(Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports)
Last season, the Rams took a risk by selecting cornerback Janoris Jenkins in the second round of the draft. Jenkins produced in his rookie year, although he was benched in a game against San Francisco for missing curfew.
Now, the Rams have taken another leap of faith by claiming troubled wide receiver Titus Young on waivers from the Lions. No other teams claimed Young, who was waived Monday (Feb. 4) following a turbulent season in which he punched safety Louis Delmas during offseason workouts, purposely lined up in the wrong spot in a game against Green Bay when he tried to switch places with tight end Tony Scheffler because the play was designed to go to Scheffler. He had also gotten into an argument on the sideline with receivers coach Shawn Jefferson. That dispute led to an argument between Jefferson and offensive coordinator Scott Linehan.
He was banished from the team for a week. After he returned, things didn’t improve, and the Lions eventually placed him on injured reserve because of tendinitis in his knee. At that time, Lions coach Jim Schwartz famously said Young would have knee surgery “unless he doesn’t show up for it.” Schwartz also said, “When you have an issue or something that occurs and you do get a second chance, and you’re welcomed back, you have to do everything to take advantage of that opportunity. I think in this case, that didn’t happen.”
Before Young was placed on injured reserve, center Dominic Raiola told the Detroit News, “We’ve moved on from him. He wants to be a (bleep), let him be a (bleep). It’s not my problem. What we can control is the guys who want to be here. And when you act like that, you don’t want to be here.”
Ironically, Young was benched in the season opener against the Rams when he head-butted Jenkins.
Selected in the second round of the 2011 draft by the Lions, Young had 48 receptions for 607 yards and six touchdowns. This past season, he has 33 receptions for 383 yards and four scores.
Young recently had a bizarre string of tweets that started with: “Like I said I never been selfish but if I’m not going to get the football i don’t want to play anymore.”
He also addressed the story about lining up wrong by tweeting, “Never have I ran the wrong route, just put my self where the ball was going.”
After those tweets, Schwartz said, “Every offensive player wants the football and there’s good ways to go about trying to get that done. This is a pretty good example of a not so good idea. Guys are responsible for what they post, what they say. You wear your uniform 24 hours a day now, everybody’s aware of that. We obviously still got some ground to cover there.”
That prompted a Jan. 25 tweet from Young that said, “Oh I’m not done, if y’all going to cut me let me go. I’m tired of the threats. Never needed the money Give me a dollar and a ball bet I come back #HallofFame.”
Then there was the story after the latest tweet in which he told his high school coach he was as good as Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson.
Coach E.C. Robinson said, “He did tell me he thought he was just as good as Megatron. I said, ‘Come on, man. Who you talking to?’ I said, ‘Come on, you’re as good as that guy? This guy is the real deal.’ And he really believes this. And he was sincere about it. ‘Ah man, I’m better than him.’ I said, ‘No you’re not. Be real man. Come on.’ So I don’t know, I’m hoping for the best for him.”
Two days after Young was waived, Lions general manager Martin Mayhew and coach Jim Schwartz met with the media to discuss Young as well as the release of guard Stephen Peterman and defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch.
Asked about not trying to trade Young, Mayhew said, “He didn’t really have any trade value. I didn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t call 32 GMs and try to get a seventh, or anything like that. I think it’s my job to know sort of what his value is, and he didn’t have any trade value.”
Added coach Jim Schwartz, “We obviously went through a lot. We had our incident last spring (punching Delmas). We took quite a few steps there. He came back onto the team and was fairly productive and wasn’t a distraction.
“We had a couple of other incidents and kept him away again, and came back, and we still had other incidents, and at that point, it was done. We certainly exhausted all of our resources in trying to keep him productive and keep him in a team mood, but it wasn’t successful.”
Detroit News reporter Chris McCosky recently wrote, “I have been told that the organization has pleaded with Young to get help. They have set him up with therapists. He has not cooperated.”
