Von Miller: From Draft Pick To Super Bowl MVP | NFL
When you think of the best pass rushers in the NFL, you also think of true technicians who know how to draw holding calls.
Broncos linebacker Von Miller doesn"t consider himself a lobbying expert, though. By an unofficial count, the Broncos have drawn just 11 offensive holding calls from opposing linemen this season.
"I"m not going to be the one lobbying for them anyway," Miller said, via ESPN.com. "I"m always on the next play, I feel like if I get my rush the way I"m supposed to, if I rush how I"m supposed to rush, if they hold me, I"m still going to be able to get there. ... If I get into this game with refs "oh they"re holding me on this play, holding on that play," it"s going to take me away from helping my teammates improve and all the other stuff I have to do in a game."
Sunday"s game (1 p.m., CBS) against the Saints (4-4) will be an interesting convergence of events on that topic. Drew Brees has only been sacked 12 times -- for reference, that is 10 fewer times than Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and 21 fewer times than the NFL"s most-sacked quarterback Andrew Luck.
Furthermore, the Saints are one of the NFL"s least likely teams to be penalized for holding. The Saints are second to last in the NFL with just six called offensive holding penalties for a 55 yards. The league average is roughly 13 and the Raiders lead the league with 25.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll recently brought up the discrepancy in penalties called against the Saints and other teams, though holding specifically is likely just an indication of how quickly Brees throws the football.
We"ll see if Miller can do any better to up New Orleans" average.
Can Blair Walsh Kick A Field Goal? - (Madden 16 NFL Challenge)
Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe sure can hold a grudge.
Just a few minutes after the Vikings announced that theyve cut place kicker Blair Walsh, Kluwe tweeted an ungraceful response.
This one goes back to January 2014 when Kluwe wrote that special teams coordinator Mike Priefer used homophobic language around him during the debate over same-s*x marriage in Minnesota.
Near the end of November, several teammates and I were walking into a specialist meeting with Coach Priefer. We were laughing over one of the recent articles I had written supporting same-s*x marriage rights, and one of my teammates made a joking remark about me leading the Pride parade. As we sat down in our chairs, Mike Priefer, in one of the meanest voices I can ever recall hearing, said: We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows. The room grew intensely quiet, and none of the players said a word for the rest of the meeting. The atmosphere was decidedly tense. I had never had an interaction that hostile with any of my teammates on this issuesome didnt agree with me, but our conversations were always civil and respectful. Afterward, several told me that what Mike Priefer had said was messed up.
Later, the Pioneer Press reported that Walsh was hauled in by team investigators to confirm Kluwes account of the 2013 incident. He apparently refused.
In a five-hour meeting Friday with investigators, Halunen said Kluwe identified Walsh and long snapper Cullen Loeffler as witnesses to Priefer allegedly making homophobic comments numerous times during the 2012 season in meetings with the punter, kicker and long snapper, and that Pico was told about it after the fact. Halunen noted that Kluwe told investigators he is willing to take a polygraph test.
Walsh issued a statement through the Vikings on Jan. 2 in defense of Priefer. But Halunen said Kluwe retained text messages in which Walsh referenced what Priefer allegedly said, including a text related to Priefer allegedly saying, We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows.
If Walsh is going to lie, this will all be exposed, Im confident, Halunen said. If Walsh is going to lie, thats his choice. But at the end of the day, we believe this is going to come out. We have evidence. So he made that choice, I guess.
The two others who apparently witnessed the coachs outburst were released within a year. With todays news, theyre all gone.
Priefer is still special-teams coordinator for the Vikings.
We might suggest, by the way, that there are better ways to use Twitter. Like this:
Pour some out for Blair Walsh. #Skol pic.twitter.com/QyMUymdROT
The Growler Magazine (@growlermag) November 15, 2016
NEW YORK Forgive the rest of us if we didnt see Nuclear Monk coming, at least not on Tuesday nights big stage, but Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari did.
So what if hed only made 3 of 12 3-pointers in his first two college games? Freshman guard Malik Monk has always been a streaky shooter, and he started feeling it again hours before the second-ranked Wildcats tipped off against 13th-ranked Michigan State at Madison Square Garden.
He had an unbelievable shootaround, Calipari said. Malik Monk had one of the best shootarounds any of my players have had the past few years, and I expected he would go in and play well.
Good call. Monk buried his first three 3-pointers against the Spartans, signaling to teammates that he was cooking and keep it coming his way. They did, and Monk finished 7 of 11 from deep, dropping 23 points and 6 rebounds in a stunningly easy 69-48 win over Michigan State in the Champions Classic.
Had two other players on the team that had so-so shootarounds, and guess what? They had so-so games, Calipari said. Players not named Monk shot 0 for 10 from beyond the arc. And it was a great lesson.
RELATED:What John Calipari said after beating Michigan State.
