You know, you can’t make this stuff up. You’d think with all of the negative press that the Cincinnati Bengals have gotten over the years for having a collection of turds and/or felons, that they would lay off the players with character issues. Not the case.

Not only did they sign undrafted rookie Vontaze Burfict – teams took him completely off of their draft boards – but they also signed 2011 Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year Brandon Joiner.

What’s Joiner’s issue? Well he was recently sentenced to three years in prison after he was convicted of a 2007 robbery. The plea deal allowed him to graduate before his sentencing.

Yep, he and another guy from Texas A&M broke into a drug dealer’s apartment and robbed him at gunpoint. Police found marijuana, Ecstasy and hydrocodone in his apartment. Awesome.

So, the Bengals signed this guy knowing that he had all this going on. Awesome.

Joiner’s attorney expects him to only serve 6-9 months after good behavior.

“Since this incident, Brandon has conducted himself in an exemplary fashion and I’m sure he will continue to do that,” attorney Jay Cranberry said. “There are a lot of people rooting for Brandon and I’m convinced he’s not going to let anyone down.”

Awesome.

Well, this doesn’t sound good. Detroit Lions WR Titus Young showed some promise as a rookie, but this isn’t the way you’d want to start your second season.

Young has been banned from the team’s facility for OTA’s after he got into a fight with safety Louis Delmas, according to beat writer Anwar Richardson of MLive.com.

“#Lions WR Titus Young missed OTAs today due to a fight with Louis Delmas last week #NFL,” Richardson tweets.

Richardson also added that he won’t be allowed back on the premise “until the team decides to have him back.”

Ouch.

In case you were wondering whose fault it was, Delmas is allowed at the facility and to participate in OTA’s. This sounds like – unless there is a huge “Three’s Company”-style misunderstanding – that Young is to blame for the altercation.

Fights happen in football practices all the time, but very rarely do you hear of someone getting banished from the facility for them. We can’t wait to find out what really happened.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been pretty clear that they don’t have TE Kellen Winslow, Jr. in their plans. It’s already been reported that they were trying to trade him to the Chicago Bears this past offseason, but the Bears were more interested in getting Brandon Marshall

So now, the Bucs will probably take anything that anyone will give up for him. And if that doesn’t happen, he’ll likely be released outright.

Look for the second thing to happen. Even though the majority of his guaranteed payouts have been payed by the Bucs, he is still due salaries of $3.3 million, $4.5 million and $5.5 million over the next three years.

Ain’t nobody paying that.

And not only that, any team interested in Winslow’s services knows that too. Why would they give something up for him when they know that no one else would either? And they know the Bucs will eventually cut him, so they can go after him then.

With teams emulating the New England Patriots’ two-tight end system, Winslow won’t be on the market for long. There are plenty of teams that could use him.

From good news to worse news for Oakland Raiders LB Rolando McClain. Yesterday, video surfaced of the incident that has him facing charges of third-degree assault, menacing, reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm. That’s bad enough, but now, his co-defendant has agreed to testify against him.

Jaradious Williams has agreed to plead guilty to third-degree assault in exchange for his testimony against McClain in his trial that starts on Thursday. Probably not what Raiders executives were hoping for.

Photo Caption: McClain takes the charges very seriously.

Williams will get about $300 in fines and be sentenced to 30 days in jail.

As for the video that was released, it sounds like it won’t help McClain’s case.

“It’s obvious that McClain has been edited out of parts of it, but it matches up perfectly with (the victim)’s statements of it,” attorney Carl Cole said. “I think this shows that there may be cracks in Willingham and McClain’s circle of friends. They may not all be willing to hide what happened that night.”

The 2012 season of the Philadelphia Eagles got off to a bad start in late March when Pro Bowl LT Jason Peters ruptured his Achilles tendon. There was a smidgen of hope that he might be able to play this year, but you can squash that talk.

A league source tells Derrick Gunn of CSNPhilly.com that Peters ruptured the tendon for a second time. Apparently, he was maneuvering in his kitchen when his Roll-A-Bout device broke. It’s expected to set him back about three weeks.

Peters had to have a second surgery to repair his heel.

Ouch. That sucks.

According to Gunn, Peters plans on suing the manufacturer of the device.

After lighting it up for my fantasy football team in 2011, Tennessee Titans WR Kenny Britt decided it would be a good time to tear his ACL and MCL in his right knee. It not only ended his season, it ended my fantasy season.

So, obviously Britt had surgery to repair the injuries, but it’s possible that he could need more. While no second surgery has been scheduled for him, he could possibly need a second, less-invasive surgery to fully repair the knee.

