu is looking trim and fit at OTAs.

Texans QB Case Keenum is pushing T.J. Yates for the No. 2 quarterback job.

Indianapolis wants to host the 2018 Super Bowl.

Said Jaguars DL Brandon Deaderick of adjusting to his new team after being cut by the Patriots, “It’s going well. I’m getting adjusted to the new system they have here. That’s all I’m focusing on. I’ve got to get better every day.”

Titans QB Jake Locker says he has a greater leadership role this season.

Nate Irving will get the first crack at being the Broncos’ starting middle linebacker.

Chiefs GM John Dorsey has been impressed with S Eric Berry.

Fans in Oakland put out the welcome mat for Charles Woodson.

New Chargers LT Max Starks is expected to start, and King Dunlap will likely be the swing tackle behind Starks and rookie D.J. Fluker.

Said Cowboys K Dan Bailey of tornado devastation near his family’s home in Oklahoma, “I can’t do much as far as going up there. I wish I could go up there. But I’m going to see what I can do financially or just anything I can do to help.”

Giants WR Hakeem Nicks is becoming more of a leader.

Eagles S Kenny Phillips says his knee feels fine.

Said Redskins General Manager Bruce Allen of the new rookie salary structure, “I think the new system has simplified everything. I’ve never had a rookie holdout. I’ve never worried about the holding-out part of it. [But] it has simplified everything and I think it’s made [Redskins chief negotiator] Eric Schaffer’s life much, much easier.”

Bears LB Lance Briggs has inherited Brian Urlacher’s leadership role.

Lions WR Calvin Johnson admits he was a little uneasy at first about having a new position coach this season.

Packers coach Mike McCarthy is disappointed not to have CB Sam Shields at OTAs.

The Vikings have waived undrafted OT Mark Jackson.

A contract worth more than $100 million appears to be coming soon for Falcons QB Matt Ryan.

The Panthers’ website offers five things to watch at OTAs.

Saints coach Sean Payton is pleased to have 100 percent participation at OTAs.

Buccaneers DE Adrian Clayborn says a knee injury taught him not to take anything for granted.

A change in defensive philosophy has the Cardinals’ defensive ends feeling excited.

Rams coach Jeff Fisher shares his philosophy on the offseason schedule.

Aldon Smith says he can only do “a little bit” of work with the 49ers after labrum surgery, but he’s watching lots of film.

A year ago he was just a rookie trying to make it, but Seahawks QB Russell Wilson is now the clear leader of the whole team.

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It’s not that Joe Namath thinks Geno Smith’s a bad player.

He just thinks the Jets didn’t need to draft him in the second round.

“No, I don’t think they needed a quarterback,” Namath said, via Ebenezer Samuel of the New York Daily News. “They needed the other positions filled. Possibly offensive line. They got some defensive line. The safeties are still questionable. The outside linebackers are still questionable.”

There are many things about the Jets which could be described that way.

Namath blamed the recent poor play of quarterback Mark Sanchez to “distractions” — which I suppose, by extension, means they just added another. But Namath generally supported the incumbent starter, leaning on his early record as evidence he can play sufficiently well to start somewhere if not in New York.

“I am pulling for him,” Namath said of Sanchez. “I know that he can do better than he’s done. And we saw him lead a team to two AFC championship games, right? I also know what it’s like not to necessarily have the weapons you’d like to have, not to necessarily have the time you’d like to accomplish. . . .

“I know it’s a team game and I know Sanchez is going to play better. I promise you you’ll see a different guy [this year]. I believe you’ll see a different guy. Mark’s not a puppy anymore. He’s gone through some things, growing process. As far as Sanchez goes, even if he’s not with the Jets, he’s going to play as long as he wants to. He’s that good. As long as he wants to, he’s going to be in the NFL.”

Unless Sanchez can put the distractions behind him this year, he’s likely to get a chance to find that new address.

AP

Plenty of skeptics believe that the league’s intent to alter its calendar, moving the draft from April to May and the Scouting Combine from February to March, arises not from a desire to expand the league’s footprint during the offseason but to lay the foundation for an expansion of the season.

On Tuesday, Commissioner Roger Goodell gave credence to those concerns by once again pointing out that the 18-game regular season remains a possibility.

“[The options] are all on the table,” Goodell said at a press conference that concluded the quarterly ownership meetings in Boston.  “As I have said before, I think the structure of the season is something that we consistently reevaluate.  I have been quite open about [indicating that] we have to address the quality of the preseason.  I hear from fans consistently that they want to make every NFL event more valuable.  They see the preseason as being less valuable to them because they don’t see the best players and the games do not count.  We have to address that, whether we are looking at 18 [regular-season games] and two [preseason games] or 16-and-two and expanded playoffs.  They are all on the table and things we are going to evaluate.”

