1) The extra point that football fans have known forever appears to be changing in the NFL. Nothing was done officially at the owners meetings last week, but there was enough chatter that the owners are sure something will be done in two months when the owners next meet.
What are you hoping to see happen with the extra points this season?
2) One big change that was approved is the NFL will now have medically trained safety spotters at every game, and they will be on the lookout for players that seem to be woozy or disorientated after a blow to the head. They will be able stop the game and have the player checked out.
3) The Atlanta Falcons were fined $350,000 and they will lose a 5th round draft pick in 2016 for illegally piping crowd noise into the Georgia Dome.
Falcons president Rich McKay was suspended from the NFL's competition committee, effective April 1. He can't be reinstated until June 30 at the earliest, McClure reported. McKay has been on the competition committee the past 21 years. Roddy White, the former director of event marketing (no, not the Falcons receiver, there were actually two Roddy Whites in the organization) was found to be solely responsible for pumping in the crowd noise and he'll get an eight-game suspension to be served if he lands another NFL job, McClure said. Even though White was responsible, McKay oversees the game-day operations.
I don't see any way the director of event marketing was acting alone. White is probably taking the fall for someone and he probably got a little chunk of change to take the fall.
4) So Tom Brady jumped off a cliff...
"Never doing that again! #AirBrady" - Tom Brady pic.twitter.com/f5OMmayhI5
— SundayNight Football (@SNFonNBC) March 30, 2015
5) But Detroit's DeAndre Levy did this...
Lions LB DeAndre Levy knows how to have an adventure vacation.(via https://t.co/gzDqKQTmlC) http://t.co/TABNkKsFRG pic.twitter.com/sGzI5PprNp
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) March 30, 2015
Isn't there something in an NFL contract that prevents them from doing this?
6) Are any of you guys following the Aaron Hernandez murder trial? I know it's receiving a ton of coverage, but I really don't give a damn about any of it.
7) Tom Coughlin is awesome.
Cannot stop laughing at Tom Coughlin's story about using Siri on his iPhone. http://t.co/XLoKLqBnq9 pic.twitter.com/I9JCoaBNvs
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) March 25, 2015
8) The biggest off season non-story making the rounds around the NFL is Bears head coach John Fox saying that quarterback Jay Cutler will need to earn the starting QB job. At last weeks owners meetings, Fox said the following.
"It's all an open competition," Fox said Wednesday at the NFL owners meeting. "Obviously you've got to start somewhere and my experience in football, really in anything, it's not where you start a competition; it's where you finish it.
"But we've got to start the race with some kind of lineup. We have not discussed that in depth. We have not presented it to our players yet. I kind of have it in my brain and then they compete."
Somehow Fox's comments are being taken as a shot at Cutler, when this is simply the common sense response from a new head coach about the 5-11 team he inherited.
No one has a job set in stone and no one should.
"Logically, if you're looking at a depth chart two weeks before we can get anything going, I'd say yes, he's no. 1 on the depth chart," Fox said.
"[But] I've had guys who were third on the depth chart that, by the time we started the opener, they were first. So I can't tell you what's happening. If I could, I'd be at some racetrack somewhere."
If Cutler takes a step back and Jimmy Clausen takes a step forward, I doubt Fox or the front office would hesitate at playing the best man.
9) Bucky Brooks of NFL.com has a list of 5 players he feels teams would want to trade up for, and 4 of the 5 should still be available when the Chicago Bears are on the clock at 7th overall. The 5th player, Vic Beasley, is probably my favorite prospect in the draft for the Bears.
With Chicago having so many needs and a new regime wanting "their guys", a trade back makes sense.
10) If we are to believe the rumors, the San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers were both in the running for linebacker Mason Foster, who finally signed with the Bears last week. Foster mentioned that his final decision actually came down between the Bears and the Miami Dolphins, but Chicago simply had more to offer.
And by more to offer, I'm not talking about monetarily, as he is another new Bear on a small 1 year deal, but he just liked the fit in Chicago.
"The main reason why [I chose] Chicago was definitely the 3-4 scheme," Foster said on SiriusXM NFL Radio. "It's something that after getting into the league I wanted to be a part of playing a 3-4 system. I think it fits my skill set, giving me a chance to make plays.
"Just being a part of a big city, a team with a lot of history I think is a great fit for me and something that I really wanted to be a part of."
Foster, who turned 26 on March 1, is excited about playing for coach John Fox and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. That's one reason he picked the Bears over the Dolphins in free agency.
"Those were the two that I wanted to play for, but then I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to play in a Fangio defense, in a great city, a defensive city like Chicago," Foster said. "You can't pass that up no matter what. I wanted to play with some great coaches in a great scheme."
Foster is betting on himself meshing with the Bears and their new scheme, as are the other 1 year free agents the Bears signed. Everyone of which should be starting on Fangio's D.
What are some of your thoughts on the NFL from the last few days?