NFL NOTES: Broncos acquire DT Robertson from Jets
Published 9:57 pm Thursday, April 24, 2008
BRONCOS: Denver acquired defensive tackle Dewayne Robertson from the New York Jets on Thursday for a conditional pick in the 2009 draft.
Robertson, the fourth overall pick in the 2003 draft from Kentucky, spent five inconsistent seasons with the Jets.
The 26-year-old Robertson also has been bothered by knee problems.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said agent Hadley Engelhard, who’s hoping to finalize a new deal for Robertson with the Broncos today. “He’s got the chance to showcase his abilities.”
In 77 regular-season games (75 starts), Robertson has 319 tackles, 188 solo, and 14 1/2 sacks. He’s forced four fumbles, recovered two, and had two pass breakups.
“He’s a guy that, if you do take, there’s going to be some question marks because if you take a look at his knees, he hasn’t passed a physical, but he’s still played 80 percent of his games,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said of Robertson last month at the NFL owners meetings. “So how big of a risk are you going to take?”
The deal ended a tumultuous offseason for Robertson, who was nearly traded to Cincinnati last month. The Jets reportedly agreed to send Robertson to the Bengals for a pair of draft picks, but the deal fell through. Some reports said the sides couldn’t come to terms, but it was also reported that Robertson failed the Bengals’ physical because of knee problems.
SPYGATE: Roger Goodell is fully prepared to crack down again on the New England Patriots if his meeting with Matt Walsh uncovers a tape made of the St. Louis Rams’ final walkthrough practice before the 2002 Super Bowl.
“Taping a walkthrough is much different from what I punished them for,” the NFL commissioner said Thursday at a meeting of a group representing the Associated Press Sports Editors.
After more than two months of negotiations, lawyers for the league and Walsh, the former New England employee, finally reached agreement Wednesday on terms that will allow him to talk Goodell. They include an agreement by the Patriots not to sue Walsh and to pay his legal expenses and his airfare to New York from Hawaii, where he is now a golf pro.
Walsh’s name first surfaced just before the Super Bowl, in which the Patriots were upset by the New York Giants after finishing the regular season 16-0 and winning two playoff games. Among the allegations was that the Patriots illegally taped the Rams’ final walkthrough before that title game, when New England, a two-touchdown underdog, upset St. Louis 20-17.
Five months before their loss to the Giants, New England coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team $250,000 for taping the New York Jets’ defensive signals during the season opener. The Patriots also lost their first-round pick in this weekend’s draft.
Goodell said Thursday he has no idea what Walsh, who spent six years as a New England employee, has to offer than what the league already knows: Belichick had been taping defensive signals since first becoming Patriots coach in 2000. He noted, however, that the league, which destroyed the tapes from the Jets game after reviewing them, had spoken to 50 people in connection with the case and that Walsh was the only one who asked for legal protection.
Goodell gave no guarantees to owner Jerry Jones or anyone from the Dallas Cowboys that he will reinstate Adam “Pacman” Jones, whom the Cowboys obtained in a trade with Tennessee on Wednesday. He expects to meet in June with Pacman Jones, who was suspended all of last season for multiple violations of the league’s code of behavior.
49ERS: San Francisco offensive lineman David Baas probably will be out until the regular season after tearing his right pectoral muscle. Baas, the 33rd overall pick in the 2005 draft, was slated to start at right guard for the 49ers this season after starting nine games at the position last year. He will undergo surgery today after injuring himself while lifting weights last week.
Associated Press
