NFL Capsules: Smith, Rice front-runners for Hall of Fame

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — With Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice all but shoo-ins for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, get ready for a little Canton Two-Step.

Smith ran for more yards than any NFL player. Rice caught more passes and scored more touchdowns than anyone else.

Sure seems fitting that they would enter the hall together, a slightly more significant honor than making the finals of "Dancing With The Stars." Or winning it, in Smith’s case.

Voting by a panel of media members takes place Saturday at the Super Bowl. Inductions will be Aug. 7 in Canton.

Smith and Rice, in their first year of eligibility, are among 17 finalists.

The others are receivers Cris Carter, Tim Brown and Andre Reed; running back Roger Craig; center Dermontti Dawson; defensive ends Richard Dent and Charles Haley; defensive tackles Cortez Kennedy and John Randle; tight end Shannon Sharpe; linebacker Rickey Jackson; guard Russ Grimm; and coach Don Coryell.

Senior nominees are defensive back Dick LeBeau, now Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator, and running back Floyd Little.

"It’s not something I can say I ever really dreamed about," Smith said. "I never said, ‘I have to make the Hall of Fame.’ If I could make steps that could set me apart in my career, then I’ve had a successful career.

"I feel I achieved every goal I had as a player, from Pop Warner to the NFL. My goals were winning championships and winning Super Bowls. When I thought I could reach Walter Payton’s all-time rushing record, it became a goal."

By attaining all of those objectives, Smith might have made his selection to the Hall a slam-dunk. Known for his determination as much as his skills, he rushed for 18,355 yards and 164 touchdowns, adding 515 receptions for 3,224 yards and 11 TDs for the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals. The NFL MVP in 1993, Smith also was the most valuable player in the Super Bowl that season.

Like Smith, Rice won three Super Bowls and earned the game’s MVP honors in 1989 with San Francisco. He also played for Oakland and Seattle in a 20-season career.

The perfect receiver for the West Coast offense, Rice set dozens of records, some of which might never be broken. He made 1,549 catches for 22,895 yards, had 14 1,000-yard seasons and scored 208 touchdowns.

Rice was the offensive player of the year in 1987 and 1993.

Brown also is in his first year of eligibility. He played 16 seasons with the Raiders and one with the Buccaneers, finishing with 1,094 catches (fourth all-time) for 14,934 yards (fourth) and 100 touchdowns. Brown also was an outstanding kick returner.

Carter, in his third year on the ballot, is third in career receptions (1,101), fourth in TD catches (130) and eighth in yards receiving (13,899).

The two senior committee nominees didn’t get enough support from the media members who vote for the Hall. LeBeau, considered one of pro football’s great defensive innovators as a coach, was a standout player for the Lions from 1959-72 and finished with 62 interceptions, second for cornerbacks when he retired. Little starred for the Denver Broncos in the AFL and NFL, leading the NFL in rushing in 1971 with 1,133 yards and in touchdowns rushing in 1973 with 12.

A minimum of four and maximum of seven new members can be voted into the Canton, Ohio, shrine in one year. At least one senior nominee must be part of a six-member class; both seniors must be included if seven new members are elected.

League News

Goodell hopes union is wrong about lockout chances

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The way Roger Goodell sees it, more is better when it comes to NFL games.

The commissioner likes overtime, and doesn’t favor changing the rules. He’s pushing to add a game or two to the schedule. He wants more games overseas and in Mexico.

And the notion of less football? Goodell doesn’t like that at all. He said he hopes the pessimism from the players’ union regarding a lockout in 2011 doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"I don’t think anybody wants to see a work stoppage," Goodell said Friday at his annual Super Bowl-week news conference. "There are no benefits to that. If it comes to anything like that, we would all have failed."

For 51 minutes, Goodell fielded questions with the nonchalance of a veteran returner fielding kicks. Topics included the oft-maligned overtime system, the possible expansion of the regular season to 17 or 18 games, and the league’s future in Jacksonville, St. Louis and Los Angeles.

But on the subject of the stalemate in labor talks, Goodell’s bearing stiffened. The current contract expires in March 2011, and Goodell disputed an assessment Thursday by NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith that the chance of a lockout next year is a "14" on a scale of 1 to 10.

"I couldn’t make that prediction, and I sure hope he’s wrong," Goodell said.

"Right now we don’t need a lot of focus on that. We need to take advantage of the opportunity we have right now to structure an agreement and sit down and negotiate. That’s how this is going to get done, and we will have an agreement. It’s just a matter of when, but talking about options like work stoppages is not going to get us there."

Goodell rejected the idea ownership wants any stoppage, and he said there is no contingency plan regarding the 2012 Super Bowl in the event of a lockout.

