Raphael Stevens

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    Marcos Alonso, Chelsea and the Genius of Thomas Tuchel

    There is no such thing as a good or a bad player, only one in the right (or wrong) system.Things got so bad, at one point, that even Marcos Alonso’s father was telling him to go. His fallout with his coach at Chelsea, Frank Lampard, had been spectacular and it had been total. Alonso had been substituted at halftime during a game at West Bromwich Albion, but instead of dutifully filing out to support his teammates, he had instead skulked off to wait on the team bus, stewing at the injustice of it all.When Lampard found out, he was furious. First, he rebuked Alonso for his disloyalty, his petulance, in front of his teammates, a public shaming that often functions as soccer’s nuclear option, and then he ostracized him entirely from his team. For four months, Alonso did not play so much as a minute of soccer.His father — also Marcos Alonso — had been a professional, too, playing for Atlético Madrid and Barcelona. His grandfather — you can probably guess his name — spent eight years at Real Madrid. Both, Alonso’s father told him, would have been tempted to “tell the manager where to go,” and then demand the club’s owner allow them to leave.It was not the first time that Alonso’s Chelsea career seemed to be stalling. He had thrived under Antonio Conte — the coach who signed him, for $32 million, in 2016 — for two seasons, and started well under his replacement, Maurizio Sarri. But then, as the club’s form dipped, by his own admission, so did Alonso’s. Sarri had asked him for “something different,” and he had found it hard to adapt. After a spell struggling with injury, he found it hard to regain his place in the team.Alonso had persevered through that, though, and he determined to ignore his father’s advice and do the same after the collapse of his relationship with Lampard. It paid off: In January, Lampard was fired. Alonso was restored to the substitutes’ bench for Thomas Tuchel’s first game as his successor. He returned to the field a few days later, scoring Chelsea’s second goal in a win against Burnley.It was only at the start of the current season, though, that he has re-emerged as a regular presence. Ben Chilwell, his rival for the left-sided role in Tuchel’s team, returned late from his summer exertions with England; it is only in the last week or so that he has been considered fit enough for selection.Tuchel has figured out that Alonso is not a left back, nor is he a left wing. As a left wing-back, though, with cover behind him and options ahead, he is perfect.Hannah Mckay/ReutersA year or so after it seemed his Chelsea career was over, Alonso has thrived in Chilwell’s absence. He was, arguably, Chelsea’s best player in its victory against Tottenham last week. At the start of the month, he had stood out as Tuchel’s side neutralized Liverpool — despite playing the entire second half at a disadvantage — at Anfield.His skill set seems uniquely suited to the exigencies of Tuchel’s system. His height bolsters Chelsea’s back line in defense; his diesel stamina allows him to cover huge tracts of turf over considerable periods of time; his attacking instincts make him a valuable offensive outlet; and his pinpoint delivery makes him a key supply line for Romelu Lukaku.For all his ability, though, Alonso is not an easy player to admire. In 2011, he was at the wheel of a car which crashed into a wall in Madrid while traveling at more than twice the speed limit in wet conditions; a young woman was killed. Alonso’s blood alcohol level was over the legal limit. Five years later, he was told that he would not be sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter, but fined $71,000 and banned from driving for three years, all of which had already been served.This week, he revealed that he had decided that he would stop kneeling in protest of discrimination, preferring instead to point to the officially sanctioned “No Room For Racism” badge that adorns every Premier League jersey.That is his right, of course, and Alonso has made it plain that he is “fully against racism” and has no desire to make a political statement. But still, it is not what you might call a great look: a white player’s deciding that taking the knee is “losing a bit of strength,” and taking unilateral action without consulting any of his Black teammates, several of whom have been the victims of racist abuse.It is worth considering Alonso’s case, though, purely as a sporting phenomenon. He is a relative rarity in modern soccer, in that he is a highly tuned positional specialist in an era when versatility — for the vast majority — is a professional necessity. It is not just that Alonso plays in one position, it is that he appears to succeed only in one interpretation of one position.He is not especially effective as a traditional left back — to an outsider’s eye, he lacks the acceleration to recover — and he is not quite creative enough to play as a left wing. As a left wing-back, though, a blending of the two roles, with cover behind him and options ahead, he is perfect.Alonso’s attacking instincts make him a valuable offensive outlet, and his pinpoint delivery makes him a key supply line for Romelu Lukaku.David Klein/ReutersMore than that, he is a compelling example of a truth that bears repeating: Whether he looks a key cog in Chelsea’s success or a spare part depends not on his basic level of ability — which, within reason, we can assume to have remained essentially consistent — but on the identity and nature of his coach. Under Conte and Tuchel, he has thrived. Under Sarri and Lampard, he drifted. There is, as ever, no such thing as a good or a bad player, only one in the right or wrong system.But most of all, he stands as testament to the work Tuchel has done at Chelsea. It is startling to think that it is only eight months since Alonso was in purdah under Lampard and Chelsea was running the risk of missing out on qualifying for the Champions League.Tuchel has transformed the team at a speed that should not, really, be possible, a speed that even he might have thought was a little too ambitious. When he arrived, he spoke of closing the gap on Manchester City and Liverpool within a season. He did it, instead, almost instantaneously: Chelsea goes into Saturday’s meeting with Pep Guardiola’s team as champion of Europe and City’s apparent equal, if not superior, in the Premier League, too.What makes it all the more impressive is that Tuchel has done it without any great overhaul of his squad. Chelsea added Lukaku and Saúl Ñiguez to its ranks this summer, of course, but mostly Tuchel has simply repurposed the tools he has inherited, even the peculiar, esoteric ones, like Alonso.His is not so much a triumph of making square pegs fit in round holes, but of changing the location of the holes so that the dodecahedrons can work, too, taking all of the raw materials he was handled — all of the players who might have thought their time was up, who might have been written off, who might have gone another way — and turned them into a purring, smooth-running machine.The criteria a player and a manager are subject to are not the same; more than that, they are diametrically opposed. A player can only thrive in a system suited to their abilities. The truest test of a manager, though, is to find that system, regardless of the players.If You Build It, They Will Come. Sometimes.The crowd wasn’t particularly thin for Manchester City’s draw with Southampton last week, but it was empty enough to bother Pep Guardiola. Andrew Yates/EPA, via ShutterstockThere was, as there was always going to be, just a little mirth at the end of Manchester City’s goal-less draw with Southampton last week. Only a few days earlier, Pep Guardiola had been busy scolding the club’s fans for not coming in sufficient numbers to City’s Champions League game with RB Leipzig; this was not, as the scoffing went, the best way to persuade them to heed his call.There is not a vast amount to be gained from lingering on the details of that curious little spat — Guardiola seemed to complain that the stadium wasn’t full; a representative of City’s fans suggested that maybe not everyone can afford to pay eye-watering ticket prices to watch soccer once a week; Guardiola said he had not complained, so did not have to apologize — but there is a lesson at the heart of it that soccer as a whole will, soon, need to address.It is easy to understand why Guardiola is frustrated that the team he has built — the best in City’s history, one of the finest England has ever seen, a side that not only essentially guarantees victory every week, but does so with a style that it is impossible not to admire — might not sell out for a game against a (recently-established) European power.And yet that is not quite the whole story. Guardiola was at pains to tell the club’s fans that his team “needs” them, but that does not quite have the ring of truth. City, more than anyone else, does not really need an external, emotional impetus. It is a smooth, slick, unrelenting machine, regardless of its surroundings. That is no criticism; it is testament to both the club’s investment and his coaching. It is what makes City so successful.But a guarantee of victory, and of victory obtained through dominance, is not necessarily the sort of thing that attracts fans. It reduces the urgency of attending: Why go and see this win, when another win is around the corner? Why spend that money on a low-stakes game — a Champions League group-stage opener — against a team that is not especially familiar when you could save it for one that means much more?It is not certainty that attracts fans, that generates atmosphere. It is, instead, the thing that Guardiola has done his very best to extract from every facet of City’s existence: jeopardy. It seems an obvious point to make, but it holds: a 3-2 win is far more memorable than a 5-0 win, particularly if you have had a series of 5-0 wins in the last few weeks and months and years.Deep down, fans thrive on nothing quite so much as drama and risk and doubt. It is that which makes victories taste all the sweeter. The idea of an endless series of processions is appealing, but only to a certain point; after a while, it loses its edge. Fans like to feel needed, as if they are making some difference to the end result, whether that is true or not.At City, that is often not the case. That has always been true of all of the elite teams — Chelsea and Liverpool and Paris St.-Germain and Real Madrid and all the rest — and is becoming more and more true as the iniquities in the game grow more stark. Certain clubs have always expected victory. Worse, they now get it, almost every week. On the surface, a goal-less draw with Southampton may have been the last thing Guardiola wanted. In reality, it may have been exactly what he needed: a little reminder, to City’s fans, that nothing is entirely guaranteed.Preziosi MemoriesEnrico Preziosi appears to have sold a controlling interest in Genoa. But we have been here before. Simone Arveda/EPA, via ShutterstockThis time, it seems as if it is for real. Enrico Preziosi has come close to selling Genoa, the famed Serie A team he has run like a medieval fief since 2003, a couple of times in the last few years. There was a memorandum of understanding with at least one American finance house. There was a dalliance with a consortium with links to Qatar.It is worth treating reports that he has sold a majority stake in the club to 777 Partners, an investment firm based in Miami, with just a pinch of skepticism: Preziosi would not, after all, be the first old-school Italian owner to sell up and then change his mind. Both Silvio Berlusconi and Maurizio Zamparini, men cut from similar cloth to Preziosi, managed to reappear after apparently divesting themselves from their teams.Most Genoa fans will hope, of course, that this is the last they see of the 73-year-old toy magnate. He has not, after all, been what you would call a model owner. Under what might, in a kind light, be called his stewardship, the club has recruited and fired managers. He has been found guilty of match-fixing. He has proved profoundly incapable of taking the club, well, anywhere.Though the record of Serie A’s other North American owners — there are now seven teams with U.S. or Canadian ownership — is mixed, it would not take much for 777 Partners to be an upgrade: a little stability, and some thinking only a touch more strategic than “appoint the same guy over and over again at the first sign of trouble,” would just about do it.More and more teams in Italy are starting to think that way; as much as Preziosi’s departure means the league is just a little less colorful, just a little less chaotic, it is a sign that things are changing. If this is, indeed, his exit from Serie A, it is part of a marked shift away from the way things used to be, and slowly, gradually, toward how they ought to be.CorrespondenceBen Cohn starts off with a good, precise question on international soccer — “Is my impression that players participate out of love, and the quest for glory, without really getting paid right?” but then follows it up with the sort of question that screams “trap” to any self-respecting newsletter writer: “Does any country other than the U.K. field multiple teams?”Let’s do the one that is not a political land mine first. In the men’s game, generally, players are paid an appearance fee for playing for their country: an amount that is, to elite professionals, basically a nominal sum and is, in quite a few cases, often donated to charity, rather than being spent on watches or supercars or herds of goats or whatever it is players spend money on.As for your second question, which has a very Ted Lasso vibe about it: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all different countries. The U.K. is best thought of as a house that four individuals, all with very different needs and interests and wants, happen to share, sometimes happily and sometimes begrudgingly, and occasionally one or other of them threatens to leave, because they feel that their grandparents were forced to sign a cotenancy agreem… no, I’m stretching it. It’s simple: They are separate countries in soccer, rugby, health care and policing; they are the U.K. at the Olympics and in foreign policy; and they are all called England in cricket.On to simpler matters. “I’m no expert, not at all, but is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer not trying to impose a Manchester City-style possession system at Manchester United?” Tom Karsay asks. “Sure looks that way to me. Last year they were a counterattack side, like everybody else.”I’m no expert, either, Tom, but would say it’s quite hard to discern precisely what Solskjaer wants Manchester United to be. The problem, as it goes, may be that he’s not an expert, either. More

