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    Tom Brady, Defying Age, Heads to Another Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThrough Genetics, Luck or ‘Prehab,’ Tom Brady Endures at 43The mother of the opposing Super Bowl LV quarterback was a year old when Brady was born. What’s he still doing here?Tom Brady, seemingly defying nature at 43, is about to play in his 10th Super Bowl. Credit…Brett Duke/Associated PressFeb. 7, 2021Updated 9:11 a.m. ETFootball fans know what old quarterbacks look like as they fade away. It is not like Tom Brady.Old quarterbacks hobble around the field, propped on stiff hips and achy knees, their arms ragged and their faces craggy. They look like survivors, elevated in myth but diminished in stature.Vaults and minds are filled with clips of Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Brett Favre and all the other creaky quarterbacks who tempted the fates of time and tradition, shunning retirement until deep — maybe too deep — into Hall-of-Fame careers.When John Elway played his last game, winning a Super Bowl, he was 38. Peyton Manning did the same at 39. Rigid and worn, older quarterbacks usually move as if they might be unable to tie the laces on their cleats.Then there is Brady, a cyborg. He is 43. Does he have a wrinkle on his face? Is his arm bionic? Are his joints made of rubber? He probably can tie his own laces while doing downward dog.“You look at this guy and think, ‘Wow, it’s absolutely incredible,” said Gordon Lithgow, a professor and vice president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif. “Is he actually aging at a slower rate than other people?”That is the question football fans are asking ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl LV between Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs.The answer appears to be yes, at least in football terms. The hard question is why.“There’s no way that elite athletes are immune to aging,” Lithgow said. “You can see quite a precipitous drop-off in performance — even though they are way above average, it’s still happening at the same rates.”Brady, who is in his first season with Tampa Bay after 20 years with the New England Patriots, will be the oldest player to participate in a Super Bowl, at any position. He is the only quarterback to start a Super Bowl after age 40, and he is about to do it for the third time.Brady was born in 1977, the summer of “Star Wars,” Son of Sam and the death of Elvis (at 42, notably). Brady has been alive for every victory in Tampa Bay franchise history. (The Buccaneers were 0-14 in 1976, their inaugural season.)The 18-year age gap between him and Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the biggest ever between Super Bowl starting quarterbacks. When Brady was born, Mahomes’s mother was 1.Brady, who will face Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl, is a contemporary of Mahomes’s mother.Credit…Jason Behnken/Associated PressBrady was selected in the 2000 N.F.L. draft and has been a starting quarterback since New England’s second game after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Each of the 11 other quarterbacks drafted in 2000 (Brady was the seventh taken) has been out of the N.F.L. for at least nine years. This will be his 10th Super Bowl. He has won six of them and earned the game’s Most Valuable Player Award four times.“If anyone has any superlatives that haven’t been used yet, you know how to get in touch with me,” said Jim Nantz, the Super Bowl play-by-play announcer for CBS. “My reservoir is bone dry.”Sports fans are accustomed to the inevitability of late-career declines by stars. But this season Brady threw 40 touchdowns, the second-highest total of his career. Still mobile in the pocket, he was sacked at a lower rate than his career average. Hardly a weak-armed version of his past self, he recorded an average air distance on his throws, whether completed or not, that was longer (9.1 yards) than in the previous two seasons with New England.Brady looks more like his younger self than like a doddering old quarterback.Is he the best athlete ever? How can that be measured?Brady may not be the best football player, or even the best quarterback. But through an incalculable algorithm of excellence, consistency and time, Brady might come out No. 1.Peddling His PliabilityBrady, though, might not be No. 1 in the hearts of football fans. Age and accomplishment bring respect to older athletes, but Brady and the Patriots dynasty of the past two decades proved especially hard to adore for those outside New England. They won steadily behind their cranky coach, Bill Belichick, and the cool Brady, who long ago shed any underdog charm he brought into the league as a sixth-round draft pick.The Patriots rarely dazzled. They were seldom fun. They were respected in the way that steamrollers are. They swapped coordinators, shuffled the roster and got older, yet Belichick and Brady kept winning. It was hard to explain. Any awe came from their relentless efficiency.Controversies surrounding accusations of cheating — Spygate in 2007, Deflategate in 2015 — cling loosely to their championships, like dryer sheets on fresh laundry.Brady’s skills have never been obvious, but he was always there, smiling and holding the trophy. It could seem a bit much — his persistent winning, his sunny but vapid California disposition, his supermodel wife, his Uggs.Now he is recast with the Buccaneers, an innocuous franchise that elicits little emotional reflex, playing for an affable coach in Bruce Arians, an anti-Belichick. And Brady, wearing a new costume, performs like a carnival act — Come see the ageless man! — as audiences gather in wonder for another look, if not the last one.Nantz has twice thought he had broadcast Brady’s last game — two years ago in a Super Bowl victory, last season in a playoff loss. Will this Super Bowl be the end? It does not seem so. Brady talks of playing to 45, maybe beyond.His