With Brees negotiating, Chase Daniel is Saints’ quarterback for May practices

METAIRIE, La. — Chase Daniel has completed 75 percent of his passes during his first three years in the NFL, which would rank him among the league’s top quarterbacks if not for the fact that he’s only thrown eight passes.

Experienced he is not, having completed a career total of six passes for 45 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. And as Drew Brees’ understudy, the former Southlake Carroll and Missouri standout never had an opportunity to practice as the first-team quarterback — though that could change next week.

With Brees staying away from Saints headquarters during protracted contract negotiations, Daniel has been penciled in to take first-team snaps when New Orleans begins its first offseason practices, known as organized team activities, on Tuesday.

NFC East Offseason Roll Call: A Look At Player Movement By Division

With the NFL Draft over and free agency winding down, it’s time to look at who is coming, going and who to watch out for in the NFC East in 2012. Here is a breakdown of roster turnover within the NFC East division: 

New York Giants
Hello: In the latest Super Bowl win over the Patriots, tight end Jake Ballard went down and his status for the season is unknown, hence the signing of free agent Martellus Bennett (Cowboys) and the fourth-round selection of Adrien Robinson (Cincinnati).

read more: profootballguru.com

Bears’ Cutler showing leadership

When the quarterback talks in the NFL, the rest of the locker room should listen up. Like it or not, they are natural leaders in the pro game because of the position.

And when they raise the bar, as Jay Cutler did with his offensive line earlier this week, the team better take notice.

read more: chicagotribune.com

Welker: I signed $9.5 million franchise tender

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) New England Patriots receiver Wes Welkersaid Tuesday he has signed the $9.5 million tender offer that came along with being designated the team’s franchise player.

Welker made the announcement on Twitter. He said he loves the game and his teammates and ”hopefully doing the right thing gets the right results.”

Welker caught more passes than anyone else in the NFL last season but couldn’t come down with the one that might have clinched a Super Bowl victory against the New York Giants.

read more: sports.yahoo.com

NFL needs to publicly release evidence of players’ bounty involvement if it exists

When the Gregg Williams audio tape surfaced last month, it elevated the New Orleans Saints’ bounty scandal to a new level of public awareness and lowered the cries of unduly harsh punishment to a murmur.

Sean Pamphilon, the filmmaker who released the recording of the ex-Saints defensive coordinator’s speech the night before the team’s January playoff defeat to the San Francisco 49ers, called it a “smoking gun,” but really, it was more than that: Williams’ words took people inside a culture of amplified rhetoric and calls for violence and eliminated any doubt that a line had been crossed.

read more: sports.yahoo.com

Russell Wilson shows few shortcomings in his first NFL minicamp

RENTON, Wash. — At 5-foot-10 5/8, former Wisconsin and current Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has one obvious “handicap” in the way of his eventual NFL success, and very little else impeding his progress. The man who led the NCAA in passing efficiency in 2011 was described by Seahawks general manager John Schneider as the kind of player who could “tilt a room” after he was selected in the third round, and on the first day of Seattle’s rookie minicamp, Wilson showed that he’s got a lot on the ball when he’s flinging it around.

read more: sports.yahoo.com

Saints rookie cornerback Corey White gets a reality check from Drew Brees

Rookie minicamp is a time for the new kids to come into a new team facility and basically learn where to line up. Running in the right direction is considered a plus, and anything else is gravy in what is basically a series of glorified  workouts. Everyone tends to look good — especially quarterbacks, who get to zoom the ball around without the fear of contact against a bunch of undrafted tryout guys who will — in some cases — have this to remember as their first and last NFL experience.

read more: sports.yahoo.com

Trent Richardson goes from being told he’ll never run again to his goal of becoming the best NFL back that ever lived

BEREA, Ohio — When Trent Richardson wasn’t dodging bullets in his hometown of Pensacola, Fla., he was trying to prove wrong the doctors who told him he’d never run again and cope with being a dad at 16.

At one point, after his second ankle surgery and with a baby girl in his arms, he nearly gave up the game he loved so much. Luckily for the Browns, he didn’t.

“It’s a miracle that I’ve gotten to this point,” he said. “Now that I’m here, I want to be remembered as the most dominant player to ever play the game.”

Read more: connect.cleveland.com

Top performer: Tight end

The SEC returns six of the top 10 statistical tight ends this season. Orson Charles led all tight ends in yardage with 574 yards and had five touchdowns on 45 catches. The No. 2 tight end returns this fall, and this race might be the most wide open of all the top returners by position.

Here’s the conference’s top returning producer at tight end

Read more: espn.go.com

Detroit Lions New QB Kellen Moore With Team He Wanted in First Place

Former Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore is College football’s winningest quarterback from the Football Bowl Subdivision. He also got snubbed at the 2012 NFL Draft. However that is just par for the course for the new member of the Detroit Lions.

Moore was never considered to be a lock for an early-round selection, but he was thought to be a player that would hear his name called sometime in the final day of picks. So he waited, waited some more and then late in the day, his dream of getting drafted into the NFL came to a close as this year’s “Mr. Irrelevant” went to another non-AQ school QB—Northern Illinois’ Chandler Harnish. To say that his exclusion from what is the equivalent of Christmas to football teams and fans alike was disappointing is an understatement.

Read more: nationalfootballauthority.com