"We still have a lot of time and a lot of important opportunities here to structure something that makes sense for everybody," Goodell said.

On other issues, the commissioner said:

—There’s more work to do on the issue of concussions, but the league has made progress in player awareness and changing the culture.

"We want to make sure people understand that they are serious injuries, and make sure that we deal with them in a conservative and medical fashion," Goodell said.

—Extending the season will be part of the discussion when talks with the union resume. Goodell favors adding one or two games to replace exhibition games.

"I consistently hear from players and fans that the quality of our preseason is not up to NFL standards and that we need to fix that," he said. "This is one way of doing that, and what I believe is an effective way."

—The NFL is still eyeing a return to Mexico; the Cardinals and 49ers held the league’s first regular-season game outside the United States in Mexico in 2005.

"We would like to expand the number of games we’re playing internationally," Goodell said. "The restructured season, actually, is one of the ways to do that. By adding two more regular-season games, it gives us a little more flexibility to be able to reach our international audience."

—Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth will be reinstated after the Super Bowl from his suspension for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk last March in the Miami area.

"I met with him when I was down here in South Florida approximately a month ago," Goodell said. "I think he’s in a better place than he was. I think he recognizes what he did and the horrific nature and the unfortunate outcome, and I think he’s prepared himself to get back in and play."

—The overtime system is unlikely to be changed.

"We saw overtime in two games this postseason, and they were two of the most exciting games we’ve had," Goodell said. Arizona beat Green Bay 51-45, and New Orleans reached Sunday’s Super Bowl against Indianapolis by beating Minnesota 31-28.

—Attendance at Jacksonville Jaguars’ home games remains a concern, and with crowds of around 40,000, "you can’t continue to have an NFL franchise." Goodell said the league wants to keep a team in St. Louis, where the Rams may be sold, and wants to return to Los Angeles.

—The cold-weather Super Bowl bid for the new Meadowlands stadium in 2014 remains under consideration.

"There are real benefits to the league considering this," he said. "Playing in the elements is central to the way the game of football is played. I think being able to do that and celebrate the game of football in the No. 1 market could have tremendous benefits."

-- Steven Wine

Vikings fans still dealing with defeat

MINNEAPOLIS — In a snow-covered Minneapolis front yard last week hung a purple Vikings flag at half-staff, a woeful memory of what could have been.

Yes, Super Bowl weekend has arrived, but the ratings might lag behind around here.

"It’s the end of another inglorious Vikings season," said Keith Richotte of Grand Forks, N.D. "So put your head down, wear as many layers of clothing as you can and hope the snow melts in the next three months."

After losing four Super Bowls in the 1970s, the Vikings are now 0-5 in NFC championship games since then with the latest, devastating overtime loss in New Orleans last month. Whether it was the too-many-men-in-the-huddle penalty that infamously preceded Brett Favre’s interception or the three lost fumbles earlier, the Vikings familiarly beat themselves despite dominating the Saints in total yardage.

Now that the Boston Red Sox are cured of their Curse of the Bambino, winning two of the last five World Series, many Vikings supporters feel like their sports-fan souls are somehow destined to suffer as much as or more than any others.

"It kind of feels like it, doesn’t it?" said Randy Komorouski of Rosemount. "I grew up with all the Super Bowl losses, so, yeah, it’s like they’re snakebit a little bit."

The evidence isn’t just in the agonizing anecdotes.

Here’s a not-so-fun fact for Vikings fans: Of the 122 current franchises in the four major North American sports leagues, only the NBA’s Phoenix Suns have a better all-time regular-season winning percentage than the Vikings among those without a championship, according to STATS LLC.

The Vikings have the 11th-best historical record in sports at 407-326-9, excluding the playoffs. They trail only the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL’s all-time standings.

This propensity to produce almost inexplicable ways to lose important games has gained national notice.

ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, "The Sports Guy," in a recent article ranked the Vikings behind only the Chicago Cubs — who carry their own legendary curse — as the most tormented team in sports.

The Twins won baseball titles in 1987 and 1991, so Minnesota hasn’t been totally deprived. With football, though, the intensity and infrequency of the games seems to make the big losses harder to get over.

"I chalk it up to being a dysfunctional relationship," said Cory Merrifield, a founder of a local grass-roots group, SavetheVikes.org, helping the effort for a new stadium. "I give and I give and I give, and they break my heart. But every summer, I’m right there back with them."

He saw the Saints loss as a potential delay of public progress toward finding a source of funding for the new stadium the Vikings are asking for. Their lease at the Metrodome is up two years from now.

