Weekly NFL Column 8/25 Edition

Weekly NFL Column 8/25 Edition  With Favre back, the NFC North now has to be looked at again. Green Bay tried to force his hand when they didn’t want

Weekly NFL Column 8/25 Edition

 

The Diesel Finds Himself Looking for a New NFL Home!

• With Favre back, the NFC North now has to be looked at again. Green Bay tried to force his hand when they didn’t want him. He asked for a release and they refused? It became known this week in public that the Jets didn’t want him last year so he retired. The Vikings came calling this season, and he was frank that he didn’t want to stay in the dorms and do the first two weeks of camp gig. The Vikings called him back. I understand that people have Favre fatigue, but give it a rest. The Vikes called him back; the Packers and Jets didn’t want him. Favre is taking the blunt of the criticism here and it is a little far-fetched. For the Vikes to do great things Favre doesn’t have to be great. They have a great D and RB. He has to make two or three great Favre plays a game. They now are a force to be reckoned with.
• So Lions fans, see my point about ignoring your lines? Doesn’t matter how good Stafford was, football isn’t won there. See item above. It helps to have a great QB and nobody is saying it doesn’t. We have no idea if Stafford will be one. People already calling him a bust are absurd. The Lions once again went for sizzle over steak and even with over half the players being new, same owner, same results.
• T.J. Duckett being cut by the Seahawks is yet another example of NFL thinking. Duckett has never gotten the chance to be “The GUY” in the NFL. Certainly NFL teams have their own evaluation, but it sure makes me scratch my head to watch him be treated like a bruiser in short yardage situations and then not used? I remember one practice in Detroit he took the ball back on his own 10 or 15-yard line and broke out off the guard for a TD. Everyone was shocked as he ran away from DBs. 
• I have a dear friend who is an NFL scout. He and I were talking last week and I mentioned a QB like Tebow. Can he be “The GUY” in the NFL? He made an interesting point. “How many players lacked whatever the NFL wants and were great? We don’t get the hate on the kid. All he does is win and win with toughness. He may be in the gun, but he runs and puts his nose right up in it. He ain’t ever ran from a hit. Tebow is going to shock so many at the next level and I hope it is with us.”
• The Broncos were humiliated by the Cutler fiasco and how they handled it. Now they have more egg with their handling of the Brandon Marshall issues. I am hearing that New York could be a destination that Marshall would end up. With a young QB in Sanchez, the Jets need a bona fide #1 for him to get to. Not saying it is done, but I know for a fact it is being discussed.
• The NFL free agency program is a joke. Allegedly, NFL teams have to wait after the season for a lengthy period and then the signing frenzy begins. Obviously when guys like Albert Haynesworth sign moments after midnight, it proves the obvious. No teams follow the gag rule. Now there is growing momentum for simply start free agency and let what we all know happens just run its course. One NFL player who is due for free agency at the end of the year told me, “It isn’t like we won’t do it so why keep it illegal. When the speed limit was 55 every one went 70. Just make it real and practical.”
• Oh how the times have changed. When the Chargers let Drew Brees go for an unproven Phillip Rivers they took a lot of criticism. No less than right here. Well they rolled the dice and they won. Here are their props. Rivers is getting a $96 million dollar extension and both he and Brees have flourished.
• Broncos Coach Josh McDaniels is a good guy. I like him, but he has started off bad in Denver. He took over a team that had been coddled by the previous coach and now he is trying to instill toughness and discipline. He may be going over the top, I don’t know, but the players do not like the guy. Will the owner stay the course if they lose bad this year, which they will? Now is a terrible time to be a Bronco fan. Terrible.
• Michael Crabtree the first round WR draft pick of the 49ers still hasn’t signed. At this point he will have to take a lot less money or just try again next year. One 49er told me, “We don’t want him. He is all about himself. We knew that just by pre-camp workouts.”
• Bengals first round OT draft pick Andre Smith is even more amazing. He had off field issuse before the draft and, of course, the Bengals who accumulate those players like a magnet picked him. Now he hasn’t signed. The two circumstances between him and Crabtree end as far as comparison as the only two unsigned first rounders. Smith has handled his business and the Bengals are trying to get him on the cheap like Crabtree is trying to hold the Niners hostage. Smith has been likeable and a hard worker before camp and one member of an NFL team’s management told me, “That is why the Bengals are the Bengals. Take a risk on a guy, and then go weird on his pay?”
• If they can get him the ball, look for Lions rookie TE Brandon Pettigrew to be the Lions offensive MVP. In my annual pre draft look at players courtesy of my NFL friends, they all raved about him. Great hands, great blocker and all thought he was a top guy. He could be special if they can get him the ball, but he will be special when blocking.