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    • Broncos add Tom Heckert to personnel department

      Tom Heckert is joining the Denver Broncos front office (Getty Images)

      In the two seasons since Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway took over as the executive vice president of football operations for the Denver Broncos, the franchise has won back-to-back AFC West championships as the team's personnel department has assembled one of the league's deepest rosters.

      The Broncos' personnel department is getting a boost this offseason as the team officially announced the hiring of former Cleveland Browns GM Tom Heckert as their director of pro personnel.

      “With more than 20 years’ experience in the NFL, Tom brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight to our personnel department," Elway said in remarks released by the Broncos. "He has worked in several different capacities for multiple teams, and his diverse background in talent evaluation will be a strong resource for the Broncos."

      Heckert spent 10 seasons as a scout and personnel executive with the Miami Dolphins before spending nine seasons in the upper levels of the Philadelphia Eagles' personnel department. The Browns tabbed Heckert for their general manager vacancy in 2010 and he was fired after the team won just 14 games over his three seasons at the helm of the franchise. However, during his brief time with the Browns, Heckert assembled a solid core of players for new general manager Mike Lombardi to build around and his firing was due more to the franchise's recent change in ownership than Heckert's ability to find and retain talent.

      Read More »from Broncos add Tom Heckert to personnel department
    • Via @kaepernick7 on Instagram

      Hey, it's not everybody that can get the First Lady of the United States to pull off his trademarked move, but Colin Kaepernick did just that.

      Kaepernick and Michelle Obama have teamed up to help promote physical education in schools in the "Let's Move" campaign, which might explain why the 49ers QB was as casual as you can get away with when meeting a member of the First Family. He posted this shot on his Instagram account on Tuesday.

      Here, for your viewing pleasure, is video from February of the First Lady getting some kids into shape, with help from Kaepernick, Serena Williams, Bo Jackson and others:

      If President Obama Kaepernicks after his next State of the Union address, you'll know who talked him into it.

      -Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter at @jaybusbee.-

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      Read More »from Colin Kaepernick gets the First Lady Kaepernicking, gets kids moving
    • Don't tell Mike Ditka that Tim Tebow can't succeed. (Getty Images)

      Someday, when President Mike Ditka is sworn into office, all our problems will be solved. International tensions will be cleared up with a clothesline hit, a good cigar, and a steak. Fiscal deficits will be eradicated by the trading of multiple draft picks, the national anthem will be replaced by a simple cry of "DA BEARS!", and nickels will be the size of manhole covers. In the meantime, we'll have to dial our expectations down, and satisfy ourselves with Ditka's evaluation of one Timothy Richard Tebow, who's been out of the NFL since the New York Jets released him on Apr. 29.

      Some would tell you that the former Heisman Trophy winner and first-round pick of the Denver Broncos is out of the NFL for good, at least as a quarterback. But Ditka, the ex-tight end and head coach of the Chicago Bears, who also served that latter function for the New Orleans Saints for a little while, believes that Tebow has a place in the NFL. Moreover, he's willing to go out on a limb in his current capacity as an NFL analyst.

      [Also: Tim Tebow tops Forbes' list of most influential athletes]

      From the Chicago Sun-Times, and his "4 Downs with Ditka" column, here's Ditka on Tebow's pro football future:

      “I think [Tebow] can play quarterback in the NFL, but whatever offense you run might have to be tweaked a bit. This kid is a talent and he proved it in college. He is an outstanding leader. Now, does he have an unusual throwing motion? Yes. But there a lot of quarterbacks that didn’t have a perfect throwing motion. Some of them turned out to be great quarterbacks because they were great leaders. I really do think there’s a place for him. If not at quarterback, I think he could play tight end. If I was in the league and coaching today, I would take a chance on him at quarterback.”

      Ditka has an interesting history with quarterbacks.

      Read More »from Mike Ditka believes in Tim Tebow as an NFL quarterback, and it’s easy to see why
    • Plenty of athletes play golf, but few play it well enough to get called "a hell of a golfer" by no less than Tiger Woods. Tony Romo does, however; he's spent many of his recent summers trying to qualify for the U.S. Open, and he has little trouble finding his way to the top of pro-am leaderboards.

      Of course, Romo has another job, one where his employer has just doubled down on him and signed him to a six-year, $108 million contract extension. And with that contract comes the likelihood that Romo will spend more time on the turf and less on the green.

      Tucked away in an ESPNDallas report is this tidbit: Romo has declined to play in several pro and amateur tournaments, and will not try to qualify for the PGA Tour's HP Byron Nelson Championship or the U.S. Open. It's impossible to read this and think it doesn't have something to do with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' recent pronouncement that he'll expect much more out of Romo now that the ink on the contract has dried.

