NFL GridIron Gab Daily Digest

For a team that simply just needed some good news, the Broncos got some on Wednesday. The club, which has been crushed so far with injuries, is getting back a couple key players in time for their third preseason game Sunday vs the Steelers at home.

First the team saw RB Correll Buckhalter for the first time for awhile on Tuesday. He practiced for the first time since wrenching his back on the first day of training camp, and All-Pro left tackle Ryan Clady will practice Wednesday for the first time since blowing out his left knee in a pickup basketball game in the spring.

“This isn’t one of those things where he’s going to go out there in a hat and kind of go through a walkthrough,” Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said.

“He’ll be out there, and we’re going to go ahead and bring him along just like you would any player that’s coming off of an injury where he’s been away for a period of time.” McDaniels said “the goal is for him to be as ready to go for as long as he could be in the opener”

Denver opens the season in Jacksonville on September 12th. Clady practiced footwork drills with strength coach Rich Tuten on the field a few hours before the Broncos played the Detroit Lions in a preseason game Saturday night.

“Feeling a lot better,” Clady said after the game, when he suggested he was on pace not to miss any regular-season games.

Are you an online nut that travels and still wants to see your favorite team online? Then check out the latest from DirecTV as they are going to offer the ever popular “Sunday Ticket” online.

The service will send streaming video of the games and the Red Zone channel to computers and a range of mobile devices, including the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android, according to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times.

It won’t be cheap, as it will run customers $350, which is $50 more than first-time buyers of the service on DirecTV are paying to watch the out-of-market games and $30 more than existing customers are being charged.

The plan is the result of a test last year in the New York market. "It went well enough to justify rolling it out nationwide," said Robert Mercer, a spokesman for DirecTV, said in Sandomir’s report.

The idea is to get the NFL Sunday Ticket package to football fans who have no access to DirecTV, a satellite programmer.

“We saw fairly small take rates last year [for the Manhattan trial] and we don’t expect to see it being a major revenue driver-it’s just our desire to provide every consumer the opportunity to follow their favorite team,” Alex Kaplan, DirecTV’s senior director of sports marketing, told broadcastcable.com. “But it’s a very small piece of the pie.”

There’s some thoughts among those in the Browns front office that rookie QB Colt McCoy is not exactly going to ever make it as a NFL QB. The Plain Dealer reports that McCoy is on the roster bubble, and that he could find himself flat out cut, as they say he’s one of 8 players on the roster that are on the bubble.

Many Cleveland Browns fans were excited when the Browns were able to land QB Colt McCoy in this past years draft, but is his career over in Cleveland before it has a chance to begin? The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that McCoy is one of 8 players which are on the bubble right now to be cut outright. Now McCoy has been dealing with a sprained thumb and the leaking of this news to the newspaper might be the Browns simply wanting to light a fire under McCoy, During Brown’s OTA’s this summer, McCoy was said to have looked good, and the plan all along was to bring McCoy along slowly. Browns president Mike Holmgren said during the off season that he had no plans to play McCoy this season.

The Raiders got great news on Tuesday as running back Darren McFadden practiced for the first time in more than two weeks. Reports say that the guy expected to be the teams feature back in 2010 will make his preseason debut this weekend against the 49′ers.

McFadden ran with the Raiders’ first-team offense, breaking off two long runs during a team scrimmage and later hauling in a deep pass from quarterback Jason Campbell in a 7-on-7 drill. That was encouraging for Oakland, which lost wide receiver Chaz Schilens indefinitely after the third-year pro had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. No timetable has been set for his return.

McFadden had not practiced since August 7th, when he pulled up with a sore hamstring during the team’s morning practice. McFadden sat out Oakland’s first two preseason games, with Michael Bush, Rock Cartwright and Michael Bennett splitting the carries in the backfield.

“I felt good. I felt like I was able to do everything that I’m supposed to do,” McFadden said after emerging from the Raiders’ locker room 45 minutes after practice ended. “I haven’t talked about (playing time) with the coaches. But for me, I feel like I’m full go, so I’ll hit it full go.”

With about two weeks to the opener, the Steelers continue to work as they get ready for their real final preseason test in Denver Sunday night (we all know no one will really play vs the Panthers a week from Thursday). With that, there are still question marks on the roster, and areas to talk about.

Here are some positions that people have expressed concern about. We’ll take a poll below on what area you think the team has the most question marks in.

