Football recruiting staffers at the University of Georgia routinely drove rented vehicles after consuming alcohol, according to court documents filed Thursday by attorneys representing a former staffer who was seriously injured in a January 2023 car wreck that killed a Bulldogs player and another staff member.
In an amended complaint filed in state court in Gwinnett County (Georgia), the attorneys also alleged that UGA assistant football coaches used cash to pay for recruiting expenses during unofficial recruiting visits, which could be a violation of NCAA rules.
Victoria Bowles, who survived the car crash that killed Bulldogs offensive lineman Devin Willock and recruiting staff member Chandler LeCroy on Jan. 15, 2023, sued the University of Georgia Athletic Association, former Georgia player Jalen Carter, LeCroy’s estate and others for damages in July.
Police alleged that LeCroy and Carter, now a rookie with the Philadelphia Eagles, were racing when the SUV being driven by LeCroy left the road and crashed into a utility pole and trees. The lawsuit said LeCroy’s SUV was traveling at least 104.2 mph when it crashed and had been racing another SUV driven by Carter for 45 seconds or less. Police said LeCroy’s blood alcohol concentration was .197, nearly 2½ times the legal limit in Georgia.
“We are reviewing the amended complaint, but we dispute its claims and will vigorously defend the Athletic Association’s interest in court,” a university spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.
The UGA Athletic Association previously said LeCroy didn’t have permission to drive the rented SUV for personal use.
“The UGA Athletic Association denies that Ms. LeCroy had permission to drive the subject SUV (in its words) ‘to downtown Athens for a night of drinking and partying,’” the amended complaint said. “While this language is inflammatory as to what occurred the night of the crash, text messages provide evidence that football staffers, with the Association’s knowledge, regularly drove recruits and their guests after consuming alcohol at Athens’ restaurants and bars.”
The amended complaint alleged that “text messages show that on occasion supervisors and coaches, in effect, encouraged recruiting staff to drink alcohol with football prospects’ families-well aware that staffers would leave the events after consuming alcohol.”
“Association coaches and staff regularly drank alcohol at UGA football Coach Kirby Smart’s residence during recruiting events, and then, in Association SUVs, returned recruits’ families and guests back to their lodging,” the complaint said. “The Association and UGA coaches were well aware that involved alcohol, in Association SUVs.”
The amended complaint included a Dec. 14, 2019, text message purportedly sent to 13 staff members by then-UGA director of player personnel Marshall Malchow that said: “Hey guys… if you are driving you can have fun at Coach Smarts but if you are driving a recruit make sure you don’t get drunk. It will be a bad look if we have people who are supposed to be driving recruits getting lit.”
In a Feb. 22, 2022, text message, another athletic association employee told recruiting staff members that an associate athletic director said to turn a downtown Athens restaurant “into a bar with [recruits’] families and don’t leave.”
“My client’s iPhone survived the crash fully intact and contains thousands of pages of recruiting texts describing the inner workings of UGA’s recruiting activities,” Bowles’ attorney, Rob Buck, said in a statement to ESPN. “The new texts included in the Amended Complaint establish that the Association was fully aware recruiting staffers were regularly allowed to drive recruits and their families around Athens after drinking alcohol at Association sponsored events. Some texts even show that football coaches and recruiting supervisors, in effect, encouraged staffers to drink with football prospects’ families.
“The texts contradict the Association’s pleadings and public statements to its fan base. The texts document that the Association knowingly allowed football staffers to drive Association SUVs while drinking even if UGA had policies stating otherwise.”
The amended complaint also alleges that Bowles is aware of UGA football coaches using cash in recruiting activities involving unofficial visits. NCAA rules prohibit coaches and staff members from paying for expenses for recruits and their families during unofficial visits, including lodging, meals, entertainment and travel costs.
Bowles’ original complaint said Bulldogs assistant coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe asked her to use his ATM card to get $1,000 in cash at a recruiting dinner during an unofficial recruiting visit on Jan. 14, 2023. The ATM card didn’t work, so she drove to her home to get money. The complaint said Uzo-Diribe paid her back via Venmo. The athletic association previously said in a statement that it assumed the cash was for Uzo-Diribe’s personal use.
The lawsuit accuses Carter of illegally leaving the scene without speaking to law enforcement and failing to render aid. Carter pleaded no contest March 16 to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing. He was sentenced to 12 months of probation, a $1,000 fine and 80 hours of community service and will attend a state-approved defensive driving course.
According to Bowles’ attorneys, she has incurred more than $170,000 in medical expenses and suffered “likely permanent disability.” Among her injuries included in the lawsuit are three lumbar fractures, five fractured vertebrae, 10 broken ribs, a broken clavicle, fractured and cracked teeth, kidney and liver lacerations, a punctured and collapsed lung, and abdominal bleeding.
The lawsuit said Bowles also suffered a closed head injury that caused neurological damage, severe eye pain and, according to her neurosurgeon, significant damage to the membrane that surrounds the nerves of her spinal cord, which can progress to permanent paralysis.
ST. LOUIS — Jordan Kyrou had his third career hat trick, Jordan Binnington made 41 saves, and the St. Louis Blues beat the New York Rangers 5-2 on Thursday night.
Brandon Saad and Pavel Buchnevich also scored for St. Louis.
Adam Fox and Vincent Trocheck scored for the Rangers.
The Blues have gone 8-4-0 since Drew Bannister became interim coach, replacing Craig Berube.
The Rangers have lost three straight (0-2-1) for the first time all season. New York has won just two of its last seven games and is 8-8-1 in its last 17 games after starting the season 18-4-1.
Binnington continued his trend of solid starts since Christmas. He is 4-1-0 and has won three consecutive starts. Igor Shesterkin stopped 15 shots for the Rangers.
Kyrou completed his hat trick when he scored unassisted at 7:01 of the third period. He picked up a cross-ice pass from Zac Jones and scored on a breakaway.
Kyrou had hat tricks last March 11 at Columbus and on Dec. 19, 2022, at Vancouver.
The Blues scored their second power-play goal in four chances at 9:26 of the second period when Saad put the puck in the back of the net for a 3-1 lead. It came after the Rangers had killed off back-to-back penalties earlier in the period.
It was the 14th power-play goal this season for St. Louis and the team’s first go-ahead power-play goal of the season. The Blues’ power play entered the game ranked last in the NHL.
The Rangers entered the game tied for the fifth best in the NHL in the penalty kill and had enjoyed a perfect PK in its last three games (5 for 5). New York has allowed 19 power-play goals, tied for the second fewest in the NHL.
Two goals put the Blues ahead in the first period after the Rangers opened the scoring.
St. Louis tied it on a goal by Kyrou, who scored on a wrist shot from the right circle, at 4:02
Kyrou got his second goal on the power play at 7:30 to put the Blues ahead 2-1. The goal came on passes from Thomas to Buchnevich to Kyrou.
Fox scored on a loose rebound in front of the net at 1:50 of the first period.
Trocheck scored New York’s second goal on the power play at 10:58 of the third period.
UP NEXT:
Rangers: At Washington on Saturday.
Blues: Host Boston on Saturday night.
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The top stories and transfer rumours from Friday’s newspapers…
DAILY MIRROR
Erik ten Hag is keeping tabs on Ajax striker Brian Brobbey as Manchester United begin to plan their summer transfer window.
Turkish football is facing new shame after it emerged a club refused to deal with an agent because he is Black.
Former Sunderland and Bristol City manager Lee Johnson has offered to mentor aspiring coaches following his recent sacking by League One club Fleetwood Town.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Arsenal are admirers of Bologna’s Joshua Zirkzee and are keeping a close eye on the striker as they consider potential targets who could strengthen Mikel Arteta’s attack.
THE SUN
Kepa fears he will be sent back to Chelsea this summer after falling out of favour at Real Madrid.
Arsenal are willing to trigger the £50m release clause of Martin Zubimendi, reports suggest.
Chelsea have drawn up a five-man striker shortlist with Victor Osimhen their number one target, according to reports.
Nemanja Matic has been spotted at a train station in Rennes after going on strike at the club.
EVENING STANDARD
Chelsea are long-term admirers of Brighton teenager Evan Ferguson.
DAILY MAIL
Saudi Arabia is set to launch a fresh raid on world football and will scour the planet for some of its best young talent – with cash-rich Pro League clubs to increase the number of overseas players permitted in the competition from eight to 10 in the summer.
Nottingham Forest will take transfer advice in this window from the man they sacked as head of recruitment more than a year ago – George Syrianos.
DAILY EXPRESS
Mikel Arteta will reportedly knock back approaches for Eddie Nketiah this January despite Crystal Palace’s willingness to pay around £30m for the Arsenal striker.
Leeds and Rangers are set to go head-to-head in the transfer market this month with both clubs tracking one of Scotland’s rising stars, Josh Doig.
THE ATHLETIC
Premier League clubs may not learn any confirmed profitability and sustainability regulations (PSR) punishments until after the season is over.
Leeds United are interested in a January loan deal for West Ham defender Ben Johnson.
Fenerbahce have signed former Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci.
Joel Veltman is on course to return to the Brighton defence in February.
Leeds United manager Daniel Farke says Charlie Cresswell will not be part of his first-team plans as the defender is not “mentally ready” to play.
Aston Villa defender Lucy Parker is expected to miss “the majority” of the season after sustaining an ankle injury that requires surgery.
THE GUARDIAN
Frank Onyeka is wanted by Everton, Fulham and a number of clubs overseas, with the Nigeria midfielder expected to be allowed to leave Brentford this month on loan.
Male footballers are becoming increasingly concerned for their physical safety while at work, with a majority believing that fan culture in the men’s game has “become increasingly more violent and abusive”, research has found.
THE TIMES
West Ham United are tracking the prolific Feyenoord striker Santiago Giménez – although the Dutch club are hoping to fend off interest until the summer.
Exeter Rugby Group plc, the company that runs Exeter Chiefs, has registered a pre-tax loss of £4.58m for the year ending June 2023, up from £2.88m for the previous 12 months.
DAILY RECORD
Ryan Kent reportedly wants a return to Scotland or a switch to the English Premier League if his Fenerbahce stint ends.
SCOTTISH SUN
Manchester United legend Dwight Yorke says “it’s unfair” Michael Beale has landed another top job at Sunderland.
Previously covered the Kansas City Chiefs for the Kansas City Star and Oklahoma University for the Oklahoman.
PITTSBURGH — The Steelers‘ defense is in line for a significant lift with the return of safety Minkah Fitzpatrick for their wild-card game against the Bills on Sunday.
“I think it’s good anytime you get one of your best players back in the fold,” Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “He’s a major communicator back there and does a lot of things for us, so I’m excited to have him back.”
Fitzpatrick, who said he was “feeling good” Thursday, practiced fully Wednesday for the first time since injuring his knee in Week 15. Safety Damontae Kazee will also be back on the field after serving a three-game suspension for repeated violations of player safety rules. It’s a boost for a defense that will be without star pass-rusher T.J. Watt.
“Obviously we’re upset T.J.’s not out there with us, but we still got a job to do and having most of our pieces back is big for us,” Fitzpatrick said Thursday. “We get to do more, we get to be more fluid, have chemistry. And so, I think we’re in a good place.”
Fitzpatrick was questionable for the regular-season finale against the Ravens a week ago, but he ended up being inactive.
“I wasn’t 110 [percent], and they kind of made a decision to sit me down,” Fitzpatrick said. “It is a knee [injury]. I don’t want me to go out there and make it 10 times worse.
“I think I could have played. I always think that, but they made an executive decision to sit me down.”
Fitzpatrick, who was voted to the Pro Bowl, has only played in 10 games this season, battling injuries. He injured a hamstring against the Jaguars, broke a hand against the Cardinals and injured a knee against the Colts. Though he was never placed on injured reserve, Fitzpatrick missed four games with the hamstring injury and three games with the knee injury.
Depleted at safety with Kazee’s suspension and injuries to their other top three safeties, the Steelers utilized a combination of Eric Rowe, who went unsigned for most of the season, and cornerback-turned-safety Patrick Peterson. The duo held up over the past three games and were crucial to the Steelers’ win streak. Rowe had an interception and a forced fumble in that stretch, while Peterson had an interception of his own.
“Pat did a lot of good things,” Fitzpatrick said. “It is rare for a guy to make that move, late in his career, in the season, but he did a really good job, was communicating at a high level. He was always in the right position. And then, definitely gave us a good look at Eric Rowe to see what he could do, and he did a great job as well.”
With the return of FItzpatrick and Kazee, the Steelers have a logjam of talent in the secondary, but Austin anticipates using all the talent at his disposal to slow Josh Allen and his receiving corps.
“I think we will kind of figure that out as we go in terms of what we think is best for this game,” Austin said, “but I think they’re all going to play, they’ll all have a role. What that role is, we’ll have to wait and see that on Sunday.
“… I think we have four pretty good football players and making sure that we get the most out of them this week. I don’t think it’s going to be all coverage or all blitz or whatever in simplistic terms, but I just think we got to figure out a way to get these guys in the best positions to make plays because they’ve all shown that they’re capable of making plays.”
The NBA disseminated an analytics report to teams and select media members this week that said there is no correlation between players being load managed and having a reduced risk of injury.
The report, the latest step in what has been a long debate over the concept of load management, comes in the wake of Joe Dumars, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations, saying in October that there is no correlation between the two. Commissioner Adam Silver backed up Dumars in a news conference last month.
Dr. Christina Mack, the epidemiology and clinical evidence head of IQVIA injury surveillance & analytics, which produced the report, was careful to point out that the report does not say that load management doesn’t work, either.
“We’re not saying it’s better or worse,” Mack said.
The 57-page report was sent to NBA teams at the behest of the NBA’s competition committee, led by senior vice president of player matters Dave Weiss. Its intent was to see if there was any relationship between:
• frequency of game participation and injury
• schedule density and injury
• cumulative NBA participation and injury
The report concluded that there was not.
“Results from these analyses do not suggest that missing games for rest or load management — or having longer breaks between game participation — reduces further in-season injury risk,” the report said, in bold type, in its executive summary.
“In addition, injury rates were not found to be higher during or immediately following periods of a dense schedule.”
The report said that remained true even when factoring in things like player age, minutes played and injury history.
The report based its findings off looking at a 10-year sample — from the 2013-14 season through the 2022-23 campaign — using leaguewide data and focusing on a group of 150 “starter-level players” each season. Those players were All-Stars from the past three seasons, top 10 picks in that season’s draft and the remaining players with the most total minutes played in the prior season who don’t fit into either of the previous two groups
The report also focused on players missing a single game, rather than multiple games in a row, and was split into ones including players specifically sitting due to rest, as well as all games where a player missed for either rest or injury.
And while the report said there were a variety of factors that limited the scope of the report — the inability to examine trends from outside the 10-year window of data, and the different things individual teams do on this topic — it repeatedly stressed that there was no correlation between load management and ensuring players will be on the court more regularly.
To that end, while single-game absences for starter-level players skyrocketed over the past decade — from a combined 169 among starter-level players in 2014-15 to 380 in 2022-23 — the number of regular-season injuries among starter-level players also reached a 10-season high this past season.
Early in the report, it laid out why it was commissioned this summer: the ongoing discussion surrounding star players missing games.
In the 1980s, NBA star players — a group defined by the report as players who were either All-Star or All-NBA selections in the current season or the prior two — missed an average of 10.4 games per season, a number that was 10.6 games in the 1990s.
But that number jumped from 13.9 games in the 2000s, 17.5 games in the 2010s and 23.9 games in this decade.
Weiss, asked if that dramatic increase in missed games over the past 20 years could be attributed to load management, said much of it was because of injury, but that single-game absences for players had increased by about five times over that span.
“Clearly, that’s happening more than at just the rate of injuries,” Weiss said.
The report’s findings — establishing that load managing players does not definitively lead to them being healthier — was in line with what Dumars said to the media back in October.
