LIVERPOOL, England — The smile that became so familiar in those first few months has long since disappeared. The sense of awe and wonder that he was allowed to be here, at the club that meant so much to him and in the job he never dared dream of holding, has gone, too, melting away […] More
A misdemeanor simple battery warrant for the Cleveland Browns wide receiver and former Louisiana State star Odell Beckham Jr. has been rescinded, the New Orleans Police Department confirmed on Saturday. The warrant was issued on Thursday as video posted on social media appeared to show Beckham swatting a security officer’s buttocks during L.S.U.’s locker room […] More
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The timing couldn’t have been any better. After years of turmoil and losing, the San Francisco 49ers, who face the Green Bay Packers in the N.F.C. Championship game on Sunday, are one victory from returning to Super Bowl. There is no better way to drive demand for tickets, jerseys and support […] More
Enjoying this newsletter every week? Forward it to a friend and tell them to sign up at nytimes.com/rory. A few hours after Danny Drinkwater joined Aston Villa in the first week of January, a friend asked if he wanted to go watch his new club in action. Aston Villa was playing at Leicester City in […] More
When he left a broadcasting career three years ago for his first job in an N.F.L. front office, with the San Francisco 49ers, John Lynch sought to model his partnership with Coach Kyle Shanahan on what he considered the paragon of general manager-coach alliances: Ozzie Newsome and John Harbaugh’s Super Bowl-winning work in Baltimore. And […] More
Back in Week 1, the Chiefs expected to be playing this weekend, and the Packers were certainly hoping to still be alive. The 49ers, however, did not start to feel like a real contender until they had strung quite a few wins together, and the Titans were still fighting for a playoff spot in Week […] More
David Baker, the executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has always been clear about his mission: to celebrate the exploits of players and coaches on the field and the N.F.L. executives who helped build the league. The rest of it — the messy private lives, the criminal activity, the treatment of players […] More
In years to come, this might be the week this age of sports came to be known as the “asterisk era.” During a decade that brought eye-in-the-sky cameras, rogue chemists, executives with malleable morals and Soviet-era spy craft, those two-fisted disrupters — science and technology — have given cheaters seemingly limitless tools to secure victory […] More
