Category: Sport

The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 was a competitive one, with Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, Adam Vinatieri and Roger Craig earning enshrinement. Among those left out: Bill Belichick and Eli Manning.

Next year’s group could be even more competitive. Belichick and Manning will be back on the ballot — alongside other 2026 finalists like Frank Gore, Torry Holt and Marshal Yanda — and there will also be a large number of first-time candidates deserving of consideration.

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Here are 10 players whose last NFL appearance was in the 2021-22 season.

Rob Gronkowski

One of the few acceptable answers to the question, “Who is the greatest tight end of all time?”

No player caught more passes or posted more receiving yards from Tom Brady than Gronkowski, who was also one of the best blockers at his position and a larger-than-life personality. The only thing that ever limited “Gronk” was injuries. When healthy, he was an unstoppable weapon in the hands of some of the NFL’s best minds.

Adrian Peterson

The last running back to win NFL MVP was AD, who sits fifth in the NFL’s all-time rushing list and is one of nine players in history to post 2,000 rushing yards in a season. He came only 8 yards short of breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season record in 2012-13.

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Peterson was a star from his first snap and kept going until his mid-30s.

Richard Sherman

The loudest member of the Legion of Boom was also the best. Sherman made the switch from wide receiver to cornerback in high school and waited until the fifth round of the 2011 NFL Draft to hear his name called.

One of the largest corners in the league at 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, Sherman became a paradigm-shifting defensive back in the Seahawks’ system and was a central component of their Super Bowl XLVIII team. He was an all-time trash-talker who earned it, regularly shutting down his side of the field.

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Ben Roethlisberger

Aside from Manning, the system is usually kind to two-time Super Bowl champion quarterbacks. Roethlisberger’s first ring was more a product of Jerome Bettis and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense in his sophomore season, but he was overall one of the NFL’s most prolific quarterbacks during his 18-year career.

Big Ben retired as the all-time leading passer for one of the NFL’s most storied franchises. However, a pair of sexual assault allegations from earlier in his career loomed over his achievements, and there’s no telling how that could play out.

Antonio Brown

Our second of three Steelers offensive stars is also the most mercurial, to put it politely. Brown was on track for an overwhelming case when he turned 30 and still had a standout career, ranking behind only Hines Ward on the Steelers’ all-time receiving list.

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And yet, few stars have crashed out of the NFL as loudly as Brown did, first with the Oakland Raiders, then the New England Patriots, then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He rose from the sixth round of the 2010 Draft to do some amazing things on the field, but he’s going to be remembered for much more than that.

Le’Veon Bell

The third of the Killer B’s likely faces the longest odds, considering how short his prime ended up being. Bell was one of the NFL’s top backs as a runner and receiver, but an ugly divorce from the Steelers saw him sit out a season then land with the New York Jets. He was never the same after that.

Cam Newton

Newton not making the College Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility despite posting one of the greatest seasons in the sport’s history was a Belichick-style puzzler. His NFL career was a standout too.

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In an MVP season, Newton led the 2015-16 Carolina Panthers to a 15-1 record and the Super Bowl, demanding attention every time he stood on the field. Injuries derailed what could have been a strong second act, though, especially with so many other quarterbacks vying for enshrinement.

Andrew Whitworth

Offensive linemen usually don’t get their due, but Whitworth earned his right to be an exemption with a 16-year career as a dependable blind-side blocker for the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams. He went out on top with the latter against the former at Super Bowl LVI, alongside …

Eric Weddle

Weddle spent a solid decade as one of the NFL’s top safeties for the San Diego Chargers and Baltimore Ravens, earning six Pro Bowl nods and hauling in 29 interceptions in his career. He had a strong case when he first retired in 2020, but his return to the Rams in 2021-22 postseason after a pair of devastating injuries was one of the biggest stories of their Super Bowl title, especially when he didn’t let a pec tear stop him from playing every defensive snap.

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Alex Mack

Mack was arguably the best center of the 2010s, earning seven Pro Bowl nods for the Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and San Francisco 49ers. Between him and Joe Thomas, the Browns had two of the best in the league anchoring their offensive line for seven years, and he helped lead the Falcons to the ill-fated Super Bowl LI with the Falcons.

SAN FRANCISCO — Four days into Super Bowl week and the New England Patriots are now 0-2.

In what became two of the worst kept secrets in the history of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it was revealed Thursday night that Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft both failed to get the votes for induction with the 2026 class. It’s a moment that will be debated for the next 12 months for multiple reasons. There’s the flawed selection process that leaves seniors committee players fighting with coaches and contributors for votes. There’s punishment for the 2007 Spygate scandal, or to some conspiracy theorists, a perceived bias against the Patriots for a litany of factors.

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I’ll leave you to choose your own rationale when it comes to Belichick and Kraft. But what you shouldn’t misconstrue here is that this is going to mushroom into an even bigger embarrassment. That somehow, some way, we’re seeing the bricks laid that will eventually become an unavoidable barrier — keeping the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL from getting into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot. That’s not happening.

Brady is going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2028. The first year he’s eligible. More than likely as a unanimous selection (although unanimous enshrinees are not revealed by the HOF). And if he doesn’t, I’m willing to bet you’ll see some voters resign from the process.

So we can dispense with the debate about his candidacy, which has been a combination of jokes, faux hand-wringing and deduction over the past few days. The trio that made the biggest headlines?

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Brady telling Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd — with a tongue in cheek tone that has not been reported enough when contextualizing this comment — “Maybe it’s not trending so well for ex-Patriots. Maybe I should be a little concerned here.”

Brady’s friend and former teammate, Rob Gronkowski, sarcastically joking to Fox News Digital — “I think Tom Brady now is going to be a fourth-ballot Hall of Famer.”