Offensive Line – Things seemed in panic mode after Willie Colon was lost for the year, but then the team inked Flozell Adams. It was back to panic mode after the game against the Lions, but the team showed up nicely for the 2nd preseason game Saturday against a decent to good Giants team, and ran the ball well.

Right now the O-line looks like this: LT Starks, LG Kemoeatu, C Hartings (with Pouncey waiting in the wings), RG Essex, RT Adams.

I am not as concerned about the line as some people, as Ben will get sacked like always, but some are on him and others on the line. My concern if any would be run blocking, and they showed me a lot Saturday night. Let’s hope that continues.

Wide Receiver – Right now the starters are clearly Hines Ward and Mike Wallace, and Wallace showed again his speed on Saturday with a long TD catch from Byron Leftwich. It’s been a good competition in camp with rookies Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders, and vet Antwaan Randel El coming back to the team. Arnaz Battle and Tyler Grisham add depth as well, and now that I’ve seen what Brown can do, and Wallace seems like the real deal, this position isn’t nearly as bad as people made it out to be earlier.

Cornerback - Here’s the spot that I have to admit scares me. Ike Taylor will line up at left corner, Bryant McFadden at right, and there’s a bunch of guys fighting for the backup spots. Let’s face it, Taylor is hit or miss, and while I like McFadden, he was awful for the Cardinals last year.

William Gay, Keenan Lewis and Joe Burnett seem to be three guys in the mix, and Crezdon Butler a rookie is also a guy that the club would like to see step up. I know a lot of the secondary success will be measured by the pressure the front 7 puts on the QB, but late in games this unit needs to find a way to make plays, something they didn’t do in 2009.

Defensive Line - The team boats the experience and success of this unit, and while I agree with that, all three guys are 30+, and two of the last three seasons Aaron Smith has been hurt which has killed the teams run stopping ability. The one guy I am excited about it Evander Hood, aka Ziggy. He adds the youth this unit really needs, and it would be good to see him bring the heat late in games and give one of those vets a break.

Smith staying healthy is going to be key, as there is simply no question how much they have missed him in two of the last three seasons he’s been on the shelf.

Seems that the good old Twitter has cost Ochocinco some serious coin. The Bengals WR was fined a whopping $25,000 for Twetting before and during the teams preseason game on Thursday night against the Eagles. The league handed the fine down today:

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was fined $25,000 Tuesday for violating two NFL game policies –- possession of an electronic device and posting messages on a social media site -– during the Bengals’ preseason win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Aug. 20.

Two messages appeared on Ochocinco’s Twitter page during the prohibited period for players to be using social media, which begins 90 minutes prior to kickoff and lasts until post-game media obligations are fulfilled. One Ochocinco message appeared at 6:50 p.m. ET and the second at 9:53 p.m. ET. The game kicked off at 8:07 p.m. ET. The fine was issued by NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Ray Anderson.

With Fantasy Football in high gear, it’s time to get on track with one of the best Fantasy tools out there from our friends at the National Football Post! Now we here at NFL Gridiron Gab will give away 5 of the NFP’s Draft Guide/Total Access Pass combo’s to our readers!

All you have to do is send in the following info:

1. Full name
2. B-Day
3. Email address
4. Zip Code
5. Favorite Team

We will pick 5 winners at random on Thursday and pass them along to National Football Post fantasy guru Joe Fortenbaugh, who will register you in their system. So send your emails with the info to: matt@nflgridirongab.com

If you haven’t seen the Draft Guide/Total Access Pass combo, you get the following:

* Cheatsheets
* “NFP’s Top 200 Big Board”
* Scouting Reports of nearly 400 players

* 2010 Sleepers & Busts
* Fantasy Expert’s Mock Draft
* Live Chats

* Week by week analysis of player performance
* Trade Analysis
* Daily Injury Reports

* Q + A with Joe Fortenbaugh
* Start em Sit ems for each week
* Live Chats
* Weekly Busts – analysis of previous weeks underachievers

So send in the needed info and we’ll announce the five winners on Thursday! Good Luck!

The Mannings are, by and large, a tough breed – Eli and Peyton, that is. No word on Archie’s toughness, as of this posting.

Nonetheless, the New York Giants quarterback, despite suffering a deep cut to his forehead and taking a dozen stitches during the team’s last game on August 16 against the New York Jets, will play and start when the Giants play the Baltimore Ravens this Saturday, according to Reuters.

Manning pretty much validated that piece of information through the team’s website and took some snaps at practice on Monday. I think it goes without saying that Manning is not going to let a gash on his forehead stop him from playing in an exhibition game.