Shutdown Corner

• Good news, Raiders fans. JaMarcus Russell has reported to camp, and he's in pretty decent shape. There were once rumors that Russell was over 300 pounds, but he says he was never close to that, and he showed up at a relatively-svelte 269.

• Patriots president Jonathan Kraft recently had some not-so-nice words for ESPN and their coverage of Spygate (imagine that), and Stampede Blue wonders why anyone cares what the Kraft family thinks anymore.

• The Falcons have begun contract negotiations with Matt Ryan, which has to make everyone in the Falcons organization a little nervous. Not because there's anything wrong with Ryan, but just the very idea of giving a quarterback a huge long-term deal has to make everyone in Falconland a little queasy. This may be the first contract in NFL history with a "no dog murder" clause written into it.

• This is from the same story linked above, but I'm going to link it again, just because I'm not sure of the etiquette here. Michael Irvin once opined that every NFL rookie should be required to visit the Hall of Fame in Canton, and the NFL decided to make it policy. Every rookie's now required to visit the Hall of Fame.

• There's some talk tucked away at the bottom of this article about the possibility of the Chargers, Raiders, or Saints moving to Los Angeles after 2010.

• Herman Edwards is well aware that the Chiefs offensive line needs an Extreme Offensive Line Makeover.

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Actually, I think she's just going to interview him, and in all likelihood, it's going to end with absolutely nothing newsworthy. Nothing against Katie Couric, but I doubt she's been following Spygate all that closely, and even if she did ask the difficult, pointed questions of Bill Belichick, I doubt he's going to answer them in any way that could be considered interesting.

But it's happening tonight between 6:30 and 7:00, EST, on the CBS Evening News.

Gracias, Reiss's Peices.

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I made an appearance (so to speak) on The PM Jab radio show on WJAB in Maine yesterday afternoon. Radio shows are what podcasts used to be before podcasts existed, only they're longer and have commercials.

My thanks to Chris Sedenka and the JAB people for letting me post the interview here. To listen, click that pretty blue link below.

Download MP3.

Unlike previous podcasts I've done, that's an actual radio station, an actual show, and it has actual listeners, so I had to be on my best behavior. We talked about Spygate, Arlen Specter, Tom Brady's legacy after all this, and we touched on a few of the things we've already talked about here. From there, we moved on later to potential destinations for Shaun Alexander and Chris Henry.

(NOTE: If you don't get the entire interview with your first attempt, try again. It'll all got there, but sometimes our downloading mechanism gets a little wacky. This stuff always seems to happen when Locke decides to move the island.) 

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That's the word from the New York Daily News, anyway. There's no direct quote from Strahan, and Strahan's agent says that money hasn't been discussed, but Ralph Vacchiano seems convinced of the story's truthiness.

Michael Strahan doesn't appear to be close to announcing his future plans, but there is something the Giants could do to push things along.

They could give him $8 million.

That's the amount Strahan hopes to get from the Giants for what would likely be his final season with the team - and possibly in the NFL - if he decides to return to play in 2008, according to two sources familiar with his situation.

That would be double the $4 million salary he's due this season in the final year of the seven-year, $46 million deal he signed in 2002.

Strahan's been saying that he's already made up his mind about retirement, but that he won't announce his decision until he's "100% sure." If this story is to be believed, Strahan will be 100% sure when the Giants tell him that they're 100% sure that he's not getting $8 million for one year of service. Vacchiano says one source told him that the Giants will go up to $6 million.

Myself, I'd find it strange that Strahan would let $2 million be the deciding factor in his retirement. Money motivates everyone, whether they'll admit it or not. I know this. But at the same time, Strahan's really in a position where he can do anything he wants. He's no longer chasing a ring. He's leaving on top. The public's going to adore him, either way. He's got money. And if he wants more, he has other options, such as television, where he'd be fantastic.

He's just not in a position where $2 million is going to make or break him. I'd be surprised (not shocked, but surprised) if he was letting money dictate this decision, instead of his willingness, or lack of willingness, to take another year of physical punishment at the age of 36.

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Would it surprise you to learn that Bill Parcells and Ricky Williams are getting along swimmingly?

Yeah, it would surprise me, too. But I don't feel bad about that, because it's also surprising the hell out of Ricky Williams.

From the Dolphins blog at Sun-Sentinel.com:

Williams also said he was surprised that Dolphins czar Bill Parcells didn't cut him when he took over the team last December.

"(Parcells) was describing the kind of player he wanted," Williams said. "Honestly, I had doubts if I was going to be that type of player."

Williams said that Parcells called him into his office after the team meeting and told him he was keeping him on the team to share rushing duties with Ronnie Brown.

