The Pittsburgh Steelers tried out Katula on Wednesday, according to a league source.

Katula, 29, played in five games last season for the Minnesota Vikings, filling in when Cullen Loeffler broke a bone in his lower back.

A former Wisconsin player, Katula played with the Ravens from 2005 to 2009 and played eight games two years ago for the New England Patriots.

For his career, the 6-foot-6, 265-pounder has played in 93 games.  ...

The St. Louis Rams weren't the only NFL team interested in offensive tackle Jose Valdez when the Minnesota Vikings placed him on waivers.

The New York Jets also put in a waiver claim, according to a league source, but the Rams had the higher ranking on the priority list.

So, they were awarded the 6-foot-6, 324-pound former Arkansas lineman.  ...

The Oakland Raiders tried out tight end Tory Humphrey and linebacker Ikaika Alama-Francis when they auditioned fullback Owen Schmitt, according to a league source.

The Raiders wound up signing Schmitt following the workout.

Humphrey, 29 is a 6-foot-2, 255-pound former New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers player. He played collegiately at Central Michigan.

For his career, he has 13 receptions for 181 yards.

Alama-Francis, 27 is a 6-foot-5, 290-pound former Hawaii player who has played for the Detroit Lions and the Miami Dolphins.

He has 47 career tackles and one sack.

He played for the Dolphins for the past three seasons. ...

The Kansas City Chiefs signed second-round offensive tackle Jeff Allen to a $4.643 million contract that includes a $1.817 million signing bonus.

The Chiefs also signed fifth-round cornerback De'Quan Menzie to a four-year contract.

The former Alabama standout has registered 68 career tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, one interception and 15 pass deflections.

The Chiefs also signed defensive back Dominique Ellis, tight end Martin Rucker, offensive lineman Rich Ranglin and linebacker Leon Williams.

Here's the full list of alumni announcing the picks:

Arizona Cardinals, Roger Wehrli (DB)

Atlanta Falcons, Alge Crumpler (TE)

Baltimore Ravens, Matt Stover (K)

Buffalo Bills, Phil Hansen (DE)

Carolina Panthers, Mike Rucker (DE)

Chicago Bears, Otis Wilson (LB)

Cincinnati Bengals, Isaac Curtis (WR)

Cleveland Browns, Gary Collins (WR)

Dallas Cowboys , Chad Hennings (DL)

Denver Broncos, Terrell Davis (RB)

Detroit Lions, Barry Sanders (RB)

Green Bay Packers, LeRoy Butler (S)

Houston Texans, Danny Clark (LB)

Indianapolis Colts, Marvin Harrison (WR)

Jacksonville Jaguars, Fred Taylor (RB)

Kansas City Chiefs, Will Shields (G)

Miami Dolphins, Dwight Stephenson (C)

Minnesota Vikings, Anthony Carter (WR)

New England Patriots, Troy Brown (WR)

New Orleans Saints, Willie Roaf (OL)

New York Giants, Michael Strahan (DE)

New York Jets, Wesley Walker (WR)

Oakland Raiders, Willie Brown (DB)

Philadelphia Eagles, Brian Westbrook (RB)

Pittsburgh Steelers, Dermontti Dawson (C)

St. Louis Rams, Isaac Bruce (WR) & Torry Holt (WR)

San Diego Chargers, Courtney Hall (OL)

San Francisco 49ers, Jesse Sapolu (OL)

Seattle Seahawks, Walter Jones (OL)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dexter Jackson (S)

Tennessee Titans, Eddie George (RB)

Washington Redskins, Ken Harvey (LB)

Among the other teams that are logical fits for Silatolu or have displayed interested in him: the Baltimore Ravens, San Francisco 49ers, San Diego Chargers, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Washington Redskins and the Houston Texans.

The 6-foot-4, 311-pounder starred at the Division II level at the Wichita Falls, Texas school and was named a consensus All-American as a left tackle.

However, he projects to offensive guard in the NFL.

Silatolu has drawn comparisons to Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive guard Jahri Evans and former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Larry Allen.

He's the first player from his school to be invited to the Senior Bowl. However, the mauling blocker injured his hamstring and was sideline that week.

The former junior college All-American finished second in the voting for the Gene Upshaw award for the top Division II lineman.

He's a two-time Lone Star Conference Offensive Lineman of the Year.

At the NFL scouting combine, Silatolu bench pressed 225 pounds 28 times, had a 31 1/2 inch vertical leap, an 8-11 broad jump, a 4.87 20-yard shuttle and a 7.95 three-cone drill. He ran the 40-yard dash in 5.43 seconds.

At his campus Pro Day workout, he had a 9-2 broad jump and a 32-inch vertical leap.

Midwestern State averaged 531.9 yards per game and 48.6 points per contest.

Silatolu was recruited by Arizona, San Jose State, Hawaii and California before signing with Nevada. He didn't play for Nevada, though, before transferring to Midwestern State.

