NFL News Blog

Alabama’s Dont’a Hightower says the NFL combine offers him an ideal opportunity to prove he’s fully healed. Hightower was one of the nation’s top young linebackers before he tore the anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and meniscus in his left knee four games into the 2009 season.
Read the full story.

Team officials and coaches have tried to avoid any discussion about Peyton Manning during this week’s annual NFL scouting combine. Good luck trying that in a town Manning put on the NFL radar and in a venue he helped build. On Saturday, Kansas City coach Romeo Crennel let it slip that the Chiefs would be [...]

A person familiar with the player told The Associated Press that Markus Zusevics’ NFL combine workout ended Saturday after he injured a pectoral muscle doing bench presses. The person requested anonymity because league officials had not yet released details of the injury. The Iowa tackle measured in Thursday at 6-foot-5 and 303 pounds.
Read the full [...]

Kansas City coach Romeo Crennel says his team would consider signing Peyton Manning — if the four-time league MVP becomes a free agent. Crennel made the comment Saturday at the NFL’s annual scouting combine in Indianapolis. Manning’s future has been a hot topic around the city for months, and with the likelihood the Colts will [...]

Justin Blackmon just wants to be himself. Everybody else is trying to compare him to Calvin Johnson or Dez Bryant or even Terrell Owens. The Oklahoma State receiver is ready to prove his value to NFL scouts before April’s draft even though he won’t be running at this week’s annual scouting combine.
Read the full story. [...]

Cleveland Browns general manager Tom Heckert is not attending the NFL combine in Indianapolis because of an unspecified medical issue. On Friday, WTAM, the team’s flagship radio station reported that Heckert had surgery this week. Team spokesman Neal Gulkis would not comment on the report, saying Heckert’s “personal medical issues are his private affair.
Read the [...]

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard says the city that just hosted its first Super Bowl wants to do it again in the near future. Ballard said Saturday at the NFL combine that within the next couple of years, Indianapolis likely will put a bid together. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said the city did a “fantastic” [...]

Giants general manager Jerry Reese says he’s unsure whether Osi Umenyiora would take less money to finish his career in New York. Instead, Reese believes the recent comments to Umenyiora may have been “taken out of context.” Reese says he understands the motivation behind Umenyiora’s sentiment: He wants to retire having played for only one [...]