Denton (Texas) Guyer three-star defensive tackle Xavier Ukponu is in the midst of a string official visits to a number of programs around the country. Ukponu is fresh off a weekend visit to Arkansa…
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Scotland manager Steve Clarke is considering “all options” after losing “pivotal” striker Lyndon Dykes to injury.
Dykes was carried off on a stretcher during training on Friday and has since been ruled out for Euro 2024 with less than two weeks before Scotland open the tournament against hosts Germany on June 14.
The QPR striker has scored nine goals across 36 internationals and has often been the focal point of Clarke’s attack.
The setback leaves Scotland with only Che Adams and Lawrence Shankland as recognised centre-forwards in their 27-player squad, which needs to be cut to 26 after their final warm-up game against Finland on Friday night.
Image: Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes have played in the majority of Scotland’s games
Speaking at his pre-match media conference in Portugal ahead of Monday’s friendly against Gibraltar, Clarke said: “I’ve given myself two or three days just to think about it.
“There is no like-for-like replacement for Lyndon because he brings his own qualities. I don’t really believe in like for like. Lyndon brings his qualities, obviously we haven’t got them.
“I will have a little look at what’s around, I will decide what to do with the squad and we will go from there.”
When asked whether he would call up another striker, Clarke said: “That’s why I am thinking about it.”
‘Dykes has been a pivotal player’
Dykes played in all eight of Scotland’s qualifiers, starting five of them, and scoring once.
“We are all really disappointed for Lyndon,” added Clarke. “The boys that got injured earlier get a little bit more time to get over it. Lyndon’s is right at the last minute before we go to the tournament.
Image: Dykes has scored nine goals across 36 internationals and has often been the focal point of Scotland’s attack
“And he’s been a good player for us, a pivotal player. One of the best telephone conversations I ever had was when I phoned him up and gave him the option to come and play for Scotland rather than Australia. Thankfully he chose us.
“That was four years ago and I think the path the national team has been on since then has been mainly an upward trend.
“[I’m] grateful for what he has done up until now, sad that he misses this tournament, but I look forward to working with him again in the future.
“It was an ankle injury. No contact, just the way he landed, the way he fell on it. It happens, unfortunately. Earlier in the session, Lyndon made a similar movement and nothing happened. It’s just the way it is.
“You have to be quite resilient as a coach, a manager and a player and realise things move forward, and that’s what we have done.”
Image: Steve Clarke has named a provisional 27-player squad
Clarke previously hinted he would look to the Scotland U21squad if any late call-ups were needed.
That could put Tommy Conway in pole position given the Bristol City forward is with Scot Gemmill’s group ahead of a friendly in Turkey on Monday. The 21-year-old netted 12 goals for the Sky Bet Championship side last season.
Liverpool winger Ben Doak has played in a central attacking role for Scotland Under-21s but the 18-year-old’s club campaign was ended by a knee injury in December and he is still getting back up to speed.
Clarke is mulling over other scenarios as well.
“Possibly, but not necessarily, that’s what I would do,” he said. “It’s something that we think about all the time.
“We like to have a connection with the Scottish young team. I like to show there is a pathway to the A squad from the U21s.
“But obviously you have got to consider all options and that’s what I will do.”
Image: Scott McTominay won’t play for Scotland against Gibraltar
Meanwhile, Stuart Armstrong, Scott McTominay and John Souttar won’t feature for Scotland on Monday night.
Manchester United midfielder McTominay came off just 25 minutes after coming on as a substitute in the FA Cup final win over Manchester City last weekend.
Southampton’s Armstrong has not played since being stretched off last month while centre-back Souttar missed Rangers’ final three games of the season.
Boss Clarke said: “Stuart Armstrong, Scott McTominay and John Souttar won’t play this game but I am pretty confident they will all be good for the next game.
“For me it’s a chance to get some minutes on the pitch for some players, maybe a slightly unfamiliar line-up in terms of people starting the game.
“We’ve still got one or two people coming back from a longer-term injury so we are careful to manage minutes.
“It’s a little bit of a balancing act to make sure we get a good performance and a good result.
“Some of them maybe didn’t get the minutes they wanted towards the end of the club season so hopefully we can give them some that get them up to speed for the tournament itself.”
Greg Taylor and Scott McKenna have joined the squad after additional time off.
Friday June 14 – Group A: Germany vs Scotland (Allianz Arena, Munich)
Wednesday June 19 – Group A: Scotland vs Switzerland (RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne)
Sunday June 23 – Group A: Scotland vs Hungary (MHPArena, Stuttgart)
The top two in each group plus the fourbest third-placed teams go through
Scotland’s potential route to the final finishing as group winners…
If Scotland finish as winners of Group A but all other results at Euro 2024 go with the world rankings, the Scots’ opponents in the knockout rounds would be…
Round of 16: Saturday June 29 – Scotland vs Denmark (Westfalenstadion, Dortmund)
Quarter-final: Friday July 5 – Spain vs Scotland (MHPArena, Stuttgart)
Semi-final: Tuesday July 9 – Scotland vs Netherlands; kick-off 8pm (Allianz Arena, Munich)
Final: Sunday July 14 – Scotland vs France; kick-off 8pm (Olympiastadion, Berlin)
Scotland’s potential route to the final finishing as group runners-up…
If Scotland finish as Group A runners-up but all other results at Euro 2024 go with the world rankings, the Scots’ opponents in the knockout rounds would be…
Round of 16: Saturday June 29 – Scotland vs Italy (Olympiastadion, Berlin)
Quarter-final: Saturday July 6 – England vs Scotland (Merkur Spiel-Arena, Düsseldorf)
Semi-final: Wednesday July 10 – France vs Scotland; kick-off 8pm (Allianz Arena, Munich)
Final: Sunday July 14 – Spain vs Scotland; kick-off 8pm (Olympiastadion, Berlin)
Euro 2024 groups in full…
Group A: Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania
Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England
Group D: Poland/Wales/Finland/Estonia, Netherlands, Austria, France
Group E: Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Israel/Bosnia & Herzegovina/Ukraine/Iceland
Group F: Turkey, Georgia/Greece/Kazakhstan/Luxembourg, Portugal, Czech Republic
Katherine Terrell came back to ESPN to cover the New Orleans Saints in the summer of 2022. She left the company in 2019 after joining in 2016 to cover the Cincinnati Bengals. Katherine is a graduate of LSU and a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, native, and she has covered the NFL since 2013. You can follow Katherine on Twitter: @Kat_Terrell
METAIRIE, La. — Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees says he might have played several more years in the NFL if not for degeneration in his right throwing shoulder.
“Honestly, man, if my right arm was still working, I probably would’ve played another three years,” Brees said Thursday. “My body feels great. My body can play. My right arm can’t. Unfortunately that’s what kind of forced me to step away. And it was time too.”
Brees, who retired after the 2020 season following a 20-year career in the NFL, said he seriously considered coming out of retirement, but the diminishing capabilities of his surgically repaired shoulder prevented a comeback.
“At the end of the day, it’s like, how capable … am I to do the job, right? I would’ve run QB draws. I would’ve done whatever. I would’ve done some veer option. We would’ve pulled out all the stops. I was ready. Pull out the high school playbook,” Brees joked.
Brees said he felt there was a lack of closure after concluding his NFL career in front of a mostly empty stadium. The Saints had less than 4,000 fans in attendance for their loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC wild-card round of the 2020 playoffs due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“Certainly to have it be in a situation like that where you’re not able to really be with the fans and celebrate it with all those who are so important, I felt like there was a little bit of a lack of closure,” Brees said. “I try not to think about, like, the glance back in the Dome because I wish it would’ve been with a packed house. That energy that is so synonymous with the Superdome that I’ll always remember and what we always fed off every game day. My image of the Dome is much different than that last one.”
Brees said he can no longer throw with his right arm and uses his left hand when playing football with his sons.
“I can drop a dime like 30 yards, left-handed,” Brees said. “Unfortunately you need a little bit more than that to compete at this level. I throw left-handed with the boys, with everything. Anything below my shoulder, below the waist, racket sports, golf, that’s fine.”
Brees had previously shared in an appearance on ESPN Radio’s “Greeny” show in November that his degenerative right shoulder condition has him throwing left-handed in retirement.
“My right arm does not work,” he said on the show. “So when I throw in the backyard right now, I throw left-handed.”
The Saints announced Thursday that Brees, 45, will be the lone player inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2024. Brees will be inducted in the fall and recognized during one of the team’s home games this season.
Former Saints coach Sean Payton, now with the Denver Broncos, said he doesn’t know which game New Orleans is planning to recognize Brees. He smiled and said “maybe” during a news conference Thursday when it was suggested that the Saints’ Week 7 prime-time matchup against the Broncos could be the game.
Brees spoke at length Thursday afternoon at the Saints’ practice facility in front of his family, current team staff members and several former teammates about his 15 years in New Orleans and five seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Brees had a 360-degree tear of the labrum in his right shoulder, which eventually led to him signing with the Saints as a free agent before the 2006 season.
He said the injury was significant enough that he considered cashing out an insurance policy he took out on himself during his final season in San Diego.
“I really thought my career was over. Five years into it. I really thought I may never play again,” Brees said. “… There came a moment after the surgery where I could’ve taken the insurance policy. … Here I was facing a career-ending injury, and if I never played again, I could collect the insurance policy. And it was a good insurance policy. Point being, when that happens and all the sudden you just get a second chance … you just have so much gratitude in your heart.”
The surgery was successful enough to prolong Brees’ playing career by 15 years, but he said Dr. James Andrews warned him that the shoulder would eventually degenerate to the point where throwing would no longer be possible.
