Why else would he suddenly declare battle against the SEC, the NCAA and even the NFL while swaying judges to change the identity of active players?

At first, it seemed spunky to recruit professional rejects to his LSU program. Now, with the possibility he could be suspended a half-season and lose 50 percent of his annual budget, Kiffin looks beyond off-center as he awaits a Thursday court hearing in Baton Rouge. At best, he would have tight end Dae’Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris in the lineup Saturday night. At worst, his team could be trashed by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and his band of attorneys, which might prompt the school to abandon the conference and do something idiotic like going independent.

That said, only days before the game, Kiffin should be focused on … Clemson, in his first game at Tiger Stadium? Is it worth the bother to add a couple of players when LSU could be punished with expulsion and dealing with Sankey on the federal level? He can be charming when he takes on massive obstacles, such as leaving Tennessee and going to USC, such as leaving Ole Miss last November to accept LSU’s $91 million and gigantic NIL money. It also might lead to his demise.

If the SEC wins, he sasy he won’t defy rules about NFL rejects, even after a judge issued a temporary restraining order last week protecting LSU from the SEC. Or so he claims. “So we’ll wait till this week to see if there’s any more guidance,” Kiffin said. “And the question whether myself as the head coach of football and will football follow SEC orders? Of course, we will. There’s no intent nor there ever was to play somebody that we’re not supposed to over an SEC rule. I’m not the spokesperson. The SEC had a stance, made a rule. The judge felt they couldn’t do that to the players. We’ll be practicing. They can figure out the rest, and we’ll just wait for guidance.”

At some point, as a lifetime Kiffin documentary makes the rounds on ESPN, he might tire of the madness that surrounds him. Here it is: Fired by Al Davis with the Raiders, hired at Tennessee, leaves for USC after one year, fired on the LAX tarmac after Pete Carroll’s daunting probation, catches on with Nick Saban at Alabama, flees and takes the job at Florida Atlantic, leaves for Ole Miss, then leaves for LSU. I live in Boca Raton, Fla. Every time I pass the Florida Atlantic stadium, it’s hard to believe Kiffin coached there seven years ago.

Is he dizzy? Does he not want to simply compete for a national title? Or does he prefer to wage war? Is conflict the prominent material in his DNA?

“I’ve lived in chaos for a long time,” Kiffin said Monday. “I like to say chaos is OK as long as it’s controlled chaos, especially in this room with your players. … I’ve said it before to our staff, to our players. We’re gonna have chaos. But we’re gonna have controlled chaos. And our team is gonna understand why we do what we do. Just like in this decision about potentially taking players.”

He said his LSU players persuaded him to fight for the NFL castoffs. “I went to the players, ‘What do you want to do?’ And they wanted to do it,” he said. “It’s not like it’s chaos that comes in and they don’t understand it. Which is the only thing that matters. It doesn’t matter if national media understands why we do what we do for our team, or other fan bases. It just matters that these guys do.”

It should matter if his brethren fires back. Steve Sarkisian was with Kiffin at USC, in their 20s, and coaches Arch Manning at Texas. He is taking a mean stance against adding NFL players. “I just can’t spend all day long looking at Twitter or X to see what the next court ruling is,” Sarkisian said. “The fact that somebody out there is going to take a player off of an NFL roster and tell (another player) who’s been doing it for nine months to go kick rocks, that doesn’t sit well with me. I think that’s wrong. That, morally, is wrong.”

Morality? Lane Kiffin? Kirby Smart has won two national championships at Georgia. He is opposed to the NFL crowd. “My thought is just to each his own. I’m worried about our team, our organization and how we do things,” he said. “The opportunities presented to the guys on our team are important to me. They’ve earned opportunities through an offseason, through a summer program, through a really tough fall camp. You have to decide, each and every person, if that’s valuable enough to warrant replacing your players that have worked with your team with others.”

Smart knows LSU might improve with Wright and Harris and their pro lessons. So be it. “They might be better, so our job is to upgrade and try to get better as much as we can and win games,” he said. “If people feel like that gives them an opportunity to be better and doesn’t change their culture, then the more power to them.” Tuesday, Dabo Swinney weighed in with a tweak at Clemson: "It's just embarrassing that that's where we are. I don't blame the kids or people trying to take advantage of the system; I just think it's embarrassing where we are with college football. No pun intended, we just stay in our Lane here at Clemson.”

As always, Lane Kiffin better win and reach the College Football Playoff. If he fails — and he is ranked 11th by the Associated Press — he is attacked with the resonance of President Trump. He is better off without the NFL rejects, and if you say otherwise, consider how warped life has become in that state. On LSU’s campus, using a vape pipe with THC could put someone in jail for a year. By using NFL castoffs, the football program might be excluded from the Southeastern Conference.

There’s a new camera lens, Lane. For once, ignore it.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Know how many other NFL franchises go years without a stadium deal, without a remarkable executive, without an illustrious coach, without a sniff at a Super Bowl? Yet in a league with a $301 million salary cap, Kroenke isn’t overpowering the enemy with his payroll. He ranks in the top five, behind Cincinnati — a shocker — and Kansas City, yet he’s the resounding favorite to win his second championship in five seasons within the very domain where he won his first: his own. When he re-signed one of the finest defensive players ever, Aaron Donald, we realized again that this is the best franchise in the most important sports corporation in the world.

Donald was retired. He saw what was being constructed. He couldn’t stay away from the thrill. “Obviously, seeing what was being done with this team, pieces that were brought here — it’s like, ‘OK, that’s a complete team,’ ’’ he said. “And then you see the other moves they make, and it’s like, ‘OK, I wish I was still out there playing right about now.’ ’’

Only the Rams — Kroenke, Snead, McVay, Matthew Stafford, Myles Garrett, I could go on and on — could pull off such a heist. The season starts next week when the only issue involves the AFC’s top team; the NFC is slammed down, as champion Seattle might know. All from a kingpin who grew up sweeping floors at his father’s lumber yard in Mora, Mo., a town of 400 people. Enos Stanley Kroenke had to tell Ann Walton, when they met during a ski trip, why he was named for two local baseball legends: Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial. She liked him and married him and allowed him to connect with a family that turned Walmart into an American powerhouse. Kroenke liked sports. He ran with the money, in football and basketball and hockey and soccer.

He bought the Rams and didn’t like their position in St. Louis. He chose to return the team to southern California, and sure enough, with the blessing of Jerry Jones, Kroenke hardly settled down like Jed Clampett. He found Hollywood Park when Los Angeles was declared dead. He built a masterpiece, near the airport, that might be the best anywhere. He eyes another hometown Super Bowl with an offense led by Stafford, the MVP, and a defense dominated by Hall of Famers in Garrett and Donald.

Never mind the people who say the Bears, with Caleb Williams, are the league’s most watchable team. Actually, the Rams should be featured on TV every week. We’ve seen superteams struggle in the NBA, with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown trying to jolt history in Philadelphia. This is the ultimate football superteam, with 11 men on each side of the field. Donald is age 35. So? He retired too soon.

“Do I feel like I can play at a high level? Yes. Do I feel like I can still be myself? One hundred percent,” he said. “If I didn’t feel like that, I wouldn’t be here. If anything, it’s just getting back on the grass and knocking the rust off as far as playing football again, 11-on-11, working my eyes, getting my feel for the game, certain reactions and things that made me who I am.”

And? “The Super Bowl being back at SoFi kind of excites you, too,” said Donald, realizing he chased down Joe Burrow to complete the 2022 victory.

The front office waited until the weekend, when he decided a $20 million deal for one year — with a possible $30 million in incentives — was plenty. “He doesn’t have to do this,” McVay said. “What he’s done throughout the 10 years, and I’ve watched him pour every ounce of his soul into this game and into his teammates. When you care as much and when you pour as much into it, that’s when you can say, ‘I’m full, and I’m complete after 10 years.’ But once he makes a decision, he’s all in.”

It isn’t necessary to board a plane next week and join his teammates for a season opener. The game is in Melbourne, Australia, which should be easier for the Rams than the San Francisco 49ers. As we saw last year, McVay had his team fly into London on a Friday when the Jacksonville Jaguars awaited Sunday. It worked, when Stafford threw five touchdown passes in a 35-7 victory and said at Wembley Stadium, “Do I get a sword or something?” The Rams are flying in and arriving the day before the game, which isn’t what Qantas would suggest. Sorry, they also know more about aviation than other teams.

This time — was owner Jed York involved before he chased a prostitute in Ohio? — the 49ers leave this Wednesday and will spend a week Down Under. They are a mess, with York dealing with a potential NFL suspension and coach Kyle Shanahan getting over his ugly car accident. The 49ers even had two clowns posing as players, stealing $1.3 million from dozens of women. Is Christian McCaffrey healthy? Is Brock Purdy prepared to be more consistent?

Why are they playing this game at Melbourne Cricket Ground? Couldn’t they play in Paso Robles, halfway between the cities? Kroenke and Snead will join McVay as the Rams romp. Aaron Donald can work out in Woodland Hills, before the Giants arrive for Week 2 on a Monday night. He will attack Jaxson Dart for his 112th career sack. His mate, Garrett, will counter with his 126th career sack.

All season, they will duel like fiends.

This while Stan Kroenke, 79, happens to be worth $24.3 billion. In the 2020s, he has won an NBA title with the Denver Nuggets, a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche and a Premier League title with Arsenal. Is he the best sports owner ever? I’m six months from saying yes about Enos Stanley.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

What is necessary, if we are abandoning football to watch a day or two of tennis, are the greats of the game. One was eliminated Sunday night, when Novak Djokovic was left to vomit and collapse and look much older than his 39 years. He should consider retirement, now that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have entered the next life, as his absence has given the crowd few reasons to watch. Without Jannik Sinner and his knee issue, all the ritzy nuggeteers view on the landscape is Carlos Alcaraz, returning to the limelight after a wrist injury sidelined him four months.

The Open is a bit closed. Alcaraz might beat Alexander Zverev, not a fan favorite, and American Coco Gauff is trying to win her third major after her mother warned relatives to stop bothering them for tickets. That’s about it in New York, New York. The grand idea was Djokovic, who once showed up in Los Angeles and taught Kobe Bryant about training, rising for an all-time conquest and winning his record-breaking 25th major. He couldn’t get past Argentina’s Mariano Navone in five sets, which won’t bring a massive audience to his new documentary, “The Wolf in Winter.” It’s the first time he has lost in the first round of a Grand Slam match in 78 tries. It’s also the first major since 2003 that won’t include Djokovic, Nadal or Federer in the second round.

