NFL News and Notes

San Francisco 49ers defensive end Melvin Oliver tore a ligament in his right knee during organized team activities this week.

Oliver, a sixth-round pick from LSU in 2006 who started 14 games for the 49ers last season, was injured during a non-contact drill Tuesday. Team doctors discovered the torn medial collateral ligament Wednesday.

Oliver made 50 tackles and returned a fumble for a touchdown last season, but his role was expected to diminish this season in San Francisco's 3-4 defensive alignment. The 49ers signed free agent Aubrayo Franklin, and former Eagles defensive lineman Sam Rayburn.

****
Saints first-round draft choice Robert Meachem has had a rough first month as a pro.

Head coach Sean Payton says it's better that he goes through it now than during the season.

Meachem, will spend the next month to six weeks rehabilitating his right knee following an arthroscopic procedure to clean out some loose cartilage and repair his medial meniscus.

This comes after he showed up for rookie camp -- in his own and Payton's evaluation -- overweight and out of shape, then sprained his left ankle.

"I kind of feel discouraged a little bit because I want to show the coaches what I can do and you can't show them what you can do when you're hurt," Meachem said Wednesday. "For me, it's going to be a time I've got to keep praying and just stay focused -- don't let the knee injury get to me."

The Saints knew that Meachem had undergone surgery on the same knee in 2003, when he sat out a season as a medical redshirt for Tennessee. But Payton said there was no evidence in medical reports that team officials saw or in Meachem's performance at the NFL's scouting combine in Indianapolis that Meachem had any serious problems.

****
People have told investigators that Michael Vick was involved in a dogfighting operation at a house he owns in Surry County, the sheriff said Wednesday, and Vick will be charged if investigators can find evidence backing those claims.

Sheriff Harold D. Brown, who is leading the investigation, said he hopes members of a task force that have been gathering evidence in the case can meet by sometime next week to see how credible the evidence is and how best to proceed. At least one of those informants wrote from a prison in South Carolina.

"People are saying that he was there, Michael Vick was at the residence, and that he was involved," Brown said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I don't want to get into details of the case right now, but that's what we're looking at. If he was there, then we're going to charge him, also."

Brown said the task force involves five or six people, including a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Virginia State Police.

Vick, a registered dog breeder, has refused to comment directly about the case, saying his attorney "has advised me not to talk about the situation right now." Vick has claimed since the investigation started that he rarely visits the home, and he has blamed family members and others for taking advantage of his generosity.

On April 25, a search of the house owned by the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and inhabited by his cousin, Davon Boddie, uncovered drug paraphernalia and 66 dogs in the backyard. A search warrant affidavit said some of the dogs were in individual kennels and about 30 were tethered with "heavy logging-type chains" buried in the ground.

The chains allowed the dogs to get close to each other, but not to have contact, one of myriad findings on the property that suggested a dogfighting operation.

Others included a rape stand, used to hold non-receptive dogs in place for mating; an electric treadmill modified to be used by dogs; a "pry bar" used to open the clamped-down mouths of dogs; and a bloodied piece of carpeting the authorities believe was used in dog fights. Carpeting gives dogs traction in a plywood fighting pit.