Shooting occurred

Now, according to reports, Vick wasn't there when the shooting occurred, and to some, him being out of sight means he's out of mind as well. If he wasn't there, there's no

 

reason to implicate Vick in the shooting. That's all fine and good, but what about this: Why in the hell was a member of his old crew at his birthday party to begin with?

Granted, the party was a "pay at the door" event, complete with tickets, meaning an invite from Vick wasn't necessary. But let's be realistic here: if you want to avoid drama,

 

is having an open-to-the-public birthday party in your old stomping grounds, an area still populated by old friends and the previous troubles associated with them, the best

 

idea; especially if the stomping grounds are in the area of where your spectacular fall from grace occurred?

Seems like a great way to invite drama into your life, especially if you are an infamous figure of society.

Perhaps I'm just being old-fashioned,(cheap Atlanta Falcons Jerseys)but I don't see the need for such extravagant, manufactured attempts at celebrating, especially if I'm trying to put such an ugly past

 

behind me. A simple night at home with loved ones and a nice dinner would seem sufficient, but again, maybe I'm just getting old.
 
summer. . . It (was) held at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville.

"A great story of an NFL player who now calls Georgia his home."

Defensive end Kroy Biermann,(wholesale Atlanta Falcons Jerseys) whom many are predicting will have a breakout campaign in 2010, will be able to literally focus better.

One of  defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder's main teaching points it to trust your eyes. Basically, you have to play what you see in front of you.

Now, Biermann can see clearly now since he recently had lasik surgery at the Woolfson Eye Institute.

Oakland Raiders: Taking a Look at the Outside Linebacker Competition

The cheap Oakland Raiders jerseys coaching staff emphasizes competition during training camp.

Of all positions where there is competition, the outside linebacker spot is one of the most intriguing.

There are three main players that are striving to get a starting spot: Thomas Howard, Trevor Scott, and Kamerion Wimbley.

However, there are only two spots.

Let's take a closer look at these players.

 

Thomas Howard

Howard was selected by the wholesale Oakland Raiders jerseys in the second-round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He's only 26, and is barely entering his prime. Thomas is a fan-favorite, and known as a brighter spot to a somewhat lackluster Raiders' defense.

He is by far one of the fastest linebackers in the league, which in turn makes him the best cover linebacker the Raiders have. Towards the end of the 2009 season, he was unexpectedly asked to move to the strong side linebacker position, where he had never previously played.

Howard is valuable to Oakland and a solid starter. However, his status as a starter is now in jeopardy as newly-acquired Wimbley has already topped him on the depth chart. Thomas had a solid 79 tackles and helped the Raiders to be ranked seventh in pass defense, and has seven interceptions in his four-year career.

He has his work cut out for him, but still isn't out of the race to start at either outside linebacker position.

 

Trevor Scott

Trevor Scott is known by many as being a steal in the draft, after the Raiders picked him in the sixth-round in 2008 as a defensive end. Scott put up impressive numbers as a non-starting rookie with five sacks. In 2009, he improved that number to seven sacks.

Later, Scott replaced Howard at the weak-side position. This came as a surprise to many due to the fact that Scott seemed to be more of a pass-rush specialist who had a good future at defensive end.

However, Scott is still a huge question mark, and he looked confused last season on passing downs (when having to drop back in coverage). Still, he is a coach-favorite, and should improve this season in coverage.

 

Kamerion Wimbley

Kamerion Wimbley is a player with a lot of potential. He was drafted No. 13 overall in 2006 by the Cleveland Browns, and had an amazing rookie performance, recording 11 sacks as an outside linebacker. Wimbley had previously played as a defensive end in college at Florida State, and it wasn't clear whether the Browns could convert him smoothly to a different position.

Nonetheless, 2007 was a disappointing year for Browns fans and Wimbley alike, as he faced numerous double teams which resulted in merely five sacks. The following year got even worse, as he recorded four sacks.

Last year, Kamerion showed a flash of hope as he got his highest sack total in three years at 6.5 for the Browns. Wimbley also posted a career-high in tackles with 69.

During the offseason, the Raiders traded a third-round pick for him, and it was said he would be the favorite to be the starting strong side linebacker. Wimbley seems like a solid player with a big future ahead of him.

Now that we got to know the players, it's a bit hard to decide who you want to start.

For me, it would be Wimbley and Howard.

Thomas would be the cover guy so Wimbley could be set loose and wreak havoc for the quarterback. They're two totally different players, it's really day and night with them.

I like Scott bur I just think he's not the best for the Raiders if they want to win right now

Terry Mosher: A Prince of a Guy

The siren call of women, wine, song and dance is a lure athletes like Vince Young, Plaxico Burress, the Seahawks' Ken Hamlin, Ben Roethlisberger and too many others to count, could not resist.