“I think it always is (possible),” head coach Mike Munchak said. “I don’t know if he will at some point, but I think that’s something that’s common with that injury. Derrick went through it last year. The good thing is that even if you do have it, it’s not a huge setback. It’s not something that sets you way back. But that is obviously part of the process, or could be, if that arises down the road.”

The good news is that a second surgery isn’t expected to set him back much.

“We don’t look at as a big deal. You have to look at it as why it’s happening, but it’s something that with guys who have had ACLs this is very common, something that’s gone on at times,” Munchak said. “Sometimes it happens much sooner than Derrick’s did, and sometimes it happens like Derrick’s did, once you get more active. We’ll see. He’s been doing well, running hard, and we’ll just have to see how the knee responds.”

Well, this isn’t good. In the early 2011 draft season, there were many mock drafts and experts who had Clemson DE Da’Quan Bowers as the No. 1-overall pick. Yep, the top pick. But, as we got closer to the draft, his stock fell due to concerns about his knee, which had microfracture surgery on it.

Ok, fair enough. But, he clearly had top-end ability, so I thought it was a great move by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they nabbed him in the second round. And while most of his rookie season didn’t produce much, he did show signs of his ability towards the end of the year, even if they entire defense stunk on ice.

Well, now things just got worse. Bowers will undergo surgery after tearing his Achilles tendon during the offseason program Thursday. This virtually assures that Michael Bennett and Adrian Clayborn will be starting defensive ends this year.

This doesn’t help Tampa’s defense at all, and it was awful before this. If you’re planning on betting on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year, I’d take the points as they are probably going to be getting a lot of them.

Not sure what to think of Bowers’ prospects moving forward, but microfracture knee surgery and a torn Achilles would certainly have to take its toll on him.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Raiders WR Darrius Heyward-Bey has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. Specifically, he was charged Thursday with DUI after an incident last month.

Heyward-Bey was pulled over around 2 a.m. on April 7 after his 2012 Range Rover was spotted driving erratically. He was given a field sobriety test and failed, although the police didn’t say what his BAC was. 0.08 is the legal limit.

Police said that he was “very cooperative.” They brought him in on suspicion of DUI and was later released.

That is, until now. He’s officially been charged with DUI now and could face discipline from the league. Although it should be noted that he doesn’t have a history of legal issues.

Being a bust is, in fact, legal.

As those of you who read OTR religiously know, Baltimore Ravens LB Terrell Suggs tore his Achilles tendon recently. Okay, so we never mentioned that, but you’re not a religious OTR reader anyway, so you wouldn’t know.

So yeah, Suggs tore his Achilles recently and will have to have surgery to repair it. That usually means (like in the case of Philadelphia Eagles T Jason Peters) that you’re done for the season. But, Suggs says that it was just a “partial Achilles tear” and that he’ll be back by midseason.

Suggs says that all the reports that had him out for the season “make it so much sweeter when I run out of that tunnel and prove everyone wrong.”

He also thinks that he’ll be better than he was before once he gets healthy.

“I’ve never had a real bad injury before,” Suggs said. “Sometimes you have to go through something like this to make you better.”

So yeah, the New Orleans Saints got smacked down following their little bounty scandal. We already knew the fates of guys like Gregg Williams, Sean Payton and Joe Vitt, but today we found out what happened to the players.

The big one for the players was Jonathan Vilma, the linebacker who apparently offered $10,000 to anyone who could knock Kurt Warner out of the Divisional Playoff game, or Brett Favre out of the NFC Championship game. Vilma was suspended from just about every football-related activity you could think of for one full year.

That’s a lot and that’s unprecedented.

And as you may have guessed, Vilma doesn’t appreciate it (especially because he reportedly found out about it via the television). And he released a statement saying as much.

“I am shocked and extremely disappointed by the NFL’s decision to suspend me for the 2012 season,” Vilma said in the statement. “Commissioner Roger Goodell has refused to share any of the supposed evidence he claims supports this unprecedented punishment. The reason is clear: I never paid, or intended to pay, $10,000, or any amount of money, to any player for knocking Kurt Warner, Brett Favre or any other player out of the 2009 Divisional playoff game, 2010 NFC Championship Game or any other game.

“I never set out to intentionally hurt any player and never enticed any teammate to intentionally hurt another player. I also never put any money into a bounty pool or helped to create a bounty pool intended to pay out money for injuring other players. I have always conducted myself in a professional and proud manner.

