| Raider News From Yahoo |
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| Veteran DB Charles Woodson returns to Raiders (The Associated Press) |
| ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -- Charles Woodson is coming back home to Oakland. |
| Charles Woodson returns to Raiders (The SportsXchange) |
| ALAMEDA, Calif. - Charles Woodson's career has come full circle, as the defensive back signed with the Oakland Raiders following a visit with the team Tuesday. |
| Charles Woodson agrees to one-year deal with the Oakland Raiders (Shutdown Corner) |
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Free agent defensive back Charles Woodson is returning to the Oakland Raiders as Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com reports that the 36-year-old has agreed to terms on a one-year contract with the team that selected him with the fourth overall pick of the 1998 NFL draft.
The one-year deal has been confirmed by the Raiders . According to Josina Anderson of ESPN.com, the deal includes a signing bonus of $700,000 and is worth a maximum of $4.3 million .
Woodson, who won the 1997 Heisman Trophy while at the University of Michigan, was the 1998 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and was named to four Pro Bowls during his eight-year stint with the Raiders. Woodson joined the Green Bay Packers in 2006 and in seven seasons Woodson would twice lead the NFL in interceptions (2009, 2011). Woodson was named to four Pro Bowl squads and earned Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2009 before he was moved to safety during a 2012 season where he would nine games with a broken clavicle.
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| Raiders, Charles Woodson agree on one-year deal (Comcast SportsNet Bay Area) |
| Charles Woodson played the first eight seasons of his NFL career in Oakland. After a seven-year hiatus, he is back with the Raiders. |
| Charles Woodson returns to the Raiders (NBC Sports) |
| Charles Woodson is heading back to the team that drafted him. Woodson and the Raiders have agreed to terms on a one-year contract, Jay Glazer of FOX Sports first reported and the Raiders later confirmed. The move comes as no surprise, as Woodson had visited Oakland and the Raiders were one of the few teams… |
| The U.S. Senate may — and should — review the NFL’s tax-exempt status (Shutdown Corner) |
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Recently, you may have heard that the Internal Revenue Service came under some considerable fire for targeting certain groups seeking tax-exempt status while green-lighting others (such as one run by the brother of President Obama), but did you know that the National Football league, an organization that currently rakes in about $10 billion per year in revenue, is also a non-profit organization in the eyes of the government? While you're trying to figure that one out, we've got another one for you. Did you know that the league has been a non-profit organization since 1966, when the NFL merged with the American Football League, and then-commissioner Pete Rozelle folded in the request for an exemption with the request for an anti-trust exemption?
Yes, it's all true. Technically, the NFL is a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization. That part of the Internal Revenue Code "provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual."
It's an interesting wrinkle, because while the NFL's member teams essentially act as a group of individual entities with an overarching partnership governed by the league, the league itself has not always argued so when it was against its benefit. In the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission vs. National Football League et al dispute argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1983, the league argued that it was a single entity, thus exempting it from certain antitrust statutes. The Coliseum Commission (and the Raiders franchise on whose behalf the Commission was responding) said that the league was instead a group of legal entities that act independently. The Court agreed with the Commission and the Raiders, finding that Rozelle had acted in bad faith in Al Davis' attempted move out of Oakland.
When Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ruled against the NFL in the American Needle case in 2010, he more specifically outlined how NFL teams actually operate in practice, as opposed to pure theory.
NFL teams do not possess either the unitary decision-making quality or the single aggregation of economic power characteristic of independent action. Each of them is a substantial, independently owned, independently managed business, whose "general corporate actions are guided or determined" by "separate corporate consciousnesses," and whose "objectives are" not "common." Copperweld, 467 U. S., at 771. They compete with one another, not only on the playing field, but to attract fans, for gate receipts, and for contracts with managerial and playing personnel ...
[...] The fact that the NFL teams share an interest in making the entire league successful and profitable, and that they must cooperate to produce games, provides a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions. Because some of these restraints on competition are necessary to produce the NFL's product, the Rule of Reason generally should apply, and teams' cooperation is likely to be permissible. And depending upon the activity in question, the Rule of Reason can at times be applied without detailed analysis. But the activity at issue in this case is still concerted activity covered for [the ruling's] purposes.
