The highest individual honor in the NFL is being named "Most Valuable Player" by the Associated Press.

In a sport where every team goes into the season with 53 active players and a hard salary cap figured down to the dollar, it's no wonder that the top award goes to the player who helps his team win games more than anyone else.

Everything is set for 2013.

Every team has a new crop of rookies. Every team has more or less filled its 90 roster spots and spent as much of its $123 million in salary cap space as it's going to. Every team has the coaches, the systems and the players they're going to have for the rest of the year.

Springtime in the NFL is the annual season of optimism and hope. Everything is growing, and everything is new again. Which teams will take advantage of the fresh start and dominate in 2013? Which young, dynamic players will help them take the next step? Which up-and-coming players will ascend to the rarefied air of the truly elite?

Read More »447

Brian Urlacher walked away from the NFL on Wednesday, having announced his retirement via his official Twitter feed.

The 6'4", 260-pound linebacker left behind an incredible legacy: He played 13 seasons and 182 games for the Chicago Bears and was one of the best linebackers in football for almost the entirety of that span.

Urlacher set franchise records for linebackers in solo tackles (1,052), assisted tackles (306), sacks (41.5) and tied Dick Butkus for second place in interceptions (22). Among all defenders, Urlacher's tackle totals are tops in Chicago Bears history. Urlacher's sack total is sixth best, and he's tied for 10th in interceptions.

With eight Pro Bowls and four first-team All-Pro appearances, Urlacher is unquestionably one of the best linebackers of his generation and should be mentioned among the all-time greats. The question is not if he'll be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but if he'll be inducted on the first ballot. 

Read More »117

Has there been a better wide receiver in the NFC East over the last two years than Victor Cruz?

The UMass product burst onto the scene in the middle of the 2011 season, and I doubt that anyone has matched his production over the last 24 games. Sounds like a guy you'd want to lock down long-term, right?

Not if you're the New York Giants.

Cruz finished 2012 with 86 catches and 10 receiving touchdowns...only to be thanked with a shoddy one-year, $2.8 million tender offer from his team.

Read More »47

The game of professional football has changed.

Offenses are more complex, with more athletic weapons spread more widely across the field. Pass-rushers come around both corners and through every gap in the line. Tight ends and running backs are receivers, not blockers, and beating modern hybrid-front defenses with athleticism is a necessity, not a luxury.

More than ever, wins are built on the back of the quarterback. As evidence, look at Andrew Luck, who in one season transformed the Indianapolis Colts from 2-14 league backmarkers to an 11-5 playoff squad.

Quarterbacks can't just look the part anymore. It's not enough just to have the "right stuff."

Read More »155

We're back. 

Fellow NFL Lead Writer Aaron Nagler and I climb back behind the mics to bring our NFL podcast out of hiatus. The Go Route Podcast returns after a 362-day layoff to drop some SMOKING HOT FOOTBALL TAKES on all of the happenings across the NFL. 

Among the litany of topics covered in this week's show:

We also riff on our topic du semaine: What would a J.J. Abrams NFL look like? Who would serve as the commissioner in such a universe? How would his vision compare to the modern-day NFL? Just thinking about it, I can almost feel the lens flares burning out my eyeballs already. 

Aaron and I tackle these topics and more in our second incarnation of The Go Route Podcast. Check out our podcast here, because we'll only be making it better in the coming weeks, including video formatting and more. Enjoy it and leave your own thoughts on our topics in the comments below. And this time...thanks for listening. 

Read More »0

The Atlanta Falcons will be getting a new stadium in time for the 2017 season. It will be an open-air facility that many expect to compete for Super Bowl-hosting duties upon completion. 

There's just one glaring issue: the city already has an NFL stadium, one that's barely 20 years old. But the plan is to demolish the Georgia Dome as soon as the new, currently-unnamed arena is completed. 

What a waste. 

The NFL seems to be in an almost cannibalistic quest to get new stadiums in place for its teams, regardless of the costs for the cities that host them. While the accounting is made less and less obvious for these projects, it's still clear that the teams themselves are only interested in footing as little of the bill as possible. 

And once another team gets a new stadium, all the other teams want their own home fields updated as well. This, coupled with declines in game-day attendance league-wide, presents a scenario where a building like the Georgia Dome would meet an early demise. 

Read More »41

Sometimes it's hard to figure out how NFL teams scout and sign free agents. Players with short, questionable track records land monster contracts, and players with Hall of Fame résumés coming off solid seasons can't get a sniff.

Age, injury and lack of production can all rightfully scare NFL teams away from offering big contracts to free agents—but in the middle of May, the big money has already been spent.

With OTAs just getting underway, there are still plenty of quality veterans still waiting for their phones to ring, still waiting for an opportunity to prove they can step in and make a team better.

Maybe they'll get picked up once the first wave of OTAs is complete and head coaches realize they can't scrape by with an unproven player at that position after all. Maybe their phones will ring when an injury strikes and a team needs immediate help. 

Read More »110

Free agency isn't the panacea it was once thought to be, but it can certainly be used to augment a team's talent base. Occasionally, however, free agency produces a player who makes a major difference for his squad and helps take his team to the proverbial "next level."

In the video above, Josh Zerkle, Michael Schottey and I give our takes on which free agents are set to have the biggest impact on the offensive side of the ball. 

Let us know where you agree or disagree in the comments below, and let us know if there's anyone we should have included. 

Read More »40