“I intend to fight this injustice, to defend my reputation, to stand up for my team and my profession, and to send a clear signal to the commissioner that the process has failed, to the detriment of me, my teammates, the New Orleans Saints and the game.”

I think he has a point if the NFL never once told him what this evidence was against him. Whether he did it or not, you’d at least think he has a right to know why the NFL came to this conclusion.

It’s not known at this time if Vilma plans to join a bowling league with Sean Payton.

Responsible journalists usually handle these types of stories with caution, as you don’t want to rush to print a story about someone being dead when they aren’t. But, OTR wants no part of responsible journalism, so we’ll pass along what TMZ is reporting.

According to TMZ, former San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots LB Junior Seau was found dead in his California home today, the result of gun shot wounds.

It wouldn’t be crazy to think it was a suicide. Remember, back in 2010 Seau drove his SUV off of a cliff and claimed he wasn’t trying to kill himself, but that he fell asleep at the wheel.

Seau was 43-years old and left behind an ex-wife and three children. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: From TMZ – 11:33 AM PDT — Law enforcement sources tell us … Seau died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

The New York Giants lost Brandon Jacobs this offseason to the San Francisco 49ers. It’s not a huge deal as he wasn’t cheap and wasn’t very good either. So, one had to figure that the G-Men would add a running back or two in the draft.

But, the first round? Yep, they picked up Virginia Tech RB David Wilson with their first pick, which has led to speculation about what will come of Ahmad Bradshaw. Has he lost his starting job?

Not so, says GM Jerry Reese; Bradshaw is still the “lead dog.”

“First of all, [Wilson] was the highest player on our board at the time that we picked,” Reese said. “That was an easy pick for us. It was a value and a need pick for us, we thought. We lost Brandon who did a terrific job for us while he was here. We’ve got [Ahmad Bradshaw] and he’s going to be the lead dog for us, but we wanted to get another running back at some point. We didn’t want to sacrifice value, but he was the top player on our board.”

“Lead dog” or not, the Giants have loved using some sort of rotation ever since Tiki Barber retired. We’d expect a healthy dose of both Wilson and Bradshaw.

On Thursday, the Dallas Cowboys jumped up to the No. 6-overall pick so they could grab LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne. They also signed Brandon Carr this offseason and have Orlando Scandrick as their slot guy. So, where does that leave former first-round pick Mike Jenkins?

On the trading block, according to Profootballtalk.com.

“Per league source, with Mo Claiborne in the fold the Cowboys are shopping Mike Jenkins,” PFT tweets.

Jenkins is coming off an injury and is entering the final year of his rookie deal. He’s been very good at times, and woefully awful at others. The Cowboys obviously aren’t thrilled with him or they wouldn’t have traded up to get Claiborne and thrown big free agent money at Carr.

The Cleveland Browns are obviously not thrilled with the progress of Colt McCoy. If they loved him so god damned much, they wouldn’t have drafted OSU QB Brandon Weeden with the No. 22-overall pick.

So what do they do with him? Well, according according to Scout.com, they are considering trading him to the Green Bay Packers, who need a backup QB (or someone to compete with Aaron Rodgers) since Matt Flynn left.

“It’s something we’ll talk about tonight and tomorrow,” Browns general manager Tom Heckert said on Thursday night.

Scout.com says the Packers have some sixth- and seventh-round picks as trade bait, so that would indicate that the Colts aren’t going to get dick in return.

If I’m Colt McCoy, I’d be thrilled to go to the Packers or any team not named the Cleveland Browns.

We mentioned yesterday that the only thing holding up a trade that would send Philadelphia Eagles CB Asante Samuel to the Atlanta Falcons was the re-working of Samuel’s contract. Samuel was due to make about $10 million this year, and he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of drastically reducing that.

Well, according to Jeff McLane on Twitter, the Falcons may have worked that out with Samuel.

“Per a league source, Atlanta has agreed to terms on a 3 yr 18.5 deal for asante samuel,” McLane tweets.

The compensation to the Eagles is expected to be minimal, this should all but complete the trade. The last we heard, the Eagles were getting a sixth-round pick in this year’s Draft. Woo hoo.

At this point, is anyone surprised by any new information that comes out about Gregg Williams and the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal? We’re not. But, it still doesn’t do any good for Williams or the Saints to have more and more damning evidence come to light. After all, Williams would like to be reinstated at some point.

This time, it’s Carolina Panthers WR Steve Smith coming out of the woodwork. On “Dave Dameshek’s Football Program” on NFL.com on Tuesday, Smith said that a Saints defender told him that he would get fined if he didn’t go after Smith’s legs.

