Category: Sports

LOS ANGELES — JuJu Watkins lay on the court, surrounded by her teammates, the final buzzer having faded.

The freshman sensation was cramping after scoring 32 points in No. 9 USC‘s 73-65 victory over second-ranked UCLA. A trainer used a handheld massage gun on Watkins’ legs. She couldn’t stop smiling and laughing after anticipation had kept her awake the night before.

“She just goes all-out all the time,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.

Watkins and the Trojans sent the Bruins to their first loss of the season Sunday, leaving No. 1 South Carolina as the nation’s lone undefeated team.

“As a team we just were just so eager on defense,” Watkins said. “I fed off my teammates’ energy. You just want to be a part of that. On the defensive end, we played a great game. The whole team did it.”

It was Watkins’ sixth 30-point game of the season and first since Dec. 3 for the Trojans (13-1, 3-1 Pac-12), who extended their home winning streak to 17 games.

“I felt like this was going to happen,” Gottlieb said. “Our preparation and mentality was going to give us a chance to win the game.”

McKenzie Forbes added 18 points as the Trojans ended a nine-game skid against their crosstown rival. UCLA (14-1, 3-1) won 71-64 two weeks ago at Pauley Pavilion in front of a record crowd of 13,659 in the schools’ first meeting of top-10 teams this season.

“We showed so much what we’re capable of, not just to fans but to ourselves,” Forbes said.

Charisma Osborne led the Bruins with 25 points, all in the second half in front of a sellout crowd of 10,258 at Galen Center. After feeling sick at halftime, the fifth-year player hit a layup late in the third quarter that gave her 2,000 career points. Lauren Betts, UCLA’s leading scorer and rebounder, was held to 10 after not starting for the first time this season after being sick during the week.

“We were just trying to keep fighting, trying to get to the basket,” Osborne said. “We kept giving up buckets and we couldn’t get stops.”

All five of UCLA’s starters were in foul trouble, with Londynn Jones, Kiki Rice and Lina Sontag fouling out in the fourth.

Watkins was just 8-of-22 from the field and missed all six of her 3-point attempts, but she went 16-of-16 from the free throw line and had 10 rebounds.

“She’s going to score,” UCLA coach Cori Close said, “but we didn’t execute what we said we were going to do and we didn’t have each other’s back and you get caught.”

Forbes’ 3-pointer kept USC ahead 60-48 in the fourth.

But the Bruins ran off nine straight points, capped by Jones’ 3-pointer, to get to 63-59.

Watkins hit a jumper and Taylor Bigby scored for USC. Jones’ layup drew the Bruins within five points.

Jones missed a 3-pointer and Angela Dugalic missed a layup in the final 14 seconds.

The Bruins outscored USC 23-17 in the third quarter, getting 13 points by Osborne, to close to 51-42. Watkins picked up two quick fouls early but scored 10 points.

USC was missing starting center Rayah Marshall (13 points and 10.5 rebounds) and reserve Aaliyah Gayles, who were both sick.

The Trojans used runs of 11-0 in the first quarter and 15-0 in the second to lead 34-19 at halftime. Twice Watkins got her own offensive rebound and scored despite defensive pressure in the paint.

Before Watkins got going offensively, Harvard transfer Forbes hit back-to-back 3-pointers to power the Trojans’ first-quarter run.

The Bruins committed 15 turnovers that led to 16 points for the Trojans in the first half when UCLA starters Jones, Osborne and Dugalic were scoreless.

Among the celebs on hand were rappers Chris Brown and USC graduate Saweetie, Candace Parker and Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller.

DETROIT — Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay stood at the podium at Ford Field on Sunday night, still in disbelief that his team’s season had ended with a 24-23 playoff loss to the Detroit Lions in the wild-card round.

A little more than a year ago, McVay stood at a different podium, this one in Los Angeles, and said he was unsure if he would be back as coach of the Rams in 2023. But not long after the regular season ended — with a 5-12 record, McVay’s worst since he was hired in 2017 — he decided he wasn’t ready to walk away.

After a 3-6 start to the 2023 season and injuries to quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Kyren Williams, it looked like the Rams were headed down the same path. Instead, Los Angeles won seven of its last eight games of the season to clinch the No. 6 seed in the NFC.

“I’m so proud of this football team,” McVay said. “And the finality of it is still kind of … it doesn’t totally resonate. But man did I learn a lot and really appreciate this group. They helped me find my way again and how much I love this and love the people that I’m around.”

Rams rookie nose tackle Kobie Turner said McVay told the team that “there’s a lot of room to grow, a lot to build off of, and the foundation that we laid this year will go on to hopefully do a lot of bigger and better things.”

“So just keep pushing and that this team is definitely, regardless of the outcome here tonight, is going to go down as one of the most special teams that he’s ever been around,” Turner said of McVay’s message to the team after the game.

Stafford, who said he plans to be back next season, said he was “so proud of this team” for defying preseason expectations. The Rams’ over/under for wins heading into the season was 6.5, a mark Los Angeles bested with a 10-7 regular-season record.

“Nobody gave us a chance to even be sniffing where we are right now, and [we] gave a really good football team a run for their money,” Stafford said. “Didn’t get it done, but proud of the guys, proud of their effort from the coaching staff, players, everybody involved in it. It was a fun year, a hell of a year and something to be proud of.”

Wide receiver Puka Nacua ended his rookie season with another record-setting performance. With 9 catches for 181 yards and a touchdown, Nacua set the NFL rookie record for most receiving yards in a playoff game.

On the injury front, the Rams believe tight end Tyler Higbee, who took a hit from Lions safety Kerby Joseph in the fourth quarter, tore his ACL, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Higbee will undergo an MRI on Monday to confirm the initial diagnosis.

Although the loss to the Lions was still settling in, McVay said he thinks there’s “a lot” the Rams can build on going forward.

“I think the further that you get away from the raw emotions of it, the more appreciation they’ll have for what they did,” McVay said. “And I think there’s a lot of things that we can build on, but you got to do it. … And this group is an example of it. The preseason stuff doesn’t mean s—. You got to be able to go earn it. And every single year is a new year, but I do think we’ve got a lot of really key and critical guys that we’re excited about building and continuing to develop and work with.”

ARLINGTON, Texas — The NFC’s No. 2-seeded Dallas Cowboys came into Sunday’s wild-card game as heavy favorites against the No. 7-seeded Green Bay Packers, but they were never even in the game.

The Packers scored on their first possession, built a 27-0 lead by half time and never looked back on the way to a 48-32 victory.

Green Bay now heads west to face the top-seeded San Francisco 49ers next week in the divisional round.

After once again going 12-5 in the regular season and not advancing in the playoffs, the Cowboys head into the offseason facing questions about the futures of coach Mike McCarthy, quarterback Dak Prescott and defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.

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Green Bay Packers

These aren’t the young Packers anymore. They’re Jordan Love‘s Packers.

In his first playoff game, the first-year starting quarterback — surrounded by the youngest group of pass-catchers in the NFL — turned in a performance for the ages in Sunday’s win over the Cowboys.

As if Love’s impressive regular season — with 32 touchdown passes, second in the NFL only to Prescott — wasn’t enough to excite an organization that’s trying to strike quarterback gold for the third straight time (Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre), then Sunday’s sheer dominance should do the trick.

Love finished 16-of-21 for 272 yards and three touchdowns with a 157.2 passer rating.

He joins Baker Mayfield (48 points) and Rodgers (45) as the only quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era to lead their team to at least 40 points on the road in their first playoff start.

Describe the game in two words: Upset City. The Packers, who had to win their regular-season finale just to make it to the postseason, were 7.5-point underdogs, which made this the franchise’s largest upset win in the playoffs since the 1995 divisional round, when the Packers won at San Francisco as 10-point underdogs.

Promising trend I: Imagine if the Packers had Aaron Jones all season; they might have been hosting playoff games. After missing six regular-season games (three because of a hamstring and three for a knee injury), the running back entered the playoffs on a streak of three straight 100-yard rushing games.

Jones on Sunday rushed for 118 yards and scored three times — including the game’s first two touchdowns — continuing a run of dominance over the Cowboys. He now has nine touchdowns in four career games against Dallas.