At last month’s in-season tournament, Silver reiterated the stance that there’s no data-driven proof that the concept of load management keeps players healthy. He called the science and medical data “mixed.”
“The question is I think the ultimate question behind load management isn’t so much that there isn’t a fall-off from performance when you are tired and fatigued,” he said. “The question is, does that lead to more injuries?”
That was in direct contrast to Silver’s comments last February, when he said, “The suggestion, I think, that these men, in the case in the NBA, somehow should just be out there more for its own sake, I don’t buy into.”
Weiss said that change in tone was a function of the league deciding it was necessary to study the data.
“We accepted that conventional wisdom and some of the information that teams had shared with us over years, which included some data but never nearly as robust as what we’ve now shared back,” Weiss said. “And it hit a point where we said, ‘You know, we have been looking at this for years and we are not seeing this effect, and so we think we need to get more formal and structured in terms of how we’re analyzing this and sharing it out with teams.’ And that’s really kind of what led to this.”
Pro Picks is a weekly column where AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi shares his picks for upcoming games. For all previous Pro Picks, head here.
___
Matthew Stafford vs. the Lions. Mike McCarthy vs. the Packers. Tyreek Hill vs. the Chiefs.
The NFL’s wild-card weekend is all about reunions and some rematches, too.
Stafford leads the Los Angeles Rams to Detroit to face his old team where he spent 12 seasons and didn’t win a playoff game.
McCarthy’s Dallas Cowboys host Green Bay, the team he led to a Super Bowl title with Aaron Rodgers 13 years ago.
Hill and the Miami Dolphins head to Kansas City, which won one Super Bowl with the dynamic wide receiver and one without him last season.
The upstart Houston Texans take on the Browns for the second time in three weeks and they’ll have sensational rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud under center for this one while veteran Joe Flacco aims to continue his remarkable journey from semi-retirement to Cleveland folk hero.
The Buffalo Bills ride a five-game winning streak into their matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won their last three games and got the help they needed to get into the postseason.
Lastly, the Monday night game features two teams who just met in the playoffs two years ago and faced each other in Week 3. The defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles slump into the playoffs after losing five of six following a 10-1 start. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won five of their last six to clinch a third straight NFC South title.
Three of the six games are within a 3-point spread, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
Pro Picks looks to carry momentum from a strong regular season into the playoffs.
Line: Browns minus 2 1/2
Flacco is 4-1 since the Browns (11-6) called him off his couch to become the team’s fourth starting QB this season. Myles Garrett has led the NFL’s No. 1 defense but the Browns are a different team away from home. They gave up the most points in the NFL on the road this season, 29.6 per game.
Stroud, who sat out a 36-22 loss to Cleveland in Houston on Dec. 24, came back from injury to lead the Texans (10-7) to a victory with another impressive performance in an elimination game last Saturday night at Indianapolis.
Houston couldn’t stop Amari Cooper in a 36-22 loss in Week 16. He had 11 catches for a franchise-record 265 yards. Expect Texans coach DeMeco Ryans to find a way to slow down Cooper but the Browns will still emerge on top.
BROWNS, 24-20
Line: Chiefs minus 4
Patrick Mahomes and the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs (11-6) sure missed Hill this season. Mahomes couldn’t overcome mediocre wide receivers and Kansas City slipped to a No. 3 seed. Mahomes will still most likely have to play his first career road playoff game at some point if the Chiefs advance but they’re home Saturday night and it’ll be cold.
Tua Tagovailoa and the high-octane Dolphins (11-6) missed out on the No. 2 seed by losing their last two games. They couldn’t do much against Kansas City’s stingy defense in a 21-14 loss in Germany in Week 9.
This one should come down to the final minutes.
CHIEFS, 23-22
Line: Bills minus 10
Josh Allen and the Bills (11-6) have come a long way since they were 6-6. They’ve won five straight games, including a road victory last week in Miami for the AFC East title.
They won’t have to face superstar edge rusher T.J. Watt, who is sidelined with a knee injury. The Steelers (10-7) are sticking with QB Mason Rudolph, who has led them to three straight wins.
Bills coach Sean McDermott and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin have a strong connection going back to playing football together at William & Mary.
No. 7 seeds are 0-6 vs. No. 2 seeds and have been outscored 196-123 since the NFL added the extra playoff teams in 2020.
The Bills should run away with this one.
BILLS, 30-17
Line: Cowboys minus 7 1/2
Dak Prescott and the Cowboys are 8-0 at home so overcoming a two-game deficit in the standings and beating out Philadelphia for the NFC East title was crucial for them.
The Prescott-CeeDee Lamb connection has been on a roll this season for Dallas (12-5). Micah Parsons and a tough defense will make things difficult for Packers QB Jordan Love, who makes his first career playoff start.
The teams have met eight times in the playoffs, each winning four games.
Three straight wins to close out the season put the Packers (9-8) in this position, but Dallas has won six games at home by at least 20 points or more.
COWBOYS, 31-20
Line: Lions minus 3
The Rams (10-7) enter the playoffs as a dangerous team in a season that started with low expectations. Sean McVay has won a Super Bowl, but this could be his best coaching job yet.
Stafford has been outstanding for much of the season. Rookie receiver Puka Nacua and running back Kyren Williams have been revelations. On the defensive side, star tackle Aaron Donald is having another excellent season.
But the Lions (12-5) matched a single-season franchise record for victories and won a division title for the first time in 30 years. Former Rams QB Jared Goff has led a powerful offense that could be missing rookie tight end Sam LaPorta, who has an injured knee. Goff may have to depend more on Amon-Ra St. Brown and his running backs.
UPSET SPECIAL: RAMS, 27-26
Line: EAGLES minus 3
The talk in fickle Philly is whether coach Nick Sirianni should be fired despite going 34-17 in his first three seasons and almost winning the Super Bowl last year. Jalen Hurts has regressed, the defense is struggling and there’s some finger-pointing in the locker room.
The Buccaneers (9-8) barely managed to get here with a 9-0 win over lowly Carolina last week, but they’ve played inspired ball over the past six weeks.
Baker Mayfield revived his career in Tampa and Mike Evans and Chris Godwin could give the Eagles’ beleaguered secondary trouble. Rachaad White has become an all-purpose back for the Buccaneers and he can create matchup mismatches.
Still, the Eagles (11-6) are the more talented team. They dominated the Buccaneers on the road in a Monday night game in Week 3 and have a chance to start fresh in the playoffs.
BEST BET: EAGLES, 26-18
Last week: Straight up: 11-5. Against spread: 11-5
Final regular season: Straight up: 168-104. Against spread: 144-118-10.
Best Bet: Straight up: 9-9. Against spread: 6-11-1.
Upset Special: Straight up: 8-10. Against spread: 10-8.
It is the heartbreaking story of a talented and popular footballer, her tragic death and the investigation into a family’s complaints about what they believe caused her emotional anguish.
Maddy Cusack’s death in September sent shockwaves throughout the sport and plunged Sheffield United into a state of mourning for their longest-serving player. As her parents, David and Deborah, tried to get through their first Christmas without their eldest daughter, fans launched a petition to retire her No 8 shirt as a permanent tribute.
“She fell in love with Sheffield United, the fans and the city of Sheffield,” Deborah told a memorial service in October. “Maddy became Miss Sheffield United and adored every minute of it. This was her home, the place she envisioned she would hang up her boots one day.”
Cusack started playing football at the age of five and spent time in the junior setups at Chesterfield, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City before being taken on by Aston Villa and representing England’s under-19s. An energetic, tough-tackling midfielder, she went on to play for Birmingham City and Leicester City before moving to Sheffield, where she became the team’s first women’s player to make more than 100 appearances.
That everything ended so tragically has caused immeasurable hurt for Cusack’s family. It also led to the club commissioning an investigation, on the family’s request, and an announcement from Bramall Lane shortly before Christmas that “there was no evidence of any wrongdoing”.
What has never been reported, however, is what compelled the family to make an official complaint and what, they believe, led a previously happy 27-year-old to take her own life.
Sheffield United paid tribute to Cusack on September 24 (George Wood/Getty Images)
Their complaint stretched to seven pages and more than 3,350 words. It was written by David, an experienced solicitor, and details a wide range of grievances relating to Cusack’s last seven months at the club — coinciding with the appointment of Jonathan Morgan as the team’s manager.
“There were a number of factors that troubled her in the end, but they all spring from the relationship with JM (Morgan),” the complaint states. “As she confided to us (her family), every issue had its origin in JM’s appointment. We know she would still be with us had he not been appointed. Her text messages and conversations support this.”
The allegations were serious enough for the club to arrange an external inquiry that concluded on December 15 with the chief executive, Stephen Bettis, writing to Cusack’s family to confirm no disciplinary action was being taken against Morgan.
Morgan, who had previously been Cusack’s manager at Leicester, vehemently denied treating her unfavourably and has been vindicated by a nine-week inquiry. His account was that he had tried to be a positive influence in her life and that it was completely unfounded to suggest their working relationship had contributed to her emotional anguish and, ultimately, death.
RIP Maddy. A true professional until the end. You will be missed by many 🕊️🕊️ https://t.co/6AcCNg5Emo
In a letter to the family, Bettis stated that none of the people interviewed for the inquiry had “heard or witnessed any bullying or inappropriate behaviour” towards Cusack or any other player. He did, however, acknowledge that Morgan’s behaviour “divided opinion” among the people interviewed. Some found him supportive and caring. Others described Morgan’s style of management as “isolating some players, quite authoritative and intimidating”. According to the family, that was very much Cusack’s experience as she reported it to them.
Against that backdrop, the English Football Association (FA) has subsequently begun to gather evidence ahead of a possible investigation of its own. The players’ union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, is understood to be supporting the family and, with the matter ongoing, it also raises a wider debate that goes to the very heart of what is acceptable in a football environment and what is not.
It has also transpired that Morgan, appointed in February last year, has been the subject of two previous complaints, unrelated to Cusack, including one from another United player towards the end of last season. The club will not discuss its outcome.
The other case involved a complaint being lodged against Morgan while he was coaching Leicester, where one of his sisters, Jade, was the general manager, another, Holly, was the team captain, and their father, Rohan, was the chairman. The complaint, it is understood, related to alleged bullying and exclusion and was dealt with, for the most part, by Jade. The player in question left the club after accepting a financial settlement in relation to her contract, with the complaint not being taken further. Morgan denied any wrongdoing in both cases.
In Cusack’s case, the family’s complaint alleged:
Cusack left Leicester in 2019 because she was convinced Morgan, then the manager, had taken a personal dislike to her and felt worn down by his behaviour.
Morgan went on to manage Burnley’s women’s team and, when she played against them for United, he called her a “psycho” when she ran near his dugout. She was not unduly bothered because he was no longer her manager but saw it as further evidence that he disliked her.
His appointment at Sheffield United left her feeling anxious about their history but hopeful, as an established first-team player, that they could put it behind them. Instead, he dropped her from the starting line-up, complaining she was overweight, and allegedly told other players about their previous issues, which she felt created the impression she was difficult to manage.
She feared history was repeating itself but stayed at Sheffield United because of her affinity with the club and all the friends she had made. She had bought a house, taken jobs in United’s community and marketing departments, and enjoyed her happiest times in football at Bramall Lane.
She found it difficult to understand the issues with Morgan because she had never encountered any conflict from previous managers and was popular within the club.
Cusack became unwell as a result of the anxiety it created, resulting in her moving back in with her parents, being prescribed medication and asking the club’s doctor at the start of September about counselling.
The complaint was delivered to the club on September 27, a week after Cusack’s body was found at her parents’ house in Derbyshire. An inquest has been opened into her death and the police say there are no suspicious circumstances.
According to the family’s evidence, Cusack had complained during numerous conversations about feeling marginalised and encountering “personal antipathy” from Morgan in what has been described by some former team-mates as a tough, divisive and often hard-faced environment. This had a devastating impact on her mental health, her family say, breaking her confidence at a time when she had the pressures of juggling her playing career with working for the club as a marketing executive.
Morgan in March 2023 (George Wood – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
The club took the complaint seriously enough to appoint Dennis Shotton, a retired detective superintendent from Northumbria police, to oversee an investigation.
Shotton, whose police career involved working on the Raoul Moat manhunt after the shooting of three people, including a policeman, throughout the north east of England in 2010, was brought in because of his role as an investigator for Safecall, a Sunderland-based company specialising in whistleblowing disputes.
In his correspondence with the family, he misspelt Cusack’s first and second names, introducing her as “Madeline Cussack”, as well as getting other names mixed up and making a number of basic errors. Shotton interviewed David Cusack for a witness statement but did not record what was said and then twice referred to him in his write-up as a club employee rather than Maddy’s father.
GO DEEPER
Are WSL and Premier League clubs doing enough to support players’ mental health?
Shotton spoke to 18 witnesses, including current members of the team. Each was assured their identities would not be made public, meaning they could speak more openly.
However, the selection process has left the Cusack family with a number of unanswered questions. Shotton, it is said, was given the details of a close confidante to Cusack who had no connections to the club and, for reasons unexplained, he did not contact the relevant person. He is also said not to have contacted some of the players the family recommended.
“I can confirm that Safecall carried out an investigation on behalf of Sheffield United,” says Safecall director Tim Smith. “We have no further comment at this time.”
Shotton’s inquiry looked at a number of specific incidents, dismissing them all, but the scope of his investigation remains unclear. The family argues that it seems to have focused too much on what could be corroborated by witnesses rather than their own accounts of the numerous conversations they had with Cusack and that it does not sufficiently take into account how she viewed Morgan and the effect it had on her. One former team-mate recalls Cusack never being herself, seeming anxious and withdrawn, when Morgan was around.
The family reject the verdict and, having been told there is no appeal process, they have asked the FA to carry out a follow-up investigation, taking into account a greater need for transparency. The club’s admission that Morgan could be seen as intimidating, as well as isolating certain players, feels particularly relevant when this, according to the family, fits in with what Cusack used to tell them.
Bettis reiterated his sympathies for the family’s loss and said the club wanted to support the charity foundation that had been set up in Cusack’s name, raising money to help young, female footballers. But he also made it clear that the family would not be allowed to see Shotton’s report. Nor will it be released publicly, meaning there is no way for them to find out what testimony was put forward, who was interviewed and, perhaps just as importantly, who was not.
Although the family have declined to comment, this has been particularly hard for them to accept: that they could ask for the club to hold an investigation but then be denied the right to know what exactly is in that investigation, even on an anonymised basis.
People who knew Cusack well talk about an all-round athlete who was devoted to fitness and healthy living and kept herself in supreme shape, going back to her days as a talented runner with Derbyshire’s Amber Valley & Erewash Athletics Club.
In 2021, she hired her own strength and conditioning coach, Luke Ashton, who has worked with Leicester City and Mansfield Town, and he remembers her test results being higher in some categories than the average of the England national team.
“She was phenomenal,” says Ashton. “Everyone knows Maddy was a devoted and extremely dedicated athlete. Her application, effort levels and enthusiasm were second to none. For her to reach out to me when she already had such a demanding schedule just shows how dedicated she was.”
Cusack at Bramall Lane in October 2022 (Cameron Smith/The FA via Getty Images )
Morgan denies telling Cusack she was overweight and says he simply informed her she needed to improve her conditioning because the club’s GPS fitness tests had shown she was lagging behind most of her team-mates. He says he arranged for a specially tailored fitness programme, taking into account that she already had a difficult schedule holding down two jobs.
Morgan’s position is that he had a normal and supportive working relationship with Cusack. He denies shouting that Cusack was a “psycho” while he was Burnley manager, telling the other Sheffield United players anything negative about her from Leicester, or doing anything to leave her with the impression that he disliked her.
On the contrary, he says he repeatedly tried to help Cusack, making her vice-captain and putting her in touch with the club doctor when he suspected she was struggling with mental health issues.
A video was submitted to the investigation showing him and Cusack working together, apparently getting on fine, on May 5.