And then there was HOF wideout Terrell Owens — who has had a bone to pick with voters since it took three ballots to get him enshrined — telling multiple media outlets that Brady’s candidacy should be held to the same standard as that of Belichick and Kraft. If you take the time to actually listen to Owens and not just read the quotes, he wasn’t being bombastic when he made the statements. Instead, he framed it as a matter of reasonable deduction, given Belichick’s first-ballot exclusion, which Owens labeled a “travesty” when speaking to Sports Illustrated on Radio Row.

Owens’ most succinct reasoning came in a Radio Row sit-down with the California Post.

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“Honestly, if you’re looking at it, if Belichick doesn’t go in and Robert Kraft doesn’t go in first-ballot, Tom Brady shouldn’t go in,” Owens said. “I’m just being real. It’s nothing against him. How can you have Tom Brady go in when he’s up in 2028? Why would he go in if Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick don’t go in on the first go-around? Because to be quite honest, yeah — is Tom Brady a good quarterback? Yeah. He’s not the quarterback he is without Robert Kraft drafting him. He’s not the quarterback he is without Bill Belichick. They all go hand-in-hand. So to me, why would he go in and those two don’t? He shouldn’t go in [first-ballot], either.”

Owens’ comments drew the most attention, of course. But his line of deduction and reasoning is indeed the core of the debate. But it’s also flawed when it comes to Brady — because Brady’s candidacy isn’t subject to the same vote-for-three-of-five candidates structure that played at least a part in what happened with Belichick and Kraft.

We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, we have to circle back to the lack of voter transparency when it comes to the Hall of Fame, which only promotes conspiratorial theories about what exactly is going on with Patriots candidates. Maybe that ballot transparency changes over the next few years. Perhaps votes are publicized and accountability is pushed to the forefront for the 50-member panel. Regardless of that happening, the outside world should understand that this year’s results aren’t part of a package deal. There are only assumptions rather than proof of a grand conspiracy here, allowing for a notion that a cabal of voters is banding together in a Machiavellian master plan to take punitive measures against Belichick, Kraft and eventually, Brady.

In reality, if you talk to voters — and I’ve spoken to a few — what happened this year is simply the intersection of circumstance and flaws in the system. Consider the math:

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You have 50 HOF voters. They were charged with selecting three candidates from a pool of five: Belichick (coach candidate), Kraft (contributor candidate) and a trio of players put forward by the seniors committee in Roger Craig, L.C. Greenwood and Ken Anderson. With the 50 voters allowed to pick only three candidates, that equates to 150 available votes.

It takes 40 votes to win enshrinement. Roger Craig got at least 40 — evidenced by his being the only one of the five to make the Hall on Thursday night. That means there were, at most, 110 votes on the table — all of which were split among the remaining four candidates. Getting another 40 votes from the remaining pool of 110 is not an easy task, especially if you had some voters who made the error of thinking that Belichick or Kraft were definitely getting in, and that they would be one of the few outliers to use all three of their votes on the last-shot seniors committee players. This is where the flaw exposed itself in the system. And so do most of the voters I spoke with.

That doesn’t mean some voters didn’t hold Spygate against Belichick or even Kraft to some extent. But it presents a very plausible counterargument to the idea that this is just a Patriots-related conspiracy. And we should note, Kraft has been eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame since the class of 2013. He made it as a finalist only in 2026, which is suggestive that his first-shot candidacy was not nearly the slam dunk that Belichick’s might have been.

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Now, back to Brady. Let’s set aside that he’s arguably the greatest quarterback — and maybe the greatest player and winner — in NFL history.

One basic thing about Brady’s candidacy that clears the structural voting issues that stacked against Belichick and Kraft: He’s going to be on the ballot in 2028 as a modern era player. And Hall of Fame voters can vote for five of those candidates. Brady’s résumé is going to smoke every other modern era player who is in his class, so it shouldn’t be a struggle for him to coast in on the first ballot — if there isn’t some extenuating issue in play.

Of those, only Deflategate could be held against Brady. But here’s the issue with that being used against him:

• Brady’s four-game suspension for Deflategate shouldn’t be an automatic first-ballot disqualifier for voters because defensive end Julius Peppers was a first-ballot selection in the 2024 class, and he was suspended four games during his rookie season for using a banned substance. And that wasn’t an inconsequential suspension, either. At the time, Peppers was leading the NFL in sacks, with 12.

• Brady’s alleged lack of cooperation in the Deflategate investigation — which the league said was committed when he had an assistant destroy a cell phone containing text messages — also can’t be an automatic disqualified for first-ballot induction. Why? Because the NFL ruled that during the 2010 season, Brett Favre failed to fully cooperate in a league-run “sexting” investigation involving Favre and a New York Jets employee. Favre was fined $50,000 by the NFL for the lack of cooperation, and there was a belief that he could have faced a suspension in 2011 as well, but he retired following the 2010 season. Favre was still a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

And of course, none of this speaks to how Deflategate has looked in the rearview mirror for the league. It was an investigation rife with leaks from the league office and advanced science that looked less and less credible over time. Not to mention the reality that when the league took a season to measure the PSI in footballs one season later, the resulting data was destroyed rather than released to the public. That raised a larger question about whether football inflation levels are even reliable over the course of given games and in certain environments.

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Even with that reality, Deflategate is always going to be a debated part of Brady’s history. But it also became a speck of sand in the middle of his career. He played another six seasons after the scandal. He won three Super Bowls after. He won a league MVP. He threw for 27,632 yards and 193 touchdowns after Deflategate. And the Super Bowl he won with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had nothing to do with Belichick and the Patriots.

All of this is to say, he’s in his own category. Not lumped in with Belichick. Not even lumped in with Kraft. And certainly not lumped in with whoever is ultimately going to be sharing the ballot with him in 2028.

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That’s why Brady is getting in. Any notion to the contrary between now and then is just wasting time and oxygen.

