Defensive lineman Jared Allen retired from the NFL in 2015 | general | Forum

His solution: The Olympics.The problem: He didn’t compete in any Olympic sports.Less than a year later Greedy Williams Jersey , Allen and three other former NFL stars — none with any prior experience — are attempting to qualify for the U.S. national curling championships against players who have been throwing stones for most of their lives.It would be the first step toward competing in the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.“Every team in the NFL — whether you’re hot garbage or the defending Super Bowl champions — every coach come August says the same thing: ‘We’re trying to win the Super Bowl,'” Allen said. “We come from that mentality, where we set lofty goals.“Our short-term goals are continually to get better: fundamentals, strategy, sweeping. We know if we master these little things, it will take us a long way.”A 12-year NFL veteran who spent most of his career with the Chiefs and Vikings, Allen was lamenting the end of his playing days when a friend dared him to try an Olympic sport. Allen toyed with the idea of badminton but rejected it as too taxing.“We thought about curling: It was chill, and the winners have to buy the losers beer,” he said. “We thought it was a win-win.”He rounded up former Rams quarterback Marc Bulger and Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck and tackle Michael Roos to form a team; all were Pro Bowl selections during their NFL careers, and living in the Nashville, Tennessee, area.Adopting the name All-Pro Curling Team, they started from scratch in March and kept their plans under wraps until they felt like they had made enough progress.“We wanted the reaction when we got on the ice to be, ‘Oh, how long have you guys been doing this?” Allen said in a telephone interview after practicing on a converted hockey rink in Nashville. “We were serious. We didn’t want it to seem like it was just some media hype, or just trying to stay relevant.”The first test was in November, when Allen and Bulger — with two “regular” curlers — competed in the Curl Mesabi Classic in Northern Minnesota. Their first opponent: The gold medal-winning team from Pyeongchang led by four-time Olympian John Shuster.They lost 11-3, giving up five points in the sixth end.“Honestly, they were a little better than I had expected,” said Matt Hamilton http://www.ravensfootballauthe…..-authentic , the second on that team. “All in all, Jared was technically pretty sound. But at the end of the day, I’ve seen thousands of curling shots and situations, and that is ultimately going to win us more games.”Although curling matches are often conceded when they are out of reach, the Olympians kept playing through the eighth (of 10) ends, to help the football players gain the experience they will need if they are to be more competitive. (If it’s any consolation for Allen’s crew, Shuster’s rink also scored a five-ender against Sweden in the gold medal match.)“We had one bad end, and we just kept playing with them. We just wanted to be a sponge,” Bulger said. “The key was they knew we were taking it seriously. It wasn’t just us saying, ‘We’re going to take over curling,’ kind of as a gimmick.“We hope to play them again,” he said, “when we’re better.”The All-Pros are back at it at the USA Men’s Challenge Round in Blaine, Minnesota, this weekend, where they are competing for one of four remaining spots in next month’s national championships. (Top teams such as Shuster’s have already qualified.)They got off to a rough start in their first match, falling 10-1 to Steve Birklid’s Seattle-based rink on Thursday night. But, by hopping into the sport early in the Olympic cycle, they have almost three more years before the team for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing is chosen.Hamilton confessed that he was put off at first about newcomers thinking they could go to the Olympics after four years in a sport he has worked at to master his entire life. But he also realized that the publicity will be good for curling, which has struggled to break out of its niche as an every-four-years curiosity.“If I really think I’m that good Ben Powers Jersey , I should be like, ‘Bring it on!'” Hamilton said in an email to The Associated Press from a competition in Japan. “How much they respected the game, though, is what made me realize they aren’t making a mockery. We just have some extremely athletic individuals who respect sport but have a need to compete in their blood. Can’t disrespect that!”100<button class="view-gallery">View Gallery</button> Gallery:View from the sidelines: NFL cheerleaders 2018Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports | Raj MehtaAll four football players agreed that the reception they’ve received from lifetime curlers has been decidedly different than the one that might welcome a curler who tried to break into the hyper-competitive NFL.