Promising trend II: Who needs a clear-cut No. 1 receiver? Apparently not Love. Romeo Doubs became the third different receiver in as many games to go over 100 yards. Doubs hit that mark in the first half against the Cowboys and finished with six catches for 151 yards and a touchdown. Last week, it was Jayden Reed (112 yards) against the Bears. The week before, it was Bo Melton (105) against the Vikings.

Pivotal play(s): Before Sunday, neither Jaire Alexander nor Darnell Savage had an interception this season. That all changed in the first half. Alexander, who was questionable because of an ankle injury, picked off Prescott deep in Cowboys territory to set up Jones’ second touchdown that made it a 14-0 lead. Then, on the first play after the two-minute warning in the first half, Savage snagged one and returned it 64 yards for a 27-0 lead with 1:50 left in the second quarter. It was the Packers’ first defensive touchdown in a playoff game since the 2012 divisional round at San Francisco, when Sam Shields had a pick-six.

Eye-popping NFL Next Gen stat: Savage reached a max speed of 20.82 mph on his pick-six. That was the third-fastest speed on any Packers touchdown this season. — Rob Demovsky

Next game: at San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 20 or 21.

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Dallas Cowboys

A season that looked full of promise — a third straight 12-5 finish, an NFC East title and a path to an NFC Championship Game with two games at AT&T Stadium, where the Cowboys went 8-0 in the regular season — ended with such a thud that only questions remain.

The Cowboys were dismantled by the Packers in every way possible.

This leads to questions about coach Mike McCarthy’s future, quarterback Dak Prescott‘s long-term viability and defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s potential departure. This is what happens when there is such a putrid performance that it was the largest home playoff loss in franchise history. The previous worst was a 38-14 loss to the Cleveland Browns in the 1969 Eastern Championship Game.

Since making their last appearance in a conference championship game in 1995, the Cowboys have eight one-and-done playoff appearances. They have done it as the No. 1 seed twice (2007, 2016) and now as the No. 2 seed.

Describe the game in two words: Absolutely pitiful. With the chance to get to an NFC Championship Game via two home games, the Cowboys laid down in the first half, trailing 27-0 at one point.

QB breakdown: Prescott threw two interceptions in the first half, including one that was returned for a touchdown that upped the Green Bay lead to 27-0. The last time a Cowboys quarterback gave up a pick-six in the playoffs was when Troy Aikman did it in the 1994 NFC Championship Game.

Prescott had one multi-interception game in the regular season (three at San Francisco). It was his second multipick playoff game in the past two years. Prescott, who led the league with 36 touchdown passes, never looked comfortable against a Packers defense that had not been considered elite at any point of the season. His connection with receiver CeeDee Lamb was missing, especially in the first half when they failed to hook up on four passes. Prescott was 13-of-13 on throws to Lamb in the regular-season finale, and he was 9-of-18 Sunday.

Pivotal play: Let’s go back to the third play of the game. The Cowboys had Green Bay in a second-and-13 situation, and Jordan Love found receiver Romeo Doubs for 22 yards in a huge hole in the Dallas defense with zero pressure on him. Nine plays later, the Packers took a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Doubs catch was a sign of things to come, because the Cowboys couldn’t guard him all game. In the first three quarters, he had catches of 22, 26, 39, 15 and 46 yards. The Cowboys had nine games this season in which they did not allow four pass plays of 20 yards. Doubs had that by himself in three quarters.

Troubling trend: Quinn does not want to see offenses from the Kyle Shanahan tree. Packers coach Matt LaFleur might have been on Quinn’s staff in Atlanta, but he picked up his offense from Shanahan, now the 49ers’ head coach. Shanahan has beat the Cowboys in each of the past three seasons, including 42-10 this season at San Francisco. Miami’s Mike McDaniel, who coached under Shanahan in San Francisco, was able to get the best of Quinn in December. LaFleur had Quinn’s defense on a string all day, whether the Cowboys were in man or zone coverage or whether they blitzed or played coverage. — Todd Archer

Next game: The Cowboys’ 2023 season is over.

LIONS COACH DAN Campbell bombed into the interview room at AT&T Stadium after his team lost to the Dallas Cowboys on what could charitably be called a technicality, uncharitably a gross refereeing blunder. The game still inside him, he gripped the lectern with both hands, as if holding it down from a storm. His presence, both physical and psychic, hit like a sneaker wave, filling every crevasse in the room. His voice, heavy with the rasp of defeat, sounded like it was being dragged across broken asphalt.

He tried his damnedest to keep from saying what he undoubtedly said before he stormed this room, and undoubtedly said the second he left it. “I don’t like to lose, OK?” he said when asked to explain his agitation. His team had run what could objectively be called the perfect play — a throwback pass from Jared Goff to tackle-eligible Taylor Decker — on a 2-point conversion with 23 seconds left and the Cowboys leading by one. The officials, apparently confusing Decker with offensive tackle Dan Skipper, ruled that Decker did not report as eligible. And now Campbell’s fingers tapped the lectern on both sides, as if they could say the words his mouth couldn’t. He blustered for a bit, said he didn’t want to talk anymore about it and busted out of the room the same way he came in. The game didn’t make sense, so neither did he.

Campbell is the kind of guy who every football player in history — at every level — has played with but not for. Because the Dan Campbell Guy, the one who plays with broken bones and blasts Metallica and is always — freakin’ always — in the weight room, is almost never the guy NFL owners choose as the face of their franchise. The Dan Campbell Guy is the position coach, or maybe the coordinator, motivating and raging behind the scenes, often holding the whole thing together from the inside out. Nobody wants to hand him the podium. He is never the safe choice, or the political choice, or the choice that allows everyone in the organization to relax.

It’s much easier to hire someone who spouts platitudes than the guy who stands in front of his team with cameras rolling and says of the opponent, “It doesn’t matter if you have one ass cheek and three toes, we will beat your ass.”

There is nothing pretentious about the man, or the way he conducts his business, just as there is nothing pretentious about the business he conducts. Coaches have a vested interest in wrapping the game in complication and intricacy, but its essence remains brute force, stripped of any pretense. And Dan Campbell is football. He understands that it’s ugly, and dangerous, and that his players long ago ran the risk/reward calculations — just as he did over an 11-year career — and ended up here. This doesn’t make him barbaric, necessarily, any more than the game itself is barbaric. It just makes him a realist.

“It’s very refreshing to play for someone who doesn’t seem to care about the corporate culture,” Skipper says. “He’s unapologetically him. You can love him or you can hate him, but he is who he is. You never need to question where you stand. You never need to tiptoe. He tells it like it is. He’s got so much passion for football, for life, for everything.”

I watched Campbell and the Lions over the course of a week, starting with the crushing loss to Dallas in Week 17, to see firsthand how Campbell has refashioned a sad-sack franchise quickly and definitively, from 3-13 in his first season in 2021 to a franchise-tying 12-win season and an NFC North championship in his third. It’s the Lions’ first division title in 30 years, and it gives Detroit — a now Lions-obsessed city once rendered despondent by at least a decade of pro sports irrelevance — its first home playoff game in just as long. And coincidental symbolism doesn’t get much more heavy-handed than it will on Sunday night: Rams vs. Lions, ex-Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford back in Detroit for the first time, ex-Rams quarterback Goff looking across the field at Sean McVay.

From the start, the task for Campbell was to cast the team in his own image: tough, relentless, at times difficult to parse. Before each Week 18 practice, I watched him go up and down the stretching lines, making contact with every single player — pats on the back, handshakes, fist bumps, helmet taps, half hugs, hugs, playful jabs to the shoulder.

“He does it every day,” Decker says. “Mostly it’s just, ‘Hello — let’s have a good day.’ If you’re an undrafted rookie on the practice squad and you have the head coach coming up to you and saying, ‘Hey, let’s have a good day,’ that might mean a lot to you. He gets that.”

I watched Campbell coach it like he stole it against the Cowboys — faking a punt from his own 31-yard line early in the game, going for it on fourth down almost reflexively, refusing to kick an extra point that would have tied the score after the infamous penalty ruined the winning 2-point conversion — and then heard his players say his confidence in them engenders confidence in themselves. Play sheet holstered to his belt, swinging next to him as he goes up and down the sideline, he coaches carnivorously, unafraid, always aware a series of downs is four and not three.

In the locker room after the Cowboys’ loss, I watched Goff have a quiet conversation with Decker about the whole reporting fiasco, and I watched it end with Goff closing his eyes and gently placing his forehead against the wall. A few stalls over, Skipper was telling the world that he would say nothing, lest he get fined.

