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FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- Bill Parcells will not be joining the Atlanta Falcons as head of football operations. Parcells turned down the position, Falcons owner Arthur Blank said Wednesday in a statement. Blank said the team had an agreement in principle with Parcells, but after he told the Falcons he was considering an offer from the Miami Dolphins, negotiations fell through. "We gave it our best shot, and it didn't work out. We will continue down the same overall path, proceeding with plans to hire a general manager and a head coach. We will identify and consider every strongly viable...

MIAMI - Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor has died, says family friend Richard Sharpstein. The 24-year-old player was shot in the upper leg, damaging an artery and causing significant blood loss. Family members were concerned that he could have permanent brain damage. Miami-Dade Police were investigating the attack, which came just eight days after an intruder was reported at Taylor's home. Officers were dispatched about 1:45 a.m. Monday after Taylor's girlfriend called 911. Taylor was airlifted to the hospital. Sharpstein said Taylor's girlfriend told him the couple was awakened by loud noises, and Taylor grabbed a machete he keeps in...

San Diego has acquired wide receiver Chris Chambers from the Miami Dolphins for what it believed a second-round draft choice, FOXSports.com has learned. Chambers confirmed the trade in an email to FOXSports, but declined further comment until speaking with Dolphins coach Cam Cameron and general manager Randy Mueller.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets' coaches, according to league sources. NFL security officials confiscated a camera and videotape from Patriots video assistant Matt Estrella on the New England sidelines when it was suspected he was recording the Jets' defensive signals. Sources say the visual evidence confirmed the suspicion. Goodell is considering severe sanctions, including the possibility of docking the Patriots "multiple draft picks" because it is the competitive violation in the wake of a stern warning to all teams since...

Apparently, 20 minutes of action was all the Browns needed to see to make a change at quarterback. Cleveland has traded former starting quarterback Charlie Frye to the Seattle Seahawks for a sixth-round pick, FOXSports.com has learned. With Frye out of the picture, it should only be a matter of time before first-round pick Brady Quinn gets the nod as the starter. The Seahawks have been in the market for a backup quarterback, which will free them up to use Seneca Wallace in other positions around the field. The Browns will bring back Ken Dorsey, who was with the team...

Deputies with the Maricopa County sheriff's office raided the Cave Creek, Arizona, home of rapper DMX on Friday morning (August 24), and according to a police spokesperson, 12 pit bulls were removed from the residence, all in bad condition. Police would not get into specifics but did say the animals are being tended to by veterinarians. At this point, DMX (real name: Earl Simmons) has not been officially charged with any crime, but police are still investigating. DMX was not at his home at the time of the raid, during which police also discovered a large cache of weapons. Police...

Michael Vick has been indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the dogfighting probe of his house in Virginia. The Falcons quarterback was indicted for conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and to sponsor a dog in animal fighting venture in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Richmond, Va. Three others -- Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips and Tony Taylor -- also were indicted by the grand jury on the same charges.

The NFL Players Association is concerned that the Patriots and Dolphins violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement while putting together the recent trade of receiver Wes Welker and has asked the NFL Management Council for an explanation, according to a source. "They may have violated the CBA rule that says one club can't offer the player's former team anything that would [sway] that team from matching their offer," the source said. "Anti-collusion [rule], that's another thing that may come into play." The source added that the NFLPA's interest in the matter stemmed from complaints made by Welker's agent, Vann McElroy, regarding...

SAN DIEGO -- Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer was fired Monday night in a shocking move by team president Dean Spanos, who cited a "dysfunctional situation" between the coach and general manager A.J. Smith. The move was first reported by ESPN's Chris Mortensen. Less than a month after San Diego's NFL-best 14-2 season was wrecked in a playoff loss to New England, Spanos cited the exodus of both coordinators and other assistants in firing Schottenheimer, who had a year left on his contact. "This decision was so hard because Marty has been both a friend and valued coach of our team,"...

Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre will return for the 2007 season, he told the Sun Herald in an exclusive interview this morning. "I am so excited about coming back," he said. "We have a good nucleus of young players. We were 8-8 last year and that's encouraging. "My offensive line looks good, the defense played good down the stretch. I'm excited about playing for a talented young football team."

Google has finally had it with Googlebombing, the act of hundreds of Internet users linking up specific words with certain web sites in order to produce a desired (and usually comical) search result. The company announced today via its corporate blog that they have finally altered their search engine algorithm to minimize the impact of Googlebombs by improving the way they analyze link structures on web sites. Google's previous stance on this type of Internet pranking was just that—it was a prank and that they didn't want to get involved in manually altering otherwise-harmless antics on the web. Also called...