The future? We liked the past much better.

“It was obvious that it was an awful feeling on the court for me,” said Djokovic, who committed 70 unforced mistakes. “It’s something that I’ve been carrying unfortunately pretty much every match this year. Vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there. And then my whole body, you know, starts to collapse. Cramping, pain. The back just gave up in the end, and the shoulder, and I couldn’t close it out. I pretty much despised every moment that I spent on the court.”

Said Navone, playing his idol: “It was very tough for me because you are playing with the ‘GOAT’ on this court. For sure it’s the best thing I’ve had on court. This is an amazing court and the biggest stage. It’s amazing, the way we play. I mean, five sets. ... I’m very happy. I don’t know. What can I say?”

He might say this: No tournament should sell $100 chicken nuggets. An Alcaraz-Sinner match — “Sincaraz” — always seems destined for legendhood. We haven’t seen them play in a major since last year’s Open, when Alcaraz won his sixth major and followed with a seventh at the Australian Open. Sinner has five after winning at Wimbledon. When one is injured, the other plays. And vice versa.

“Well, it is a shame, I think, for everybody that someone like Jannik is missing this tournament, this Grand Slam,” Alcaraz said. “It’s kind of weird that we are not going to see each other for months now. So it’s kind of a weird situation, to be honest. I just wish him all the best. Hopefully, he has a really great recovery, and we see him back on court at his best once again… Hopefully we are going to see Jannik back on court better than ever.”

Who else? Gauff won the 2023 Open and the 2025 French Open. If she wants to separate herself from the jumbled women’s crowd — which doesn’t include Serena Williams in singles — a victory might send her to stardom at 22. Her mother, Candi, sent a “blunt but necessary” note to family last week. “Unfortunately, I will not be able to hook you up with a ticket,” she wrote. “Please make arrangements to purchase a ticket. Side note, never ask for more than 2 tickets. Coco is grown now and she has her own friends that she is honoring (with) tickets for the match. Thank you for your continued support.”

Said her daughter, in agreement: “Honestly, it was needed, and it was directed towards a few family and friends. People come out of the woodwork. You haven’t spoken to someone for years. They don’t say, ‘Congrats’ or, ‘Happy birthday’ or nothing. Then they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m in New York, can I have eight tickets to your match in your box, please?’ ’’

They’ll have to settle for the $363 fee through rampant resellers. “The US Open is owned by the USTA which is a non-profit,” Bill Ackman wrote on social media. “The idea that a Day One ground pass is $363 is absurd. The USTA’s mission is to promote the sport of tennis. How is a $363 ground pass consistent with this mission?”

Ackman is a billionaire hedge-fund manager.

Wait until he tries a nugget.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

I said sports, not baseball. Victor Wembanyama has not won an MVP award. Crow-Armstrong will finish that objective in September, as Shohei Ohtani can’t pitch with injuries and won’t secure his fifth trophy. He is in a sizable market, Chicago, which again rose in acclaim after he hit three homers and drove in six runs Saturday for the playoff-bound Cubs. He hit two more homers Sunday night on national TV, prompting Jason Benetti to say he’s playing in his “own personal playground” at Wrigley Field.

Five homers, two games.

And yet, who is Hamill? Why did he give owner Tom Ricketts a sweetheart pact, starting next season, when the game sorely needs PCA’s presence and boundless passion? He’s the pillar of Gen Z, the ruler of his demographic kingdom, and should provide spectacular all-around production well into the next decade. Cubs executive Jed Hoyer cut the deal through 2032, meaning he won’t sweat and wonder when he’ll have to approach Juan Soto’s $765 million and Ohtani’s $700 million. Anyone who thinks baseball needs a salary cap should pay attention to Crow-Armstrong.

Point being: PCA wanted to be locked immediately into Cubdom. Oh, well. He’s the biggest bargain in the industry. “I don’t think there was ever going to be a time that wasn’t right to get this done,” he said on signing day in March. “There was never any pressure to get this done. Bottom line, they knew I wanted to be here. So with that, whenever this got done, it was going to be the right time.”

Who would you rather have: Crow-Armstrong at $115 million or Soto, whose Mets team has become an all-time joke? We’re not even in September, and PCA has 38 homers, 91 RBIs and 32 steals while batting .282. Better still: We only use three letters to identify him. Would the agent like to return to the bargaining table?

Too late.

“Sometimes you feel it in your bones that you got a day like today in you. And I did today,” PCA said after the three-bee, before the two-bee.

Who demanded the memorable afternoon? Sammy Sosa, who was MVP in 1998 and required steroids when PCA doesn’t bother at 6 feet and 180 pounds. “He was like, ‘I want three out of you today. I need three,’ ’’ Crow-Armstrong said. “And sure enough, I don’t know what he passed down to me there.” In truth, he has become a monster at the plate by figuring out how to hit lefties — .315 with 11 homers and 34 RBIs. Last year, the digits were bleak at .188 with seven homers.

“I’m just, I think I’m getting better naturally as a baseball player overall,” he said.

Naturally. Yikes.

He thinks there is no better market than Chicago, which adores him and dreams as he hangs out with Caleb Williams. It’s about time the city produces monsters. “I think he can change the game in so many different ways,” teammate Alex Bregman said. “I think that one day it’s hitting three homers, the next day it’s making three diving plays or just running down balls that nobody else can go catch out there in center field. Next day, it’s stealing third and the ball going in the left field and him scoring. It’s just so many different things he can do on a baseball field.”

He doesn’t like certain segments of Los Angeles, his hometown, including fans at Dodgers games. Imagine if they meet in the National League playoffs: PCA vs. Ohtani, who will be slugging if not pitching. He loves Wrigley. He loves walking down the street in the city. Chicago is a place that needs spiritual help. He has brought it, from Sherman Oaks. His father, Matthew Armstrong, grew up in suburban Naperville and has acted in Hollywood with Pete’s mother, Ashley Crow. His dad is a Cubs fan.

Which might explain why PCA signed the deal so quickly. Only two other players have matched what he has done this month: 13 homers, six stolen bases, 16 walks. They would be Willie Mays in 1955 and Babe Ruth in 1930. His WAR is by far the highest in the major leagues: 9.1, when Ohtani is second at 6.9. Remember, he also rules as a magnificent center fielder who routinely saves runs.

He is the best player in baseball.

At little more than $19 million a year, when Ohtani makes $70 million.

Next season, MVP escalators kick into the contract — at $2 million. This year? Nothing. He will earn a pre-arbitration bonus pool amount of more than $1.1 million. He should have waited a while before signing. What would Ricketts have paid in a blockbuster contract? At present, he makes less than Nico Hoerner, who signed a six-year deal at $141 million. Hoerner is an excellent player. He is no PCA.

“When I think about making an investment in a person, it’s a really easy investment to make,” Hoyer said in March. “And I couldn’t be happier to keep Pete in this uniform for a long time.”

“I think Pete’s having a wonderful season,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s a lot of fun to watch. We’re lucky to be a part of it.”

It took Sosa to put Crow-Armstrong in a certain context. “If I had played in this era,” he said, “they would have paid me like a billion dollars.”

Not true. But at this point, we might consider such a stretch for the next MVP.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

The 74-year-old grump simply could not lose to TCU in Ireland, which has been embroiled in enough historical politics to care. He is paid $10 million a year in Chapel Hill, where students have stopped buying CHAPEL BILL shirts on Franklin Street. Now he was approving Lombardi to have Thomas Mars — straight from Mars — attack the very administrators who compensate Belichick and the football program.

And, of course, he wound up winning the Aer Lingus Classic, 15-10.

He is 5-8 on the college level. If the Tar Heels plutocracy was looking for ways to bury him, they must acknowledge he still can coach after an impressive defensive victory — and he ran a defense that didn’t allow TCU to score after its opening two drives. When the victory was secure, Belichick stared with a stony face and the same hoodie — this one with a four-leaf clover — as his players leaped in the Dublin rain. For a moment, it was hard to believe the best coach in pro history would be fired twice in four seasons. Maybe that will happen in December, which is why he and Lombardi entered dangerous territory in allowing Mars to rip the school. He eventually smiled and celebrated with some sort of trophy.

“I’m just happy for the players. They’ve worked really hard,” Belichick said. “To have positive results back up that hard work, reinforces it. I think they’ve been believing in what we’re doing, but I think this just gives everybody a little bit more belief and we’ve just got to keep building.”

Yet what is North Carolina going to do with Lombardi, his close friend? If the answer doesn’t come soon, within a human resources drama, the questions will intensify in press conferences that never have endeared Belichick to anyone. Mars remains in the firm conversation.

“If UNC had grounds to fire Michael for cause, they wouldn’t need to conduct such a far-ranging, lengthy witch hunt. They would have done so by now,” Mars told The Athletic in a report published just before the game. “I think the motive behind the investigation goes further than a $1.5 million buyout (for Lombardi). After all, UNC could fire Michael for no reason at all just by paying their buyout. In today’s world, $1.5 million is just a drop in the bucket, so there must be other reasons behind this multimillion-dollar investigation.”

The story came hours after the ESPN website blistered Belichick and Lombardi. They were painted as crudball bullies who ignored compliance concerns last year. “This is the least excitement I’ve seen for a season in a decade,” a former UNC player said. The details seemed to line up Belichick for a firing. As long as Lombardi doesn’t work — he was described as “the most hated man in the building,” said another Carolina staffer — Mars will battle a school that has no time for power struggles.

Still, Belichick won the damned game.

If he is fired with cause — see: Lombardi — the school can stop paying him a guaranteed salary after this season. If UNC dumps him without cause, he will earn the same $10 million a year through the 2029 season. Didn’t chancellor Lee Roberts and athletic director Steve Newmark enjoy the defense, which didn’t fold against TCU’s ground-and-pound run game and wasn’t drilled by quarterback Jaden Craig, who transferred from Harvard? Quickly, everyone forgot TCU won 48-14 last Sept. 1 at Kenan Memorial Stadium, with Michael Jordan and Lawrence Taylor in the stands.

“Once we kind of got settled down a little bit on the outside runs ... we kind of forced (Craig) to cut back and those guys did a good job inside,” Belichick said. “They hit the quarterback, they didn’t really let him step up in the pocket and throw much.”

He will start 2-0, assuming he beats East Tennessee State at home. Then the opposition is treacherous: at Clemson, with Notre Dame, Miami and Louisville at home. The school is trying to make money off football instead of handing it to Belichick. Pre-game concerts include Shaquille O’Neal, Neon Trees and Waka Flocka Flame. No one wants Shaq ripping the coach.

