FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Entitlement never goes far with Bill Belichick. In an NFL where loyalty lasts about as long as a healthy time in the 40-yard dash, the New England Patriots' coach can seem unusually cruel the moment a player ceases to be useful. Once, he cut wide receiver Tiquan Underwood the night before Super Bowl XLVI because he wanted depth at a different position.

His explanation is always the same, delivered in a dry mumble empty of feeling, devoid of warmth.

"Best interests of the team," he says.

Bill Belichick answers questions during Tuesday's minicamp news conference. (USA TODAY Sports)This is forever the Belichick way. Prove your worth or be gone. He doesn't do legacy projects. He doesn't add players to his roster for vanity. Some coaches like to tinker with quarterbacks, bringing them to training camp in hopes of working through flaws and buttressing their own reputations as football geniuses. Belichick doesn't suffer projects. He doesn't waste the time. Everyone must have a purpose that goes toward winning.

The Patriots played the 2012 season with only two

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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Any doubt the New England Patriots aren't going to be able to handle the Tim Tebow frenzy was squelched in 10 minutes on Tuesday morning. That was all it took for Patriots coach Bill Belichick to douse the delirium of nearly 100 reporters and camera people firing questions about the Patriots' newest quarterback.

He did it in a minicamp news conference that people would call "Belichickian."

Which means that after walking into the room, seeing the long line of television cameras and reporters, he smirked and then said nothing.

Seriously. Nothing.

Bill Belichick divulged very few details about his new QB on Tuesday. (USA TODAY Sports)Here is the general text of his most effusive statement on the man who will be the most watched player on his roster:

"He's talented, he's smart, he works hard," Belichick said.

Then nothing.

What do you like about Tim? someone asked.

"He's talented, he's smart, he works hard," Belichick replied.

Does Tebow just need a few adjustments to succeed?

"We'll see how it goes," Belichick replied.

What interested you in Tim?

"I like

Read More »from Patriots coach Bill Belichick deflates Tim Tebow buzz at minicamp news conference

PHILADELPHIA – Even if Chip Kelly never wins a game and the Philadelphia Eagles dump his visor and multipage practice plans into the Delaware River, he will have been good for the NFL. For in two months the Eagles' new coach has done something hundreds of his predecessors in professional football have failed to do.

He has made practice interesting.

He has done this without turning the time-held routine of grunting and helmet clacking into some spasmodic new-age movement. His football players are still football players. They still run football plays. But what the Eagles are doing in their OTAs and minicamps is like nothing you will find on any other NFL practice field.

It starts with a TV camera clutched in the hands of a coaching assistant who stands on the field during warm-ups filming the running backs as they take handoffs and catch passes. Mind you he is not filming them as they run full speed in a team drill, but rather he does this in a session with only the quarterback and the

Read More »from Eagles practices under Chip Kelly look like nothing the NFL has seen

Fans pose for a photo outside of Wembley Stadium before a game between the Rams and Patriots. (Getty)

For those who don’t get the NFL’s interest in London or think the league’s international reach is something of little interest to American football fans, please understand this: The NFL is determined to establish itself overseas, even if it takes a full-time team in London to do it.

Watch: Logistics could be a big hurdle]

On Tuesday, commissioner Roger Goodell was talking about games in London again. He did so at a conference at New York University, but he could have been speaking from any venue over the last several years. Reports from the meeting had Goodell proposing a third regular season game in England, playing in multiple stadiums around the country and perhaps even moving a current team to London. This is really no different from past suggestions of a London Super Bowl or an international game every week.

All should be warnings to American fans who brush away talk of an international NFL. The league is very serious about being overseas.

The most lucrative sports league in the

Read More »from NFL wants more games, possibly a franchise in London

OWINGS MILLS, Md. – The giant speakers near the edge of the Baltimore Ravens' practice fields crackle. There comes a pause, a pop and then enough bass to crack a windowpane. This is the trend in the NFL now, teams practicing under the rumble of music. The Ravens have embraced it too. But on this lost spring OTA the music stops and a strange sensation fills the sun-splashed fields.

Silence.

Ray Lewis didn't always find OTAs worth his time. Spring football wasn't a priority to the face of the Ravens. But even on the days he didn't feel like being in town the idea of him loomed over the practice facility. Things were noisy just because he was noisy. He was, after all, the franchise's longest-running act, a first-round draft pick in the first season in Baltimore.

And now he is gone, retired to the television studio. Lost with him is safety Ed Reed, the stoic leader as important to the defense in his silence as Lewis was with his bellow. So much history disappeared after the confetti

Read More »from Loss of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed creates newfound frenzy on Ravens' defense

ASHBURN, Va. – This was not the life Kirk Cousins dreamed for himself.

His shot at the NFL was not supposed to be behind a quarterback who comes along once a generation. If there was a place he expected to be taken on the last day of the 2012 NFL draft, it wasn't with the team that had picked Robert Griffin III just two evenings before.

What was the point? Nobody understood. Why would one team take two highly regarded quarterbacks in the same draft? Cousins himself seemed as confused as everyone else when the Washington Redskins took him in the fourth round. Of all the teams and all the places, he went to a franchise where his path to the top seemed highly likely.

Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins prior to a game vs. the Eagles last season. (Getty)But the following months in Griffin's shadow taught him something. He watched RG3 smile through practice. He watched him laugh before big games. He watched him move with a relaxed assuredness Cousins never had through four seasons at Michigan State.

And Cousins realized what he needed to take from the man who blocked his

Read More »from Redskins backup QB Kirk Cousins learns valuable lessons from starter Robert Griffin III

ASHBURN, Va. – By now we should know there is nothing Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III does that goes without notice. Even when he does nothing.

Robert Griffin III wears his workout shirt Thursday with a small adidas logo on the collar. (Yahoo! Sports)So there was RG3 on a sweltering Thursday afternoon answering questions during a news conference when suddenly team vice president Tony Wyllie interrupted the session and pulled Griffin away. He fiddled with the mock turtleneck collar of RG3’s white, long-sleeve workout shirt and sent Griffin back to the microphones.

The problem?

Apparently the tiny Adidas logo on Griffin’s neckline.

The NFL has a uniform deal with Adidas' rival, Nike. All uniforms and practice gear have to be team-issued Nike gear. Not Adidas. But as anyone who has watched television commercials in the last several months knows: Griffin has a deal with Adidas.

In fact, RG3’s Adidas commercials have announced more news this offseason than the player himself. The shoe company unveiled an ad last winter in which Griffin declared himself: “All in for Week 1”

Read More »from Robert Griffin III's Adidas apparel may once again raise ire of NFL

ASHBURN, Va. – Because he is smart and thoughtful and speaks for himself in a league where players are terrified to go off script, you must parse every word that comes from Robert Griffin III. Is there something more? A hidden message?

On Thursday, Griffin gave a 20-minute news conference following the Washington Redskins' OTA that was supposed to clear up the lingering confusion about those harried moments in the team's playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks when a sprained right knee became a torn ACL and LCL. But instead of answers came more questions.

One example was this response to a direct question about whether he was happy with the way Redskins coach Mike Shanahan used him last season.

"I was happy with the wins that we had, the way we came out into the season and the adversity we faced being 3-6 and then 10-6, going to the playoffs and win the division," Griffin said. "Now it's about continuing to make that relationship grow – together so

Read More »from Robert Griffin III raises more questions than he answers at Redskins' OTA