The Raiders continue to fill up Dennis Allen’s first coaching staff, with the addition of two new assistant coaches.

The team announced today that Johnny Holland (pictured) has been hired to serve as linebackers coach, and Keith Burns will hold the title of assistant special teams coach.

Burns has coached for 28 years at the college level, most recently as assistant coach/secondary at Mississippi.  Holland was out of coaching in 2011 after spending five years as linebackers coach with the Texans.

He previously worked for the Lions and Packers, with a three-year gap in his coaching resume from 2000 through 2003.  Holland played for the Packers through 1994 and worked as a defensive quality control assistant on the Super Bowl XXXI championship and Super Bowl XXXII runner-up Packers teams.

Last month, the Colts raided the Saskatchewan Roughriders for linebacker Jerrell Freeman.  The Colts have now swiped another CFL defender, this one from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

The Colts have announced the addition of defensive end Justin Hickman, who spent three years in Hamilton.  He started all 18 games in 2011, notching 13.0 sacks and landing a nomination for Most Outstanding Defensive Player.

The Colts also re-signed defensive back Mike Newton, who was waived/injured by the Colts in August 2011.  Newton appeared in 12 games for the Colts in 2010, playing special teams and reserve defensive back.

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Halfway decent cornerbacks are usually difficult to find on the free agent market. 2011 could be an exception.

The release of Stanford Routt on Thursday adds to an already deep group. Routt isn’t a Pro Bowler, but he’s been a decent starter at times in his career. Those guys usually get paid.

Routt wouldn’t crack my top five-cornerbacks slated for the open market. Cortland Finnegan, Brent Grimes, Brandon Carr, Tracy Porter, and Carlos Rogers are all attractive options.

The first three names above are so attractive that they may get stuck with the franchise tag.  After those five names, guys like Routt, Terrell Thomas, Eric Wright, and Aaron Ross figure to attract significant interest.

Most of these players won’t be game-changers. But they are all reasonably young, can start games, and would ugprade plenty of rosters.

With the new television money on the horizon, plenty of players that aren’t household names will get big dollars.

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MDS posted reaction the other day to one of the dumbest things written in the aftermath of the Patriots loss in Super Bowl XLVI. The post got a huge reaction. You guys mostly agreed with MDS.

Before it gets too late, I wanted to pass along links to three of the smartest things I’ve seen written about the Patriots loss.

Tom Curran of CSNNE.com dived deep into Tom Brady’s performance against the Giants. Curran compared the criticism on Brady after the game to New Year’s Eve: Amateur hour.

The difference between winning and losing a Super Bowl can be frustratingly small. Random. If Wes Welker holds on to that pass, we are probably talking about Brady carrying this Patriots team all year. Now he’s not the same old Tom Brady.

Jackie MacMullan of ESPNBoston.com tried to get the city of Boston to take a deep breath. The Patriots were narrowly beat by a better team. Sometimes that’s hard to accept.

Howard Bryant of ESPN.com wrote about our culture’s focus on negativity and the losing team in sports. It’s a great column and a great point. There has been more talk about Billy Cundiff, Lee Evans, Kyle Williams, and Wes Welker the last few weeks than the victorious teams.”

“Media and expectations have changed everything,” Charles Barkley told Bryant. “Everyone’s afraid of it because if you miss a shot, if you miss a play, that overshadows the whole series, your whole career. So guys just want a ring, but they don’t want to risk losing. If you don’t want to risk losing, you shouldn’t even be playing.”

This post won’t get the same reaction as the one where Brady was called “hideous” by an attention-seeking writer from Boston.com. But hopefully the pieces above better reflect some of the great writing done by Boston writers in the aftermath of another Super Bowl loss.

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With the Steelers entering the offseason some $25 million over the 2012 salary cap, they have a lot of moves to make before the league year begins on March 13. Some of those moves will be releasing players, as they did on Wednesday with Bryant McFadden and Arnaz Battle. And some of those moves will be restructuring existing players’ contracts.

Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Steelers linebackers LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons became the first two players to restructure contracts, when each of them agreed to re-do the deals they signed just six months ago.

Not all of the specifics of the restructured contracts are available, but Bouchette reports that Woodley shaved about $6.6 million off his cap number without reducing his total pay by converting a roster bonus and most of his base salary to a signing bonus that will be prorated over the remaining years of the deal.

