Arne Slot lost his FA Cup gamble against Plymouth Argyle, but the Liverpool manager might instead have edged closer to winning the trophies that really matter at Anfield this season by giving his star men the day off.

Make no mistake, Plymouth's giant-killing 1-0 win -- the bottom club in the Championship beating the Premier League leaders and ending all talk of a quadruple -- will be in the FA Cup highlights reel for years to come (stream a replay on ESPN+ in the U.S.). But nobody at Liverpool will worry too much about being on the wrong end of a cup shock if they conclude the season with the Premier League and Champions League trophies. They might also win the Carabao Cup, having booked a place against Newcastle United in the final on March 16.

Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool almost achieved a quadruple in 2021-22, but the heroics of that season -- Klopp's side played the maximum number of games by reaching three finals -- have already started to fade from memory because "almost" doesn't count at the biggest clubs. Klopp's side won the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, but Manchester City edged them to the Premier League title, and Real Madrid defeated them 1-0 in the Champions League final in Paris.

After an FA Cup fourth-round win against Cardiff City on Feb. 6 that season, Liverpool played 28 games up to and including the Champions League final against Real on May 28. Aside from the interruption of a March international break, Liverpool played a game every weekend and midweek from the beginning of February until the end of May. They won 21 of those games, losing two and drawing five.

Liverpool came close to winning everything. Indeed, a win against Madrid and a victory, rather than a 2-2 draw, against City in April would have ensured a clean sweep of trophies, but in the end the fatigue of pushing on all four fronts proved too much.

Slot's team, who return to Premier League action with a rearranged Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park on Wednesday, will not have that to worry about now that they are out of the FA Cup. In fact, the defeat at Home Park brings more respite than you would think.

Liverpool now have a free weekend when the FA Cup fifth round is played March 1-2 -- there are no Premier League fixtures that weekend -- so they will go into their Champions League round-of-16 tie March 4-5 not having played for a week after facing Newcastle in the league on Feb. 26. Liverpool will have another free weekend on March 29, when the FA Cup quarterfinals take place. This means their star players will be able rest after international duty and will be fresh for the Merseyside derby at Anfield, which is scheduled for the following midweek.

Their home game against Tottenham Hotspur -- on semifinal weekend of April 26 -- also won't need to be moved to a vacant midweek. With Liverpool playing their match away to Aston Villa, which was displaced by the date of Carabao Cup final, next week, they are now sure to have a week off going into that game against Spurs. The midweek of May 13 will also be free, by which time, with two rounds to play, they may already have been crowned champions.

As a consequence of their fourth-round exit, Liverpool can now play a maximum of 23 games by the end of the season -- 15 in the Premier League, one in the Carabao Cup and seven in the Champions League -- so the benefits of losing at Plymouth are obvious. That is five games fewer than Klopp's team had to play in the final weeks of the 2021-22 season, but Slot's Liverpool could end up winning more trophies.

Slot made 10 changes to his starting lineup for the Plymouth tie and didn't include Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister. The former Feyenoord coach said after the game that he had no regrets about his selection decision.

'Most of the things we do, we do for a reason," Slot said. "We just don't do it all of a sudden.

"The last few weeks we have played every single week two times. The upcoming weeks we have to play every single time two games. Therefore, it's not only for them good to once in a while have a week where they only play one game, but also for the ones that were here [at Plymouth,] they need the intensity of the game because you can keep on training with them, but once in a while they need a game as well.

"They had that as well against PSV [a 3-2 Champions League loss in Eindhoven on Jan. 29,] unfortunately we lost that one, and they had that today, and unfortunately we lost this one again as well."

Slot's reference to his fringe players losing both of the games in which they were selected to play also points to the reality that, beyond the first 14-15 names on his squad list, the Liverpool manager cannot rely on the club's second string to deliver when the star players are unavailable. But after being dumped out of the FA Cup, Slot and Liverpool now have the breathing space to take on the challenge of achieving a treble.

They are one win away from lifting the Carabao Cup and six points clear at the top of the Premier League, having played one game fewer than the chasing pack, so the path is clear for success in both competitions. And without the distraction of the FA Cup, success in the Champions League has become more attainable.

As embarrassing as it looks at first glance, losing against Plymouth could turn out to be Liverpool's best result of the season.

SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria -- Mikaela Shiffrin says she is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder following a crash in November and will not defend her gold medal in giant slalom at the Alpine skiing world championships.

The American holder of a record 99 World Cup wins suffered a deep puncture wound when she fell in a giant slalom race on Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont, causing severe trauma to her oblique muscles.

"I'm mentally blocked in being able to get to the next level of pace and speed and putting power into the turns," Shiffrin said in an audio message shared with The Associated Press on Monday. "And that kind of mental, psychological like PTSD-esque struggle is more than I anticipated.

"I figured once we touched ground in Europe and we got a chance to get some repetitive training days, I would be able to improve step by step and sort of the passion and the longing for racing was going to outweigh any fear that I had," she added.

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Whatever stabbed Shiffrin in her fall at Killington nearly punctured her abdominal wall and her colon. She told The Associated Press last month that her injury was "a millimeter from pretty catastrophic."

Shiffrin also had a high-speed crash in downhill in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, last season that kept her out for six weeks. She has discussed her fears with a psychologist, said Megan Harrod, Shiffrin's spokeswoman.

On Instagram, Shiffrin wrote: "Honestly, I really didn't anticipate experiencing so much of this kind of mental/PTSD struggle in GS from my injury."

Shiffrin won gold in giant slalom at the last worlds in France 2 years ago

The women's giant slalom is scheduled for Thursday and Shiffrin said it was "soul crushing" not to be able to defend her title.

"Two years ago I was at my top level I've ever skied in GS. It was the most fun I ever had skiing GS," Shiffrin said. "To be here now and not even be able to start, that's pretty heartbreaking."

Shiffrin returned to action last month when she placed 10th in a slalom in Courchevel, France, and is still planning to race the slalom -- her best event -- at worlds on Saturday.

The speeds in slalom are lower than those in giant slalom, so the danger level is not as high.

Shiffrin will enter team combined and pair with Breezy Johnson

By now abandoning the giant slalom, Shiffrin has decided to enter the new team combined event at worlds on Tuesday and will pair with freshly crowned downhill gold medalist Breezy Johnson.

The combined event entails one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom run, with their two times added up to determine the final results.

"I'm not at full capacity, not in giant slalom and not in slalom either," Shiffrin said. "But I feel good enough in slalom."

The other U.S. teams for the event are super-G bronze medalist Lauren Macuga and Paula Moltzan; Lindsey Vonn and AJ Hurt; and Jacqueline Wiles and Katie Hensien.

