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LenDale White sounds off about Pete Carroll

While appearing on Clay Travis’ radio show on 104-5 The Zone in Nashville, former Titans and Seahawks’ running back LenDale White had some unflattering things to say about Pete Carroll and his former coach’s involvement in the USC scandal surrounding Reggie Bush.

On USC (from Larry Brown Sports):

“I don’t want to bad mouth nobody, but as big as this scale is and as much as they (the NCAA) saying somebody took, for you not to know anything is kind of unbelievable to me. I don’t know. If you’re the athletic director I’m pretty sure you get wind of something, that somebody’s put something in your ear. When I was going to school there, and we were partying too much on campus, coaches could show up at our dorm room and tell us to calm the partying down. But you can’t tell if somebody took a $750,000 home? I don’t know. It’s weird to me.”

On his release from the Seahawks:

“I was shocked. I’m still shocked. I would figure if there was a problem or anything needed to be said or done, that my old coach would grab me to the side and whisper something in my ear and tell me step it up or do something different. I would figure that.”

“Thursday (the day before the release) when I was leaving practice, Pete Carroll hugged me and told me everything was going well. I thought everything was fine. I went to Vegas, just having fun for Memorial Day weekend and then I get a call Friday morning telling me they’re going in another (direction). I never really got an explanation.”

“I actually called Pete and asked Pete what was going on. Pete never knows why anything, right? Pete, he beat around the bush. He just said it wasn’t going to work out. He didn’t really give me an answer. He didn’t give me a clear explanation.”

When he showed up to the NFL scouting combine in 2006, White was so out of shape that one GM was actually quoted as saying that he “needed a bra.”

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Baker: Mariners can’t keep Cliff Lee

Despite their recent hot streak, Seattle Times columnist Geoff Baker writes that it’s too late for the Mariners to keep starter Cliff Lee.

Recent play aside, Cliff Lee is likely to be shopped. The Mariners need to start filling holes for next year and beyond and the Lee trade is the best place to start since there is no way he will sign here beyond 2010. He’s in line for a $100-million contract, which he probably has a better shot at getting now than he did last off-season, and is not going to take the massive (try 50 percent) discount the M’s would need to get to keep him. Why would he give them that? He’s been here only two months. … We can dream and dream about a 1-2 punch in the post-season, but this lineup is not good enough to get the M’s there.

Coming into the 2010 season, the Mariners believed that if they pitched well enough and played good defense that they could mask their deficiencies on offense. But seeing as how they’re 13 games back in the AL West and have scored the third fewest runs in baseball, that game plan is shot to hell. Not even Lee and Felix Hernandez can save them.

Baker’s right: at some point, the M’s are going to have to go out and get a big popper for the middle of their lineup. What good is it to have Ichiro on base all the time if he has nobody behind him to knock him in? It’s hard to fault Jack Zduriencik for building the roster around pitching and defense based on the park they play in, but clearly the M’s don’t even have enough offense to be a .500 team.

They need to get a bat in exchange for Lee – that should be Zdurienkcik’s main priority as the trade deadline approaches.


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Favre wants a shot at the Saints…IF he comes back next year, of course

In a shocking development, Brett Favre still hasn’t made up his mind about whether or not to return for another season. But in an interview Thursday morning with the Sun Herald, he did admit that he would like another shot at the defending Super Bowl champs.

‘‘I would love to go beat the Saints. I know I can still play at a high level. Last year was a great year, but it could have been better (winning NFC Championship).’’

Favre of course won’t admit that he’s returning because wants to milk whatever attention people are still paying him for as long as humanly possible. He also hates practice, so the longer he can push off having to return to camp the better.

But there’s little doubt that he’s going to return, or else there would have been more panic in Minnesota this offseason about the Vikings’ quarterback situation. Do you think Brad Childress would have anointed Tarvaris Jackson his starting quarterback in training camp like he did back in May if he knew Favre wasn’t coming back? There’s no way, especially considering the Vikings held on to Sage Rosenfels this offseason.

Lord Favre is coming back.


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Bulls send Hinrich, #17 pick to Wizards

Take that, Miami!

Following in the Heat’s footsteps, the Chicago Bulls are trying to clear even more cap space so they can make a run at two big-name free agents on July 1.

The Chicago Bulls have a deal in place that would move Kirk Hinrich and the 17th pick to the Washington Wizards, freeing up enough cap space to pursue two maximum-salary players on this summer’s free-agent market, sources with knowledge of the Bulls’ plans said Thursday.

It wasn’t immediately clear what Washington would send to Chicago in the trade.

Since it’s a good-faith deal for the time being, there remains a chance it could fall apart. But according to one source, the Sacramento Kings are prepared to make a similar deal with the Bulls in the Wizards’ stead if that were to happen.

Hinrich is a good defender and is talented enough to be the fourth or fifth best player on a contender, so the Bulls are giving up a good player, even though it’s creating the flexibility to sign two max free agents.

Now the Bulls can go to LeBron James and Chris Bosh and offer to sign them both to max or near-max deals to play with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng.

In order to get this much talent together, a team has to have plenty of cap space (check) and 1-2 budding stars that are still on their rookie contracts (check, check). The only con to playing in Chicago is the long shadow of Michael Jordan. Will LeBron want to play in a city where his legacy has almost no chance of measuring up to that of the greatest player ever to play the game?

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