Brian Urlacher said "Peace out" to pro football Wednesday, ending an iconic 13-year career that will absolutely lead to a bronze bust in Canton at the end of this decade.

In responding to a chillier-than-a-Windy-City-winter market for his services, I believe the great linebacker was, in essence, making another two-word statement to the NFL's 32 franchises, this one of the unprintable variety.

Brian Urlacher hoists the George Halas Trophy after the Bears beat the Saints in the 2007 NFC title game. (AP)Did you really expect Urlacher to go out any other way? Does it make sense that a fierce competitor, who once told me that after a game "win or lose I'm up all night" in a self-flagellating stupor, would let his storied career bleed itself to an undignified conclusion?

While Urlacher may well have arrived at this decision after considering a multitude of personal factors — including, most important, the state of his body, which has more cause to be broken down than virtually any other skeletomuscular structure that has worn a football uniform this century —

As a journalist who has consistently experienced the wrath of Tebow Nation — mostly for passing along the slings and arrows voiced by various NFL players, coaches and talent-evaluators — I'm well aware that many devotees of the world's most celebrated unemployed quarterback carry a heavy persecution complex.

Yet as Tim Tebow's career wheezes to an underwhelming halt, with less apparent interest in his services than Massachusetts funeral parlors have in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains, something strange is happening. Against all odds, I'm starting to wonder whether the man who helped the Denver Broncos become one of the league's most stunning success stories in 2011 is getting unjustly blackballed.

Nine days after Tebow was released by the New York Jets, it has become increasingly clear that the ultra-popular quarterback who has hijacked many a news cycle has no viable landing spot. No NFL team seems to want him — as a starter, backup, converted H-back or fake-punt decoy — and it's not

He sat at a podium and called it "the greatest trade in football," a calculated burst of hyperbole that would haunt him like a silver-and-black poltergeist.

Now, 18 months after championing his team's costly, driven-by-desperation deal for Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer in the middle of the 2011 season, former Oakland Raiders coach Hue Jackson admits he'd like to take it back.

Carson Palmer played admirably for Oakland under some difficult circumstances.(Getty Images)No, Jackson doesn't regret the organizational decision to send first- and second-round draft picks to the Bengals for the then-retired Palmer, a much-maligned transaction that officially ran its course last Friday when Cincinnati selected running back Gio Bernard with the 37th overall pick of the 2013 draft. Rather, the do-over Jackson desires is a retraction of that five-word statement accompanying Palmer's arrival in Oakland in October of 2011, a proclamation that many Raiders fans now regard as the ultimate irony.

"In hindsight, calling it 'the greatest trade in football' wasn't the best idea,"

During most of his 16-year stint with the Buffalo Bills, Russ Brandon has treated the completion of the NFL draft like the last day of finals, going straight from the team's Orchard Park, N.Y., training facility to a nearby restaurant and enjoying some celebratory munchies and cocktails with scouts, front-office executives and significant others.

E.J. Manuel talks during Friday's introductory news conference. (AP)A good time is usually had by all, but Saturday night's gathering was especially fulfilling for Brandon, the CEO and president who last Jan. 1 was given full authority over the team's operations by 94-year-old owner Ralph Wilson. After identifying and landing a potential franchise quarterback while somehow maintaining the element of surprise, the Bills brought in a cast of supporting actors he believes can help get his playoff-starved franchise closer to the big stage.

From Brandon's perspective, the plan implemented by general manager Buddy Nix couldn't have played out more perfectly. And in an era of increasingly intrusive probes for

Four years ago, Mark Sanchez was the NFL's ultimate Jetsetter, beginning his draft day with a transcontinental trip from the Big Apple to Tinseltown and ending it with a triumphant return flight to his new professional promised land.

As the newly anointed franchise quarterback of the New York Jets, who had traded up to select him with the fifth overall pick of the 2009 draft, Sanchez was soaring toward instant stardom with a pair of AFC championship game appearances on the horizon.

Matt Barkley is still waiting for a new team. (USA TODAY Sports)On Friday, in a metaphorical sense, Air Sanchize crash-landed, completing a two-year tailspin that reflects as poorly on the Jets as it does their embattled quarterback. Thirteen months after trading for Tim Tebow, the Jets drafted former West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith with the seventh pick of the second round, enhancing their reputation as an organization without a coherent flight plan.

As one highly regarded NFL coach put it so succinctly Friday night, "That place is a cluster[expletive]."

It was a

D.J. Hayden stands with his mother, Tori Hayden, left, and father, Derek Hayden, after he was picked by Oakland. (AP)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – He stood in the parking lot outside the training facility named for his late grandmother, staring out at the glorious stadium under construction he fought so hard to sire, his words drowned out by the din of cranes on a chilly Thursday night in football paradise.

Clad in a bright red San Francisco 49ers T-shirt, black workout shorts and white sneakers – indeed, looking like he just left Jules and Vincent in one of the final scenes in "Pulp Fiction" – Niners CEO Jed York was the emblem of casual almost-Friday-chic after a stress-free first round of the NFL draft.

"We weren't nervous," York told Y! Sports, 90 minutes after watching general manager Trent Baalke trade up 13 spots in the first round to select LSU safety Eric Reid with the 18th overall selection. "Trent made up his mind yesterday what he wanted to do, and he went out and did it. And if it hadn't worked out, we'd have still had some pretty good options." LSU's Eric Reid holds up a team jersey and his daughter after being selected 18th overall by the 49ers. (AP)

So ended another excellent day on the south

IRVINE, Calif. — Matt Barkley takes a seat on the patio of a country-club restaurant, framing himself inside a lush fairway that seems as long as an unbroken Southern California shoreline. Clad in a dark sweater on a pleasant mid-April afternoon, the former USC quarterback has purposely given me this view so that I can get the most out my visit to the Strawberry Farms Golf Club, which is just a few par 5s from his parents' Newport Beach home.

As he talks about the disappointing senior season that may have damaged his once bullish NFL draft stock, Barkley is also providing a window into his psyche – and the experience is somewhat counterintuitive. While the setting may scream privileged, laid-back California kid and all that such a stereotype implies, Barkley's words and tone contain a palpable edge.

Regarded after his junior season as a sure top-five pick, Barkley now faces the prospect of an unfulfilling night of Must Flee TV, should he slip out of Thursday's first round

LOS GATOS, Calif. — As a Cuban-born, Puerto Rican-raised success story who has lived the American Dream, Carlos Alonso has enjoyed many a happy new year. Yet it will be tough to top the one that Alonso, a high-tech executive, and his wife Monica experienced 15 months ago in Pasadena as they watched the second of their three sons blaze a rosy trail toward redemption.

Sitting in the Rose Bowl stands on Jan 1., 2012, Carlos and Monica became emotional as son Kiko, a junior who was splitting time at inside linebacker for the Oregon Ducks, became a major thorn in Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson's thigh pads. With a diving, momentum-shifting interception late in the third quarter, a fourth-down sack and 2 ½ tackles for loss, Alonso earned defensive MVP honors in the Ducks' 45-38 victory — and turned his proud parents to mush.

Kiko Alonso tackles Washington State's Teondray Caldwell last year. (AP) "We were in tears," Carlos recalled Thursday as he and Monica joined Kiko, a rising NFL draft prospect, in the pleasant backyard of their home in an