age is now his business. Brady has marketed his longevity, packaged it into something called the TB12 Method, and explained it in a 2017 book espousing muscle “pliability.” The goal is a spongy elasticity that can absorb all that life throws at a body, even that of an aging quarterback.Brady’s longevity is now his business. His company offers TB12 Performance Meals, “freshly frozen for your active lifestyle.”Credit…Maddie Meyer/Getty Images“Balderdash,” one physiology professor has said of the pliability theory.Brady’s long career is not just vital to the pitch. It is the pitch. The main headline on the TB12 home page reads, “Still Here,” mocking our amazement. The implication is clear: The elusive Fountain of Youth might come boxed in a “TB12 Immunity Gameplan Starter Kit” ($175).There are no N.F.L. logos, no mentions of the Patriots or Buccaneers — just the lure of youthfulness and positivity. Whenever he retires from football, Brady will still be in our lives, selling not cars, pizza or insurance, but aspiration and lifestyle — part Jack LaLanne, part Gwyneth Paltrow.Items for sale include TB12 Performance Meals, “freshly frozen for your active lifestyle.” Brady’s diet is mostly plant-based — but no strawberries, because he detests the smell of them, a trait that football opponents have somehow been unable to exploit. He fills his body with protein shakes, TB12-branded electrolytes and lots of water — “Drink at least one-half of your body weight in ounces of water daily,” he instructs on the site.TB12 also sells dietary supplements, exercise equipment (lots of stretchy bands and vibrating rollers and balls) and clothing (including shirts reading “20 Seasons” and “Tampa Brady”).Acolytes can make an appointment with a TB12 Body Coach, “your partner in performance and recovery,” either virtually or at one of several TB12 locations in Massachusetts and Florida. “Replacing injury and rehab with pliability and prehab” is a catchphrase. Sleep and mindfulness are also promoted at TB12 as key components to good health.The prevailing mood is calm, which feels counter to football’s grunting culture of power and testosterone. All that is missing are candles scented like Tom Brady.Does his philosophy work? Is that the key to his football longevity, or is Brady merely the beneficiary of great genes and luck?After all, he has not missed a game because of injury since 2008.“Genetics is probably less than 10 percent of the equation,” Lithgow, the aging expert, said. “That means that there’s a whole lot of stuff out there, in terms of environment, everything we’re exposed to, that actually plays a much, much larger part — which is kind of good news, actually. It means that maybe we have some ability to control our own rate of aging.”Brady and his “method” suggest that he has found the optimal blend of diet, exercise and sleep. Those factors certainly affect aging, Lithgow said.“But — and it’s a big but,” he said, “with any of these interventions or systems, we can’t say anything about them until they’re subject to a normal double-blind clinical trial.”“If you find something that works for you, that’s great,” Lithgow added. “That’s just looking after yourself, and it’s not science, and it’s not something you can necessarily recommend for your next-door neighbor because they may respond completely differently to it.”For someone so adept at selling himself, Brady has been shrouded in suspicion of his own making. In 2015, he was the focus of Deflategate, the N.F.L. investigation into whether Brady instructed team employees to reduce the air pressure in footballs below the league standard to gain some sort of advantage. (Brady was suspended in 2016 for four games, the only ones he has missed since 2008.) In recent years, a relationship with the controversial fitness guru Alex Guerrero has further cast Brady as someone trying to hide something.Alex Guerrero, a fitness guru who is Brady’s partner in TB12, is also the quarterback’s trainer, counselor and adviser, as well as godfather to one of his sons.Credit…Scott Eisen/Getty ImagesGuerrero, a purveyor of holistic medicine, was charged in 2004 by the Federal Trade Commission with deceptively marketing an herbal supplement called Supreme Greens. Infomercials starring “Dr. Guerrero” (he has no doctorate or license to practice medicine) claimed the product could prevent and cure cancer, diabetes and heart disease, among other maladies, and spur substantial weight loss. The case was settled in 2005, and Guerrero was required to pay $65,000 or to give up his 2004 Cadillac Escalade.That is about when Brady and Guerrero began working closely together. They founded TB12 in 2013. In 2015, a New York Times article referred to Guerrero as Brady’s “best friend” and “his spiritual guide, counselor, pal, nutrition adviser, trainer, massage therapist and family member.” He is a godfather to one of Brady’s sons.Guerrero’s constant presence around the Patriots reportedly caused friction with Belichick, who kept Guerrero off the team plane and limited his sideline access in 2017. In 2018, another player working with Guerrero, receiver Julian Edelman, was suspended for four games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance.Brady has made theater of not discussing Guerrero. During a weekly radio obligation in Boston in 2018, he refused to answer questions about Guerrero and hung up.After Brady’s contract expired last year, the Patriots reportedly did not offer a new deal. Only two teams, the Buccaneers and the Los Angeles Chargers, took serious runs at him. Brady left for Tampa Bay, taking Guerrero with him.In October, Brady posted birthday wishes to Guerrero on Instagram. “It’s not often in life we find people that share so many common beliefs,” he wrote, in part. “Love you big bro!!”A Merchandising PhenomenonWhatever Brady is doing, his ability to defy his age has captured the collective imagination of football fans.When the N.F.L. playoffs began, they seemed like a seniors tournament. Drew Brees (42), Philip Rivers (39), Ben Roethlisberger (38) and Aaron Rodgers (37) all led their teams into the postseason. Each is likely to end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Only the oldest of the elders, Brady, reached the Super Bowl — again.Last year, Mahomes merchandise (jerseys and numbered T-shirts) set sales records during the two weeks before the Super Bowl, according to Fanatics, which operates online stores for the N.F.L.Brady merchandise surpassed the two-week total for Mahomes items just three days after Tampa Bay won a spot in the Super Bowl, the company said.Buccaneers fans on Tampa’s Riverwalk. Brady has said he would like to play in the N.F.L. until he is 45 and perhaps beyond.