but manning is right, releasing him would be a huge mistake. he is the best nickel on this team and what concerns me is that this sounds like another lovie/babich impulse move. for no logical reason, players “fall out of favor” and then they plummet to the bottom of the depth chart. Yeah he struggled at times last year as did everyone associated with the franchise, but to single him out especially after he did some great things in 06 is absurd. i know the article said cleveland might take a look, but dont you think new england would get in on it. what conerns me about these evaluations are that they are made during practices. the same practices where the d claims to excel regularly and there is no tackling.

look we all saw d manning at corner last year and it did not look good. we all saw the d last year and we all saw the d against the niners. there is nothing wrong having a proven nickel when 60% of d plays are nickel packages. in my estimation, lovie/babich are a couple more moves like this away from being in the unemployement line.

…remember he was implicated in assaulting a UCLA student last off-season (from Wiki):

On April 23, 2006 Ricky Manning, Jr. attacked a man, Soroush Sabzi 5, in a Denny’s restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.6 He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly fighting a man and eventually pled no contest to felony assault. Manning faced up to four years in prison because of a previous assault charge in 2002, for which he received probation.

According to the police report, Manning and former UCLA teammates, Tyler Ebell and Maurice Jones-Drew bullied a student sitting at another table. Manning confronted the student with “Are you a faggot?”, “You f—-ing Jew,” and then called him “an ugly f—-ing Jew” and a “faggot.” The student asked to be left alone and the football players beat him unconscious. 7

Two days before the incident the Bears had signed Manning to an offer sheet. In light of the assault charges, the Panthers declined to match Chicago’s offer and so Manning signed a $21 million deal with the Bears two days later. In September 2006, Manning pled no contest to felony assault in exchange for another probation deal. Later, Manning proclaimed his innocence. He acknowledged having words with the victim then pushing him in the head—but after that, according to him, his former UCLA teammates did the damage. “Yeah, I did it” explained Manning (AP report). “If I don’t plea to this I have to go through trial. We’re in season now. Then I’d have to put it in the hands of a jury. There are tons of things that can happen with a jury… I just can’t risk that.”

Manning’s previous 2002 assault charge resulted from a fight between Manning and bodybuilders Brian Herbert and Seth Spiker outside a Westwood bar. Originally charged with two counts of felony assault, Manning pled innocent to one count after the other was dropped. 8

The NFL suspended him for one game for this incident[citation needed].

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Good riddance!

in case anyone got injured. Since that didn’t happen, he’s gone.