Tag: athletes
Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

By Gil Lebreton, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TNS)

Considering that he has amassed career earnings of $150 million and that his supermodel wife Gisele banked $47 million herself just this past year, it’s probably ludicrous to think that Tom Brady lies awake these nights, worrying about Roger Goodell.

But it’s a good thing that his lawyers are, at least.

Sue Goodell. Sue his pants off, Tom.

Please spare me your righteous indignation about NFL integrity and the New England Patriots’ rap sheet and coach Bill Belichick’s tendency to fondle the loopholes.

We are talking about the air in footballs here, not knocking out spouses or switching a child until he bleeds. Did you even know there was a rule about air pressure before Deflategate?

When we were growing up, the kid down the street always liked to use his ball — the one he got for Christmas with the stripes on it, college style — when he quarterbacked our touch football games.

We preferred our old scuffed football. No problem. Both sides could use what they want.

How the Patriots’ interpretation of this time-honored sandlot protocol grew into a national scandal would be funny, if Goodell hadn’t gone all medieval on the thing.

An original two-game suspension for Ray Rice, but a four-game suspension for Brady?

Sue Goodell’s pants off, Tom.

Clearly the commissioner, emboldened by hoodwinking the players’ union into handing him deity-like powers, is making up punishments as he goes along. His handling of the New Orleans Saints’ imaginary Bountygate scandal was only the first hint.

This time he waited for “independent” investigator Ted Wells’ 243-page report, which concluded that the Patriots’ deflating was “more probable than not.”

Goodell’s sword was swift. Brady was suspended four games without pay for the 2015 season — which will include a road game against the Dallas Cowboys on October 11. The Patriots were also fined one million dollars, plus ordered to forfeit their No. 1 draft pick in 2016 and No. 4 in 2017.

Brady’s lawyer filed an immediate appeal on his behalf. Cowboys fans may want to follow the progress of that appeal.

The NFL Players Association, meanwhile, is trying to get Goodell dismissed from hearing the appeal of the case since the Patriots intend to call him as a witness.

Director DeMaurice Smith and the players’ union brought this upon themselves by treating Goodell’s magic-wand powers as a bargaining chip in the last contract negotiations.

Now the union finds itself pulling the rope, trying to drag ashore lost leverage while unpopularly defending the likes of Rice, Greg Hardy, and Adrian Peterson.

Brady? Oh, he’ll be fine. He remains adored by many, even beyond New England. And he still gets to keep the $47 million girl.

His legacy tarnished? Oh, please. For using a football that felt slightly more comfortable in his hand?

And if his suspension isn’t reduced on appeal, consider the trade-off. There isn’t a coach in the league who wouldn’t trade a four-game suspension for four Lombardi trophies.

In the end, despite his arrogant facade and $44 million annual salary, Goodell will take the biggest hit. It’s one thing for a rogue owner like Jerry Jones to profess his loyalty for the commissioner. It’s quite another that Goodell has angered Bob Kraft, the powerful Patriots owner who was once his ally.

Despite what Goodell says, Deflategate has never been about integrity and fairness. Nobody hacked into any Seattle Seahawks computers here.

From the beginning, this has been much ado about nothing. It’s been about NFL fans’ disdain for Belichick and their jealousy of Brady, the luckiest football player alive.

Goodell had to do something, and now he’s got half of America again questioning his integrity and job performance.

No objections here, your honor.

Sue his pants off.

Photo: Keith Allison via Flickr

Djokovic, Serena, Murray Sail Through At U.S. Open

Djokovic, Serena, Murray Sail Through At U.S. Open

By Dave James

New York (AFP) — Novak Djokovic reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the 25th consecutive time while Serena Williams racked up her 80th U.S. Open win as the top seeds eased into the third round on Thursday.

They were joined in the last 32 by 2012 winner Andy Murray and reigning Wimbledon women’s champion Petra Kvitova.

But former world number one Ana Ivanovic, the eighth seed, and 2011 champion Samantha Stosur were knocked out on a day when stiff winds brought new challenges at Flushing Meadows for players already tackling plus-30 degree heat (+90F).

World number one and top seed Djokovic breezed past France’s Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, firing 13 aces and 33 winners as the 2011 champion comfortably remained on course for a fifth successive final appearance.

“It’s very windy, but I managed to adjust to the conditions that obviously are not easy for myself and my opponent,” said Djokovic, who next meets Sam Querrey of the United States, after his brief 90-minute appearance.

