AP

Charles Woodson is heading back to the team that drafted him.

Woodson and the Raiders have agreed to terms on a one-year contract, Jay Glazer of FOX Sports first reported and the Raiders later confirmed.

The move comes as no surprise, as Woodson had visited Oakland and the Raiders were one of the few teams known to be interested. The 36-year-old Woodson has acknowledged that he didn’t have a lot of options after the Packers released him, although there was talk in recent days that interest was picking up from the Broncos.

The Raiders selected Woodson with the fourth overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft, and he was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his first four seasons in Oakland. Woodson left for the Packers in free agency in 2006. Now he’s returning to his original team for another season, nearing the end of his NFL career in the place where it began.

AP

Commissioner Roger Goodell says the NFL needs to move the draft from late April to May because of potential scheduling conflict at Radio City Music Hall, where the draft has been held every year since 2006.

According to Don Banks of SI.com, multiple team execs are opposed to the move.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find any football-side person in the league in favor of it,” an unnamed AFC G.M. told Banks.  “Unless you consider having more time for draft preparation a benefit, more time for paralysis by analysis, there’s nothing to like. I’ve tried to think of one [positive], but I haven’t yet.”

One unnamed NFC executive doesn’t buy the excuse for the move.

“The league coming out and saying this is because of the Easter Bunny and the [Radio City Spring Spectacular] is almost embarrassing,” the unnamed executive told Banks.  “This is the NFL.  You think we couldn’t get those dates or make something work if we really wanted to?  This is about moving the draft into May for [TV network] sweeps month.  I’d rather somebody be honest and come out and just admit that it’s about ratings and TV issues.  But I get it.  I suppose we all should be thankful in that everybody in the league benefits financially when the league has success from a TV perspective.”

The root of the consternation comes from the stubborn resistance to change demonstrated by coaches and football executives.

“We’re all creatures of habit in this league, and we like things the way they are,” the unnamed NFC club executive told Banks.  “Anything new is not going to be popular.  We already have too much time to do draft analysis as is, and now maybe we’re going to have another three weeks of it?  Next week we actually start working on next year’s draft, but if the draft isn’t held until mid-May, that work doesn’t even begin until June.  And then it’s only late June or early July when things finally slow down.”

An unnamed NFL executive knows the fight is coming.

“The football ops people will raise hell,” the unnamed NFL exec said.  “There are bunch of issues in play here, so don’t think that it’s done.  Coaches and front office executives aren’t going to like not having their hands on their new players for another two or three weeks.

“They’ll say, ‘Hey, we need to get our hands on them and we need to coach them.’ So this could wind up having an effect on some integrity of the game issues, and we need to listen to that. There’s a lot of ground to cover on this and there’s a long way to go.  This isn’t over at all.”

Still, it’s clear the NFL wants to nudge the draft into May.  Next year, it will happen; the only question is whether the draft starts on May 8 or May 15.  After the draft moves to May and the pro football world continues to spin, it’ll be easier for the league office to sell the teams on change moving forward.

Or, if need be, to force change upon them.

AP

The wisdom of Tampa Bay’s trade for cornerback Darrelle Revis ultimately will be determined by the player’s performance in 2013 and beyond.  His performance in 2013 hinges on the performance of his surgically-repaired knee.

The good news for Revis and the Bucs (and the bad news for everyone they play) is that Revis now has clearance to cut and change directions.

“I feel very confident,” Revis tells Andrea Kremer of NFL Network in the latest installment of Health of the Game:  Project Revis.  “If Todd tells me to cut, I am cutting.  I am not trying to think about [it].”

Revis remains confident that he’ll return to the form that made him the best cornerback in the league.

“The first time I step out there, I’ll be fine,” Revis said.

Coach Greg Schiano hopes he’ll get Revis at 100 percent, but Schiano will settle for less.

“That’s how we’re planning. I mean, we have faith that he’s going to recover,” Schiano said.  “If it isn’t exactly that way right away, then we’ll adapt.  Eighty-five or 90 percent of Darrelle Revis is still better than most 100 percent other corners, right?”

He’s right.  But the 13th overall pick in the 2013 draft and a third-round pick (unless Revis is cut before next March) in 2014 will be hard to justify if he’s many percentage points below the maximum.