I watched Campbell, wearing a cap with the Tigers-style old English D atop the word ARMY, meet with the media on New Year’s Day, less than 48 hours after that mystifying loss in Dallas, and refuse to rehash the particulars, saying, “Why do you guys want to talk about this? I’m over it. I don’t want to deal with it. I’m done. I’ve got controlled fury. I’m ready to go. I’m absolutely ready to go. We’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. I’ve got pure octane right now.”

I watched him repeatedly say that his roster was constructed in a way that would preclude his players from lingering over the Cowboys’ loss, as if he was willing it into existence, and then watched as they proved him right by beating the Vikings in the season finale.

“He does this whole meathead thing very well,” Skipper says, “but he’s very, very intelligent.”

Every game affords a look into the deeper folds of Campbell’s psyche. Against the Vikings, Skipper reported as eligible — legally, for all the world to see — on a play in which he would normally block. Instead, he drifted into the flat, where Goff threw him a pass that gained 4 yards but seemed to send a larger message. I couldn’t decide whether it was a peace offering or a middle finger, but I had a pretty good guess.

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ON TUESDAY, LESS than 72 hours after the loss in Dallas, 26 electronic billboards in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint began flashing two messages.

The first:

DECKER REPORTED

was followed by the Lions’ record — 11-5 — crossed out and replace by 12-4.

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ON THE SECOND play of the fourth quarter against the Cowboys, Goff stood in the pocket and got blasted head-on by Micah Parsons just as he released a rocket down the middle of the field, where Jameson Williams caught it in stride for a 63-yard gain. Four days later, in his weekly media session, Goff was asked what it felt like to stand in there and take that hit.

Goff tilted his head a little, as if confused by the question. “I didn’t feel the hit — did I get hit there? I didn’t feel that one,” he said, totally deadpan. Nobody knew how to react, so Goff laughed to help everyone out. “When you have a big completion, it feels good.”

The answer was perfectly Goff: self-deprecating, unbothered, with just the essence of snark. The Jared Goff story is not strictly a Dan Campbell story, except that every Lions story is a Dan Campbell story. Goff was scapegoated — not his word — out of Los Angeles after a loss to the Packers in the divisional round of the 2020 playoffs. His relationship with Rams coach McVay had been in a gradual state of deterioration since the Super Bowl loss to New England in 2018. After the loss to the Packers, McVay was asked about Goff. He said, “Yeah, he’s our quarterback, for now.” Weeks later, Goff was traded to Detroit in a deal that sent Stafford to Los Angeles, where he immediately won a Super Bowl.

The end in L.A. was abrupt and unceremonious, and Goff felt exactly the way it would seem: cast adrift, unappreciated, blamed. He arrived in Detroit two months after Campbell was hired, and the job of repairing the quarterback’s confidence began immediately. “When I was traded here, pairing up with Dan was such a gift,” Goff says. “He knew where I was at, and he knew how to get the most out of me.”

When I ask Goff where he was, he pauses for a moment, as if running the words through his mind. “Pretty low,” he says. “Yeah. Pretty low.”

Before Goff delved too deeply into the confusion and frustration he felt at the time, he wants it to be known that he understands the perception. “These are first-world problems,” he says. “It was a professional bottom for me. It wasn’t personal; it wasn’t family; it wasn’t death. I’m aware enough of that perspective as well. But I was figuring myself out a little bit, figuring out where my career was going to head. I was at a crossroads; it could go either way. And I did a lot of soul-searching, figuring out what I wanted to get out of my career. I had to dig pretty deep there.”

Publicly, Campbell seems to abide by the rub-some-dirt-on-it-school of mental hygiene, but Goff says, “Dan stuck by my side. I think he understood what the previous situation had been, and how much meat on the bone we both knew was there to be had. We both knew there was an opportunity here.”

Partway through our conversation, after a question about whether the next month might be something of a revenge tour for him, Goff interrupts to ask, with the tone of a probing interviewer, “Are you writing about this for our first-round matchup against the Rams?” The matchup wasn’t set by then, but still, I feel seen. He laughs and says, “I’ve learned some things along the way. But it wouldn’t be a revenge tour for me personally. Maybe for our team in some ways. We’ve been disrespected for years and now we’ve earned some respect around the league. But for me? No.”

He wasn’t named to the Pro Bowl and he isn’t considered a top-tier quarterback by the many who analyze such things, but Goff finished the season with the second-most passing yards in the NFL with 4,575, less than 50 yards fewer than Tua Tagovailoa. He threw more touchdown passes (30) and fewer interceptions (12) than Patrick Mahomes. Maybe more importantly, the past three years in Detroit have allowed him to escape the notion that he was a creation of McVay, that the voice in his helmet in Los Angeles — remember the whole pre-Super Bowl discussion about the Rams rushing to the line so McVay could read defenses for Goff? — was the reason he had success.

“For whatever reason, the narrative everyone wanted to push when he got here was that he wasn’t a good player, and everyone wanted to see him fail,” Decker says, “It was weird, and I think we’ve seen that it was baseless. The way he was able to conduct himself on a day-to-day basis as if that wasn’t happening in the background is admirable. I have a lot of respect for him, because he was backed into a corner, people wanted to see him fail, and he didn’t.”

Asked what he learned through his period of self-examination, Goff says, “I figured out I’m a lot tougher than I may have known. Mostly mentally, also emotionally. I learned about perspective, knowing you’re more than a football player, knowing that you can bring so much more to the world than just playing football. You don’t know that when you’re 23 or 24, because you’re still learning. But in hindsight, this was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me, to be able to dig deep and see who you truly are. Again, first-world problems. But I had a lot of people helping me out, including Dan. Him believing in me on the heels of essentially not being believed in, it was powerful.”

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A BIG PART of coaching is the art of making the mundane sound profound. When defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn stands at the podium on Thursday and says, “One thing we try to do as a defense is get our best players on the field,” it sounds more important than obvious. Roughly 20 minutes later, when special teams coordinator Dave Fipp, in response to a question about Jalen Reeves-Maybin being named to the Pro Bowl, says, “The most important thing to me is always winning the football game, and I really mean that,” it sounds earnest enough to signify something deep about his overall worldview.

Fipp, a slight, angular man with a decidedly non-football bearing, told a story loosely connected to Reeves-Maybin’s ability to make important special teams plays. “This game is ultimately a players’ game,” he began. “That’s what the NFL is, and also what makes it great is … guys in the heat of the moment being able to make plays. God, my high school coach told me one time — a long, long time ago — we were watching a baseball game at our high school and this kid turned a double play. He snared a ball, turned a double play out of nowhere. My coach looked at me and said, ‘Hey, David, I’m just telling you that guy just made a play. One day, you’re going to be asked what happened, and you’re just going to have to say the guy made a play.’”

Fipp delivers this as if it’s code for something, maybe for being released from a hostage situation or a speeding ticket. It drives home how uniquely immune Campbell seems to be from the banalities of the game; the contrast is obvious. His stories during team meetings are legendary for their persuasiveness and occasional irrelevance. The most well-known is the one about dividing NFL teams by their willingness to leave the beach and get into the ocean. The Lions, as the story goes, will be the team that drags other teams into the “dark abyss” and leaves them to drown. “That’s a real one, because that talks about who we are,” offensive tackle Penei Sewell says.

“I get really fired up when he hits us with these metaphors, like dragging teams into the deep and choking them out,” defensive end Aidan Hutchinson says. “It can be a random Tuesday morning, and I’m practically jumping to get out on the field. I feel like there’s intrinsic value to that kind of attitude, and everybody in that room feels it.”

There are times when his players say the messages fail to cohere. Perhaps it’s intentional, like workouts that promote muscle confusion, but there are morning meetings in training camp or during the season where, in Sewell’s words, “He’ll talk about something totally opposite of what our objective is for that day. It could be about a dog or a plane, anything. He’ll talk for a while and then leave his story at the worst time. He’ll just stop and say, ‘All right: special teams.’ We’re all looking at each other like, ‘Did anyone get that? Is that analogy working for anyone?’”

