Week 14 was a quiet one in the sleeper streets, though Colby Parkinson gave us a touchdown and Chris Rodriguez Jr. did average 5.2 yards per carry. Let’s move forward.
The bye weeks are finally complete, so I want to be clear about how it’s time to play the hits now, roll out your best guys. But rules and player depth matter from league to league, so perhaps some of these overlooked players can help you in Week 15.
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QB Marcus Mariota at Giants (9%)
Mariota has been credible in his last three starts (QB3, QB9, QB13) and he gets to work with a healed-up Terry McLaurin. The Giants are the third-friendliest opponent for opposing quarterbacks, and Mariota is still useful with his legs.
RB Chris Rodriguez Jr. at Giants (36%)
It’s unfortunate that Rodriguez and Mariota probably can’t score collaboratively — Rodriguez has just one catch on the season. But the New York rushing defense is just as bad as the passing defense, and Rodriguez has double-digit carries in four of his last five starts. Washington’s team total is set for 22.5 points, so a fair amount of scoring is expected.
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WR Ryan Flournoy vs. Vikings (7%)
Flournoy is a mandatory insurance add for CeeDee Lamb managers — Lamb is in the concussion protocol and uncertain for the Sunday night game. Flournoy was terrific in the loss at Detroit (9-115-1), stepping forward after Lamb got hurt, and he had a 114-yard game earlier in the year. The Vikings’ pass defense is a difficult matchup, but Dallas has been able to throw against pretty much everyone.
TE Isaiah Likely at Bengals (13%)
The Ravens extended veteran tight end Mark Andrews last week, a surprise given what the emerging Likely has shown through his career. Maybe that’s a discussion for the offseason. Either way, Likely was outstanding in the loss to Cincinnati two weeks ago (5-95-0), and he had one touchdown and one almost-touchdown (those pesky catch rules) against Pittsburgh last week. Cincinnati’s leaky seam coverage has been exposed all year.
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RB Devin Singletary vs. Commanders (30%)
I’m surprised Singletary’s roster tag has stayed so modest for several weeks, because he’s been better than Tyrone Tracy Jr. in recent games. Someone figures to take advantage of Washington’s poor run defense, and Singletary has earned the first crack in what’s admittedly a hot-hand, committee-driven situation.
QB Shedeur Sanders at Bears (15%)
The Browns managed Sanders carefully in his first two starts, but the reins came off last week and Sanders came through with 34 fantasy points. So many of the passes were suitable for framing, especially the three scoring tosses. Chicago’s pass defense has been below average all year.
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s ownership tenure has been defined by one thing: A willingness to spend in order to keep the Mets competitive. But following the free-agent departures of both Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz, Mets fans have been left wondering whether that’s still Cohen’s goal.
Cohen attempted to commiserate with fans Wednesday, while also stressing that there’s still plenty of time for the Mets to build a playoff contender this winter, per the New York Post.
“I totally understand the fans’ reaction,” Mets owner Steve Cohen texted The Post. “There is lots of offseason left to put a playoff team on the field.”
After missing the playoffs last season, the Mets find themselves noticeably weaker following the departures of Alonso and Díaz.
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While the Mets can slide third baseman Mark Vientos over to first base to replace Alonso, it stretches the rest of the roster pretty thin. As currently constructed, the Mets could open the season starting two of Ronny Mauricio, Tyrone Taylor and Luisangel Acuña. All three players were below league average with the bat last season and are better served as bench pieces on a championship-caliber roster.
Losing Díaz, who posted a 1.63 ERA in his walk year, will hurt, though the team already found a replacement in Devin Williams. The 31-year-old Williams is coming off a down season with the New York Yankees, posting a 4.79 ERA, but his peripherals suggest a bounce-back year could be on tap.
Even if Williams is a downgrade, he should help. But the Williams addition alone isn’t enough to suddenly turn the Mets back into contenders. That was the expectation last year, but the team collapsed down the stretch, going 28-37 in the second half to fall out of a playoff spot.
It was a highly disappointing result, especially after the team splurged to sign outfielder Juan Soto to a massive 15-year, $765 million deal last winter.
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Avoiding that fate will be key for the Mets in 2026. But in order to do that, the team will need to add more talent before the offseason is over. Despite a few big names finding new homes, there are still a handful of talented players still available.
Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman and Bo Bichette, three of the four best free agents this offseason, are still out there. Other than Dylan Cease, virtually every pitcher is still available as well.
While the Mets haven’t been heavily involved in rumors just yet, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them jump into the bidding on a number of prominent players. That’s been Cohen’s modus operandi since buying the team. Despite a slow and disappointing start to the offseason, there’s still plenty of time for Cohen to make a splash that immediately turns the Mets back into World Series contenders.
Former NBA player Jason Collins has Stage 4 glioblastoma. Collins — who in 2013 became the first openly gay active player in a men’s North American sports league — revealed his diagnosis to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
Collins’ diagnosis comes months after his family announced he was dealing with a brain tumor. They did not provide additional details at the time, asking for “support and prayers.”
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Collins, 47, explained that his family intentionally put out a vague statement, as it wanted to protect his privacy while he was “mentally unable to speak for myself.” Collins said he first started experiencing symptoms in the summer, but tried to fight through them at first. But things came to a head in August, when Collins couldn’t focus enough to pack for a trip to the US Open with his husband.
After undergoing a CT scan, it was determined Collins had Stage 4 glioblastoma. Given the shape of his cancer, it could not be fully removed without Collins coming out of surgery “different,” he told ESPN.
Since his tumor can’t be operated on, Collins said the standard prognosis is “only 11 to 14 months.”
“Because my tumor is unresectable, going solely with the ‘standard of care’ — radiation and TMZ — the average prognosis is only 11 to 14 months. If that’s all the time I have left, I’d rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone.”
He vowed to seek out new, inventive treatment methods in the hopes that he can find something that helps him, or helps the next person diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma. Due to his NBA career, Collins said money was not an issue and that he’s willing to go anywhere in the world to seek treatment.
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Collins drew parallels to when he decided to come out as gay. In both scenarios, he might be able to help people he’s never met, Collins explained.
“After I came out, someone I really respect told me that my choice to live openly could help someone who I might never meet. I’ve held onto that for years. And if I can do that again now, then that matters.”
Collins was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the No. 18 overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft. He never played for the franchise, however, as he was traded to the New Jersey Nets. Collins spent a total of 13 seasons in NBA, seeing time with six different franchises.