Nudging the draft and the Scouting Combine deeper into the calendar would help accommodate a Super Bowl played two weeks later, which would in most years put it on President’s Day weekend.  But the shift of the start of free agency from the middle of March to early March would arguably put too much of a pinch on the Super Bowl teams, which will have less time to negotiate with their looming free agents before they hit the market — or before the deadline for using the franchise tag.

Of course, the crowding of the Super Bowl and the start of free agency could be aimed at persuading the NFLPA eventually to say, “You know, we should move the start of free agency to April,” which the NFL reportedly wanted when talk of adjusting the calendar first emerged.

The bigger challenge for the league remains getting the NFLPA eventually to say, “You know, we should just play 18 regular-season games.”  Two years ago, the thinking was that, if/when the league exercised its unilateral ability under the new CBA to shrink the preseason from four to two games, the union would calculate the impact of the lost revenue on the salary cap, compare it to the influx of revenue with the addition of two regular-season games, and not just agree to but insist on a move from 16 to 18.  Since then, it has become harder to reconcile player health and safety with adding two games that count, and it’s hard to imagine the NFLPA accepting 18 games unless the league adopts the idea that every player would be limited to 16 appearances.

For those (like us) who think 18 games would be overkill, it’s encouraging that Goodell mentioned the possibility of 16-and-2 plus expanded playoffs as an alternative.  Expanding the postseason would potentially replace the revenue lost by scrapping half of the preseason.  Sure, it would mean one more game — but only for either four (if the field expands to 14) or eight (if the field grows to 16).

The league may be years away from resolving the issue.  With each passing season, however, it’s harder to tolerate a four-game preseason — especially since Goodell has made it clear in recent years that the quality of those games is unacceptable.

AP

You hear about players having breakout seasons all the time, but you rarely hear anyone talk about someone having a breakout offseason.

Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant had a breakout season in 2012. After two years of inconsistent performances and injuries, Bryant played in all 16 games for the Cowboys and turned in 92 catches for 1,382 yards and 12 touchdowns. Those were the kind of numbers that the team hoped to see when they took Bryant in the first round of the 2010 draft and numbers they likely worried about seeing after a chaotic offseason that culminated with an arrest for allegedly hitting his own mother.

Just as things came together for Bryant on the field last season, they seem to have come together for him off of it this year. Bryant’s name has only come up when people are talking about how focused he’s been on football and how much he’s grown up since the start of last season. Bryant took some time Tuesday to talk about his changed approach.

“I found myself,” Bryant said, via ESPNDallas.com. “I’m comfortable with my life. I’m enjoying being in the NFL. I wish it could’ve been a couple years back, but I had to go through a couple of things to figure it out. I think I got it and I’m just more focused on my job and doing what I love to do and that’s playing football.”

After Bryant’s arrest last summer, there was a lot of talk about a set of behavioral guidelines that Bryant had to follow to remain a member of the Cowboys. The Cowboys denied putting them in place, but owner Jerry Jones said Bryant had to change his lifestyle to stay in Dallas. One doesn’t count their chickens before they hatch, so we’ll say only that all those efforts have paid off to this point and produced the best Bryant we’ve seen on and off the field since he entered the NFL.

Reuters

At first blush, it looks like an unequivocal commitment.  Like so often when it comes to the Los Angeles leverage game, however, careful inspection of the words suggests that the door is open — even if only a little bit.

Chargers owner Dean Spanos, speaking to Albert Breer of NFL.com at the quarterly ownership meetings in Boston, explained that the Chargers want to remain in San Diego.

“I’ve said this the last 10 years,” Spanos said.  “The Chargers belong in San Diego.  That’s where we want to be.  We’re going to continue to try to get something done in San Diego.”

At some point, however, the Chargers’ wants will give way to their needs.  The combination of San Diego’s unwillingness to help build a new stadium and the looming possibility of one — and possibly two — NFL teams moving in just 90 miles up the road could at some point prompt the Chargers to become at least one of the teams to make the fairly short jaunt.

The Chargers are one of the few teams with the annual ability to abandon their lease via a payment that reduces each year.  Spanos made it clear that, to get something done in San Diego, a payment from the public coffers will be needed.

“It’s very difficult to get public money in the state of California, but in our marketplace, we need a public contribution to get something done,” Spanos said. “Everybody’s aware of it.  We just need to find the right formula that works for everybody, and it has to be fair for everybody.  The politicians know what needs to be done. We just need to get something and make it work.”

Perhaps Spanos feels optimistic because the 49ers have found a way to ditch one of the worst stadiums in the NFL for a swanky new venue that will host Super Bowl L.  Still, at the current rate of governmental action, the Chargers could eventually get that new stadium and host another NFL title game when the it’s time to play Super Bowl C.