Raphael Stevens

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    The Mannings Give TV Sports Yet Another Alternate Viewing Option

    ESPN has the quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning. CBS has the slime and SpongeBob allure of Nickelodeon. A boxing upstart even got Trump. For viewers, it’s ever more options beyond just watching the game.Midway through the telecast of this N.F.L. season’s first Monday night game, Eli Manning asked his brother Peyton what he would do when a coach called a play he did not like.“I’m going to call my own play,” Peyton Manning said while mimicking a quarterback looking over to the sideline as if his helmet radio wasn’t working. “I’m going to call my own play. ‘I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.’ That’s what you do.”He added that he would have to give the assistant equipment manager, who was sure to be yelled at by the coach for the malfunctioning headset, a nice holiday present.It was a prime example of an N.F.L. moment suited to the brothers who are former star quarterbacks: a funny, well-told, behind-the-scenes anecdote that revealed how football actually works. The generally well-received telecast was full of such nuggets, prompting optimism about ESPN’s evolving experiment.The Mannings were not on ESPN’s main presentation of “Monday Night Football.” Their showcase was the debut of an alternate telecast option that will run nine more times this season on ESPN2 or ESPN+, the streaming service. The Mannings will work two more telecasts in September, including the game Monday night between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, with the rest of the schedule to be determined.ESPN and other networks spent years trying to hire Peyton Manning as a color commentator, and he finally agreed to work in a system that demands a lot less work and travel than the main broadcast. He appears live from a friend’s warehouse in Denver, while Eli appears from his home in New Jersey.Alternate telecasts are not new for ESPN, but the network has been increasing them recently. “We have done them across more sports and leagues than we have done them in the past, and we have done them with different approaches,” said Freddy Rolón, an ESPN vice president.And it is not just ESPN presenting sports in multiple ways. This month, Triller provided an alternate commentary stream featuring Donald J. Trump for a pay-per-view boxing card. CBS and Nickelodeon announced they would once again produce a slime-filled, kid-friendly telecast of an N.F.L. playoff game. NBC, Fox, Amazon and others have their own versions of alternate telecasts.Such telecasts go back to at least 2004, when ESPN showed a behind-the-scenes feed of a college football game, or perhaps to 1980, when NBC tried an announcerless broadcast with just the natural sights and sounds of the game. But the modern alternate broadcast dates to 2014, when ESPN first tried out its “megacast” presentation of the college football national championship game, with feeds featuring play breakdowns, celebrity guests, home team radio audio and other commentators.It is no coincidence that ESPN has been the biggest proponent of alternate feeds. Unlike many of its competitors, it controls numerous sports channels on which alternate feeds can be run. But with the rise of powerful internet and streaming services, alternate feeds do not need to be placed on television channels.“There isn’t a finite number of streams,” said Sam Flood, the head of sports production at NBC.Peyton and Eli Manning will be on ESPN2 for alternate telecasts of 10 Monday night N.F.L. games this season.Davide BarcoUntil recently, alternate feeds were mostly targeted at hard-core fans. Alternate telecasts with coaches breaking down plays or using advanced statistics are less likely to attract a casual fan. Instead, they draw established fans who want to learn more or stay engaged in a game that is boring or a blowout.The Nickelodeon game, however, attempts to get children and families who otherwise would not watch football to do so, and Triller’s stream with Trump was not for the boxing fan, but for perhaps the boxing-curious fan who would be drawn in, for one reason or another, by the former president.“We are aiming at people who never really watch boxing, some who don’t know what Triller is,” said Thorsten Meier, the chief operating officer of Triller Fight Club.The dirty little secret of alternate feeds, however, is that nobody watches them. Not nobody, exactly, but nobody in television terms.About 14.5 million people watched the standard telecast of the Baltimore Ravens and Las Vegas Raiders game in Week 1 of the N.F.L. season, while just 800,000 people watched the presentation by the Manning brothers. Just 5 percent of the audience chose the alternate telecast. In some ways, though, that is a great success — whatever is on ESPN2 during “Monday Night Football” usually draws only hundreds of thousands of viewers, anyway.But no matter how loudly fans might complain about announcers or wish telecasts did more of this or less of that, the fact remains that when presented with alternatives, viewers usually stick with what they know. Meier of Triller did not have final numbers, but he said the Trump alternate commentary was the least popular one of the night, behind the traditional English-language and Spanish-language commentaries.Networks also have to be careful about cannibalization. Most media companies that own sports rights these days belong to huge conglomerates with numerous concerns — ESPN is owned by Disney, which also owns ABC and cable channels like FX. The company could show versions of football across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, or show a sitcom on ABC, football on ESPN and a different sport on ESPN2. Homing in on fans of a specific sport or trying to attract casual fans can come at the cost of other corporate priorities.Where alternate telecasts really shine, then, is as a laboratory. They are often where new things in televised sports are tested before they are ready for prime time, such as which advanced statistics to show fans, and how to do so. When sports television is inevitably saturated by odds and betting data in the coming years, you can be sure it got its start on betting- and fantasy-focused alternate streams.For the last few years, NBC Sports has shown the final championship NASCAR race on NBC, as well as a feed focused just on the four drivers in championship contention on its cable channel, NBC Sports Network. That experience has led the network to incorporate an occasional focus on just one driver for a few laps during its regular showings of the NASCAR Cup Series.“We really lean into a specific driver for a little bit longer, and it creates a stronger bond between the driver and audience,” Flood said.If the future of sports watching is fans choosing exactly the kind of announcer or experience they want, why not take the idea further? Amazon, which shows N.F.L. games on Thursdays and owns the rights for a number of different sports in Europe, already provides several different commentary streams for those games.But Amazon also owns Twitch, the streaming platform most heavily associated with video games — where at any given moment you can find thousands of people, some of them professionals with a huge audience and some of them amateurs with no audience, commenting while playing video games or doing other things. Amazon has shown some games on Twitch with handpicked and hired hosts, but it is not a free-for-all open to thousands of different commentators.For one, there is a rights issue. The N.F.L. sells Amazon the right to do very specific things, which does not include allowing anybody who wants to comment on games on Twitch, and therefore allow anybody to watch on Twitch and bypass traditional ways of viewing.But even if they could do so, Marie Donoghue, the head of global sports at Amazon, is not sure they would want to. “We don’t know if infinite choice is what fans want,” she said. “We do think fans want great optionality, but we have to learn, because if you give fans infinite choice it may become overwhelming, and they get lost in the experience.”Infinite may not be on the horizon then, but more certainly is.Next year, when Amazon actually produces the N.F.L. games they show, there will almost certainly be more options. Meier said Triller was getting ready to “rock the world with a completely new concept” in boxing, while Rolón said ESPN would expand its alternate telecasts as technology allowed it to do so. More