The majority of his time came with the Nets, which he later joined during his final NBA season. He saw time in 22 games during the 2013-14 season, averaging 7.8 minutes per game in Brooklyn. At the end of the season, Collins announced his retirement from the NBA.
This week we tighten the screws. No fluff, no hedging, no panic pivots. We’re banking edges, trusting workload and fading noise. Week 15 is the dance. Lock in, set your lineup and let’s punch a ticket to Week 16.
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Stefon Diggs shows up in the playoffs, repeats revenge spot
The Tale: Stefon Diggs does it again against his former team in Week 15 with a big-time performance versus the Buffalo Bills. It has been a down couple of fantasy performances for Diggs, but this spot lines up like a statement game. In the first Buffalo matchup this season, he had 10 receptions, 146 yards and was a top-five receiver on the week. Since then, he has only logged one top-12 week, which fuels the discount on what he can still do when the lights hit.
This is an AFC East showdown in Foxborough with huge stakes. Drake Maye has been phenomenal, playing like an NFL MVP. The Bills defense has tightened over the last month, allowing around 175 passing yards per game with the sixth-best mark in total yards allowed, so this isn’t a walkover. It doesn’t need to be. Diggs knows the team across from him, the uniform he’s facing, the noise around his recent box scores. He doesn’t need twelve targets to break a game, he needs the right moments with a quarterback who will let it fly. He won’t have that issue with Maye on Sunday.
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This is a matchup Diggs has already called important before and the timing lines up. New England just came off the latest bye week in the NFL after grinding through 13 straight weeks, so the reset was real. Diggs probably needed a minute to get right, but now it’s foot on the throttle. He punished the Bills in Week 5 and nothing on tape suggests he’s not capable of a repeat. Maye is even more confident today than he was then, they’ve had time to game plan and it shouldn’t be rocket science. Feed your stars in got-to-have-it moments. In Week 15, Diggs gets it done.
The Take: Stefon Diggs gets it done again versus Buffalo and delivers a top-10 fantasy week at wide receiver.
It’s Woody’s time to reach for the sky (in a good way)
The Tale: Woody Marks just literally put the backfield on his back in a statement win over Kansas City. With Nick Chubb injured early in Week 14, the backfield flipped to Marks and he handled 26 rush attempts for a hard-fought 68 yards while adding a receiving score. That kind of workload tells you everything about how Houston wants to play down the stretch.
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Now, he gets Arizona, a defense that has been bad against the run since Week 11. The Cardinals have allowed 144 rushing yards per game over the last month, fifth-most in the league. The Rams had their way with them a week ago. Blake Corum ripped 128 yards, two touchdowns and 10.7 yards per carry. Kyren Williams had 84 on 13 totes at 6.5 a pop and also scored. Ronnie Rivers chipped 41 on eight at 5.1 per carry. This isn’t a unit holding the point of attack. It’s a runway for a back who is poised to get a significant workload.
Arizona has been better against the pass at 222 yards allowed per game over the last month. CJ Stroud and Nico Collins are good enough that, even behind an offensive line that hasn’t been perfect, they should be solid. What matters here is the commitment Houston has shown to the run game. The Texans showed it in Kansas City, and with Chubb potentially sidelined, the path is clear for Marks to operate as a bell cow at home so long as he can shake off his own knee injury. Short yardage, four-minute offense, red-zone touches — that’s Marks’ time.
The Take: Woody Marks scores again en route to a top-10 fantasy performance against Arizona in Week 15.
Travis Etienne Jr. tramples on Jets in big spot
The Tale: Travis Etienne Jr. walks into an elite spot against the New York Jets. Over the last month, the Jets have coughed up a league-high 16 runs of 10-plus yards, tied with Philly, and the sixth-most rushing yards per game. They’ve also allowed a league-high 27 rushing fantasy points per game to running backs. For the full season, they’re giving up the third-most rushing yards per game. That run defense is giving it up right now at the exact moment Jacksonville has gotten it rolling.
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The Jaguars are 9-4, sitting atop a very competitive AFC South and they still have two road games left against the Broncos and Colts. This is a big game. Trevor Lawrence is playing good ball, the offense has rhythm, and Etienne has answered every “Scootin’ Tuten” takeover whisper. Over his last four, he’s posted 73 yards, 86 yards, then 74 this past week, and he’s found the end zone three times in the last month with two coming against Indianapolis. Jacksonville’s defense has been one of the best units over the last month, stingy against the run, which puts the Jets in a tough spot. If New York is leaning on Breece Hall, who is dealing with a knee injury, and potentially inexperienced rookie QB Brady Cook, that offense isn’t a threat to tilt game script.
The Jags can keep this simple. Lean on defense, keep the quarterback upright and let Etienne and the ground game dominate. Etienne is due for a monster fantasy playoff start.
The Take: Travis Etienne Jr. has two-TD day against the Jets in Week 15.
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DeVonta Smith rejoins the party against Las Vegas
The Tale: Philadelphia comes home on a three-game skid and this tale is about DeVonta Smith. The past month hasn’t felt like the early part of the season. A.J. Brown has been smashing at close to 18 half-PPR points per game, producing like a top-three receiver, while Smith sits at WR51 at 6.5 per game. He’s still 10th in receiving yards on the season, yet, he hasn’t cleared 100 yards in seven games, hasn’t scored in five and has topped 10 targets just once in his last six. That’s not what you want to hear when the opposite receiver has just gone for 100 yards three games in a row.
The matchup should be a “get-right” spot. Las Vegas has allowed 154.5 receiving yards per game to wideouts with a 68.5% completion rate and 7.0 yards per attempt, plus 15 receiving touchdowns in 13 games. That’s bottom-10 pass defense territory. Jalen Hurts is still throwing it more than 35 times per game over the last month even with a sub-60% completion clip. Volume is intact. Efficiency can swing especially against this opponent.
Brown will command attention because he should but Philly doesn’t want to limp into January. The Eagles have gone 1-3 since they’ve started force feeding Brown. The Eagles need to get back to making defenses account for their co-alphas. The drought has stretched long enough. The opportunity is perfect. In a home matchup, I fully expect the Eagles to show up against a Raiders team that might be starting former Eagle Kenny Pickett at quarterback.
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The Take: DeVonta Smith scores and posts his best fantasy performance in six weeks against Las Vegas.
QBs could provide fantasy gold in Giants-Commanders
Washington vs. New York is an ugly spot for most skill players but it quietly sets up as a green light for the quarterbacks. I’m comfortable plugging Jaxson Dart and Marcus Mariota (a streaming option at 9% rostered) in lineups this week. Both bring dual-threat juice, both draw defenses that leak rushing production and both can pay you back without needing pristine pass-game environments.