The Winter Games have begun in Italy. From the rink to the slopes, a new generation of stars has emerged to chase gold. We’ll keep you connected to all of the thrilling moments and top stories as we track the medal race each day of the Games.

Competition for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics began Wednesday, but Friday is when things will feel more real, as the Opening Ceremony will take place and capture the world’s eyes.

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Even before that, though, there are critical events to follow in Italy.

Here are the top five things to watch today:

1. Opening Ceremony is on tap

Although it will be 8 p.m. in Italy when the Opening Ceremony begins, the event will stream live on Peacock at 2 p.m. ET. It will also be aired in prime time on NBC at 8 p.m. ET. History will be made. In honor of both host cities, Olympic torches will be used to light two separate cauldrons: one in Milan at the Arco della Pace and one in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Piazza Dibona. That’s a first for the Games. The ceremony is expected to last approximately three hours, and it will include a parade of athletes from all across the world, plus performances by Mariah Carey, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, Chinese pianist Lang Lang and Italian actor Sabrina Impacciatore.

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2. Figure skating gets underway, with U.S. headlining team event

Figure skating begins at this year’s Olympics on Friday with the first round of the team event, in which the Americans are the defending champions. That said, they didn’t receive their medals until the 2024 Summer Games in Paris because of an extensive investigation into Russian doping that canceled the medal ceremony in Beijing four years ago. Watch out for Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who have won the past three World Championships as dance partners, and are embarking on what’s expected to be their final Games. They’ll skate the rhythm dance part of the competition. Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea are poised to perform the pairs short program for the U.S., which will turn to world champion Alysa Liu for the women’s short program. The Americans’ depth should be apparent Friday, but so will the talent of Japan’s team, which features world pairs champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara.

3. U.S. back in action in mixed doubles curling after resilient start

Mixed doubles curling will pick up where it left off on Thursday, when Team USA rallied to beat Norway, the defending silver medalists, and followed that up with another win in round-robin competition, defeating Switzerland. On Friday, Americans Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin will face Canada and the Czechia. The Canadians are off to a 2-0 start as well.

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4. Women’s hockey continues as norovirus outbreak is monitored

Women’s hockey got underway Thursday, and the U.S. got off on the right skate, if you will. Team USA took down the Czechia 5-1, an impressive feat considering the Czechs finished at least fourth at each of the previous four World Championships. But a norovirus outbreak that quarantined at least 14 players on the Finnish team postponed its game against Team Canada. On Friday, France will open play against Japan, and Czechia will square off against Switzerland, which notably won a bronze medal in the event during the 2014 Sochi Games.

5. There’s already some controversy to follow

The World Anti-Doping Agency addressed a bizarre ski jumping controversy on Thursday. Ski jumpers are alleged to have injected their penises with hyaluronic acid in an attempt to get bigger suits that would help increase the length of their jumps. While no jumpers have been singled out so far, and it’s unclear if this falls under WADA’s jurisdiction, WADA president Witold Bańka said he would investigate. Whether or not the allegations are true, the world of ski jumping is no stranger to cheating.

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Friday, Feb. 6, 2026 (Day 0)

All times ET.

Curling

Mixed doubles round-robin

• 4:05 a.m.: Sweden vs. Great Britain, Italy vs. Switzerland, USA vs. Canada

• 8:35 a.m.: Czechia vs. USA, Estonia vs. Italy, South Korea vs. Great Britain, Sweden vs. Norway

Figure Skating

Team competition

• 3:55 a.m.: Rhythm dance (USA Network coverage begins at 4 a.m.; re-airs on NBC at 12 p.m.)

• 5:35 a.m.: Pairs short program (USA Network; re-airs on NBC at 12:30 p.m.)

• 7:35 a.m.: Women’s short program (USA Network)

Hockey

Women’s pool play

• 6:10 a.m.: France vs. Japan

• 8:40 a.m.: Czechia vs. Switzerland

Opening Ceremony

• 2 p.m.: San Siro Stadium (NBC)

MILAN — In the universe of topics we talk about in the run-up to an Olympic Games, food is not often at the top of the list.

Construction delays? Security concerns? Geopolitical tensions? The number of condoms being distributed in the athletes’ village? That’s been standard stuff over the last couple decades.

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But hey, this is Italy.

“I’m especially looking forward to cannolis,” American bobsled stalwart Elana Meyers Taylor said. “I have to be gluten free in-season and I have to watch what I eat. But as soon as I cross the finish line, I’m getting that cannoli.”

Indeed, when the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics begin with Friday’s Opening Ceremony, there are probably not many athletes downing a plate of creamy risotto or a bubbling pizza margherita before skiing down a mountain or skating around a rink.

But the rest of us fortunate enough to be here will be happy to partake, with hundreds of millions around the world watching the Milan Cortina Games with its breathtaking European backdrop and wishing they had the same opportunity to taste the vino and see the Italian Alps.

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Because much like in Paris two years ago, where the Games reengaged an American audience whose interest in the Olympics was in danger of slipping into a generational coma, the next fortnight will offer viewers a guilt-free sensory spectacle — except, of course, for the carbs.

“Definitely — definitely — some carbs,” women’s hockey star Laila Edwards said. “Hopefully towards the end I can reward myself with some gelato.”

And what a welcome change! After three straight Winter Games in locales that were cursed by authoritarian regimes, human rights violations, COVID, problematic time zones or lack of real snow, the return to Italy 20 years after Turin offers something a little extra.

Normalcy.

“I’ve been to an Olympics before,” short track speed skater Corinne Stoddard said. “But I feel like Milan will be a completely different experience and kind of feel like a first Olympics in a way.

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Does it matter? On one hand, the Olympics are compelling no matter where you put them. For the athletes, who are mostly globetrotting anyway for big competitions, a gold medal won in Milan is no different than a gold medal won in Beijing. And for most of the world it’s all just a TV show anyway. Who cares where you put the hockey rink?