Morgan says he regularly used to buy Tesco meal deals (a sandwich, snack and a drink for a set price) as lunch for the players, including Cusack, because there was a time when the club did not provide them with food. He says he campaigned for her to get a pay rise, from an annual salary of £6,000 to £18,000 (now $7,700 to $23,000), when the club was moving from a part-time setup to a full-time one and the players’ contracts were being upgraded. This, he says, shows he did not treat her badly or hold negative feelings towards her. It also appears that some of the claims against him, such as criticising her to team-mates after his appointment in Sheffield, have not been corroborated.
There is, however, considerable evidence to demonstrate why, to use the club’s own terminology, some of the people giving evidence reported that Morgan could leave some players feeling isolated and intimidated.
The Athletic has spoken to several of Cusack’s former team-mates who talk negatively about their experiences of his management. Although they did not witness any such behaviour towards Cusack, some allege it could be a divisive and sometimes unpleasant environment in which certain players were favoured by Morgan while others were blanked and, in some cases, almost completely frozen out. They say they wanted to talk — requesting anonymity because of the sensitivities of the case — because they believe it will encourage others to share their experiences.
One former team-mate, Player A, says she confided in Cusack that she wanted to leave the club because of the manager. She and Cusack secretly used prison puns as a form of gallows humour to keep up their spirits. If they were given playing time, they joked they were “on parole”. Morgan was referred to as the “prison warden”.
Another of Cusack’s former team-mates, Player B, recalls Morgan getting the job and quickly establishing a strong relationship with certain players, inviting them into his office and generally being approachable and amenable. But she recalls seeing a different side to him when it came to a number of players who were a bit older on average and treated, she says, in an entirely different fashion.
“When Jonathan came in, there was almost a sense of a new beginning for some people. But others weren’t given a chance from the minute he stepped through the door,” says Player B.
“He wouldn’t make eye contact. He’d walk past in the training ground and say nothing. (Players were) getting the cold shoulder for pretty much no reason. If he decided he didn’t want you, that was it. He’s not going to give you the time of day, he’s not going to shake your hand, he’s not even going to make eye contact. You have no chance.”
Morgan talks to his Leicester team in November 2021 (Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
Morgan is represented by Tongue Tied Management and his bio on the company’s website lists “man-management” and “creating a positive environment” among his key strengths, as well as “understanding players” and “conflict resolution”.
Bettis, however, acknowledges that Morgan’s management style “divided opinion” and that also appears to have been the case at his previous clubs.
Many players and colleagues saw him as a positive leader with likeable attributes and a CV that earned him respect, taking Leicester into the Women’s Super League as champions of the second tier in 2020-21.
Yet one person — not involved in the Shotton investigation — recalls being with him at Leicester and finding the experience so distressing she would end up “crying most days” on her way home. She, too, has spoken to The Athletic at length about the negative impact on her life. And, again, it shows he could polarise opinion.
“Jonathan Morgan — the way he was and the culture he created — is the reason I’m not in football anymore,” she says.
In Cusack’s case, Player A says she noticed her team-mate no longer seemed as happy as she had been under the previous manager, Neil Redfearn. Cusack, she says, had started to “retreat a little bit” but tended to deflect questions when asked if she was OK.
“She was not the same as she was the year before his (Morgan’s) arrival. I knew she wasn’t a fan (of Morgan). When we were told his appointment was imminent, it was like, ‘Oh, f***, here we go’. It didn’t take long to realise there were obviously underlying issues because she was a starter for every Sheffield manager (previously).
“She’d captained when Redfearn was there and then, suddenly, to be dropped like that (clicks fingers). She was an experienced 27-year-old with 100 appearances for Sheffield. So why? We were in a relegation battle — you need all the experience and all the firepower you can get. It just didn’t make sense… this kind of instant dropping.”
Some players, according to Player A, seemed to have “disappeared off the face of the earth and not gone back to training” because, she assumed, “that was how much they hated it”.
She continued: “He’d ignore certain people, while others would get hugs and high fives or lift-shares. If you were liked, you were fine. But if you weren’t liked, you were made to feel, and know, that you weren’t liked by how he spoke to you, or ignored you, or if you made one mistake and he was straight down on you.
“I would literally have to pull over on the way to training because I was crying so I could wipe my eyes and see where I was driving. I genuinely felt I had no value, not only as a player but as a person.”
Of Cusack, she added: “There were a lot (of players) last season who were in the same boat and it could have been any of us. It feels awful coming out of my mouth, but there were at least four or five players who were on that path and, fortunately, could escape it.”
Morgan has been reluctant to speak publicly, according to people close to him, because of the sensitivities surrounding the case and for fear of it causing further upset for a family who are, ultimately, grieving a loved one. He has declined The Athletic’s request for an interview.
Instead, his management company has been dealing with media inquiries on his behalf. He is said to have found it traumatic to be accused and feels vindicated, yet not surprised, by Shotton’s findings.
There are, however, a number of issues arising from this case and, on a wider level, it does lead to a separate debate about some of the accepted norms in a dressing-room environment and how football, as a workplace, can be very different to other walks of life.
Morgan does not deny that he could be blunt with his language, including one dressing-room scene when one of his players broke down in tears after he identified, and criticised, her for being to blame for one of the opposition’s goals.
Even the people who speak positively about Morgan describe him as being direct and to the point. There have been times when he could get angry, in common with many football managers. However, he has always maintained that this did not involve Cusack, that it was never personal with anyone, and that it was quite normal for a manager to dish out some harsh words if the team were doing badly.
In a lot of cases, there are members of his profession, including some highly successful managers, who are championed for their occasional outbursts of temper and authoritarian style. Many clubs operate “bomb squads” for players who have been frozen out and marginalised. It is, in many ways, an accepted part of the football industry.
Sheffield United were in the lower reaches of the Women’s Championship last season, finishing eighth in a 12-team league. It was, says Player B, a challenging campaign in all sorts of ways. “It didn’t feel like a team any more. It didn’t feel like people had each other’s backs. Some people didn’t know where they stood, others were like his (Morgan’s) best mate and in his office all the time.”
Cusack, from a family of Derby County fans, was in her sixth season at Bramall Lane and her popularity can be gauged by the volume of tributes after her death. Her family say they have been overwhelmed by the public’s kindness and, having set up the Maddy Cusack Foundation in November, the response of United’s fans, in particular.
United’s men’s team wear Cusack’s number in her honour (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
“Those who knew Maddy well will be aware she had no long-standing mental health issues or troubles,” read a social media post from the foundation. “Maddy was a happy-go-lucky, carefree girl with everything to live for and, by last Christmas (2022), could be described as being at her happiest. This all changed gradually from February.”
Some people will inevitably ask why, if she became so unhappy, she did not try to find another club.
Cusack, who was in and out of Morgan’s team, signed a one-year contract at the end of June ahead of the club’s transition to a full-time operation. She did that, according to her family, because she had settled in Sheffield, did not want to leave a club she loved, and had the financial pressures and obligations of being a homeowner.
Her family say they had numerous conversations with her about the impact her work life was having on her confidence and health. The family’s complaint says Cusack and her mother discussed many of the issues about Morgan often. Maddy decided, they say, not to do anything that might risk upsetting her manager. One colleague, it is said, was aware of how Cusack felt and told her to “kill him with kindness”.
Instead, her death has left the Cusack family — including Maddy’s brother, Richard, and sisters, Olivia and Felicia — trying to come to terms with what her mother has described as an “unthinkable, unimaginable and unbearable” loss.
A few photos we reflected on during our @itvnews tribute for Maddy earlier today.
It never mattered where we were or what we were doing. As long as we were together, as a family.. we were happy. ❤️
Morgan’s sympathisers say that he, too, has suffered and that his family have found it incredibly difficult to see his name attached to such a heartbreaking story.
This weekend, however, he will be back in the dugout when United, eighth in the Women’s Championship, travel to London for an FA Women’s Cup fourth-round tie against Tottenham Hotspur. It will be his first appearance in the dugout since a 1-0 victory over Lewes on September 17, sitting out 11 fixtures while the investigation was underway.
In a statement published on United’s website on December 18, the club announced the investigation had been completed and, without mentioning Morgan once, said they wanted “to increase the learning and development opportunities for all staff around language and culture, welfare and mental health awareness”.
The club were “always looking for ways to evolve and will reflect on the outcomes and recommendations arising from the investigation to consider how processes and policies may be improved”.
What has not been made clear is whether those recommendations refer to Morgan specifically or just the club in general. Nor is that likely to change given United will not let anybody know, including the family.
That, however, is unlikely to be the end of the matter.
David Matthews, the FA’s senior integrity investigations manager, has already started interviewing Cusack’s close relatives, as well as visiting the club, as part of the governing body’s evidence-gathering process. If that leads to a new investigation, it may take a wider scope than Shotton’s inquiry and examine Morgan’s time at Leicester and Burnley.
Even then, however, it is unclear whether United will pass over the details of their own report to the FA’s investigators.
The club have been asked by The Athletic, among a number of questions relating to the case, but declined to respond other than referring back to their previous statement. “The independent investigation commissioned by the club at the request of, and in cooperation with, Maddy’s family concluded in December,” said a club spokesman. “The valuable input provided by the key witnesses put forward by Maddy’s family and by the club was thoroughly reviewed and no evidence of wrongdoing was found.”
In the meantime, the club’s chaplain, Delroy Hall, has resigned from his role. Among a number of wide-ranging complaints, Hall informed the club that he felt ignored by a number of people in senior positions after he, an experienced counsellor, tried to help staff cope with their grief in light of Cusack’s death.
To contact the Samaritans, go to samaritans.org or call 116 123 in the UK, and to reach CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) go to thecalmzone.net or ring 0800 58 58 58
(Top photo: Jacques Feeney/The FA/Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
The Baseball Hall of Fame is a breathtaking idea. It’s a celebration. It’s a history lesson. It’s a pilgrimage. The museum in Cooperstown is home to heroes and memories and the posters on our walls. The very notion can fill a fan with wonder, and actually being there feels like going to church, and the Louvre, and Game 7 of the World Series, all at once.
And so, we care a great deal about who gets in and who does not. Passion and debate come with the territory. In press boxes and clubhouses and postgame hotel bars, we debate these decisions among ourselves. We get it.
You’re not going to agree with all of our ballots. You’re not supposed to. This process is built around people with different opinions coming to an overwhelming consensus without establishing a definitive answer to what makes a Hall of Famer.
This year, I’m serving as president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, and I’m confident that the vast majority of my colleagues view Hall of Fame voting as one of the great privileges and responsibilities of the job. It’s an honor to play a role in the process. It takes 10 years of BBWAA membership to become a Hall of Fame voter, and last year 389 ballots were submitted. It takes a 75 percent majority for a player to be elected. Each ballot, therefore, is a tiny piece — a little more than one-quarter of 1 percent — of the final product. We all have our say, but no one person tips the scales. The process is built on differing opinions.
Here, we’ve collected some of the ballots — and some of the internal thinking — of many of The Athletic’s Hall of Fame voters. As you can see, we disagree even among ourselves. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. — Chad Jennings
Adrián Beltré is headed toward first-ballot election. But who will join him from this class? (Jesse Beals / Icon SMI /Icon Sport Media via Getty Images)
Daniel Barbarisi’s ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Billy Wagner
Looking at Mauer’s career numbers in aggregate — .306/.388/.439, 143 homers, 428 doubles, amassed over 923 games at catcher, 603 at first base, 310 at DH — it strikes me that he is one of those odd cases where the whole isn’t actually greater than the sum of its parts. The whole is excellent in its own right — those are good numbers. They’re even Hall of Fame numbers, with the right context. But they don’t fully do justice to the individual pieces that comprise it, those superlative seasons early in his career that couldn’t possibly have come from a man playing his position.
Remember what a unicorn he was? Back when he was hitting .328 and .347 and then finally .363 as a catcher, with respectable-to-excellent slugging through that whole period. Mauer and the obviously dissimilar stolen base threat Jason Kendall are always paired up a bit in my mind because they both reside in the neighborhood of “Guys who do things catchers aren’t supposed to do.”
And then he stopped doing so many of those things, and stopped being a catcher really at all, and without that all-important context for a while it felt like everybody had been robbed of watching something special; Mauer at first base was a pale imitation. Safe to say we didn’t understand head injuries well enough then, certainly still don’t, but it’s hard not to wonder how long he could have kept up that brilliant production from the catcher’s spot if injuries hadn’t been an issue.
Grading on a curve when it comes to injuries is tricky — who’s to say what this or that player could have been if it were not for some injury or another, and so it’s cleaner just to say what they actually were. But in Mauer’s case, that’s clear: a special hitter and excellent defensive catcher and pitch framer whose numbers put him among the very best to ever play a demanding position. To me, that’s an easy vote. My semi-informed guess is that Mauer doesn’t get in this year, but hopefully his time is coming soon, if only for a chance to remember how high the highs were.
GO DEEPER
Twins great Joe Mauer on the cusp of Hall of Fame with surprising support
Daniel Brown’s ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner
As a fan of the Hall of Fame Tracker operated by Ryan Thibodaux (aka @NotMrTibbs on X), I’ve seen how his followers hate “drops” — voting for a player one year but not the next. The justifiably snarky joke is, “I guess (candidate) had a terrible year.” Har-har. For the record, I plan on voting for Bobby Abreu again next year, as he ranks 21st all-time in JAWS among right fielders, sandwiched between Hall of Famers Dave Winfield (20th) and Vladimir Guerrero (22nd). But I dropped Abreu this year as part of some strategic voting. There are players who need every checked box they can get to clear the 75 percent threshold (Sheffield, Wagner) and others who need to generate momentum as their years on the ballot wane. I surprised myself by voting so enthusiastically for Utley, but his JAWS ranks 12th all-time among second basemen and his WAR-7 (the sum of a player’s seven best WAR seasons) trails only Rodriguez among players on the ballot this year.
Steve Buckley’s ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Andy Pettitte, Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner
The early returns suggest Beltrán won’t be getting into the Hall of Fame this year. That’s the bad news for those of us who believe he belongs in Cooperstown. The good news? He’ll likely get the call in the next two, three or four years. And he darned well better get that call, or else I’m going to be setting a world record for being a broken record.
As I wrote last year, and will do so again next year, Beltrán has already been punished for his role in the 2017 Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. And the punishment was a whopper: Hired later to manage the New York Mets, he never even made it to spring training. When the sign-stealing verdict came in, Beltrán was out as manager of the Mets.
A.J. Hinch, former Astros manager, sat out during a one-year suspension and then was hired to manage the Detroit Tigers. Alex Cora, the former Astros bench coach who in 2018 managed the Red Sox to a World Series championship, also was handed a one-year suspension after he had already stepped away as Boston’s manager via one of those mutual-parting-of-ways deals.
But Red Sox upper management was practically in tears after making the announcement, all but telegraphing that Cora would be back in 2021. Which is exactly what happened.
Fair enough. Hinch and Cora paid dearly, even if, OK, their punishment was sitting out the 2020 pandemic season. By whatever means one measures their culpability and the ensuing punishments, they should have been invited to return.
And yet here’s Beltrán, stuck in Fly Creek — which is my way of saying he’s just outside of Cooperstown. (Fly Creek, N.Y., is only a few miles from Cooperstown.)
Carlos Beltrán amassed 70.1 WAR in his 20-year career. (Bryan Yablonsky / Getty Images)
Admittedly, we could remove the cheating scandal from the discussion and Beltrán would not be a Willie Mays-like Hall of Fame lock. But he combined power (435 home runs) with speed (312 stolen bases), won three Gold Glove awards, had 70.1 career WAR according to Baseball Reference (identical to Hall of Famers Gary Carter and Scott Rolen), and … let’s stop there because, again, it’s not stats that are keeping Beltrán out of the Hall. It’s bats, or whatever the Astros were using when they banged on trash barrels to pass along the other teams’ signals.