Belichick wasn’t employed to embarrass the program and miss the shabbiest of December bowl games. He also doesn’t have his son, Steve, who has left his defensive coordinator’s position with an undisclosed medical problem. As it is, he’s crazy to be a medieval dog in a courtship with Jordon Hudson — 49 years, Mick Jagger. This was even crazier, going after UNC with an attorney who is growling.

But the offense was regenerated by Bobby Petrino, another old man who once dealt with scandalous life issues away from the field. “Happy to start the season off on the right note,” said quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., who transferred from Wisconsin and threw for 232 yards. “We got a lot of stuff to clean up, but at least we can do it in the victory column.”

These are laughable new times in college football, where Louisiana has advanced jambalaya lunacy in courtrooms and threatens to give Lane Kiffin a victory over the SEC, the NCAA — and the NFL. Seven years ago, he coached at Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton, Fla. This Thursday, LSU could convince in-state judges to change the identity world as we’ve always know it. Will a crew of NFL rejects — Dae’Quan Wright, Zxavian Harris and Jack Pyburn — enter Tiger Stadium wearing purple and gold?

If so, why wouldn’t Bill Belichick win a game he was supposed to lose? Please wear a shoulder harness and a back brace this season. Anything — and I mean anything — is possible.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Because the exhilarated masses will watch any game in any country involving two of 32 teams, the league never has a “big story” issue. The NBA, for instance, carries on with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown in Philadelphia and Giannis Antetokounmpo — maybe Kyrie Irving — in Miami. Pro football only hopes for the Rams and waits for Caleb (Madden) Williams, but the Chiefs remain in the forefront as former champions who brushed the edge of a dynasty.

You aren’t dawdling. They are madly relevant.

Can they still win the conference? All eyes are on Mahomes, who hasn’t played in the preseason and will be ready Sept. 14 in Kansas City, where Swift should be in a suite with her mom-in-law and dad-in-law on Monday night. A major chore in recent months was deciding if he remains the best quarterback among starters. I had him fourth, shoot me. At the moment, he is not better than Josh Allen, Matthew Stafford and even Joe Burrow, who must overcome his endless health issues. I also suggest Mahomes could be Comeback Player of the Year.

If he will fall short of Tom Brady’s seven championships — he is not winning four, when the Chiefs are being reconstructed — Mahomes has wowed everyone with his poise and perseverance. He easily could have eased off his rehabilitation process, knowing he’s a multiple champion with three Super Bowl MVPs and two league MVPs. His team even acquired running back Kenneth Walker III, last seen winning an MVP for Seattle in mid-February. He can rumble when the quarterback needs help.

In the end, a quick return to title form will depend on his arm, his clutch drama and whatever improvisation remains. He still has Kelce, his close pal. He has receivers in Rashee Rice, fresh out of jail, and Xavier Worthy. Andy Reid remains his coach and a father figure. The Chiefs have to beat Denver and the Chargers in the AFC West — not simple — and get past Buffalo and Baltimore to reach a Super Bowl. Most people think the goal is beyond Mahomes. Don’t tell him.

His workouts have been a proving ground. He doesn’t let his knee interrupt his preparation. He doesn’t allow his accomplishments to blind him.

“I try to not make those hard cuts, but at the end of the day, I’m a competitor,” Mahomes said this week. “It just kind of takes over sometimes. You want to still prove it to yourself that you can do it. I’ve been able to do that in certain spots of making quick, reactionary cuts, which I think is the biggest thing. I’ve felt great doing it.

“The coaches kind of come up to me, like, ‘Hey, let’s calm down a little bit.’ Just being a competitor, I want to go out there and win and give everything I have for the team at all times.”

He says his body has responded. The knee might restrict his ability to run. Watch him in the fourth quarter, when he faces 3rd-and-10. “It’s nine months. It’s the amount of time (doctors) said from the beginning, that if I did everything the right way, I would be ready to play Week 1,” Mahomes said. “I’m someone that, if you put (a goal) out in front of me, I want to go out and get it and maximize every single opportunity, every rep in the weight room, every hour that I can spend in the building to get my body right. This has always been the plan. From the day I got the surgery, as quick as I did, to the first game of the year, the plan will go accordingly, and I’ll be able to go out there and be myself.”

The earth moved when Kelce showed up for camp in St. Joseph, 56 miles north of Kansas City. When he spoke about Swift, he referred to her as his “wife.” Will Swifties ever be the same? Why Madison Square Garden for the wedding?

“MSG, man. You know, I always told myself I’d go for a playoff game when the Knicks were rocking. Then my wife went when I was stuck in minicamp, so I didn’t get my opportunity to go then,” Kelce said. “So it’s kind of cool to be able to live out my childhood dream of being in that venue, the Mecca of all sports venues, being able to get married in there. I can’t thank the owners of MSG for allowing us to get the opportunity to do that, knowing we wanted a private event and everything, so it was perfect. And the AC was perfect, man, that’s the best part.”

The ceremony was spectacular, as acknowledged by those who attended. Among them: Mahomes and his wife. “Everybody knows I love that guy. That’s a brother to me,” Kelce said. “I’m so proud of the way he handled adversity from last year to right now. If you see him out here, he’s enjoying the game, competing at a high level and not thinking about the knee. He’s playing his tail off and leading us.”

The league is thankful for Kelce as he returns for his 13th season. Swift’s presence has spawned newcomers in the girlfriend rage: You will see Madison Beer, fiancee of Justin Herbert; Olivia Ponton, who hangs with Burrow; and Marissa Ayers, girlfriend of Jaxson Dart. The NFL knows what sells. At some point, Swift might agree to sing at the Super Bowl. She would prefer if the Chiefs are playing.

“I’ve still got a lot of love for this game,” Kelce said. “I want to go out there and prove to myself that I can play at a better level than I did last year. That’s probably the biggest thing for me, is making sure I’m accountable to the guys in this (locker) room and every single play that I’m out there. When we get stuck with adversity hitting, who’s going to want to be in that foxhole with you? I want to be one of those guys everybody counts on to get us out of that foxhole.”

Already, we see Mahomes smiling. He leaped in celebration when Harrison Butker made a 69-yard field goal last week. We’ve always viewed two men in bright scarlet as reasons to enjoy the sport.cHere we are again.

“I just love football,” Mahomes said. “It’s such a cool sport. It takes everybody. (Butker) hitting that field goal — I was as excited, I think, as he was, seeing your teammates succeed. I want to have fun and just enjoy being out there on the field again. I am pretty excited.”

The Seahawks were dominant last season. The Chiefs are masters of emotions. Aaron Rodgers? Mike Vrabel? Kyle Shanahan? Caleb?

I have binoculars on No. 15.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

The NFL has killed the Pro Bowl. It’s time for Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL to end their games. You won’t even notice they’re gone. So many fakes were replacing the greats. We need truth in All-Star Games, not more farces.

Football can’t play real events because of health issues and was reduced to a flag variety, which is bogus and dropped ratings to an abysmal 1.9. Baseball didn’t have a supreme being (Shohei Ohtani) and the hottest pitcher (Jacob Misiorowski) among a variety of prominent souls blowing off the July 14 game, whether they were resting or hurt or not hurt at all. The NBA has tried every imaginable scenario and usually has to apologize via commissioner Adam Silver. Hockey? Not even the puckheads watch.

There is no traction. The networks tease viewers with silly promos, even when Fox showed Ohtani front and center when he announced he wasn’t playing. As usual, the NFL saw extinction instead of lame survival. The league will name 88 players to its Pro Bowl class in late December and not play a game for the first time since 1938. The idea is to reward those who deserve acclaim. Let them wave and smile. They don’t need to wear uniforms and pads.

“You’ve heard me say it for many years about the quality of the game in the Pro Bowl. I don’t think it’s up to NFL standards,” commissioner Roger Goodell said this week. “When was the last time we played a game in a football sense? I think this is something we talked to players about, the Pro Bowl players in particular. We had conference calls the last couple years: What’s working? What’s not? What would you like to see? And the No. 1 thing that came out — and there were a lot of wonderful comments — one is: ‘We want to be honored and celebrated as a Pro Bowl player.’ It just opened my eyes. I never really thought about it in the context of that.

“It’s honoring the guys selected by the fans, by the players, by the coaches. And so that was really the core of it: How do we do this in the right way? It’s something that we felt strongly about. And I think our players, they deserve to be celebrated when they get the Pro Bowl honor.”

Enough with politicians who gather to celebrate All-Star Games. Though baseball might be shelved by labor warfare next July, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts brought out all the big hitters to a news conference in an old-school American burg. Will Ohtani play? Will all the best pitchers say no again? What exactly will people be commemorating at Wrigley Field, built in 1914?

“I am thrilled that the 2027 MLB All-Star Game will be hosted at Wrigley in Chicago and that baseball fans from around the world get to experience all that our city has to offer,” Governor JB Pritzker said. “There is simply no place like Wrigley, and the State of Illinois looks forward to working with the Cubs to prepare the storied ballpark and one-of-a-kind neighborhood for this historic event.”

Historic? When owners lock out players for the longest of impasses, that would be history. “On behalf of the City of Chicago, I am thrilled to welcome the 2027 MLB All-Star Game to our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Chicago is a baseball city, we have the experience, the infrastructure, and the unmatched spirit to host world-class events and we are thrilled to welcome MLB players and fans from across the country to Wrigleyville. Many thanks to MLB and the Cubs organization for their commitment to Chicago and to meaningfully engage with our communities ahead of the event.”

Engage in what? Where? When the dunk contest and three-point contest stopped featuring the elite, the NBA lost substantial interest in the All-Star Game. Last year, in late February, they gained a few audience digits when the U.S. faced the World. As it is, the league makes players participate in the NBA Cup tournament in November. Then Silver has his ASG and asks fans to rally around their homelands.

The planet isn’t a place where basketball can soothe tensions. Silver is better off having someone tank games in Phoenix. Kevin Durant took shots at the World team. “You should ask the Europeans and the World if they’re going to compete,” he said. “If you look at Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic now, let’s go back and look at what they do in the All-Star Game. Is that competition? These two dudes out there, Luka and Jokic, they don’t care about the game at all. These dudes be laying on the floor. They’re shooting from half court.”

