Missourinet

Your source for Missouri News and Sports

You are here: Home / Archives for NFL

Burroughs High School star, Elliott gets a phone call from Jerry Jones. Selected 4th overall (AUDIO)

By

Ezekiel Elliott showed up to the NFL draft wearing...yes, a belly shirt (photo/Twitter.com/ChicagoBears)

Ezekiel Elliott showed up to the NFL draft wearing…yes, a belly shirt (photo/Twitter.com/ChicagoBears)

Ezekiel Elliott, who was a star in the state of Missouri for John Burroughs High School and a star running back at Ohio State, was selected by the Dallas Cowboys with the fourth overall pick in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday.

Elliott finished second in all-time rushing yards for the Buckeyes.

At Burroughs, Elliott won four state titles in track and field (100 meters, 200 meters, 110 high hurdles, and 300 hurdles).

His dad Stacy played linebacker for the Missouri Tigers and was on the team for the infamous “fifth down” play against Colorado.

What NFL experts are saying about Elliott–Elite, three­-down running back who has the ability to excel in every facet of the game. Elliott has rare combination of size, athleticism, pass-catching and blocking skills and his competitive nature is always bubbling on the surface. While he’s had to handle a heavy workload over the last two seasons, Elliot should still come out of the gates as one of the most productive young running backs in the league.*

Here’s the phone exchange between Elliott and Dallas owner Jerry Jones (Audio via DallasCowboys.com)

*Source, NFL.com

Warner, Pace and Shields highlight Rams and Chiefs players listed as Hall of Fame finalists

By

Kurt Warner joins 14 others as finalists for Pro Football's Hall of Fame

Kurt Warner joins 14 others as finalists for Pro Football’s Hall of Fame

There are 15 finalists for the Pro Football’s Hall of Fame. Some familiar names with ties to our Missouri teams, starting with the quarterback of the Greatest Show on Turf, Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, two time MVP, played in three Super Bowls.

Other finalists…Orlando Pace, who protected Warner. He was a five time Pro Bowler.

Chiefs guard Will Shields, played in 224 straight games from his rookie year in 1993 until he retired in 2006.   The longtime Chiefs lineman was named first-team All-Pro three times, during which he blocked for an NFL-best scoring offense featuring running back Priest Holmes in 2002 and 2003.

Former Rams defensive end/linebacker Kevin Greene. Played from 85-99. Third among all-time sack leaders with 160.

When the Rams moved to St. Louis head coach Rick Brooks asked Jerome Bettis to move to fullback. He said he’d rather be traded. He went to Pittsburgh and helped them to a Super Bowl title in his final season. He was ranked fifth in all-time rushing when he retired.  “The Bus” helped Pittsburgh to a Super Bowl XL title in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan

Kicker Morten Anderson played two of his 25 seasons with the Chiefs.  Drafted in 1982, Andersen scored more than 90 points in each of 22 seasons and topped 100 points 14 times in his 25-year career. Andersen’s best moment might have been a game-winning field goal in overtime to send the Falcons to Super Bowl XXXIII.

How is a guy like Richie Incognito still in the NFL?

By

Let me give you the football rap sheet on offensive lineman Richie Incognito. In 2009 he got into a verbal altercation with Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo after a game in which he picked up multiple penalties in a game. Incognito was waived a few days later. In college, Incognito also was suspended for the 2004 season at Nebraska for off-field incidents.

Incognito was voted the second-dirtiest player in the NFL from a player poll in the Sporting News before the 2012 season. Now, with the Miami Dolphins, Incognito has been suspended by the team for conduct detrimental to the team.

Incognito is being looked at by the Dolphins, the NFL and the NFL Players Association for harassment of teammate Jonathan Martin, who left the team last week following a lunchroom incident.

“The Miami Dolphins have suspended Richie Incognito for conduct detrimental to the team,” the team said in a statement released late Sunday night. “We believe in maintaining a culture of respect for one another and as a result we believe this decision is in the best interest of the organization at this time. As we noted earlier, we reached out to the NFL to conduct an objective and thorough review. We will continue to work with the league on this matter.”

I’ve expressed concerns about this guy before.  At what point does the NFL wake up and make examples of players like this. He is a player who has continually been flagged for unsportsmanlike penalties, accused of dirty play, late hits and has gotten into spats with former coaches and teammates. Yet, he continues to collect a paycheck from NFL teams.

