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Formula One racer Daniel Ricciardo was released by Red Bull Racing on Thursday, and it was announced that Liam Lawson will immediately slip into the driver’s seat, replacing him on the team.

It was pretty apparent that the 35-year-old’s days with the circuit were nearing their end — at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend, he was called into the pits by his RB team ahead of the final lap, giving the Australian an opportunity to set the fastest lap of the race.

At the race’s conclusion, he sat in his car for an unusual amount of time before walking through a gauntlet of supporters who lined up to applaud him. His post-race interviews were emotional, acknowledging he may have concluded his final race.

Red Bull, owner of the RB team, made the news official Thursday, announcing the 22-year-old Lawson will step in for Ricciardo for the U.S. Grand Prix and onward.

Lawson joined the Red Bull driver program five years ago and raced five times last year, covering for Ricciardo after he broke his hand during a practice.

“I’ve loved this sport my whole life. It’s wild and wonderful and been a journey,” Ricciardo wrote in a farewell post on Instagram. “To the teams and individuals that have played their part, thank you. To the fans who love the sport sometimes more than me haha thank you.

“It’ll always have its highs and lows but it’s been fun and truth be told I wouldn’t change it. Until the next adventure.”

Teammates, former teams and rivals all flooded the comments on his Instagram post with well-wishes.

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Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton simply put: “Legend.”

Hamilton’s current Mercedes teammate George Russell added: “Going to miss you mate.”

Mercedes’ Silver Arrows team chimed in, too, thanking Ricciardo for his upbeat energy and the challenge he brought to races.

“You’ve been an incredible competitor over the years,” the team wrote.

“Thanks for the many fun battles and the infectious energy you brought to our sport both on and off track. Enchanté Daniel.”

Ricciardo’s final Red Bull teammate and friend Max Verstappen replied: “Head up mate! Many more beautiful moments to come.”

“Everyone here at VCARB would like to thank Daniel for his hard work across the last two seasons with us,” RB team principal Laurent Mekies wrote in a statement. “He has brought a lot of experience and talent to the team with a fantastic attitude, which has helped everyone to develop and foster a tight team spirit.

“Daniel has been a true gentleman both on and off the track and never without that smile. He will be missed, but will always hold a special place within the Red Bull family.”

Fans, however, were baffled and frustrated that Red Bull would drop Ricciardo, who is widely considered one of the nicest and most humble F1 drivers, so unceremoniously.

“Not giving Daniel Ricciardo a proper goodbye is utterly mystifying,” one fan commented on X.

“The whole situation has been dealt with disgracefully. Deserved a proper final race, deserved to be able to speak about it openly so he could fully thank his fans. Absolute joke,” another shared.

“Shame. You should have given him a proper goodbye at the last race, or announce he’s out for next year but keep him until end of 2024. Don’t get the rush with Lawson right now but there you go,” another agreed.

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Ricciardo won eight races over 14 seasons, with his final victory coming at Monza in 2021 when he won driving for McLaren. He was bought out of his McLaren deal after the 2022 season, and he was hired to return to Red Bull as a team ambassador.

That led to seven races in 2023 with Red Bull’s sister team. Ricciardo was given the seat full-time for 2024 but through 18 races he’s only finished inside the points three times.

His best finish in the championship was third in 2014 and 2016 — both years when Mercedes dominated the season and Ricciardo, then at Red Bull, was effectively best of the rest.

Verstappen’s arrival at Red Bull partway through the 2016 season gradually saw Ricciardo move into a supporting role. His career stalled after a move to Renault in 2019, and after switching to McLaren in 2021, he was largely outclassed by Norris.

Ricciardo made a lasting impact on F1 as one of the faces of the sport’s boom in the United States driven by Netflix’s Drive To Survive series. But he has shown no interest in moving to American motorsports, and said at Singapore last weekend that racing IndyCar on ovals “scared” him.

He doesn’t know what’s next.

“When I got into F1, everyone knew me as the happy guy and the nice guy, but I do have a killer instinct,” he said in the first episode filmed during the 2018 season. “I do believe I can be world champion and for me it’s like, ‘Why else would I be doing this?’”

Lawson joins Yuki Tsunoda at RB to finish out the season.

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Liam. He already knows the team well. He drove for us last season, and coped well under difficult circumstances, so it’ll be a natural transition,” Mekies said. “It’s great to see young talent from within the Red Bull family make the next step. We’re looking forward to getting our heads down and focusing on the rest of the season together.”

— With files from The Associated Press

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

By Jeff Howe, Mike Sando, Mike Jones and Dianna Russini

For a league bound by parity, the NFL is ruled by the organizations with the most stability.

That all starts up top. A stable owner and a trustworthy front office are non-negotiable ingredients to sustained success on the field. The best front offices not only identify talent, they share a vision with each department of the organization and don’t allow office politics to interfere with the priority of winning games.

Or, as one high-ranking executive surveyed for this project said: “It is the balance and interconnectivity of all the different departments and decision-making that goes into the product on the field and the plan for the future. How you balance each of those is the challenge of a good front office.”

The Athletic polled 40 league insiders, including 35 high-ranking executives and five coaches, to compile the NFL Front Office Rankings. Respondents, who were granted anonymity for both their votes and conversations discussing them in exchange for their candor, were asked to submit their top-five front offices, in rank order, based on each franchise’s football operations side. (Respondents were not allowed to vote for their own team.)

The results favored stability, with eight of the top 10 teams featuring general managers who have been in place for at least five years. Four of the top six teams, including the top two, promoted their GMs from within.

“Ultimately, it’s about results,” the high-ranking exec added, “but how you operate day to day is about your process. (Do) you have a sound process in the draft, free agency (and with) contract structure? Are you matching your aggressive roster building with maybe the life cycle of your team? All of those things go into what (makes) the best front offices.”

The scoring system: First-place votes were worth 10 points, second-place seven, third-place five, fourth-place three and fifth-place one. (One respondent split his fifth-place vote among two teams.)

Total points: 259 (15 first-place votes, appeared on 36 ballots)
Owner: Steve Bisciotti
General manager: Eric DeCosta
Head coach: John Harbaugh

It’s been more than five years since Ozzie Newsome stepped down as Baltimore’s GM. His disciples have kept the Ravens in contention nearly every year since.

DeCosta, who was a player personnel intern for the Ravens’ inaugural season in 1996 and has been with the organization ever since, took the reins from Newsome in 2019, and Baltimore’s 56 victories over his first five seasons were tied for the third-most in the league.

DeCosta handled quarterback Lamar Jackson’s complicated contract situation, working past a trade request to execute a five-year, $260 million extension in 2023. Jackson then won his second MVP award last season.

From a talent acquisition standpoint, DeCosta has steered the Ravens toward the trade for linebacker Roquan Smith, has a strong track record in the first (safety Kyle Hamilton, wide receiver Zay Flowers) and middle rounds (defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike, tight end Isaiah Likely), landed a priority free agent in running back Derrick Henry and created an environment where a veteran like linebacker Kyle Van Noy can thrive. Of course, those are just a handful of examples.

DeCosta also got out in front of the potential loss of receiver Hollywood Brown, flipping him and a third-rounder to the Arizona Cardinals for a first-round pick that netted center Tyler Linderbaum.

“Consistency,” an NFC executive said of the Ravens’ front office. “They know what a Raven is and understand how to win with those guys.”

That’s a common refrain when discussing DeCosta and his staff. They recognize the types of players and people who will be successful in their program, and they’re certainly aided by the fact that head coach John Harbaugh has manned the sidelines since 2008. All involved know what to expect from one another.

The Ravens’ influence can be felt in many buildings across the NFL. Current general managers Joe Hortiz (Los Angeles Chargers) and Joe Douglas (New York Jets) have experience under Newsome, the architect of Baltimore’s two Super Bowl winners and someone commonly referred to as the best GM in history. Chicago Bears assistant general manager Ian Cunningham, considered a likely future GM, also worked for Newsome.

Total points: 174 (13 first-place votes, appeared on 25 ballots)
Owner: Clark Hunt
General manager: Brett Veach
Head coach: Andy Reid

Reid and Veach are a formidable 1-2 punch for the two-time defending Super Bowl champions. Veach, who began his career as a coaching intern under Reid with Philadelphia in 2004, followed his mentor to Kansas City. Veach played a significant role in the decision to draft Patrick Mahomes in 2017 (under then-GM John Dorsey, who he succeeded weeks after that draft). Veach rebuilt the offensive line and armed defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo with a talented young defense that ranked among the top 10 in scoring defense four of the past five years.

“Veach grew up around Andy, so I think there is a very clear vision on what types of players they’re looking for and what works in their system,” an executive said. “Along with the winning comes continuity, and I think that staff as a whole has a very strong understanding of what works there. I think Veach and (assistant general manager Mike) Borgonzi are good evaluators. They have an eye for talent along with an understanding of what plays in the league.”

While Mahomes’ deal could be reworked in the not-so-distant future, he’s currently the greatest bargain on the planet because the Chiefs were savvy enough to take care of him before the QB market boom. Mahomes, for his part, sought a long-term partnership that would help the team put together an elite roster around him. The 12 quarterbacks currently ahead of Mahomes in average annual salary have combined to win zero Super Bowls and have 19 playoff wins to his 15.

Said one general manager who voted Kansas City as the top front office: “They have the stability of that head coach along with a guy who is comfortable in that second chair.”

So while Mahomes and Reid have become the faces of the franchise, Veach has been quietly fortifying a roster that’s helped them win three of the past five Super Bowls.

Total points: 151 (3 first-place votes, appeared on 26 ballots)
CEO: Jed York
General manager: John Lynch
Head coach: Kyle Shanahan

The 49ers, like the Chiefs, have a power coach who was instrumental in selecting the GM.

Shanahan and Lynch, after enduring a 10-22 start to their tenure, have reached two Super Bowls and four NFC Championship Games over the past five years. Their 62 regular-season and playoff wins from 2019-23 were the third most in the NFL.

Three former members of the Shanahan/Lynch front office have landed GM jobs elsewhere: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah (Vikings), Ran Carthon (Titans) and Adam Peters (Commanders).

“From the top on down, they’re on the same page, share the vision on how to build a team,” an AFC talent evaluator said. “They hit on late picks, and those guys contribute. They’ve got the best roster (with) seven All-Pros.”

The Niners’ upper-echelon talent rivals any team in the league. They have extended many of their key pieces, even if negotiations have gotten contentious at times with Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams.

“The issues they had,” said a general manager, referring to this summer’s Aiyuk and Williams holdouts, “were because they have so many good football players.”

The 49ers invested three first-round picks in the ill-fated 2021 draft trade up for quarterback Trey Lance, but the development of Brock Purdy from Mr. Irrelevant into a potential long-term franchise QB made up for Lance’s failure to launch in San Francisco. If they pay Purdy near the top of the market, the challenge then becomes balancing out the roster with those new cap constraints.

4. Philadelphia Eagles

Total points: 140 (5 first-place votes, appeared on 23 ballots)
Owner: Jeffrey Lurie
General manager: Howie Roseman
Head coach: Nick Sirianni

Voters praised Roseman for his analytical and forward-thinking approach to roster-building, which has helped keep Eagles in the playoff conversation for the majority of his tenure, including a Super Bowl LII victory and another NFC title in 2022.

Since Roseman’s promotion to GM in 2010 — with a few gap years when his title and role evolved during the Chip Kelly years — the Eagles have reached the playoffs eight times. They’ve had a winning record in six of their last seven seasons.

“Howie is really aggressive,” an executive said. “That really stands out about the way they do things. They go for it. He’s not afraid to take risks on players. I think that’s a really good quality when you get into that role, and he’s quick to move on when something isn’t working. Those are attractive traits in a general manager. They’ve also always had guys in Philly who are good evaluators.”

Among the Eagles’ best attributes: cultivating front-office talent. Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, Jets GM Joe Douglas and Browns GM Andrew Berry all worked for Roseman. Ditto for Bears assistant GM Ian Cunningham. Current Bucs general manager Jason Licht worked alongside Roseman in Philly from 2003-07. Current Eagles assistant general manager Alec Halaby has interviewed for GM jobs elsewhere.