      “Tony is going to have more time, more presence, not only in the offseason but when the season starts, beginning Monday, assuming we played Sundays," Jones told the Dallas Morning News last week. "He’s going to have more time on the job. A part of what we agreed with was extra time on the job, beyond the norm. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t have a lot of time on the job, but extra time on the job, Peyton Manning-type time on the job."

      Romo's career to date has been a study in could-have-been.

      Read More »from Tony Romo cuts back on his golf; is this part of Jerry Jones’ ‘work like Peyton’ mandate?
    • This isn't a very good idea at all. (@SBergerBOSTON)

      Arizona Cardinals defensive back Tyrann Mathieu's struggles with substance abuse are well-documented. His history got him booted off the LSU football team before the 2012 season, and dropped his value as a draft pick precipitously in a year -- from Heisman candidate and dynamic team-altering player to third-round draft pick and calculated risk.

      Many people are in Mathieu's corner, hoping that he'll be able to figure his life out and live up to his impressive potential. However, there's one store in the Phoenix area more interested in targeting a potential customer than any of those other factors. A head shop called Bud's Glass Joint (ha, ha -- we get it on all three counts) put an ad in the Phoenix New Times, claiming that they have what the Honey Badger is looking for. Of course, the proprietors of this establishment could mean that they think Mathieu would enjoy the live glass blowing exhibition, but given the mention of "Home Grown Hydrophonic" underneath, we're thinking not.

      [Also: Vikings release outspoken punter Chris Kluwe]

      One of the reasons the Cardinals took Mathieu is his relationship with fellow LSU alum Patrick Peterson. Mathieu lived and trained with Peterson for a time while he went through rehab and tried to turn things around, and it's easy to imagine a scenario in which Peterson, the team's first-round pick in 2011 and one of the best pass defenders in the game, told the Cards' brass that he'd help Mathieu try to get past a past in which he cancelled two pre-draft team visits, and reportedly failed more drug tests than he could remember while in college. Mathieu started his football path again with a positive combine performance (and a negative drug test).

      "I couldn't think of a better team to go to,' Mathieu said after the Cardinals selected him, possibly to play free safety. "I spent so much time out there with Patrick, that became sort of like my second home. The whole time, I was telling myself, 'don't cry.' I know I'm on the right track."

      Read More »from Phoenix-area head shop ‘welcomes’ Tyrann Mathieu to Arizona
    • Williams and Marzouki in happier times. (AP)A Super Bowl ring isn't the only piece of jewelry on Buffalo Bills defensive end Mario Williams' mind. The former Houston Texan is suing to get back an engagement ring from former fiancée Erin Marzouki.

      According to a suit filed in the Harris County state district court in Texas, Williams gave Marzouki a 10.04 carat engagement ring worth $785,000 in February of 2012. When their relationship ended in January of 2013, Marzouki refused to give the ring back. The lawsuit alleges that Marzouki never intended to marry Williams, but was in a relationship with him just to acquire gifts. It also alleges she charged $108,000 to an American Express card he gave her, and $230,000 in other luxury items.

      Both etiquette and laws dictate whether engagement rings should be returned. Emily Post says to give the ring back.

      "If the engagement should be so unfortunate as to be broken off, the engagement ring and all other gifts of value must be returned," Post wrote in her 1922 book, "Etiquette."

      [Also:

      Read More »from Buffalo’s Mario Williams suing to get back 10-carat engagement ring worth $785,000
    • People stand in line at a May 2 job fair at Sun Life Stadium. (Getty Images)

      Now that the Florida Legislature has let a vote lapse that might have passed a hotel tax facilitating up to $380 million in subsidies for Sun Life Stadium, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has gone on the attack. Ross, who has owned the team since 2009, blasted Speaker of the House Will Weatherford. Ross claimed that Weatherford backed out of a promise to let the stadium improvements go to a vote.

      Last week, the Dolphins held a job fair at the stadium, while knowing that the project may not go forward.

      [Also: Did Tony Romo cut back on golf as part of a 'work like Peyton' mandate?]

      "Tonight, Speaker Weatherford did far more than just deny the people of Miami Dade the right to vote on an issue critical to the future of our local economy," Ross said Friday in an official team-released statement. The Speaker singlehandedly put the future of Super Bowls and other big events at risk for Miami Dade and for all of Florida. He put politics before the people and the 4,000 jobs this project would have created for Miami Dade, and that is just wrong.

