NFL Betting News at LinesMaker

NFL Coaches Association Hires Sports Lawyer Cornwell as Chief

The NFL Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion has hired sports lawyer David Corn­well — a fierce critic of NFL Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion head DeMau­rice Smith — as its exec­u­tive director. Corn­well has rep­re­sented both the NFL and the union as well as sev­eral promi­nent NFL play­ers, includ­ing Pitts­burgh Steel­ers quar­ter­back Ben Roeth­lis­berger and Cincin­nati Ben­gals run­ning back Cedric Ben­son. He also was a can­di­date in 2009 to become exec­u­tive direc­tor of the NFLPA, a job that went to Smith. Corn­well slammed Smith on Tues­day night on Sir­ius XM NFL... 

Packers Agree on Deal to Keep TE Finley for Two More Years

Green Bay Pack­ers tight end Jer­michael Fin­ley agreed to a two-year deal with the team Wednes­day, a league source told NFL Net­work insider Jason La Canfora. 2012-s notable free agents Respond­ing to reports of a deal, Fin­ley tweeted, “It’s TRUE! Thank you so much to the Pack­ers orga­ni­za­tion, all of my fans, and my beau­ti­ful wife. Happy Bday. Let’s GO Pack­ers!! Back soon…” The Mil­wau­kee Jour­nal Sen­tinel reported that Fin­ley will receive $ 5.75 mil­lion in 2012 and $ 8.25 mil­lion in 2013. Fin­ley, who was sched­uled to become a free agent,... 

Richardson Has Knee Injury, Won’t Do on-Field Drills at Combine

INDIAN OLIS — Trent Richard­son will not par­tic­i­pate in on-field drills at this week’s NFL Scout­ing Com­bine because of a minor knee injury, a league source said Wednesday. Brooks: RB prospect rankings Richard­son, the for­mer Alabama star who’s con­sid­ered the top run­ning back avail­able in this year’s NFL draft, suf­fered a minor injury in a prac­tice lead­ing up to last month’s BCS national cham­pi­onship game, the source said, and had a “minor scope” about three weeks ago to alle­vi­ate his discomfort. Richard­son has made good progress since then,... 

Shurmur Looks Forward to RG3 Meeting, Praises McCoy

Pat Shur­mur isn’t going to act like it’s unrea­son­able for peo­ple to con­nect the Browns to Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner Robert Grif­fin III. Smith: Your team’s QB or RG3? The Browns had one of the weak­est offenses in foot­ball last sea­son, after all, and Grif­fin would rep­re­sent the promise of finally installing a franchise-type player at quar­ter­back in Cleveland. Shur­mur, the Browns’ coach, isn’t sur­prised many assume his team will make a push for the Bay­lor star. “I think what hap­pens is, there’s a lot that gets said and writ­ten at this time,... 

Benson Hasn’t Talked With Bengals About Future

Given his age, rep­u­ta­tion and flag­ging pro­duc­tion, it’s unlikely Cedric Ben­son would gar­ner much love on the free-agent mar­ket. But that cer­tainly seems to be where he’s headed. Ben­son hasn’t heard from the Ben­gals since the sea­son ended and said dur­ing a guest spot on Sir­ius NFL Radio this week that he’s unclear where he stands with the organization. “I’m not sure,” Ben­son said (via the Cincin­nati Enquirer). “We haven’t had any talks about a new deal.” Though he crossed the 1,000-yard mark for the third straight year in 2011, Ben­son lacked... 

Silver Says Quinn’s Comments Were Taped

Sil­ver says Quinn’s com­ments were taped Posted by Mike Flo­rio on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2012, 12:28 AM EST Mike Sil­ver of Yahoo! Sports has a knack for get­ting peo­ple to say inter­est­ing things on the record. As a result, Mike Sil­ver often is accused of mis­quot­ing peo­ple when the inter­est­ing things they say get other peo­ple talking. As a result, Sil­ver makes sure that peo­ple actu­ally said the things he says they said. Regard­ing the claim by Bron­cos quar­ter­back Brady Quinn that his com­ments ques­tion­ing the humil­ity of Tim Tebow and the deci­sion... 

Cornwell Named NFLCA Executive Director

Corn­well named NFLCA exec­u­tive director Posted by Mike Flo­rio on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012, 5:03 PM EST As expected, the NFL Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion has named sports lawyer David Corn­well the organization’s new exec­u­tive director. The announce­ment came ear­lier today. “The NFL is embark­ing on a period of unprece­dented oppor­tu­ni­ties and coaches will make a vital con­tri­bu­tion in mak­ing those oppor­tu­ni­ties a real­ity,” NFLCA pres­i­dent Jimmy Raye said in a release. “I have known David for 25 years and we believe that his expe­ri­ence and rela­tion­ships... 

Quinn Says He Was Misrepresented in GQ’s Tebow Piece

Now that Brady Quinn has gone and got him­self swept up in the 24-hour news cycle, he’s moved on to dam­age control. As we doc­u­mented ear­lier Tues­day, Quinn had some eyebrow-raising quotes in a GQ piece doc­u­ment­ing the rise of Bron­cos quar­ter­back Tim Tebow. In it, Quinn bemoans the fact nobody sup­ported him with a bill­board and said that some of Tebow’s on-field behav­ior wasn’t “very hum­ble to me.” Of course, when you take Tebow’s name in vain, you bet­ter be ready to duck the light­ning bolts. Quinn does this while cast­ing blame on Michael Sil­ver,... 

Jaworski: Manning Needs to Go to a Super Bowl Contender

Add ESPN’s Ron Jaworski to the grow­ing list of foot­ball pun­dits and per­son­al­i­ties whom have a strong opin­ion on where Pey­ton Man­ning should play next season. Dur­ing an inter­view with WPEN-FM in Philadel­phia, Jaworski said it’s pretty clear to him that Man­ning won’t be back in Indi­anapo­lis for another sea­son and he could see Man­ning move to the Big Apple. La Can­fora: A game of tag “The New York Jets,” Jaworski said, via The Indi­anapo­lis Star. “I love (Jets quar­ter­back) Mark Sanchez, and there are 25 other quar­ter­backs in this league... 

Vikings RB Peterson Says Knee Rehab Ahead of Schedule

Min­nesota Vikings run­ning back Adrian Peter­son knows that it’s a long road back fol­low­ing knee surgery, espe­cially when the oper­a­tion is to repair a torn ante­rior cru­ci­ate ligament. Wyche: Vikings a work in progress But with his knee grad­u­ally regain­ing its strength and a Feb. 28 date to begin run­ning again, Peter­son isn’t afraid to be opti­mistic about when he could play again. “Right now my goal is to be back by the first, the regular-season opener,” Peter­son told “The Dan Patrick Show” on Tues­day. “That’s my goal.” Peter­son under­went...