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ON THE FRIDAY before the final regular-season game, there’s a crowd around the locker occupied by C.J. Gardner-Johnson. He was medically cleared remarkably quickly after suffering a torn pectoral muscle, and the plan is for him to return to the field against the Vikings in a sort of safety-by-rotation setup. Gardner-Johnson is not keen on the idea.

“Getting into a rotation, I’m cool with it,” he said. “But, I mean, how can I say this, I don’t want to sound selfish, but I didn’t get back early to be in a rotation.”

It is the closest thing to a controversy in the Campbell ecosystem. Gardner-Johnson is a member of a subset of pro athletes: the affable egoist. He jokes and laughs with the crowd around his locker, commenting on how much easier it is to deal with the Detroit media than the one he left behind in Philadelphia.

He goes on for several minutes about his role on the team, his belief in himself and his teammates, and his faith in the Detroit media to get it right. As he walks away he says, almost over his shoulder, “I don’t got time for media because y’all don’t make me no money.”

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CAMPBELL’S INTRODUCTORY NEWS conference as coach of the Lions immediately established him as a man who is not a character in someone else’s script. In discussing his “overall philosophy,” he launched into an extended diatribe that sounded a little like a Monty Python skit. The main gist was that the Lions might be knocked down, but they’re always going to get up, and in the process of getting up they’re going to “bite a kneecap off.” The fact that he was wearing a coat and tie while delivering this message didn’t distract from the main takeaway: eventually the Lions would be the last ones standing.

They stand now, perhaps ahead of schedule, as a division winner and host of a playoff game. The kneecap business has become something of a joke around Allen Park, the team’s headquarters, where they sometimes count the references to it in national reporting about the team. And yes, it’s an easy reference point for where Campbell and the Lions were, and where they are now. The fact that it’s proved — in a nonliteral sense — to be a pretty accurate prediction for the team’s fate means it’s no longer viewed as the ravings of a football meathead.

“Everything is different here,” says running back David Montgomery, who topped 1,000 yards in his first year in Detroit after four in Chicago. “You’re allowed to be exactly who you are. When I first heard the man was talking about biting kneecaps, I knew this was going to be a different kind of environment. And right away, as soon as you meet the man, you could see why he’d be biting kneecaps.”

Montgomery laughs a laugh of appreciation. “He hasn’t tried to adopt that philosophy,” he says. “He has adopted it. And we’re buying into it.”

You can practically see the belief that emanates from Campbell as he wends his way around the field — cap tilted back on his head, whistle swinging from his neck — wishing each of his players a good day. He gives off the vibe that he handpicked every guy on the roster, and that he wouldn’t trade any one of them for anyone else in the league. “He sets us on the right way,” offensive coordinator Ben Johnson says, “and we just follow.” They’re in this together, for however long it lasts and wherever it takes them, kneecaps and all.

Jedd Fisch did a phenomenal job during his three seasons at Arizona, the classic turnaround story from 1-11 his first season to 5-7 and then 10-3 this year which made him a hot name for every coach opening in college football.

It could have actually been even better than that this season for the Wildcats as they lost to Mississippi State in overtime, lost to USC in three overtimes and to Washington by a touchdown with the Huskies going on to play for the national championship.

And now Fisch is moving on for what he perceives as greener pastures at Washington after its coach, Kalen DeBoer, left for greener pastures at Alabama. The coaching dominoes fall yet again.

For those who whine and complain about how the transfer portal is negatively changing college football, for coaches who moan about roster management, Fisch is just the latest example of a coach upending college football players’ lives for his own gain.

If coaches can do it, players should be able to do it – and who knows – maybe half of Arizona’s roster follows Fisch to Seattle. Welcome to College Football 2024.

It certainly has the roster talent to play anywhere in the country.

Quarterback Noah Fifita is elite. Tetairoa McMillan is a future first-rounder the nation is not talking enough about after his season. Linebacker Jacob Manu (a teammate of Fifita and McMillan at Anaheim Servite) had 116 tackles this season and flies all over the field.

Fisch was building a legit contender in Tucson. He’s entering an uncertain future at Washington filled with potential but also many questions.

The Huskies team that will take the field next season is not the unstoppable offensive force that went to the national championship this year. No more Michael Penix. No more Rome Odunze. No more DeBoer, who led the Huskies to their best two-season stretch in program history as he wins about 90 percent of his games.

A lot of players are leaving for the NFL. Others including offensive lineman Nate Kalepo and basically the entire secondary including star defensive back Jabbar Muhammad have hit the transfer portal.

In Washington’s recruiting class, four-star defensive end Keona Wilhite and Noah Carter (whose new ranking will be released soon) have asked out of their national letters of intent. So far, Wilhite has heard from UCLA, Michigan State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida and USC. Ironically, both Wilhite and Carter are from the state of Arizona.

Throughout his career, Fisch has proven not to stay long in jobs. The only time he’s stayed longer than two years prior to his three at Arizona was when he was an offensive assistant with the Baltimore Ravens from 2004-07.

Since he left the Ravens, Fisch has been with the Denver Broncos, Minnesota, Seattle Seahawks, Miami, Jacksonville Jaguars, Michigan, UCLA, Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots before taking the Arizona job.

Fisch is a great hire but one wonders how long he’ll be at Washington before he finds perceived greener pastures somewhere else. And he’s coming to Seattle not inheriting a championship team like DeBoer did but something that will look entirely different.

At Arizona, Fisch was building something special, something with staying power that was catching the attention of many elite west recruits. He might have to recreate that magic with the Huskies and that does not happen overnight.

Gary Neville believes Erik ten Hag’s position as Manchester United manager will be “vulnerable” if his side does not develop a playing style in the next few months.

United drew 2-2 with Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday in front of the watching Sir Jim Ratcliffe at Old Trafford, a result that leaves them seventh in the table and eight points off the top four.

Ten Hag’s team have struggled for consistency this season, losing 14 games in all competitions, and Neville thinks the Dutchman will be in trouble if performances do not improve soon with Ratcliffe’s partial takeover expected to go through in February.

Speaking to Sky Sports for The Gary Neville Podcast, the former United captain said: “We need to see a style of play develop in the next few months or else I think the coach will be vulnerable because ultimately the new owner will come in and want to see how we’re going to play, want electricity, want razzmatazz.

“Manchester United have historically been box office. Spurs are box office. I love watching Spurs play football. Manchester United are a hard watch. They’ve got some exciting, talented players, it just needs to somehow gel in the next few months, and I hope it can for Erik ten Hag.

“I’m talking about patterns and combinations that players can rely upon when they go through difficult moments in a match. You rely upon the memory of what you’ve been working on in practice to come out on the pitch at the weekend.

“The last time that I saw combinations of play and a series of passes that looked like they belonged to one another was under Louis van Gaal. What I see here is a collection of single passes where a player receives it and seem to have to work out where the next player is, rather than knowing where the next player is.

“That’s really surprising me because Dutch coaching has been masterful over the last 30, 40, 50 years. Ten Hag’s coaching, being at Bayern Munich and then going to Ajax, he’s produced fantastic teams that have had really good combinations and patterns of play that I would see in a really well-functioning team. And I don’t see anything of it.

“They really struggle to be able to know where each other are and put combinations and patterns together. That’s the bit in the next few months that I think needs to come. Results, yes. Of course, it is nice to win. There’s no real electricity in this stadium at the moment watching the team so what we need to see is something develop, that the team are improving, progressing and on the right track.

“Forget who the players are for now because Spurs have proven today without their best players that you can go out there and still play in the same way.

“That is one thing I noticed today. Where is the default style of play in this team? I don’t see it and that is a real concern. We know United under Ole and Jose Mourinho were more counter-attacking, but that’s not what we expected from Erik ten Hag.

“We expected that high pressing, front foot, high tempo possession-play. He said something a few weeks ago that he can’t deliver that at Manchester United which I thought was a really interesting thing for him to say because other managers have proven at Brighton and at Tottenham that you can deliver with players that maybe aren’t even as valuable in the transfer market as the ones that United have.

“That is what we need to see from United. How are they going to play? How are they going to win matches? What is the strategy? It hampers those attacking stats a lot because if you don’t have a style of play, it really is a struggle.

“I knew exactly where the next pass was going when I was playing for Manchester United. I played with those players for many years. Obviously, Erik ten Hag has not had many years but he has had 18 months and I don’t think at this moment in time you can see those patterns developing.”

Does the injury list explain the lack of those patterns?

