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Darrelle Revis was able to secure the No. 24 when he was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but it didn’t come cheap.

A well-placed source told Paul Lukas, who writes Uni Watch for ESPN.com, that Revis paid safety Mark Barron $50,000 to get the No. 24 from the second-year safety.

Barron now wears No. 23.

Because No. 24 is part of Revis’ identity he can claim the $50,000 as a business expense in a tax deduction, Robert Raiola, an accountant with FMRTL in Cranford, N.J., whose clients include athletes, told ESPN.com’s Darren Rovell. Barron, in turn, has to claim it as income.

Revis wore the No. 25 at the University of Pittsburgh but was No. 24 during his six seasons with the New York Jets.

The Pro Bowl cornerback, who was traded to the Buccaneers this offseason, hasn’t practiced with his new teammates as he recovers from a knee injury, but said he expects to be ready to play in Week 1 when Tampa Bay plays at MetLife Stadium against the Jets.

Revis has been running and cutting on his surgically repaired knee this offseason as he works to return.

After acquiring Revis, the Buccaneers signed him to a six-year, $96 million contract.

ESPN.com’s Paul Lukas and Darren Rovell contributed to this report.

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Article source: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9403863/darrelle-revis-paid-50k-get-24-tampa-bay-buccaneers-source

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If you’re looking for an elaborate, Einstein-esque equation to explain the NFL Future Power Rankings, you won’t find one. To divine the projected positioning of each franchise entering the 2016 season, we relied on the simple formula that fueled last year’s project and the informed insights of some of ESPN’s top NFL analysts.

Our experts — Herm Edwards, Mel Kiper, Mike Sando, Gary Horton, Matt Williamson and Field Yates — ranked every team on a 1-to-10 scale across five categories. In doing so, they took the following factors into consideration:

Roster (excluding QB): This category covers each team’s current roster players, emphasizing players selected in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 drafts — players who will form the nucleus of the team in three seasons’ time. Players 27 or older were heavily discounted, as history suggests a rapid decline for NFL players over 30 years of age. Quarterbacks were not included in this category. A rating of 10 represents a team with a number of stars/key contributors still on the upswing or entering their prime; a 1 represents a team that projects to have no significant contributors on its roster in 2016.

Quarterback: This category covers a team’s QB situation, focusing on the future. Does a team have its 2016 starter on the roster and how does that player project in three seasons? A 10 represents a team that projects to have an All-Pro QB at the helm in 2016. A 1 represents a team with no projected 2016 starter in its system.

Draft: This category evaluates a team’s 2013 draft class, a team’s reputation in mining talent from the draft and the number of available picks in 2014, ’15 and ’16. A 10 represents a team that secured a strong 2013 draft class and appears likely to bring in similarly strong classes in 2014, ’15 and ’16. A 1 represents a team that had a poor 2013 draft class and appears unlikely to bring in help through the draft due to its reputation or a lack of future draft picks.

Front office: This category weighs each team’s front office in terms of its ability to manage its roster and bring in new talent via free agency or trades. It also factors in a team’s willingness to spend money and a market’s attraction to free agents. A 10 represents a team that has the ability to spend freely and obtain top-choice talent on a regular basis. A 1 represents a team that has little ability to spend, has no track record of bringing in quality free-agent talent or, worse, has spent big on free agents who have made little-to-no impact.

Coaching: This category analyzes each team’s coaching staff in terms of capability and stability. A 10 represents a team that has a consistently successful coaching staff with low turnover due to firings. A 1 represents an unsuccessful staff that has seen considerable turnover or has a high potential for such turnover between now and the start of the 2016 season.

The raw numbers from the polling were then weighted by the importance of each category — shown in the chart to the right — added together and translated into a 100-point final rating.

See? No crystal balls. No calls to Miss Cleo. No pocket protectors required. Just the astute ability of our analysts to recognize rosters chock-full of young talent and the ability and stability of coaching staffs and front offices to consistently produce high-level results.

It’s important to understand the following, however: No one involved in this project believes the Future Power Rankings will provide chiseled-in-stone standings for the 2016 season. The findings from this project do not mean the first pick of the 2017 draft will slip out of a Goodellian embrace and into a New York Jets hat. Nor do they mean Super Bowl LI will provide a rematch of the Har-Bowl.

The key takeaway from this project? These rankings amount to a long-term vote of confidence from our panelists. The teams at the top have shown enough promise to make our experts believe they will be in the hunt for the Lombardi trophy come 2016. The teams at the bottom? Well, they have some work to do.

Are they doomed? Only time will tell. But in order to foster a brighter future, they must break from their failures in the recent past.

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Article source: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9400750/nfl-future-power-rankings-methodology-rankings

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Tiger Woods‘ sore left elbow will keep him out of competition until the British Open.

Woods said Wednesday on his website that doctors found a strain in his left elbow and advised that he take a few weeks off for rest and treatment. That means he will miss the ATT National next week at Congressional, where he is the defending champion. The tournament benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.

“I was examined after I returned home from the U.S. Open, and the doctors determined I have a left elbow strain,” Woods said. “I have been advised to take a few weeks off, rest and undergo treatment. I’ll be ready to go for the British Open, and I’m looking forward to playing at Muirfield.”

Woods began flexing his left wrist after hacking several shots out of the thick rough at Merion during the first round of the U.S. Open. He said that he was “fine” when the first round was halted by darkness, offered few other details the next morning and only after he finished the second round did he reveal scant details of the injury.

He said it first occurred at The Players Championship, which he won May 12 for his fourth victory this year. But he did not say in which round it occurred, or even the type of shot that caused the injury.