San Diego Chargers offensive coordinator Cam Cameron has been chosen as the next head coach of the Miami Dolphins. As a 16-day, coast-to-coast search for former coach Nick Saban's replacement came to its end today, Dolphins officials concluded that Cameron indeed was their man. A news conference could come as soon as later today. Cameron, 45, will take over as the seventh head coach in the Dolphins' storied history -- and the fifth coach to lead Miami since Don Shula retired in 1995. Cameron arrived at the team's facility today with General Manager Randy Mueller at 12:40 p.m., shortly after...

Nick Saban has accepted an offer from Alabama to coach the Crimson Tide and left the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday, two weeks after declaring "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach." Saban told team owner Wayne Huizenga of his intentions via telephone and then informed all of his coaches by speakerphone that he was leaving to accept the Alabama position, a source told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Alabama made its formal offer to Saban on Monday after rumors swirled for weeks that the Crimson Tide were pursuing the former LSU coach. The offer, believed to run from eight to...

DECEMBER 7--Along with a sweeping management reorganization and shrinking stock price, Yahoo! also has to contend with a lawsuit filed against it by the gridiron's golden boy, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who claims that the online giant improperly used his image to promote its fantasy football game. In a federal complaint (a copy of which you'll find below), Brady, 29, charges Yahoo! used his photo without authorization in a September 2006 Sports Illustrated ad and in banner ads on Yahoo! Sports pages. In the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court by a Brady management company, the...

December 5, 2006 - In a shocking display of parenting prowess, a Rock Hill, S.C. woman reportedly called police and had them arrest her son after he was caught opening a Christmas present early. After receiving the call, police arrested the boy and charged him with petty larceny. The Rock Hill Herald reported that the child's great-grandmother had warned him repeatedly about opening his present early, protestations that he apparently ignored. The present in question was a Game Boy Advance. "He took it without permission. He wanted it. He just took it," the 63-year-old great-grandmother told the Herald. When the...

DENVER -- Jay Cutler's been the Denver Broncos' starting quarterback all of one practice and he's already a rattled rookie. Cutler was playing it cool in his first interview at the podium when fellow rookies Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler began heckling him from the side. Cutler tried to keep from laughing and couldn't. "I'm excited," Cutler said. "And a little nervous." The Cutler Era has officially started. Coach Mike Shanahan ended the speculation Monday by elevating the rookie to starting quarterback for the rest of the year, sending Jake Plummer to the bench. "He's our future, he's our present,"...

Raiders wide receiver Randy Moss is "tired" of the frustration he feels playing for a team that has won only six of 25 games since he joined the team before last season and is interested in being traded, he said on his weekly radio spot Friday. Moss is in his second season with the Raiders and hasn't managed to recapture the magic he showed for most of his seven seasons with the Minnesota Vikings. "It's done sort of set in, man, and I'm tired of it," Moss said on Fox Sports radio. "I might want to look forward to moving...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (Nov. 14, 2006) -- Vinny Testaverde, who came out of retirement last season to help out the New York Jets, was signed by the New England Patriots. The 43-year-old quarterback, the first overall pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1987 draft, has played 19 NFL seasons and has 269 touchdown passes, eighth in NFL history, and is sixth with 45,252 yards passing. He becomes the third quarterback on the Patriots roster, behind Tom Brady and second-year man Matt Cassel.

Last March, the Indianapolis Colts outbid the Patriots for kicker Adam Vinatieri, a New England icon who’s a pretty good bet to wind up in the Hall of Fame. A few days after the signing, Colts president Bill Polian did a 20-minute phone interview with WEEI radio, a Boston sorts-talk radio station. Polian spent the time talking about how the Vinatieri signing went down and what a great deal it was for the Colts. This verbal victory lap galled Patriots officials. “Do we go on Indianapolis radio every time we beat them in the playoffs?” mused a Patriots source.

Kirkland, Wash. - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson was sentenced Wednesday to 90 days in jail for violating probation in a drunken driving case. Robinson appeared in Municipal Court in this Seattle suburb, where he pleaded guilty last year to drunken driving. At the time, he was given a five-year sentence that was suspended on condition that he not drink or have any other law violations. The former first-round draft pick was then released by the Seattle Seahawks and signed by the Minnesota Vikings.