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LaDainian Tomlinson says he believes he has played his last game with the San Diego Chargers.

His comments come after more than a month of saying he did not know what would happen.

The NFL’s most valuable player in 2006 has two years remaining on his contract. He is due a $2 million roster bonus March 5 and would be paid $5 million in total salary in 2010.

Tomlinson tells the newspaper he doesn’t know when the Chargers will release him and that his agent, Tom Condon, might call the club to expedite the process.

Condon didn’t immediately respond to a phone message from the AP.

“All discussions about the future will take place later this month. No decisions have been made,” Chargers spokesman Bill Johnston wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Tomlinson has become one of the most beloved athletes in San Diego history during a nine-year career but his production and speed have been decreasing.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Tony Dungy stands a year removed from retiring after seven seasons as coach of Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts

In 12 months — during which he’s served as an NFL analyst for NBC and a mentor for Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, among other roles — his allegiance hasn’t budged.

Dungy, speaking to The New York Times in Miami, said the Saints couldn’t do enough to force the Colts into needing a final, last-minute drive to win the Super Bowl.

“I think they’re going to be so far ahead that people are going to say, ‘Oh, ho-hum, he played a good game, they won by two scores, the Colts won their second championship,’ ” Dungy said of Manning on Thursday. “He’s going to have those rings Sunday night. I don’t think it’s going to be close.”

Click here to read the full article – By of ESPN.com

The obscene gesture for which Jets coach Rex Ryan was fined $50,000 came in reaction to a fan’s heckling that included spitting, according to FoxSports.com’s Jay Glazer.

Ryan, who this season led the Jets to the AFC Championship Game in his first year as an NFL head coach, “showed the greatest restraint,” Glazer said Thursday on New York radio station WFAN.

Glazer said he saw the incident that occurred Saturday night at a mixed martial arts event in South Florida.

Ryan was caught in a widely circulated cell-phone photograph extending his middle finger, presumably at the heckling fan.

Click here to read the full article – By of ESPN.com

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward sensed trouble as soon as the second quarter started in Super Bowl XLIII. Up to that point, he had relied on adrenaline and painkillers to aid his sprained right knee, but now, neither of those options was helping his cause. His joint throbbed. He grimaced after every play. Ward also knew the upcoming 30-minute halftime session would only make his knee stiffen more.

But Ward never thought about sitting out the remainder of the Steelers’ eventual 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals. He was going to do anything possible to help Pittsburgh win, and he expects Indianapolis Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney — who is saddled with a sprained right ankle this week — to take the same approach against the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday.

“The toughest thing to deal with in these situations is that you mentally think you can do things that you physically can’t,” Ward said. “That’s why I could see Dwight doing well in the first quarter and then struggling after that. But trust me, he’s going to be out there.”

Click here to read the full article – By Jeffri Chadiha of ESPN.com

For two seasons, the Chicago Bears’ Devin Hester was the most electrifying return man in the NFL. Now Hester, the receiver, wouldn’t mind getting back to his roots.

“I know what I’m best at,” Hester said Thursday on “The Waddle & Silvy Show” on ESPN 1000. “The return game is my bread and butter, so if I had to cut back on my receiving and go back to returning, that’s something I would love to do.”

Hester scored 11 regular-season touchdowns on punt and kickoff returns from 2006 to 2007, and brought a kick back for a score in the Super Bowl in 2007. In an effort to get his play-making ability on the field more, Bears coaches turned Hester into a receiver before the 2008 season, and the experiment has had mixed results.

Hester has averaged 54 catches for 711 yards in his two full seasons as a receiver, but his return game has suffered. He hasn’t scored a touchdown on a return since Dec. 30, 2007 against the New Orleans Saints. After returning 31 kicks without a score in 2008, Hester returned just seven in 2009 as Danieal Manning and Johnny Knox got the bulk of the work.

Hester said the coaching staff makes the decisions, and he is willing to do whatever they ask.

Click here to read the full article – By of ESPNChicago.com

Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said Wednesday that several NFL owners are facing a financial shortfall that could create “long-term problems for the league” and ultimately result in a lockout.