Akin to how companies operate on Wall Street or along the Silicon Valley, the league has standards for behavior and will eliminate or downgrade prospective job candidates based on their conduct and background.

As the Baltimore Ravens prepare for the NFL draft next week, part of their evaluation process involves weighing the merits and demerits of players' character.

It tends to be a subjective exercise as NFL teams try to determine if a player is truly contrite for past off-field incidents or likely to be a recidivist offender.

Everything from criminal activity, failed drug tests, a history of domestic violence, family issues, a low score on the Wonderlic intelligence exam or just a bad attitude can cause the Ravens to either remove a player entirely from their draft board or downgrade them to a lower round.

What constitutes a red flag for the Ravens?

"They're probably a lot of the same red flags that would stick out for you," Ravens director of player personnel Eric DeCosta said. "Any kind of character things are major red flags. There's no absolute sort of thing. There's a slotting scale of things that would be major character concerns because society has changed.

"Some issues that would be major flags 10 or 15 years ago might not be as major of a flag now and there will be some new things that we'll look at character-wise that we really didn't have to deal with 10 or 15 years ago as much."

The Ravens routinely remove five to 10 players annually from draft consideration based on a variety of character issues.

Among the players whose stock has likely been affected around the NFL by their actions:

North Alabama cornerback Janoris Jenkins was dismissed from the University of Florida football program after being arrested three times, twice for possession of marijuana and once for his involvement in a bar fight. He denied a report that he continued to use drugs after enrolling at North Alabama.

"I wasn't smoking marijuana at North Alabama," Jenkins said in a telephone interview. "I wasn't partying. They've been saying a lot of things about me that aren't true without getting my side of the story. It's been a humbling experience.

"I've matured. My past is my past. People can judge me for how far I've come. I want to know why all of a sudden this is out there about me. Why didn't it come out after the combine when I was straightforward with the scouts? The timing is very interesting to me."

Ohio State offensive tackle Mike Adams tested positive for marijuana at the NFL scouting combine, which is regarded as a particularly troubling mistake considering players are warned that they will be tested for drugs.

Adams also had issues while playing for the Buckeyes and was suspended twice, including one for violating NCAA rules.

Alabama cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick was charged with possession of marijuana this year, but the case was dropped when another passenger in the car took responsibility for the drugs. Teams will still scrutinize the incident.

West Virginia pass rusher Bruce Irvin was an admitted teenage drug dealer who was recently arrested for destruction of property at a sandwich shop, hours after his campus Pro Day workout.

And McNeese State safety Janzen Jackson had a history of failed drug tests at Tennessee and was involved in an armed robbery incident where the charges were later dropped.

"Character concerns vary from team to team," ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper said. "Some teams look at it and say, hey, we've interviewed the guy, our take on the interview and the research we did is different from another team. There are a lot of guys who have red flags. How many will be affected and impacted severely, I think the one that's going to be impacted the most would be Janoris Jenkins because he would have been a top 10 to 15 pick."

LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne had an extremely low score on the Wonderlic test, a four out of a possible high of 50 on the timed exam.

Claiborne has a learning disability that makes timed testing difficult for him. He's expected to be drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the fifth overall pick of the first round.

"We do look at the Wonderlic test," DeCosta said. "In regards to the Wonderlic test, we treat that like a lot of other things, it’s a flag. It could be a concern. It could mean that we have to do more work on a guy, bring a guy in, spend a day with him here in Baltimore, interview a guy at the combine, have the coaches spend some time with him, have him watch some football tape, talk to some other people at the school to get some more information.

"We don’t base our decisions on a Wonderlic, just like we don’t base our decisions on a 40-yard dash, a vertical jump and, in most cases, on a guy being arrested. We take the whole body of work, we look at it, we compare each player and we make our decisions.”

Rather than simply disqualifying a player because of one incident, the Ravens study how often there's a repeat of similar mistakes.

Ultimately, a player that continually causes trouble could become unavailable to play due to an NFL suspension or serving jail time. Plus, players with character issues tend to create distractions in the locker room.

Not to mention they're a public relations problem for their team.

The Rookie Salary Cap is often referred to as “a cap within a cap” because it limits the amount that teams can allocate to their rookies in the year they were drafted.  But, beyond that, there is a lot of confusion about the Rookie Salary Cap and exactly how it works. 

Even some in the media do not fully understand the mechanics of it.  Some have been heard to say that it’s a totally separate pool of money that is not included in the team’s overall Cap.  Others think the entire amount of the rookie Cap is included in the team’s overall Cap, meaning that teams will need that much overall Cap space to sign their rookies.

Both of those characterizations are incorrect.

The rookie Cap IS NOT a separate, distinct pool, but rather, a separate calculation and there is not a dollar-for-dollar correlation between the rookie Cap and the overall Cap.  So, while all of the Salary Cap numbers of a team’s draft picks (and prorated bonus money paid to undrafted rookies) must fit under their Rookie Salary Cap, not all of that amount will impact the team’s overall Cap.