“The patterns are worked on as a squad, not just as a team. The more you play together, the more you develop an understanding, but the patterns are worked on as a squad. The patterns are not just given to the first 11 and the rest have to try to work them out.

“The fact that they have lost [Harry] Maguire, [Victor] Lindelof, Lisandro Martinez and Casemiro, it does impact Manchester United because they have lost some experience there, particularly Martinez who is good at playing out from the back.

“But Tottenham had five or six players missing, their whole midfield was missing, but [Hojbjerg and Skipp] still try the same patterns. Not as successfully as Bissouma and Sarr but they still do the same thing. Even when Emerson Royal and Ben Davies have been centre-backs, they still try the same things. It may not be as successful but you still see them trying to do the same things.

“So I don’t think it is an excuse that Manchester United have four or five players out. You can see that the results might suffer a bit, you can see that they might not do the things that they want to do so well. But I don’t see any pattern either with the first-choice players or without the first-choice players.

“That is a real concern and it has to change.”

Speaking to Sky Sports on the broadcast prior to recording The Gary Neville Podcast, the former United player had articulated many of the same ideas. “I am a little bit worried about the lack of combination and patterns of play at United, and the lack of consistency in performance,” he told Sky Sports.

“When you’re in difficult moments in games, you have to rely upon something to get you through it. That’s usually the work you’ve done on the training pitch during the week. It isn’t an excuse to say players have been missed because that pattern of play goes into the squad. You can see that with other teams that have had players missing.

“I worry that what we see is a pass gets played to one player and then they work out what their next pass is whereas other teams know what their next pass is. You never see players in the same positions. Even out of possession, they’re chasing around people, man-to-man marking. They’re never really in shape from an attacking perspective, out of possession. When is that going to change?

“I am scratching my head a little bit because this is a guy [Ten Hag] who has coached with Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich, had done the job he did at Ajax with patterns of play, combinations and really fluid football but then said in an interview before Christmas that he couldn’t deliver the Ajax football at Manchester United.

“I get that because Ajax is such an embedded way of playing and style but when Louis Van Gaal came here – and I wasn’t a great fan of his football – he was able to play a real distinct style of play. Why aren’t we seeing something develop that we know where this team is going?

“Is it a high-pressing team? No. Is it a possession team? No. Is it a counter-attacking team? Sometimes, if a team leaves space in behind. It’s not a direct team. I’m not quite sure what it is and that does need to develop in the next few months if it can.”

Less than a week after leading the No. 1-ranked Michigan Wolverines to their first national championship in 26 years, junior quarterback announced via social media on Sunday that he will forgo his senior year of eligibility in favor of the NFL Draft.

McCarthy, a high four-star recruit coming out of high school, committed to Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines in May of 2019.

In the fall of 2020, when Michigan was struggling through a hopeless 2-4 season, McCarthy, who hadn’t even enrolled at the university yet, famously tweeted out a message to Michigan fans:

“I want all Michigan fans to do this. Take 3 deep breaths… And have faith,” McCarthy wrote. “Faith that every single Coach, player, employee in that building is doing everything they possibly can to be great.”

The tweet, although sounding outlandish in the heat of the moment, turned out to age like fine wine.

McCarthy’s three seasons featured a 40-3 overall record, three Big Ten Championships and a National Title.

As a freshman, McCarthy spent the majority of the season on the bench backing up starting quarterback Cade McNamara. But in 2022, the sophomore emerged, stole the starting job and never looked back.

The Michigan football program then reached heights it had never seen in the modern college football era.

In McCarthy’s 28 games as a starter at Michigan (13 in 2022 and 15 in 2023), he did nothing but win, compiling a historically great 27-1 overall record, with the only loss coming in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl to the TCU Horned Frogs.

He’ll finish his career having completed 482 of his 713 pass attempts for 6,226 yards, 49 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

After the team’s Rose Bowl win over Alabama on New Year’s Day, Jim Harbaugh named McCarthy the best quarterback in Michigan football history. Although the numbers don’t necessarily agree, McCarthy’s draft stock does.

Mock drafts have had McCarthy as high as a top-five pick in this year’s NFL Draft, and he’s nearly a consensus first-round selection come April. If the soon-to-be 21-year-old is taken in the first round, he’ll be the first Michigan quarterback since Harbaugh himself to be taken that high in the NFL Draft.

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Gary Neville believes Tottenham can finish above Liverpool and Arsenal in the Premier League this season should they keep their players fit.

Spurs’ 2-2 draw at Manchester United moved them level on points with fourth-placed Arsenal and five behind leaders Liverpool heading into the second half of the campaign.

Manager Ange Postecoglou was without first-team regulars Heung-Min Son, Pape Sarr, Yves Bissouma, James Maddison, Giovani Lo Celso, Dejan Kulusevski and Ben Davies at Old Trafford yet were the better side – and Sky Sports’ Neville belives they can finish as high as second when they’re back.

“If they keep their players fit, they are a certainty to finish in the top four and I think they can get to second and third,” said Neville.

“With those players back, and if they can get through these next few weeks, I genuinely think they can be better than Arsenal and Liverpool this season.

“It might end up being a good draw in the FA Cup against Manchester City. Go out of that and concentrate completely on the league. But they do need to win a trophy.

“If he wins a trophy, great, but we know in the past when teams have had a really explosive season, they’re not usually in Europe or competitions.

“For Ange Postecoglou to get to second or third, which they could do if they have a clean run at it, would be something special.”

Redknapp: Spurs should prioritise FA Cup over top-four finish

Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp says Tottenham should aim to prioritise winning the FA Cup over finishing in the top four and securing Champions League qualification.

“I’d rather Tottenham won the FA Cup than get in the Champions League,” he said. “It would be better for them to go and win something because that’s always the stick people beat them with.

“Posteoglou’s made them believe. He said they were in the title race, that’s refreshing for Spurs fans to hear. So often they’ve never really spoken like that or had that ambition that they should have.

“Right now, with their squad, and I’ve been critical over the last few years of how their style of play is, there’s a difference about them and the manager deserves so much credit for that.”

Keane: Why not do both?!

“You can do both, dream big! Spurs should be going all out for the Champions League and focusing on winning a trophy,” said Sky Sports’ Roy Keane.

“Spurs are in a great position. There’s a bit of arrogance about them, a bit of confidence, they were disappointed with the draw against United. I’m still looking for Spurs to go and win the game. They eased off at the end and took a draw.

“We can’t go overboard on Spurs. We heard from the manager, he’s obviously going to praise his players. The staff got praised, the bus driver got praised, everyone got praise. It was against a poor Man Utd team in a difficult place. It was 2-2. Everyone relax.”

What’s next for Spurs?

Man Utd enter the two-week winter break before facing an FA Cup fourth-round tie on January 27, with their opponents (Newport County or Eastleigh) yet to be determined.

They return to Premier League duty on February 1 when travelling to Wolves; kick-off 8.15pm.

Tottenham contest their respective FA Cup fourth-round tie against Manchester City on January 27, before hosting Brentford in the Premier League on January 31; kick-off 7.30pm.

On Sunday, Purdue scored a massive commitment in the 2025 class by landing Murfreesboro (Tenn.) Seigel cornerback Tarrion Grant, the No. 36 player in the country.

The Rivals250 product chose the Boilermakers over a final list that also included Oregon, Virginia Tech, Louisville, and LSU. In total, Grant has 24 offers on his resume.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound talent details his commitment to Purdue with Rivals.com below.

– On why Purdue won out in his recruitment:

“When Coach (Joe) Dineen came down to see me at the school probably last fall and from there it just clicked. I went on a visit and the first time I was on campus I just felt the energy and it felt like home. Also, I had known Coach (Sam) Carter since he was at Ole Miss, so we already had that relationship and that connection. I always known I wanted to play ball with Coach Carter because he can get kids to the next level. I just like the way he recruits. He just wants to build a relationship with you. He wants to know you.”

– On what he likes about Sam Carter’s coaching style:

“He’s an aggressive coach. They run man and cover two and I’m that sit-down corner, I’m a man coverage corner and can hold it down on an island. That’s what I like about their system.”

– On his gameday visit to Purdue this past season:

“Me and my parents went up there for a gameday visit. I just wanted my Mom and Dad to see what it’s like at Purdue. They started liking it and they saw what I saw in the school in the atmosphere and the coaching staff wanting what’s best for me and how they would take care of me.”

