Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

New England Patriots' mastermind Bill Belichick leads an NFL-dominated list of the highest-earning coaches in sports.

  Belichick, one of eight NFL coaches in the Forbes top 10, earns an estimated $7.5 million annually. The value, length and other terms of his contract have long been kept under wraps by Belichick and the Patriots.

  Saints coach Sean Payton, suspended without pay for the 2012 season, would be one of the five coaches in the $7 million range which includes Pete Carroll (Seahawks), Jeff Fisher (Rams), Doc Rivers (Celtics) and Mike Shanahan (Redskins).

  Gregg Popovich, recently named NBA Coach of the Year, and Bears head coach Lovie Smith have estimated annual earnings of $6 million.

  Eagles coach Andy Reid is 10th at $5.5 million behind Steelers coach Mike Tomlin and Ken Whisenhunt of the Cardinals ($5.75 million).

Though Joe Vitt will coach the New Orleans Saints in Sean Payton's absence, no one will sit in the suspended coach's chair while he's away.

  The team plans to leave Payton's seat on the bus and plane empty this season as well as in meetings, according to a report in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

  Vitt told the paper that coach's absence is already felt.

  “Since I've been here, as soon as we got off the practice field, Sean and I would go right to a meeting and talk about what we wanted to do differently in the afternoon,” Vitt said. “I didn't have that this year. We also would do a lot of communicating on the practice field. What do you think of this? What do you think of that? That was a huge void right from the get-go and something we're going to have to get used to.”

  Payton is prohibited from speaking with the team about football matters during his suspension and can only talk with a member of the team about a non-football issue with the team's legal counsel present, the paper said.

---Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs and Philadelphia Eagles tackle Jason Peters may forfeit millions in salary because both sustained injuries that fall under the “Nonfootball injury” provision of the collective bargaining agreement, according to an ESPN.com report.

  The Article 20, Section 3 provision of the CBA states: “A player who is placed on a Nonfootball injury or Illness list (“N-F/I”) is not entitled to any compensation under his contract while on such list ...”

  While both players contend they were injured during off-site training sessions, league and union sources told ESPN.com that any injury sustained that happens away from a team's facility or under its direction is considered a “Nonfootball injury.”

---Dallas Cowboys guard Mackenzy Bernadeau, who signed a four-year, $11 million deal in March, had surgery over the weekend to repair a tear in his right hip, according to an ESPN.com report, citing multiple sources.

  The team hopes he can return in 10-12 weeks. Bernadeau has missed most of the offseason conditioning program while rehabbing his hip. He was signed as a starter after spending his first four seasons in Carolina.

---Hall of Famer Deion Sanders has been ordered by a Texas judge to pay $10,550 in monthly child support as a condition of his divorce.

  Sanders and his estranged wife, Pilar, agreed to share custody of their three children for the summer.

  Sanders must pay $3,500 a month for a house where his estranged wife now lives and where their children will occasionally stay. He must also must pay $275,000 in his spouse's recent legal fees.

---An arbitration hearing has been set for May 30 to determine whether NFL commissioner Roger Goodell can punish Saints players for the team's bounties program.

  The players' union has asked arbitrator Stephen Burbank to rule if the players should be punished for the system that the league determined had been operating for three years. The union argues that Burbank, not Goodell, should hear the appeals filed by Jonathan Vilma, suspended for the 2012 season, Will Smith (four games), Anthony Hargrove (eight games) and Scott Fujita (three games).

Right tackle Willie Colon is moving to left guard to make room for the Steelers to install to rookie starters in a new-look offensive line.

  The makeover slides Colon from right tackle, a position that will initially belong to 2011 second-round pick Marcus Gilbert. Gilbert and rookie second-round pick Mike Adams could flip positions during offseason workouts as offensive coaches evaluate the best mix of talent.

  Colon said Wednesday he didn't mind the move, and appreciated the team asked him to change positions with several months to prepare rather than shifting him inside during training camp.

  First-round pick David DeCastro is tops on the depth chart at right guard alongside center Maurkice Pouncey.

  Colon will be backed up by Doug Legursky, a role that could be vital considering Colon has missed 31 total games since 2009 because of injuries.

  Legursky and Ramon Foster, who at 6-6, 325 can also play tackle, will cross-train at multiple positions. Legursky is the primary backup at center to Pouncey and is recovered from a shoulder issue that bothered him last season.

Maurice Jones-Drew's choice not to participate in voluntary workouts in Jacksonville appears to have all the makings of a line-in-the-sand position on his contract. But the Jaguars aren't expected to broach the issue while Jones-Drew is playing hardball.

