Cheeseburgers and beyond: Andy Reid loves food as much as football
Cheeseburgers and beyond: Andy Reid loves food as much as football
NEW ORLEANS — Andy Reid has a routine for every Chiefs road game. He gathers the team at the hotel the night before the game and imparts some non-football information to his players.
“Every Saturday, he talks about the local cows and what types of burgers we’re going to have,” safety Justin Reid said of his coach with a smile. “He has a motto: Let your personality show and I’ll treat you to a cheeseburger.”
When Andy Reid is not teaching his players the game plan or a technique to improve on the field, he is most often sharing with them his passion, thoughts and experiences with food, which he appreciates as much as a 40-yard pass play.
A couple of years ago, Justin Reid was set to travel to Frankfurt, Germany, to help promote the Chiefs’ 2023 game against the Miami Dolphins in the city. He was surprised when his coach recommended a restaurant with elite ******* cuisine, Main Tower Restaurant & Lounge.
“It was fire, brah,” Justin Reid said, shaking his head. “It was so good. It was really, really cool.”
Most of the Chiefs have a similar anecdote about Andy Reid.
He is known for many things, including a penchant for trick plays, mastering the screen pass, the NFL’s hardest training camp and an affection for Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirts.
Reid is also a certified foodie.
When anyone mentions food — any type of cuisine, restaurant or cheeseburger — Reid’s mood almost always improves.
In the past year, The Athletic has asked many in the Chiefs organization a simple question: What is the best meal you’ve ever had with Reid or because of him? Almost every player and coach had a different answer.
“Andy loves food,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said. “He loves cheeseburgers, but he loves steaks, he loves seafood and it’s always fun to see him enjoying dinner.”
Andy Reid on his favorite restaurant in New Orleans, and why he ‘probably won’t go there’ this year #ChiefsKingdom @KCTV5 pic.twitter.com/PTwyliYHab
— Marleah Campbell (@MarleahKCTV5) January 30, 2025
Since Reid joined the Chiefs in 2013, every offseason has included an annual group dinner at a steakhouse during the NFL owners’ meetings in late March. The dinner recently has featured Hunt, Reid, general manager Brett Veach and team president Mark Donovan. The gathering also serves as Reid’s belated celebration of his March 19 birthday.
“We let him give us the grades for the restaurant,” Hunt said, smiling. “He definitely enjoys chocolate cake.”
Reid and the Chiefs are in one of Reid’s favorite food cities, New Orleans, this week as they seek to win their fourth Lombardi Trophy in six years. If they beat Reid’s former team, the Philadelphia Eagles, in Super Bowl LIX, they will become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls.
Reid shared the favorite meal he’s ever had in New Orleans, a dining experience that occurred more than 15 years ago when he was coaching the Eagles. Reid was invited to Emeril’s, the acclaimed restaurant of chef Emeril Lagasse, by the head chef at the time, an Eagles fan.
“He said, ‘I’m going to start at the ocean and finish in the mountains,’” Reid said. “He put me in the kitchen and he said, ‘Have at it. I’ll stop when you’re full.’”
Reid said the meal ended four hours later.
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Reid has an affinity for chefs. When possible, he tries to chat with the chef — or multiple chefs — after a meal, which allows him to learn more about the art of cooking.
“Being a cook is like being a coach,” said Dan Williams, the Chiefs’ assistant quarterbacks coach who spent two years as Reid’s assistant. “You’re trying different ingredients. You’re bringing things to the table that might be different than what other people are bringing. You want to put it all together and make the best product. I think that’s how (Reid) equates it.”
One of Reid’s favorite chefs is Michael Mina, an award winner who has 27 restaurants. About a decade ago in Orange County, Calif., Reid and Tammy, his wife, first experienced one of Mina’s best entrees: the Maine lobster pot pie, which is cooked in a copper pot.
The lobster pot pie sparked a conversation between Reid and Mina, which led to their friendship.
“Oh, it’s unbelievable,” Reid said of the dish. “The crust around the copper pot, that’s the best part of it. They don’t put it on the stinkin’ plate. I said, ‘Hey, leave that pot here!’”
During the 2021 season, the Chiefs’ bye week included Thanksgiving Day, which allowed Reid to spend more time at home than at the team’s training facility. That day, he had a question about the turkey. He called Mina.
“I said, ‘Coach me up on cooking the turkey,’” Reid said. “I already knew how to cook the turkey. But about an hour later, I had a whole pad of notes on what to put in this stinkin’ turkey. I go, ‘This is going to be an unbelievable bird right here.’
“I would’ve had to go to the store and buy half the store to put in this turkey. I had a few of the things and went with it and it turned out great.”
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Two summers ago, after President Joe Biden honored the Chiefs at the White House, Reid broke down the food served to them as if he were analyzing a touchdown-scoring play. Before the 15-minute ceremony in the Rose Garden, during which the Chiefs were celebrated as Super Bowl LVII champions, Reid devoured an entree he had never tried before: a French Toast grilled cheese and ham sandwich.
“They sprinkled a little bit of powdered sugar on,” Reid said. “It was phenomenal. There was an abundance of this. They had exotic chicken fingers.”
Then, Reid remembered another dish.
“The best part, which I hadn’t seen before, was little bite-size squares of the heart of the watermelon,” he said. “I went back and talked to (the chef). I just go, ‘You guys are unbelievable.’ Whoever cut all of that out and had the patience to do that, my hat goes off to them.”
What kinda food does the White House serve to the Super Bowl champions?
The full review from Andy Reid (via @Chiefs) pic.twitter.com/a7mDaFBBeL
— NFL (@NFL) June 8, 2023
Last June, after the Chiefs’ second visit to the White House, Reid praised another dish: fried fish tots.
“I had a chance to meet all the chefs,” Reid said. “Everything was bite size, so it gets dangerous.”
Reid doesn’t have much time to cook, but, according to several members of the team, he has perfected mac and cheese. In March 2018, Reid shared the cheeses he uses — fontina, mozzarella, parmesan, sharp cheddar, all grated, gouda and gruyere — with sportswriter Charles McDonald when the two met at an airport.
Last year, Nick Jacobs, a sports producer in Kansas City, tried to get more details on Reid’s mac and cheese recipe just days before Thanksgiving. Reid was coy.
“Yeah, you’d like it,” Reid told Jacobs. “You and I could do some damage on that thing. As long as it tastes good, we eat it. That one tastes pretty good. I can’t give away the secrets, man.”
Growing up in Los Angeles, Reid’s favorite dining-out meal as a kid was a cheeseburger from Original Tommy’s, a fast food joint that has 34 locations, mostly in California.
“I loved it — and chili cheese fries,” Reid said.
Reid loves Original Tommy’s cheeseburgers so much that he has them flown into Kansas City from Los Angeles.
His love for cheeseburgers has remained throughout his coaching career, using them as a way to praise and motivate his players. When Reid was in Philadelphia, several Eagles players used to eat a cheeseburger in the locker room after a pivotal victory. He even suggested a cheeseburger be the prize for a fun bet between him and a player during a game.
During his time with the Chiefs, Reid added a new event to his weekly routine: Friday night date night with Tammy, who is also a certified foodie. A number of those dinners are — you guessed it — cheeseburgers from Five Guys.
Lunchtime pic.twitter.com/IQJpJ2GSlR
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) April 25, 2020
He told 96.5 the Fan how to make his perfect cheeseburger.
“I like it medium,” Reid said in 2015. “It’s hard. I mean, you have to execute that thing the right way. You have to get it to where it’s perfect and juicy when you cut it open but not raw. Then a nice slice of good, fresh Vidalia onion on it. Some mayo and ketchup. A little squirt of mustard but not too much. Pickles, lettuce and tomato and I’m ready to roll.
“The bun becomes very important. To put all that together and make it perfect, there’s some time involved. That’s where it comes in. You practice, you get it right, and then when you bite into it, baby, it’s ecstasy right there.”
The Chiefs won their first championship in 50 years when the team rallied from a 10-point deficit in Super Bowl LIV to beat the San Francisco 49ers. One of Reid’s first on-field interviews after the victory was with NFL Network.
