scores of reporters.

chenyan94 · Verfasst am: 11.10.2018, 11:23 Titel: **scores of reporters.**

Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Dante Fowler expressed little concern about his one-game suspension http://www.packersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-j_mon-moore-jersey , his shoulder injury or his future with the franchise.

The 23-year-old Fowler was equally nonchalant about the progress he seemingly made in the past year.

”Did I go to jail?” he said following the team’s first training camp practice Thursday. ”There we go.”

Fowler spoke publicly for the first time since the NFL suspended him without pay for the season opener at the New York Giants, a one-game penalty for attacking a man in a parking lot near his hometown in July 2017.

Fowler eventually pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of battery, criminal mischief and petty theft. The case was closed in March, with Fowler sentenced to a year of probation and 75 hours of community service.

The NFL handed down its punishment last week.

”We really already knew it was going to happen,” said Fowler, who will be eligible to play Week 2 against New England. ”It’s a situation that happened last year so the NFL finally took it into their hands this year. We talked and they told me what it was going to be. I just appreciate them hearing me out, hearing my side of the story. It could have always been worse, so I’m going to just take this game and be ready when we come back for the Patriots.”

The suspension will cost him $214,000.

Missing additional games could cost him even more.

The Jaguars declined to exercise the fifth-year option in Fowler’s rookie contract in May, likely meaning the third overall pick in the 2015 draft will become a free agent after this season.

A career year could mean a lucrative deal elsewhere.

”Go out there and play as best as I can every Sunday,” he said. ”That’s it.”

Fowler has 53 tackles and 12 sacks in two seasons. He missed his rookie year after tearing a ligament in his left knee during the first day of a rookie minicamp.

He played in every game since his return, but mostly as a backup to Pro Bowler Yannick Ngakoue. The Jags apparently don’t view Fowler in the team’s long-term plans, which is why they declined to pay him $14.2 million in 2019.

His off-filed troubles are partly to blame.

The former Florida standout was arrested last year after confronting a 55-year-old man who made a comment about his driving. St. Petersburg police said Fowler exchanged words with the man before hitting him and knocking off his glasses. Fowler then stepped on the glasses before taking the man’s grocery bag and tossing it in a lake.

Fowler also was arrested in Miami Beach in March 2016 and charged with misdemeanor counts of assault against a police officer and resisting arrest without violence. The charges were later dropped. That arrest came a little more than two weeks after a video surfaced showing Fowler refereeing a violent fight between his girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend. He also has a long list of traffic violations.

”It is something where you have to go out every day and you have to prove (yourself) until you get to a level of consistency where there is trust,” coach Doug Marrone said. ”I think it is a matter of doing the right things each and every day, and we will see how it goes.”

Fowler’s health is his biggest concern these days.

He injured his left shoulder late last season and opened camp on the physically unable to perform list. Incapable of lifting weights for part of the offseason, Fowler lost some pounds. But much like everything else, he doesn’t see it as a concern.

”Well, I’m actually big,” he said with a smile. ”I honestly think it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Weight does not matter with this one. I’m a straight dog. It don’t matter. Once I put on them pads, it’s a wrap. I’m just getting stronger. Coaches are looking out for me and being concerned and looking out for my health, so all I can do is just get stronger and you guys will know when I’m out there again.”

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Rasmus Dahlin is drawing comparisons to a pair of the best defenseman in the game today and to one of the best of all time.

No pressure.

The smooth-skating, play-making Swedish defenseman is expected to become just the third defenseman in the past 20 years to be picked No. 1 in the NHL draft .

”He is so far ahead of anyone else available Montravius Adams Jersey ,” said Joe McDonnell, the Dallas Stars‘ director of amateur scouting. ”We didn’t pay much attention to him this year because if we picked No. 1, we probably wouldn’t have jobs right now. And if we didn’t have the No. 1 pick, we knew we wouldn’t be able to draft him.”

Buffalo is expected to take Dahlin first overall on Friday night and it will be no surprise to some of the best in hockey.

Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom , a seven-time Norris Trophy winner, is one of the people who think Dahlin does compare to him, and some other current star defensemen who happen to be Swedes: Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman.

”He has a lot of tools,” Lidstrom, who has seen Dahlin play and has known of him for a few years, wrote in an email. ”It will be interesting to see his development in the NHL where everyone is better/stronger/faster!”

Since St. Louis selected defenseman Erik Johnson first overall in 2006, the only blue-liner taken No. 1 was Aaron Ekblad in 2014. Ekblad started strong in Florida, becoming an All-Star in his first two seasons and winning the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie, but appeared to take a step back the last two years. Johnson finished 12th in rookie of the year voting and has had a decent career with the Blues and Colorado Avalanche.

”This is one of those years where there’s a generational-type defenseman available and that’s not always the case,” Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman said. ”Everybody says this Dahlin is the best in a while on defense.”

The 18-year-old Dahlin has held his own against grown men over two seasons in a high-level European league. He had seven goals and 13 assists in 41 games this past season with Frolunda of the Swedish Hockey League and was the junior player of the year. As the youngest player in the Olympic men’s hockey tournament, he had an assist in two games while suiting up sparingly for Sweden.

”I think I’m ready right now to play in the NHL,” Dahlin said.

Dahlin is set to become the second Swede taken No. 1 overall, joining Hall of Famer Mats Sundin, who was drafted by Quebec in 1989.

The Detroit Red Wings have leaned on scout Hakan Andersson for nearly three decades to decide who overseas has a chance to play in the world’s best hockey league. Andersson, who knows the hockey landscape as well as anyone overseas, said he has never seen a prospect quite like Dahlin.

”It’s not easy to put him in any category with anyone,” said Andersson, the director of European scouting for the Red Wings. ”It’s hard to say someone is going to be better than Nicklas Lidstrom Colts Game Jerseys , but Dahlin has all the tools to be an unbelievable defenseman. He has Lidstrom’s poise with the puck. He can rush the puck up the ice like Karlsson. And, he’s big and aggressive enough to play the physical game and take people out like Hedman can.”

Still, Dahlin knows he has to improve his play when the other team has the puck and perhaps when he has to push players away from the crease. He is 6-2 but only 181 pounds.

”I need to get stronger,” Dahlin said.

Dahlin does have plenty of strengths on his side.

He can skate well, and effortlessly, in any direction while dangling the puck as if it is attached to his stick with soft hands while keeping his head up. With a left-handed shot, he can send a blur of a one-timer to the back of the net or snap off a wrist shot in a fraction of a second. He’s also a gifted passer.

”I look at him obviously like a Karlsson,” former Buffalo Sabres defenseman Mike Weber, who played with Dahlin last season in Sweden. ”He’s got the same type of skating ability, but I feel like he’s faster. He almost skates like a (Pavel) Datysuk. When you go in and try to hit Datysuk, he would open up his hips one way or the other and be able to spin off you and deke. .. I feel like Ras has that same kind of ability.”

And despite the hype, the young phenom has appeared humble behind the scenes and in front of scores of reporters.

”He really was able to handle that well,” said Weber, an assistant coach for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. ”He’s mature beyond his years. And, the things he tries in practice, and the things he’ll try in a game to do, is pretty unbelievable.”

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AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.

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