Monk, a McDonalds All-American and projected lottery pick, is nothing if not confident. He was never too worried about his stroke. But he did realize it needed a little work after nothing would fall against Stephen F. Austin and Canisius.
With help from Calipari and UK assistant Kenny Payne, Monk said he drilled himself on staying low, stepping into the shot every time, not being casual, like Coach Cal likes to say. Try to focus on every shot being the same and just let it go smooth.
It doesnt get much smoother than what Monk did against the Spartans, swishing open and contested shots alike. More of them were open, thanks to Michigan States defense sagging back to stop Monks backcourt mates, Isaiah Briscoe and DeAaron Fox, from penetrating at will.
That wasnt especially effective, as those other two combined for 33 points and 8 assists, but it did give Monk the green light.
They get in the lane too good, every time they can, he said, so I just had to be prepared. They set me up well and I was able to knock down the shot.
Spartans coach Tom Izzo could only shake his head after the barrage buried his overmatched team. They picked a poison and Monk killed them.
If you look at our game plan, we wanted to somewhat contain Fox, Izzo said. Youve got to give Monk credit.
The scouting report suggested it was safe to leave him alone on the perimeter.That probably wont be the case going forward. Monk is a binge scorer who only needs to see one or two shots drop early and suddenly hes locked in and lethal.
I knew he was due for a big game, Briscoe said. I told him that before the game.
Inside Kentuckys locker room, then, confidence in Monks shooting never wavered. The 6-foot-3 guard with a 42-inch vertical leap had already demonstrated his ability to put opponents on posters with crazy dunks, and now if Monk shoots it like that, theyre a real good team.
There will almost certainly be more cold-shooting nights in his future, but there isa lotto work with.
He is one of the most athletic kids that Ive coached, Calipari said. Hes a little antsy right now. His mind moves really fast. When his feet move fast, his mind moves fast. So I gotta slow down his mind and let him see the game a little differently, and thats all Im talking about to him.
Athletically, jumping, speed, all those things,whew.He can defend, hes tough, hes got a curious mind. Hes got a quick mind, he reacts to stuff. Theres things that I cant teach.
WATCH: Calipari, Briscoe and Monk at the podium after beating MSU.
The finale of The Clash of the Corps, an original eight-part series about the world of Drum Corp International that focuses on the Blue Devils and Cadets of Allentown, is Wednesday but fans can get a sneak peak of the first half of the finales on Dwayne Johnsons Facebook page tonight.
All the blood, sweat & tears come down to this Johnson whose Seven Bucks Production company is producing the series, posted on Facebook.
Executive Producer Johnson will host the sneak peak at 8 p.m. today at www.facebook.com/DwayneJohnson, which has more than 57 million fans. The series finale episode will air at 11 p.m. Wednesday on Fuse TV.
The series premiered on Johnsons Facebook in a similar fashion, reaching 7 million fans, including 830,000 video views of the premiere episode. In addition to the sneak previews, Clash of the Corps video content on social media has reached 39 million people with more than 12.8 million video views to date. The series has generated additional viewership across multiple platforms, and is the most viewed original series ever on the Fuse.TV app.
Tapping into the millions of Dwayne Johnson fans via Facebook Live is a terrific way to attract new viewers to this series and to Fuse, says Michael Schwimmer, President and CEO of Fuse Media. We are very proud of Clash of the Corps and its success in reaching new audiences across all platforms.
In the final episodethe Blue Devils are back on top in the battle for the DCI championship as the Cadets try to rank higher and surprise everyone by coming out on top.
A.J. Green Week 10 Highlights | Bengals vs. Giants | NFL
EAST RUTHERFORD Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins goes about his business quietly.He doesn"t particularly enjoy speaking to the media and he doesn"t talk much trash on the field.
But after shutting down yet another elite receiver on Monday night, Jenkins demanded respect on social media on Tuesday afternoon.
Jenkins channeled rapper Birdman, who (in)famously told a radio DJ to "Put some respek (sic) on my name" during an interview in April. Jenkins certainly deserves respect for his performance this season.
Jenkins spent much ofMonday"s 21-20 win over the Bengals matched up against A.J. Green, who entered the game leading the NFLwith 59 catches and second with 896 receiving yards.
Green finished with seven catches for 68 yards and a touchdown on Monday night. But Green had just four catches on seven targets for 23 yards when covered by Jenkins, according to Pro Football Focus. Green"s 13-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter came in front of Jenkins, who was in zone coverage.
"He is a great receiver, good hands and nice route runner," Jenkins said. "I just go out and do my job. I just play football. I do not worry about shutting anyone down, I just worry about doing my job. That is what I came out and did today."
Bengals call TD "BS"
Jenkins has been doing his job at a high levelall season after signing an eyebrow-raising five-year, $62.5 million free-agent contract with the Giants in March. Jenkins may not get mentioned in the discussion of the top cornerbacks in the league, but his performance this season should change that.