“I actually had an altercation with a guy who told me firsthand,” Smith said. “I was going out of bounds, and the guy went for my ankle. I said, ‘Hey, man, cut that out.’ He’s like, ‘Well, we get fined if we don’t go after your legs when you go out of bounds.’”

Wow, that’s not a bounty. That’s being penalized financially for not playing dirty. That’s probably worse than incentivizing cheap shots and injuries.

And Smith says that Williams himself even acknowledged his underhanded tactics.

“And actually this past year, this last game when we played them, I had a little conversation with Gregg Williams. … He took responsibility, he was saying it wasn’t right, but that’s who he was.”

Seriously, NFL, do us a favor and don’t let Williams back in the league. Take a stand and tell him to kick rocks.

It’s widely known that the Philadelphia Eagles are trying to move cornerback Asante Samuel. Fans know it, the media knows it, Asante knows it and dogs know it.

The Atlanta Falcons are the latest team interested and it sources tell Philly.com that trade compensation isn’t what is holding the deal up. Apparently, it’s Asante’s willingness to restructure his contract.

He’s slated to make some $10 million this season, and while he’s willing to rework his contract, he’d like to keep most of that $10 million. This is the same thing that held up a deal with the Denver Broncos recently.

Still, the Eagles would like to get him moved before the start of Thursday’s NFL Draft and are likely to get peanuts in return.

The St. Louis Rams don’t have a lot of good players. If they did, they wouldn’t be drafting so high, so often. One of the few good players they do have is Steven Jackson, a nasty, nasty running back. And apparently, he’s aware of how good he is, because according to Mike Lombardi, he wants a new contract.

“The problem with Steven Jackson is he wants to redo his contract,” Lombardi said. “He’s not happy where he is. … I would suspect that the Rams would (draft) the running back as quickly as they could.”

He’s talking about Alabama’s Trent Richardson. Jackson is only 28-years old, but has eight years of wear and tear on him. And, when it goes it goes. He’s already due base salaries of $7 million in 2012 and 2013.

Jackson could possibly be trade fodder on draft day if the Rams are able to somehow land Richardson. After all, the took Jackson when they still had Marshall Faulk on the roster back in 2004.

We are all well versed now in the bounty program that the New Orleans Saints employed over the last few years. It landed a bunch of coaches in hot water, with head coach Sean Payton getting a full year suspension.

So, then the speculation turned to who would actually coach the Saints this season. Bill Parcells was a name that was brought up repeatedly, but has since been shot down. Now, OTR can cross another name off of that list: Magic Johnson.

A league source tells OTR that Magic Johnson will “absolutely not” be the next head coach of the New Orleans Saints.

“The Saints organization and [owner Tom] Benson absolutely loved Magic as a player and a head coach,” the source said. “They have nothing but the utmost respect for him, but just have no interest in hiring him as the head coach. He will absolutely not be the next guy in charge there. He was once considered a Rooney Rule candidate while a high-level team executive glanced at his autographed 1980 Championship photo, but that was it.”

As it is now, Joe Vitt is the interim head coach. But, he’s suspended for the first six games of the season, so the Saints will need an interim interim head coach for that duration. While we don’t know who it will be for sure yet, expect Magic’s name to resurface during the offseason and training camp.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers CB Aqib Talib came into the league with character issues. No one denied his ability to play football, but there were several red flags regarding his behavior.

And sure enough, those concerns were warranted. He’s had numerous scrapes with the law since joining the NFL and his latest act is probably his best so far. He’s awaiting trial on June 25th for aggravated assault with a handgun. Ok, but who hasn’t fired a weapon at their sister’s boyfriend at one time or another?

So, according to the PewterReport.com, the Bucs have had about enough of him and have made him available via trade.

This says a lot about the Bucs being done with him because he’s an excellent corner and the Bucs have a horrific defense. But, what would they be able to get for him anyway? The Bucs apparently want to pick up a few picks in next week’s draft, but who would give up anything of any significance? He could be in jail by the start of next season. He’ll almost certainly be suspended by the NFL, but we don’t know for how long. He’s got one year left on his contract. Oh, and all of this other stuff aside, you don’t know when the next time will be when he does something stupid.

I think it’s more likely that he gets cut than traded.

Jacksonville Jaguars RB Maurice Jones-Drew (he got married shortly after the NFL Draft) was the league’s leading rusher last season. But, his contract, which has two years remaining on it, says that he’s the eighth best running back in the league. So, there is a bit of a disconnect.

