NFL Scuttlebutt on a Monday Morning in February

With all the news this week in the world of football, it just goes to prove my previously-posited adage that "there is no off-season anymore".

Let us dip our collective toe into the water to see how it feels:

• Adam Schefter, of the NFL Network, reports the Detroit Lions will trade DT Shaun Rogers within the next week. Four teams have shown interest in Rogers, according to Schefter. So, how does this work? Matt Millen wakes up one morning and decides, "What can I do to shake things up? I know! How 'bout if I trade the team's best defensive player for no discernible reason?!" (Clearly I made that thought-bubble up, since Matt Millen would never use the word 'discernible'.) I know Rogers is a big dude, doesn't have huge stamina and so he becomes something of a liability at the end of a 10+ play drive, but I don't see any reason to get rid of him - can't the Lions just get a guy to spell him on third downs when the big fella is sweating like Ted Stryker in the movie "Airplane" and he's sucking in air like a sailfish on the deck of a sport fisherman's yacht? Getting RID of him seems to be a bit reactionary on the part of the Lions, doesn't it?

Clearly, Matt Millen and Isiah Thomas just continue to pass the mantel of "Seriously, what do I have to do to get fired around this place??" back and forth between the two of them. And as soon as one of them does get the boot, Kevin McHale is eagerly waiting to take the guy's place on that mantel.

• Vikings OT Bryant McKinnie was arrested early Sunday on several charges, including aggravated battery and resisting arrest without violence. Police say McKinnie participated in a large street brawl outside a strip club hours after being thrown out of another nightclub. McKinnie allegedly spit on a patron at the first bar. All I can say is that if I was a nightclub bouncer, and I was asked to roust the 6'8", 335-lb McKinnie, I'd quit on the spot.

• In the "Least Surprising News Item of the Week", New York Jets linebacker Jonathan Vilma has been given permission to shop himself in a trade. With asterisk. According to the Boston Globe, Vilma's camp claims that he's limited to 30 teams, and that the Jets have made it clear that he isn't permitted to shop himself to the New England Patriots.
• People in the media are trying to make this into a big story, as if it's somehow a big story that a team won't send a player to their top division rival. In related news, the Steelers still won't trade with the Browns, the Packers and Bears don't do many deals, and Carl Peterson (GM of the Chiefs) doesn't have Al Davis in his cell phone's Fave Five.

---JohnnyU