FanHouse Nick Hardwick

Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.

You can take Terrell Owens out of Dallas, but apparently you can't take the immature and disruptive conduct, that Owens was known for, out of the Cowboys locker room.

Clarence E. Hill Jr.of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram knows that Roy Williams is frustrated with his numbers as a receiver this season. And Williams is quick to tell everyone who will listen that it's not all his fault.

SAN DIEGO -- It's Week 3 in the NFL, and already the anger is spewing across San Diego over the Chargers' inglorious 1-1 start. Whether it is frustration over coach Norv Turner's play calling, uneasiness over the team's myriad injuries or overall disappointment with a franchise expected to dominate a weak AFC West, there is one player who is holding it all together.

The glue is no longer running back LaDainian Tomlinson's team -- the one-time NFL Most Valuable Player is sidelined a second consecutive week because of a sprained ankle.

Now, the burden of leading this locker room, this franchise, has fallen to quarterback Philip Rivers.

San Diego came into the 2009 season as one of the heavy favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. Those expectations relied heavily on the ability of the Chargers' running-back tandem of LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles to dominate.

But two games into the season, Tomlinson's already dealing with injury, and San Diego is 30th in the league in yards rushing at 60.5 per game.

The situation doesn't appear to be on the verge of getting better, either -- Wednesday, the Chargers announced that starting center Nick Hardwick, a first-teamer on the San Diego offensive line since 2004, will be out for up to eight weeks after left ankle surgery.

This isn't quite as ridiculous as Rodney Harrison calling the Giants a team full of dirty players, but if you're a New York fan, this is one of those things you could do without in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. From the Boston Globe's Karen Guregian:

Last night on HBO's "Inside the NFL," Umenyiora had some less than flattering words to say about Matt Light, implying the Patriots left tackle and Tom Brady's chief bodyguard is a dirty player. ...

Umenyiora called Light out for "doing a couple of things that you know he shouldn't have been" when the teams met in the regular-season finale on Dec. 29.

Specifically, Umenyiora had this to say about Light: "[He was] hitting after the delay and trying to ... I don't know if he was trying to intimidate me.... he did a couple of things that he shouldn't have done..."

The Giants blog Big Blue View keeps it simple: "Umenyiora needs to shut the hell up." And I think that just about captures the feelings of most Giants' fans. Look, the issue isn't if Light's a dirty player or not, it's giving the Patriots something -- anything -- to post on their wall-sized bulletin board.

After the Patriots beat the Chargers on Sunday, FanHouse's Ryan Wilson wrote that Chargers center Nick Hardwick had some unkind things to say about Patriots defensive lineman Richard Seymour's conduct during the game.

That game is long over now, but the Hardwick-Seymour feud isn't. Pro Football Talk reports that Hardwick said during an interview on XX Sports Radio that Seymour head butted a Chargers assistant before Sunday's game. And although this video is a bit hard to interpret, it seems to confirm said head butt at about the 2:45 mark:



Seymour seems to be getting in the face of a member of the Chargers staff, and at one point Seymour's helmeted head seems to hit the head of the Chargers assistant. Seems like a bush league move to me.Sorry, No Photos

To New England defensive end Richard Seymour's credit, he didn't do Shawne Merriman's "lights out" dance after the Patriots beat the Chargers in the AFC Championship game. Still, he's not San Diego center Nick Hardwick's biggest fan.

"He's cheap and dirty and the head man just let him get away with it the whole time," Hardwick said. "They've got 10 great players on that team and when Jarvis Green comes on the field, they've got 11 great players who compete how you're supposed to play. But Richard Seymour is the biggest (expletive) I've ever played."

Hardwick added that Seymour usually plays this way but he kicked it up a notch today. I think that's called the "Lagasse."

Seymour and Chargers left tackle Marcus McNeill were apparently yakking before kickoff, and several times during the game Seymour had words with several San Diego players. He also bumped quarterback Philip Rivers to the ground after the whistle (okay, Rivers flopped, but I'm pretty sure Tom Brady gets that call).

All of these incidents probably contributed to Hardwick's frustrations (along with the final score, I'm guessing), and he was just getting started:

"Head slapping, foot stomping in the pile, running by and throwing punches in your back," Hardwick said. "He's a (expletive). ... There were a lot of things he did. There's a field goal where he was stomping feet. Who stomps feet? And the officials weren't doing anything about it. He plays like a punk."

On the upside, nobody called Rodney Harrison a cheap shot, so there's that.

Hat tip: PFT
Sorry, No Photos