“The resources they have in Philly, the access that you get to all departments, you can learn a lot,” another executive said.

Under Roseman’s watch, the Eagles pulled off the rare feat of drafting a second-round quarterback and then developing him to the point that they awarded him a top-of-the-market second contract. Of the 20 quarterbacks averaging $25 million or more annually on their current deals, only Hurts and Dak Prescott got their contracts from the team that drafted them outside the first round. Hurts has been protected by an elite offensive line, while the Eagles had enough flexibility to trade for A.J. Brown and draft DeVonta Smith in the first round, and still took care of both star receivers with second contracts.

The Eagles have had more turnover at head coach than the teams ranked ahead of them, but Roseman’s consistent approach has kept their identity intact.

Total points: 62 (appeared on 20 ballots)
Owner: Sheila Ford Hamp
General manager: Brad Holmes
Head coach: Dan Campbell

Holmes, who took over in 2021, helped guide the Lions to one of the best seasons in franchise history last year.

As one general manager put it: “If you asked: Who is the No. 1 GM in the league right now, this minute? It might be him. I love the demeanor, love what he stands for.”

Holmes and Campbell see things through the same lens, which has helped the GM acquire the types of players who will fare well for Campbell. They’ve built a roster that appears tough, selfless and talented.

“Detroit has done a great job of figuring out their style and getting guys who fit that in the draft and free agency” an NFC executive said.
Holmes’ first-round picks include right tackle Penei Sewell, defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, wideout Jameson Williams, running back Jahmyr Gibbs, linebacker Jack Campbell and cornerback Terrion Arnold. The Lions have built one of the best offensive lines in the league and have revitalized quarterback Jared Goff by building around him.

This was hardly a small-scale rebuild for an organization that had one playoff victory in the Super Bowl era before the new regime’s arrival, and Holmes brought a turnaround in a remarkably short time. When building out the roster, Campbell has said he wants players who would have been great teammates during his playing career, and Holmes has delivered.

“Detroit has done a nice job building it in their own image, which is unique to everybody else,” an executive said.

Total points: 54 (appeared on 16 ballots)
Team president: Mark Murphy
General manager: Brian Gutekunst
Head coach: Matt LaFleur

The Packers’ stability at quarterback over the decades mirrors their stability in the front office, as Gutekunst, like his predecessor, Ted Thompson, worked under Hall of Fame Packers GM Ron Wolf in the Green Bay front office two-plus decades ago. It’s that tradition as a scouting organization that helped Green Bay land so high on this list.

Led by an influx of young home-grown talent, including quarterback Jordan Love, the team reached the playoffs last season while carrying $65 million in dead money, most of it from the Aaron Rodgers trade. Reaching the playoffs and blowing out Dallas in the wild-card round signaled that the Packers were two years ahead of schedule on their rebuild. They have another $51 million in dead money this season, but could be back in the playoffs if Love, who could return from a sprained knee this week, and his young supporting cast continue to develop.

Gutekunst identified Love as Rodgers’ successor with a polarizing first-round pick in 2020, part of a plan to navigate one of the most complicated quarterback transitions in recent memory.

“Gutekunst’s humility and authenticity and being a smart football guy really shows up,” an executive said. “He’s very process-driven. There’s no panic there. They’ve made good decisions in free agency. They know their roster. They know their head coach. It’s more of a methodical, process-driven deal where they don’t rush to make a quick fix. They trust their process.”

Gutekunst and head coach Matt LaFleur could have the Packers back in championship contention even before 2025, when the books are cleared of all that dead money.

Total points: 52.5 (1 first-place vote, appeared on 11 ballots)
Chair: Jody Allen
General manager: John Schneider
Head coach: Mike Macdonald

Schneider’s 14-year partnership with former coach Pete Carroll produced 10 playoff appearances, two conference championships and a victory over Denver in Super Bowl XLVIII. Schneider, who helped Carroll build a historic defense in the early 2010s, was instrumental in identifying Russell Wilson as a franchise quarterback.

This is now a franchise in transition after the 2022 trade sending Wilson to Denver and Carroll’s departure following last season. But many of Schneider’s top lieutenants have been with the team for more than a decade and remain in place.

“Everybody just loves to work there,” a GM said. “They have a great front office vibe between coaching and personnel (staff). John Schneider is one of those collaborators. They draft well. Even with Pete leaving, the transition seemed very smooth.”

The Seahawks haven’t won a playoff game since 2019, but are 3-0 in Macdonald’s first season and are coming off back-to-back 9-8 seasons with a resurrected Geno Smith taking over for Wilson. The decisions to draft Wilson and later trade him reflected what voters saw as a willingness to make decisions without regard for potential backlash. The trade sending Wilson to Denver became one of the league’s most fruitful deals of the past few years.

“They have a clear vision of what they want to be,” an executive said. “(Schneider) had Pete (Carroll) for 13 years, and they had great communication and shared a vision. (It’s a) very stable organization. John is a very humble guy and has great relationships throughout the league and in the media. He is plugged in and knows what is going on.

“Even though they have had great continuity, he never settles and is always looking for what is next and asking, ‘What am I missing?’ Never thinks he is the smartest guy in the room and listens. Great leader and respected by everyone because he is so genuine.”

Total points: 48.5 (1 first-place vote, appeared on 13 ballots)
Owner: Stan Kroenke
General manager: Les Snead
Head coach: Sean McVay

McVay’s hiring in 2017 became a line of demarcation for a front office featuring president Kevin Demoff (with the team since 2009) and Snead (hired in 2012). Those three have combined to form a front office willing to take home-run swings, most notably the 2021 trade acquisition of quarterback Matthew Stafford.

The franchise found a new identity, and achieved a level of success it hadn’t experienced since the turn of the century, including a victory over Cincinnati in Super Bowl LVI. Snead famously ushered in a “F— them picks” era of roster-building, flipping first-round choices for veteran stars at a time when conventional wisdom held that, with the rookie-wage scale in place after the 2011 CBA, draft capital was king. The Rams didn’t use a first-round pick from 2017 to ’23, but ranked sixth in winning percentage (.609) and third in playoff victories over that span.

The aggressive strategy seemed to catch up to the Rams in 2022, when injuries ravaged a veteran roster that also lacked depth. But McVay led them back to the postseason in 2023.

“I think it’s pretty cool how they sold out to win a Super Bowl,” a head coach said, “and then they refurbished pretty quickly.”

Total points: 33 (appeared on 9 ballots)
Owners: Terry and Kim Pegula
General manager: Brandon Beane
Head coach: Sean McDermott

Beane arrived from the Carolina Panthers in 2017 and, with McDermott, has morphed the Bills into a perennial contender. He traded up to draft quarterback Josh Allen in 2018, built up the roster around him and gave Allen the resources and time to develop from an unpolished QB into one of the league’s best players.

“Beane is the best GM in the NFL,” one executive said, adding he “understands people and culture.”

After three consecutive losses in the divisional round, Beane and the Bills traded wide receiver Stephon Diggs and moved on from aging, expensive defensive stalwarts. The early returns appear positive for the 3-0 Bills.

“I think Beane is a top-five GM,” said a general manager. “He is super smart, number one. It’s never about him. If you look at the drafting and free agents they have signed, how patient they have been with the head coach, got the quarterback right — that was a 50/50 deal. I’m a big fan of him. I’m a big fan of his coach. He’s got all the right stuff, in a tough market, by the way. This is not a place free agents are clamoring to go to.”

Total points: 19 (1 first-place vote, appeared on 4 ballots)
Owner: Art Rooney II
General manager: Omar Khan
Head coach: Mike Tomlin

The Steelers’ 2022 transition from longtime GM Kevin Colbert to Khan, who has been with the franchise since 2001, marks the most significant recent change for one of the NFL’s most stable organizations.

Mike Tomlin is the longest-tenured coach in the league and one of only three Steelers head coaches since 1969. He’s never had a losing season.

“They are old-school,” an executive said. “They have been in the same defensive system forever, and they are really good at finding players who fit it.”

If there’s a critique, the Steelers have been searching for a long-term quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger began to decline. But with a top-10 scoring defense four times in five years since Roethlisberger retired, they’ve managed to stay in the AFC North race annually despite uncertainty under center.

Others receiving votes

Only two other teams — the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns — received multiple top-five votes from our panelists. The Dallas Cowboys appeared on one ballot, receiving a first-place vote. Six other teams received a single vote.

— The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr. contributed to this story. 

(Top illustration of Howie Roseman, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, Brett Veach: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Mitchell Leff, Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers, David Eulitt / Getty Images)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — No, the Kansas City Chiefs don’t have a Travis Kelce problem.

Three weeks into the NFL’s season, an increasing number of people — fans, analysts and even former players — have come to a rather quick conclusion that Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end and future Hall of Famer, is washed. A has-been. An NFL legend who is deep into the twilight of his career, a player the Chiefs cannot rely on for pivotal highlights the way they used to, even as the franchise pursues an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl victory.

The argument is simple: Just look at Kelce’s stats. In three games, Kelce’s production has been lower than anyone expected — eight receptions on just 12 targets for 69 yards and no touchdowns. Not great.

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Plus, for the first time this season, Kelce didn’t look like his usual gregarious, jovial self during Sunday night’s game against the Atlanta Falcons. NBC’s cameras captured Kelce, who turns 35 next week, sitting on the bench just before halftime with a dejected, withdrawn expression. At times, even after certain plays, he looked a bit disinterested.

Cris Collinsworth, NBC’s game analyst and a former NFL receiver, struggled to figure out why Kelce was struggling.

“I’m just flabbergasted,” Collinsworth said before halftime. “I mean, one game, big deal. Two games, all right. This is the third game now where we have not seen the magic of (quarterback Patrick) Mahomes and Kelce, and I can’t really explain that one.”

the face of everyone who drafted Travis Kelce in fantasy pic.twitter.com/Ebl9FwMZhN

— Yahoo Fantasy Sports (@YahooFantasy) September 23, 2024

The truth, when you watch the all-22 film, is that Kelce is getting open. Quite a bit, actually. More than you think — or what you can see on TV.

As a route runner, Kelce has created an average separation of 3.5 yards, tied for 13th among tight ends, according to Next Gen Stats. Another star player has an average separation of 3.6 yards this season. That player is Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson, who has produced 14 receptions on 21 targets for 273 yards and three touchdowns.

So why are Kelce’s stats so poor?

“Are we not allowed to say that he’s out of shape, that he’s been partying all offseason?” NFL analyst Todd McShay said Monday on “The Ryen Russillo Podcast.” McShay continued: “He’s been jet-setting around with the most famous person (Taylor Swift) probably in the entire world, that he’s drinking, going to the U.S. Open and he’s got cocktails in.

“He’s one of the best to ever do it. … He’s not in the same shape. He’s not the same. I don’t see the same explosiveness. I see him wearing down a bit.”

McShay is incorrect. While his offseason itinerary was crammed — with filming national commercials, guest starring in the new FX series “Grotesquerie” and flying to Europe several times to attend Swift’s concerts — Kelce was diligent about training, though his routine was different. Wherever Kelce was, one of his three personal trainers — Alex Skacel, Andrew Spruill and Laurence Justin Ng — usually was with him. Since the Chiefs began training camp in mid-July, Kelce has not missed a practice. He is healthy and has been on the field a ton, playing 85 percent of the Chiefs’ offensive snaps (164 of 193).

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Let’s present another theory, this one from Rodney Harrison, an NBC analyst and former NFL safety.

“He’s busy, he’s got a lot on his plate,” Harrison said of Kelce during Sunday’s postgame show. “But when you’re in that situation, you’ve got to forget about everything else and you’ve got to focus 100 percent on football. That’s the main responsibility. … He’s a good player still, but I don’t believe he’s a great, great player.”

How can we forget that earlier this year, in January and February, Kelce had one of the greatest postseasons for a tight end in NFL history?

In the Chiefs’ four-game postseason run, Kelce had 32 receptions for 355 yards and three touchdowns to help the team become back-to-back champions. In Super Bowl LVIII, Kelce reached a top speed of 19.68 mph, according to Next Gen Stats, on a 22-yard reception against man-to-man coverage from All-Pro 49ers linebacker Fred Warner to set up the Chiefs’ game-tying field goal. It was Kelce’s fastest speed as a ball carrier in seven seasons.