“He said, ‘You’re on the fast track to a degenerative shoulder. And so at some point this will catch up with you,’” Brees recalled. “All that wear and tear and all the work that was done. … Unfortunately there will be attrition at some point. I hung on as long as I could.”
Brees, who was a color analyst for NBC for one season and spent some time volunteering as an assistant coach for Purdue, has not ruled out a return to broadcasting or coaching in some capacity in the future.
“I have a passion for football,” he said. “I still love the game. I love to coach the game, I love to watch the game, I love to analyze the game. And that’ll never leave. … You’ve got to feed the flame somehow. So for me, I worked for NBC for a year, and honestly I had such a good time. It was awesome. The only problem was the travel schedule. … I love the game, and I would love to broadcast NFL games at some point.
“… But otherwise, coaching. I love coaching my boys, I love coaching high school kids, I love coaching 7-on-7. I love being a mentor for guys. I probably had five NFL quarterbacks reach out to me this offseason just to talk. … I love being in that role, and I always want to be a resource for the next generation. I feel that’s part of our responsibility. We wouldn’t be where we are without having those guys along the way, and now that baton is passed to us to be the next generation of mentors for guys that are coming up.”
LONDON — It was apt that Toni Kroos‘ last significant contribution in a Real Madrid shirt helped create another moment of history for the undisputed kings of the Champions League. A perfectly delivered corner, headed into the net by Dani Carvajal, and Madrid were on their way to a record 15th European Cup win by defeating Borussia Dortmund2-0 at Wembley.
Twelve minutes later, Kroos was substituted by coach Carlo Ancelotti — who was about to extend his own record to five Champions Leagues wins as a coach — to a standing ovation from the Real fans in London, with his place in the history books assured.
“It could be worse,” Kroos told CBS. “That was the plan [to win the Champions League in his last game for Madrid], even though it’s difficult to plan this. It seems in these games we are unable to lose.
“Amazing. Six titles in the Champions League is crazy, something I never thought I’d achieve.”
Kroos’ six Champions League wins — one with Bayern Munich and five with Madrid — puts him in rarified air. Nobody has won more, ever. Real great Paco Gento and Kroos’ modern-day teammates Luka Modric, Nacho Fernandez and Carvajal are the only players in history to lift the European Cup six times, but this win was the final chapter for Kroos, with the 34-year-old announcing recently that he will retire from football after representing Germany at Euro 2024.
“It’s what he wanted, retiring at the top, and he’s done it,” Real president Florentino Perez told TVE. “He’s a player who’ll be one of the great legends of Real Madrid, without doubt.”
Just as Kroos was cradling the trophy for the sixth time, Jude Bellingham was getting acquainted with it for the first. At 20, it is likely to be the first of many for the Madrid and England midfielder and he may yet eclipse Kroos’ record of six wins.
Bellingham has every chance of winning time and time again for Real. He is playing for the serial winners of the Champions League and he has already established himself as a crucial element of Ancelotti’s side since his €103 million transfer from Dortmund last summer. He literally has the world at his feet at the Santiago Bernabeu. But the big challenge for Bellingham now is to assume the mantle that is being vacated by Kroos. Can he become the heartbeat of the Real team and be the guy who delivers when his side needs it the most?
Neither Kroos nor Bellingham were at their absolute best against Dortmund. In fact, they were both chasing yellow shadows at times as Edin Terzic’s team surprised the LaLiga champions with their aggressive, committed pressing game, especially in the first half.
Dortmund were dominant for at least an hour and Real’s big performers struggled to make an impact. But great players are always able to dig deeper than the rest — that’s what elevates them to the pinnacle of the game — and Kroos did just that when he stepped up to take the corner which led to Carvajal’s headed goal, the full-back’s first Champions League tally since November 2015. Kroos has forged a reputation for being arguably the most accurate passer in football, with the ability to deliver the ball with inch-perfect precision, and he did just that for Carvajal, who glanced the ball into the net by connecting at the near post.
What a way to sign off, by creating the chance that makes the crucial breakthrough in a Champions League final. By doing so, Kroos lifted the pressure on everyone in a white shirt, and maybe nobody more so than Bellingham.
It is easy to forget how young Bellingham is. He is not 21 until the end of June, but he has already become an England regular and made his name in the Bundesliga and now LaLiga. In his first season with Madrid, he has scored an incredible 23 goals in 42 appearances and registered 13 assists — the 13th being the pass which teed up Vinícius Júnior make it 2-0 against Dortmund on Saturday. Because Bellingham has enjoyed such a stellar season, all eyes were on him to be the decisive player in this final, but he didn’t have that performance in his locker after a long, tough season.
But he is now a Champions League winner and, with Kroos vacating the stage, Bellingham will now be expected to do what Kroos did in this game.
He certainly has the ability, and he has the temperament too, but Kroos is such a legend at Real that even Bellingham will have to step up and take his game to another level. It is not about an apprentice emulating the master because Bellingham is no apprentice, but Kroos is still somebody he must aspire to match. To do that, Bellingham has to become a more central figure rather than allowing himself to drift out wide or too high up the pitch. But that tactical discipline will come, and it may start to come next season when Kylian Mbappé arrives at the Bernabeu.
Mbappe, who is expected to become a Real player once his Paris Saint-Germain contract expires this month, will take the spotlight and automatically become Real’s biggest star. But Bellingham is still capable of being the player that makes Real tick and the one who can create the chances for Mbappe to score so many goals and shoot Real to even more Champions Leagues.
Kroos has handed down the baton and Bellingham is ready to take it on. And don’t bet against him breaking Kroos’ record of six Champions Leagues if he stays at Madrid.
CHICAGO — Dansby Swanson hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-5 on a rainy Saturday night.
Seiya Suzuki committed an ugly error and hit his first career grand slam — in one wild inning — as Chicago won for just the second time in its last 10 games. Nico Hoerner walked twice, scored two runs and drove in another.
Mark Leiter Jr. (2-3) got three outs for the win, and Héctor Neris handled the ninth for his seventh save in nine opportunities.
“It’s been a little bit of a tough stretch and just to be able to fight and compete today, regardless of the conditions and just being here all day and all the different kind of obstacles, we really just stepped up today,” Swanson said.
Spencer Steer had three hits for Cincinnati, which had won five of seven.
The start was delayed for almost 3 1/2 hours because of rain, and the showers continued with varying intensity through the first few innings at Wrigley Field.
The game was tied at 5 when Hoerner walked with one out in the eighth against Lucas Sims (1-2). Swanson followed with a drive to left-center on an 0-2 fastball for his fifth homer.
“I think we were all thrilled for Dansby,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “You know he needed it, and to have the hit that wins the game, that’s a big deal.”
Cincinnati turned Suzuki’s second error of the season into four unearned runs in the second. With two out and the bases loaded, Suzuki had Luke Maile’s routine flyball to right go off his glove before landing in the outfield grass.
All three runners scored, and Stuart Fairchild followed with an RBI single off Justin Steele that lifted the Reds to a 4-0 lead.
Suzuki responded with a big swing in the bottom half, delighting what was left of the announced crowd of 36,430. With two out and the bases loaded on three walks, the Japanese slugger drove a 3-2 fastball from Hunter Greene deep to left for his sixth homer of the season.
“To be honest with you, I don’t really remember that at-bat,” Suzuki said through a translator. “It was more of just that play that I should have caught that ball in right field.”
Chicago went in front on Hoerner’s RBI single in the third, but Cincinnati tied it at 5 when Jeimer Candelario singled home Fairchild in the fourth.
Greene allowed three hits in six innings, but issued five walks and hit two batters. The right-hander went 3-0 with a 1.95 ERA in his previous six starts.
“Early on he had the inning where he lost command a little bit and Suzuki got him. Missed a spot,” Reds manager David Bell said. “And other than that he really pitched well. … An experience like tonight, he couldn’t have handled it any better in my opinion.”
Steele permitted one earned run and seven hits in five innings. The left-hander struck out five and walked four.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cubs: RHP Julian Merryweather (rib stress fracture) won’t be back until some point after the All-Star break, according to Counsell. … RHP Yency Almonte (shoulder strain) is ramping up the intensity of his throwing program. “But he’s still in a phase of just playing catch, throwing program in the outfield right now,” Counsell said. “Not on a mound yet, so a ways to go.”
UP NEXT
Reds left-hander Nick Lodolo (4-2, 3.12 ERA) and Cubs right-hander Ben Brown (1-1, 2.72 ERA) start the series finale on Sunday afternoon. Lodolo pitched 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball in a 3-1 victory over St. Louis on Monday. Brown is coming off a dominant performance in Milwaukee, striking out 10 while pitching seven no-hit innings in Chicago’s 6-3 win on Tuesday.
Defending champion and world No 1 Novak Djokovic survived a five-set near five-hour epic against Lorenzo Musetti in the latest-ever finish to a match in French Open history.
The reigning champion showcased the iron will that has made him one of the game’s greatest players to avoid defeat in a thrilling contest that got underway at 10:40pm local time on Saturday.
Djokovic went on to seal a marathon 7-5 6-7 (6-8) 2-6 6-3 6-0 comeback victory over 22-year-old Italian Musetti to advance to the last 16 in a match that lasted four hours and 29 minutes and did not conclude until Sunday after 3am local time – shattering the tournament’s previous latest finish of 1:26am.
The Serbian claimed his 369th Grand Slam match victory to move level with Roger Federer at the top of the all-time list.
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Djokovic’s last-night win over Musetti breaks the record for the latest match ever played at Roland Garros
The previous record was 01.26 finish when Rafael Nadal defeated Jannik Sinner in the 2020 quarter-finals
“He played a fantastic match and came very close to victory,” Djokovic said on court.