But if you rewind to the summer of 2024, Paris was different. From the racy, bizarre and very French take on the Opening Ceremony to iconic Paris landmarks being used as the backdrop for competition venues, something clicked in the zeitgeist. After several cycles of audience decline for its Olympic broadcasts, NBC rebounded with a whopping 30.6 million viewers per day across its platforms — an 80 percent increase over Tokyo three years earlier.

It felt like the Olympics as a big, galvanizing cultural force were truly back.

“The Olympics reestablished its unique power to reassemble the American media audience,” NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel said at the time.

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Can Italy deliver the same irresistible experience?

Don’t discount the possibility, albeit with one big caveat: The Winter Games are not the Summer Games. There are fewer sports, fewer athletes, fewer countries involved and most importantly fewer mainstream superstars.

One of them on the American side, Lindsey Vonn, will compete but will likely be compromised after tearing her ACL last week during a fall at skiing’s World Cup. Perhaps by the end of the competition, Wisconsin-born speedskater Jordan Stolz will win three or four gold medals, drawing in viewers as he potentially becomes a household name like Eric Heiden in 1980. He’s not there yet.

Also, Milan and the mountainous areas of northern Italy do not have the instantly recognizable, seductive appeal of Paris as an Olympic tableau.

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But relative to the last three Winter Games held in Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing, these Olympics are going to visually present like a storybook Alpine adventure in a way that you simply could not pull off at a Russian Black Sea resort or on the Korean peninsula or in a smog-filled megalopolis where it almost never snows.

Another difference: NHL players are back in the men’s hockey tournament for the first time since 2014. With all due respect to the minor-leaguers who stepped in and put on a good show in PyeongChang and Beijing, the Winter Olympics were significantly diminished by not having the elite of the elite competing in one of its marquee events.

“I have a bunch of buddies that played on those teams, and I’m super proud of them representing us and their countries,” said former NHL star and Olympian T.J. Oshie, who will work as an analyst for NBC. “But to grow the game, you want the Connor McDavids, the Jack Eichels. Getting the best players in the world there is great for everyone.”

Milan is also going to be different because of what we don’t have to talk about. We are not in a host country rife with human rights abuses like China. We are not in a host country getting ready to invade a neighbor, as Vladimir Putin did at the end of an Olympics that put a spotlight on Russia’s repression of gay people and protesters of his authoritarian government. And, perhaps of utmost relevance from an audience perspective, we are not in the middle of an Olympics defined by COVID infections and empty stands.

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While time zones were undoubtedly a hurdle for NBC across three straight Olympics in Asia, it would be foolish to discount the COVID factor in the historically poor ratings for Tokyo and Beijing, the latter of which averaged a paltry 11.4 million viewers.

By the summer of 2021 when the Tokyo Games finally launched, COVID’s impact on daily life in America started to wane with the NBA playoffs that June welcoming fans back into arenas. That feeling of normalcy was becoming even more pervasive in early 2022.

To watch either of those Olympics with empty stands and people wearing masks and constant conversation about some of the strictest COVID protocols in the world felt like turning back the clock to a time none of us wanted to relive. It shouldn’t be a surprise fans did not respond. Even in person, everything felt off.

“The rink was super quiet and kind of lonely,” Stoddard said. “I’ve heard from a lot of Olympians that had been to past Olympics before Beijing that it was an insane experience you’ll never have again.”

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Thankfully.

Of course, these Games are not taking place at a perfect moment for the world either. Though Russian athletes are here competing under a neutral banner, Russia will not be recognized as the war in Ukraine rages on. Tensions in the Middle East are simmering. And if the recent Australian Open is any indication, American athletes should expect to be asked about ICE raids and Venezuela and other actions by the Trump Administration generating international headlines.

There will never be an Olympics without political tension.

But all in all, it has been since Vancouver 16 years ago that a Winter Games was hosted by a Western country, in a true winter wonderland, without being served on a platter of cynicism.

Instead, this one comes on a big plate of pasta.

Eat up.

Alexander Ovechkin barely finished his jubilant belly slide across the ice last April before the Russian propaganda machine started revving up.

The Kremlin seized the chance to portray a milestone goal from one of Vladimir Putin’s most loyal and high-profile supporters as a national triumph for Russia.

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Putin publicly congratulated Ovechkin on surpassing Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer, describing the feat as “not only a personal success but also a true celebration for fans in Russia and abroad.” Political allies of Putin praised Ovechkin for having “never shied away from his passport” even at a time “when Russians have been bullied for being Russian.” Even the cosmonauts on the International Space Station shouted out Ovechkin from orbit.

When Ovechkin spoke at mid-ice moments after making history, the Washington Capitals star thanked his family, teammates, coaches, trainers — even the opposing goalie who failed to save his laser shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. Ovechkin concluded his speech by gesturing toward the Capital One Arena crowd and saying, “All of you fans, the whole world, Russia, we did it, boys, we did it!”

The way that Russia presented Ovechkin’s comments was more politically galvanizing than how they originally sounded. Billboards across Moscow featured Ovechkin’s face and the four-word quote, “Russians, we did it!”

Opportunities for Russia to turn sporting success into a propaganda tool for the state figure to be far more scarce at this month’s Winter Olympics in Italy. The Russians are a sporting pariah, banned by the IOC along with close ally Belarus less than a week after the invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

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Thirteen athletes from Russia and seven from Belarus will partake in the Milan Cortina Games, but they’ll do so without flags, colors, anthems or a place in the medal standings. They are officially stateless, competing not for their country but as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN).

The neutral athletes will have a presence in eight sports: Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, luge, ski mountaineering and short and long track speed skating. The IOC has declared that Russian and Belarussian athletes cannot compete in team sports, eliminating the possibility of Russia sending its powerful men’s hockey team to challenge for a medal.