"I was expecting him not to talk to me at all," Williams said. "I was expecting to get a letter in the mail saying I was going to be a free agent.

"I like (Parcells) more than I thought I would," added Williams, who had lunch with Parcells last week. "He's really different than I expected. It seems to me his greatest joy is developing true friendships with his players, being a mentor and trying to help people, not just in football but in life."

You know what I smell? I smell sitcom. Ricky Williams and Bill Parcells share an apartment, and wacky hijinx ensue.

Parcells: Ricky, I'm only gonna ask you this once. Did you leave the cap off the ---damn toothpaste?

Williams: Oh, coach, come on. We've got minicamp today. We don't know who our starting quarterback will be. Children are starving all over the world. Don't you think there are more important things in the world than the cap on your toothpaste?

Parcells: You wanna know what the most important thing in your life is, Ricky? You might think it's yoga, or meditation, or embracing your inner ---damn butterfly, but that would be a lot of bull----. The most important thing in your life right now is the fact that if you leave the cap off the toothpaste again, I will light your beard on fire. Do you hear me, son? I will light. Your beard. On fire.

Williams: I don't care. My beard doesn't define who I am. And brushing your teeth is an act of vanity anyway. Bill Parcells needs to learn to love Bill Parcells, no matter what color his teeth are.

Parcells: (grabs a can of hairspray and a lighter, and begins chasing Ricky through the apartment)

Gracias, Larry Brown Sports.

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If you aren't familiar with the name John Tomase, I sort of envy you. That would mean that you aren't terribly caught up in all this Spygate business, at least not caught up enough to know the name of the unfortunate soul at the Boston Herald who first "broke" the story of the Rams walkthrough tape, which, of course, we now know never existed.

His official apology is here, but here's the Reader's Digest version: He screwed up. He had sources that weren't concrete and he really wanted to break the story first, so he made some poor assumptions. He ended up printing something about the Patriots that wasn't true.

And in a special treat for Herald readers who demanded their pound of flesh, the Herald turned comments back on for the apology story. One hour after the story was posted (which was sometime around midnight or 1 a.m. last night), there were 53 comments, and exactly two of them weren't bile-filled rants calling for Tomase to be fired and/or beheaded, and then to have his severed head paraded through downtown Boston on a stick, while his parents are tied to the Bunker Hill Monument, where the public are invited to drop by and throw rocks at their faces.

Patriots fans, I understand why you might not be to happy with John Tomase. I get it. The story not only turned out not to be true, but it went public on the day before the Super Bowl, which was a time you were hoping to enjoy (but, as it turned out, you didn't get to enjoy that either. Sorry).

But an important thing to note here is that Tomase was getting flambéed by the public before anyone even knew for sure that no walkthrough tape existed. The actual crime he committed was reporting a story he shouldn't have, but the crime he's been paying for is reporting a story that Patriots fans didn't like.

If he wrote for a paper in Los Angeles or Minnesota, he'd still have been taken to task over this, but the public vitriol wouldn't even be a fraction of what it's been. Again, he had been getting raked over the coals by Boston fans long before it was public knowledge that no tape existed. All the newest comments of hatred on his apology column might as well read, "OH YEAH, AND IT WASN'T TRUE, EITHER!"

The guy made a mistake. A big, big mistake, and the timing couldn't have been worse. But still, it was just a mistake. You're all going to make mistakes in your job, and in your life. Some of them will be big, big mistakes. And some of them will have consequences far worse than making a group of football fans kinda sad on the day before their favorite team played a big game.

I sort of wish that the newspaper business worked like sports, and the Herald could trade Tomase to the Seattle Times for cash and future considerations, just so both parties could get a fresh start.

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I've conducted exactly one interview in my life, and that was with a couple of very nice older fellows who had attended every Super Bowl. I don't count the encounters with Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, and Nomar Garciaparra and Mia Hamm as interviews. That was more like "making small talk while playing a game I was led to believe would be bowling, but definitely wasn't bowling."

So when the chance to interview LaDainian Tomlinson came along, my first thought was, "Hell yes." And then my second thought was, "Wait a minute, I don't know anything about interviewing people."

But, Jason Cole had already interviewed Tomlinson earlier here at Yahoo! Sports, so the pressure was low. It was like Cole had already staked us a big lead, and I had a chance to go in late in the game and perform a little meaningless mop-up duty. Maybe I go out there slobbering and crying and embarrass myself, but, no big deal, we've already got the lead. I figured my approach should be to just talk to the guy, be honest, and just see what happens.

So I started with a couple of football questions, and then tried to ease into getting to know him better as a person. I don't think the end result was too bad.

MJD: After the AFC Championship game last year, where you were on the bench with the knee injury, when you sat back and you watched TV and you saw people questioning your toughness and your attitude, how mad did that make you?