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York Times“The greatest who ever walked,” said the former quarterback Tony Romo, who will be Nantz’s broadcast partner for the Super Bowl.Romo had a 14-year N.F.L. career, long by most standards. But he is three years younger than Brady, and he retired four seasons ago with a sore back.Fans know what old quarterbacks look like. They can see one in the broadcast booth on Sunday.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How the Chiefs and Buccaneers Got to the Super Bowl

    How the Chiefs and Buccaneers Got to the Super BowlJason Behnken/Associated PressNearly everyone expected Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to be back in the Super Bowl. Far fewer people thought Tom Brady, at 43, could take Tampa Bay this far.Here’s a look at the road to Sunday’s game for both teams → More

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    Peyton Manning Selected for Pro Football Hall of Fame

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPeyton Manning Selected for Pro Football Hall of FameThe selections of Charles Woodson and Calvin Johnson for the Hall of Fame were also announced at the N.F.L. Honors on Saturday. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was named the most valuable player.Peyton Manning, the former Colts and Broncos quarterback, was selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He was known for his intense game preparation.Credit…Jack Dempsey/Associated PressFeb. 6, 2021A pair of Aarons pulled off an N.F.L. hat trick Saturday night.Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers earned his third Associated Press Most Valuable Player Award, while Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald took his third top defensive player prize at N.F.L. Honors.Another notable trio for the night: Charles Woodson, Peyton Manning and Calvin Johnson, who were selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.Also taking home awards were two members of the Washington Football Team: quarterback Alex Smith won the Comeback Player of the Year Award in one of the most inspirational stories of 2020, and edge rusher Chase Young was recognized as the top defensive rookie.Derrick Henry, the Tennessee Titans’ 2,000-yard rusher, won the Offensive Player of the Year Award, and the offensive rookie honor went to Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski was named the coach of the year, and Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll earned assistant coach honors.Rodgers had perhaps the best season of his 16-year career, leading Green Bay to a 13-3 regular season, the N.F.C.’s best mark. Just a few months after questions arose about his comfort level with the Packers — and their choosing a quarterback in the first round of April’s draft — Rodgers, who turned 37 in December, tore up the N.F.L. Rodgers topped the league with 48 touchdown passes with a completion rate of 70.7 percent. He was picked off just five times.The night also belonged to Manning, the quarterback whose meticulous attention to detail helped turn the 21st-century gridiron into a chessboard on turf. The son of Saints legend Archie Manning and brother of two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning will be joined later this year in Canton by another first-ballot lock, Woodson, the defensive back who beat out Peyton Manning for the Heisman Trophy in 1997, and then spent nearly two decades trying to stop him. Johnson, who was known as Megatron, was also a first-ballot selection, his mere nine years of playmaking excellence with the Detroit Lions more than enough to persuade the panel.Also making it were guard Alan Faneca, who made nine Pro Bowls and missed only one game over 13 seasons with the Steelers, Jets and Cardinals; and John Lynch, the hard-hitting safety who burnished his reputation in Tampa Bay, which plays Kansas City for the Super Bowl title Sunday.Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson was selected in the senior category; former Raiders Coach Tom Flores, as a coach; and longtime Steelers scout Bill Nunn as a contributor.Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers won his third Most Valuable Player Award on Saturday after leading his team to a 13-3 record this season.Credit…Mike Roemer/Associated PressIn a nod to Covid-19, the voters eschewed their traditional all-day meeting Saturday in favor of a virtual gathering on Jan. 19. The winners’ names were made public at the N.F.L. Honors awards ceremony Saturday night. Jaguars left tackle Tony Boselli and Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas were among the finalists whose names were not called.Manning going into the hall was all but preordained. That’s fitting, in a way, because he was known for his intense preparation during the week and at the line of scrimmage, doing all he could to eliminate doubt about the result of every play before it happened.His work in the video room, his “voluntary” off-season throw-and-catch sessions with receivers, his quizzing of coaches and teammates alike during practices — all were the stuff of legend.When Manning retired after leading the Broncos to the title in 2016, he had the career records for passing yardage (71,940) and touchdowns (539), among others, and was part of the conversation as Greatest Of All Time.Drew Brees and Tom Brady have eclipsed those numbers. Brady, playing in his 10th Super Bowl on Sunday, will with a win on Sunday join Manning as the second quarterback to lead two franchises to a title. Still, he’s well aware of Manning’s role in making the modern-day passing game what it is today.