McCosky also was told Young has “emotional issues” and that “he has a condition that requires medication. But he won’t take it.”
Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson said on SiriusXM Radio that Young’s problems were traced to his “competitiveness” and his belief he should have been the target of more passes.
“I did everything I could to help him,” Burleson said. “I gave him all the knowledge I could. I told him, ‘You will have your time.’ But his emotions got to him, being so competitive. He is a great talent. Hopefully, he learns from this.”
Because of issues in college (he was suspended for 10 games one season) and was also booted from his high school team at one point, Young’s four-year contract signed with the Lions included reporting bonuses in the final three years of $67,333 last year; $184,666 this year and $301,988 in 2014. He also has unusually large $50,000 workout bonuses each of those three years. The Rams are responsible for this year’s reporting and workout bonus and his $555,000 base salary if he adheres to team rules and makes the opening-day roster.
Young was a teammate of Rams receiver Austin Pettis at Boise State, and the addition of Young makes him only the fourth returning receiver under contract. Scheduled for unrestricted free agency are Danny Amendola, Brandon Gibson and Steve Smith.
One theory was that the addition of Young is a hedge against the possible departure of Amendola, who has been quarterback Sam Bradford’s go-to receiver, but who has also missed 20 games over the last two seasons.
Amendola’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “I don’t think it affects Danny one bit. Titus Young isn’t anywhere in the same zip code as Danny as far as a player goes. I’m sure Young may disagree with that because he thinks he’s better than Calvin Johnson.”
When asked about the status of negotiations with the Rams for Amendola, Burkhardt called them “positive” and added, “I think they know what Danny brings to the team, and the spirit of the team aside from what he does on the field.”
Rams coach Jeff Fisher and players spoke often during the 2012 season about the strength of the team’s locker room. It remains to be seen whether Young will fit.
The Lewis Reality
It might be true that the Ravens were motivated by the return of linebacker Ray Lewis and the announcement that he would retire whenever the season ended.
It’s also true that Lewis wasn’t close to being the player he once was. It was evident in the Super Bowl, especially on pass routes, and Lewis was blocked totally out of the play on Frank Gore’s late-game run that got the 49ers to the Baltimore 7-yard line.
Now, the evidence is there with sound from the Ravens sideline during the game.
At one point, coach John Harbaugh says in his headset to defensive coaches that they have to call coverages that would make sure Lewis wasn’t one-on-one with tight end Vernon Davis or wide receiver Michael Crabtree.
“We can’t let Ray be matched up on 85 or 15 all day when we’re playing quarters,” Harbaugh said.
Davis is heard saying to Lewis, “It’s gonna be a long day for you!”
Davis also told a 49ers coach to try and keep having him isolated against Lewis.
Davis says, “He can’t match up. I don’t care what route I got.”
Harbaugh Won’t Change
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh often looks like a whining five-year-old on the sideline when he complains about the officiating. Prior to the Super Bowl, after losing a replay challenge in the NFC Championship game against Atlanta, he jumped up and down on the sideline like a tyke that had his pail and shovel taken away by mommy.
Then, there was his incessant carping about the non-call on the 49ers’ final offensive play in the Super Bowl.
That led to this exchange at his end-of-season press conference two days after the Super Bowl loss:
Q: This will be the last time for a while, so here’s a good one for you. There’s been a lot of discussion nationally about your behavior on the sideline during the Super Bowl. Have you considered altering it in the future?
A: “In terms of what? My etiquette? Is it an etiquette question?”
Q: Yeah, acting out, etiquette, that kind of thing, sure.
A: “We fight to win. And if you’re asking does my personal etiquette need to be changed, more catatonic on the sideline. I don’t anticipate that happening.”
Q: So you think the two goals are?
A: “I think it’s coached and played by emotional people.”
Q: Do you think that there’s an advantage to be gained, though, by asking the refs, by being animated with the refs? Do you feel like calls might go your way, the more you press the officials on the sidelines?