  The Jaguars denied contract talks have taken place with Jones-Drew, who signed a five-year, $31.5 million deal in 2009. If all other current contracts remain unchanged, Jones-Drew would be the eighth-highest paid player at his position in 2012. He's vastly underpaid relative to two of the NFL's top-salaried running backs and division rivals Chris Johnson (Titans) and Arian Foster (Texans). Add another newly minted tailback, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who signed a seven-year, $96 million deal in September and is also 27 years old, and the basis for a contract flap isn't difficult to unearth.

  Jones-Drew is scheduled to earn $4.45 million for the 2012 season.

  As expected after missing the team's post-draft minicamp, Jones-Drew skipped the start of Jaguars' voluntary organized team activities Tuesday.

  The NFL's leading rusher in 2011 said in April he wasn't attending the team's offseason program and instead would work out on his own. But first-year coach Mike Mularkey said Tuesday the organization was aware of Jones-Drew's motive.

  “It's all voluntary,” Mularkey said. “I wish he was here. He knows we wish he was here. He's talked about trying to get an extension for his contract.”

  With Mularkey and his coaching staff installing new schemes, the presence of the team's star player would be mutually beneficial.

  But Jones-Drew, like veteran Fred Taylor before him, prefers to work out on his own and the franchise doesn't question his ability to prepare physically. He had 1,606 rushing yards, tops in the NFL, last season but his contract might be a sticking point even with a more well-rounded cast around him in 2012.

  Mularkey said he's not planning to get involved in the contract matter.

  Jones-Drew has three straight 1,300-plus-yard seasons since becoming the Jaguars' primary ballcarrier in 2009. He had only four starts in his first three seasons and was a second-round pick out of UCLA in 2006.

League and team officials have steadfastly suggested that there is little or perhaps even no correlation between the NFL's bounty suspensions of four current and former New Orleans players and the various sanctions imposed on Major League Baseball players for violations of that game's drug policy.

  But there figures to be some uneasiness in the NFL offices over the next couple weeks, the expected period of study and deliberation by arbitrator Shyam Das of the appeals of the four “Bountygate” defenders, before he renders a decision on their appeals. Those appeals were to be heard on Wednesday afternoon.

  Das, who has served as an NFL arbitrator since 2004, was canned last week by MLB, where he had also presided over appeals cases since 1999. While baseball officials have stopped short of fully explaining the rationale for the dismissal, it's believed the action was tied to Das' controversial decision to overturn the 50-game suspension of Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun, the National League's reigning most valuable player.

  In addition to the Wednesday hearing, the players will take their case to arbitrator Stephen Burbank on May 30. The argument there is that, even if New Orleans players were paid a bounty, the violation is against the salary cap, and, under the tenets of the CBA, Burbank has jurisdiction.

  For now, though, it's Das at center stage.

  NFL officials, and correctly so, have maintained that the dots between Braun's alleged actions and the purported bounty that was active in New Orleans for three seasons under former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams simply don't connect.

  Outside of the high-powered attorneys that have been retained by Jonathan Vilma, Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith and Scott Fujita, that seems relatively clear. But in appeals cases, where every word and collectively bargained statute is parsed, the prism can be a little more clouded.

  And Das, a veteran arbitrator, has some history of murkiness.

  Beyond the recent Braun case, it was Das who reduced MLB-initiated penalties against pitchers John Rocker in 2000 and Kenny Rogers in 2005. And it may have been Das' role in the Braun case that prompted last week's settlement of an original 100-game suspension of Denver catcher Eliezer Alfonzo.

  A Harvard graduate and a product of the Yale Law School, Das is widely respected by NFL officials, one league executive insisted earlier this week. But that same official noted that Das was held in high regard by MLB for much of his tenure, then added that the arbitrator is a “stickler” for details.

  And, as is typically the case in any appeals, certainly the bounty matter, the devil is in the details and in how they are interpreted. Notable is that none of the four players suspended by the NFL, for terms ranging from three games (Fujita) to the entire 2012 season (Vilma), is basing his appeal on innocence. They are appealing, instead, on jurisdictional grounds, contending that, under the CBA, commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't have purview in their cases.

  Goodell was careful to issue the sanctions as a matter of “conduct detrimental to the league and the game,” not strictly for on-field actions or salary cap violations. In the last two instances, his role in appeals would have been altered. Essentially, the four players involved, by way of their hired mouthpieces, will contend in the first of what figures to be three actions, that the appeals should not be adjudicated by Goodell.

  And that's where the dots between Das and details might connect. The case against Braun was overturned because of the failure of a sample collector to rigidly follow the protocol outlined in baseball's drug program. Not because Das ruled that the Brewers' star clearly had not used performance enhancing substances, but because the collector had kept the sample in his home over a weekend, having obtained it on a Saturday, and not dispatched it via overnight delivery until Monday. The Alfonzo case was settled because of a similar chain-of-custody issue. Again, no insistence that Alfonzo didn't use drugs, but a technicality instead.

