Joey Harrington's four-year run as the Detroit Lions' starting quarterback -- and their leading punching bag -- appears close to finally ending.
The Lions on Thursday agreed on a two-year contract with Josh McCown, an unrestricted free agent who had spent all four years of his career with the Arizona Cardinals.
With the Lions having signed Jon Kitna, a former Cincinnati Bengals backup, to a four-year deal this week, they now have two new quarterbacks to compete for the starting job next season. And that leaves Harrington, who was the third pick in the 2002 draft, moving toward the exit, with the Lions expected to try to trade him or release him.
In January Harrington sounded unenthusiastic about returning to Detroit, questioning whether he could succeed, even with the support of a new coach, in an atmosphere that last season turned poisonous.
Harrington started 11 games in 2005, was benched in favor of his backup, Jeff Garcia, then was blamed by a teammate when coach Steve Mariucci was fired.
Harrington ended up 18-37 in his four seasons in Detroit, but he is hardly alone in deserving blame for the Lions' misfortunes. The team's president, Matt Millen, took over in January 2001 and is already on his third head coach; Rod Marinelli, a Tampa Bay assistant, was hired in January. And in the three previous drafts, Millen selected a wide receiver in the first round, ostensibly to shore up the offense around Harrington, who is being pushed out before he gets near a US$4 million bonus due in June.
Harrington's backup last season, Garcia, signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday.
Garcia and Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb should have plenty to talk about in quarterback meetings.
Garcia's was a three-time Pro Bowl selection for San Francisco.
"I don't have a problem with the guy," Garcia said of Owens at a news conference in Philadelphia. "The guy is a tremendous player on the field. Everyone has seen that, and I have been a part of that. It takes a team to succeed on the field, so no way do I ever point at one person as being the reason why we were winning or losing football games. But he certainly is a difference-maker. If I were able to have the opportunity to be a teammate of his again, I would not back down from it."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier