Filed under: Broncos, NFL Police Blotter

Hopefully, peace comes now to the family and friends of Darrent Williams. His killer, Willie D. Clark, is no longer alleged, but guilty.

Can we now ask all professional athletes to pause and learn from this? To avoid putting yourselves and your money, status, talent and misguided machismo in these can't-win scenarios? You may think you've earned your way into bottle service in the VIP room at the club, behind the velvet rope or inside the darkened hallway, where your young, entitled nights can be enjoyed freely and recklessly.

You are targets. You are not invincible. You may cause trouble or invite it, simply because of who you are, who you are with or what you think you may be.

Please. Stop and think. Look at what can happen.

---

---

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Steelers, NFL Quarterbacks

The news just gets worse and worse for Ron Mexico Roethlisberger. That's bad news for all of us who want to take the high road.

Anytime somebody is accused of a crime we invoke "innocent until proven guilty" and giving people the "benefit of the doubt." Then I read where Roethlisberger was in a bathroom last Friday night.

Not just any bathroom, but a women's bathroom.

At a college bar. At 2:30 a.m. With an underage 20-year-old coed.

This raises a few questions: Was the men's room full? Is Big Ben a closet transvestite? Did the girl request a private reenactment of Roethlisberger's 2006 motorcycle crash?

Yeah, that's it. Then she slipped, banged her head, and encountered Roethlisberger's DNA and suddenly got $$$ in her eyes.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Browns, NFL Free Agency, NFL Rumors, NFL Quarterbacks

Browns president Mike Holmgren said Thursday that quarterback Brady Quinn has not played enough to clearly determine his future, and added that reports the team was "shopping" Quinn were overstated.

"You can say that about any of our players -- at this time of year," Holmgren said. "We talk to a lot of people.

"I have a system I believe in in developing quarterbacks, an approach that I think works," he added. "[Quinn has] only played 12 games. That's not enough time."

Holmgren said his intent is to strengthen the entire quarterback position and have one player emerge as the starter. His first step was acquiring Seneca Wallace from Seattle via trade, the second releasing Derek Anderson. Quinn should be part of the 2010 group -- though a dramatic trade or free agent signing could always change the situation. He did acknowledge that sometimes it helps a player to get a fresh start.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: NFL Police Blotter

Over three years after the death of Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams, Willie Clark was found guilty of murder Thursday. Clark, 26, was facing 21 charges, including two counts of first-degree murder.

After 11 days of testimony from over 40 witnesses, the jury deliberated for around 12 hours over the course of three days before arriving at the guilty verdict. Clark now faces life in prison.

According to the prosecution, Clark was involved in an altercation with people in Williams' group of friends at a New Year's (2007) party, and later was one of two gunmen who peppered Williams' Hummer limo while passing by in a white Chevy Tahoe. Clark will be detained in a Denver area jail, where he's also still facing another, unrelated murder charge.

Among the witnesses who testified against Clark were former teammates Elvis Dumervil and Brandon Marshall. Marshall testified that it was Clark in the altercation outside the club, and admitted to still being tormented by the ordeal. The star witness, though, was a man named Daniel Harris, who goes by the nickname "Ponytail." Harris was the only one who identified Clark as the shooter. Harris was already serving a life sentence for another case, but had it trimmed to five years in exchange for his testimony.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Rams, NFL Hall of Fame

Some players are considered "throwbacks.'' Merlin Olsen was a glimpse of the future.

Olsen, who died Thursday at age 69, came out of Utah State in 1962 as the seventh overall pick in the NFL draft, a 6-foot-5, 270-pound defensive tackle who was an athlete first in an era when most players his size were simply big bodies picked to stuff the middle and stop the run.

"He was way ahead of his time,'' said Gil Brandt, who in those days was in the first decade of a 30-year career as personnel director of the Dallas Cowboys.

"He was strong, he was fast, he was like the athlete of today back in 1962. He was as good as I've ever seen at that position. If there's someone better, I don't know who it is.''

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments