Latest news with #Week17
USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Steelers Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu make ESPN All Quarter Century Team
Former Steelers Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu make ESPN All Quarter Century Team Looking back over the last 25 years, the Pittsburgh Steelers have had so many great players, it's hard to narrow down the best. But ESPN undertook the daunting task of doing it for the entire league and put together their All Quarter Century teams for offense and defense. They named one Steeler legend on each side of the football to the team. On offense, Alan Faneca made it as one of two left guards. He shared the distinction with Steven Hutchinson. Here's what they had to say about Faneca. A stalwart at left guard for the Steelers before late-career spells with the Jets and Cardinals, Faneca missed only one game from 2000 on -- and that was due to rest in a meaningless Week 17 contest in 2001. His six first-team All-Pro selections are more than any other left guard this quarter century. Moving to defense, edge defender T.J. Watt got snubbed but safety Troy Polamalu was there as the team's strong safety. He joined Ed Reed, Brian Dawkins and Earl Thomas as the four safeties. This was how they broke down Polamalu's career. Polamalu flying all over the field epitomized what NFL teams began prioritizing with modern safeties. He is fifth among safeties with 103 passes defensed since 2000. He also had 80 run stops (tackles to stop runs short of a successful play), which is third among all defensive backs since 2000.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Arrest warrant issued for former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on attempted murder
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on a charge of attempted murder. CNN affiliate WSVN previously reported the news and has since provided a copy of the warrant to CNN. Authorities in Miami-Dade County are seeking to arrest Brown after gunshots were fired at an amateur boxing event in May. CNN has contacted the Miami Police Department for comment. CNN has also contacted Brown for comment. In a post on X on Friday, Brown posted a video of himself on a bicycle, with the hashtag '#lovefromthemiddleeast.' Brown posted on X last month that he had been 'jumped by multiple individuals who tried to steal my jewelry and cause physical harm to me.' He said police released him after hearing his side of the story. Videos posted on social media showed a chaotic scene – including crowds running from what sounds like two gunshots. According to the warrant, an off-duty officer working inside the venue where the event was being held went outside where people had told him there had just been gunshots. Once outside, he said he saw Brown in a fight with another man. Per the warrant, 'several' people attending the event told the officer that Brown had been the shooter, although police did not find a weapon on Brown when he was patted down. The warrant states that officers found two spent shell casings and an empty gun holster at the scene. According to the warrant, detectives later determined through surveillance footage at the venue and speaking to witnesses that Brown punched a man during a 'large physical altercation,' and 'several other individuals' started to attack the man until security intervened. The warrant says that Brown later appeared to take the gun of a security officer and ran after the man he had punched, who had just walked away from the enclosed area. Cell phone video obtained from social media shows Brown with the gun in his hand approaching the man, and the video captures sound of two gunshots, according to the warrant. Brown played for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2010 to 2018, where he emerged as one of the NFL's top receiving threats and twice led the league in receiving yards. He was later traded to the Oakland Raiders, who released him from his contract after various on- and off-the-field issues before the start of the 2019 season. He split his final three NFL seasons with New England and Tampa Bay, and his career ended with Brown stripping off his jersey, pads and gloves, while walking off the field during the Buccaneers' 2021 Week 17 game against the New York Jets. Brown announced his retirement a few months later. CNN's Jill Martin and Jada Furlow contributed to this report.
NBC Sports
18-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
NFL has shown no inclination to have a draft lottery
The NFL loves to make money when it's not supposed to be making money. When it comes to offseason cash grabs, there's one bridge the league has shown no inclination to cross. A draft lottery. The NBA's recent draft lottery, which saw the Dallas Mavericks overcome 1.8 percent odds to win the rights to 18-year-old Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, sparked claims that the lottery was rigged. (No lottery has ever been rigged.) It also sparked arguments in some circles that the NFL should have a draft lottery. And, as we've argued in the past, the NFL should have one. Beyond the intense interest a draft lottery would generate (it would land somewhere between the show-about-nothing draft and the show-about-nothing schedule release), a lottery would create a system that would reduce the incentive to tank by not guaranteeing the first pick to the worst team. Here's the problem. Merely having a lottery legitimizes the reality that, at some point in a lost season, it's good to be bad. With the NFL stubbornly pushing the notion that every team tries its best to win every game of every regular season, anything that would crystallize the perception that losing leads to winning would take a sledgehammer to the façade of competitive integrity. One way to eliminate that would be to give, for example, each of the 18 non-playoff teams an equal shot at the first pick, the second pick, and so on. The only risk from that approach would be the possibility that an owner of a team with a snowball's chance of scaling the playoff mountain a 5.5 percent shot at a potentially transformational talent. Unlike the leagues that have lotteries, the NFL maintains a clear firewall between being at the bottom of the standings and the top of the draft order. While it's obvious that the worst picks first, the league prefers to draw as little attention as possible to the very real strategic benefit of embracing the suck. What's the difference between 2-15 and 3-14? What's the difference between 3-14 and 4-13? A lost season is a lost season, and no one will care about the final number of wins. The only way to make chicken salad in such a chickenshit circumstance is to let nature take its course. Or, as the case may be, to nudge nature along a little by using late-season games to 'evaluate' young backups. The temptation to tank is very real. Some firmly believe that it should be avoided because it introduces losing into the culture of the team. Some don't care about that. (Which is one of the reasons why they keep losing.) In 2014, the Buccaneers clearly tanked in the second half of a Week 17 game against the Saints to ensure that a double-digit lead evaporated, delivering the top pick in the 2015 draft. The cost of trading up highlights the value of not having to. If the Jaguars had finished with the second overall pick and not the fifth overall pick, they wouldn't have had to give up next year's first-round pick (among other things) to get Travis Hunter. The 2024 finale also introduced counter-tanking to the equation. Plenty believe that the Bills threw their Week 18 game against the Patriots to keep a division rival from landing the No. 1 overall pick. (Buffalo started quarterback Mitch Trubisky in the game, and removed him for no apparent reason for Mike White late in the third quarter, after the Patriots had taken a 17-16 lead.) Winning that game hurt the Patriots. They could have traded the rights to the No. 1 overall pick (quarterback Cam Ward) for multiple other picks and/or players. And they still could have gotten tackle Will Campbell, plus a lot more stuff. The NFL doesn't want anyone to connect losing games and getting dibs on the sorting hat process. Having a draft lottery acknowledges the link, making it harder for the NFL to perpetuate the ruse that every team tries to win every game, every week of every year. Without that concern, the NFL surely would have a multi-network, three-hour, prime-time event from the league meetings in March that would draw 10 million or more viewers to see where the bouncing balls will land — and that could be sold to the highest bidder at a massive profit.