Who else but Kelce with 9 seconds to go?!

📺: #SBLVIII on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/dClcEDViWl pic.twitter.com/ZJ0MZAnk7f

— NFL (@NFL) February 12, 2024

Kelce declined to talk to reporters after Sunday’s game, but Mahomes tried his best to explain what his teammate is experiencing on the field.

“It’s crazy because the respect factor (opposing defenses) have for Travis is just unreal,” Mahomes said. “It’s well-deserved, but we’re calling a lot of plays for Travis, and it’s, like, two or three people are going to him. He understands. That’s the great thing about him. He wants to make an impact on the game, but he wants to win.”

Mahomes is right, to a point. At no point in Sunday’s game did the Falcons dedicate three defenders to guard Kelce.

In fact, the Falcons didn’t double-team Kelce often, instead playing zone coverage to dissuade Mahomes from throwing deep passes. The Falcons’ strategy was understandable. Mahomes didn’t complete a single pass where the ball traveled more than 20 yards in the air past the line of scrimmage. The Chiefs counterattacked with 27 designed running plays, 13 passes at or behind the line of scrimmage and a bunch of plays where Kelce was used as a decoy.

GO DEEPER

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Coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy are not calling as many plays as they used to where Kelce appears to be Mahomes’ primary option. That role has been transferred to receiver Rashee Rice, an ascending second-year player who has developed into the Chiefs’ No. 1 receiver. Against the Falcons, Rice led the Chiefs with 12 receptions on 14 targets for 110 yards and a touchdown, many of his routes the type that Kelce has executed against zone coverage.

“I know people are saying that he’s old or has distractions, but the defenses don’t think that,” Reid said Wednesday. “We have another receiver (Rice) that plays opposite of (Kelce) who has a lot of yards and catches. That’s how this thing goes. Travis is fine. He just keeps being Travis. He works his tail off and he hasn’t lost a step. He’s not distracted.”

When Rice scored his 13-yard touchdown, the Falcons played man coverage with a single safety in the middle of the field. Mahomes chose to throw the ball to Rice over Kelce, who was in a one-on-one matchup against cornerback A.J. Terrell. Earlier in the first half, Kelce beat safety Jessie Bates III on a corner route, creating plenty of separation to be wide open for a reception in the intermediate area of the field. Mahomes threw the ball to Rice for a 6-yard gain, and Kelce threw his hands up in frustration. When the Chiefs scored their final touchdown against the Falcons, Kelce was open against Terrell for a 9-yard gain, which would’ve given the Chiefs a first down. Instead, Mahomes connected with receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who ran a crossing route for a 13-yard score.

A JuJu Smith-Schuster TOUCHDOWN extends the Chiefs’ lead! #ChiefsKingdom

📺 NBC and Peacock (🎥 NFL)pic.twitter.com/QryluklUJ4

— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) September 23, 2024

“With how defenses are playing us right now, I’m not really getting a lot of opportunities to make plays down the field, but (I’m) not using that as an excuse,” Kelce said on Wednesday’s episode of his “New Heights” podcast. “Moving forward, still trying to make sure that I help the team out in that regard knowing I’ve been that weapon for us in the past.

“I’ve had a lot of catches in this league, man. I’m not worried about the catches and the yards and all that. I have the most fun when the ball is thrown my way. Who doesn’t? It has everything to do with execution, just making sure we’re doing whatever we can to win these football games, man. That’s always going to be the goal.”

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NFL QB stock report, Week 4: Josh Allen overtakes Patrick Mahomes for No. 1

One of the best parts of the sport is that every skill-position player relies on 10 teammates to have individual success. Too often this season, Kelce’s contributions have been thwarted by one of his teammates.

Kelce’s best moment in Week 2 against the Bengals — a 41-yard reception in the fourth quarter — was negated by a holding penalty committed by rookie left tackle Kingsley Suamataia, who was trying to block defensive end Trey Hendrickson. Kelce was wide open in the back of the end zone when Mahomes threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to left tackle Wanya Morris. Even when Reid and Nagy called a play for Kelce near the goal line, a backward pass to set up a screen, he failed to get into the end zone because he ran into right guard Trey Smith before reaching the goal line.

Mahomes to Kelce is BACK.

📺: #Kickoff2024 on NBC/Peacock
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/TAQh9ASVMV

— NFL (@NFL) September 6, 2024

The easiest way for Kelce to be more productive, starting Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers, is for Mahomes to play better and for Reid and Nagy to incorporate him more into their play calls, especially in the red zone.

Despite left tackle being a bit of a liability, Mahomes needs to get into creation mode more often, using his elusiveness to extend plays to outwit the opposing defense’s zone coverage. When Mahomes scrambles out of the pocket, he most often finds Kelce wide open in the middle of the field. It happened in the season opener when Mahomes turned a potential sack into a gain of 23 yards.

“I’m going to try to do my best to keep feeding him the ball whenever he’s open,” Mahomes said of Kelce on Sunday. “But I think the more Rashee makes plays, the more we’re able to run the ball, the more we can get (rookie receiver Xavier) Worthy involved, that’s going to open Travis up more.”

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The Chiefs are wise not to overuse Kelce, protecting him as much as possible for another postseason run. They also have won three games while scoring 75 points, the second most in the AFC.

Kelce is not the Chiefs’ problem. But for anyone worried about his production, the solution is for almost everyone else on offense, except Rice and a few linemen, to elevate their performance. If and when that happens, expect to see the Kelce of old.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photo: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)

By Cody Stavenhagen, Sam Blum and Stephen J. Nesbitt

Before he was one of the most famed actors of a generation, Tom Hanks was a boy in the Bay Area. He could see the lights of the Oakland Coliseum from his family’s home in the Lower Hills.

The A’s moved to Oakland when Hanks was 12. When he looks back now on 56 years of fandom, Hanks’ mind goes to Game 3 of the 1972 World Series, Oakland’s first time hosting a World Series game.

“When the A’s were in the World Series, the world came to Oakland,” Hanks wrote in an email to The Athletic. “Not San Francisco. Oakland.”

Hanks watched the TV broadcast and peered out the window as storm clouds rolled in. “A freak storm that featured the stub of a funnel cloud, like a tornado forming,” he recalled. First pitch was delayed as the Coliseum and the Hanks house were soaked with rain and pelted with sleet. That the game was postponed only extended Oakland’s moment at the center of the baseball universe.

​​The A’s won three World Series while Hanks was in high school. He went to “Hot Pants Day.” He witnessed Willie Mays’ final at-bat. He served as a Coliseum vendor, selling popcorn in the stands and sweating profusely on Opening Day when Vida Blue dazzled (“phee-nom”). Those A’s and the memories they gave him remain imprinted in Hanks’ memory. “Vida Blue. Joe Rudi. Mudcat Grant,” he wrote. “Campy Campaneris. Sal Bando. Ray Fosse. The original Reggie Jackson. Thank you, boys!”

Now the team Hanks loves is leaving Oakland. They’ll play their final game at the Coliseum on Thursday afternoon, then head to Sacramento and, sometime down the road, Las Vegas. The sense of finality has hit the same for so many A’s fans, from the diehards in the right-field bleachers to Hanks himself.

In the last days of the Oakland A’s, The Athletic contacted former A’s and notable fans — athletes, actors, musicians and politicians — to hear their favorite A’s memories and what it’s like saying goodbye.

Those short on time sent short missives. Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard, who wears No. 0 in part to represent Oakland, replied, “It’s devastating for Oakland. Another sports team gone, another loss for the entire Oakland/Alameda (East Bay) communities. It’s sad to see the entire Coliseum complex empty.”

Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh lived his boyhood baseball dream coaching first base for the A’s in spring training. “That’s one of my most cherished memories, no doubt,” he said.

Others elaborated in conversations that went down memory lane and often alternated between therapy session and anger management. For so long, Oakland at least had the A’s. Now there will be nothing left.

Hanks throwing out the first pitch before a Yomiuri Giants game in Tokyo in 2009. (AP Photo / Koji Sasahara)

“How in the world,” Hanks wrote, “does Major League Baseball turn inside-out one of the most storied franchises in the history of the game? The Oakland A’s — not the East Bay Athletics or the California Golden A’s — the Oakland A’s could have/should have been the Northern California version of the the Cubs in Wrigley, the BoSox in Fenway, Pittsburgh’s Buccos on the Allegheny, Cleveland’s Guardians on the shores of Erie — beloved ball-teams with eternal hope every Opening Day until the millennium comes.

“I don’t blame that loss on the city managers of Oakland, nor the taxpayers of Alameda County. The owners and baseball blew the lead.”

Before Tony La Russa was a Hall of Fame manager, he was a light-hitting 23-year-old infielder who made the A’s Opening Day roster in 1968. He appeared in the first major league game at the Coliseum, with 50,164 filling the stadium, and roped a pinch-hit single to left field in the ninth inning.

“Coming to Oakland,” La Russa recalled, “they came in with a lot of (hope for the) future. And you’d put their history against anybody’s during that period. I think everyone that’s been a part of this is a combination of sad and angry.”

That’s a common refrain from former A’s.

Dennis Eckersley, the Hall of Fame closer who had 320 saves and won a World Series win with the A’s, moved back to the Bay Area a few years ago. If he hadn’t, Eckersley said, “it wouldn’t hurt so much. But the closer we get, where we’re (living), it’s gotten uglier inside. I’ve taken it on. Like, you can’t throw it all away. Whatever happened happened, memories and that sort of thing.

“But still, it hurts. I used to think, ‘Oh, no big deal. They’re leaving.’ But, oh my God, it’s the end! It sure does feel ugly inside.”

Rickey Henderson grew up in Oakland and became one of the most celebrated players in franchise history. Dave Stewart was a dominant postseason presence, winning World Series MVP in 1989. Both lamented the departure to the San Francisco Chronicle in March, though they placed more emphasis on the city’s role rather than on A’s owner John Fisher.

“It’s disappointing to see the A’s leaving,” Henderson, a special assistant to the A’s president, said. “But we’ve gone through so much with all the teams. The city, there’s something they’re not seeing. When you have a city that had three big-name professional sports teams, and you can’t keep any of them, something’s wrong.”

Eckersley took his 5-year-old twin grandchildren to the Coliseum last weekend. They got a kick out of the big-head mascot race between innings. It dawned on Eckersley that they, and so many young fans like them, will never have a chance to build their own memories at the old ballpark where he spent so many great seasons. He’ll tell the twins, “Remember when we went that one night?” And he’ll hope they do.

“Sometimes it helps people to be mad,” added Eckersley, who said he’s especially sad for the stadium workers he’s seen there for decades. “I’ve got that tendency where I get pissed off and just don’t want to deal. But it is what it is, and it’s sad. And I’m going to feel it. And I do.”

Saying goodbye to the Coliseum with one of the greatest who ever played. A lot of great memories in Oakland. #athletics ⁦@Athletics⁩ ⁦@baseballhall⁩ pic.twitter.com/jENitxOuO9

— Dennis Eckersley (@Eck43) September 22, 2024

For La Russa, Thursday’s finale will bring him back to standing there for the home opener in 1968. He was there when it all began. Now he’s forced to watch it end.

“It’s hard to get through,” La Russa said. “The franchise had a great history and deserved a better fate.”

Last week at Oracle Park — home of the San Francisco Giants — Green Day stepped onto the stage. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong paced up and down holding a microphone close to his face. He touted the band’s East Bay roots, its eternal connection to the Bay Area. And then …

“We don’t take no s— from people like John f—— Fisher, who sold out the Oakland A’s to Las f—— Vegas,” Armstrong said. “I f—— hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst s—hole in America.”

Armstrong was born in Oakland and raised in Rodeo. He attended last season’s “reverse boycott” at the Oakland Coliseum. He is an investor in the independent Oakland Ballers, and earlier this year during a show at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, he posted a video of himself spray-painting over the A’s logo inside a stadium tunnel. He painted a “B” over the “A” and crossed out the word “Athletics.”

