The Chiefs were looking for some kind of interesting change this year and they were hoping that it would get better for them this year. They brought in a new QB in Matt Cassel, who is expected to do a lot better for the team, because he has experience playing with a good team and good players. But he was helped off the field with an injury last week and is waiting on an MRI for an actual diagnosis. If he can get into the game again, then it will be ok, but there are reports of an MCL problem. Some of the other players that the Chiefs are counting on are also injured in some way this year, so it’s going to be even harder for them to get back into the real playoff hunt. Hopefully the Chiefs will get all their players back into the game and we’ll see what happens!

Devin Hester is reportedly going to take some punts and/or kickoffs in this weekend’s game against the Denver Broncos. It’s going to be an exciting time, because he’s one of the most impressive punt returners in the league. He hasn’t taken too many of them since he scored an opening kickoff touchdown in the Super Bowl a few years ago. Teams have simply learned to kick it too short for him to get it or just kick it out of bounds. Hester has been switched to a wide receiver position in the last year or two, where he has had a certain amount of success. But he really made his name in the NFL as an outstanding returner. He just finds the openings better than most other people do. It will be a lot of fun to watch him try it and hopefully (for Bears fans anyway) he will be able to make some exciting plays!

There are some discussions this week about the video screen that is used at the Dallas Cowboys stadium right now. It is a big hulking electronic thing that hangs a mere 90 feet above the field. It’s big enough for the standards and exceeds the minimum size a little bit. But then it becomes a problem for playing sometimes. It can distract people and players from the game and it’s a bit too big to blend in. So the NFL is looking into it, though Jerry Jones says that he thinks it’s fine. In the NFL, if Jerry Jones says something’s ok, then that’s what goes. But they have to look into it nevertheless. It will be interesting to see what happens and how that ends up happening.

Plaxico Burress, the man who pretty much won the Super Bowl in 2008 for the New York Giants, has now lost a lot of what he had before. We kind of knew this was going to happen. He brought a concealed firearm in to a New York City nightclub and accidentally shot himself in the leg. He was lucky he didn’t hit anyone else or anything like that. But if he had wanted to plead not-guilty, surely the hospital records for a gunshot wound to the leg was going to incriminate him again. The Giants miss him, because his catching helped make them a great team, but they had to release him as soon as the charges were officially filed. Without Plaxico, they might not be able to battle it out as well as they normally can. We shall see, but he looks like he will be in jail for at least 18 months under the sentence that was handed down this week.

This year, Mark Sanchez was one of the biggest new players who came into the NFL. His rookie season has some high expectations put onto it and this made the world very interesting. He did a good job in a partial game in his first preseason game last week. In just a few weeks, it will be extra interesting, because he will be making his first full game start against the Baltimore Ravens, a team with a very impressive defensive strength. But he’s suggesting that it’s too early to say that this is a make-or-break game for him. It may take awhile for him to get into the rhythm of it, but he’s taking the pressure surprisingly well, if his public statements are to be believed.

When Eli Manning takes the field this fall, he will be the most well-paid player in the NFL this year. He just officially signed a 6 year contract extension with the New York Giants and will be working on getting his team back to the Super Bowl. They barely missed out this year, having had a slightly less impressive year than the year before. But he seems to have found the right place for himself as he settles into his routine. Now all they will have to do is get positioned to make a deep playoff run yet again. He has proven it once, so it wont be hard for him to do it again. He will have to show that’s worth 15 million US$ per year now!

Michael Vick is working hard with Tony Dungy to get back into the NFL world. It’s surprising how much the world has turned against Vick over the course of this whole situation. It’s to be expected that people are going to be angry, animal rights interested people and so on. But it’s surprising that hardly a team is willing to even move a finger towards signing him, at least not publicly. He will clearly be on backup to start out with, and he wont even be able to play for the first 6 weeks or so. Tony Dungy is the reigning nice guy of the league and he’s able to get Vick into the meetings for signing and can give Vick a lot of help with PR and also just leading a proper life too. We’ll be watching to see who signs him, because it appears that it’s going to happen in the next few days.

The Arena Football League has shut down for an indefinite period. The AFL has been having trouble with the world of finance over the course of the last few years, possibly suspending the league for the next season. But instead, they’ve suspended everything for the time being. This is unfortunate, but some of the owners are hoping that it will get better so that they can bring the league back. That seems unlikely to happen in the near-term, since they were starting to really lose teams and owners all around the league. The economy just isn’t giving them the niche that they need, so we’ll have to see what the future needs are going to be.

Favre decided against a return to the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings this year. It was going to be really good, but in the end he decided that he wasn’t able to do it physically. He was ready and willing to battle it out, but his shoulder just wouldn’t let him do it. Unfortunately, this put Brad Childress, coach of the Vikings, in a tough position. He now has to turn to two less talented quarterbacks, and now they know that they were 2nd and 3rd choice at some level. Meanwhile, he spent a lot of time following after the Favre game and allowed him to miss preseason practices and such like. It will take awhile for the team to get past this moment, but it will be fine ultimately.