NFL Capsules: A lot less Broadway now, much more a regular Joe

Joe Namath is singing.

It’s midmorning, midweek in sun-splashed South Florida, a few days ahead of the New York Jets’ biggest game in more than a decade, arguably the most important in the 41 years since Namath put the franchise on the map by guaranteeing a win against the heavily favored Colts in the Super Bowl — and then delivering.

In the intervening years, Namath has seen a lot less of Broadway and become much more of a regular Joe. He doesn’t go out as much anymore because, among other things, at 66, he’s no longer a drinker and hates to fly. But asked whether he plans to be in Indianapolis for Sunday’s AFC Championship, Namath launches that unmistakable baritone into the opening line of a tune from the musical "West Side Story."

"‘When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day,"’ he crooned and then paused, chuckling softly.

"There’s no place I’d rather be," Namath added a moment later. "I hope so, God willing. I’d love to be on hand when they win."

Mind you, that’s not a guarantee. Not exactly, anyway.

"I’m not in that business anymore," Namath said. "That’s another reason why I love Rex (Ryan, the Jets coach). He got me off the hook. I’m just saying I know we can win. Some days you fall flat and some days you kick the other team’s butt. Our guys are good enough. They’re definitely good enough."

Improbable as a Jets win seems this time around, it was considered next-to-impossible when Namath and the Jets faced the then-Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969. New York was an 18-point underdog; Jets fans had little trouble getting odds of 7-1 on a wager.

The merger between the established NFL and upstart AFL was announced almost three years earlier, but the only time their teams faced each other in games that counted before the 1970 season was in the Super Bowl. Nothing less than the credibility of the entire enterprise was on the line. Not only did the NFL’s dynastic Green Bay Packers humble AFL rivals Kansas City and Oakland in the two previous meetings, the Colts team awaiting the Jets in Miami was being touted as one of the best ever.

Namath’s guarantee has become the stuff of legend, a wellspring for thousands of similar proclamations both loud and timid. But at the moment he made it — late in the evening, inside a packed, smoky banquet hall — there were no TV cameras on hand and the few reporters in attendance saw no reason to rewrite their stories.

"I was just saying what I knew. I wasn’t looking to make a fuss," Namath recalled. "I didn’t plan it. I was just responding to a guy in the back of the room. (Colts quarterback) Earl Morall and I were being honored at a dinner, a big to-do the Miami Touchdown Club held at the end of the season.

"I’m at the podium and some guy yells, ‘Hey Namath, the Colts are going to kick your ass!"’ he said. "We’d been hearing a lot of that. So I said, ‘I’ve got news for you. We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it."’

The Jets’ 16-7 win made Namath an icon, one of the few sports figures since Babe Ruth to catapult into the public imagination — albeit one you could bump into in a New York club most any night of the week.

All these years later, though, he stresses the coaching staff and his teammates hardly needed any added motivation from a guarantee. Many were Colts’ castoffs, starting with coach Weeb Ewbank, who’d won back-to-back NFL championships in 1958-59 with Baltimore. They had plenty to prove without it.

Yet one person Namath’s guarantee apparently made an impression on was Rex Ryan, then a 6-year-old tagging along behind his father, Buddy, at Jets practices and in the locker room. Buddy was New York’s defensive line coach at the time, already perfecting the attacking schemes that would become the calling card for father and son.

"I still love Buddy. He didn’t smile as much as Rex, but we didn’t have any trouble figuring out what he meant," Namath said.

"In practice, he’d line up guys in places that weren’t normal. He’d get mad that Weeb spent so much effort protecting the quarterback, and he figured if it was so damn important to Weeb, then it was more important to get to him."

Just like Buddy, Rex’s bravado and his willingness to throw everything at his disposal against opposing quarterbacks has inspired plenty of loyalty.

"You hear the players talk about him, you can see they care about him. They don’t want to disappoint old Rex. If you’re an offensive player, that devious rascal has a way of upsetting your plans," Namath said. "He does things you don’t often see. I’m looking forward to see what he’s planning this week."

Few people can appreciate better than Namath what it’s like to stand and deliver in the face of that rush. But all that pressure, accompanied by near-crippling injuries and a voracious appetite for everything New York offered, eventually extracted a toll. Namath gets around now on two artificial knees, and after an embarrassing sideline interview before a Jets game in December 2003, without the booze that had been a constant companion since he started playing football for keeps.

"I’m out ducking and dodging — and I mean that humorously — just trying to make progress. Life throws a lot of things at us when we’re not looking. ... All that action off the field," he said a moment later, "some of it was good and some not so good. But thank God, we’re still here."

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org

Vick shows rebuilt life on docu-series

PHILADELPHIA — Michael Vick returned to the site of his gruesome dogfighting crimes, looked at an empty dog bowl left behind in a dingy cage and wondered how he ever could have risked fame, freedom and fortune for "Bad Newz Kennels."

"This is hard to imagine myself doing this years ago, man," Vick says, cameras rolling.

His visit to the property he once owned in Surry County, Va., where he trained pitbulls for vicious fights and helped drown or hang dogs that didn’t do well, is a teaser of what’s ahead in his docu-series "The Michael Vick Project."

Vick candidly tells how he became entangled in a dogfighting ring that sent him to prison and temporarily halted his NFL career as part of a series that debuts next month on BET. Vick says the 10-part series that premieres Feb. 2 will show he’s a changed man after a tragic fall from stardom he says "was all my fault."

"At times, it’s hard to talk about it, but for the most part, if you talk about it and let it all out, it kind of helps put the demons to rest," Vick told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Vick served an 18-month prison sentence for operating a dogfighting ring. He returned to the NFL this season as a backup QB with the Philadelphia Eagles.