Well, MJD chose not to show up to the Jags voluntary minicamp, and Pete Prisco of CBS Sports says that it’s contract related.

Prisco makes a good point: Why would the Jags do anything with his contract? Yes, you played very well last year and led the NFL in rushing, but you are undersized and showing signs that the agility could be leaving you soon.

When it goes, it goes. And two years is probably the perfect amount of time for the Jaguars to hold onto MJD. He’s probably got two pretty good years left in him and after that it’s anyone’s guess.

I also understand why Jones-Drew wants a new contract. For the reasons I just gave above. He’s not stupid. He knows the clock is ticking on his ability to make meaningful money.

But, the Jaguars shouldn’t budge.

The Baltimore Ravens traded for Lee Evans last year to help them stretch the field. He didn’t stretch much of anything all season because he was battling a busted foot and rarely saw any action.

Now, it seems that the Jacksonville Jaguars are willing to roll the dice and bet that his terrible season was all due to injury, and that he can come back and be productive. According to Adam Schefter, the Jags have signed him to a one-year deal.

Photo Caption: The Ravens were hoping that Evans was on the field for one less play.

“Former Ravens and Bills wide receiver Lee Evans will sign a one-year deal Monday with the Jacksonville Jaguars,” Schefter tweets.

We really like this signing. Evans has been a very nice player throughout his career and just couldn’t get on the field last season. When Mike Thomas and Laurent Robinson are your starters….yeah, we like this signing.

Pittsburgh Steelers WR Mike Wallace is a restricted free agent and has been tendered as such. However, Wallace and his agent are putting it out there that he isn’t going to sign the tender and he isn’t going to report to OTA’s without a long-term contract.

So that begs the question: will someone trade for him?

It’s a logical question, but only if the Steelers would be willing to play ball. And according to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Wallace isn’t going anywhere.

Photo Caption: Wallace asks Larry Fitzgerald if he thinks the Steelers will pay him what the Cardinals gave Fitzgerald.

“@MOver_413: @EdBouchette rumblings mike Wallace gonna be traded… What you got on this?” ain’t happening,” he tweets.

Bouchette knows this team as well as anyone in the media, so we trust him. The truth is, the Steelers have no reason to trade him. So, we’ll be watching this stalemate unfold as OTA’s approach. Let’s see who blinks first.

Everyone remembers the game-winning touchdown pass that Denver Broncos QB Tim Tebow threw to Demaryius Thomas to knock off the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime last year in the playoffs. But, according to Thomas, while everyone remembers that pass, they don’t remember all of the other dung that Tebow slung across the field where his players couldn’t make a play on it.

“It’s a business decision,” Thomas said of the Tebow trade. “I ain’t going to say I was sad because the only thing they remember is that pass. You gotta go back and look at the rest of the games. I wasn’t getting no balls and you had to make some of these plays where some players were open and he is not making the throws, but I don’t want to talk bad about Tim, but hey I am happy we got Peyton.”

Thomas is essentially stating the obviously. No one wants to rag on Tim’s game, except that his game is easy to rag on. Thomas also commented on the whole notion of “Tim Tebow Time.” He correctly points out that without all the defensive heroics, there is no “Tim Tebow Time.”

Thomas was then asked about the trade from a business point of view.

“On the Jets behalf? [Takes a breath and sighs] I ain’t going to say it was a good move, but I really don’t know,” Thomas said in broken English. “I feel like Tim can get better, but it is going to take some time because he’s gotta read the defenses and throwing patterns, but I feel like he thinks he can go out there and take Sanchez’s spot. I ain’t going to talk bad about Sanchez, but he’s not one of the best quarterbacks in the game, so I feel good about Tim going out there.”

So basically you think Tebow and Sanchez both stink? Probably not far off.

Let’s be honest, Felix Jones has just not been worth the first-round pick that the Dallas Cowboys spent on him back in 2008. He gets hurt all the time and just isn’t a load carrier. He’s rarely been the home-run threat they thought he could be either.

So we shouldn’t be too surprised that Calvin Watkins of ESPNDallas.com lists Jones as a roster bubble guy heading into 2012.

Watkins thinks that Jones is a candidate to be cut if they can find a better back in the middle rounds of the draft. They surely want DeMarco Murray to be the guy, but he gets hurt too so they’ll need some more depth.

What’s more, Watkins says that the Cowboys have already had discussions about trading Jones. One would have to think that they’ll move him before or during the draft if they can, and just let him go if they can’t find a trade partner.

