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    Kevin Greene, Master of Sacking the Quarterback, Dies at 58

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKevin Greene, Master of Sacking the Quarterback, Dies at 58A charismatic player with seemingly inexhaustible energy, he recorded the third-most sacks in N.F.L. history and the most by a linebacker.The linebacker Kevin Greene in 1994, the year he led the N.F.L. in sacks for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He said that sacking a quarterback brought him relief.Credit…George Gojkovich/Getty ImagesDec. 22, 2020Kevin Greene, a relentless linebacker who attacked quarterbacks like prey on his way to recording the third-most sacks in National Football League history, died on Monday at his home in Destin, Fla. He was 58.The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced his death but did not provide a cause.Over 15 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers, Greene used his speed and strength, mostly from the outside linebacker position, to hunt quarterbacks. His 160 regular-season sacks rank third behind the totals of the defensive ends Bruce Smith (200) and Reggie White (198).“I believed in my heart that I was unblockable,” Greene said in 2016 during his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement in Canton, Ohio.Greene was a brash and charismatic performer on the field, possessed of long blond hair that flowed from beneath his helmet and seemingly inexhaustible energy.“He was an awesome force on the field and as a person,” Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach, said in an interview. “When you coached him, he gave you everything he had. He was a man of tremendous energy, passion and respect.”Greene registered 16.5 sacks in both 1988 and 1989, then 13 more in 1990, while playing for the Rams. But he did not lead the league until he had 14 in 1994, with the Steelers, and 14.5 in 1996, with the Panthers. In 1998, his penultimate season, he had 15 sacksGreene said that sacking a quarterback brought him relief.“My teammates depended on me to do that,” he said in an undated interview on Steelers.com. “I contributed. I didn’t want to let my teammates down. I did something to stop that drive. Either I hit the quarterback at the right time and caused a fumble we recovered, or we got an interception.”He added: “A sack was different than making a tackle for a loss, or a tackle at the line of scrimmage. It was just me making a contribution and not letting my brothers down.”Greene (91) in action for the Los Angeles Rams in 1989. In his 15-year career he played for the Rams, Steelers, Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers.Credit…Allen Dean Steele/Allsport, via Getty ImagesKevin Darwin Greene was born on July 31, 1962, in Schenectady, N.Y., to Patricia and Therman Greene. His father served in the Army for 30 years and retired as a colonel.When he lived on the Army base in Mannheim, West Germany, where his father was stationed, “football began to burn inside of me,” he said in his Hall of Fame speech. He played against other military youngsters — “the best that the athletic youth association had to offer.”His family returned to the United States in time for him to attend high school in Granite City, Ill., where he played football and basketball and was a high jumper on the track team.He entered Auburn University in 1980, but failed to make the football team as a punter. He played intramural football before joining the varsity in 1984 as a walk-on, playing defensive end.“He had the physical tools and ability, and he came with a vengeance,” the longtime Auburn coach Pat Dye said in a 2016 NFL Films documentary about Greene. “But the thing that set him apart is what he had inside of him. He played the game with every molecule in his body.”Greene was drafted by the Rams in the fifth round of the 1985 N.F.L. draft. He played defensive end at first before moving to outside linebacker, where he thrived in the 3-4 defensive scheme — three linemen and four linebackers — which suited him best. But he left for Pittsburgh as a free agent in 1993 after the Rams shifted to a 4-3 defense.“If you were going to play against Kevin, it was going to be a full day’s work,” Dom Capers, who coached Greene in a 3-4 formation as the defensive coordinator of the Steelers and the head coach of the Panthers, said in an interview. “He’d get sacks late in a down by outworking the other guy. He had that extra something, that ‘it,’ you were looking for.”Late in his football career, Greene wrestled occasionally for the World Championship Wrestling circuit, most notably teaming with Roddy Piper and Ric Flair to win a match at the Slamboree in 1997.After retiring from football in 1999, he pursued some business ventures and N.F.L. coaching internships. In 2009, when Capers was the defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers, he brought Greene along as his outside linebackers coach.“There’s no better guy to teach young guys,” Capers said, “and Clay Matthews made the Pro Bowl four out of the five years Kevin coached him. Kevin lit a fire under Clay.”Greene left the Packers in 2013 to coach his son, Gavin, in high school football. In 2017 and 2018, he coached the Jets’ outside linebackers.In addition to his son, Greene’s survivors include his wife, Tara, and his daughter, Gabrielle.While coaching the Packers’ outside linebackers, Greene reflected on the differences between sacking quarterbacks and teaching others to pursue them.“It’s hard to replace sacking Joe Montana and the next week going to Denver and knocking around John Elway and Dan Marino the following week,” he was quoted as saying in Madison.com, the website of the Wisconsin State Journal. As a player, he said, “you’re in the flame and you get burned and you feel that.” As a coach, “you’re standing next to the fire and you feel its warmth. It feels good.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How The New England Patriots' Dynasty Fell