Start with the matchup. The Commanders and Giants sit bottom four in rushing yards allowed per game, each over 135 per contest. The Giants are allowing the third-most fantasy points per game to opposing offenses and Washington is fourth worst. That’s a runway for quarterbacks who can run on designed runs but are sometimes more dangerous on off-script rush attempts.
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Mariota has kept a fantasy floor with his legs. In his last stretch of full starts, he has run for 55, 49 and 22 yards and tossed multiple scores in two of those three. Over the last five weeks, Mariota sits as QB20, outscoring Baker Mayfield, Bo Nix, Lamar Jackson, CJ Stroud, Justin Herbert, Sam Darnold, JJ McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers. It hasn’t been pretty in Washington but volume, plus designed keepers, equals viability.
Dart brings the ceiling. He cleared 56, then 66, then 20 rushing yards in his recent three-game sample with multiple rushing and passing touchdowns mixed in. With the concussion scare behind him, Washington’s defense invites quarterback run production. Neither team is chasing the postseason but Mariota is auditioning for 2026 and Dart’s staff is letting him rip. We’ll take that this late in the season.
I won’t plant flags on the ancillary pieces here but I will trust the legs and red-zone usage tied to these passers, prioritizing Dart.
The Take: Jaxson Dart is a must-play while Marcus Mariota is worth streaming in a pinch in Week 15.
ESPN’s final season of Formula 1 broadcasts set a record.
The network said Wednesday it averaged 1.3 million viewers per race over the course of the 2025 season. Sunday’s finale in Abu Dhabi — won by four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen as Lando Norris finished third to win his first championship — averaged 1.5 million viewers.
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The previous ESPN season record was 1.21 million in 2022. That season was Verstappen’s second title and came on the heels of the most dramatic F1 season in recent memory as Verstappen won his first title with a last-lap overtake of Lewis Hamilton in Abu Dhabi following an incredibly controversial officiating decision. Hamilton and Verstappen entered the final race of the season four years ago tied in the points standings as many American fans had become familiar with Formula 1 thanks to Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” docu-series.
To put the growth of F1 in the United States in context, ESPN started airing Sky Sports’ broadcasts of F1 in 2018. That first season, ESPN averaged just over 550,000 viewers per race. The audience has nearly tripled in the seven seasons since, and the last four seasons have averaged over 1 million viewers per race.
In that time, F1 has added two more races in the United States to go along with the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The Miami Grand Prix was added in 2022 and the Las Vegas Grand Prix was added a season ago.
F1 is now consistently the second-most watched motorsport in the United States behind NASCAR’s Cup Series. And the size of the series’ TV audiences are getting closer and closer. NASCAR’s championship race at Phoenix — which started at 3 p.m. ET on Nov. 2, averaged 2.78 million viewers. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix started at 8 a.m. ET.
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Cup Series viewership declined 14% in 2025 as a handful of races were held on Amazon Prime for the first time. In 2018, NASCAR’s season finale at Homestead averaged 4.15 million viewers. And that number was down 32% from the audience that watched the finale in 2016.
But F1 now runs the risk of seeing its viewership drop like NASCAR’s in 2026 and beyond. The series’ broadcast rights are heading to Apple TV, as Apple outbid ESPN and others. The five-year deal is worth $140 million per year. ESPN was paying approximately $85 million per season and has a much wider audience base than Apple does. While ESPN is included in nearly all cable and streaming TV packages, Apple TV is $13 a month as a standalone streaming subscription.
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Its reach is a fraction of ESPN’s. And that’s been evident with the disaster that was MLS Season Pass. Apple obtained the exclusive rights to every MLS broadcast and charged an extra fee starting in 2023. The package never took off and Apple announced at the end of the 2025 season that MLS games would be shown to anyone with a basic Apple TV subscription.
F1 races will also not have an extra fee attached, and Apple TV subscribers will also get access to F1 TV, the series’ app that allows fans to watch in-car cameras from every driver in the field along with live timing and scoring.
However, it’s a near certainty that viewership will drop for F1 in 2026. But by just how much? A small dip can be easily made up. But if moving behind the Apple paywall dissuades many casual fans who got hooked on “Drive to Survive” from continuing to watch Grand Prix races, there’s a very real chance F1’s growth curve could soon flatten out.
Justin Boone identifies under-the-radar stashes to consider adding to your roster before they become top fantasy football waiver-wire pickups in future weeks.
While the bar might move occasionally, the general focus is to search among the group of players who are rostered in around 15% or less of the Yahoo leagues.
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Isaiah Likely, TE, Ravens (13% rostered)
Likely is making yet another appearance in this space, since he remains available in almost 90% of Yahoo leagues.
That’s a stunning development given his recent production, some of the missed opportunities that could have led to even bigger stats and his matchup in Week 15.
The 25-year-old has earned six targets each of the past two games, turning them into four catches for 25 yards and a touchdown versus the Steelers, as well as five grabs for 95 yards against the same Bengals’ defense he’s facing this week.
Those performances also included a fumble at the goal line in the Cincy game that could have propelled him from the TE9 to the TE2 overall in Week 13 and a touchdown catch that was ruled incomplete despite it clearly seeming like he had control, which would have vaulted him from TE11 to TE3 in Week 14.
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Meanwhile, the Bengals are allowing almost 7.0 more fantasy points per game to tight ends than any other defense in the NFL this year.
Likely is firmly on the streamer radar with a strong chance to crack the top-12 fantasy tight ends for the third straight week.
Honorable mention: AJ Barner, Seahawks (12% rostered), Mike Gesicki, Bengals (4% rostered), Colby Parkinson, Rams (3% rostered)
Marcus Mariota, QB, Commanders (9% rostered)
Mariota was originally in this column last week before Jayden Daniels was cleared to play. Unfortunately for Daniels, he aggravated his elbow injury and has already been ruled out for this week’s game against the Giants.
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Mariota has finished as a top-13 fantasy quarterback in four of the six games where he’s played the majority of Washington’s snaps.
There aren’t many good streaming QBs this week, but Mariota is in the mix as a high-end QB2 option with a quality floor thanks to his rushing production.
The Commanders are also taking on a Giants’ defense that’s allowing the second-most fantasy points to quarterbacks in 2025.
Coker continues to sit on waiver wires in 95% of Yahoo leagues, likely because he was on bye last week following an impressive season-high 74-yard, one-touchdown performance.