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    Josh Allen Joined the NFL's Elite. Next Up? Staying There.

    ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Josh Allen recorded the greatest season by a quarterback in Buffalo Bills history. He powered the team to its first A.F.C. championship game in nearly three decades, and after losing to Kansas City, he left Arrowhead Stadium that January night knowing the Bills would be back.Allen allowed himself a few weeks to decompress from the longest, best and most disappointing year of his young career, and when he was done, a week or two into February, he visited a sock company. There, on the basketball court at Stance headquarters in Southern California, Allen set about refining what his personal quarterback coach, Jordan Palmer, characterized as a “very, very specific” mechanical inefficiency.Allen, 25, loves nerding out on his mechanics, or, really, anything that he thinks can accelerate his development. Of all the traits that enticed the Bills to trade up to draft him out of the University of Wyoming in 2018, beyond physical gifts and a capacity for distilling reams of information into essential shards, paramount was how Allen married a desire to improve with an aptitude for doing so.He spent his childhood on a ranch in California’s flat and fertile Central Valley, and as with the crops his family raises, he didn’t need to see immediate returns. If he worked hard, and with purpose, he knew the results would come.“Some guys have those incredible years, and then that’s who they are,” one such guy, the Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner — who won the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in his first season as a starter — said in a telephone interview. Now an analyst for NFL Network, Warner added: “And other guys just do it that once, and they never quite capture it again. I hope this is who Josh is the rest of his career, but I did not see this coming. I did not know he was capable of it.”Allen’s incredible year — 4,544 passing yards, 46 total touchdowns, second place in the M.V.P. balloting — thrust him into the N.F.L.’s upper echelon. It also, in August, enriched him with a six-year contract extension that tethers him to Buffalo through 2028, an investment in his future with implicit expectations.Allen built himself into a top quarterback for a team constructed to contend for the Super Bowl title that his distinguished forebears of the 1990s could not win. Two games into this season, the central question for the Bills (1-1) is no longer whether they can make the playoffs, but whether they can remain among the N.F.L.’s elite. The answer depends on Allen.Buffalo fans traveled to Miami to see Allen and the Bills thrash the Dolphins, 35-0, in Week 2.Doug Murray/Associated Press“I think there’s two kinds of players in this league: guys that get figured out and guys that figure it out,” Allen said in an interview after a recent practice. “And I was always going to be the guy who figured it out.”Allen’s evolution to this lofty moment toppled a principle of football doctrine: that quarterbacks can’t enhance their accuracy. After selecting Allen in 2018, Bills General Manager Brandon Beane was told that he had just taken a tight end. He knew otherwise.At his job interview the year before, after Buffalo’s 16th consecutive season without making the playoffs, Beane noted that the New England Patriots dynasty had been sustained in part by their three fellow A.F.C. East teams, which regularly changed coaches and front offices.Unseating the Patriots, he said, demanded time and patience, and as he scouted quarterback prospects before the draft he resolved to invest both in Allen.On the farmstead where Allen grew up in Firebaugh, Calif., a small community about 40 miles northwest of Fresno, his family has long nurtured cantaloupe, cotton and wheat — and, more recently, pistachios. Much like Allen himself, their trees need years of cultivation before producing a yield. Allen’s progression from imprecise college quarterback to N.F.L. star took an honest assessment of the transformation he required.“When you lie to yourself, the only person you hurt is yourself,” Allen said. “Being completely honest and understanding that there’s things I need to work on, I’m not afraid to reach out and ask somebody for help.”Rarely does a quarterback improve by vast margins, as Allen did, in his third season.The best predictor of a third-year eruption, according to a May 2020 study by Pro Football Focus, is a proclivity for completing passes. At Wyoming, Allen had connected on a meager 56.2 percentage of his throws, and in his first two seasons in Buffalo, he rated last in the league.To better evaluate Allen, Beane needed to protect him, so in 2019 he signed offensive linemen Mitch Morse and Jon Feliciano in free agency. He bolstered the receiving corps, too, adding Cole Beasley in 2019 and, in a trade with Minnesota in 2020, Stefon Diggs, who led the N.F.L. last season in yards and receptions.