FOOTBALL

Jets Trade DT Robertson to Broncos for Draft Picks

The Denver Broncos acquired defensive tackle Dewayne Robertson from the Jets yesterday for a conditional pick in the 2009 draft.

Robertson, the fourth overall pick in the 2003 draft from Kentucky, spent five inconsistent seasons with the Jets. He often seemed out of position in New York’s 3-4 alignment.

The 26-year-old Robertson also has been bothered by knee problems.

In 77 regular-season games (75 starts), Robertson has 319 tackles, 188 solo, and 14 1/2 sacks. He’s forced four fumbles, recovered two, and had two pass breakups.

“He’s a guy that, if you do take, there’s going to be some question marks because if you take a look at his knees, he hasn’t passed a physical, but he’s still played 80 percent of his games,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said of Robertson last month at the NFL owners meetings. “So how big of a risk are you going to take?”

Goodell Prepared To Crack Down On Patriots

Roger Goodell is fully prepared to crack down again on the New England Patriots if his meeting with Matt Walsh uncovers a tape made of the St. Louis Rams’ final walkthrough practice before the 2002 Super Bowl.

“Taping a walkthrough is much different from what I punished them for,” the NFL commissioner said yesterday at a meeting of a group representing the Associated Press Sports Editors.

After more than two months of negotiations, lawyers for the league and Walsh, the former New England employee, finally reached agreement Wednesday on terms that will allow him to talk Goodell. They include an agreement by the Patriots not to sue Walsh and to pay his legal expenses and his airfare to New York from Hawaii, where he is now a golf pro.

Walsh’s name first surfaced just before the Super Bowl, in which the Patriots were upset by the New York Giants after finishing the regular season 16-0 and winning two playoff games. Among the allegations was that the Patriots illegally taped the Rams’ final walk

BASKETBALL

Ford, Calderon Help Raptors Cut Magic’s lead to 2-1

T.J. Ford scored 21 points, Jose Calderon had 18 points and 13 assists, and the Toronto Raptors beat the Orlando Magic 108–94 last night in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.

Brown resigns as sixers’ vice president

Larry Brown wants one more stop on his nomadic coaching career. Brown resigned as Philadelphia’s executive vice president yesterday with the intent to pursue a coaching job at the NBA or college level.

Brown has been a winner at almost every team from the ABA to the NBA to the college ranks, yet hasn’t coached since a bitter split with the Knicks and then-team president Isiah Thomas after one dismal season in New York in 2005-06.

“He has the taste of coaching back in his mouth,” said Brown’s agent, Joe Glass. “It would be refreshing to have a situation going that he could enjoy, rather than the last one, to say the least.”

BASEBALL

Red Sox ‘Curse’ Jersey Fetches $175,100 in Auction

The Boston Red Sox jersey secretly buried under the new Yankee Stadium in a failed curse attempt sold Thursday for $175,100 in a charity auction. The bid from Kevin Meehan, the owner of Imperialcars.com in Mendon, Mass., was the highest of 282 for the battered No. 34 David Ortiz jersey.

“I actually thought it was going to sell for more money,” said Meehan, who bid only in the final moments of the week-long eBay auction that ended at 12:30 p.m. “I have three young boys that I take to the games and they would have killed me if I didn’t buy the shirt.”