Vonn wanted to pair with Shiffrin in a skiing 'dream team'

Vonn had campaigned to race with Shiffrin in a "dream team" featuring the two most successful female World Cup skiers of all time. But the U.S. coaching staff selected the pairings based on "season-best results" in both events.

"Why am I not surprised?" Vonn wrote on the social media platform X with a shrug emoji before erasing her posting.

Then Vonn added a new post on X that said: "Always been a team player and I support my team no matter what. I'm not surprised by the decisions made but at least now it's clear that it's not my decision. I have always been supportive and respectful and that will never change," Vonn said, concluding with a Go USA flag emoji.

Shiffrin has a special bond with Johnson

Johnson's downhill victory marked her first win anywhere at this level -- including the World Cup.

"Breezy and I have been racing together since we were 11. We were at Whistler Cup and Topolino together," Shiffrin said, referring to two prestigious junior events. "We've been roommates, competitors, friends... It will be so so cool to bring this full circle."

Johnson recently returned from a 14-month ban for three "whereabouts" violations in anti-doping protocol.

"She knows the mental challenges of this sport better than anyone," Shiffrin said. "She has fought tooth and nail to get here, and now she is World Champion... her journey and grit and determination has inspired the heck out of me."

Shiffrin added that the combined is "like this little glimmer of hope that we can do this and this can be fun. This just might not be so scary."

Shiffrin hopes to return to GS later this month

Shiffrin hopes to return to giant slalom the weekend after worlds on the World Cup circuit in Sestriere, Italy, where two GS races and a slalom are scheduled.

Shiffrin needs one more win to reach a record-extending 100 World Cup victories.

She said that by putting off her GS return off for now it "buys us just a little bit more time to get things a little bit more sorted."

NEW ORLEANS -- The late-season collapse in 2023 was not fun at the time for anyone connected with the Philadelphia Eagles, and certainly not for coach Nick Sirianni.

But Sirianni said Monday he's happy for it now because it set up the Eagles for the 2024 season's Super Bowl championship run.

"I look back on last year and how last year ended and I'm grateful. As crazy as this sounds, I'm grateful how last year ended because it shaped us to [who] we are today [with] the adversity of the beginning of the year and the adversity through the season, through injuries, through ups and downs, through everything,'' Sirianni said the morning after the Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX.

"I think that when you embrace adversity, it does something to you, right? It does something to you personally, right? Each and every individual on that football team, the adversity does something to you, and it does something to you as a football team as well. So, our guys, I think that could be the biggest attribute. They worked their butts off to connect.''

The 2023 Eagles, after starting the season 10-1, lost six of their last seven games, including a wild-card round playoff matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Sirianni said his pregame message to the Eagles was simple: "Tough, detailed, together.''

"We talked about that all year,'' he said. "My job is not to inspire them. It's just more to just remind them of the things they already know, and I keep it really short. I talk a lot all during the week so before the game, it pretty much is consistent. Week 1, Week 37, whatever, we're on 'tough, detailed, together.' That's our core value. That's what we talk about. And the toughest team wins, usually the most detailed team wins, usually the team the most together wins.''

Complete and utter dominance. On the biggest stage, with the Chiefs dominating the headlines in their attempt to win a third consecutive title, the Eagles comprehensively manhandled them in New Orleans.

The 40-22 final score in Super Bowl LIX seems unfair both to a Philadelphia defense that shut down Kansas City until a couple of garbage-time touchdowns in the fourth quarter and to a Kansas City defense that battled gamely before finally getting overwhelmed by short fields and the sheer volume of snaps it had to play.

Imagine being a Chiefs fan and getting to see pieces of the box score of this game in advance. The Chiefs did the best job any team has done all season against Saquon Barkley, who ran 25 times for 57 yards. The Eagles went 3-for-12 on third downs, failed to convert their only fourth down, turned the ball over in the red zone and averaged 5.1 yards per play -- fewer than the Chiefs. All of that sounds like the sort of game the Chiefs would expect to win given what they're capable of doing on offense.

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All of that is true and the Chiefs still fell behind 34-0 during the third quarter, precisely because of what they couldn't do on offense. This was the worst possible time for Patrick Mahomes to have what will likely go down as his worst big game as a pro. Before saving his numbers with those late fourth-quarter scores, he looked as flummoxed as we've ever seen him.

If you had told that same Chiefs fan that Mahomes was about to go 6-of-14 for 33 yards with two interceptions in the first half of the Super Bowl, that fan could have done more productive things with a free Sunday. Those 33 yards were the fewest Mahomes has ever posted in the first half of any NFL game. His 10.9 passer rating was the third worst from any quarterback in the first half of a game this season. By expected points added (EPA) per dropback, his minus-1.36 mark was the 10th worst by any quarterback in the first half of any game since the start of the 2018 season.

Even with his late scoring drives, Mahomes finished with a Total QBR of 11.4, his second-worst performance in 133 career starts. Let's assign credit appropriately: The Eagles did that. More specifically, the same Philadelphia defensive line that was tormented and torched so badly by Mahomes in Super Bowl LVII two years ago took over this game. While defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and his secondary will rightfully earn credit for a dominant performance, the front seven is the key to understanding why Mahomes & Co. were ground into dust.

Jump to a section:
Four ways in which Philly's D dominated
Five ways in which KC got it terribly wrong
How Hurts and the Eagles got here

How the Eagles took down Patrick Mahomes

They exploited and overpowered Kansas City's tackles. Go back to the last time Fangio coached against an Andy Reid-led offense. It was the wild-card round last season, with Fangio serving as defensive coordinator for the Dolphins. Without his top two edge rushers due to injury -- Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips -- the normally conservative Fangio turned on the heat. The veteran coordinator blitzed Mahomes on more than 51% of the quarterback's dropbacks, his third-highest blitz rate in more than 220 games as a coordinator since 2007. Nobody wants to blitz Mahomes, who has lit up blitzes since entering the league, but Fangio surely felt like the alternative was sitting back and withering away on defense.

On Sunday, the Eagles didn't blitz once on Mahomes' 42 dropbacks. (They had a couple of plays that would technically qualify as blitzes when the Eagles sent Zack Baun, but they dropped a lineman off into coverage as part of the snap.) Fangio rushed four players 39 times and three players three times. The Eagles still managed to pressure Mahomes on nearly 45% of his dropbacks through three quarters before Fangio gave his backups some run in the fourth. They sacked Mahomes six times with a four-man rush, something that has never happened to the future Hall of Famer in his career. He had never been sacked more than four times by a three- or four-man rush in a single game.