Armstrong declined an interview request. “Nothing more to add,” his publicist wrote in an email. (A few days later, at Oracle Park, Armstrong evidently had more to add.)

A long list of musicians with Oakland roots have stayed loyal to the team’s last remaining major pro sports franchise. MC Hammer (real name: Stanley Burrell) grew up dancing, singing and performing outside the Coliseum. He caught the eye of then-owner Charlie Finley, who hired the young Burrell to work as a bat boy. Legend has it Jackson first gave Burrell his “Hammer” nickname because he resembled Hammerin’ Henry Aaron. Years later, per a Rolling Stone cover story at the peak of Hammer’s fame, A’s players Dwayne Murphy and Mike Davis gave Burrell a loan as he worked toward releasing his first album.

That’s my Big Brother Chris celebrating our 3rd consecutive World Championship next to Reggie Jackson.
I spoke with my other brother Big Lou earlier whom was the assistant clubhouse manager. We lived at the Coliseum !!!
We shed a collective tear for the Eastbay.
The team is… pic.twitter.com/nodsoBjXxY

— MC HAMMER e/acc (@MCHammer) September 22, 2024

The Bay Area rapper Too $hort (real name: Todd Shaw) often posts photos of himself in A’s gear on X, and recently posted on the site that he grew up selling sodas at the Coliseum. “Day one fan over here,” he wrote, “no bandwagon!

Adam Duritz, lead singer of Counting Crows, moved to California as a child. His father had been a fan of the Philadelphia A’s. The franchise was in the midst of its 1970s golden era, and Duritz was hooked. He cut school, took BART to the Coliseum and sat in the bleachers with a $2.50 ticket. (He learned recently that Counting Crows drummer Jim Bogios did the same.) By the late 1980s, Duritz was going to 50 games a year. He saw Henderson break the stolen base record and watched Nolan Ryan twirl his sixth no-hitter. Duritz identified with the underdog A’s in the Moneyball era and cherished every minute.

Now living a much different life, Duritz still gets nostalgic any time he walks out of a tunnel and into an open stadium. Green grass. Green seats. The sense of awe. “It reminds me of the Coliseum when I was a kid,” he told The Athletic last week, “and you could look up before they built Mount Davis, you could see the hills behind it.”

A few weeks ago, Counting Crows was on tour with Santana. Karl Perazzo, Santana’s percussionist, walked into Duritz’s dressing room one day and said, “Hey, I’ve got someone for you to talk to.” La Russa was on the phone. “It was just very cool for me as a huge fan,” Duritz said, “to talk to him for a little while about those days.”

Duritz, who followed the team’s elongated stadium saga, briefly hoped the A’s could complete their plan to build a ballpark at Howard Terminal. More than anything, he felt as powerless as any other A’s fan.

“It’s completely outside your purview as a fan,” he said. “You do feel that distance too, because, like, one day it’s gonna be fine, and then it’s not, and then they have a plan, and they don’t, and I’m kind of used to that with sports in the Bay Area.”

Duritz says he will still love the A’s even when they are gone. But there are parts of him that loathe Las Vegas, and parts that miss the A’s colorful characters from bygone years, and parts that wish time could be frozen when he was a kid sitting in the bleachers at the Coliseum.

“Well,” he said, “it’s pretty heartbreaking.”

Over the past five decades, A’s fandom has reached far and wide, even to the highest level of public office in the United States. President Barack Obama is an outspoken Chicago White Sox fan, for which Theo Epstein offered a “midnight pardon” when the World Series champion Chicago Cubs visited the White House in 2017, but long before he ever supported the South Siders Obama had another favorite team.

“I didn’t become a Sox fan until I moved to Chicago,” Obama once said on a Washington Nationals broadcast. “I was growing up in Hawaii, so I ended up actually being an Oakland A’s fan.”

Obama was 11 when the A’s won Oakland’s first World Series in 1972.

Two thousand miles away from Obama in Honolulu, and not far from Hanks in the Lower Hills, two girl friends from Mills College were in the back of a convertible as it cruised along Grove Street in Oakland that night.

“We just rolled down the streets honking horns,” Representative Barbara Lee, from Oakland, recalled. “Yelling, screaming, applauding and congratulating the A’s.”

The celebration continued as the A’s captured back-to-back-to-back World Series titles. The A’s became a source of booming public pride. As Oakland emerged as a center of Black culture, its baseball team was led by Black stars such as Jackson, Henderson, Stewart, Blue Moon Odom, Bill North, Claudell Washington and Blue, who Lee came to know through activism work.

“In many ways, Oakland is a city that has always exemplified Black excellence,” Lee said. “Black culture. Black power. Leadership. The A’s were a part of that milieu. It was our team. There were so many African-Americans who saw these players like I did — as icons and heroes — and were proud.”

U.S. Rep Barbara Lee represents Oakland, and is a longtime fan of the A’s. (Courtesy of Barbara Lee)

Last year, as Lee ran against former 10-time MLB All-Star Steve Garvey in a U.S. Senate special election primary, she was endorsed by Henderson, Stewart, Dusty Baker, Shooty Babitt and Tye Waller, all of whom played or coached for the A’s.

As the A’s and the City of Oakland haggled over stadium deals for years, Lee occasionally welcomed A’s executives to her office in Washington D.C. for conversations about how to keep the A’s in Oakland. “It was a long process,” she said. “It was a grueling process.” And, in the end, a hopeless one.

After the A’s announced their intentions to relocate to Las Vegas, Lee introduced a bill, the “Moneyball Act,” requiring that the owners of a relocating club compensate the city they left. But the Oakland A’s could not be saved.

“It still hasn’t settled in,” Lee said. “That’s just how difficult it’s been for me and for a lot of people in Oakland. The Oakland A’s are us, and we are them. You feel in many respects abandoned.”

Lee recited the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression …

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the fifth,” she said.

Acceptance.

When Hanks was in Los Angeles last year to promote his novel, a former A’s employee in the audience at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre asked Hanks if he would buy the A’s to keep them in Oakland.

“I haven’t done that well, guys,” Hanks joked.

That didn’t stop him from airing his frustration.

“We’ve lost the Raiders. The Warriors moved to San Francisco. Now they’re going to take the A’s out of Oakland,” Hanks said. “Damn them all to hell.”

I asked Tom Hanks if he would buy the A’s to keep them in Oakland… pic.twitter.com/fhMU2y7v0H

— Mike Ono (@skoshi_tiger) June 14, 2023

That sentiment is shared by fellow actor Blake Anderson, star of the show “Workaholics.” Anderson grew up in Concord, in the East Bay. He shrugged off so many rumors of the A’s relocating that he eventually became numb to them. A’s fans were “strung along and teased” for so many years, Anderson said, and all that false hope led to a feeling that they’d lost the A’s long before they left.

“With Oakland fandom,” he said, “you just know what it’s like for teams to evacuate.”

There are two reasons Anderson became an A’s fan.

The first is Henderson. As a kid, warring factions within Anderson’s family would try to sway him toward the Giants or the A’s. Then Henderson came back and won MVP.

“Nobody was cooler than Rickey Henderson, man,” Anderson said. “That sold it for me. I was such a young, impressionable kid, and there was so much more swagger on that side of the bay.”

The second reason was Will Clark. But not that Will Clark. Anderson had a youth baseball teammate with the same name as the Giants first baseman. Anderson was not a strong hitter, and he remembers stepping to the plate and hearing his teammate say, “Here comes another strikeout.”

“It was f—ing Will Clark, dude,” Anderson said.

Needless to say, he was all in on the A’s. In high school, he and his friends waited at the exit of the players parking lot at the Coliseum. His favorite player, Terrence Long, autographed the bill of Anderson’s black A’s cap. Then came Jason Giambi, whose walk-up music was the nWo Wolfpac theme song.

“We’re like, if we yell, ‘nWo for life,’ he’s going to stop the car,” Anderson recalled. Giambi hit the brakes and signed.

Anderson was 5 when the A’s won the 1989 World Series. He doesn’t claim that one.

“I don’t feel like as an A’s fan I got my championship,” Anderson said. “That was going to be my crowning achievement as a fan, living through one of those. That’s where I get super bummed out. I was always imagining being like those Cubs fans who waited 100 years and were like, finally, we can hoist the trophy.”

Let’s get weird!

Thank you @UncleBlazer for throwing out today’s first pitch! #DrumTogether pic.twitter.com/mH0MnElnTm

— Oakland A’s (@Athletics) April 23, 2022

Only one emotion has surprised Anderson throughout this A’s saga: He still cares. He told himself he’d stop following, but he couldn’t. He’s grown to love the newest cast of A’s — Brent Rooker, J.P. Sears, Lawrence Butler, Mason Miller. He likes that they didn’t throw this season away. “I felt pride for the team again,” he said. As the team heads to Sacramento, he’s sworn to invest in the A’s at least until these guys disperse.

Anderson drove from Los Angeles to Oakland to watch Wednesday’s game with his mother, step-father, brother and a high-school buddy.

“I’ve got to go before it’s gone,” he said beforehand.

Anderson didn’t get tickets for the final game Thursday, but since he’d already be in town, he said, “maybe I’ll just BART in and kick it in the parking lot.” Those lots were where he made some of his best memories, where he met friends, where they shotgunned beers, where they reveled and toasted the green and gold.

Anderson wondered how he’d feel on the A’s last day in Oakland. He’d felt almost every emotion at the Coliseum before. He was there when Jason Isringhausen clinched the AL West in 2000. (“Nothing matched that kind of joy.”) He was there when Derek Jeter’s flip turned the 2001 ALDS. (“That was our year.”) But this would be different. Not euphoria or anguish. Just emptiness. Anderson figured he’d take a few laps around the old place, remember the good times, then give the filthy cement floor a kiss goodbye.

— The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, Chad Jennings and Eric Nehm contributed to this report.

(Illustration by Meech Robinson, The Athletic; Photos: Michael Zagaris / Oakland Athletics / Getty Images; Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images; Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)

LITTLE ELM, Texas — As Zion Williamson sits in silence, preparing for a 6 a.m. workout that’s become routine since the start of July, the echoes of a meeting from three months prior still reverberate in his mind.

The anger, regrets and hope expressed that day in suburban New Orleans led him to this small gym about 30 miles north of Dallas.

At the end of the New Orleans Pelicans’ 2023-24 season, Williamson entered the practice facility for an end-of-year sitdown with Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin. Williamson knew this meeting would eventually come. He didn’t think it would be this soon, nor did he expect to pass by so many quiet staffers.

Williamson had played the best basketball of his career in leading the Pelicans to 49 wins for just the third time in franchise history. He appeared in a career-high 70 games and was on the verge of his first playoff game in his five-year career.

In an instant, fate snatched that moment away from him.

New Orleans had a chance to earn its playoff spot by defeating LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in a home Play-In Tournament game. It was Williamson’s opportunity to redeem one of the lowest moments of his career: a 44-point Lakers victory in the semifinals of the In-Season Tournament in Las Vegas last December.

This time, the Pelicans star delivered a performance Pelicans fans waited five years to witness. With James and Anthony Davis fading in the fourth quarter, Williamson dominated as New Orleans erased an 18-point deficit. Williamson’s final bucket of the night — a lefty floater around Davis — gave him his 40th point and tied the score with three minutes remaining.

As the Smoothie King Center crowd rose in jubilation, Williamson grimaced and buried his head in his jersey. He had felt a tweak in his left hamstring and knew his night was over. After a quick conversation with a team trainer, Williamson slammed a towel against a seat on the bench before trudging to the locker room.

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Zion’s dream performance turns into nightmare. Now, Pels are on the brink

Without Williamson, New Orleans could not complete the comeback. The Pelicans still made the playoffs without their star but were overmatched in a four-game sweep by the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.

As Williamson walked into Griffin’s office, he felt like he had let the team down. He felt like he had let the city down. Again.

After playing in a career-high 70 games, Zion Williamson saw his 2023-24 season end with another injury in the Pelicans’ Play-In Tournament game. (Stephen Lew / Imagn Images)

Since entering the NBA in 2019 as one of the most electric prospects in decades, Williamson has seen his career repeatedly derailed by injury. Before last season, he had played just 114 of a possible 308 games in his five-year career.