“Like any great quarterback, there’s a lot of responsibility that you take on,” Brady said in the past week in reflecting on Manning’s place in the game. “You want to make sure everything’s a reflection of how you see the game and you want to make sure everyone’s on the same page. And when everyone’s seeing it through the same set of eyes, it’s a great way to play football.”He ushered in an era that turned the reading of the Xs and Os from an art to a science, setting the template for a modern-day passing game very much reliant on pre-snap reads that lead to quick decisions and allow the smartest of quarterbacks to get out of bad plays before they happen.All those smarts, of course, belied a physical gift that allowed Manning to play for 18 years, including a comeback from four delicate neck surgeries that left him unable to grip a football at first.Weeks after the second operation, Manning sneaked off to a Colorado Rockies batting cage to throw, but his first toss went about 5 yards before fluttering to the ground. Not three years later, Manning threw 55 touchdown passes — that record still stands as the most in a season — and started in the Super Bowl for the Broncos. Two seasons after that, he wasn’t in much better shape, ailing with an arch injury that cost him half the season and what was left of his limited mobility. But he guided the Broncos to a win in Super Bowl 50 — then left the field forever.Manning both entered and exited the N.F.L. the same time as Woodson, the cornerback who went to one Super Bowl in his first eight years with the Raiders, then went to Green Bay to win his only Super Bowl title, before finishing out his career as a safety in Oakland.He finished his career with 65 interceptions and 13 defensive touchdowns, tied for the career record with Rod Woodson and Darren Sharper.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    A Guide to Super Bowl 2021: What You Need to Know

    The game will be broadcast on CBS and streamed free on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app, which is available on various smartphones and streaming platforms. Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will provide the commentary, as they did two years ago (last year’s game was on Fox). ESPN Deportes will provide Spanish coverage.

    You can also follow along with New York Times reporters on our website and app, where we’ll be discussing the game, the ads and the halftime show. We highly recommend it!

    Among the broadcasters worldwide are Seven Network (Australia), CTV (Canada), L’Équipe (France), DAZN (Germany), the BBC (U.K.) and Viasat Sport East (Uzbekistan). More

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    Why Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of the TimesWhy Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super BowlThe Buccaneers receiver has been one of the most electrifying players in the N.F.L., but he is facing accusations of sexual assault and harassment.Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been one of the best receivers in the N.F.L., but has faced serious accusations of abuse against women.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesFeb. 6, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ETGet over it.That was the message Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown tried to convey this past week.The past doesn’t matter, he seemed to say. With the Super Bowl upon us, the only concern should be about his ability to catch passes on Sunday.Brown’s preferred talking points were his love for quarterback Tom Brady, his team’s drive to beat the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs, and his comeback.That comeback did not involve an injury that eroded his electrifying talent on the field. Those skills have remained sufficiently intact for Brown, 32, to find a plush spot in the N.F.L., in spite of the history he did not want to discuss at a requisite pre-Super Bowl news conference.“I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not a focus of this game,” he said.Those things include withering verbal abuse aimed at the mother of three of his children and recorded on video. And an accusation of sexual harassment that was described in detail in a national magazine. And a looming lawsuit accusing him of rape, a claim that Brown has vociferously denied.Now, he is one win from a championship ring after off-the-field trouble sent his career into one of the most stunning tumbles experienced by a star athlete in recent memory.Tampa Bay gambled on him in a way that no other team dared, signing Brown to a one-year contract in October after he had been out of the game for a season and a half. The Buccaneers did not heed commentators who, looking at the pattern of trouble around Brown, said he needed time away from the league — possibly for good, but at least until his lawsuit was resolved.The team also chose to look past the #MeToo movement and its fundamental lesson: Women with stories of pain, and of powerlessness in their dealings with famous men, should be heard and taken seriously.Let’s remember that one in four women are subjected to abuse by intimate partners during their lifetimes, according to a government report. Let’s think of what they endure every time they see athletes like Brown, with unresolved accusations around them, take the field.Let’s listen to Brenda Tracy, who describes herself as the survivor of a 1998 gang rape by a group of men that included two Oregon State football players. The players weren’t criminally charged, but they were suspended by the coach for making “a bad choice.” Tracy became an advocate for abused women, working toward change by sharing her story with anyone who will listen. Colleges across the country have hired her to speak to their athletic teams.