“I’m going to get the biggest cheeseburger you’ve ever seen,” Reid said, smiling and laughing. “It might be a double.”
On Christmas Eve in 2022, the Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks. After Reid’s short postgame speech in the locker room, his players, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce, surprised him with a wrapped gift. Reid smiled when he opened the box and saw a freshly made double cheeseburger.
“Thank you,” Reid said to his players. “May you all get a gift as great as this: cheeseburgers in paradise, baby.”
The best gift for the best coach pic.twitter.com/2Nvw6Oz3BO
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) December 24, 2022
The Chiefs’ success, becoming the NFL’s newest dynasty, has allowed Reid to show his personality through national commercials alongside Mahomes promoting State Farm insurance. When Reid and Mahomes filmed their commercials in Los Angeles in 2023, one of them had to be them eating cheeseburgers together.
“The funniest part was the producer wanted me to try to talk and do my lines with my mouth full of the cheeseburger,” Reid told Complex Sports this past summer. “Pat is sitting right in front of me and I’m trying to do this and there’s cheeseburgers flying everywhere at these guys. They couldn’t hold a straight face. They were dying laughing. Finally, Pat goes, ‘Cut it! We’re not doing this!’”
Reid’s most famous line from the commercials with Mahomes is one he now hears all the time from people — “Explain it again, with those nuggies.” The commercial ends with Reid trying to steal Mahomes’ chicken nuggets.
“He finishes his food fast,” Mahomes told NBC Sports in September. “I’m quick about eating as well. He will grab from other people’s plate. The commercial is really real. That line in the commercial, he made up. He said it once and I remember the director being like, ‘I like that, let’s keep running with that.’”
The Chiefs’ last team meeting the night before a game always ends the same way — with Reid’s signature line: “Treat you to a cheeseburger.”
A spread of food awaits the players, always including cheeseburgers.
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Six years later, Dave Merritt can still remember one of his favorite conversations with Reid.
Merritt, a former NFL linebacker, became a successful defensive backs coach under coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, helping the New York Giants win two Super Bowls. When Reid hired Spagnuolo on Jan. 29, 2019, as the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator, Merritt was a leading candidate to join the coaching staff. But he also was considering joining the Jacksonville Jaguars. When Merritt and Reid chatted, their conversion turned toward contact terms.
“I said, ‘Coach, I don’t care about the contract. Tell me about the food here,’” Merritt said. “He started getting excited, going, ‘Oh, you need to go to Q39! We have the best barbecue!’”
Once Merritt agreed to join the Chiefs, another deal was made: Reid promised Merritt to treat him to his first meal at Q39, one of Kansas City’s most popular barbecue restaurants. Merritt ate the dish Reid recommended: the beef burnt ends.
“I had to report back to him,” Merritt said. “I said, ‘Coach, you were right.’ It was pretty doggone good.”
After the Chiefs won their first championship, Reid took Tammy and other family members to Q39, which surprised the restaurant full of Chiefs fans.
“I had a craving for burnt ends,” Reid said. “I had onion straws with mac and cheese. Doggone it, I had a Diet Coke to chase it.”
Merritt marvels at how Reid bonds with his players over food.
“It may be something that you don’t like that maybe he’s eaten,” Merritt said. “Andy eats everything. He can adapt to whatever it is you like. He can connect with all people.”
Reid had one quibble with Merritt’s statement.
“I like everything except liver,” Reid said.
Three years ago, the Chiefs wanted to sign Justin Reid, who was an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. Justin agreed to a three-year deal after dinner with Reid, Veach and Spagnuolo at Stock Hill, one of Kansas City’s best steakhouses.
Throughout the season, Spagnuolo brings large aluminum pans into the Chiefs’ training facility on Fridays. Each pan holds 15 generous portions of banana pudding made by Spagnuolo’s wife, Maria. A couple of years ago, Williams took his first bite of Maria’s banana pudding alongside Reid.
“Man, that took the cake, for sure,” Williams said. “It was phenomenal, the texture, the crunch of the cookie. (Reid) was like, ‘Every time this comes in, we’re having it together.’”
Defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton and right guard Trey Smith are known as the Chiefs linemen who can eat the most food. Smith said his best meals with Reid are in the team hotel on Saturday nights before a game.
“That spread we have, it’s wings, brisket, burgers, hot dogs, pies and cakes,” Smith said, smiling. “It’s ridiculous. Every week, being able to share that meal with him is really the best.
“He’s just like me. I love food, he loves food and we’re both big guys. He gets it. No one wants to see a kale wrap the night before a stressful game.”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Andrew Mather / Kansas City Chiefs via AP)
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Gamer reportedly received an RTX 5080 with RTX 5090 branding — it turns out to be an RTX 5080, after all
Gamer reportedly received an RTX 5080 with RTX 5090 branding — it turns out to be an RTX 5080, after all
One of the few people who was able to buy an RTX 5080 was surprised to see that their card was an RTX 5090, at least according to the engraved name on the cooler. Reddit user EssDee3D posted an image showing what appears to be an RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU in an RTX 5080 box ordered straight from Nvidia to the Linus Tech Tips subreddit.
“I ordered a 5080 and I got a graphics card with 5090 engraved on it,” the user said. “The outer box has the 5080 SKU on it. Wondering if anyone else has seen something like this before?” Unfortunately, no one in the thread (as far as we could see) said they had a similar experience. Instead, responses were a mix of envy, congratulations, and a few wondering if EssDee3D was faking the whole thing.
A few hours later, the RTX 5080 buyer returned with a video (embedded below) showing the graphics card running inside his PC to provide hard proof. When he panned over to his monitor and revealed the GPU’s details, the Task Manager reported that the card was an RTX 5080, much to EssDee3D’s audible disappointment; GPU-Z also confirmed it was an RTX 5080.
Although we don’t have further details from the man himself, one of two things happened: either the graphics card had an RTX 5080 cooler and was just engraved incorrectly, or the cooler was meant for the RTX 5090. It’s hard to say which scenario is more plausible (and if either is impossible), and without a tear-down from the purchaser, we’ll never know for sure.
However, despite sharing the exact physical dimensions, the RTX 5090 Founders Edition cooler is much higher-end than the one used for the RTX 5080. The RTX 5080 is roughly 180 grams lighter than the RTX 5090, and while some of that is down to having fewer VRAM chips, a smaller graphics die, and using thermal paste instead of liquid metal, some of that has to be because the RTX 5080’s cooler has less cooling prowess. If EssDee3D received an RTX 5090 cooler and not just an RTX 5080 cooler with the wrong name engraved on it, it would be the coolest reference RTX 5080 graphics card out there.
A simple stress test would likely reveal whether this is a regular RTX 5080 cooler or the RTX 5090’s cooler. Nvidia’s flagship GPU is rated for 575 watts, while the RTX 5080 is a 360-watt card, so the difference would be pretty noticeable.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this misnamed GPU is that it wasn’t a complete mixup. Even though the card was ostensibly an RTX 5090, it was still shipped in the correct box and delivered to someone who had bought an RTX 5080. Nvidia must make a lot of effort to ensure people get the right model while the RTX 50 series is in extremely short supply.
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Cows Have Been Infected With a Second Form of Bird Flu
Cows Have Been Infected With a Second Form of Bird Flu
Dairy cows in Nevada have been infected with a new form of bird flu that is distinct from the version that has been spreading through herds over the last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday.
The finding indicates that the virus, known as H5N1, has spilled from birds into cows at least twice — leading to these two sets of infections — and that it could continue to do so. It also suggests that the virus may pose a persistent risk to cows and to the people who work closely with them.
Before last year, scientists did not know that cows were susceptible to this type of influenza.
“This is not what anyone wanted to see,” said Louise Moncla, an evolutionary biologist who studies avian influenza at the University of Pennsylvania. “We need to now consider the possibility that cows are more broadly susceptible to these viruses than we initially thought.”
The news was announced in a news release from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a division of the Department of Agriculture. Federal agencies have not held a news briefing on bird flu since President Trump took office.