“I was in great difficulties but thanks to your support in the fourth set, I became a different player. It was perhaps the best match I have played here.”
The 37-year-old recovered from an early loss of serve and went toe-to-toe with the Italian in the draining first set before edging in front with a crucial break thanks to some incredible defending.
Djokovic was soon in cruise control in the second set with a spectacular drop that gave him a 3-1 lead.
But Musetti broke back and drew level at 4-4 before saving a set point in a high-quality tie-break to level the match.
The 30th seed then took his game up a few notches to break and surge ahead in the third set, before sealing it comfortably as alarm bells began to ring for a weary-looking Djokovic, who was forced to dig deep to haul himself level.
Djokovic, who ranted about the state of the surface, was also called for a time violation by umpire Adel Nour in the decider, losing his first serve. He pleaded, “Have a little bit of understanding.”
Nevertheless, he rediscovered his rhythm to bagel his exhausted opponent at the ungodly hour of 3:08am.
Most Grand Slam wins, all-time
369 – Federer
369 – Djokovic
314 – Nadal
233 – Connors
224 – Agassi
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“Who’s going to sleep now?” Djokovic added. “It’s impossible to sleep, so much adrenaline. If you’re having a party, I’m coming.”
The 24-time Grand Slam champion next faces Argentine 23rd seed Francisco Cerundolo, who advanced to the fourth round for the second consecutive year.
Djokovic, the three-time Roland Garros champion, must reach the final just to have a chance of remaining No 1 in the rankings, but Jannik Sinner is guaranteed to become the 29th player in history (since 1973) to rise to top spot if he reaches the final on Sunday.
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World No 4 Alexander Zverev survived a marathon match to beat Tallon Griekspoor 3-6 6-4 6-2 4-6 7-6 (10-3) and keep alive his hopes of a first Grand Slam title.
“Incredible match, incredible player, unbelievably dangerous. I don’t like to play against him. Credit to him,” said Zverev.
Zverev, semi-finalist for the last three years, had not dropped a set in his opening two matches, including a first-round win over Rafael Nadal, but he was on the back foot when the Dutch 26th seed won the opening set.
The German finally broke serve when leading 5-4 in the second set to level the match and made lighter work of the third set and when Griekspoor took a medical timeout it appeared that Zverev would have little trouble closing out victory.
Griekspoor forced a deciding set, however, and held a 4-1 advantage after two breaks of serve before Zverev roared back to win four consecutive games.
The Dutchman kept his nerve to force a tie-break, but after an enthralling match lasting over four hours on Court Philippe Chatrier, it was Zverev who fired down an ace to clinch victory and reach the second week for the seventh time in a row.
Zverev the fighter
Alexander Zverev has won nine consecutive matches on clay in ATP events for the first time since winning 13 between Munich-Madrid-Rome in 2018.
FAA sets up Alcaraz blockbuster
Canadian 21st seed Felix Auger-Aliassime won his rain-delayed third-round match with American 15th seed Ben Shelton 6-4 6-2 6-1.
Auger-Aliassime continued where he left off on Friday when he led 5-4 in the first set before rain stopped play, and will next face Spanish third seed Carlos Alcaraz in the last 16.
The Canadian leads the Spaniard 3-2 in the pair’s meetings, but Alcaraz has won their past two clashes.
“For me today the things that were in my control I did really well,” Auger-Aliassime said.
“I am pleased with how I handled the match and gave him difficulty. I was able to put a lot of returns in and force his targets on first serve.
“He was not getting as many free points on that serve that he usually gets, so we had to engage in a rally every time and I think that paid off as the match went on.”
Rain once again disrupted play on the outside courts.
Medvedev overcomes fearless Machac
Image: Daniil Medvedev overcame Czech Tomas Machac to reach the fourth round
Daniil Medvedev beat Tomas Machac 7-6 (7-4) 7-5 1-6 6-4 in an exhilarating clash under the roof on Court Suzanne-Lenglen to move into the last 16.
Machac was in the limelight last month when he stunned world No 1 Djokovic in the Geneva Open semi-finals for the biggest win of his career and he pushed Medvedev in a match lasting over three hours.
“It was a very tough match, I’m very happy I stay constant even in the difficult moments,” Medvedev said.
“It was tight. The match could have turned one way or the other, but I’m happy I’m the one who won.”
Image: Chair umpire Damien Dumusois catches a pigeon that crashed onto the court during the match
Having taken the first two sets, Medvedev lost his way and capitulated in the third after he broke Machac, with the 23-year-old Czech player winning the next six games to the delight of a crowd starved of action on a rainy day in Paris.
Medvedev refocused in the fourth set, however, and despite Machac’s bold attempts to force a decider, the fifth seed stepped up in the crucial points to advance.
Medvedev faces 11th seed Alex de Minaur after the Australian beat German Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-3.
De Minaur thanked a young spectator who stuck with him all the way through his rain-delayed four-set win.
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He said: “That young lad was there from the very first point till the last – with five hours of rain delay.
“He was this little kid that every single change of ends, every single point I won, he was screaming at my face. I’m looking at him and thinking if I was a fan, I would probably be back home, because it was bloody cold out there.
“I just gave him a hug. I was, like, ‘mate’… It was a relief more than anything. It was amazing. I appreciate this kid.
“You know, yeah, the fact that he’s spent 10 hours at the court today in the freezing cold pumping me up, I was happy that I was able to get a win together with him.”
The 11th seed wrote on social media: “I need to find the name of this legend!!! Message me on Instagram, I need you for the next round.”
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In the run-up to the third Grand Slam of 2024 – Wimbledon – you can watch all of the biggest tennis stars in action live on Sky Sports as they compete across the grass-court season.
Stuttgart Open (ATP 250 with Andy Murray in action) – June 10-16
Earlier this spring, we ranked the contenders for elite four-star linebacker Riley Pettijohn, the No. 1 inside linebacker in the 2025 class. There were five schools in the running at that time, but as time has gone, one school has been trimmed from the list.
Pettijohn now has four programs he is focusing on: Texas, Texas A&M, Ohio State, and USC. Each of the four are scheduled to receive official visits this summer.
Rivals breaks down the contenders for the top-50 prospect out of McKinney, Texas.
1. Texas
Ranking No. 1 is a pretty easy one here. The Longhorns are once again one of the premier programs in the country, back to competing on a national scale. Steve Sarkisian not only has the offense rolling, but is showing he can develop defenders at an impressive rate. The linebacker room at Texas is one that has seen a transformation in recruiting but would still allow for Pettijohn to play early in his career. Just one year ago, Texas landed No. 1 inside linebacker in Anthony Hill out of Denton, Texas, who went on to win FWAA Freshman All-American and co-Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year. Texas has a perfect roadmap to sell to Pettijohn. The four-star prospect has also been sporting a Longhorns backpack essentially the entire offseason.
2. Ohio State
The status and history of Ohio State’s defenders put them in line for just about any elite prospect they want. And Ryan Day doesn’t miss often, especially looking at how they finished the 2024 class and have started the 2025 class. He would be coached under new linebackers coach James Lauranitus as well as defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who has a deep background in coaching linebackers. Being the top power in the Big Ten will be appealing as is playing with the loaded recruiting class of defenders the Buckeyes have in 2025, which includes two five-star defensive backs.
3. USC
USC has done a lot to impress Pettijohn. A completely new defensive staff, and culture, in place has aided in the recruiting of elite defenders so far in the 2025 class. New linebackers coach Matt Entz, wholeft his head coaching job at North Dakota State to work under Lincoln Riley, is an attractive matchup for linebackers to develop under. Another interesting point here is that one of Pettijohn’s former McKinney teammates and good friend, running back Bryan Jackson, is now a freshman at USC. They took visits together previously and Jackson is pressing for Pettijohn to join him.
4. Texas A&M
The Aggies being an in-state program has always kept in the picture, but the hire of Mike Elko helped give them more of a presence in his recruitment. With an official visit ahead, Pettijohn may even feel comfortable with the direction of the Aggies, but it seems like a stretch to see him going to Texas A&M at this time.
Marcel Louis-Jacques joined ESPN in 2019 as a beat reporter covering the Buffalo Bills, before switching to the Miami Dolphins in 2021. The former Carolina Panthers beat writer for the Charlotte Observer won the APSE award for breaking news and the South Carolina Press Association award for enterprise writing in 2018.
MIAMI — The Dolphins agreed to a contract extension Thursday with Jaylen Waddle that makes him one of the highest-paid wide receivers in the NFL.
The three-year, $84.75 million extension includes $76 million guaranteed, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The $28.25 million average annual value of the extension is the fourth highest in the NFL among wide receivers, while the guaranteed money is the third behind A.J. Brown ($84 million) and Amon-Ra St. Brown ($77 million).
Waddle is now signed through the 2028 season.
Despite playing alongside Tyreek Hill for the past two seasons, Waddle’s 3,385 receiving yards rank 13th in the NFL since 2021, and he has recorded the 16th-most receiving yards of any player in their first three seasons.
The No. 6 overall pick in 2021 set a rookie record with 104 receptions and followed that campaign with a career-best 1,356 yards in 2022 in his first season under coach Mike McDaniel. Waddle recorded his third straight 1,000-yard season in 2023 despite missing three games, becoming the first player in Dolphins history to record three consecutive seasons of at least 1,000 receiving yards.
Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said in April that the team felt good about where things were with Waddle’s extension. He laughed off the idea that Miami should consider trading Waddle and reaffirmed the team’s commitment to keeping him around long term.
