Antonio Gates Gets Four-Game Suspension
Yet another suspension has been announced by the NFL, as the Chargers confirmed today (via Twitter) that tight end Antonio Gates will miss the first four games of the 2015 season. The penalty was handed down due to a violation of the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances, tweets Albert Breer of the NFL Network.
“We are tremendously disappointed for our team and our fans as well as Antonio, but no more disappointed than Antonio is with himself,” the Chargers said in a statement. “Antonio is a member of the Chargers’ family and we will continue to support him 100-percent. We have the utmost confidence he will stay in excellent shape for the season and be ready to go when he returns in Week 5. While it’s unfortunate to not have him to start the season, we have complete confidence our tight end group will continue to play at a high level.”
For his part, Gates also released a statement, confirming that he tested positive for a substance that he was unaware was on the league’s banned substance list.
“I have always believed that ignorance is no excuse when it comes to these issues, and I take full responsibility for my actions,” Gates said. “I’d like to express my sincere apologies to the Chargers, my teammates, coaches, fans and the league who have always supported me and expected and gotten nothing but the highest level of integrity from me.”
Gates, the Chargers‘ all-time leader in catches, made it known after the 2014 season that he was not considering retirement. In fact, he stated that 2015 might not even be his last season. Now, for the first four weeks of the season, the tight end position will be held down by understudy Ladarius Green, someone who many feel is a future star.
Latest On Los Angeles Relocation
In the latest development that could eventually lead to the NFL’s return to Los Angeles, Raiders owner Mark Davis and Chargers owner Dean Spanos spent Tuesday in LA meeting with Mayor Eric Garcetti and other officials regarding their joint plan to build a stadium in Carson, Calif., according to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times.
The respective outlooks in Oakland and San Diego, the cities for the Raiders and Chargers, currently appear bleak. Businessman Floyd Kephart’s stadium proposal to keep the Raiders in Oakland has not been looked on positively, per Farmer, who notes that the Chargers don’t believe they can legally get a stadium initiative on the ballot in San Diego until the tail end of 2016 at the earliest. Moreover, the Chargers don’t have confidence that a stadium initiative would be well received by the San Diego community.
Further complicating matters is that the Chargers and Raiders aren’t the only teams eying California-based relocation. Rams owner Stan Kroenke has his sights set on Inglewood and is competing with the the other two teams’ Carson plans. The league would like a pair of franchises in LA as early as 2016, which would make at least one of the Chargers, Raiders or Rams the odd club out.
In Missouri, Rep. Jay Barnes asked a judge Tuesday to block Gov. Jay Nixon from working on plans for a new stadium in St. Louis, the Associated Press reported. Barnes and other lawmakers claim that the plans for a new stadium are illegal because the hypothetical facility wouldn’t be located next to St. Louis’ convention center, which state law requires.
“The governor does not have the authority to spend taxpayer dollars for an illegal purpose,” said Barnes.
If the Rams do ultimately gain league approval to relocate, Farmer writes that the deep-pocketed Kroenke wouldn’t have any difficulty financing his $2 billion planned stadium.
It’s currently unknown when there will be a resolution for the three teams, according to Farmer, who lists the end of the regular season, Super Bowl week and March’s owners meetings as potential times for owners to vote on proposals by Davis, Spanos and Kroenke. For its part, the league is hoping only two of the Raiders, Chargers and Rams apply for relocation, although it appears likely that all three will.
Extra Points: Los Angeles, Raiders, Titans
It appears that the league is getting a little more stringent on Adderall prescriptions, as Albert Breer of NFL.com tweets. Today, the NFLPA sent a reminder to agents today on players needing to have a certified psychiatrist evaluate them to get therapeutic use exemptions for ADHD. Players wanting to use the popular ADHD medication have to have TUEs for it renewed by August 10th, otherwise they will not be able to take the medication. Over the years, we have seen several players suspended for using Adderall and similar ADHD meds, including Bruce Irvin, Aqib Talib, and Haloti Ngata. Here’s more from around the NFL..
- Despite some reports over the weekend to the contrary, the NFL is not considering delaying the Los Angeles relocation process by a year, a source tells Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal (on Twitter).
- At some point, Oakland will probably have to choose between the Raiders and the Oakland Athletics, Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle write.
- Paul Kuharsky of ESPN.com wonders if Kenneth Adams IV is becoming the face of the Titans‘ ownership group. Rumors continue to fly of the team ultimately being sold, but Kuharsky gets the feeling that Adams wants to remain an NFL owner. Adams is the lone person in the five-member ownership group who works for the team and who is a Nashvillian.