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    Rudy Riska, the Heisman Trophy’s Guiding Light, Dies at 85

    For over 40 years he oversaw the awarding of the prestigious trophy to the nation’s top college football player and helped winners on their “magic carpet ride” in New York.Rudy Riska, who first glimpsed the Heisman Trophy on its pedestal at the Downtown Athletic Club in Lower Manhattan when he was a boy, and who years later became the invaluable guide, counselor and mentor for the young men who won it, died on Sept. 12 in a Brooklyn hospital. He was 85.His daughter Elizabeth Briody said the causes were dementia and pneumonia.For more than 40 years, the self-effacing Mr. Riska ran the organization at the club that awarded the Heisman to the year’s outstanding football player. He oversaw the itinerary of the winners and encouraged them to think seriously about what they would say in their acceptance speeches. He bought tickets to Broadway shows for their families, made reservations at top restaurants and organized the annual Heisman dinner in Manhattan, which drew as many as 2,000 guests.Mr. Riska developed that job as the athletic director of the Downtown Athletic Club, the trophy’s longtime home. He had noticed that no one was supervising the winner’s activities when he was in Manhattan for the award ceremony.“They were just college kids plucked from their campuses and suddenly flown to New York,” he told The New York Times in 2010. “They were often unsophisticated kids. Most had never played on national television. Many had never been on an airplane until they flew to New York. Their heads were spinning.”In 1961, Mr. Riska accompanied the Syracuse halfback Ernie Davis to meet President John F. Kennedy at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, while toting the 45-pound bronze trophy. Four years later, Mr. Riska threw passes at Battery Park to Mike Garrett, the University of Southern California halfback, who wanted to work out.“I realize how much power he had,” said Desmond Howard of the University of Michigan, seen here with Mr. Riska when he won the Heisman in 1991, “but he never put it on display.” Barton Silverman/The New York Times“I got there and Rudy put his arm around me and the rest was like a magic carpet ride,” Eddie George, the Ohio State running back who won the Heisman in 1995, told The Times. “And that was what Rudy wanted. He wanted every winner to remember his weekend forever.”Mr. Riska worked entirely behind the scenes — fans watching the televised annual ceremony would not likely have known his name or face — but the winners understood his importance.“I realize how much power he had, but he never put it on display,” Desmond Howard, the 1991 Heisman winner, said by phone. “When everyone defers to you, you must have power, but he carried himself as someone who served you and took care of all your needs.”Rudolph James Riska was born on Aug. 22, 1936, in Manhattan to Rudolph and Elizabeth (Marecek) Riska. His mother cleaned offices. His family lived for a while near the Downtown Athletic Club, in the financial district, and when he was 11 his father took him to see the Heisman.“I stared at the names engraved on the trophy,” he told The Times. “How lucky can a guy be to end up in a job where those names come to life and they become your friends?”His athletic focus as a youngster was baseball, not football. He threw a no-hitter for Metropolitan High School, which attracted the interest of the Yankees, who signed him to a contract. He played on low-level minor league teams in the Yankee system from 1955 to 1958 and the Baltimore Orioles’ system in 1959. At the Aberdeen, S.D., affiliate of the Orioles, his manager was Earl Weaver, the Orioles’ future Hall of Famer. He compiled a 36-33 record, but chronic bursitis ended his career.“What I think I have been able to do,” Mr. Riska once said, “is guide and protect the Heisman from people who might try to make money the wrong way on it. I like to view myself as the conscience of the Heisman.”Barton Silverman/The New York TimesHe went to work as a salesman for the sporting goods company Rawlings, but after two years he accepted a job with the Downtown Athletic Club. He was soon named to the post of athletic director, the position that John Heisman, the trophy’s namesake, held there until his death in 1936.As athletic director, Mr. Riska developed fitness and sports programs for club members and created events that honored renowned athletes. But it was as the executive director of the Heisman Trophy Trust and the Heisman Foundation that he was largely known.