“We just feel like, as he’s learned to not try and do too much, if I give him weapons, he won’t feel like he’s got to try and put the team on his back,” Beane said of Allen. “He’ll let these guys make plays.”After reworking his delivery before the 2020 season, Allen found the newly acquired receiver Stefon Diggs often. Diggs led the league in receiving yards and receptions last season.Libby March for The New York TimesAllen could do that because he had reworked his delivery, with the guidance of Palmer and Bills coaches, concentrating each off-season on a single objective: widening his stance, for example, or commanding his off-speed passes. Concentrating on the fundamental components of his motion enabled him to throw more accurately, to any spot on the field, than he ever had. So did offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s preference for calling pass plays on first down, when opposing personnel generally must guard against the run.Never before, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, had any quarterback across a three-season span raised his completion rate as much as Allen did: His jump to 69.2 percent from 52.8 exceeded the previous biggest increase — Jim Zorn’s 15 percentage points with the Seattle Seahawks from 1977 to ’79.After that overhaul, the 38-24 loss to the Chiefs in the A.F.C. championship game demonstrated the Bills’ proximity to being the best team in the league. Over the off-season, they added Emmanuel Sanders, long coveted by Beane, and re-signed two starting offensive linemen. Allen, for his part, recognized that he was no longer in reconstruction mode. His challenge now is to refine what he has done and to nudge the Bills a little deeper this season.Allen, though, is not a nudger. Among the traits that distinguish great quarterbacks from the merely good is situational awareness, and Palmer has discussed with him at length the importance of controlling emotions at climactic junctures, of making prudent choices when the impulse to go all YOLO tugs hard. And after “making the most consecutive good decisions I’ve ever made” last season, Allen said, it’s imperative that he doesn’t get bored with what he called “the easy stuff” — throwing two- or three-yard passes, or flinging the ball out of bounds instead of forcing a bad throw.For the last year and a half, Allen has also worked with a biomechanics expert, Chris Hess, who at various stages of the off-season has gauged Allen’s functional movement and, using 3-D motion capture analysis, digitally mapped his throwing motion. At first, Hess didn’t think Allen was engaged. For every assessment Hess relayed, Allen offered a monosyllabic response. Two weeks later, Hess re-evaluated him, and he was stunned to discover that Allen had retained everything.“I wasn’t moving fast enough for him,” Hess said. “He processes so quick, but he can filter it, too, and be like, ‘That’s important to me.’”Allen wanted to address what his left foot did when he hitched, or bounced forward in the pocket at the end of his drop back, on certain routes — overs from the left and digs from the right. The flaw inhibited his ability to maintain control through the release of the ball. Before he could try new footwork on the field, he needed to retrain his patterns, and the smooth surface of the court at Stance helped Allen do so without sliding.“Whether I’m throwing 30 times a game or three times a game, if I throw three times, I better have made three right decisions on where the ball should be,” Allen said.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn Hess’s experience, quarterbacks typically don’t improve their mechanical efficiency during the season, either because they revert to old motor patterns or they compensate for various ailments that arise. But Allen did in 2020, helping him start from a more advanced place this off-season, when he focused on building lower-body strength and mobility.In a boardroom in New Jersey this month, Hess cued up on a smart television side-by-side images of Allen from the past two Julys, and the difference was stark: Allen became balanced, stable, no longer listing forward as he threw.Standing in a tunnel beneath Highmark Stadium just before the season began, Allen mentioned how attuned he felt — to expectations, his body, his responsibilities.“It’s not about me,” Allen said. “Whether I’m throwing 30 times a game or three times a game, if I throw three times, I better have made three right decisions on where the ball should be.”Allen, though, hasn’t made entirely right decisions so far. After losing to Pittsburgh in Week 1, he suggested he was struggling with his footwork, and despite rebounding to thrash Miami in Week 2, Allen still committed what Pro Football Focus calls turnover-worthy plays — involving poor ball security or passes that have a strong chance of being intercepted — on a career-high 10.8 percent of his snaps.Every snap he takes still seems to generate a greater range of outcomes than a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, and maybe that will never completely change. But week after week, the best quarterbacks are not those who dominate the highlights. They’re the ones who think fast, make smart throws and don’t commit turnovers. Allen can do that — has done that — and if he can do it consistently, then the longest, best, most gratifying season in Bills history might lie just ahead. More

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    N.F.L. Week 3 Predictions: Our Picks Against the Spread