Williamson tore his meniscus before the start of his rookie season in 2019 and was placed on a minutes restriction upon returning to action. He missed the entire 2021-22 season after a series of setbacks from an offseason surgery to repair a broken foot. In 2022-23, after missing the team’s final 45 games due to a hamstring injury, Williamson said he was “physically fine” at the end of the season, prompting Griffin to clarify that Williamson had not been medically cleared to play.

It was often the response to each injury, and not the injury itself, that caused Williamson and the Pelicans to butt heads. Williamson’s camp often complained behind the scenes about how the team handled his rehab and felt the franchise held Williamson back when he was healthy enough to play. In reality, the team’s reluctance to put Williamson back on the floor was often fueled by questions about his approach to rehab and his struggles maintaining an appropriate playing weight while away from the team.

“I think a big part of it is on him,” Griffin said after the 2022-23 season. “I think there’s a lot he can do better. I think he would tell you that. He certainly owned up to that. And I think we need to do a better job of maybe examining the whole situation top to bottom a little bit better.”

That summer, Williamson was involved in trade rumors as the Pelicans sought to move up to draft eventual 2023 No. 3 pick Scoot Henderson. Though Williamson was never included in any formal trade talks, league sources told The Athletic, the fact that his name even surfaced illustrated the tension between him and his franchise.

Williamson’s tumultuous past with the organization made his disappointing finish to the 2023-24 season even more bitter. He vowed to do whatever he could to not put his team in this position again.

In response, Griffin said something that resonates with Williamson to this day. It reinforced a shift in a relationship that was once the source of great unease around the organization.

“He told me he was really proud of me. He told me he trusts me,” Williamson says in a quiet moment on the porch of the Little Elm house he rented for the summer. “He fully trusts me. There weren’t any more small doubts.”

Trust is a word on Williamson’s mind a lot lately. It’s been one of the motivating factors behind him waking up for all the early workouts.

Over the past year, Williamson realized he needed to earn trust from the organization not simply through a magical workout routine, a foolproof diet or flashes of brilliance. He had to start making the minor things a major priority.

“I want to be one of them ones. I’ve been talking about it and I’ve been making mistakes (along the way),” Williamson says. “That stuff can’t happen. It’s time to take every game personal.”

It’s fair to wonder how this proclamation differs from Williamson’s past “offseason epiphanies.” The Pelicans are used to offseason optimism ruined by another injury.

The answer, according to Williamson and numerous sources close to him and the Pelicans, lies in the word that rings in the back of his mind before every workout. After half a decade of ups and downs, Williamson and the Pelicans are finally working in unison. It’s not something Williamson ever wants to take for granted.

“It sucks that I had to go through some of that stuff, but it made me a better person,” Williamson says. “It’s what drives me to do what I’m doing now.”

Zion Williamson sits in street clothes between his Pelicans teammates during the 2024 NBA playoffs. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

As the thoughts about his experiences over the past year begin to fade away, Williamson’s focus turns to his daily activities this summer.

Since the start of July, Williamson has begun his days at the crack of dawn, tying his shoes, changing into a different T-shirt and rising from blue bleachers to step on the old court that once was the home of Little Elm’s high school basketball team.

For more than two months, he’s started five days a week with a 6 a.m. workout at this facility. He ends those days about 10 minutes down the road, with a 7 p.m. workout at Little Elm’s new basketball gym.

Williamson’s traveling party is small. On this mid-August day, it includes his stepfather, Lee Anderson, two of his close friends who once played Division I basketball (EJ Montgomery and Greg Hammond), Damon Barnett, who coaches the boys basketball team at Little Elm High, and Pelicans assistant coach Aaron Miles.

The prominent presence of Miles, in particular, is a sign of the growing trust between Williamson and the Pelicans.

GO DEEPER

Is Bounce: Is Zion Williamson in his best shape ever?

Last summer, the team moved on from lead trainer Aaron Nelson, who gained notoriety for the injury-prevention work he did with the Phoenix Suns. A rocky relationship with Williamson and people in his camp led to Nelson’s eventual departure. The Pelicans also made key changes on the coaching staff, including moving on from Teresa Weatherspoon, the current coach of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, who had become a confidant for Williamson.

To bolster the coaching staff, the Pelicans hired Miles, a former University of Kansas guard who previously served as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics. In Boston, Miles worked directly with Celtics star Jayson Tatum and played a role in his emergence as a superstar and eventual champion.

“Coach Miles is a great dude and he knows what greatness looks like,” Williamson says. “He’s been around Steph (Curry). He’s been around Klay (Thompson). He’s been around (Jayson) Tatum. He knows what it takes to be a champion.”

Miles spent a week in Little Elm during late August, making sure he attended Williamson’s twice-daily workouts. It was the first time Williamson spent extended time with a Pelicans assistant away from New Orleans working out during the offseason.

Sometimes, Miles ran the workouts while in Little Elm. Once, in a particularly exhausting sequence, Miles tasked Williamson, Hammond and Montgomery with sliding their feet from the baseline to half court while keeping a ballhandler in front of them. Then, the three players had to catch a pass, sprint into a layup and follow up with five made corner 3s. Miss two in a row, and they had to start over.

Other times, Miles helped as Anderson took command of the sessions. In this morning workout, Anderson wants to get Williamson’s competitive juices flowing.

“This is when it gets fun!” Williamson yells as he walks across the floor. “It’s almost time to flip that switch!”

After completing several dribbling drills and a few wind sprints, the 24-year-old starts playing King of the Court with Hammond and Montgomery. In this game, the three trade off in a series of individual one-on-one matchups. The first player to score seven points wins. Williamson lags early as he struggles to find his jump shot, but it soon becomes clear he is waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

“I like to build their confidence up,” Williamson says jokingly as he makes his way to the baseline. “Once one of them gets to five (points), it’s over.”

Hammond, a New Orleans native, makes the mistake of scoring his fifth point just before it was Williamson’s turn to play defense. On the next play, Williamson soars through the air and swats Hammond’s shot so hard against the wall that the ball rolls to the other side of the court. Once Williamson gets the ball back, he bullies his way into five consecutive baskets in the blink of an eye. His game-winning score comes against Montgomery on an underhand scoop shot from his waist that kisses the top of the backboard before gently dropping into the hoop.

“No way!” Montgomery exclaims in disbelief, hands above his head with a smile.

“This is what I do!” Williamson replies, pumping his fist while walking away.

“It sucks that I had to go through some of that stuff, but it made me a better person,” Williamson said. “It’s what drives me to do what I’m doing now.” (Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)

After another morning workout a day later, Miles joins the group for breakfast at the Little Elm house Williamson’s agency rented for several months. While there, Miles and Williamson talk about life in New Orleans, family and their belief in a Pelicans core fortified by the addition of former Atlanta Hawks point guard Dejounte Murray. Williamson also shares Miles’ feedback on the King of the Court game.

The message: It shouldn’t have taken the two-time All-Star so long to “flip the switch” and go in for the kill.

While Miles was the key figure with the Pelicans working alongside Williamson this week, the team had at least one staff member there with Williamson for most of the two months he spent in Texas. Pelicans director of performance and sports science Daniel Bove, who worked closely with Williamson last season as the Pelicans star began to prioritize putting in extra work after practices and shootarounds, spent much of the summer in Little Elm.

Marvin Sanders, Williamson’s chef, was another key figure in the traveling party. Sanders has worked with other professional athletes such as Jaren Jackson Jr. and Hassan Whiteside. He lived with Williamson during his time in Little Elm, the same way he did the previous summer when Williamson did most of his offseason work in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sanders, a U.S. Navy veteran, even stepped in and participated in a few workouts with Williamson when another body was needed.

Sanders’ responsibility is to whip up healthy meals so Williamson can reach his goal of entering training camp at 270 pounds. He’s been listed at 284 pounds his entire career and has a clause in his contract that requires his combined weight and body fat percentage to be no higher than 295.

During Miles’ first trip to the house for a post-workout breakfast, Sanders prepares enough food for the traveling party: scrambled eggs, grits, turkey bacon, breakfast potatoes with sauteed vegetables, salmon fried in avocado oil and smoothies made with strawberries and bananas. “Chef, if you keep throwing down like this, I might have to move in with these guys,” Miles jokes.

After finishing his meal and taking a big gulp of his smoothie, Williamson walks to the backyard for a moment to himself. While the summer heat in Texas can be unbearable, Williamson occasionally finds shade under one of his patio umbrellas and allows his mind to wander. Those moments of reflection are vital for Williamson as he attempts to prepare himself mentally for what could be the most important season of his career.

But he also understands that mapping out the future is impossible without coming to grips with some of his past failures.

There’s a lake about 100 yards away from the Little Elm house. Some of the locals go there to fish or jet ski during their off days. Williamson prefers spending his free time out on the golf course.

But during moments when he needs peace or an opportunity to reflect, Williamson sits in the backyard and stares out at the water.

Sometimes, he relives the pivotal moments and emotions that still stick with him to this day. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.

As he leans back in his deck chair, Williamson reveals the most vivid of all those memories, the low point from which his turnaround began.

He can still envision the lights in T-Mobile Arena, the walk to the court, the faces in the crowd — all of it. The memory that sticks out most is the overwhelming feeling of disgust he felt when he stepped on the floor midway through the third quarter of that semifinal against LeBron and the Lakers in Las Vegas.

“I was just looking up at the scoreboard like, ‘Damn, this isn’t us. That starts with me. I can’t be like this,’” Williamson says while shaking his head. “This s— can’t happen anymore.”

The 44-point loss — and Williamson’s lackluster 13-point performance — reignited the outside noise that has dominated Williamson’s stalled career. Much of the basketball world, including Charles Barkley and the TNT crew, eviscerated Williamson for being out of shape and failing to play with urgency in his first experience on a playoff-like stage.

Williamson heard all the familiar questions about his commitment to the Pelicans and his talent. He wanted to prove all of it was wrong.

“When rumors are floating around and all that, after a while, it does take its toll a little bit,” Williamson says. … “It was time for me to figure out a different way.”

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In the days following the loss, Griffin and other members of the Pelicans front office met with Williamson and implored him to be better. They agreed he needed to work harder, but it was deeper than that. They told Williamson that becoming the face of the franchise would require him to be more present as a teammate and leader. He needed to consistently show his greatness on the court and with his work away from the court.

For the rest of the season, Williamson focused on “stacking days” with extra workouts after practice. He made more of an effort to connect with fellow Pelicans star Brandon Ingram. Williamson was more vocal with teammates and took a more hands-on approach with the coaching staff to find solutions to issues that held the team back from contending. He developed a routine that worked for him and the team.

In the process, his relationship with his teammates, coaches and the front office improved rapidly. They started to understand one another. The work got easier with each day.

“(The In-Season Tournament loss) was definitely one of the key turning points in the season, and honestly, for me as a man in my career,” Williamson says. “I’m watching (LeBron James) out here on the court, doing what he’s doing. I’m telling myself I want to be a player that has a high level of greatness — one of the greats. In that big moment, I didn’t show up. It hit me while the game was going on. I just looked up and said, ‘I didn’t show up.’ I don’t have any excuse.”

By the end of the season, the commitment Williamson made produced noticeable results with his physique, his relationship with the organization and his performance on the court. Over his final 30 games of the regular season, he averaged 23.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists while shooting 54.8 percent from the field. He also chipped in 1.3 steals and one block per game during that stretch as his effort on the defensive end picked up immensely.

“His focus, his attention to detail, his work away from the court … it’s all coming together,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said last April. “We all can see how badly he wants it. It’s been great to see his confidence grow every single day now that he’s locked in with his routine.”

Williamson recalls a conversation with Green before a pivotal game in Phoenix against the Suns, with whom the Pelicans were battling for playoff positioning. Over lunch, the Pelicans coach told Williamson he was entering a crucial point in his career. Green spoke to Williamson about the responsibilities that come with greatness and how important it is for the greats to be at their best when the toughest battles arrive.

“Me and (Green) had a great conversation,” Williamson says. “From that point on until the game, I was locked in. I was telling myself, ‘I don’t care what happens, but when we leave Phoenix, we’re leaving with a W.’”