A year ago, I characterized the Astros’ sign-stealing caper as something you might have expected in a 1930s “Little Rascals” short but not in big-league baseball. This year I’m breaking up the routine by suggesting it was something you might have seen in a 1930s Marx Brothers movie, only with Harpo squeezing some kind of horn to relay the signals, and actor Edgar Kennedy as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred doing a slow burn after discovering the scheme. Now unless your name is Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. But that’s the entire point: What the Astros did was something out of old-timey Hollywood slapstick, and it cheapened the game.
Beltrán paid a price for that. He shouldn’t have to pay for the rest of his life.
Marc Carig’s ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner
My holdovers from last year include Sheffield, Beltrán, Jones, Helton, and Wagner, the ahead-of-his-time strikeout machine. Both Mauer and Beltré got my vote in their first year of eligibility. Beltré’s inclusion is about as clear-cut as it gets. And upon reflection so was Mauer’s. Though injury forced him to first base for the end of his career, Mauer dominated during his prime as a catcher. He racked up six All-Star appearances, three batting titles and an American League MVP — feats made more impressive because he did this all while still toiling behind the dish.
Not on the list for now: Chase Utley. With 1,885 hits, Utley finished short of the 2,000-hit mark that serves as a bit of an unofficial threshold for entry into Cooperstown. He also didn’t rack up the accolades (Gold Gloves, MVPs, etc.) that you’d expect from a Hall of Famer. That said, Utley’s career arc was atypical. Also, his peak seasons at second base were awfully impressive. Utley was just short of inclusion. Of course, I once felt that way about Jones, Helton and Wagner.
Over time, I reconsidered. I suspect that one day this might also be the case with Utley.
Two candidacies I am unlikely to reconsider: Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez. While other players have been the subject of whispers and speculation regarding steroid use, I put Rodriguez and Ramirez in a distinct category. Both served multiple suspensions for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drugs policy, and both ran afoul of those rules after the sport’s reckoning with PEDs. In my mind, this is different from mere whispers and speculation, or even being named in a report.
Chad Jennings’ ballot
Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner, David Wright
As a general rule, my Hall of Fame voting tends toward peak over longevity. Jones has always been an easy choice for me, and in the past I thought long and hard about Cliff Lee before deciding the peak was just too short to check his box. That personal preference probably explains much of my ballot this time around.
With research, Mauer became an easier choice than even I expected, and my real-time belief that Utley was a Hall of Famer was only reinforced looking back at his 10-year run of excellence. I covered Utley in Triple A in 2003 and ’04, but I shouldn’t have. He lost two years on the front end of his career because the Phillies inexplicably would not commit to him. His career numbers should speak for themselves more than they do.
Wright, though, was a hard one. His career was just so much shorter than the usual Hall of Fame standard. I left an open spot on my ballot for a week, reading, researching and asking friends for advice before I finally checked the box after seeing Thibodaux’s excellent Hall of Fame tracker had Wright far too close to falling off the ballot (if he received less than 5 percent of the vote). As with Abreu, I can’t say with absolute certainty that Wright belongs in Cooperstown, but I’m confident his inclusion would not diminish the Hall of Fame. For nine years, he was an essential part of the game, and he spent much of the next decade trying like hell to return from a back injury that just wouldn’t let up. When I take my sons to Cooperstown, I won’t hesitate to tell them his story alongside so many others who have been enshrined.
GO DEEPER
Stark: One-and-done? No! Why David Wright deserves a long look on the Hall ballot
David O’Brien’s ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner
When I checked a few days into January, there were four candidates named on at least 80 percent of writers’ Hall of Fame ballots that had been revealed, according to the tracker that Thibodaux and his staff update — Beltré, Helton, Mauer and Wagner, in that order.
I voted for each of those four along with Jones (10 consecutive Gold Gloves while averaging 34 homers and 103 RBIs per season from 1998-2007), Beltrán and Utley.
This will be my 30th year covering MLB as a beat writer, and I saw each of these players in his prime. That’s not to say I know more than any others who vote or more than attentive fans. But I know which players I saw who looked like future Hall of Famers, and by weighing my observations with copious statistics available on every player and also considering many discussions with players, coaches and managers about whom they believe to be Hall of Famers, I think I have a pretty good handle on which players are Cooperstown-worthy.
I do, however, have a stronger anti-performance-enhancing drugs stance than some voters, and that’s caused the most difficult situation of my time as a voter: leaving Gary Sheffield off my ballot. To be clear, I covered Sheffield as a beat writer both when he played for the Marlins and the Braves, and I rank him with Chipper Jones and Freddie Freeman as the greatest hitters on any teams I’ve covered in my career. (Ronald Acuña Jr. will move into that group if he keeps up his current career pace, and perhaps surpass them all.)
Sheffield has tremendous stats — first-ballot Hall stats — and I believe he would’ve been a Hall of Famer without PEDs. I also tend to believe him when he says that his use of steroid creams and whatnot while working out with Barry Bonds was more a dalliance — he says it was by accident, which I do find hard to believe — than the deep dive into PEDs that I’m convinced Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez and others took. But the fact that Sheffield was connected to PEDs in a report is enough to make me not vote for him, and he’ll likely fall short of 75 percent this year in his 10th and final year on the ballot.
As much as I liked covering him and admired him as a player, I kept him off my ballot each year because if I made an exception for Sheffield, I can’t justify not doing so for some others. Then I’d also get caught up in weighing evidence and timelines and whether a player tested positive or used before or after MLB cracked down on PEDs. Fact is, using steroids without a prescription was illegal in the United States well before baseball created stiff penalties for it. Players always knew it was wrong to use them, that it was cheating, or else they would’ve done so openly. If they didn’t know it was cheating, they should have.
Gary Sheffield is expected to fall short in his final year on the ballot. (Mark Cunningham / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Banging on trash cans as part of a team-wide sign-stealing scandal is one thing; Beltrán was great for nearly two decades before that 2017 season when the Astros cheated during home games of his age-40 season, the last and worst year of his career. He’s also paid a price, getting fired by the Mets before he’d managed even one game. But changing one’s actual body composition through banned substances, adding massive amounts of muscle early or midway through a career — or late in one’s career when it would normally be in decline — is another thing entirely.
It allowed Bonds, already a great player before steroids, to become an otherworldly offensive machine from his mid-30s through age 42, and to rewrite and completely distort the record books, setting artificially enhanced marks that blew away many once-hallowed records, and making most career and single-season power-hitting standards all but meaningless, since most of those records will never be broken. That’s just wrong, and steroid enhancement should not be rewarded with a Hall of Fame vote.
PED-implicated players are featured throughout the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown because it’s a museum and they were part of the game. And that’s fine. But it doesn’t mean they should have a bronze plaque there.
C. Trent Rosecrans’ ballot
Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner
This is my 10th Hall of Fame ballot as a voter, a significant number for a pair of reasons:
• Ten is the number of years it takes as an active BBWAA member to earn a Hall vote, which means I’ve been a member and voting as long as I was a member and not voting. That means I’m old. But it also means I’ve done this a time or two and I’ve more or less settled on a philosophy. On my first ballot, in 2015, I thought about trying to guess how others were voting and worried about the bottom of the ballot. That approach would mean I wouldn’t vote for no-doubt Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. The thought of not voting for them shaped my theory, which brings us to the other reason 10 is important …
• The rule of 10. The Hall of Fame limits voters to 10 selections per ballot. This is not a BBWAA rule, but a Hall of Fame rule. As a group, the BBWAA has asked to either take away the governor or increase the limit. Both requests were denied by the Hall of Fame. That means the rule of 10 stands and it has been a major factor in all 10 of my ballots.
So, with all that said, sorry Bobby Abreu. I believe Abreu is a Hall of Famer. I voted for him last year and in a perfect world, I’d have voted for him before (and after) then.
Alas, there are just 10 spots. The process I’ve settled on is to rank the players and draw a line at 10. I don’t necessarily vote for all 10, but all those who pass that imaginary Hall of Fame line, whether it is after two or 15, get (or would get, if there were no rule of 10) a check mark.
And so here we are. I’m not exactly sure where the Hall threshold should be, but I know Abreu is above the line and he’s No. 11 on my list, so no check mark.
Like when voting for MVP, it seems like the bottom of the list is more difficult than the top (well, once you make a decision on PEDs — my belief is all that I know is what happened on the field and the numbers reflect that. While I know some players used PEDs, I don’t know if their competitors did. In the end, MLB still counts the games they played in and their results. So, yeah, Rodriguez was the best player in the game; he gets a check from me, as does Ramirez, like Bonds and Clemens before them).
Anyway, there’s a strange line between Wagner — No. 10 on my list — and Abreu. It’s nearly impossible to compare a reliever and an outfielder, but that’s the exercise and in the end, there’s a leap of faith in my head that puts Wagner just ahead of Abreu, so Wagner gets a check and Abreu doesn’t. Yes, relievers and outfielders are apples and oranges, but the assignment is to compare apples, oranges, watermelons, grapes and the rest of the fruits. If neither player is elected this year, both should be on the ballot next year and it’s possible both get a check a year from now or neither do. That’s not because their careers have changed, but because the competition has. The Hall of Fame can stop this and employ the Binary Ballot (I’m not sure if Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has trademarked the idea of a simple yes/no vote for all players, but he should), but they haven’t yet and I don’t expect them to in the future.
That’s where we are today, as I make my (left-handed) check marks on a piece of white paper.
You can read all sorts of explainers on why a player deserves one of these check marks, and all are valid. I respect many points of view, but in the end, I lean on the theory that I am a voter, not a selector. I vote and I’d rather vote for someone worthy than not vote for someone worthy. Sadly, the rule of 10 takes that out of my hands. So, yeah, I’m sorry Bobby.
Bobby Abreu connects for one of his 2,470 career hits. (George Widman / Associated Press)
Eno Sarris’ ballot
Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner
In a sure-to-fail attempt at brevity, instead of addressing each of my votes, I thought I’d just bullet point the general thought process that begat the selections.
• I believe in being at least as inclusive as we’ve been for previous generations. We’ve voted in fewer and fewer players as a percentage of the whole with every passing decade — down from 2 percent to 3 percent of the whole to around 1.5 percent, as Mike Petriello showed on MLB.com in 2020 — and no matter what you think of the modern game and its training methods, it doesn’t sit right with me to think that players are worse now.
• I believe that before MLB had a testing policy in place in the 2004 season, league leadership was complicit in the steroid issue (the commissioner of the era, Bud Selig, is in the Hall of Fame, and that seems significant), and I’m more lenient toward players in that bucket. After testing was in place, players knew the stakes, and the numbers that I use to judge them are in question.
• I believe in wins above replacement as a framework because it’s unique in its ability to bring together all facets of the game into one number. I also consult Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system because it considers the relationship between a player’s peak abilities and their longevity. I don’t believe batting average or hits (alone) are of outsized importance within the context of all the things a player can do, and stats like RBIs and runs are typically influenced by the team’s situation.
• That said, I believe in offensive stats over defensive stats, since the former have been proven to be more reflective of true talent and the latter have only recently begun improving rapidly. A player like Jimmy Rollins — who was, by some measures, below average with the bat compared to the league when he was in it — has to have all-time elite defense to get my vote.
• I believe league trends in player usage are pushing us away from the volume that used to give players the chance to rack up the traditional benchmarks. A starting pitcher without 250 wins, a position player without 2,000 hits — I’m just not sure these things bother me as much as they might have bothered other members of the electorate in the past.
• I believe that relievers should be compared to relievers. In overall production, relievers pale against their counterparts. But if we ignore the position because of that fact, we dismiss a whole class of players who are currently throwing around half the innings in a given season.
• I believe that a player can be an elite accumulator. Consider someone like Abreu, who, as some people rightly point out, was never a top-five player in the league — in one season. But by being so consistently excellent from 1998 to 2004, he was actually the fifth-best player over that time frame. Posting matters.
Well, so much for being concise. I tried!
GO DEEPER
Rosenthal: Wander Franco situation shows risk in investing long-term in players in their early 20s
Keith Law’s ballot: Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley
HOUSTON — There are two stories to tell about this Michigan team, and they’re really the same.
One is the story of a program that bent the rules, a coach who got suspended, a university that went to war with its conference, and a championship many will view with disdain.
The other is about a team that stuck together, a star running back who gave away turkeys at Thanksgiving and toys at Christmas, a coach who raises chickens and speaks in non-sequiturs and the genuine affection that held them together.
Both are true.
Michigan’s run to the national championship, punctuated by a 34-13 victory against Washington on Monday night at NRG Stadium, was a choose-your-own-adventure season. Call it an inspirational triumph if you want, a counterfeit championship if you must. The Wolverines earned the right to end this season on their own terms, trophy in hand.
“The ultimate goal was to win a national championship,” said running back Donovan Edwards, who ran for two touchdowns in the first quarter. “Everything played out perfectly, how it’s supposed to be. There’s no (better) feeling than to go through what we have and still come out on top. Perfect story. A lot of adversity. Coach Harbaugh’s not there for six games. Perfect story.”
It was a perfect ending, at least. Jim Harbaugh’s nine-year run at Michigan was building toward Monday night, a championship won with a punishing running game and a tenacious defense that rattled Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr., the Heisman Trophy runner-up. Michigan wore down the Huskies in the fourth quarter and finished the game with two late touchdown runs from Blake Corum, the 5-foot-8 running back who carried the team on his shoulders.
After Michigan rallied to beat Alabama in overtime at the Rose Bowl, the on-field celebration was a mix of relief, exhilaration and jubilation; after all, the Wolverines had finally won a College Football Playoff game after back-to-back losses in the semifinals. Monday’s celebration was more like the fulfillment of destiny, a team that knew it was the best and proved it beyond a doubt.
“You know how mad these haters are?” defensive tackle Kris Jenkins shouted as confetti swirled and the stadium speakers blared “Mr. Brightside,” Michigan’s unofficial anthem. “They’re sick.”
Inside Michigan’s locker room, the air was thick with cigar smoke as Michigan’s offensive linemen presented a game ball to Sherrone Moore, the offensive coordinator who guided the Wolverines to four victories while Harbaugh was suspended. One of the last players to leave the field was Edwards, who climbed on the shoulders of left guard Trevor Keegan and shouted, “To the promised land!”
Michigan is an awkward champion for those who prefer their heroes unblemished and their villains irredeemable. There’s a lot to like about this Michigan team and its stars, from Corum to defensive back Mike Sainristil to quarterback J.J. McCarthy. But it’s impossible to tell the story of this season without referencing the scandals, the investigations and the multiple suspensions for Harbaugh, who was sidelined three games amid an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations and three more for the scouting and sign-stealing scandal that became a midseason bombshell.
Harbaugh sometimes referred to Michigan’s journey as a happy mission. After being suspended by the Big Ten in November, he told his team to play angry. The only way to understand this team is to recognize the duality: the joy that radiated from Harbaugh and his players every time they were together, and the anger that fueled “Michigan vs. Everybody.”
The anger came from allegations that a former staffer, Connor Stalions, coordinated a scheme to collect video footage of other teams’ signals. The team and its fans believed the scandal was overblown, designed to derail Michigan’s dream season. Others believed the allegations were serious enough to warrant an asterisk next to Michigan’s accomplishments.
“We’re innocent, and we stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent,” Harbaugh said. “And I’d like to point that out. These guys are innocent. (To) overcome that, it wasn’t that hard because we knew we were innocent.”
This much is undeniable: The rest of the sport had plenty of chances to make sure Michigan didn’t hoist the College Football Playoff championship trophy: Penn State. Ohio State. Alabama. Washington. None of them did.
“This today, given everything we had to deal with, dealing with all the people who were out there hating and spewing and wishing this would take us down, this is the pinnacle right here,” athletic director Warde Manuel said. “I promise you that.”