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger are also candidates to restructure their contracts to get the Steelers under the cap.

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The Giants started the 2011 season with a number of injury problems. They will start next season with at least two players missing at the tight end position.

Speaking to the New York media Thursday, G.M. Jerry Reese indicated that he expected tight ends Jake Ballard and Travis Beckum to start next season on the physically unable to perform list, according to Jorge Castillo of the Newark Star-Ledger. That would keep them out of the first six weeks of the season.

Ballard and Beckum both tore ACLs during the Super Bowl. The Giants figured to bolster their tight end position this offseason, and their injuries just makes the need more obvious.

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Stanford wideout/return specialist Chris Owusu entered his senior season with second-day draft grades from NFL scouts, but suffered two concussions in 2011 and did not play in Stanford’s final four games. He suffered a previous concussion late in his junior year.

Owusu’s agent, Steve Caric of Caric Sports Management, revealed to PFT on Thursday that Owusu has been medically cleared to continue his football career. Owusu received a Combine invite and will participate fully with the wide receiver group in Indianapolis.

Per Caric, Owusu has been symptom free since November 6 of 2011, one day after his last concussion. A doctor with the NFL Head, Neck, and Spine Committee has diagnosed Owusu as “perfectly normal” and cleared Owusu “to play football now.” The doctor also determined that Owusu is not at greater risk of concussions due to his history.

Owusu was Andrew Luck’s top wide receiver in 2010. He averaged over 15 yards per reception in his career and returned three kickoffs for touchdowns. At 6-foot and about 200 pounds, Owusu is expected to run a forty time in the 4.3s at the Combine.

NFL teams, of course, will likely look at precedent in these kinds of cases. Like Owusu, Lions tailback Jahvid Best missed the final four games of his college career with a concussion. Best suffered two more concussions in 2011, one during the preseason and the second in Week Six. Best’s season was over.

A healthy Owusu is a top seven or eight receiver in the 2012 draft whose game-breaking return ability could conceivably push him into the top five. Receiving medical clearance from the NFL is the first step toward rehabbing his draft stock.

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I was asked a few times during Super Bowl week to rank Eli Manning’s place in the current quarterback hierarchy.

For 2011 alone, I put him in a tie for fourth with Ben Roethlisberger behind Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees. Before 2011, Manning would have been closer to No. 10 than No. 5.

NFL players didn’t see him as a top-10 guy a year ago. They didn’t even see him as a top-100 guy among all players in NFL Network’s top 100 players of 2011 list unveiled last offseason. (To Florio’s credit, he argued on-air that Manning deserved to make the list last year.)

Some quarterbacks that made the list over Eli: Donovan McNabb, Josh Freeman, and Joe Flacco.

Some other notable names that ranked ahead of Manning: Terrell Owens, Andre Gurode, Jeff Saturday, Antrel Rolle, Mike Williams (TB), and Chad Clifton.

Players will have a chance to change their mind. NFL Network is running the “Top 100″ players series again, starting at 8 PM on April 28th — after the third day of the draft.

Here’s a prediction: Eli Manning ranks ahead of Donovan McNabb this year.

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Last year, when Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com took aim at the Hall of Fame selection process, he was called an “idiot” by Hall of Fame voter Len Pasquarelli.  This year, another member of the panel is taking a slightly higher, but no less specious, road when defending the 44-person Canton cabal.

Howard Balzer of the 101espn.com has responded to my ongoing criticism of the process by complaining that it undermines the achievements of the men who made it into the Hall of Fame.  “The shame of it is that on a day that is a crowning achievement for the greatest that have played or contributed to pro football, they are disrespected because there is too much attention paid to who didn’t get in rather than celebrating who did,” Balzer writes.

It’s the latest flimsy, superficial, and illogical effort to insulate the selection process from criticism.  Basically, Balzer is saying that we shouldn’t express disagreement with the men who were overlooked because to do so would be to demean those who got in.

But how much attention really is being paid this year to those who didn’t get in?  By holding the vote the day before the Super Bowl, the 44 have the best possible cover.  Come Monday morning, the outcome of the championship game dominates the NFL coverage.

Balzer also floats the “it was an honor just being nominated” card, arguing that designation as one of the 15 finalists should be enough.  But there’s a huge difference between knocking on the door and getting in, and Balzer and the other voters surely are smart enough to know that.

