Titans meet with Waffle House hero
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mike Vrabel had a good excuse for being a few minutes late to his news conference after the Titans’ practice Monday.
After running around with his team in 90-degree heat, the rookie head coach dedicated some time to sitting down in his office with James Shaw Jr., the local hero who wrestled a gun away from a shooter at an Antioch Waffle House on April 22.
“We kind of thought that we would love to meet him and recognize him,” Vrabel said. “I think that things were so sensitive when it just happened and we were kind of in our OTA session. As I had a chance to reflect on it over the summer, we got in contact with him and just wanted to invite him out to camp and have an opportunity to come and visit with our team so our team could meet him and he could meet our players.”
The Waffle House shooting left four dead and injured numerous others.
Shaw, who rushed the gunman and grabbed the hot barrel of an AR-15 to disarm the shooter, was credited with saving numerous lives.
“You get to talk to him and you just really see how calm and controlled he was in the situation,” Vrabel said.
Seahawks LB retires at 24
Linebacker Joshua Perry, 24, announced his retirement Monday, citing his being recently diagnosed with a sixth concussion and his overall mental health as the primary reason.
“Football has been one of the biggest blessings in my life, but recent concerns about concussions and the health of my brain have led me to step away from the game,” Perry wrote in a statement posted Monday to his Twitter account. “I’ve recently sustained my 6th documented concussion. It wasn’t from a high velocity, big contact play. It was a very pedes- trian thing, and that was a huge concern to me. The last thing I want to do is put the health of my brain and my future wellbeing in jeopardy over a game and over a paycheck.”
Perry had been in training camp with the Seahawks, with whom he had signed in June. He was a fourth-round pick by the Chargers in 2016. He played in 15 games for the Chargers as a rookie, started once, and collected 22 tackles. The Chargers placed Perry on injured reserve in 2017 because of a head injury and then released him. The Colts signed him to the practice squad in 2017, eventually promoting him to the active roster. He appeared in two games.
Perry was also a four-year player for Ohio State, registering 296 tackles and
71⁄ sacks. He was a member of the Buck
2 eyes’ 2014 national championship squad.
Perry said in his statement that he plans on staying in Central Ohio and obtain his real estate license and will try to stay close to sports through “writing, TV and radio.”
NFL quieting Jones?
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made headlines about his controversial mandate that players stand “toe on the line” for the playing of the national anthem. The NFL, apparently, told him to stop making them.
According to the “Fort Worth StarTelegram,” Jones was prepared to do a number of interviews with media members Sunday evening in Oxnard, California, where the team holds its training camp, when he and a member of the Cowboys public relations staff told the media that questions about the anthem issue were off limits.
The reason Jones and the public relations staff gave, according to the “StarTelegram,” was that the NFL instructed the Cowboys owner to stop publicly commenting on the issue.
On Wednesday, Jones indicated that the team would not support players who protest social injustice by choosing not to stand on the field during the anthem.
One day later, Jones’ son, Cowboys executive vice president and director of player personnel Stephen Jones, doubled down and hinted that players who don’t follow the team’s mandate would be cut. “If they want to be a Dallas Cowboy, yes,” he said in an interview with KTCK 96.7 FM when asked whether he thought players would obey the directive.
The stance was a departure from a recent pact between the NFL and the NFL Players Association agreeing that “no new rules relating to the anthem will be issued or enforced” until a firm policy had been agreed to.
“I don’t think so,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank said Sunday in an interview with NFL Network when asked if Jerry Jones’ comments impede the progress to forge a national anthem policy compromise. “Jerry is just one owner, and I have a lot of respect for Jerry in many ways. He’s entitled to his feelings. I don’t have to agree with them, but it is what it is. We don’t agree on everything. But I do feel strongly that talking together around the shared concerns and keeping our minds and hearts and spirits on the issues, because the issues are really what’s at risk here.”