With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.
Meet the ... Offense in transition. With a new head coach along with rookies at quarterback and time-sharing running back, the best work of the Jets' offense will be in 2010 and beyond. They'll look to win with defense and taking care of the football in 2009, and you know that doesn't bode well when it comes to garnering massive amounts of fantasy points.
There are finds to be had on any team, but no Jets should be taken in the first three rounds of your draft -- and that's being conservative.
"I anticipate it happening. I'm happy," Rolle told The Sun. "Everyone got what they wanted out of this. I wish the Ravens nothing but the best of luck."
The move will create $4.1 million in cap space for the Ravens, a team with plenty of defensive holes to fill; Chris McAlister, Bart Scott, and Jim Leonhard -- all starters at various points during the 2008 season -- are gone, and the team is especially thin in the secondary.
The combine is over, we're a week into free agency, and the draft is less than two months away. For NFL teams, this time of year is about finding cheap, young talent to replace aging or ineffective veterans, and the draft evaluation process is a big part of that.
Everybody agrees that Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez are the draft's two best quarterbacks, the only question is where they will end up. The Lions, who have the first-overall pick, are the favorites to take Stafford, but they could very easily select an offensive lineman -- just as big a need -- at No. 1. (And it may also help explain all the Jay Cutlertrade talk.)
By most accounts, the Jets were very successful over the opening weekend of free agency. Linebacker Bart Scott and cornerback Lito Sheppard should pay immediate dividends, particularly in new head coach Rex Ryan's blitz-happy scheme.
The team also added former Ravens safety Jim Leonhard and re-signed guard Brandon Moore. All in all, not a bad few day's work. But even though this team is better -- at least on paper -- there's the lingering issue of who will replace Brett Favre. (Putting aside, for the moment, your thoughts on Favre's effectiveness, the point remains: there's a void at the quarterback position. The only question is if you think that's been the case for a couple months or a couple years.)
If there was any question as to what the Jets' priority is this offseason, the answer is now clear: defense. And not just any defense, but a defense molded through the vision of new head coach Rex Ryan. That means bringing in hard-hitting, Pro Bowl-caliber players like Bart Scott and Lito Sheppard to bolster New York's feeble efforts against the pass. On the surface, what's even more important than the acquisitions are the qualities that players like Scott and Sheppard bring to the table -- adjectives like "punishing" and "passionate" seemed to be a rare pull from the team's vocabulary.
In the above video, NFL super agent Drew Rosenhaus argues that one of his clients, Eagles cornerback Lito Sheppard, deserves to be a starter.
There's nothing unusual about an agent talking up one of his own players, although it is a little unusual to do it on YouTube. And, of course, if Sheppard moves into the starting lineup, someone else would have to move out of it. On the Eagles, that someone else would be cornerback Sheldon Brown. And Brown isn't happy about the comments Rosenhaus made.
While Brian Wesbtrook has made it very clear in the past few weeks that he is unhappy with the current contract he is under, the star running back reported to Lehigh this evening on time as all veterans were scheduled to do. The other question mark was whether or not corner back Lito Sheppard would show up on time. He did.
The somewhat surprising news is that one of the games best offensive linemen, Shawn Andrews, failed to report on time and was not at Lehigh University. Andrews is currently under contract until 2015. That's quite a while.
Lito Sheppard is under contract to play for the Philadelphia Eagles through the 2008 season but that doesn't mean he's happy about it. In a move most Eagles fans surely cringe at, Lito has decided to replace his former agent with the much maligned Drew Rosenhaus.
Of course Rosenhaus is most remembered in Philadelphia with the dog and pony show he and his client Terrell Owens put on a few years ago. Terrell signed a nice, front-loaded contract with the Eagles when he came here from San Francisco by way of layover in Baltimore. But after a great season with the Birds in which Terrell performed valiantly in the Super Bowl, Owens felt he "out played" his contract. He and Drew wanted more money. The Eagles wanted nothing to do with it.
Now, Rosenhaus's name is back in the news and Lito Sheppard will likely want something. What exactly he and Rosenhaus plan to argue or fight for is unclear but Drew told a local paper that "it was clear he does not see this situation taking the tone of his representation of wideout Terrell Owens, which became extremely adversarial."
Donovan McNabb has been known to have some quirky off season workout rituals and he continued that this year. McNabb took part in a training program led by Brett Fischer whose client list includes the likes of Major Leaguer Randy Johnson.
McNabb worked with Fischer in Arizona during the offseason with a throwing program, which concentrated on using his legs for balance and stability. It's a method that Fischer has used on pitchers for years.
"I felt that early on last year, I used a lot of upper body instead of using my legs," McNabb said. "Now knowing how the whole body feels, it's kind of just (like) coming off the mound."
A few recent news items on McNabb had seemingly complained about Donovan's high sack totals as a sign of his inability to move on his recovering knee. McNabb's high sack totals last year had as much to do with his penchant for holding on to the ball too long in hopes of making a play.
This latest anecdote on McNabb comes as the Eagles gather in Philadelphia at the NovaCare Complex for one of their yearly OTAs. These aren't mandatory practices and one notable player did not attend, cornerback Lito Sheppard.
Eagles fans everywhere have to be excited about the prospect of a near 100% McNabb at the helm this year. Excited about the prospect of Lito staying home? Not so much.