FanHouse NewEnglandPatriots

PHILADELPHIA -- Brian Westbrook did not practice with the Eagles on Wednesday, nor did he talk about why. His coach, Andy Reid, said Westbrook would practice Thursday and that the reason he was held out Wednesday was his ankle, and not the concussion he suffered in the team's Oct. 26 victory over the Redskins. But if you buy that, I've got a South Philly bridge to sell you, too.

The ankle is a red herring. Westbrook's ankle is a chronic problem, for which he's had surgery, and his ankle probably hurts every day. They can put him on the injury report with an ankle problem anytime they want, and nobody's going to bat an eye. This thing with Westbrook is a case of a player, concerned about his own personal future, taking it slow amid a culture that's only starting to embrace the danger and seriousness of concussions.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- As mere mortals, we're conditioned to believe life is easy for guys like Tom Brady. Fame, success, good looks, championship glory ... these things make it seem as if a dude is coasting through life, surfing the biggest waves with minimal effort, skiing on one ski.

But that isn't always the way, and anybody who tuned in around halftime of Sunday's Patriots-Falcons game saw a Tom Brady who wasn't real happy about the way things were going. New England's Golden Boy QB was openly screaming at teammates, clearly frustrated by his team's red zone failures and general inability so far this season to get into sync.

"I think I was just really into it," Brady would say later, by way of denial-drenched explanation. "Just trying to keep everybody focused. Football is a team game, and it's about everybody being on the same page."

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Three days after the trade that sent him from New England to Oakland for a 2011 first-round draft pick, Richard Seymour still hasn't reported to his new team. Several people with knowledge of the situation have told FanHouse that Seymour is upset because the trade blindsided him, and that he'd been hoping to sign a contract extension with New England. Seymour is due to make $3.7 million this year and can become a free agent when it's over -- and there's been some speculation in recent days that he could sit out the season if he doesn't want to play in Oakland.

But according to one NFL source, Seymour can't sit out the year and expect to be a free agent next spring. If he never reports to the Raiders, his contract is frozen, meaning he'd still be expected to play one year for the Raiders (or whichever team controls his rights at that point if the Raiders trade them in the meantime) before hitting the market.

It's a murky situation that still could end up in the hands of the NFL commissioner, because right now, the two teams involved seem to disagree on how official and final the deal is.

And on the second day (of Patriots training camp), Tom Brady spoke. One day after rain somehow prevented him from speaking at an indoor press conference, the New England quarterback addressed a group of reporters after the morning session of practice Friday in Foxborough. Among the things he said was that he expected his surgically repaired left knee to be healthy enough to allow him to play in the Patriots' preseason games, which begin Aug. 13 at Philadelphia.

Brady's quotes courtesy of Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe:

Summer's heating up and so is football, so FanHouse is at Patriots training camp to keep you posted on everything that's going on with Bill and Brady's bunch.

FOXBORO, Mass. -- The question was obviously coming, and Bill Belichick was ready for it. Few teams have been as strongly suggested as Michael Vick destinations has have Belichick's Patriots, and so in his news conference after this morning's rain-shortened first training camp practice, the coach was asked about that possibility. He indicated that it wasn't a strong one.

"Michael's an outstanding player who hasn't played in a couple of years," Belichick said. "But right now, our focus is on our players, on the New England Patriots and trying to get our team ready for the season. He's a tremendous athlete, but where he is right now, I don't know."

New England's Rodney Harrison this morning announced his retirement from the NFL after 15 seasons. A two-time Super Bowl winner with the Patriots, Harrison is the only player in NFL history with more than 30 sacks and 30 interceptions.

"I had to contemplate a lot of different feelings, a lot of different emotions," Harrison said in a conference call. "But I feel like I've done everything I could possibly do on the field and have nothing left to prove."

Harrison didn't immediately announce his future plans, but it's pretty clear he will begin a career as a broadcaster with NBC. He worked for NBC during the network's Super Bowl coverage this year, and NBC is holding its own conference call today at noon.

The goofy NFL news of the day Saturday was the renaming of the home of the Miami Dolphins after Jimmy Buffett's beer company. "Land Shark Stadium" will be the fifth different name this building has had since it opened in 1987.

The stadium has an interesting history. Its $115 million construction cost was completely privately funded (imagine that!) with the help of season ticket holders who made long-term commitments in exchange for the promise of a state-of-the-art football facility. Joe Robbie, the owner of the Dolphins at the time, envisioned it as a stadium that could host baseball as well as football, and for that reason, the front-row seats are set back further from the sidelines than at traditional NFL venues.

Next February, Super Bowl XLIV will be the fifth Super Bowl this stadium has hosted -- under four of its five different names:

NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it
demands it.

But demand it does, and so here we are, in the hours after South Carolina kicker Ryan Succop was crowned "Mr. Irrelevant" (in a bizarre pageant that found NFL employees boogieing on front of the stage to Donna Summer's "Last Dance"), trying to make it all make sense.

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NEW YORK -- The New England Patriots drafted UConn's Darius Butler thinking he could replace cornerback Ellis Hobbs at cornerback and in the kick-return game. Today, they accelerated that process, trading Hobbs to the Philadelphia Eagles for a pair of fifth-round picks. The wheeling-dealing Pats immediately flipped both picks, trading up in the fourth round to take Penn State offensive lineman Richard Ohrnberger.

The Eagles, who actually had five fifth-round picks before this deal, sent New England the No. 137 and 141 overall picks in exchange for Hobbs. New England immediately traded both of those picks to Baltimore for the 123rd and 198th picks, and selected Ohrnberger at 123.

I was at a museum bar this past week, playing some pool with a buddy when golf came up in the conversation between us and our playing competitors.

One of the guys, slightly inebriated, lambasted me with this theory – Tiger Woods is killing the PGA Tour.

No, there were no bigotry in his voice, he didn't care if Woods was black, white or the color of Paula Creamer's golf ball, he just believed that the onslaught of Tiger fans has brought down the competitiveness and interest of a regular PGA Tour event.

At first I thought this guy was a complete moron. I hit my pool shots, had a sip of beer and mused over the idea that the best thing to ever hit golf could somehow be bringing it down? Hogwash, I thought.

It didn't hit me until Saturday afternoon, on the golf course for my lemming-like weekend tee time, when I realized this guy might be on to something.

Maybe Tiger is killing the tour. No, he isn't killing golf, he's turned a sport reserved for higher class businesspeople into a global phenomenon. He's changed the pot-bellied golfer into a gym rat. He's merged two types of golfers, the one that bombs it off the tee and the one that chips and putts well around the greens, into one golfing freak. He's brought mock turtlenecks, Nike Golf, the first pump and red on Sundays to our regular conversation.

Tiger has changed golf, which is obviously clear.

With that said, has he killed the PGA?