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      Vincent Jackson’s Brain Will Be Donated to C.T.E. Study

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyVincent Jackson’s Brain Will Be Donated to C.T.E. StudyJackson, 38, a retired N.F.L. wide receiver, was found dead in a Florida hotel room on Monday.Vincent Jackson’s family donated his brain to researchers at Boston University to determine if he had C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma. “It’s something his family wanted to do to get answers to some of their questions,” a spokesperson for the family said.Credit…Cliff Mcbride/Getty ImagesFeb. 18, 2021, 5:06 p.m. ETThe family of Vincent Jackson, the retired three-time Pro Bowl N.F.L. wide receiver who was found dead in a Florida hotel room on Monday, donated his brain to researchers at Boston University to determine if he had chromic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma.“Vincent being who he was would have wanted to help as many people as possible,” said Allison Gorrell, a spokeswoman for the Jackson family, in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s something his family wanted to do to get answers to some of their questions.”Many unanswered questions, including his cause of death, remain about Jackson’s demise. While it could take weeks to finish an autopsy, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a radio interview on Wednesday that Jackson, 38, had health problems associated with alcoholism, which Chronister said were cited in the unreleased autopsy report. He also said the Jackson family told him that they believed that concussions may have been a factor in his behavior.Gorrell said the sheriff did not speak for the family. C.T.E. can only be diagnosed posthumously and researchers at Boston University, which houses the world’s largest brain bank devoted to cases involving the disease, said that determination can take months. The severity of a player’s C.T.E. is related to the number of years that he played football and the number of hits he endured, researchers have found.The brain bank has received a growing number of donations harvested from players who were 34 years old or younger at the time of death. More than half of those athletes had C.T.E.A married father of four, Jackson was widely admired in and out of the N.F.L. for his community service and business acumen. A 12-year N.F.L. veteran who played with the San Diego Chargers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jackson was voted Tampa Bay’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes community service, four years running during his five seasons there. He was a union representative in the N.F.L. Players Association and one of the named plaintiffs when the union sued the league’s owners during the 2011 lockout.After retiring from the N.F.L. in 2018 at 35, he continued to help military families through the Jackson in Action 83 Foundation. He had not played since the 2016 season. Jackson’s father served in the United States Army and Jackson and his wife, Lindsey, wrote a series of children’s books about growing up in military families. He won the Distinguished Community Advocate Award in 2018 from the Tampa Bay Sports Commission.He had been cited for his smooth transition from the N.F.L. into real estate development.According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Jackson was found at the Homewood Suites in Brandon, Fla., just a few miles east of Tampa, where hotel staff said he had been staying since Jan. 11. Jackson’s family reported that Jackson was missing on Feb. 10. Two days later, sheriffs found him at the hotel and “after assessing Jackson’s well-being,” canceled the missing persons case.A housekeeper found Jackson dead on Monday morning.Jackson was a straight-A student in high school and majored in business at Northern Colorado University, where he graduated as the school’s career leading receiver. He was also a starter on the Bears’ basketball team for two seasons, leading the team in scoring both years.The Chargers drafted Jackson in the second round in 2005, and after an injury-filled rookie year, he quickly became a mainstay of the team’s pass-first offense. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 2009, 2011, and again in 2012, his first season with the Buccaneers. He still holds the Buccaneers’ record for most receiving yards in a game, 216.During his N.F.L. career, he caught 57 touchdowns and had six seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards.According to NFL.com, Jackson was arrested twice, in 2006 and again in 2009, for driving under the influence. After the second arrest, he was sentenced to four days in jail and five years of probation and was suspended by the league for three games.James Lofton, the Hall of Fame wide receiver, coached Jackson in San Diego and remembered Jackson as exceptionally bright and motivated. He recalled, too, when Jackson called him at 4:15 a.m. to apologize for his 2006 arrest.“We are part of society, and the same ills that get people in society get us, too,” Lofton said of N.F.L. players. “He just didn’t seem like the person who would have met a tragic death.”Greg Camarillo, a former N.F.L. receiver, was roommates with Jackson at the Chargers’ training camp in 2005 and now has a student support role in the University of San Diego athletics department. Camarillo said he was shaken by Jackson’s death and posted to Twitter several messages Monday about professional football players’ struggles in retirement.Many players, Camarillo said, have difficulty coping after they leave the N.F.L. because lose their identity and find it difficult to forge a new path without it.“It could happen to me or any former player,” Camarillo said in a phone interview Thursday. “Vince is not drastically different than anyone else, including me.”Gillian R. Brassil contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tim Tebow Retires From Baseball