The virus that has been spreading through the nation’s dairies is a version of H5N1 known as B3.13, which has infected more than 950 herds in 16 states. Scientists believe that it initially jumped to cows from birds about a year ago, somewhere in the Texas panhandle. That transition took scientists by surprise, and this new one even more so.
“I was kind of under the belief that the bird-to-cow movement was a pretty rare event,” said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The fact that it has happened again is “a little bit of a ‘wow’ to me,” he added.
The cows in Nevada were infected with a version of the virus known as D1.1, which has been spreading in wild birds and poultry. It was initially detected in milk collected from a silo as part of a national milk testing strategy announced by the U.S.D.A. late last year.
The D1.1 form of H5N1 has also shown itself to be dangerous to people. Of the 67 Americans known to have become ill with H5N1 so far, the only one who died was infected with this version. That person, a Louisiana resident older than 65, had cared for sick and dying birds and died in early January.
In November, a 13-year-old ********* girl also became infected with the D1.1 virus, but it is unclear where she might have acquired it. Her only risk factor was obesity, but she, too, became seriously ill and was placed on life support because of organ failure. She eventually recovered.
Avian influenza is so called because it is best adapted to infecting birds. But in both these individuals, the virus gained mutations during the course of infection that might allow it to better infect people.
“It is possible that the virus is more permissive for human adaptive mutations,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Reassuringly, the virus did not seem to spread from either person to anyone else. Still, its evolution indicated that it was capable of gaining the ability to efficiently spread among people.
So far, at least, the spread of D1.1 to cows “doesn’t change the average person’s life,” Dr. Moncla said. But it poses risks for dairy workers and the dairy industry, experts said. It also suggests the possibility that cows already infected once with B.3.13 could become ill a second time with D1.1, Dr. Webby said.
“It’s no longer just one virus,” he said. “This, to me, suggests that it’s going to be a lingering problem.”
Since January 2022, when H5N1 was detected in wild aquatic birds in the United States, the virus has affected more than 153 million commercial, backyard and wild birds, resulting in record prices on eggs.
It has also struck dozens of mammalian species, including cats both wild and domesticated, raccoons, bears and sea lions.
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Panama president decries US ‘lies’ about canal fees
Panama president decries US ‘lies’ about canal fees
Panama President Jose Raul Mulino says the United States is spreading “lies and falsehoods” after the State Department claimed US government vessels would be able to pass the Panama Canal without paying a fee.
The fiery allegations are the latest point of tension between the two countries which have clashed over the canal since US President Donald Trump claimed the vital waterway had effectively been taken over by China and vowed “we’re taking it back.”
Speaking to journalists, Mulino expressed his “absolute rejection” of managing US-Panama ties “based on lies and falsehoods.”
The Panama Canal Authority issued a statement late on Wednesday denying the claim from the US State Department earlier in the day that Panama’s government had agreed to no longer charge crossing fees for US government vessels, in a move that would save the US millions of dollars a year.
Trump has accused the Central American country of charging excessive rates to use its trade passage, one of the busiest in the world.
“Why are they making an important institutional statement from the entity that governs the foreign policy of the United States, under the President of the United States, based on a falsehood?” Mulino asked on Thursday, calling the State Department’s claim “simply and plainly intolerable”.
Mulino said he had asked his ambassador in Washington to take “firm steps” to deny the Trump administration’s claim.
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Pete Alonso to return to Mets on 2-year, $54 million deal: Sources
Pete Alonso to return to Mets on 2-year, $54 million deal: Sources
Pete Alonso, the first baseman known for his signature power and zest for hitting home runs, has agreed to a two-year, $54 million contract to return to the New York Mets, league sources confirmed to The Athletic on Wednesday. The deal, which will pay Alonso $30 million in 2025, includes a player option for $24 million in the second year.
A four-time All-Star, Alonso, who will play his age-30 season in 2025, ranked as the best available player at his position. He entered this offseason as the No. 8 player on The Athletic’s Free Agent Big Board and was projected by The Athletic’s Tim Britton to receive a five-year, $130 million deal.
A long-term deal to Alonso’s liking never materialized, leading to a lengthy stay in free agency. After signing Juan Soto, the Mets refrained from signing anyone else to more than a three-year deal. By the end of December, it became clear that Alonso would have to set his sights on a shorter-term contract to stay with the Mets. By January, negotiations between the club and Alonso’s agent Scott Boras grew so laborious that Mets owner Steve Cohen called them “exhausting.”
The Mets were also offering Alonso a three-year deal, league sources said. The offer was for $71 million and the years broke down as follows: $27 million, $22 million, $22 million. The contract also contained a player option after the first year. But Alonso chose the higher first-year value that came with the two-year deal.
Under Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns, the Mets showed financial restraint in dealing with Alonso, a fan favorite in New York. Alonso has the misfortune of playing in the wrong era for his skillset and role. Perhaps in a previous generation, negotiations would’ve gone differently. Generally, team executives these days harbor aging concerns with players like Alonso.
Power stands out as Alonso’s one major skill, and he supplies it at a rate that rivals almost anyone. Since debuting in 2019 and winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award that same year, only Aaron Judge (232 home runs) has hit more home runs than Alonso (226).
Alonso has spent his entire career with the Mets, the organization that drafted him in the second round in 2016, becoming one of the franchise’s most popular players. In the club’s all-time records, his home run total ranks third. When he was Rookie of the Year in 2019, Alonso led the major leagues with 53 home runs, a Mets single-season record. Alonso also holds the club’s single-season record for RBIs (131 in 2022).
Alonso’s biggest hit occurred in October. He hadn’t had an extra-base hit over his last 40 at-bats before stepping to the plate in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the Wild Card Series. With the Mets facing elimination, Alonso launched a go-ahead three-run home run against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Mets then advanced to the National League Championship Series, the farthest into a season Alonso has ever played.
PETE ALONSO!!!!!!!!!!!!! #POSTSEASON pic.twitter.com/LzgpxTWUzN
— MLB (@MLB) October 4, 2024
Alonso’s postseason heroics coupled with a .999 OPS in October salvaged a sub-standard 2024 based on a high bar that he has set. Ahead of free agency, Alonso hit 34 home runs with 88 RBIs, a .240 batting average and a .788 OPS (123 OPS+). Those are solid numbers, but his home run total was his lowest over a full season, his OPS dipped well below his career mark (.854) and he struggled most of the season with runners on base.
Some scouts and executives wonder how valuable Alonso will be once his physical tools start to wane as he gets older. Generally, that tends to be the worry for all power-hitting first basemen, especially the right-handed batters. The scouts and executives also question what would happen if his chase rate climbed. Alonso doesn’t walk at an exceptionally high rate (usually around 10 percent of the time). It’s not as if he helps with stolen bases, either. And he is not a graceful athlete, scouts say, as a defender.
Though when it comes to Alonso, those who have coached or played with him say there’s no denying how much he cares to win and wants to improve. He puts in the work. And he plays every day; he didn’t miss a single game in 2024 after missing just 24 the previous five seasons combined. There’s value in availability, consistency and a desire to get better.
(Photo: Rob Tringali / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
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Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s latest trailer features wrestler Samoa Joe
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s latest trailer features wrestler Samoa Joe
***** and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have released a new story trailer for the upcoming Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.
The trailer highlights the game’s story, which sees veteran Yakuza Goro Majima become a pirate after losing his memory and washing ashore on a remote island.
The new trailer also features pirate king Raymond Law, who’s played by AEW wrestler Samoa Joe.
Players who pre-order the game can add Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth protagonist Ichiban to their pirate crew, alongside Ichiban’s **** lobster, Nancy. Players will also receive two Ichiban costumes which can be worn by Majima.
Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will be released on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and PC on February 21.
VGC recently had a chance to play the Yakuza spin-off and called it something “only RGG could get away with.”
“We had absolutely no doubt that RGG was going to be able to pull off Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, but we’re still very impressed by how confident it is,” we wrote.
“This game, which RGG confirmed will bridge the gap between Infinite Wealth and the next main series entry, will both palette-cleanse fans who need a break from the turn-based main series and reward those who’ve been Goro Majima fanatics for over a decade now.”
