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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

NFL notes: Titans focus on language with officials on hand

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Titans safety Bernard Pollard has worked the past couple of years to clean the cursing out of his trash-talking.

He ran some words by officials working Tennessee’s training camp in Nashville on Friday to make sure he’ll pass the NFL’s new crackdown on racial slurs and verbal abuse.

“Now I want to keep my cuss words at zero, so I’m saying a lot of ‘suckas’ and ‘punks’ and things like that,” Pollard said. “So he said it’s OK as long as we both jaw jacking and get back to the huddle.

“But if we’re coming at somebody’s head after we hit them, standing over them, things like that, that’s obviously demeaning somebody or whatever. We can’t do that. The trash-talking’s going to continue.”

Pollard is no stranger to officials, having been fined at least three times last season with one for $42,000. Pollard joked that he eyed down one official who flagged him for a penalty last season.

“So I had to eye him down when he came in, so it was a little bit of a standoff. I wanted to swing, but I like my money,” Pollard said with a laugh.

Gordon meets with league officials

As his teammates sweated through another training camp practice, Josh Gordon was in a New York office building where his career – and Cleveland’s season – were in jeopardy.

Gordon met Friday with NFL officials to appeal a possible indefinite suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Gordon’s attorney is expected to argue that Gordon tested positive for marijuana because of secondhand smoke, a defense they planned to enhance with witnesses.

It was reported that the meeting lasted 10 hours and will resume Monday.

Surgery for Rice

Washington Redskins receiver Jerry Rice Jr. has a torn labrum in his left shoulder and will have surgery. Coach Jay Gruden indicated that Rice will probably be placed on injured reserve.