Tampa Bay Buccaneers acquire tight end Dallas Clark, trade Kellen Winslow to Seattle Seahawks

TAMPA

Monday began with Bucs tight end Kellen Winslow dropping a bombshell, relaying a conversation in which coach Greg Schiano told him his days in Tampa Bay were over.

Shortly before midnight, Winslow was sent packing, traded to the Seahawks for an undisclosed 2013 draft pick.

Meanwhile, the Bucs acquired his replacement, signing former Colts star Dallas Clark, who teamed with Peyton Manning to help annually make Indianapolis an offensive juggernaut, to a one-year deal.

read more: tampabay.com

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.

New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma’s lawsuit will try to make league play defense for a change

New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma is trying to force the NFL to play defense for a change. His defamation lawsuit against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday was the strongest response yet from anyone in the Saints organization to the league’s bounty allegations.

Vilma is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages to account for the harm done to his personal and professional reputation. Just as significantly, he is trying to force the NFL to reveal the evidence which it has kept secret up to this point in front of an impartial judge.

read more: nola.com

Brees frustrated with contract negotiations, wants to finish career as Saint

NEW ORLEANS – As the days tick away with no deal between the New Orleans Saints and quarterback Drew Brees, some of the cracks of frustration are beginning to show publicly with the all-pro quarterback.

Brees granted WWL Radio an interview Wednesday with sports talk host Deke Bellavia to talk about, among other things, the lack of a long-term deal with Saints.

[Listen to the entire interview from WWL Radio.]

“I don’t know,” Brees said when asked why a long-term deal hasn’t been struck between him and the team. “It’s been extremely frustrating for me. I didn’t think that the negotiations should have been this difficult, but here we are.”

read more: wwltv.com

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees says lack of new contract is ‘extremely frustrating’

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees expressed more public frustration on Wednesday night than he has throughout his contract standoff with the team this offseason. He told WWL radio that the “lack of communication” has been his biggest disappointment.

“I would say more than anything, I guess, what’s been a little frustrating on my end or disappointing is the lack of communication,” said Brees, who remains unsigned but under the Saints’ control because of the franchise tag. “There’s always a back and forth when it comes to these negotiations. But I know we’ve reached out on quite a few occasions. And at times, I know I’ve been frustrated with the lack of response. …

read more: nola.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

Goodell better have goods on ‘bad’ Saints

Somewhere in the 50,000 pages of documents related to the Saints bounty program better be some compelling evidence that it was much more organized and way more vicious than anything the NFL had ever seen. Otherwise, the punishment he’s doled out already has exceeded the crime, and the commissioner’s credibility on two of the signature issues of his tenure — player safety and the integrity of the games — will suffer a hit he can barely afford. Because if the players believe Goodell is more interested in burnishing his tough-guy reputation and insulating the league from further liability on safety concerns than he is in genuinely pursuing their best interests, look out. All the pushback from all the previous disciplinary cases combined will seem like a nudge.

read more: hosted2.ap.org

Hargrove says NFL “grossly mischaracterized” his words

When the declaration of former Saints defensive end Anthony Hargrove was published on Monday, many in the media (including ESPN) interpreted it to mean that Hargrove had been told to lie by Saints coaches.

Though that may be a fair interpretation of his words, henever said that he was told to lie.  And now he’s sounding off about the NFL’s decision to characterize his words as evidence of the existence of a bounty program — and as proof that he lied about it to investigators in 2010.

read more: profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

Former New Orleans Saints tackle Anthony Hargrove deserves a better fate from the NFL

For the first time since accusations, details and names of key figures in this sordid bounty affair began seeping out, someone has emerged who’s worthy of a good portion of the sympathy New Orleans Saints fans have showered on a franchise that, it now appears clear, had a bounty program in place. Anthony Hargrove deserves more lenience than he received from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He deserves no more than half of the eight games without pay that he was suspended, and dropping his banishment to two games wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

read more: nola.com

Anthony Hargrove’s declaration looks bad for the New Orleans Saints and the NFL

First, the bad news for the Saints: Hargrove’s detailed account of how he was instructed by coaches Gregg Williams and Joe Vitt to “play dumb” and deny the existence of bounties and a bounty program depicts the Saints as a team that knew it was breaking the rules and was willing to lie to cover it up.

Read more: nola.com