“What I think I have been able to do,” he told The Bay Ridge Paper in 2003, “is guide and protect the Heisman from people who might try to make money the wrong way on it. I like to view myself as the conscience of the Heisman.”He retired in 2004, three years after the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath led the club to close permanently. The trophy, which is awarded by a vote of members of the sports media and past winners, was moved to various locations and is now held at the Heisman Trust’s office in Manhattan.In addition to his daughter Elizabeth, Mr. Riska is survived by his wife, Josephine (Karpoich) Riska, known as Lorraine; another daughter, Barbara Piersiak; and four grandchildren.For a time, 15 or 20 of the past Heisman winners who traveled to New York City for the annual anointing of the newest winner took time off during the weekend to commemorate their achievements at a Blarney Stone bar near the club.“People might have been looking for them, but I’d let them go off by themselves for a couple of hours,” Mr. Riska told The Times. “They would let their hair down with their wives, rubbing shoulders with these blue-collar construction workers. It was a collection of some of the best college football players ever. But they just wanted to hang out with a regular crowd.” More

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    Jimmy Greaves, English Soccer Star, Is Dead at 81

    He was the first player to lead scoring in England’s top league for three straight seasons, but he may be best known for one game he missed: the 1966 World Cup final.Jimmy Greaves, one of the greatest goal scorers in English soccer, has died. He was 81.Tottenham Hotspur, where he played for nine years, announced his death on Sunday but did not say where he died or cite the cause.Greaves suffered a minor stroke in 2012. His family thought he had made a full recovery, but he had a more severe stroke in 2015.An all-around striker as adept with his head as he was with either foot, Greaves scored 44 goals in just 57 matches for England.But even though he was the first player to lead scoring in England’s top league for three straight seasons, he may be best known for one game he missed: the World Cup final.Greaves was England’s star striker going into the 1966 tournament on home soil. But he was injured in a first-round match against France and surrendered his place in the lineup to Geoff Hurst.Hurst scored the only goal in England’s quarterfinal win over Argentina and kept his place on the team at the expense of Greaves. Hurst earned lasting fame by scoring the first hat trick in a World Cup final; Greaves famously sat impassively on the bench as England celebrated their 4-2 win over West Germany at the final whistle.Substitutions were not permitted at the time and squad members didn’t receive medals, as they have at World Cups since 1974. A campaign by fans led to the presentation of medals to Greaves and 10 other members of the squad, known as the “forgotten heroes,” in 2009. Greaves sold his 18-carat medal at auction in 2014 for £44,000 (about $60,000).“It was devastating for me that I didn’t play in the final,” Greaves said in 2009. “I always believed that we would win the World Cup and I’d be part of it, but I wasn’t.”Greaves in 2013. After his soccer career ended, he moved into television.Action Images/Action ImagesJames Peter Greaves was born on Feb. 20, 1940, in East London. He began playing for Chelsea when he was 17.At 20 years and 290 days, he became the youngest player to tally 100 league goals in English soccer. He scored 41 times, a club record, in the 1960-61 season to secure a lucrative move to A.C. Milan.He scored nine goals in 12 games with Milan but did not settle in Italy, instead ending his brief stay to return to London with Tottenham, where he would spend the next nine years and score 266 goals in 380 games, a club record.Tottenham’s manager, Bill Nicholson, paid £99,999 for Greaves — to spare him the pressure, he said, of being England’s first 100,000-pound player.The move apparently worked: Greaves scored a hat trick in his opening match, a 5-2 win over Blackpool, and helped Tottenham retain the Football Association Cup.In 1963, he scored twice in a 5-1 win over Atletico Madrid in the European Cup Winners Cup, a victory that made Tottenham the first British side to win a European trophy. He was the first division’s leading scorer — a feat he would repeat in 1964, 1965 and 1969.Greaves switched to West Ham in 1970, traded for his former England teammate Martin Peters. He retired at the end of the season with a record total of 357 goals in 516 league matches.He made a brief comeback for the nonleague club Barnet in 1978, but soon quit again and moved into television. He was a presenter of the long-running Saturday show “Saint and Greavsie” in Britain with the former Liverpool player Ian St. John.Information on survivors was not immediately available. More

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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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    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