The Kansas City Chiefs unveiled their latest Super Bowl rings on Thursday, with everyone and their grandmother there.
Except for Taylor Swift, the noted football junkie and girlfriend of Chiefs TE Travis Kelce Swift was on tour in England, but burned the midnight oil to hop on Instagram live to help the team celebrate their new rings.
That’s real love right there. It was probably super late in Liverpool but she was up watching the team get rings, pure loyalty, love to see it.
However…I had no idea she was grinding Mecole Hardman film. Hardman re-signed with the Chiefs in the off-season and I’m assuming she’s very excited about his fit in the offense, but with the signing of Hollywood Brown and the drafting of Xavier Worthy it makes Hardman’s skillset a bit redundant. In her song ‘So High School’ off of her latest album The Torturned Poets Society Swift says of herself and Kelce, “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle.” But did Swift watch any Worthy tape, or see any Hollywood Brown film from the past few years? Hardman would be the designated jet sweep guy, but Skyy Moore already does that.
I’m afraid to say it, but: Taylor Swift does not, in fact, know ball.
Sepp Straka brought the excitement on Friday at the U.S. Open.
He showed the full spectrum of what golf can provide during his second round, following up his triple bogey on the 3rd hole with a hole-in-one on the par-3 9th.
Straka’s 194-yard ace marked his first hole-in-one during a PGA Tour round.
His playing partners watched him as he hit the ball, and as soon as they realized it went in the hole, everyone shot their hands up to celebrate. Straka gave high fives all around, as that shot clearly boosted his mood.
The U.S. Open’s social team got a slight dig with the caption as they referenced his triple bogey earlier in the round. That shot on the third was such a tough break for the Austrian.
Straka nailed the flagstick on the fly, and his ball ricocheted into the greenside bunker. He went on to make a mess of things, making a triple bogey after airmailing his third shot from the sand over the green. So what looked like a birdie opportunity from the fairway quickly turned into a disaster.
Nevertheless, the golfing gods at Pinehurst No. 2 blessed Straka with an ace, a Shakespearean redemption story of sorts. From recording a seven to a one on the scorecard, it does not get any wilder than that.
Straka became the third player to make a hole-in-one on the 9th hole at No. 2. He joins Zach Johnson, who made one in 2014 during the final round, and Peter Jacobson, who did so in 2005 during the third round.
Straka’s ace vaulted him back up to 2-over for the championship, which is inside the cutline at this point. But that hole-in-one helped him immensely after his tough break at the 3rd threatened his chances of making the weekend.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
The Deshaun Watson trade has been quite simply a trainwreck for the Cleveland Browns. After giving him a $230 million deal that was fully guaranteed, Watson has been mired by injuries and constant reminders of a player that he once was. As the Browns made their playoff run on the back of their top rated defense and Joe Flacco (!), the questions looming around the future of Watson and how good he truly is grew louder and louder.
Cleveland GM Andrew Berry isn’t one to wait around until it’s time for a change, but the Watson deal in itself is hard to skate around. Even if they wanted to cut him after the 2024 season, it would still eat up over $100 million in cap space, far too much to justify releasing one player.
What this means is that the Browns and Watson are stuck together until at least after the 2025 season. They have to make this work, to justify giving him the only fully guaranteed contract in NFL history. Now the question becomes: how do you get Deshaun Watson back to his high level of play?
Remnants of a player he once was
In 2020, Watson was known as one of the best passers in the entire league.Throwing for over 4,000 passing yards and 30 touchdowns, Watson was in the midst of a career year. While never being the best passer in structure, he was more than capable of doing that on top of being extremely creative outside of the pocket, one of the best passers in the league outside of structure.
That hasn’t followed him to Cleveland in any way, shape, or form. While he still tries to create outside of structure, the success of those plays has waned off in a major way. This, in turn, has turned him into a shell of the QB he once was: a QB who is no longer successful when he needs to get creative, yet someone who desperately wants to play the way he always has.