"You talk about who"s the best corner in the league this, that and the other. It"s tough to even put him in that category," Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr.said last week. "You see him every day and go against him. When you"re asked who"s the best corner, you don"t think someone on your team. He"s playing at the highest of highest levels. He"s not really giving up much. He"s been a phenomenal player since I"ve known him."
Dan Duggan may be reached atdduggan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@DDuggan21. Findour Giants coverage on Facebook.
Amb. John Bolton previews Donald Trump"s foreign policy
Republican President-elect Donald Trump"s transition team floated two candidates for the post of secretary of state in a futureTrump administration on Monday: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and diplomat John Bolton.
While some media reports named Bolton as the favored candidate earlier in the day, by the evening, others named Giuliani as the presumptive favorite.
Bolton is best known as a consistent hawkwho despises the United Nations and former government officials told the New York Timesis known for bullying subordinates. He opposed the Barack Obamaadministration"s nuclear armament prevention deal with Iran, writing an op-ed in the Timestitled "To Stop Iran"s Bomb, Bomb Iran," and is an advocate of regime change in Syria.
Former President George W. Bush issued a recess appointment of Bolton in 2004 as ambassador to the U.N., despite Bolton"s opposition to that body. But the diplomat withdrew from Senate consideration for a formal appointment in 2006 under heavy criticism.
Bolton"s appointment as a senior member of the Trump administration would suggest the real estatemogul is embracing the Republican Party"s neoconservative bent, despite Trump campaigning on a platform of having opposed the Iraq War (which he did not) andmilitary restraint relative to prior administrations, undermined somewhat by his calls to bomb terrorists" families.
It"s less clear what a Giuliani appointment would mean, although like Bolton, the former mayor was an aggressive promoter of the war in Iraq, even when public sentiment was turning against it.
Giuliani has no international diplomatic experience, outside of welcoming foreign dignitaries to the city of New York, and has primarily distinguished himself this campaign season by launching ill-founded attacks on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton"s health, intelligenceand status as the "founder of ISIS."
At a campaign rally in August, Giuliani trolled Trump"s opponents by wearing a hat labeled "Make Mexico Great Again Also," a nod to the campaign"s signature slogan and a jab at Mexicans opposed to the candidate"s rhetoric about their country.
Giuliani"s primary experience aside from the mayoralty has been as a prosecutor, both as an associate U.S. attorney general and district attorney in New York. As mayor, he was associated with tough-on-crime policies (most famously "stop and frisk," which a federal court ruled unconstitutional in 2013) and according to the Washington Post"s Radley Balko, "prosecutorial excess" and a vindictive campaign of intimidation against local political opponents.
According to the Wall Street Journal, transition team insiders say President-elect Trump"s final decision could take weeks.
Megyn Kelly: "If Trump Lost And His Supporters Would Be Protesting, The Media Would Yell Sexist!"
Days after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times has released a review of Megyn Kelly"s forthcoming memoir, Settle for More. USA TODAY
Megyn Kelly releases a memoir this week.(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)
NEW YORK Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly saidshe thinks Donald Trump was agitated before the first GOP primary debate not because hed learned she was going to confront him about his insulting descriptions of womenbut because he suspected shed ask about his first wifes claim that hed raped her.
In her new memoir, Settle for More, Kelly describes how an unexpectedly anxious Trump complained to Fox News executives last year about what shed do as a moderator of the debate.The questions Kelly and her colleagues planned to ask the candidates were secret. She wrotethat days before the debate, Trump called Fox in an attempt to rein me in. He said he had heard that my first question was a very pointed question directed at him."Kellys first question was in fact for Trumpand about his treatment and descriptions of women. She wondered, she wrote, How could he know that?"
In an exclusive interview Monday with USA TODAY one in which she discussed what she called her "Year of Trump"" and her stand against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes Kelly said she did not believe her question leaked to Trump beforehand.I dont think he had any idea,"she said. What I think he was worried about was his divorce from Ivana Trump. He was afraid I was going to bring that up."
A few weeks before the debate, Kelly devoted a segment of her program, The Kelly File, to an interview with the author of a report on The Daily Beast website. It said Ivana Trump had sworn in divorce papers a quarter-century earlier that Trump had raped her an accusation she later retracted.Kelly saidthat after the segment aired, an angry Trump called and told her that I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account on you, and I still may."
It was a threat on which he soon made good.
The author"s Year of Trumpbegan with her now famous question to Trump about whether his history with women would be fodder for Hillary Clintons claims that he was part of a war on women."
It exploded with Trumps insinuation that Kelly was hostile to him in the debate because she was menstruatingand continued until the following April, when the two met in Trumps office.By that time, Kelly said, she was weary of the abuse prompted by Trumps string of insulting social media posts.In the interview, Kelly declined to comment on what she said or did at her Trump Tower meeting to get him to stop.