The leagues advertise their products as the best. The All-Star Game might be the worst. “You come off the championship games, and the viewers see the physicality of the game and you try to replicate that. Frankly, it just doesn’t sit well,” said Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president. “This isn’t a good representation.”

So say goodbye to the Pro Bowl. Soon, say goodbye to the other games. Too much money is made today to support ancient renditions. The finest athletes appreciate the tributes — which lift performance incentives — but send them home for three days.

Wait for the championship games. Why bother with banality?

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Once it was clear that Lane Kiffin would stare them down like Zeus, in regard to two NFL rejects who want to play at LSU, the monsters fired back. The SEC, led by a commissioner who had fun with Kiffin on Media Day, will destroy Baton Rouge if a tight end and defensive lineman play next Saturday against Clemson. The conference will suspend the new coach a half-season and issue fines that equal 50 percent of the school’s annual football budget. Has anyone thought about Dae’Quan Wright, who left the Cleveland Browns, and Zxavian Harris, who left the New Orleans Saints?

They wanted to play at LSU and sued, with Kiffin’s help. They will not play unless Cajun Lane finds his own attorneys and wages battles in court, which would distract dozens of players on the roster and badger purple-and-gold-colored fans if the Tigers don’t challenge for a national title. Imagine what might happen if Mike VII, the tiger who lives near the stadium, turns his Siberian-Bengal mix into vicious mascot growls?

Get that Greg Sankey, Kiffin will yell.

Next week will feature court dates. “The SEC’s actions put the NCAA in contempt of multiple court orders,” attorney Ryan Downton, who represents Wright, said in a statement. “It is cartel-like conduct when NCAA conferences attempt to create their own spur of the moment rules in response to Courts enjoining those same rules at the NCAA level.” At some point, Kiffin will have to protect his bigger cause and sit the rejects. But what will happen to them this season? The NCAA, thanks to its own mismanagement, allowed players to use a fifth season of eligibility this season. The coach wisely pursued Wright, Harris and potentially others. They could mean the difference between winning a national championship and an early elimination.

“They’re either going to play for you or they’re going to play somewhere else around the country,” Kiffin said.

“We think him playing at LSU this season would be more beneficial than what an NFL team would have to offer,” said Drew Rosenhaus, Wright’s agent.

But next came the NFL, which put together an urgent memo reminding teams to abandon thoughts of resigning players who’ve returned to college. Say Wright catches more touchdown passes, after scoring five times last year at Ole Miss, where Kiffin was the coach until he left in late November. Wouldn’t the Browns make a new play?

The new Cleveland coach, Todd Monken, originally claimed Kiffin called him last week. Wrong, said Kiffin. “There’s some inaccuracies in that story, but I don’t know. Maybe someone else called him and said they were me,” Kiffin said. “Actually, I don’t know Todd, so I guess somebody left him a text or called and said they were me, but I don’t have his number.”

Monken wound up changing his story. “One of our staff had said that they’d gotten a text. I should have followed through with it. Maybe they meant someone from their staff, right? That’s on me,” he said. “I shouldn’t throw someone’s name out there without following through on it. I was just making light of it. I really wasn’t trying to make a big thing of it. It was just like, ‘Man, what in this world we’ve come to,’ and I shouldn’t have thrown that out there, right? To me, hey, I can’t control this. It was almost like silliness and goofiness, like, really? This is what we’ve come to, where guys can be here and go back to college?”

Consider it typical college football chaos that always favors commissioners and never the players. The Big 12 joined the fray Wednesday night. At some point, starting Saturday, it’s time to watch Bill Belichick try to stay employed at North Carolina and Lincoln Riley try to stay employed at USC. Then, the following weekend, we watch Indiana and Ohio State and Oregon and Georgia and Texas and Notre Dame.

Nothing else in our sports lives is impacted by such non-stop b.s. I was rooting for Kiffin because he tried to use a loophole. Roger Goodell joined Sankey and the Big 10’s Tony Petitti in closing it. Are they thinking about Wright and Harris?

Who? And who?

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Does he need to be penalized more severely? See the video and cringe. He is likely to remain in charge of the team unless he decides to go away. Unlike New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, whose bodycam footage was destroyed at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa, York’s dirty deeds were captured on camera for viral madness. He was wearing his wedding ring, sadly, and all I can remember is the day he stopped me at a Super Bowl and said hello. He attended Notre Dame. He was about to take over daily duties running the 49ers from his parents, John and Denise York.

He wanted to talk. To me?

What would I tell him, from what I know now? I’d ask him to apologize immediately, at a news conference at Levi’s Stadium, and carry on as the supervisor of a prominent franchise that could win a Super Bowl. I would have him clean up his life, to never pay $140 for a website hooker, and to understand how everyone on the planet has rough moments. That includes me.

Sixteen years ago this month, I was charred. I lost my cool outside a bar in Santa Monica, Calif., and was stopped by cops. One called me filthy names and almost shattered my spine. What happened to me that night never happened in previous years and hasn’t happened since, as I’ve lived happily. My attorney told me I’d have walked away if I wasn’t an eight-year daily analyst on ESPN’s “Around The Horn” program. But people demanded my soul. They included, among others, Todd Boehly, who became a minority co-owner of the Dodgers and chairman of Premier League club Chelsea.

Living in Los Angeles from 2010 to 2025, I ran into Boehly in a bar in Venice and heard him badmouth me. That was about as weird as it got for me. ESPN wanted me. The newspaper business wanted me. The sports industry wanted me. Jerry Reinsdorf ripped me in the Chicago Sun-Times, which almost resulted in a lawsuit. And though my case was expunged and I am living a great life in Paris and Boca Raton — while still writing a storm — no one on the landscape got the story right. What I’d tell York is that Wikipedia has killed me, and I wonder about my obituary. All because newspaper people suck, including the lies told back then by Deadspin, which has been Deadspun for years. Once you’re in a cage, they don’t release you.

“Just driving,” York told the police in East Palestine.

Was he meeting anyone? “No,” York said.

He was arrested. “Can I ask what you’re doing?” York said.

Said one officer: “That one was easy.”

“Super easy,” the second officer replied.

“He’s got more cash in his wallet. He’s got s—loads of cash,” the first cop said.

“He’s got all the money,” the other officer said. “Wow. It’s crazy the people that do this. They could do whatever they want, they could do other things, they could go other ways. It’s wild.”

The man is troubled. A handcuffed York might thrill 49ers fans, who await their first title since 1995. The case is over. If he continues to pursue a divorce against Danielle, the season still begins in two weeks in Australia. He should be in Melbourne.

“I got to talk to Jed the last two days and today,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “Obviously, it’s a very tough situation. I mean, views for the organization going forward is the same as usual. There won’t be any difference in that, but I know it’s extremely fresh. I think it’s a very, very personal situation. I’ve got a lot of respect for Jed. I got a lot of respect for Danielle. Their family does mean a lot to me. So, with it being this personal, I’m trying as hard as I can to keep it that way.”

The players know the story. They aren’t impacted. “From a football standpoint, it has no effect on us,” Shanahan said. “As far as what we do day-to-day, what we talk about. It hasn’t been mentioned in a meeting today, it doesn’t have to do with what happens on the field. Everything outside of there, I think you guys can judge that better than me.”

Said linebacker Fred Warner: “We’re all aware. It really wasn’t a conversation being had in the locker room. Of course, yeah, you noticed it, but at the same time we’re so hyperfocused in this building of trying to prepare for Week 1. A lot of guys are on the bubble trying to make the team. So, we’re just trying to get better as a football team and that’s a personal situation, let it stay personal with him.”

Roger Goodell is beyond bothered. Unlike Kraft, who remains a powerful figure, York is a 46-year-old dude who obviously must grow up. “It’s being reviewed under the personal conduct policy,” the commissioner said at the owners’ meetings. “We’ll do that and when there’s something to be reported, we’ll talk.”

Lose weight. Dump the silly t-shirt. Put on a suit and look like the owner and CEO of the five-time champion 49ers. Jim Irsay was suspended six games amid a drug haze. He returned to the NFL.

So will York, who still has his $140 and a franchise worth $8.6 billion. Al Guido might be a better boss in Santa Clara. But under Goodell, who is serving the people signing his massive paychecks, every owner gets a break when the rest of us have no rescuers.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Walter needed weeks to respond and even sent the team’s president and CEO, Stan Kasten, to defend him last Friday. Finally, we have heard from the man — or his holding company, TWG Global — in claiming he wasn’t playing dirty with insurance companies to illegally front his business empire. Remember: Whatever he says still has to clear a major probe. This is what Walter wants us to know after he sold the Lakers for $12.5 billion to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger.

“It is important to set the record straight. TWG stands firmly behind the integrity of its business and remains focused on continuing to deliver value to its stakeholders. Despite what has been reported, there has been no fraud,” the statement said.

“Over the past several weeks, multipronged attacks against TWG have been advanced by unnamed sources with self-serving interests that have been reported in the media,” the statement said.

“There is no victim here. No one has been harmed, and no one has claimed they were harmed,” the statement said.

“TWG is not looking to sell its sports assets at ‘fire sale’ prices to raise capital for its insurance operations,” the statement said.

Through it all, Walter peddled the Lakers in the most stunning sale in sports history, less than a year after he acquired the NBA team from Jeanie Buss. He also plans on selling his stake in Premier League club Chelsea. If he thinks the world will believe every word he says, well, no chance. But finally, he said something that counters the global mood.

“Mr. Walter was approached by Josh Kushner and his team about this transaction and the agreement represents a 25 percent premium to the price paid by Mr. Walter less than a year ago — hardly a ‘fire sale,’ ’’ the statement said.

Hocus Pocus. What is trustable in sports? Anything? Anyone?

Is it Kalshi, which is cutting deals with five prominent baseball franchises including the Boston Red Sox — though the Massachusetts attorney general is suing the shady prediction market? Doesn’t commissioner Rob Manfred have enough trouble involving gambling and players, such as Ketel Marte in Arizona, as the game fades into a toxic shutdown in about three months? Why embrace Kalshi when Manfred should crush it?

Do you trust The Athletic, which has given us Dianna Russini’s Vrabellian fallout without an official editorial explanation, when it seeks Kalshi for a sponsorship deal? The website is owned by the New York Times — which led all coverage Tuesday with Pulitzer Prize winner John Branch’s piece on recurring CTE In football — and has no more room for b.s. between Russini and Pablo Torre’s reporting inconsistencies?