When these two teams played in the title game two years ago, the Eagles managed to get pressure on Mahomes, but he wriggled and maneuvered his way out of danger. A dominant Philadelphia defensive line pressured him on 37% of his dropbacks then, but it failed to take him down for a sack on 11 pressures. Those 11 snaps produced just 35 yards, but a lack of negative plays helped keep the Chiefs afloat on offense in a shootout. This time, the Eagles finished the job. They ran a similar pressure rate to that Super Bowl (38%), but they turned six of those 15 pressures into sacks.

Those sacks didn't come from the player most would have expected. Jalen Carter had a solid game, but he didn't singlehandedly wreck opponents the way he had for much of the season. After much discussion about whether the Eagles would move him away from star guard Trey Smith, they decided to keep him there for the majority of his snaps, and the Chiefs double-teamed Carter on only a handful of snaps. Carter forced a holding penalty and had a couple of impressive plays, but he wasn't the most dominant player on the Philly line.

Instead, in their final game before free agency, this was the Josh Sweat and Milton Williams show. The two Eagles draftees combined for 4.5 sacks. Down the rotation, Jalyx Hunt and Moro Ojomo showed up with splash plays and quality snaps. Brandon Graham, a surprise activation during the week after recovering from what was expected to be a season-ending torn triceps, played 18 snaps and nearly bowled over right tackle Jawaan Taylor to draw a holding penalty.

Taylor had a rough game, but it didn't compare to what happened at left tackle. There's no way to sugarcoat it: Joe Thuney looked like a fish out of water on the edge in pass protection. It's one thing for a converted guard playing tackle out of desperation and a lack of better options to get beat by speed around the edge. It's another for Thuney to get driven backward into Mahomes' lap by Hunt, a 251-pound former college safety.

Charting the game through Williams' violent strip-sack of Mahomes in the fourth quarter, I have Thuney down for seven plays that led to pressures of Mahomes, including three that led to sacks. He was beaten straight up by Hunt and Sweat and on twists by Williams. He might have been a victim of unrealistic expectations after holding up for most of the postseason on Mahomes' blind side, but reality came crashing down Sunday.

Thuney wasn't the only one. Taylor was responsible for six pressures, including that play in which he was knocked a yard backward by Graham before being flagged for a desperate hold. Mike Caliendo, filling in at left guard for Thuney, struggled with twists and was steamrolled by Williams for the fourth-quarter strip-sack of Mahomes that took the last of the air out of Kansas City's sails.

The Chiefs never had answers for dealing with the pass rush besides hoping the offensive line played better. They spent most of the game blocking with five linemen before mixing in chips from tight ends and running backs, which didn't necessarily help; a Travis Kelce chip prevented the future Hall of Fame tight end from getting into his route quickly on a play that ended with a Mahomes sack, while a chip from Isiah Pacheco disengaged Sweat from Taylor and allowed him to take down a scrambling Mahomes. They tried moving the launch point for Mahomes by using built-in scrambles, but one of those plays led to the pick-six by Cooper DeJean.

They took away Mahomes' escape hatch. In Super Bowl LVII and just about every other big game since, Mahomes has managed to make a difference with his legs. While that has included the occasional designed run, the thing that scares opposing defensive coordinators is what he does as a scrambler. It's tough to spy him when a defense is usually committing so many coverage resources to Kelce, and if the coordinator uses twists and games up front to try to create pressure, any sort of misstep or over-aggression from the line opens up a lane for him to exploit. The Eagles know it all too well, given that Mahomes scrambled for 26 yards to set up the game-winning field goal two years ago.

This time, the big scramble never came. In addition to winning one-on-one, Philadelphia's edge rushers did a great job of walling off the edges and forcing Mahomes to try to escape pressure by stepping up into the pocket as opposed to escaping through the sides and extending plays. And once he stepped up, the Eagles' defensive linemen were simply too big and too fast to run past. There were too many moments in which Mahomes attempted to scramble, changed his mind then did a full turn to try to gain some acceleration and get away, only to be sacked or forced into a wild throw.

Mahomes didn't scramble for a first down all game, the first time that has happened in a playoff game since the loss to the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game. He didn't have a single scramble attempt until midway through the third quarter and didn't run for more than 8 yards on any of his attempts. Hunt made a nice play with an ankle tackle to stop what could have been a bigger scramble. Taking away those conversions made Mahomes one-dimensional.

They won over and over again on third down against the league's best third-down offense. While the Chiefs struggled on first and second down consistently throughout the season, Mahomes usually bailed them out by converting on third downs. The Chiefs picked up 50% of their third downs during the regular season with Mahomes on the field, the best rate of any offense, and were at 45% during the postseason before this game.

On Sunday, they failed to convert on their first nine attempts on third down through three quarters, before finally picking up a third-and-7 with 1:25 to go trailing 34-0. It's just the fourth time in the Mahomes era the Chiefs have gone an entire first half without converting a third down. (One of the other three was Super Bowl LVII against the Eagles, but that was on only three attempts.) Reid's offense finished 3-of-12 on third and fourth downs.

Through those first nine third-down attempts before the initial conversion on a throw to Kelce, the Eagles won with pressure on six. The three that didn't include pressure were a quick snap in which Mahomes threw low to Kelce, a designed rollout on the pick-six to DeJean and a quick third-and-13 throw to Kelce for 9 yards to set up a manageable fourth down. Six of those nine plays came with 9 or more yards to go, and as good as Mahomes is, the Chiefs didn't want to live in third-and-long against this defense.

Unlike the AFC title game against the Bills two weeks ago, when the Chiefs were able to successfully use picks and crossing routes, Reid never seemed to find short-to-intermediate solutions to attack Philadelphia's zone defense. NFL Next Gen Stats marked the Eagles down for just two snaps of man coverage on 42 dropbacks all night. Mahomes picked up a first down on his opening snap of the game with a triple-option RPO, but the Chiefs didn't find a non-RPO passing solution to consistently create space. They tried flooding the zones with multiple receivers, but Philadelphia did a great job of passing off routes and matching to Kansas City's concepts.

It was clear Mahomes didn't want to test Quinyon Mitchell and Darius Slay. the Eagles' outside cornerbacks. In the first half, he threw outside the numbers three times for a total of 2 yards. The Chiefs wanted to attack the middle of the field, but he went 4-of-11 for 30 yards and two picks throwing there in the first half. He had more success throwing to the sideline in the second half when he had no alternative, but it was too little, too late.