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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Quick-hit thoughts and notes around the New England Patriots and NFL:

1. Wolf well-positioned: One of the next critical steps for the Patriots after coach Bill Belichick’s exit will be in their personnel department, clarifying roles and ultimately determining who runs the show after Belichick had final say for the past two decades. With the No. 3 overall pick, this is arguably the team’s most important draft since selecting quarterback Drew Bledsoe first overall in 1993.

Some key points from team and league sources:

• In 30 years of ownership, Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft have never hired a general manager. Bobby Grier and Scott Pioli held the title of vice president of player personnel, while Nick Caserio and Matt Groh assumed the of director of player personnel title. That history suggests that any hire is unlikely to be a GM who is given authority to run the entire football operation. Instead, the Krafts will be looking for someone to oversee personnel and work in concert with new head coach Jerod Mayo.

• Director of scouting Eliot Wolf, the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame executive Ron Wolf, is viewed by some in the organization as well-positioned to be the choice for more responsibility and to possibly lead personnel efforts. He was an assistant general manager for the Browns (2018-19) before joining New England. The past four years have, in some respects, been an extended job interview for him. The Krafts’ familiarity with him likely works in his favor.

• Interviews with external candidates are still in play. But with the current staff remaining in place at least through the draft — headlined by Wolf, director of player personnel Matt Groh, senior personnel advisor Pat Stewart, director of pro scouting Steve Cargile and college scouting coordinator Camren Williams — the Krafts seem to be taking the view that there is no need to rush.

2. Missed opportunity?: As certain as the Krafts are about Mayo — and their hiring of past head coaches Belichick and Pete Carroll warrants respect — some executives and coaches around the NFL are surprised they didn’t conduct interviews with other candidates, if for nothing else than to gather information that could benefit the organization in the future. What was the rush? That’s one of several questions the Krafts figure to be asked, when Mayo is formally introduced Wednesday, about their decision-making process (going back to last offseason when they put succession plans in Mayo’s contract) and how some team sources believed the domino effect of that decision resulted in a more divided coaching staff.

3. Mayo’s philosophy: Mayo conducted biweekly reporter interviews over the course of the season, which provided insight into his coaching philosophy and focus on “conceptual learning.” His insights are timely to revisit after he was named the team’s 15th head coach on Friday:

• “We always talk about teaching them how to think, not what to think. ‘It’s your defense, have ownership, accountability, here are the keys.’”

• “Scheme is one thing, but I truly believe it’s about the players. Our X’s and O’s are very fundamentally sound, but it’s about having good players.”

• “I like to tell the players that once they get on the field, it’s a blank canvas. So go fill it up, but just make sure you keep it on the canvas.”

• “I love coaching, but I don’t do it to pay the bills. I do it because of the love of the game and the love of developing players.”

4. Mayo steps fourth: Another aspect that makes Mayo’s hire unique — since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, he becomes just the fourth head coach to have played for his team’s previous coach with the same team. According to Elias Sports Bureau, the others are the Vikings’ Mike Tice in 2002 (under Dennis Green), Washington’s Jack Pardee in 1978 (under George Allen) and Green Bay’s Bart Starr in 1975 (under Dan Devine).

5. Goodbye, dais: Mayo prefers to sit among those he is addressing rather than speak to them from behind a dais, so daily media briefings (and perhaps even team meetings) will have a notably different feel. Wednesday’s official introduction of Mayo as the 15th head coach in franchise history could provide the first glimpse of this.

6. They said it: “He knows how to bring the young guys along and get them adapted and up to speed with the older guys, so you can all see one vision. That’s one of the things he loves to say: ‘I don’t care if I’m right or you’re right, I want us to see the same picture.’” — Patriots outside linebacker Matthew Judon, on Mayo, during an appearance Friday on ESPN’s NFL Live.

7. Roll call: Former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was among those present in the team auditorium Thursday when Kraft and Belichick appeared together to announce their parting of ways. Among others seated in the back: defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington, cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino, director of football/head coach administration Berj Najarian, director of scouting administration Nancy Meier, video archivist Jimmy Dee and team sports dietician Ted Harper. Speaking without the aid of written notes, Belichick, who said he didn’t want to leave anyone out, specifically highlighted Najarian and Meier as those who had been with him “since Day 1.”

8. International plans? After “hosting” a game in Frankfurt, Germany during the 2023 season, the Patriots could have their passports punched again in 2024 — this time as a “road” team. The NFL announced Thursday that the Bears (London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium) and Jaguars (London’s Wembley Stadium) are among the teams hosting international games — and both are road opponents for New England in 2024.

9. Did you know? — Part I: If Belichick coaches a new team in 2024, he would be the first head coach to start a season with a new team in his 70s.

10. Did you know? — Part II: Mayo becomes the 242nd former player to become an NFL head coach since the 1970 merger. Of that group, 134 were offensive players and 108 were defensive players, according to Elias. Mayo is the first former Patriots player to serve as the team’s head coach.

Real Madrid play Barcelona in the Spanish Supercopa final on Sunday, giving the competition the climactic El Clasico clash its new “final four” format was designed to showcase.

It’s the first time since 2020 — when the Supercopa was expanded and moved to Saudi Arabia — that the final will fulfil the tournament’s original goal of pitting the reigning LaLiga champions, Barcelona, against last season’s Copa del Rey winners, Real Madrid.

It’s also a repeat of last year’s Supercopa final, when a one-sided Clásico contest ended in a 3-1 Barca win, setting them up for a triumphant second half of the season, which ended with the league title.

– Stream Supercopa on ESPN+: Barca vs. Real Madrid (Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET)

Real Madrid reached this final with a thrilling 5-3 extra time win over Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, before Barca qualified with a more discreet 2-0 victory over Osasuna a day later.

Now the two giants go head-to-head on Sunday at Al-Awwal Park in Riyadh with the first trophy of the Spanish season at stake.

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Why Real Madrid will win

Clásicos are notoriously unpredictable. Form and circumstances are forgotten when the whistle blows. The outcome feels almost entirely unrelated to context.

What’s more, both teams have players good enough to transform a game single-handed, rendering irrelevant what’s gone before. Just look at recent meetings between these two.

Barcelona were completely, overwhelmingly dominant when the teams last met on Oct. 28 in LaLiga. Until, with just over an hour played, Jude Bellingham turned the game at Montjuic on its head with a breathtaking goal out of nowhere — and then a late, dramatic winner — to give Madrid the three points.

Remember the last Clásico in a cup competition: the Copa del Rey semifinal second leg at Camp Nou in April 2023, which Madrid won at a canter, 4-0, just as Barca were preparing to lift the league title. Or their last Supercopa meeting in Riyadh, three months earlier, when Barca cruised to a 3-1 victory.

In other words, either team is more than capable of winning Sunday, so everything we say should be taken with a pinch of salt. Still, there are plenty of reasons for Madridistas to be optimistic.

Wednesday’s gripping 5-3 win over Atletico — in which Real twice fought back from a goal down, to eventually emerge victorious in extra time — was more proof that this team doesn’t know when it’s beaten. Serial winners like Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Dani Carvajal could write the book on what it takes to lift trophies.

Madrid haven’t lost since September. This is a well-balanced team that looks dangerous in attack, and — despite the evidence to the contrary in the three goals conceded against Atleti — is generally solid in defence, conceding 11 goals in 19 LaLiga games this season.

Another relentless competitor, Antonio Rüdiger, is in the best form of his time at Madrid. Carvajal was the semifinal’s MVP. Federico Valverde is having a quietly exceptional season in a more withdrawn midfield role. Then there’s the goal threat and big-game personality of Bellingham.

Madrid’s squad is also reassuringly deep. On Wednesday, coach Carlo Ancelotti was able to call on Kroos, Eduardo Camavinga, Brahim Díaz, Joselu, Dani Ceballos and Arda Güler off the bench to help get the team over the line in extra time. Diaz, in particular, has been in electric form in recent weeks, forcing his way into Ancelotti’s plans and offering the team something different in attack.

The biggest doubt — and perhaps the team’s Achilles heel — comes in goal. Kepa Arrizabalaga started on Wednesday and was unconvincing once again, showing a familiar lack of conviction in coming off his line to fail to deal with Atletico’s third goal. The suspicion is that Ancelotti now prefers Andriy Lunin and has given Kepa minutes in this month’s cup competitions to keep his confidence up.