“No, as I said in the middle of the season, I have no thoughts of trading Jaylen Waddle,” Grier said in February. “We want him here for a long time, and we think he’s a big part of our now and our future here. He’s a great person on and off the field, and we still think, as good as he is, he still has runway to keep getting better.”
Waddle is the second key player of the Dolphins’ rebuild over the past five years to sign a long-term extension with the team, joining 2020 first-round pick Austin Jackson. Miami will also seek extensions with Waddle’s draft classmates Jaelan Phillips and Jevon Holland as well as quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
The contract extension was negotiated by Waddle’s representation at WME Football.
Europe’s premier club competition has arrived at its showpiece event and it’s 14-time winners Real Madrid against Borussia Dortmund, who are chasing their second-ever Champions League title.
Enjoy the play-by-play from the big game as as we bring you highlights, analysis and updates.
PARIS — This one’s for the birds: A pigeon landed on the court during a French Open match Saturday, leading the chair umpire to use a towel to rescue the fallen fowl.
The pigeon dropped to the red clay at Court Suzanne Lenglen — and remained on the ground — during a changeover in the fourth set of 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev’s third-round victory over Tomas Machac at Roland Garros.
Chair umpire Damien Dumusois, um, flew into action, climbing down from his perch and grabbing a white towel. He approached the bird, which appeared injured and tried hopping away. Dumusois gave chase and eventually bent over, using the towel to grab the pigeon with both hands, earning cheers from spectators.
The official then carried it toward a doorway and handed it off to someone else, who held the bird aloft, drawing more applause.
Dumusois returned to his chair, got back up on his seat and announced that play would resume.
The match continued with Medvedev ahead 4-3 in the final set, and the fifth-seeded Russian completed his 7-6 (4), 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 win about 10 minutes later.
DETROIT – Rivals was in attendance for the National College Showcase at Wayne State in Detroit on Thursday. Several college assistants and head coaches were in attendance for the event. Minnesota coach PJ Fleck, Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith, Michigan coach Sherrone Moore, Iowa defensive coordinator PhilParker and several others were seen checking out the talent.
Here’s a rundown of the latest with some of the top recruits in attendance.
Things got interesting recently since the Michigan native was being pursued hard by the new staff at Michigan State. They offered Clark a scholarship and tried to make a move but Clark told me that he’s sold with Wisconsin.
That’s not likely to change unless Badgers offensive line coach AJBlazek leaves the program.
*****
Sadler is one of the most heavily recruited prospects at the camp with well over 20 scholarship offers on the table. Sadler was a problem for defensive backs all camp with his quickness and route-running ability. He’s visiting Oregon this summer and is excited about that trip.
He’s in the process of setting several other visits to schools outside of the region. Michigan and Michigan State are pushing hard here, too. The Wolverines have the best shot to keep him in state. Sadler was at the Wolverines’ spring game and said that it always feels good to be back in Ann Arbor.
*****
Robertson is an emerging 2026 offensive line prospect out of Michigan. The offensive tackle (6-7, 260) was offered by Toledo after camp. It was easy to see why he’s getting a lot of looks right now, as he has really good size and long arms to keep defenders at bay.
He was recently offered by Kentucky and pans to visit there on June 9.
*****
Tabron is a young signal-caller in the class of 2028 that was impressive. He may have been the youngest player at the camp but has the early look of a national recruit. He holds offers from Kentucky, Marshall and Maryland.
He told me that he plans to camp at Michigan, MSU, Penn State and Tennessee. He enters the process with an open mind and didn’t have any dream schools growing up.
“Schools I’ve been to and have had great experiences so far are Tennessee, Michigan, Miami, Penn State, Duke and Maryland,” he said.
*****
Savoury was a prospect that the Michigan State coaches had a close eye on through the camp. The Spartans seem to be his leader but he is set to make five official visits over the next month. The first one will be to Michigan State this weekend. He’s also scheduled to visit Wisconsin (June 7), Kansas (June 14), BYU (June 17) and Duke (June 21). He might go to Northwestern, as well.
Savoury is an interesting projection because he recorded 15 receptions for 187 yards last season as part of a run-heavy offense. He performed well in front of many Spartan coaches including Smith.
*****
Lincoln Keyes
Keyes is one of the potential risers at tight end for the 2026 class in the Midwest. He’s got a big frame (6-6, 225) and is getting better as a route runner. The Michigan native plans to camp at Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State this summer. He may take a swing down South too with potential Texas A&M and Tennessee trips.
Keyes also added Miami (OH) to his offer sheet after the camp. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Keyes’ recruitment take off as more schools work with him in person.
*****
Cleveland was a hot prospect at the National College Showcase. The linebacker (6-2, 200) moved well at his position and has a frame that can be built on. He picked up four offers on the day including his first Big Ten offer to Minnesota.
Cleveland has been in contact with the Gophers for a while so it felt good to see his hard work pay off. He’s going to Indiana on Tuesday for a visit and camp. He doesn’t have any official visits set up yet.
“I’m looking for a school that will help me develop as a player on the field into becoming one of the best LBs in the country,” Cleveland said. “Also, I’m looking for a school that has a strong culture.”
Cleveland just set an official visit to Minnesota for June 7-9.
*****
Miles was one of the true standouts of the camp on Thursday. He was excellent getting a quick release off the ball and ran crisp routes to get open all camp. He was rewarded quickly for that performance. After the camp, Miles received offers from Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Marshall and Western Michigan.
Miles told Rivals that Syracuse is recruiting him the hardest right now but that could change following his impressive camp performance.
*****
Hinton is a two-way standout at Paducah Tilgham High School in Kentucky. He’s a Vanderbilt commit but he’s looking to take an official visit to Memphis.
“I’m looking for the culture and hospitality at my future school, Hinton said. “If the school would be a home-type place for me and also my connection with the coaches.”
Who will win the 2024 T20 World Cup? How will England fare? Who will finish as the leading wicket-taker and top run-scorer? And can co-hosts USA stun the watching world?
We’ve asked Sky Sports Cricket’s Stuart Broad, Eoin Morgan, Mark Butcher and Ian Ward, as well as former Pakistan captain Urooj Mumtaz, for their picks, including who they think will hold the trophy aloft in Barbados after the final on June 29.
Watch the opening game of the T20 World Cup – USA vs Canada in Dallas – live on Sky Sports Cricket from 1am on Sunday (first ball 1.30am), with defending champions England beginning their campaign against Scotland in Barbados on Tuesday June 4 (3.30pm first ball).
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The Men’s T20 World Cup, in West Indies and USA, is live on Sky Sports between June 2-29
Who will win the World Cup?
STUART BROAD: It’s one of the hardest tournaments to pick for a while. I see England, India, West Indies in their own backyard and South Africa making up the four semi-finalists… and I reckon it could finally beSouth Africa’s time.
EOIN MORGAN: I think Indiaare out-and-out favourites. Strength-in-depth wise, they’re excellent. I also think England have a really, really strong chance and Australia, come World Cup time, just know how to win. They’re my standouts.
IAN WARD: I think this is a big tournament for India. They were brilliant in the 50-over World Cup last year but just couldn’t get over the line. That is their biggest challenge.
MARK BUTCHER: I think England have got a fantastic chance. I wouldn’t put it past them winning the whole thing – and that’s not just me being patriotic. Particularly as they’ve now got Jofra Archer back around the group – one man shouldn’t make that much difference, but he really does.
UROOJ MUMTAZ: It’s always difficult to look past Australia. I think they’re probably slightly ahead of the rest to lift that trophy.
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Highlights of England’s seven-wicket win over Pakistan at The Kia Oval in their final match before the T20 World Cup
How will England do?
BROAD: They’re defending T20 champions. Obviously the 50-over World Cup was a disappointment, but they’re very different formats – in ODIs, you need about six players to have a good game, whereas T20 you can win with only a couple firing – and England have players like Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer who are natural match-winners.
MORGAN: They’ll have learnt a huge amount from the ODI World Cup experience. They acknowledge mistakes were made along the way and they’ve rectified that since, both in terms of consistency of selection and clarity of message in what they’re trying to do. The expectation is still very high, and justifiably so because of the quality that they have.
WARD: I think, quite simply, they have to be in the final four. That’s a bare minimum, given the talent in their squad. They’re well capable of winning it again… but we need to see everyone going in the same direction. That was not the case in last year’s 50-over World Cup.
MUMTAZ: I think England have got enough firepower and a lot of players in really good form. I see them in the final four, if not the final two, for sure.
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Commentator Andrew Leonard believes there is potential for USA to become the best associate nation in world cricket
What can we expect from co-hosts USA?
BROAD: It’s really exciting, I think, to have one of the most iconic games in cricket, India versus Pakistan, in New York. That will be such a special occasion and ultimately we want the game of cricket to grow worldwide as much as we can.
MORGAN: They’re a good team and will go under the radar – there’s the ‘unknown factor’ which will work to their advantage. If they can get that first victory, that will give them a huge amount of confidence, ideally in that opening game against Canada. They’re a beautiful story.
MUMTAZ: India vs Pakistan is a blockbuster anywhere but when they play in New York it becomes a global blockbuster because it will attract and inspire a new audience to the game. As for the US team, their recent results – two wins over Bangladesh – are phenomenal. You listen to the comments coming out of the US camp, they’re there to spring a surprise.
BUTCHER: All eyes are going to be on that India-Pakistan game in New York. Ticket prices for that are frightening! If the game shows the best of itself in that part of the world, then of course you’ve got another market to grow into.
WARD: I never thought I’d say we’d be playing cricket in Dallas! The stadiums look absolutely fabulous, I have to say, and the Americans know how to put on a show. They’ve just beaten Bangladesh, so they’re capable of putting a couple of victories together and getting some interest, which is basically why it’s in the States, isn’t it?