- The trial for Saints cornerback Brian Dixon has been pushed back again and is now scheduled for Aug. 3, according to online court records obtained by Evan Woodbery of The Times-Picayune. Dixon was arrested March 29 for resisting arrest without violence following a traffic stop in Miami Beach. The 25-year-old, who signed with the Saints as an undrafted free agent in 2014, played in all 16 games for New Orleans last season.
Latest On NFL’s Los Angeles Relocation
In yesterday’s San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper’s editorial board added a bit of intrigue to the NFL’s plans for relocating a team to Los Angeles. Referencing an owner’s meeting scheduled for August, the board writes speculation has arisen that the owners may vote the entire process back by one year, allowing the situations in San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland to “percolate.”
For his part, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk isn’t entirely buying said speculation, going as far as to opine that the Union-Tribune, which has a vested interest in seeing San Diego retain an NFL team, could have simply “conjured” the news. Either way, such a delay in the process would have negative consequences for San Diego, writes Florio. A scenario could exist where the Raiders and Rams both move to L.A. and the Chargers stay in San Diego; such moves would obviously be a negative for the Chargers, as they’d have to compete financially with two teams in their area.
Albert Breer of NFL.com (Twitter link) has heard rumors of a different scenario, one where the Rams move to Los Angeles for the 2016 season, while the second spot in Inglewood remains open (for how long is not known) so that the Chargers and Raiders maintain leverage. In a second tweet, Breer says that situation could get more complicated if the city of St. Louis is able to come up with a suitable financing plan for a new stadium.
We heard on Friday that the league is exploring temporary venues in L.A. in the event that a club moves to Southern California for the 2016 season.
Sunday Roundup: Chargers, Kalil, Pryor
As the stadium saga in Los Angeles continues to unfold, more and more speculative pieces are written in an effort to uncover the intentions of the primary players in the drama and to predict how the league’s landscape will be altered within the next couple of years. Matt Calkins of The San Diego Union-Tribune, for instance, writes that Chargers counsel Michael Fabiani, whose negotiating tactics have made him widely-loathed by Chargers fans and San Diego officials, has a method to his madness.
As Calkins writes, the NFL does not really care which team or teams end up in Los Angeles, as long as it is satisfied that whatever arrangement ultimately unfolds maximizes the league’s profits. So if Rams owner Stan Kroenke ends up moving his team to LA, and stadium negotiations are going well in San Diego but poorly in Oakland, the league may decide that the Raiders should join the Rams in LA, leaving the Chargers with no leverage in its talks with San Diego.
Therefore, it is important for Fabiani that discussions with the city not go too well at the moment, even if it makes him appear arrogant and diabolical. And if the team ends up staying in San Diego, it is likely that most Chargers fans would be willing to forgive and forget.
Now let’s have a look at some links from around the league:
- Speaking of the Los Angeles dilemma, David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Chargers, who have made nine unsuccessful relocation proposals across San Diego County since 2003, have ostensibly met the league’s relocation criteria of exhausting all local options, which gives the team a strong argument in support of its potential move to LA. However, that argument may not have as much weight as the Chargers hope, as critics of the move say that “many of the stadium proposals were flimsy, the time period included the worst recession in 70 years and public support for a stadium had been poisoned by the infamous Chargers ‘ticket guarantee’ at Qualcomm stadium.”
- Matt Kalil will get every chance to keep his starting left tackle job in 2015, but as Ben Goessling of ESPN.com writes, if Kalil is fully healthy this year yet continues to struggle, the Vikings will have a hard time bringing him back at his $11.1MM option figure.
- Even though Terrelle Pryor has stated his intention to move from quarterback to wide receiver, and even though the Browns explicitly stated that Pryor would try out for the team as a wide receiver, Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com believes that we will see Pryor under center at some point in training camp. Grossi notes, however, that he is only expressing an opinion and has not heard anything to that effect from the organization.
- John Keim of ESPN.com believes that Logan Paulsen will likely make Washington‘s final roster, as he is the best blocking tight end on the team and therefore serves as a nice complement to Niles Paul. However, Keim writes that Washington remains interested in adding to its tight end corps.
- Ryan O’Halloran of The Florida Times-Union projects playing time for each of the Jaguars newcomers on defense and wonders if time has already run out on receiver Bryan Walters. Walters was signed as a free agent in March, but missed most of the team’s OTAs due to a hamstring injury. His best chance to make the team is by winning the punt return job over Ace Sanders and Tandon Doss, but without a long resume to lean on, he needs to be on the field.
West Notes: Chargers, Raiders, 49ers
Rams running back Tre Mason admits that he wasn’t thrilled to learn about the Rams’ selection of Todd Gurley in this year’s draft.
“I was in shock, really, because I thought I did a good job last year,’’ said Mason, according to Joe Lyons of the Post-Dispatch. “At that time, with a pick like that, it’s a replacement.’’
