Ole69, Botfly, I'm calling you guys out

[KittiesKorner]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/foot...akes-a-point-to-tune-out-his-former-team.html

Santonio Holmes makes a point to tune out his former team

BY PATRICK FINLEY Staff Reporter September 18, 2014 10:48PM

Santonio Holmes hasn’t gotten a single text message from his former Jets teammates this week, and doesn’t plan on shaking hands when them before the Bears’ game in New York on Monday night.

“My focus is on the Chicago Bears, making plays and win ballgames,” he said. “Not on any other team.”

Coach Rex Ryan said he was sad to see the receiver go after four seasons, calling accusations of Holmes being a distraction “a joke.”

“He was outstanding,” Ryan said. “I really enjoyed him. When this guy’s healthy, he can be a game-changer. The first year that we had him, he was a major, major factor in us winning like four games.”

Conte limited

Safety Chris Conte’s return from a left-shoulder injury progressed Thursday, when he was a limited practice participant.

“He moved around, was in pads,” coach Marc Trestman said. “So that’s a good sign as we move forward in the week.”

Wide receiver Alshon Jeffery (hamstring) and linebacker Shea McClellin (hand) were also limited. Wideout Josh Morgan (groin) practiced in full.

The list of Bears who did not participate was longer and more established: defensive end Jared Allen (back), wide receiver Brandon Marshall (ankle), defensive tackle Jeremiah Ratliff (concussion), defensive end Trevor Scott (foot) and cornerback Sherrick McManis (quad).

Center Roberto Garza and guard Matt Slauson, out with high-ankle sprains, did not practice.

Marshall focus

Trestman did not hear Marshall’s statements Thursday, but said he wasn’t concerned about his ability to be ready Monday.

“He’s got an amazing ability to focus,” Trestman said. “Last week he spent a week in the training room by himself. He was injured, had to learn the game plan.

“He performed at a very high level against the circumstances. He’s a very, very unique young man. I expect that he’ll be prepared and ready to go.”

This and that

The Bears signed cornerback Demontre Hurst to the 53-man roster. He spent last season on the practice squad and made his NFL debut in Week 1 before *being waived.

◆ Jets wideout Eric Decker was among those who did not practice, while four starters — running back Chris Johnson, center Nick Mangold, guard Willie Colon and cornerback Dee Milliner — were limited.

Email: pfinley@suntimes.com

 

[KittiesKorner]

Personally I think he should just STFU

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/foot...all-of-society-not-just-nfl.html#.VBxL7StdWAY

Marshall says domestic violence a problem in all of society, not just NFL

BY PATRICK FINLEY Staff Reporter September 18, 2014 10:48PM

He distributed stacks of 12-page legal documents before he sat down, then spoke extemporaneously for almost 25 minutes.

He talked of being raised in violence — of his mother being physically and sexually assaulted, of him being beaten as a kid with electrical cords and tree branches — then defended NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

He chided players involved in domestic-violence incidents, then said he believed in second chances.

Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall’s 40-minute news conference Thursday was nuanced, emotional and, at times, bizarre.

He bared his soul, then defended himself.

And trashed ESPN.

“There are certain things in life that we try to run away from and try to hide from,” he said, “especially when you look at where [we are] today, the current climate of the NFL, the players, all these situations and allegations. It’s sad that there was a time back in the day that people with influence — professional athletes, entertainers, governors — they were like civil-rights leaders. They had a voice.

“Now it’s sad because of endorsement deals, because of contracts and because of public approval, we run away from certain topics.

“Last week, I found myself running away from it, too, and that’s not me.”

Marshall did anything but in front of about 50 media members, intrigued by his reaction to the league’s domestic-violence crisis and the accusations in his own past.

On Wednesday, attorney Gloria Allred called for changes in the NFL, saying Goodell ignored violence complaints lodged by Rasheedah Watley against Marshall in 2006. In 2008, Marshall was suspended three games for violating the league’s personal- conduct policy, though the penalty was later reduced to one game.

He said he wished Allred would use her voice to help people who are struggling “and not use it as an opportunity to brand herself and to create a circus.”

Marshall distributed documents he said he sent to ESPN, whose show, “E:60,” he claimed, painted him in an unfair light by recapping his violent past in an updated story Tuesday. He claimed the accuser’s “extortion letters” proved she was motivated by money, but that ESPN did not consider the documents.

“I refuse to sit back and continue to let ESPN or any network or outlet exploit my story,” he said, “because they don’t know the real story.”

Marshall knows rehashing the past is unpopular.

“There’s going to be a lot of people criticizing me,” he said. “But it’s been six or seven years, and I haven’t said anything. . . .