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrend WatchThe Fall of the House of BelichickEmpires never fall in a day. The Patriots have been quietly crumbling from within for years.The end of the Patriots’ dynasty came in Miami, on a field where they had enjoyed years of victories.Credit…Mark Brown/Getty ImagesDec. 22, 2020Just as Constantinople had shrunk to a shadow of its former glory by the time it was finally conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the New England Patriots were a mere shell of a once mighty dynasty when they were eliminated from the 2020 N.F.L. playoffs on Sunday.Constantinople’s nigh-impenetrable walls were guarded by a meager militia before the city fell, just as players named Damiere Byrd and Devin Asiasi now occupy positions once manned by Patriots legends like Randy Moss and Rob Gronkowski. The Ottoman conquerors were stunned to see fallow fields encroaching upon the Hagia Sophia; the Miami Dolphins were probably also shocked when the Patriots kept running off tackle and meekly settling for field goals in Sunday’s 22-12 loss. When the end came to the city, the Byzantine capital’s most precious treasures and icons had already been looted by Venice, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the late medieval period.The Patriots have missed the playoffs only twice before since 2000, so when Sunday’s defeat dropped them to 6-8 and guaranteed their first nonwinning season in 20 years, it felt natural to seek world-changing historical precedents for their tumble into mediocrity and irrelevance. And history teaches us that empires never fall in a day. The Patriots have been quietly crumbling from within for years.The N.F.L. erodes dynasties by design. The salary cap prevents teams from building perennial powerhouses. The draft punishes plutocrats and rewards serfs. The Patriots should have been torn apart by a bloated payroll and a dearth of young talent a decade ago, but Coach Bill Belichick found clever ways to leverage the team’s prestige and organizational continuity to subvert the N.F.L.’s quest for parity.Bill Belichick papered over the Patriots’ cracks for years before the bill finally came due.Credit…Cj Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockFor many years, the Patriots identified failing prospects from other teams with the potential to succeed in their system, acquired those players at low cost, assigned them roles in which they thrived, then let them depart after a few years. Often they left as top-dollar free agents, with the Patriots acquiring supplemental draft picks from the league in exchange. They used those picks to assemble new rosters with even more role players. In a pinch, the Patriots rented the services, via trade or free agency, of a big-name veteran (Darrelle Revis, Chris Long, Brandin Cooks) eager to win a Super Bowl at Tom Brady’s side.The Patriots were able to use success to sustain success so long as they rarely made personnel mistakes, and as Brady could still single-handedly elevate the team’s offense while rallying mercenaries to his banner. But years of unproductive drafts led to a slow cycle of diminishing returns. By last season’s quick playoff exit, the Patriots’ roster had grown noticeably patchy, and Brady was showing signs of age and displeasure.Brady’s departure as a free agent was the obvious tipping point in the decline. Making matters worse, he had outlasted his would-be successors Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett and appeared unwilling to suffer the presence of any other plausible heirs apparent, leaving the Patriots without even a stopgap quarterback. Yet surely Belichick had something up his sleeve: Perhaps Jarrett Stidham, a lowly former sixth-round pick like the young Brady, was the new chosen one, or the team would purposely go 0-16 for a year and draft Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.Instead, in late June, the Patriots grabbed Cam Newton off the free-agent discount rack. At first, it looked to be typical Belichick brilliance: The Patriots would restore Newton’s most valuable player luster and remain in contention while plotting their next move. In reality, it was a desperate move.Newton gamely kept New England respectable early in the season, but the depleted Patriots roster was weakened by multiple coronavirus positives and opt-outs, Newton lacked quality receivers to throw to, his own skills were noticeably diminished, and the Patriots’ defense buckled.Cam Newton wasn’t so much the cause of the Patriots’ problems as much as another victim of them.Credit…Elise Amendola/Associated PressDefeats at the hands of former Super Bowl conquests like the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams and against long-subjugated fiefs like the Buffalo Bills and the Houston Texans took on apocalyptic symbolism. Belichick began appearing before the news media in hoodies that were even more tattered than usual: the emperor now a penitent in sackcloth, muttering about past accomplishments and making uncharacteristic excuses.Finally, the Dolphins, once an obedient vassal state, coached by a former Belichick subordinate, Brian Flores, and fielding a roster featuring several ex-Patriots, delivered Sunday’s almost merciful coup de grâce.Few outside the realm mourn the fall of an empire. Bills fans met their team at the airport after Saturday night’s victory over the Denver Broncos to rejoice in their first A.F.C. East title since 1995. The Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns and other franchises appear invigorated by the fact that all roads to a championship no longer lead to an impregnable fortress in the Boston exurbs. Patrick Mahomes’s Kansas City Chiefs are now the conference’s lone superpower, and they are easy to cast as lovable new heroes after Belichick and Brady’s increasingly joyless, generation-long quest to conquer all they surveyed.The collapse of an empire can lead to a dark age, but it’s just as likely to pave the way for a renaissance. Not long after Constantinople got the works, it became Istanbul and grew back into the cosmopolitan city that it remains to this day. The Patriots will also rise again, thanks in part to the same forces that helped destroy them. It will just take a few years of rebuilding and some fresh talent, ideas and philosophies.Oh, and Niccolò Machiavelli rose to prominence in Florence not that long after the fall of Constantinople. So Belichick will probably land on his feet.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    No Chiefs, Braves, Blackhawks and Seminoles. Remove Indigenous Names Now.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Race and PolicingFacts on Walter Wallace Jr. CaseFacts on Breonna Taylor CaseFacts on Daniel Prude CaseFacts on George Floyd CaseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySPORTS OF THE TIMESIt’s 2020. Indigenous Team Names in Sports Have to Go.The Chiefs, Braves, Blackhawks and Seminoles need to follow the Cleveland baseball team in dropping their offensive names.Kansas City Chiefs fans in January, before the team banned headdresses and face paint.Credit…Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressDec. 21, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ETBefore the Kansas City Chiefs play, Rhonda LeValdo does not feel excitement and joy. She feels outrage.LeValdo, a Native American activist, has protested outside Chiefs home games since 2005. Kansas City still allows fans at the unfortunately named Arrowhead Stadium.She opposes traditions that have long been staples at Kansas City games. The horse called Warpaint prancing on the sideline. The beating drums. The battle cries filling the air as thousands of fans pantomime tomahawk chops.She wants the team to change its nickname: No more Chiefs.“Every single game brings trauma for me,” says LeValdo, who teaches communications at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. The tired customs force her to remember massacres and stolen land. Then there are the glares and taunts from fans as she and the others in her group pass by.“I worry for my life every time we go out there.”The protests seemed hopeless for years. Then came this spring, after George Floyd’s death while in the custody of the Minneapolis police. Amid the nationwide push to re-examine racial discrimination, a clamor from the public and sponsors forced Washington’s N.F.L. team to abandon its racist name.Last week, Cleveland’s baseball team decided that starting in 2022, it would no longer call itself the Indians.For the first time, LeValdo is feeling optimistic. “We’re trying to ride a wave,” she says. “Trying to keep pushing and keep holding teams accountable. The fight for justice has to be addressed with all races, which means it must include the Indigenous people of this land. We are part of this conversation, as well.”Many Native American groups have long opposed sports teams’ using Indigenous names and imagery.Credit…Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune, via Associated PressMy recent conversations with several influential Native American educators and activists revealed a shared optimism with LeValdo. They are buoyed not only by the changes in Washington and Cleveland, but also by the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos, who announced a name change, too. And by professional hockey in Sweden, where the Frolunda Indians say they will soon have a new moniker.Activists now say it is time to increase the pressure on big-time American professional and college teams whose insolent mascots, and nicknames have too often escaped scrutiny.Agreed.The Chiefs need a makeover. Patrick Mahomes, are you listening?So, too, do baseball’s Atlanta Braves, hockey’s Chicago Blackhawks and the Florida State University Seminoles.True, there are Native Americans who say they don’t mind the caricatures and tired tropes. Like any ethnic group, Indigenous people hold a full range of views. Nor should it be surprising that a people so subjugated, brutalized and sidelined — who suffered through decades of forced assimilation — would include voices that back the status quo.But among the most important lessons of this year’s reckoning is this: Society had better start listening to those who have been shouting for years that enough is enough — and to the fresh calls for change coming from youth.Objectifying Native Americans, using them as props, failing to acknowledge their complexities, must stop. And in the sports world, that extends beyond the issue of team names and mascots.What do you know about Jim Thorpe? Were you taught his history in school?In 1951, when The Associated Press asked reporters to name the finest athlete of the 20th century’s first half, Babe Ruth came in second. The winner was Thorpe.Jim Thorpe, left, was a Native American and one of the greatest athletes in history, but a fight erupted over displaying his remains.Credit…Associated PressDid you know that Thorpe handily won the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympics? That in the same year, he led the football team at Carlisle, his Native American boarding school, to a 27-6 demolition of a powerhouse Army team at West Point? Were you aware of how he was a pioneer in pro football and played six seasons in major league baseball?For all his greatness, Thorpe ended up being treated the same way Native Americans have for centuries: in too many corners, his legacy is either dimly remembered, recalled simplistically, or forgotten altogether.And when he died in 1953, he became a prop.His third wife, a white woman with no ties to Thorpe’s Sac and Fox Nation, barged into a sacred burial ceremony held on his native lands in Oklahoma. Despite protests from tribal leaders and his children from previous marriages, she snatched Thorpe’s body with the help of state troopers. Then she ended up shopping his remains to the highest bidder.That is how the bones of one of the greatest athletes in history ended up where they are today: in a roadside mausoleum on the outskirts of a Pennsylvania town that renamed itself Jim Thorpe, all in a bid to attract tourists and boost the local economy.For years, Thorpe’s tribe and his sons fought to have his remains sent back to Oklahoma. The town fought back. Thorpe is their commodity. Many who live there say they are giving him admiration and respect.You don’t have to look far to find major sports teams justifying their racism by claiming the same.This summer, the Atlanta Braves released a statement saying their team “honors, supports, and values the Native American community.”Native American groups have denounced the tomahawk chop performed by Atlanta Braves fans.Credit…Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut a name change does not appear in the works for the team. And though the club says it is considering whether to dump its ritual tomahawk chop, such a move is no sure bet.The Braves are said to have appropriated the chop and battle shouts from Florida State University, which still embraces that tradition. Florida State’s mascot is Osceola, a famed leader of the Seminole Indians who is played by a student. At football games, the mascot rides a horse to midfield and plants a burning spear in the turf.The university, by the way, claims on an official website that Osceola is not a mascot. Instead, Florida State calls its faux Native American warrior “a symbol that we respect and prize.”Ugh.The Chicago Blackhawks hold tight to the same rationalization. Since the team’s inception in the 1920s, its jerseys have featured a cartoonish image of the Native American warrior who is the team’s namesake.Like most teams that brand themselves with racist tropes, the Blackhawks have sought cover in the form of endorsements from Native American groups.The team once had a relationship with Chicago’s American Indian Center. Then an emboldened Indigenous youth group fought the connection. Its objections were backed by recent in-depth research showing a psychological toll on the Native community caused by caricatured mascots and team names.The center cut ties with the team. “Our youth said they’d had enough,” said Fawn Pochel, the center’s education director. “They represent the new guard, reimagining a future that many were taught could not exist.“New demands are going to be made.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Tested Again, the Chiefs Flex Their Survival Skills