Individual athletes from Russia and Belarus who qualified for the Olympics in their respective sports still had to clear one more hurdle to gain the right to participate in the Milan Cortina Games. An independent three-person panel conducted background checks on each athlete to weed out those who “are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies” or who “actively support the war” in Ukraine.

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Ovechkin is the quintessential example of a Russian athlete who would have been unlikely to pass through the vetting process even if the IOC had allowed the country’s hockey team to compete. He started the #PutinTeam social media movement in support of Putin months before Russia’s 2018 presidential election. He also has repeatedly declined to issue an outright condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

To this day, despite years of scrutiny from American media, Ovechkin’s Instagram profile photo features him posing alongside Putin at the Kremlin.

The exclusion or neutral participation of Russian athletes is damaging to the Kremlin, according to sports geopolitics expert Lukas Aubin, because it removes one of the regime’s most effective messaging tools.

“Sport has been a powerful symbolic resource for the Kremlin,” said Aubin, author of the 2022 book “The Sportocratura under Vladimir Putin.” “Olympic medals, world championships, and the hosting of mega-events such as the 2014 Sochi Olympics or the 2018 World Cup helped sustain narratives of a successful, modern and resilient Russia overcoming post-Soviet decline. Such moments provided highly visible performances of national strength, both for domestic audiences and for the international community.

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“When those stages are closed off, the regime loses a communicative instrument. This does not threaten the political system directly, but it weakens one of its most effective symbolic devices.”

Russia last competed in a Winter Olympics as Russia when it hosted the Sochi Games in 2014. Then came the discovery of a massive, state-sponsored Russian doping program, revealed by whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov and confirmed via an investigation headed by Canadian legal professor Dr. Richard McLaren.

The McLaren Report found that Russia had encouraged more than 1,000 summer, winter and Paralympic athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs between 2011 and 2015. The cheating reached its apex during the Winter Games in Sochi with positive urine and blood tests getting switched out and athletes potentially being given drugs without their knowledge.

Before the IOC had even lifted doping sanctions against Russia, the country invaded Ukraine just days after the conclusion of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Fighting and aerial strikes continue despite U.S. attempts to broker peace. As a result, Russia will have little presence in Milan Cortina, just as it did during the Summer Olympics in Paris two years ago.

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With Russia sidelined at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Kremlin tried to simultaneously undercut and defame the quality of those Games while reframing Russia’s exclusion as persecution by the hostile West. The Kremlin also attempted to create a post-Paris multi-sport event of its own that would welcome athletes from countries friendly to Russia, but the ambitious project was first delayed and then effectively abandoned.

Now, without its star-studded hockey team and many other top winter sports athletes in Italy, Russia’s best hope for a medal could be 18-year-old figure skater Adeliia Petrosian. The raven-haired three-time Russian national champion is known as the first female skater to perform a quadruple loop in competition, but she has rarely competed outside her home country and is unproven on a global stage.

Petrosian is likely to draw additional scrutiny during competition as the latest prodigy of Eteri Tutberidze, the controversial coach of Kamila Valieva at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Valieva, then a 15-year-old European champion and gold medal favorite, fell twice during her free skate and finished a disappointing fourth place amid a doping scandal that resulted in a four-year ban.

In an unusually strong rebuke, then-IOC president Thomas Bach admitted he was “very disturbed” to see Tutberidze berate Valieva as she came off the ice even though she had been under enormous mental stress since the revelation of her positive drug test.

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“When afterwards I saw how she was received by her closest entourage, with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this,” Bach said.

For Russia, any pathway back to the Olympic stage would likely require a peace treaty with Ukraine, compliance with World Anti-Doping Agency drug testing policy and weakened resolve among allied Western governments. That’s a lot of hurdles to clear by Los Angeles 2028, but Aubin insists the possibility “cannot be entirely ruled out.”

Until then, Russia remains in purgatory, with no global sporting stage to showcase its strength to the world.

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“Sport is a double-edged sword for any state that turns it into a political instrument,” Aubin said. “When victories come, they bring visibility, prestige, and a sense of national elevation. When sanctions, scandals, or exclusions follow, they expose the state to reputational damage, international scrutiny, and symbolic loss. The same machinery that amplifies triumphs also amplifies humiliation.”

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Harrison Phillips went from winning 14 games with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 to losing 14 games with the New York Jets in 2025.

Playing defensive tackle for his third NFL team since the Buffalo Bills selected him out of Stanford in the third round of the 2018 draft, Phillips noticed what he characterized as a “cancerous” mindset that had been festering in the Jets organization.

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While defending now-second-year head coach Aaron Glenn Thursday on radio row at the Super Bowl, Phillips spoke about the “same-old-Jets” mentality Glenn has had to combat.

When asked by Roundtable Sports why Jets fans should believe in Glenn’s vision, Phillips delivered a thoughtful response about a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2010 season and has a reputation for poor decision-making.

Phillips emphasized that “culture matters.”

“I think AG inherited a very cancerous, truculent group, top to bottom,” Phillips told Roundtable Sports. “It’s not individual people’s fault. I was there for one season, it was a very difficult season, and I almost wanted to waver on some of my thoughts and my beliefs and my optimism. And so I can’t imagine being there for year after year after year after year and not seeing the results that you wanted.

“And it tainted people because, ‘My coach is going to get fired, my teammate’s going to get fired. I’m going to be a free agent. I might get fired. I got to play for me, I got to make sure that my tape’s hot, regardless of what the system is asking me to do or the scheme’s telling me to do.’”

Phillips continued: “And then young players come in and see, ‘Oh, that’s my vet and that’s how they’re acting, so I’m going to act like that, too.’”

