Posted by Will Brinson



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• Tom Brady, as you will see about 5,000* times over the next few hours, is going to cry on television soon. A certain four-letter sports network got him to weep on camera about his sixth-round selection back in 2000 and, well, it's a heart-wrenching story about how tough his life's been. Or maybe he just likes to cry a lot? After all, the gents over at Tauntr.com did happen to catch a montage of him sobbing over the recent booting of Pia from "American Idol."

• Matt Leinart just spent a year as the third-string quarterback with the Houston Texans. And while that might seem like something that would make a man depressed, the former Heisman-Trophy winner claims he's rejuvenated.

• Joel Thorman of Arrowhead Pride talked to Scott Pioli recently, and the Chiefs draft board is basically, um, done.

• Chan Gailey of the Bills appears to be quite high on the talents of linebacker -- and plaintiff! -- Von Miller out of Texas A&M. Seeing him go at No. 3 to Buffalo wouldn't be a shock at this point.

• The Falcons are going to work out linebacker Akeem Ayers -- back-to-back first-round linebackers seems like a stretch, but, hey, you never know.

• According to Tim Leiweke, the CEO of AEG and therefore a primary investor in the downtown L.A. stadium effort, the NFL will "double" its rights fees in the next television contract negotiations. Yowza.

• John Clayton, former Seahawks beat guy and generally plugged-in Seattle fella, doesn't think Matt Hasselbeck will be coming back to play for Pete Carroll and Co in 2011.

• Adam Caplan of FOX Sports has a nice list of the most-hyped draft picks of all-time.

• We'll obviously have (much) more on this when the full preseason schedule is announced, but the Cleveland Plain-Dealer is reporting that the Browns' preseason opponents will be Green Bay, Detroit, Philadelphia and Chicago.

• Philly.com breaks down the Eagles' first-round picks under head coach Andy Reid.

• The always-excellent Greg Cosell broke down some film of Colorado CB Jimmy Smith and thinks that the might have "similarities to Jets star CB Darrell Revis coming out of Pittsburgh." So spicy.

Posted by Andy Benoit

• Jim Trotter of Sports Illustrated says teams are willing to trade a first-round draft pick for Kevin Kolb. But not all teams seem as certain about meeting the 26-year-old quarterback’s contract demands in 2012.
  
   
• Thanks to the new screen at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jerry Jones’ ballyhooed screen is about to become the world’s second largest HD display.
  
   
• Some are speculating (merely speculating) that Kris Jenkins could return to Carolina.
  
   
• It’s not all negative news in the NFL these days.
  
   
• Get your Hines Ward Dancing With the Stars update right here. (Or, instead of clicking the link, you can just visit the Bingo room at your nearest community center and ask the senior citizens that make up 99 percent of the show’s audience about the smiley Steelers receiver.)
  
   
• NFL players have put a specific number on how much they want the league to pay in punitive damages for revenue that was left on the table from the NFL’s 2009 and 2010 TV deals. That number? It was redacted from court documents. Judge David Doty will hear this issue May 12. 
  
   
• Was it cool for DeSean Jackson to appear on NFL Network during the lockout?
  
   
• Larry Johnson wants a change of venue for his upcoming lawsuit trial stemming from the 2008 incident where he allegedly spat his drink on a lady. The former Chiefs running back doesn’t believe he can get a fair trial in Kansas City.
  
   
• Simeon Rice wants to get back into the NFL, but his movie career (and 37 years of age) might get in the way.
  
   
• Citizens of Los Angeles will have a chance to voice their thoughts about AEG’s impending NFL stadium project. (This begs the question: are Los Anglesites capable of thinking about anything NFL-related?).
  
  For more NFL news, rumors and analysis, follow @cbssportsnfl on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed .
  
  

Posted by Will Brinson



Got a link for the Hot Routes? Hit us up on Twitter (@CBSSportsNFL).

• The first round of Madden 12 cover voting is up -- only two upsets occurred in the first round, and now we've got a pile of pretty good matchups as the finale comes to a close. Aaron Rodgers vs. Sam Bradford, Hakeem Nicks vs. Danny Woodhead, Maurice Jones-Drew vs. Jamaal Charles, Peyton Hillis vs. Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers vs. Adrian Peterson, Mark Sanchez vs. Drew Brees, Michael Vick vs. Andre Johnson and Patrick Willis vs. Hines Ward. Cruise on over to the Madden Facebook page to vote, fill out brackets and make sure Woodhead ends up on the cover.

