Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre continues to face a civil lawsuit arising from a Mississippi welfare scandal. He has not been accused of criminal misconduct.
He apparently is very confident he won’t be.
Via A.J.. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com, Favre’s lawyers have indicated he will not invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when testifying in the civil lawsuit. The comment was made in connection with an effort by Favre’s lawyers to oppose a an effort by three other defendants to stay the civil case pending the resolution of their criminal cases.
“Favre would be severely prejudiced by a stay,” his lawyer’s wrote. “A stay under these circumstances would unduly delay Favre’s opportunity to have his day in court and clear his name.”
The problem for Favre is that anything he says to clear his name in the civil case could be used against him in a potential criminal case. Or it could spark an investigation for the possibility that Favre failed to tell the truth while under oath in the civil case.
That said, if Favre were to invoke the Fifth Amendment in the civil case, he almost certainly would lose, because he would not be rebutting the evidence introduced against him.
Favre has at all times insisted that he has done nothing wrong in connection with alleged misappropriation of federal welfare funds.
Mason Crosby is one of several veteran kickers still without work. Crosby, though, continues to workout, expecting to get a 17th NFL season.
His time in Green Bay likely is over, with the Packers having drafted Auburn kicker Anders Carlson in the sixth round. But Crosby isn’t ruling out anything.
“Never count anything out in this game,” Crosby told Jason Wilde of ESPN Wisconsin, via Rob Reischel of Forbes. “Weird stuff happens every year, and you never know. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Crosby is the Packers’ all-time leading scorer with 1,918 points. Last season, he made 25-of-29 field goals, a ninth season of at least an 80 percent success rate and his career percentage is 81.4.
The Cowboys are among the teams still in search of a kicker.
“I’ve done it for a long time. I’m a known entity,” Crosby said. “Teams would probably just want to see that I’m ready to go, and I have a little bit left in me.”
Crosby’s three-year, $12.9 million contract expired after the 2022 season, and he remains a street free agent like Robbie Gould, Ryan Succop, Randy Bullock and Brett Maher.
“I’m getting myself ready for training camp and feeling good,” Crosby said. “I’m excited for what this next opportunity holds, and we’ll see what happens.
“It’s been unreal that this is the first time in 16 years that I’ve been a free agent. Been so fortunate and really thankful that through all these years I’ve been able to get a deal done with the Packers before I ever tested the market. So, it’s a little bit unknown.”
The recent column from Packers CEO Mark Murphy, in which he seems to say the Jets will be the featured team on Hard Knocks , mentions an incident of which many were not previously aware.
Joshua Shaw, 27, died last month following an incident at Lambeau Field, where construction was occurring in connection with upgrades to the videoboards. Via WBAY.com, Joshua Shaw was critically injured at the stadium on a Thursday and passed on Saturday.
The Clintonville, Wisconsin resident worked as a carpenter with Mavid Construction, with his father and brother. They were not present when the incident occurred.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating , as it always does when a serious injury happens in the workplace.
Shaw was an organ donor; his heart, liver, and lungs have gone to others in need. “He’s going to be saving six lives with his organs and they said he also will be . . . enhancing, helping others’ health with many other tissues so there will be even more than the six with the organs,” his mother, Bobbie Joe Jarvenpaa, told WBAY.com.
Joshua Shaw’s mother also said that, in high school, he helped encourage a girl who was being bullied
. The girl later told Joshua’s mother that, without his assistance and attention, she would have attempted suicide. The girl, who now lives elsewhere, immediately drove back to Wisconsin upon hearing that Joshua Shaw had died.
Officially, the NFL has not announced which team will appear on Hard Knocks this year. Packers President Mark Murphy says it’s going to be the Jets.
Murphy wrote in his monthly column on Packers.com that he’s ready to see the Jets on Hard Knocks and looking forward to seeing the many former Packers on the team, including Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cobb, Allen Lazard, Adrian Amos, Billy Turner, Tim Boyle, Malik Taylor and Adam Pankey.
“Hard Knocks is a great show and gives fans an inside look at a team’s training camp,” Murphy wrote. “It also provides good publicity for the team. The downside is that it can be a distraction and teams are concerned that other teams can learn information from the show. The best thing to do if you don’t want to be on Hard Knocks is to make the playoffs every year. The league (and HBO) can only require a team to appear on Hard Knocks if they have failed to make the playoffs two years in a row. I’m anxious to see the Jets and the many ex-Packers on Hard Knocks this summer – should be very entertaining.”
No team has volunteered to do Hard Knocks this year, and of the four teams that fit the criteria to be forced to appear on the show, the Jets offer the most compelling story, thanks to Rodgers’ presence. The Jets don’t want to be on the show, but they’re bracing for the NFL to make them , and Murphy thinks that’s going to happen.
News continues to trickle out of ESPN’s on-air layoffs and another former NFL player is among the cuts.
Matt Hasselbeck has been let go from the company, according to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post.
Hasselbeck has been with ESPN since retiring from the league in 2016. He was an analyst on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown pregame show, along with Randy Moss, Tedy Bruschi, Rex Ryan, and host Samantha Ponder.
A Packers sixth-round pick in 1998, Hasselbeck became a franchise quarterback with the Seahawks, helping lead the club to Super Bowl XL in the 2005 season. He is second on Seattle’s all-time list with 29,434 yards passing and third with 174 touchdowns in 138 games.
Hasselbeck was Tennessee’s starting quarterback in 2011, going 9-7. He finished his career with a three-year stint in Indianapolis, compiling a 5-3 record in eight starts in 2015.
ESPN’s NFL coverage is set to have a significantly different look in 2023, as the company has reportedly laid off Steve Young, Todd McShay, and Keyshawn Johnson. Longtime Monday Night Countdown host Suzy Kolber also announced she’s been let go.