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAt the End of a Winding Path, Tim Tebow Retires From BaseballThe Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback turned Mets minor leaguer has ended his unlikely run at being a two-sport athlete.Tim Tebow never found the same success professionally that he did in college football. But he drew attention at every stop.Credit…Vera Nieuwenhuis/Associated PressFeb. 17, 2021, 8:57 p.m. ETEnding one of the more surprising — and unlikely — attempts at a two-sport career, Tim Tebow, the superstar college quarterback turned N.F.L. curiosity turned minor-league baseball player, announced his retirement from professional sports on Wednesday.“I loved every minute of the journey, but at this time I feel called in other directions,” Tebow said in a statement released by the Mets, who signed him to a minor-league deal in 2016. “I never want to be partially in on anything. I always want to be 100 percent in on whatever I choose.”While Tebow never went beyond Class AAA in baseball, he drew a great deal of attention, because of both his exploits on the football field and his charitable endeavors. He is the author of several books and has done missionary work around the world. He was often polarizing, though, with fans of both sports regularly disagreeing about his value and potential, as well as his outspokenness as a Christian. But wherever he went, Tebow drew a crowd.I never want to be partially in on anything. I always want to be 100% in on whatever I choose. Thank you again for everyone’s support of this awesome journey in baseball, I’ll always cherish my time as a Met! #LGM— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) February 18, 2021
      “It has been a pleasure to have Tim in our organization, as he’s been a consummate professional during his four years with the Mets,” said Sandy Alderson, the president of the Mets. “By reaching the Triple-A level in 2019, he far exceeded expectations when he first entered the system in 2016, and he should be very proud of his accomplishments.”Tebow, 33, showed tremendous athleticism at every stop of his journey, but after a standout career at Florida, during which he won the 2007 Heisman Trophy and two national championships, he never found the right fit professionally.A first-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2010, he struggled to make his run-heavy approach to playing quarterback work in the N.F.L., but he did manage a surprising close to the 2011 season. After going 7-4 as a starter, he shocked the sport by leading the Broncos to an upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round of the playoffs.Tebow’s peak as a professional athlete came after the 2011 N.F.L. season when he led the Denver Broncos to an upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round of the playoffs.Credit…Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post, via Associated PressThat success was short-lived, however, as he was traded to the Jets before the next season. After arriving to much fanfare, he threw just eight passes for the Jets over the course of two games and was released. Attempts to catch on with the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles went nowhere.A year after his release from the Eagles in 2015, Tebow, who had not played organized baseball since his junior year in high school, was signed by the Mets.“This decision was strictly driven by baseball,” Alderson insisted at the time of the signing. “This was not something that was driven by marketing considerations or anything of the sort.”Tebow homered in his first professional at-bat, but over all he hit .223 in four seasons, with 18 home runs. In 2019, he hit .163 with four homers for Class AAA Syracuse.In announcing his retirement, he acknowledged the Mets fans who had pulled for him in his quest to join the ranks of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, athletes who reached the pinnacle in both football and baseball.“Thank you again for everyone’s support of this awesome journey in baseball,” he said. “I’ll always cherish my time as a Met.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jaguars' Hiring of Chris Doyle Called 'Unacceptable' by Fritz Pollard Alliance

