There are people in or around the town of Oceanside, Calif., who just got an express trip to the place where the red guy with the horns and pitchfork does his business. There are few things more disgusting than a robbery that affects the family of a man who just died, but that's what happened last week to the family of Junior Seau.

Just five days after the great linebacker took his own life, some sorry excuses for humanity broke into Seau's home, went through cabinets in the garage, and stole a bicycle that belonged to a friend of Seau's.

Oceanside police Lt. Leonard Mata said that the stolen bike is gray with chrome fenders and a black seat, and there are 143 spokes in each wheel. Whoever broke in didn't enter the house -- just the garage. Nothing else was taken. The estimated value of the bike is approximately $500.

[Related: Junior Seau was gregarious, ebullient, hilarious and immensely popular]

On May 2, at approximately 9:35 a.m., Seau's girlfriend placed a 911 call indicating that she had found the body of the future Hall of Fame linebacker in a spare bedroom of his home. The death was suspected to be, and was later ruled, a suicide.

Seau, a 12-time Pro Bowler and six-time First-Team All-Pro, was selected fifth overall in the 1990 NFL draft after an outstanding collegiate career at USC. He played with the San Diego Chargers through the 2002 season, spent 2003-2005 with the Miami Dolphins, and then signed with the New England Patriots in time for the 2006 season. In New England's perfect regular season of 2007, he played in all 16 games and started four. Seau first retired after that season, only to come back and play for the Patriots in 2008 and 2009 before finally leaving the NFL for good.

"I'm going to go surf," he told Showtime upon his January 2010 retirement announcement. "Whatever happens, I can honestly say, that that probably was my last game."

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Since he came to the New England Patriots in 2007, Wes Welker has been about as productive as a receiver can be. In five seasons, he's caught 554 passes for 6,105 yards (an 11.0 yards-per-catch average) and 31 touchdowns. He's redefined the role of possession receiver in some of the most productive offenses in league history, and he's far from done. In 2011, Welker caught 122 passes -- the second most in his career, and good enough to lead the NFL in receptions for the third time in the last five seasons.

So, it was a bit surprising when the New England Patriots decided to place the franchise tag on Welker instead of signing him to a new long-term contract. "I'm pretty certain I'll be playing there this next year, and I'm looking forward to that," Welker told Shutdown Corner in April. "Like everybody else, I'd like a long-term deal, but at the same time, I'm just focused on going out there and playing the best I can."

After biding his time, Welker signed his tender on Tuesday, and announced it on Twitter.

Confident that a new deal is around the corner, and unwilling to  create distractions as organized team activities begin soon, Welker is now looking forward to what he perceives to be a willingness on both sides to get that new contract hammered out.

"I think we are all on the same page," he told WEEI on Monday. "We're all trying to collectively come together and make something happen. I think everybody just seems to know we're all on the same page and we're trying to work towards something.

"I think anybody that plays for any organization that has done a good job over the years wants to be rewarded for it. I think I'm no different from any other guy that's in the league. The main thing is just trying to keep a level head about it and make sure you're making the best decisions for yourself, but at the same time put yourself in a position where you can play for a great team and hopefully do some great things in the future."

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Three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Tommie Harris lost his wife Ashley unexpectedly in February. Instead of dwelling on what is gone from his life, Harris told the Chicago Sun-Times that he is working to honor her memory by building a school in the Sudan.

Harris wants the school to serve girls who have been abused or enslaved by Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army. He will name it the Ashley Harris Sunshine School, and he hopes to build many more across the continent.

He and Ashley took two trips to Africa through Pros for Africa, a not for profit that describes its mission, "connecting professionals of all fields with the children of Africa." She was affected by the people she met in Tanzania and Uganda, and PFA appreciated her work so much that they dedicated this year's medical expedition through northern Uganda and South Sudan to her.

PFA has experience in school building, and Harris has enlisted friends from the NFL to donate. Matt Forte, who was Harris' teammate when he was with the Chicago Bears, has already signed on as a donor. Considering the large NFL contingent that reached out to Harris after her death, and his many fans in Chicago and San Diego, Harris shouldn't have a hard time getting enough money to build the school.

To help Harris with his mission, visit Pros for Africa.

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If you're the type of person who's already interested in the line for the Week 8 game between the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers -- and, let's face it; you're on Shutdown Corner on a Wednesday afternoon four months from the start of the season, so we know the answer -- then you may want to clear the next 20 minutes.

Cantor Gaming, a company that runs a number of Las Vegas sportsbooks, has released lines for every NFL game through Week 16 of the 2012 NFL season. Want to bet on the Lions-49ers rematch? Hoping to get on the RGIII bandwagon early? Eager to throw some money on your favorite team to win after their bye week? Desperate to find another way to lose your paycheck in Vegas? You're in luck, my degenerate friends.

What do the odds show? Vegas loves the Philadelphia Eagles, has no idea what to do with Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos, wavers on the decimated New Orleans Saints and is fairly certain how Mike Mularkey's first season in Jacksonville is going to go. The season spreads contain few surprises -- the Indianapolis Colts are expected to be bad, the Green Bay Packers are expected to be good -- but are a good way to kill some time during the NFL's May doldrums.