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyChiefs 32, Saints 29Tested Again, the Chiefs Flex Their Survival SkillsKansas City (13-1) has come back in four of its last six games, winning all six, and while the Chiefs do not seem invincible, they hardly seem beatable.Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes reacted after throwing a touchdown pass in the first half.Credit…Brett Duke/Associated PressDec. 20, 2020, 9:17 p.m. ETTo an exclusive cohort in the N.F.L., the regular season serves as preamble, offering those powerful teams 16 opportunities to tinker, learn and adapt. What might work in September might not in January, when the playoffs beckon.At every checkpoint this season but one, the Kansas City Chiefs have scanned their irises and flashed their credentials. They beat lesser opponents and good ones. They outlasted legendary quarterbacks and overwhelmed ferocious defenses.That happened again on Sunday, when the Chiefs defeated the Saints, 32-29, in New Orleans, a win that flaunted their toughness and survival skills. Facing their best competition of the season, the Chiefs blew a 14-point lead, went up by 14, then held on to spoil Drew Brees’s return from a monthlong layoff forced by injury.It is possible that these teams will meet again in the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 in Tampa, Fla., and if they do, both may come to view Sunday’s game as an inflection point in their seasons.The last six games have tested Kansas City (13-1) to a considerable degree, exposing flaws while revealing what must be, for the rest of the league, an uncomfortable truth. The Chiefs won all six, coming back in four of them, and though they do not seem invincible, they hardly seem beatable.Even with the Saints swarming Patrick Mahomes as they did, sacking him four times and forcing a lost fumble, he still threw for three touchdowns, the Chiefs still gained 411 yards and they still scored 32 points against what could be the league’s best defense.The play that will linger longest was Mahomes’s third-quarter touchdown to Mecole Hardman, the score that put them ahead to stay. Mahomes rolled left, pump-faked and, with a defender barreling in from his right, flicked the ball toward the back of the end zone. It sailed beyond the outstretched arms of Sammy Watkins and into those of Hardman, who dragged his feet in bounds, putting the Chiefs ahead, 21-15.The Saints (10-4), like Kansas City, occupy rarefied space among the league’s elite teams, and their defense was one of only two in the league that entered Sunday having allowed fewer than 300 yards per game. As that defense cracked, gashed by Mahomes and the running back tandem of Le’Veon Bell and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (141 combined yards rushing), the Saints couldn’t recover. Three weeks after defeating Tom Brady on the road, the Chiefs stifled Brees in his home.Playing for the first time since Nov. 15, and without the elite receiver Michael Thomas, Brees completed only 15 of 34 passes for 234 yards, with three touchdowns and an interception.Brees missed four games with 11 fractured ribs and a punctured lung, injuries that, presumably, made it difficult to breathe, eat, drink, sleep, sit and stand, let alone outwit the large men with bad intentions chasing him. Enticed by the prospect of facing the Chiefs, of dueling with Mahomes, Brees felt well enough to play. He slipped a protective shirt beneath his jersey and set about resuming his playoff preparation.Early on, his passes floated and wobbled, and his fourth of six straight incompletions to begin the game landed in the hands of the Chiefs rookie L’Jarius Sneed. Capitalizing on the takeaway, Kansas City scored seven plays later, on a 5-yard pass from Mahomes to Tyreek Hill, who fooled the Saints by motioning away from the play before reversing field to slip unnoticed into the end zone.It is ruthless, Kansas City’s combination of speed, offensive creativity and coaching acumen. Also, endless. On their next scoring drive, the Chiefs further excavated their inventory of imaginative plays. At the Saints’ 1-yard line, Mahomes did not receive the shotgun snap so much as redirect it to his right, a chest pass to tight end Travis Kelce for a touchdown. According to the N.F.L.’s Next Gen Stats, Mahomes’s release time of 50-hundredths of a second was the fastest of any completion this season.The Chiefs led, 14-0, and New Orleans, into the second quarter, had yet to record a first down or a completion. It took until the Saints’ fifth possession for them to get either, and on that same drive Brees seemed to summon all the strength in his right arm in connecting with Emmanuel Sanders down the sideline. The 51-yard pass play — Brees’s second-longest completion of the season — escorted the Saints to the 3-yard line and shoved Brees off the field.During Brees’s absence, Taysom Hill showcased his versatility across four full games, winning three of them. But the Saints’ endgame is a championship, and with Brees back, Hill resumed his duties as a positionless dynamo, running on consecutive plays to cut Kansas City’s lead to 14-7.Heading into halftime, the Saints nearly tied the score after the ball, stripped from the punt returner Demarcus Robinson, rolled into the end zone. But the Saints’ Alex Anzalone couldn’t fall on it in time, and it squirted away for a safety.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Jets’ First Win May Cost the Future