  And that's why top NFL executives may be holding their collective breaths until Das offers a decision that upholds Goodell's jurisdiction over the suspensions.

  “We think that we're on pretty firm ground, but you never know how an arbitrator is going to rule,” one league official said. Sports attorneys widely agree with the NFL assessment, but also caution that arbitrations can be unpredictable.

  Outside of trotting out former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White two weeks ago -- the independent counsel retained by the league to review the bounty findings -- the NFL has closely guarded the evidence it has collected in the New Orleans matter. Part of the reason for doing so is to safeguard the confidentiality of informants. It remains doubtful that such evidence will be entered in the appeals, at least not initially, since it has little bearing on the four players' actions right now. And if Das and others decide the affected defenders have nowhere to turn but Goodell, who would then serve as judge and jury, the evidence may never be fully divulged.

  On the other hand, should Das unexpectedly find for the four players, expect Goodell and the NFL to react with guns blazing. And, like baseball, to eventually give the veteran arbitrator Das Boot.

Dallas Cowboys guard Mackenzy Bernadeau, who signed a four-year, $11 million deal in March, had surgery over the weekend to repair a tear in his right hip, according to an ESPN.com report, citing multiple sources.

  The team hopes he can return in 10-12 weeks. Bernadeau has missed most of the offseason conditioning program while rehabbing his hip. He was signed as a starter after spending his first four seasons in Carolina.

Former NFL defensive end Johnny Jolly has received 10 years of “shock” probation by a judge, six months after being sentenced to prison for violating terms of his probation for a drug conviction.

  Jolly, 29, is suspended indefinitely from the NFL. His contract with the Green Bay Packers ended after the 2011 season.

  Jolly was arrested outside a Houston nightclub in July 2008, and charged with possession of at least 200 grams of codeine. He was then charged last year with possession of a compound containing codeine, a controlled substance, after an October traffic stop in Houston. He was further charged with evidence tampering for attempting to conceal the substance from police.

  In November, he was sentenced to six years in prison, but applied for “shock probation,” which allows convicts to ask for early release on probation after experiencing the shock of being in jail. He received the shock probation this week, along with 200 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $500 fine.

Players appealing suspensions stemming from their alleged involvement in the Saints' bounty scandal will collectively have two hearings and likely two different arbitrators in their challenges of Commissioner Roger Goodell's jurisdiction.

  Jonathan Vilma, Anthony Hargrove, Scott Fujita and Will Smith are appealing suspensions beginning with a hearing Wednesday to be heard by Shyam Das. The first grievance is on the basis that Goodell gave up his authority to suspend players for any actions predating the signing of the new collective bargaining agreement in August.

  The other hearing, scheduled for May 30, will challenge Goodell's right to suspend players for on-field actions typically heard by appeals officers Art Shell and Ted Cottrell. Shell is a former player and coach. Cottrell was a longtime defensive coach.

  Vilma was suspended for the 2012 season and Hargrove eight games. Smith (four games) and Fujita (three games) received lesser punishment, but the NFLPA claims, through executive director DeMaurice Smith and union president Domonique Foxworth, that the punishment is unwarranted because the league hasn't turned over a grain of evidence.

  NFL writer Judy Battista of the New York Times reported Wednesday that the NFL does plan to release some of the evidence it has in the bounty case to the public, but is diligently working to protect the sources of the information.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs and Philadelphia Eagles tackle Jason Peters may forfeit millions in salary because both sustained injuries that fall under the “Nonfootball injury” provision of the collective bargaining agreement, according to an ESPN.com report.

  The Article 20, Section 3 provision of the CBA states: “A player who is placed on a Nonfootball injury or Illness list (“N-F/I”) is not entitled to any compensation under his contract while on such list ...”

  While both players contend they were injured during off-site training sessions, league and union sources told ESPN.com that any injury sustained that happens away from a team's facility or under its direction is considered a “Nonfootball injury.”

Though Joe Vitt will coach the New Orleans Saints in Sean Payton's absence, no one will sit in the suspended coach's chair while he's away.

  The team plans to leave Payton's seat on the bus and plane empty this season as well as in meetings, according to a report in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

  Vitt told the paper that coach's absence is already felt.

  “Since I've been here, as soon as we got off the practice field, Sean and I would go right to a meeting and talk about what we wanted to do differently in the afternoon,” Vitt said. “I didn't have that this year. We also would do a lot of communicating on the practice field. What do you think of this? What do you think of that? That was a huge void right from the get-go and something we're going to have to get used to.”

  Payton is prohibited from speaking with the team about football matters during his suspension and can only talk with a member of the team about a non-football issue with the team's legal counsel present, the paper said.