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The Meteorite Hunters review: A thrilling guide to an Indiana Jones-like world
The Meteorite Hunters review: A thrilling guide to an Indiana Jones-like world
A bolide (bright) meteor, in remote Canada
Stocktrek Images, Inc./Alamy
The Meteorite Hunters Joshua Howgego (Oneworld (***, on ***** now; US, 13 May))
One evening in July last year, a couple from Prince Edward Island in Canada returned home after walking their dogs to find grey, dusty debris near their door. At first, they thought something had fallen off the roof, but the footage from their doorbell camera revealed something different. They’d had a lucky escape.
While they were out, a space rock – thought to have been somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a baseball and…
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Here Is the Famous Reddit Beans Recipe
Here Is the Famous Reddit Beans Recipe
My colleague Michael Linares alerted me the other day to the popularity of Alexa Weibel’s *******, spicy tomato beans and greens on the NYT Cooking subreddit. In this online community of enthusiastic cooks and commenters, the recipe is going viral. (Do you “go viral” on Reddit? Are they popping off, blowing up? Help me, fellow kids.)
I don’t think I can do this recipe any better service than to share the delightful comments in the thread, so I’ll serve you a selection: “I don’t know what kind of magic is at work here, but I’m convinced this is the food they serve in heaven. 10/10. No notes.”
“To be honest, I do make beans a lot, but this dish is just way above most others I make.”
“Because of this recipe I started finding arugula edible and even enjoyable!”
And, perhaps my favorite: “THA BEANSSS.”
Featured Recipe
*******, Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens
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Although Alexa’s dish is economical, colorful, healthful and easy and fast to prepare, I think what might be hooking people is its delicious spicy-sweet-******* flavor combination. The crushed red pepper, sautéed onion, tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes and heavy cream form a powerful flavor mixture that registers as cozy and comforting, the cooking equivalent of a weighted blanket. You see this same combination in Naz Deravian’s marry me chicken — might these be marry me beans?
For more spicy **********, there’s Rick Martínez’s new pollo a la piña (pineapple chicken), which gets its kick from canned chipotles in adobo. And while there’s only a pinch of chile flakes in Lidey Heuck’s honey garlic shrimp, I could see adding more — or, indeed, swapping in hot honey for the not-hot honey.
Scrolling through the happy comments on Alexa’s beans naturally reminded me of our list of the 50 most loved New York Times Cooking recipes, published last year to celebrate our 10th anniversary. (Revisiting that list reminded me that I should go through and check off the recipes I’ve made.)
There’s a section of the list that’s dedicated to recipes with memorable (hilarious) comments. If you’re thinking, “Oh, you mean the home-wrecking brownie,” yes, that’s there. As is Yossy Arefi’s chocolate lava cake that kicked off “ramekin discourse” and Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce, which has the distinction of being one of our most popular recipes and the home of this perfect comment. I’ll leave you with it in its entirety:
“I cannot comment of the taste of the sauce. It was cooling and I ran a short errand. In the meantime, my 8-year-old Labrador retriever, Jake (who had never, ever bothered anything in the kitchen), somehow got the pot off of the cooktop and ate all of the sauce. The worst part was that I had tripled the recipe, so Jake ate three pounds of Bolognese sauce! I am certain he would rate the sauce a 5. We had to go out for dinner, but I will make the recipe again and post relevant feedback! P.S. Jake is fine.”
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Amazon’s Q4 earnings preview: What to expect?
Amazon’s Q4 earnings preview: What to expect?
Amazon’s (AMZN) upcoming earnings report for its fiscal fourth quarter is set to be released on Thursday after the bell, with many wondering if the e-commerce giant can continue its strong performance amid pressure from capital expenditures (CapEx) across the tech sector.
Michele Schneider, chief strategist at MarketGauge.com, joins Morning Brief to note that while Amazon remains a reliable and affordable option for consumers, concerns over CapEx spending could lead to market volatility, as CapEx “always hits the bottom line in terms of profits.” Ultimately, she believes a major economic downturn would need to occur for Amazon to falter.
“The guidelines for the future [are] still good, but yet also the capital expenditures [are] rising. And that’s why we’re seeing some volatility in those stocks,” Schneider explains.
Additionally, Schneider highlights small caps and retail as sectors showing potential, believing these areas are already in the market’s current momentum.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
This post was written by Josh ******
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Who is the NFL’s next 9-figure TV talent?
Who is the NFL’s next 9-figure TV talent?
During Fox Sports’ Super Bowl pregame show, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay will make a couple of appearances, sources briefed on the plan told The Athletic.
It is not a big role, but it does have some significance because there is always jockeying for position to be the next $100 million NFL TV analyst. The 39-year-old McVay, who already could have been a nine-figure-contract commentator, is in position to potentially accept such an offer if he ever should choose to take a respite from coaching.
McVay, Travis Kelce and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin will have major broadcasting opportunities, if and when they want. Greg Olsen, the people’s choice, is ripe to reclaim a No. 1 spot, if he can find one, while CBS’ “NFL Today” panelist J.J. Watt, who called one of the Netflix games, is also a potential candidate to watch.
The sportscasting free-agency carousel all seems quiet — until it isn’t. Super Bowl week is when the future deals gain some roots, as the top executives from the major sports platforms converge on New Orleans.
Last year, Jason Kelce was taking meetings with all the networks. He had offers from nearly every major network, before going with the highest known bidder in ESPN on a three-year, $24 million contract, according to sources briefed on the deal.
The fearsome fivesome we named – McVay, Travis Kelce, Tomlin, Olsen and Watt – could eventually be joined by Pro Bowlers and future Hall of Famers. None of them will receive Tom Brady’s $375 million deal, but $100 million here or there could help any of these folks with the price of eggs.
GO DEEPER
How Tom Brady became the Super Bowl’s $375 million star
Brady is locked up for another nine years after the Super Bowl and said he may want to go beyond that. CBS’ Tony Romo has five years remaining on his 10-year, $180 million deal. Cris Collinsworth is signed up through NBC’s Super Bowl next season and the one in 2029-30.
While Troy Aikman’s $90 million contract only runs through ABC/ESPN’s 2026-27 Super Bowl, the network is over the moon with him and Joe Buck. Unless there is a hiccup over trying to reach Brady’s contract stratosphere, it would be a bit surprising for Aikman not to sign on for more years.
That leaves Amazon Prime Video and “Thursday Night Football.” The legendary Al Michaels, 80, is going year-to-year on play-by-play, while Kirk Herbstreit — more of a college guy than an NFL analyst — is up in two seasons. It is still early, but Prime Video could try a full reboot when Michaels finally hangs up his Hall of Fame headset.
Amazon has agreed with Ian Eagle to be its lead NBA play-by-player. CBS holds Eagle in the highest regard as the voice of the Final Four and its No. 2 NFL play-by-player. He would seem a natural choice when Michaels decides the time has come to turn off his mic.
Herbstreit has spoken about the exhaustion of doing TNF, “College GameDay” and ESPN’s college football game of the week. He tweets out his private flight schedule every week, which is a lot of miles, even accompanied by his dogs.
That leaves McVay, Travis Kelce, Tomlin, Olsen and Watt jockeying for position. CBS studio analyst Matt Ryan is also someone to consider long-term if he ever is returned to games.
McVay already walked away from a potential $20 million per year offer from Amazon, where he could have been Michaels’ partner on Prime Video’s Thursday Night package three years ago.
Travis Kelce is maybe the greatest tight end ever and was already on every network’s future sportscasting lists, even without the added value of being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.
Tomlin has shown no inkling about exiting the sidelines, but he is the one who executives and NFL play-by-players talk about in terms of potential because of his way of succinctly making thoughtful points during press conferences and other media availabilities.
Olsen, Fox’s No. 2 analyst, is, along with Aikman, the best in the game right now.
Watt, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, may have caught the itch after calling the Netflix games with Eagle and Nate Burleson.
They all see the money — as the top game analysts are making from $13 million to $37.5 to work half the year. The studio pays less, but it is easy, keeps you very viable for commercials (see Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long after all these years) and pays a salary that can be in the $10 million range.
On Sunday, McVay making a cameo is just a little thing. But if he wants to stop coaching for a bit or forever, there will come a time that 81-year-old Jimmy Johnson, the longtime Hall of Fame coach on the Fox NFL Sunday set, retires.
