Although he’s denying the rumor currently floating around soggy Seattle, 2005 NFL MVP Shaun Alexander could be released by the Seattle Seahawks as early as later today. Reports that the running back was going to be let go surfaced about a month ago when it was learned that the Seahawks had signed Julius Jones and T.J. Duckett in free agency. Still, Alexander is sticking to his story that he’s not going anywhere.

“I haven’t heard that,” he said. “I’ve just seen the stuff that has been in the paper lately.”

In 2005 Alexander scored a then-record 28 touchdowns and led the NFL in rushing with 1,880 yards. But his numbers have never been the same. Alexander ran for 896 yards and seven touchdowns in 2006, when he missed six games with a broken bone in his left foot. Last season, when he missed three games because of a sprained left knee and played the rest of the season with a broken bone in his wrist, Alexander ran for 716 yards and four touchdowns.

Great news for football fans: the NFL announced today its full 17-week, 256-game regular-season schedule for 2008! (Doesn’t it seem like it was just yesterday…when the Giants beat the Pats to win the Super Bowl?)

The 2008-09 season kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 4 at 7:00 p.m. EST on NBC between the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. The final week of the regular season will be played out on Dec. 28th with 32 teams in action.

Like last year, the NFL will play one regular season game over in London, England at Wembley Stadium. But the League will also take two teams north of the US border into Canada where on Dec. 7 the Buffalo Bills will host the Miami Dolphins in Toronto at the Rogers Centre.

And of course, Super Bowl XLIII is scheduled to go down at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida on February 1, 2009.

It shouldn’t take the sportsbooks long to get up some great NFL props and odds!

NFL football reigns supreme in North America as it was announced today that the inaugural season for the All American Football League has been turfed due to lack of financial backing.

The league’s chief executive officer, Marcus Katz, said economic conditions forced the decision to scrap plans for this year.

“I invested 29 million dollars in cash to roll out the operations of the league,” Katz told the station, adding he was owed “a lot more money” by a student loan company.

“When I told the board I would subsidize the league, that was before the bond market collapsed,” Katz said.

Oh well. You know the NFL season will be back without a doubt and now’s the best time to make your 2009 Super Bowl bets. The New England Patriots are the favorites at 1/3 odds to win; the Indianapolis Colts are at 7/1 odds to win; San Diego Chargers are 8/1 odds to win; the Dallas Cowboys are the 9/1 favorites to win; while the 2008 Super Bowl champions the New York Giants are the 16/1 odds to win the 2009 Super Bowl.

Depending on your outlook, the New York Giants are the worst Super Bowl champions the NFL has ever produced, or they peaked at just the right time. The futures market for Super Bowl XLIII suggests the former; the Giants opened at 12-1 to retain their title, behind four other teams.

The New England Patriots are next year’s favorites at 3-1; they may or may not bring cornerback Asante Samuel back to Foxborough, but are otherwise expected to be intact from their near-perfect 2007 campaign. That might be a problem – the New England linebacking corps is getting older, not better.

The Giants have a much better chance of playing as well in 2008 as they did during the playoff drive. It all depends on Eli Manning and his continued development into an elite player. “I’ve got to become a better quarterback. That’s my goal,” Manning told the team website. So far, so good.

There will be a new NFL champion this year. The Indianapolis Colts (-11) had the better of the visiting San Diego Chargers on offense Sunday, but two tipped Peyton Manning passes for interceptions were the difference in a 28-24 Chargers victory. San Diego won despite in-game injuries to Philip Rivers and LaDainian Tomlinson.

Indy wasn’t the biggest chalk on the Divisional board. That was the New England Patriots (-13.5) in Saturday’s matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tom Brady was 26-of-28 for three touchdowns, and Laurence Maroney rumbled for 122 yards and a score, but the Jags were sufficiently pesky to grab the cash in a 31-20 loss.

The Pats will now prepare to host the resilient Chargers in the AFC Championship game. It was unknown at press time how the knee injuries suffered by both Rivers and Tomlinson would affect their status for Sunday’s matchup. New England reported no significant injuries.

