NFL GridIron Gab Daily Digest

When NBC's Sunday Night Football returns, former Monday Night Football sideline reporter Michele Tafoya will be joining the operation as a sideline and feature reporter. NBC Sports Group announced the move today.

"Michele is a versatile and experienced reporter who is well versed in the ways of the National Football League," said Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli in a release. Gaudelli, Al Michaels, and director Drew Esocoff worked with Tafoya on Monday Night Football in 2004 and 2005 at ABC. "I can speak for Al and Drew when I say that we're all thrilled to be working with Michele once again."

"This is a wonderful opportunity to work with a group for which I have great respect and admiration," Tafoya said. "I have many friends on this crew and I know how high they set the bar."

Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that the Dolphins will be in line for Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer if and when the Bengal decide to grant his trade request.

That is a gigantic IF as Bengals general manager Mike Brown has not softened his public stance on trading Palmer despite drafting TCU quarterback Andy Dalton to be his quarterback of the future. Palmer has said he will retire rather than stay with the Bengals. It is believed he would prefer to be traded to a West Coast team.

Salguero believes that Palmer is the best quarterback alternative of a group including Marc Bulger, Donovan NcNabb, Vince Young, Matt Flynn, and possibly Kevin Kolb and Kyle Orton.

That is debatable considering the pounding Palmer has taken the past couple of years. No one knows what the Bengals would ask in return for Palmer. It is also fun to speculate how enthusiastic (not) Carson would be to going from the T.Ocho Show to Brandon Marshall.

Tony Romo is getting hitched, and the Cowboys quarterback is scheduled to marry Candice Crawford on May 28th at Arlington Hall. Here’s a picture of the Wedding invite, and one just has to wonder if best pal TE Jason Witten is going to be best man.

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The Redskins inked Wilile Parker and just about every free agent back last season, and in the end, the former two-time Super Bowl winning RB didn’t even make the Skins roster.

That hasn’t stopped Parker from thinking about playing again, as Pro Football Talk.com reports, he didn’t like his time with the Skins, and if he had his way, would go back to the Steel City to play for the Steelers.

Willie Parker, who had a cup of coffee with Washington last year after six years in Pittsburgh, says the players have a different attitude too.

"Being in Washington, they don't care about football. I didn't feel good from day one there. They weren't about football. They were about partying. . . . You appreciate Pittsburgh a little bit more after going somewhere else," Parker said on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh Tuesday.

Parker still wants to play and says he was playing hurt last preseason in Washington, which is why he was lacking explosion.

"If I had my choice, I'd go back to Pittsburgh with my boys," Parker said, before recognizing that's not likely to happen.

Parker still holds the record for the longest run from scrimmage in a Super Bowl when he went 75 yards in the Steelers 21-10 win over Seattle in Super Bowl XL back in February of 2006.

According to Calvin Watkins of ESPNDallas.com, third round running back Demarco Murray is expected to compete with Tashard Choice for the back-up role in 2011 with an eye to being the feature back in 2012.

Murray was the featured back at Oklahoma, rushing for over 1,000 yards two of the last three seasons. He’s had some injury issues but Murray said NFL teams didn’t ask him about it and the Cowboys don’t seem concerned.

Murray has return skills, he returned kicks at OU and the team said it has tape of him catching punts. The team tried to get Felix Jones to catch punts his rookie season and he couldn’t do it on a consistent basis.

The drafting of Murray likely means the end of Marion Barber, who has started since 2008 but appears to have worn down physically. Barber is due $500,000 in June, but that’s on hold because of the lockout.

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Pro Football Talk spoke to Browns GM Tom Heckert on Wednesday, and says that even though he’s the new Madden 12 Golden Boy (that would mean on the cover), don’t expect Peyton Hillis to have as big of a season as he did in 2010 when he ran for 1177 yards and 11 scores.

Peyton Hillis' stock may never be higher. The Madden cover boy is a fan favorite, but he may not get the same chances to rack up big stats in 2011 like he did last year.

Browns G.M. Tom Heckert appeared Wednesday on PFT Live and said he has "high hopes" for second year player Monterrio Hardesty. Heckert also said it was his fault they didn't get Hillis more help last year. "He can do it, but in the long term we're rather him not carry the ball that much," Heckert said.

The team wants to get a long look at last years 2nd round draft pick in Hardesty, who they had high hopes for before he was hurt in training camp for the whole season. Hillis will get carries, just not as many it sounds like as in 2010.

Matt Williamson of Scouts Inc. talked to Mike Sando on ESPN about the pick of QB Colin Kaepernick, and Williamson flat out thinks the QB is going to the perfect team in 2011.