Remnants of a player he once was
Name and Year
On-Target Rate
On-Target Rate (0-10 Air Yards)
On-Target Rate (20+ Air Yards)
Sack Rate when pressured
Time to Throw (s)
On-Target Rate when pressured
Name and Year
On-Target Rate
On-Target Rate (0-10 Air Yards)
On-Target Rate (20+ Air Yards)
Sack Rate when pressured
Time to Throw (s)
On-Target Rate when pressured
Deshaun Watson, 2020
80.80%
84.20%
58.90%
20.20%
2.85
68.80%
Deshaun Watson, 2023
67.10%
71.30%
42.90%
20.70%
3.06
60.40%
Allow me to explain: despite Watson’s sack rate when pressured remaining largely the same, his time to throw has increased and his On-Target Rate when pressured has gone down. When you watch Watson in 2020 compared to present day, he looks like a QB who is much less confident in both his body and what he’s seeing on the field when pressured.
Take this snap from 2020. Houston runs two shallow crossers in front of two deeper ones, with the Bengals in Cover 1. Watson gets pressure off the edge, but doesn’t take his eyes down. He steps up and out of the pocket calmly, then fires a strike to move the chains.
Now, compare this to 2023, when watching him play seemed to show more signs of a QB with variance and chaos than one of a QB who knows he’s under control when things go wrong. Deshaun Watson in 2023 looked like a QB who knew he used to be able to do these things, but now … not so sure.
Not only that, but Watson’s ball placement and accuracy have taken drastic dips since coming to Cleveland, especially in the short area. His inability to drive the ball and place it in tight windows has inhibited the Browns offense, on top of his inability to work in structure. Watson faced numerous shoulder injuries that sapped the true arm strength that he has, limiting the offense’s ability to go downfield. Where that also stood out is in the quick game, where arm strength helps QBs fit passes into very tight windows.
This pass is supposed to be put on the tight end in stick, but Watson dirts it and stops the flow of the offense. This happened far too much for a QB who was as highly regarded as he was, while also being as highly paid as he is.
Like, it got REALLY bad.
On top of that, when QB Joe Flacco entered the starting lineup after Watson’s season-ending injury, the Browns offense looked like it ran a bit smoother, and the productivity of targets like WRs Amari Cooper, Elijah Moore and TE David Njoku skyrocketed. He simply ran the offense better than Watson did in 2023, and that’s a problem for a guy who is making as much money as he is.
So, how can Stefanski get the best out of a QB who was supposed to answer all the Browns’ problems? How can he salvage what’s left of Watson in 2024?
Big Boy Browns Football
One of the things I noticed when watching the Browns’ offense last year was how successful they, and Watson, were out of 12 personnel and condensed sets. According to Sports Information Solutions, Watson threw the ball out of 12 personnel 18 times, but his On-Target Rate out of 12 jumps to 75%, a drastic improvement from where he was in total. While his aDOT out of 12 is a meager 6.4, his Sack Rate goes down and Watson looks a bit more comfortable with bigger bodies on the field. The same tune is sung with Flacco, whose aDOT of 8.6 and three TDs out of 12 paced the Browns signal-callers.
In addition, where Stefanski can help Watson even more is through the use of play action. While play action is not the magic elixir that fixes an offense, Watson’s mobility comes into play off run fakes and Stefanski could continue to work the ball downfield. Some of Watson’s best passes came off play action, with an On-Target Rate of 76.3% and a Positive Play Rate of 42%. With deep pockets off run fakes, Watson shows the ability to fire in passes, even if his arm strength isn’t what it was.
This sounds eerily similar to the game-plan for QB Russell Wilson in Denver, and to this point, they’re kind of similar. Both are very expensive QBs whose athleticism might be on the downward slope, that need more play action so they can take those shots downfield. Cooper and Njoku both also benefit from these shots downfield; in his time at QB Joe Flacco had the highest aDOT off play action in the entire league.