AP

At a press conference to wrap up the league meetings in Boston, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the league saw “no choice” but moving next year’s draft to May because of a conflict with Radio City Music Hall.

Goodell said that a choice would be made soon about whether to hold the draft from May 8-10 or May 15-17 in New York. The change has been forced by a conflict with another event at the venue and Goodell said that there’s been no determination about when the event would be held beyond 2014. Because the conflicts with the spring event at Radio City will recur, the Commissioner also said that the draft could move if the decision was made to move things back to April in future years.

“Beyond that, if we want to move the draft back into April, we’ll have to look at other alternatives,” Goodell said.

Goodell also said that other proposed changes to the offseason schedule, including moving the start of the league year ahead of the combine were still being discussed with the NFLPA. Goodell said that he believed that such alterations would be a “good change for fans and for football” and that the league would continue working toward an agreement on a new calendar for February, March, April and May.

AP

The San Diego Chargers needed an offensive tackle. Max Starks needed a job. It just made sense for them to get together. So it’s no surprise that Starks agreed to terms with the Chargers today.

Starks told Josina Anderson of ESPN that he has accepted a one-year contract offer.

The 31-year-old Starks has played in Pittsburgh for his entire nine-year NFL career. Last season Starks started all 16 games for the Steelers.

The Chargers will likely have Starks and King Dunlap compete for the starting spot at left tackle, while first-round draft pick D.J. Fluker starts at right tackle.

AP

Any time football players get on the field, there’s a chance of injury.

That includes offseason workouts and OTAs, although aches and pains from May rarely wind up meaning that much. The exceptions are the serious injuries, of course, and injuries for players who have histories that make any physical setback reason for concern.

Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray would fall into the latter group. He’s missed nine games over his first two seasons, including six last season with a foot problem, and had his fair share of injuries in college as well. That backdrop made word that Murray missed the first day of Cowboys OTAs with what coach Jason Garrett described as a “hamstring tweak” jump out more than it might for another player.

Garrett said, via the team’s website, that the team was taking a conservative approach with Murray because there’s no sense in doing anything else in May. He’s right, although that won’t do much to quiet concerns about the Cowboys offense should Murray wind up missing any significant time. Philip Tanner, Lance Dunbar and rookie Joseph Randle represent a big drop from Murray and the team will need a more effective running game to snap their playoff drought in 2013.

AP

Lost in the question of whether the Seahawks face fines for future player suspensions is the reality that, based on the policy created by the NFL in 2008, they likely paid more than $60,000 for suspensions that happened in 2012.

The NFL has declined comment on the question of whether and to what extent the Seahawks have been fined for past suspensions, explaining that this information isn’t disclosed for any team.  But the league office has confirmed that the formula developed in 2008 still applies, and it’s public knowledge that three Seahawks were suspended during the 2012 season:  offensive lineman Allen Barbre, safety Winston Guy, and cornerback Brandon Browner.

Barbre came first, suspended the first four games of the season under the performance-enhancing drugs policy.  He was cut after the suspension ended in October.

Under the league’s policy, the Seahawks faced fines for the second suspension (Guy) and the third (Browner).  Based on their salaries for 2012, Guy lost $97,500 in salary during his four-week suspension.  The policy converts 25 percent of that into a fine, which equates to $24,375.

Next up was Browner, who served a four-game suspension and forfeited $109,411 in base salary.  Since Browner’s suspension was the third of the year, one third of his lost salary became a fine.  That’s $36,470.

The total of the two fines is $60,845.

This year, the Seahawks will be fined if there’s another suspension under the substance-abuse policy, the policy regarding steroids and related substances, or the personal-conduct policy, given that defensive end Bruce Irvin already will miss the first four games of the year after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

It’s unclear whether fines will make teams more careful about acquiring players who carry the red flag of a possible violations.  Former Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli said on Tuesday’s PFT Live that the league has discussed the possibility of stripping draft picks as an alternative to fines.

That could be the best way to handle the situation.  Team’s view fines as a cost of doing business; losing draft picks impacts competitive interests, and thus are more likely to get the franchise’s attention.

Getty Images

When the NFL says “I’m gonna turn this car around and go home,” they apparently mean it.

South Florida hasn’t hosted a Super Bowl since 2010, and the drought will last at least eight years.  On Tuesday, Miami lost in not one but two attempts to bring Super Bowl L and Super Bowl LI back to Sun Life Stadium.