“I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this year,” she told me. “With Antonio Brown out there, it’s just too much.”Ahead of the big game, Brown characterized himself as a changed man — humbled, grateful, and in control. He spoke in quiet, careful tones. He gave the sense that he sees the accusations as a chance to prove that he can conquer adversity, mostly by catching Brady’s passes.“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate,” Brown said.Tom Brady said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” as Patriots teammates. Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressWhat he really wanted was to move on.Let’s not. Let’s look at the claims, made by a personal trainer named Britney Taylor, in the lawsuit.In court filings, Taylor said that Brown assaulted her twice in 2017. She also asserted that Brown raped her in 2018.Through his legal team, the wide receiver has denied the accusations. He has countersued, accusing Taylor of defamation. Brown and Taylor were involved in a “consensual personal relationship,” his lawyer said in a statement.It is important to remember that the court proceedings can still be avoided if the two parties reach a settlement. It is not a criminal trial, in which Brown would face the possibility of prison.But Britney Taylor isn’t alone.In a Sports Illustrated article, an artist made detailed accusations of sexual harassment by Brown. The wide receiver also once targeted the mother of three of his children with a profane tirade and then posted a video of the incident on social media.On Twitter in 2018, he threatened a reporter from ESPN’s The Undefeated who wrote an article about Brown’s thorny personal life and turbocharged social media use. Brown ended up apologizing through a statement: “It is not OK to threaten anyone, and I need to be better spiritually and professionally.”That year he also settled a lawsuit that accused him of throwing heavy furniture from his 14th-floor apartment and nearly hitting a toddler.Brown’s exasperating behavior as a teammate prompted the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade him to the Oakland Raiders in 2019. Just before the start of the season, the Raiders dumped him for similar reasons.He landed briefly in New England, early in Brady’s final season with the Patriots. The lawsuit accusing Brown of rape soon became public, followed by the artist’s accusations of harassment. His third employer of that year cut him loose.Brady, who said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” in New England, endorsed Tampa Bay’s decision to bring the receiver aboard midway through this season. When Brown arrived in town, he initially lived in Brady’s home.Yet Brown and the Buccaneers seem like an odd pairing. The team has two full-time female coaches, and there were only eight in the entire league this season. The Women’s Sports Foundation has honored Coach Bruce Arians for supporting women in the N.F.L.But Arians proved that talent matters more than principle.Sadly, that’s too often the bottom line for male stars in major sports. If you are accused of abusing or harassing women and are easy to replace, your job is probably gone. It doesn’t take a conviction, trial or arrest. (See Jared Porter, the former New York Mets general manager who was fired after accusations that he had repeatedly sent inappropriate texts to a female reporter.)If you are a star, well, your entitlement is virtually unlimited.Brown signed with the Buccaneers just after completing an eight-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The reason for that penalty? He had pleaded no contest to burglary and assault charges after a dispute with a truck driver.He had every opportunity to express remorse for that incident this past week. He did not. So again, let’s listen instead to women, to people who won’t be in front of a huge global audience this weekend.Mindy Murphy runs The Spring of Tampa Bay, the largest shelter serving domestic violence survivors in Hillsborough County, home to the Buccaneers.When the N.F.L. tried to change its culture a few years ago, after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was caught striking his fiancée, Murphy helped conduct training with the Buccaneers on abuse.Now she feels disillusioned.Seeing Brown chase a Super Bowl ring is a “disservice to what survivors have experienced,” she said. “When a team in the N.F.L. says, ‘We are going to hire him, and he deserves a second chance,’ or they say, ‘We don’t know for sure what’s happened, because it happened behind closed doors,’ they reinforce the idea that it’s not a good idea to speak up.”Remember that while watching the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl, and also remember Brown’s past.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Newcastle, Leeds and the Importance of Being … Something