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That was the second time he’s topped 50 yards in his last three outings and provides some hope that a breakout could be looming down the stretch for the sophomore wideout.
His uptick in production also coincides with better results from Bryce Young lately. The former first overall pick is still trying to find his game in the pros, but it was around this time last year that his play improved.
Having a second reliable option in the passing attack other than Tetairoa McMillan would go a long way towards increased success for everyone in this offense.
In case you’ve missed this stat from me before, I’ll mention once again that if we remove Coker’s first game of the 2024 season where he only played 10% of the snaps, he was on pace for over 800 yards as a rookie last year.
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Coker could be a sneaky WR4/flex option if Young can find his rhythm in the final month.
Honorable mention: Ryan Flournoy, Cowboys (8% rostered), Chimere Dike, Titans (15% rostered), Andrei Iosivas, Bengals (10% rostered), Jack Bech, Raiders (1% rostered)
Emari Demercado, RB, Cardinals (10% rostered)
With news that Trey Benson won’t be activated from injured reserve, the Cardinals’ backfield has potential for someone to emerge over the final three weeks of the fantasy season.
Bam Knight is the current leader in the clubhouse, but the dynamic Demercado has missed his last three games due to an ankle injury.
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Prior to that, Demercado had 14 carries for 79 yards against the Cowboys and 104 scrimmage yards on seven touches versus the Seahawks.
He opened this week with a limited practice and would likely jump ahead of Michael Carter in the pecking order if he’s able to suit up. It’s also possible Demercado could push Knight for the starting role — if he’s back to 100%.
The matchup with the Texans isn’t ideal this week, but after that the Cardinals get a pair of generous defenses in the Falcons and Bengals in Week 16 and 17.
Honorable mention: Isaiah Davis, Jets (3% rostered), Samaje Perine, Bengals (4% rostered), Keaton Mitchell, Ravens (3% rostered), Ollie Gordon II, Dolphins (8% rostered), Jeremy McNichols, Commanders (2% rostered)
The trial between Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing and NASCAR is over, with Jordan and Co. coming out as the big winner.
Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney representing Jordan’s 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports in the teams’ antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, told Judge Kenneth Bell that the parties had reached a settlement Thursday “in a way that will benefit the industry going forward.”
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That “way” is what the two sides are calling “evergreen charters” — which are essentially permanent team charters, the main sticking point between Jordan’s side and NASCAR.
“From the beginning, this lawsuit was about progress,” Jordan said in a statement after the settlement. “It was about making sure our sport evolves in a way that supports everyone: teams, drivers, partners, employees and fans. With a foundation to build equity and invest in the future and a stronger voice in the decisions ahead, we now have the chance to grow together and make the sport even better for generations to come.”
Per the terms of the settlement, the financial agreements between the teams and NASCAR will not be publicly disclosed.
What was the trial about?
The future of NASCAR, really.
In 2016, NASCAR implemented charter agreements, NASCAR’s version of franchising. The charter agreement were not in perpetuity, but they provided 36 teams guaranteed entry into every race of the season and a larger share of purse money than “open” (or non-charter) teams.
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The old charter agreement expired at the end of the 2024 season in concurrence with NASCAR’s previous media rights deal. In the fall of 2024, NASCAR presented teams with a new charter agreement that would run from 2025-2031. Given less than one day to agree to the new agreement — which NASCAR said was its final offer after months of contentious negotiations — most teams signed on. Two did not. 23XI, co-owned by Michael Jordan and driver Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports held out.
They, along with many other teams who signed the deal, wanted the charters to be permanent, but NASCAR and the France family, the sanctioning body’s longtime owners, didn’t acquiesce to that request.
NASCAR granted teams a larger portion of media rights money in the current charter agreement, however the sanctioning body and its tracks continue to receive the majority of revenue. Teams have said that costs have skyrocketed in recent years and especially since the implementation of NASCAR’s “NextGen” car in 2022. Teams are forced to use NASCAR-approved, single-source suppliers to build their cars instead of building many of their own parts in-house.
23XI and Front Row accused NASCAR of monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior as NASCAR gave teams just hours to sign its final charter offer in September of 2024. Because they didn’t sign the charter agreement, the two teams forfeited their charter status for the 2025 season. After a legal back-and-forth which saw them temporarily regain those charters, 23XI and Front Row raced as open teams for much of the 2025 season.
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The two sides spent the last few months wrangling for a settlement but were unable to come to an agreement. On Dec. 1, the two sides — 23XI/Front Row and NASCAR — went to court, an all-or-nothing proposition for Jordan who likely would have shut his team down had he lost.
The trial
Jordan said on the stand that he felt he needed to challenge NASCAR and that attorneys advised him that the charter agreement could be in violation of antitrust laws. The charter agreement included a non-disparagement clause that teams needed to agree to.
Over eight days, some of NASCAR’s biggest names — Jordan, Hamlin, team owner Richard Childress — along with executives — Jim France, NASCAR’s principal owner; commissioner Steve Phelps; and president Steve O’Donnell — took the stand in Charlotte, North Carolina, where both sides made their case. In simplistic terms, the Jordan side argued they’re losing money because NASCAR is keeping too much of it, NASCAR arguing the current agreement provides stability for a sport in an uncertain time.
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Maybe the most impactful testimony came from Heather Gibbs, daughter-in-law of longtime team owner and former NFL coach Joe Gibbs and co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing. Heather Gibbs explained that while they did sign the new charter agreement, it came “like you have a gun to your head.”
“We said we have to sign this,” Gibbs testified, per Fox Sports. “We can’t lose this. We have too many employees. … I did not think it’s a fair deal for the teams.
“… If you don’t sign it … everything is gone.”
Before the trial reached its ninth day, the two sides came to an agreement.
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As part of the settlement, both 23XI and Front Row will receive their charters back.
“This outcome gives all parties the flexibility and confidence to continue delivering unforgettable racing moments for our fans, which has always benefited our highest priority since the sport was founded in 1948,” Jim France said. “We worked closely with race teams to create the NASCAR charter system in 2016, and it has proven invaluable to their operations and to the quality of racing across the Cup Series. Today’s agreement reaffirms our commitment to preserving and enhancing that value, ensuring our fans continue to enjoy the very best of stock car racing for generations to come.”
23XI Racing is one of NASCAR’s newest Cup Series teams. The team, co-owned by Jordan, his longtime business manager Curtis Polk and current Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin, began in 2021 with Bubba Wallace and has since expanded to a three-car team.