Woods wound up at 13-over 293 at Merion, his worst score ever for a U.S. Open and matching his highest total in any major. Woods said Friday his sore elbow would not have kept him from playing if it were not the U.S. Open. He was not asked about it the rest of the week.

His website said he felt minor discomfort before going to Merion and aggravated the area last week.

It will be the 10th time Woods is unable to defend a title in official PGA Tour events, with six of those related to reconstructive surgery on his left knee after he won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. The last time he failed to defend was in 2010 at Bay Hill, when he was returning from the scandal in his personal life.

Woods extended his regrets to ATT, secondary sponsors and fans in Washington for not being able to play next week, though he indicated he would be at Congressional at some point to support the tournament.

“The ATT National means a lot to me and my foundation,” he said. “It’s especially difficult not defending at my own tournament. It’s going to be a great event, and I look forward to being there to provide my support.”

ATT is under contract as title sponsor through 2014. The Dallas-based company recently announced that it would take over as title sponsor for the Byron Nelson Championship starting in 2015. It also is the longtime title sponsor at Pebble Beach.

The British Open is July 18-21 at Muirfield, where Woods’ bid for the calendar Grand Slam ended in 2002 when he was caught in nasty weather. Woods shot 81 in the third round — 10 players failed to break 80 — for his highest score as a pro.

Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press

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Article source: http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/9403876/tiger-woods-rest-elbow-skip-att-national

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Serena Williams on Wednesday issued a statement implying that comments attributed to her in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine were “what I supposedly said.”

While not blaming the victim in the Steubenville rape case, Williams was quoted as saying “she shouldn’t have put herself in that position” in an interview with the magazine.

“What happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me. I was deeply saddened. For someone to be raped, and at only 16, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved — that of the rape victim and of the accused,” Williams said in a statement Wednesday.

“

What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.

”
– Serena Williams

“I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.

“I have fought all of my career for women’s equality, women’s equal rights, respect in their fields — anything I could do to support women I have done. My prayers and support always goes out to the rape victim. In this case, most especially, to an innocent 16-year-old child.”

The comments that sparked Williams’ statement on Wednesday were made in one paragraph of a lengthy Rolling Stone piece posted online Tuesday about Williams. The 16-time Grand Slam title winner is ranked No. 1 heading into Wimbledon, which starts next week.

Two players from the celebrated Steubenville, Ohio, high school football team were convicted in March of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl; one of the boys was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the girl naked. The case gained widespread attention in part because of the callousness with which other students used social media to gossip about it.

According to the Rolling Stone story, she remarked to the reporter about the Steubenville case after seeing a news report about it on television that the perpetrators of the crime “did something stupid,” and asked: “Do you think it was fair, what they got?”

She adds, “I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you — don’t take drinks from other people.”

And Williams is also quoted as saying: “She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? It could have been much worse. She’s lucky. Obviously I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”

Serena’s controversial comments quickly set off a social media outcry Tuesday, with a firestorm of sharp criticism stirred up on social networks like Twitter and Facebook that her stance was inappropriate, according to USA Today.

Williams is in England preparing for Wimbledon.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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Article source: http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/9402640/serena-williams-backtracks-steubenville-rape-case-comments

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NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. — Investigators plan to execute a search warrant on an Enterprise rental car registered to New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, sources told ABC News, two days after a man’s body was found near the car about a mile from his home.

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Meanwhile, at least seven state troopers on Wednesday searched both sides of a road just off the street where Hernandez lives. The officers used thin poles to pull back plants and search through undergrowth along the road.

Hernandez was cooperative with police Tuesday night, sources told ABC News. The investigation is expected to continue through the week.

State police referred questions to Bristol District Attorney Sam Sutter’s office, which declined to comment. Sports Illustrated reported that the link between Hernandez and the case was a rented Chevrolet Suburban with Rhode Island plates that police had been searching for.

“I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation,” Patriots spokesman Stacey James said.

The search of the vehicle was planned after police spent hours at Hernandez’s sprawling house in an upscale subdivision Tuesday night while another group of officers searched an industrial park where the body of Odin Lloyd, 27, was found Monday evening. Lloyd was shot in the head, ABC’s sources said. His body was discovered in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard not far from a vehicle that had been rented by Hernandez, the sources said.

Lloyd was a linebacker for the semi-pro Boston Bandits football team. The team’s manager told ABC News that Lloyd last practiced with the Bandits on Saturday.

Suffolk County District Attorney Jake Wark told ABC that Lloyd was arrested in 2008 on a misdemeanor charge stemming from a fight.

Hernandez is represented by the Athletes First agency, which said it has no comment “on the Aaron Hernandez situation.” His mother said by phone from Connecticut on Tuesday she had no knowledge of a case involving him.

On Tuesday night, some police officers stood on the front steps of Hernandez’s home and others could be seen inside. Some walked around the driveway and in the garage with flashlights. Before wrapping up their work for the night, one officer took a box out of the massive house.

North Attleborough is south of Boston on the Rhode Island state line, not far from the Patriots’ stadium in Foxborough.

In 38 games, the 6-foot-1, 245-pound Hernandez has 175 receptions for 1,956 yards and 18 touchdowns. He missed 10 games last season with an ankle injury and had shoulder surgery in April, but is expected to be ready for training camp. The Patriots have not said which shoulder was operated on.

Last summer, the Patriots gave Hernandez a five-year contract. It was worth $40 million, according to reports, and came just months after the team locked up Gronkowski through 2019.

“Aaron’s improved a lot,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said at the time. “He’s worked hard, he’s improved a lot in all phases of the game — the passing game, the running game, protection and his overall versatility. He’s doing a good job for us.”

Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.

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Article source: http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/9403377/aaron-hernandez-rental-car-searched-abc

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