Favre Will Get Richest Contract

Brett Favre said his agent is flying into Green Bay on Thursday night in hopes of wrapping up a contract extension that would make him the NFL’s highest-paid player.

The impending deal is worth between $44 million and $49 million over seven years and includes a signing bonus of between $10 million and $11 million.

Even on the low end, Favre’s deal would bump Detroit’s Barry Sanders, who signed a reported six-year, $34-million deal Sunday to become the league’s highest-paid player.

Favre’s attorney and Packer officials are working out the final details of the deal that would replace the last two years of the five-year, $19-million contract Favre signed in 1994.

It took a split second for New York Giant center Brian Williams to realize that football and money suddenly weren’t important after he was poked in his right eye by a teammate during a run-blocking drill at training camp Monday.

When Williams ripped off his helmet and touched his eye, there was nothing but blood on his hand and no vision.

“I thought about my kids,” Williams said. “I have two kids and one on the way. I could hear them saying: ‘Here comes Daddy with no eye,’ and you just think of all the worst things.”

But the injury does not appear as serious as it might have been, although it still looks horrible. His right eye was swollen shut, the white skin replaced by an ugly combination of purple, blue and black.

Arizona Cardinal defensive star Simeon Rice was bedridden for a third consecutive day while recovering from a severe headache.

The headache gone, Rice still was feeling the effects of a painful diagnostic procedure performed Sunday at Flagstaff Regional Medical Center.

The 260-pound pass-rushing specialist took ill late Saturday, showing signs that were interpreted variously as a concussion or a viral infection.

Tackle Harris Barton pulled himself out of the San Francisco 49er training camp workout because of recurring knee soreness, and he’ll be sidelined indefinitely.

Barton, who was switched from the right side of the line to the left, has been bothered by pain in his left knee since the team’s mini-camp in May and later that month underwent arthroscopic surgery.

The Washington Redskins’ weakest area got weaker when they learned that defensive lineman Chris Mims will be out two to six weeks after arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.