Front Row Motorsports is also a three-car team and has fielded cars in the Cup Series since 2005.
The teams had expanded from two to three cars ahead of the 2025 season as each reached an agreement to purchase a charter from the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing. Because of the lawsuit, those deals had officially been on hold, though they’ll now be allowed to close.
“I’ve cared deeply about the sport of NASCAR my entire life,” Hamlin said. “Racing is all I’ve ever known, and this sport shaped who I am. That’s why we were willing to shoulder the challenges that came with taking this stand. We believed it was worth fighting for a stronger and more sustainable future for everyone in the industry. Teams, drivers and partners will now have the stability and opportunity they deserve. Our commitment to the fans and to the entire NASCAR community has never been stronger. I’m proud of what we accomplished, and now it is time to move forward together and build the stronger future this sport deserves.”
Former Michigan head football coach Sherrone Moore remains in police custody on Thursday after he was fired for cause on Wednesday and then detained by police “for investigation into potential charges.” Michigan said Moore “engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.”
Michigan released the following statement on Wednesday:
“U-M head football coach Sherrone Moore has been terminated, with cause, effective immediately,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said in a statement. “Following a university investigation, credible evidence was found that Coach Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.
“This conduct constitutes a clear violation of university policy, and U-M maintains zero tolerance for such behavior.”
Moore, according to Wetzel, was then detained by police in Saline, Michigan — which sits just south of Ann Arbor — on Wednesday night. He was turned over to police in Pittsfield Township for an investigation into potential charges.
Moore was eventually taken into custody at the Washtenaw County Jail. Officials said that was done after an alleged assault investigation that took place earlier on Wednesday afternoon, and that the incident “does not appear to be random in nature.” Further specifics about the incident, or any charges that Moore may be facing, are not yet known.
Sherrone Moore has been fired for cause after two seasons leading the Wolverines. (AP/Ryan Sun)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Moore, 39, was first hired at Michigan ahead of the 2018 season as the team’s tight ends coach. He was the Wolverines’ offensive coordinator during their undefeated national championship run through the 2023 season, and he was promoted to replace Jim Harbaugh when Harbaugh left to become head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. That made Moore the first Black full-time head coach in Michigan history.
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Moore finished 18-8 leading the Wolverines. They went 8-5 during his first season at the helm, and just finished a 9-3 run this past season. He won his first two games against Ohio State in their rivalry matchup, too, including one in 2023 when he was serving as the interim head coach while Harbaugh was suspended. Ohio State beat Michigan 27-9 last month. Michigan is set to take on Texas in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl later this month, too.
Moore had three years left on his initial five-year deal with Michigan. According to USA Today, Michigan paid Moore about $6.1 million for the 2025 season. His buyout earlier this month was just shy of $14 million. But since the school has fired him for cause, the Wolverines will avoid having to pay Moore’s buyout altogether.
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Michigan will start searching for a full-time replacement for Moore immediately, though the search will come on the heels of what was a very chaotic coaching cycle throughout college football. The Wolverines are now the only Big Ten school without a head coach after Penn State hired Matt Campbell, Michigan State hired Pat Fitzgerald and UCLA hired Bob Chesney earlier this month.
Quick. Name a 2025 bowl game that’s not on the playoff slate. Rose, Sugar, Peach, Fiesta, Cotton, Orange … the playoffs have co-opted all of them. What’s left is a collection of half-remembered holdover monikers, who’s-watching-this curiosities and sponsor mismatches … with one notable exception:
The Pop-Tarts Bowl. Yes, the one where they sacrifice the mascot to be devoured by the winning team.
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In just two years, the Pop-Tarts Bowl has done what the Cheez-It Citrus, TaxSlayer Gator and Servpro First Responders bowls haven’t been able to in the CFP era: get eyeballs. And all it took was this:
And this:
And, uh, this:
I would give the NIL budget of Texas Tech toward the creation of a time machine to bring Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes forward to 2025 … not to get their perspective on the playoff and the portal, but to ask them what they think of college football embracing something called “Mouth Heaven.”
Look, you can’t blame the Pop-Tarts Bowl (Georgia Tech vs. BYU) — or the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl Presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop (Miami of Ohio vs. Fresno State), or the Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk (Boise State vs. Washington), or the other wacky bowls — for going with a Don’t Go Big, Go Weird angle. With the playoffs vacuuming up all the oxygen in the college football universe, why not get strange?
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I mean, who needs a fundamentally sound display of competitive postseason sportsmanship when you can dump mayo on a coach’s head?
The Duke’s Mayo Bowl (Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State) began the mayo slop in its second year after relentless online bullying from the college football sicko (not an insult) community. That’s a fast route to social media virality right there. (The Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans — Toledo vs. Louisville — has said it will not dump beans on a coach’s head. Give it time, give it time.)
The schism that’s happening in the bowl universe between the Big Dogs and the masses mirrors what’s happening in college football at large. In the playoff era, only a few teams matter, and the rest are left fighting for whatever remaining scraps they can grab. For younger, college-age fans, this is standard and normal, but for anyone over the age of 30 raised on a stream of holiday-week Sun Bowls and Liberty Bowls, there’s a sense that a traditional element of college football is fading fast.
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None of this is meant to mourn the loss in prestige of the Bowl Industrial Complex. The bowls and their executives raked in armloads of revenue every year with their combination of broadcast rights, sponsorship agreements and mandatory ticket blocks while at the same time doing all they could to protect their own fiefdoms and stalling any progress toward a meaningful playoff system. The bowls served first and foremost to enrich and perpetuate themselves, so there’s no small irony in the fact that they’re now outmuscled and frozen out by another self-interested fountain-of-revenue entity — the College Football Playoff.
For more than a century, the bowls have served as a pleasant coda to college football season, an opportunity to get one more look at your team, hear one more rendition of the fight song, to carry you through the cold winter and the long offseason. But the canaries are chirping all over this particular coal mine. Notre Dame took its ball and went home after airing grievances for several days. Iowa State and Kansas State opted out of their bowls this year, incurring $500,000 fines from the Big 12 in the process. Multiple 5-7 teams declined to play Georgia State in the Birmingham Bowl — not because the Panthers are a fearsome opponent, but because they’d already dispersed and the “prestige” of a bowl wasn’t enough to lure them back.