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyjets 23, rams 20Jets’ First Win May Cost the FutureThe Jets beat the Los Angeles Rams for their improbable first win of the season, but the victory may give the Jacksonville Jaguars the top pick in the 2021 N.F.L. draft.Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, right, celebrated an 18-yard touchdown pass to running back Ty Johnson on the team’s first drive of Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams.Credit…Ashley Landis/Associated PressDec. 20, 2020Updated 8:55 p.m. ETThe Jets did the seemingly unthinkable on Sunday. They won.In perhaps the biggest upset of the season, the formerly winless Jets (1-13) knocked off the Los Angeles Rams (9-5) in convincing fashion, building a 17-point lead in the third quarter and then holding off the Rams’ high-powered offense to win their first game of the season, 23-20, in Inglewood, Calif.The Jets’ victory, their first since the final week of last season, came after a tumultuous 2020 campaign that has seen the team juggle quarterbacks, fire their defensive coordinator and fend off calls for Coach Adam Gase to be sent packing. Amid all the misery, including the league’s worst offense, Jets fans took solace in the possibility that a winless season could secure the first pick in the N.F.L. draft next spring. Now that is in doubt.Given their knack for blowing winnable games, the Jets’ victory on Sunday was as improbable as any this season. The Rams, who are battling the Seattle Seahawks for the N.F.C. West crown, were 17-point favorites playing on their home field. The Jets were blown out by the Seahawks last week in Seattle, and had to crisscross the country this week. At least on paper, they should have been exhausted.But the Jets scored on their first drives of the first and second halves and held a 13-3 lead at halftime. The Jets’ offense wasn’t flashy and seemed mostly intent on not making mistakes. Jets quarterback Sam Darnold shook off early jitters, completing 22 of 31 passes for 207 yards and one touchdown, and led the Jets on three drives of 10 or more plays to use big chunks of the clock and keep the Rams’ offense off the field.“It means the world to us to come in here, back-to-back West Coast trips, we weren’t able to stay on the West Coast because of Covid,” Darnold said after the game. “We did our jobs this week.”The Jets became the first winless team in N.F.L. history to win on the road against an opponent with nine or more victories.They also have fallen behind in the race for the top pick in next year’s draft, something that will leave their win-starved fans with mixed feelings. The Jacksonville Jaguars, who lost to the Baltimore Ravens by 26 points on Sunday and are also 1-13, would hold the tiebreaker in the draft over the Jets if the two teams end the season with the same record, a nightmare scenario for Jets fans who have tried to find a silver lining in all the losing.Other winless teams won their first games even later in the season than the Jets did; most recently the 2016 Cleveland Browns notched their first (and only) win in their 15th game.The Jets have had scrapes with victory recently. Two weeks ago, they lost to the Las Vegas Raiders on the second-to-last play of the game. But on Sunday, they played not like a team tanking to get the first pick in next year’s draft — as some desperate Jets fans were banking on — but like a young team that finally didn’t hurt itself.The Jets were 7 of 17 on third downs, running back Frank Gore ran the ball 23 times for 59 yards and one score, and wide receiver Jamison Crowder caught six passes for 66 yards.The Jets’ defense was the bigger story, holding Rams quarterback Jared Goff to 209 yards passing. Rookie cornerback Bryce Hall intercepted Goff midway through the second quarter and returned the ball to the Rams’ 22-yard line. The Jets added a field goal five plays later.Earlier in the quarter, J.T. Hassell blocked a Rams punt that led to another Jets field goal.On the final drive of the game, with the Rams out of timeouts, Darnold withstood a fierce pass rush and completed a 6-yard pass to Gore for a first down. After the two-minute warning, the Jets did something they hadn’t done since last season: The offense lined up in the victory formation and Darnold took a knee three times to run out the clock and seal the win.But the Jets being the Jets, they worried that they might still fail to salt away the game.“I don’t think I paid attention to the victory formations as much as I did this game because I was just making sure we were good, didn’t want anything going on,” Gase said after the game. “It’s been a while since we’ve been in that.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    NFL Week 15: What We Learned

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat We Learned From Week 15 of the N.F.L. SeasonThe Chiefs won a potential Super Bowl preview against the Saints, the Titans and the Colts stayed hot and the previously winless Jets pulled off the upset of the season.Tennessee’s Derrick Henry demolished Detroit’s Alex Myres with a vicious stiff arm in the first half of the Titans’ 46-25 win over the Lions.Credit…Brett Carlsen/Associated PressDec. 20, 2020Updated 8:34 p.m. ETFavored teams did well on Sunday, with the Kansas City Chiefs beating the New Orleans Saints, the A.F.C. South heavyweights both winning and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting slowly before racing back for a surprising road win over Atlanta. But the previously winless Jets pulled off the upset of the season by beating the heavily favored Los Angeles Rams.Here’s what we learned:Derrick Henry with the MEAN stiff arm! 👑📺: Watch #DETvsTEN on CBS pic.twitter.com/1jhPLFZncg— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) December 20, 2020
    A Derrick Henry stiff arm sounds even scarier than it looks. Henry is known for turning the stiff arm into a work of art, but he took it up a notch in the Tennessee Titans’ laughable 46-25 victory over the Detroit Lions. On a 7-yard run early in the second quarter, Henry was heading toward the left sideline when Alex Myres, a second-year cornerback, tried to wrap up the much larger running back. Henry thrust his right hand at Myres’s head, producing a thundering slap that sent Myres tumbling to the ground.It was one of numerous highlights for Henry on Sunday, as he rushed for 147 yards and scored his 15th rushing touchdown of the season. Henry is up to a career-high 1,679 yards rushing, putting him 195 ahead of Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook for the N.F.L. lead. Henry could become the first player with consecutive rushing titles since the Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson did it in 2006 and 2007.Kansas City’s Clyde Edwards-Helaire was injured on a running play late in the Chiefs’ win over the New Orleans Saints.Credit…Brett Duke/Associated PressA huge win can come with an even bigger loss. In what was potentially a Super Bowl preview, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the New Orleans Saints, 32-29, improving to an N.F.L.