NC Sports Clients Vrabel and Dawson Named to Peter King’s All-Pro Team

I think, as a sort of Fairness in Voting deal, I am going to list my ballot for the annual All-Pro Team that the Associated Press has 50 members do each year. The AP recommends we vote for a left and right tackle, strong and free safety, et cetera. My team, with comments where appropriate:

Defense
OLB: Mike Vrabel, New England. One of the best free-agent signings ever.

Specialists
K: Phil Dawson, Cleveland. This year's Vinatieri.

Bo Pelini is a superstar

Big Ten has the Bucks, but SEC coaches pull in the big bucks

December 31, 2007

Doug Lesmerises

Columbus -- As Ohio State's defensive coordinator, Jim Heacock leads the No. 1 defense in the country. As LSU's defensive coordinator, Bo Pelini leads the No. 2 defense in the country.

Heacock won the Broyles Award this year as the nation's top assistant college football coach. Pelini won an even greater reward -- he will leave after the BCS National Championship game to coach Nebraska.

What will separate them when the Buckeyes and the Tigers meet in the New Orleans Superdome in a week? How about $161,000 in base salary.

Pelini made $400,000 in base salary this season as part of a package that a source said pushed him over the $500,000 mark. Heacock made $239,000 and earned an extra month's bonus, worth about $20,000, for OSU's Big Ten title and another for the Buckeyes' bowl appearance.

"Bo is a superstar," said his agent, Neil Cornrich of Beachwood-based NC Sports, who represents many top head coaches and assistants. "You look at where he's gone and what he's done, it's unbelievable."

After sliding to college from the NFL, Pelini succeeded at Nebraska in 2003, winning a bowl game as interim coach when Frank Solich was fired. Moving on, he reached the national title game as the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma the next year, then was hired by LSU. He is compensated as a hot commodity.

Vrabel as a replacement for Brady?

December 30, 2007

By Jim Donaldson

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- "Mike Vrabel is a guy who I'm not surprised by anything he's able to do."

So said Richard Seymour, after Vrabel put the finishing touch on the Patriots' perfect season by cleanly catching Lawrence Tynes' onside kick at the New York 41 with just over a minute remaining, preserving New England's historic, come-from-behind, 38-35 victory.

The players sent on to the field when an onside kick is expected are known as the "Hands" team. And, if you're surprised that a linebacker would be on it, well, you haven't been watching Vrabel in his seven seasons with the Patriots.

Vrabel has a great pair of hands, as he's demonstrated time after time playing tight end in goal-line situations.

He has caught 10 passes for the Patriots over the years, and all of them have been for touchdowns. Two of them have come this season, and two others were in Super Bowls -- one against Carolina, the other against Philadelphia. He once had two TD catches in one game -- against the Jets in 2005.

But it's on defense that he primarily earns his paycheck. He leads the team this year with a career-high 11 1/2 sacks. Although he doesn't have an interception this year, he has had 10 since coming to New England from Pittsburgh as a free agent in 2001.

"He's a football player," Seymour said. "He makes a lot of plays. If Tom Brady were to do down, he could probably step in and play quarterback."

He also has 10 career interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown.