Pete_Prisco

When the NFL convenes in Palm Beach, Fla., next week for the league meetings, the competition committee has a handful of rules changes it will recommend to the league owners for vote.

One of those, as I wrote here a couple of months ago, is to do away with the force-out rule on pass plays. That's a good thing. The rule was called 15 times last year, but that's 15 too many.

The change will make it so a player needs to come down in bounds or he's out. If he's pushed out, he's out. It will be similar to the college rule, which I like. It takes the judgement call out of the hands of the officials. The lone exception will be if a tackler purposely carries a player out of bounds.

The change is needed. And it should get passed.

Here's some thoughts on some of the recent free agent news:

---I like the move by the San Francisco 49ers to sign receiver Bryant Johnson to a one-year deal. Johnson, who was the third receiver in Arizona, will have a chance to get a lot of playing time with the 49ers. Here's a bet that he plays better than Isaac Bruce, the verteran receiver the 49ers signed last week. It was a big surprise to me that Johnson was still on the market this late. But he can show the league and the 49ers he can be a good second receiver this year and cash in next spring.

---Tampa Bay waited and waited to sign players, even though they had a lot of cap room. They took a lot of heat for that. But they did it the right way. Now they're getting bargains. The latest bargain they landed was New England corner/safety Eugene Wilson. They signed him to a one-year deal that will pay him a reported $1.8 million. Wilson can play both safety and corner, but the Bucs will give him a chance to play corner first. He will compete with Phillip Buchanon for a starting job.

---I am not a big fan of the Cincinnati Bengals signing Indianapolis Colts tight end Ben Utecht to an offer sheet as a restricted free agent. The Colts will almost certainly not match the sheet, which they can do, and that means Utecht is on his way to the Bengals. I think he's too soft a player to be a real factor in an offense. He can step in and make some plays now and then, but he isn't tough enough.

When David Carr came out of Fresno State, I swore he had star passer written all over him.  He had the big arm, the quick release, the athletic ability. All of it.

What he didn't  have was the drive. That's why he's now officially a backup in the NFL, signing a one-year deal with the New York Giants.

When Carr was with the Houston Texans, taken first overall in 2002, he never put in the work needed to be a great passer. It didn't help that he played behind a bad line with mostly bad skill people -- aside from Andre Johnson. Carr took a beating, but he didn't help his cause by leaving the facility after each day's practice. He didn't stick around. He wasn't one of the guys.

Some Texans players say the team babied him, which didn't help.

Last season he signed a contract with the Panthers after the Texans let him go. And when Jake Delhomme went down, Carr had a chance to prove the Texans years were way in the past. They weren't. He struggled. He also let his poor play get to him. He showed up to Carolina energetic about playing football again, but after some struggles he wasn't the same player, according to a team source.

He went into a shell. And he went to the bench.

Now he's nothing but a backup. He is no threat to take Eli Manning's job. But, hey, a guy has to work.

Somehow I get the idea Carr might be okay with just being a backup. The pressure is off. He doesn't have to perform. He's not expected to be great.

Carr is now reunited with Giants quarterbacks coach Chris Palmer, who was his offensive coordiantor in Houston. Palmer always believed in Carr. He told me many times with the right people around him he could succeed.

I believed him, too. Why? I thought it as well.

Now it appears I was wrong. Unless Carr can show us all that he can still play, he's on his way to being a career backup. Maybe that's all he wants.

A few weeks back at the NFL scouting combine, a Cardianls source predicted Larry Fitzgerald would wait a week or so after the free-agency preiod opened and then sign a long-term deal.

"They will make us sweat," the source said.

They did and Fitzgerald signed a four-year extension Tuesday for a reported $40 million with $30 million in guarantees. The Cardinals badly wanted to sign Fitzgerald to a long-term deal because they were handcuffed by a contract that was to pay  him $14.6 million in 2008. That number ballooned because the Cardinals included escalators in his orignal deal and he hit them all. So they are partly to blame. They gave him that deal.

But Fitzgerald openly complained to the team about getting more help. Yet when it came time to do his deal, and the Cardinals offered to make him the highest-paid receiver in the league, he shunned it and instead waited until most of the good players were gone.

So Fitzgerald can't complain about the players around him next season or the year after. If he had done his deal in the week before free agency, the Cardinals might have added a few more players.