"I look at it like 18,000 jobs on the line. I look at it like a $1.3 billion economic output at stake," Merrifield said. "To me that made the loss so much more devastating."

Favre’s presence with his once-rival team and age-defying success, too, made this season even more of a fable.

"We had something that was strange and miraculous with Brett Favre," said Richotte, a law professor at the University of North Dakota who has even written a book, "My Least Favorite Team is My Favorite Team," about his Vikings fan affliction.

Like many of those long-suffering fans, he got his hopes up in the final minute of the Saints game when Favre and the Vikings reached the Saints 33 and had a first-and-10.

"I thought, ‘My goodness, this team is actually going to go to the Super Bowl,"’ Richotte said. "Then we had the embarrassing comedy of errors."

Komorouski was sitting in an otherwise-empty row of seats at the Metrodome last weekend during the annual fan festival held by the Twins while folks wandered between exhibits and activities on the field. Just 12 days earlier, the place was packed with purple jerseys and roaring from floor to ceiling during the dominant victory over Dallas that sent Minnesota to the NFC championship game.

"I’m a Viking fan, but I don’t live and die with them," Komorouski said. "I think they had their chances, and they’re the ones that blew it. There’s nothing I can do about it."

-- Dave Campbell

Manley’s Super Bowl ring now symbol of 2 victories

HOUSTON — Troubled football great Dexter Manley once pawned his 1983 Super Bowl ring to buy cocaine.

This week, while in Miami for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the man nicknamed the "Secretary of Defense" was both ecstatic and wistful when his wife, Lydia, called from his hometown of Houston to say she’d retrieved the iconic ring from the estate of the late lawyer John O’Quinn, Manley’s longtime friend and sometime employer with whom he’d entrusted the redeemed ring.

"I didn’t want to give up my Super Bowl ring to drug addiction," said Dexter Manley, whose life has been a roller coaster of gridiron highs and jailhouse lows. It’s been more than a decade since he’s held that diamond-encrusted ring celebrating his Washington Redskins’ defeat of the Miami Dolphins in January 1983.

The Yates High School grad played defensive end for Oklahoma State University before spending 11 flamboyant and fabled years in the NFL, most with the Redskins. In 1991 he was banned from the league after failing drug tests. He was repeatedly arrested for crack cocaine possession and was imprisoned more than once.

In 1999 O’Quinn and the Manleys flew in the lawyer’s jet to see Manley’s cousin Eric Dickerson inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On the plane O’Quinn surprised Manley with the ring the ballplayer had hocked and that O’Quinn found and redeemed.

Manley, unsure of himself, gave the ring back to O’Quinn to keep until he felt worthy again.

"O’Quinn had all the toys in the world. I had a lot of faith in him," Manley said through the speaker of his wife’s iPhone Wednesday. "He was a stand up guy."

Manley did wind up back in jail on a cocaine charge a few years after relinquishing the ring to O’Quinn.

O’Quinn himself had actually entrusted the precious red box and its contents to his friend, South Texas College of Law professor Gerald Treece.

Since O’Quinn’s October death in a car crash, Treece has also been the executor of O’Quinn’s estate. It was in his cluttered office at the law school that Treece returned the ring Wednesday.

Lydia Manley said she liked that it was a little tarnished, but still just as valuable.

"It’s not all shiny right now, it’s just as it should be. It’s got a little wear on it," said a very poised and peaceful Lydia Manley.

Lydia Manley said she and O’Quinn both always saw the good in Dexter even through all his troubles, which included a tearful confession to Congress that despite graduating from college, he had dyslexia and couldn’t read.

But, she said, O’Quinn knew her husband well. They met at a River Oaks Houston breakfast joint and the lawyer had hired the athlete as a researcher and to work on his car collection at various times over the years.

At one point in the last decade, when the man known for sacking quarterbacks asked for the ring back, O’Quinn pretended he didn’t have it.

"He thought Dexter was still in his addiction," Lydia Manley said.

O’Quinn, a reformed alcoholic, knew something about addiction too.

But Lydia Manley said she thinks the friendship between her husband and the nationally famous and infamous trial lawyer had more to do with humble beginnings, hard work and outstanding achievement in their fields. The men sometimes attended church together.

"This day is bittersweet," said Lydia Manley, happy her husband deserves the ring back after being sober since 2006 but sad O’Quinn isn’t around to see that day.

Dexter Manley spoke lovingly of O’Quinn over the phone and thanked Treece too.

The football player phoned Treece weeks ago to ask about the ring. Treece said his instructions from O’Quinn were to give it to the wife because she’d know when the symbolic piece should be returned.

The couple lives in Bethesda, Md., where Dexter Manley does public relations for a facilities management company, his wife said. Her husband has his 1988 Super Bowl ring, but this one has a far deeper meaning.

