But if there was any bad blood between them, it's gone now. At a retirement party for Sapp over the weekend, Gruden had this to say:
"If Warren Sapp doesn't go into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, you'd better check the IQ of the voters. No disrespect to anyone, but he's the favorite guy I've ever coached."
I would be fine with Sapp getting into the Hall of Fame, but I don't think he's a sure thing, and I'll be quite surprised if he gets in on the first ballot, considering that he's coming up at the same time as several players who I think were better, including Brett Favre, Michael Strahan and Jonathan Ogden.
It might be a good idea to check the IQ of the Hall of Fame voters, but Sapp not getting in wouldn't be the reason.
Police said Arfat Fadel, of Las Vegas, was accused of multiple felonies, including kidnapping, robbery, battery and conspiracy in a June 16 robbery. Lt. Clinton Nichols said Walker lost about $3,000 in cash and $100,000 worth of jewelry in the robbery.
"Mr. Walker was in town to have a good time, as many of our visitors to Las Vegas do," Nichols said. "As he will readily admit, he probably had a little too much to drink and he did not pick up on the clues that Mr. Fadel was someone he probably should not have been with."
A picture of the alleged assailant was released. He is still at large.
Nichols says that Walker got out of a friend's vehicle and got into Fadel's Range Rover (the other man was also in the car). The two then assaulted and robbed Walker before pulling over and dumping him onto the street. It isn't known why Walker got into Fadel's car.
The interesting thing, here, is that this goes against Walker's story. He says he was was assaulted and robbed at his hotel room, dragged out to the street and left unconscious. He has been called out on this already, so it will be very interesting to see why, exactly, he lied.
There's definitely a lot we still don't know about what led up to Javon Walker getting beaten up in Las Vegas early last week. His story about a random group of thugs accosting him seems fishy, to say the least, in light of his champagne spraying in the Body English nightclub earlier in the evening. Not knowing exactly what happened, however, doesn't mean we can just assume a course of events.
Norm Clarke, an eyepatch-wearing columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is doing just that however in part of a column titled Latest Walker Twists.
And just when the story couldn't get any weirder -- on second thought, the hunch here is that it's going to get much wilder -- Walker's former Denver Broncos teammate Brandon Marshall showed up Friday at Tryst.
Clarke then mentions Marshall's role in the fracas that preceded Darrent Williams's murder in Denver last year. What Clarke doesn't deem worthy of mention is that there's no evidence placing Marshall with Walker at Body English nor any apparent connection between Marshall visiting a different club in the same city and what went down with Walker.
I fail to see how this makes the Walker story any weirder. Thousands of people went to clubs in Vegas on Friday night, are all of them somehow culpable in whatever befell Walker?
The story making the rounds about the Javon Walker assault and robbery, as first posted on TheDirty.com, is that Walker was knocked out cold at 5:30 a.m. in his Las Vegas hotel room, taken outside and dropped on the street, unconscious.
To believe that story, we'd have to believe that the hotel's security was awfully lax. And now a spokesman for that hotel, the Bellagio, is insisting that it didn't happen the way it's been reported:
"The facts that have been reported regarding the incident involving Javon Walker are incorrect. I am unable to provide further detail out of respect for the Metro investigation which is currently underway."
I have to say, I find the story awfully hard to believe. How on earth could these guys carry Walker, unconscious, from his hotel room to the street without any witnesses or security cameras picking it up?
Over at CBS Sportsline, they are engaged in one of those silly off season NFL contests to drive more page hits their way. Fans are to vote for the "Most Fierce NFL Mascot."
"This is not because [Billy Buffalo] scared off the competition, but because Jaxson De Ville and the Raiders fans were involved in conduct detrimental to the integrity of the Mascot Competition.
So, Billy will be allowed to spend this week signing autographs, playing with kids and eating Buffalo wings. He'll face off against either Poe [Ravens] or T.D [Dolphins]."