-best 13-1 and retaining the top spot in the A.F.C. playoff race. But toward the end of the game, Kansas City running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire — a rookie first-round pick out of Louisiana State who immediately stepped in as a vital part of Kansas City’s offense this season — had his left leg get trapped under him and had to be carried off the field with what appeared to be a serious injury to his leg and hip. The extent of Edwards-Helaire’s injury has yet to be announced, but the team said initial X-rays were negative and that he would continue to be evaluated.Xavien Howard is a takeaway. He has tough competition, but Miami’s Howard should get a great deal of consideration for the N.F.L.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award. Howard, a 27-year-old cornerback, forced a fumble in Miami’s 22-12 victory over New England. The loss eliminated the Patriots from playoff contention. Howard also had a fumble recovery for a touchdown that was called back because another player had stepped out of bounds before touching the ball. With nine interceptions this season, plus Sunday’s forced fumble, Howard has produced a takeaway in 10 of Miami’s 14 games. He is a huge reason the Dolphins have shocked the N.F.L. with a record of 9-5.Howard’s competition for the award includes Aaron Donald of the Rams — a two-time winner — and T.J. Watt of the Steelers. But Howard’s case would get a huge exclamation point with one more interception, as he would be the first player since 2007 to have 10 in a season.Houston’s Keke Coutee got incredibly close to punching the ball into the end zone late in the game, but Indianapolis forced a fumble and walked away with a 27-20 victory.Credit…Zach Bolinger/Associated PressYou have to watch until the end of every Texans-Colts game. Even in a down season for Houston, the A.F.C. South rivalry between the Texans and the Indianapolis Colts has provided two extremely memorable games. Two weeks ago, Houston appeared to be on the verge of taking the lead in the final two minutes when a bad snap led to a fumble and allowed Indianapolis to run out the clock. Sunday’s game was just as wild, with the Colts, clinging to a 27-20 lead in the fourth quarter before allowing the Texans to get into the red zone. Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson connected with Keke Coutee, who stretched forward at the Colts’ 2-yard line only to fumble the ball away, handing yet another win to Indianapolis.The victory allowed the Colts to keep pace with Tennessee in the A.F.C. South. It was the 14th consecutive regular-season game between Indianapolis and Houston that was decided by 9 or fewer points.It had been more than three years since Dez Bryant was able to do his signature touchdown celebration.Credit…Nick Wass/Associated PressDez Bryant wasn’t done. In Baltimore’s emphatic 40-14 win over Jacksonville, one of Lamar Jackson’s three touchdown passes went to Bryant, a 32-year-old wide receiver whose N.F.L. career appeared to be over several times in the past. It had been 1,106 days since Bryant’s last touchdown, 982 days since he was released by Dallas, 772 days since he tore his Achilles’ tendon in a practice for New Orleans and 12 days since he appeared to announce his season was over on Twitter shortly after being pulled off the field during warm-ups because of a positive test for the coronavirus.Bryant has just five receptions this season, but that is five more than just about anyone expected him to get.Tampa Bay got off to a remarkably slow start on Sunday, but Tom Brady and the Buccaneers were dominant in the second half.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe Buccaneers can dig out of a hole. Tampa Bay has had a problem with slow starts all season, being outscored by 32 points in first quarters. That sluggishness was taken to an extreme on Sunday when the Buccaneers went into halftime trailing Atlanta, 17-0, having gained just 60 total yards. Tampa Bay proceeded to have its players wake up on both sides of the ball, producing 356 second-half yards and walking away with a 31-27 win on the road thanks to Tom Brady’s go-ahead, 46-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Brown in the fourth quarter. Atlanta had two more chances to regain the lead, but Tampa Bay’s defense locked in, forcing a punt and a turnover on downs.The Jets can’t even tank right. With a touchdown pass by Sam Darnold, a rushing touchdown by the ageless Frank Gore — the 100th touchdown of Gore’s career — and three field goals from Sam Ficken, the Jets delivered the biggest upset of the season, beating the Los Angeles Rams, 23-20, after coming in as 17-point underdogs. Avoiding a winless season is surely a relief for the Jets’ players, but the victory, combined with Jacksonville’s 13th straight loss, has the Jaguars in line for the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft with two games remaining for both teams.One* Sentence About Sunday’s Games*Except when it takes more.Kansas City’s Travis Kelce had eight catches for 68 yards and a touchdown in the Chiefs’ win over the New Orleans Saints.Credit…Chris Graythen/Getty ImagesChiefs 32, Saints 29 Neither Patrick Mahomes nor Drew Brees looked their best in this one, but Mahomes’s three touchdown passes and a Le’Veon Bell rushing touchdown put Kansas City up by enough that New Orleans’ late comeback attempt proved fruitless.Colts 27, Texans 20 Indianapolis led, 14-0, in the first quarter before this became a close game. Houston put up a strong fight, but Philip Rivers’s 5-yard touchdown pass with 1 minute 47 seconds remaining proved to be enough, barely.Titans 46, Lions 25 Tennessee was leading by only 24-18 after three quarters, but things got ridiculous from there, with Ryan Tannehill throwing two fourth-quarter touchdown passes in addition to scoring a 3-yard rushing touchdown — his second rushing touchdown of the game. The Titans lead Indianapolis in the A.F.C. South thanks to their superior record in division games.Frank Gore of the Jets scored his 100th career touchdown, and helped ice the Jets’ upset win over the Los Angeles Rams with a crucial first down late in the fourth quarter.Credit…Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJets 23, Rams 20 It has been a horrible season for the Jets, but on this day they took care of business on offense, produced a takeaway on defense, and then held on for dear life in a game that seemed like it could slip away at any second.Buccaneers 31, Falcons 27 The stakes were not close to what they were in Tom Brady’s last huge comeback win over Atlanta — the Falcons’ collapse after leading Brady’s Patriots by 28-3 in the Super Bowl of the 2016 season is hard to top — but you’d have to imagine the Falcons, who led Tampa Bay on Sunday by 17-0 and 24-7 before losing, are looking forward to Brady retiring someday.Ravens 40, Jaguars 14 It is presumably OK to stop worrying about