There is no room for these type of players who have disregard for rules, sportsmanship and now this latest incident. If the allegations against harassment against Martin are true, Incognito should not only be suspended, but kicked out of the league.

 

Chiefs fare well as NFC beats AFC in Pro Bowl

By

New York Giants wideout Victor Cruz broke a Pro Bowl record with 10 catches, Tampa Bay receiver Vincent Jackson had 91 yards and two touchdowns and Eli Manning threw for 191 yards and two touchdowns in the NFC’s 62-35 win over the AFC. Whether the Pro Bowl returns for another game will be up to Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson actually gave the AFC a 14-10 lead in the second quarter when he picked off Manning and went 42 yards for a touchdown. Johnson tied for the team lead with six solo tackles, joining teammate Eric Berry. Berry was the leading AFC tackler with seven.

Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles led the AFC in rushing with three carries for 12 yards.

Former Mizzou Tiger, William Moore, who plays for Atlanta, had one of the NFC’s three interceptions.

Dustin Colquitt, the Chiefs punter was busy for the AFC, punting four times for a 51.6 average.

 

Wildcard playoff preview (Google Hangout)

By

The 2013 NFL playoffs begin Saturday with the start of Wildcard weekend.  Here’s a preview from Bill Scott of Wisconsin Radio Network.

Play begins Saturday afternoon in the AFC with the Cincinnati Bengals taking on the Houston Texans in Houston (3:30pm CT).

The Bengals are looking for their first playoff win since 1990 and they’ll need a strong defensive showing to pull it off. Over the last 8-games, the Bengals have allowed an average 12.8 points a game. Over the last 3-games, Cincinnati has tallied 9 take/aways, 9 sacks and scored 3 defensive touchdowns.

Houston, at one time had been playing for the number 1 seed in the AFC. Not only did the Texas fail to secure the top spot, but they failed to hang on to the number-2 spot and find themselves in wild card weekend.

The Texans are led defensively by former Wisconsin Badger defensive end J.J. Watt who put up some monster numbers this season. Watt has 20 1/2 QB sacks, 107 tackles including 39 tackles for loss, 16 passes defensed and 4 forced fumbles.

Green Bay vs. Minnesota

The second game on Saturday is an NFC Wildcard game featuring the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field (7pm CT).

The Vikings beat the Packers 37-34 last Sunday at the Metrodome to lockup the 6-seed in the NFC playoffs. The Packers were already in, but could have secured the 2-seed and a 1st round bye with a win.

Adrian Peterson rushed for 199 yards in the Minnesota win, giving him 409 yards in the 2-games against the Packers this season.

The two teams are meeting for the 3rd time in the last 6 weeks.

Christian Ponder has played considerably better of late and didn’t turn the ball over at all against the Packers last weekend. Ponder tossed three touchdown passes in the Vikings win.

Aaron Rodgers has a 116.4 career quarterback rating against the Vikings, adding 24 touchdown passes and only 4 interceptions. That 6 to 1 touchdown to interception ratio ranks 2nd best in NFL history.

If this game comes down to kickers, Green Bay’s Mason Crosby has missed 12 times this season but has hit his last 4. Minnesota’s Blair Walsh, in his rookie season, has rarely missed and is a perfect 10 for 10 from beyond 50-yards.

Previewing the Wildcard playoffs and the NFL coaching picture is Bill Scott (Sports Director) from the Wisconsin Radio Network and Kevin McCrarey (Sports Director) of the South Carolina Radio Network.

[Read more…]

NFL playoff schedule

By

Saturday Jan. 5

No. 6 Cincinnati Bengals
at No. 3 Houston Texans
Reliant Stadium, 3:30 p.m. CT, NBC

No. 6 Minnesota Vikings
at No. 3 Green Bay Packers
Lambeau Field, 7 p.m. CT, NBC

Sunday Jan. 6
No. 5 Indianapolis Colts
at No. 4 Baltimore Ravens
M&T Bank Stadium, 12 p.m. CT, CBS

No. 5 Seattle Seahawks
at No. 4 Washington Redskins
FedExField, 3:30 p.m. CT, FOX

[Read more…]

Washington University gets NFL grant to study concussions

By

Football players suffering from the effects of concussions could one day benefit from new treatment methods developed thanks in part to mice.