The reason for these misconceptions revolves around the Rule of 51, which dictates that, from the beginning of the league year in early March until the beginning of the season, only the top 51 “salaries” (including base salaries, roster bonuses, likely to be earned incentive, etc) and all pro-rata shares of bonus money of all players – including those outside of the top 51 - count toward the team’s overall Cap.  All “dead money”, i.e. amounts that count against the Salary Cap for players who are no longer on the roster, counts as well. 

This rule is necessary because, during the offseason, team rosters can number up to 90 players.  As such, it would be impossible for teams to fit all of those players under the Cap.  So, to counter this problem, the NFL has instituted the Rule of 51. 

So, how then does the Rookie Cap actually work?

First, as way of explanation, under the CBA of 2011, all rookies receive 4-year contracts, generally with a signing bonus and often with minimum base salaries set for each year of the deal.  While 1st and 2nd round picks may have base salaries of more than the minimum in years 2 through 4 of their deals, even those players will almost always receive the rookie minimum base salary during their first year.  For 2012, the minimum base salary for a rookie is $390K.  For Salary Cap purposes, the bonus received by the player is prorated over the 4 years of the deal and that prorated amount is added to the base salary to create the player’s Cap number. 

By way of example, in 2011, let’s assume that a Team X had a rookie pool of $4.578M for their 8 draft picks.  This is the team’s “rookie salary pool” and is based on the number of the team’s draft picks and where those picks were drafted.

However this doesn’t mean that Team X needed $4.578M in Cap space in order to fit their rookies under the overall Salary Cap.

Once again this is where the Rookie Cap and the Rule of 51 become intertwined – and where most of the misunderstanding regarding the Rookie Cap comes from.  Since each of the 2011 draft picks had a base salary of only the 2011 rookie minimum of $375K (which is the lowest possible base salary for any player), none of the draft picks’ base salaries will actually count against the team’s overall Salary Cap under the Rule of 51 guidelines.

As such, it is only the amortized portions of the draft picks’ signing bonuses that counted against the team’s overall Salary Cap.   

So, to calculate the actual impact of Team X’s 2011 draft picks on their overall Salary Cap, the Rookie Cap of $4.578M is reduced by $3M ($375K x 8), leaving an amount of only $1.578M in overall Cap space needed to accommodate the signing of rookies within the Rule of 51.

So, that is how the Year One Rookie Allocation, a.k.a Rookie Salary Cap – the “cap within a cap” – actually works and demonstrates the actual impact of the Rookie Cap on the team’s overall Salary Cap.

Once the season starts, however, the entire Cap Numbers of the rookies who make the team must be fit under the team’s overall Cap.  The impact of that, though, actually operates to save the team a little bit of Salary Cap space, since the rookies are making the rookie minimum base salary and replacing players on the roster who were making more in base salary. 

Now that no labor unrest is possible until 2020, HBO is planning on bringing the series back in a big way. According to FoxSports.com’s Adam Schein, the New York Jets have been asked for an encore of their 2010 performance on the show.

Surprisingly, Ryan is reportedly at odds with Jets owner Woody Johnson about inviting the cameras into their Florham Park facilities for another season. While Johnson is all for it, Ryan has said he wanted to avoid adding to the media frenzy that has surrounded his team (much of which he takes the blame for).

With the addition of Tim Tebow to the Jets roster and the likely quarterback drama that will play out as he battles with Mark Sanchez for the starting job will make for great TV.

Hell, who am I kidding? We all just want to see the look on Tebow’s face after Ryan drops his first F-Bombor uses the Lord’s name in vein.

After the disappointing season the Jets had last season, Ryan may have finally wised up and learned that the media attention he’s previously invited around his team may also come back to bite him as the “hot seat” begins to get warmer and warmer.

Schein has also reported that, should the Jets decline them, HBO would turn their attention to the Harbaugh brothers and attempt to cover both the Ravens and 49ers in the same preseason.

Even though the Harbaughs were the talk of the NFL during their Thanksgiving night clash and their teams’ Super Bowl push, the chances of either agreeing to the show are highly unlikely.

John Harbaugh has been known to be a lot more controlling with access to his team than his predecessor Brian Billick (who was in charge when the Ravens were featured on the very first Hard Knocks series in 2001). With Harbs at the helm, the chances of the HBO cameras getting past security at the Ravens’ facility are slim to none.

The chances are that HBO will have to look further down their wish list to help entertain NFL fans during the offseason.

Even the Denver Broncos have already said they wouldn’t be willing to have the show filmed during their training camp in Dove Valley.

If worse comes to worst for Hard Knocks, they know there is at least one team interested- the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Even though the Jaguars would invite the cameras into their facility, it’s believed HBO would look at other options first.

Regardless of who is filmed for Hard Knocks this offseason – most of us will be watching.