“But what ended up happening was, you saw one side, I probably lost $50 million worth of endorsements and salary. That’s OK because 75 percent of these things were pretty much my fault because I was young and dumb. I was immature.”

Marshall was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

The NFL must give players due process, Marshall said. He cited two instances in his past — one, when a woman falsely told a neighbor he raped her, and another, when he was accused of fighting when video showed otherwise — as examples that he might have been targeted because of past accusations.

“And that is the problem, and that is why we really have to let this thing play out,” he said. “Because there’s two sides to a story, and we condemn our guys, or our ladies, or anybody for that matter.

“And I’m not talking about domestic violence. I’m talking about this new culture and this legal system, this new legal system.”

He said “domestic violence is wrong,” though he believes in the league’s “much-needed” new punishment and in second chances.

“I hate to bring up someone else’s name, but the Ray Rice case is terrible,” he said. “The things that I’ve been through in the past are terrible. I believe that there should be consequences.”

Marshall said he met with Goodell this summer. Goodell had tears in his eyes, Marshall said, and asked him for advice on how he could help troubled receivers Josh Gordon and Davone Bess.

“He really was concerned,” Marshall said. “He really cared. That’s when I gained a lot of respect for him.

“Because a lot of time we think of damage control. Or we’re trying to do this to protect the shield, but I gained so much respect for Goodell, even after everything.”

Marshall said “probably 90 percent of the guys in the NFL” got whuppings — the kind running back Adrian Peterson is alleged to have administered to his 4-year-old son, which landed him on the Vikings’ exempt list this week.

Though he was “whupped” as a child, Marshall said he’s not going to raise his future children that way.

“[Domestic violence] is not a problem in the NFL — it’s an epidemic in our world,” he said. “It’s not the NFL’s job to raise men. We’re kidding ourselves if we think it’s the NFL’s job — to take boys from college and raise them to men.

“[Domestic violence] is a problem in our marriages, a problem in our communities, a problem in the way we coach children and parenting.

“That’s where it starts.”

Email: pfinley@suntimes.com

 

[KittiesKorner]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/foot...-to-nickel-is-second-nature.html#.VBxMKStdWAY

Isaiah Frey’s move back to nickel is ‘second nature’

Isaiah Frey’s move back to nickel is ‘second nature’

In other Bears news …

With Charles Tillman’s season-ending triceps injury, Isaiah Frey is ready to move seamlessly into the nickel back role he played last season when the Bears play the Jets on Monday night at the Meadowlands.

“It’s second-nature right now,” Frey said. “I got so many reps last year I don’t think it’s every going to leave my head — even if I go somewhere else. It felt good coming in and getting back out there. It felt normal.”

It’s been a long journey back for Frey, the Bears’ sixth-round draft pick in 2012, he started at nickel back last season after Kelvin Hayden suffered a season-ending injury in training camp. But after getting no takeaways, the Bears upgraded at cornerback — drafting Kyle Fuller and moving Pro Bowl cornerback Tim Jennings to nickel.

Frey was behind both Jennings and Hayden when he suffered a hamstring injury early in training camp. He was waived in the cutdown to 53 players and signed to the practice squad. With Hayden cut last week and Tillman injured, Frey was promoted to the 53-man roster.

“One week you’re on practice squad, the next week you’re playing in nickel packages. That’s just the way it works,” Frey said.

Though the Bears will miss Tillman, a two-time Pro Bowl cornerback, having Frey’s experience at nickel could be a boon to the defense. It allows Fuller to start at corner and Jennings to play corner full-time.

“We feel good about him,” Bears defensive coordinator Mel Tucker said of Frey. “He’s played a lot of football for us. He’s smart. He’s got length. He knows our system. He’s got the mental and physical toughness we’re looking for. He’s a team guy and a dependable guy.”

Jennings, a two-time Pro Bowl cornerback, was still in the transition phase at nickel back. He’s looking forward to getting his old gig back.

“Hopefully it’s a good thing — I’ll get back to making some plays, taking a little bit off my place just focusing on corner,” Jennings said. “For the last couple of years I’ve been coming into my own at corner. This [nickel] is all new to me. It was a little bit added to my plate.”

Jennings said Frey, in fact, is better at nickel than he is right now.

“I was ready for it. But I think Frey is going to come in and continue to do well for us. He did it last year. He’s played nickel for three years. It should be an easy transition for him.”

Having Jennings and Fuller at cornerback and Frey at nickel could mitigate the impact of Tillman’s injury. Last year Zack Bowman replaced Tillman when he suffered a season-ending triceps injury.

“It’s a tough loss. But we’ve got to keep moving,” Jennings said. “We’ve been in this situation before. Kyle Fuller’s been doing a good job so far. We drafted him in the first round for a reason. His opportunity has come quicker than we expected. But we have all the confidence in the world in him.”