Image: All-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai is one of a number of high-quality players in the Afghanistan squad
Team most likely to spring an upset?
BROAD: You can’t even look now at Afghanistan as being underdogs, because they’ve got so many match-winners. In years to come, if they keep producing this amount of talent, we’re going to see them challenge for trophies.
MORGAN: I’m hearing a lot of good things about Nepal. And, coming at this a different way, there’s two teams I would look at who could prove shock winners of the tournament… West Indies and Pakistan. For the co-hosts, the only area they’re a bit short is in the seam department, and Pakistan you can never write off. They can front up and beat anybody on any given day.
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Leonard tells the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast that the potential for the game to grow in Nepal is huge
BUTCHER: There’s always shocks, T20 as a format brings the teams closer together. It happens in these World Cups more and more – just as long as it doesn’t happen to England! Nepal are the ones I’d say are certainly capable of springing an upset.
As far as teams who can perhaps upset the apple cart, I think the West Indies are a bit of a wildcard. They’ve got extreme power right the way down the batting line-up; hopefully the home crowds will be there to support them and they’ll put on a really good showing. I fancy them to have a strong tournament.
WARD: Ireland have shown they’re capable of beating the big sides regularly. It will also be nice to see the likes of Nepal and Oman, to see where they’re at.
Image: India’s Jasprit Bumrah should contend to be leading wicket-taker
Leading wicket-taker
BROAD: Jasprit Bumrah. He’s such a threat with the ball.
MORGAN: I would lean towards a spinner. I think the wickets are going to offer a lot of spin and will probably slow up, so I’m going to go with Ravindra Jadeja.
MUMTAZ: It’s difficult to look past Shaheen Shah Afridi and Mitchell Starc. Both bowl in the powerplay, with swing and a phenomenal wicket-taking ability. In terms of spin, I’d put Rashid Khan in the mix as well.
BUTCHER: You don’t look too much further than Jasprit Bumrah, while I also hope Jofra Archer is up there.
WARD: I’m tempted to say a spinner, maybe Adil Rashid or Adam Zampa, because I think it will play a big part, but I also don’t think you can look past Jasprit Bumrah.
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Watch the best bits as Jos Buttler struck eight fours and three sixes in an innings of 84 from 51 balls against Pakistan at Edgbaston last month
Leading run-scorer
BROAD: I’m going for Jos Buttler.
MORGAN: Jos Buttler. He’s been in magnificent form in recent franchise tournaments and I expect him to lead from the front.
MUMTAZ: It’s difficult to look past Jos Buttler. You’d imagine also that Babar Azam will be up there, Travis Head is in sublime form and then there’s the GOAT Virat Kohli. One of those four.
BUTCHER: You hope that Jos Butler has a fabulous tournament. Virat Kohli’s form in the IPL has also been outrageous and Heinrich Klaasen of South Africa could be one of the most impactful players.
WARD: An opener, or at least someone in the top three. England will hope that’s Jos Buttler – he’s the best white-ball batter we’ve ever had and his runs are so vital to the team. Then there’s Travis Head or maybe Heinrich Klaasen of South Africa.
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Sunrisers Hyderabad racked up an IPL-record total of 287 this season. Will bat dominate at the T20 World Cup as well or will the bowlers bite back?
Trend for the tournament?
BROAD: I don’t think the scores will be as extreme as the IPL, where some of the hitting was absolutely incredible. In the Caribbean, I think we’ll see bowlers bowling into the pitch, cross-seamers and a bit slower, like our 2010 win over there.
MORGAN: The trend towards high scores in the IPL was probably the most dramatic for a long time. It stood out like a sore thumb; the bowlers didn’t really have an answer to the way that batters were striking the ball. But I see this World Cup as redemption for the bowlers, with the pitches aiding a recalibration of the game their way.
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Eoin Morgan, Nasser Hussain and Urooj Mumtaz join Ian Ward to discuss their dream T20 World Cup XI
BUTCHER: Bowlers, as they always do in these international tournaments, will have an enormous say, despite the fact that they might disappear out of the park. There are too many high-quality ones in these teams for that not to be the case.
WARD: Way back when, in 2010 when England won the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean, it was slower-ball bouncers that proved effective. What I’m very interested to see is, what can the bowlers come up with to try and level the playing field this time? They’re up against it.
Watch every match from the Men’s T20 World Cup live on Sky Sports between June 2 and 29. England open up against Scotland in Barbados on Tuesday June 4 (3.30pm first ball) with Ireland playing India in New York on Wednesday June 5 (also 3.30pm).
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LANCASTER, Pa. — Wichanee Meechai became the latest surprise in a U.S. Women’s Open filled with them. She started Friday with four straight birdies and matched the low score of the week with a 3-under 67 for a two-shot lead going into a weekend that won’t include Nelly Korda.
Meechai, a 31-year-old from Thailand, had never finished in the top 10 in her 20 previous appearances in the majors. Her only victory recognized by the women’s world ranking was nine years ago on the Taiwan LPGA.
She went from five shots ahead of Andrea Lee to two shots behind in a span of five holes. Meechai steadied herself with two birdies over the last six holes to finish at 4-under 136, two shots in front of Lee with only two other players under par.
A pair of former Women’s Open champions, Minjee Lee (69) and Yuka Saso (71) were three shots back at Lancaster Country Club.
“I feel like I might not be making a lot of birdies on the easier courses. I’m not that person,” Meechai said in trying to explain her 36-hole lead in a major. “I like when you need to think a lot, when you need to land it shorter and be patient.”
That worked to perfection on her opening four holes, all birdie putts inside 6 feet.
“I just picked the club that’s shorter and hit it hard,” she said.
The week started with a surprise announcement by Lexi Thompson that she will retire from a full schedule at the end of the year. Her 18th and most likely final U.S. Women’s Open ended early with rounds of 78-75.
It will end with Korda back home in Florida, missing the cut for the first time in nearly a year.
Korda got a small measure of revenge on the par-3 12th, where on Thursday she hit into the water three times and made a career-worst 10 on her way to an 80. This time the pin was to the back, not the front. She came up so short with a chunky 8-iron that it appeared her golf ball would roll back into the water.
It was held up by a patch of grass. She jabbed a pitch to 20 feet and holed the par putt, smiled and offered a playful expletive at the green.
“I wanted to make a birdie to get my revenge on that hole, but par will do,” she said.
Korda, who came into the Women’s Open having won six of her last seven tournaments, ran off three straight birdies toward the end of the front nine to get in range of the cut.
But she didn’t hit the ball well off the tee, or from the fairway when given the chance. She had only four looks at birdie on the back nine, shot 70 and missed the cut by two.
“When I made those three birdies in a row, I wanted to make the cut,” Korda said. “I knew that I was kind of hovering around it, and I just couldn’t get anything going on the back.”
Also missing the cut were Rose Zhang, Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson and defending Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz.
Among those sticking around was 15-year-old Asterisk Talley — her first name is Greek for “little star” — who had 15 pars in her round of 71 and was in a group at 1-over 141 that included U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Megan Schofill.
Lee delivered a stretch even more impressive than Meechai, hers coming in the middle of the round. The Stanford alum was on the ropes and in a bunker on No. 1 — her 10th hole of the round — when her shot rolled true to a back pin and dropped for eagle.
Lee followed with three straight birdies, and suddenly was two clear of Meechai in the group behind her. Lee three-putted from 30 feet for bogey on No. 5, and failed to save par from a bunker on the par-3 eighth.
She will be in the last group Saturday, with Minjee Lee and Saso ahead of them and with far more experience in dealing with such a stern test.
Minjee Lee, whose two majors include a Women’s Open at Pine Needles two years ago, made consecutive bogeys at the turn and then played mistake-free the rest of the way. Saso, the Women’s Open champion at Olympic Club in 2021, steadied herself from a rocky start by playing bogey-free over her last 12 holes.
Most telling was Saso being asked to describe her best shot and Lee asked about the one shot she would like to have back. Both had to turn toward a scoring terminal showing their scorecards, needing to jog their memories about the rounds they had just completed.
That’s the kind of golf a Women’s Open, particularly on a traditional course like Lancaster, can generate. It’s about grinding, getting to the next hole and not doing anything to ruin a round.
And then there’s Meechai, delightfully self-deprecating about how she approaches this test.
“I’m the person who has no confidence at all,” she said. “I think about missing the cut because I know that I can shoot like 1 under and next day 8 over. It’s so easy for me. Trying not to think about it is the hardest part for me so that’s why I’m so nervous.”
Two other amateurs were among the 75 players to make the cut at 8-over 148. One of them was Adela Cernousek of France, a junior at Texas A&M who won the NCAA title two weeks ago. She opened with a 69 and was on the verge of shooting 80 and missing the cut until her chip smacked into the pin on her final hole and settled 2 feet away for par instead of rolling off the front of the green back into the fairway.
BALTIMORE — Jorge Mateo hit a tiebreaking two-run double in the sixth inning and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 on Friday night.
It was the first meeting of the season between the teams after the Orioles (101-61) edged the Rays (99-63) in a fierce race for the AL East title last year. Baltimore scored all three of its runs in the sixth after Tampa Bay’s Aaron Civale took a shutout into that inning.
Civale left after Anthony Santander’s one-out single, and Richard Lovelady (1-4) allowed singles to Colton Cowser and pinch-hitter Austin Hays, the latter of which tied the game. After Rámon Urías struck out, Phil Maton came on and yielded Mateo’s drive to left-center field that scored both runners.