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDiversity Group Calls Jaguars’ Hiring of Assistant Coach ‘Simply Unacceptable’The Fritz Pollard Alliance criticized the addition of Chris Doyle, who was accused of mistreatment of Black players at the University of Iowa, to Urban Meyer’s staff in Jacksonville.Chris Doyle in 2018 at the University of Iowa, where he was the football team’s strength and conditioning coach.Credit…Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021Updated 9:36 p.m. ETAn organization that promotes diversity in the N.F.L. on Friday criticized the Jacksonville Jaguars’ recent hiring of Chris Doyle, who left the University of Iowa’s football staff last year after a number of current and former Hawkeyes players said he had fostered a culture of bullying and racism.A statement from the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which is named for the first Black head coach in the N.F.L., said the Jaguars’ decision to make Doyle their director of sports performance was “simply unacceptable.”“Doyle’s departure from the University of Iowa reflected a tenure riddled with poor judgment and mistreatment of Black players,” Rod Graves, the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, said in the statement. “His conduct should be as disqualifying for the N.F.L. as it was for University of Iowa.”Doyle, who was Iowa’s strength and conditioning coach, reached a separation agreement with the university in June, ending two decades of work there.The Jaguars announced on Thursday that Doyle had joined the staff of Urban Meyer, who was named Jacksonville’s head coach last month. Meyer, who won two college national championships as the head coach at Florida and one at Ohio State, has not coached since 2018 and has never worked in the N.F.L. before.The hiring of Doyle, who is white, comes at a time of intense scrutiny of the N.F.L.’s hiring practices and questions about whether minority candidates for coaching jobs have equal opportunities to be hired.“I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years,” Meyer said on Thursday when questioned about hiring someone who had been accused of mistreating Black athletes. Doyle was the strength coach at the University of Utah in the late 1990s, a few years before Meyer was hired as the head coach there.“Urban Meyer’s statement, ‘I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years,’ reflects the good ol’ boy network that is precisely the reason there is such a disparity in employment opportunities for Black coaches,” Graves said in the statement.Neither the N.F.L. nor the Jaguars responded to a request for comment on the Fritz Pollard Alliance’s statement.During a news conference last week, N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell said that he was not satisfied with the rate at which coaches of color have been hired in the N.F.L., which has 32 teams.“It wasn’t what we expected,” he said of the diversity in the round of hirings after the 2020 season, “and it’s not what we expect going forward.”Of the seven head coaches hired since the end of the regular season, just two were nonwhite. Last year one of five head coaching jobs went to a minority candidate, and the year before just one in eight.Over the last three years 80 percent of head coaching jobs have gone to white candidates, though players of color made up 69.4 percent of the N.F.L. this season, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.After the Jaguars hired Meyer and General Manager Trent Baalke, who are both white, last month, Graves praised the organization for interviewing several minority candidates and for seeking input from the Fritz Pollard Alliance.“I cannot argue that the process didn’t meet the standard of fair, open and competitive,” Graves told The Florida Times-Union.The hiring of Doyle, however, raised issues beyond the N.F.L.’s commitment to diverse hiring.Before Doyle left Iowa, Emmanuel Rugamba, a former Hawkeyes defensive back, gave multiple examples of the coach demeaning players with negative racial stereotypes. Rugamba said in a tweet that one day after a Black player walked away from Doyle, the coach said, “Why you walking wit all that swagger I’ll put you back on the streets.”James Daniels, a Chicago Bears offensive lineman and a former Hawkeye, tweeted over the summer: “There are too many racial disparities in the Iowa football program. Black players have been treated unfairly for far too long.”Doyle also presided over an off-season workout in 2011 that resulted in the hospitalization of 13 players.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      J.J. Watt Released by Texans

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTexans Release J.J. Watt After He Asks to LeaveThe defensive star said he wants to compete for championships near the end of his career.J.J. Watt left the field after his final game as a Texan.Credit…Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesFeb. 12, 2021Updated 4:29 p.m. ETThe Houston Texans released the three-time defensive player of the year J.J. Watt on Friday after he asked to leave the team.“I have sat down with the McNair family and I have asked them for my release, and we have mutually agreed to part ways at this time,” he said in a video posted to Twitter. “I’m excited and looking forward to a new opportunity.”Houston, I wanted you to hear this directly from me… pic.twitter.com/YqT3P6Lb6l— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 12, 2021