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So what’s the end game for the bowl infrastructure? Gimmicks are a short-term strategy, not a long-term replicable foundation. Some pundits have aired the idea of moving the bowls to the start of the season, which has merit as a nationwide “kickoff classic” festival. A start-of-the-year bowl season would also bring the 12 playoff teams, the bowl opt-out teams, the couldn’t-get-to-six-wins underachievers, and the gold-domed tantrum-thrower back into the mix for possible bowl selection. (Coaches tend to like playing in bowls because it gives them an extra month to practice with their team, but a simple NCAA calendar adjustment could address that.)
The sad truth is that in the playoff era, the bowls are a relic on a long slide to irrelevance, and the college football powers-that-be have little incentive to stop that slide. They’ll continue to exist, yes — bowls remain a lucrative low-lift endeavor for broadcasters, most notably ESPN — but their days as arbiters of college football history are done.
But hey, at least we’ll have stripping Pop-Tarts. That’s something, right? Right … ?
Tyrese Haliburton tried to heal his right calf strain in time for the biggest game of his life, Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
Multiple hyperbaric chamber sessions per day. H-Wave electrical stimulation. Treatment around the clock. All that seemed to work. The opening minutes of Game 7 became The Tyrese Haliburton Show. The two-time All-Star sank three straight 3-pointers to pull the Pacers ahead 14-10. To the undiscerning eye, his calf seemed just fine.
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And then, the show ended.
At the five-minute mark of the first quarter, the largest tendon in Haliburton’s body snapped as he pushed off his right heel to accelerate forward. His worst fears were realized: an Achilles tear proximate to the same damaged right calf. He pounded the hardwood in disbelief. With Haliburton sidelined, the Thunder pulled away late and won by 12.
Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles tear changed the course of the 2025 NBA Finals — and more. (Photo by Justin Ford/Getty Images)
(Justin Ford via Getty Images)
Hunched on crutches in the hallway after the game, Haliburton greeted his teammates and was met with hugs and tears. Little did we know, his injury didn’t just disrupt the 2025 NBA Finals; it also disrupted the entire NBA landscape. Like an earthquake that sends shockwaves for months, Haliburton’s torn Achilles that was preceded by a calf strain — on top of the Achilles tears of Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum in the injury-marred 2025 postseason — fundamentally changed the way teams are operating this season. And not just the Pacers, who have fallen to 6-18 without their star.
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Ja Morant. Victor Wembanyama. Giannis Antetokounmpo. All suffered calf strains in the opening weeks of the season. All sidelined for multiple weeks. They are the biggest names, but there are more. A lot more. In the first 20 games of the 2025-26 season, we’ve seen a substantial increase in calf injuries (excluding contusions caused by blunt force), according to leading injury expert Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com. This time last season, there were 18 calf injuries at the 20-game mark. This season, it’s up to 25 incidents, representing an increase of nearly 40%.
More significant, however, is the elongated recovery timeline of these injuries. Per Stotts’ data, the number of games lost due to calf injuries, through 20 games played, skyrocketed from 36 to 108. A tripling of last season’s total.
Luka Dončić was traded, in part, because of his recurring calf strains in Dallas. Antetokounmpo may be the next example, as the NBA world tries to decipher how his recent history of calf strains will affect his future. No one wants to have another Haliburton situation — most of all, the players.
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Something has changed. But pinpointing exactly what is a mystery that has perplexed NBA teams, fans and the medical community.
Based on the injury data and conversations throughout the league with Yahoo Sports, these have become the two scariest words in basketball:
Calf strain.
‘The NBA is very concerned’
Dr. Richard Ferkel is a top orthopedic surgeon at the Southern Orthopedic Institute and an assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at UCLA. He has operated on over a dozen Achilles tears of NBA players, including those of Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins and Rodney Hood. In February, Thompson presented Ferkel with a 2022 NBA championship ring as a thank you for stitching his Achilles back together and allowing him to somehow be, in Thompson’s own words, the second-best scorer on a championship team.
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Thompson’s trust in Ferkel is shared by the league office. Ferkel serves as a medical consultant at the annual NBA Combine regarding lower leg issues. He is also a key member of a medical committee that the NBA assembled this summer, staffed by leading surgeons, PhDs and researchers who convene to study the recent uptick in lower leg injuries. They meet periodically over Zoom to discuss, among other topics, the hottest medical issue in the league right now: searching for answers about the rise of calf strains and its possible relationship to the spike in Achilles tears.
Teams are being much more conservative in returning players back from calf injuries.
Dr. Richard Ferkel
Ferkel sees a lot of caution across the sport.
“There is a concern that calf injuries can lead to Achilles injuries, and that this is all due to incomplete rehab in the calf and favoring one leg over the other,” Ferkel said. “Teams are being much more conservative in returning players back from calf injuries.”
Making sure players are fully recovered from calf injuries is a challenge when the game is being played faster than it has in decades and the NBA has added back-to-backs (about two more per team compared to 2019-20) to the schedule in order to accommodate the in-season tournament, which has a title sponsor in Emirates Airlines. The task of balancing economic and medical constraints is not an easy one.
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“I think the increased speed of the game, increased athleticism, increased demands of the schedule all contribute to these problems,” Ferkel said.
The solution can’t come soon enough as flat tires continue to sideline players. Ferkel notes that Achilles injuries seem to be down this season, but calf strains are up considerably. It should be mentioned that former All-Stars Dejounte Murray, Lillard, Tatum and Haliburton along with three other players, for a record-setting total of seven players, are still out with Achilles tears from last season and it’s not clear when they will return. Teams will be paying those four All-Stars a collective $200 million in this season alone.
“The NBA is very concerned,” Ferkel said, “as are all doctors.”
Could the injuries have been prevented?
How will Giannis Antetokounmpo’s calf strain impact his future in Milwaukee? (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
(Patrick McDermott via Getty Images)
Diagnosing the problem
Like many Davidson alums, Dr. Scott Ellis of the Hospital of Special Surgery (HSS) in New York has become a huge NBA fan, thanks to fellow alum Stephen Curry. Over the years, Ellis has performed calf, foot and ankle repairs for NBA athletes, though not to the extent of his colleague Dr. Martin O’Malley.
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If Haliburton and Tatum win championship rings in the future, they might give their hardware to O’Malley, or “Marty” as he’s known in the sport. He is a foot and ankle surgeon at HSS and is also the team surgeon for a host of sports teams, including the Brooklyn Nets, New York Giants and USA Basketball. When I talked to HSS for this piece, it referred me to Ellis, who doesn’t work for an NBA team and can speak more freely about the increasingly pressing issue.