“He’s gotten huge hits for us,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “He hit that ball on a line to the deep part of the ballpark. … When he stays on the baseball, really good things happen. If he can lay off the slider off the plate and try to get one on the plate, he can really drive the baseball.”
Cionel Pérez (1-0) got the win as the first of five Baltimore relievers after Albert Suárez worked five innings. Craig Kimbrel pitched a perfect ninth for his 13th save in 16 chances.
Suárez had a high pitch count early, but allowed only one run and four hits with two walks while striking out five. The 34-year-old journeyman might have a spot in the rotation for a while after the Orioles announced before the game that John Means and Tyler Wells need elbow surgery and will miss the rest of the season.
Tampa Bay took a 1-0 lead on an RBI single by Ben Rortvedt in the second.
The Rays selected right-hander Justin Sterner from Triple-A Durham and optioned lefty Tyler Alexander to Durham. The 27-year-old Sterner, who went to BYU following a two-year mission in Samoa and eventually signed with the Miami Marlins as an undrafted free agent in 2020, entered in the seventh to make his big league debut and threw two scoreless innings.
“I got the call for the first pitch, and then my whole body just went numb,” Sterner said. “I was like, ‘Well, hopefully this goes over the plate.’ I honestly don’t remember if it did, but then after that it felt good.”
Tampa Bay’s Jose Siri was ejected after striking out in the ninth.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Orioles: INF Jordan Westburg missed a second straight game after being hit by a pitch around the hand.
UP NEXT
Baltimore’s Kyle Bradish (1-0) takes the mound Saturday against Tampa Bay’s Taj Bradley (1-2). Bradish threw seven no-hit innings and struck out 11 in his most recent start Sunday.
Field Yates is a fantasy football expert and NFL draft analyst for ESPN. You can find him on Fantasy Football Now on Sunday mornings and regularly on NFL Live throughout the week, as well as the Fantasy Focus and First Draft podcasts. A graduate of Wesleyan University (CT) and native of Weston, Mass., Yates has previous experience interning with the New England Patriots on both their coaching and scouting staffs.
Field Yates’ 2024 fantasy football rankings will be updated throughout the preseason to reflect any changes in his view on players for the upcoming season.
Hot-headed Andrey Rublev lost his cool spectacularly as he crashed out of the French Open with a straight-sets defeat to Matteo Arnaldi in the third round.
Arnaldi, 23, saved a set point in the opening set before going on to dominate his opponent, beating Rublev 7-6 (8-6) 6-2 6-4.
The sixth-seeded Russian had a heated argument with umpire Lazemar Engzell during the second set over the mark left by a disputed line call.
Rublev promptly dropped serve and exploded with rage, smashing his racket to the ground and screaming towards his players’ box. At the changeover, the 26-year-old then repeatedly kicked his seat, leaving large dents in it.
In the third set, Rublev, by now on the verge of tears, began furiously hitting his knee with his racket as he was swept aside in straight sets.
“Completely disappointed with myself the way I behaved, the way I performed and I don’t remember behaving worse in a Grand Slam ever,” a remorseful Rublev said after the match.
“I think it was first time I’ve behaved that bad.”
Image: Twenty-three-year-old Matteo Arnaldi also reached the fourth round of last year’s US Open
Rublev has never got past the quarter-finals at a grand slam. He was tipped for a strong run at Roland Garros this year after winning his second career ATP Masters 1000 title in Madrid earlier this month but is now the highest-seeded casualty so far in the men’s draw.
Arnaldi will next play either Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas after he beat China’s Zhang Zhizhen 6-3 6-3 6-1.
Alcaraz beats Korda
Carlos Alcaraz was back on form as he beat Sebastian Korda 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 with his best showing of the French Open so far.
Wimbledon champion Alcaraz had a tough second round and there were concerns about his fitness afterwards. However, he showed no signs of weakness as he had a response for everything Korda threw at him.
Image: Carlos Alcaraz is through to the second week of the French Open
He got a decisive break towards the end of the first set, then won a tight second and stepped his foot on the gas to win the third.
The Spaniard will face Ben Shelton or Felix Auger-Aliassime for a place in the quarter-finals, with their match on hold due to rain.
“It was a really good match. I played really, really well. It’s something I really wanted to get into the rallies and play good points. I’m feeling myself on the court and I did pretty well,” said Alcaraz.
“I’m feeling amazing. I feel great playing on this court (Philippe Chatrier). I have great memories and hopefully I can keep going.”
Sinner breezes by Kotov and into fourth round
World number two Jannik Sinner eased into the fourth round with a ruthless 6-4 6-4 6-4 victory against Pavel Kotov.
The Australian Open champion faced only one break point on serve in a one-sided encounter, setting up a meeting with either Austrian Sebastian Ofner or French favourite Corentin Moutet in the last 16.
Kotov, who disposed of Britain’s Cameron Norrie in the first round and was hoping to beat a second Grand Slam champion in a row after eliminating Stan Wawrinka in the second, got off to a fiery start but Sinner was still a level above in the first set.
Image: Jannik Sinner secured his safe passage through to the fourth round at Roland Garros in straight sets
The Italian got another early break in the second to move two sets up and the same pattern was repeated in the third as Sinner wrapped up victory with an ace on match point.
Sinner also beat Kotov in straight sets in the Madrid Masters in April.
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David Newton is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Carolina Panthers. Newton began covering Carolina in 1995 and came to ESPN in 2006 as a NASCAR reporter before joining NFL Nation in 2013. You can follow Newton on Twitter at @DNewtonespn.
CHARLOTTE, N.C — Carolina Panthers tight end Tommy Tremble was in full stride early during team drills on Wednesday when he caught a pass on a crossing route and turned up field for a big play. On the next play, tight end Ian Thomas caught a pass over the middle for a solid gain.
The trend continued later.
Tight ends making plays has been anything but a trend for Carolina the past four seasons.
“We’ve been kind of in purgatory for a little bit,” said Tremble, a third-round pick out of Notre Dame in 2021.
Purgatory, indeed.
Over the past four seasons, seven Carolina tight ends totaled 181 catches for 1,734 yards and 10 touchdowns to rank last in the NFL in all three categories. The next lowest total was 248 catches for 2,321 yards and 12 touchdowns. The NFL average for that span was 319 catches for 3,354 yards and 25.1 touchdowns.
The Kansas City Chiefs led the way with 505 catches for 5,888 yards and 47 touchdowns, thanks in large part to Travis Kelce. They also ranked among the top six in team scoring in three of those seasons and won two Super Bowls.
Carolina has ranked 24th or worse in scoring each season during that span, including 31st during an NFL-worst 2-15 2023 season.
Tight end production and prolific scoring haven’t been a factor for Carolina since Greg Olsen was in his prime and playing every game between 2013 and 2016. The three-time Pro Bowl selection had 314 catches for 4,001 yards and 22 touchdowns during that four-season span.
During that stretch, the Panthers’ tight end corps ranked sixth in the NFL in receptions (358), fifth in receiving yards (4,448) and tied for 11th in receiving touchdowns (26). They ranked 19th or better in scoring each season, including first in 2015.
“We’re ready to bring that back,” Tremble said.
New coach Dave Canales believes the self-proclaimed “tight end friendly” scheme he learned during 11 years with the Seattle Seahawks and made his own last year as the offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers can help.
“We don’t ask our tight ends to be dominant blockers at the point of attack on runs a lot,” he explained. “We’re looking for tight ends with versatility. We’re not necessarily looking for that big 270-pound baller type of tight end, although those guys are awesome and have a place in this league.
“But if you have a smaller guy who’s more of a route runner and he’s a little bit crafty … then just within the scheme, because we throw a lot of play-actions, the tight ends are involved in different ways.”
That allows them to get open in the flats, run drag routes underneath against overmatched linebackers and make plays the way they’ve been doing so far during voluntary offseason workouts.
“The ball finds those guys a lot,” Canales said.
Thomas is a prime example. Considered one of the better blocking tight ends in the league, he’s looked more like Kelce than a player who had only five receptions for 56 yards last season.
“It’s perfect for tight ends because you get to be yourself,” Thomas said of the system. “They give you a lot of opportunities, a lot of chances to fit in and mold into the offense. It’s different setups that have given us mismatches. It is working well so far.”
Asked if either he or Tremble could be the next Kelce in this system, Thomas laughed and said, “I mean, that’s what it’s looking like.”
“I feel like I’m kind of advanced as far as my receiving goes,” said Sanders, who was a wide receiver in high school.
Sanders went so far as to say he wanted to be the next Olsen.
“He’s one of the tight ends that changed the game back in the day,” he said. “I feel like they [saw] what he did in me. … I’m just trying to be the new face of the offense for sure.”
Canales referred to the versatility that helped the 6-foot-4, 245-pound Sanders catch 99 passes for 1,295 yards and seven touchdowns in his final two college seasons.
“He’s definitely not the traditional in-line type of tight end,” Canales said. “He made some dynamic plays with the ball in his hands and is really strong at the catch.”
Olsen wasn’t traditional, either. He gave Cam Newton, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2011 draft, a security blanket that allowed the quarterback to excel his first six seasons.
The Panthers are hoping the combination of Sanders, Thomas and Tremble will do that for 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young, who made 59 of his 315 completions to tight ends last season. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had 93 completions to Kelce alone.
Linebacker Josey Jewell already can see the benefits.
“It gives him the option on those short-area throws,” he said of Young. “They’ve been doing a great job, and Bryce holds a good presence in there.”
Tremble believes the upgraded middle of the offensive line (which allowed 35 of Young’s team-record 62 sacks last season) and the added talent at wide receiver also will help the tight end production. He reminded there were many times last season when the tight ends were open but Young didn’t have time to find them.