    The Panthers look to keep the sack crown against the Texans, the Bucs and Rams preview a potential N.F.C. championship matchup, and Aaron Rodgers will try to keep the good vibes going against the 49ers.Are you not entertained?Four of the six prime time games in this young N.F.L. season were decided by one score. Lamar Jackson’s plunge to convert a fourth down and seal Baltimore’s win over Kansas City capped Week 2. Most teams that lost in Week 1 fought back to .500, but the weekend yielded a long list of injuries with at least four starting quarterbacks having either been ruled out or questionable to play in Week 3.That means that divisional rivals will try to eke out an edge in the early standings, a slew of replacement quarterbacks will try to prove their worth and a potential N.F.C. championship preview will be on display in Los Angeles.Here’s a look at N.F.L. Week 3, with all picks made against the spread.Last week’s record: 7-9All times Eastern.Here’s what you need to know:Thursday Night’s GameSunday’s Best GamesSunday’s Other GamesMonday Night’s MatchupThursday Night’s GameCarolina Panthers at Houston Texans, 8:20 p.m. NFL NetworkLine: Panthers -7.5 | Total: 43.5With Tyrod Taylor recovering from a hamstring injury and Deshaun Watson still designated to the bench, Texans Coach David Culley said the rookie Davis Mills will start against the Panthers (2-0). Mills, a third-round draft pick out of Stanford for the Texans (1-1) this spring, will face a young Panthers defense that leads the league in sacks (10) through two weeks (although six came against a meager Jets offensive line in Week 1).In both their wins this season, the Panthers began the third quarter with a double-digit lead, fueled by Sam Darnold’s budding connection with his new receivers. If the early offensive output continues and the Texans struggle with a new quarterback, expect the Panthers to cover the spread easily. Pick: Panthers -7.5Sunday’s Best GamesMatthew Stafford and the Rams will try to test a Buccaneers secondary thinned by injuries.Zach Bolinger/Associated PressTampa Bay Buccaneers at Los Angeles Rams, 4:25 p.m., FoxLine: Buccaneers -1 | Total: 55A battle between undefeated teams makes predicting this outcome the toughest choice of the week. Both the Rams (2-0) and the Buccaneers (2-0) rank in the top 10 in passing yards and top five in passing touchdowns.But the Bucs’ secondary is young and has struggled with injuries, so the team reached out to the veteran free agent cornerback Richard Sherman after placing starter Sean Murphy-Bunting on injured reserve. Rams Coach Sean McVay will look to have Matthew Stafford unload downfield, and that aggression against a secondary in flux may be just enough for the Rams to win. Pick: Rams +1Los Angeles Chargers at Kansas City, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Kansas City -6.5 | Total: 55.5404 yards. That’s the amount of rushing yardage Kansas City’s defense has surrendered through two games. That’s … not good. But the Chargers (1-1) are a pass-first team, as evinced by Justin Herbert tying Mahomes and Dan Marino for the most 300-yard passing games through a player’s first two seasons (10). Herbert could break that record Sunday against Kansas City (1-1).That’s doable based on his two performances against Kansas City last season, the first an overtime loss in which Herbert threw for 311 yards and a touchdown and earned the starting job. (Herbert had 302 yards and three touchdowns in a Week 17 win in which Kansas City rested some starters.) If Los Angeles’ running backs can at least keep the Chiefs honest, the Chargers will be able to at least keep this one close. Pick: Chargers +6.5Derrick Henry ran for 182 yards and two fourth-quarter touchdowns in the Titans’ overtime win in Seattle last week. Ben Vanhouten/Associated PressIndianapolis Colts at Tennessee Titans, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Titans -5 | Total: 48Carson Wentz’s sprained ankles (yes, both ankles) mean the Colts (0-2) could potentially start Jacob Eason, a second-year quarterback, against Tennessee. Eason’s margin for error will be small against the Titans (1-1), who are coming off an overtime win in Seattle where Derrick Henry’s 182 rushing yards on 35 carries reminded everyone how effective Tennessee is at clock control.The strength of Indianapolis’ defense is its defensive lineman and linebackers, who could frustrate Tennessee’s rushing attack, but Eason’s inexperience could lead to turnovers and give Henry more opportunity to score. Pick: Titans -5Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers, 8:20 p.m., NBCLine: 49ers -3.5 | Total: 48The Packers (1-1) and San Francisco (2-0) use similar offensive strategies that rely on motion and a strong running game to set up the pass. The 49ers’ running back room, though, has been decimated by injuries, most recently with JaMycal Hasty ruled out with a high ankle sprain and Elijah Mitchell (shoulder) and Trey Sermon (concussion), questionable for Sunday night.Both teams allowed the Lions to play competitive first halves before pulling away. Now facing each other, if the 49ers’ rotating cast of running backs starts slow, the healthy Packers roster could take advantage. Pick: Packers + 3.5New Orleans Saints at New England Patriots, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Patriots -3 | Total: 41.5Who dat? Saints fans must be asking themselves that question after a shellacking last week at Carolina, where running back Alvin Kamara was limited to only 32 all-purpose yards and Jameis Winston threw two interceptions.The Patriots’ defense is more experienced than Carolina’s, and could find similar success against a Saints (1-1) team trying to find its new identity in the post-Drew Brees era. The Patriots and Coach Bill Belichick may have fans asking more questions afterward. Pick: Patriots -3Seattle Seahawks at Minneapolis Vikings, 4:25 p.m., FoxLine: Seahawks -2 | Total: 55Two games, two close finishes.The Vikings (0-2) have played competitively so far this season, and could easily be 2-0. They face a Seahawks (1-1) defense that allowed the Titans to score 21 second-half points en route to a Tennessee victory in Week 2. Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins have thrown for more than 240 yards in each of their games and if both Minnesota and Seattle play to form, this game will be a shoot out. That gives the Vikings hope to at least cover the spread. Pick: Vikings +2Sunday’s Other GamesThe Bears’ rookie Justin Fields will make his first career start against the Browns on Sunday.Jeff Haynes/Associated PressChicago Bears at Cleveland Browns, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Browns -7.5 | Total: 46.5Bears fans finally got what they cheered for.After quarterback Andy Dalton injured his knee on a scramble last week, Coach Matt Nagy said the rookie Justin Fields will start Sunday against the Browns (1-1). Excitement over Fields dominated training camp and the preseason, and he could slide in as starter for the Bears (1-1).He’ll need to play well to match the Browns, who have scored at least 28 points in their first two games. Wide receiver Jarvis Landry must miss at least three games on injured reserve with a knee injury, and Odell Beckham’s status is still unclear as he continues to recover from knee surgery. Still, the Browns’ defense could fluster a rookie quarterback into a mistake or two. Pick: Browns -7.5Atlanta Falcons at Giants, 1 p.m., FOXLine: Giants -3 | Total: 48.5If Saquon Barkley’s limited production through the first two weeks (83 rushing yards on 23 carries) continues, then Daniel Jones may find success against the Falcons (0-2), whose defense has allowed eight passing touchdowns. Jones must continue to protect the ball, as he did last week, and his receivers cannot drop touchdowns, as Darius Slayton did last week against Washington.Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan has already thrown three interceptions and it’s clear that the Falcons are in rebuilding mode. The Giants (0-2), while still winless, are hoping to compete in the N.F.C. East so it’s reasonable to think they’ll be fired up to get a win at home. But considering the Giants’ unpredictability with mistakes and penalties, the Falcons could at least make this one competitive. Pick: Falcons +3Arizona Cardinals at Jacksonville Jaguars, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Cardinals -7.5 | Total: 52Winning in the N.F.L. is hard. It is unlikely that the first-time N.F.L. coach Urban Meyer and the rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence — two men who rarely lost in college — will find it any easier to get their first N.F.L. win against the Cardinals (2-0).Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray has made an early case for the Most Valuable Player Award, ranking second in total passing yards (689) and touchdowns (7). His aerial onslaught should continue against the Jaguars (0-2) whose defense has allowed nearly 300 passing yards in each of their first two games. The Jaguars’ team Twitter account this week posted a message from Meyer that promised, “we’re going to get better.” He didn’t say it’d be this week. Pick: Cardinals -7.5Washington Footballers at Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Bills -10 | Total: 45.5This isn’t the Giants’ defense that Washington quarterback Taylor Heinicke torched for 336 yards. Heinicke and the Football Team (1-1) will collide with a Buffalo defense that has not allowed an opposing team to throw for 200 yards. Against the Bills (1-1) and Josh Allen, Washington will struggle to keep pace on the scoreboard. Pick: Bills -10Jets at Denver Broncos, 4:05 p.m., CBSLine: Broncos -11 | Total: 41.5The Jets (0-2) never expected Zach Wilson to be perfect as a rookie. His growing pains most likely will continue against the Broncos (2-0), whose defense is just as good, if not better, than the New England Patriots’ unit to whom Wilson threw four interceptions last week. Denver linebackers Josey Jewell and Bradley Chubb are on the injured reserve list after injuries this week, and those losses may hurt the team later as it pushes to contend in the A.F.C. West. But against the Jets, Coach Vic Fangio can manage with what he has to rattle Wilson. Pick: Broncos -11Baltimore Ravens at Detroit Lions, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Ravens-10 | Total: 50Two strong first-half starts for Detroit (0-2) fizzled as quarterback Jared Goff committed crucial turnovers in the team’s two losses. The Lions will meet a Ravens (1-1) defense that’s on the upswing after limiting Kansas City last week and escaping with the win. The young Lions’ defense has often faltered after Goff’s mistakes and if that continues Baltimore can run up the score early. Pick: Ravens -10Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Steelers -4.5 | Total: 44.5The Steelers’ (1-1) struggles against the Raiders last week could be amplified in an A.F.C. North rivalry game against the Bengals (1-1). Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is questionable to play with a pectoral injury, and the availability of defensive starters like linebackers T.J. Watt and Devin Bush and cornerback Joe Haden is also questionable for Sunday.Pittsburgh could use a break but Cincinnati’s defense stiffened against the Bears last week in a tight 20-17 loss, even as quarterback Joe Burrow threw three interceptions. Burrow may also be without receiver Tee Higgins, who injured his shoulder last Sunday and is day to day. But another strong performance and a deep ball from Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase could help the Bengals upset an injury-laden Steelers roster. Pick: Cincinnati +4.5Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby has 10 quarterback hits and two sacks — including this takedown of Ben Roethlisberger during Las Vegas’ win last week in Pittsburgh — through two games this season.Philip G. Pavely/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMiami Dolphins at Las Vegas Raiders, 4:05 p.m., CBSLine: Raiders -4 | Total: 45.5Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s rib injury adds to a series of problems for the Dolphins (1-1). Through two games, the offensive line has allowed eight sacks, the fourth most in the league. Coach Brian Flores said backup Jacoby Brissett will start, but it is unlikely that he will emerge unscathed from facing a Raiders (2-0) defensive line that features Maxx Crosby, who has 10 quarterback hits and two sacks so far this season.Raiders Coach Jon Gruden said quarterback Derek Carr and running back Josh Jacobs are questionable with ankle and toe injuries, though he expects Carr to play. But the Raiders’ defensive pressure can compensate for the offensive struggles. Pick: Raiders -4Monday Night’s MatchupPhiladelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys, 8:15 p.m., ESPNLine: Cowboys -4 | Total: 51.5Jalen Hurts faces a Dallas Cowboys defense that is still tinkering with its lineup because injuries forced defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to come up with a new scheme. Dallas (1-1) allowed Justin Herbert to throw for 338 yards last week as rookie linebacker Micah Parsons shifted to defensive end to replace DeMarcus Lawrence, who will miss at least six weeks with an ankle injury. Dallas expects defensive end Randy Gregory to return from the Covid list, and that may be enough to pressure Hurts. But Dallas’ secondary is still weak, and the Eagles’ offense could score enough to at least cover the spread. Pick: Eagles +4How Betting Lines WorkA quick primer for those who are not familiar with betting lines: Favorites are listed next to a negative number that represents how many points they must win by to cover the spread. Steelers -4.5, for example, means that Pittsburgh must beat Cincinnati by at least 5 points for its backers to win their bet. Gamblers can also bet on the total score, or whether the teams’ combined score in the game is over or under a preselected number of points. More

