A fifth degree black belt in Taekwondo, the 47-year-old Walker begins a 12-week training camp in California next month, Strikeforce said on its website (www.strikeforce.com).

“I will go in there and test myself against any 20-year-old,” Walker said in a statement.

“I want to prove to people who sit on a couch and don’t do anything but criticize other people that, if you’re a true athlete or martial artist, you’re not old until you can’t get up and walk around anymore.

“I’ve been training for several years,” Walker added.

“I would play college football games on Saturday and then compete in martial arts tournaments on Sunday after church I’m now looking forward to opening up another chapter in my life and to competing in MMA.”

After winning the 1982 Heisman trophy as U.S. college football’s outstanding player, Walker played 12 seasons in the NFL with four teams including the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings.

Walker also completed in the 1992 Winter Olympics for the United States in the bobsled and more recently appeared on Donald Trump’s reality show “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Ed Osmond)

taken from:

Tarkenton, who played 13 years for the Vikings, said that the Favre saga has been a major distraction to the other Vikings and that Packers fans should be “outraged” to see their former QB playing for their division rivals.

“I really think the whole Brett Favre saga of retiring, un-retiring, three weeks ago (saying) ‘I can’t play,’ the Vikings said, ‘We’re moving on,’ it’s a circus,” Tarkenton told Sirius XM satellite radio. “It’s an absolute circus, and it takes away from all the other things that are going on with the Vikings, with the NFL. We’re getting ready for a football season and this is a circus and I just have no interest in it.”

Tarkenton said in May that Favre was being selfish and called the QB’s flirtation with the Vikings “despicable.”

He said at dinner last night, he brought up the topic of Favre in a group of about 10. “You know who cared? Nobody,” Tarkenton said. “It’s good news for you guys. It’s good news for television and so forth but the last time I heard, football was a team sport, isn’t it? It’s not just about the quarterback.”

Tarkenton, who played five years for the Giants before returning to the Vikings for his final seven seasons, said Packers fans should be very angry that Favre crossed over to Minnesota. Favre played 16 seasons in Green Bay, and said Tuesday his move to the Vikings was not about revenge.

“Wouldn’t you be upset if you’re a Packer fan?” he said. “I think you’re going to have Packer fans burning the No. 4 Favre Green Bay jersey. I think the Packer fans have every right to be outraged.”

Taken from:

The Vikings, who had courted Favre throughout the off-season only to be left empty-handed on the eve of training camp, planned to address the media later Tuesday. When Favre initially said he would not come back, Coach Brad Childress said the team would move forward with the quarterbacks on its roster and had no interest in Favre.

But now, Favre is en route to the Vikings training camp. He and his wife Deanna were spotted boarding a team plane at the Hattiesburg, Miss. airport.

The U-turn in Favre’s future wasn’t a complete surprise. He had left the door slightly open for a return – likely only to the Vikings – back in July, but almost everyone expected that he wouldn’t make a move until the regular season. Instead, Favre becomes the Vikings starter ahead of Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson with three preseason games remaining. He is already familiar with the offense run by his friend, the Vikings offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. The Vikings have viewed Favre, 39, as the final piece needed to make them the N.F.C. favorite to reach the Super Bowl.

Favre too had viewed the Vikings as a perfect fit for him, because of his familiarity with the N.F.C. North. Favre also said earlier this year that he was motivated to come back last season in part to get back at Packers General Manager Ted Thompson, who shipped Favre to the Jets.

Favre’s play with the Jets dropped off precipitously late last season and the team missed the playoffs, leading to the firing of Coach Eric Mangini. Favre asked the Jets for his release and they granted it, in part because they did not want to endure Favre’s drawn-out retirement deliberations.

Favre had arthroscopic surgery during the off-season on a partially torn right biceps muscle, but then, with the Vikings urging him on, he began throwing again and preparing for a comeback.

Taken from:

A jury found Lawrence Phillips, 34, guilty of seven counts, including assault with great bodily injury, corporal injury on a spouse or roommate, false imprisonment, making a criminal threat and auto theft.

He faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison at a San Diego Superior Court hearing scheduled for Sept. 8.

Phillips, a former NFL and University of Nebraska running back, was accused of choking his girlfriend until she lost consciousness Aug. 2, 2005, and again Aug. 13, 2005.

Deputy District Attorney Nicole Cooper said in an interview that the girlfriend testified she and Phillips were having problems before the first choking incident.