Speaking over the phone, Ellis expressed an acute sense of urgency regarding the rise of Achilles tears and calf strains. Bodies keep breaking down. Billions of dollars are tied up in TV contracts, salaries and franchise values. Everyone’s searching for answers.
“Managing expectations and outcomes is not easy,” Ellis said, “because the money at stake is so high.”
In Ellis’ eyes, the foot and ankle injuries we’re seeing in the NBA now are overuse injuries due to the demands of the schedule. Typically, the common injuries in the league were stress fractures or navicular fractures in the foot from all the pounding amid 82 games. But nowadays, calf strains and Achilles tears are popping up far more frequently — especially in younger athletes.
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“What’s really amazing is you think about the Achilles injury, it usually happens to the Weekend Warrior — older people who aren’t as active,” Ellis said. “They go play sports on the weekend, all of a sudden, they rupture their Achilles. Usually it comes out of the blue with no symptoms.”
Kevin Durant’s Achilles tear in the 2019 NBA Finals stuck out to Ellis for two reasons. One, his age. He was 30 when he tore his Achilles. That seemed to be young. But Tatum was 27 when he tore his. Haliburton was 25. His Pacers teammate and former No. 2 overall pick, James Wiseman, was 23.
“The rash of this happening in younger professional athletes is definitely new,” Ellis says.
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Durant’s Achilles rupture also was alarming to Ellis because of what came before it: a calf strain. In his decades of practice, a calf strain wasn’t a typical precursor to Achilles tears.
“The interesting thing is, historically, a calf strain is thought of as this completely separate injury from an Achilles tear,” Ellis said. “When you have somebody with an Achilles rupture, nine times out of 10 — actually, even more, 99% of the time — they don’t have anything that you could pick up structurally in an imaging exam on their Achilles.”
The spreadsheets on Stotts’ laptop point to a similar conclusion, one that raises lots of thorny questions for medical teams around the sport. In Stotts’ database, he has logged over 400 calf injuries, but he could find only two instances of calf injuries that directly preceded a torn Achilles. Both happened in the NBA Finals: Haliburton in 2025 and Durant in 2019.
That both instances came on an NBA Finals stage may not be a coincidence. It’s easy to see how risk tolerance would be extraordinarily high given that championship glory is within arm’s reach. For the greats, a short-term chance at immortality is worth risking long-term ruin.
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Hundreds of players have played deep into the NBA season without tearing their Achilles. But Haliburton’s high-profile tear and the spate of calf injuries to star players speaks to something larger, suggesting that something has transformed outside of the human anatomy.
“The game has definitely changed,” Ellis said. “I’m a Steph Curry fan, but I think he changed the game.”
Stephen Curry stretched the floor and changed the movements of the game. (Photo by Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images)
(Derick E. Hingle via Getty Images)
Has the game stretched too far?
To an uninformed spectator, Curry would seem to be standing at the top of the key facing the basket. Curry is thinking differently. In the mind of the greatest shooter ever, he imagines he is looking down from the gym’s rafters, planted at the epicenter of an imaginary clock. The rim is six o’clock. The half-court directly behind him is 12 o’clock. To his right is nine. To his left, three.
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It’s the summer of 2013, and Curry thinks this clock and this drill has a chance to change everything. He’s not yet an All-Star, but he’s made the leap as the Warriors’ leading scorer. There are more leaps to make. All-Star, maybe MVP. Hopefully, NBA champion. That’s the vision.
Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard made him go back to the drawing board. Curry and his longtime trainer, Brandon Payne of Accelerate Basketball, had watched film of the 2013 playoffs and how Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had put taller wings on Curry to block out any sunlight on the perimeter. The Spurs had beaten the Warriors soundly in the second round. Curry needed to reinvent himself.
“That’s where it all changed,” Payne said.
They called it Lego space creation. Payne and Curry put two or three footwork concepts together to create necessary space to get the shot off based on what the defender does. That whole summer, Curry worked the clock in various gyms, adhering to Payne’s orders as he shouted different numbers.
Over time, Payne added hybrid moves to shift to certain spots like they were sweating through a game of Twister. If the goal is to get to 12 o’clock, Payne would shout a combo move — say, 10 o’clock to two o’clock — in order to juke the imaginary defender enough to eventually plant both feet, both hands in a 12 o’clock spot.
“If you’re looking at the face of a clock,” Payne said, recalling those countless sessions in the gym, “we wanted to make sure we could create space going to every single number on the clock.”
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The key, he said, is that Curry’s trainers would load the movement with resistance bands and heavy lifting in order to properly strengthen Curry’s muscles to execute the new motion patterns. He had to prepare his body to perform.
And so Curry decided to implement the stepback and side step. No longer are players training to do set shots and pull-up jumpers in front of them. To combat the growing size and athleticism of defenders, scorers like Curry are forced to go in reverse and sideways in ways never thought possible.
To illustrate the evolution, consider that in 2013-14 Curry led the league with 69 stepback 3s, per Kirk Goldsberry’s tracking. Two MVP awards and three NBA championships later, the league started catching on to Curry’s innovative moves. By 2018-19, the league leader in stepbacks, Houston’s James Harden, registered 613, a tenfold increase in just five years.
Were we thinking at the time, well, the NBA is going to have a lot of calf and Achilles issues? No, we were not thinking that at the time.
Brandon Payne, longtime trainer
Stephen Curry spawned a league full of people trying to be Stephen Curry — no matter if they’re 6-foot-2 like Curry or 7-5 like Victor Wembanyama, who averages over six 3-point attempts per game in his NBA career — many of which are hitting different numbers on the clock. Everyone wants to be Steph, but a separate question is whether their bodies are equipped to handle it.
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Dončić, Haliburton, Lillard and Tatum are some of the most innovative creators when it comes to getting to their 3-point shot and using counters to attack the threat of the deep ball. The longer 3-pointers also mean longer runways, which require stronger brake systems to decelerate and finish at the rim after going downhill. And they all use “false steps” to accelerate forward with a push-off on a back foot and take advantage of hard closeouts on their 3-point shots. Is it a coincidence that they’re beset by calf and Achilles issues?
Looking back, Payne didn’t consider the long-term implications of the clock drill. But like many others around the league, he wonders about how the game has changed, the role of the 3-point shot and whether it’s a factor in what we’re seeing.
“Now, were we thinking at the time, well, the NBA is going to have a lot of calf and Achilles issues? No, we were not thinking that at the time,” Payne said.
The race to solve the issue isn’t just a medical one. It’s being waged in Silicon Valley.