And do you trust ESPN’s highly compensated league insiders? Adam Schefter, who normally is obsessed with every colossal story, continues to raise suspicions when he avoids two sensational topics concerning the San Francisco 49ers. Owner Jed York was busted in a small Ohio town seeking a prostitute — why is Tom Schad doing the reporting and not Schefter? And why did it require 11 full days before Schefter put his name on coach Kyle Shanahan’s nasty car wreck?

How does the network sell Schefter as a tireless know-it-all when he runs away from subjects that embarrass a franchise? Does he actually work for the NFL, which owns 10 percent of ESPN and asks him to lay off? Why would we watch a sellout who protects a friend? Aren’t American fans too smart for corporate junk?

And what about Jeff Passan, the network’s baseball insider? Do you realize he went on YouTube — not on ESPN — to openly defend the Dodgers? Suddenly, he shows up on a side program with the title: “Sources tell Jeff Passan.” If his content didn’t appear on the actual network, why give it airtime?

“The full story that helps separate fact from fiction,” he said.

Um, did he read Walter’s statement before BusinessWire ran it? “I have no evidence — and no other media member has reported any — that the Dodgers did anything that ran afoul of the CBA,” Passan said. “Beyond that, the government is focused more on procedural questions — the mismarking of affiliated investments and a web of companies under Guggenheim’s umbrella — than anything specifically related to the Dodgers. You are well within your rights to assume whatever you want to assume, and if you want to suggest there was some kind of fraud that specifically impacted on-field performance, you do you.

“I’m not going to do that because I have no idea how the money they received from selling the debt on their TV network, for example, was used. I wasn’t being naive when I said the Dodgers cracked the system. They did. They recognized that cash is a grand separator in terms of securing talent and CBT thresholds should be no impediment. You know who else did? The Mets. And they stunk. Every billionaire has access to cash. Not as much as the Dodgers, certainly, but if they want to get more capital to invest in their team, they can. They choose not to. And that is well within their rights, too, but to suggest that because Mark Walter is under investigation for one business’ tactics that it automatically ties into another’s — with zero hard evidence showing that’s the case — is simply a case of you fitting what you think you know to a conclusion you already made.”

As for a fan who doubted him and called him out, Passan said: “Better late and thorough than early and inaccurate. I talk about things when I’m comfortable I know the material. This was a completely foreign subject that warranted time to understand and present in a way that would be accessible to fans. Your impatience is not my problem.”

Being correct is Passan’s problem. If Walter sells the Dodgers, what will he say? Just know ESPN has a deal with baseball through the 2028 season. I don’t know who is worse: Schefter in hiding or Passan playing bodyguard? On the same day he spoke, the Wall Street Journal and the Times came out with more stories condemning Walter. Are we belieiving those publications? Or Passan on YouTube?

Kalshi has deals with the Dodgers — yes, they did it — along with the Red Sox, Braves, Giants and Padres. At Dodger Stadium, the Gold Glove Bar is renamed the Kalshi 435 Club. Inside Madison Square Garden, owner Jim Dolan has erected a Kalshi Concourse sign. What if Kalshi implodes?

“The idea is that fans are already engaging with their favorite teams on Kalshi, so it only makes sense to extend that fandom to some of the most beloved baseball teams in America,” said Adam Barrick, Kalshi’s head of sports partnerships.

The Dodgers also had a comment. Hmmm. “The Dodgers are always looking for innovative ways to connect with our fans, and Kalshi represents an exciting new category,” said Lorenzo Sciarrino, the team’s SVP of global partnerships.

If we’ve never trusted sports, 2026 is the year when owners, teams and analysts think they can get away with anything. In the end, see if they survive. Otherwise, they are frauds, which is the very word Mark Walter is denouncing.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

In a few days, America The Beautiful will be immersed in a football culture. Teens open seasons — defending Class 6A state champion West Boca Raton plays defending 4A state champ American Heritage Plantation, here in South Florida — before Week O introduces collegians who can play for pro teams and return as collegians.

Welcome to the supremacy of sport.

And an unnoticeable death watch.

No one even thinks about players who lose lives on fields. Does the peril cross your mind? It certainly should, as word arrives that CTE killed one in four NFL players who passed away between 2016 and 2021. Why would parents allow children to participate when circumstances remain dire? Explain how football continues to boom with such resonance that commissioner Roger Goodell says at least one permanent franchise will exist outside the U.S., if not many more. When 125.6 million viewers watch the Super Bowl and tens of millions see an average game — in a deluge bigger than any other entertainment form in this country — there is no thought about degenerative brain diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Yet off we go again, after a frightening notation that most ignored. Of 878 players who died during those six years, at least 25 percent had CTE, according to the British Medical Journal. If you view a 53-man roster, 13 will have CTE. The NFL always turns around the details and claims safety has been closely monitored in recent years. The game is a killer, period. And fans don’t care because they’re too busy rooting and wagering and drinking.

It’s too late to end American football. We’ve read the same stories decade after decade, with the Players Association repeatedly voicing the harshest realities. No one ever stops a kickoff. The NFL and even college football — despite issues involving NIL, transfers and egomaniacal conference bosses — are destined to carry a monstrous position in our annual routines. When people in other nations ask about our sports scene, I answer football, football and football before getting around to basketball and what remains of baseball.

Men play the game. Men die playing the game.

America says: So what?

“This study is a sobering reminder that football carries real risks, and those risks can have lasting consequences for players and their families,” said the NFLPA, after the New York Times ran the story atop its website. “It also reinforces one of the NFLPA’s core priorities: improving player safety and supporting players throughout their lives, both during and after their careers. The findings should serve as a call to action across the entire football ecosystem. We all share a responsibility to advance research, improve access to care, develop better treatments, and support those affected by the long-term impacts of the game.”

The long-term impact is a challenge to remain alive. Kids are told to avoid blows to the head, but ultimately, the brain will be bashed often. The game is marketed in such an uplifting way, we disregard brain trauma when star players help in the community before scoring points for fantasy nuts.

Does anyone say no to football? Basketball requires size and skills. Without Shohei Ohtani and Pete Crow-Armstrong, baseball lacks its previous sizzle. Kids grasp the dangers when they put on pads. “That’s the reality of the game. I think we all know what we sign up for,” Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said. “The reality of the game is that it’s aggressive. It’s violent. We’re out here running at each other. These are the best athletes in the world playing on one field. You’re going full speed running into each other. That’s the type of stuff that can happen.”

Why would the NFL care? It deals with deaths and tragic studies. Goodell doesn’t deal with the bad news, preferring to insist on expanding overseas. Does he realize the Paris newspaper, Le Monde, has yet to publicize the Steelers-Saints game at Stade de France in October? Teams will continue to show up, like Beyonce or Bruno Mars in concert, but they are American doo-dads when soccer always will be king.

How about saying something meaningful about the latest CTE report? The return message is deflective. “The NFL continuously strives to make the game of football safer, including by implementing strategies to reduce concussions and head impacts,” the league said in a statement. “The NFL remains committed to ensuring that the NFL community has access to a robust — and expanding — set of resources to enhance their physical and mental well-being.”

Well-being isn’t the appropriate term.

Stop players from dying.

One in four, National Football League. Live with that.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Excuse me, but why do conference commissioners overrule a judge’s injunction?

Please sit down, Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti. If the judge says otherwise, you’re correct. Until then, the pickled prince of Baton Rouge will use former NFL players if they are eligible this season. Kiffin isn’t in favor of the bizarre circumstance. But as we saw last year, when he left Ole Miss for a potent new gig, he’ll do what is possible to contend for a national championship. Turns out Wright and Harris played for Bayou Lane in Oxford.

Welcome back and tell us about Deshaun Watson and Bourbon Street, kids.

“Over 100 athletes in multiple sports were cleared and said you could go play. That is a court order,” Kiffin said. “If you think back on all the different court orders of great players that were granted — whether that’s Diego Pavia or, now, Trinidad (Chambliss) that were allowed to play a sixth year, we followed all court orders. I think you get into a really interesting situation as a conference if you’re now saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to follow this court order.’ These kids that a court says can go anywhere, we’re going to say, ‘No you can’t.’ ’’

So off Kiffin goes, heading into Tiger Stadium with NFL rejects. Will he force Sankey and Petitti to spend more money and call more lawyers? This is a one-year rule that burned the NCAA, which didn’t recognize players could seek a fifth year of eligibility. Let’s set politics aside, please, and play the damned season.

Petitti chose to fire back Tuesday, saying in a statement: “The Big Ten Conference announced the unanimous adoption of a conference rule to prohibit football players who have signed a professional contract, were on a professional roster at any point or declared for the NFL Draft as an underclassman without withdrawing, from maintaining eligibility for athletic competition at a conference institution. The conference continues to evaluate potential rules restricting professional athletes in other sports from conference competition.”

Great. Tell the judge.

Said the SEC: “College athletes, not former professional athletes, have been at the heart of the Southeastern Conference. Individuals who choose to leave college athletics, sign professional playing contracts, and compete professionally should not then be permitted to return to college competition. Allowing that to occur will blur the line between college and professional sports, create significant competitive equity concerns, and reduce opportunities for high school and current college athletes. College sports are for college athletes. The current confusion around national eligibility standards emphasizes the need to advance the Protect College Sports Act.”

The what? The Protect College Sports Act? I thought President Trump was working on the narrative with Nick Saban. That didn’t help?

“In my opinion, knowing the information, I think it’s really wrong to be critical of these kids,” Kiffin said. “They were granted a fifth year by a judge saying that they were wronged by the NCAA and that they should’ve had the fifth year all along like all the kids moving forward will have a fifth year. In general, should NFL players come back to college? I believe — it doesn’t matter necessarily what I believe — that answer would be no. I think every circumstance should be looked at differently.”

The NCAA remains intact, apparently. Why wasn’t a ruling made earlier this year instead of allowing stink to reek in late August? Said the NCAA, firing at judges: “Courts across the country granting relief to ineligible athletes who already had every opportunity to compete in college — sometimes without even having a hearing — are failing to appreciate the destabilizing effect their rulings are having on college sports. The lawyers bringing these cases seemingly won’t be satisfied until every professional athlete can treat college sports as a fallback option, regardless of the opportunities it strips from both those who will never have a chance to begin their collegiate sports experience and those who are currently on campus working out with the team and attending classes. Thankfully, Congress can right this wrong by passing the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act and ensure student-athletes can have a level playing field with rules that apply fairly to everyone.”