She woke up at their Mission Valley apartment and started piling Phillips’ clothes on the bedroom floor. Phillips became angry and choked the woman several times that evening, the prosecutor said.

A week and a half later, the woman and Phillips went to an apartment on Aero Drive, where he accused her of infidelity. Phillips struck the woman, causing her to fall backward into a bathtub.

They then drove to Rancho Bernardo, where Phillips apparently intended to confront the man with whom he believed his girlfriend was having an affair, according to prosecutors.

The woman ran and eventually was allowed into a nearby apartment. Police found her hiding in a bathroom, the prosecutor said.

Two of Phillips’ former girlfriends testified that he had choked them to unconsciousness on separate occasions, Cooper said. Phillips has a 2000 conviction for domestic violence from Los Angeles stemming from one of those incidents.

In October 2008, Phillips was sentenced in Los Angeles to a 10-year prison term for driving onto a field near the Los Angeles Coliseum in August 2005 and striking three boys and a 19-year-old man with his girlfriend’s car.

He had been convicted in 2006 of seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon stemming from that incident, but the sentencing was repeatedly delayed, according to previous reports.

During his football career, Phillips played for the St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers.

taken from:

Thomas made it look that easy. Seemingly without effort, he could glide past an opposing tackle and quickly make his way to the quarterback, who often had little chance to react.

That the Chiefs set an NFL record last year for pass-rush futility — 10 sacks — speaks loudly to one of the franchise’s single biggest failures since his death: the inability to adequately replace him.

“He was an impact player, and those people don’t come around that often,” said former Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, a Hall of Fame member himself. “He’s somebody that could change the outcome of a game, and there’s just not that many of those guys. He had that kind of ability. If you didn’t control Derrick Thomas, he was going to control you.

“You just don’t find them that often. That’s the problem.”

After Thomas’ death in 2000, the Chiefs made some efforts to find a top-flight pass rusher. They signed Duane Clemons shortly after Thomas’ death and Vonnie Holliday three years later.

They even stumbled on a suitable successor in 2004 when they spent a fourth-round draft pick on small-college star Jared Allen of Idaho State. Allen developed into one of the league’s best pass rushers and led the NFL in sacks with 15½ in 2007.

Eventually, Allen became disgruntled with Chiefs management over his contract and forced a trade to Minnesota.

“I don’t know if that trade is something we regret,” Chiefs president Denny Thum said. “Without question, Jared Allen is a fine football player. … He was a different type of player than what Derrick Thomas was, but he was a good football player who’s done well with the Minnesota Vikings.

“You can look through our drafts. We tried to help ourselves on the defensive side of the ball. Without question, you win football games by playing defense first. That sets the tone for the football team. During the time after Derrick’s passing, we tried to go ahead and help ourselves on the defensive side of the ball. It’s impossible to say you can replace someone as great as Derrick Thomas was on our football team with someone you can draft.”

The fortunes of a proud franchise sagged after Thomas’ death. The presence of one of the game’s all-time great pass rushers had made his teammates better players.

But the Chiefs haven’t been dominant defensively since. Not counting Thomas, the Chiefs had at least one other Pro Bowl defensive player for the first nine seasons of Thomas’ career.

Only Allen in 2007 and safety Jerome Woods in 2003 played in the Pro Bowl after Thomas’ death. While many factors figured into that decline, Thomas’ death was certainly one of them.

“It was a tremendous blow,” Dawson said. “You have to consider how many years he’d already been playing and how many years he had left to perform at that high level. But to take that weapon away like that and not being able to replace it, that can set back a franchise for years.”

What Thomas brought, day in and day out, was so important to the Chiefs, Thum said.

“As a player, there probably has been no other like him in that the opposing team had to scheme and know where Derrick Thomas was on the field each and every time, each and every snap,” Thum said.

“There’s no question he was a leader for our defense. We haven’t been able to replace those leadership qualities on the defensive side of the ball. That’s so important in our game today. We’ve tried.”

While the Chiefs played with a defensive purpose in the Thomas years, they’ve rarely had someone to rally them in the last several years. Allen took a brief turn, but mostly the Chiefs have tried to convert players into leaders, much as former coordinator Gunther Cunningham tried to do with former linebacker Kawika Mitchell.

Those efforts failed. This year, finally, the Chiefs imported veterans like Mike Vrabel and Zach Thomas to help them with the job.

“With Derrick Thomas, it was always more than just his ability,” Dawson said. “He had plenty of that, but he really had the tremendous desire. Once he tasted a sack, he wanted more and more. Only the great ones are that way.”