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    Decades After a Disaster, English Soccer Fans May Stand Again

    A practice banned for decades could return with new safety features.There was a time when thousands of fans at every English soccer game would stand throughout the match in spectator areas without seats. But after fans were crushed to death in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, standing areas were banned as unsafe.Still, many fans pined nostalgically for the days of standing. And now, after many years, England’s top two soccer leagues will be allowed to add standing areas again, with safeguards, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, a government advisory board, said Wednesday.In the past, standing fans were put in sloped, concrete areas. Often there were more fans standing than sitting at games.It was a cheaper way to see the game, and the proximity to fellow enthusiasts often made for a great atmosphere. But the areas sometimes grew rowdy, and especially after a goal, surges of fans could knock people over.During the height of hooliganism in the ’70s and ’80s, fighting sometimes broke out between rival sets of fans. This led teams to erect fences to separate standing fans from their rivals, and also sometimes from the field.That fencing contributed mightily to the Hillsborough disaster, when nearly 100 Liverpool fans in a crowded standing terrace at an F.A. Cup semifinal in Sheffield were crushed to death.Although standing was not the direct cause of the disaster — poor policing was, according to inquiries — the government nonetheless banned standing at games and insisted that every spectator have a seat.But for 30 years, many fans have carried a torch for standing at games. They said that they missed the atmosphere and that standing could be organized more safely than it was in its heyday. They also noted that many fans stood by their seats for a good part of games anyway.Although movement on the issue has taken decades, standing advocates have built momentum, and recently approval has seemed imminent. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened in 2019, was designed with two areas that could quickly be converted into so-called safe standing areas should it be permitted.Teams in the top two divisions can apply now to start standing areas in January. But those areas will look very different from the open concrete slopes of old.First, there will be seats there that fold up, so that fans can choose to sit if they like. No more than one fan for each seat will be admitted to the area, to avoid the tightly packed throngs that were often seen last century.In addition, metal rails will be placed between each row. Fans can lean on them, and they will also help keep people in their own rows, preventing excited forward surges of humanity that could be dangerous.Safe standing has been implemented elsewhere in the world, with success. German top-flight stadiums include thousands of spots for standers. Orlando City, L.A.F.C. and Minnesota are among the M.L.S. teams with safe standing areas. In Britain, Celtic of Glasgow began allowing a few thousand standees in the 2016-17 season. “We are beyond delighted to finally claim a win for the F.S.A.’s Safe Standing campaign,” Kevin Miles, chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Association, a fan advocacy group, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Today’s announcement is the result of prolonged and sustained campaigning by football fans.”Vinai Venkatesham, Arsenal’s chief executive, said Wednesday that the club would meet with fans next week to talk about adding standing areas. “It is something we are looking at,” he said. “We need to see what any implications will be, such as would it reduce the capacity. But we will listen to what our fans say and explore what can be done.”Tariq Panja More

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    in Football

    Will the 49ers Contend if They Just Get Healthy?