Jones might benefit greatly from a fresh start anyway.

The New York Giants wont the Super Bowl last season. They won it for a variety of reasons, but linebacking wasn’t one of them. They’ve been deficient at the position really since Antonio Pierce used to be good.

Well, it looks like they are attempting to improve themselves there, as a source tells the Newark Star-Ledger that the Giants are close to a deal with the Cincinnati Bengals for LB Keith Rivers.

“It’s going to happen,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

While the Giants could benefit from his upside, he hasn’t shown that he has a lot of it so far in his young career. He was taken ninth overall back in 2008, but has been banged up pretty good since then. He also has two career sacks, but luckily the Giants get plenty of those from their front four, so they won’t need him there.

It’s still unclear what Rivers’ role would be. The Giants already have Michael Boley on the weakside, where Rivers has played most of his career. Maybe they’d like to try Boley in the middle? Rivers in the middle? The Giants didn’t run many base defenses last year, so maybe they’ll just continue to mix it up.

UPDATE: The Giants have sent a fifth-round pick in this year’s draft to the Bengals for Rivers.

We heard previously that Jacksonville Jaguars DT Terrance Knighton needed eye surgery following an incident at a nightclub. At the time, we really didn’t know what happened, but to those of who write about athletes and nightclubs for a living (as far as you know), we assumed that he didn’t just fall down on the dance floor.

And he didn’t. While some of these reports conflict a bit, we’ll go ahead and assume it’s all true.

The Florida Times-Union says that Knighton got hit in the face with a bottle of Ciroc vodka in a fight that he did not initiate. They also say that no police report was filed, while a local television station disagrees.

According to WOKV, there was a police report. This would be in direct conflict with the FTU report that says there wasn’t. We did some detective work on that.

They say that an off-duty police officer saw Knighton and his friend Spoon being escorted from the club after they got into a fight with others in the club. The report also says that they repeatedly made threats outside to shoot people. Awesome.

We don’t know the severity of Knighton’s eye injury right now, but was is clear is that he wasn’t an innocent bystander.

One would have to think that free agent wide receiver Jerome Simpson is a very lucky dude. Normally, you wouldn’t think someone that just got sentenced to jail along with probation is lucky, but considering the amount of pot he had at his house, he’s lucky.

A judge has sentence the former Cincinnati Bengal to 15 days in jail and three years probation after he got caught having several pounds of marijuana delivered to his residence.

He was indicted on a felony count of marijuana trafficking, but the plea deal busted it down to prohibited act relating to controlled substances.

Simpson was visiting the St. Louis Rams on Wednesday and we’re sure they will take into account that he’ll be facing league discipline. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got suspended for four games.

Oakland Raiders RB Darren McFadden was brilliant for parts of last year. But, like always, he got hurt. And he screwed a lot of fantasy owners in the process, because the team kept saying he was doing better and would be back shortly.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. So you didn’t make alternate plans to fill his void and stuck with him, only to watch your fantasy season slip away.

Well, now we know why. While the Raiders never said, McFadden went on Sirius Radio and said he actually had a Lisfranc injury.

Photo Caption: Sheldon Brown making Ray Ellis proud!

“It’s a long recovery from a Lisfranc injury,” he said. “… But I’m feeling pretty good now.”

Well that explains that! Lisfranc injuries are nasty and I really wish I had this information a long time ago. Despite the injuries though, McFadden says he won’t change his playing style.

“If you get hurt,” he said, “you just get hurt.”

Yep, and he usually does.

The NFL career of Mikel Leshoure is off to a pretty terrible start. After being selected in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft by the Detroit Lions, he just can’t get things going. He missed all of last year with a torn Achilles tendon and things have just gotten worse.

ESPN 96.1 is reporting that Leshoure is being arraigned on Monday on marijuana possession charges, and it’s his second offense.

Lions beat writer Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press tweets that his first incident occurred on February 18th.

“On Feb. 18, Leshoure was cited in a traffic stop for possession of marijuana. Plead to a lesser charge, use of marijuana. Paid a fine,” Birkett tweets.

This second arrest in March is a little more interesting. According to Birkett, Leshoure tried to eat the pot during a traffic stop.

“He was a passenger in a car this time, pulled over March 12. Chief of police I spoke to said Leshoure tried to eat the weed to avoid charge,” Birkett says.

That must have been quite a scene and one we’d love to see a video of. Still, this is just bad news for a guy who is already behind the eight ball. One would have to think that he’s going to be disciplined by the league.