If repeated, it’s a decision which could cost the team, when finals are so often decided by fine margins. — Alex Kirkland

play

What does Barcelona need to change to beat Real Madrid?

Luis Garcia reacts to Barcelona’s 2-0 victory vs. Osasuna and previews the Supercopa de España final vs. Real Madrid.

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Why Barcelona will win

Barcelona manager Xavi Hernández says last season’s Supercopa success, complete with the win over Madrid in the final, gave his players the belief they needed to go on and win LaLiga for the first time since 2019. He is hoping for a similar “click” in Riyadh on Sunday to quieten the criticism that has accompanied Barça in recent months.

That criticism peaked in December when a two-game winless run saw Barça slip seven points behind LaLiga leaders Madrid and Girona. The complaints extend beyond just results, though, and focus on the performances produced even when winning. Before Thursday’s 2-0 win over Osasuna, Barça had not won a game by more than a goal since Sept. 19, a run spanning 20 matches, and had not kept a clean sheet since Dec. 3.

With those streaks over, Barça, who have now won four consecutive matches in all competitions, will approach the Clásico with some of their confidence restored.

Pedri‘s return from injury helps. The midfielder came on for the final 30 minutes against Osasuna, coinciding with an upturn in Barça’s display. Xavi said the Spain international adds “clarity” to the team’s football, while midfielder Frenkie de Jong noted Barça are “more fluid” when he is on the pitch.

The temptation will be to start Pedri on Sunday, although some caution must also be applied given his recent injury history. He has only been fit to start eight games this season.

However, Pedri’s importance to the system may override any vigilance, with Xavi highlighting Barça’s “DNA and methodology” as the biggest reasons to believe they can emerge victorious this weekend.

“We have to take the ball from Madrid and our DNA must shine through more than ever,” he said in a news conference on Thursday. “The example is last year’s final. Madrid are in better form than they were then, but we will try to dominate them and play toe-to-toe. It’s the ideal moment for us to show our best football.”

Those are qualities Xavi often preaches but other attributes led to last year’s LaLiga title, which was built on a solid defensive base. That has been lost this season, with Barça already conceding more goals through 19 LaLiga games than they did in 38 last year, but a return to last season’s back four brought a clean sheet against Osasuna. With full-back João Cancelo a doubt to face Madrid, they may stick to that recipe of Jules Koundé, Ronald Araújo, Andreas Christensen and Alejandro Balde.

A hamstring injury picked up by Raphinha against Osasuna may lead Xavi back to picking four midfielders, too, which was the tactic deployed in last season’s final. Pedri could return alongside De Jong, Ilkay Gündogan and Sergi Roberto to provide control in the middle and avoid an end-to-end game that would likely favour Madrid. It would also reserve João Felix and Lamine Yamal for the second half after both players made such a big impact off the bench against Osasuna. — Sam Marsden

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Supercopa final predictions

Kirkland: Real Madrid 2-1 Barçelona. Bellingham — who else? — will score the winning goal and lift his first trophy with the club.

Marsden: Barçelona 3-1 Real Madrid. It’s the old cliche but form really does fly out the window in a Clásico, with the less-fancied team often prevailing. I think Barça’s need for a big win could get them over the line on Sunday, just as it did last year.

ARE THERE MORE FIVE-STARS IN CALIFORNIA?

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IS FRAZIER THE BEST RUNNING BACK IN THE CLASS?

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WILL WE HAVE REGRETS IF SAYIN ISN’T THE NO. 1 QB?

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WHO IS NO. 1 IN WASHINGTON?

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WHAT SHOULD THE ARIZONA STATE RANKINGS LOOK LIKE?

Novak Djokovic survived a huge first-round scare against teenage qualifier Dino Prizmic at the Australian Open.

History-chasing Djokovic, bidding for a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam, found himself a break down in the third set before going on to win 6-2 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 6-4 in Melbourne.

The world No 1, looking for his 11th title Down Under, had to battle for four hours and two minutes before winning through.

It was the longest opening match of a Grand Slam he has played as the Serb survived a significant test in his quest to overtake Margaret Court and stand alone at the top of the sport.

More to follow…

Berrettini drops out of Grand Slam without playing a single match

Matteo Berrettini pulled out of the tournament without playing a match as his injury woes continued.

The former Wimbledon finalist had been due to face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round on Rod Laver Arena on Monday in one of the plum ties of the first round.

But on Sunday afternoon the tournament announced he had withdrawn with a right foot injury, making it the fourth time in the last eight Grand Slam tournaments where he has not been able to play a match.

The popular Italian, a semi-finalist in Melbourne in 2022, has been off the tour since suffering an ankle injury during his second-round match against Arthur Rinderknech at the US Open.

He had previously missed the French Open because of an abdominal injury, while in 2022 he also sat out Roland Garros following hand surgery and then tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of Wimbledon.

Once ranked as high as world No 6, the 27-year-old, beaten by Djokovic in the Wimbledon final in 2021, is now down at 125.

He has been replaced in the draw by Belgian lucky loser Zizou Bergs, who will take on Tsitsipas on Monday.

Fourth seed Jannik Sinner, one of the favourites for the title following his stellar end to 2023, began his campaign with a straight-sets win over Botic Van De Zandschulp.

Sinner, who beat Djokovic twice in a matter of days at the ATP Finals and Davis Cup in November, was a 6-4 7-5 6-3 winner on Rod Laver Arena.

The Italian did not play a warm-up tournament after his late finish to last season, and he said: “I feel like I started off actually really well for the first match.

“Then after, I had some moments where I made a couple of wrong choices, but this can happen. Even if you made maybe some matches, this can happen. Maybe you are a little bit tired sometimes.

“It was important today for me because I was looking forward to stepping on the court.”

American 12th seed Taylor Fritz survived a first-round test from Argentine Facundo Diaz Acosta to win 4-6 6-3 3-6 6-2 6-4 in a four hour thriller.

The 26-year-old avoided an early exit, having bowed out in the second round last year.

Fifth seed Andrey Rublev fought his way past Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild 7-5 6-4 3-6 4-6 7-6 (7-6) in three hours and 42 minutes.

Former finalist Marin Cilic played his first Grand Slam match since the US Open in 2022 following knee surgery but was beaten in four sets by Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan.

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A series of injuries to the USC lineup recently created an opening for Bronny James to make his first collegiate start at Colorado on Saturday night. Starters Joshua Morgan, Boogie Ellis and Isaiah Collier were sidelined, so Trojans coach Andy Enfield added the son of NBA star LeBron James to his starting five.

However, the absence of Morgan (averaging 2.3 blocks per game), veteran Ellis and projected first-round NBA draft pick Collier took its toll, and the Trojans went into the CU Events Center — which sits at an elevation of 5,430 feet as the fifth-highest venue in college basketball — and squandered a 13-point halftime lead to lose 68-58. It was also a cold night for James, who finished 0-for-7 with just two rebounds and one assist.

With the defeat, the Trojans are now 8-9 (2-4 Pac-12) with a NET ranking in the 90s. They will need a major turnaround to earn a spot in the NIT. The NCAA tournament is not yet a valid conversation for Enfield’s program.

And yet James, who played 25 minutes Saturday night, continues to demonstrate his growth, as well as some of the challenges he is navigating. It also is important to note that the contest in Boulder was only his ninth game as a Division I player. Still, USC will need more from the freshman — and the entire roster, really — to change its current trajectory.

Here, we break down what we learned about Bronny James the starter and USC without its star players.

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James makes key play just minutes into matchup

With 17:31 to play in the first half, James drew an offensive foul on KJ Simpson, Colorado’s leading scorer. It was also Simpson’s second foul of the game, sending him to the bench until around the 14-minute mark. Thanks to those two early fouls, Simpson played the rest of the first half more cautiously than he typically does and was 2-for-6 from the field going into the break.

James successfully defended Simpson on multiple possessions and continued to prove himself as a player willing to make hustle plays, which might not earn a mention on “SportsCenter” but still impact the game.

Needs to work on his assertiveness

James loves to defer, and he had good reason to do that at the start of the game. His teammates, including Oziyah Sellers, helped USC go on an early run to end the first half up 37-24. But two of James’ early shots were blocked in what was an 0-for-5 start for the freshman. He is still trying to find his offensive role for this team.