NBC Sports
16-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Week 17 games that will be crucial in fantasy
Kyle Dvorchak discusses the Week 17 games to watch in fantasy football next season, including the Arizona Cardinals vs. Cincinnati Bengals, Chicago Bears vs. San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
You can't blame Jack Della Maddalena for ruining the fight everyone wanted to see
On the one hand, the musical champions thing that the UFC has going on in the wake of UFC 315 is kind of fun, so long as newly crowned welterweight champ Jack Della Maddalena doesn't get any bright ideas of going up to challenge Dricus du Plessis. For as good as Islam Makhachev has been for the past decade, he's still trying to distinguish himself from his coach and mentor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, his sauna soulmate who has been attached at his hip for as long as there's been MMA coverage. Now that Della Maddalena has taken out Belal Muhammad to win the welterweight title, it seems that Makhachev is moving up to do what Nurmagomedov never did. That is, go win a title in a second weight class. If ever there was a moment for Makhachev to create his own legend, that time is now. Advertisement What is less clear after UFC 315 in Montreal on Saturday night is whether Makhachev will vacate his lightweight title as he goes in search of that history. We didn't get immediate clarification because UFC CEO Dana White didn't attend the post-fight press conference to provide it. Makhachev himself seems to think he can hold onto his 155-pound belt as he attempts to add another to the collection. That, of course, would diminish some of the other bold moves going on around him. UFC 315 was set up like a Week 17 in the NFL wild-card picture. It was full of scenarios that would determine who'd be facing who, depending on the outcome. Advertisement If Muhammad wins — Makhachev, Belal's bosom buddy, remains at lightweight and defends his title for the fifth time against Ilia Topuria. If Della Maddalena wins — Makhachev moves up to face "JDM" for the welterweight title now that his buddy is out of the way, and Topuria faces Charles Oliveira for the lightweight title. We knew going into UFC 315 there would be many fates riding on the main event. Topuria, who vacated his own title at featherweight to move up and challenge Makhachev, has been waiting to find out if he'd get his wish. Oliveira, who has been a step removed in this wait-and-see matchmaking food chain, seemingly benefits the most, as he now (presumably) gets thrust into some form of a title shot against Topuria. He defaults into a big spot. Lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan? He's like the little girl who got absorbed into the television set in 'Poltergeist.' You can hear his warbling cries for help but you can't see him. Advertisement Not that any of what I just laid out is what the public at large wanted. Or at least not the vast majority. What fans want is a fight between Topuria and Makhachev, two of the best pound-for-pound champions going, each in the primes of their careers. That fight didn't have to be a pie-in-the-sky event. It was sitting right there for us to have. It was right freaking there. And who knows, maybe it still is. In a game where we are denied so much, optimism has a way of sprouting like a weed through the sidewalk. Yet the danger in having an interested third party play so heavily into a title fight like Saturday night's is that big-picture rooting interests get in the way of a masterful performance. Perhaps the focus should've been less on what's next and instead zeroed in on what's happening. Because what happened was that Giacomo Della Maddalena, as he was so regally referred to after White wrapped the belt around his waist, did to Muhammad what for a dozen fights nobody else could. That is, he made Muhammad fight on his terms. Jack Della Maddalena handled Belal Muhammad like no one has in years. (Eric Bolte-Imagn Images (IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters) He shut down a dictator by becoming one. Advertisement He let the world know that there are levels involved in earning a Picasso nose like his. "JDM" lit Muhammad up in the first two rounds, staying on his front foot, moving forward, landing crisp shots and thwarting takedowns. By the end of the second round, the champ was — somewhat surprisingly — in a two-round deficit on the scorecards. What was more impressive is that Muhammad actually came to life. He turned into the pacesetting, level-changing human onslaught who dethroned Leon Edwards last year. He didn't stay holstered. He was actively turning the tables, especially in the fourth round, when he forced Della Maddalena into the deep waters. We didn't go without seeing Belal's best. Advertisement Yet in the fifth, it was Della Maddalena who dug deep. He landed the bigger shots. He hurt and staggered Muhammad. He opened the champ's nose and split his lip, as if to paint a picture of what it's like to stand in front of him for five rounds. He wasn't going to be denied, and in the end he left no doubt. He won the fight clear and definitively, without controversy and/or regrets. As he begins his run as the new 170-pound king, restoring Australia's status as a manufacturer of champions, he turned a neat trick. He made the idea of him defending that title against Makhachev feel like something more than a consolation prize. He made it feel like maybe Makhachev should be careful what he wishes for, as there's a buzzsaw now lying in wait. Now it seems like it might be "JDM" who destroys all of tomorrow's parties, if only because we were slow to understand he was the life of the party all along. Will the UFC make Makhachev jettison his lightweight belt? It's hard to imagine Topuria fighting Oliveira for anything other than the vacated title. But from the Della Maddalena perspective, none of it matters. He has his own thing he's protecting. And if Saturday night told us anything, it's that snatching it out of his hands might not be as easy as the UFC's most famous division jumper believes it to be.
