Tag: let

British Grand Prix: Sergio Pérez concedes he ‘let the team down’ in qualifying british,grand,prix,sergio,p,rez,concedes,he,let,the,team,down,in,qualifying,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one

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Ahead of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix Red Bull team boss Christian Horner noted that Sergio Pérez needed to “dig deep” to pull himself out of a bit of a slump.

Digging in the gravel trap at Copse was probably not what the Red Bull Team Principal had in mind.

During Saturday’s qualifying session, Pérez was one of the first drivers to make the change from the intermediate compound to a set of slicks, but that soft tire did Pérez no favors as he quickly found himself in the gravel, and out of qualifying.

“I was the first one basically to get to the slick tire, and as I was coming into Turn 9 I downshifted and lost the rear of the car,” said Pérez in the team’s post-qualifying report. “I just locked up. So I went straight … but it was completely wet on the outside. My mistake.”

Despite his starting position, down in P19, Pérez hopes he can get back into the points and minimize the damage for Red Bull.

“It’s gonna be a very tricky race, a long afternoon, but I have every hope that I can get back to secure some points and minimize the damage,” added Perez.

Speaking with the official F1 channel after qualifying, Pérez went as far as to say that he “let the team down” with his mistake at Copse.

“It’s very frustrating, it hurts to let your team down in that way, especially because we’ve had a really strong weekend up to now. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to show the full pace,” described Pérez.

That mistake came not only during a difficult stretch of form for the driver but on a week where that run of poor performances has led to renewed speculation about Pérez’s job security at Red Bull. Despite the announcement of a new contract for the driver which could keep him in his current seat through 2026, his recent struggles have seen more rumors about Pérez potentially losing his spot due to performance clauses in his contract.

As always, paddock rumors require at least a healthy grain of salt or two, but there is no denying that Pérez is under pressure to deliver for Red Bull as they face a potential Constructors’ Championship fight with teams like Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes.

Seeing Pérez in the gravel is not how Red Bull wanted to start their weekend, as they look to stay ahead in that fight.

Hard Knocks revealed why Giants let Saquon Barkley go in NFL free agency hard,knocks,revealed,why,giants,let,saquon,barkley,go,in,nfl,free,agency,sbnation,com,front-page,nfl,nfl-free-agency,hard-knocks,draftkings

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Odds are you are familiar with the NFL Films product of Hard Knocks, a documentary series that chronicles a team throughout the course of training camp and the preseason and ultimately ends right as the regular season begins.

Recently NFL Films has produced an in-season version of the show where they follow teams throughout the course of an NFL season. That is pretty self-explanatory.

Tuesday night saw the debut of a new version of the show. This latest HK follows the New York Giants over the initial part of this offseason and focuses on how the G-Men assembled their staff and team. It is always interesting to get these peeks behind the curtain and now we got a peek at an area that was previous off limits.

If you are a HK veteran like myself then in watching it a lot of things likely feel the same to you. Part of the challenge of this show is that there is no breaking news of any kind given that when anything massive happens it is then given to us in the next episode. There is relatively little shock value.

This is true for the Giants as we obviously know what they did throughout all of free agency and the NFL Draft; however, the debut episode was a lot about something that they didn’t do… pay running back Saquon Barkley.

New York selected Barkley with the second overall pick in 2018 and went through quite the song and dance with him once they finally got down to contractual negotiations. Barkley played on the franchise tag in 2023 so the time for a serious decision arrived this offseason and the Giants watched him walk in free agency to a division rival in the Philadelphia Eagles.

This subject is touched on throughout the episode but in the closing minutes Giants GM Joe Schoen is having a conversation with his brain trust and ultimately notes that they are not paying their quarterback in Daniel Jones what they are for him to hand the ball off.

Tim McDonnell, Director of Player Personnel: Take this a step further. We lose Saquon right… what’s our identity going to be on offense now? What’s our plan? What’s the next step of that, I guess is what I’m thinking. We’re losing… our explosiveness, our touchdowns. Quarterback, if it’s Daniel, depends on the run game.

Joe Schoen, General Manager: We’ve got to upgrade the offensive line and you’re paying the guy $40M. It’s not to hand the ball off to a $12M back. My plan is address the offensive line at some point here in free agency. We’re sitting at 6, there’s a chance there’s an offensive weapon there. This is the year for Daniel. The plan all along was give him a couple of years. Is he our guy for the next 10 years or do we need to pivot and find somebody else?”

To be clear this conversation was had before the Giants ultimately saw Saquon leave, remember that NFL Films is shooting these events in real time.

The benefit of hindsight tells us that the Giants did exactly what Schoen said in that they signed several offensive linemen in free agency (headlined by Jon Runyan) and took LSU wide receiver Malik Nabers at number 6 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft.

As someone who roots for and covers the Dallas Cowboys I have taken a great amount of joy in laughing at the Giants and their decision-making for the last 15 or so years, but if we are fair about all of this then they did absolutely nothing wrong.

I’ll acknowledge that the Giants don’t exactly have the benefit of the doubt and that Daniel Jones is not exactly someone I would strongly believe in personally, but this is still the NFL and building around the quarterback is the most logical way forward. In fact the Giants failed miserably at trying to build around Saquon Barkley for all of his Giants career.

People will laugh and roll their eyes at what the Giants did especially because Howie Roseman is the Eagles’ general manager and is regarded as being very good at his job, so it looks like the Giants made a huge mistake that the Eagles capitalized on. Again, benefit of the doubt type stuff.

But the Giants finally made the hard decision that they avoided for so long. Good for them I guess.