People all over the NFL respect and admire Herm Edwards, and I have never understood why. I'm sure he's a good secondary coach and all, but only because John Lynch and Ronde Barber have said he is. But he seems to take teams that are doing all right and make them progressively worse. He went 41-39 in New York, starting out 10-6 and ending at 4-12. Dick Vermeil bequeathed Edwards a 10-6 team that he promptly took to 4-12 in two short years. And I never quite got why the "You play to win the game" speech was so profound or why anyone would consider it so after he interjected a drama-queeny "Helllllooo?" into the middle of it. Shit, I've been more enlightened by fortune cookies that told me I was about to receive bad financial news -- and then I saw the check! Oooooooh.
Anyway, Edwards is now saying that the Buccaneers broke tampering rules when they signed Jeff Faine during the first day of free agency. Only he's not "saying" it. For a guy who is supposed to be such a straight shooter, he pretty much pussed out of this one.
During a news conference called to announce plans for his football camp in Kansas City, Edwards indicated the Chiefs were as aggressive as NFL rules allowed them to be in pursuing center Jeff Faine and kicker Josh Brown."There were probably some deals done before (the start of the league year)," Edwards said when asked why the Chiefs didn't get in the game with either player. "We didn't cheat. We abided by the rules. That's how you're supposed to do it, and that's what we did."
Faine signed with Tampa Bay in the hours after free-agency began. Brown immediately visited with the Rams and signed with them before the Chiefs could get him to visit.
"You'd have to ask Tampa," Edwards said when asked whether the Bucs were in early on Faine. "I don't know what Tampa did."
Just come out and say it, Herm! Unless you're not totally convinced that Tampa really cheated and you're just using that as an excuse to cover your ass for not getting the players you wanted.
Let's see... "as aggressive as the rules allowed"? Really? Because the Bucs made Faine the highest paid center in the history of the universe. Did you offer that? That might have had something to do with it. And did you know Faine is originally from Orlando and he still owns a home there? And Tampa Bay has a young and aggressive offensive line while the Chiefs' are retiring all their good blockers. Oh, and you live in Kansas City, the town so embarrassed with itself that it's named after a different state altogether. But, yeah, it was tampering. Eat a dick, Herm.
