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This is supposed to be a quiet time in the NFL, with players and coaches enjoying the final two weeks of vacation before the start of training camp. Yet the noise coming out of Minneapolis cannot be ignored.
A PhD course for wide receivers is taking place inside the newly constructed football stadium at the University of Minnesota, where last week's instructor was Jerry Rice, the future first-ballot Hall of Famer who holds every major receiving record, and this week's professor is Cris Carter, whose 130 touchdown catches rank fourth in league history.
The sessions are the brainchild of Arizona Cardinals star Larry Fitzgerald, a Minnesota native who's working to have his name mentioned in the same sentence with the greats of the game when he's done playing. Instead of spending the offseason reflecting on his record-breaking performance for the Cardinals in last season's playoffs, Fitzgerald has spent the past two months draining his cell-phone battery to bring talented receivers and cornerbacks for group workouts.
Among the wideouts who have made the trip are Denver's Brandon Marshall, Buffalo's Lee Evans, Green Bay's Greg Jennings, Tampa Bay's Michael Clayton, Minnesota's Sidney Rice and Cleveland rookie Brian Robiskie. Cornerbacks DeAngelo Hall and Malcolm Jenkins have also attended, as have tight ends Matt Spaeth and Dominique Byrd and linebacker James Laurinaitis. Dallas QB Tony Romo is a maybe for next week.
When Evans glanced at the players assembled, he shook his head. It's one thing to get guys to train in Miami during their free time, but Minneapolis? The gathering was a testament to Fitzgerald's powers of persuasion and the players' desire to get better.
"It's an opportunity for me to get a chance to come out here and see some of the things that they do, to work with Cris Carter a little bit and see how he sees things, just be around the guys," says Evans. "I couldn't make it last week when Jerry was here, but I definitely wanted to come up and see what Cris had to say. It's a good deal anytime you can hear something different and try to diversify your game a little bit.
"The way Cris teaches us to run a route, I never heard it put that way. What he was teaching wasn't new. It's just the way he said it that you could relate to. Like they always say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. You've got to find what works for you. It may or may not help you, but it worked for him and you see what kind of career he had."
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