Covered Vikings for Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1999-2008
INDIANAPOLIS — Former NFL veterans Greg Hardy, Brandon Browner and Kellen Winslow Jr. are among the initial commitments to an independent developmental league scheduled to debut next month, according to the league’s founder.
The Spring League will open practice April 5 with four teams. They will play a total of six games between April 15-26, all at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Rosters will be filled by players not currently with an NFL team.
The league is not affiliated with the NFL, but NFL officials informed teams last December of the Spring League’s plans detailing a structure for scouting and signing players later in the offseason.
Greg Hardy is among the initial commitments to the Spring League. AP Photo/Brandon Wade
Spring League CEO Brian Woods is attending the NFL scouting combine this week, meeting with team executives and agents to provide details on the operation. Woods was previously the commissioner of the Fall Experimental Football League, which staged games in 2014 and 2015.
Arsene Wenger is “privately resigned” to losing Alexis Sanchez in the summer transfer window, and has identified Alexandre Lacazette as an ideal replacement at Arsenal, reports The Mirror’s John Cross.
Lyon claimed it had spurned a €35-million (£30-million) bid from Arsenal last summer, but this time it could take a huge €70 million (£60 million) to prize him from the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region.
There could be tougher competition than West Ham United – which also apparently had an offer refused in that transfer window – to sign Lacazette this time around. Liverpool, the Gunners’ opponent in Saturday’s Premier League fixtures and a top-four rival, is also interested, but will have to offload Daniel Sturridge to free up funds.
If Antoine Griezmann leaves for Manchester United at the end of the season, Atletico Madrid could too join the race.
Lacazette, 25, is believed to be ready to entertain a move from his hometown club, where he made his professional debut under Claude Puel in 2010. His finishing and dribbling finesse have earned him plaudits outside of France over the past three seasons, which have seen him tally a huge 70 strikes in 89 Ligue 1 appearances.
(Photo courtesy: Reuters)
And Arsenal may be the most desperate party to land Lacazette due to the possibility of a considerable void left by Sanchez. The Chilean has grown in influence at the Emirates Stadium this season after showing his ferocity in a No. 9 role, but that has coincided with the forward cutting a frustrated figure as the club appears to be limping to another trophyless campaign.
Sanchez’s current terms expire in 2018, with Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain rumoured to be most keen in acquiring his services and potentially meeting his £250,000-a-week demands.
Sanchez’s involvement in Arsenal affairs has displeased some back in Chile, with a protest organised on Wednesday against him continuing employment in north London. Those voicing their displeasure totalled approximately five to eight people.
Related – Watch: Fewer than 10 people attend protest urging Sanchez to leave Arsenal
While serious doubts rest with Sanchez’s future, there is belief that Mesut Ozil, whose contract also expires in 2018, will eventually agree to a longer stay – although that may depend on whether Wenger stays beyond the current campaign.
INDIANAPOLIS — Often a prospect at the NFL’s scouting combine will step into the room the Denver Broncos use for player interviews and feel a bit in awe seeing John Elway for the first time.
For Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, it was a far different experience. McCaffrey’s father Ed played for the Broncos’ back-to-back Super Bowl winners to close out the 1997 and 1998 seasons, so seeing Elway was a reminder of home.
It was the same when McCaffrey saw Oakland Raiders coach Jack Del Rio inside Lucas Oil Stadium. Del Rio’s son, Luke, was a quarterback for McCaffrey’s high school team when Jack Del Rio was the Broncos defensive coordinator.
“Looking at the Raiders’ side and the Broncos’ side, so many people here that I’ve grown up knowing,’’ McCaffrey said Thursday at the combine. “It’s pretty surreal now that I’m here.’’
McCaffrey met with the Broncos’ decision-makers Wednesday night. Not as a hometown kid catching up, but as a versatile runner, receiver and returner the Broncos could use to spice up an offense that will get plenty of attention in free agency and the draft.
Christian McCaffrey said it is pretty surreal to be at the combine given his connections with the Broncos and Raiders from growing up. AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Or as McCaffrey put it: “I believe I would be an every-down back and a specialist.’’