      Watt will become a free agent, and even at 31 should still be in demand by teams seeking a pass rusher.After making the playoffs in four of five seasons, the Texans collapsed to 4-12 in 2020. Watt has expressed a desire to play for a contending team in the twilight of his career.“I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t have 10 years left in this league,” Watt told ESPN in November. “I’m not looking to rebuild. I’m looking to go after a championship, and that’s what I want to do.”Like most bad teams, the Texans must decide whether to try to fix things quickly or go for a complete rebuild. The team has said it would not trade its star quarterback Deshaun Watson, but reports continue to swirl that they are shopping him. Watt would have been paid $17.5 million had the Texans retained him this coming season.Watt was drafted No. 11 overall in 2011 out of Wisconsin. At 6-foot-5 and nearly 300 pounds, he has been a fearsome presence on the defensive line and an elite pass rusher, including four seasons with 15 or more sacks. He was one of only three defensive players unanimously selected to the N.F.L.’s all-decade team for the 2010s, along with Von Miller of the Broncos and Aaron Donald of the Rams.He has five Pro Bowl selections, but has had injury problems in recent years. He did play 16 games this past season, but had only five sacks with the struggling Texans. He has 101 sacks in 10 seasons, nearly double the next highest total in Texans history.Although the Texans had some good years in his 10-season run with them, the championship he desires eluded him and his team never advanced past the divisional round of the playoffs.It has been a rough couple of months for Houston sports teams. In January, the Rockets traded the former most valuable player James Harden to the Nets, and the Astros lost the former World Series Most Valuable Player George Springer to the Blue Jays in free agency.Besides his three defensive player of the year awards, the last in 2015, Watt won the Walter Payton man of the year award in 2017 for his efforts to raise millions for relief after Hurricane Harvey.“Simply put, there has been no person in the past decade who has made a greater impact on the Texans organization than J.J. Watt,” team owner Janice McNair said in a statement.Watt expressed his sentiments toward Houston fans on Friday. “The way you guys have treated me — except draft night, you guys booed me on draft night — but every day after that you treated me like family.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Super Bowl Ratings Hit a 15-Year Low. It Still Outperformed Everything Else.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuper Bowl Ratings Hit a 15-Year Low. It Still Outperformed Everything Else.The game between two marquee quarterbacks was not competitive. Still, the Super Bowl is expected to be the most watched television program this year.Television viewership for the Super Bowl was down 9 percent compared with last year.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesFeb. 9, 2021Updated 4:20 p.m. ETSunday’s Super Bowl was watched by just 91.6 million people on CBS, the lowest number of viewers for the game on traditional broadcast television since 2006. A total of 96.4 million people watched when other platforms — like the CBS All Access streaming service and mobile phone apps — were counted, the lowest number of total viewers since 2007.Still, the Super Bowl will surely be the most watched television program of 2021, and the N.F.L. is expected to see a huge increase in television rights fees when it signs several new television distribution agreements over the next year.After peaking at 114 million television viewers in 2015, television ratings for the Super Bowl have declined in five of the past six years. The 9 percent decline in television viewership from last year’s Super Bowl is roughly in line with season-long trends. N.F.L. games this season were watched by 7 percent fewer people than the season before.Many of the necessary ingredients for a bonanza Super Bowl were present. The game featured an intriguing matchup between the two most popular quarterbacks in football, Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. The weather Sunday was freezing across much of the country, which traditionally drives people inside to be entertained by their televisions. But the game itself failed to deliver, all but ending by the third quarter when the Buccaneers led, 31-9, with no fourth-quarter scoring or hint of a competitive game. Viewership is measured as the average of the audience watching at each minute of the game; the longer a game is competitive and viewers stay tuned in, the better.The hype and marketing machine surrounding the game was also changed by the coronavirus pandemic. The N.F.L. credentialed about 4,000 fewer media members for the Super Bowl compared with last year, meaning fans saw less media live from the Super Bowl ahead of the game. Fans were discouraged from gathering for parties, and instead of staying home and watching alone, it seems many just did something else. Just 38 percent of all households with a television were tuned to the game, the lowest percentage since 1969, according to Nielsen.The N.F.L. joins almost every other sport in seeing viewership declines over the past year. The pandemic shut down the sporting world for months in the spring, and when games resumed they frequently lacked energy with few or no fans in the stands. Games were often played on unusual days or at unusual times, disrupting the traditional sports viewership calendar.Viewership for the N.B.A. finals was