Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans title chances now.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Move over, Hollywood and NFL types, golf's two real A-listers take center stage Sunday at Pebble Beach, both in need of a win.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
INDIANAPOLIS - The use of human growth hormone is more of a problem in baseball than in football, the president of the NFL Players Association insists.
“We feel it’s not something that’s common in our space,” former defensive back Troy Vincent said Wednesday before the start of the NFL scouting combine.
The NFL and other leagues don’t currently test for HGH. Vincent said the question of how soon a reliable test would be available was a topic of discussion at a meeting Wednesday involving commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw and more than a dozen players.
New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison was suspended for the first four games of this past season after he admitted using “a banned substance,” reportedly HGH, for the purpose of “accelerating the healing process.”
But Vincent doesn’t believe that many other players in a violent game also are seeking to speed up their recuperation with banned substances. He suggested that recreational drugs are the greater challenge facing the NFL.
“You don’t usually find (performance-enhancing drugs) on the north side of Philly or in a rural Texas neighborhood,” Vincent said.
New York Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner claimed Monday that “football is tailor-made for performance-enhancing drugs.”
“I don’t know how they managed to skate by,” he said. “It irritates me. Don’t tell me it’s not more prevalent. The number in football is at least twice as many. Look at the speed and size of those players.”
Vincent contended that the differences between the two sports make football a less fertile ground for performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball players working their way through the minors or trying to stay in the league into their 40s are more likely to try to gain an edge, he said.
“I’m dealing with 20-year-olds popping with God-given ability,” he said.
Congress’ interest in baseball’s anti-doping policy has caught football players’ attention.
“We did talk about steroids to the emphasis of how far ahead of the other sports we are,” Vincent said of Wednesday’s meeting.
The NFL has had year-round random testing for steroids since 1990.
The issue that was dogging the NFL at this time last year was a spate of players getting into legal trouble. Goodell and Vincent said that off-the-field incidents were down 20 percent in 2007 from the previous year.
Goodell said he has seen “a particularly positive reaction from rookies.”
“I think a lot of it is you know what the penalty is and players are taking ownership,” Vincent said. “Are you going to totally clean up the game and prevent guys from getting DWIs? No. But that’s one of the things we wanted when we left here last year.
“We don’t want to be talking about Pacman Jones and Chris Henry,” Vincent said of two players who were suspended. “We want to be talking about Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl.”
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.