Mason, who tied for the team lead in touchdowns last season as a rookie, eventually shook that off and focused on doing the best that he can, regardless of who else is there at his position. Of course, it’s not a given that Gurley will be healthy, so the opportunities could still be there for Mason in 2015. Here’s more out of the West divisions..
- The city of Carson, California held a town hall meeting on Monday night to discuss the proposed stadium that would house both the Chargers and the Raiders. However, Carmen Policy, the man by the two teams to spearhead the effort, was not present for it, and neither were the Raiders, as Carson mayor Albert Robles told XTRA 1360 in San Diego. “My understanding is that Carmen was supposed to be there, but he missed his flight and was not able to make it,” Robles said (transcription via Mike Florio of PFT). “And it was supposed to be his presentation, and I tried to wing it as best as I could. But Mr. Policy did apologize, he did convey his regrets, he said that he would make up for it.” The Raiders’ absence is particularly interesting as the team is considering a financial plan that could make a new stadium in Oakland viable for them.
- If the Chargers are leaving town, then owner Dean Spanos owes it to the city of San Diego to come clean, Nick Canepa of U-T San Diego writes. While it would be tough for local Bolts fans to hear that their team is skipping town, that bit of honesty would at least end the figurative torture for SD residents. Canepa wonders if Spanos’ silence goes beyond a PR ploy. He suspects that the owner could simply be using stall tactics to find out of the league will be ready to put a team (or teams) in Los Angeles in 2016.
- Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com assessed the 49ers‘ offseason and gave them a less-than-stellar grade of a C-minus. Things obviously haven’t gone San Francisco’s way this offseason with Anthony Davis, Justin Smith, Chris Borland, and Patrick Willis all retiring. On top of that, NaVorro Bowman is attempting to come back from knee surgery and Ahmad Brooks could be on his way out if charges are pressed against him. And, while it hasn’t gotten as much attention as the mass retirements, SF also took a risk by trading away punter Andy Lee, who is an all-time great at his position. On a positive note, Gutierrez gives the Niners credit for adding deep threat receiver Torrey Smith on a five-year, $40MM pact ($22MM guaranteed).
Stadium Updates: Tuesday
PFR’s Zach Links passed along the latest updates last night on stadium talks for the Raiders and Chargers, two candidates to relocate to Los Angeles in 2016. While things have been quiet – at least by comparison – on the St. Louis front recently, Oakland and San Diego remain in the news today. Let’s check in on today’s stadium-related items:
- Today’s meeting between NFL officials and San Diego’s top stadium negotiator – detailed below – went well, with the two sides planning on scheduling a follow-up meeting for late July, Garrick writes for the Union-Tribune. Per Garrick, the conversation today was a more general discussion about the city’s stadium proposal, rather than focusing on getting the Chargers back to the negotiating table.
Earlier updates:
- Real estate developer Floyd Kephart met Monday’s deadline to send details of his plan for a new Raiders stadium to the city of Oakland and Alameda County, and now officials will have 20 business days to accept, reject, or ask Kephart for clarifications on his proposal. As Bill Williamson of ESPN.com writes, Kephart feels good about the plan, and hopes to get feedback by next week. Land, infrastructure cost, and debt-transfer issues are the biggest potential roadblocks to overcome for the project, says Williamson.
- Kephart on his stadium plan, via Williamson: “I think we delivered a good product. If we can get a little bit of movement from the city and county at this stage and a little bit of movement from the Raiders at the next stage, we can get a deal. It’s not nearly as complicated as what’s going on in San Diego.”
- Speaking of San Diego, mayor Kevin Faulconer spoke to commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday about his city’s efforts to build a new Chargers stadium, according to David Garrick of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Faulconer spokesman Matt Awbrey indicated that the conversation lasted 45 minutes, adding that the city’s top negotiator, Chris Melvin, is scheduled to meet with NFL officials today to explain San Diego’s position on environmental approvals and a public vote.
Latest On Possible Move For Raiders, Chargers
Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff wants to build a new stadium for his MLB team at the site of the current Coliseum, but isn’t particularly interested in sharing that new stadium with the Raiders, as John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group details.
“We have thoroughly investigated things,” Wolff said. “And there is no good way to put two brand-new venues at the Coliseum site. If the Raiders are going to be there, then I don’t know what will happen. We’ll have to sit down with (baseball commissioner) Rob (Manfred) and see what to do..I think it’s really important from our perspective, the A’s and baseball, the city focus on the need to get something done with regards to baseball. Not to the detriment of football, but the need to get something done with baseball.”