The search for answers
Brett Burman thought there had to be a better way. After working for over a dozen years in coaching and front-office roles in college, the NBA and overseas leading the London Lions to the 2023 EuroCup Final Four as the team’s general manager, Burman understands why so many teams are terrified of non-contact injuries.
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He left London in 2023 with a basketball executive’s version of what he calls “PTSD.” After signing three former NBA players to key roles, he watched them go down with major non-contact injuries. Sam Dekker, Tarik Phillip and Kosta Koufos all suffered key injuries that ruined the team’s chances of reaching its potential.
He remembers going into a hallway and FaceTiming the team doc about whether to let Dekker back into the game or keep him out. In a matter of seconds, they had to make the call.
“And we made the wrong one,” Burman says. “I had the players’ health — he was tough as s*** — and the weight of the whole organization on my shoulders. I didn’t have the data, the science, and we made the wrong decision.”
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Following that experience in London and all his years in front offices, Burman linked up with Adam Petway, the former director of performance of the Washington Wizards, and founded a new company called OnSport AI that tries to revolutionize injury prevention in pro sports. One NBA team has signed on as they pilot their software, and they are in talks with several other teams for their services.
OnSport AI uses computer vision and machine learning fused with tracking data to identify injury risk in real-time during competition. The company’s software tracks coordinates for joints — think hips, ankles, shoulders, elbows, etc — for all 10 players on the court and compares it to each players’ historical record going back years, thanks to TV broadcasts.
How did that player jump? Off one foot or two? How did he move laterally? How did he land? Are his hips level or favoring one side? In laymen’s terms, OnSport AI seeks to detect if something in a player’s biomechanics is “off” and alerts the user when risk of injury reaches certain thresholds.
Picture, for instance, instead of a stamina meter above a player in video games, the screen shows a color-coded injury-risk meter that quantifies a player’s likelihood of suffering a non-contact injury based on a proprietary system.
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Burman’s company and other tech outfits are racing to solve the problem. On Tuesday, leading data provider Sportradar and bio-analytics company Orreco announced a new player health and data-tracking partnership that promises to “maximize availability” and track workloads in a similar manner as OnSport AI. In January, the NBA announced it was launching a new biomechanics program to try to reduce injuries in light of the uptick in player absences. Four companies were selected to collaborate with the NBA in consultation with P3, a leading sports science lab in Santa Barbara led by Dr. Marcus Elliott.
Henry Abbott’s new book, “Ballistic,” which profiles Elliott and his leading work in injury-prevention science, could be described as a 300-page ode to our hips. So much of the ailments in the NBA athlete can be traced back to irregularities in the hip and how it absorbs and facilitates the ever-expanding, thunderous forces in the game.
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It shouldn’t be a surprise to learn, then, that Curry worships at the altar of hips. In 2015, the Warriors’ then-director of athletic performance, Keke Lyles, told me Curry, the smallest guy on the team, was second strongest on the team in the deadlift category, regularly lifting 400 pounds. To improve flexion and mobility, he obsessed over exercises like the single-leg hip airplane yoga move.
Strengthening his hips was the key to saving his ankles, which had hampered him early in his NBA career. (So did Ferkel’s surgical procedures.) Notably, Curry, who has weaponized the 3-ball more than anyone, has not been listed with a calf strain or Achilles injury in his 17-year career.
One of the key indicators for OnSport AI’s technology focuses on the coordinates of the ball-and-socket joint, the hip. The exact patterns they flag in hips and other body parts are tightly guarded; Petway and Burman call it their secret sauce, honed through thousands of hours in NBA circles and poring through the literature. The false step, it turns out, is a central character in Petway’s published research on Achilles tears, but identifying the underlying cause of Achilles ruptures is more nuanced. The false step — the action that befell Haliburton, Lillard and Tatum — could be better described as the straw that broke the camel’s back, but not necessarily deserving of the most blame.
(Journal of Applied Biomechanics)
Putting aside the medical concerns, good luck getting rid of the false step in basketball. Convincing elite hoopers to change their instinctual movement patterns is a daunting task. Perhaps even more challenging is getting sign-off from the National Basketball Players Association to track real-time injury risk using fancy algorithms with team staffers at the controls.
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In June, Adam Silver said on ESPN the league was using artificial intelligence to get to the bottom of it and formed panels to address it. The addition of cutting-edge technology and the formulation of committees could dramatically improve the issue of calf strains and Achilles tears. It could also be years before conclusions can be drawn, and even longer to be implemented at scale. Time is of the essence. Within six months of the NBA launching the biomechanics tech initiative in January, the world watched as three of the biggest names in the sport — Tatum, Lillard and Haliburton — went down with Achilles tears.
But one subtraction could help — and fast.
Is reducing the schedule the solution?
The looming variable over all of these lower leg injuries is, of course, the 82-game schedule that has been in place for nearly 60 years.
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It’s a contentious issue that requires all stakeholders — owners, players and TV partners — to come together and reevaluate the entire system. With the 3-point arc stretching the dimensions of the game further and further out, the game is much more demanding. Steve Kerr raised concerns to Yahoo Sports this past May in the wake of so many high-profile injuries.
Dr. Ferkel saw Kerr’s quotes and made note of his remarks in our discussion about the current issues. When I asked Ferkel if he thought the league should reduce the number of games in the schedule to increase the number of recovery days, he said it’s something that comes up frequently.
“We’ve discussed this at length, regarding limiting the number of games in the schedule, especially back-to-backs,” Ferkel said. “The league is looking at this carefully and they’re trying to find data to explain if there is a relationship between back-to-backs and injuries.”
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What is his view?
“I feel there may be a relationship, but we need more science to know for sure,” Ferkel said.
Over at HSS, Ellis shares the sentiment that reducing the number of games could be a solution, if the economics can be worked out. He points out the economics might not be working for fans now.
“It’s a huge number of games that they’re playing, day in and day out, some back-to-back,” Ellis said. “We’ve seen coaches resting their players and then the league gets on them because people are paying tickets to watch these players. Something has to give.”
Too often recently, everyone agrees, that something is the Achilles tendon.
Ellis comes back to Curry and how the game is being played now. The speed of the games. The speed of the schedule. Tatum, Lillard and Haliburton were three of the top 3-point shooters in the game, all suffering Achilles tears in big moments. Can we really eradicate the 3-point shot and how they get to those shots?
“I wouldn’t say a stepback by itself is like a major trauma,” Ellis said. “But maybe they’re doing it over and over and just … it’s stretching the limits.”