down 49 percent and for the Stanley Cup finals was down 61 percent. It is not just sports. Compared to this time last year, viewership of all broadcast television — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox — is down 20 percent during prime time. In that context, a 7 percent season drop and a 9 percent Super Bowl drop is a comparatively decent showing for the N.F.L.Importantly, it also won’t slow down the N.F.L.’s march toward lucrative new television contracts. All indications — including deals made by other leagues and the competitive demand among networks and streaming services — suggest that the league will sign new agreements over the next year with a significant increase in average annual value.Even in a world of fractured viewership that is quickly moving toward streaming, the N.F.L. remains king. Of the 100 most viewed television programs in 2020, 76 were N.F.L. games, according to Mike Mulvihill, an executive at Fox Sports. And while the 38 percent of households tuned to the game was a modern day low for the Super Bowl, the last time that number was beat by anything other than an N.F.L. game was the 1994 Winter Olympics, according to the website Sports Media Watch, when the figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding competed amid the scandal of Harding’s involvement in an attack on Kerrigan.The N.F.L. could become the king of streaming, too. According to CBS the Super Bowl averaged 5.7 million viewers streaming the game, 68 percent more than last year.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Marty Schottenheimer, 77, Winning N.F.L. Coach With Four Teams, Dies

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMarty Schottenheimer, 77, Winning N.F.L. Coach With Four Teams, DiesWith a running attack known as Martyball, his teams won 200 regular season games and reached the playoffs 13 times but never made it to the Super Bowl.Marty Schottenheimer coaching the  Cleveland Browns during the 1980s. He gained acclaim for turning around floundering teams. Credit…The Sporting News/Sporting News, via Getty ImagesFeb. 9, 2021Updated 3:01 p.m. ETMarty Schottenheimer, who won 200 regular-season games as an N.F.L. head coach, the eighth-highest total in league history, and took teams to the playoffs in 13 of his 21 seasons but never made it to the Super Bowl, died on Monday in Charlotte, N.C. He was 77. The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, said Bob Moore, a spokesman for the family. Schottenheimer died at a hospice facility near his home in Charlotte after being in its care since Jan. 30. He was first given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2014.Coaching four franchises with an often headstrong manner, Schottenheimer gained acclaim for turning around floundering teams, often emphasizing a power-running offense known as Martyball.At first, the tag was emblematic of his winning ways, at least in the regular season. But as the years passed, and Schottenheimer’s teams reached a conference final only three times and then lost all three games on that final rung toward the Super Bowl, Martyball became a term of derision, branding his offense as too conservative.Schottenheimer coached the original Cleveland Browns from midway through the 1984 season to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington Redskins in 2001 (the team dropped that name last July) and the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2006.His teams went 200-126-1 over all, and he was named the 2004 N.F.L. coach of the year by The Associated Press when his Chargers went 12-4 after finishing the previous season at 4-12. But they were upset by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.Schottenheimer’s squads had a 5-13 record in playoff games.In the run-up to the Chargers-Jets playoff game, Lee Jenkins of The New York Times, reflecting on Schottenheimer’s intensity, wrote how “anyone who watches Schottenheimer standing on the sideline Saturday night against the Jets, arms crossed and feet shoulder-width apart, will recognize him as that angry professor from Kansas City and Cleveland.”“He still wears his gold spectacles,” Jenkins wrote, “and sets his square jaw and roars his favorite football platitudes in a hoarse baritone that makes him sound as if he has been screaming for three and a half quarters.”Schottenheimer as head coach of the San Diego Chargers during a divisional playoff game in 2007. After the Chargers lost, he was fired.  Credit…Mike Blake/ReutersHue Jackson, an assistant to Schottenheimer with the Redskins and a future head coach of the Oakland Raiders and the second Cleveland Browns franchise, was struck by Schottenheimer’s football smarts coupled with an insistence on control.“My time with him, I watched one of the most passionate football coaches I had ever been around,” Jackson told ESPN in 2016. “I know everybody has the stories about Marty crying.”