Losing Super Bowl L to San Franciscoclara was expected.  The head-to-head contest with Houston was regarded as a tougher call, since Miami provides a better overall experience in the days leading up to the game.

But the NFL sent a message that the Super Bowl won’t return to Florida without an upgraded stadium.  To give that threat/promise teeth, owners had to follow through on it.  And they did.

The failure of the bids gives owner Stephen Ross ammunition to continue to try to shake public money out of the taxpayer pockets in order to renovate the stadium.  The politicians and, ultimately, the people will have to decide whether getting another Super Bowl justifies partially paying for the project.

Less than four months after the Bay Area’s football team returned to the Super Bowl for the first time in a generation, the Super Bowl is returning to the Bay Area.

The league has announced that Super Bowl L will be played at the 49ers’ to-be-opened home in Santa Clara, which will be named Levi’s Stadium.  Technically, the host city is San Francisco, since all associated events will be conducted there.  (We’ll call the location San Franciscoclara, at least until we get bored with that.  Maybe a little longer.)

The game will be played in February 2016, capping the second season of play at the new venue.

The vote means that Miami lost in the head-to-head bid against San Francisco, just like the Dolphins did against the 49ers in Super Bowl XIX, played at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto.

It also means that Miami will now take on Houston for the ability to host Super Bowl LI.

AP

In New York, the player who wins the starting quarterback job in 2013 arguably will be the first guy to possibly lose it.  If so, his window for losing it could open weeks before Week One.

According to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, the Jets could declare a starter before the start of training camp.

“We don’t care what the prevailing thought is,” offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg told Mehta regarding the view that the fight won’t be resolved before the start of camp. “We only care about our competition here.”

Well, if they care about competition, the competition will continue into the more inherently competitive portions of the calendar.  For now, practices occur without pads and limited contact.  In training camp, it’s closer to real football.  In preseason games, it’s considerably closer.

This approach suggests that the Jets would like to go with Geno Smith, and that they prefer to spend July and August getting him ready in lieu of making him fight for a job he’s already destined to have.

“When you [compete in training camp],” Mornhinweg said, “you give up some reps individually for the possible starter if you don’t select him quite as quickly.”

Either way, Mornhinweg hasn’t made a commitment to how and when the competition will be resolved.  Essentially, they’ll know it when they see it.

“Once a man separates himself, then we’ll think about making those choices, but I want a man to separate himself,” Mornhinweg said. “If not, we’ll keep the competition grinding.  That’s important.  That’s important in this situation.”

What’s ultimately important is finding the best guy to win games, because it’s believed that another bad year from the Jets will get the entire coaching staff fired.

Which will serve only to put more pressure on whoever the quarterback is.

As the NFL continues to try to make the Pro Bowl worth watching, the league is considering some ideas inspired by TV game shows.

Albert Breer of NFL Network reported that the league is considering elements that would make the game more like a game show, such as
having incentives paid out during the game. Breer said the league would like to “make it so every single minute of the game has some sort of thing that’s going to keep fans interested and engaged.”

Breer added that the NFL doesn’t “feel the need to keep the integrity of what a normal football game is.”

Personally, I think a good football game is more fun to watch than any game show, and I don’t think adding game show gimmicks to a football game makes the game more fun to watch. The problem I see with the Pro Bowl is that the players don’t take it seriously, and adding “game show” elements seems likely to compound that problem. I don’t have a problem with the NFL’s idea of naming two team captains and letting them pick the teams, but I don’t think we need to have Monty Hall telling Peyton Manning to pick a receiver behind one of two doors, only to find out that Calvin Johnson is behind Door No. 1 and Titus Young is behind Door No. 2.

If the NFL really wants to make the players play hard, the best “game show” element to incorporate would be large cash prizes for the winners. Currently, players on the winning Pro Bowl team make $50,000 and players on the losing team make $25,000. The difference between getting paid $25,000 and $50,000 is a lot to most of us, but it’s peanuts to most Pro Bowlers. Until that changes, don’t expect the players’ effort to change.

Getty Images

Later today, NFL owners will vote on the location for Super Bowl L.  (For those of you complaining about the use of the letter “L” to designate the 50th Super Bowl, do you forget that we’ve already endured a “Super Bowl XXX”?)  Then, the NFL owners will vote on the location for Super Bowl LI.