Mahomes didn't play well. It's important to make this distinction. This game will be lumped in with the last time he lost in the Super Bowl, and there's an obvious similarity. In both games, he was seemingly running for his life on every down behind a porous offensive line that wasn't capable of blocking the opposing defense. That Bucs defense under Todd Bowles in Super Bowl LV was dialing up exotic pressures and blitzing defensive backs, while Fangio was rushing three and four linemen all night, but that's not really important in the big picture. Blitz or no blitz, the story seems to be that if defenses can put pressure on Mahomes, he can struggle.

In that Buccaneers loss, Mahomes was phenomenal. He wasn't perfect, but under impossible circumstances, he was extending plays and making unreal throws, only for those passes to be dropped or come up just short. There was a reason clips of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin calling him "unbelievable" and "a magician" during the game went viral.

Even after accounting for the pressure put on by the Eagles in this game, Mahomes simply didn't play well. In the first half, he went 6-of-9 for 33 yards out of clean pockets with a minus-12.1% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE). He threw a painful pick-six to DeJean without pressure on a play in which the two-time MVP simply didn't see DeJean in his throwing lane, the sort of mistake a rookie might be expected to make. His second pick came on a play in which Thuney was deposited in his lap, but he didn't reset and his throw was subsequently short and nowhere near his receiver, a carbon copy of the pick he threw to Roquan Smith against the Ravens in Week 1.

It's fair to suggest the pass rush wore on Mahomes as the game went along, and I would suspect there's some truth to that. Even on the first possession of the game, though, he seemed jittery. On the opening third down of the game for the Chiefs, he scrambled under a modest amount of pressure, ran his way into trouble and then, while scrambling, attempted a dangerous pass that was lucky to not be intercepted. He uncharacteristically missed a fourth-and-4 speed out to DeAndre Hopkins from a clean pocket, leaving the pass too far inside and allowing Avonte Maddox to knock the ball away.

Is there anything the Chiefs could have done? Maybe not, given how dominant the Eagles' front was. But there were likely a few mistakes they would take back or try to approach differently with hindsight.

Where did the Chiefs go wrong?

They let the left tackle problem linger until it was too late. This loss can be traced back to Week 2. The Chiefs entered the season with second-year lineman Wanya Morris and rookie second-round pick Kingsley Suamataia competing for the starting job protecting Mahomes' blind side at left tackle. Suamataia won the camp competition, but after he struggled against Trey Hendrickson and the Bengals, the Chiefs benched him for Morris. Suamataia saw meaningful snaps in only two games the rest of the way, filling in for an injured Morris before spending Week 18 at guard alongside backups in a loss to the Broncos.

The time to find and bring in a veteran tackle was then, because once Reid lost faith in Suamataia, they had to start preparing for a scenario in which they needed one. Morris had been a problem filling in for Donovan Smith as a rookie in 2023, and he had lost the camp battle to Suamataia in August. Smith was still a free agent and never ended up signing anywhere, but the Chiefs elected to hold the line.

It wasn't until late November when the Chiefs finally signed a veteran tackle, inking D.J. Humphries to a one-year deal for $2 million. The former Cardinals starter made his debut three weeks later against the Chargers, only to suffer a hamstring injury and miss the next three games. Reid gave him another trial at left tackle in Week 18, but the coach apparently didn't like what he saw.

Instead, after pushing Thuney out to left tackle, the Chiefs kept him there for the remainder of the season. With Caliendo stepping in at guard, Reid now had subpar starters at two spots as opposed to one. The offense did fine with Thuney during postseason wins over the Texans and Bills, but the three-time Pro Bowler was badly overmatched in the Super Bowl.

With Morris inactive, the only options the Chiefs had at halftime were kicking Thuney back to guard and putting in Suamataia or Humphries at left tackle, both of whom Reid clearly didn't trust. Humphries was active during the postseason but played only on special teams. Neither player got on the field Sunday. It's tough to find a left tackle in-season, but the Chiefs would have had a better shot if they had started seriously looking around before the trade deadline as opposed to waiting until late-November to bring in a veteran.

They completely abandoned the run. When Reid was coaching the Eagles, a common criticism was that he got away from running the ball. Reid's pass rates would look almost quaintly conservative now, but before the 2007 Patriots, his Philadelphia offense leaned more heavily into the pass than just about any other team.

On Sunday, as those same fans were likely celebrating an Eagles victory, I agreed with that criticism. The Chiefs simply didn't run the ball early in a situation in which they desperately needed to take some of the pressure off Mahomes. While they used some RPOs and threw the ball early, they ran the ball just once on their first four possessions. Sure, that's only 13 plays, but a 12-1 pass-run ratio is a little extreme by anybody's standards. Throwing the ball that often is fine if it's working, but they weren't scoring or moving the ball.

Reid did run the ball twice to start the next drive, but when they gained only 1 yard, the Chiefs went back to passing. Pacheco started the third quarter with a run for 6 yards, but the next four plays were all passes. Kareem Hunt ran for 10 yards on the next drive, but after a holding call, Kansas City then ran for 1 yard on a second-and-14 draw.

The run game wasn't going to win this for the Chiefs, and their backs turned seven carries into only 24 yards, which isn't exactly beautiful football. But the threat of the run might have kept them out of third-and-long in a game in which the Eagles brutalized them in those spots. It could have slowed down the pass rush or given the offensive line a chance to attack the line of scrimmage. Frankly, it couldn't have been much worse than what they did on their dropbacks.

They needed to go bigger. One of the ways the Chiefs could have tried to gain an advantage while running the ball would have been to go with bigger personnel groupings. Since the Tyreek Hill trade, Reid has leaned into 12 (one back, two tight ends) and even 13 (one back, three tight ends) personnel groupings, using Noah Gray alongside Kelce. In addition to adding more blockers on the field for run concepts, the Chiefs use the personnel groupings to try to dictate personnel and create potential mismatches in the passing game.

Instead, they went with 11 personnel (one back, one TE, three receivers) on 74% of their snaps Sunday, using 12 personnel just 26% of the time. There's an argument to be made that's a product of playing from behind, but Reid actually used 12 personnel slightly more in the second half (28%) than the first (25%). The Chiefs weren't great in either personnel grouping, but Mahomes did hit a 50-yard touchdown pass against Philadelphia's backups in the secondary out of 12 personnel late in the game.

They couldn't avoid sloppy mistakes. This isn't where the Chiefs lost this game: The Eagles won it by imposing their will. But it's also fair to mention that the Chiefs made uncharacteristic blunders that might have steered the game closer to becoming a contest.