I guess in the Roger Goodell era of getting tough on bad conduct, integrity is crucial, even in stupid mascot competitions. Apparently, both teams' fans used various macros and whatnot to do automatic voting for their mascots. Do you find it surprising that Raider and Jaguar fans would cheat at this? Or is this not really cheating but rather just the proper enthusiasm that good fanbases show?
We have more details about that large amount of cash and jewelry that was stolen from Oakland Raiders wide receiver Javon Walker this week, and it turns out that although the cash wasn't out of the ordinary, it was a very large amount of jewelry.
The cash Walker lost was about $3,000, he told police. That's about what I'd expect a rich guy out in Vegas to be carrying, and not a big loss for a guy with his income. But the jewelry he had stolen, he said, was worth $100,000. That's something that even a guy with a $55 million contract will notice.
Walker reportedly suffered a broken bone in his eye socket and a concussion. It is not clear whether he'll be healthy enough to play in time for training camp. The Raiders have had no comment.
Fox 5 in Las Vegas is reporting that Oakland Raiders wide receiver Javon Walker was found unconscious this morning near the Vegas Strip.
Walker was found to have an orbital fracture and was listed in fair condition this afternoon. It is not clear how he got the fracture.
Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review Journal previously reported that Walker was seen at the Tryst in the Wynn hotel/casino Vegas on Saturday, "spraying the crowd with some of the 15 bottles of Dom Perignon Rose champagne he ordered."
Walker signed with the Raiders this off-season after suffering through an injury-plagued 2007 with the Denver Broncos.
Ira Kaufman of the Tampa Tribunewrites today that he'll be enthusiastic about voting for Warren Sapp for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013. Here's his argument in a nutshell:
Defensive tackles aren't supposed to finish with 96.5 sacks and another 200 or so quarterback pressures.
As Monte Kiffin or Dungy will be quick to tell you, the Tampa 2 defense doesn't work without serious pressure up front.
Sapp, so quick and smart off the ball, was the catalyst for that heat until he departed for Oakland as a free agent in 2004.
As the Tampa Bay representative on the Hall of Fame Committee, it could be my privilege to argue Sapp's case in 2013.
Sapp was a fine player and I do think he'll get in the Hall of Fame, but I don't think he's even among the top six players who will become eligible for the first time in 2013.
After years of taking their sweet old time signing their first-round draft picks, the Raiders have moved quickly this year, signing running back Darren McFadden to a six-year, $60 million contract with $26 million guaranteed. That's a big increase over what last year's fourth overall pick, Gaines Adams, got from the Buccaneers: Adams signed a contract worth about $46 million and about $19 million guaranteed.
Getting the deal done in early June is a major change for the Raiders, who almost always wait until July to get their deals done -- except for last year, when the acrimonious negotiation with JaMarcus Russell dragged out until September. And it's a good sign that Raiders coach Lane Kiffin will have plenty of time to mold his young offensive players into a cohesive unit.
ESPN has announced this year's second-string Monday Night Football team, and it's the same as last year's second-string Monday Night Football team: Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Mike Ditka.
The NFL season's kickoff weekend features two Monday night games. The first, Vikings-Packers at 7 p.m. Eastern, will be called by the usual ESPN crew of Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser. The second game, Broncos-Raiders at 10:15 p.m. Eastern, gets the Greenberg-Golic-Ditka trio.
I thought the three Mikes were fine last year (aside from the one unfortunate moment caught on camera), although I wish Greenberg and Golic wouldn't be quite so reverential toward Ditka: They act like he's a god, not a colleague. If the three of them can just talk football without reminding us every five minutes that Ditka is a Hall of Famer, they'll be fine.
One man 
There's definitely a lot we still don't know about what led up to 
The story making the rounds about the 
Ira Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune 
The Oakland Raiders are turning over a new leaf.
ESPN has announced this year's second-string Monday Night Football team, and it's the same as last year's second-string Monday Night Football team: 
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