That night, Williamson finished with 29 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and a career-high five blocks while dominating down the stretch in a 113-105 victory.

Moments like that give Williamson and the Pelicans a great deal of conviction that the season-ending hamstring injury that may have derailed Williamson in the past will be a mere speed bump on his path to superstardom.

Zion Williamson’s performance against Phoenix late last season was a high point in his resurgence after the In-Season Tournament. (Allan Henry / Imagn Images)

Following the injury and that pivotal meeting with Griffin, Williamson continues to stack days. He has been present in all team affairs, just as Griffin and others in the front office have pushed him to be for years. He sat front row at Murray’s introductory news conference after the Pelicans acquired the guard from Atlanta.

Williamson also made a point of showing up for the team’s voluntary workouts in California in late August, despite knowing he had to leave early to participate in a previously scheduled Jordan Brand event in China. It was his first time participating in one of the team’s offseason voluntary workouts.

“(I want to) learn from (Brandon Ingram). Learn from CJ (McCollum). Learn from guys who have been in the league longer than me. Paying attention to their professionalism,” Williamson says. “Not even being a good teammate, just being a good brother. So when you get on the court, your teammates believe in you. They trust your work, and they trust that you’ve got them.”

After reflecting on all the setbacks, trust issues and self-proclaimed mistakes, Williamson is asked what fans should expect from this improved version of himself heading into his sixth season.

He sits back in his chair and stares out at the water for 10 to 15 seconds. He tries to find the right words. Then, he cracks a smile:

“How can I say this the right way?”

Another pause.

“I’m out for straight vengeance,” Williamson says. “Not against any particular person. Just for myself.”

(Top photo: Cooper Neill / Getty Images. Illustration by Meech Robinson / The Athletic)

Caitlin Clark is a tough grader.

In her 2024 rookie season with the Indiana Fever, the Iowa-legend-turned-WNBA-superstar drew more eyes to women’s professional basketball in the U.S. than the league had ever seen. Yet all she would call her first professional year was “solid.”

On Wednesday, the 22-year-old was far more focused on what lay ahead.

“I know there’s a lot of room for me to continue to improve,” Clark said after the Fever were knocked out of the playoffs by the Connecticut Sun.

“I feel like I had a solid year, but for me, the fun part is I feel like I’m just scratching the surface.”

The surface was one of the greatest seasons in WNBA history.

Clark’s rookie year ended on a high note as she thrived in the second half of the season, particularly after the WNBA returned from its Olympic break. After averaging 16.2 points, 6.9 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game in the first 20 contests, she averaged 22.3 points, 10.0 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game in the second half of the regular season.

Caitlin Clark is the first rookie in WNBA history to have 25/5/5 in a playoff game. pic.twitter.com/84LX2vjsdG

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) September 26, 2024

That stretch featured historic moments, including the first rookie triple-double in WNBA history and a single-game record of 19 assists. Her 337 total assists were the most in a season in league history, while her 1,333 combined points, assists and rebounds were the most by a rookie in league history.

Her strong finish to the season also propelled the Fever through the WNBA standings after Indiana began the season 1-8, a start which coach Christie Sides compared to getting “punched in the mouth.”

After their rapid gelling and turnaround to make the playoffs and snap an eight-year Fever postseason drought, Clark said Wednesday her favorite moments of the past year aren’t ones that fans saw on the court, but the relationships built off it.

“At the end of the day, it’s the people and the relationships and the memories outside of that,” she said. “If that’s not it for you as a professional athlete, I feel like you’re doing it wrong.

“Championships are great, hopefully, we have a few of those, but you want to have really good relationships with people at the end of the day.”

Required reading

(Photo: Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)

MONTREAL — When Austin Kaiser arrives at a PGA Tour stop, he first does his homework: He walks every inch of the golf course for his player, Xander Schauffele. Maybe he talks to a few other caddies along the way, chatting with a buddy or two as he scribbles notes and maps greens in his yardage book. But if Kaiser finds something — a particular yardage that might be useful, a piece of relevant information about the 18-hole conundrum ahead — he resists the urge to share it. Kaiser, now a two-time major-winning caddie, has learned to keep his lips sealed.

“Xander’s like, don’t help anybody!’” Kaiser says, “It’s a competitive edge. If we’re playing in a major and I have information that can help them possibly beat us, why would I do that?”

Kaiser’s thought process is self-explanatory and common among top-tier caddies. But that mindset is lost for one week a year.

At the Presidents Cup this week (and the Ryder Cup in other years), 24 individual golfers suddenly get to be part of two 12-man teams. And that means their caddies do, too.

No one gets paid. No one is earning OWGR points. For one week, 12 players are trying only to beat the opposing team in front of them, and to do so, they must throw themselves into one unit of operation. It’s difficult because golfers have been programmed to be individual athletes since their junior days. But if they don’t come together, it seldom ends well — as history has shown.

The 12 caddies on these teams are sneakily important to that week-long pursuit of unity. At most team events, the caddies even have their own “caddie captain” to act as the ringleader for the group. It’s typically the captain’s current caddie, but amid concerns about the 76-year-old Fluff Cowan’s recovery from hip replacement surgery and ability to use group text, Kaiser has taken on an increased role.

Caddies and players for the U.S. team will be together this week, on and off the course. (Chris Condon / PGA Tour via Getty Images)

During a team event, the 12 loopers don’t just walk the golf course alongside each other, they walk it together, sharing observations and exchanging opinions on how to play each hole. When they get the pin locations for competition days, they meet at the team hotel and work through the sheet, green by green, discussing the best spots for their players to “miss.” Then alternate shot pairings are released, and the partnered caddies join forces and collaborate with team statisticians to figure out where to place each player on each hole.

“There are a few caddies every week at a tournament who I may talk to about the golf course, but now we have 12 of the best caddies in the world giving their input on how to play it,” says Joe Greiner, Max Homa’s longtime caddie.

“For the most part, it’s you and your guy. That’s it,” says Paul Tesori, Tom Kim’s caddie and the former caddie for Vijay Singh and Webb Simpson. “But as soon as you get named to one of those teams, there is a completely different atmosphere.”

The team operation has always expanded beyond just the players. But for many years, the significance of caddies at the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup was overlooked — or reduced to a sideshow, like Joe LaCava’s Marco Simone dust-up with Rory McIlroy or Tesori’s ill-fated decision to wear a “Tiger Who?”-inscribed hat to Singh’s 2000 Presidents Cup singles match.

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Now the tides are starting to change.

This spring, veteran caddie and current NBC on-course commentator John Wood got a call from then PGA of America CEO, Seth Waugh. On the phone, Waugh described a new role being created for the U.S. Ryder Cup organization: Team Manager. “I swear to you, my first thought was, ‘Oh man, how cool is this? They think enough of me to ask for a few names I would recommend for the job,’” Wood says.

A few phone calls later, Wood got the news — the job was his. He was baffled and honored all at once. “There is nothing, and I mean nothing, in my professional career, that I have been more passionate about than the Ryder Cup,” Wood said.

After a 20-plus year career of caddying for players like Mark Calcavecchia and Hunter Mahan, Wood had now been tapped for a vital role with one of the biggest events in the sport. Starting with the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, Wood will work directly with the American team, including captain Keegan Bradley, his vice captains and players, on all “strategic and operational matters” related to the competition, according to the PGA of America.

It’s a huge role. And it’s a huge indicator of how valuable figures like Wood are to the American team golf pipeline.

At Royal Montreal, the players and caddies share a locker room and a team room. They’re together at the golf course, and they’re together when they go back to their accommodations to decompress. They do the whole week as one team. At the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone, there were separate rooms for caddies and players back at the team hotel. Greiner says he was 100 feet away from Homa most nights in Rome, but the two were texting each other from their respective spaces.

“One of the nice things about the Presidents Cup is that they have a USA room at the hotel that’s for players and caddies, and it’s where we eat dinner, play ping pong, and hang out,” Greiner says. “Sometimes in this game when you get everyone away from the golf course, everyone loosens up and you see everyone’s personality more when we’re all in one room. (Rome) was very strange, if I’m being honest.”

Joe Greiner is in his third team event as Max Homa’s caddie. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)

So far, Wood’s new placement as team manager has shown positive signs for caddie integration: It’s increasingly looking like the setup at Bethpage will take after this week’s Presidents Cup configuration.

“We can’t make requests, we’re caddies. So we have Wood to do that for us,” Kaiser says. “He already talked to Keegan, and Keegan’s like, we’re doing one team room. We’re going to make it the most unified room ever.”

The first indication of the caddie treatment at team events comes when each looper receives an email in their inbox ahead of the competition. It asks for their clothing and shoe size. “Caddies don’t get those questions — ever,” Tesori says.

Then their travel is taken care of and their hotel rooms are covered. At regular PGA Tour events, caddies are responsible for all of their own logistics and expenses. The accommodation provided at a team event can feel like stepping into an entirely new world — a weight lifted off their shoulders. Instead of leaving the course alone at the end of a brutally long tournament day, the caddies at this week’s Presidents Cup will go back to a shared space of like-minded golf fanatics, ready to trade stories and unpack the day’s drama. It’s not unheard of for a caddie, fearful his player has heard the same message from him so many times it lost its impact, to ask a peer to relay a bit of advice to the player the next day.

Veteran caddies often take pride in sharing memories from previous cups and pointing rookies in the right direction. It’s an excellent opportunity to learn, too. Whether you realize it or not, being a caddie during a team event means unlimited access to some of the smartest minds in the game. Several caddies point to Wood and Ted Scott as influential voices that stand out.

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Of course, the transient nature of the caddie business means the best often find themself with one team one year and with another the next.

Nearly 20 years after Singh and Woods’ singles match, Woods captained the 2019 Presidents Cup. Tesori was caddying for the Americans this time, for Webb Simpson. When he showed up for U.S. team pictures, Woods was wearing a hat with “Paul Who?” and “2 and 1” scribbled on the cap.

20 years later… 😂

Captain @TigerWoods finally gets his revenge on former #IntlTeam turned #USTeam caddie, @PaulTesori pic.twitter.com/3DALDHMNn2

— Presidents Cup (@PresidentsCup) December 10, 2019

Woods always recognized the benefits of caddie input to the team. As a captain, he’d frequently approach the loopers — out of the players’ earshot — and ask all sorts of questions: How’s this player looking? Why don’t these two players want to play together?

Woods knew that the asset of 12 professional caddies working together was not one to cast aside. As past events have demonstrated, caddies are just as invested in the outcome of these team competitions as the players. And the reason behind that trend is as relatable as it gets.

“We don’t like losing either,” Kaiser says. “We’re basically golfers who didn’t make it. We live vicariously through our players.”

(Top photo of Jonathan Jakovac, left, and John Ellis: Ben Jared / PGA Tour via Getty Images)

ATHENS, Ga. — The fans walking into a Georgia baseball game on a May afternoon cannot look in on the football practice taking place across from the stadium. But there is no escaping the booming, amplified voice radiating over Rutherford Street.

“Take his f—ing job!”

“His ass wants to quit!”

“Do it again! Get it right!”

Kirby Smart roams the practice field holding a microphone, peppering his players with … feedback between each rep. Several dozen visitors, including donors, high school coaches and recruits, are treated to a colorful two-hour soundtrack of Smart’s gravelly South Georgia accent.

Nick Saban had his straw hat. Jim Harbaugh, his baseball cap and khakis.

Smart has his microphone.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning was an assistant under Smart from 2018-21. He said a respondent in an anonymous team survey one year he was there suggested Smart ditch the microphone. So he did — for one day.

“The next day he came back out with the microphone (and) ripped into some coaches’ asses, some players as well,” Lanning said. “Nobody’s safe when the microphone is out.”

Smart, a former Georgia defensive back, was Alabama’s defensive coordinator under Saban for four national championships before landing the head-coaching job at his alma mater in 2015. He succeeded Mark Richt, who won 74 percent of his games in 15 seasons but never played for a national championship. Smart, 48, has won two national championships — the school’s first since 1980 — and played for a third. He has won 86 percent of his SEC games, including 42 consecutive regular-season games.

With Saban’s retirement and Harbaugh’s return to the NFL after last season, Smart should, in theory, be the face of the sport.