While member teams obviously operate for profit, the interesting wrinkle here is that the league itself claims not to. And one way to avoid profitability is to pay your current and former executives up the wazoo, which the NFL has done. |
| Team Report - NEW YORK GIANTS (The SportsXchange) |
| Giants give LB Curry another chance |
| Team Report - OAKLAND RAIDERS (The SportsXchange) |
| Woodson returning to Raiders |
| Team Report - BALTIMORE RAVENS (The SportsXchange) |
| Elam impresses in Ravens rookie camp |
| Team Report - DENVER BRONCOS (The SportsXchange) |
| Moore tries to put mistake behind him |
| Team Report - NEW YORK JETS (The SportsXchange) |
| Garrard confirms he's retiring |
| Team Report - ARIZONA CARDINALS (The SportsXchange) |
| Arians disappointed in offense |
| Team Report - MIAMI DOLPHINS (The SportsXchange) |
| Tannehill gets in work with new receivers |
| Mt. Rushmore gets painted Silver and Black (NBC Sports) |
| The Mt. Rushmore nomination process descends into the Black Hole. Yes, Raiders fans, it’s time to nominate candidates for the four-person Oakland/L.A/Oakland Mt. Rushmore. Post your favorites below, and then at some point next month you’ll get to vote on the final four from a list that may include Al Davis, John Madden, Ken Stabler,… |
| Seahawks QB Josh Portis released after DUI arrest (Shutdown Corner) |
| With all the talk about the Seattle Seahawks' multiple suspensions for violations of the NFL's substance abuse policy, and the allegedly undisciplined environment those suspensions appear to portray, it could be that backup quarterback Josh Portis did his former team a favor when he was arrested in suspicion of driving under the influence when he was pulled over near Seattle on May 5 . The Seahawks released Portis on Tuesday, just one day after Portis was seen alternating reps with fellow backup quarterbacks Brady Quinn and Jerrod Johnson.
Portis was traveling 80 miles per hour in a 60 miles per hour zone, and according to the arresting officer, performed poorly in field sobriety tests. He registered .092 and .078 in two breath tests. The legal limit in Washington State is .08. It was not a good time for Portis to mess up, given his shaky hold on a roster spot and the team's possible need to prove a point publicly. Portis, who transferred from Florida to Maryland to California (Pa.) in his collegiate career, made some strides as a backup with Seattle over the last few years by impressing coaches with his athleticism and deep arm, but he wasn't able to work that into a move up the depth chart, especially when Russell Wilson ascended as a third-round rookie in 2012, and Matt Flynn was relegated to the role of highly-paid benchwarmer.
Seattle waived Portis in November of 2012 off the practice squad, and brought him back in April after trading Flynn to the Oakland Raiders, but there was no good reason to hang onto him in the face of his arrest, and some pretty good reasons to make a statement. In addition, the OTA performance of Johnson, a 6-foot-5, 251-pound undrafted free agent from Texas A&M, may have sealed Portis' fate. |
| The Time for the Broncos to Sign Charles Woodson is Now (Yahoo! Contributor Network) |
| COMMENTARY | When the Denver Broncos signed strong safety Brian Dawkins in 2009 to a five-year $17 million contract, the team was in a different place. |
| Woodson's Tuesday visit to Raiders raises possibilities (The SportsXchange) |
| ALAMEDA, Calif. -- A soft market has Charles Woodson considering something he wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago -- finishing his career where he started it. |
| Chargers rookie Allen posts video in Raiders hat (Comcast SportsNet Bay Area) |
| Ex-Cal receiver and current Chargers rookie Keenan Allen recently posted a video of himself wearing a Raiders hat, causing a stir among AFC West fans. |
| Raiders continue overhaul (The SportsXchange) |
| ALAMEDA, Calif. -- These aren't your same old Oakland Raiders. |
| Te'o off-limits to media but not Maxim party (The Associated Press) |
| SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Manti Te'o isn't hiding out. He's just not talking to the media. |
| Team Report - HOUSTON TEXANS (The SportsXchange) |
| Focus as OTAs open on injured players |
| Broncos unconcerned McGahee misses OTA (The SportsXchange) |
| DENVER -- Running back Willis McGahee was the only player not accounted for when the Denver Broncos held their first organized team activity of 2013 on Monday. McGahee also missed some OTA time last year, so the absence didn't concern head coach John Fox much. |
| Raiders plan for Woodson visit (The Associated Press) |
| ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -- Charles Woodson will receive quite a greeting from Oakland Raiders fans when he makes a free agent visit to the team's facilities on Tuesday. |
| Jets owner: Goodson met with team about arrest (The SportsXchange) |
| New York Jets owner Woody Johnson told reporters Monday that running back Mike Goodson met with team officials about his arrest Friday on drug and weapons charges. |
| Notes, quotes and observations from first OTA (Comcast SportsNet Bay Area) |
| As the Raiders wrapped up their first day of OTAs, Matt Flynn showed why he is currently atop the depth chart at quarterback. |
| What's the wild card in wooing of Woodson? (Comcast SportsNet Bay Area) |
| Charles Woodson has multiple offers to play in the NFL, but could his NorCal business interests give the Raiders an edge in getting him signed? |