Well, as it turns out, the city of Oakland just might have a financing plan to satisfy the Raiders’ needs while chasing the A’s away, as Matthew Artz of the Bay Area News Group writes. San Diego-based businessman Floyd Kephart submitted a report to top city officials earlier today which could be key to making the Coliseum site viable for future use. The NFL is demanding that Oakland produce a workable stadium plan for the Raiders by the end of this year or risk losing the team.
As Oakland officials fight to retain their team, the city of San Diego is also working to keep the Chargers away from Los Angeles. As Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (Twitter links) details, Chargers fans have asked SD attorney Jan Goldsmith for anti-trust suit against team for failure to show “good faith.” Chargers counsel Mark Fabiani, however, doesn’t sound fazed by the threat (link). Fabiani told Cole that the Bolts’ lease “explicitly precludes lawsuits by the city against the team or the NFL in the event of relocation” making the threat of the suit “a crazy idea.”
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Latest On Chargers’ Possible Relocation
The 2015 season may be the last one in San Diego for the Chargers, who are free to break their lease thereafter and head elsewhere – likely to Carson, Calif. If you’re to believe Jason Roe, the spokesman for San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, the franchise’s future in the city it has called home since 1961 looks as bleak as it ever has.
Roe on Wednesday released an acerbic statement accusing the Chargers of never intending to bargain with the city, tweeted Bleacher Report’s Jason Cole.
“The truth is, [the Chargers] were never at the table. They’ve misled the fans and our elected officials and civic leaders by saying they wanted to remain in San Diego when in fact they initiated the process of relocation to LA a year ago,” Roe said.
Roe went on to state that the Chargers haven’t worked “toward a solution but instead put up phony roadblocks to success.”
Chargers counsel Mark Fabiani fired back at Roe, per Cole (via Twitter).
“The Chargers will never be part of the city’s legally dubious effort to deal with the California Environmental Quality Act,” Fabiani stated. “City officials are of course free to drive themselves off the cliff into legal oblivion with a half-baked Environmental Impact Report, but the team has no intention of hitching itself to the city’s misguided, doomed scheme.”
When asked about potentially building a new stadium in San Diego, Fabiani said Tuesday (according to the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Nick Canepa), “There’s no point in doing anything until we get an EIR (environmental impact report).”
The Chargers will have to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act to get a new stadium built in San Diego, but the team declared a proposed Dec. 15 stadium vote impossible because of environmental problems, the Union-Tribune’s David Garrick wrote Wednesday.
Of course, stadium-related environmental issues in San Diego won’t matter if the Chargers are truly bent on relocating. Faulconer tweeted Wednesday that the city and team are pulling in opposite directions, with San Diego trying to retain the club and the Chargers working toward a departure.
Moreover, longtime league executive Carmen Policy – whom the Chargers and Raiders hired last month to oversee the building of a stadium in Carson – told Sirius XM NFL Radio on Thursday (Twitter link) that both teams “are totally committed to the Carson project and the site is shovel ready.”
Policy also stated (Twitter link) that the goal of both the league and LA is to land two teams.
West Notes: Foles, Gates, Chargers, Chiefs
At this point, Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com (Twitter links) is much more bullish on Bobby Wagner reaching a new deal with the Seahawks than Russell Wilson doing the same. The linebacker is seeking a deal in the range of $10MM per season and Seattle’s evaluation of him likely isn’t far off from that. Wagner, who will turn 25 near the end of this month,graded out as fifth out of 60 qualified inside linebackers according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required). Earlier this month, the two sides began talks on a new deal. Here’s more from the AFC and NFC West..
- Rams coach Jeff Fisher acknowledged that the club has engaged in contract discussions with quarterback Nick Foles, according to Howard Balzer of USA Today Sports (on Twitter). Earlier today, Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com reported that the quarterback loves being in St. Louis, but he’ll let agent David Dunn handle negotiations. The Rams are also talking to a few other potential 2016 free agents about new contracts, so it doesn’t sound like they’re focused exclusively on Foles.
- Antonio Gates, the Chargers‘ all-time leader in catches, receiving yardage, and touchdowns, isn’t thinking about retirement after this season, Michael Gehlken of U-T San Diego writes. “As you get older, people say things,” Gates said. “They make speculations about where you’re going, about how much you have in the tank. To me, it’s all about how I feel as a person, how my body feels physically and mentally. As of right now, I feel great physically. I’m in a great place mentally. So, we’ll see how it goes. I have no expectations for how long I’ll play or if this is my last year. Right now, my main focus is just being around the guys … and working to bring a championship here to San Diego.”
- Kealoha Pilares (WR, Hawaii), Kenneth Penny (CB, UNLV), and Derek Dennis (G, Temple) were at Kansas City’s minicamp today to try out for the Chiefs, tweets Terez A. Paylor of the Kansas City Star.