"I can be trusted now, I’m safe," said Dexter Manley. But he said it may be best in his wife’s capable hands.

-- Marry Flood

Bears make Marinelli defensive coordinator

CHICAGO — Unable to find outside help, the Chicago Bears have promoted Rod Marinelli to defensive coordinator while rounding out their coaching staff.

Coach Lovie Smith announced the move Friday and called Marinelli "among the best defensive coaches in the NFL."

"From the first day I became head coach of the Chicago Bears I envisioned Rod as our defensive coordinator," he said. "I considered him for the role last year, but wanted him to have the opportunity to work exclusively with our defensive line and become acclimated to our team."

Marinelli and Smith are friends who worked on Tony Dungy’s staff in Tampa Bay and even roomed together for part of that time. So it was no surprise that he wound up in Chicago despite a 10-38 run with the Lions that ended with a winless season.

"I’m very excited," Marinelli told chicagobears.com. "The defensive staff has all worked together, so it’s just a chance to keep going and build on the subtleties of our system. We’ve all been in it together and I think the familiarity will help."

Marinelli, who retains his assistant head coach title, worked with the Bears’ defensive line this season after spending three years as the Detroit Lions’ head coach. He will essentially replace Smith, who called defensive plays last season even though linebackers coach Bob Babich still held the defensive coordinator title.

Marinelli will continue to work with the defensive line, but the coordinator role is new for him. He’s never been one in the NFL, but the Bears turned to him, ending a search that had taken a back seat as they focused on the offensive side following a 7-9 season.

They hired Mike Martz to replace the fired Ron Turner as offensive coordinator this week, creating an interesting scenario. He was fired as the Lions’ offensive coordinator when Marinelli was the head coach.

Now, they’re united again and Martz insisted during a conference call he had no ill will.

Smith initially said he would look outside for a defensive coordinator and that Marinelli wasn’t in the running, but the only candidate known to interview was former assistant Perry Fewell, who ended last season as Buffalo’s interim coach. He wound up becoming the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator.

"As I mentioned at the end of the season, I think we have an excellent defensive staff," Smith said. "Our position coaches bring a valuable expertise to their respective areas and our defense evolves every year based on the input they bring to our planning meetings. We are excited to get to work and we expect to play the type of disruptive defense we have been known for."

The Bears also promoted Eric Washington from assistant defensive line coach to defensive line coach and hired Shane Day as quarterbacks coach on Friday. Washington was Chicago’s assistant defensive line coach for two seasons, while Day spent three years as the San Francisco 49ers quality control coach.

This year, Chicago’s line produced 24 sacks — tied for ninth most in the NFL among defensive fronts.

Andrew Hayes-Stoker (offense) and Mikal Smith (defense) were added as assistants. Besides adding Martz, the Bears also brought in Mike DeBord as tight ends coach this week after hiring offensive line coach Mike Tice last month.

-- Andrew Seligman

Belichick to play bigger role in planning defense

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick will take a larger role in overseeing the defense and not hire a coordinator to replace Dean Pees.

"Titles are fine, nothing wrong with them," Belichick said in a statement on the team Web site Friday, "but the most important thing is each person’s role, that we do everything we can to help the players succeed, everyone collectively getting the job done."

Pees announced he would not seek a new contract as defensive coordinator four days after the Patriots lost 33-14 to the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the playoffs last month. His four-year deal expired at the end of January.

The Patriots hired Corwin Brown as a defensive coach on Jan. 29. He spent the past three seasons as defensive coordinator at Notre Dame.

"Corwin Brown is one of the high-class people in football," Belichick said. "He was a tough, smart leader who was great to coach and those are the traits he brings to our staff."

Belichick was defensive coordinator for the New York Giants from 1985-90 and for New England in 1996. He called defensive signals for the New York Jets from 1997-99 before becoming coach of the Patriots in 2000.

The Patriots have been without an offensive coordinator since Josh McDaniels left after the 2008 season to coach the Denver Broncos. Quarterbacks coach Bill O’Brien handled much of the play-calling in 2009.

Browns hold line on ticket prices

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns are holding the line on season ticket prices.

The team announced Friday it will not raise the price of season tickets — already among the league’s lowest — for next season. The Browns have kept their prices unchanged five times in the past seven years and said the cost of some seats for next season will be lower than in 2009.

The team also will make season tickets available in a family friendly, alcohol-free area of Cleveland Browns Stadium.

The Browns, who finished 5-11 in their first year under coach Eric Mangini, will host Atlanta, Carolina, Kansas City, New England, the New York Jets, and AFC North rivals Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cincinnati.