    After an improbably injury-riddled 2020, 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan’s disaster-proof offense is back on track.There’s nothing quite as gripping as a post-apocalyptic adventure like “The Walking Dead,” “The Road,” “Y: The Last Man” or the 2021 San Francisco 49ers.The 49ers reached the Super Bowl in the 2019 season but lived through an extinction-level injury cataclysm in 2020. They lost Pro Bowl pass rushers Dee Ford (neck, back) for 15 games and Nick Bosa (knee) for 14. The All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman (calf) for 11, the All-Pro tight end George Kittle (knee, foot) for eight, their top wide receiver, Deebo Samuel, (foot, hamstring, Covid-19) for nine, plus various other starters on both sides of the ball for large chunks of the year.Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (ankle) also missed 10 games; the fact that he does not receive top billing on their injury roll call is telling on a variety of levels.According to Football Outsiders, the 49ers lost the equivalent of 166.6 games by starters to injuries, the second-highest total for an N.F.L. team over the past 20 years. That’s like losing 10 starters — nearly half of a 22-man offensive and defensive lineup — for an entire season. Covid-related absences increased “injury” rates across the league last year, but the 49ers still led the N.F.L. in players unavailable for health reasons by over 30 games. The team’s few survivors staggered to a 6-10 finish.One year later, nearly all of the 49ers’ irreplaceable stars are healthy and back on the field, as is Garoppolo. The 49ers have started the 2021 season with narrow-but-still-convincing victories over the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles. Samuel leads the N.F.L. with 282 receiving yards. Bosa has recorded three sacks. Kittle and Ford are once again playing at a high level. And Garoppolo has resumed his role as the person who sits behind the wheel of the self-driving car and makes sure that nothing malfunctions.The 49ers are designed to be more disaster-proof than most teams, which made their 2020 collapse all the more frustrating. Shanahan’s offense emphasizes short passes to receivers who specialize in racing or rumbling for big gains after the catch; hence Garoppolo’s reputation as more of a desk clerk than a game manager. Running backs are also replaceable cogs in Shanahan’s machine. The 49ers could have operated effectively last season without some combination of Garoppolo, Kittle, Samuel, wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, who was a 2020 first-round pick, and the top running backs Tevin Coleman and Raheem Mostert. In several games last season, including their 34-17 loss to the Green Bay Packers (this week’s opponent), they were without all of those players.Similarly, the 49ers defensive line for 2020 was slated to feature five past first-round picks, including Bosa and Ford: Four starters and a spare tire in case of a flat. But Arik Armstead was the only 49ers lineman to start all 16 games. As a result, the team’s sack total dropped from 48 in 2019 to 30 last year. Under the circumstances, six wins were a remarkable feat for Shanahan and his staff.Not all of the important figures from the 2019 Super Bowl campaign returned this year. Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh’s experience desperately assembling a semi-functional roster out of rookies and leftovers made him overwhelmingly qualified for the Jets’ head coaching job. Sherman was not re-signed after last season; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are reportedly interested in adding him for their Super Bowl victory lap.The rookie running back Elijah Mitchell rushed for over 100 yards in the season opener, when he replaced Raheem Mostert, who is out for the season.Leon Halip/Getty ImagesThe 49ers have also not completely avoided injuries so far in 2021, though it’s naïve to think that any football team could. Cornerback Jason Verrett, who missed nearly all of the 2016 through 2019 seasons with a battery of injuries, tore his anterior cruciate ligament in Week 1. Verrett, oddly enough, was one of the team’s healthiest players last year. Mostert is also lost for the season, but San Francisco stocked up on reinforcements like the rookie Elijah Mitchell, who rushed for over 100 yards in the season opener.Speaking of reinforcements, the 49ers traded up in the draft this spring to select North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance with the third overall pick. Lance’s arrival suggested that Shanahan was seeking more than push-button management at the position, but also signaled the organization’s confidence that the team would get better simply by getting healthier. That has proved true so far.A few changes aside, the 49ers are playing well with a starting lineup that looks a lot like their 2019 Super Bowl lineup/2020 injured reserve list, while Lance has been limited to gadget-play duties.Football Outsiders’ research suggests that there’s a meaningful year-to-year correlation in a team’s injury rate. That’s bad news for the 49ers, who have finished in the top half of the league in games lost to injuries for eight straight seasons. The good news is that last season’s injury rate was so catastrophically high that some regression toward the N.F.L. average is nearly inevitable, according to the tenets of central tendency. Things simply must get better. If they don’t, at least the immensely talented Lance is equipped to survive a “Mad Max” scenario while the 49ers sift through the rubble and try to rebuild.Despite their early-season wins, the 49ers appear to be a notch below contenders like the Buccaneers. The Packers game on Sunday will provide their only true test against a playoff-caliber opponent, before the team embarks on divisional matchups in the N.F.C. West, an unforgiving environment for a team with glaring weaknesses. Another 49ers Super Bowl run may have to wait until Lance is ready to replace Garoppolo and switch Shanahan’s offense out of autopilot.But post-apocalyptic fiction is more about survival than success, perseverance than triumph. The 49ers have done a fine job so far of putting 2020 behind them and returning to as close to normal as possible. That doesn’t make them champions. But it certainly makes them relatable. More

