Source: Drew Brees, Saints far apart

The New Orleans Saints will not have a new contract done for Drew Brees before the start of the season and the two sides remain far apart on a new deal, a source familiar with the talks told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter on Thursday.
Brees, who is in the final year of the six-year, $60 million contract he signed with the Saints as a free agent in 2006, had said his agent Tom Condon and Saints officials have been in talks about an extension.
Brees led the Saints to the 2009 Super Bowl championship. He threw for 4,620 yards and 33 touchdowns last season as the Saints returned to the playoffs as a wild card, losing at Seattle in the first round.
Brees joined the Saints in 2006, leading the team to the NFC Championship Game the year after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and raised doubts about whether the team would remain in Louisiana.
The Saints have made the playoffs three times in Brees' five seasons in New Orleans.

Roger Goodell soaks up football atmosphere after tumultuous summer

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was happy to be back on a football field Thursday evening rather than being in a courtroom.

Six weeks removed from the end of the NFL lockout of its players, Goodell was all smiles as the Green Bay Packers kicked off the 2011 season against the New Orleans Saints

He worked the sidelines before the game greeting former players, corporate sponsors and signing autographs for fans. He spent several minutes chatting with former Packers Super Bowl MVP quarterback Bart Star in the moments before kickoff.

"It is good to be talking about football again, rather than courts and bargaining agreements," Goodell said in an interview with The Business Journal on the field. "This is a great atmosphere and one that I’m glad we are getting to experience."

Goodell said he was glad the league was able to secure a 10-year collective bargaining agreement with its players because it gave the NFL the security it needed.

"We can now move ahead on major priorities know that we are going to have labor peace for the next decade," he said. "It was a good deal for both sides, one in which we both did not get everything we wanted. But we got something done that was in the best interests of the league.”

Goodell said the new collective bargaining agreement was important to teams, such as the Packers, because it maintained the league’s revenue sharing to allow teams like Green Bay to compete against bigger markets.

"It was important for us as a league to ensure that all of our teams will be successful and I believe the players realized that,” he said. "Green Bay has always been a big part of this league and this agreement will only help them continue to compete in the long run."

Aaron Rodgers Disses Mark Sanchez GQ Photos

Jets player, Mark Sanchez was featured on the cover of GQ’s September issue. He spoke candidly about wanting to fight his own coach, shared his recently watched television shows including Justin Beiber’s movie and posed for a spread of sexy photos.
The spread didn’t sit well with a fellow NFL quarterback, who dissed his moonlighting as a model.
“Look at this,” NFL player, Aaron Rodgers told ESPN of Sanchez’s spread in an interview Wednesday. “That’s embarrassing. Page 94 of the GQ thing here. That’s terrible.”
“It’s just not really my style,” Rodgers said. “I like my anonymity. I like my privacy. I like being able to be the quarterback during the week and in the offseason just be able to do what I want to do and not have to be in the public eye.”
Since the public diss, Sanchez responded and made light of the situation.
“I think he was, obviously, making a joke out of it, and that’s fine, giving me a good ribbing like the guys on our team,” said Sanchez in a statement released by the New York Jets. “That’s totally understandable, but I’m just happy that it ended up working out for a good cause and we got to partner with two great companies and one great charity, with Hugo Boss and Tuesday’s Children. It worked out for the better and I can take a little razzing for the way it ended up. I know he’s just joking around, so that’s totally fine.”
In the new issue of GQ, which wasn’t his first time gracing the pages (he posed back in June 2009 too) Sanchez can be seen without a shirt on the field and in a bubble bath but one of the most talked about shots is of him wearing an extra tight pair of white pants inside of a football stadium.
To go with the sexy snaps, was a sizzling interview in which, Sanchez talked to GQ about an incident with his coach, Rex Ryan. Ryan had commented that he would consider benching the star athlete, to which Sanchez said he wished Ryan wouldn’t have been so honest. “I wanted to fight him,” Sanchez told the magazine. “I was really mad.” Sanchez also revealed his love for Broadway shows, even comparing the Broadway performers to himself. “Their life is so regimented—like mine. They have eight shows a week. They have to take care of their bodies, stretch, eat right, take care of their voices. You know, their voice is like my arm.”