“This is the pinnacle right here,” said athletic director Warde Manuel. (Photo: Thomas Shea / USA Today)
Emerging from the 2020 season, Harbaugh and the Wolverines were stuck in purgatory. Harbaugh was 49-22 in his first six seasons with no division titles and no victories against Ohio State. The rapturous anticipation that accompanied his arrival had turned to disillusionment and despair.
The 2020 season was the nadir of Harbaugh’s coaching career. He had a reputation as a program-builder who brought out the best in every team he coached, from the University of San Diego to Stanford to the San Francisco 49ers. Bringing a team together is his greatest strength. In the midst of a 2-4 season and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wolverines were isolated, distant, disconnected and selfish.
“After one game we had lost, I got so fed up because everyone was just so content with playing in the game and were just super happy,” said Kwity Paye, who was drafted in the first round by the Colts after the 2020 season. “They were posting on Instagram and social media. The captions were like, ‘I’m a dawg!’. I just got so fed up, (like), ‘Man, we need to stop doing all of this bullshit and actually buy in.’”
Harbaugh was entering the final season of his contract, and many fans believed Manuel should cut him loose. Harbaugh and Manuel had frank conversations about the direction of the program and hammered out a contract that allowed Harbaugh to return with a reduced salary. In announcing that extension, Harbaugh said, simply, “We have a plan.”
Asked to recall the specifics of that conversation, Manuel chuckled and said, “If I ever write a book, I’ll save it for the book. Whatever he said, I believed, and it showed up.”
After that season, Harbaugh emailed his players. The exact words are fuzzy, but the general message was clear: Everybody needed to look in the mirror and think about what they could do better, Harbaugh included. Keegan got the email while he was watching football on the couch with his dad. The message resonated with him and many others.
“I was in kind of the same state as the program,” Keegan said. “I wasn’t playing to my abilities. I wasn’t starting. Our program wasn’t in the place it needed to be. It really brought fuel to the fire for me.”
The changes were immediate. Harbaugh reconfigured his staff and took a chance on Mike Macdonald, a first-time defensive coordinator from the Baltimore Ravens. He added music to practice and introduced a “Beat Ohio” drill that resembled something out of the Roman Coliseum. A dozen players transferred, and those who stayed — several of whom started in Monday’s championship game — pledged total commitment to the turnaround.
“We all knew if we want to actually do something with our careers, we gotta win,” right tackle Trente Jones said. “That is the most important thing in the world, to win, win, win. We ended up changing the whole culture around.”
“If you’re not winning in college football, it ain’t fun,” Keegan said. “The guys really took the initiative and looked themselves in the mirror and really changed this thing. It’s special to see the journey that we’ve been on.”
Of course, in its relentless pursuit of success, Michigan ran afoul of the NCAA and became the target of two investigations, one for recruiting violations that occurred during the COVID-19 dead period and one for the scouting and sign-stealing scandal that erupted in October.
The scandal had a farcical quality: a low-level staffer with grandiose plans and cheesy disguises, a mysterious private investigation, a trail of ticket purchases leading back to Michigan. The NCAA and the Big Ten didn’t find it amusing. After Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti announced Harbaugh’s three-game suspension, Michigan responded with a legal challenge and a blistering statement from Manuel.
Michigan dropped its petition for a temporary restraining order a day before the sides were to meet in court.
“I regret nothing,” Manuel said, while emphasizing he respects Pettiti. “I promise you that.”
Just a few weeks ago, Harbaugh was banned from his own stadium and watched his team from the couch. Monday, he stood on the postgame stage sporting Michigan’s Turnover Buffs, a set of Cartier sunglasses given to players who force turnovers. No coach in modern college football has experienced what Harbaugh experienced this year: banished in exile one week, installed on the throne by season’s end.
“When you’re around him every day, you feel it emotionally, the ups and the downs,” said Harbaugh’s father, Jack. “The savior through it all has been the team, the coaches, the way they rallied. I really think they’ve grown through that experience.”
“The savior of it all has been the team, the coaches, the way they rallied,” said Jack Harbaugh, Jim’s father, of the ups and downs of Michigan’s title-winning season. Photo: Thomas Shea / USA Today
In February 2022, Harbaugh boarded a plane for the Twin Cities to interview for the Minnesota Vikings head coaching job. Many at Michigan believed he wasn’t coming back.
NFLrumors swirl around Harbaugh every offseason, but something shifted after he finally beat Ohio State and won the Big Ten in 2021. He’d put Michigan back on stable ground, and the timing seemed right to chase his dream of winning a Super Bowl. When the Vikings interview didn’t result in a job offer, Harbaugh called Manuel and delivered the news: He was shutting down the NFL talk and coming back to chase a national championship at Michigan.
The Wolverines were as close as they’d been in years, but they still had a long way to go. The gap was apparent when Michigan faced Georgia in the 2021 Orange Bowl and lost 34-11. The Wolverines would spend the next two years trying to find the edge they needed to get to the top.
It started with McCarthy, a five-star prospect and the highest-rated quarterback to sign with Michigan during Harbaugh’s tenure. The Wolverines didn’t have a lot going for them when McCarthy arrived in the winter of 2021. He embraced the pressure of being the quarterback who would lead Michigan out of the doldrums and back to prominence.
“He carried himself like, ‘I’m going to beat Ohio State. I’m going to be one of the best quarterbacks to walk through here,’” said Hunter Reynolds, a former Michigan safety. “I’m not saying other guys didn’t, but you just kind of felt it from him.”
After playing behind Cade McNamara as a freshman, McCarthy won a quarterback competition and led Michigan to a 13-0 start last season. The Wolverines went into CFP believing a national championship was theirs for the taking. Instead, they had an upset loss to TCU in the Fiesta Bowl in which McCarthy threw a pair of interceptions.
Michigan’s seniors banded together and made a pact to return for one more shot at a national championship. Now that they’ve done it, the timing again looks right for Harbaugh to consider the NFL.
Harbaugh hasn’t denied his interest, saying only that his sole focus was on Michigan’s championship run. Michigan’s leaders have made it clear that they want him to return, a stance reiterated by university president Santa Ono during Michigan’s postgame celebration.
“I’m doing my very best, and I hope that he will stay,” Ono said.
People within the program understand: Harbaugh has no more unfinished business at Michigan. The Super Bowl is the only mountain left to climb. But he’s also happy at Michigan, never more than he was Monday night.
“Any way he does it, I’m going to be happy for him,” Edwards said. “He’s earned it. He’s earned the opportunity to search for new opportunities. He deserves to stay and get a high contract. He deserves all of it. Whatever he does, I’m happy for him.”
There are, of course, other factors that could nudge Harbaugh back to the NFL: He faces the possibility of an additional suspension in 2024 stemming from his alleged failure to cooperate with the investigation into recruiting violations from the COVID-19 dead period. And he could be charged as a repeat violator in connection with the Stalions investigation.
Whatever the fallout may be, the Wolverines insist it won’t cheapen their championship. They were 0-2 in the CFP before the sign-stealing scandal came to light and 2-0 after. All of the hardest games on this year’s schedule were won after Stalions resigned. In their own telling, the actions of a low-level staffer are inconsequential compared with Corum’s sustained excellence, a ball-hawking secondary led by Sainristil and Will Johnson, a relentless pass rush and a bruising offensive line.
“Everything that came out, all the allegations, we proved to everybody in the world that wasn’t what’s going on,” Keegan said. “We didn’t need to prove it to ourselves. I’m a national champion. I really don’t care (if) people got opinions right now.”
More than once, Michigan made itself the main character of this college football season. It was only fitting that the Wolverines were the last team standing at the end. For years to come, players will gather for each other’s weddings, celebrate the births of each other’s children and reminisce about this season at team reunions.
Telling half of the story doesn’t do it justice. There’s no separating the good and the bad, the anger and the joy, the off-field controversy and the on-field dominance. You have to take it all.
And that’s what they did.
GO DEEPER
The Athletic 133: Ranking all of FBS after 2023, from Michigan to Kent State
(Top photo: Steve Limentani / ISI Photos / Getty Images)
SAN ANTONIO – Carter Nelson was telling other players at the All-American Bowl how rural his hometown is and they did not believe him.“Just an example of how middle-of-nowhere I am, I live two hour…
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Now that the all-star games are in the books, it’s time to start thinking about final Rivals rankings for the 2024 class. The analyst team will get together soon to debate the final rankings with last-minute changes based on the games that were recently played.
Let’s take a look at some of the top East region questions on my mind heading into the meetings.
Thompson was one of the prospects we were most excited to watch at the All-American Bowl in San Antonio. The South Carolina signee ranks inside the top 50 of the Rivals250 right now and deservedly so. Thompson showed up a lean 265 pounds but played with impressive strength. Everybody was wondering how he’d hold up against an strong group of defensive linemen. During the week of practice, Thompson surprised with how successful he was at the point of attack and how technically sound he was as a pass blocker.
In the game, however, it was a different story. Thompson allowed defensive linemen into the backfield on multiple occasions, providing little resistance at times. So, the question is: Do Thompson’s elite traits keep him ranked in the upper echelon of the Rivals250 or does it seem like his learning curve is too steep to warrant such a high ranking?
Shipp showed up in San Antonio a day late but blew away the competition almost as soon as he stepped on the field. He doesn’t have the elite size or speed that would automatically set him apart, but he is as productive as any high-level recruit and his skill set fits in just as well. The 2024 cycle features the best receiver class in recent memory but where should Shipp be ranked among these high-caliber pass catchers?
WHERE DOES IFY OBIDEGWU LAND IN THE CORNERBACK RANKINGS?
It’s a pretty wide-open cornerback class after the first few at the top of the rankings so Obidegwu has a chance to shoot up the rankings. At the Under Armor All-America Game and in the practices the week prior the Oregon signee made his presence felt in a variety of situations.
He showed great instincts, impressive quickness for his size and the length to disrupt nearly every pass thrown in his direction. Receivers had a difficult time creating the necessary separation to give quarterbacks the space to get them the ball when matched up with Obidegwu.
He currently sits outside the top 15 in the cornerback rankings but it’s probably a good bet that Obidegwu will find himself at least inside the top 15 when the final rankings come out.
IS COOPER COUSINS ONE OF THE 10 BEST OFFENSIVE LINEMEN?
Cooper Cousins
One of the very best performances during all-star game season came from Cousins. The Penn State signee had not participated in offseason camps like many other top-ranked prospects so his participation at the All-American Bowl was highly anticipated. Cousins wasn’t looking too show off for a bump up in the rankings. He just wanted to go out and dominate the competition.
He did just that and he will see his stock rise in the final rankings update. The question is just how much will he rise up the rankings?
Cousins is the No. 215 prospect in the Rivals250 and well outside the top 10 offensive linemen in the nation. Can he break into that upper echelon? That’s a big ask but his dominant performance in San Antonio certainly got everybody’s attention.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE PLAYERS WITH LINGERING QUESTIONS?
Sammy Brown (Rivals.com)
The all-star games still give scouts the best apples-to-apples comparison for top-end recruits but this year there were many players that decided against participating for one reason or another. Because of that, scouts around the country are left with many unanswered questions heading into the final rankings update of the 2024 recruiting cycle.
Three teams are standing out the most to 2025 four-star tight end Linkon Cure but one could have the edge as his recruitment picks up even more.Kansas State, Oregon and Penn State are the three pro…
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St Helens have announced the signing of NRL player Waqa Blake on a one-year deal for the 2024 Super League season.
Blake will take up the No 3 jersey at the club and the outside back joins the competition after 165 NRL games to his name and 62 tries in the competition.
He has spent the last four and a half seasons with the Parramatta Eels and was a key member of their squad that reached the 2022 Grand Final.
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On signing for St Helens, Blake said: “I can’t wait! I was excited to get over as soon as Paul [Wellens] and Mike [Rush] gave me a ring to say it was done, especially to a great club like St Helens. I’m looking forward to switching from the heat to the cold!
“To come to a club like St Helens where they’ve always been in the top four or top two, and then such a big thing winning four-in-a-row, I’m hoping I can fit in, and we can win another one. Just looking at all the players that they have there, all the strike, I’m keen to get to work.
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New St Helens signing Waqa Blake dives in to score a try for Parramatta Eels vs Manly Sea Eagles in August 2022.
“I think it’s getting better [Super League], I saw St Helens beat Penrith last year in the World Club Challenge, no one would have thought it.
“The quality of football is getting better and you can see that in the England side that played Tonga.
“I’ve played with Kevin Naiqama and he killed it at Saints, and I watched the Grand Final where he won Man of the Match.
“He told me a lot about Super League when we were in the Fiji camp, how special it is over there, and that Saints are a great bunch of boys, so I’m looking forward to it.”
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St Helens head coach Paul Wellens says their desire to change perceptions of English rugby league motivated them ahead of their World Club Challenge victory.
Head coach Paul Wellens added: “We have been on the lookout for some time now and we had other bits around the salary cap that we needed to sort; in retaining our own players which is always important. But this has also been at the forefront of our minds, and we are so pleased to bring in a player of Waqa’s quality into the squad.
“He is making a big commitment in coming over to the other side of the world and we’re confident he will settle in well and like it over here.
“We have great success in terms of our overseas players doing that and going out on the field to perform well. From our end, he’s going to come highly motivated and come to prove a point which will only help him and his performances, as well as our group.”
Watch every match of the 2024 Super League season, including Magic Weekend, the play-offs, and men’s, women’s and wheelchair Grand Finals, plus the World Club Challenge, live on Sky Sports. Alsostream with NOW.
Goran Ivanisevic has seen it happen so many times over the past four years.
His star pupil, Novak Djokovic, shows up to the practice court in a foul mood, griping that his game is a disaster, that he needs to get better… at everything. His serve, his attacking play, even his backhand — one of the great backhands tennis has ever seen — it’s all a mess.
There is barely any acknowledgement of the resume, the 24 Grand Slam titles, the 74 other tour trophies, and more than 1,000 match victories. He’s got to improve, or he’s cooked.
“He’s crazy,” Ivanisevic said of Djokovic with a shake of the head, midway through last year, when Djokovic was in the midst of yet another of the greatest seasons any tennis player has ever put together and still whining to his coach at every turn.
Very good tennis players often express a desire to try to improve, and Djokovic is no different. But it’s one thing to say it, and it’s another thing to actually do it, especially after you’ve reached the pinnacle of the sport, over and over and over.
In 2015, Djokovic stampeded through perhaps the most ridiculous tennis campaign any man has managed. It’s the season Djokovic often mentions when he is asked to choose the best version of himself. That happens a lot now, since he has rendered the greatest male of all time debate moot — the only person left to compare Djokovic with is Djokovic.
He has won the most Grand Slam singles titles, the most Masters 1,000 titles, which are the next biggest events on the men’s tour, and has spent more weeks (406 and counting) ranked No 1 in the world than anyone else.
He reached all four Grand Slam finals in that 2015 season and won three of them (losing at the French Open to Stan Wawrinka). He went wire-to-wire as the world No 1. He played in 15 consecutive finals and won 11 of them. There was a ‘Big Four’ back then that also included Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Djokovic went 15-4 against those three and was 4-0 against Nadal, his top rival.
Normal behavior after a season like that is to just keep doing what works. Djokovic doesn’t really do normal behavior, and he doesn’t really play tennis today the way he did in 2015, when he defended the court as few others could, then pulled rabbits out of hats, winning so many points he had no business winning.
That is a far cry from Djokovic’s winning formula last season, the one he will likely use to kickstart his 2024 this month in Australia. All of Djokovic’s best seasons share a theme — they get rolling in January in Australia, where Djokovic is about to try to win an 11th Australian Open men’s singles title. He won his 10th last year, the most in history.
He describes Australia as his “happy place”, a country where he finds his groove, and nothing — not even pulled or torn muscles — can take him out of it. He has not lost a match at the ‘A.O.’ in six years.
