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    Who Is Tua Tagovailoa? A Great Mystery of the Draft

    Once projected as a top pick in the N.F.L. draft, Tua Tagovailoa ultimately became one of its biggest mysteries. A dynamic left-hander who won two national championships as Alabama’s quarterback, Tagovailoa has been recovering from a hip dislocation sustained in a November game. He was cleared to begin football activities in March, but teams were […] More

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    The N.F.L. Figures Out How to Team-Build From a Distance

    In any other year, N.F.L. facilities across the country would be buzzing this week, when teams are allowed to begin their off-season workout programs, the first organized football activities since they ended the prior season. Normally, this is a time when teammates are reunited for workouts and position meetings. Coaches get their first in-person look […] More

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    A Virtual N.F.L. Draft Might Be a Back to the Future Moment

    Ernie Accorsi, the former general manager of the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Giants, remembers attending his first N.F.L. draft in 1969. He expected to enter a grand, ornate ballroom filled with titans of the game: Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown, Don Shula. Instead, he walked into a tiny New York hotel conference room and did […] More

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    Football Without Fans Is Nothing. Until It’s Everything.

    Enjoying this newsletter every Friday? Send it to a friend, or six, and have them sign up at nytimes.com/rory. There is something unsettling about watching a soccer match played behind closed doors, in a stadium filled with echoes and air, rather than noise and life. The faces of the players, the jerseys they wear and […] More

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    Can’t Scout Players in Person? The N.F.L. Turns to a Brooklyn Start-Up

    For the past month, since the N.F.L. banned nonessential travel and shuttered team facilities, many coaches, scouts and other player evaluators have had to rely primarily on watching footage of college games in the hopes of finding a franchise-lifting selection in the N.F.L. draft that starts on April 23. Watching video, though, is not a […] More

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    Von Miller Is Second Active N.F.L. Player to Reveal He Has Coronavirus

    Von Miller, the Denver Broncos’ All-Pro linebacker and the winner of the Most Valuable Player Award in Super Bowl 50, on Thursday became the latest and most prominent N.F.L. player to reveal publicly that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Miller was not feeling well in recent days, which prompted him to get tested […] More

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    Boardroom Infighting in Barcelona Shakes Team

    Something is rotten in Barcelona. While the coronavirus has brought the sports world to a standstill, the sense of chaos and uncertainty at F.C. Barcelona, the Spanish soccer club, seems to be more pronounced than anywhere else. Much of it is self-inflicted. Simmering boardroom infighting erupted into embarrassing public revelations of how one of the […] More

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    Soccer’s Business Hasn’t Stopped. It’s Just Waiting for the New Prices.

    As far as Rámon Rodriguez Verdejo — the man everyone knows as Monchi — is concerned, there is as much work to do as there ever was. The game of soccer is paused, indefinitely, placed in the same anxious limbo as every other sport, as every other industry. But on laptop screens and cellphones, the […] More