      "I am deeply disappointed by the Speaker's decision. He gave me and many others his word that this legislation would go to the floor of the House for a vote, where I know, and he knows, we had the votes to win by a margin as large as we did in the Senate. It’s hard to understand why he would stop an election already in process and disenfranchise the 40,000 people who have already voted. I can only assume he felt it was in his political interest to do so. Time will tell if that is the case, but I am certain this decision will follow Speaker Weatherford for many years to come."

      The decision to refuse a vote seems to have had immediate, and possibly far-reaching, effects on the team. Not only will Sun Life and the Dolphins be on the outside looking in for any future Super Bowl bids without improvements, but team CEO Mike Dee has intimated that the Dolphins aren't a lead-pipe lock to stay in Miami on a no-matter-what basis. While Dee stopped short of saying that Ross might move the team, he told WFOR-TV that another owner might down the road.

      "I don't think it's an option for Steve Ross, but for a subsequent owner? The Dolphins are one of the only franchises in the National Football League that do not have a long-term lease with their community."

      Dee said that the team wanted $3 million per year for the next 30 years from the state, to which Ross would pledge a 70 percent payment for all the stadium improvements. But the team wants to make it very clear -- without a private-public partnership," as Dee put it, Ross has no intention of putting up his own capital.

      Read More »from Dolphins brass claim bleak future for team after vote for stadium improvements lapses
    • Susie Sanchez. (Via Oakland Raiders)We are in that fallow time of year in the NFL, the barren few weeks between the draft and the start of Organized Team Activities, which means we're kind of scraping the barrel here for stories. (Pro media tip, NFL'ers: this is NOT the time to get caught for even a petty criminal act.) And with that in mind, we bring you this: the tale of the Cheerleading Granny.

      Meet Susie Sanchez. She's 39 years old, mother to three and grandmother to a two-year-old. She also happens to be a cheerleader, and this past weekend was one of 400 women auditioning to join the fabled Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Sanchez has experience, having cheered for the Oakland Raiders in 2009 after trying out for five years.

      “The year I was on that team, some of the girls were born the year I graduated,” Sanchez said. “If you look at the numbers, it’s ‘What am I doing?’ ”

      Sanchez decided to take one last shot at the summit of cheerleading before she hung up the pompoms for good, and hey, why not? We can all dream,

      Read More »from Grandmother tries out for Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders
    • Chris Kluwe has been released by the Vikings (USA Today Sports Images)

      Veteran punter Chris Kluwe announced on Twitter that his eight-year run with the Minnesota Vikings has come to an end.

      "So long, Minnesota, and thanks for all the fish!," Kluwe wrote. "Thank you to all the fans, my teammates, and the Wilf family for the past 8.5 years. I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

      Kluwe had seen the writing on the wall and was expected to be released after the addition of Locke. Last week, Kluwe told ProFootballTalk.com that it was "a shame" that his vocal support for a human rights issue like marriage equality could result in his release considering the number of second chances given to players in the league who have committed felonies.

      [Also: Tim Tebow tops Forbes' list of most influential athletes]

      In recent seasons, Kluwe has used his Twitter page to needle the NFL about player safety issues and the labor negotiations in 2011. Last year, Kluwe publicly supported the Hall of Fame candidacy of punter Ray Guy.

      Vikings GM Rick Spielman told Peter King of Sports Illustrated that the off-field issues were not going to be a factor in what the did at the punter position.

      "Locke was the top punter in this draft,'' Spielman said. "Some people are trying to play the other angle [the Kluwe-as-distraction angle], but that is totally off-base. That is off the radar. I want Chris, and all of our players, to have freedom of speech. This has nothing to do with Chris' political views."

      Read More »from Outspoken punter Chris Kluwe has been released by the Vikings
    • Tim Tebow's fans are as adrift as the free-agent quarterback himself at this point. You want to root for your guy, but how can you root for him when he doesn't have a gig? Simple: you help him out by appealing to a higher power.

      No, not That Higher Power. Tebow still presumably has a contract in force with Him. We're talking about the President of the United States.

      Thanks to the White House's "We The People" petition submission system, a band of Tebow fans sought to get President Obama involved in the Jacksonville Jaguars' free-agency dealings. They tried to persuade David Caldwell, the Jaguars' general manager, to rethink his no-Tebow pose.

      [Also: Tim Tebow tops Forbes' list of most influential athletes]

      Here's the text of the petition, all words [sic]'d:

      Jacksonville Jaguars fans want the team to sign recently released QB Tim Tebow. However, rookie general manager for the Jacksonville Jaguars David Caldwell is blocking this from happening. If the Jaguars sign & START Tebow, home games

      Read More »from White House removes petition to get Tim Tebow signed to the Jaguars

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