“It’s important to have the right start, kind of launch into the rest of the season,” he said during the United Cup, the mixed team competition he played before 2024’s first Grand Slam. “The more you win in a certain tournament, the more comfortable and confident you feel every next time you arrive.”
But Djokovic’s success is about so much more than good karma. It’s about figuring out how to change his game to accommodate his ageing body, which he acknowledges doesn’t move as well as it once did, and to keep up with the evolution of a sport that is now far less friendly to defenders who want to chase balls across the back of the court and pull rabbits out of hats.
With the top players hitting with more power and precision than ever, defending all day, rather than trying to take the initiative and finish points, has become increasingly difficult at the highest level.
Djokovic has had three truly epic years — 2011, 2015 and 2023. In each of them, he won three Grand Slam finals and armloads of other trophies.
Luckily for us, his last epic season before 2023 happened just after the revolution in advanced tennis analysis, making possible a revelatory deep dive into Djokovic then and now.
The metrics are the byproduct of ball and player tracking data collected through high-speed cameras and analyzed in real-time from technology developed by a British company, TennisViz, and Tennis Data Innovations (T.D.I), a joint venture of the ATP Tour and ATP Media.
These combined efforts have delivered fans, players and coaches information that previous generations could never dream of capturing, showing whether a player is attacking or defending on every shot; the quality of those shots based on the speed, spin, and landing spot; how often they win points they shouldn’t — their so-called steal score; how clinical they are at finishing points they should win; and how often they win the all-important baseline battles that so much of modern tennis has become.
The data tells the story of the evolution of Djokovic, from someone who specialized in winning tennis wars of attrition, to someone who now looks to attack at nearly every opportunity.
In numerical terms, the changes may seem, on the surface, to be incremental, but in a sport that turns on a handful of points in each match, seemingly small changes can result in big differences. Remember, Djokovic has won 14 of his 24 Grand Slam titles since 2015.
It starts with the serve.
Djokovic’s serve is nearly unrecognizable from 2015. Full props on that to Ivanisevic, who possessed a lethal serve in his playing days and has worked tirelessly with Djokovic since 2019, achieving startling results. Djokovic’s first serve averaged 120.1 miles per hour in 2023, compared with 115.4 in 2015.
That’s not about improved racket technology or lighter balls. The tour average has barely budged, rising from 116.1mph to 116.7.
That Djokovic serve is not only faster but also landing in better spots – five centimeters closer to the lines in 2023 than in 2015, and eight centimeters closer to them than the tour average. That’s important no matter what surface he is playing on, but it can be especially potent on the slick, fast ones of Melbourne Park, where serves to the sideline corners slide off the court almost instantly.
Djokovic has long been one of the great serve returners in tennis history. He’s better at that now, too. His return of his opponent’s second serve landed on the backhand wing on 47 per cent of points in 2023, compared with 39 per cent in 2015, putting him in a far better position to attack.
Once the points took shape last season, Djokovic seized an attacking position 26 per cent of the time, compared with 21 per cent in 2015. Tennis geeks refer to a player’s ability to win points from an attacking position as the ‘conversion rate’. Last season, Djokovic’s conversion rate was a clinical 72.1 per cent, top in the sport and 3.3 percentage points higher than his conversion rate of 68.8 per cent in 2015. The tour average is 66 per cent.
How did he become so clinical? His forehand got two miles per hour faster over the past eight years. That helps.
Also, his attacking position was 60 centimeters further into the court than it was in 2015, meaning he is hitting the ball far earlier than he used to, suffocating opponents by stealing split seconds from their recovery and preparation times.
The result of his increasing aggressiveness was a decrease in how much he had to defend, how many balls he had to chase down, and how many rabbits he had to pull out of hats. Tennis geeks refer to that as a player’s ‘steal score’, which is the percentage of points a player wins after being in a defensive position.
As thrilling as it is to claw back a point that appears lost, it’s exhausting and seriously hard on a 36-year-old physique. No one knows that better than Djokovic.
In 2015, Djokovic and Nadal co-led the sport with a steal score of 43.3 per cent. That is kind of crazy to think about — almost half the time their outgunned opponents had Djokovic and Nadal on the run, those poor overmatched souls still lost the point.
Last season, Djokovic’s steal score was a far less miraculous 36.4 per cent, still above the tour average of 34 per cent and a lot kinder to those 36-year-old knees. In other words, he’s still better than most at making magic happen when he needs to, but he’s become so much more efficient that he’s winning without expending as much energy.
It’s a logical strategy for any ageing great. Federer became more aggressive, and Nadal has tried to as well, coming to the net to finish points when the opportunities are there. But Djokovic has been more successful than both, winning so many of the biggest titles in the sport at this point in his career.
For opponents, there really is only one solution: attack before he attacks, make him run, and force him to play more defensively, the way he did during his previous tennis life.
Easier said than done, of course.
The winning formula has Djokovic setting big goals for 2024. “It’s not a secret that I want to break more records and make more history,” he said. “That’s something that keeps motivating me.”
He wants more Grand Slam titles, an Olympic medal, which has somehow eluded him, a Davis Cup with Serbia. He relishes thrashing the young guns — players two tennis generations removed from him who can’t understand how he has refused to give way.
Djokovic battled a wrist injury during the United Cup. But anyone banking on that stopping him should remember him winning the Australian Open last year with a seriously injured hamstring that Ivanisevic said would have caused most other players to quit and, in 2021, with a tear in an abdominal muscle.
“I know what I need to do to maintain my body and mind and spirit in the optimal state to have the opportunity to break records and to go further,” Djokovic said.
He still loves to play tennis, but winning continues to be the primary motivation, especially when he is on the road and away from his family for weeks at a time.
“That mentality is not changing for 2024 or any next year potentially that I play,” he said.
How he actually plays the game, well, that may be another, ever-evolving story.
Just ask Ivanisevic.
(Top photo: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images)
Bill Barnwell is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. He analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season X’s and O’s, offseason transactions and so much more.
He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, with episodes released once a week. Barnwell joined ESPN in 2011 as a staff writer at Grantland. Follow him on Twitter here: @billbarnwell.
We’ve closed the book on the greatest dynasty in the history of the NFL. The Patriots and coach Bill Belichick are expected to part ways Thursday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Mike Reiss, ending a tenure that lasted nearly a quarter of a century. In an era in which the league’s rules are designed to produce parity and short-term success, Belichick’s New England teams went 266-121 and made it to nine Super Bowls, winning six. They had a stretch of 17 division championships in 19 seasons. We might never see another NFL coach put together a two-decade spell like his again.
Of course, you can’t tell the story of the league over the past 25 years without a heavy dose of Belichick. He figures into so many of the most dramatic moments and compelling stories in recent NFL history, both as the beloved underdog and the hated favorite. He’s one of the few coaches in American sports to transcend many of its players; show someone who isn’t a football fan a photo of a dour-looking man wearing a hoodie with cutoff sleeves and they’ll probably be able to identify that it’s Belichick.
We’ve seen the clips of Belichick’s most notable moments in New England so many times, but actually considering them from how he impacted things as opposed to from the perspective of his players and using the benefit of a modern perspective reinforces how unique and remarkable Belichick’s tenure in New England was, both good and bad. There are a couple of questions about Belichick’s future I want to get to at the end, but there’s so much to say about the past that needs to be considered as we evaluate one of the landmark coaching tenures of our lifetime. To get a sense of what happened and how we’ll look at his time with the Patriots in the decades to come, though, you have to start at the beginning.
Belichick would never be a head coach again. After spending years as the defensive protégé of Bill Parcells with the Giants in the 1980s, it was inevitable that teams would come calling. The Browns finally did in 1991, hiring him 10 days after his game plan helped slow down the Bills in Super Bowl XXV. At 38, Belichick became the league’s youngest head coach by six years.
At best, Belichick’s tenure in Cleveland was tempestuous. The Browns had one winning season in his five years. He was at odds with the fans for most of his tenure, most notably for moving on from popular quarterback Bernie Kosar. John McClain of the Houston Chronicle characterized Belichick’s relationship with the media during his time with the Browns as “perhaps the worst in NFL history.”
“Every day I thought it would change, that he would be more pleasant to people,” Modell said at the time. “He never did, and it hurt all of us terribly.”
1996-2000: The comeback
Belichick went back to work under Parcells, who was the head coach in New England, joining the Patriots as their assistant head coach. When Parcells left the Pats over a lack of player personnel control in 1997, he joined the Jets and took Belichick with him, calling him a “consultant” to get around the league’s coach hiring rules. The Patriots complained and landed four picks in return for the duo, with Belichick named as the contractual heir to Parcells in New York. Belichick took seven interviews for head-coaching opportunities but didn’t land any of them.
When Parcells quit as coach of a Jets team that was about to be sold in 2000, Belichick immediately inherited the job. The only problem, famously, is he didn’t want it. He resigned during his initial news conference. He filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL for preventing him from taking a position elsewhere, which was quickly dismissed. (His lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, would later be hired to represent Tom Brady in the Deflategate proceedings.) Belichick reportedly offered to take the Jets job if he was given total control of football operations, a move the team declined. The Jets hired Al Groh as their coach instead.
Belichick was then given permission to interview with the Patriots. With the Johnson family having bought the Jets from the Leon Hess estate, Parcells called up his old boss Robert Kraft in New England and carved out a deal. The Patriots sent a first-round pick to the Jets as part of a package to acquire Belichick, who would be the coach and have personnel control. When I wrote about the trade in 2014, I wondered whether it was the greatest deal in NFL history.
2000: The draft
From the greatest trade in NFL history to its greatest draft pick. When Belichick arrived in 2000, the Patriots were coming off an 8-8 season under Pete Carroll. Belichick intended to overhaul the roster. He was aided by several compensatory draft picks, earned by Carroll in 1999 when he let several veterans leave in free agency over cap concerns. The Patriots earned a pair of compensatory sixth-round picks in the 2000 draft, likely for the departures of defenders Mark Wheeler and Todd Collins, both of whom were out of the league by the end of the 2000 season.
Belichick decided to use one of those compensatory sixth-round picks on a quarterback. The Patriots debated between Louisiana Tech’s Tim Rattay and Michigan’s Tom Brady. Quarterbacks coach Dick Rehbein cast the deciding vote in the draft room for Brady. Rattay started 18 games for the 49ers, but Brady eventually would become the most accomplished player in league history.
Was Belichick lucky? Of course. While some have claimed after the fact that they had first-round grades on a player who would go late in the sixth round, there’s no way anybody would have let Brady fall if they had any sort of inkling he would turn into a franchise quarterback, let alone the greatest of all time. The Patriots took Dave Stachelski, Jeff Marriott and Antwan Harris ahead of Brady in that draft.
At the same time, you could make that case for just about every great franchise. The Seahawks drafted Russell Wilson in the third round. The Chiefs took Patrick Mahomes in the first round, but his two best pass-catchers were drafted in the third (Travis Kelce) and fifth (Tyreek Hill) rounds. Bill Walsh’s 49ers drafted Joe Montana in the third round and Charles Haley in the fourth. The 1970s Steelers took Mel Blount, John Stallworth and Mike Webster in the third round or later. You’re not going to find many dynasties built entirely on first-round picks.
2001: The upset
The Patriots headed into 2001 with a newly extendedDrew Bledsoe as their starting quarterback, only for a September hit by Mo Lewis of the Jets to knock Bledsoe out of the lineup. Enter Brady, who took the job and held it for 19 years. With a team coming off a 5-11 season and down to a second-year pro with no experience at quarterback, Belichick coaxed an 11-5 season and a division title out of the Patriots, whose preseason over-under was 6.5 wins.
Belichick’s defense (and a bit of fortuitous refereeing) then ran the Patriots through the AFC bracket. We remember the “Tuck Rule” game against the Raiders for that memorable call on a would-be Brady fumble and Adam Vinatieri‘s incredible kicks to tie and win the game in the snow. But the work done by Belichick on the other side of the ball helped swing those games. The Patriots held a Raiders offense that ranked fourth in scoring to 13 points on 12 meaningful drives.
The next week, with Brady leaving the AFC Championship Game against the Steelers with an ankle injury, Tedy Bruschi & Co. held the league’s seventh-best scoring offense to 17 points on 14 drives, with special teams contributing two return touchdowns in a 24-17 victory.
And then, of course, there’s the famous performance as 14-point underdogs in Super Bowl XXXVI. Facing one of the best offenses in league history, Belichick chose to beat up Marshall Faulk, break all of his defensive tendencies, spend most of the game in nickel and dime looks and rarely blitz. The Patriots forced three turnovers — one of which resulted in a Ty Law pick-six. They kept the Rams from hitting explosive plays until the final two drives of the game, when a Ricky Proehl touchdown tied it at 17 with 1:37 to go.
Here, Belichick’s game management and trust in his players shined through. John Madden, calling the game on TV, instructed Belichick to run down the clock and head to overtime. Most coaches, even nowadays, likely would agree. Belichick and Brady thought otherwise. The second-year quarterback dropped back on eight straight plays, with a 23-yard completion to Troy Brown helping to set up a 48-yard field goal by Vinatieri. Belichick had won Super Bowls as an assistant; now, he had one as a head coach.
2003: The cut
It quickly became clear that nobody was totally safe in New England. Belichick’s idea of what was best for the team didn’t include extending relationships with his players when he felt they weren’t helping the team. Building blocks such as Bledsoe and Terry Glenn quickly were traded away by Belichick, albeit under very different circumstances.
The first big test of Belichick’s willingness to move on from his veterans came in 2003, when the Patriots cut seven-year veteran Lawyer Milloy at the end of training camp. Milloy immediately caught on with the Bills, who played the Patriots in the Week 1 opener three days later. Milloy had a sack and a tackle for loss on a day in which Brady threw four interceptions and the Bills won 31-0.
After the game, longtime ESPN analyst Tom Jackson reported the Patriots players “hate their coach.” Coming off a 9-7 season in 2002 that had ended without a trip to the postseason, it felt like the team could be unraveling, just a year after its dramatic Super Bowl win.
The Patriots won their next two games, lost to Washington in Week 4 and then won their next 21 games, including a Super Bowl win over the Panthers. While the winning streak came to an end with a midseason loss to the Steelers in 2004, the Pats bounced back and won the Super Bowl again. Belichick’s authority in making unexpectedly aggressive decisions with his personnel rarely was questioned again.
It eventually became a hallmark of the Belichick era. The Patriots traded away stalwarts such as Randy Moss, Richard Seymour and Logan Mankins when Belichick thought the draft picks he could get in return were worth more than the player. He let the likes of Wes Welker, Willie McGinest and Vince Wilfork leave in free agency. The biggest free agent departure, of course, was still to come.
2004: The rule emphasis
Brady’s first career start was a 44-13 win over Peyton Manning and the Colts, which started a rivalry that was one-sided at first. The Patriots beat the Colts twice in 2003, including a 24-14 win in the AFC Championship Game on a day when Manning threw four interceptions. Law described Belichick’s strategy as elegantly as it deserved. “This was probably the most simple game plan we had,” Law said. “Just beat them up.”
Colts general manager Bill Polian did not like having his receivers beaten up and did not want the beauty and timing of the Manning-led passing attack to be sullied by Belichick’s arsenal of defensive backs. By many accounts, Polian was the one who strongly encouraged the league after the season to do something about the physical contact. The NFL didn’t add a new rule, but the league’s competition committee chose to make a point of emphasis enforcing the illegal contact penalty for contacting a receiver more than 5 yards downfield.
Illegal contact calls more than doubled the following season. Teams adjusted, and it became easier to throw the ball and rely on throwing with anticipation, knowing that a defensive back wouldn’t be allowed to hit stick a receiver at the top of his route without incurring a penalty. The penalty began to open up the league toward a heavier dose of passing, changing the sport in the process. From the professional level on down, football in 2023 looks very little like the game that was being played 20 years earlier.
