Larry Brown Sports

Michael Vick will have a lot to prove if he can earn the starting quarterback job with the Philadelphia Eagles this season, and he seems confident that he can prove plenty with the things he has said this offseason. The latest has to do with his speed. Simply put, Vick still feels that he is the fastest quarterback in the NFL.

“These guys are young and they’re fast and they’re quick, the thing I do have is a very quick get-up,” Vick told The Dan Patrick Show on Friday, via Pro Football Talk. “I really don’t feel like there’s a quarterback in the league who can beat me in a 40-yard dash. If somebody wants to set something up, I’ll be more than glad to accept the challenge. But as of right now I’m going to say me. But Colin Kaepernick is fast and RG3 is fast as well.”

Quarterbacks seem to be getting more athletic as the years pass, and Robert Griffin III and Colin Kaepernick are two great examples of that. Vick struggled mightily last season while both of the aforementioned players burst onto the scene, but the veteran may have a point when it comes to speed.

Earlier this month, Vick reportedly dusted Eagles running back LeSean McCoy in a 40-yard sprint. McCoy is one of the more explosive players in the league, so beating him in that type of race by a large margin is no easy feat. Vick has made some horrible decisions with the ball over the past couple of years, but that has nothing to do with his speed and quickness. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat RG3 or Kaepernick in a 40-yard dash.

H/T Pro Football Talk

The return of the anonymous New York Jets is upon us, and organized team activities have just barely gotten underway. Last season, the Jets had a major problem with players and team sources reportedly bashing one another without attaching their names to the quotes. According to CBSSports.com’s Mike Freeman, at least one of them is at it again.

A current member of the Jets roster who asked not to be identified reportedly said earlier this week that most of the team believes someone besides Mark Sanchez should be the starting quarterback.

“Everyone on the team likes Mark personally but there’s a general feeling among some of the players that maybe it’s time to give someone else a chance,” the player allegedly said.

Freeman added that the player said “80 to 90 percent” of his teammates felt that way.

This is not the first time Sanchez has had to deal with anonymous members of the organization bashing him, and he’s not the first player that the anonymous critics have targeted. However, Freeman’s report does come on the heels of Rex Ryan being openly critical of Sanchez for throwing three interceptions in 11 pass attempts during OTAs on Wednesday.

“This is OTAs and things, but yeah, that’s going to be the pressure that we’re putting on him,” Ryan said, via the NY Daily News. “He did a lot of great things. It’s not that you try to cover up the fact you had some bad plays — no, no, no you flat tell him. We can’t have these and all that type of stuff. He knows.”

Ryan said that he was glad his defense was making plays but called it “disappointing” and unacceptable” that Sanchez turned the ball over that many times.

And just think, it’s only May. If this continues, it’s hard to imagine Sanchez will be on the roster when the season begins. Poor performances in practice are a great way to lose the confidence of a coaching staff, and it sounds like Sanchez has already lost the confidence of his teammates. From the sound of it, the Jets are picking up right where they left off in 2012.

Helmet smack to Around the League

Reggie Bush may not have gotten the ball as much as he would have liked during his five seasons with the New Orleans Saints, but he did win a Super Bowl and play with some of the game’s best players. The 2009 Super Bowl champion Saints were loaded with big names like Drew Brees and Marques Colston on offense and bruisers like Jonathan Vilma, Roman Harper and Darren Sharper on defense. Apparently that level of talent did not match up to the 2013 Detroit Lions.

During a recent interview with ESPN’s Colin Cowherd, Bush was asked if he believes his current team is the most talented he has ever played on.

“I do,” Bush said, via MLive.com. “I feel like our talent matches up with anybody’s in this league. … We’re really talented and we just got to work hard. And leadership has to improve. We just got to improve in all areas and I think we’re going to be a tough team this year. We’re going to score a lot of points.”

In a sense, Bush is right. The Lions have a tremendous amount of talent on offense, led by the best receiver on the planet in Calvin Johnson. That being said, this is a Detroit team that finished 4-12 last season. Reaching the playoffs in 2013 would require a major turnaround, but Bush has his sights set on a championship.

“I came here to work,” he told the Detroit News on Wednesday. “I didn’t come here to vacation. I came here to win championships, to win football games, and that’s what I look forward to doing.”

Confidence is a positive and it’s nice to see that Bush is optimistic about his new team, but the Lions need to be careful not to set the bar too high. Earlier this month, Nick Fairley said he expects Detroit to reach the Super Bowl in 2013. Super Bowl? As much talent as anyone in the league? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

The San Francisco 49ers suffered a major setback earlier this week when it was revealed that Michael Crabtree needed surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon. The team’s leading receiver in 2012 is expected to be sidelined for six months, which means the Niners will be without him for a good portion of the 2013 season.