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRory Smith On SoccerNewcastle, Leeds and the Importance of Being … SomethingWandering about without a plan inspires neither affection nor success. So why do so many clubs still do it?Newcastle has won only one of its last 11 Premier League games.Credit…Pool photo by Stu ForsterFeb. 6, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETNEWCASTLE, England — The sound system at St James’s Park crackled into life just as the whistle blew and the players took the knee, as they have done for every Premier League game since the spring. The announcement was brief and sweet, an unexpected relic of days past: “Enjoy the game.”In the silence, it was not quite clear who the announcer was addressing. There are only 300 people inside the stadium: the players on the field, the two coaching staffs, a handful of executives, a smattering of stewards and security and journalists. Everyone was there for work, rather than pleasure.And besides, even if the announcer’s words were meant for those in exile at home, the people who would ordinarily pack the empty stands, this is Newcastle United. Few, if any, of the fans would suggest they have enjoyed anything to do with this club for some time.Newcastle is — and has been for a long time — a club in the grip of endemic drift. Its owner, Mike Ashley, wants to sell, so much so that he has sought legal recourse against the Premier League for blocking a potential sale to a Saudi-led consortium last year.The fans, tired of Ashley’s absentee management and his lack of investment, either emotional or financial, want him gone so desperately that they appear ready to embrace any would-be savior, no matter how many concerns there might be about charges of content piracy or human rights abuses.If the loathing for Ashley is universal, the contempt for Steve Bruce — the manager installed by the owner last season — is getting there. It is not just that Bruce used to manage Sunderland, Newcastle’s fierce rival. It is not just that Bruce replaced Rafael Benítez, an object of adoration among the fans. It is not just that Bruce was appointed by Ashley and so — in a way that never applied to Benítez — is perceived as an emissary of a hated regime.Newcastle’s fans are confident they have identified the club’s problem.Credit…Eddie Keogh/ReutersIt is that Bruce, like Ashley, seems to have so little ambition for the club. He has articulated no grand vision of what Newcastle could be. His aspiration seems to stretch no further than stasis, the bare minimum required to maintain the club’s Premier League status. He has no vision beyond the literal wording of his job description: manager.In the middle of another difficult winter at Newcastle, Bruce spoke of addressing a slump in form by doing things “his way.” It was not entirely clear, then, whose way he had been following up to that point: He has been in charge for a season and a half. Quite what his way might be, too, remained a mystery.Those who have worked with him say that Bruce is a good coach, thorough and diligent and likable, if perhaps a little staid, a little cautious. But he espouses no distinct philosophy. He does not have a tightly-defined idea of how the game should be played, or what a squad should look like, or what a team should do. He does not seem to believe in anything in particular. He does not represent anything. He does not stand for anything.Steve Bruce’s Newcastle may be saved from relegation only because three teams are playing worse.Credit…Pool photo by Lee SmithHis counterpart last week, crouching on the touchline a few yards away, is the opposite. Before the game kicked off, Newcastle and Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United were not having vastly different seasons. Both were skirting the edges of the relegation battle: Leeds had 23 points and Newcastle 19, despite having played one extra game.The coverage of the teams — and the mood around them — could not, though, have been more different. Newcastle, as always, was a morass of discontent and bubbling crisis. Leeds, on the other hand, had taken the Premier League by storm, hailed by fans and neutral observers for their courage, their style, their adventure.Bielsa’s team had spent the season as a source of fascination and praise and, lately, a little resentment: No other team could lose by 6-2 to Manchester United, for example, and come out of it not just without criticism but with credit. Some of that, of course, can be attributed to the fact that Leeds, unlike Newcastle, was newly promoted, playing the Premier League for the first time in 16 years. Oscillations in form were to be expected, tolerated.But much of it is down to Bielsa. The Leeds that he has created is, innately, fun: fun to watch, and, though demanding and energy-sapping, apparently fun to be. His players give the impression they are enjoying themselves. Luke Ayling, the right back, charges out of defense like a toddler doped up on sugar. Jack Harrison scurries around like an eager Labrador. Stuart Dallas, in his first season in England’s top flight, has developed a taste for pinging cross-field passes. They put together wonderful, exuberant moves. They score intricate, breathtaking goals.More important, Bielsa’s dogmatism, his fundamentalism, his refusal to compromise his beliefs — all the things that, previously in his career, have been held against him — are now strengths. Leeds stands for something: a way of playing, a series of assumptions about how the game should be, a theory, a creed, an ideal.Leeds Manager Marcelo Bielsa has defenders, and critics. But his players know exactly what he expects.Credit…Andy Rain/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn recent years, soccer has slowly, grudgingly accepted the idea that managers who adhere to a philosophy, a certain set of ideas, are not selling snake oil. It is understood, on some level, that possessing a clear sense of what you want your team to be offers a competitive edge: It helps recruit the right players, it makes coaching them more effective, it offers a barometer of success and purpose that is not reliant on individual results. At an executive level, it can even, at times, ease the transition between one manager and the next.But the benefits of a cogent philosophy are not purely sporting. It has been striking, in Leeds’s low moments under Bielsa, how little discord there has been about his methods. Most fans, if not all, are happy to absorb the lows as an unfortunate, but necessary, recompense for the highs.Subscribing to Bielsa’s philosophy gives them something to take pride and solace in, even when the score line offers no succor. It affords the club, and by extension the fans, an identity. They stand for something that does not depend on