LaDainian Tomlinson: Well, it was more frustrating than anything. I don't know if I was more mad, but I was definitely frustrated because I felt like I had done everything possible to even try to play in the game. I really would've got criticized if I would have said, "You know what, I know that I can't play this game, and I'm not going to play," instead of at least trying to do everything I could to possibly play.

And so it was definitely frustrating because no one knew how I felt but me. I was the one going through it, I was the one that was injured, and I felt like it's easy to say what you would do if you're not in that position. So it was more frustrating than anything. But you know, it really motivated me in the offseason and going into this year.
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• Torry Holt, when asked of his impressions of rookie Rams wide receiver Donnie Avery, the first receiver taken in the draft: "Right now, I don't have any impressions of Donnie Avery. ... Hopefully, during training camp he'll show me something." I think you just got served, Donnie Avery.

• Meanwhile, Harry Douglas, the 13th wide receiver picked in the draft, is making the biggest buzz at Falcons camp. To be fair, though, anyone who doesn't close their eyes, run in circles, and scream, "I LIKE FOOTBALL, I LIKE FOOTBALL, I LIKE FOOTBALL!" probably stands out in Falcons camp.

• That incident I mentioned a while back between James Hardy and his father was, according to Hardy, "blown out of proportion and has been very hurtful and frustrating for me and my father." He says the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and the situation was misinterpreted. And I probably should never have brought it up, with the details being so sparse. My apologies.

• Here's an argument that Bill Parcells could actually earn his way out of the Hall of Fame if the Dolphins continue to suck under his tutelage, which I don't think would be fair. Joe Montana never didn't really light it up in Kansas City, but I don't think you can hold that against him, either. I don't know why the same wouldn't apply to Parcells.

• Al Michaels, despite the NFL Network's best efforts, will not be calling games there on Thursday nights. I'd love to see Rich Eisen get a shot a the gig, as I think he's got a personality that would be perfect for play-by-play.

• Glendale found a way to lose money while hosting the Super Bowl. Sorry. I should have bought more t-shirts.

• Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans was unfortunately unable to convince Wal-Mart that underprivileged children deserve water.

• The Panthers are giving rookie RB Jonathan Stewart a shot to grab the kick returning job.

• And finally, the sad and disconcerting tale of a man described by Manhattan's District Attorney as "a recidivist transit grinder."

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The next stop on that Matt Walsh media tour appears to be HBO, where he'll be appearing for an interview on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" on Friday Night. Boston.com got a hold of some further quotes from Walsh.

Walsh on the importance of the videotapes to the Patriots success:

"If it was of little or no importance, I imagine they wouldn't have continued to do it, and probably not taken the chances of going down onto the field in Pittsburgh or shooting from other teams' stadiums the way we did."

On how the Patriots convinced other teams to let them have an extra camera in the area:

"The line of reasoning that we would give to other teams for why we need a third camera setup was, `Well, our coaches want to have a tight shot of the kicker and the holder ... exchange just to go over with the guys in meetings. You know, they want a tight shot, you know, of the quarterback, you know, just to go over the quarterback's footwork and mechanics in meetings. If I was in the end zone, we would say, `Well, we just want to have two end zone shots of the game because our coaches like always seeing the view of our players' backs.'"

And on Belichick's absurd claim that he "misinterpreted" a rule:

"When I was doing it, I understood what we were doing to be wrong. We went to great lengths to keep from being caught. Just saying that the rules were misinterpreted isn't enough of an apology or a reasoning for what was done. ... Coach Belichick's explanation for having misinterpreted the rules, to me, that really didn't sound like taking responsibility for what we had done, especially considering the great lengths that we had gone through to hide what we were doing."

There are a few more quotes in there that you can peruse, but I don't know that any of it's significant. The only further illegality that seems to be implied here is that Belichick lied about misinterpreting a rule, and I think most people on planet Earth with any sort of mental capacity had already accepted that "explanation" as a giant pile of moose manure.

Other than that, the only thing of note I see here is that other teams are extremely gullible. "Oh, we just want an extra camera here, so we can get a good look at the center/holder exchange." And they bought that? What is wrong with you people? The people who bought that are the same people currently wiring money to the prince of Nigeria so he can get his fortunes released from his Swiss bank account.

I really can't believe they accepted that explanation. "Yeah, coach that guy wearing the Patriots hat that we had in your locker room listening to your halftime instructions? He was there to inspect the pipes in the building. We wouldn't want anything to leak on you guys! And coach, if you catch one of our linebackers nude and laying on top of your wife, don't worry about it, because he's probably just thoroughly checking her for lice. Cool? Alright, thanks, buddy!"

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