The new call didn’t slow down the Patriots, who won the Super Bowl before the rule change at the end of 2003 and then repeated the following season, beating another pass-happy offense in Andy Reid’s Eagles. The Colts got their revenge in 2006 by beating the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game and eventually winning the Super Bowl, but Belichick was about to both make a stunning schematic shift and become a household name for the wrong reasons.
2007: Spygate and the nearly perfect season
Let’s start with the positive. After running a traditional pro-style offense for Brady’s first six years as the starter, Belichick and the Patriots drastically changed their personnel and shifted to the sort of spread principles that had typically been written off as college offenses.
To get the receivers he needed, Belichick signed Donte’ Stallworth and Jabar Gaffney to modest deals, traded second- and seventh-round picks to the Dolphins for backup wideout Wes Welker, and he shipped a fourth-round pick to the Raiders for Randy Moss, who took a pay cut as part of the deal. Overnight, Belichick went from an offense with Reche Caldwell as its top wideout to a group that would run rampant over the NFL. (Patriots fans are wondering why he couldn’t simply land two Hall of Famers for midround picks again!)
Brady, cast as the manifestation of quarterback wins in the stats vs. W’s debate with Manning, had one of the most dominant seasons in NFL history and won MVP. Combined with the rule changes to make passing more friendly, the Patriots’ success changed how the league viewed the passing game. The 2007 offense changed both the Patriots and the rest of the league forever.
All of that was overshadowed by how things started and how they ended. After losing to the Patriots in Week 1, Jets coach Eric Mangini reported to NFL security that the Patriots had been taping signals from the sideline. Several days later, the league fined Belichick $500,000 and stripped the Patriots of their first-round pick. The resulting investigations stretched back to the 2001 season and raised questions about how long (and how thoroughly) the Patriots had been either testing or outright breaking rules. (My colleagues Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta wrote a thorough, absorbing breakdown of the allegations in 2015.)
It changed the way the public viewed both Belichick and the Patriots. Overnight, his image went from the defensive savant to a master manipulator and scam artist. The Pats, once presented as America’s Team as they ran onto the field as a unit against the Rams, became the heels of the NFL. It was a stigma that never went away, in part because the Patriots would be penalized for deflating footballs in 2015 and taping the Bengals’ sideline during a 2019 game. Outside of New England, Belichick became Patriots dynasty’s evil genius. The league would later institute defensive radios in the helmets of the “green dot” defender to mitigate the impact of sign stealing. Thankfully, no prominent coach has come under scrutiny for potentially taping and stealing defensive signals since.
For a team that presumably didn’t film anyone else during the 2007 season, the Patriots sure were impressive without the illegal assistance. They went 16-0, ran through the AFC playoffs and were huge favorites in the Super Bowl against the Giants. While Steve Spagnuolo’s pass rush slowed down Brady for three quarters, a score in the fourth gave the Pats a 14-10 lead.
With 1:20 to go, a Giants receiver ran the wrong route as Eli Manning let go of a pass. The throw bounced off Asante Samuel’s fingertips, costing the Patriots a championship-winning interception that would have sealed the first 19-0 season in league history. You know what happened next: helmet catch, touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress. Seven years after pulling the biggest upset in modern Super Bowl history as the underdog, the Patriots fell to the same fate as the favorite. Belichick wouldn’t win another Super Bowl for seven more seasons.
2009: The fourth-and-2
Belichick’s public comments about analytics mostly have been dismissive. To be polite, I’m skeptical he really feels that way. An economics major in college, he has routinely aligned his draft philosophies with the best practices espoused in public papers by trading down and amassing more picks. The Patriots moved toward a pass-first offense when it was undervalued around the league, then shifted back toward the run as teams got more pass-happy. When he popularized the spread, he drafted Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez and went back to multiple tight end sets. Belichick and longtime assistant Ernie Adams ran the Patriots the way economists look for value.
In terms of game management, though, one of Belichick’s most famous decisions nearly inspired a national meltdown. In November 2009, a 6-2 Patriots team faced the 8-0 Colts in a much-anticipated Sunday night game. The Patriots went up 24-7 early, only for the Colts to roar back in the second half. A touchdown with 2:23 to go made the score 34-28 New England.
With the Colts down to one timeout and 2:11 to go, the Patriots faced a fourth-and-2 on their own 28. In terms of football in 2023, while I suspect most teams would punt in this situation, there are those that clearly would consider going for it to try to essentially end the game. Succeeding on fourth-and-2 wouldn’t outright lead to kneel-downs, but a conversion would have allowed the Patriots to punt with 32 seconds left and the Colts out of timeouts.
Trusting his superstar quarterback over a defense that had been shredded in the second half, Belichick chose to go for it. Brady threw a pass in the flat to Kevin Faulk, who came up short of the first down. The Colts scored four plays later and won the game 35-34. I’m not sure Spygate was any less controversial. Belichick was widely panned for his controversial decision, but while I doubt he made it with a win probability model and an Excel spreadsheet, his choice began to normalize a newfound aggressiveness on fourth down that has spread around much of the NFL since.
2014: The even-more-controversial playoff run
This was really the first time both Brady and Belichick’s futures came into question. Nine seasons removed from their last Super Bowl, the Patriots started 2-2 and were blown out on “Monday Night Football” by the Chiefs. I wasn’t willing to join the chorus of people criticizing Brady, but I had major concerns about the offensive line and infrastructure around him. Belichick’s response after the game, famously, was that the Pats were “on to Cincinnati.” They revamped the offensive line, got Gronkowski back in a larger role, beat a good Bengals team by 26 points, and the rest was history.
In the divisional round, the Pats trailed the Ravens 28-14 in the third quarter when Belichick implemented a controversial strategy. The Patriots started to use a four-man offensive line, with a running back or tight end becoming an ineligible receiver, even though they were split out away from the line. Belichick’s strategy was legal, but a furious John Harbaugh insisted that the referees weren’t giving the Ravens time to substitute or adjust after the players reported to the referee. The tactic of lining up a running back or tight end as an ineligible player was banned after the season, and to my knowledge, there haven’t been any controversies about players reporting to the referee since.
While a 45-7 blowout victory over the Colts in the conference title game wasn’t dramatic on the field, the story afterward certainly was, with the Colts reporting that a ball intercepted by D’Qwell Jackson was underinflated. The subsequent Deflategate scandal would cost Brady a four-game suspension in 2016 and the Patriots $1 million and first- and fourth-round draft picks. While reporting at the time suggested Belichick wasn’t involved with any deflating of footballs, another scandal impacting the organization under the coach’s watch only gave conspiracy theorists (or Belichick dislikers) more fuel for the fire.
play
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Woody pays tribute to ‘football genius’ Belichick
Damien Woody says it is hard to process that the “greatest coach of all time” is moving on from the New England Patriots.
Super Bowl XLIX was Belichick’s ultimate flex of power: Depending on whom you ask, he won the game by doing absolutely nothing. After the Seahawks had driven down the field and Marshawn Lynch had been stopped at the 1-yard line, the Patriots seemed out of luck. With a four-point lead, two timeouts and a yard to go, taking a timeout and letting the Seahawks score seemed like the best strategy.
Instead, Belichick didn’t call a timeout. He let the clock wind down, and on the next play, well, you know what happened. Did he know that the Seahawks would call a pass and not check to a run? Was he playing 4D chess and a step ahead of Carroll, the coach he took over for in New England 14 years earlier? I’m skeptical, but if you ask around the league, I’m in the minority. Malcolm Butler produced the biggest swing in terms of championship expectancy in the history of the league with an interception, and 20 seconds later the Patriots were champions again.
2016: The comeback
Avert your eyes, Falcons fans. For 2½ quarters of Super Bowl LI, Kyle Shanahan, Matt Ryan and the league’s best offense flummoxed Belichick’s defense with plenty of crack toss and man-beating pass concepts. The Falcons scored 21 points on offense and added a pick-six by Robert Alford to take a 28-3 lead. At their lowest point, as I wrote at the time, the Patriots’ chances of winning fell to 0.2%. This made the Butler interception look like a casual swing.
Again, you know what happened next. The Patriots scored 25 unanswered points to tie the game up with 57 seconds left. After winning the coin toss in overtime, Brady & Co. marched down the field on an exhausted Falcons defense to score a championship-sealing touchdown.
While the defense didn’t have its best game, holding Atlanta to 21 points on 10 drives was an impressive showing. The defense basically had to pitch a shutout over the final quarter-and-a-half and did; though Julio Jones made one of the greatest catches you’ll ever see, a Dont’a Hightower strip sack set up the Patriots with a short field for one of their touchdowns, and Patriots pass-rushers forced a pair of holding penalties from Falcons left tackle Jake Matthews.
Belichick’s adjustments helped make that happen. The Patriots shut down the run in the second half, limiting the Falcons to nine carries for 18 yards. After attempting to play coverage and getting torched for most of the first half, he sent more pressure after the break, and Ryan’s QBR dropped by nearly 30 points against the extra rushers. By this point, the aura of Belichick and Brady had to matter. Other teams might have folded down 25 points in the third quarter. Not the Patriots.
2017: The benching
Belichick’s ruthlessness in benching players after they make a mistake became the stuff of lore. In 2014, he benched Jonas Gray (after a 201-yard game against the Colts) for oversleeping and arriving late to practice. Gray had only 256 yards over the remainder of his career. Belichick benched players for fumbling, allowing sacks or throwing interceptions, as we saw with Mac Jones in 2022 and 2023.
His most famous benching, though, wasn’t explained for years. Sporting a defense that ranked 31st in DVOA heading into the Super Bowl, Belichick decided to make a stunning, unannounced change to his secondary. After playing Butler at cornerback on virtually every snap for the majority of the regular season and each of the Patriots’ first two playoff games, Belichick took the former Super Bowl hero out of the lineup in Super Bowl LII. Butler played just one special teams snap on a day in which the Eagles marched up and down the field. With Butler on the sideline, Nick Foles threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-33 upset.
Neither Belichick nor Butler has ever spoken at length about the benching. Seth Wickersham reported in his book “It’s Better to Be Feared” that Butler was benched after he was confronted by Matt Patricia for a lack of effort at practice. I’m not sure the Patriots win if they play Butler given how bad the defense had been all season, but I know fans would have preferred to find out.
2018: The final title
While the defense came up short at the end of the 2017 season, it produced what I called the greatest defensive performance in Super Bowl history one year later. Facing a Rams offense that had scored nearly 33 points per game during the regular season, Belichick’s defense held Jared Goff & Co. to three points on 12 drives. The Rams didn’t make it to the red zone even once.
Again, another influential Belichick game plan was in the fold. Incorporating a 5-1 front that Matt Patricia and Vic Fangio had run earlier in the season to slow down the Rams and their zone-heavy rush attack, the Patriots limited the Rams to two first downs on the ground. The normally man-happy Patriots shifted toward a zone-heavy approach and moved Patrick Chung into a linebacker role on early downs. As they did against the Rams 17 years earlier in the Super Bowl, the Pats went with more defensive backs than you typically see from an NFL defense. While that was five defensive backs in 2001, the shift toward the pass over the ensuing years means Belichick relied more heavily on six defensive backs in 2018.
The scheme introduced during the regular season and refined by Belichick became part of the meta for slowing down the Rams, who missed the playoffs the following year. Sean McVay was forced to rethink his rushing attack, which is now more of a gap (man) scheme than the zone approach he preferred earlier in his tenure.
2019: The stretch
Belichick’s cap management and roster construction was often among the league’s best. The Pats rarely signed deals that regretted, kept around many of the players they wanted and trusted their ability to add talent from other teams, via the draft and on the waiver wire. When they made trades for veterans such as Moss and Corey Dillon, Belichick insisted on the stars taking a pay cut as part of the deal to join. (Each earned new deals after excelling in New England.)
In two moves at the end of the summer in 2019, though, Belichick made two mistakes that set the franchise backward. To create cap space, the Patriots handed Brady what was reported to be a two-year, $70 million extension. In reality, the new deal gave the quarterback an $8 million raise while freeing up $5.5 million in cap space for the Pats. The “extension” voided after the end of the 2019 season, so it was almost all money Brady was never going to see. Crucially, the new contract prevented the Patriots from using the franchise tag to retain Brady, which would allow him to hit unrestricted free agency after the season if the Pats didn’t sign him to another deal before March 2020.
Then, the Patriots used the savings to sign Antonio Brown to a one-year deal worth $10.5 million. Brady had reportedly urged the Patriots to sign Brown, who had been cut by the Raiders without playing a game for the franchise after a series of off-field incidents. Belichick had taken fliers on players who had been malcontent in other places in years past and often been rewarded for his decisions. This time, though, Belichick was paying Brown a $9 million signing bonus up front as opposed to paying him on a game-by-game basis.
This one didn’t work. There already were allegations of sexual assault against Brown when he made his debut in Week 2. When further reporting suggested that Brown had threatened his accusers via text message, the Patriots released the veteran receiver after 11 days, leaving them in a cap bind. The grievance eventually was settled, with the Patriots paying Brown $5 million for one game.
While the Patriots fielded a historically good defense during the first half of 2019, the offense never came together and eventually fell apart. A 20-13 loss to the Titans in the wild-card round ended the season, with Brady’s final pass in a Pats uniform a pick-six to former New England cornerback Logan Ryan.
What seemed like an impossibility came true the following March, when Brady left the organization and signed with the Buccaneers in free agency. While Brady was winning a Super Bowl throwing to Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and unretired tight end Rob Gronkowski, the Pats were struggling with Cam Newton and a dismal group of receivers. The organization has never really recovered.
Was Belichick’s success a product of having Brady?
It’s the million-dollar question. In January 2018, I took a look at what they each had contributed to the Patriots dynasty and landed on the side of Brady being the more valuable contributor of the two, although both obviously played significant roles.
Since then, the evidence has gathered on the Brady side of the debate. He left the Patriots and won a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay. Belichick, meanwhile, has one playoff appearance over his recent four seasons without Brady. Belichick was 41-55 with one playoff appearance in his six seasons as a head coach before Brady took over for Bledsoe. He has gone 29-37 with one more playoff appearance in the four seasons after Brady left for the Bucs.
The question of who contributed more has given way to a more explosive possibility. Was Belichick propped up for nearly two decades by a quarterback he was lucky to land on in the sixth round of his first draft? Would Belichick just be regarded as a defensive guru who was overmatched as a head coach if he hadn’t had Brady in the mix for the majority of his career?
The answer, pretty clearly, is no. Unless you’re so myopic as to ignore everything Belichick did on the defensive side of the ball or willing to chalk up so many of the personnel moves he made on both sides of the ball to Brady’s impact in making those players better, you would have to acknowledge Belichick played a significant role in making both Brady and the Patriots champions over the past 2½ decades.
To start, Brady wasn’t always Brady. In 2001, he was a limited rookie whose job was mostly to hand off the football and avoid turning it over. He averaged 27.5 pass attempts per game, with the Patriots approaching something close to a 50-50 run-pass split. We don’t have air yards data going back that far, but he had four passes of more than 40 yards all season. The defense played a bigger role in the early days of the Brady era, where its identity was as much about Law and Bruschi as it was Brady and Troy Brown.
And what about the Super Bowls? Nobody doubts Brady’s ability to come through in the clutch, nor should they, but the Patriots needed great games from their defense to win several titles. In the 2001 victory over the Rams, the Pats scored 13 points on offense, with the defense chipping in a pick-six while holding the Greatest Show on Turf to 17 points. In 2004, the Pats forced four Eagles turnovers and held a great offense to 14 points before a late score with 1:55 to go.
The defense held the Giants to 17 points in 2007 and 19 in 2011. While it got off to a ugly start against the Falcons, Belichick’s defense limited an Atlanta offense that had averaged nearly 34 points per game to 21 points on 10 drives. And then, of course, the defense dominated in the victory over the Rams.