“Oh, he’d get smashed,” Allen said. “We’d go out of our way to test his mettle, for sure.”Instead, the ex-NFLers found that the tight-knit but friendly community of curlers was eager to accept them. In their match against the Olympians, there was trash-talking — or banter, depending on whom you ask — and Hamilton even gave them some of his old curling gear.“I looked at their broom heads and I was disgusted. I was wondering why these former pro football players couldn’t afford new broom heads,” he said. “So I went into my curling bag and gave them some gently used ones before the game. That really surprised Jared, claiming nothing like that would ever fly in football.”Like many of those who experience curling only every four years, on TV, the football players saw the sweeping and the shouting and underestimated how hard it is. “We played football, but it’s a lot of muscles we didn’t use,” Bulger said.Sliding on the ice was also an adjustment, but the biggest challenge has been the strategy.When he first started watching, Bulger said, he would see curlers setting up protective stones called guards and thought they were missing their shots.“We just assumed that you throw to the button every time, and we learned that is not the game http://www.ravensfootballauthe…..-authentic ,” he said. “It’s like a novice chess player going against” a grandmaster.But their NFL experience did help in other ways, priming them with not just physical fitness, but also good practice habits, the ability to make decisions on the fly and to improve through film study and coaching.“Like any other sport you have to learn, try to figure out how to get better,” Bulluck said. “Playing football at a very high level, being one of the best at the position once upon a time, to get to that level in anything you do you have to be able to take coaching.”And, of course, they’re competitive.“The message is: We want to bring attention to it. We want to have fun with it,” Allen said. “But we’re dead serious about what we’re trying to accomplish.” ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP)Matthew Stafford’s banged-up hand is only one of many problems the Detroit Lions have in what was a potentially promising season. Detroit (6-6) has dropped two straight games, falling from a favorable position to make the playoffs to having slim hopes. At least that’s how it looks to most people not named Jim Caldwell. ”The season’s not over yet,” the coach told reporters Monday. ”You guys are talking as if it’s all is lost and that kind of thing. ”That’s the great thing about our game. It’s going to challenge you. It’s going to be tough. It’s not going to be an easy road. And it’s either going to polish you up or grind you down. And, it’s our job to make certain that we get polished up. We got a lot of work to do, but that’s all part of what we do.” Caldwell insists the Lions can do what it takes to keep their fading postseason hopes alive by winning the rest of their games: Sunday at Tampa Bay, home against Chicago, at Cincinnati and against Green Bay at home to finish with a 10-6 record that might not be good enough to quality for the playoffs in the NFC. ”I’ve been 6-6 before, and pulled it out,” he said. ”So Trace McSorley Jersey , let’s see where we are at the end.” In Caldwell’s second of three seasons as coach of the Indianapolis Colts in 2010, he helped them go from .500 to 10-6 to make the playoffs and lose as an AFC wild card. If he can’t help them start faster and get 11 players on the field for every snap, it will be tough for Detroit to win. The Lions have been outscored 36-3 in the opening quarters of the past four games. ”We have to fix this,” cornerback Quandre Diggs said. ”And I know we can do it because we’ve made runs before.” Detroit lost 44-20 at Baltimore and 30-23 to the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings, who padded their lead in the division on Thanksgiving in the Motor City instead of letting the Lions pull within a game. The Lions are struggling to run the ball, as they have for years, and that is putting more pressure on a shaky offensive line to protect Stafford. He was stepped on Sunday in the loss to the Ravens and left the game with what looked as if it might be a serious injury. X-rays were negative, though, and he had bandages wrapped around his pinkie, ring and middle finger on his right hand on Monday. ”Nothing new has popped up,” Stafford said. ”He’s just pretty sore right about now.” Caldwell has declined to let injuries become an excuse about his team’s plight. He’s also taking the hit for not having 11 defenders on the field for a snap for the second straight week. ”Completely my fault,” he said. ”Got to get it straightened out. Not acceptable. Horrendous, actually.” The Lions have been bad on defense, too, giving up 74 points in the past two games. ”We’ve got to figure it out,” safety Glover Quin said. ”Time is running out.” —