Peppers, Taylor and Manumaleuna visiting Bears on Friday posted by Joe Anello

Not even an hour into NFL free agency, ESPN's Adam Schefter is reporting that big fish defensive end Julius Peppers and highly touted running back Chester Taylor will both visit the Chicago Bears on Friday. Brad Biggs is also reporting that tight end Brandon Manumaleuna will also pay a visit.

My quick reaction is that of complete shock. I'm not really sure who these Bears are. They're acting like Dan Snyder and the Redskins (who are now just sitting back and waiting on free agents). It's been a complete switch. Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith are all-in.  

We all knew Peppers was going to be a high priority for Angelo since he's head and shoulders the best DE on the market. Lovie Smith even flew to Carolina to pick him up. That's "the Bears' deal to lose" according to Peppers' agent. Done deal.

The real surprise is their move on Chester Taylor. I have to believe other teams would pay him a boatload of money, so the Bears are obviously ready to shell out the money. Otherwise he wouldn't be visiting. I had no idea they'd make a move on him so quickly.

Also, bringing in Brandon Manumaleuna (who is being reported as getting big money by Schefter) make signal the exit of Greg Olsen. I would hate that idea. Hopefully they're simply bringing Manu in to placate Mike Martz (who coached Manu during his best seasons) and keep Olsen as essentially a receiver. Keeping Olsen, Desmond Clark and Manu would make a trio of solid tight ends who can serve a variety of needs. Maybe Dez Clark could be on the move?

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Observations from the Combie posted by Amari Harris

Okay, so I’m not reallyat the 28th annual NFL scouting combine but it sure feels like I am.  With the great live coverage of the event on NFL.com as well as the NFL network, I feel like a real pro scout.  I’ve also been very impressed with my ability to predict the unofficial 40 times of the athletes as they cross the finish line, but that is neither here nor there.  You want to know what can really be taken away from this year’s pre-draft extravaganza, don’t you?  Well let me give you my take on a few of the happenings over the last few days. 

 

Day 1

 

The star of this group was OT Bruce Campbell from Maryland.  He was considered a first rounder prior to the combine, but his physical attributes and athleticism definitely improved his stock.  Unlike most offensive lineman, he doesn’t look like a bag of doughnuts (no offense big boys) and he has the figure of someone who descended from Mt. Olympus.  He did 34 reps in the bench press and ran a blazing 4.85 in the 40 yard dash.  By comparison, the oft talked about Myron Rolle out of Florida State ran a 4.70 and he plays safety! 

 

The only question about Big Bruce is his lack of dominance on the collegiate level.  He didn’t allow a sack last season, but I supposed he just didn’t jump off the page as the dominant tackle in the draft.  He does look a little stiff in pass protection, but you could do much worse in today’s NFL.  He seems like a stronger, faster version of Flozel Adams, and for all intents and purposes he may end up being Adams’ replacement in Dallas.  But with the showing that he put on at the combine I’d be surprised to see him drop out of the top 20.

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posted by Brandt Barstad

     There are only 12 days untill the Seaside School Half Marahton and 5k and it is sure to be an exciting event.  You may be a serious distance runner, putting in long and strenuous hours every day, beating your feet against the roads and trails, or you may be a cassual jogger, getting out on weekends to enjoy the lovely Monterey Bay weather.  Whether you're serious or casual, the Seaside School Half Marathon and 5k race is built to suit you.

     With an expected turnout of 3,000 or more runners and walker, it is sure to be an exciting Sunday morning on February the 7th in this year of 2010.  Seaside's 2008 race attracted one runner who could not contain the excitement welling within, stating, "It was an incredible experience and I look forward to next year!"  And as expected, in 2009 the Seaside School Half Marathon and 5k did not dissapoint, bringing 2,800 participants to the starting line.

     Running, jogging, walking or even stolling, no matter how you choose to enjoy the outdoors, don't forget to sign up and enjoy yourself at the beautiful Bayside race.