results. Newcastle is the opposite. A few days after losing to Leeds, Bruce’s team won at Everton. His side produced a smart, disciplined performance, and the victory alleviated mounting concerns over relegation. It did absolutely nothing to dispel the enduring unhappiness.That contrast, between Leeds and Newcastle, holds outside England’s two great one-club cities. Fans, increasingly, no longer see a manager talking about a philosophy and a vision as marketing jargon or corporate bunk. It is, instead, something to cling to and believe in, a reason to be proud.For much of this season, criticism has swirled around Graham Potter and Brighton. The team has lingered in the lower reaches of the table, its neat, attractive, flexible style of play winning plaudits but few games. He did not flinch when he was told he had to deviate from his methods to get results. More impressively, few of the club’s fans did, either. They understood, and appreciated, his plan. In the space of four days this week, Brighton beat Tottenham and Liverpool.The opposite is true at Chelsea. The dismissal of Frank Lampard and his replacement by Thomas Tuchel, vastly more qualified for the role, was made in order to win trophies; that, after all, is Chelsea’s modern, corporate identity. But it left fans feeling rootless: What mattered to them is not just the outcome, but feeling that the route taken has some deeper meaning.Newcastle has big-club resources. What it does not appear to have is a plan.Credit…Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesThis is not a uniquely English phenomenon. In Europe, fans “no longer recognize themselves in their clubs,” as Le Monde wrote of Bordeaux, Nantes and Marseille this week, three teams with no apparent broader purpose or identity. [A hat-tip to reader Manuel Buchwald for pointing me in the direction of that piece.]For years, fans have endured a growing sense of dislocation from their clubs, feeling unmoored as teams have morphed into superstores and retail brands and content farms and their players into millionaire entrepreneurs. That feeling will, of course, have only been exacerbated by the physical distance enforced by the pandemic.In that environment, clubs now effectively have to stand for something, anything: a reliance on youth, a certain style of play — expansive or exciting or muscular or intense, whatever it may be — or a distinct, bespoke approach. Those who do, like Leeds, earn not only patience from but also the admiration of their fans.Those who do not, like Newcastle, find that when there is no reason to enjoy the game — not the result, not the journey — the fire of fury and regret can quickly curdle into something much more dangerous for a business reliant on the unyielding affection of its public: apathy. That is the lesson Ashley, and Bruce, can teach the rest of soccer, that those who stand for nothing risk dwindling away into it.Maybe We Were Just Early in the Season?Why are these men smiling again? Take a look at the Premier League table.Credit…Pool photo by Nick PottsThis has been, you will have heard, the most unpredictable Premier League season in history. Well, since Leicester City won it, anyway. It has definitely been the most unpredictable season since that one, five years ago.The reality is slightly different. Yes, pretty much the whole top half of the Premier League might still nurse an ambition to qualify for European soccer next season. But the three teams at the foot of the table seem cut adrift, and by the close of play on Sunday, the title race might have swung fairly dramatically toward Manchester City.If City can beat an exhausted, uninspired and injury-ravaged Liverpool at Anfield, Pep Guardiola’s team most likely will have killed off the reigning champion’s dwindling hopes, and gone at least three points clear of its nearest rival — a vastly improved, but still unfinished Manchester United — with a game in hand. City has won 13 games in a row. It has not conceded a goal since the Franco-Prussian War. In a season of twists and turns, it has found a straight road.There is a strong possibility that, the race for the top four aside, a season that was meant to be marked by the unpredictable will end up with the most predictable outcome imaginable. And, though the circumstances of this year have been unusual, it feels as if this is a sensation we have had before.The table is always tight, chaotic, fluid for the first half of any season. The gaps between teams are smaller, because they have played fewer games, and so it takes a while to settle. In the opening few months, every season has an air of uncertainty.It is only now, as we turn the corner into the home straight, that order emerges. That has happened later, chronologically, this season — because the start was delayed by two months — but at the same time as it always does, in terms of games played. The effect has been more pronounced, thanks to the compacted schedule, the empty stadiums and the greater impact of injury and fatigue, but it is not unique. This is what always happens. It is just that we always forget.CorrespondenceThis Danny Ings goal was ruled offside. Yeah, we don’t know why either.Credit…Pool photo by Michael SteeleSadly, Laurence Dandurant has far too much clarity in his thinking to be consulted on how soccer can extricate itself from the nonsense — as any Southampton fan would describe it — it has made of its own offside rule. “Why don’t they change the offside rule to just a player’s boots? This would end the maddening shoulders and armpits debate.”Personally, I’m an advocate of the daylight rule — if any part of the player’s body is onside, the player is onside — but this works just as well.As I was expecting, last week’s column on the Old Firm inspired quite a bit of feedback, though (amazingly) none of it was especially angry. That must be a first. You raised quite a few points I’d like to address, so bear with me.