A week-by-week selection of the most interesting lines (via Covers.com):

Week 2

Detroit Lions (+3.5) at San Francisco 49ers

Week 3

New York Giants (PK) at Carolina Panthers

Week 4

New York Giants (+4) at Philadelphia Eagles

Week 5

Green Bay Packers (+9.5) at Indianapolis Colts

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Now that the 2012 NFL draft is in the can, it's time to take the Shutdown 50 scouting format forward and take a closer look at some of the surprising and fascinating selections from this year's draft -- the guys we missed in the original 50, but who could be impact players now or down the road. Our next entry: Wisconsin offensive guard Kevin Zeitler, selected 27th overall by the Cincinnati Bengals.

Overview: While Stanford's David DeCastro received most of the pre-draft platitudes for his position, Zeitler equally impressed many tapeheads, and there are those (like our buddy Greg Cosell) who actually likes Zeitler's game film just a little bit better. For those teams in the market for a pure mauler to impact their inside run game, Zeitler flashes more pure nastiness than any other guard in this draft class -- and like DeCastro, he did so in an offense that transitions easily to the NFL.

Per NFLDraftScout.com, Zeitler had 142 knockdown blocks and 33 blocks that resulted in touchdowns in 2011 alone, and he was a primary force in an offense that averaged 44.62 points, 467 total yards, and 237 rushing yards per game last season. He was to Russell Wilson what DeCastro was to Andrew Luck -- the ultimate bad-ass chaperone -- but do Zeitler's characteristics sell as well to the National Football League?

Strengths: Zeitler's most obvious and positive characteristic is the leverage with which he plays. He is a leverage expert who sets a wide base, explodes off the snap with low angles, and really pushes defenders back on a regular basis. Understands and executes zone assignments very well in Wisconsin's system because he's as fundamentally sound as most college linemen you'll ever see. Absolute mauler as a run-blocker -- Zeitler locks on to his target and pushes his man back with impressive consistency, and he's not just picking on linebackers when he does that.

Good enough from a technique perspective to physically beat men who outweigh him. Devastating red zone blocker who will take on more than one defender at a time -- considers it his obligation to hit as many people as possible with authority when a touchdown is within reach. Keeps his head on a swivel and will box out defenders away from him when defending the pocket. For all his ability to fire low off the snap, will occasionally get on top of a defender and just bury him. Great hands -- will grab inside the pads and use his upper-body strength to his advantage.

Weaknesses: For all his root (and brute) strength, Zeitler isn't always form-correct on zone slides -- he'll get a bit lost in the scrum when asked to block across the line and pick up a defender three gaps away. Seems like more of a short-area blocker in that regard, at least laterally. Great on initial hits, but will occasionally let lager guys slip back inside on delayed run plays. Pulls across gaps pretty functionally, but can be more a grizzly bear than a dancing bear when he needs to be light on his feet. Footwork on pulls and dropback in pass pro can be a bit choppy; not as smooth in space as some teams might like.

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University of Iowa retired wrestling coach and Olympic gold medalist Dan Gable once said, "Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy." Perhaps the Tennessee Titans have that quote hanging in their war room, as they have targeted football players with grappling experience.

Their second and third-round draft picks both have wrestled. Zach Brown went undefeated as a heavyweight in his senior year of high school. Mike Martin won a state championship in Michigan his junior year of high school, and only gave up wrestling because of his football scholarship. Karl Klug, who has seven sacks for Tennessee as a rookie in 2011, qualified for the Minnesota state tournament as a wrestler.

"It's something that to me, when a guy has been a wrestler, especially when he has been a successful wrestler, it says something about his toughness and his commitment," general manager Ruston Webster said.

When teams draft both offensive and defensive linemen with a wrestling background, they get the toughness and commitment Webster mentioned, as well as an understanding of leverage, handfighting and balance that is hard to teach. Particularly in the heavier weights, wrestling matches are a battle of leverage that also require top conditioning.

The Titans aren't the only team to realize the strength wrestlers bring to football.

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It might be said that the only thing Junior Seau loved more than surfing was football. The 43-year-old linebacker, who ended his life last week, always came back to the community of Oceanside, Calif., to get in the water and re-connect with his home. Just two days before his Wednesday suicide, Seau was in the water with his board. As a tribute to Seau's life and legacy, hundreds of surfers paddled out into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday afternoon in a ceremony to remember the future Hall of Famer.

The surfers hit the water with their hands, dropped leis in the water, raised their open hands to the heavens in a "five-five" tribute to Seau's jersey number, and chanted Seau's name in an hour-long memorial steeped in Polynesian tradition. Still more fans and friends stood on the rocky shore, chanting Seau's name.