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    in Soccer

    MLS and Liga MX Announce New Leagues Cup Tournament

    The Leagues Cup, part of an effort to capitalize on global interest in the game, will likely raise new concerns about soccer players’ exhausting schedules.In a major reordering of soccer competition in North America, the top men’s leagues in the United States and Mexico announced Tuesday the creation of an annual World Cup-style tournament in which every team from both leagues will compete. The monthlong tournament will take place in July and August, beginning in 2023, expanding the collaboration between Major League Soccer and Liga MX and adding more matches to an already crowded world soccer calendar.“We need more global interest,” Don Garber, the M.L.S. commissioner, said in an interview. “This is a global sport. We are doing a good job of growing interest in M.L.S. in our league here domestically. The next step is how do we grow interest outside of our region?”A 47-team tournament (it will have 48 whenever M.L.S. expands to 30 teams) with group and knockout stages during the only relatively quiet period of the soccer calendar — between the end of summer international tournaments and the beginning of club play in the fall — is a linchpin of the strategy.The tournament will replace the much smaller Leagues Cup tournament and take its name. In order to grant it legitimacy and ensure teams take it seriously, organizers promised a large prize pool (but didn’t say how large). The top three teams will also earn berths into the CONCACAF Champions League, the region’s top club competition.The new Leagues Cup will require a substantial reorganization of the M.L.S. and Liga MX schedules. Rather than holding the event alongside league competition, both leagues will take a break for the duration of the tournament. For M.L.S., that means a pause of a month in the middle of its season, which typically starts in March, while for Liga MX that likely means a delay to the beginning of its season.The entire soccer world, from clubs to leagues, confederations and FIFA itself, are in a constant pitched battle over the schedule, over new leagues and navigating national coronavirus laws. Promoters seem to often view soccer as a lucrative zero sum game, using increasingly exhausted players to wring as many dollars as possible out of the sport, with little cooperation among organizations.Aware of this tension, M.L.S. and Liga MX say they created the new tournament with the involvement of CONCACAF, which oversees soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. And the Leagues Cup announcement coincided with another on Tuesday, from CONCACAF, which said that starting in 2024 the CONCACAF Champions League would expand to 27 clubs, from 16 in 2021.The expanded Champions League will begin with three regional tournaments, one each for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, before 16 teams qualify for knockout stages.The Leagues Cup will see Mexican players spend even more time in the United States, as the tournament will be held here. In 2023, the best Mexican players will compete for their national team in the Gold Cup, the regional championship for national teams that has always been held primarily in the United States, in June and July. Many will then return to their Mexican clubs, which will already be in the United States preparing for the Leagues Cup.Mikel Arriola, the Liga MX president, is not worried that Mexican soccer fans will dislike seeing their players spend nearly the entire summer playing north of the border, able to watch only on television without significant travel. This tournament is additive, he said, and does not take away from Liga MX.“This will be a mixed model because we will continue with our traditional way in our local league,” Arriola said. “However, we both are innovating in this kind of summer extravaganza.”The organizers hope the tournament, beyond selling millions of tickets, will create a bonanza of television dollars, especially outside of North America. The rights to show M.L.S. and Liga MX games outside of their home countries are currently not particularly valuable. While M.L.S. is shown in, say, England, television and streaming companies there pay far more to show the Premier League or the Champions League than they do for M.L.S. But an easy-to-understand tournament during a lull in the calendar could prove popular.M.L.S. will control television rights to the tournament in the United States and Canada, Liga MX will control the rights for Mexico, and the two will partner to sell them in the rest of the world. M.L.S. is also speaking with media companies about both local and national rights to show its league games, which are currently held by ESPN, Fox and a number of local media companies but expire next year.Media rights to the Leagues Cup could be sold in conjunction with those rights to the same company or companies, or could be sold separately.The success of the tournament will also be judged on whether it improves North American clubs and players. Arriola said the tournament will provide vital competition to teams in the middle and the bottom of Liga MX, who do not qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League.“Sometimes big teams grow alone,” he said. But if the Leagues Cup generates the proper incentives, there will be more of what Arriola called “horizontal growth” across the entire league.Ultimately the Leagues Cup, and everything else between the two leagues, is pointed toward 2026, when the United States will host the World Cup, alongside Mexico and Canada. “Now we have the rocket fuel of the World Cup that could help propel us to a higher level,” said Garber, “and ultimately be viewed as we have aspired to be, one of the top leagues in the world.” More

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    in Football

    Baltimore Flips the Script and Beats Kansas City

    Lamar Jackson rushed for 107 yards and threw for 239 in a duel of former M.V.P. Award winners.For three consecutive years, the schedule put Kansas City against Baltimore, a matchup broadcasters salivated over because of the teams’ explosive young quarterbacks.Three times, the Ravens lost, and last season quarterback Lamar Jackson called Kansas City “our Kryptonite.” On Sunday night, that pattern ended.On fourth-and-one with just over a minute left, Jackson did what he had done so well all game. He collected a snap, churned his legs and plowed forward for a first down, sealing a 36-35 win.It culminated a game in which he made early mistakes that Monday morning critics easily could have faulted. He threw two interceptions on throws that could have made the game’s outcome more decisive. But he and the team fought through those blunders, testament to the entire squad’s perseverance, he said.“Our team’s strong,” Jackson said in a postgame news conference. “We’re together. We just have to keep building and keep stacking and keep staying focused.” More

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    in Football

    How the Ravens’ Gutsy 4th-Down Call Paid Off

    How the Ravens’ Gutsy 4th-Down Call Paid OffAlanis ThamesReporting on the N.F.L. ��Nick Wass/Associated PressAccording to N.F.L. Next Gen Stats, the Ravens’ chance of winning jumped to 82 percent if they went for it on fourth down, versus 58 percent if they punted. Jackson kept the ball and converted, securing his first win over Kansas City. More