Balzer then attacks the fundamental basis for my concern — that the process shouldn’t be exclusively reserved to 44 members of the media, especially when some of them are inexperienced, unemployed, underemployed, and/or otherwise out of their element — by assuming that I’m in position to know nothing about the sausage-making process because I’m not physically in the room to watch the sausage being made.  It’s a fancy way of saying “mind your own business” and/or “get off our lawn,” all in the name of protecting the power that the members of the relatively small clique currently possess.

In Balzer’s case, the entity he represents on the panel — the Sports Xchange — holds nearly 10 percent of the votes.  In addition to Balzer, the Sports Xchange has owner Frank Cooney, Len Pasquarelli, and Ira Miller on the panel.  That gives the Sports Xchange twice the pull of ESPN (John Clayton and Mike Sando) and Sports Illustrated (Peter King and Jim Trotter).

Not bad for an outfit that most casual fans have never even heard of.

Then there’s the fact that Darin Gantt, who represents the Panthers in the room, no longer has an NFL beat.  And Dan Wiederer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who filled Sid Hartman’s seat this year, wasn’t even covering football until September 2011.

If 440 people were voting on who gets in, and on who doesn’t, that wouldn’t be a problem.  But with only 44 votes, these glitches make the system into a potential mockery.

So here’s what needs to happen.  The Canton-area businessmen who are more concerned about throwing a week-long party every August and/or networking with the good ol’ boys need to care a little bit more about a gatekeeping function that has been left in the hands of far too few.  If they’re going to insist on one representative per team, they need to be willing to revisit on an annual basis whether the person with the vote:  (1) is actually employed by an entity that requires him or her to actively cover that team; and (2) is the best person actively covering that team to hold the vote.

But that would require actual effort.

Balzer’s effort to deflect criticism of the process serves only to reconfirm my belief that the criticism is warranted, and that change is necessary.  For example, players and coaches and people who already are in the Hall of Fame should have some say in the process.

Regardless, far more than 44 writers/broadcasters should be involved, and the members of the Hall of Fame’s Board of Trustees should be willing to get this thing fixed.  If they don’t, no amount of wagon circling by the likes of Balzer and Pasquarelli will prevent the public from losing all faith in the process.

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Replacing the Metrodome with a new Vikings stadium would require the team to spend three seasons playing at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium.

The latest proposal to build the venue adjacent to the Metrodome would shrink that number to one season, according to Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Hartman writes that the new stadium would be “modeled after” Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, a domed facility which has a retractable roof.  Before it can be built, however, Hartman says that the Minneapolis City Council will have to cooperate.

With no other viable proposals currently on the table, lack of cooperation from the City Council could be the catalyst for relocation.

Governor Mark Dayton puts the chances of the project at 50-50, largely due to the fact that it’s an election year.  He’s hopeful that, if it doesn’t happen in 2012, it’ll happen in 2013.

Hopefully, the Vikings will still be around by then.

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The controversy surrounding Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who has been criticized for partying after New England lost Super Bowl XLVI, took a different turn on Thursday morning when an ESPN commentator called Gronkowski “white boy wasted,” then apologized.

Jalen Rose, the former NBA player who is now an ESPN analyst, appeared on Mike and Mike in the Morning to talk basketball but said at the outset of his appearance that he wanted to weigh in on Gronkowski first. In hindsight, he and ESPN probably wish he had stuck to basketball.

“Forgive this term because I didn’t make it up: He was having a good time. He was white boy wasted. He was having a good time,” Rose said.

That was about two and a half hours into the four-hour Mike and Mike show, and at the very end of the program Rose returned to the studio to apologize. It appeared that Rose (and hosts Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic) were being hurried into getting an apology onto the air before the show ended, although Rose and Golic both laughed through the apology.

“You guys got me in trouble,” Rose said. “Earlier in today’s show we were talking about the Patriots’ post-game party and I made some comments that other people — some people — took as insensitive remarks, so for those that took it that way I definitely apologize. Pretty sure I always say things that upset people, get under people’s skin. I guess today was no different. So I’m sorry for the pushback.”