They extended Eagles drives with penalties. After appearing to get a stop on a third-and-5 throw that Jalen Hurts sailed to Dallas Goedert, the Eagles were given a new set of downs because Trent McDuffie struck Goedert in the head. (Chiefs fans probably didn't love the call, but it felt a little like a makeup whistle after incidental contact to the face mask from A.J. Brown wiped off a fourth-down conversion for the Eagles' offense on the prior drive.) The Eagles scored a touchdown three plays later.

With 2:28 to go in the first half trailing 17-0, the Chiefs appeared well on their way to getting off the field when they sniffed out a second-and-26 screen to Barkley. After the pass fell incomplete, though, Nick Bolton knocked Barkley over. He was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, turning a third-and-26 into a first-and-10. The Eagles didn't score on the drive, but the penalty took time off the clock and shifted field position. Kansas City eventually took over from its own 6-yard line, at which point Mahomes was backed into the end zone under pressure and threw a pick.

And after the Eagles scored, the Chiefs appeared to have a brief glimmer of hope to get some points on the board. Facing a third-and-11, Mahomes stepped out of the pocket, scrambled and found a wide-open Hopkins on a busted coverage. Mahomes' throw was on time, but Hopkins dropped what could have been a massive gain:

Lot of open space for DeAndre Hopkins there. pic.twitter.com/BtTdIRWTqb

Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) February 10, 2025

NFL Next Gen Stats estimates that pass gets completed 82.2% of the time and should generate a whopping 26.6 yards after the catch, which would have given the Chiefs the ball at the Eagles' 26 with one timeout. They would have probably come away from that scenario with at least three points. It didn't swing the game, but it's the sort of opportunity the Chiefs don't often miss. It was that sort of day.

The defense allowed explosives in the passing game. Given how well the Chiefs tackled and slowed down Barkley, they can't be too upset with how they played on defense. Forty points is a lot, but that includes a pick-six, three drives that started on Kansas City's side of the field and two more that started beyond the Philadelphia 40-yard line. The Eagles had two drives with more than 50 yards all game, only the fourth time that happened all season.

As good as they were against the run, though, the Chiefs weren't as effective stopping the Eagles from picking up chunk plays through the air, and it wasn't always from their star receivers. On the second drive, Hurts hit Goedert on a blown coverage for a 20-yard completion, with no defender matching in zone to the tight end's crossing route. Later on the same drive, the Chiefs blitzed on second-and-11 and Jaylen Watson was beaten by little-used third wideout Jahan Dotson, whom Hurts found for what appeared to be the opening touchdown of the game. While Dotson was ruled to be just short of the end zone on review, his 27-yard catch set up the opening score on a Hurts tush push.

Hurts continued to find big plays. On a third-and-7, he went back to Brown against McDuffie on a back-shoulder for 22 yards. McDuffie lined up against Brown on 18 of his 24 routes per NFL Next Gen Stats, and while that was the only big completion the star cornerback allowed, it easily could have been two if a 32-yard gain on fourth-and-2 on the opening drive hadn't been called back on a questionable offensive pass interference penalty.

The dagger came in the third quarter. Most teams will warn their defenders to be ready for a shot play around midfield after a turnover, and after the Chiefs failed on fourth-and-4 from their own 47, the Eagles showed why. With the Eagles in 12 personnel and showing a run look, they feigned a power play and dropped Hurts back to pass. The Chiefs showed a single-high shell and then spun to quarters coverage, giving an ideal opportunity to throw the deep post. With Bolton and Drue Tranquill desperately trying to run back after the play-fake to get in coverage, Justin Reid was occupied by Goedert underneath, which freed up DeVonta Smith over the top on the post. Smith beat Watson at the snap and ran free downfield for a 46-yard score.

JALEN TO DEVONTA DEEP TOUCHDOWN!

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Jalen Hurts, Super Bowl MVP, and how the Eagles got here

With Barkley quieted for the first time in months, this was the sort of game skeptics of the Eagles (like myself) would have seen as a real concern. While Hurts was excellent in the NFC Championship Game and threw just five interceptions all season, there was a two-month span in which the passing attack wasn't much more than an afterthought. While acknowledging there's no easy way to beat a team that was two drops away from winning 20 of its 21 games this season, the best way seemed to be putting more of the load on Hurts' shoulders and seeing if the 26-year-old was up to the task.

It turns out he was. While Hurts threw an ugly interception against the blitz on a play in which Bolton came untouched through the A-gap, the Eagles did just fine with their quarterback as the focal point of the offense. He went 17-of-22 as a passer for 221 yards and two touchdowns, generating a plus-12.6% CPOE. He added 11 carries for 72 yards and that "tush push" score on the ground.

In the previous Super Bowl matchup between these two teams, one of the few things Hurts wasn't able to do was consistently make the Chiefs pay with downfield throws; he went 2-of-7 for 90 yards on deep pass attempts. He was lights-out Sunday, going 3-of-4 for 95 yards and a touchdown on those throws, with the pick by Bryan Cook as his only blemish. Hurts was 2-of-3 for 42 yards on throws in the intermediate range (10 to 19 yards) as well. In that same area, Mahomes was 0-for-4 with two picks.

While Hurts was only 2-of-5 for 36 yards and that pick on the blitz, I wouldn't put that on him. There was no sight adjustment by Brown on the interception, even though the corner on his side (McDuffie) blitzed from the field, which would typically convert his route to a hitch or something easier than the go route he ran. When the Chiefs ran Cover 0 later in the game and the Eagles had again dialed up four vertical routes, Hurts threw a back-shoulder route to Brown, clearly expecting his star wideout to turn around and break off his route. But Brown continued downfield and the pass fell incomplete, leading to some mild discontent on the sideline for a few moments after the series.

While Mahomes' scrambling in big moments has become legendary, Hurts was the one who made a difference there. He set up a fourth-and-2 (and the big play to Brown that was wiped off) by scrambling for 9 yards on third-and-11 on the opening drive. In the second half, he had scrambles of 14, 16 and 17 yards, all for first downs. The Chiefs tried spying him at times with Leo Chenal, but against four-man rushes and the blitz, Hurts was able to break Kansas City's spirit with his legs.

The title win and Hurts' MVP performance is the final bit of vindication for one of the most controversial draft decisions in recent memory. The Eagles choosing Hurts with their second-round pick in 2020 seemed to send the organization into an immediate tailspin. Quarterback Carson Wentz collapsed the following season and fell out with then-coach Doug Pederson. They essentially fired both their head coach and quarterback, trading Wentz to Indianapolis, while retaining the guy who drafted Hurts, general manager Howie Roseman.