“He taught me a ton about the running game, being tough, just what it meant to be a part of a team,” Jackson recalled, adding, “Marty does not back down from anybody.”Martin Edward Schottenheimer was born on Sept. 23, 1943, in Canonsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh, and grew up in nearby McDonald, a coal town, where his grandfather Frank, a German immigrant, had worked in the mines. His father, Edward, worked for a grocery chain, and his mother, Catherine (Dunbar) Schottenheimer, was a homemaker.Schottenheimer was considered one of the best high school defensive linemen in western Pennsylvania. He went on to the University of Pittsburgh, playing at linebacker from 1962 to 1964, and was named a second-team All-American by The Associated Press for his senior season.He was selected in the fourth round of the N.F.L.’s 1965 draft by the Baltimore Colts and in the seventh round of the American Football League draft by the Buffalo Bills.Schottenheimer, 6 feet 3 inches and 225 pounds, spent four seasons with the Bills and another two with the Boston Patriots.After working in real estate following his retirement as a player, he turned to coaching in the N.F.L. He spent two years as the Giants’ linebacker coach and then was their defensive coordinator in 1977. He coached the Detroit Lions’ linebackers for two seasons after that before becoming the Browns’ defensive coordinator. He succeeded Sam Rutigliano as the Browns’ head coach midway through the 1984 season, when they were 1-7.Relying on a power ground game featuring Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack and the passing of Bernie Kosar, Schottenheimer took the Browns to the American Football Conference final following the 1986 and 1987 seasons, but they lost to the Denver Broncos each time in their bid to reach the Super Bowl.The first time, the quarterback John Elway led the Broncos to a tying touchdown after they took over on their 2-yard line late in the fourth quarter, the sequence that became known as “the drive.” The Browns were then beaten on a field goal in overtime.The next year, in a play that became known as “the fumble,” Byner was stripped of the football just as he was about to cross the goal line for a potential game-tying touchdown with about a minute left. The Broncos took a safety and ran out the clock for a 38-33 victory.Schottenheimer’s 1988 Browns team went 10-6 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. At the time, his brother, Kurt, was the team’s defensive coordinator, and when the owner, Art Modell, insisted that he reassign his brother, Schottenheimer quit. He had also resisted Modell’s demand that he hire a new offensive coordinator, having filled that role himself when it become vacant that year.Schottenheimer was the first to admit that he was strong-willed.“Maybe I thought there was a pot of gold somewhere else to be found,” he said in his memoir, “Martyball!” (2012), written with Jeff Flanagan. “But I was stubborn, very stubborn back then. I’ve always been stubborn but much more so when I decided to leave Cleveland.”He then began a 10-season run as coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, taking them to the playoffs seven times.Before the 1993 season, the Chiefs obtained two of the N.F.L.’s marquee names, quarterback Joe Montana, in a trade, and running back Marcus Allen as a free agent. The team then went 11-5 and reached the A.F.C. final against the Bills. But Schottenheimer once again missed out on the Super Bowl. Montana left the game early in the second half with an injury, and the Bills rolled to a 30-13 victory.Schottenheimer as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs in 1997. The team went to 13-3 in the regular season that year but lost to the Denver Broncos in the first round of the playoffs. Credit…Jed Jacobsohn/AllsportThe Chiefs were 13-3 in the 1997 regular season, only to lose to the Broncos in the playoffs’ first round. Schottenheimer was fired after the Chiefs went 7-9 in 1998, the only time one of his Kansas City teams finished below .500.After two years as an analyst for ESPN, Schottenheimer was hired as the Washington coach in 2001. He took the Redskins to an 8-8 record, then was fired once more.His last N.F.L. stop came in San Diego, where he twice lost in the playoffs’ first round, the second time following the Chargers’ 14-2 season in 2006 behind their brilliant running back LaDainian Tomlinson. In firing Schottenheimer after that season, the Chargers cited his feuding with the general manager, A.J. Smith, over control of roster decisions.Schottenheimer was coach and general manager of the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League in 2011, taking them to the league title.He is survived by his wife, Pat (Hoeltgen) Schottenheimer; a son, Brian, who was a quarterback coach under him; a daughter, Kristen; his brothers Bill and Kurt; a sister, Lisa; and four grandchildren.Schottenheimer refused to second-guess decisions he had made in the playoffs or at any other time.“I’ve made calls that, by all reason, were perfect, and got nothing,” he once told The Boston Globe. “And I’ve made calls that were inappropriate to the situation and they’ve worked. So go figure. Pro football is a strange game.”Alex Traub contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Patrick Mahomes Lost Last Night

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      Why Patrick Mahomes Lost Last NightDoug Mills/The New York TimesPatrick Mahomes didn’t look anything like himself during the Super Bowl, largely because Tampa Bay’s pass rush had him on the run all game — setting a fairly incredible record in the process.Here’s how the Buccaneers disrupted the Chiefs’ unflappable quarterback → More