McVay may be having a small audition on Super Bowl Sunday. It might be looked back one day as something more.
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Courtney Culbreath / Getty Images, Brooke Sutton / Getty Images, Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
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Jeff Kaplan’s Words on Overwatch Being Held to Stratospheric Standards Did Not Age Well After Marvel Rivals
Jeff Kaplan’s Words on Overwatch Being Held to Stratospheric Standards Did Not Age Well After Marvel Rivals
Let’s be honest here, when Overwatch dropped all the way back in 2016, no one could’ve predicted its success. The hero-shooter was Blizzard and Jeff Kaplan’s love child, and it completely transformed the genre and pulled in millions of gamers to the action.
Overwatch has been facing a downward spiral. (Image via Blizzard)
Kaplan had always regarded Overwatch as one of his finest works. When the sequel dropped, and its launch was filled with problems, players still had hopes that the game could make a return. However, with the launch of Marvel Rivals, it’s quite clear that Overwatch has lost the battle, and Kaplan’s beloved game is down the drain.
Jeff Kaplan’s Overwatch has lost its way
A few months after the original Overwatch hit shelves, Jeff Kaplan sat down with Vice and opened up about the game’s development and what Blizzard was planning for the future.
When asked how Blizzard manages to keep up with player expectations and scrutiny with every balance change and update, Kaplan stated that he loves meeting the challenge. Instead of seeing everything as a burden, Kaplan and his team felt that they could only thrive in such an environment and use it as a way to improve.
I love being held to high expectations. And part of the thrill of what we do is trying to meet them. I know we won’t always meet them, but I think that the type of developer that’s attracted to be at a place like Blizzard wants that challenge and wants to try to make the best thing possible.
Blizzard, during the era of the original, the hero-shooter, loved meeting the high player expectations, but what has happened to that motivation in today’s time? The studio promised that Overwatch 2 would breathe fresh life into the franchise, but all it did bring was broken promises and changes that no one had asked for to begin with.
Forget meeting players’ “expectations”; the studio doesn’t even know where to take the game at this point, which is quite clear from the juggling between 5v5 and 6v6 format. What’s even worse is that Overwatch finally has a direct competitor, Marvel Rivals.
Not only has Marvel Rivals managed to meet the community’s demands but also gone overboard in basically all aspects. Right from fun features and game modes to heroes, there’s something for everyone in the brand-new shooter. Developer NetEase Games has made sure the community doesn’t feel left out and rushes to address concerns.
We can only imagine how Overwatch 2 would’ve been under Kaplan’s leadership and motivation to satisfy gamers.
Can Blizzard still save Overwatch with future updates?
The hero-shooter will receive more major updates in 2025. (Image via Blizzard)
Blizzard finally realizes the dire situation it is in and plans to bring major updates to Overwatch 2 in the future. The studio has recently released its first Director’s Take of 2025, where game directly director Aaron Keller talks about various things players can expect to see soon.
After reflecting back on every change brought to the game’s competitive scene, Keller stated that the game mode will continue with a yearly cycle, which will allow players to reach even higher ranks.
According to Keller, the Champion rank wasn’t achievable like Blizzard had thought initially. There’s a chance we could see some adjustments in the upcoming season.
It’s still unknown if we’ll see a new hero in Season 15, but Keller says that Blizzard is working on one that has mobility similar to characters released in 2024.
We’ll soon see new systems in Competitive that will be announced in a few weeks, and ***** weapon variants will be axed and replaced with a brand-new type.
With that said, are you hyped about Overwatch‘s future? Let us know in the comments below.
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The Fashion Week Trend of the Season That’s Already Clear
The Fashion Week Trend of the Season That’s Already Clear
There’s so much going on in the next four weeks, between the Super Bowl; the continued rollout of awards season, culminating in the Oscars on March 2; and whatever shock and awe President Trump unleashes, that it’s hard to imagine how fashion shows will carve out any space in the attention economy.
As if on cue, the ready-to-wear season, which begins this week in New York before rolling on through London, Milan and Paris, is raising the stakes. Not only will there be major designer debuts (the kind that could change how you dress), but also high-wattage events and, just as significantly, a huge trend that has already emerged. Here’s what you need to know.
Separation of the sexes is over.
Back in 2016, Gucci, under the direction of Alessandro Michele, made the revolutionary decision to combine its men’s and women’s lines rather than presenting separating shows, as was traditional. Before you could say “runway revolution!” other brands jumped on the dual gender bandwagon. It made both narrative and economic sense. After all, the sexes do not exist separately. (They don’t even shop separately.) So why should their clothes be shown separately?
Well, it turned out, because women’s wear tends to be so much more eye-catching than men’s wear — so much sparklier, so much wackier — men’s wear ended up with the short end of the marketing stick. Presto: After a few seasons, fashion houses, including Gucci, began to revert to the old ways, the better to get more attention for the men’s lines. Not all of them, of course, but enough to make the move feel like a fad, rather than a systemic sea change.
Now the pendulum has changed course. Even Gucci is rethinking its decision, and this season Sabato De Sarno, Gucci’s creative director, will open Milan Fashion Week with his first combined show. The debuts of Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein and Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford will also showcase dual gender shows, as will Simone Bellotti’s Bally show (possibly his last, as rumor has it he may be moving to Jil Sander), not to mention Fendi.
If three examples of anything counts as a trend, this is a big one.
Paris is getting a Met Gala.
Fendi has not had a women’s wear designer since Kim Jones left his post in October, but that isn’t stopping the label from holding a celebratory 100th birthday catwalk extravaganza during Milan Fashion Week.
For one collection only, Silvia Venturini Fendi, the head of men’s wear and accessories and, as a granddaughter of the founders, the only Fendi family member officially still at the house, will be designing men’s and women’s wear, which will be united in a legacy-honoring blowout. It’s not the first time Ms. Fendi has taken the design reins (she also stepped in after Karl Lagerfeld’s death in 2019), but while she clearly understands the DNA of the label since it is also her DNA, there’s no sign she will be making the post permanent.
Then, on the evening of the first day of Paris Fashion Week, the Louvre will hold its answer to the Met Gala: the Grand Dîner du Louvre, a ******-tie fund-raiser honoring “Louvre Couture,” the museum’s first-ever fashion exhibition, which recently opened. To be held in Le Cour Marly, the sculpture-filled glass-roofed courtyard where Nicolas Ghesquière once held a Louis Vuitton show, with an after-party under the glass pyramid. With tables already snapped up by major fashion houses, it is bound to be the most glamorous party of the season.
The only questions: Will Oscar-goers be able to make it to Paris in time? And will the museum do it again next year?
Also, here’s a crib sheet for designer debuts.
There are so many designer debuts this year that it’s almost impossible to keep track. They started in January with Peter Copping’s freshman Lanvin show and will pick up steam on Day 2 of New York Fashion Week, when Veronica Leoni unveils her take on Calvin Klein, which has not been on the runway since 2018. Given the lack of other major draws in New York — Ralph Lauren is sitting this one out — all eyes will be on Ms. Leoni, a mostly unknown Italian and one of the rare women atop a major global label.
In Milan, Lorenzo Serafini will be stepping into the shoes of his mentor, Alberta Ferretti, as will Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten in Paris. Given that they were inside appointments of designers who had spent years working with the founders they replaced, expect continuity, not radical change.
For that, look to Sarah Burton, the longtime Alexander McQueen designer who left that house in 2023 and is returning to fashion as the creative director of Givenchy, which has been without a designer since Matthew Williams left in early 2024. (Whew! Got that?)
Mr. Williams was brought on to give Givenchy a streetwear edge, but the appointment never made much sense, and Ms. Burton, who is known for her soulful but adventurous imagination and edgy tailoring, should bring some clarity to the label.
Finally, Haider Ackermann, who has likewise been away from fashion for the last five years (save for a much-heralded guest designer collection for Jean Paul Gaultier couture in 2023), will be unveiling his first collection for Tom Ford. The very short stint of Peter Hawkings, Mr. Ford’s former head of men’s wear, was marked by a faithful (perhaps too faithful) representation of Mr. Ford’s greatest hits. Mr. Ackermann’s job is to redefine the label for a new era.