Roseman, coming off a disastrous 2020 draft in which he chose Jalen Reagor over Justin Jefferson at wide receiver, moved down from No. 6 to No. 12 in the 2021 draft before jumping back up to select DeVonta Smith. The extra first-rounder they got for moving down allowed the Eagles to be flexible the following season, when they basically extracted a premium for swapping their 2022 first-rounder with the Saints' first-rounder in 2023. All of those maneuverings eventually landed them Carter, their cornerstone defender.

If there's a lesson we can take away from the Eagles and their title run, it might be one that's hard to follow in the modern NFL: Be patient and don't get overwhelmed by recency bias. Philadelphia ownership didn't fire Roseman when Chip Kelly pushed him out of power in 2015 or when the fans were chanting "Fire Howie" in 2021. He has proceeded to build what has to be considered the league's best roster over the past three seasons.

Hurts was a mess in 2020, completing 52% of his passes and posting a 38.5% success rate as a passer. He was also playing with Reagor and Greg Ward as his top receivers and stuck behind a disastrous offensive line. The Eagles gave him a clear path to the starting job in 2021 with more auspicious surroundings, and he has rewarded them for doing so ever since.

This even extends to the Eagles' fateful 2024 free agent class, and the two coordinators they added. Fangio was all but run out of Miami by his own players, who were celebrating his departure on social media. Kellen Moore had essentially been let go by the Cowboys and Chargers in back-to-back seasons amid concerns that he was more focused on "lighting up the scoreboard" and throwing the ball than producing winning offenses. Moore is now expected to become the Saints' new coach, while Fangio is never going to buy a drink in Philadelphia again.

Barkley just finished what was probably the best season by a running back in league history. Advanced metrics were more optimistic about him than traditional numbers, but he averaged 3.9 yards per carry last season, and the Giants spent the past two years indicating they didn't want to give their own star back a multiyear guaranteed contract. Mekhi Becton was a bust as an offensive tackle who was cast off by the Jets before Philly offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland turned him into a mauling guard. Baun, who was involved with his fifth turnover of the postseason by picking off Mahomes, was a backup edge rusher for the 2023 Saints. The Eagles put each of these players in the right spots to succeed and won Super Bowl LIX.

And then there's the guy Eagles fans have grown to love to hate. This time last year, Nick Sirianni's job was genuinely in question. Even one year removed from a Super Bowl appearance and weeks removed from a 10-1 start, the team had fallen so quickly and so precipitously during the second half of 2023 that it seemed to raise questions about Sirianni's competence. Sirianni essentially fired defensive coordinator Sean Desai during the season, replaced him with Matt Patricia and got only worse on defense. After an embarrassing 32-9 loss to the Bucs in the postseason, it almost felt like a surprise that Sirianni returned to the job in 2024, albeit with new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

And now, 21 games later, Sirianni's Eagles have won 18 of their 21 games. They've lost one game in four months, and that required a drop from Smith and a last-minute touchdown drive from Jayden Daniels. They have routinely been the better-prepared and better-coached team week in and week out, and there are veterans on both sides of the ball who have leveled up and massively improved upon the players they were in prior stops. Roseman, Moore and Fangio all deserve credit for their efforts in making that happen, but it seems impossible and unrealistic to deny Sirianni his fair share of those plaudits.

Sirianni is now 54-23 in his career as an NFL coach. He has more playoff wins (six) than any coach in franchise history besides Reid. And now, he has the one thing on his mantle that Reid failed to achieve during the legendary coach's 14-season run in Philadelphia: the Lombardi Trophy.

Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young is headed to the NBA All-Star Game after all.

Commissioner Adam Silver announced Monday that he has added Young to the All-Star roster as an injury replacement for Milwaukee forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who will not be able to play because of a calf injury.

Young was originally displeased when he was not picked for the game through the balloting for the starters or the coaches' selections of reserve players. "It's getting 'Traed' at this point," he wrote on social media, coining a new word in reaction to being snubbed.

Young is the NBA's assist leader this season and now a four-time All-Star selection. The All-Star Game -- now a mini-tournament of three games -- is Sunday in San Francisco.

Young will replace Antetokounmpo on Team Chuck, the eight-man squad drafted last week by TNT analyst Charles Barkley. Antetokounmpo was the fourth of the 24 players drafted by Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny Smith to the All-Star rosters.

Young joins a roster with a decidedly international feel. He'll play alongside Denver's Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada), San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama (France), Indiana's Pascal Siakam (Cameroon), Houston's Alperen Sengun (Turkey), New York's Karl-Anthony Towns (whose mother is Dominican) and Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell (whose mother is from Panama).

Young leads the NBA in assists per game by a significant margin; he entered Monday averaging 11.4, well ahead of Jokic's 10.3 per game.

This is the second consecutive year Young was added to the roster as an injury replacement. He also made All-Star appearances in 2020 and 2022.

It's expected that at least one more injury replacement pick will be made by Silver. Forward Anthony Davis left his debut with the Mavericks with an injury on Saturday, and sources told ESPN's Shams Charania that he's expected to sit out multiple weeks.

Davis is set to play on Team Shaq, which also features Davis' former Los Angeles Lakers teammate LeBron James, Golden State's Stephen Curry, Boston teammates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Phoenix's Kevin Durant, Milwaukee's Damian Lillard and the Los Angeles Clippers' James Harden.

The other All-Stars selected to the game are on Team Kenny: Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, New York's Jalen Brunson, Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr., Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams, Cleveland teammates Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, Detroit's Cade Cunningham and Miami's Tyler Herro.

THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS stunned the basketball world by dealing for franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic five days before the NBA trade deadline, and then stunned everyone all over again two days after it when they rescinded their swap for 7-foot center Mark Williams.

For 48 hours, at least, the Lakers existed in the rare competitive territory of improving in the present, for LeBron James, while also fortifying the future of the franchise. It's the state of operation that can make an organization's championship standard a reality.

Just as soon as the transformation set in, the Lakers shifted gears to a different present reality.

At 9:01 p.m. ET Saturday, nearly a week after the Doncic deal was agreed on -- costing Anthony Davis, Max Christie and the Lakers' 2029 first-round pick -- the Williams trade was nixed. Williams was to join the Lakers in exchange for rookie Dalton Knecht and Cam Reddish in a trade with the Charlotte Hornets that was agreed to Wednesday night. But Williams failed L.A.'s physical exam, sources told ESPN's Shams Charania. Williams failed not because of the back injury that sidelined him most of last season, but because of multiple other issues of concern, sources said.

Beyond the awkward reunion when Knecht and Reddish report back to the Lakers (team sources expect both to return in the coming days), the roster's present construction, to quote vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka, "has continued work to do to become complete."