For every athlete who makes news in an unwelcome way, there are many more who steer clear of trouble and play out sports careers without a whisper of trouble. Edgar Martinez had a possible Hall of Fame on-field career and a Hall of Fame way off the field. So did Ken Griffey Jr., although as he got older he sometimes needed an unscheduled nap.

It is difficult to predict if Jared Prince some day will reach the Major Leagues, but it would be a good guess he will not reach the Hall of Shame.

Prince is a prince of a guy — a leader on and off the field, and he's been that way since, well, since he was playing North Kitsap Little League. Nothing has changed now that he is getting paid by the Texas Rangers to play right field for the Hickory (North Carolina) Crawdads in the Class A South Atlantic League.

Minor league-baseball is a daylong commitment, and that doesn't count the bus rides, so it takes a lot of extra effort to get in trouble. Not that many haven't tried it. But not Prince. He is lured by something else less sinister.

When he has free time, he gets a teammate to go to a movie.

When that show is over?

"We go find another movie to go to," Prince says. "Movie theaters are my calling. They call to me on my off days. Seriously. They have nice dollar theaters around here. ... There are like month-old movies. Not long ago we saw Avatar. I got in, bought popcorn and a (drink), for four dollars. It was awesome. I don't know how they can make it."

There isn't a lot of time for movies, or anything else.

Prince has had just three days off since arriving in Hickory from spring training in Arizona. He did recently make it out to Lake Hickory, where the natives catch largemouth bass. Crawdads must be somewhere, too.

Most of the time Prince has his nose to the grindstone. He's hitting nearly .300 with a team-leading 20 doubles and 45 RBI. His six home runs ranks fourth on the Crawdads, and he has committed just one error, and is mad at himself for doing that.

"I wish I wouldn't have had that error," Prince says. "I don't like to make errors. It was kind of a hot, line-drive ground ball in the outfield that took a funny hop, and I kicked it. The guy went to second base. It was not my finest moment."

Two times a week he lifts weights at 10 in the morning. He gets to the field on game-day at 1:30, the team stretches an hour later, and then they do some defensive work and take batting practice. He hangs out in the clubhouse with the rest of his teammates from 5 to 7 p.m.

Games end three hours or more later and by the time he gets to his basement apartment, about the only thing left to do while winding down is to make calls to friends and family, watch a home movie or play his guitar, which must unsettle his host family living above, right?

"I don't know," he says. "They haven't complained."

The guitar is another Prince calling. He used to jam with Gig Harbor's Kenny Alfred, a standout football lineman at Washington State. Now it's pitching coach Brad Holman.

Holman's brother, Brian, was once robbed of a perfect game while pitching for the Mariners. It was on April 20, 1990 when former Mariner Ken Phelps hit a pinch-hit home run for Oakland with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Back home, Prince said the Holman's, including Brad, started crying.

Brad Holman apparently is a pretty good singer/country songwriter and they often go over Holman's songs.

"I play on top of him," says Prince, whose music genre is more rock. "I'll do some (Jimmy) Hendrix's riffs."

Most of his teammates are not aware the team has two guitarists, but he says the word is starting to trickle out.

"I wouldn't be surprised if sometime we are asked to play for somebody," Prince says.

Baseball is his main focus, however. He is enjoying the ride and producing quite nicely. He's old enough to know there is a structured process to advancing through the system to get to the big leagues. He's willing to play it out coolly without any off-field trouble, counting on good citizenship, solid leadership skills, and an extraordinary work ethic to help get him there someday.

Of course, if all else fails, he might want to expand on those Hendrix riffs.

 

Chiefs need to avoid pitfalls on road to training camp

Todd Haley thought the Chiefs deserved a reward. And why not? Players' conditioning hadn't slipped in the months after the season, at least not as it had a year earlier. This time, players were eager, in shape and energized.

So, Haley ended offseason practice a day early this past week, canceling Tuesday's workout and sending the team into a six-week hiatus during which the players will, for better or worse, be on their own. No coaches or trainers in their ear, no teammates and early-morning workout sessions to get them moving on a slow day. And there are a lot of days — and many potential pitfalls — between now and July 29, when the team reports to St. Joseph for training camp.

The Chiefs went their separate ways, and thus begins what could be the most important month and a half of the team's year. If players keep their focus, the Chiefs could be on track to cash in on a promising offseason and, if nothing else, perhaps break a three-year string of winning no more than four contests. If they backslide, the Chiefs' progress the past four months could be lost.

"They've made a great investment," Haley said of his players, "and they can't have any slippage. There's not one that can afford to have any slippage during the time that we're not going to be together."

For a hands-on coach like Haley, six weeks is a long time to wait. This period will be the longest most players have gone without available team-organized activities since March, when the Chiefs' offseason conditioning program began. It was during that program last year that Haley learned how far his team had to go.