Brady more than held his own in the wins over the Falcons and Panthers, but the Patriots simply don’t win as many as Super Bowls unless Belichick’s defense plays as well as it did in those games. And that doesn’t even consider games along the way, like the defense stifling the Colts in the 2003, 2004 and 2014 playoffs, or holding the Chargers to 311 yards and 12 points in the AFC Championship Game during the 2007 postseason.
Furthermore, when Belichick was without Brady during that stretch, the Patriots still were productive. When Brady tore his ACL in Week 1 of 2008 and missed virtually the entire season, the Pats still went 11-5, albeit without making it to the postseason. In 2016, Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett, the team’s second- and third-string quarterbacks, went 3-1 while Brady was suspended to start the season. The Pats also won the AFC Championship Game with Bledsoe during the 2001 playoffs when Brady went down injured in the first half against the Steelers.
Going 15-6 in the games in which Brady either wasn’t available or went down injured for a significant portion of the contest suggests Belichick was doing just fine; his struggles with the Browns and after Brady’s departure suggest he had more talent during the Brady era than he did otherwise, both at quarterback and in the positions around the player under center. Belichick was better with Brady, of course, but that’s just the reality of having a great quarterback on the roster.
Did other great coaches thrive without the quarterback or quarterbacks with whom we most closely associate their success? Usually, yeah. Don Shula had a pair of Hall of Famers for most of his tenure in Bob Griese and Dan Marino, but he also made it to a Super Bowl in between with David Woodley under center. Tom Landry started his career with six consecutive losing seasons before Don Meredith broke through. Roger Staubach took over from there, but after Staubach retired, Landry had a few 12-win seasons with Danny White before eventually falling off. Bill Walsh had Joe Montana for his tenure, but George Seifert took over and successfully transitioned from Montana to Steve Young. Joe Gibbs won Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks in Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien.
On the other hand, Chuck Noll didn’t have a single 10-win season and made two trips to the playoffs in eight seasons after Terry Bradshaw retired. Bill Parcells had success after leaving Phil Simms and the Giants, but he won a total of three playoff games over his ensuing 11 seasons as a coach. Mike Shanahan had a 13-win season with Jake Plummer, but he went 7-1 in the playoffs with John Elway and 1-6 with everybody else.
I’d argue Belichick and Brady are a unique case because of how long their relationship lasted. You don’t get 20 years with the same coach and quarterback in modern football, especially with both functioning at a high level throughout that tenure. I still think Brady was the more essential or more difficult to find member of the partnership, but when we look back on this dynasty in 25 years, we’ll see them both as essential.
Can Belichick still coach?
The other question is whether Belichick, 71, might still add to his résumé by coaching somewhere else after leaving the Patriots. Teams are expected to have interest if he intends to keep coaching.
Should they be interested? Yes. There are reasonable concerns about Belichick’s aptitude for drafting skill position talent and handling the dual roles of coaching and running player personnel at this point of his career, but I can say one thing for sure: This man can still coach defenses. For whatever people say about him not being able to relate to younger players or being out of touch with the modern game, none of that applies to what he does on a week-to-week basis as a game-planner and defensive coach.
Even after Brady, Belichick has produced a series of excellent defenses. The defense wasn’t great in 2020, but he added Matthew Judon and others in a 2021 offseason spending spree. Despite trading away 2019 Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore, the Patriots ranked second in points allowed per drive and third in EPA per play on defense.
In 2022, Belichick lost star corner J.C. Jackson to free agency, Dont’a Hightower to retirement and had a barely functioning offense for most of the season. The Pats still dominated on defense, ranking second in EPA per play and third in points allowed per drive.
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Orlovsky doubts Belichick would go to another AFC team
Dan Orlovsky breaks down Bill Belichick’s future as he parts ways with the New England Patriots after 24 seasons.
This season was tougher. Belichick lost Judon and promising rookie corner Christian Gonzalez to season-ending injuries in Week 4. Devin McCourty followed Hightower into retirement. The offense was so bad it contaminated and compromised the defense. The Patriots allowed more than 30 points in consecutive games against the Cowboys and Saints, albeit with three defensive touchdowns by the opposing team in the mix. Through the first half of the season, the Patriots ranked 17th in points allowed per drive and 19th in EPA per snap on defense.
Unsurprisingly, Belichick figured things out and righted the ship. From Week 10 onward, the Patriots have ranked second in EPA per snap and have allowed a league-best 1.3 points per possession. They’ve done that without their best pass-rusher (Judon) and best cornerback (Gonzalez), while inheriting the worst average starting field position of any team and facing the third-most drives per game of any team in football over that stretch. For two months now, the Patriots have been better than the Browns, Jets, Ravens or any other great defense you want to mention.
Belichick has done that with a roster that would charitably be described as anonymous on that side of the ball. Christian Barmore is back to looking like a star and Kyle Dugger is a standout at safety, but the Pats have had to rely on Anfernee Jennings, Shaun Wade and Jahlani Tavai to play meaningful roles week after week. They’ve thrived under their coach’s tutelage. He has more than two decades of either developing young players into standout defenders or acquiring players unwanted by other teams and molding them into starters. He’s doing that again in New England.
In the simplest universe, a team might hire Belichick as its head coach, give him control of the defense, let someone else run the offense and have a traditional general manager run the personnel department. For Belichick, that might be a nonstarter. Remember: He learned under Parcells, who left the Patriots because he wasn’t allowed to shop for the groceries. Belichick turned down the Jets job, in part, because Parcells was still going to be involved with personnel. He left for the Patriots because they gave him that power. Giving up those responsibilities might not be something he is willing to do at this point of his career.
Frankly, given how poorly most head coach and general manager hires work out, I wouldn’t dissuade a team from offering Belichick full control of the roster if he takes over as its coach. Think about the Raiders, who reportedly are interested in Belichick. They offered Jon Gruden that opportunity, and Gruden drafted worse than you would have by just taking the best player off a consensus mock draft. The Raiders hired Lane Kiffin, Tom Cable, Dennis Allen and Josh McDaniels with disastrous results. Compared to his peak, Belichick might not be the coach he once was. Compared to the other coaches available, Belichick would be one of the best candidates to hit the market in years.
For Belichick, now, there might be one final thing to prove. When Brady joined the Buccaneers, he was afforded an opportunity to prove he could succeed outside of the program in New England. He won immediately. Belichick won Super Bowls as an assistant with the Giants, but this might be his chance to prove that anybody who doubts him or regards him as a product of being surrounded by greatness in Parcells and Brady is a fool. The only way to do that is to win somewhere else as the head coach. Belichick doesn’t need to coach another game or add anything else to his résumé, but when you’ve spent so much time on the mountaintop, you might want to climb back up, if only to prove to yourself that you can.
The 2024 NBA trade deadline is Feb. 8, and expect to see plenty of movement as teams look to shake up their rosters.
Which moves will impact the landscape of the NBA heading into the 2024 playoffs? And what deals will affect teams looking to rebuild ahead of the draft in July?
Get all of the news, intel and analysis from our experts here, including trade grades and destinations for every player who could be on new teams.
1:30 p.m. ET: What does the future hold for the Atlanta Hawks‘ backcourt? According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Hawks are “talking [Dejounte] Murray deals — and others — throughout the league.”
“I think the Hawks are open to ALMOST anything at the trade deadline, but there’s no question that they’ve gone as far as they’ll probably go on Dejounte Murray‘s pairing with Trae Young in the backcourt,” Wojnarowski wrote on Threads.
The trio reviewed the possibility of Golden State adding Toronto Raptors forward Siakam, Chicago Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan or guard Zach LaVine as options for the 2022 NBA champions. The Utah Jazz‘s Lauri Markkanen was also briefly mentioned, but the Jazz currently sit above the Warriors in the Western Conference standings.
12:15 p.m. ET: Will the Golden State Warriors be active ahead of the trade deadline, and what kind of deal could they actually make? Speaking on “The Lowe Post,” ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Kendra Andrews discussed the Warriors’ limited options in trying to salvage the season.
While Siakam could be a target for the Warriors, there may not be much of an appetite to give up a player like Kuminga or Moses Moody in order to bring the two-time All-Star — who could become a free agent this offseason — to the Bay.
Jan. 6
3:10 p.m. ET: The Indiana Pacers will continue to look at Siakam, wrote Wojnarowski on Threads.
Jan. 5
7:00 p.m. ET: The Chicago Bulls might have trouble finding a new home for two-time All-Star LaVine if they decide to move him before the trade deadline, according to Wojnarowski.
“There is not a market for Zach LaVine right now in the NBA, and that’s not because Chicago has not tried to find it,” Wojnarowski said on “NBA Countdown.”
Jan. 3
1:30 p.m. ET:According to Wojnarowski, the Atlanta Hawks are open to trades leading up to the February trade deadline, and general manager Landry Fields seems determined to make changes to the roster.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Swedish soccer coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said he has cancer and might have less than a year to live.
The former England coach told Swedish Radio P1 he discovered he had cancer after collapsing suddenly. He said in February last year that he was reducing his public appearances because of health issues.
“Everyone understands that I have a disease that is not good, and everyone guesses that it is cancer and it is,” Eriksson said in an interview published Thursday.
Eriksson said he has pancreatic cancer and that it is inoperable.
“At best I have maybe a year, at worst maybe a little less,” he said.
The 75-year-old said he is trying to think positively.
“I could go and think about it all the time and sit at home and be grumpy and think I’m unlucky and so on,” he said. “I think that is easily done, that you end up there.
“No, look at things positively and don’t wallow in adversity. Because this is, of course, the biggest setback.”
Eriksson was England’s first ever foreign-born coach from 2001-06 after making his name winning league titles at club level with Lazio in Italy, Benfica in Portugal and IFK Gothenburg in his native Sweden.
Eriksson led what was regarded as a “golden generation” of players, including David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney, at the World Cups in 2002 and 2006 and got the team to the quarterfinals at both tournaments before elimination by Brazil and Portugal, respectively.
In the only other major tournament under Eriksson — the European Championship in 2004 — England was also ousted at the quarterfinal stage, again by Portugal and via a penalty shootout like at the World Cup in 2006.
The England national team and Manchester City, one of the many clubs he coached, were among those to send their best wishes to Eriksson over X, formerly Twitter.
Eriksson’s last coaching role was with the Philippines’ national team in 2018-19 and most recently had the role of sporting director at Karlstad, a team in Sweden’s third division.
Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has revealed he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has around a year at most to live.
Eriksson, who served as England’s first foreign manager from 2001 to 2006, stood down from his most recent role as sporting director at Swedish club Karlstad 11 months ago due to health issues.
The 75-year-old told Swedish radio station P1 he had been given the shock news after fainting on a 5k run, and had previously been in a good state of health.
Image: Eriksson managed England for 67 games from 2001 to 2006
He led England to one of their most famous results, a 5-1 win over Germany in Munich in September 2001, and took them to three consecutive quarter-final berths at major tournaments.
Eriksson told Swedish Radio P1: “Everyone can see that I have a disease that’s not good, and everyone supposes that it’s cancer, and it is. But I have to fight it as long as possible.
“I know that in the best case it’s about a year, in the worst case even less. Or in the best case I suppose even longer. I don’t think the doctors I have can be totally sure, they can’t put a day on it.
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“It’s better not to think about it. You have to trick your brain. I could go around thinking about that all the time and sit at home and be miserable and think I’m unlucky and so on.
“It’s easy to end up in that position. But no, see the positive sides of things and don’t bury yourself in setbacks, because this is the biggest setback of them all of course.
“It just came from nothing. And that makes you shocked.
Image: Eriksson’s England were knocked out at the quarter-final stages of all three major tournaments he presided over
“I’m not in any major pain. But I’ve been diagnosed with a disease that you can slow down but you cannot operate. So it is what it is.”
Eriksson’s England spell was arguably his most high-profile position, but was one of a number of big roles he held during a managerial career spanning more than 40 years.
Image: Eriksson made David Beckham the permanent England captain on his appointment in 2001
He first rose to international prominence with Benfica, whom he led to back-to-back league titles in the early 1980s after joining from IFK Gothenberg.
From there he managed Roma, Fiorentina and Sampdoria as well as enjoying a second spell in Lisbon before leading Lazio to a domestic double in 2000, in what remains their most-recent Serie A title.
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That success caught the eye of the Football Association, who persuaded him to join England in January 2001.
Initial scepticism over the appointment of a foreign manager for the first time in the country’s history was eased by the thrashing of Germany in Munich eight months later, though England still needed David Beckham’s free-kick heroics to automatically qualify for the 2002 World Cup.
At major tournaments, Eriksson’s England record was defined by penalty shoot-outs, twice losing to Portugal at Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006, both in the quarter-finals – the latter his final game in the role.
From there he managed Manchester City for a season before further international roles with Mexico and Ivory Coast, an ill-fated 49-game spell at Leicester City, while his most recent managerial role was in charge of the Philippines in 2019.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Police in South Florida say a man fatally shot a 30-year-old Buffalo Bills fan during an altercation near Hard Rock Stadium after the Bills defeated the Miami Dolphins in the final regular season game.
As Dylan Brody Isaacs and his friends were returning to their vehicle after the game Sunday night, they had an altercation with the driver of another vehicle a few blocks from the stadium, Miami Gardens police said in a news release.
The driver pulled out a gun, and fired shots at Isaacs, who died at the scene, police said.
The man then fled in an older model Honda Accord, which was located in Palm Beach County the next day. The vehicle was seized as part of the investigation. Detectives have identified and interviewed a suspect, but that person’s name wasn’t immediately released.
The investigation is ongoing.
A GoFundMe page had raised nearly $90,000 as of Wednesday to cover the costs of a funeral for Isaacs and for transporting his body to Six Nations, the largest First Nation reserve in Canada. Isaacs lived in Hollywood, Florida, according to his Facebook page.
ATLANTA — Jalen Johnson hit two tying free throws in overtime and then added a go-ahead 3-pointer with 39 seconds remaining, sending the Atlanta Hawks to a 139-132 victory over Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night.
Johnson, who had 25 points and 16 rebounds, added two more free throws with 13 seconds remaining to help close it out.
Maxey had 35 points, nine assists, eight rebounds and four steals. Tobias Harris added 32 points for the 76ers, who played without Joel Embiid and suffered their third straight loss.
Trae Young’s 3-pointer in the opening minute of the fourth quarter gave Atlanta its first lead of the second half. The Hawks stayed in front until Maxey’s jam gave the 76ers a 122-121 lead. Maxey added a 3-pointer that pushed the advantage to four points.
Trailing 125-124, Atlanta called a timeout with 15 seconds remaining in regulation. Maxey was called for a foul on Young’s drive to the basket with 12.1 seconds to go. A review upheld the foul. Young missed the first free throw but made the second. Maxey missed a late chance to end the game in regulation.
The Hawks snapped a two-game losing streak with their first win over the 76ers in three tries this season. Young scored 28 points and Dejounte Murray had 25.
Each team held out its starting center because of an injury. Embiid, the reigning NBA MVP, missed his second consecutive game with swelling in his left knee. Paul Reed was the fill-in starter.
Atlanta’s Onyeka Okongwu had 19 points and 11 rebounds as the fill-in starter for Clint Capela (right Achilles tendon soreness). Hawks small forward De’Andre Hunter (right knee inflammation) missed his ninth consecutive game.
Embiid did not travel with the team to Atlanta but worked on the court in Philadelphia. When asked if he expects Embiid to play against Sacramento on Friday, coach Nick Nurse said: “I’m hoping so. We’re still kind of going day to day.”
The Hawks emphasized Okongwu early as they attempted to take advantage of Embiid’s absence. Okonguw, whose career high is 21 points, scored 11 of Atlanta’s first 18 as Reed was called for two early fouls.
Philadelphia forward Robert Covington also did not play due to swelling in his left knee.
The Hawks played the first of five consecutive home games. Atlanta’s 14 home games before Wednesday night were the fewest in the league. The Hawks had not played so few home games in their first 35 overall games since their 1967-68 inaugural season in Atlanta.