As the Ravens prepare for a 2010 season without a salary cap, Bisciotti hinted the NFL could shut down in March 2011 if concessions aren’t made by the players union in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Speaking at a news conference in which team officials looked back at last season and ahead to 2010, Bisciotti insisted many of the 32 NFL teams are struggling to finish in the black.

“I’ve got partners out there right now whose teams are making less money than their linebackers. I think we’ve got an acute problem here with the general profitability of the teams,” Bisciotti said. “We always knew this was not a big cash-flow business, but when you’ve got guys like Jacksonville tarping up 10,000 seats to stop blackouts, when you’ve got teams that are voluntarily staying at the minimum of what they have to spend on the salary cap in order to not go upside down financially, then we already have a structural problem.”

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

The Houston Texans will pick up the $10 million option bonus payment in the contract of Pro Bowl MVP quarterback Matt Schaub, according to a league source.

The option will be picked up as early as Thursday and no later than Friday. Once the Texans officially notify Schaub of this with a letter, the quarterback will be obligated to Houston for the next three seasons at roughly $28 million.

The move comes in the same week they extended head coach Gary Kubiak’s contract through 2012.

Schaub initially signed a six-year, $48 million contract with the Texans in March 2007. The deal also included an option bonus payment of $10 million due no later than five days after Super Bowl XLIV, which will be played Sunday in Miami. With Houston having until the end of next week to do it, they will do it as early as Thursday.

Click here to read the full article – By Adam Schefter of ESPN.com

Dick Jauron is back in the NFL.

The former Bills head coach was hired Wednesday by the Philadelphia Eagles as a senior assistant/defensive backs coach.

“Long before he became a defensive coordinator and head coach in this league, Dick Jauron was considered to be one of, if not the best defensive backs coaches in the game,” Eagles head coach Andy Reid said. “We welcome his experience and knowledge of the game and look forward to adding him to our defensive coaching staff.”

Jauron replaces Brian Stewart, who left after one season to become defensive coordinator at the University of Houston. Jauron was fired by the Bills in November after a 3-6 start. He was 24-33 in Buffalo in three-plus seasons.

Jauron was 35-46 as Chicago’s coach from 1999 to 2003, and 1-4 as Detroit’s interim coach in 2005. Jauron previously worked with Reid in Green Bay on Mike Holmgren’s staff in the early 1990s.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Just as the Indianapolis Colts say they will extend quarterback Peyton Manning’s contract this offseason, the New Orleans Saints will do the same for their quarterback, Drew Brees, according to sources close to the situation.

The Saints intend to redo Brees’ deal later this year to bring his salary more in line with the game’s top quarterbacks. This season Brees was the 17th-highest paid quarterback in the league, yet he finished second in the league in MVP voting and led New Orleans to the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

New Orleans considered extending Brees’ contract last offseason, but opted to wait another year. Now that it has, the price only has risen with Brees performing the way he has. Should the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV, Brees practically would be able to name his price.

Discussions on a new deal have yet to begin, but they will this offseason. A contract is expected to be wrapped up by the time the Saints report to training camp if not during it, but nobody around the league expects Brees to play the 2010 season under the six-year, $60 million contract that he signed in March 2006.

Click here to read the full article – By Adam Schefter of ESPN.com

How many football lives does Darren Sharper have?

We’ve counted him out at least twice before. There was his departure from Green Bay after the 2004 season, one spurred because the Packers thought he was in marked decline. The next season, Sharper was an All-Pro in Minnesota.

After last season, the Vikings thought he couldn’t help them anymore, and like the Packers, they let him depart via free agency. After two months on the market, New Orleans signed him to a one-year deal worth about $1.5 million.

In 2009, he was an All-Pro once again.

Sharper’s career renaissance with the Saints has been a testament to conditioning, motivation and smart instincts. More than anything, however, it provided a template for how to use, waste and misjudge the specific skills of a player.

In 2004, the Packers blamed a lack of speed — rather than a knee injury — on Sharper’s decline in play. From 2006-08, the Vikings squeezed him into a Cover 2 scheme that minimized his playmaking abilities.

Click here to read the full article – By Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com