Thus, the purgatory.
“It’s hard because you feel like you’re always open,” Tremble said. “I mean, I’m going into my fourth year and we’ve learned eight different offenses. We’re getting this one locked down collectively, getting comfortable.
Nobody is quite sure about when the largest grandstand in Europe earned the name it is now famous for, though it is certain it happened more recently than most people think.
The Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion was described by German author and writer Uli Hesse in 2018 as the thing that Bayern Munich, the most successful and powerful club in that country, did not have: “a massive terrace that seemed like a throwback to football’s golden age”.
This architectural beast can hold 24,454 spectators for Bundesliga games — more than twice as many as Celtic’s fabled ‘Jungle’ did in the 1960s, and only slightly less than the maximum capacity of the Kop at Anfield during the same period, a golden age in Liverpool’s history.
“Unlike the Jungle or the Kop, the term Yellow Wall is not very old,” Hesse stressed, using Kicker, the most popular football magazine in Germany, as a reference point for its relevance. Only in May 2009 did the description ‘Yellow Wall’ appear in its pages for the first time and that was because of the reflections of Dortmund’s then goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller when he found out 10,000 of the club’s fans had travelled to a game against Eintracht Frankfurt.
“It’s incredible; even when we are playing away from home, the yellow wall will be there,” Weidenfeller said.
Yet another 21 months would pass before Kicker started to use the expression regularly, helping it become an established term in the global football language.
This was around the time Dortmund won the Bundesliga two seasons in a row under the management of Jurgen Klopp, who had transformed underachieving giants into a club competing for domestic and also European honours.
His Dortmund side would lose the Champions League final to Bayern at Wembley in May 2013.
This weekend, the club have the opportunity to win, at the same London venue, the same trophy for the first time since their only triumph in the competition in 1997. On this occasion, Real Madrid are the opponents and Dortmund, who finished fifth in the Bundesliga this season, 27 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen, are a talented side but not quite in the same state of rude health as 11 years ago.
Klopp’s charisma and achievements helped Dortmund become the second club for lots of football supporters across Europe. Yet iconology was also a significant feature of Dortmund’s attraction.
Their popular former manager, who left Liverpool in May after almost nine years, described the experience of seeing the Yellow Wall as you emerge from the Westfalenstadion’s bowels as an almost out-of-body experience.
Dortmund fans say farewell and thank you to a departing Klopp in 2015 (Patrik Stollarz/AFP via Getty Images)
“This dark tunnel, it’s exactly two metres high (just under 6ft 7in), and when you come out it’s like being born,” the 6ft 3in Klopp said. “You come out and the place explodes — out of the darkness, into the light. You look to your left and it seems like there are 150,000 people up on the terrace all going completely nuts.”
Weidenfeller was a leader in Klopp’s team: “If you are the enemy, it crushes you, but if you have it at your back as a goalkeeper, it’s a fantastic feeling.”
This view was supported by Bayern’s Champions League and World Cup-winning midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who later played for Manchester United and MLS team Chicago Fire. When he was asked whether he was more worried by Dortmund’s players or their manager, Klopp, he responded: “It’s the Yellow Wall that scares me the most.”
The sheer scale of the structure offers an array of vantage points. “From the front of the lower tier you can almost scratch the goalkeeper on the back — while way up high below the roof, where there is an inclined angle of 37 degrees, it’s like a ski jump,” concluded the German news magazine, Der Spiegel.
According to Hesse, Daniel Lorcher, born in 1985, was “more or less responsible” for creating the Yellow Wall term. In 2004, when Dortmund were facing doom on and off the pitch and as their financial position became bleaker, the club’s largest ultras group produced a mosaic that paraphrased an Oscar Wilde aphorism, “Many walk through dark alleys, but only a few are looking at the stars.”
Lorcher was a leading member of The Unity, who stood in the centre of what was then known simply as the Sudtribune, right behind the goal. It was their job to make as much noise as possible but Lorcher felt there were greater possibilities at Dortmund, due to the size of that stand. If the ultras could involve other fans, persuading them to dress in bright yellow while holding flags and banners of the same colour, say, the effect would be startling, helping Dortmund’s players, as well as potentially creating more of an intimidating atmosphere for opponents.
This not only required a huge amount of fabric, but it all had to be in the right shade of yellow.
Lorcher and other ultras contacted a Danish retail chain which had stores all over Germany. “They sold us more than three miles of cloth and we produced four thousand flags,” Lorcher told Hesse. “We rented sewing machines for weeks on end and then had to learn how to use them. It was hard work, but we had lots of fun.”
As the 2004-05 season reached its finale and Dortmund avoided oblivion, “the flags bathed the entire stand in yellow” before a home game with Hansa Rostock, Hesse wrote in his book, Building The Yellow Wall.
One of the banners read: “At the end of the dark alley shines the yellow wall,” and another said: “Yellow Wall, South Stand Dortmund.”
Since 2005, the Westfalenstadion has been known as Signal Iduna Park after the club decided to use a sponsorship deal to reduce a debt, which was eventually paid off to bank Morgan Stanley three years later.
There were lots of contributing factors towards Dortmund’s precarious financial state during that period and one of them was the demand for stadiums to be converted into all-seater venues in the wake of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in England.
In the summer of 1992, the Westfalenstadion’s north stand terracing was converted into a seated area, reducing the overall capacity from 54,000 to less than 43,000. The club’s directors realised they could charge more money for a comfier experience but there was a reluctance to subject the southern Sudtribune (as it is still referred to by older Dortmunders) to the same treatment after discussions with fans, who made them realise the terrace was the club’s only real marketing tool.
After Dortmund beat 3-1 Juventus in Munich, securing the Champions League title in May 1997, the south stand was doubled in size. As the stadium became bigger and safer, Dortmund spent more money than ever on players. But more success did not follow and, by 2005, there was a real chance the club might go out of business.
Today, Dortmund’s ground is the biggest in Germany, while their mean attendance in the Bundesliga is greater than any other Bundesliga club — including Bayern: this season, Dortmund averaged over 81,000 and Bayern, at their futuristic Allianz Arena, were at 75,000. Between Dortmund and the third- and fourth-placed teams (Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart), the drop was nearly 26,000, which is only slightly more than the capacity of the Yellow Wall alone, a terrace that could accommodate the population of a reasonably-sized town.
The Yellow Wall salutes Marco Reus at his final home game this month (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
Though the stadium’s capacity is reduced to make it an all-seater stand on European nights, the three clubs with the lowest average attendances in the Bundesliga (Union Berlin, Darmstadt and Heidenheim) could get their entire crowds onto the Sudtribune with room to spare; yet the club have not really sought to capitalise on it economically in a direct way.
Hesse even suggests the Yellow Wall “hurts” Dortmund in this sense, because ticket prices have been kept so low.
On average, season-ticket holders pay €14 (£11.90/$15.10) per match, but if Dortmund put seats there and charged more, the club, according to Hesse, would lose a sense of their soul.
The fact that, according to the financial experts at Forbes and Deloitte, Dortmund are not even in the top 20 clubs in Europe when it comes to matchday revenue (when they have one of the biggest stadiums on the continent) is a reflection of the attitude that exists in their region, the industrial heartland of Germany. Instead, there is a residual monetary benefit from the Yellow Wall, with businesses including chemical company Evonik, brewer Brinkhoff’s and pump manufacturer Wilo keen to be associated with a creation that is authentic to a working-class region of the country.
The Westfalenstadion has become a tourist destination but the Yellow Wall remains unaffected for the time being.
The biggest decision for visitors, says Hesse, is whether to join the party on the terrace, or watch its radiance from afar.
(Top photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Growing up playing high school football in the early 2000s, the dream of seeing someone who looked like me playing at the highest level of a sport I loved was one I gave up on early in my youth. For many, representation at the pinnacle of something you obsessed over can be taken for granted. For Asian American kids in sports at the time, it was practically nonexistent. So when I first saw the “Nguyen” nameplate on the back of an NFL jersey, I was in genuine awe.
Someone with my last name in the NFL? And he wasn’t a kicker (not that there is anything wrong with that). He played linebacker, one of the most physical positions in sports, for the Dallas Cowboys.
That jersey belonged to Dat Nguyen, the All-Pro linebacker, who cemented himself as a legend at Texas A&M. He didn’t just have a spot on the roster, he was one of the best defenders in the league. Not only did it make it seem a little more possible that Asians could play in the NFL, but it also created a different type of connection to pro football that I didn’t have before.
We aren’t related — Nguyen is an incredibly common last name — but for me and the Asian kids from my generation who got to watch him, he represented us on the field. He broke a barrier we didn’t think could be broken, shattering it with every bone-rattling tackle. May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and a good time to reflect on the history Nguyen made and how he got there.
Discovering football
Nguyen and his family shared a similar experience as many Vietnamese migrants in America in the ’80s. During the Vietnam War, his parents made the harrowing escape by boat as the Viet Cong overtook their homes in Vietnam. They started their new lives in a refugee camp in Arkansas before moving to Texas, where Nguyen would grow up and discover football.
His family took up shrimping, a common occupation among Vietnamese immigrants because they did it in their homeland. Beginning in fourth grade, Nguyen spent each summer on the family boat as his brother’s deckhand.
Nguyen’s junior high school coach, Cliff Davis, discovered him while walking the halls looking to recruit kids to play football. Nguyen was nearly 5-foot-10 in eighth grade and could already dunk a basketball. He stood out from his friends. However, his parents initially didn’t support his playing football and wanted him to focus on academics. Nguyen forged their signatures to sign up for the football team.