Baltimore’s offense after it led the team to a third consecutive win, with Lamar Jackson throwing three touchdown passes and running in another during a game that was decided by halftime.Miami’s Salvon Ahmed ran for 122 yards and a touchdown, helping the Dolphins eliminate the New England Patriots from playoff contention.Credit…Chris O’Meara/Associated PressDolphins 22, Patriots 12 Led by running backs Salvon Ahmed and Matt Breida, Miami rumbled for 250 yards rushing and three rushing touchdowns. The Dolphins are in line for the A.F.C.’s final wild-card spot — thanks to a tiebreaker over Baltimore — and have clinched a winning season for just the second time since 2008.Seahawks 20, Footballers 15 Washington came surprisingly close to rallying from a 20-3 deficit, but the Seahawks’ much-maligned defense forced a turnover on downs in the final minute that gave Seattle a win and clinched a playoff spot.Bears 33, Vikings 27 Minnesota was playing at home, got 132 yards rushing from Dalvin Cook and 104 yards receiving from Justin Jefferson, and still lost. Credit Chicago all you want, but the Vikings’ defense needs a lot of work.Arizona’s Kyler Murray scored his 11th rushing touchdown of the season.Credit…Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports, via ReutersCardinals 33, Eagles 26 Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray were back-to-back Heisman Trophy finalists at Oklahoma — Murray won the award in 2018 — and they showed off how well their skills translate to the N.F.L. on Sunday. Philadelphia’s Hurts threw for 338 yards, Arizona’s Murray threw for 406, both of them threw three touchdown passes and both of them also ran in a score. But Murray’s Cardinals came out on top thanks to a late defensive stand.Cowboys 41, 49ers 33 Running back Ezekiel Elliott missed a game because of injury for the first time in his career, and he watched his backup, Tony Pollard, put up a strong performance: 132 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns. Elliott hasn’t had 130 yards from scrimmage in a game since Week 15 of last season.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Fight for Washington N.F.L. Team Could Tighten Snyder's Grip on It

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFight for Washington N.F.L. Team May Tighten Owner’s Grip on ItWashington’s owner, Daniel Snyder, is working to buy out three minority partners, including one he has accused of running a smear campaign against him.The Washington Football Team majority owner Daniel Snyder could expand his stake in the team.Credit…Brad Mills/USA Today Sports, via ReutersKen Belson and Dec. 19, 2020, 8:37 p.m. ETBy the end of this summer, Daniel Snyder, the majority owner of the N.F.L.’s Washington Football Team, was facing fire from many sides. Fans had long blamed him for the team’s abysmal performance. Now civil rights groups were criticizing Snyder for waiting so long to jettison a team name and logo that they considered racist, and women’s activists were aghast after news media reports detailed a culture of sexual harassment in the team’s front office.In a normal corporate setting, any one of these troubles might have led to a leader’s ouster. Instead, Snyder, a member of the N.F.L.’s cozy club of billionaire owners, may emerge from months of crisis with an even tighter hold on one of the most lucrative franchises in the league. Snyder is in talks to buy out three of his partners, and the sale price may be 40 percent less than they were asking in June.According to three people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly about it, Snyder would pay up to $900 million for the 40 percent of the club owned by the three partners: Frederick W. Smith, the chairman of FedEx; the financier Robert Rothman; and Dwight Schar, a real estate developer. The deal must be approved by the league.Representatives for Snyder and the partners’ banker declined to comment on the talks. The N.F.L. did not respond to a request seeking comment.The deal, if completed and approved, would end one of the more nasty and tangled ownership battles in the league in years, a bitter divorce that has included accusations of bad faith, malfeasance and mudslinging in a league that prefers such infighting be kept behind closed doors.Sales of shares in N.F.L. teams are normally cloaked in secrecy, with information tightly guarded by the principals and their lawyers and bankers. The boardroom battle in Washington, though, spilled into courts from California to Virginia and even New Delhi before finally landing in the lap of an arbitrator appointed by the N.F.L. to sort out the mess.The court papers in the various lawsuits that have been filed offer an unusual look at an eight-month dispute that has included the use of burner phones, profane text messages, accusations of leaks of credible and fabricated information to the news media, and threats of extortion, according to transcripts of phone calls, text messages and emails found in court filings and other documents reviewed by The New York Times.The fight over the team began in the spring, when the limited partners accused Snyder of mismanagement of the team he has owned since 1999, including improperly throwing them off the board, making financial transactions without their approval and trying to block the sale of their shares to outside investors.Snyder claims, in court filings, that Schar, in retribution, schemed to leak to the news media negative information about Snyder’s personal life and operation of the team in the hope that it would be damaging enough to compel him to sell it. The sale of the entire team — not only Snyder’s share but also the stakes owned by Schar, Smith and Rothman — would significantly inflate the value of the nonvoting shares the three minority partners have been trying to sell since this spring.A lawyer for Schar did not respond to a request for comment.The team, 6-7 but on track for a playoff spot, has been playing better this season under a new coach. It is at the top of its chaotic division with three games left in the regular season.Yet Snyder has been trailed by controversy, including accusations from cheerleaders that they were sexually harassed and intimidated on the job by well-heeled supporters and team employees, and the allegations of widespread sexual harassment in the team’s front office that remain under investigation by the league.But, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations, N.F.L. owners believe Schar crossed a line in seeking to publicly malign Snyder. Even so, kicking out an owner or part owner is seen as a rare, last resort, and so they are pushing for a settlement in which Snyder would buy out the partners.Under the plan representatives for the partners are working out, Schar’s proceeds would be reduced by millions of dollars as a penalty for trying to publicly undermine Snyder, according to three people aware of the potential penalties. Even then, he will walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.