Donald Trump speaks to moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace during the first Republican presidential debate Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland.(Photo: John Minchillo, AP)
But as a result of the meeting, she said, Trump and I are in a better place now. We left things on a good note. Hes never come after me the way he had. Even though he held onto his anger toward me like a dog with a bone, he does have the ability to let things go. He proved that."
Readers of Settle for More may not harbor such optimism about the president-elect.Thats because Kelly has written a contemporary Perils of Pauline saga in which a sympathetic heroine fends off the advances literal and digital of two villains: Trump and Ailes, who resigned in July under duress.
The latter, an accused serial sexual harasser (who nonetheless furthered our heroines career at every turn) gets his just desserts; the former becomes president.
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During their one-sided feud, Trump called Kelly a bimbo, a lightweight, a liar, crazy and sick; he urged a boycott against her show; his attorney retweeted a call to gut"her. Strange men turned up outside"her door, she wrote. Death threats were common."She, her husband and their three children vacationed at Disney World with an armed bodyguard in tow.
He couldnt let it go for so long,"she said of Trump, and there was a time when I wondered if hed ever let it go."
Many have commented on the sang-froidwith which Kelly seemed to respond to all this. But she saidshe was afraid for her safety and her familysand for her reputation as a journalist trying to cover the story and not be the story.
In seeking a meeting with Trump, Kelly said, she tookher fate into her own hands settling for more."The books description of the encounter goes much further.I felt like a hostage whose hostage taker was seeing her as a human being for the very first time who needed to believe that he would let her go,"Kelly wrote.
Megyn Kelly in New York May 5, 2016. "Settle for More," her new book is scheduled to be released Nov. 15, 2016. (Photo: Victoria Will, AP)
When Trump greetedher by holding out his arms for a hug, Kelly embracedhim. It felt like a kind gesture,"she wrote.
When he askedfor her cellphone number, sheworried in pique, hed made GOP presidential rival Lindsey Grahams number public but gaveit to him.When he suggestedthey have a picture taken together, she agreed. They posed arm in arm.
In retrospect, she wrote, I look rather like a person whos been through some sort of trauma and is waiting for the Coast Guard helicopter."
The reader may understandwhy Kelly felt she needed to go to Trump. Efforts by Ailes, Foxs pro-Trump host Sean Hannity and others had failed. Nothing stopped it,"she said in the interview. I realized no one was coming to save me. If this was going to end, I was the one who was going to have to end it."
The books penultimate chapter deals with Ailes, whoKelly saidharassed her starting in 2005. In a private meeting in his office, he said he wanted to see her in the very sexy bras she must own.The following year, she wrote, Ailes tried to grab her and kiss her on the lips. As she fled out the door, she recalled, he asked, When is your contract up?
When she finally confided to a supervisor, she said, she was told to avoid Ailes. After that, the problem stopped.
Ailes was sued in July for alleged sexual harassment by former Fox morning show host Gretchen Carlson. A week and a half later after spurning requests to vouch for Ailes Kelly called the co-chairman of Foxs parent company, Lachlan Murdoch, and reported her own experience.Ailes has denied all charges against him.
Kelly was asked by USA TODAY if she thought that Ailes, who continually promoted her even while she was on maternity leave deserved a second chance in the news business.
Absolutely not,"she snapped. I have no doubts now about who he is or what he did. I dont think hed have spent a lifetime doing it and suddenly turnover a new leaf."She said she was disturbed hed advisedthe Trump campaign.
Despite Trumps attacks, Kellys ratings are as high as ever second only to those of her Fox evening lineup neighbor, Bill O"Reilly. Her Fox contract is up next year, and shes the subject of intense speculation over with which network shell sign (ABC is among those interested), for how much (Fox supposedly offered $20 million a year)and to do what (shed like to do more in-depth interviews).
She said she was not concerned by a tweet by Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino after her on-air tussle last month with Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich. ("She is totally biased against Mr. Trump & not very smart. . Watch what happens to her after this election is over.")
That wasnt Trump, that was Dan Scavino, who used to be Trumps golf caddy,"Kelly said. Im not worried about him."
Trump has observed his truce with Kelly since what she calls their "Trump Tower Accords."He has yet to comment on her book, which goes on sale Tuesday. After her flapwith Gingrich, he tweeted,Congratulations, Newt... that was an amazing interview.We dont play games, Newt, right? We dont play games.
Whatever"s next between Kelly and Trump, she said his campaign against her is anominous precedent:
I have a big mic, and I was established. He couldnt really destroy me," she said, "but think about the message that was sent to other journalists thinking about covering him skeptically. Perhaps they just dont want to spend a year being bullied."