     Find out more at: http://www.seasidehalfmarathon.com/index.ph

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Big Daddy Gets You Ready For the Black ’n’ Gold Super Bowl posted by Les Leonard

     Did everyone recover from a wild weekend without Saints football? Big Daddy barely felt the Saints’ third bye week blow by thanks to Bobby Hebert honoring the Buddy “D” promise: to wear a dress if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl. Big Daddy wonders if seeing all those guys in dresses compelled the U.S. military to ponder abolishing their “don’t ask— don’t tell policy.”

     Where were you when you heard Jim Henderson’s immortal words: “Pigs have flown, Hell has frozen over, the Saints are on their way to the Super Bowl?” Big Daddy didn’t hear Henderson’s call live, but he caught it the first time on the Big 870 WWL Radio, listening to the Saints postgame show. Nothing ever sounded better.

     Judging from the Saints NFC Championship nail biter, Big Daddy hopes the Who Dat Nation stocked up on booze and tranquillizers for what’s about to transpire? In this special Black ’n’ Gold Super Bowl edition of the Section 645 Saints Beat, Big Daddy investigates Krewe du Vieux’s origin, visits the French Quarter for Buddy and Bobby’s Brawds Dress March, drives to Bay St. Louis for the Second Guess Show, recaps the Pro Bowl, unveils a winning approach to Super Bowl XLIV, and releases his World Famous Pregame Information.

     Carnival lovers have marked Krewe du Vieux Saturday on their calendars since 1987. From the ashes of the Krewe of Clones, who disbanded in 1986, due to a dispute between the Contemporary Arts Center’s leadership, City Hall, and the Krewe. The disagreement stemmed from the Clones’ intention to parade the night before Super Bowl XX (Chicago vs. New England) played in the Superdome. Who remembers Buddy D’s breaking news report about Chicago quarterback Jim McMahon calling the women of New Orleans sluts? Huh, Big Daddy didn’t realize BYU grads were such experts on the topic? Inspired by the Aug. 4 fire in the Krewe du Vieux den, 2010’s theme was “All Fired Up” with Dr. John reigning as king, while Mother Miriam Chamani from Rampart St.’s Voodoo Spiritual Temple served as the queen. Per tradition, the 17 sub-krewes rolled 18 days before Fat Tuesday with their mule driven hand made floats, marching jazz bands, and costumed sub-krewe members making their way up Royal, down Decatur, and then on to Frenchmen, throwing unique novelty trinkets to appreciative revelers, lining the parade route to check out the political satire and raunchy adult humor.

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Mike Martz: New Offensive Coordinator posted by richard Kagan

A few years back Mike Martz was hailed as the new genius in offense.  St. Louis had Kurt Warner and fleet receivers and won a Super Bowl.  But that seems a long time ago.  The Bears just need someone to help QB Jay Cutler to keep his sanity, not get injured, and throw more touchdowns than interceptions.  Especially less interceptions.

We know Cutler has an arm, we saw that in the last two games of the year.  Now, if he can do that more consistently, and if the Bears can find a running game, any running game.  Then the Bears may have a semblance of an offense.

Mike Martz has his work cut out for him.  And, so the the Chicago Bears.

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From Pro Bowl to Blow Bowl? (It's a tounge twister) posted by Amari Harris

This year’s Pro Bowl has sparked more controversy and debate than any Pro Bowl in history.  For one, the game is not being played in Hawaii. This year it has been moved to the Super Bowl site in Miami.  The game is also being played the week before the Super Bowl which eliminates any of the Super Bowl participants from the game.  This year has also seen an astounding number of opt-outs for the Pro Bowl which has resulted in an astounding number of Pro Bowl alternates.  Some of the positions are going as far as seven deep.  To give you an idea of how ridiculous this situation has gotten, Vince Young  and David Garrard are going to the Pro Bowl this year.  They both had okay seasons but not Pro Bowl seasons.  Vince Young didn’t even start until week 6.  Garrard had one of his worst seasons statistically, but when 5 people in front of you pull out of the game then it shows you how watered down the quarterback position is.  On the other side of the coin, well deserving players like Cedric Benson and Thomas Jones  are still being snubbed for a Pro Bowl spot.  And that’s just the AFC!  There has to be some way to remedy this situation, and I think that I have a couple of ideas that could revamp the Pro Bowl.

 

Less QBs, more RBs

 

It really just makes sense.  No teams carry 3 quarterbacks on their game day roster so why would you have 3 in the Pro Bowl? You only need two of them, one for the first half of the game and one for the second half.  This would make the spots more coveted and you would have less guys pulling out.  And it also makes sense to add a running back to the mix.  Ultimately these guys will be taking the most punishment out of everyone on the field so you may as well have 4 of them, one for each quarter.  Under this format we would get to see Chris Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice and Cedric Benson all on the same field.  I’d much rather see these guys than David Garrard and Vince Young.

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Big Daddy Celebrates a Playoff Pummel posted by Les Leonard

     Thank goodness The Times-Picayune finally jumped on the Big Daddy bandwagon by printing the “Big Daddy’s Suggestions to Promote Intensity” excerpt in the Living section article “ A playoff pep talk from your fellow Who Dats” last Saturday. Saints fans heeded Big Daddy’ s advice.

     Spearheaded by Section 645, they pumped up the Superdome’s volume throughout the playoff game. The Saints dashed Arizona’s dreams of defending last year’s NFC crown with their explosive offense, which scored five first-half touchdowns. Effective special teams (thanks to Reggie Bush), and Gregg Williams’ aggressive, opportunistic defense combined with the crowd’s relentless roaring to shatter Arizona’s dreams of defending last year’s NFC crown. In this week’s edition of the Section 645 Saints Beat, Big Daddy covers Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s final Martin Luther King Day speech, tailgates at the Kingpin, reports live from Section 645, recaps the Arizona game, provides game-winning strategy for the NFC Championship which takes place in New Orleans for the first time, and releases his World Famous Pregame Information.

     Monday marked Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s final Martin Luther King Day speech. Who could forget his eloquent 2006 MLK holiday address, in which he renamed New Orleans the “Chocolate City?” Where were you when he proclaimed these racist views? Nagin’s irresponsible behavior broke the spirit of an already fractured community more than Tiger Woods disgraced the game of golf with his “hide the Salami” antics. Remember when Nagin considered running for governor— C. Ray's arrogance didn’t let him understand that he would get less votes than a smelly fart. On Feb. 6, the electorate decides which candidate will succeed Nagin; Big Daddy expects disgruntled citizens to make an informed decision based on the issues this time, instead of reverting to Ray’s divisive method of picking public officials, which he himself relied so heavily on four years ago.

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Big Daddy Uses Second Bye to Prepare posted by Les Leonard

     Last Saturday and Sunday, America watched eight teams battle through Round 1 of the NFL playoffs. The four wildcard winners earned the right to travel to the hostile environments of the teams who garnered the best records throughout pro football’ s regular season. Wow, enjoying the playoffs stress-free, while the Saints got rested and ready made Big Daddy feel more relaxed than Tiger Woods when he travels the world. Hey local golf fans, are you pissed? Tiger’ s doing a sex clinic in Mississippi, but he won’t support the Zurich Classic. The Reverend Al Sharpton hopes there’s no white chicks on staff, otherwise Nike’s golf division will forced to break out the Salt Peter to keep Tiger’s Driver in the bag. In this week’s edition of the Section 645 Saints Beat, Big Daddy applauds Jefferson Parish, highlights Wildcard Weekend, provides helpful 12th man pointers, unveils the keys to beat Arizona, and releases his World Famous Pregame Information.