A: “No, there’s no strategy there and in my feeling, unprofessionalism. I’m asking questions. And yes, sometimes it does get emotional. I think the game is played and coached by emotional people, like I said, and people do that within their own personalities.”
The reality is that wide receiver Michael Crabtree and cornerback Jimmy Smith had their hands on each other during the play, and a close look at the replay shows that Crabtree actually had his hand on Smith’s helmet and pushed him to the ground. It was closer to offensive interference than defensive.
Said Mike Pereira, former NFL director of officiating who know works for Fox, “When you read the rules, contact in the air has to significantly hinder the receiver’s opportunity to make the catch. I thought it did not. When I look at it, I saw no restriction. Could it be? Might it be? You don’t want to throw that flag. Absolutely not.”
Dean Blandino agreed. He will be the league’s new officiating director in 2013, and he said, “When you watch it at full speed, to me, it was a good non-call. I think the first thing you have to understand is that, once the ball is in the air, you can’t have defensive holding or illegal contact. Now you have to see if the contact raised to the level of pass interference.
“With pass interference, you have to materially affect the receiver’s ability to catch the pass. Yes, there’s hand-fighting, but Crabtree also has his hand on (Smith’s) helmet. The pass was catchable, but the contact did not materially restrict Crabtree’s ability to catch the pass. He was jockeying for position and using his hands as well.”
Twitter War
So far, it’s one-sided, but former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan had an answer for what Warren Sapp said in an interview with Tampa radio station WDAE.
After being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame the day before the Super Bowl, Sapp expressed his belief that he was essentially competing with Strahan for one of five spots for modern-day players.
All of the first-time eligibles – Sapp, Strahan, Larry Allen and Jonathan Ogden – were part of the first reduction from 15 finalists to 10, but only Strahan failed to advance to the final five.
Sapp said, “Say if I rewind this to Saturday at 12 o’clock, me and you are sitting and I say, ‘It breaks down whatever and whatever and then you have Michael Strahan and me. C’mon, the menace and the media darling. C’mon. Madness, or Good Morning America? I mean, c’mon.”
Strahan subsequently tweeted, “You never cease to amaze me! Enjoy your moment. You don’t need to take a shot at me to justify yourself to other people.”
Picking a Quarterback
With Andy Reid now the coach of the Chiefs, there are many questions concerning the status of the team’s current quarterbacks: Matt Cassel, Brady Quinn and Ricky Stanzi. Reid isn’t saying much, but when asked whether Cassel would be with the team, Reid told the Kansas City Star, “I’m going to just let that play out. We’re too early in the process to know that. We’ll continue to evaluate it. We’re evaluating him just like we do a free agent. That’s what you do, and the thing about that is it takes time. I think he realizes that. That’s how it works when there’s a change.”
Reid did have some interesting things to say about Stanzi: “I watched a ton of his (video) from college,” Reid said. “I watched all of it. I watched everything he has from here. There’s just not that much of it. That’s a hard (evaluation). You want to see them in games. I’ve heard good things about him, both of those guys and actually Brady, too. But with Stanzi you just don’t have as much information.
“There’s probably not enough on Ricky, certainly not enough on what we’ll ask him to do. Matt, you’ve got a little better feel about just because there’s more snaps. Matt’s a good football player.”
The Quotebook
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians on overall yardage statistics: “I’m not a statistics guy, where a defense is ranked, where an offense is ranked. I only care about wins and losses. Yes we want the No. 1 defense in the league. But is that yards? No. We want the best third-down defense, the best red-zone defense, the best two-minute defense. I don’t really care about yards. I think that’s a bogus stat.”
Colts linebacker Dwight Freeney, scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent March 12, on his future: I’ve been there my whole career, and I don’t know anything different. Ideally, it would be great to stay there. But it is a business, so we’ll see. Right now, I’m just thinking about Indianapolis until they tell me otherwise.”
