NFL notes: Dolphins want Taylor back
Published 10:33 pm Wednesday, June 4, 2008
DOLPHINS: Jason Taylor has another reason to dance. Two weeks after announcing Taylor won’t practice with the team through training camp, Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said Wednesday he told the six-time Pro Bowl defensive end that he and the organization want him back.
“I wanted to make it clear to Jason that we as an organization want him back here, and that I was anxious to see him running around here with his teammates,” Sparano said. “I think Jason left with a pretty clear understand of that from my end.”
The new Dolphins regime, led by Bill Parcells, has been fuming for months that Taylor spent his offseason on the TV show “Dancing With the Stars” rather than working out with teammates.
Sparano and Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland talked at a fundraising dinner for the defensive end’s charity last weekend, and the two sides seem to cooled their feud — for now.
PANTHERS: D.J. Hackett returned to practice after sitting out with a sore knee. The Panthers signed Hackett, who played with the Seahawks, and fellow veteran Muhsin Muhammad in the offseason to give them more options to pair with star Steve Smith. Muhammad and Hackett were expected to contend for the starting job. Muhammad was working with the first team in two-receiver sets. Hackett was the third receiver before sitting out two optional practices with a sore knee.
PATRIOTS: Nicholas Kaczur, the starting right tackle for New England, worked as an informant for federal drug agents after he was arrested in New York on a charge of carrying the powerful painkiller oxycodone without a prescription, an attorney said.
Kaczur, 28, wore a wire to help agents build a case against his alleged supplier, Daniel Ekasala, according to Ekasala’s attorney.
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent said in an affadavit that a cooperating witness — whose name was not revealed — wore a recording device during three drug buys in May. In each of the deals, the witness bought 100 OxyContin pills from Ekasala for $3,900 in cash, the agent wrote.
Ekasala’s lawyer, Bernard Grossberg, said Kaczur was that cooperating witness.
Kaczur denied to The Boston Globe that he participated in the investigation, telling the newspaper, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, bro.”