Can Tom Ford exist without Tom Ford? It remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Barring scheduling conflicts, the Haider Ackermann superfans Timothée Chalamet and Tilda Swinton will most likely be in the audience.
Thanks to the designer churn, a number of fashion houses are sitting out this season as their new creative directors settle into their jobs and prepare for their September shows. Bottega Veneta (where Louise Trotter has just arrived), Celine (Michael Rider), Proenza Schouler (where Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez recently stepped down), JW Anderson and Loewe (where the designer, Jonathan Anderson, is widely expected to be moving to Dior) are all in a holding pattern.
As for Chanel, still awaiting the arrival of Matthieu Blazy, its new designer, the collection will once again be designed by the studio.
Top grid, photographs clockwise from top left by, Noam Galai/Getty Images; Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times; Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times; Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times; Jingyu Lin for The New York Times
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Senate Democrats Hold the Floor in Overnight Protest of Trump Nominee
Senate Democrats Hold the Floor in Overnight Protest of Trump Nominee
There was no nursery rhyme reciting nor phone book reading. No cots wheeled out for senators to catch naps in between speechifying.
But one by one on Wednesday night and into Thursday, Senate Democrats flocked to the floor for an all-night talkathon to protest the confirmation of Russell T. Vought, President Trump’s nominee to lead the White House budget office and an architect of his ultraconservative Project 2025 policy agenda.
Several senators swigged caffeinated beverages. One arrived straight from a ******-tie banquet. The eyes were bleary but the outrage was fierce as Democrats took turns railing against Mr. Vought, who has orchestrated many of Trump’s moves to go around Congress to dismantle and defund the federal government.
They had no hope of stopping Mr. Vought. Consigned to the *********, Democrats lacked the votes to block him or any other Trump nominee so long as Republicans continued to largely hold together in support. Still, the all-nighter was a chance for members of a party that is under intense pressure from its base to push back more strongly against Mr. Trump to at least try to show they were trying.
“Mr. President, it’s getting late,” Senator Adam B. Schiff of California said not long before 11 p.m., about 10 hours into the gabfest. He criticized Republicans for failing to join in opposition to Mr. Vought but also made clear that the nonstop speeches had just as much to do with Democrats and their message to the public.
“I think what has been missing is the overarching narrative: ‘What are they doing? And why are they doing it?’” Mr. Schiff said. “Tonight, we are beginning to tell that story.”
It was mostly a story of performative protest.
The session was not an actual old-school filibuster, when a group of senators would hold the floor — sometimes filling the time with meaningless, unrelated talk — in efforts to delay legislation to death. A change in Senate rules a dozen years ago did away with filibusters for presidential nominees. Earlier on Wednesday, senators voted along party lines, 53-47, to advance Mr. Vought’s nomination. The Senate was expected to vote later Thursday to confirm him, most likely in another party-line move.
And yet Democrats lined up for their late-night and early-morning speaking slots to telegraph the intensity of their opposition.
“We’re going to be speaking all night,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the ********* leader, said as his colleagues prepared to burn through the clock. “We want Americans, every hour, whether it’s 8 p.m. or 3 a.m., to hear how bad Russell Vought is and the danger he poses to them in their daily lives.”
Arriving just before midnight after her comedic speaking slot at the Washington Press Club Foundation annual dinner — one of many events where politicians and journalists poke fun at one another over dinner and drinks — Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota shifted from humor to attack mode. She said Mr. Trump and Mr. Vought were pushing the limits of executive power and overstepping the president’s constitutional authority, pointing to Mr. Trump’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal funding as one example.
“What is the role of Congress? What did our founding fathers want? What is the role of the courts?” Ms. Klobuchar said, gesturing to the nearly empty chamber. “Can the executive just stand in there and do anything he wants? Of course the answer is no.”
After a cable news interview, Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii retrieved a fresh cup of coffee before making his way back to his office to await his turn to speak. It would be three hours before he returned to the Senate floor, where he would continue to sound the alarm about what he said was a takeover by extremely wealthy billionaires who put no value on government programs.
“I’ve never gotten excited about an O.M.B. nominee in my life, but this guy has an unusual view of his role and the presidency,” Mr. Schatz said in an interview as he waited his turn, using the abbreviation for Office of Management and Budget. “We wanted to make sure everybody understands he’s the architect of Project 2025, and he is setting about implementing what they wrote down.”
As the hours ticked by and even the most devoted C-SPAN viewers had likely tuned out, Mr. Schatz was joined by Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut. The two volleyed agreeable statements back and forth — but not before briefly discussing their caffeinated beverages of choice. Mr. Murphy, who is known for his steadfast appreciation of Diet Mountain Dew, had mentioned earlier in the evening the need for a Red Bull energy drink to carry him through his three-hour time commitment.
But Mr. Murphy said he was motivated to speak overnight because the country was facing a “red-alert moment.” He would spend the next two hours laying out why he believed the first 16 days of the Trump administration were “really, really dangerous” and “worthy of an overnight session on the floor of the United States Senate.”
By 5 a.m., 20 Democratic senators had contributed.
Though rare, there is a long tradition of all-night sessions in the Senate, a made-for-TV ritual that usually plays out in a nearly empty chamber. The last time senators worked all night — the Senate Historical Office considers any session continuing until 4 a.m. or later as an all-nighter — was in 2022, when senators worked through dozens of amendments to a budget measure in an hourslong “vote-a-rama.”
Years earlier, during Mr. Trump’s first term, Democrats similarly held the Senate floor overnight using all the allotted time to register their opposition to cabinet nominations.
In 2020, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon held the floor for more than 15 hours protesting the nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, armed with visual aids, Mr. Merkley kicked off the Democrats’ lengthy opposition.
“Our constituents, our country and our Constitution are under attack by Donald Trump and Russell Vought,” he said. “Democrats are fighting back.”
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EuroMillions jackpot of £83m claimed
EuroMillions jackpot of £83m claimed
A EuroMillions jackpot of more than £83.4m has been claimed after 13 days without the winner making themselves known, operator Allwyn has confirmed.
The ticket for the prize draw on 24 January worth £83,474,081.80 was purchased in the ***.
The mystery winner matched all five main numbers – 02, 11, 19, 30 and 49 – as well as the Lucky Star numbers, which were 03 and 08.
Andy Carter, senior winners’ adviser at Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery, said: “This is absolutely incredible news”.
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16 stats: Can Connor McDavid become the NHL’s first $20 million player?
16 stats: Can Connor McDavid become the NHL’s first $20 million player?
Last week the NHL announced massive jumps to the salary cap coming over the next three seasons: $95.5 million in 2025-26, $104 million in 2026-27, and $113.5 million in 2027-28. This is a huge deal, one that carries immense implications for the league’s contract landscape.
Players are about to get paid, none more so than the league’s very best: Connor McDavid. His current deal ends in 2026, just in time for the cap to jump over $100 million. McDavid’s next deal will be seismic, there’s no doubt about that. The question is just how high his salary will go. Can he be the NHL’s first $20 million player?
That’s obviously a mind-boggling number at the moment, but this is the best player in the world we’re talking about. In an exploding cap environment, he’s worth a whole lot.
A league-max deal is 20 percent of the cap and during the 2026-27 season that amounts to $20.8 million. According to my model, McDavid is currently the only player in the league projected to be worth 20 percent of the cap or more. He’s the league’s only blank check player and in 2026-27 would have a projected value of $21.3 million.
Normally, a player’s age (McDavid will be 29 at the time of signing) would be a big factor in any contract projection. At some point on any long-term deal, McDavid’s value will drop below league-max value and that could happen as soon as Year 3 or 4. McDavid being an extreme outlier at the top of the league could mean there’s more room to drop than modeled, too. But with a rapidly rising cap, McDavid’s decline will likely be much slower than the rapid growth of the salary cap’s upper limit.