“Cincinnati screwed up taking Andy Dalton over Kaepernick. I hadn’t thought of it in these terms, but we had Greg Cosell on recently and he said Kaepernick is exactly the same guy as Blaine Gabbert, except he has a funky release and plays at Nevada. But by all accounts, he is a Tim Tebow in terms of work ethic, a good Samaritan and loved by all. But he is incredibly athletic, tall, he’s going to add 15 pounds over the summer eating a couple Big Macs, and he has maybe the best arm in the draft and he threw like six interceptions last year.

“Kaepernick is going to the perfect team. He has a great quarterback guru in Jim Harbaugh and there is not the pressure of a first-round pick to say he has to be on the field right away. Bring back Alex Smith to be the stopgap. Maybe he is better than that, but in the end, you look at those two and one is way more talented than the other one. You will go to camp and say, ‘Wow, these guys are not even close, the way the ball comes out of their hand, the way they move.’ “

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Even though the start of the 2011 regular season for the NFL remains in question, there’s still betting to be done, and below are some of the updated odds on who is favorite to win the Super Bowl in 2012 according to Bodog.

"Since this was a unique draft in the sense that no current NFL players were moved around, the draft only had a small impact on the Super Bowl Odds. Carolina, we did feel should drop slightly from 125-1 to 100-1 along with the Detroit Lions who moved from 40-1 to 35-1." -Richard Gardner

Odds to win the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI (as of 5/4/2011)

Green Bay Packers 7/1

New England Patriots 7/1

Pittsburgh Steelers 11/1

San Diego Chargers 12/1

Baltimore Ravens 14/1

New York Jets 14/1

New Orleans Saints 16/1

Indianapolis Colts 16/1

Atlanta Falcons 16/1

Philadelphia Eagles 16/1

Dallas Cowboys 16/1

New York Giants 18/1

Chicago Bears 25/1

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30/1

Minnesota Vikings 35/1

Detroit Lions 35/1

Houston Texans 35/1

Kansas City Chiefs 35/1

Oakland Raiders 40/1

San Francisco 49ers 40/1

St. Louis Rams 40/1

Miami Dolphins 50/1

Tennessee Titans 50/1

Washington Redskins 50/1

Cincinnati Bengals 60/1

Denver Broncos 60/1

Cleveland Browns 65/1

Jacksonville Jaguars 65/1

Arizona Cardinals 75/1

Seattle Seahawks 80/1

Buffalo Bills 100/1

Carolina Panthers 100/1

Ravens Offensive Tackle, Michael Oher launched a Twitter attack on ESPN Draft Analyst Todd McShay about his criticism of players due to character issues.

This is what he said:

Ok [I'm] so tired of the Character issues they are puttiing on [people]!" Oher posted on his Twitter account Tuesday. "What Character issues?!? Somebody tell me? . . . I never got in trouble with the Law . . . yes sir no sir guy . . . But this Todd Mcshay guy acts if he knows [people] on a personal level get real!"

"What if someone was to talk about your son . . . and he had character issues!!," Oher tweeted. "Thats how my family felt. You need to meet [people] first and then judge them not go off what you hear!! . . . And I respect Mel Kiper way more then I respect you…[you're] a joke!!"

McShay has yet to respond.

I not a huge fan of Tweeting information. The computer and the Internet has a way of depersonalizing information and allows people to make comments that they never would in person. It is however the way we communicate and I'm as tuned into social media as the next person and use it frequently as well.I know that it's here to stay. I just think it's negative aspect of human interaction- or lack thereof.

Todd McShay is a analyst who is paid to give his opinion on players. I think Oher is speaking more about McShay making personal comments about people when he has no personal knowledge about them and he may have a point. You can report something from a coach, opponent, or family member but unless you've sat down and met with that person you don't really know much about them.

Perception is reality and for fans who hunger to get the latest news on their draft choices it can portray people in an unfair way.

I'll be very interested to see how McShay responds.

The pressure of again being lambasted by the media and fans must have gotten to Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall, as he is now going back and saying “sorry” for some crazy posts about the recent US killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Mendenhall Wednesday posted a blog entry apologizing for and trying to clarify his tweets regarding Bin Laden’s death.

“I apologize for the timing as such a sensitive matter, but it was not meant to do harm. I apologize to anyone I unintentionally harmed with anything that I said, or any hurtful interpretation that was made and put in my name.”

“What kind of person celebrates death?” Mendenhall wrote on his Twitter. “It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”

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