• As Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee points out, it's not really necessary for Jim Harbaugh to evaluate Jake Locker any further: he's already seen him play in person plenty of times.

• Andrew Brandt of the National Football Post has another great breakdown of CBA negotiations, this time arguing that it's a "tip of the Cap" that could end up altering negotiations.

• In the magazine edition of the New York Times, Tommy Craggs does a great job of putting David Stern and Roger Goodell in a side-by-side comparison.

• Crazy read from ESPN's Rich Cimini about Jets quarterback Erik Ainge's fight against addiction to well, everything.

• Jeff Saturday appeared on the NFL Network with Rich Eisen to talk about the lockout. (Yes, it's a little weird.) Check the full interview here.

• It appears that Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis could be getting more hosed by this lockout than most people.

• Apparently it's chic to demand that Aqib Talib be run out of Tampa.

• There's a forum for football in Los Angeles set for this Thursday. GO BOO THEM SAN DIEGO!

• So much for that boycott -- Adrian Clayborn's already accepted his invitation to the NFL Draft.

Posted by Will Brinson

FORT WORTH, TEXAS -- The chatter surrounding an NFL team moving to Los Angeles has been heavy in recent months.

Magic Johnson is on board with bringing football back to the City of Angels, Bob Kraft's waxed optimistic about the move, and at least two NFL teams (the Chargers and the Vikings) have suspect stadium situations that make them prime candidates to move.

However, don't expect news on the LaLa front any time too soon -- Roger Goodell stated in his press conference following the owners' meetings that the primary obstacle to professional football in Los Angeles is currently the lack of a labor deal.

"I've said the No. 1 thing to make the economics work in Los Angeles is a new collective bargaining agreement," Goodell said. "I don't think it's a coincidence that we have not had a new stadium built since we entered into this collective bargaining agreement in 2006.

"The Giants and Jets stadium, the Dallas stadium and Kansas City were all far along in the process or at least along in the process that it couldn't be reversed. The economics of trying to build a stadium in the Los Angeles market are challenging and part of that challenge is the collective bargaining agreement so we have to get that resolved."

Goodell makes a salient point -- it's often assumed that once a group can find the funding there will eventually be a team that wants to jump into the nation's second-largest market.

But with the possibility of no football at all looming large in 2011, can it be assumed that there'll be football in Los Angeles soon? Of course not.

In fact, Goodell's words may serve as a nice (albeit not direct in any way) warning to any groups that want to try and pack up a club and drag them into downtown L.A. -- it's not going to be as easy as it looks, unless the relationship between a city and a club just completely dissolve in a quick fashion.

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Posted by Will Brinson

The NFL returning to Los Angeles seems almost as foregone a conclusion as an 18-game schedule (although at least the latter is up for negotiation). To speed up the process, though, there would probably need to be some instability in ownership, which, apparently might be coming to San Diego.

According to Jon Weinbach of FanHouse, Chargers owner Alex Spanos is in poor health and his family has hired Goldman Sachs to sell a minority share of the team.

Each of his kids own 15 percent of the Chargers, while Spanos and his wife own 36 percent -- the section up for grabs is purportedly (according to what Mark Fabiani, the leader in trying to secure the Bolts a new stadium) only for "estate-planning purposes."

However, Weinbach reports that reps from Goldman have "recently met with several wealthy individuals" in Los Angeles about the minority stake up for sale.

Of course, if people with vested interest in the L.A. community suddenly owned part of a football team in San Diego, things could get a little spicy, especially since the Chargers can, ahem, bolt from their deal with Qualcomm Stadium via a buyout with the city of San Diego that's available, according to Weinbach, once a year.

These rumors stem from the recent Anschutz Entertainment Group plan to build a $725 million stadium near Staples Center and L.A. Live, a thriving entertainment section in downtown Los Angeles.

Someone from San Diego can certainly buy the stake, but it would take a pretty wealthy individual with a vested interest in helping the community, making some money and NFL football. So, I'm gonna lob someone out that could help keep the Chargers in place: Phil Mickelson.

The multiple Masters winner is a huge NFL fan, he's from San Diego, he has plenty of money and he's shown an affinity for smart business investments (see him owning all the Southern California franchise rights to Five Guys).

That's absolute conjecture (although I'm more than willing to play a round with Phil and discuss the matter, if he's free) but the point still remains -- while people around the Chargers will say that they don't have to get a non-L.A. investor to buy the minority share, it would certainly help keep the team in place.

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