     Tune in to next week’s Section 645 Saints Beat blog, when Big Daddy’s column discusses WWL-TV News Channel 4’s election polls in the upcoming Mayor’ s race, tailgates at the Kingpin, recaps the Arizona NFC Divisional Playoff game, reports live from Section 645, and teaches devoted readers how stop telemarketers from calling your cell phone. Saints fans have done such a great job representing their team in the Click for Cans contest. Reaching the semifinals means the Saints face Green Bay this week, so please type in: Continue reading "Big Daddy Uses Second Bye to Prepare"

My MDA Donation Page is Here! Green Bay Marathon! posted by Chad

Seeing how today is my first day of " training" for the Green Bay Marathon, I thought it would be fitting to announce that my work with MDA is just getting started! The site has been up for awhile, but I wanted to wait for a few weeks before I sent it out for a few different reasons. Mainly, I wanted to make sure that I would have the mental toughness to gut through actually doing this and secondly that my knee would be able to hold up after the injury I suffered through. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but I'll bet it was close.

Lets not get lost on minor details, because I am happy to announce and to post my link from MDA to help raise them money and awareness to fight this terrible disease by running the Green Bay Marathon on May 16, 2010. If you just click right HERE you will be taken to my donation page provided by MDA. There you can see a few different things, including an amazing picture of my blazing speed on the road way at the Green Bay Half-Marathon in 2009. (Don't worry, I plan on changing this to a picture of Kelton and myself. It's a solid picture that I took one day in his photography course while he was taking a test.) More important than that amazing running form, however, is the huge flashing red box that says, "Click Here." Clicking on that will take you to the donation page for MDA and tell you a little about the cost:

$30 for a flu shot.
$80 to fund ONE MINUTE of research
$100 to pay for a Support Group Session
$800 to send one child to MDA Summer Camp
$2000 to fund 25 minutes of research.
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Eclipse nominees older horses posted by Jan Hoadley

Older horses are nominated in the Eclipse awards representing some professional race horses as well as a couple that captured the public’s attention. Nominees for the older male include Einstein (BRZ) Gio Ponti and Kodiak Kowboy while the females are Life is Sweet, Music Note and Zenyatta.

 

Life is Sweet is a royally bred lady by Storm Cat out of the Kris S mare Sweet Life. She won the Lady’s Classic after what could be deemed a sketchy year of second in the Milady G2, third in the Hollywood Gold Cup G1 before two fourths. However, three of those four “not wins” were against winter Zenyatta.

 

Music Note, third to Life is Sweet in the Ladies Classic also stamps an impressive pedigree, by A.P. Indy out of Note Musicale by Sadler’s Wells. She won two of three outs other than the Ladies classic including the G1 Beldame and G1 Ballerina.

 

The older mare division is unquestionably dominated by Zenyatta. The daughter of  Street Cry also out of a Kris S mare Vertigineux, Zenyatta strung together an impressive perfect record including being the first female to win the Breeders Cup Classic.

 

I think most put Zenyatta easily the best older female and, as she beat Gio Ponti in the Classic she’s proved on the track she’s faster when called on. Still, the Classic runner up son of Tale Of The Cat out of the Alydar daughter Chipeta Springs had started the year with a 5th place run in the G2 Strub before four G1 wins across the country, a second in the G1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic. Winning both on the turf and synthetic lifetime but his wins this year all came on the turf, for which he’s also nominated in the Turf division.

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Patriots make offer to RB Faulk (Yahoo! Sports)

Recent rumors had it that free agent running back Kevin Faulk hadn't gotten an offer from his former team,... [read full article]

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Chiefs sign RB Jones

The Kansas City Chiefs have signed free agent running back ThomasJones, who led the New York Jets to the AFC championship game lastseason and was the NFL's third-leading rusher. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for NFL

Chiefs sign former Jets RB Jones (AP)

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From Yahoo! Sports

Raiders release WR Walker, DE Ellis (AP)

The Oakland Raiders released wide receiver Javon Walker and defensive end Greg Ellis on Monday in their latest dumping of veteran players. The moves follow Saturday's decision to cut ties with longtime running back Justin Fargas. Walker was a disappointment right from the start after signing a $55 million contract that included an $11 million signing bonus two years ago. [read full article]

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Vikings' Williams vs. NFL trial begins (AP)

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From Yahoo! Sports