Dat Nguyen, left, with his family at the premiere of “All American: The Dat Nguyen Story,” a documentary about his football journey, in 2023. (Courtesy of Nguyen family)
He didn’t know much about the sport, but as he learned more, he quickly fell in love with the mental side of the game.
“I was very fortunate and grateful that (Davis) taught me to visualize,” Nguyen, now 48, explained. “We went to the gym before the football game and he shared with us a moment. And the moment was when you closed your eyes and you play the play in your mind, saw the play before it happened, called the defense, adjust to the offensive formation, snap the ball and just see it. If it’s a run, if it’s a pass — what’s your responsibility? What’s your alignment? What’s your adjustment? All that quickly has to be diagnosed or decided within a few seconds. If you played it in your mind and you saw it the night before and you line up in the game, it’s a lot easier when you just don’t have to think … you just react.”
Nguyen’s athleticism and instinctual style of play helped him quickly excel on the gridiron, but his double life almost halted when he broke his elbow diving for a fumble toward the end of his eighth-grade season. His parents found out he was hurt playing football but realized he was passionate about the game and that it kept him out of trouble, so they let him continue to play. As he played high school football, the cerebral nature of the sport continued to compel him.
“I fell in love with the game because it was fascinating to me,” he said. “I was one of the 11 guys every time the puzzle was moved. As I got older, the game was so much more interesting because of the situations in football.”
Breaking out with the Aggies
Nguyen became a star for his hometown team and had people from every background chanting his name, but his parents came to only two games. His mom worked two jobs and his dad was on the boat all day. Plus, entering a crowded stadium full of people who didn’t speak their language was daunting. It wasn’t until Nguyen got a scholarship to Texas A&M that he truly felt they embraced his football career.
When he first got to Texas A&M, he thought he was too small and needed to gain weight to be an effective college player, but then he got too big. He couldn’t move effectively and he slid down the depth chart. He almost gave up on playing college football but recommitted himself in the offseason. He woke up at 6 a.m. every day to work out on his own, went to class at 8 a.m. and got in a second workout at noon before working out with his team at 4 p.m. He got into fantastic shape and surprised the team and coaching staff with his body transformation.
He worked his way up from eighth on the depth chart to No. 2. The only linebacker ahead of him was Trent Driver, who had prototypical size and speed. One day, while running sprints, Driver twisted his ankle on a sprinkler. Nguyen got his shot, and the rest was history. He became an Aggies legend, starting 51 consecutive games and amassing 517 tackles and six interceptions.
Dat Nguyen is one of the greatest defensive players in @AggieFootball history. The @cfbhall linebacker is the only player in @TAMU history to lead the team in tackles four consecutive seasons and still holds school records with 517 career tackles and 30 double-digit tackle games!… pic.twitter.com/6Hvg13Qlb4
His parents started coming to his home games, and for the away games, they would have company come over to watch their son play on TV. They picked up how the game worked, but the magnitude of how big football was, especially in Texas, was hard to grasp. Their son went from helping them on a shrimp boat to playing on national television.
Nguyen had one of the best games of his career in the 1998 Cotton Bowl against UCLA, but when he talked about the game, he didn’t highlight the win or his interception and lateral for a touchdown or the fact that he was named MVP of that game. He talked about the feeling when he found out his parents, who were across the country for a wedding, were gathered around a TV with friends and family hooting and cheering him on in the Cotton Bowl.
“That might be the best game of my career,” Nguyen said. “I still have some records there in the Cotton Bowl, and it’s not like some of those records might not be broken, right? And for them to witness that with relatives and family and gatherings and in another state … yeah, that was pretty cool for them to share with me.”
Growing up in an Asian household, winning the approval of the family sometimes felt like chasing after a carrot on a stick that was tied to your back. When you’ve achieved the status of state legend and get a free education out of it, no parent, no matter how high their standards, could resist cheering.
How ’bout them Cowboys?
The next achievement to check off was getting drafted. Though Nguyen had gaudy statistics and accolades, he was still undersized (5-11, 234 pounds at the 1999 NFL Scouting Combine) in an era of football when the prototypical linebacker was 250 pounds. Nguyen was one of Dallas’ top-30 visits, so although the Cowboys were interested, he knew he wouldn’t be a first-round pick.
The draft spanned two days back then. On the first day, Nguyen helped a friend move and went to a kid’s birthday party before ending up at his mom’s house where they would watch the end of day one of the draft together. Nine linebackers with better measurables got drafted before him. He then got the call from Jerry Jones. The Cowboys drafted him in the third round. Nguyen would be playing pro football in his home state.
“I landed in Dallas and I thought, ‘Your family left Vietnam to come here just for freedom and you get the chance to play this game we called the American sport and you get drafted by America’s Team,’” Nguyen said.
He remembered in his first OTAs getting into the defensive huddle, getting the signal and calling the defense — something he’d done thousands of times. No big deal. He then looked across and saw Troy Aikman and Emmit Smith, and to his left was Michael Irvin. When the ball was snapped, Nguyen froze and didn’t move. These were guys he watched every Sunday, and just sharing the field with them caused him to short-circuit for a second. Though there were some historically big personalities in the Dallas locker room, he said they respected his play and he never felt ostracized for his ethnicity.
Dat Nguyen celebrates a fumble recovery for the Cowboys during a game in 2005. (Tim Heitman / USA Today)
Bill Parcells was hired as head coach in 2003, Nguyen’s fifth year in the league. Parcells came from a 3-4 defensive background and preferred bigger, more physical linebackers. Nguyen was quick, undersized and made plays because of his anticipation and angles.
The old-school Parcells wasn’t easy to impress. But as Nguyen had done his entire football career, he made his size an afterthought and earned Parcells’ trust. Nguyen had a career year in his first season playing for him and was named second-team All-Pro.
“I learned more football with (Parcells) than my 15 years prior,” Nguyen said. “He made the game very interesting. Situational football was a big part of what he did, and I really learned a lot about the game on that aspect of it. He’s a guy that really cares about you as a person even though at times he doesn’t feel like he does. But I’ll send him a text right now, and he’ll text me back. I feel like I’m in that inner circle with him, and it’s hard to get in that inner circle.”
Nguyen shined brightly when he was on the field, but injuries took a toll on his body. In 2004, playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, some Cowboys defenders had a bet on who would put the biggest hit on Jerome Bettis. Early in the game, Nguyen saw his chance. The play unfolded in slow motion. He watched quarterback Ben Roethlisberger turn around to hand the ball off to Bettis.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, I’m beelining him. I’m about to win this pot,’” he said. “So I’m about to blow him up. All of a sudden I get blown up from somewhere else.”
Steelers receiver Hines Ward blindsided and de-cleated him. His legs were 6 feet in the air and he smashed his head on the ground. The next thing he could remember was the trainer bringing him to his wife and explaining to her that he had a severe concussion.
He went the next morning to the facility to work out, get treatment and attend his position meeting. In his meeting, he looked down at his grade sheet and saw he was given a positive grade on 63 out of 64 plays. He realized he’d just played one of the best games ever — the problem was, he didn’t remember anything past the blindside hit.
The following season, he prepared hard and felt great. He thought he would have a career year but injured his knee in training camp and had meniscus surgery before the season. During a West Coast trip in which they played the 49ers and Raiders, he hurt his neck against the 49ers but played through it. He completed a Cowboys comeback with a game-sealing interception but knew something wasn’t right.
“I remember calling my wife the morning I woke up,” Nguyen said. “I was like, my knees are bothering me. My neck’s bothering me. I don’t feel right.”
After the Raiders game, on the flight back to Dallas, he sat next to Dan Campbell, Nguyen’s teammate with the Cowboys and at Texas A&M.
“I was like, ‘Dan, man, I can see the plays. I can’t get there.’ Like I worked so hard in the off-season just to get a chance to get the edge, right? I put so many hours into it, but I think my body’s just breaking down.”
The next morning, Nguyen told Parcells he needed to take some time off to recover and regroup, and Parcells obliged. Nguyen tried coming back on Thanksgiving, but his body didn’t respond. His arm went numb every time he got hit.
Dat Nguyen is recognized during halftime of a Dallas Cowboys preseason game in 2006 for his contributions to the team. (Khampha Bouaphanh / Getty Images)
“So that’s when I knew it was over,” Nguyen said. “I was glad I was able to walk away. And, you know, you miss it. I’m sorry, you miss the locker room. You miss the competition. You miss the four seconds of the game when the ball snaps. I can’t explain this to anybody or share it with people because it’s so unique.”
Nguyen retired in 2005 and went on to have brief stints coaching with the Cowboys and Texas A&M. He’s earned several accolades since his retirement including making the Texas A&M Athletic Hall of Fame, All-Time Big 12 Team and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. But his seven seasons, a relatively long career, were not enough to get Pro Football Hall of Fame consideration. Though he won’t be enshrined in Canton, his career was truly unique. He was the first Vietnamese player to be drafted in the NFL and the only one to date. Nguyen was a barrier breaker, and he hopes his story can inspire other Asian kids to follow in his footsteps.
“I thought when you broke the barrier back then when I was playing, I was hoping that it was open to people,” he said. “I was hoping that more kids would be participants. It’s hard to find. … I mean, even my nephew, that’s going to graduation tonight, he’s a good ball player. I don’t think he’s a DI player, but I think he’s able to play DIII if he wants to pursue it. And then (many kids wave) off the option, but it’s like, man, you never know how you develop your body. It might be small stature, but man, a lot of times, football teaches you so much. But the opportunity to make it and fulfill a dream, man, it’s like no other, though. And I think a lot of them don’t want to pursue it because the chances are against them, which it is.”
(Top photo: Al Messerschmidt and Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)