You’re going to see it mentioned time and again this week. I was among the many who got burned last year picking the home team in the Divisional round of the NFL playoffs. They were 0-4 ATS.

I certainly won’t be shying away from taking the home side in the two AFC Divisional games this weekend. These are two of the best teams ever assembled: the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. They are so good that I have no problem taking New England (-13) over Jacksonville and Indianapolis (-9) over San Diego.

The bye week is the reason home teams (last year notwithstanding) have traditionally done well in this round. It’s going to be of particular use to the Colts, who had a number of nagging injuries on offense and needed the rest. And it’ll be very difficult indeed to out-coach Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy when they’ve had an extra week to prepare.

2007 turned the fantasy football world upside-down. Quarterbacks thrived, while top running backs fell to injury and disuse. Blame it if you like on the ubiquitous Cover 2 defense, and opposing coaches going for the easy short-yardage passes.

In this brave new NFL, Tom Brady is king. His 426.10 fantasy points lead the Bodog leagues heading into the season finale. There is nobody hotter in the league right now, even with the Patriots offense playing at a lower gear these past few weeks. Pats WR Randy Moss has a chance to overtake Dallas QB Tony Romo and Eagles RB Brian Westbrook for second place this week.

Aside from the walking wounded at tailback, the league’s coldest marquee fantasy player might be Tennessee QB Vince Young. He’s thrown nine TD passes on the season compared to 17 interceptions. Over the past three games, Young has two TD passes, three picks and a grand total of 34 yards rushing. Brrrr.

The obvious answer is that the Steelers won more games than anyone else in their division. And they beat their closest pursuers in the North, the Cleveland Browns, twice. And, tellingly, they’re 5-0 within North Division play.

Meanwhile, the Browns showed they’re not quite ready for prime time when they lost at downtrodden Cincinnati Sunday, thanks in large part to four interceptions thrown by Derek Anderson. To win in the NFL in December, or any other month, a team has to be able to run the football on offense and stop the run on defense. And while Pittsburgh was outrushing opponents by 58 yards a game, Cleveland was getting outgrounded by 13 yards per outing. The Browns simply put too much on Anderson’s shoulders. The third-year kid out of Oregon State has had a fine season, no doubt. But he could still end up leading the league in interceptions.

Meanwhile, Big Ben Roethlisberger has had his finest season as a pro, posting a 32/11 TD/INT ratio. So to keep a short story from getting longer, Pittsburgh won the North because they’re the best team in the division.

There’s a certain perverse delight in watching NFL games played in inclement weather. We saw one of those games in Week 15, a bizarre 8-0 win by the Cleveland Browns over the visiting Buffalo Bills. Snow and wind gusts of up to 40 mph turned the Cleveland Browns Stadium into a winter wonderland.
At least the Bills are familiar with these conditions. The victims in the NFL’s two most famous Snow Bowls were warm-weather clubs. In 1985, the Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21-0 at Lambeau Field in the middle of a blizzard. Green Bay racked up 512 yards of offense; Tampa Bay (led by QB Steve Young) managed just 65.
And then there was the Tuck Rule. The New England Patriots dynasty might never have gotten off the ground without that 16-13 victory at Foxboro over the Oakland Raiders in the 2002 AFC Wild Card Game. Oakland fans call it “The Snow Job.”

Why would anyone think Matt Millen would be fired after this season? He wasn’t fired after any of the previous six seasons, when the lowly Lions won two, three, five, six, five and three games. This season, heading into the final weekend, Detroit has won seven games.

Six of those wins came in the first eight weeks, though, so when the Lions lost six in a row, the speculation again heated up about Millen’s job security. And Millen should be canned. It would be hard to make the case that this team, despite its limited run of success this season, is any better than it was when he took over back in 2001. The defense is still porous and the offense is achingly one-dimensional. But will he be fired? No, probably not.

The Lions are in their second season under head coach Rod Marinelli (their fourth in six seasons under Millen), and they did make progress this season. So those seven wins will give the Fords enough of an excuse to keep Millen around, at least for one more year.