World number one Williams, chasing a third successive New York title, her sixth in total and an 18th major, sent 25 winners past Vania King and broke serve six times, wrapping up a 6-1, 6-0 victory on windswept Arthur Ashe Stadium in just 56 minutes.

It was her second win over an American at the tournament this week after beating teenager Taylor Townsend and next she will face another in Varvara Lepchenko for a place in the last 16.

“It’s so hard to play in the wind but I am happy to get through a solid match with the conditions today,” said the top seed whose colorful leopard print dress was as striking as her tennis.

Eighth-seeded Murray brushed aside 27-year-old German qualifier Matthias Bachinger, the world number 235, with a convincing 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 win.

Murray exhibited none of the physical problems he suffered in the first round when he was cramping, sending down 36 winners past Bachinger, a contemporary from his junior days.

“Both of us struggled a bit early on but once I started to get used to the wind I was able to adjust my tactics a bit,” said the Scot.

Canadian fifth seed Milos Raonic made the third round with a 7-6 (7/4), 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) win over German qualifier Peter Gojowczyk on the back of 26 aces and 64 winners.

– Ivanovic, Stosur beaten –

Eighth-seeded Ana Ivanovic suffered her earliest U.S. Open exit in five years when the former world number one lost 7-5, 6-4 to Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, the world number 42.

The Serb followed fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska out of the tournament after the Pole had been beaten by Peng Shuai 24 hours earlier.

The former French Open champion was undone by 29 unforced errors.

“It’s very disappointing. It’s never easy to finish this early,” said Ivanovic. “I’m definitely going to assess what went wrong and what I can work on. I really felt it wasn’t my game out there today.”

Stosur, the 24th seed, squandered two match points in a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10/8) defeat to Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi, a six-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist.

There were no such dramas for Kvitova who defeated fellow Czech Petra Cetkovska 6-4, 6-2 while Canadian seventh seed Eugenie Bouchard, the runner-up at Wimbledon, beat Sorana Cirstea of Romania 6-2, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4.

Victoria Azarenka, the runner-up to Williams for the past two years, also made it through, winning nine games in succession from 0-3 down to defeat Christina McHale of the United States 6-3, 6-2.

Fifteen-year-old American CiCi Bellis, who became the youngest winner of a U.S. Open match since 1996 when she won her first round match, went down 6-3, 0-6, 6-2 to Zarina Dyas of Kazakhstan.

The United States only saw three men making the second round — the country’s lowest total in the history of the tournament — but 13th seed John Isner and Querrey have made it to the last 32.

Isner, a quarter-finalist in 2011, beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 7-6 (7/5), 6-4, 6-2 while Querrey beat Spain’s Guillermo Garcia Lopez for the fourth time in four meetings — including last week’s Winston Salem warm-up — thanks to a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory.

Australian 19-year-old Nick Kyrgios, who famously defeated Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, reached the third round by seeing off Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-4, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4.

He will next face Spanish veteran Tommy Robredo who came back from two sets to love down for the seventh time in seeing off Italy’s Simone Bolelli 5-7, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.

AFP Photo/Kena Betancur

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Cutting-Edge Technology Can Track Players’ Health

Cutting-Edge Technology Can Track Players’ Health

By Frank Seravalli, Philadelphia Daily News

BOSTON — When the Philadelphia Flyers’ 18 non-Olympians returned to the ice for practice on March 19 after an NHL-mandated 10-day break, the veterans organized a little team activity to see who fell out of shape the quickest on vacation.

They called it a battle for the “Green Jacket,” in reference to the Masters prize, since the “winner” likely spent too much time on the golf course during the break.

A decade ago, the Flyers’ least conditioned player would likely have been chosen subjectively — by a kangaroo court of vets judging simply with their eyes.

Last month, the Flyers — and team management — were able to tell which players maintained their fitness by huddling around a computer screen. The numbers spoke for themselves.

That’s because the Flyers are the only NHL team to train with data-collecting technology by Catapult Sports. During nearly every practice, Flyers players skate with a durable GPS tracking device that is roughly half the size of an iPhone sewn into a pocket on the back of their shoulder pads that remotely monitors distance, velocity, acceleration, deceleration, jumps, heart rate and recovery time, among many other things.

The heart-rate monitor, a strap that wraps around their chest, is the only piece of equipment players notice.

“I don’t think anyone in here had any issue with wearing it,” Flyers forward Jay Rosehill said. “In fact, I think everyone was pretty curious when we first started to wear it. It’s funny how the game has evolved and they’re using technology like that to track us.”

Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren was not able to speak about his team’s use of the data gathered by Australia-based Catapult, citing the “legalities of our agreement.”

Eagles coach Chip Kelly started using Catapult at the University of Oregon and brought the technology with him to the Eagles. More than 250 teams in numerous professional and amateur sports leagues work with Catapult.

Numerous Flyers said this week that the technology, which can compute workload in practice, actually has fostered an interest in competition in practice. Hal Gill, who has appeared in only four games this season, will routinely ask Flyers strength and conditioning coach Ryan Podell how his numbers from practice stack up before he has even pulled his jersey off.

“I think, more than anything, this isn’t used to compare yourself to any other guy,” Rosehill said. “Once you get enough data, you can begin to track your own progress throughout the course of the season. You know whether you might need to spend more time in the gym or more time on conditioning.”

Indianapolis Colts quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Matt Hasselbeck participated in a panel at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference last weekend and said the use of these types of monitoring technologies has piqued their interest.

“As athletes, there’s always hesitation to wear anything that might hinder your performance,” Luck said. “We want to be as distraction-free as possible.”

Hasselbeck, Luck’s backup, said he saw Luck testing a similar device in practice last season, which immediately made him want to try.

For the Flyers, perhaps the biggest boon to using Catapult is not only fine-tuning conditioning, but possibly being able to prevent injury. About 95 percent of soft-tissue injuries — such as groin pulls, hamstring strains, and so forth — come from overuse.

With Catapult, the Flyers are able to manage workloads in practice, possibly being able to tell when a player may need a day off. Since the NHL does not allow the use of devices such as Catapult during games, all the Flyers have to go on are minutes played and overall feel.

Ray Emery’s groin injury suffered during last Thursday’s game, when he entered cold in relief of Steve Mason, was thought to be the Flyers’ first soft-tissue injury of the season.

“I think in the old days, coach probably would have kicked our ass in the first practice back after the Olympics,” Rosehill said. “Now, I think they’re smart enough to look at the data and ease us into a little bit. It’s better. Guys aren’t pulling their groins or having tight muscles and stuff.”

Catapult has really only begun to scratch the surface of player monitoring. No one has perfected a way to manage and monitor athlete hydration levels. Catapult chairman Adir Shiffman told the Philadelphia Daily News that once one of America’s four major sports leagues allows the use of Catapult during games — which he hopes happens within two years — that is when real benefits will be realized, particularly in contact sports.

Since Catapult tracks acceleration, deceleration, force, facing and changes of direction, their devices could help better predict the chances of concussion.

“That is the holy grail of predictive analytics,” Shiffman said. “We want to be able to extend players’ playing life. I don’t want to be critical of leagues, but the technology is still emerging. We’re already able to tell if players sustain big knocks or small knocks, and that’s just in practice.”

In the case of the NHL, the Department of Player Safety could also use the technology if implemented to determine whether a player was in decelerating quickly enough before a questionable hit.

Any change in rules would need to be negotiated with the NHL’s Players Association, which would likely be wary of data collection, for fear it could hurt future earnings. Plus, it would spark a debate as to who owns the data collected: players or teams?

For “old-school” hockey executives, these numbers gathered — like many of the advanced stats in the sport — don’t tell them anything they already cannot see with their eyes.

“I’m not trying to be a smart ass, but to me, most of this stuff is supported by the video that we already have,” Calgary Flames president Brian Burke said. “Brendan Shanahan can see when a player is slowing down. We did the whole heart-rate thing already. When players skate, their heart rate goes up. When players stop skating, it goes down. A player’s recovery time is important, but that’s not analytics to me. That’s medical data. No one has been able to tell me anything I can’t already see.”
Rosehill, who played for Burke in Toronto, tended to agree.

“I think everyone out there is working hard,” Rosehill said. “And if you’re not, I think the coach is smart enough to know anyway. It’s more of a tool to see if anything is out of the ordinary. I have a naturally high heart rate, it’s high even before games when playing soccer. I think it’s good to get a sense whether we need to work harder or whether we should maybe back off a little.”
For a Flyers franchise spending north of $70 million just on player salaries, implementing technology that is rumored to cost more than $100,000 per season, is a drop in the insurance bucket.

“At the end of the year, you don’t want to have any excuses,” Rosehill said. “Why not try it? It doesn’t hurt anything. They provide us with the best stuff here. There’s no excuse for us not working hard. It’s on us.”

Photo: Francois Peeters via Flickr