Jim Wyatt talked a little with Chris Palmer at Cam Newton's pro day, and the important part is his comments on the new offensive gameplan. Palmer says that the running game will largely stay the same, but the passing game will become more complex. Palmer is looking for Kenny Britt to make an impact similar to some memorable WRs Palmer has coached-up and developed before: Jimmy Smith in Jacksonville, Andre Johnson in Houston and Plaxico Burress in New York. It's a good read with some nice anecdotes and quotes sprinkled throughout, so I'd advise you to actually click on this one and take a minute to read it before commenting.
Matt Bowen unwittingly lays out the absolute worst case scenario for the Titans in the draft: Fairley, Bowers, Dareus, Newton, Miller, Green and Peterson all go in front of us. I'm really holding out hope that one of those teams does something stupid and one of those guys not-named-Newton falls to us.
How would you like to be a high-profile New England Patriot player who has to call Bill Bellicheat and tell him you're under investigation for shooting at two people at a house party? I'm guessing it's like a long distance version of this.
DeMaurice Smith continues to vow that the players will not agree to an 18 game season. I've gone back and forth on whether or not I would want an 18 game season, and I have to say that I'm still not sure either way. Of course, as a football fan, I want to see more football. However, I also want to see quality football, and I worry about how the extra injuries would effect the quality of play. That being said, I am much more in favor of an 18 game schedule if they add a second bye week for each team and extend the season further into February. The crappiest moments of the year are when the Titans' season is over and when the Super Bowl is finished, so anything that extends that without diminishing the product on the field is kosher with me.
Mike Florio is hearing that the gap between monetary demands of the players and owners has shrunk from $1 billion to $700 million. As absurd as it sounds, that's actually pretty solid progress considering that Florio is also hearing that both sides still willing to move (most likely in exchange for other concessions).
This might be one of the dumber ESPN Insider articles I've ever read. The basic premiss is so astoundingly flawed I'm shocked this thing even ran: "In 2010, 37.5 percent of all NFL throws were from the shotgun. ... The bottom line: Cam Newton keeps getting criticized as a quarterback who isn't familiar with the pro game. Meanwhile, the pro game is busy adjusting to what Newton is most familiar with. " The number of snaps he took or didn't take under center is just scratching the surface of why Cam, and Gabbert really, aren't familiar with the Pro Game by a long shot. While playing under center is a transition lots of guys have struggled to make in the NFL, it's the fact that Newton (and lots of guys in the spread) threw to an extremely limited number of routes. If you watched Auburn play, you had to have noticed that: his WRs were almost always really wide open so he wasn't throwing into those small windows you find in the NFL, lots of plays clearly didn't run on schedule and there just wasn't the variety of routes you have to be able to hit perfectly to dominate in the NFL. Lets also not forget that Gus Malzhan is a friggin' genius; every offense he's outright coached has had crazy production. All of this is to say that Cam is definitely worth a pick in my mind, but that pick is in the 2nd or 3rd round.
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