Players had tossed aside their discipline after the chaos of 2008: a 14-loss season that led to changes at head coach, general manager and enough other places that the easy thing was to just stay inside, skip the day's workout, and ignore what was happening on Arrowhead Drive. Defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey, wide receiver Dwayne Bowe and left tackle Branden Albert famously piled on extra pounds, and they were only among the players whose gains were so severe that Haley made a public spectacle of them.

"We all had to adjust to the environment," said guard Brian Waters, who skipped all voluntary workouts in 2009 but attended all offseason practices a year later.

Altogether, Haley said, the Chiefs were made to lose about 700 pounds — or nearly 10 pounds per player on the offseason roster.

"Extremely out of condition and out of shape," Haley said of the group he inherited. "We had to run a lot more than you'd probably like."

The Chiefs spent so much time running that the early part of training camp was devoted to conditioning, something Haley said he'd hoped to avoid after spending so much time on it during offseason workouts. Players' fitness had improved by last June, but several players spent the six weeks between offseason practice and training camp doing as little as possible. Nine players failed a conditioning test on the first day of camp, and Haley held them out of practice until they passed.

"I've still got a ways to go," Dorsey said last August, after failing the test.

Dorsey became the exhausted face of both Haley's conditioning movement and what can happen when a player doesn't take his offseason fitness seriously. Dorsey spent four days moving from a stationary bike to other humiliating exercises — all conveniently staged near a prime viewing area for fans — in which he had to drag or push equipment as his teammates practiced.

Dorsey eventually came around, but while the Chiefs waited, they were unable to practice with an important part of their defense, which also was among the changes as it moved to the 3-4 scheme. Each day Dorsey missed was a day the team couldn't work together, identify players' weaknesses and practice football's finer points, such as situational work. Dorsey vowed this offseason to avoid the temptations of 2009; he wouldn't again be the reason the Chiefs couldn't move forward on schedule.

"I just didn't want to set myself back like I did last year," he said. "That was in the back of my mind the whole time."

When Dorsey and others arrived this offseason within striking distance of their target weights, the team was able to move on quicker. Haley said the team did about 60 percent less running compared with a year earlier. That made practices more efficient, and Haley said the Chiefs were far ahead of where they were at the same point in 2009.

"Not even close," he said. "They're in so much better condition. … It comes back to expectations, and they understood. They knew so much more this March than they did last March, and so did we as a coaching staff. That enabled us to do the things we were able to do.

"We've really had a good offseason to this point."

That was to say nothing of the moves that could help the Chiefs take a long-awaited step forward. They signed running back Thomas Jones and guard Ryan Lilja during free agency, and both are expected to get significant playing time. The Chiefs' draft class also got high marks, adding to the optimism at the team's practice facility.

But Haley has reminded the team often: Much of it could be undone if enough players revert to last year's bad habits. Home cooking isn't easy to pass up, and it takes willpower in late June to avoid hitting the snooze button on that 7 a.m. workout. There will be time to stray, and that time could be among the biggest threats to a Chiefs turnaround.

Players won't have the regimentation of scheduled workouts and practices. They won't endure the worry of repercussions if they skip a workout or give half-effort. And they won't have coaches and teammates nearby to hold them accountable.

For the next six weeks, this team will be little more than individuals spread across the country with plenty to do other than think about football. Same as they did a year ago, the Chiefs have options. They can push forward or relapse.

Haley said he has made it clear which option he expects players to take, and the choice that could help the team make good on that optimism.

"We can stay the same, we can get worse or we can get better," he said. "What's critical for everyone in this building is to continue to get better. I don't have any doubt in my mind we're making progress; we've gotten better this offseason.

"We've at least given ourselves a chance."

 

Do USC's Penalties Give Coach Lane Kiffin Needed Breathing Room?

When Lane Kiffin was named head coach of USC shortly after Pete Carroll's departure, many shook their heads wondering how this guy ever landed arguably the best college football coaching gig in the country.

His stint as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders was a disaster, and his brief tenure as head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers was hardly a success.  Some argue that if it weren't for his father Monty Kiffin and his stellar defensive coaching ability, the Vols would have had a far worse season in 2009.

Now that the NCAA has slapped the Trojans right in the mouth with penalties and sanctions, Lane Kiffin has a serious up-hill battle ahead of him.  For the next three seasons after 2010, the Trojans will have 10 fewer scholarships per year to rebuild their team after early departures and graduation.

That being said, has the NCAA given Lane Kiffin a gift disguised as an excuse?  Surely, as the Trojans go without bowl games and less scholarships, the university, alumni, and fans will give Kiffin and his staff time to be successful.  It may take five years or more for USC to recover from the penalties they have received.

How much latitude being given to Coach Kiffin is unknown at this time, but four or five loss seasons are not out of the realm of possibility for the Trojans. 

It may be the latter part of this decade before we know if Lane Kiffin is a good football coach or not.  If we go by his records with the Oakland Raiders or Volunteers, then the answer is quite clear.  Since the jury is still out, USC fans better be patient before handing in their verdict.

I just hope USC fans are patient for their sake.