Everything depends on how much the salary cap continues to grow after 2027-28, but even the most conservative outlook puts McDavid north of $20 million on a long-term deal. On average, McDavid is expected to be worth 18.5 percent of the cap on an eight-year deal. A $20 million deal comes out to 15.8 percent on average on the aggressive side (5 percent growth) but could be as high as 16.9 percent on average on the conservative side (2 percent growth).
In either case, McDavid would be well worth it. On the conservative side, he’s worth $21.8 million over eight seasons. On the aggressive side, his average value comes out to $23.5 million. That’s a huge number, but it’s worth noting that at 5 percent growth, a $20 million contract would be worth 15 percent of the cap by Year 5 of a new McDavid deal. In fact, it already drops to 17.6 percent in Year 2 at the already-planned increase to $113.5 million.
In every other major men’s sports league, the top players are making major dough. The highest-paid NFL, NBA and MLB players all clear $50 million per season. The NHL is still playing catch-up on that front and McDavid has a chance to pave the way for that by raising the bar in a serious way.
And in a rapidly rising cap environment, even a deal as high as $20 million leaves room to add around McDavid, especially as it ages. Win-win — even if a deal of that caliber comes with major sticker shock.
16 stats
1. Long-term deals adding even more value
With the increased cap over the next three years, any long-term deal already signed immediately looks better than it did a week ago (and that was already accounting for max growth of 5 percent per year).
There are almost 150 skater deals with three years of term or more remaining after this season and the average surplus value of those deals nearly doubled from $626,000 to $1.16 million per year. Of those deals, 67.1 percent now qualify as positive value deals, up from 57.8 percent. That’s a big shift, one that puts more focus back on the ice where it belongs.
2. Cap Court with Pierre-Luc Dubois, Mark Scheifele, Mika Zibanejad, Nazem Kadri and J.T. Miller
Colleague Sean McIndoe has a recurring feature here called NHL Cap Court where he debates whether specific contracts around the league are good or bad. His latest edition goes hand-in-hand with the previous point, offering an appeal process to previously questionable deals.
It’s a really interesting topic with the cap rising significantly, and I wanted to check what I had for these specific players in terms of market value — both before and after the cap announcement. Here’s what I got.
Pierre-Luc Dubois Contract: $8.5M x 6 years Previous Value: $8.2M x 6 years Current Value: $9.0M x 6 years
Mark Scheifele Contract: $8.5M x 6 years Previous Value: $8.0M x 6 years Current Value: $8.7M x 6 years
Mika Zibanejad Contract: $8.5M x 5 years Previous Value: $5.5M x 5 years Current Value: $5.9M x 5 years
Nazem Kadri Contract: $7M x 4 years Previous Value: $6.1M x 4 years Current Value: $6.6M x 4 years
J.T. Miller Contract: $8M x 5 years Previous Value: $7.5M x 5 years Current Value: $8.2M x 5 years
A rising cap can’t save Zibanejad’s deal until he turns things around himself, but it did flip Dubois, Scheifele and Miller from slightly negative to slightly positive.
3. Elias Pettersson is still worth the money
Last note on future market values.
For those wondering, forward Elias Pettersson’s average market value over the next seven years is still $12 million — even with the model downgrading him during his current slump. The upside there is still tremendous and the Canucks front office would be out of its mind to give up on him one season into his eight-year deal. There’s a good reason why a kettle of vultures is circling above Vancouver.
4. Quinton Byfield taking on ******* defensive challenge
On a team with Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault, it speaks volumes that Byfield is the one getting the majority of the team’s matchup minutes.
That’s something that really started in early January against the Lightning, a home game where Byfield played 13 minutes head-to-head against Nikita Kucherov, while Kopitar and Danault played just under five minutes combined.
Since that day, Byfield has played 93 minutes against the opposing team’s top forward while Kopitar has played 56 minutes and Danault has played 51 minutes. In terms of average Offensive Rating faced, Byfield is at plus-4.2 compared to Kopitar’s plus-2.3 and Danault’s plus-2.1. Big difference. Byfield has been the go-to shutdown guy and he’s getting the results to match with a 56 percent expected goals rate fueled by allowing just 2.0 xGA/60, both among the best marks on the team.
That’ll be an interesting development to watch down the stretch. Can Byfield’s emergence down the middle help solve the Kings’ McDavid-Leon Draisaitl problem in the playoffs?
5. Can Kevin Fiala have a second-half resurgence?
Another thing that can help: getting the real Fiala back. He’s the closest thing the Kings have to a true offensive game-breaker, but he’s been way too quiet this season to earn that notion. Fiala has just 31 points in 49 games this season, a 52-point pace that would be his worst since 2018-19.
Under the hood, it’s business as usual for Fiala. At five-on-five he’s still pushing play, he’s still getting chances and he’s still scoring. Ditto for the power play. The problem has mostly been his teammates — at five-on-five they’ve scored on just 4.8 percent of their shots with Fiala on the ice. That’s the 25th-worst mark in the league with only two top-six players (Josh Norris and Nazem Kadri) above him.
That’s probably not Fiala’s fault either. According to data tracked by Corey Sznajder, Fiala is the team’s leader in scoring chance assists per 60 at 5.8. That’s one of the best marks in the league, comparable to elite playmakers such as Nikita Kucherov and Mitch Marner — his teammates just aren’t finishing.
Fiala is playing good hockey and it feels like the results will come soon.
6. Nashville’s shooters shoot line
When Nashville signed Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, one of the big questions facing the Predators was who was going to get them the puck. They were adding two shooters to a team that already had Filip Forsberg and was pretty short on passers. In that vein, it felt like a risky fit.
The solution, apparently: Put all three together. Shooters shoot, baby.
Andrew Brunette put the trio together just over 20 games ago and the move has helped the team jump-start their offense (to an extent). The line is generating roughly the same amount of scoring chances as Forsberg’s previous top line with Ryan O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist, but has more than doubled them up on goals. In 250 minutes, the new-look top line has scored 4.0 goals per 60, up from 1.83.
Maybe it’s just a hot streak or simple regression to the mean, but it also might be a testament to having so many scoring threats on one line. That creates a bit more spacing for each player, allowing them to execute to a higher degree.
It also helps that Stamkos has taken on a playmaker role in his move back to center. According to data tracked by Sznajder, Stamkos has earned 9.6 shot assists per 60 this season, up from 6.1 last season, with an equal reversal in his shot rate. His shot-pass ratio has also completely flipped. That change has likely been the key to unlocking this line.
7. Home-ice disadvantage in Utah
Only one team, the Sharks, have a worse points percentage at home than hockey’s newest franchise. The Utah Hockey Club sits at 9-12-6 at home, a 73-point pace that falls well below the team’s 91.5-point pace on the road.
The difference is even more stark when compared to how this very team did at Mullett Arena over the previous two seasons. The former Coyotes were legitimately one of the league’s best home teams, going 43-34-5 compared to 21-47-14 on the road. That’s a 91-point pace compared to a 56-point pace, a 35-point difference.
In their first season, Utahns haven’t received much bang for their buck watching their new team play.
8. Miro Heiskanen out long-term
The Stars lost Heiskanen to injury on Jan. 28 and after surgery, he’s now being listed as month-to-month.
That’s obviously a big blow to Dallas’ already slim chances of catching the Jets for the Central Division crown, leaving the Stars in the dreaded Central Division 2v3 gauntlet.
With Heiskanen, Dallas’ chances of winning the Central were an already slim 11.8 percent. If he misses the remainder of the regular season, those odds drop to 7.6 percent.
Surgery for Heiskanen went as expected, no surprises. The initial hope is to have Heiskanen back before the playoffs but Stars will have a better idea of the timeline after initial healing and once he begins rehab.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 4, 2025
9. Harley Time
As bad as the Heiskanen injury news is, it’s nice that the team has a budding elite defenseman behind Heiskanen who looks ready to step up. Thomas Harley already looks like a star and he’s about to get a terrific opportunity to show just how bright he can shine.
The 23-year-old defenseman turned a lot of heads in his first full season and this year he’s showing it was no fluke. With Heiskanen experiencing a down year by his standards before the injury, Harley has arguably been Dallas’ best defenseman. Harley has a plus-10.2 Net Rating on the year which not only leads the Stars, it’s a top-10 mark among all defensemen. He’s been phenomenal.