Rose’s apology took on the “I’m sorry that you were offended” tone of so many forced apologies, which suggests that he was apologizing more because someone at ESPN told him to than because he thought he had really done anything wrong. Rose took on a joking tone in his initial comments, and his apology also sounded like a joke.

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The Browns are expected to bring in competition for Colt McCoy at quarterback this offseason. That competition could be a top pick like Robert Griffin III.

McCoy would be an underdog in that scenario, but he’s at least expected to be healthy enough to fight for the job.

Browns President Mike Holmgren told Vic Carucci of ClevelandBrowns.com that McCoy has been medically cleared after his concussion late in 2011.

“He passed all his tests and he’s feeling fine. He has no residual effects from the play,” Holmgren said.

Holmgren has now been in Cleveland two years. His quarterback depth chart isn’t appreciably better than when he arrived; McCoy hasn’t shown that he’s better than a backup-quality player.

We’d be surprised if McCoy leads the team in starts for another year for Cleveland.

The Bills are setting their 2012 draft board.

Former Dolphins RB Ricky Williams was one of a kind.

The Patriots will franchise tag free agent WR Wes Welker.

The Jets have guaranteed OT Wayne Hunter’s 2012 salary.

The Ravens take Wake Forest WR Chris Givens in this mock draft.

Bengals CB Leon Hall is recovering from a torn Achilles’.

The Browns may have to trade up for Baylor QB Robert Griffin III.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin doesn’t show his hand much.

The Texans take LSU WR Rueben Randle in this mock draft.

The Colts promoted Tom Telesco to V.P. of Football Operations.

Jaguars G Uche Nwaneri’s contract is getting bigger.

The Titans get Illinois DE Whitney Mercilus in this mock draft.

The Broncos re-signed FB Austin Sylvester.

The Chiefs take Washington DT Alameda Ta’amu in this mock draft.

Chargers LB Larry English is entering a make-or-break year.

The Raiders may show interest in free agent CB Tracy Porter.

The Cowboys are close to making an assistant coaching hire.

Free agent CB Terrell Thomas wants to re-sign with the Giants.

The Eagles may show interest in free agent WR Plaxico Burress.

Is Peyton Manning a good fit for the Redskins?

The Bears have hired Tim Holt as offensive line coach.

ESPN’s Mel Kiper analyzes the Lions’ team needs.

Packers DE Mike Neal struggled throughout last season.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press runs down the Vikings’ free agents.

The Falcons leaned heavily on CB Dunta Robinson in 2011.

The Panthers have re-signed LB Jason Phillips and LS J.J. Jansen.

The New York Daily News is high on the Saints for 2012.

The Bucs are filling out their coaching staff.

Would Peyton Manning really go to the Cardinals?

CSNBayArea.com reflects on the 49ers’ 2011 quarterback position.

FieldGulls.com is recapping the Seahawks’ season.

TurfShowTimes.com named DE Chris Long the Rams’ 2011 MVP.

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On Tuesday, Giants running back Brandon Jacobs told reporters that Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, should “stay cute and shut up.”  On Wednesday, Jacobs apologized for the remark.

Appearing on ESPN Radio’s Doug Gottlieb Show, Jacobs said that he shouldn’t have said what he said.

“Given the fact that it’s a colleague of mine’s wife, I do apologize for saying that, because I shouldn’t have said that,” Jacobs said.  “It’s his wife and I should respect that just as much as anyone else.”

Jacobs’ contrition possibly was fueled by the fact that he could soon be a free agent, if the Giants opt to release him in lieu of paying a $500,000 roster bonus.  Running his mouth could limit his options.

Of course, not running as hard as he used to is likely the bigger problem that he faces.

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The Super Bowl returns to New Orleans next year, but the timing of the NFL’s title game creates a conflict with the city’s Mardi Gras parade schedule.

And so, instead of 12 straight days of parades and parties culminating the day before Ash Wednesday, the parades will begin early, with the pause button being pressed once the NFL descends on New Orleans for the week of activities preceding the Super Bowl, according to Jacquetta White of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Specifically, the Super Bowl will be played on February 3.  Mardi Gras lands on February 12.

Ten years ago, the parade schedule was split when the 9/11 attacks delayed the Super Bowl by a week.  That was the last time the game was played in the Superdome.

It’s unclear whether and to what extent the parade schedule will impact rumored plans to play the January 27 Pro Bowl at the Superdome.