In the first episode, Vick openly discusses living a "double life" of running the operation at the same time he was making Pro Bowls and signing a 10-year, $130 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons. Vick explains in detail the childhood experiences he had with dogfighting and how the activity morphed from his NFL sideshow job to a bustling second career that spanned state lines.

"I really took to it," Vick said on the show. "I was intrigued by what was going on. It kind of excited me and I gravitated to it."

Vick told The AP that walking over the burial spots of some of the dogs killed as part of his dogfighting operation "cut me deeply" and was the moment when he "really realized all the wrong that I did."

"I wanted to go out there and just totally put it all away and forget about it," Vick said by phone. "I felt like once I did that, I’d be able to do that. For the most part, I did. Since I’ve been out there, it’s eased a lot off my brain as far as thinking about it."

Vick said he’d never be able to completely forget the horrific acts he witnessed and committed. Returning to Virginia made Vick deeply consider a question that still nags at his conscience: Why?

"Why sacrifice so many animals and put them in vulnerable positions to be harmed and injured?" he told The AP. "It was pointless."

The first episode does offer a glimpse, however, at answering that question. Vick said he saw his first dogfight as a 7-year-old. Vick’s brother, Marcus, tells the cameras that growing up "we never knew there was nothing wrong with it."

Michael Vick said on Thursday that dogfighting was a part of black culture.

"When you grow up in the inner cities, when you grow up in the urban neighborhoods, that’s pretty much what you get," Vick said. "You don’t have opportunities to do certain things at your own leisure. When you have down time, if you’re not playing football, basketball or baseball, then you’re looking for some activity to get into."

Vick said he’s learned the last few years to deal with his heinous crimes and their repercussions.

"I had counseling sessions when I was about to be incarcerated," he said Thursday. "It was therapeutic for me."

Vick’s mother, sister, and Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer were among the people interviewed on the first episode. His fiancee, Kijafa Frank, says she pleaded with Vick to quit. Vick said when he was charged in 2007, he believed "money will get me out of this situation" and lawyers could make all the legal issues vanish.

Only months later, Vick surrendered to U.S. marshals.

"I cried all the way to the jail," he said on BET.

Wearing a white button-down shirt and jeans, Vick appears at ease as he discusses how his dogfighting stable rapidly expanded and spiraled out of control. He wanted to end it, but never found the courage to say stop.

Vick now says he’s a new man. Vick, the former No. 1 overall pick, said the show chronicles the real story of his rise to the top, his precipitous fall, and path toward redemption. Vick is shown playing catch with his son, and laughing with his two daughters in a scene that softens the image of him as a dog-killing monster.

"I think people will see him in a different light, respect him in a different way," producer James DuBose said. "I don’t say people are ever going to forget what he did or the mistake that he made. But we all, in my mind, deserve second chances if you own up to your mistake and help others not make that same mistake."

Vick worked with the Humane Society of the United States this season and gave speeches at schools and churches about how wrong he was to ever get involved with dogfighting — especially with so much to lose.

Vick said he’s turned his life around and wants to show people that he can change. He knows he’ll always have his detractors — protests are included in the first episode and later ones — but he’s trying to make amends.

"It’s still a work in progress each and every day and it’s going to be that way the rest of my life," he told The AP.

His football future is in limbo. He attempted only 13 passes and rushed 24 times in limited action with the Eagles season. The Eagles hold a $5.2 million option for next season and might not pick it up if Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb return. Vick, who said he started working out Wednesday, hasn’t thought much about next season.

"I’m excited about everything," Vick said. "Whether I’m in Philly or Tampa Bay, it wouldn’t even matter."

Coaching

Redskins add assistants Foerster, Burney, Slowik

ASHBURN, Va. — The Washington Redskins have hired Chris Foerster to be their offensive line coach, replacing the retired Joe Bugel.

The Redskins also added two other assistants to head coach Mike Shanahan’s staff Thursday: defensive line coach Jacob Burney and defensive backs coach Bob Slowik.

Foerster coached San Francisco’s offensive line the past two years. He takes over a Redskins unit that was constantly shuffled last season because of injuries and ineffectiveness.

Foerster was Miami’s offensive coordinator for one season, and coached the offensive line with Baltimore from 2005-07 and Tampa Bay from 1996-01.

Burney worked for Shanahan from 2002-08 with Denver. Slowik was there from 2005-08, including two seasons as defensive coordinator.

Steelers hire Everest to run special teams

Tolbert replaces Williamson as Panthers WR coach

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers have hired Tyke Tolbert as receivers coach.

The move on Thursday comes three days after longtime assistant Richard Williamson announced his retirement from that position.

Tolbert had been in the same job with the Buffalo Bills for the past six seasons. The former LSU receiver also spent a year as receivers coach for the Arizona Cardinals.

There is still one opening on coach John Fox’s staff. Special teams coach Danny Crossman hasn’t been replaced after being fired earlier this month.

Player Moves

Cardinals sign 5 players to future contracts

Elsewhere

Ex-Lions player Tommie Boyd faces sex charges

ROSEVILLE, Mich. — Former Detroit Lions wide receiver Tommie Boyd has been charged with criminal sexual conduct after authorities say the high school track coach had sexual contact with a teenage student.

The 38-year-old was arraigned Thursday in 39th District Court in Roseville. The charges are in two cases and a preliminary hearing for both is Feb. 3.

Boyd was being held in the Macomb County Jail.

Defense lawyer Todd Flood says he looks forward to vindicating Boyd.

Boyd played for the Lions in 1997 and 1998. Police say he was a substitute teacher for Fraser Public Schools.

Police say a relationship with the girl began in 2007 when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Fraser High School and continued into 2009.