“There’s a pretty good chance he’ll go down as one of the greatest coaches ever,” said Richt, now an ACC Network analyst. “He’s young, he’s got time, he’s got the resources and the talent base in the state of Georgia. He’s got a lot going for him.”

But there’s one aspect of Smart’s program that clouds his myriad successes.

Since a January 2023 street-racing crash that killed recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy and player Devin Willock, 10 Georgia players and one staff member have been arrested for driving-related incidents. That includes starting running back Trevor Etienne, suspended for this year’s season opener following a March DUI arrest, and cornerback Daniel Harris, who was held out of Georgia’s last game after being arrested for driving 106 mph.

“Instead of the narrative of Kirby Smart has taken over as the best coach in the country now that Saban’s gone, he’s got the best program, he’s got the No. 1 team — that’s not in the first paragraph anymore,” ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum said. “It’s what’s wrong with Georgia.”

This weekend, Smart’s second-ranked Bulldogs visit No. 4 Alabama, the longtime thorn to Smart’s program; Alabama beat Georgia in two of the past three SEC Championship Games. But that was with Smart’s former mentor, Saban, on the sideline. For the first time, Smart is the more established figure in the rivalry, with Kalen DeBoer just three games into his Alabama tenure.

And Smart has a Georgia team that’s the first since 2007 to be favored to win at Alabama.

“Kirby is in a special class,” said Georgia president Jere Morehead, who taught Smart in a business law class in the mid-’90s. “I knew he’d be successful. But his level of success is beyond anything I could’ve imagined.”

Unlike his mentor, Smart has remained largely anonymous nationally. He’s not in Aflac or Vrbo commercials. He does not make “The Pat McAfee Show” appearances. But his level of success through eight seasons as an SEC head coach largely mirrors Saban’s — two national championships apiece.

Smart first worked for Saban at LSU in 2004, before spending one season as the running backs coach at Georgia. He reunited with Saban for one season with the Miami Dolphins before following Saban to Alabama, where Smart took over defensive play calling after one season. Together, they produced top-10 defenses for eight consecutive seasons, including a 2011 unit that allowed just 8.2 points per game, the fewest at the FBS level in 23 years.

While working as an ESPN color analyst during that time, former Georgia and NFL offensive lineman Matt Stinchcomb would sometimes call Alabama games. Smart, his former college teammate, invited him to sit in on meetings with the linebackers the night before the game.

“I remember sitting there and being completely floored,” Stinchcomb said. “What was remarkable was Kirby’s mastery of the system and his ability to communicate it in a way where his guys could execute. I’d been around a bunch of coaches as a player and a commentator. He stood out.”

It seemed a matter of time before an SEC school made him its head coach. That school turned out to be his alma mater.

In 2015, when Smart was hired, Georgia had gone more than a decade since winning an SEC championship. Smart ended the drought in his second season in 2017, then brought the Bulldogs within one Tua Tagovailoa-to-DeVonta Smith miracle of winning a national title, too. Smart quickly established himself as a beast in recruiting, signing the nation’s No. 1 or 2 class between 2018-20.

While “intense” is the word most frequently used to describe the coach, those who have worked with him marvel more at his management skills and attention to detail. Smart, a four-time member of the SEC’s Academic Honor Roll while a player, holds a degree in finance from Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

“The guy could step out of coaching and take over a corporation and be a CEO and manage it the right way,” said Will Muschamp, a college teammate of Smart’s and now an analyst at Georgia. “His preparation, attention to detail, his anticipation skills — whether it’s roster management, staff management, scheme, recruiting, whatever the case may be — the guy does a really good job of managing those things.”

“There’s not a guy I’ve been around that maybe coaches harder and more intense than coach Smart, but his intelligence is what has always impressed me,” Lanning said. “Never doubt the fact that he knows exactly what he’s thinking all the time. He remembers moments and situations. It’s super impressive.”

As he has become one of the most established coaches in his profession, Smart has embraced his role as a statesman, both as chair of the NCAA Football Rules committee and, following Saban’s retirement, the most influential coaching voice in his conference. Last spring at the SEC’s annual meetings in Destin, Fla., Smart led the discussions about the new NCAA roster limits in football, which eventually landed at 105.

“Kirby’s much more vocal than coach (Saban) in those settings,” said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who worked alongside Smart for two seasons at Alabama. “(Saban) obviously, when he spoke up, everybody listened, but (he) didn’t really kind of comment on everything unless it was something that was really important to him, critical to him. Kirby kind of comments on every category.”

Between the active role he has taken off the field and the winning on the field, it should put Smart in a statesman-like role. But the never-ending string of arrests in his program hangs like a storm cloud.

“If you look at (each case) individually it doesn’t really change your opinion (of Smart). But the combination does sound bad,” said Finebaum.

Kirby Smart (here in 2023) has had major success in a short amount of time as head coach at Georgia. (Kim Klement Neitzel / USA Today via Imagn Images)

On Jan. 14, 2023, Georgia celebrated its second consecutive national championship with a parade and stadium celebration. At 2:45 a.m. that night, LeCroy, a 24-year-old recruiting staffer driving a university-leased Ford Expedition with three passengers at 104 mph, engaged in a high-speed race with Bulldogs star Jalen Carter, a soon-to-be top-10 NFL draft pick. LeCroy and one of the passengers, Willock, an offensive lineman, were killed when the vehicle crashed into two power poles and a tree. Toxicology reports showed LeCroy’s blood alcohol level at the time was .197.

Carter pleaded no contest to reckless driving and racing charges and was sentenced to 80 hours of community service.

One of the passengers in LeCroy’s vehicle, Victoria Bowles, sued the LeCroy estate, Carter and the Georgia Athletic Association, claiming she suffered spinal cord injuries that have caused “likely permanent disability.” Bowles, who was seeking around $172,000 in damages from each defendant, reached a settlement with Georgia last month.

Citing text messages between various recruiting staff members in the years prior to the crash, the complaint alleged staffers “regularly drove recruits and their guests after consuming alcohol.”

UGA disputed the claims.

Smart has suspended several of the arrested players, but said this summer that the school’s name, image and likeness collective has withheld payments from players as penalties for arrests and speeding tickets.

The reckless driving incidents in his program continue to occur, including three this summer and Harris’ arrest two days before Georgia played at Kentucky on Sept. 14.

He was asked in July why his program is so disciplined in everything but this area.

“It’s a great question,” Smart said. “And I’d love every solution possible because we actually write down now every time we talk about it and every time we address it, and we have someone in every meeting that hears that … it was like 162 times it’s been mentioned.”

His main strategy has been inviting guest speakers on the subject. They’ve included former NFL star Donte Stallworth, who was suspended for the 2009 season after striking and killing a pedestrian while intoxicated; former Georgia and NFL defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter, who was arrested on a DUI charge during Smart’s first season; and a prosecutor in the case of ex-Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs, currently in prison in Las Vegas for killing a woman while driving 156 mph.

Carson Beck, Georgia’s starting quarterback who now famously drives a Lamborghini, said the message is indeed hammered home.

“It’s been a serious issue on our team. But also we have hundreds of players, and a large percentage of our guys are very focused and very on top of that,” Beck said. “But obviously there are guys who have made mistakes, and there are consequences for that.”

Still, the incidents keep coming.

In addition to the driving incidents, receiver Rara Thomas was dismissed last month following an arrest on domestic violence charges, his second in two years. (The first charge was pleaded down.)

Richt, who dealt with numerous players’ legal issues during his time in Athens, said Smart is taking undue criticism.

“You can put everything you want in place,” Richt said, “but you can’t live their life for them, you can’t babysit them, you can’t be with them every step of the way to prevent them making a bad decision sometimes.”

Nick Saban, left, and Kirby Smart are forever tied. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

Smart modeled many facets of his program on the juggernaut he helped Saban build at Alabama. Now he is attempting to build a dynasty that matches or exceeds the lofty bar his mentor set. In March, Smart told ESPN, “We’ve been relevant every year but the first one. But I want more than relevance. I want dominance.”

Asked what dominance looks like in a 12-team College Football Playoff, Smart said, “Dominance would not be defined by just getting in, it would be by getting to the Final Four or whatever you would call it in football. … Because at the end of the day, you’re gonna have to beat a really good football team in order to make it to the finals.”

In May, Georgia signed Smart to a 10-year contract that pays an average $13 million per year, making him the highest-paid coach in the sport. Saban previously held that title, making $11.4 million in his last season. It’s another point to be made that Smart is, as Lanning puts it, “the new GOAT.”

“I don’t want to put the mantle on him as being the next Nick Saban. That’s sort of an unfair place to put him at the beginning of a football season,” Morehead said. “I’m confident that going forward he will continue to enjoy great success.”

But the latest player arrests this summer prompted some writers to make comparisons to a more polarizing national championship coach whose legacy has been clouded over time by his players’ myriad off-field issues. One columnist likened Smart more to Urban Meyer than Saban.

Smart, notably, has changed his public tone on the off-field issues, from saying last year that it was a national problem, to dropping that and saying as recently this week that the issues “are terribly disappointing and something that we don’t stand for.”

Morehead calls the incidents “unacceptable” but lauds Smart for how he’s handled them.

“I’d really love to know how many other schools have brought in the outside speakers we’ve brought in, or have taken the disciplinary measures against violators that we’ve taken,” he said.

Smart certainly holds players accountable on the field. Even at practice, he’s the guy everyone sees getting heated during games. It’s often a mixture of humor and scolding, but always intense.

Star safety Malaki Starks, now in his third year in the program, says his coach seems to exist with a permanent chip on his shoulder. Which may seem odd given his accomplishments that few can match.

“When I first got here, I said, ‘Why are you like this? Like, what’s up with you?’” Starks said. “He just told me that he’s obsessed with getting better every day.”

Smart’s accomplishments no doubt will remain closely linked to Saban’s. Is he ready to take his mentor’s place atop the college football coaching hierarchy?

If so, the first step takes place Saturday at Saban’s former home stadium.

(Top photo: Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty)

Major League Baseball didn’t ask for Hurricane Helene to interrupt what is shaping up to be two fantastic wild-card races. But the league isn’t blameless in avoiding the worst-case scenario announced Wednesday: the potential for the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets to play a doubleheader Monday, the day before postseason play begins.

The ripple effects of the announced postponement of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s games, a series that could decide both teams’ seasons, are enormous. The competitive disadvantages of playing 18 innings before a Wild Card Series can’t be overstated. (Though if, somehow, one or both games aren’t needed then they won’t be played.)

Could it have been avoided?

Maybe.

MLB has the power to force logistics, to force both teams to play when and where it wants, so long as the union is in agreement. But traditionally, it has tried to appease both teams and, in this case, that was impossible. The storm set to shut down Atlanta for two days was preceded by the perfect storm of events to make this a massive headache for the league.

Thursday’s game is a makeup of an April 10 game that was postponed after the Mets had gone through pregame preparations and taken batting practice and they weren’t willing to come back earlier and burn an off day. So they petitioned MLB to tack on the game to this September series, not only an unusually long wait for a makeup game but also a function of a more balanced schedule in which division teams play each other less, and complicate rescheduling opportunities. (The Braves agreed to the proposition.)

To all of our fans throughout Braves Country that will be impacted by Hurricane Helene, please stay safe. pic.twitter.com/AZ99CPQ7BJ

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) September 25, 2024

The Mets would likely not have been keen to move Thursday’s game up to this past Monday, another shared off day between the two clubs, as they were coming off a Sunday night game.

The Braves were concerned about the sold-out crowds expected, and earlier in the week the forecast had made it seem feasible for Wednesday’s game to be played, a possibility that got more remote as the weather forecast worsened. Tuesday, when the league mulled a time change, the forecast looked better in the evening. It started raining shortly after noon Wednesday in Atlanta, and pushing up the start time of the game would have mattered little, unless the two teams agreed to an unprecedented morning start. (MLB doesn’t like to start games that are unlikely to go at least five innings.)

Both teams — in contention but yet to clinch a playoff spot — were ultimately looking out for their own best interests, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. What is up for debate is whether the league, which started discussions with both teams Monday, should have acted more boldly with its power and forced the series to play at a neutral site or changed the schedule entirely with a game Monday and two more Tuesday. Perhaps.

