Darren Sharper has been sentenced a 20-year prison term in an embarrassing rape case.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor denounced Sharper's "horrible conduct'' and "disgraceful abuse of trust'' during the hearing that concluded prosecutions that unmasked the former All-Pro safety and Super Bowl champ as a serial rapist.

Under the terms of a plea deal negotiated with prosecutors in four states, Sharper will be eligible for parole in about eight years because California law requires he serve half his sentence and he has already been behind bars more than two years since his arrest.

The NFL will consider ending or at least limiting Thursday Night Football.

The current contract with CBS and NBC runs through 2017, which means that changes to the package could be made by 2018 — barring a renegotiation.

The NFL is beginning to realize they have possibly saturated the marketplace with stand-alone evening games.

The money generated from NFL Network due to the annual slate of exclusive games isn’t large enough to make it an impediment to broader efforts to strike the right balance between giving national audiences enough, but not too much NFL.

The NFL league office wants to avoid having the Oakland Raiders relocate to Las Vegas and the San Diego Chargers moving to Los Angeles.

The league is concerned with the Chargers becoming the Clippers to the Rams' Lakers if they move to Los Angeles. San Diego voters rejected a plan to build a downtown stadium, which could leave the Spanos family with Mission Valley as their best option.

There are also concerns with the Raiders leaving the economic wealth of the Bay Area along with their longtime passionate fan base for Las Vegas.

Mark Davis would likely need a partner to build a new stadium in the Bay Area.

On the first Sunday of NFL games following the election, both NBC and Fox saw their ratings rebound.

NBC announced that the 14.3 overnight rating for Seahawks-Patriots was the best Week 10 Sunday Night Football rating in five years, and a 13 percent increase from last year’s Week 10 games, which featured the Seahawks against the Cardinals.

Fox's telecast of the Cowboys' win over the Steelers was their highest-rated individual game of the season.

Concern currently exists at the league level regarding the ability of the Chargers and Rams to strike a deal and to work together on building and sharing a stadium and a market.

The Chargers lost a ballot resolution last week to build a new stadium in San Diego.

Barring an extension, the window of opportunity for the Chargers to agree upon a stadium deal with the Rams to share Los Angeles closes on January 15, 2017.

With Tuesday's elections, 10 NFL teams play in a state where marijuana has been legalized medically or recreationally.

California and Massachusetts joined Washington and Colorado as states where marijuana can be consumed for any purpose. If the Raiders relocate to Las Vegas, that won't change as Nevada has legalized marijuana for recreational purposes.

Florida is one of various states to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. 

The NFL previously justified their ongoing ban because federal law considers marijuana as a controlled substance.

The 49ers, Raiders, Rams, Chargers and Patriots joined the Seahawks, Broncos, Jaguars, Dolphins and Buccaneers.

The San Diego Chargers received only 42.5 percent approval on Measure C, the team's $1.8 billion downtown stadium and convention center annex that proposed raising hotel taxes from 12.5 percent to 16.5 percent to secure $1.15 billion in bonds to help pay for the project on Tuesday.

The citizens' ballot initiative required two-thirds of the voting public within city limits to approve the project.

In a letter sent late Tuesday night, club chairman Dean Spanos thanked season-ticket holders and fans for their support but offered no insight into his intentions moving forward.

"In terms of what comes next for the Chargers, it's just too early to give you an answer," Spanos wrote. "We are going to diligently explore and weigh our options, and do what is needed to maintain our options, but no decision will be announced until after the football season concludes and no decision will be made in haste."

Drew Brees believes the mistrust of the NFL league office has a role to play in the declining television ratings.

"We feel like [the decline in TV ratings] is a direct result," said Brees, who has been an outspoken critic of the way NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has handled controversial issues such as the Bountygate investigation of the Saints, the Deflategate investigation of the Patriots, and the Ray Rice and Josh Brown domestic violence investigations.

"I know the players don't have any faith in the way that things are conducted within the front office in the NFL -- certainly when it comes to any type of investigation, when it comes to any type of commissioner discipline," Brees said. "It's really kind of a joke at this point, unfortunately. And it shouldn't be like that."

Brees and Zach Strief spoke to ESPN after the Saints players had their annual in-season meeting with NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith. They agreed that the NFL's declining TV ratings could be a result of "probably a buildup over the last few years."

"It's hard to separate 'em. It all works together," said Strief, who is in his final years as the Saints' player representative. "The NFL front office has seemed to have found a way to make everything somewhat contentious. It feels like there's this constant assault on the players, like we're two entities. It's like they don't think they need us to do this."

A survey of NFL players shows that nearly two-thirds of them feel the use of chemical painkillers would be reduced if the league approved marijuana for the same use.

Marijuana is legal in 25 states and Washington, D.C., for medicinal purposes but remains one of eight drugs banned under the NFL's policy and program on substances of abuse. 

ESPN.com's NFL Nation and ESPN The Magazine surveyed 226 players, asking them questions on the state of pain treatment in the league. 

In the survey, 61 percent of players said they believed fewer players would take pain-killing shots such as Toradol if marijuana were a legal option. Toradol is the most common anti-inflammatory taken by NFL players, and 64 percent of the survey's respondents said they had taken an injection of it or another pain killer.

Marijuana has fewer known side effects than Toradol.