Phillips, who started all 17 games for a Jets defense that produced an NFL-low four takeaways and gave up the second-most points per game (29.6) this season, illustrated that cascade of issues as a “long chain of things” that can’t be fixed overnight — or in one year.

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“I think AG’s mindset of any coach I’ve been around, to deal what we had to deal with this season, to be as consistent as he was to us through that whole thing was super cool to see,” Phillips said, via Roundtable Sports.

“I think that consistency, as well as making the jump from Year 1 to Year 2 as a head football coach, more of his people in the building, more of his thumbprint on the culture, I think we have to win more games.”

Last month, Glenn began overhauling his coaching staff, although he raised eyebrows by waiting three weeks to fire offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand. Former Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich will replace Engstrand as the team’s new OC.

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[Get more Jets news: New York team feed]

In total, Glenn has moved on from nine assistants this offseason, per ESPN.

Glenn will have new coordinators on both sides of the ball, and he still needs to find a quarterback for the future, but Phillips appears steadfast in his trust of the former Detroit Lions defensive coordinator and Jets standout cornerback.

Phillips told the New York Post that so much losing — the Jets haven’t won more than seven games in a season since the 2015 campaign — as well as roster and staff turnover can foster that cancerous mindset he described.

“It always felt like it was the ‘same old Jets.’ That’s the phrase, I think someone said that,” Phillips said, per the Post. “I think the narrative of if you get into the mindset that it’s the same old Jets, that’s a cancerous thought, a very cancerous idea to be a part of. That’s a cancerous thought to have.”

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In Phillips’ eyes, the Jets have the agency to steer clear of that deleterious thinking.

The LA Bowl is done.

The game’s organizers announced Thursday that the bowl game would cease to exist after five seasons. Washington beat Boise State on Dec. 13 in what turned out to be the final LA Bowl ever.

“After five great years, the LA Bowl at SoFi Stadium will no longer be moving forward,” a statement said. “It has been an honor for our staff and volunteers to bring college football to one of the world’s greatest venues. We want to thank the athletes and football programs who participated and, most importantly, the college football fans who joined us over these past five seasons.”

The game first took place in 2021 when Utah State beat Oregon State. The LA Bowl kicked off bowl season in 2025 and had been one of the first games of each bowl season in the 2020s.

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It launched as a game between the Mountain West and the Pac-12, but the Pac-12 ceased to exist in its previous form after the 2023 football season. Former Pac-12 teams were still eligible for the game, however. That’s why Big Ten member Washington played in 2025 and Cal, now a member of the ACC, was in the game in 2024.

The Mountain West is also in the midst of change — thanks to the Pac-12. The rebooted Pac-12 has taken teams like Boise State and Utah State from the Mountain West as it rebuilds itself around Oregon State and Washington State.

The LA Bowl is the second bowl to disappear from the bowl schedule in recent months. The Bahamas Bowl was not played in 2025 and was replaced by the Xbox Bowl in Texas. Though there will always be a place for bowl games during the holidays — ESPN needs the programming and there is a willing audience to watch football — the current bowl system is in flux given recent changes to transfer rules and another potential expansion of the College Football Playoff.

MILAN — Paced by the ice dance duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates, closed with a dramatic finish by Alysa Liu, the United States began the first three segments of the team figure skating event with a strong performance. The United States is looking to repeat as gold medalists in the team event, and Friday’s segments gave the Americans a solid push in that direction.

The U.S. team leads by two points over Japan heading into Saturday’s competition, which will feature the men’s short program and ice dance (free dance program).

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First on the day’s schedule: Ice dancing’s rhythm dance segment. That scheduling allowed the United States to send out its most veteran skaters, Chock and Bates, who have a combined nine Olympics’ worth of experience between them. They relished the challenge of leading the U.S. charge and starting first.

“Why not? It’s great,” Chock said after their skate. “Got the Olympic buzz, we get in and we do our job, and it feels more like a regularly scheduled competition.”

Skating to a medley of Lenny Kravitz hits, Chock and Bates performed the finest skate of the rhythm dance round, earning a 91.06 to finish atop the standings and gain the United States 10 points. Chock and Bates also kept challengers from France and Japan at bay, which will be necessary if the U.S. is to repeat its performance from Beijing.

Four years ago, the Americans actually finished second to the Russians, but medals were never handed out after Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance. It wasn’t until the 2024 Summer Games in Paris when the U.S. team, including Chock and Bates, received their medals in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

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“To break 90 is always a great feat,” Bates said. “To do it at an Olympic Games is even better.”

“It sets Team USA up great for the rest of the week,” Chock said. “We’re really happy to have been able to put out that performance for them.”

The pairs duo of Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea came into this Olympics carrying significant pressure in the team event. With likely medalists at every other spot, Kam and O’Shea need to hold up their leg in order to keep the U.S. team medal hopes alive.

Troubles struck the pair midway through their routine, as Kam fell during an attempted triple loop. But she recovered quickly, and the duo, skating to k.d. lang’s “Hallelujah,” was able to post a score of 66.59, fifth overall in the segment. The United States maintained its overall lead with a total of 16 points, two points ahead of Italy, Canada and Georgia.

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“We like to we wish that we were perfect every single time we stepped out on the ice,” Kam said, “but unfortunately … the ice is slippery, there’s two of us, there’s two different timings and sometimes things aren’t exactly as perfect as we want it to be.”

Liu, one of America’s leading gold medal hopes, wrapped up the day’s segments with the women’s short program. Skating to Laufey’s “Promise,” Liu carved a graceful, powerful program that drew a rousing cheer from the American contingent in the audience. Liu scored a 74.90 to keep the United States in first place after the first day of the team event.

Teams at the Olympics include one woman, one man, one pairs team and one dance team. The team event comprises eight segments: a short program and a free skate for each of the four individuals/pairs. The Olympics began with 10 teams; after the four short programs, the top five teams will advance to the free skate segments. Teams have the opportunity to swap out two members between segments for strategic or injury reasons.