Frey knows what’s expected of him. He had 62 tackles — including a season-high 11 in the season finale against the Packers — and two pass breakups last season — but no interceptions, forced fumbles or fumble recoveries.

“Takeaways,” he said. “I know [my assignments]. I know what I’m doing every play. My biggest thing is getting takeaways like Tim and Lance [Briggs] and guys like that. That’s what our defense strives for.”

Email: mpotash@suntimes.com

 

[KittiesKorner]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/foot...52/sponsors-not-victims-force-nfl-to-act.html

Sponsors, not victims force NFL to act

BY RICK MORRISSEY Sports Columnist September 17, 2014 10:51PM


It took a hotel-chain boycott and the threat of other corporate action, not the welts on an abused 4-year-old boy, for the Minnesota Vikings to take Adrian Peterson off the field. No matter where this mess ends up, let’s make sure we never lose sight of that.

Nobody needed a reminder that the NFL is a slobbering, money-hungry hog, but the league hit us in the face with it anyway Wednesday.

The Vikings put their star running back on the NFL’s exempt/commissioner’s permission list ostensibly to let him deal with his child-abuse case but mostly because they have the backbone of a jellyfish. The Radisson hotel chain had suspended its team sponsorship after watching in horror Monday as Vikings general manager Rick Spielman announced he was reinstating the switch-wielding Peterson — with Radisson’s logo on a screen behind Spielman as he talked. Some of the NFL’s bigger corporate partners began applying pressure.

Vikings owner Zygi Wilf said Wednesday that the team ‘‘made a mistake’’ and that ‘‘it is important to always listen to our fans, the community and our sponsors.’’

By that, he meant ‘‘sponsors.’’

It’s one thing for fans to be angry with a soulless football team. The NFL knows fans are more forgiving than Jesus. It’s another thing when corporations that have invested billions of dollars in the league locate their moral outrage, thanks to the threat of consumer boycotts. On Tuesday, Nike pulled Peterson merchandise from its stores in the Twin Cities. Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, said in a statement that it was unhappy with the NFL’s response to domestic-violence issues.

‘‘We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code,’’ it said.

PepsiCo, the Campbell Soup Co., McDonald’s and Visa followed suit with statements criticizing the NFL’s response to domestic abuse, including former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s assault on his now-wife. Commissioner Roger Goodell initially gave Rice a two-game suspension, then suspended him indefinitely after video was released that showed him knocking out the woman with one punch. That case has descended into a who-knew-what-when sleaze pit worthy of Watergate.

If the NFL doesn’t know how to run its house — and judging from its bumbling of the Rice and Peterson cases, it wouldn’t know a vacuum cleaner from a cake mixer — then the corporations that pay its bills will show it. How many businesses want to be publicly associated with someone who beats a woman, someone who abuses a child and a league that is at best indecisive and at worst a lying heap of corporate entitlement?

With business partners at the NFL’s gate, the Vikings released the Peterson news at 12:47 a.m. Wednesday. Normally, the only thing NFL types are doing at that late hour is raising their brandy snifters to galloping profit.

Later in the day, the Carolina Panthers put Greg Hardy on the NFL’s exempt list, finally giving up hope of playing him Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They had stood by the defensive end even though he had been convicted in July of assaulting and threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend. Hardy is appealing that conviction, which had given the Panthers the sliver of an opening they needed to justify their sickening stance. Funny how things start to move when a beer company gets in a sudsy lather.

Meanwhile, Peterson’s charity has gone on hiatus because of the controversy. In its announcement, the All Day Foundation took the opportunity to lash out at the real villain in all of this: the media.

‘‘Unfortunately, over the past few years when there was positive news, the media paid little attention to our nonprofit partners,’’ it said on its website. ‘‘Now, the charities are being harassed, judged and placed in uncomfortable positions.’’

You know what’s an uncomfortable position? When you’re curled up in a ball and an adult is whipping you with a stick. Amid all the talk about law and order, due process, collateral damage and lost revenue, there is a wounded child at the heart of this.

Bears ownership is backing Goodell, saying it has ‘‘complete faith’’ in the commissioner. But you wonder how long it will take for the McCaskeys and others to finally understand what this is all about.

Not billions of dollars. It’s about a 4-year-old boy with welts on his legs, ankles, back, buttocks and scrotum. It’s about an unconscious woman in an elevator, a football player standing over her like Cassius Clay over Sonny Liston. Except this wasn’t a fair fight.

 

[Ares]

Ole be like "YOU WANT BEAR NEWS..... I WILL FUCKING DROWN YOU IN IT"

 

[KittiesKorner]

do you spraypaint your hair bro?