Achilles injuries are some of the hardest to recover from in sports, which has led to speculation that Crabtree could end up missing all of next season. The 25-year-old does not intend to let that happen, and he reminded everyone of that on Wednesday with a “Terminator” themed photo he posted on his Instagram account.

If all goes to plan and Crabtree works hard enough in rehab, he should be back sometime around November. That would leave him time to shake the dust off before the playoffs, but Niners fans have every reason to be concerned about losing Crabtree after a breakout season.

It’s not surprising that Crabtree, who recently proved he is one of the most confident players in the league with this interview, is guaranteeing he will return. How effective he will be when he does remains to be seen.

Photo via Shutdown Corner

No matter how he tries to spin it, Tom Brady is not happy that the New England Patriots allowed Wes Welker to sign with the Denver Broncos this offseason. Welker had been Brady’s favorite target for six years, with the two connecting for an average of 112 passes per season. When Brady restructured his contract to give the team more cap space, we all assumed Welker’s return was a given.

We were wrong.

Brady had to have discussed the return of Welker with New England’s front office. He was reportedly furious when the Patriots supposedly would not budge with their offer to the veteran receiver, but he has been with the team long enough to know how business-oriented they are.

“Those aren’t my demands,” Brady told WEEI’s Dennis and Callahan on Thursday when discussing why he restructured his deal. “I want us to field as competitive a team as we possibly can. And I have all the trust in the world that Mr. [Robert] Kraft and Jonathan [Kraft] and coach [Bill] Belichick will do that. There’s nothing about me, I don’t say that, I’m not general manager, I can’t say, ‘Look, I do this, you do this.’

“I don’t think anything surprises me any more in the NFL. I’ve been around long enough to see things happen at different times with the greatest players of all, whether that’s Wes, or Randy Moss being traded from the Raiders, or Brett Favre playing for the Jets and the Vikings. That’s what happens. Like I said, it’s a very tough, competitive business.”

Brady has begun working one-on-one with Danny Amendola and has probably already gotten over the departure of his close friend. That’s the type of competitor he is. That being said, there’s nothing No. 12 could say to make me believe the Patriots didn’t give him the impression that signing his cheaper contract extension would make it more feasible for the team to bring back Welker. Anyone who knows the Patriot Way knows better than that.

Tim Tebow has friends in high places. You already knew that. But did you realize that Tebow even has martial artist, actor, and all-around badass Chuck Norris on his side? If you didn’t know before, you do now.

Norris wrote a lengthy essay for News Busters, a site whose mission is to expose and combat “liberal media bias.” In the column, Norris called Tebow a “winner” and argued why the currently unemployed player deserves another shot to lead an NFL team as a quarterback. He even advocated for the Jacksonville Jaguars to sign the former Heisman Trophy winner.

Norris started off by attacking the shuffling quarterback mentality the New York Jets and by bashing Tebow’s critics:

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Colin Kaepernick and Michael Crabtree seemed to establish instant chemistry when Kapernick took over for the injured Alex Smith last season. Crabtree racked up more than 90 yards in four of the final five games of the season last year and finished with the first 1,000-yard season of his four-year career. Now, he could be in for a long and trying rehab.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Crabtree recently suffered a torn Achilles tendon and is expected to miss roughly six months. Chris Mortensen later confirmed that Crabtree has already undergone surgery. If he misses six months, the 25-year-old would be out until at least November.

Obviously, this is horrible news for the San Francisco 49ers. Crabtree finally broke out in 2012 and emerged as the most reliable receiver on the team. When the Niners traded for Anquan Boldin earlier this offseason, they were looking to add depth to their receiving corps. Now, they will need to either add another piece or look for guys to step up in a big way.

To make matters even more complicated, Niners receivers Mario Manningham and Kyle Williams are both coming off torn ACLs. Boldin was dominant in the playoffs for the Baltimore Ravens last season, but he is hardly the force he once was with the Arizona Cardinals years ago.

Perhaps the only positive we can draw here is that Kaepernick is a dual-threat quarterback. It would be more devastating if a pure pocket passer lost his favorite target, but Kaepernick is capable of making plays in a number of ways. Still, Crabtree was one of the few players on offense that San Francisco can’t afford to lose for a significant period of time. His injury will surely throw a major kink in the team’s offseason plans.