Falcons say Petrino betrayed them

Coward. Quitter. Hypocrite. And those were some of the nicer things the Atlanta Falcons had to say about their former coach on Wednesday.

Bobby Petrino left behind a bitter team and a boss who felt betrayed, skipping town to return to the college ranks with not so much as a face-to-face meeting with his players.

"I feel like I've been sleeping with the enemy," safety Lawyer Milloy moaned.

The Falcons watched him on television the previous night, yukking it up at a giddy, late-night news conference in Arkansas, then showed up at their lockers to find an 86-word letter from their ex-coach, whose tenure in the NFL lasted all of 13 games.

"Atlanta Falcons Players," it began.

"Out of my respect for you, I am letting you know that, with a heavy heart, I resigned today as the Head Coach of the Atlanta Falcons. This decision was not easy but was made in the best interest of me and my family. While my desire would have been to finish out what has been a difficult season for us all, circumstances did not allow me to do so. I appreciate your hard work and wish you the best.

"Sincerely, Bobby Petrino."

While the aloof Petrino had few friends in the locker room, and there was actually a sense of relief he was gone, the Falcons (3-10) felt totally abandoned in a season in which so much already has gone wrong.

First, Michael Vick.

Now, this.

"It got to the point where guys really didn't care if he left or not," running back Warrick Dunn said. "But the way he decided to leave, to me, was just not right."

Falcons owner Arthur Blank sounded as though he had just been stabbed in the back. He got a call late last week from Dallas owner Jerry Jones, an Arkansas alumnus, to say the school was interested in talking to Petrino about its coaching vacancy.

Blank said he told Jones the Falcons had no intention of letting the Razorbacks speak with their coach, and general manager Rich McKay confirmed that position in follow-up calls with Jones.

That was followed by a series of meetings over the weekend in which Petrino laid out some areas of concern, and the Falcons thought they had addressed them all. In fact, Blank said he met again with the coach on Monday, just hours before Atlanta's 34-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints, to make sure he wasn't planning to leave.

"He stood up, we shook hands and he said, 'You have a head coach,' " Blank said.

Twenty-four hours later, Petrino submitted his resignation, hopped on a plane to Arkansas and signed a deal as Razorbacks coach for less money than his five-year, $24 million deal with the Falcons.

"The best way to describe the way we feel," Blank said, "is betrayed."

The Falcons hastily chose secondary coach Emmitt Thomas to run the team on an interim basis for the final three games; he becomes the first black head coach in team history.

Magnini says taping was legal: The spy games between the New York Jets and New England Patriots began last season. The Jets were caught videotaping at Gillette Stadium last season, and the Patriots had that New York employee removed from the area, according to published reports Wednesday. Jets coach Eric Mangini said his team received permission to film behind both end zones during the playoff game in January.

"We taped the game, is what we taped, and we taped end-zone copy of the game, and we tape a double end zone, which is standard operating procedure for us," Mangini said Wednesday. "We request that every single road game, and it's usually granted if physically it's possible. And when people request it from us, we do the same thing: We grant it."

Mangini maintained the Jets did nothing wrong and had filmed at New England during the regular season without incident. It was nothing like what the Patriots did earlier this season, when a New England employee was caught taping New York's defensive signals and punished by the league.

Bulger on track to return: The St. Louis Rams are going to take it slow on the status of Marc Bulger. The quarterback took all the repetitions in practice Wednesday and is on track to return after missing two games with a concussion. But coach Scott Linehan will wait until Friday, after two more days of practice and no symptoms, before selecting Bulger as the starter for Sunday's home game against the Green Packers.

"I thought he looked fine," Linehan said. "More importantly, it's how he gets through the week."

NFL disability plan altered: Changes in the disability plan for former NFL players will help speed up the process of applying for benefits. What won't change much is the process itself, which has received much criticism from retirees over how the decisions on whether to award benefits are made.

The league and the NFL Players Association formally announced a series of adjustments to the disability plan Wednesday. Ex-players have complained that the process of applying for and receiving benefits moved too slowly, and the new procedures address that.

"These changes will substantially improve the disability process and are another step in our commitment to address the medical needs of retired players," said NFL executive vice president of labor relations Harold Henderson.