David L. Brody, MD, PhD

Washington University in St. Louis has received a grant of about $91,000 from NFL charities, the charitable foundation of National Football League Owners, toward studying brain injuries from multiple concussions. David Brody, MD, PhD is associate professor of neurology. He has worked clinically with retired NFL players since 2010 and says in that time he has learned that a better method is needed for assessing what happens after a concussion.

“So then we returned to the laboratory to start developing animal models of repeated concussions where we can control, now, the severity of the concussion and how much time elapses between concussions and how many concussions there are. We can’t control those things, obviously, in players.”

The work will involve giving mice concussions to see how well magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can measure damage in the brain’s white matter after repeated incidents.

“The brian has grey matter and white matter and the white matter is the wiring system and this new MRI scan called diffusion tensor imaging is really tuned up for studying the wiring system. The wiring system is what we think is most commonly injured after concussions.”

Why mice?

Brody says the mice provide good models of concussions as they occur in people.

“The mice are confused and they’re not thinking clearly and their memory isn’t very good and their balance is poor just like a concussed person, but it’s not fatal. If you give a single concussion to the mouse it doesn’t cause any permanent injury. The mouse recovers from this quite well after about a week. But, multiple concussions in the mouse do cause persistent abnormalities, and so we do think it’s a fairly good model.”

Brody has also studied what has happened to U.S. military personnel that have suffered blast-related brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says those concussions have substantial differences from those suffered by players of football and other sports.

“We think that the scan type … this diffusion tensor imaging … will hopefully be very useful at both, but that’s not a sure thing by any means. We need to prove that, and so we recently have a good animal model for sports-related concussion and we’re going to test this new scan for the first time in that model.”

Results now could lead to more work later.

Brody hopes after the first year of the two-year project, if the imaging is working well in mice, planning might begin for studies on people such as current or former athletes. Scans could be done on people now, but he says the results wouldn’t be understood.

“We could see the results, and maybe we could see some abnormalities but we wouldn’t really know what they mean, whereas in mice we can really figure out what an abnormality means. That’s what we did before with the more severe injuries and we were able to use that knowledge to help us understand what the results of the blast injuries were. We’re following the trajectory that we had used in the past for more severe injuries and studying blast related injuries, and it was very successful in the past.”

Brody says any optimism for the work should be cautious. “This isn’t going to solve the problem of what concussions are and how soon is it safe to return to play and how to know for sure whether a particular symptom is related to concussion, definitely, any time soon. This is really going to be a five- to ten-year effort before we really address all the problems related to concussion.”

As for the use of the mice, Brody notes it uses a method approved by animal studies committees that is considered ethical because the mice are under anesthesia and feel no pain.

Several Tigers sign on with NFL teams

By

While Michael Egnew was the only Missouri Tiger drafted by an NFL team over the weekend (Miami-third round), several Mizzou players will have the opportunity to showcase their skills with NFL teams after signing free agent contracts. Here is the breakdown of who and where:

DL Terrell Resonno–Minnesota

DL Dominique Hamilton–Oakland

DL Jacquies Smith–Miami

OL Austin Wuebbels–Denver

OL Dan Hoch–New Orleans

LS Beau Brinkley–Tennessee

WR Wes Kemp–Carolina

WR Jerrell Jackson–Houston

PK Grant Ressel–Pittsburgh

New Jacksonville owner makes wild claim

By

Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan is in damage control mode after his comments about what makes a fan of his team. Khan perhaps didn’t have his words come out the right way he wanted when he explained, “I think I can clarify at this point for me a fan is somebody who is a season ticket holder fan for the Jaguars,” said the new owner. “We want to hear from people, we want a huge amount of constructive feedback. We need input, but we need that from fans who are season ticket holders.”

You may recall Khan tried to make a serious bid to buy the St. Louis Rams, but was denied by Stan Kroenke who stepped in and took over majority ownership.

NFL news–Romeo’s first task, no decision yet from Fisher

By

It’s cliché, but the coaching carousel is spinning at full speed, just a week and a half after the regular season in the NFL, and the Chiefs and Rams are in the middle of the ride.

I’ll start first in Jacksonville, where former Mizzou quarterback Blaine Gabbert will have a new head coach. The Jaguars named Atlanta offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey as their head coach. Mularkey has done well with Falcons coach Matt Ryan except for a 24-2 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday where the offense failed to score a single point. Ryan passed for a career-high 4,177 yards and 29 touchdowns. Mularkey will be needed to turn around Blaine Gabbert’s career, the Jaguars’ first-round draft pick who struggled as a rookie.

[Read more…]