One of those board-heads in the water was very well-known -- former San Diego Chargers and current New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

"Junior always cared so much about his teammates," Brees told the NFL Network. "He always wanted to know how you were doing, how [he] could help you. That's what I'll remember most about Junior -- just the smile on his face, his attitude and his infectious personality. We were in the water where I know Junior loved to be. It was a beautiful day because Junior is present here with us."

Brees, selected by the Chargers in the second round of the 2001 NFL draft, played with Seau in his first two NFL seasons. He signed with the Saints before the 2006 season as a free agent. Kicker John Carney, who played with Seau from 1990 through 2000, was also a part of the ceremony, as was fellow former teammate Darren Bennett.

"So many people out here have a story about when he told them a joke, or bought them a meal, signed their jersey or encouraged their child," Carney told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "We're all grieving the loss of a great man who had so much positive impact on San Diego."

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• Twenty-eight-year-old Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden has declared himself ready to start in the NFL. This, despite the fact that he's never before actually faced an NFL defense. In a related story, I am ready to singlehandedly conquer the Lesser Antilles.

• Sticking with the Browns for a second, 44.54 percent of Browns fans are extremely optimistic people.

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• Five reasons to be optimistic that the Chargers can have a better defense in 2012 than they had in 2011.

• Drayton Florence, a starter at cornerback last year for the Buffalo Bills, was released. With the Bills drafting Stephon Gilmore, he became expendable.

• DeMarco Murray says the ankle he broke late last year is fine.

• Darrell Green's son, Jared, is getting a look from the Carolina Panthers.

On Thursday, the death of NFL legend Junior Seau was officially ruled a suicide by the San Diego County medical examiner. While those who knew and loved the man are left to comprehend this, it has now been reported that Seau's family will allow his brain to be examined for damage resulting from concussions and other head trauma the linebacker may have suffered through his 20-year NFL career. The 43-year-old Seau shot himself in the chest at his Oceanside, Calif., home on Wednesday.

"The family was considering this almost from the beginning, but they didn't want to make any emotional decisions," San Diego Chargers team chaplain Shawn Mitchell told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. "And when they came to a joint decision that absolutely this was the best thing, it was a natural occurrence for the Seau family to go forward."

The autopsy determining the cause of Seau's death was assisted by Dr. Bennett Omalu, the San Joaquin County chief medical examiner, and the man credited with identifying Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the neurological disorder caused by repeated head trauma. As the co-founder of the Brain Injury Research Institute, Omalu has been studying the impacts of concussions for years. The institute Omalu co-founded with Dr. Julian Bailes is one organization asking to study Seau's brain; another is the Sports Legacy Institute at Boston University, an organization that has received funding from the NFL.

[Related: Junior Seau was gregarious, hilarious and immensely popular]

According to a January 2011 ESPN article, doctors from both organizations once worked together, but now "compete" to further research in their fields. Public knowledge of CTE really began in 2002, when Omalu, then working as a medical examiner in the Allegheny County, Pa., coroner's office, found unusually high amounts of tau protein in the brain of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster. This led to his link between multiple concussions and long-term brain damage, a conclusion that the NFL went out of its way to discredit. Omalu  then studied the brain of Philadelphia Eagles safety Andre Waters, who committed suicide in 2006. Omalu found that Waters' head traumas had left him with early onset Alzheimer's disease and the mental capacity of an 85-year-old. Waters was 44 at the time of his death.

Public awareness increased when former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson killed himself in January of 2011 by shooting himself in the chest so that his brain could be studied and analyzed for CTE symptoms. It was revealed that brain trauma led to the depression that caused Duerson to take his life. At the same time, a series of lawsuits filed by former NFL players, claiming that the NFL withheld knowledge of the effects of concussions, became more of a public issue. Currently, the number of former players suing the league in a number of class-action cases exceeds 1,500.

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As Doug Farrar pointed out, remembrances of Junior Seau filled Twitter from the moment the news of his death broke. Most came from his contemporaries, the men who knew Seau  on the football field and in locker rooms. But one came from an unlikely source who didn't start in the NFL until after Seau retired.

Eric Olsen, an offensive guard for the New Orleans Saints, shared a sweet story about how he met Seau in high school, and the encounter changed his life.

Wow this is a tough one.. When I was a frosh in HS Junior Seau worked the Jay Fiedler Football camp and at the end of one of the days he challenged any1 to a 1 on 1. Being one of the 'big' kids, I was volunteered by my buddies and went up in front of the whole camp to face this monster of a man. Shaking in my cleats, he gave me a wink before a coach gave the cadence. He let me pancake him. And he sold it too. I can't even tell you how good I felt at that moment; it changed me forever. The whole camp cheered for me, a chubby kid that didn't know if he even liked football. From then on I was addicted. All thanks 2 this 10 time all-pro that felt like making some snot-nosed kid's day. Doesn't seem like much but it meant a lot to me. Sorry for the essay just had to share. RIP Junior I'll never forget what you did for me.

It seems like everyone who encountered Seau has some memory like Olsen's to share. If you would like to share yours, the San Diego Chargers have set up a page to share your condolences and memories of No. 55.

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