The Protect College Sports Act makes me want to hurl. The first game to watch arrives Saturday, when Bill Belichick tries to keep his North Carolina job in Dublin. That would be in Ireland, which is far enough away to appreciate first downs and pass rushes and ignore the usual U.S. jumble. I will watch LSU next week and hope Wright catches passes as a tight end and Harris tackles a quarterback as a lineman.

“I believe that my job is to LSU and the LSU people that hired me and the fans,” Kiffin said.

“A business decision,” Harris said on Instagram.

The NFL and college football are intense industries. They are bound together as one, absurd as it seems. Kick off.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

He would be Rob Manfred, the commissioner, who continues to defend baseball’s partnerships with gambling companies. And when Marte preferred to be in the casino instead of rejoining the Arizona Diamondbacks — who remain in a wild-card race in the National League — you wonder how Manfred will explain his money-first approach when it ultimately could impact players. Nothing is worse for the sport, which will be going away in a labor shutdown in about three months, than a star performer who crams his true desires up the keisters of his bosses.

Roulette over an RBI.

A wheel over a win.

Yet Marte, who abandoned his team in Boston without an explanation, somehow will be welcomed back to the D-Backs without a formal punishment. The manager, Torey Lovullo, prefers to make excuses for him instead of issuing a suspension. He is expected back next Monday. Why so much goo for someone who blew off the team?

“We’re trying to create the softest space for him to reemerge in this environment,” Lovullo said. “That’s up to him, however he wants to do it. I cannot force a human being to do something that I want to do, or anybody in this room wants to do, or a fan wants to do. One of the things that makes Ketel such an extraordinary player is he goes to the beat of his own drum. I respect that.”

So the drummer rules when the skipper folds. Please don’t boo him, Lovullo told fans in Phoenix. “Ketel is a very loving young man,” he said. “I don’t want (booing) to happen. I understand it’s a possibility it could happen, but we’ll all rally around him.”

His rationale is strange, if not divisive. Thursday, Marte met with officials and was allowed to have treatment on his left knee. The next night, he was at Talking Stick when he should have joined teammates for a game at Chase Field.

“The optics wasn’t very good,” Lovullo said. “It’s not a choice I would make. I’m sure it’s a choice a lot of people in this room wouldn’t make. Ketel is a grown man, and he can make his own decisions. He did not break any rules. He was fully able to go there and do what he wanted to do.

“He makes his own decisions. When he’s here in the clubhouse, we work together on a lot of things. Not just him, all the players. They have their own lives, and they can do whatever they want in their free time.”

Their own lives? Marte makes $116.5 million in a six-year deal. We all have our own lives, but for at least 162 times a year, his mind should be at the ballpark. He still hasn’t spoken to his teammates, who are baffled. He leads the team with 21 home runs and 67 RBI. We saw him at his best in 2024, when won the MVP award in the NL Championship Series. If this team has any postseason chance against the Dodgers, Brewers, Braves, Phillies and Cubs, the D-Backs need him to show up and dominate.

If not, trade him. The Red Sox wanted him in the offseason. They couldn’t possibly want him now. “For us to go where we want to go, we’ve got to have him here,” pitcher Kevin Ginkel said. “It’s disappointing how the things that happened, happened. There’s really no explanation for it. I think a lot of players are kind of frustrated with it. People have stuff going on off the field that we have to push through. I think it’s important for us to rely on each other if there is some stuff going on off the field that we can fall back on.”

“Ketel Marte is ruining his Diamondbacks legacy, and there’s no end in sight,” read the headline over Dan Bickley’s column.

Does Marte have a gambling problem? Two years ago, CJ Abrams was out until 8 a.m. at Bally’s Casino in Chicago. The Washington Nationals had a game at 1:20 p.m. He remained on the team and has hit 29 homers with 91 RBI this season, and maybe Lovullo is finding hope from Abrams.

But Marte has taken advantage of the soft Diamondbacks. He is more dangerous than, of course, the cactus.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

What in the name of treacherous human activity was Jed York, principal owner of the San Francisco 49ers, showing up thousands of miles from his two sons to pay $140 for a website prostitute? He likely will be protected by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who let Bob Kraft carry on as New England Patriots owner after his Asia Day sexual conquests and suspended Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay for six games after he drove on oxycodone and hydrocodone.

Irsay eventually died. Maybe the boss should kick some ass? York filed for divorce from his wife, Danielle, on May 11 and said differences were “irreconcilable.” Some men seek sexual guidance amid marital issues, but Wheat Hill was not the place.

When York showed up at the police station to be booked, he looked defeated as a 46-year-old man worth more than $500 million. He grew up in Youngstown and looked awful in an orange t-shirt, rarely rising past 5 feet 8 on the screen. It is not an incident that Goodell and the owners can minimize. York has failed to win a Super Bowl, with the franchise’s last one coming in 1995, and is bothered by nothing but problems in Santa Clara. His head coach, Kyle Shanahan, was involved in a wicked car accident last month when he should have been charged with handling a cellphone — he was not, though the driver of the vehicle he hit was originally charged.

Was York involved with the authorities? Why did Shanahan slide? We do know ESPN insider Adam Schefter, who is close to Shanahan and the 49ers, waited 11 days before reporting the accident. At one point, the coach blamed a clerical error on an online database. Try using that with the insurance company when you’re in a wreck. The team has sustained a large degree of injuries while practicing next to Levi’s Stadium, far from what once was Candlestick Park. Is it because an electrical substation has weakened soft tissues and tendons? York is the one who approved the field.

As an important businessman, York should know the story is perilous. He has been a heavy politician in Santa Clara County and is viewed as a youngster among the old men in the owners’ room. He took over daily control of the team from his parents, John and Denise York, in 2008 and assumed primary ownership in 2024. His uncle, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., ran the team in the glory years — five Super Bowl titles — but a gambling fraud scandal forced him to relinquish the team to his parents.

The NFL says it will review York’s arrest “under the personal conduct policy.” The details are loose: York showed up after reading an undercover ad about a “known prostitution website and arranged to have sexual activity.” He grew up in Youngstown and could buy the town. Instead, he offers $140 and was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct in a plea agreement. The 49ers said they are “aware of the matter which will be reviewed under the personal conduct policy.” He pleaded no contest and paid $150 for the conduct charge and $1,000 for a criminal tools charge. The police didn’t explain the tools.

What was York thinking? He is fortunate he won’t deal with Kraft’s legal battles in South Florida. “This was routine for someone facing those types of charges in our area and not having a history of this type of criminal conduct in his past,” said Vito Abruzzino, Columbiana County prosecutor, speaking of the plea bargain with ESPN.

These are difficult times for the 49ers, who are relying on Brock Purdy to deliver on his $265 million contract. They are in a division with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams — the best two teams in the NFL. They’ll head to Australia soon and prepare to play the Rams at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Rams are owned by Stan Kroenke, who thinks he’ll win another Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. The Rams are coached by Sean McVay, who doesn’t get into car wrecks. The Rams are quarterbacked by Matthew Stafford, the league MVP.

The Niners? Jed York was in an orange t-shirt with a hairy chest.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

We’re supposed to let life happen in this scenario.

A chuckle or two would help.

Sunday night, Kanter Freedom showed up in Chicago for a game between the Sky and Indiana Fever. Fans chastised him entering Wintrust Arena, seeing the messages on his black t-shirt: “WOMAN noun adult human female.” He was creating another war in another building when the league is overwhelmed by gender identity battles, as he wanted someone in a team uniform to approach him at courtside.

Natasha Cloud did. In the third quarter, the Sky guard screamed at him as he stretched his arms and stepped onto the court. Was the WNBA ready for another unprecedented incident? Were the police in place? Cloud vs. Kanter Freedom? That was better than Alyssa Thomas trying to choke Clark and DeJonai Carrington heaving Cunningham to the court. As he was prepared to fight, security officers intercepted him and kicked him out of the arena. After he played to the crowd and tugged his shirt, Kanter grabbed his cellphone a few minutes later.

“I just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN! Let that sink in, AMERICA!” Kanter Freedom wrote. “It’s always women hating on other women.”

When Cunningham made this remark to ESPN — “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” — it unleashed a storm of caustic reaction. Who was inclusive about transgender athletes? Who was not? Does it no longer matter who is playing well and which teams win the games? Joe Rogan described the WNBA as “mostly big black gay ladies and a few scared-looking Sophie Cunninghams.” It explains why Kanter Freedom showed up, to create more headlines.

I am guilty. I keep writing it. And you keep reading it, because the stories grasp what is vague about our existence. Kanter Freedom says he was waived in 2022 when he criticized the NBA’s business relationship with China, which commissioner Adam Silver denies. The next year, he aimed at Cloud, who said “our country is trash in so many ways” when a designer refused to help same-sex couples with websites.

“Calling America trash huh?” Kanter Freedom wrote. “Let me know when your season is over, I’ll buy your ticket and we can go together to counties like China, Russia, IRAN, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, & Turkey. Forget about calling them trash, I would like to see if you can even criticize those regimes!! … People have NO idea how lucky and blessed they are to be in a country like America. I’m not saying America is perfect, but trust me, you don’t wanna see the other side.”

Cloud didn’t speak to the media after a 113-90 loss, but she responded to Kanter Freedom on Threads. “To every trans kid/person, You are apart of MY community & tribe. You belong. You’re loved. You’re seen,” she wrote. “You’re perfect as you are & you will always be protected by me.”

Friday night, when sex toys were thrown onto the court in Chicago, Cloud fired at the fans. “That hate is unwarranted ... and it says more about the internal struggles of that individual than it ever will say about the collective group (they have a problem with),” she said. “And the men that are throwing it, it shows that you are weak. Like, extremely weak. And it says a lot about how you feel about women.”

A day rarely passes without another WNBA episode. The attention inspires some of them, such as Cunningham, who always is front and center on social media. Gender hype is not why they play basketball games. The league must prove it’s worthy of watching and following. Kanter Freedom thinks Cunningham is a hero, prompting him to say, “I think I will be the best draft pick in WNBA history, literally.”

Regarding trans athletes, he said, “So there’s other major sports that obviously closed that loophole. They added ‘biological female’ or ‘born female’ in their collective bargaining. But when I look at them, the WNBA, they didn’t have kind of, you know, reference to biological or anything like that. And all the coaches, I was watching this, and I believe the coach of Minnesota came out with a ‘trans kids belong’ (shirt), so I was like, if no one’s against it and all the coaches are OK with it, think about how much money I can bring, think about all the endorsement deals.”