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Earlier in the day, Team USA announced that Ilia Malinin, widely regarded as the gold medal favorite in the men’s program, would be skating the men’s short program segment for the team. Given how quickly the men’s event follows the end of the team event, it’s likely American team officials will reassess Malinin’s role on the team after the end of the short program segments on Saturday.

“It’s been hard for our high-performance department to make those decisions at the end of the day,” smiled team captain O’Shea. “It’s all about trying to maximize how people can perform within the team event and not jeopardizing their ability to perform well within the individual event as well.”

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🚨 Headlines

🏀 Deadline day: While the final day was a bit of snoozefest (including Giannis Antetokounmpo staying put), we did see a plethora of moves leading up to Thursday’s NBA trade deadline. How’d your team do?

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⚾️ Skubal’s big day: Two-time defending AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal won his arbitration hearing against the Tigers on Thursday and was awarded an arbitration-record $32 million contract for 2026 before he becomes a free agent at season’s end.

🏈 NFL international: The 49ers and Rams will play in the first NFL game in Australia (Melbourne) next season, while the Cowboys will head to Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) for their first international game in 12 years.

⚽️ Minnesota lands big name: Global superstar James Rodríguez, captain of the Colombian National Team, is nearing an agreement to join MLS’ Minnesota United.

⚾️ Padres for sale? The Padres are moving closer to the franchise going up for sale, with opening bids expected to be submitted by the end of February, per The Athletic. One of the people interested in bidding? Warriors owner Joe Lacob.

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📆 2026: A sports year like no other

The 2026 sports calendar is bursting at the seams all year, but nothing quite compares to what we’re about to experience these next couple months. Get ready for the best stretch of sports… ever?

66 days of ecstasy: The madness begins this weekend with NBC’s overlapping coverage of the Olympics and the Super Bowl, kicking off a 66-day fever dream that features well over a dozen major sporting events passing the torch between one another without coming up for air.

• 🥇 Feb. 6-22: Milan Cortina Olympics

• 🏈 Feb. 8: Super Bowl LX

• 🏀 Feb. 15: NBA All-Star Game

• 🏁 Feb. 15: Daytona 500

• ⚽️ Feb. 21: MLS Season Opener

• 🎾 March 1-15: Indian Wells

• ⚾️ March 5-17: World Baseball Classic

• 🥇 March 6-15: Paralympics

• 🏎️ March 7: F1 Season Opener

• ⛳️ March 12-15: The Players

• 🏀 March 19-22: March Madness Opening Weekend

• ⚾️ March 25-26: MLB Opening Day

• 🏀 April 3-6: Final Four

• ⚽️ April 7-8: Champions League Quarterfinals

• ⛳️ April 9-12: The Masters

Plus: We’ve also got the Six Nations Rugby Championship (Feb. 5-March 14), the T20 Cricket World Cup (Feb. 7-March 18), the World Athletics Indoor Championships (March 20-22), the Women’s Champions League quarterfinals (March 23-25) and more over the next couple months.

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Looking ahead: The rest of the year has all the usual suspects, including the NBA and NHL playoffs, tennis and golf majors, and of course football in the fall. But are we forgetting something? Oh, that’s right — the United States is co-hosting the biggest World Cup in history this summer.

• The 2026 World Cup, the first on U.S. soil since 1994, joins the Olympics and World Baseball Classic as major non-annual events that make this year in sports particularly special.

• In fact, it’s the first time since 2006’s inaugural World Baseball Classic that all three of those events are being held in the same year.

• The result is a jam-packed slate — week after week, month after month — full of the annual offerings we all know and love, mixed in with marquee events that only come around so often.

I mean, think about this: On the second weekend of June, the USMNT’s World Cup opener coincides with the Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals, the College World Series and a UFC Fight Night on the White House Lawn. The very next weekend, you’ll potentially be watching the USMNT’s second World Cup match, Game 7 of the NBA Finals and the second round of the U.S. Open… all on the same day.

Bottom line: The sports calendar typically follows a reliable rhythm of peaks and valleys, giving fans time to catch their breath. Not this year. 2026 is all about unstoppable momentum, and the fun starts today with the Milan Cortina Opening Ceremony (2pm ET, NBC).

🏈 NFL Honors: Stafford wins MVP

Rams QB Matthew Stafford won his first NFL MVP Award on Thursday night at the annual NFL Honors show, beating out Patriots QB Drake Maye in one of the closest races ever.

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The final tally: Stafford had 366 points and 24 first-place votes. Maye was right behind with 361 points and 23 first-place votes. Others receiving first-place votes: Josh Allen (2) and Justin Herbert* (1).

• It’s the closest MVP vote since 2003, when Peyton Manning and Steve McNair were co-winners of the award.

• Stafford joins Y.A. Tittle (1963) and Rich Gannon (2002) as the oldest first-time MVPs, all at age 37.

Coming back for more: Stafford committed to return for his 18th season amid retirement speculation. “I’ll see you guys next year,” he said. “Hopefully I’m not at this event and we’re preparing for another game at SoFi,” which will host next year’s Super Bowl.

More NFL Honors:

• Awards: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seahawks (OPOY); Myles Garrett, Browns (DPOY); Mike Vrabel, Patriots (Coach); Christian McCaffrey, 49ers (Comeback Player); Tetairoa McMillan, Panthers (OROY); Carson Schwesinger, Browns (DROY); Joe Thuney, Bears (Protector)

• Hall of Fame: Drew Brees (QB), Larry Fitzgerald (WR), Luke Kuechly (LB), Adam Vinatieri (K) and Roger Craig (RB) were announced as the five-man 2026 Hall of Fame Class. As previously reported, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft didn’t make the cut this year.