The problem is that the trade deadline has passed. The window is closed. And the situations for James and Doncic suddenly aren't as congruent.

Rather than Pelinka having results to show after his first extended meeting with Doncic at the team's practice facility Feb. 3, when Doncic handpicked Williams for the GM to attempt to land, a source familiar with the matter said, the first transaction of their partnership defaulted.

The team is left with Jaxson Hayes, a springy yet green career backup, as its starting center. The only other big men on the roster are Christian Wood, who has been sidelined all season because of left knee surgery, and two-way contract players Christian Koloko and Trey Jemison III.

Williams, 23, was targeted to not only grow alongside the 25-year-old Doncic, but provide a lob threat and physical presence this postseason to steel L.A.'s frontline against the likes of the Houston Rockets, Memphis Grizzlies, Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, team sources said.

A wild week for the franchise, with one team source describing the Lakers' approach as "aggressive," became more of a half measure. The culmination of perhaps the most chaotic, transformational trade deadline in Lakers history has left the team failing in its first attempt to satisfy Doncic -- ever aware that he will become a free agent in 2026 and that L.A. wants to make his decision to sign a contract extension a foregone conclusion -- and failing to maximize James' 22nd season by ultimately not obtaining a big that Pelinka admitted the roster was lacking.

The team's ability to pivot from Williams will be critical for this group's chances, and limiting the fallout will allow L.A. to restore the momentum it has been building in the short term. As for the long term, without Williams but with Knecht and the 2031 first-round pick? "That was a lot [to give up]," a team source said. "We kind of dodged a bullet."

BEFORE THE WILLIAMS trade was agreed to Wednesday night, there was debate inside the Lakers organization about whether he was worth the haul it would take to acquire him -- especially considering his injury history.

Williams has missed nearly two-thirds of the Hornets' games with various back, ankle, knee and foot injuries since being drafted in 2022.

L.A. revamped its medical staff in the offseason, hiring Dr. Leroy Sims as its director of player performance and health after he previously worked for the NBA as the head of the league's medical operations. "We fully vetted [Williams'] health stuff," Pelinka said Thursday. "He's had no surgeries. So these are just parts of, he's still growing into his body. We vetted the injuries he's had, and we're not concerned about those."

Sims' presence, plus coach JJ Redick's confidence in Williams' character after developing a rapport through their alma mater, Duke University, gave the Lakers a belief that they could maximize the big man's talents, team sources said. Kurt Rambis, the Lakers' senior basketball adviser, supported the move as well, pointing out that guys that size don't really come into their bodies until they reach their mid-to-late twenties. "I got to give some credit to Rambo," Pelinka said. "He thinks the upside is very real."

When Williams reported for his physical, however, the team identified additional concerns, sources said, causing the Lakers to reassess the risk of the deal.

Though parting with Knecht and a first-rounder was considered a steep price compared with other deadline deals around the league, Pelinka made the trade, sources said, to establish goodwill with Doncic and improve the current roster. It was, team sources said, an "all-in" deadline. Even if the Williams trade fell apart, "it wasn't for lack of trying," one source said. There was also some internal calculus on the real value of that 2031 pick, sources said. Plus, Williams' fit was a necessity, one Lakers source said; Knecht's was a luxury.

The Lakers considered adding bruising 6-10 center Jericho Sims, sources said, before he was moved from New York to Milwaukee on Wednesday for Delon Wright as an addition to the Kyle Kuzma-for-Khris Middleton deal. Sims would have fit the "stuff around the margins" category that Pelinka vowed the team would explore during Doncic's introductory news conference Tuesday because, the GM said, "the market for bigs right now ... is very dry. There's just not a lot available."

Hornets executive vice president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson presented Williams as an option to the Lakers following that news conference, Pelinka said. "This opportunity came to us," Pelinka said Thursday. "Maybe it's in some sense like the L.A. housing market. Not every house is listed. And sometimes you become aware of something that's available that's not on the market. And when you see the perfect house, you're willing to go get it, even if you have to be aggressive to do it. I think that's how we looked at the Mark Williams opportunity when we opened up discussions with Charlotte."

The Hornets, in a statement issued after the trade was rescinded, framed the communication differently. "After the other team aggressively pursued Mark, we made the difficult decision to move him," the statement read.

Even if the Lakers avoided a potential pitfall with Williams' health, the immediate aftermath of reversing the trade has consequences. The team will need to repair its relationship with Knecht, for one. His agents, Anthony Coleman and Mike Lindeman of Excel Sports Management, had no comment on the rescinded deal when reached by ESPN on Saturday. And then there is the perception of fumbled execution by the front office.

"Nobody did the research prior?" a league source said. "Why would [Williams] be available that young?" And the market for big men is now even drier.

Center Alex Len, who was waived by the Washington Wizards, intends to sign with the Indiana Pacers, sources told Charania on Saturday. Len is one player L.A. could have pursued, sources said.

The Lakers can still waive someone -- Wood or Reddish would be the top candidates, team sources said -- to create a roster vacancy to bring in another center. L.A. still has enough room under the second apron to sign a buyout player, someone making less than $12.8 million with his previous team, for the rest of the season. "We will find another center path," a team source said. "The path is always there. We just got to put in the work to find it."

In the interim, Hayes has been a bright spot. During the Lakers' five-game winning streak since Davis left the Philadelphia loss early with an abdominal injury, Hayes has averaged 8.0 points on 77.3% shooting, 6.6 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.0 steals.

It's a major role for him, and one that James had privately wondered whether the 24-year-old Hayes was experienced enough to occupy in a playoff run next to Davis before Davis was traded, sources said. Without Davis, the responsibilities multiply.

Hayes will have Doncic's support, however. He was the first of Doncic's new Lakers teammates to go to dinner with him once he arrived in Los Angeles, as Hayes, Doncic and their mutual agent, Bill Duffy of WME, dined together at Ocean Prime in Beverly Hills.

"When he was in Dallas and I was in New Orleans my first few years, they kept trying to trade for me," Hayes told ESPN on Saturday after posting 9 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks in a win over Indiana with Doncic and James watching on the bench. "New Orleans never allowed it. He was like, 'Do you remember when we couldn't trade for you?' I was like, 'Do you remember what I told you after every game I played against you?' After every game I would be like, 'If you ever need a big, I would love to play with you.' Just because of the way he moves the ball."

How Doncic's and James' opinions align on Hayes will be the first test of their partnership that could last months or go on for years, depending on how the rest of this season pans out.