Saturday’s contest was a chance for James to showcase his full skill set that had made him a top-20 high school recruit, but he didn’t play with the aggression that would have allowed him to do that. It’s clear he is still searching for the balance between getting his teammates involved, which he does well, and increasing his scoring output.

Despite struggles, he showed promise with consistent energy

James missed his first seven shots, and his team couldn’t shake its scoring drought in the second half, either, starting 3-for-15 from the field after the break. However, James never seemed to lose confidence. This matters, especially for a freshman. He continued to attack in the second half, and his defensive intensity never waned even as Colorado ran away with the scoring and eventually won by double digits.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice is from Dallas and played in college at SMU, so he’s never played a game in weather remotely approaching that from Saturday night’s Kansas City Chiefs wild-card playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium.

Rice looked like a natural with the temperature at minus 4 degrees at kickoff, the fourth-coldest playoff game in NFL history. Rice had 130 receiving yards, sixth most by a rookie in the playoffs, and a touchdown on eight catches as the Chiefs advanced to next week’s divisional round with a 26-7 win over the Miami Dolphins.

“I feel like, to be honest, it was another game,” Rice said. “Everybody out here was playing for each other, so it was just like we just put the weather to the side and knew that our opponents didn’t want to be out here in this cold as much as we didn’t.”

The Chiefs, who led the league during the regular season in dropped passes and were among the leaders in turnovers, played a relatively clean game given the circumstances. They had a couple of drops, but were able to overcome them each time. They didn’t commit a turnover until running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire fumbled in the final minutes as the Chiefs were merely trying to kill the clock.

Patrick Mahomes was 23-of-41 for 262 yards and had an 11-yard scoring toss to Rice, who ran a shallow crossing route, caught the short pass and ran untouched to the end zone.

“The guys accepted the challenge,” Mahomes said. “We were able to throw the ball, we were able to run the ball. … I thought the [offensive] line did a great job and we had that mentality all week that we’re going to go out there and play football. We know it’s cold, but we’re going to go out there and play football and see what happens.”

The Dolphins tried complicating those efforts by blitzing Mahomes at a rate he’s rarely seen. He faced six or more pass-rushers 14 times, the most of his career. He saw five or more rushers on 51.2% of his dropbacks, which was tied for the highest rate of his career.

But Mahomes wasn’t sacked and he didn’t commit a turnover.

“I don’t think they were anticipating us throwing the ball quite as much as we did, but we were able to come out and sling it,” coach Andy Reid said. “A lot of quarterbacks can’t do that, what he did in that kind of weather.”

Rice was the Chiefs’ leading wide receiver during the regular season by a wide margin. He improved as the season progressed and twice went for more than 100 yards in his final six games.

“Some of those guys hit that rookie wall and it seems like he just kind of pushed right through it and he’s just continued to get better and better and he’s a great player,” Mahomes said. “He has that right mentality. He comes to work every single day and he made a lot of great plays for us today that helped us win the football game.”

The rest of the Chiefs’ wide receivers struggled much of the season. They were counting on significant production from Kadarius Toney, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Skyy Moore but got it from none of them so Rice’s emergence was essential.

Tight end Travis Kelce caught seven passes against the Dolphins. Otherwise, none of their receivers had more than two catches.

“It’s hard to believe that he’s a rookie,” Reid said of Rice. “The best part about him is he just keeps working. He’s relentless with that and he’s got a good relationship [with Mahomes]. He’s got Pat’s respect and he wants to do it the right way.

“He’s getting better every week and so I think we’ve seen that the last four games, five games.”

Artur Beterbiev continued his reign as the unified light-heavyweight world champion as he blasted Britain’s Callum Smith down twice and forced a finish two minutes into their seventh round.

Smith was attempting to become a two-weight world champion when he challenged Beterbiev for the WBC, IBF and WBO 175lb belts at the Videotron Center in Quebec City.

But taking on Beterbiev is as formidable a task as there is in world boxing.

With crushing punch-power, and underrated boxing ability, Beterbiev had won all of his professional contests by knockout and stoppage. Smith proved to be no exception.

Spurred on by the crowd in his adopted home country, Beterbiev started quickly, catching Smith early in the first round and hurting him too.

He directed Smith to the ropes with clubbing force. He snuck into range and, with a solid left, caught Smith when he stepped forward.

The Briton steadied and tapped his jab into Beterbiev. He doubled up that lead when he targeted the body.

Smith boxed his way into the second round, though the champion continued to present him with threats of sudden danger.

Beterbiev just ratcheted up the pressure, disrupting the challenger with hard, repeated jabs. Smith tried to punch round that shot but Beterbiev added in hurtful right-hand blows.

Smith was feeling those shots but nevertheless launched left hooks at him.

Beterbiev though hounded him in the fourth round. He stayed on Smith, blasting heavy hits through the Briton’s defences.

A hard right cross lashed down across the jaw within a fierce combination from the champion. Defiant still, Smith earned moments of respite when he trebled his left hook to the head. He ripped his lead hook to the body too.

But he could not sustain it and all the while had been letting too many hard punches through.

The challenger became more ragged as he tried to reach for the body in the fifth round, while Beterbiev looked ever more commanding, deceptively light on his feet as Smith’s punches struggled to find him.

While he could pad Smith’s jab away, Beterbiev’ left was hard to read and the champion managed to launch it cleanly through the Briton’s guard.

Before the fight had even reached its halfway stage, Smith was cut and his face increasingly marked up.

The force of a lead hook backed Smith up. He did unearth a two-punch combination to the head and body himself.

Beterbiev’s strikes however continued to burst through, breaking down his challenger.

A right cross to the head in the seventh round badly shook up Smith. Beterbiev then unleashed a fearful array of punches, knocking Smith down for the first time in his career.

He could not escape from there.

Beterbiev hit him back into the ropes, and then battered him down to the canvas again.

Smith’s trainer, Buddy McGirt would not allow him to take further punishment and stepped through the ropes to end it two minutes into the seventh round.

Beterbiev retained his three world titles and maintained his 100 percent knockout ratio.

But he spoke calmly after the victory. “You know it’s because of luck” was his suggestion for why no opponent has been able to go the distance with him.

“It’s my coach working hard with me, maybe that’s why too. But I think it’s because of luck.”

Undercard action

Jason Moloney retained the WBO bantamweight world title after a desperately close 12-round battle with Saul Sanchez.

Sanchez was an unheralded challenger who had never competed at this kind of level before.

Yet the American started positively on the front foot, catching Moloney with solid straight shots as he closed in.

The champion, from Australia, picked up a cut by his right eye as soon as the third round and was taking shots. Moving off invited Sanchez forward and the challenger was finding success.

They engaged ferociously throughout a close fight, with Moloney forcing his way on to the front foot to match Sanchez.

But neither managed to establish clear control of the contest, slugging it out in the late rounds as each battled to tip the balance in their favour.

One judge ruled the bout a 114-114 draw, but Moloney managed to edge Sanchez out by majority decision, winning 116-112 for the other two officials.

“I felt like I did enough in the later rounds to retain my title,” the defending champion declared afterwards.

“Saul Sanchez is a warrior. I am proud to be the WBO bantamweight champion, and I was going to do whatever it took to keep my title.”

Christian Mbilli sustained a high tempo and heavy assault as he set about Australia’s Rohan Murdock.

The latter gamely threw punches back, but Mbilli, an all-action fighter, continued to clatter him with hooks and arching rights over the top.

By the end of the fifth round Murdock was wilting severely.

He propelled himself off the stool and into Mbilli for the sixth round. He did give the Frenchman pause for thought with a right cross, but shuddering uppercuts caught Murdock flush.

After Mbilli applied another strong finish to the round and Murdock’s corner pulled him out at the fight’s halfway stage.

Imposing light-heavyweight prospect Imam Khataev, who lost to Britain’s Ben Whittaker in the semi-final of the Tokyo Olympic Games, hammered Poland’s Michal Ludwiczak to defeat inside a two rounds.

He exerted front-foot pressure, landing damaging hooks from mid-range. The Pole tried to fend him off but could land nothing of note.

After a sustained attack in the second round, a brace of short, chopping shots dropped Ludwiczak.

He rose but Khataev continued to pummel him and forced a stoppage.