All of which prompted New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart to demand a safe space inside WNBA arenas. The pregame rallies keep happening. “Knowing rallies are happening on both sides shows the platform the W has and the stunts for attention are just continuing to try and ride the wave that we have,” Stewart said. “I want Liberty fans that are going to come here to be able to have this arena be a safe space.”

When Kanter Freedom arrives, Chicago was not a safe space. Engelbert, who is hapless and helpless, keeps ripping the media. All we’re doing is covering what is in front of us. “People are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness. We’re being the center of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA,” she said. “There’s always going to be haters out there, and we denounce it. But that’s what happens when you have made it as a legitimate sports media and entertainment product.”

Cloud’s coach, Tyler Marsh, supported his player after the proceedings. “Tash didn’t want to feel like she was a distraction. I told her she wasn’t,” he said. “I told her that we all embrace her as someone that protects our team and protects the people that need to be protected. And so Tash is always going to stand on that, and then we stand for Tash.”

Then he defended the league. Why was Kanter Freedom there? ““There’s so many good things about this league and so many good things about the play of these players. And if you come to a game, you should probably come to enjoy the basketball, and that seems pretty simple to me,” Marsh said. “I think these players deserve that and have earned that. And being a former basketball player (Kanter Freedom), you should probably understand and feel that, too.”

Cunningham thinks every story helps the league, even when a rival is trying to maim her. Maybe she should take time off in social media. “You have a lot of new fans, not only just watching, but coming to games and seeing the environment and seeing the talent,” she said. “I think anytime you can get more eyes on the W, that’s an awesome thing, because then that inspires other young kids that maybe have never seen the game or heard about the game or been to a game, they get that experience. So I definitely think that it’s been a very positive thing.”

The best part of the night, as usual, was Clark. She scored 37 points with 10 assists, her fourth 30-10 game of the season. Did she see Kanter Freedom and Cloud? “We were talking about the next play in the huddle,” she said.

Her coach, Stephanie White, asked reporters not to provide “gas” for the story. “It’s a social media thing,” she said.

But what begins on social media becomes a 6-10 former player with a beard, smiling as Cloud and Carrington approach him. You remember women skating in circles decades ago, ultimately starting a fight.

The WNBA is roller derby.

Looney Tunes?

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Here we are, in a mind-careening 2026: A tight end who should have left college ball when he signed with the Philadelphia Eagles after the draft, then was claimed by the Browns on Aug. 11, is permitted his return to the land of marching bands and Nick Saban … because he was waived Sunday. Wright can do so after he and other athletes filed a lawsuit in the state of Louisiana — the home of Lane Kiffin, of course! — and were given one more season of college ball with a temporary restraining order.

And don’t forget Jack Pyburn, a linebacker with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who could be waived and return to LSU. They are taking advantage of absurd courtroom rulemaking that has left fans in a blackout condition. Wright’s situation will draw the attention of Ole Miss people, recalling how he played for Kiffin at the school the last two years and caught 39 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns in 2025.

So this is how Bayou Lane steals new players in Baton Rouge? From the National Football League? Pyburn made three tackles Saturday night against the Kansas City Chiefs. What if he shows up in two weeks when LSU hosts Clemson? No doubt Kiffin will use Wright and Pyburn with their NFL experience. What if they make huge plays to win the most highly awaited game of the season, against angry folks in Oxford?

“Man, isn’t this s--- crazy?” Browns coach Todd Monken said. “I don’t even know what to say. I wondered why Lane Kiffin reached out to me a week ago; now I know. I didn’t call him back. I guess I should have.”

Thanks to the NCAA, which still exists, the lawsuit-thrusted players are allowed five years to play five seasons. Pyburn, who was not drafted, might make $1 million in NIL money — according to two agents who spoke to The Athletic. If he makes Tampa Bay’s roster, he would make $885,000 after he signed for a guaranteed $115,000.

It’s a financial wash. He’s like to play in the NFL. If not, he is in the same boat. “I’m kind of caught in the middle of a whirlwind,” Pyburn told the website, “and I’m just trying to play football.”

Please do not think a player can win a Super Bowl, after a preseason tour, and then win a letter for his college jacket. The NFL is protecting rings from waived people. But soon enough, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit should be introducing Wright — and perhaps Pyburn — with their pro backgrounds.

I give up.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

What a cool program for Mulligan, who covered Jordan and the Bulls in the early 1990s at the Chicago Sun-Times.

But just before 9, the reporters fled the studio. Who cared about Jordan? One of the biggest and most horrific scenes of our lives was happening at the World Trade Center in New York, where American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower. We only had minutes to determine if we’d start our usual journey. Some advertising idiot wanted to run network news segments. Our program director, Mark Gentzkow, argued with him in the hallway and ordered us to continue.

From there, watching the sequences on TV, the three of us narrated the sickness. Three sports reporters were describing hell to our listeners. We finished our shift. The next day, we were mentioned in newspapers among those who successfully crossed into reality. I’m not sure if the day was a turning point for Mulligan, who was an NFL writer and columnist after he mysteriously was replaced on the Bulls beat. But the people who ran The Score — Chicago-centric, to the point their lead guy smothered racial and ethnic groups as if slurs were normal — knew Mulligan grew up in Beverly on the South Side and went to Loyola University.

He was an anchor. They put him on morning drive in 2008.

Through the years, as his ratings beat the competition at WMVP, Mulligan should have told management that he would decide when he’s retiring or leaving. Never allow a career call to be made by veteran program director Mitch Rosen, a creep who is fiercely loyal to local franchise owners and will crumble a staffer in a minute. He continues to employ baseball reporter Bruce Levine, who has embarrassed himself this year and should have been fired. When I worked in Chicago, The Score maintained a spirited competition with WMVP, where I worked and gloriously won my ratings race. But I had a bad boss who asked me to sign documents, promising I wouldn’t criticize the White Sox and Bulls. I refused and was fired at 8 a.m. the day after Christmas.

Mulligan carried on for years, through a Cubs championship and three titles by the Blackhawks. Of late, he allowed partner David Haugh to do much of the talking when I noticed the show on social media. If Rosen had a problem, he should have spoken to Mulligan and asked him to perk up and dominate. He worked early for 18 years, getting up at 4 a.m. and taking a drive from the North Shore to Two Prudential Plaza. People burn out. Rosen should have scheduled a meeting. He owed him a sitdown.

He didn’t give it to him. He fired him.

Fired?

Any number of people should be fired in Chicago sports media. Haugh is boring and turns a city’s fire into a chill, with help from Jerry Reinsdorf’s Chicago Sports Network. Columnists no longer exist. The Sun-Times and Tribune sports editors have no plan. Who is on TV after Mark Giangreco was fired? Mulligan goes way back in time and owns career rights, as I once used upon quitting the Sun-Times in China because the digital operation sucked — and it still does. He cannot be fired by The Score.

The place should implode and never return. Days ago, Greg Papa was fired by KNBR, a San Francisco radio station, after he almost died in June. He spent 78 days in the hospital while continuing to battle leukemia. That was the most evil sacking in a godawful profession. Know what I wrote then about radio people I’ve worked with?

“Mike Mulligan, Chicago. Dan Bickley, Phoenix. Anthony Gargano, Philadelphia. Marc Silverman, Chicago. Will they survive?”

One is gone, for no good reason. Who’s next?

How about Mitch Rosen?

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

He still doesn’t grasp why the trade that brought him from Houston, via Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, reeks as the worst in NFL history. The folks badgered Watson because they loathe him and his very short memory about crime. He’s in the final season of a five-year contract and has played only 19 games because of injuries, an 11-game suspension and terrible outings. Though Shedeur Sanders is the only option as the starting quarterback, they wish Watson would leave town at dusk.

Instead, he appears at a press conference and rips the hometowners at Huntington Bank Field. Never mind if he completed only 5 of 12 passes for 35 yards and an interception. Never mind if more than two dozen women said he wasn’t interested in massage sessions. Why didn’t Haslam eat the massive contract and three first-round picks he sent to the Texans? Why didn’t he sell the franchise? He preferred to give Watson one last chance, which failed at the podium following a 31-7 loss to Buffalo. Boos were bad bruises, he said.

“I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance,” Watson said. “It’s a little bit (more) personal than that. So I think it’s a disrespectful thing. So yeah, I mean, I’m going to keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that. And yeah, just move on.”

He can’t continue until he is removed from the competition. The last time Watson played in Cleveland was 22 months ago, when he tore his right Achilles tendon. The fans booed him that day, too. He shouldn’t be in the first training camp of new coach Todd Monken. His mind is locked in yesteryear, diminishing the skills that made him an elite performer between 2018 and 2020.

“Last time I played on this field, I tore my Achilles. And that same fanbase, they cheered when I got hurt,” Watson said. “So, what does that have to do with anything about performance? When a person gets hurt, especially playing for your own city, and they cheer?”

If he reacts so emotionally after a preseason game by Lake Erie, what in the world will happen if he starts for the Browns? “I feel like I get more love in road games than I do home games,” Watson said. “So, if it is my spot ... maybe it’s 17 away games then. I don’t know.”

Monken must start Sanders and prepare for the next three drafts. If they lose 15 games, so be it, after the Browns acquired a first-round pick next year and two high picks the following two years in the Myles Garrett deal with Los Angeles. “I know you asked (Watson), like, ‘Hey, how does it feel to get booed?’ It’s a pretty easy question -- it sucks,” Monken said. “I don’t want to get booed. It comes with the territory. You don’t want to get booed? Let’s play good football.

“Let’s play good at quarterback. Let’s play good on offense. Let’s play good as a team. And then you don’t have to worry about all that because it can turn just like that. Win, play good football, and everybody will be fine. That’s just part of it. That’s what I told him. ‘You good? We’re good.’ Part of what we do.”

The problem with Sanders: He also took apart fans for abusing Watson. Again, they keep asking why they live in Northeast Ohio, where two quarterbacks fire back when neither should start. “I don’t appreciate that at all,” Sanders said. “Just regardless of competition, we all human beings, and I think we all need to understand that. And however y’all feel about the situation — about with Deshaun, about with everything — still I think it’s about bigger purpose of just respect. You know, it’s a respect thing that I feel like should be there. Because we all out there trying to do out best, and we’re trying to serve the franchise the best way possible.”

On the telecast, part of a preseason package shown on ESPN, the Browns want fans to prepare finances for a new domed stadium. Why would anyone give bucks to a team where well-deserved boos are met with disdain? Somehow, Monken is trying to remain true to a tough situation.