What is clear is that Doncic will have a say. And it wasn't lost on James' camp, sources said, that Pelinka prioritized Doncic's involvement upon his arrival and immediately engaged in the Williams trade that he'd asked for, when James had for years wanted the team to trade its picks to improve its roster.

SITTING AT THE end of the bench Thursday night, Doncic sprung from his seat with 9:07 left in the second quarter, spreading his arms wide with three fingers on each hand pointing upward, mimicking James' exact pose at center court.

James had just drilled his third straight 3-pointer in under a minute, prompting the Warriors to call timeout to stop the bleeding. The Luka-less Lakers were already up 22.

By the end of the night, after becoming the second player in NBA history to top 40 points after his 40th birthday, James sat back in his chair in the locker room, beaming with excitement.

The Lakers had just finished their 10th win in 12 games, with an average margin of victory of 15.6 points. James was asked what concerns he might have integrating what would have eventually been two new starters.

"I don't really see a challenge," he said. "Everybody get in the right spots. Hold each other accountable. Play basketball the right way. Share the ball. The ball is going to be in Luka's hands. It's going to be in [Austin Reaves'] hands. Two great decision-makers. It's going to be in my hands a little bit as well. Another great decision-maker. And then our guys are going to feast off of it. I mean, that's a beautiful thing."

Sitting to his left was Markieff Morris, who had joined the Lakers as part of the Dallas deal, at Davis' former locker.

It was a stark reminder. These moves don't come without risk.

By keeping his negotiations with Mavericks GM Nico Harrison closed, and parting with someone so close to James without his signoff, Pelinka's move could have easily caused James to want out, too. Instead, James understood the business decision and accepted that it was a deal they had to make, sources close to the veteran said.

Beyond their own belief in Doncic as a franchise cornerstone, Pelinka was aware of James' affinity for Doncic. James had praised Doncic publicly in his "Mind the Game" podcast co-hosted with Redick last spring. The GM figured James would see the move as a basketball fit, sources said.

Though Pelinka said Tuesday that "the urgency is ever-present" for the Lakers to win championships, urgency can come in degrees. For James, in his 22nd season, every postseason he plays in is his last best chance to win a fifth ring. For Doncic, there is natural urgency to avenge last year's NBA Finals loss to Boston with a title this season, but L.A. hopes to present the 25-year-old many more championship opportunities than just this spring.

As much as the praise for one another that James and Doncic have shared seems genuine, their differing timelines create a natural tension -- one the franchise tried, but ultimately failed, to reconcile this deadline.

IN THE HIGH-STAKES game of attempting to perpetuate the Lakers' status as the league's glamour franchise, while the NBA continues to ratify new rules to promote parity, every move executed -- or rescinded -- counts even more. If Harrison had never approached Pelinka, a transformative deadline might have been for naught.

The Lakers would have listened to Davis' request to play alongside another big to spend more time at power forward -- and tried to trade for one.

If L.A. had done so, teaming Davis with another center as he was in 2020 with Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee, perhaps the Lakers would have found similar success. If it didn't work though, the Lakers would have fewer assets to find their next star, with no guarantee that Davis, who will be 32 this summer, would want to stay in L.A. for what's left of his prime. Davis, sources said, was concerned about being left with a roster that was fitted for James, with few options to change it when James retires.

As painful as it was for many in the organization to bid farewell to Davis -- he was universally well-liked -- he joined a contender with capable centers who will allow him to play at the 4, a coach in Jason Kidd who was an assistant on the Lakers' 2020 championship team, and a GM in Harrison who worked closely with him as his brand manager when Harrison was at Nike. Plus, being on the same timeline as the 31-year-old Irving, Davis believes he will be there long enough to put down roots and sign a contract extension, sources said.

Instead, the Lakers believe they found their next face of the franchise in Doncic, but his arrival brings with it a directive to appease him to secure a contract extension in 2026, or risk being stuck in the same predicament as they were in 2013, when Dwight Howard left L.A. in the lurch because he didn't want to team with an aging Kobe Bryant.

The characters have changed, but the drama remains. And maybe that's part of what it takes to perpetuate what the Lakers are actually selling.

"I mean, this is the Lakers. This is a larger-than-life, legacy franchise," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said Saturday. "This is an amazing opportunity for Luka. And I think certainly LeBron and him have an affinity for each other that goes back to really Luka's first year in the league. The whole thing is an amazing string of events."

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers have unveiled a patch they will wear on their uniform this season to honor longtime broadcaster Bob Uecker, who died last month.

The patch will appear on the sleeve of the Brewers' uniforms. It features Uecker's signature over a gold-and-navy plaid print to honor the various sportscoats he occasionally wore.

The patch was introduced Monday and will make its debut when the Brewers open their preseason schedule Feb. 22 by facing the Cincinnati Reds in Phoenix.

For Ueck pic.twitter.com/gvyQSAriwx

Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) February 10, 2025

Uecker died Jan. 16 at the age of 90. He had completed his 54th season of broadcasting Brewers games last year even as he battled small cell lung cancer.

The Milwaukee native continued broadcasting Brewers games even as his comedic skills earned him regular commercial appearances and starring roles in the movie "Major League" and the long-running television series "Mr. Belvedere." Uecker was honored by the Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award in 2003.

Fans showed their appreciation for Uecker after his death by putting baseballs, flowers, cans of the Miller Lite beer he endorsed and various other mementos at the base of a statue honoring him outside Milwaukee's American Family Field.

"We miss Bob every day, and all the more as we approach our first season without him at our side," Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said in a statement. "Ueck was a great friend to all of us. He was a fixture at the ballpark and in our lives. We cannot fill the hole that his absence has created, but the jersey patch will be a way to honor his memory whenever we take the field."

The Brewers plan to hold a public celebration of life honoring Uecker sometime this year. Details will be announced later.

Meanwhile full-back Furbank is recovering from fracturing his arm in Northampton's Champions Cup win over the Bulls in December.

"He is going well," said Borthwick of Furbank. "He had [another] X-ray on his arm last week and we are waiting on the specialist to give his view on that.

"Hopefully he might be available at the end of the tournament but we are still waiting for the specialist's report."

England will attempt to end Scotland's four-match winning streak in rugby's oldest international fixture when the two teams meet at Twickenham on 22 February.

Borthwick's side continue their campaign at home against Italy on 9 March before travelling to Wales on 15 March in the final round.

Ollie Sleightholme and Cadan Murley have deputised for Feyi-Waboso so far in the tournament.

Freddie Steward played 15 in the defeat by Ireland, before Marcus Smith shifted from his usual fly-half role to play full-back in Saturday's win over France.