The Buffalo Bills open training camp Friday at St. John Fisher College, and it will be a very bad sign if unhappy offensive left tackle Jason Peters hasn't signed a renegotiated contract by then.
I'm no fan of renegotiated contracts, but Peters is an exception. He signed his current deal before he was converted to left tackle, where he quickly established himself as one of the best in the NFL.
It's no surprise that he feels underpaid when two other starters on the offensive line are being paid much more as imported free agents.
The front office recently signed several other veteran players to nice long-term deals and announced that season-ticket sales have topped 54,200.
The Bills clearly have money to spend, and the longer Peters sits things out, the more fans have to wonder how serious the Bills are about ending their eight-year playoff drought.
Jason Peters is the sort of young player an NFL team should build around — not tick off.
# The first Monday Night Football game of the 2008 NFL season will be Minnesota at Green Bay on Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. In light of recent tampering developments, I believe there is a 0 percent chance that Brett Favre will be wearing a Vikings uniform that night, and a better than 50 percent chance that he'll be the starting QB for the Packers if he unretires.
# One of the best athletes I saw this past weekend was UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. UFC president Dana White wisely made Silva the feature attraction in a free show on Spike TV Saturday night. Silva, jumping from the 185-pound class to 205 pounds, demolished respected opponent James Irvin in the first round. The next time Silva fights, it will be a pay-per-view extravaganza, and a lot of people who were introduced to him Saturday night will be buying it.
# Here's another reason to respect the 2008 Minnesota Twins: They entered Saturday night with a .311 batting average with runners in scoring position. That's by far the best in the majors. ... One struggling Twin is speedy center fielder Carlos "Go Go" Gomez. He's 5-for-52 with 14 strikeouts since July 4. ...
An extra reason to be impressed by Red Wing Randy Ruiz's 24-game hitting streak was that he gets no leg hits. Most long hitting streaks are by players with good speed.
# It's too early to call the Joba Chamberlain switch from setup man-to starting pitcher a flop, but I'm sure the Yankees expected more than a 1-1 record for his first nine starts. The team is 6-3 in his starts. ... The next Oakland A's pitcher to be traded could be reliever Huston Street. ... At least the A's acquired the guy with the best name yet for a pitcher in the Joe Blanton-to-Philadelphia trade: Josh Outman.
# I wonder if Jack Nicklaus' knock on young pro golfers ("If they don't win, they still walk home with a big check") has anything to do with these two facts:
1. He ranks 153rd on the PGA Tour's all-time money list.
2. Tiger Woods made more this season in six events ($5,775,000) than Nicklaus made in his career ($5,734,031).
# Another golf inflation note: Today is the 40th anniversary (July 21, 1968) of Arnold Palmer becoming the first PGA player to reach $1 million in career earnings.
Last year, 99 players topped $1 million in official earnings on the PGA Tour.
# The NFL Network on Tuesday, 8 p.m., will carry a show, The NFL's Top 10 Controversial Calls. The Buffalo Bills playoff loss at Tennessee (the Music City Miracle) will be included, as well it should. I've seen replays of that play 100 times, and I still don't know how the zebras ruled it was a legit Titans TD.
# The unsung hero of Saturday night's 18-17 Rochester Rattlers road victory over the New Jersey Pride was faceoff specialist Alex Smith. Goalkeeper Mike Levin, coming off a Major Lacrosse League Defensive Player of the Week effort, and his defense weren't sharp. The Rattlers dominated in ground balls (46-29) and faceoffs (27-10) but needed a clutch goal by Gavin Prout (off a nice feed from Casey Powell) in the final second for the victory to boost their record to 6-3 with three games left in the regular season.
# Former Rochester Knighthawks favorite and star goaltender Steve Dietrich is on the move again. He was traded by the Buffalo Bandits after his 2006 National Lacrosse League MVP season to Calgary, and the Roughnecks swapped him to the Edmonton Rush last week for goalkeeper Matt King and defenseman Kris Hartzell.
The NLL expansion draft to stock the new Boston team will be Thursday.
Each established team can protect 1 goalkeeper and 13 runners or 2 goalkeepers and 12 runners. A team can lose only one player.
# The Calder Cup champion Chicago Wolves have lost another top veteran player. Free-agent defenseman Brian Fahey signed with the New York Rangers and probably will play for the AHL Hartford Wolf Pack.
# If the Bills ever leave Buffalo, what sort of attractions could 72,000-seat Ralph Wilson Stadium host? Last weekend, it was one of the National Professional Paintball League's Super 7 World Series events, with 120 seven-player teams (including the Rochester Rhythm).
# David Beckham proved his drawing power again Saturday night when 46,754 fans at Giants Stadium watched his Los Angeles Galaxy tie the New York Red Bulls 2-2. It was 3½ times the average home crowd for the Red Bulls. Beckham was a non-factor in the game.
Last year's Galaxy (with Beckham) at Red Bulls game drew 66,237.
# According to The New York Times, disgraced former track and field superstar Marion Jones is among the record number of people who have applied for pardons from President George Bush. His popularity ratings could plunge to new depths if he turned down Jones but pardoned any crooked politicians or former greedy business barons.
# The 140th season of thoroughbred racing at Saratoga Race Course begins Wednesday, and it will be interesting to see if live attendance significantly declines with the high gas prices and weak economy. ... Sensational 3-year-old pacer Somebeachsomewhere no longer is undefeated in 11 career starts, but it took a historic effort to beat him in Saturday night's $1.1 million Meadowlands Pace. He blazed track-record fractions for the half (51.4 seconds) and three-quarters (1:19.1) as the 1-to-9 favorite only to lose by a neck to Art Official ($25.80) in 1:47 (the fastest mile ever by a 3-year-old pacer).
# On this date 132 yeas ago (July 21, 1876), host Princeton won the first team championship.
It came less than one month after Custer's Last Stand.
