NFL
– The Raiders have acquired QB Carson Palmer from the Bengals for a 1st-round pick in 2012 and a conditional 1st-round pick in 2013. A great deal by Cincy, who, after a long and stubborn holdout, finally trade a player who was pushed aside in the organization for a pair of 1st-round draft picks. Palmer is now reunited with Hue Jackson, who was an assistant in Cincy from 2004-06. While Palmer isn’t going to set the world on fire in his return, he’s an upgrade over QB Kyle Boller and immediately becomes the No. 1 quarterback on a team desperately thin at pivot. QB Jason Campbell, set to become a free agent after this season, will probably not be brought back. The Raiders play the Chiefs this week, before a Week 8 bye. Despite the acquisition, Oakland is expected to remain a run-heavy offence.
After trading their 2012 1st-round pick to the Bengals, the Raiders have now traded away their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th-round picks in next spring’s draft. They could become the first team since the 1989 Raiders to make no picks in the first 4 rounds of a draft. That year, the Raiders traded away their draft picks in each of the first 5 rounds.
1st round: Traded to Bengals for Carson Palmer
2nd round: Traded to Patriots for 2011 3rd- and 4th-rd picks
3rd round: Exercised in 2011 Supplemental Draft (Terrelle Pryor)
4th round: Traded to Redskins for Jason Campbell
5th round: Still own pick
6th round: Still own pick
7th round: Traded to Seahawks for Aaron Curry
– The Eagles are “letting it be known” that CB Asante Samuel could be had prior to today’s trade deadline, according to NFL.com’s Jason La Canfora. La Canfora, however, says the odds of a deal going down aren’t great. Samuel has 2-years/$18.8M remaining on his contract and the Eagles, and wit the Eagles in “win now” mode, they’re believed to want players in return, and not draft picks. Samuel will likely keep starting opposite Nnamdi Asomugha for the remainder of the season, with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie acting as the No. 3 corner.
– Bengals’ RB Cedric Benson’s three-game suspension has been reduced to one game and a fine. The Bengals are on a bye this week before taking on the Seahawks in Week 8. Benson, however, is likely to sit that game out. Benson currently ranks ninth in the league with 458 rushing yards, but is averaging just 3.9 YPC.
– Cowboys’ owner/GM Jerry Jones said Tuesday that a RB Tashard Choice trade is now “doubtful.” Jones said that two teams have contacted the Cowboys about Choice, but the offer was likely just a late-round pick. With RB Felix Jones (ankle) expected to miss 2-4 weeks, the Cowboys no longer have the luxury of being able to move him. He climbs into the primary backup spot while Jones remains sidelined.
NHL
– Blue Jackets’ F Jeff Carter (fractured foot) is expected to miss 7-10 days. The team’s first-line centre was placed on the IR. Carter suffered the injury during training camp, but began affecting him now, and because the location of the fracture is close to the one he had a few seasons ago with the Flyers, the Jackets opted to play it safe. GM Scott Howson said,
“There’s some confusion around his injury. He had a bruised foot in training camp, which is still sore. And he’s now got a fracture on the same foot, but it’s not the same injury. It is close to the fracture that he had a couple of years ago in Philadelphia. He has a plate in there with some screws in there. It’s right along the same bone there. So obviously we’re concerned that that bone has broken again. So we’re going to let him rest for the next week to 10 days and then re-evaluable probably the middle of next week.”
TNA
– According to F4WO, fans who were expecting Bobby Roode to have his career-defining moment and win the TNA championship at Bound For Glory were not the only ones dumbfounded and upset after he came up short against Kurt Angle. As we’ve been reporting this week, original plans called for Roode to win at Bound For Glory. Multiple TNA sources have confirmed to us that Roode was scheduled to win the title as late as Sunday afternoon, when Hulk Hogan reportedly convinced Dixie Carter that Bobby Roode was not ready yet. As you can imagine, there is said to be a great deal of resentment in the TNA locker room regarding Hulk Hogan squashing Roode’s title win. There is a feeling among several of TNA’s originals that there’s no hope for them to reach their potential in TNA, and they’re wasting their prime years with a company that will never elevate them to the level of the former WWE & WCW stars in the company.
– According to the PWInsider, Gail Kim, who recently parted ways with WWE, is scheduled to return to TNA Wrestling at tonight’s Impact Wrestling taping in Orlando. Kim claimed last week during an interview with SunSport that she expects to return to TNA, but is in no rush.
“Right now I’m on a little hiatus. I told myself I’d take a little break. They didn’t let me quit so I was forced to take a break!
“I’m not retiring from wrestling, I can say that. I always said – I said it in my last interview with TNA on a Knockout’s DVD – that I always felt like I would return there one day. I’d love to finish up my career there.”
WWE
– Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown tapings featured a Mask vs. Mask match between the two Sin Cara’s. According to F4WO, after WWE announced the Mask vs. Mask match for Friday’s SmackDown, there was a lot of second guessing as to whether the match should air on television. The match is expected to air, and below is some footage of Sin Cara (heel) getting unmasked:
– Chad Dukes of 106.7 The Fan DC’s Lavar Arrington Show with Chad Dukes spoke with WWE Superstar Kevin Nash. Here’s what he had to say about:
On CM Punk/Kevin Nash promo:
Chad Dukes: They had the whole thing with you where they you were being kind of disrespected by him, and they were blurring the lines between what was a shoot and what was a promo…How much…I know you said you didn’t want to work with a script, but did they give you a rough outline of what you to say? Were you okay with everything that was said back to you? Because you’re a guy that did do the things you said; you established a pay scale, you made it so wrestlers could get paid more than they ever had before. You brought that credibility and I felt there was so me disrespect there. How much of that were you okay with and how much of that was actually a shoot?
Nash: Well the thing was I understood what my job was. Going in, my job wasn’t to bury a baby face and come across more witty than he was or anything else. That wasn’t what I was brought in to do. The old Kevin Nash, would at anyone’s cost, would have gotten over. As you get older, and your best friend is very much in charge of the day to day process, and he looks at you and asks you to do something that’s just kind of like ‘Wow, they’ve really got me hog-tied on this one.”
After question on health:
Nash: CM Punk has on the back of his t-shirt “Best in the World.” Ya know? And I said to myself, I said to a bunch of other people ya know, his shirt says best in the world. He’s going to have to prove it if he is going to drag my 52 year old carcass through 14 minutes of a match.
On future of a CM Punk vs. Kevin Nash match:
Chad Dukes: Do you think we’ll get that match with you and Punk? I think a lot of people would still like to see that come to fruition even though he is kind of doing the baby face thing with Hunter right now…You think we’ll ever see that match?
Nash: Absolutely.