On one hand, the weather forecast looked vastly different earlier this week, and all three parties thought Wednesday’s game wouldn’t be an issue. The hurricane isn’t hitting Atlanta until Thursday, with schools closed Thursday and Friday, and the possibility of one makeup game — not two — seemed considerably less daunting. The decision to change the series would have had to come Sunday at the latest when it wasn’t even clear how bad the storm would be and whether Atlanta would be in its path.

It would have been unprecedented — and also a logistical nightmare — to decide earlier this week to move all of or part of the series to a neutral site, one that would have required both teams to be on board and be proactive, which wasn’t the case. For a series with big stakes, it’s understandable that the league didn’t want to pull the plug on a highly anticipated sellout series.

It would have angered at least one, and probably both teams, to change the layout of the series to give them back Thursday’s off day, particularly as it became clear to everyone involved that Thursday wasn’t going to be feasible. But as the regular season winds down and numerous teams are fighting for their playoff lives, it also might have been better in this case to be safe than sorry. That might have required doing the unpleasant and unprecedented thing, even if both teams were upset about it, and decide to move up a series even when the weather report wasn’t crystallized.

Because the flip side is a nightmare, and it could be even more complicated if the AL wild card hopeful Kansas City Royals, who are slated to play in Atlanta this weekend, have travel issues getting in. (If they can’t play Friday, that would almost certainly be a Saturday doubleheader.)

MLB has — in recent years — set the schedule so that every single team plays at the same time Sunday to conclude the regular season. It creates excitement, drama and you can make the case that it evens the competitive field as best as possible. Everyone gets to reset Monday. Unless you’re the Braves or Mets, who could be looking at filling out 18 innings as a way to prepare for a do-or-die Wild Card Series that could start on the road.

The only hope now, for both teams and the league, is Arizona fades and renders those games meaningless enough that they don’t get played. (It’s widely assumed both teams would prefer the off day than to play for a mere playoff seed.) The alternative is bad for the Braves, bad for the Mets and just bad for baseball.

(Photo: Kevin D. Liles / Atlanta Braves / Getty Images)

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti was in typically relaxed form when he spoke to the media before Tuesday’s La Liga game at home to Deportivo Alaves this week.

“I’ve been lucky enough to coach 300 games at the best club in the world,” Ancelotti said. “To be on this bench is something special. To sit there 300 times… I’m not saying it’s a miracle, but almost.”

To reach such a milestone at any big European club is a superb achievement. It is especially impressive at Real Madrid, given president Florentino Perez’s history of hiring and firing coaches. Only one manager has taken charge of more games at Madrid: Miguel Munoz, with 605 between 1959 and 1974.

It helps that during both of Ancelotti’s spells as Madrid manager (he was in charge from 2013-2015 and returned in 2021) the team won the Champions League, first in 2014 and then in 2022 and 2024. But winning trophies alone is often not enough to ensure job security at the Bernabeu.

Just 12 months after delivering Madrid’s long-awaited tenth European Cup in 2014, Ancelotti was fired by Perez as serious issues arose in their relationship. His second spell has also featured several rocky moments — while also delivering two more Champions League titles.

To survive, and thrive, in arguably the most demanding environment in football is, as Ancelotti himself recognised this week, almost miraculous.

So how has he done it?

Over almost three decades working as a manager (he started at Italian club Reggiana in 1995), Ancelotti has acquired plenty of experience working for big characters used to issuing orders and seeing them quickly followed.

At AC Milan (2001-2009), Silvio Berlusconi was the owner — as well as the domineering prime minister of Italy for part of Ancelotti’s spell. His ultimate boss at Chelsea (2009-2011) was Roman Abramovich, a secretive Russian oligarch. At Paris Saint-Germain (2011-2013), the president was Nasser Al Khelaifi, a close associate of the ruling powers in Qatar.

Between his spells at Madrid his superiors were Bayern Munich’s self-confident president Uli Hoeness (Ancelotti was there for 2016-17), Napoli’s larger-than-life president Aurelio de Laurentiis (during 2018-19) and Everton’s majority owner Farhad Moshiri (2019-2021).

Ancelotti’s 2016 book — Quiet Leadership: winning hearts, minds and matches — includes a whole section on “managing up”, discussing his experiences dealing with colourful and powerful bosses.

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Co-written with former Chelsea director Mike Forde and management consultant Chris Brady, it was published between the Italian being fired by Madrid in June 2015 and him joining Bayern the following summer.

At Milan, Ancelotti wrote, it soon became clear certain realities had to be accepted: “With Berlusconi I learned very quickly that, since he owned Milan, my job was to please Berlusconi.”

Ancelotti and Silvio Berlusconi pictured in January 2006 (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images)

On joining Chelsea, Abramovich instructed him to play a possession-based style of football. To do so, Ancelotti asked for playmaker Andrea Pirlo but when that was not possible, he used Michael Essien in that role. The book does not complain, but readers will know these are two very different types of players.

Ancelotti could handle not getting everything he wanted in the transfer market but it was more problematic that every time Chelsea lost a game, Abramovich arrived to personally demand answers.

“(That) taught me how to deal with this different kind of president,” Ancelotti wrote in his book. “I chose not to meet aggression with aggression, it is not my way. I like to think through difficult times, address the problems coolly and with reason.”

Ancelotti decided to use the owner’s interference in his job to motivate the team — and they won a Premier League and FA Cup double in his first season in charge. He wrote that the players knew Abramovich was “on my case” and they “responded brilliantly”.

It was difficult for that approach to succeed in the long term, and Abramovich fired Ancelotti after the following season ended trophyless. Next, he joined PSG, where the general director was Leonardo, “a friend of mine from Milan”.

Within 12 months it was clear things were not going to work out. After PSG lost to Ligue 1 rival Nice in December 2012, Leonardo told him he would be sacked if they did not beat Porto in their next game. Ancelotti realised Al Khelaifi had decided that the ‘project’ was not working, so he informed his bosses he would leave at the end of the season.

Next stop was the Bernabeu, where Ancelotti quickly realised he should just focus on coaching the first team and not worry about things outside his control. In his book, he wrote about realising “you are only ever a piece of the project” at Real Madrid. He said accepting that liberated him to focus on getting the best out of his players.

Following three seasons of predecessor Jose Mourinho’s pragmatic approach, Perez wanted a more attractive style of football at Madrid. Ancelotti set to work, allowing senior figures Sergio Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric greater responsibility. He also devised new roles for Gareth Bale and Angel Di Maria within a 4-3-3 tactical shape. It delivered ‘La Decima’ in his first season.

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The strength of the relationships Ancelotti built is shown by Ronaldo guest-writing a chapter in Quiet Leadership.

“One of the reasons the atmosphere was so good was because Carlo protected the dressing room from the president and anything else that might upset the balance of the family,” Ronaldo wrote. “I’ve seen that he does not bow to pressure from anyone: he makes his own decisions.”

Ancelotti and Ronaldo celebrate reaching the 2014 Champions League final (Stuart Franklin – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

Yet not all was perfect. Quiet Leadership also tells of Perez informing Ancelotti that Bale’s agent said his client wanted to play more centrally on the pitch. The Italian spoke directly with the player, explaining the team’s setup, and his vital role in it. He also used a press conference to tell the agent to “shut up”. Ancelotti wrote that this changed his relationship with Perez.

When Madrid lost a few games in early 2015, the club hierarchy grew concerned at a report claiming that Madrid’s training sessions were not intense enough. Ancelotti thought the squad needed more rest, especially with important players Ramos and Modric injured. The issue was never resolved, and when the season ended without a major trophy, the axe came.

Ancelotti wrote that his time at Madrid was “shorter than he’d hoped, but also longer than many who manage there”.

He added: “Leading may sometimes involve compromise, especially at the biggest clubs, but not when it comes to your expertise and you have the conviction of your decisions.”

Returning to Madrid in summer 2021, Ancelotti was well aware of the issues that caused friction the first time around. He accepted without complaint the club adding fitness coach Antonio Pintus to his staff, and repeated often that energy and physicality were vital for success in today’s game.

But he also insisted on bringing his own son Davide, then 34, as his assistant coach. This raised eyebrows at the Bernabeu, where the number two has often been a former club legend with the president’s ear. Ancelotti talks in his book a lot about how his closest staff are like a family. Now that was literally the case.

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Ancelotti was also well aware that the president would continue to have the final say on transfer policy. That meant adapting tactics to the current squad. The team sat deeper, meaning less running for veteran midfielders Toni Kroos and Modric, and more space for Vinicius Junior to exploit. Balance came from midfielder Federico Valverde on the right wing. It paid off when Valverde assisted Vinicius Jr’s winning goal in the 2021-22 Champions League final against Liverpool.

Ancelotti is mobbed after Madrid’s victory in the 2022 Champions League final (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

When Karim Benzema left for Saudi Arabia in summer 2023, Ancelotti wanted England captain Harry Kane as a direct replacement. That option was not seriously pursued by Perez, so instead he created a new attacking role for Jude Bellingham, who scored 23 goals as Madrid won the La Liga and Champions League double last season.

Such success was far from inevitable. In May 2023, Madrid were thrashed 4-0 by Pep Guardiola’s City in a decisive Champions League semi-final second leg, just as Xavi’s Barcelona were easily winning the La Liga title. It was a rocky spell not unlike that which ended Ancelotti’s first term at the Bernabeu.

Ancelotti had an easy escape route — Brazil wanted him as their next national coach. His first option was always to remain in the Spanish capital, but speculation continued well into the 2023-24 campaign, with Ancelotti’s contract due to expire in June 2025.

It was an awkward situation, as Perez is not used to any coach having such strong bargaining power. The Bernabeu hierarchy considered other options, including Bayer Leverkusen coach Alonso. Meanwhile, Ancelotti’s team went on a 17-game unbeaten run, winning 14 and drawing three, including a 2-1 Clasico victory at Barcelona, putting them in control of the La Liga title race. In late December, he was offered an extension to 2026 and accepted.

“I can’t control the direction of the president, I can only hope to influence him, and the best way to do that is by winning,” Ancelotti wrote in his 2016 book.

There was another awkward moment just last month. The Ancelottis wanted Madrid to hire 38-year-old Stockport County coach Andy Mangan, who is close to Davide. Not everyone at the Bernabeu liked the idea, and in the end the Spanish authorities refused Mangan a work permit.

That came amid a feeling around the Bernabeu that Madrid have not started the new season well, with departed playmaker Kroos badly missed. Stuttgart having more possession (54 per cent to Madrid’s 46 per cent) in last week’s Champions League group game at the Bernabeu fed a debate about the team’s style of play (even though Madrid won 3-1).

Afterwards, Ancelotti faced tough questioning from reporters well aware that Perez prefers to see his team dominating possession and playing stylish attacking football.

“Maybe we could play better, but Real Madrid fans are used to seeing ‘rock and roll’ football, not lots of touches,” he responded coolly. “We try, with our characteristics, to make the fans happy. The fans like winning more than playing well. The ideal is to win and play well.”

Ancelotti with his Real Madrid players in pre-season this August (Victor Carretero/Real Madrid via Getty Images)

It was typical Ancelotti. He made the point that his squad, especially in midfield and attack, is made up of players suited to football that is “entertaining, direct, intense, with pace”. The underlying message was that he was making the best of the players available, while everyone knew he was not primarily responsible for assembling the squad. It was all delivered calmly, showing he was in control of the situation and nobody should worry.

Not all top managers react to criticism, or interference from above, in such a way. With some, their ego gets in the way. But at this stage of his career, and his life, the 65-year-old Ancelotti has sufficient self confidence to not react to treatment others might take personally. His experience of dealing with many different owners and presidents has taught him to be philosophical.

“I’ve learned that getting sacked — and getting recruited for that matter — is rarely just about you,” Ancelotti wrote in Quiet Leadership. “It is always about the person hiring or firing you. Do your job to the best of your ability and let others judge you because they will anyway.”

In another section of the book, he puts it differently.

“As Vito Corleone would have said in one of my favourite movies, The Godfather, ‘It’s not personal. It’s just business.’”

(Top photo: Angel Martinez – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)