• Man of the Year: The night concluded with Commanders LB Bobby Wagner being named the Walter Payton Man of the Year for philanthropy and community impact. He gave a wonderful speech honoring his late mother, Phenia.

*A voter explains himself: “I was the Justin Herbert vote,” Sam Monson posted on X. “The guy had the worst offensive line in the NFL all season and despite that he was working miracles in almost every single game. Stafford’s OL became 2/5ths as bad as Herbert’s for 5 minutes and he became a turnover howitzer. He embodied ‘value.’”

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📺 Weekend Watchlist: Olympics edition

🇮🇹 Opening Ceremony

After getting a taste of the Winter Games over the past two days, the Milan Cortina Olympics begin in earnest today with the Opening Ceremony. If you can’t catch it live (2pm ET, NBC), it will also air in primetime (8pm, NBC).

Details: The primary venue is San Siro, home of Inter and AC Milan, but the Parade of Nations will also take place in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Predazzo and Livigno to represent the geographical breadth of these Games. Mary Carillo, Terry Gannon and snowboarding legend Shaun White will host, while Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli are among the musical performers.

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🎿 Downhill Skiing

The eyes of the world will be on Lindsey Vonn as she takes the starting gate for Sunday’s downhill medal event in Cortina (5:30am, USA) and tries skiing on a freshly torn ACL. The three-time Olympic medalist — including downhill gold in 2010 — posted a video of herself doing an intense workout on Thursday. “I’m not giving up,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, for the men: Tomorrow’s downhill event (5:30am, USA) represents the first medal event of these Games. Prepare for chaos at the notoriously difficult Stelvio track in Bormio, which has already seen multiple crashes during training runs.

⛸️ Figure Skating, Team Event

The Team Event kicks off the figure skating program at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, where the eight segments of the competition — short program (men’s, women’s and pairs), free skate (men’s, women’s and pairs), rhythm dance and free dance — will run all weekend before medals are awarded on Sunday (1:30pm, USA) based on cumulative points.

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Who to watch: Team USA are the reigning gold medalists, though the only returning members of that team are married couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates (ice dance). Newcomers include Ilia Malinin, 21, the only skater to ever land a quadruple axel in competition, and Alysa Liu, 20, winner of last year’s world championship.

More medal events: In addition to what’s listed above, there are 10 more medal events this weekend as part of a record 116 total coming in these Olympics.

• 🎿 Cross-Country Skiing: Women’s Skiathlon (Sat. 7am, NBC); Men’s Skiathlon (Sun. 6:45am, USA) … Athletes race 10km using the classic technique and 10km in freestyle.

• ⛸️ Speed Skating: Women’s 3000m (Sat. 10am, NBC); Men’s 5000m (Sun. 10am, Peacock) … 7.5 laps around the 400-meter oval for the women, 12.5 laps for the men.

• 🏂 Snowboarding: Men’s Big Air Final (Sat. 1:30pm, USA); Men’s and Women’s Parallel Giant Slalom Finals (Sun. 7am, USA) … The former is about maximizing hang time to pull off tricks, while the latter is a head-to-head race.

• 🎯 Biathlon: Mixed 4x6km Relay (Sun. 8am, Peacock) … Each athlete (two men and two women per team) completes three laps around the 2km track.

• 🛷 Luge: Men’s Singles Final (Sun. 12:30pm, USA) … Racers reach speeds up to 90 mph while riding on their backs.

• ⛷️ Ski Jumping: Women’s Normal Hill (Sat. 11:45am, Peacock) … Athletes fly roughly 105 meters on this smaller hill compared to 140 meters on the larger hill.

Plus: Mixed Doubles Curling and Women’s Hockey continue their preliminaries, with the U.S. women’s hockey team scheduled to face Finland on Saturday (10:40am, USA), as long as the Finnish team has recovered from its norovirus outbreak by then.

🏈 Super Bowl: Pregame reading

Nate Tice: Super Bowl prop bets that could also play a huge role in crowning a champion

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The Super Bowl encourages coaching staffs to empty the clip with staple concepts, gadget plays and tendency breakers. Through my film and data study, I wanted to share some of my favorite wagers and how the game plans of the Patriots and Seahawks can lead to a potential payday. Or at least some personal entertainment.

Jori Epstein: To understand Sam Darnold’s rise, first understand his fall

Darnold is set to become the third QB in NFL history to start a Super Bowl after playing for five-plus teams in his NFL career, and the second to start in a season opener for four-plus teams then later start in a Super Bowl. By Wednesday, Seahawks players and coaches were preaching about his resilience in their sleep, understanding the disbelief surrounding one of the unlikeliest NFL paths in recent years.

Frank Schwab: How did the Patriots rebuild so fast?

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Bill Belichick did many great things for the New England Patriots. But when they parted ways, he left the roster in shambles. That’s a big reason why they went 4-13 in 2023 (Belichick’s last season) and also in 2024 (Jerod Mayo’s first). Then they hired Mike Vrabel and showed everyone that you can turn a bad roster into an AFC champion with one aggressive offseason.

Charles Robinson: Did Bad Bunny’s ‘ICE out’ Grammy message tease his halftime show? The NFL will find out when we do

From the moment of Bad Bunny’s appointment, Roger Goodell and the league’s owners were stepping into a dispute with a segment of their own fan base. It would instantly be a political lightning rod in a country that has a mountain full of them. The reality is that the NFL doesn’t really know for sure what is going to happen on Sunday. Nor do we as an audience.

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🇺🇸 Olympics trivia

Question: Team USA has medaled in every Winter Olympics sport except for one. Which of the following is that sport?

(A) Luge

(B) Biathlon

(C) Nordic Combined

(D) Curling

Answer at the bottom.

📸 Photo finish

Sliding into the weekend like…

_________________________________________________________________________________

Trivia answer: Biathlon

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