“He’s a dynamic player who can do it all,’’ Elway said. “Wherever he goes he’s going to have an immediate impact.’’
Asked if it would be any more difficult for McCaffrey to play for the team his dad played for, in the city where his parents still live — Ed is a cohost on an afternoon radio show in Denver — Elway said Christian’s competitiveness would make it an easy transition.
“Knowing what I know of Christian and knowing how competitive he is, he’s got a great deal of respect for his dad, but he also looks at himself and he’s going to blaze his own trail,’’ Elway said. “The expectations that he has for himself are awful high.’’
The Broncos have the 20th pick in the first round and, depending on the team or the draft analyst polled, McCaffrey sits as the No. 3 or No. 4 back on the draft board leading up to the combine workouts for backs Friday.
• 2017 NFL draft order » • Mel Kiper Jr.: Mock 2.0 » • Todd McShay’s Top 32 • McShay: Top prospects by position • Todd McShay: Mock 2.0 » • Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board » • Mel Kiper Jr.: Top 10 by position » • Pro day schedule for prospects » • Underclassmen who have declared » • NFL draft player rankings »
On the prospect of the Broncos selecting him, McCaffrey said he would embrace the idea.
“That’d be awesome, that’d be great, I’d love to play there,’’ McCaffrey said. “It’s kind of hard to be a fan of anywhere any more because you start to wind down things and you don’t know where you’re going to end up. I’d be happy to play for anybody.’’
The Broncos, who struggled in the offensive line for much of the season and saw three backs finish the year on injured reserve, finished the season 27th in rushing, 27th in total offense and 22nd in scoring in a 9-7 finish.
McCaffrey is one of the most versatile players on the draft board, having gained 3,864 yards in the 2015 season, breaking Barry Sanders’ single-season record for all-purpose yardage. McCaffrey suffered what he called a bruised hip during the 2016 season and still led the nation with 2,327 all-purpose yards, including 1,603 rushing yards.
In Indianapolis, McCaffrey measured in at 5-foot-11 and weighed 202 pounds. Given his production at Stanford, he expressed a little confusion at why some have questioned his ability to transition to a full-time player in the NFL.
“I wish I knew, to be honest,’’ McCaffrey said. “I play with a chip on my shoulder always, I feel like people don’t always give me credit for my skills and talents and that’s just the way it is. I also don’t care too much, I don’t feel like I’m crazy disrespected. I have a chip on my shoulder at all times.’’
INDIANAPOLIS – Don’t count on B.J. Raji to help bolster the Green Bay Packers’ defense.
The former Pro Bowl defensive tackle has not shown any interest in returning to the NFL one year after he decided to take what he called a “hiatus” from the game at age 29.
“When he made the decision it was to go home and take care of his family and be with them, and he’s still doing that,” Raji’s agent, Brian Murphy, told ESPN.com Thursday at the NFL scouting combine. “His family is his first priority. He hasn’t really thought about football.”
Former Packer B.J. Raji still has no plans to return to football. AP Photo/Tom DiPace
“We were pretty fired up about the deal,” Murphy recalled. “We were calling B.J. to tell him about and it, he said, ‘This is probably a good time to tell you that I’m probably not going to play football.’ I thought he was kidding. And then he started telling me all the details and it made sense.”
Murphy said Raji’s mother and aunt both have battled illnesses, and his client wanted to help his elderly father care for them.
“He wanted to take care of them, and I think that’s a tribute to him,” Murphy said. “That’s still where his focus is.”
Packers coach Mike McCarthy said several members of the organization have kept in touch with Raji, but there has been no indication he plans to return.
“They’d like to have him back,” Murphy said.
When asked whether that could ever happen, Murphy said: “I really don’t know. I was surprised when he decided to stop playing.”
Raji, the ninth pick in the 2009 draft, played in 91 games for the Packers and made the Pro Bowl in 2011. He came back in 2015 after he missed all of 2014 with a torn biceps. Raji made more than $26 million in seven NFL seasons, all with the Packers, who drafted nose tackle Kenny Clark in the first round last year to help offset the loss of Raji.
Round 1: April 27, 8 p.m. ET