“I really am jacked with how we did it,” he said of the QB derby. “Some other people might not see it that way, but in order to make an educated decision on both players, we needed to see them both practice and play. That’s just part of it. It’s not the easiest or most ideal, but it gives us the best opportunity to see who gives us, when we go to Jacksonville, the best chance to win and score points. Because ultimately, that’s what matters.”

Kevin Stefanski failed. Freddie Kitchens failed. Hue Jackson failed. Mike Pettine failed. Rob Chudzinski failed. Pat Shurmur failed. Eric Mangini failed. Romeo Crennel failed. Butch Davis failed. They are the Cleveland coaches in the last 25 years.

Monken is hanging already. He has no quarterback, a mean price when $230 million was guaranteed.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

He is under federal investigation for tax fraud. Every day brings another story that suggests he’ll either sell the Dodgers or will be forced to abandon the champions by commissioner Rob Manfred and baseball’s other owners. Kasten is the president and CEO of the team. What he says now could shrivel up in a few hours, as we saw last weekend when Walter sold the Lakers for $12.5 billion.

We must hear from Walter. He sent an underling. His try failed miserably, though Kasten said often that the Dodgers aren’t being sold. The bully’s barking didn’t play well. Where is the target?

Already, multi-billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has told the newspaper he owns, the Los Angeles Times, that he will lead an investment group if Walter sells the team. He and his partners could spend $13 billion for the Dodgers, which would provide Walter with more fat money to pay off loans through his insurance companies and keep the feds from ruining him. “We respect Mr. Walter, and we want to make it clear we have not spoken with him,” said Chuck Kenworthy, Soon-Shiong’s family attorney. “If at some point he would like to discuss the Dodgers, we would be very open to talking.”

Instead, Kasten’s hand almost yanked a bushy beard.

“The Dodgers are not being sold,” he said. “They’re not going to be sold. They’re not for sale. There’s no process that has been started to sell. Period. ... I just wanted this to be clear because this question keeps coming up. I understand the questions; I do. The Lakers thing was what we call sui generis, one of those one-of-a-kind things. Really has nothing to do with what’s happening with (the Dodgers).

“I wanted you to hear it definitively: We are not selling the Dodgers. We are continuing with our plans going forward, like we always have had them. This comes from Mark. He’s gung-ho about continuing to try to win, again, including next year, subject to whatever next year’s climate looks like.”

So Kasten says Walter says he’s not selling. They do not think Manfred and the owners will impede the grand plan of a team that is “very stable, well-managed, and (with) very solid ownership,’’ as Kasten said. He continued, oddly: “I know nothing involving the Dodgers is part of the investigation. I’m promising you, when it’s over, you’re going to realize (things) are being mischaracterized. You don’t have to trust me, but I’m telling you.”

We don’t have to trust him? Kasten is the one doing the talking. If we don’t trust him, why would we trust Walter? Isn’t he selling his stake with a Premier League team, Chelsea? Didn’t he request the rest of an $8.35 billion cable deal with Charter Communications? There is no reason to trust the entire jumble.

“Those things don’t go together for a bunch of reasons I’m not going to get into today,” said Kasten, who should have been getting into everything.

What about the insurance companies that Walter is paying back? “I’m not in that part of the investigation,” Kasten said. “Things are going on behind the scenes, obviously, in connection with that. I’m not privy to all of them, don’t need to know, don’t want to know. But one thing we are all certain about: the sports portfolio is going to remain intact.

“I can tell you from the guy running the team, knowing how the business runs and what it can support in terms of revenues and expenses — the Dodgers aren’t going anywhere. I feel that very strongly, and Mark feels even stronger than I do. I’m 74. I don’t know how long I’m going to be running it, but Mark, I think, is going to be running it a lot longer.”

Wait. Didn’t Walter have a stroke during the 2024 World Series? Hasn’t his defense team mentioned his health to the feds? “I think Mark has done an extraordinary job as an owner, and all he’s ever cared about is providing the best experience in order to make us more money, to make this project successful,” Kasten said. “I think so far it has been; I expect that to continue far into the future.”

It’s stunning to think Soon-Shiong could produce $13 billion after Josh Kushner and Bob Iger bought the Lakers for $12.5 billion. More than 25 billion smackers for two sports franchises in the same month? Fourteen years ago, when Frank McCourt was forced to sell the Dodgers amid a bankruptcy, Soon-Shiong tried to buy them with Steve Cohen for $1.6 billion. Walter outbid him at $2.15 billion. Of course, when Kasten was asked about Walter in relation to McCourt’s ouster, he fired back.

“That’s a wild, inappropriate comparison,” he said.

Only the man’s waving hand was wild and inappropriate. Next time, the city of Los Angeles and a shocked nation would like to see Mark Walter, front and center.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.

Today, those places aren’t dying.

They’re dead.

Only the mushy operatives, who write what the bosses want, keep working. Why would anyone care when the daily content is so predictable in a world that requires enormous answers? I had a 25-year career as a strong American columnist and eight years as a daily ESPN TV analyst. I have a better career when I write what I choose at Substack, which runs my pieces regardless of how I stand or where I’ve been or the creepy reasons I left a paper in Chicago. My common theme: Explaining why so many softies allow sports to commit murder when powerful viewpoints are needed every day, amid ownership crooks who cheat us all and charge outrageous amounts.

Today, I applaud Matt Calkins. He left the Seattle Times because he chose to interview “two female student athletes who were opposed to competing against biological males.” He was a sports columnist for 11 years, long enough to gain the trust of a region when he deserved to be in sync with editors who respected his perspective. They should have published his damned piece. They refused.

He quit.

I have spoken of editors who were in bed with the owner of the Chicago White Sox and Bulls. I quit the Sun-Times because we were in China, where no one could post our internet pieces in adequate time at the Olympics, but also because bosses were bedridden with important men. I visited an editor about a still-popular figure who was pictured at a Christmas gathering with a second family — apart from his Chicago family. He changed the topic and asked about our collective “purpose” in life. I had another boss, a White Sox fan, who removed my column at the World Series after a fan hit the wife of opponent Craig Biggio and pulled her hair. I’ve talked about bad politicians in radio. No need to elaborate.

The focus is Calkins. If a columnist and talk-show personality can’t have singular beliefs, why were they hired? Increasingly, columnists are driven out of print when the writers who remain are political lackeys. With a WNBA franchise in town, Calkins was correct to address what Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham said last month: “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” Whatever he wrote, his words should have been enough.

But he had one-sided editors. No editor should be one-sided. His superiors were controlling his mind when they had no right. That is not America, whatever America is at the moment. His take: “supporting the separation of biological females and males doesn’t automatically make you transphobic.”

His column was effective for print and tech. A fine editor would have found a writer with the opposite opinion and run that piece. There you go: Readers take sides and keep reading. That’s not how it worked in Seattle, where Paul Barrett happened to be the recent president of the Associated Press Sports Editors. Imagine going to one of those conventions: Editors saving their asses and blaming the columnists, when the editors have no asses.

Wrote Calkins on Substack: “I sent a draft after talking to my editor the morning of Friday, July 31, telling him there was no rush to run it. He told me later that day that he and others were looking at it, but that it wouldn’t be ready for Sunday’s paper. Monday night, I got an email saying that his boss was hoping to talk to the top two newsroom editors about it on Wednesday. No feedback had been given to me. Thursday afternoon, my editor informed me that it wasn’t going to run because I didn’t tell him I was doing this in advance. I didn’t buy this reasoning. If that were the case, the piece would have been killed on the spot, not passed through the hands of multiple editors over several days.”

His resignation triggered more of his internal problems. Other columns were killed. “One was a piece questioning whether players for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team were really the victims of discrimination in their equal-pay lawsuit,” Calkins wrote. “Another was a more general column on cancel culture in sports. The last, written shortly after George Floyd’s death, implored people to listen to state-champion basketball coach Mike Bethea — a black man urging the public not to stereotype cops. The common theme? All of these challenged prevailing newsroom narratives and likely would have triggered the outrage mob.”

In a city that likes to think, over coffee and the Seahawks, what was wrong with those opinions? The pushback forced him to think whether he wanted to be a public-relations mope at the Times. When he was forced to wait for days, he thought: “We talk about being a voice for the voiceless a lot at the Seattle Times, and I feel like (female athletes) have not had a voice.”

His executive editor was Michele Matassa Flores. According to her bio, she and her husband have two grown children. The editorial board has nine names. Who has the guts to come out publicly and state their opposition? Calkins asked basketball fans who were supporting Cunningham at a Storm game. Why not ask questions and write it? His column would have helped the paper. Not running it killed the paper.

On social media, floods of people supported him Thursday. One was Frances Staudt, who was interviewed by Calkins: “Thank you. I was one of the female athletes you interviewed, and I truly appreciate the way you treated me. You were fair, listened to my story without judgment, and wanted to share my experience — even when The Seattle Times refused to let it be heard.

“It has become a left-wing rag that suppresses stories and viewpoints that challenge its preferred political narrative. Even at 17, I can see eerie similarities to what we’ve learned in history class about communism, censorship, and the control of information. To think that a 17-year-old female athlete and her story could be considered a threat to a powerful media machine like The Seattle Times shows that we have them against the ropes. We need to keep punching.”

The Times lost her as a reader. It lost many more, all because creatures inside the newsroom don’t spend enough time within the community. I follow the Sun-Times and continue to await coverage of Mark Walter, who launched his financial business in Chicago before he bought the Los Angeles Dodgers and Lakers. That is a potent business piece that could help change how sports teams are owned.

I wrote the editor-in-chief, Kimbriell Kelly. I haven’t heard a word from her. Her boss at Chicago Public Media, Melissa Bell, said the industry “has ceded a lot of distribution to places like Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, and I think that has done a disservice to centering civic discourse in a healthy way.”

Civic discourse? She doesn’t have centralized columnists in the city that created columnists. She spoke to me two years ago about possibly joining the staff. It didn’t happen. Someone got to her. Jim O’Donnell was the last standing sports columnist in Chicago. He was let go last month by the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, which needs a mouthpiece and an NFL team. The paper was purchased by the Tribune, which lacks a real sports columnist.

Calkins is devastated without a job. “To be honest, I’m scared s—tless right now,” he wrote. “I have no idea how the next few months or years are going to play out. But that fear beats the indignity of being muzzled.”

That is exactly why I left. Here I am today, one of the best sports columnists in America and certainly the best in Chicago — though I live in South Florida half the year and Paris for five months.

He should not be scared. He has given the country one more free voice.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.