“The most important thing for the league is its image,” said Upton Bell, a longtime team executive and the son of the former N.F.L. commissioner Bert Bell, speaking generally about ownership disputes. “They want to make it look like it’s Disney World when it’s not. It’s business, it’s not a moral universe.”The fight, at heart, is over money.The limited partners grew disenchanted in May when, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic that was threatening the coming N.F.L. season, Snyder halted the payment of annual dividends to Schar, Rothman, Smith and other limited partners. He did not explain the decision, but it was consistent with similar steps taken by other owners.In a letter reviewed by The Times, Schar’s representative then asked Snyder for the team’s financial records for the past two years, including cost-cutting measures. In early June, Snyder was told that Schar and Rothman had joined Smith, who had been trying to sell his shares for about a year, in putting their stakes on the market. This created a 40 percent block that Rothman argued in a letter to Snyder’s banker was worth $1.5 billion, based on the team’s total valuation.Angered that his longtime partners were shopping their shares, Snyder threw them off the board of the team’s holding company in June. The partners asked the N.F.L. to settle the dispute, claiming that Snyder failed to hold board meetings and did not get proper approval for financial transactions. The league appointed an arbitrator to the case at the end of June.Amid the crossfire of letters between lawyers, Snyder asserted that Schar began a long-shot smear campaign designed to embarrass him and force him to sell the entire team. Snyder has long insisted that he intends to leave his controlling share to his children.Dwight Schar, a limited partner in the team, could be bought out.  Credit…George Gojkovich/Getty ImagesKey to the scheme, court filings show, was Mary Ellen Blair. She was an executive assistant to him until 2017 who, at the behest of Schar, helped pass negative information about Snyder to the news media. Between July and October, Blair and Schar spoke 157 times on the phone, for a combined 11.6 hours, according to phone records obtained by Snyder’s lawyers and filed in court.During that same period, Blair dialed or received 123 calls from telephone numbers associated with The Washington Post, according to court filings. There were text messages, too, Snyder said. “Call me ASAP Mr Schar just called me great news for u call me ASAP please,” she wrote in one of several texts to a journalist at The Post who contributed to a blockbuster article in which 15 female former team employees revealed rampant, longstanding harassment of women employees. (“The idea is to force Snyder to sell,” Blair texted to a friend.)The Post article in July did not directly connect Snyder to the harassment claims. But he hired a Washington-based law firm, Wilkinson Walsh, to look into the allegations. The N.F.L. took over the investigation, which is continuing.“While I was unaware of these allegations until they surfaced in the media, I take full responsibility for the culture of our organization,” Snyder said in a statement after a second article by The Washington Post linked to him to two allegations of harassment, both of which he denied.As the substantiated reporting got people talking on social media, less reputable outlets tried to capitalize on online interest in Snyder. The day The Post published its first report of chaos in the front office, a website owned by an Indian company, Media Arts Entertainment WorldWide, published two items about Snyder. One falsely linked him to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Representatives for Media Arts Entertainment admitted they had relied on sources including a Reddit post, and removed the two items from their website. But Snyder sued the publication for defamation in August in India. (The case is ongoing.)Snyder used the suit filed in New Delhi to search for ties to Schar. His lawyers filed a string of discovery motions in federal court in the United States and obtained Blair’s phone records and text messages, which showed her communications with Schar and his daughter, Tracy, who, records show, made or received 44 calls to or from Blair. The records also showed that Tracy Schar bought Blair a burner phone to escape detection. When Snyder’s lawyers confronted Blair about her phone records late this fall, she gave a sworn declaration that has been reviewed by The Times. In it, she said she and Dwight Schar discussed an allegation that Snyder had sexually harassed a former female team employee in 2009.“Schar knew I would take that information about that employee’s sexual harassment claim to the Washington Post, and Schar was encouraging me to share the information with the Washington Post,” Blair said in the declaration.It is unclear if she shared the information. A spokeswoman for The Post declined to comment.Two investigations conducted in 2009, one by the team and another by an outside law firm hired by the team, said they were unable to substantiate the woman’s claim that Snyder had accosted her in April 2009 on a flight to Washington from Las Vegas. The team fired the woman because it said she lied to the team’s lawyers.To avoid any potential negative publicity if the woman sued Snyder, the team paid her a financial settlement and five people, including Snyder and the accuser, signed nondisclosure agreements, according to a person with knowledge of the arrangement who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.A spokesman for Snyder declined to discuss the settlement.Even so, Schar tried to use the settlement against Snyder. In late July, he called Norman Chirite, one of Snyder’s lawyers, and said that “the story was out” about the 2009 settlement and its public disclosure is “going to kill Dan,” according to Chirite, who gave a signed declaration that was reviewed by The Times.Schar said Snyder would have a “horrible existence” when the settlement was made public. “Dan should just sell the team,” Chirite recalled Schar’s saying. “He won’t have a choice.”Now, the reverse may happen: Snyder will not only keep the team, but possibly tighten his grip on it.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More