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      Britt Reid, Son of Chiefs Coach, Drank Alcohol Ahead of Car Crash

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearGame HighlightsThe CommercialsHalftime ShowWhat We LearnedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritt Reid, Son of Chiefs Coach, Drank Alcohol Ahead of Car CrashReid told the police he had “two or three drinks” before slamming into a car that carried two small children last week. One is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.Britt Reid did not travel with the Kansas City Chiefs to Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl on Sunday.Credit…Mark Brown/Getty ImagesKevin Draper and Feb. 8, 2021Updated 3:41 p.m. ETBritt Reid, the outside linebackers coach for the Kansas City Chiefs and a son of the head coach, Andy Reid, told police officers he had “two or three drinks” before he was involved in an automobile crash Thursday night that left a child with life-threatening injuries, according to a search warrant filed in Jackson County, Mo., circuit court.The crash occurred just days before the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., on Sunday, when the Chiefs, the reigning N.F.L. champions, played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs flew to Tampa on Saturday, but Britt Reid, 35, did not make the trip.According to the search warrant, an officer could smell “a moderate odor of alcoholic beverages” on Reid after the crash. The search warrant said the police sought to draw Reid’s blood and test it for alcohol and other controlled substances.On Friday, in a statement, the team confirmed that Reid had been involved in a crash, but provided no details. “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 car crash involving Britt Reid, a spokesman for the police department in Kansas City, Mo., said that a crash had occurred on Interstate 435, not far from the Chiefs’ training facility.The spokesman would not provide more details or identify anyone who was involved in the crash, citing a Missouri law that prohibits the police from releasing the names of people who have not been charged with a crime. But the details in the police incident report, such as the make and model of the cars involved and the description of what happened, matched the search warrant, which does name Reid.According to the police, a vehicle ran out of gas on a freeway entrance ramp less than a mile from Arrowhead Stadium. The driver stopped with his flashers on and called his cousins for help. When they arrived, the cousins parked in front of the disabled car and left their lights on, as the battery was dying in the disabled car.Reid entered the on-ramp driving a Ram pickup truck and hit the left front of the stranded car, according to the police incident report. The driver was sitting in the car and was not injured.Reid’s pickup then slammed into the rear of the cousins’ car. The driver and an adult in the front passenger seat were not injured. But a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old sitting in the back were both injured and taken to the hospital, the 5-year-old with life-threatening injuries.The 5-year-old was still in critical condition on Monday morning with a brain injury, according to a police statement.After the Super Bowl, which the Chiefs lost, 31-9, Andy Reid addressed his son’s car crash for the first time.“My heart goes out to all those that were involved in the accident, in particular the family with the little girl who’s fighting for her life,” Andy Reid said, adding that his “heart bleeds.”Britt Reid had non-life-threatening injuries, the police said, but complained of stomach pain and was also taken to a hospital after the crash.“Most serious-injury/fatality crashes take weeks to investigate, as do criminal investigations,” the Kansas City Police Department said in a statement released Monday, explaining why no arrests have been made and the names of those involved in the crash have not been released. “This is no different.”Reid has been a Chiefs coach since his father was hired as head coach eight years ago, and has spent the last two seasons as the outside linebackers coach. Before joining the Chiefs’ coaching staff, he spent three seasons at Temple University as a graduate assistant working with the offense.He was also an intern for his father with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2009.Britt Reid has been in legal trouble previously. In 2007, Reid, then 22, pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges stemming from a road rage dispute. He brandished a handgun at another driver in suburban Philadelphia on the same day his brother Garrett was arrested after a drug-related traffic crash. Andy Reid took a five-week leave of absence from the Eagles after his sons were arrested.Britt Reid also pleaded guilty to simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime and drug possession in the case. While out on bail before the case was decided, he was arrested after driving into a shopping cart in a parking lot and eventually pleaded guilty to driving under the influence.In 2012, Garrett Reid was found dead of an accidental overdose in his dormitory room at the Eagles’ training site in Bethlehem, Pa. He was 29.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More