By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 31, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Wide Receivers Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald Travel to Ethiopia to help create farm-able land and also buy cows for the villagers. [ESPN]
HBO has finally found its team to showcase on Hard Knocks: The Miami Dolphins. There will be some nice story lines they will be able to focus on. [Yahoo! Sports]
Seven years after playing his last down in the NFL Kordell Stewart is officially retiring. [Fox Sports]
Worst to First – the most likely teams to go from last in their division in in 2011 to first in the upcoming 2012 season. [SB Nation]
Terrell Owens’ career seems to have come to a fitting end. He has been released from his IFL team. Oh, you didn’t know he was playing in the IFL, don’t feel too bad. [ESPN]
By Jason Grill, on Wed May 30, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET  Politics and sports are two things that incite strong emotions in nearly every individual in this country, but they should very rarely converge. Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee announced there would be an upcoming hearing about bounties in professional football and other major sports as a result of recent allegations that the New Orleans Saints employed a system in which players would receive extra cash for hits that hurt high-profile opponents.
Are they serious? Well, yes they are. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) wants to examine whether a federal law should make bounty systems a crime. This week reports have surfaced that the IRS is now poking around and monitoring the situation about the payments that were made to players. The dominos are beginning to fall and political grandstanding has already begun. I am not a pollster, but if I had to guess I would assume more Americans are concerned with their pocket books and the economy right now than on professional sports bounty programs. Shockingly, I know I am going out on a limb here. Seriously though, Congress should only involve itself in sports-related matters on very rare occasions. One of those is sports gambling.
 The Final Four [took place] in New Orleans with four historically good programs. More than six million people filled out NCAA tournament brackets on ESPN.com alone. Last month the Super Bowl game garnered the prize as the highest-rated television show in United States history with an estimated 111 million people watching.
Reports have shown that nearly half of all American adults make some sort of wager on the Super Bowl. The time has come for Congress to open its eyes when it comes to sports gambling.
Read the rest of…
Jason Grill: Come on, Congress — Sports Gambling, Not Bounties
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri May 25, 2012 at 9:30 AM ET On Thursday Giant’s WR Hakeem Nicks broke a bone in his right foot. This is certainly a setback after Nicks’ breakout season contributed to a Super Bowl win last year. The normal recovery time for this injury is 12 weeks, which bumps right up against the beginning of the season. [ESPN]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 24, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
Roger Goodell recently held a press conference and touched on some of the major issues and storylines the NFL is facing in the near future. [Star Tribune]
Read more about the knee and thigh pad mandate with this link. [ESPN]
The Seattle Seahawks recently turned down HBO who came with an offer to be featured on this season of Hard Knocks. They are just the most recent team to decline following several others who were also not interested. Who will end up the show? Will there be a Jets encore? [NFL.com]
American football earns the second most of any sport in the world. It comes in a distant second to the other football, known in the US as soccer. [graph]
Check out Calvin Johnson participating in BP at a recent Tigers game (Detroit really likes their big cats). Spoiler alert: He goes yard. [Fox Sports]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Brandon Jacobs and Mario Manningham chose to skip the Giants’ championship ceremony in favor of meeting with the 49ers. [49ers.com]
Minnesota’s governor has signed the bill that will give the Vikings a new stadium to play in. Finally. [ESPN]
The Vikings’ new stadium deal means they are officially out of the running to relocate to Los Angeles and give LA a team once again. The next team in line? The Rams. [PFT]
Drew Brees is growing more and more frustrated at contract negotiations with the Saints. [NOLA.com]
Jay Cutler acknowledges that the NFL is a rough game and that he understands the risks of playing, particularly concussions. [PFT]
Indianapolis reportedly lost $1.1 million hosting the Super Bowl. [ESPN]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 10, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The harsh reality of life after football for many former pros. This time it’s Terrell Owens. [ESPN]
Robert Griffin is getting a jump on things by trademarking his name. [NFL.com]
Can Terrelle Pryor make a career for himself in the NFL after a great run at OSU? Could he take Carson Palmer’s starting spot this year? He certainly thinks he can. [Sports Illustrated]
The Vikings are inching closer to that new stadium the franchise and fans have wanted and needed for so long. [1500 ESPN]
More on the Vikings: Are they wasting Adrian Peterson? [ESPN NFC North Blog]
This is awesome! [picture]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri May 4, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET Junior Seau’s family has officially given the OK for this brain to studied for effects of concussions. It’s the right call by them and seemingly one they were always going to make. There is one absolute fact when it comes to studying concussions: progress can only be made if the research centers continue to have concussion-affected brains to study. Junior Seau knew what he was doing when he shot himself in the chest. [ESPN]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 3, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET  The Politics of Pigskin Sad news broke yesterday as future Hall of Fame, former San Diego Charger Junior Seau is dead due to an apparent suicide. It is being reported that Seau died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest ala Dave Duerson. Seau was 43. [CBS Sports]
Here is more on what Seau’s legacy is already shaping up to be. [Sports Illustrated]
Roger Goodell and the league office have officially doled out the punishments stemming from the Saints’ bounty program. They are harsh, especially for linebacker Jonathan Vilma who is now out for the season, but they are harsh in order to send a message. [ESPN]
Now we can get to the fun of grading the drafts of teams around the league following the draft last week. First is USA Today’s ranking of all 32 teams. [USA Today]
Here are grades from SI. [Sports Illustrated]
The grades from Walter Football are as in-depth as their mock drafts have been this year. [Walter Football]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 27, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET The first round of the NFL Draft is in the books and it was the most exciting one in recent memory. The beginning of the draft last night was full of trades and very quick picks. The second and third rounds continue tonight and the fourth through seventh rounds conclude on Saturday. Click through to read an in-depth analysis of each first round pick. [Fox Sports]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Apr 26, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET  The Politics of Pigskin The 2012 NFL Draft is tonight and todays WWG is all about the mock drafts. We’ll start off with the only mock draft that NFL.com’s Mike Mayock did all year. [NFL.com]
Walter Football has done fantastic work keeping their mock draft updated this year. Here is the most recent iteration. [Walter Football]
Drafttek’s mock is fine but make sure to check out the other information they have available like team needs and positional rankings. [DraftTek]
Here are the combined mocks from the experts at CBS. [CBS Sports]
Don Banks has submitted his 7th and most recent mock draft to SI. [Sports Illustrated]
Finally, here is you complete draft order for reference. [ESPN]
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