Brandon Marshall Suspended 3 Games

by | Aug 6, 2008 | Fantasy Football

In a move that likely INCREASES his fantasy football value for the upcoming season, Broncos WR Brandon Marshall was suspended for only 3 games on Wednesday.

The suspension could be seen as increasing his value, as rumors of a 4 to 8 game suspension were making the rounds–and Marshall can reduce it to just 2 games, if he undergoes counseling and takes other corrective actions.

Still, his lawyer isn’t happy with the suspension, and clearly doesn’t understand the issues that have come up recently around players getting in trouble in the NFL:

“There’s no basis for discipline,” Marshall’s lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, argued during an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday night. “Mr. Marshall has not been convicted nor charged with a crime.”

At the same time, the lawyer does point out one of the more ridiculous conflicts of interest at league headquarters:

“I get to appeal to the guy who imposed the discipline,” Steinberg said.

So Der Kommissar can admit that he was too harsh, or he can deem himself just in deciding the suspension. Which way do you think he’ll lean?

Goodell Rules: Vikings Didn’t Tamper

by | Aug 4, 2008 | Business of Football

Der Kommissar Roger Goodell has handed down his verdict on the tampering charges filed against the Minnesota Vikings by the Green Bay Packers–and that verdict is not guilty.  The Vikings, whom the Packers claimed encouraged Brett Favre to return, sparking this whole fugly mess of a situation that we all can’t escape, admitted that coaches Darrell Bevell and Brad Childress spoke to Favre, but claimed they were ‘run-of-the-mill, innocent exchanges.’

So, now our question is–are the Packers, who supposedly had some phone records proving the contact(despite never issuing a team cell phone to Brett Favre), guilty of tampering (to obtain those phone records) and/or some other rule that probably isn’t but should be in place to prevent teams from launching distracting tampering investigations against division opponents?

Otherwise, add it to the list of tactics we can expect Jerry Jones to employ in 2009 to try to finally prove that Jimmy Johnson wasn’t the only reason he won some Super Bowls in the 1990’s.

Goodell Wants Favre Situation Finished

by | Aug 3, 2008 | Business of Football, Contract Squabbles, NFL ... something

Favre Fiasco. Favre Fatigue. Favre F-k Up (of Off).  Whatever you want to call it, Roger Goodell wants the Favre situation done.  By Monday.

But why is it any of his business to make such a declaration?  And why hasn’t he approved a players request for re-instatement for almost a full week?

We were all impressed when Goodell stepped in as commissioner, and started to try to crack down on possibly the only blemish that Paul Tagliabue left him with–the “degradation of the NFL society” we could call it, as several bad boy incidents started to paint the NFL in a bad light.

And I’ve been impressed by his willingness to come out against the ridiculous NFL Rookie pay scale that exists.

But I think by not acting on a players request to be reinstated within a reasonable time frame, and now declaring that he wants the situation resolved by Monday, he’s heading down a slippery path.  If the delay wasn’t in the Packers favor (any delay to the situation hurts whoever ends up with Favre), I would suggest that they file tamporing charges against him.  Of course, since he is the judge, jury and executioner, that wouldn’t get very far.

As to the Favre fiasco, rumors are that the $20-million, 10 year “marketing agreement” offer to Favre may be pushed to an even higher amount through negotiations this weekend. 

Frankly, I still can’t believe that the NFL will allow this type of a deal to happen, without some sort of salary cap implications.  I realize he’s a “retired” player, but as commenter Sir Whoopass pointed out last week, what’s to prevent Jerry Jones from starting to pay players from other teams to not play if the Packers are allowed to pay their own player not to?

Like the Poison Pill negotiating tactic (which to my knowledge wasn’t ever officially banned, but hasn’t been used since the Vikings nabbed Steve Hutchinson, and the Seahawks “retaliated” by signing Nate Burleson), this needs to be nipped in the bud early.

Too bad the NFL doesn’t have a commissioner who is willing to step in on situations like these…

49ers a Fantasy Force?

by | Jul 31, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Matthew J. Darnell writes a blog for Yahoo! called The Shutdown Corner, which has made it to my RSS list due to his take on covering the NFL, and the fact that Redskins TE Chris Cooley regularly posts there, and actually seems to often have some interesting insights into the life of an NFL player (Cooley famously reported that he knocked himself out of his fantasy football league playoffs a couple years back with a 3 TD performance late in the season).

One of his regular features of late has been a love/hate review of each team as training camp opens.  Yesterday, he reviewed the San Francisco 49ers…and I almost cancelled my subscription.

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