The Chiefs are still looking for another great one. Perhaps this year’s first-round draft pick, Tyson Jackson, will develop into that.

If not, the search will go on.

“I know (general manager Scott Pioli) would love to have the opportunity to find another Derrick Thomas,” Thum said. “That kind of player is few and far between.”

Taken from: KansasCity.Com

Jim Johnson‘s only head coaching gigs were in small college programs, but he never seems to have had aspirations to do it at the NFL level. He was content being one of the most accomplished defensive coordinators in the business.

It was a shock when the team announced in January he was taking a leave of absence to fight melanoma. And we knew things were bad when the Eagles named a new coordinator this past weekend — with Johnson’s blessing, of course. But the football world wasn’t yet ready for today’s news: Jim Johnson, dead at 68.

For ten years, Jim Johnson was an exceptional coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, but more importantly, he was an outstanding human being,” Eagles Chairman Jeffrey Lurie said in a statement released by the team. “As an integral part of the Eagles family, Jim epitomized the traits of what a great coach should be – a teacher, a leader, and a winner. He positively touched the lives of so many people in and out of the Eagles organization. It was easy to feel close to him. Our hearts go out to his wife, Vicky and his wonderful family. We will miss him greatly.”

As I said, I’m a Giants fan. So my memories of Johnson are limited to his unparalleled blitz packages terrorizing Kent Graham, Kerry Collins, Kurt Warner and Eli Manning twice a year, every year. It was always nerve-wracking seeing our QB lined up against the Eagles’ D; Jim Johnson was one of the best.

Taken from :

When Jesse Holley got the phone call from a friend in the athletic department at the University of North Carolina, he thought it was a joke.

The friend told him there was a reality show in the works in which the winner would get a spot on the Cowboys’ training camp roster. He suggested Holley try out.

Holley, who played four years at North Carolina before brief stints with the Cincinnati Bengals and British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League, was working for a security monitoring company and selling cellphones. At 25, he believed his football career was over.

“I didn’t give the show much thought at first,” Holley said in an interview. “But it was a chance and the more I thought about it…”

Smart move.

On Monday night, Holley, a wide receiver who was a member of the Tar Heels’ 2005 national championship basketball team, was anointed the winner of Michael Irvin’s 4th and Long on Spike TV. His prize is the 80th and final roster spot when the Cowboys report to training camp in San Antonio on July 28.

Holley is listed as 6-3, 215 pounds with 4.5-second speed in the 40-yard dash.

Irvin said that in addition to his physical abilities, Holley is one of the quickest learners he has seen.

“He’d pick up things immediately,” Irvin said. “If I am a coach and I see him implement something right away, I know I have a player.”

The 10-week show opened with 12 prospects culled from a nationwide search. That roster was whittled down to three for Monday’s taped final. After weeks of telling prospects “the Cowboys can’t use you,” Irvin faced Holley, wide receiver Andrew Hawkins and defensive back Ahmaad Smith at Cowboys Stadium and rendered his verdict.

“Jesse Holley, the Cowboys can use you,” declared Irvin, who made the final call under the watchful eyes of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as well as Bill Bates and Joe Avezzano, who helped with the show.

Just before Irvin’s verdict, Jones told the three finalists, “If one of you is the ballplayer that Michael and Joe and Bill say, you’ve got a chance be here. Clear your Sunday afternoon calendar cause you are going to be spending it out here with a big star on your helmet.”

After the verdict, Jones took Holley on a tour of the Cowboys’ new locker room, mentioning that he was the first Cowboys player to see it. But the odds appear long that he will survive training camp.

Holley will be the 11th wide receiver in camp. The Cowboys likely will keep five. Veterans Roy Williams, Miles Austin, Sam Hurd and Patrick Crayton appear to be safe bets to make the team. He will have to prove himself an invaluable special teams player.

“Outside of Roy Williams, I’m not looking at a guy that is head and shoulders above Jesse,” Irvin said.

The holdover receivers might take exception to Avezzano, the former Cowboys special teams coach, who during the finale said, “Holley is a flat-out solid receiver and can be better than some of the backups the Cowboys have right now.”

Since the final taping in mid-April, Holley has worked out in North Carolina and Dallas. He has not worked out with the Cowboys.

“This is truly, truly a blessing,” Holley said. “I have been given a wonderful opportunity to resurrect part of my life I thought was over. I am really going to take advantage of it.”

Original from: