Brady’s grandmother dies 4 days before big game

Tom Brady’s grandmother always threw quite a party – especially when her boy was playing in the Super Bowl.

It won’t be the same Sunday.

Margaret Brady died Wednesday night in the San Francisco area at age 94, four days before her grandson plays in another championship game for the New England Patriots.

“I’m sure she’ll be looking down on us Sunday,” the quarterback said Thursday. “That’s one more person up there who will be cheering for us.”

NFL, union gear up for battle

The players’ union is making slow progress toward a solution to its first major disagreement with the NFL in the last decade.

With two seasons left before the salary cap disappears, NFL Players’ Union president Gene Upshaw said big changes are needed in the way the league distributes money to the players.

“I warned the players last year that this would be the most difficult negotiation we have had since the current agreement in 1993,” Upshaw said from the Super Bowl site of Jacksonville, Fla., during his annual state of the union address.

The current collective-bargaining agreement expires in 2008, but a deal must be struck a year before, when the salary-cap clause in the contract disappears.

Players vote RCA Dome as worst

Only the demolition of Veterans Stadium could knock Philadelphia from atop the list of the NFL’s worst surfaces. That dubious spot now belongs to Indianapolis, where Peyton Manning and his speedy Colts receivers thrive, but opponents complain.

The survey of about 1,500 players pegged the RCA Dome in Indy as the worst field among the 32 in the league. That was followed by two other domed stadiums, Edward Jones in St. Louis and the Metrodome in Minnesota.

The union also asked the players to rank their favorite surfaces. Tampa Bay, Arizona and Carolina were the top three, followed by Houston, then Seattle. Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, the host of this year’s Super Bowl, was rated the seventh-best field in the league.

Titans express interest in Chow

Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher wants to talk with Southern California offensive coordinator Norm Chow about the Titans’ coordinator job.

Fisher, a USC alumnus, is looking for a new offensive coordinator after losing Mike Heimerdinger to the New York Jets last month.

He has interviewed assistant head coach George Henshaw and quarterbacks coach Craig Johnson off his own staff.