“I completely agree with the sentiment of the Old Firm buying older players hampering their development on a European stage but think the greatest impact has been on the Scotland national team,” Benjamin Livingston wrote. “The Old Firm and the league as a whole are signing journeymen players from down south, rather than giving their own youth a chance.” This is a really important point: the future for Scotland, like (say) Belgium, is in having a much younger league.Catherine Pereira, meanwhile, pointed out that while Scotland’s men’s team has not been to a major tournament for two decades, its women’s team was at the World Cup in 2019, and performed credibly. “The team is ranked 21 in the world by FIFA,” she wrote. “It’s not great, considering Scotland’s history, but it’s not quite as disappointing as the men’s.” Quite right, too, though much of the praise for that should go to a Glasgow team that is not in the Old Firm.Glasgow City played a Champions League knockout-round match last year. Neither Rangers nor Celtic can say that.Credit…Alvaro Barrientos/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWilliam Bradley noted, quite correctly, that last week’s piece ignored the sectarian roots of the Old Firm animosity. “Your story did not touch on or even mention [that], which I must say from your story’s journalistic quality.” That was deliberate. Everyone involved believes sectarianism to be a stain on Scottish soccer that should be left in the past. In a column addressing the future, I decided to take the same approach.And thanks to Ian Stewart, who has touched on something that is, I think, really important. “There seems to be a strain of thinking that prizes turning clubs into machines of player development, churning out young stars to be sold off to fund the next round of stars-in-development,” he wrote. “This is a front-office mind-set, not a fan’s. As a fan, I simply want to see the best team possible being fielded as often as possible.”This is a tension that a host of teams — right up to the likes of Borussia Dortmund — have to navigate: Soccer would lose a lot of its richness if everyone apart from the established financial elite decided their role was simply to feed the insatiable appetite of the powerful. There is a logical counterargument, though: The process of development-and-sale, if done well, can not only help you win today, but enable you to win more in future, as those funds are reinvested in better-quality players. Perhaps, in this case, a front-office mind-set is healthy.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Britt Reid, a Chiefs Assistant Coach, Is Involved in a Car Crash

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritt Reid, a Chiefs Assistant Coach, Is Involved in a Car CrashThe team released a statement confirming that Reid, the son of Kansas City’s head coach, Andy Reid, had been in an accident but provided no other details.Coach Andy Reid with his son Britt, an assistant coach, after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year.Credit…Patrick Semansky/Associated PressKen Belson and Feb. 5, 2021Britt Reid, the outside linebackers coach for the Kansas City Chiefs and the son of the head coach, Andy Reid, was in an automobile crash on Thursday night, the team said in a statement Friday.The crash occurred just days before both men were expected to be in Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl on Sunday, when the Chiefs, the reigning N.F.L. champions, are scheduled to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs were planning to fly to Tampa on Saturday, and it was not clear on Friday whether Britt Reid, 35, would make the trip.The team statement provided no details other than confirming that Reid had been involved in a crash.“We are in the process of gathering information, and we will have no further comment at this time,” the statement said.In response to an inquiry about a possible accident involving Britt Reid, a spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department said that a crash had occurred on Interstate 435, which is not far from the Chiefs’ training facility. But the spokesman would not provide more details or identify anyone who was involved the crash, citing a Missouri law that prohibits the police from releasing the names of people who have not been charged with a crime.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Tom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes: A Battle of the Ages

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesCredit…Jamie Squire / Getty Images, Rob Carr / Getty Images, Charlie Riedel / Associated Press and Mike Roemer / Associated PressSkip to contentSkip to site indexTom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes: A Battle of the AgesMuch has been made about the nearly 20-year age difference between the two quarterbacks. But Super Bowl LV will come down to other numbers.Credit…Jamie Squire / Getty Images, Rob Carr / Getty Images, Charlie Riedel / Associated Press and Mike Roemer / Associated PressSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 5, 2021Updated 8:00 p.m. ETTom Brady and Patrick Mahomes function within the same general constructs that have governed the N.F.L. for more than a century — playing on a field measuring 360 by 160 feet, accompanied by 21 other players, trying to gain 10 yards in four downs.Their approaches, though, are a gulf apart, with each quarterback at the pinnacle of styles that define the modern offensive era. Brady, 43, is a pocket passer extraordinaire, an archetype that is waning as teams try to build around dual-threat quarterbacks like Mahomes, 25, who can lead the dynamic offenses that have reimagined how football is played in 2021.Young Quarterbacks Are on the RunRunning the ball is a younger quarterback’s game, as is apparent in the gap between Patrick Mahomes’s rushing yardage (308) and Tom Brady’s (six). Of the top 18 quarterbacks with the most rushing yards, only four were 30 years old or older. More