South Florida faces an uphill climb in both votes (one against San Franciscoclara, and then one against Houston, barring an upset win over San Franciscoclara) because the powers-that-be failed to secure public funding for upgrades at Sun Life Stadium.  The NFL’s “no Super Bowls without an improved stadium” threat/promise comes off as weak if the owners give South Florida a Super Bowl anyway.

One of the most influential owners believes that public money should have been used to renovate the stadium, even though he’s one of the only owners who built his stadium exclusively with private funds.

“If we’re doing Super Bowls, the community should pitch in,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft said, via Jarrett Bell of USA Today.

The point is that, when a city enters the Super Bowl rotation, the stadium becomes something more than the place where the local football team plays its games.  If the Super Bowl is coming to town once every five years (or, as it happened for Miami most recently, twice in the three-year window from February 2007 through February 2010), the stadium has a different level of value for the place where it’s located, because hosting a Super Bowl brings significant money and worldwide attention to the place where it is played.

Still, with the Marlins debacle and the current mood against what has been described persuasively as “welfare for billionaires,” the citizens and politicians have a hard time seeing the investment of public dollars as a benefit to the region.

Even if, you know, it is.

AP

The moment when Darrelle Revis went down with a torn ACL last year, Buccaneers General Manager Mark Dominik recognized an opportunity.

Dominik told NFL Network that he immediately thought about the possibility that the Jets might decide to trade Revis, and that the Bucs’ front office started thinking about what Revis could mean to Tampa’s future during the 2012 season.

“Quite frankly, it started when he blew out his knee,” Dominik said. “I actually went into our director of player personnel Dennis Hickey’s office and I said, ‘That could be a reason why he could leave the Jets.’ Because I knew what his contract situation was, and so when he hurt his knee, I thought, ‘That’s going to be an out possibility’.”

Dominik said all indications are that Revis is making big strides in his recovery, and that he’s going to be the same Revis who was a three-time All-Pro for the Jets.

“I think we’re getting the No. 1 cornerback in the National Football League,” Dominik said.

If Dominik is right about that, he was smart to start thinking about Revis the moment he went down.

Getty Images

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo will miss Organized Team Activities after having surgery to remove a cyst from his back.

Romo, however, says there’s nothing to worry about, and that the procedure was fairly minor.

“If this was the regular season and I had to play next week, I could,” Romo told the Dallas Morning News. “This is just about being smart. That’s why I did it now. This will have no effect on training camp. No way will it have an impact. And I still think there’s a good chance I’m on the field for minicamp.”

Although it hadn’t been reported previously, Romo had the cyst removed a month ago. He said the surgery was simple enough that his wife could drive him home that day, and he was playing with their son that evening.

“It was a pretty routine afternoon,’’ Romo said. “I was back at the [Cowboys] complex the next day to go through what we would do in the teaching sessions and the throwing sessions this off-season. . . . It was not much of anything, I just went in and had them look at it. It was more of an ache than anything. I just thought, ‘well, it’s something I’d rather not feel.’ I’d rather be 100 percent, not 96 percent. It’s done and it’s made me feel better.”

And while Romo isn’t feeling enough to get to work now, he’s expecting to be as good as ever before the season starts.

AP

Broncos safety Rahim Moore says he’s doing his best to ignore the nasty comments from fans after he gave up the game-tying 70-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter of Denver’s playoff loss to Baltimore.

“I’ve had some bad comments, but I keep those to myself because it’s part of the territory,” Moore said. “Just from random people, anybody, you know? So, but I hear them, I just keep walking. Or I just keep them in the back of my head.”

Moore said he doesn’t blame fans who are angry with him.

“The fans, that’s what they’re supposed to do, that’s why they’re there for us, they pay all their money, their hard-earned money and they want to see greatness,” he said. “So, I don’t fault them at all. But this year, we’re going to do all we can to put some smiles on their faces.”

It’s one thing for Denver fans to boo Moore at the time he gave up the Joe Flacco-to-Jacoby Jones touchdown pass. But if fans are still making “bad comments” to Moore when they see him out and about in Denver, those fans need to get over it.

Still, all Moore can do is ignore anything fans say about that touchdown. And not let it happen again.