There’s a formula for Watson if he wants to salvage what might be a career that’s taken the wildest tailspin in NFL history. For he and the Browns’ sake, they’ll need to turn it around in 2024 and get him not to 2020 form, but at least passable.
Gervonta “Tank” Davis will be back in the ring on Saturday night, marking the return of one of boxing’s most talked-about stars and reliable draws as he puts his WBA lightweight title on the line against undefeated Frank Martin.
Davis (29-0, 27 KO) hasn’t been seen in action since his win over Ryan Garcia 14 months ago, in what was probably the biggest fight of 2023. The 29-year-old “Tank” will not have that level of spotlight against Martin (18-0, 12 KO), who just isn’t near Garcia’s level in notoriety and fame, but any time Davis fights, it’s a big deal for the boxing world.
As is usually the case, however, a lot of the talk days ahead of the fight is about what everyone would like to see Gervonta do next, once he’s done with this fight that pretty much everybody assumes he will win without much trouble.
Martin, also 29, is a good fighter. “The Ghost” has spent the last couple of years earnestly battling his way up the 135-pound ranks with wins over Romero Duno, Jackson Marinez, Michel Rivera, and Artem Harutyunyan, his most recent opponent, and a fight where we saw him struggle a good deal more than he had against the prior trio of opponents.
That struggle leads most to believe that Martin just won’t be good enough to pull the upset on Davis, and it’s a reasonable position. It is worth keeping in mind boxing’s “styles make fights” rule, because Davis fights nothing like Harutyunyan.
Unfortunately for Martin, the things he’s best at are things Davis excels in, too, and “Tank” also packs the power that Martin doesn’t. Davis is not an aggressive fighter by nature, taking his time to figure opponents out, but once he does, he lets the power go, and there’s a reason his knockout percentage is so high.
In a way, Saturday’s Gervonta return feels a little ho-hum, a little pedestrian, because the intrigue just isn’t there. It’s hard to even expect that he will come in unprepared and overlooking his opponent, because he never does that no matter how heavily he’s favored or how easy a fight is supposed to be.
It’s easy to want to look ahead, then, so are we any closer to Gervonta giving the public the fights they want to see instead of just lining up the next available PBC-affiliated name?
Boxing matchmaking is often overwhelmed by the political issues between various promoters and stables, and then further complicated by the broadcast deals tied to those promoters and stables.
Actual star fighters, though, ultimately have the most say, at least when they want to use their leverage. That’s how we got Tank vs Ryan Garcia last year; the fighters made that deal happen, Garcia in particular. Anything really can be done, and with the Saudi government showing wider-ranging interest in the sport, that’s more true than ever. Money will always talk in boxing, and they have a lot more of it than anyone else.
The key fights at 135 for Davis would be a long-awaited showdown with Vasiliy Lomachenko, who holds the WBO title, or a meeting with Shakur Stevenson, the WBC titleholder. Both of those fighters are currently with Top Rank and ESPN. Davis vs Lomachenko might come too late for Loma; as good as the Ukrainian still is, he’s past his best days. But Davis vs Shakur would be a meeting of two of boxing’s smartest in-ring tacticians, and they’ve floated a good bit of animosity into the world. Whether it’s real or not doesn’t even matter — it’s just about getting enough people to believe it’s real.
Maybe one of those guys will be across the ring from Davis next time we see him, whenever that comes, or maybe Davis will entertain a move up to 140, where he’s fought once and wasn’t quite himself, to take on someone like Devin Haney or Teofimo Lopez. There are always curveballs, too. It might sound crazy right now, but Davis may look at a currently soft welterweight division and a chance to become a four-division world champion with a favorable vacant title fight, now that Terence Crawford is moving up in weight.
Whatever it is, the real hope is that we see Davis in against someone you can reasonably see as a serious threat to him. Boxing is at its best when there is an actual split in opinion on who can win a fight and not just building, bit by bit, the marketability of a single fighter with carefully-chosen matchups, which unfortunately has been the bulk of Davis’ career, and seems most likely to be what we get this weekend.