The question for Harley now is whether he can handle big boy minutes without Heiskanen next to him. Harley is fourth on the Stars in offensive quality of competition faced this season, but has been the team’s top choice for that role on a pair with Ilya Lyubushkin in the team’s three games without Heiskanen.
Small sample size, but so far so good with Harley earning 53 percent of the expected goals during that time and outscoring opponents 3-1 — both well above average marks relative to the team. Harley looks like the real deal.
10. Dylan Samberg: defensive stud
I don’t know if a lot of people outside of Winnipeg grasp how crucial Samberg is to the team’s defensive might. Over the last month, only Josh Morrissey has been given more ice time for the Jets than Samberg. He has effectively become the No. 2 in command on Winnipeg’s back end, earning that distinction in ability, not just ice time.
That all starts with Samberg’s defensive capability with his plus-four projected Defensive Rating being the best mark on the team. That’s something that shined through last season even after accounting for his easier usage and has only grown since. Samberg looked like a legitimate difference-maker then, a guy who could really step up in a top-four role. That’s exactly what we’ve seen this season … and then some.
Samberg has been so good defensively that he’s also started earning the coaching staff’s trust in an even ******* role.
Prior to his injury, Samberg faced the fourth-toughest minutes on Winnipeg’s blue line. Since returning he’s been the team’s top shutdown option. During that stretch, Samberg has taken his game to new heights despite the added degree of difficulty, earning 65 percent of expected goals and 72 percent of actual goals.
Winnipeg has a good one in Samberg and his ascent is a key reason for the team’s success this season.
11. Adam Fantilli stepping up in Sean Monahan’s absence
The sophomore slump hit Fantilli hard to start the season. A lack of top power-play time will have a big effect on his tepid scoring totals, but Fantilli’s work at five-on-five was also concerning. A lot of that has changed in the absence of Monahan, Columbus’ top center.
When the Blue Jackets needed Fantilli most, he stepped up. Offensively, Fantilli has been great. He leads the Blue Jackets with seven goals and 12 points in 13 games and has been playing 20 minutes per night. There’s still work to be done at five-on-five, but at the very least there’s been encouraging progress. Fantilli’s 42 percent xG was right around the team average, a big improvement from the 35 percent he was at previously which was among the worst marks on the team.
A lot of the work Fantilli still needs to do comes on the defensive end and that’s a tall task being thrust into a role at the top of the lineup. Still, he’s done some admirable work in Monahan’s absence which provides some optimism for the future. Next year could be the year he really takes flight.
12. Luke Hughes: defensive defenseman?
One of the knocks on Hughes in his rookie season was his play without the puck. In Year 2 he’s made some big strides though, leading to a plus-2.3 Defensive Rating, a top 50 mark among defensemen.
That’s a curious jump for a defender whose reputation skews toward offense, especially after his rookie season, and it’s not just a result of playing the softest minutes on the team either. According to data tracked by Sznajder, Hughes leads all defensemen in his ability to deny entries at 21.7 percent and his ability to force dump-ins at 63 percent. That’s easier to do against soft competition who aren’t prone to entering the zone with control in the first place, but it’s still a nice sign for the second-year defender. The league’s best defenders — Jaccob Slavin, Gustav Forsling, Jonas Brodin, MacKenzie Weegar and Mattias Ekholm — all excel at this particular skill.
13. Lane Hutson rushing up the ice
One of the things that separates the best offensive defensemen from the rest is their ability to join and lead the rush. Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, Roman Josi, Zach Werenski — all elite.
This is obvious from watching him but put Hutson’s name on that list, because it’s something he’s already elite at. Hutson has some of the highest entry volume in the league among defensemen and carries the puck in 56 percent of the time according to tracking data from Sznajder. That’s top 10 in the league.
14. McLellan easing Moritz Seider’s burden
The Red Wings have been unbelievably hot under new coach Todd McLellan with a 15-4-1 record that has the team in a playoff spot. A run like that feels almost miraculous given where the team was when he was hired and McLellan obviously deserves a lot of credit. It also makes you really question some of Derek Lalonde’s decisions when he was coach.
One of those decisions was the bafflingly difficult burden placed on Seider. Lalonde gave him the absolute toughest matchups in the league and it did a number on his numbers. McLellan has eased things considerably and it’s made a difference.
Lalonde had Seider facing opponents with an average Offensive Rating of plus-3.0, 2.5 higher than the remaining team average (excluding his primary partner). Under McLellan, that burden has eased to a plus-2.5 opponent Offensive Rating faced, just 1.1 goals higher than team average.
That’s made a big difference for Seider, who leads the team’s defensemen in xG under McLellan at 49.7 percent. Under Lalonde, he was middle of the pack at 45.4 percent.
15. Red hot Pasta
David Pastrnak’s New Year’s resolution: catch fire. After a slow start to the season, Pastrnak is extremely back. Since January 1 Pastrnak leads the entire league in goals with 14 and points with 29. He’s three goals and six points up on second place and it doesn’t feel like he’s slowing down anytime soon.
16. Spencer Knight: goalie of the present?
One of the big questions facing Florida this season was its goaltending, especially in front of a weakened defense corps. Sergei Bobrovsky is 36 and had been a bit uneven during much of his Florida tenure while Knight was still mostly unproven.
The worries about Bobrovsky seem legitimate now as he has an .901 save percentage and has allowed two goals above expected this season. But Knight has been a pleasant surprise behind him with a .906 save percentage and 7.5 goals saved above expected. Among the 44 goalies that have played 20 games or more, Knight ranks 15th in goals saved per game while Bobrovsky ranks 35th.
Knight is the team’s goalie of the future, but it feels like the future might be coming sooner than expected. It’s time to give him some more starts and see what he can do with it. A fresher Bobrovsky come playoff time wouldn’t hurt either.
— Data via Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Stat Cards and All Three Zones
(Top photo of Connor McDavid: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)
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Snake Eater release date leaks on the PlayStation Store
Snake Eater release date leaks on the PlayStation Store
The release date for arguably one of the most anticipated games around has emerged, albeit in low-key fashion. According to on the PlayStation Store — perhaps about as official as you can get without a splashy announcement elsewhere — is set to arrive on August 28. It’s scheduled to hit PC and Xbox Series X/S as well as PS5.
Sony had scrubbed the release date from the game’s store page (which now only bears a release window of 2025) by the time of publication. for the remake of Hideo Kojima’s was hosted on Sony’s servers and also leaked. That featured the August 28 date too.
It’s not the first time that a game or its release date have come to light in exactly this way. We first received official word of , a remake of the first game in the series for PS5 and PC, a few years ago. The same thing happened with the .
It’s possible that Sony was preparing things behind the scenes ahead of a coordinated release date announcement for MGS Delta: Snake Eater. Given that a State of Play showcase is rumored to be taking place next week, it seems likely that the reveal was scheduled to take place then. But a release date that temporarily appeared on the PS Store — which was backed up by a trailer — is as clear an indicator as any that the remake will arrive this summer.
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Why an increasing belief in alien visitations is a real-world problem
Why an increasing belief in alien visitations is a real-world problem
About a fifth of the ***’s population now believes Earth has probably been visited by aliens. “Probably” is not “certainly”, but the number is still high. It is higher still in the US, where belief in UFOs has risen from 34 per cent in 2007 to 42 per cent in 2023. This is a real shift – and a societal problem.
Odd ideas such as fortune telling and belief in ghosts have always had some currency. But such sympathies tend to be offshoots of religious traditions involving the supernatural, and have little connection to shifting political trends.
By contrast,…
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I’ve seen most of 2025’s flagship robot vacuums and let me tell you, things are about to get weird
I’ve seen most of 2025’s flagship robot vacuums and let me tell you, things are about to get weird
CES is the launchpad for many of the biggest upcoming tech releases, but this year you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the new stage for Robot Wars owing to the sheer volume of whacky and innovative robot vacuums roaming the trade show’s halls.
Robovac manufacturers from across the globe flocked to Las Vegas to give us the first peek at what’s to come in automated cleaning solutions, with everything from robotic arms to bunny-hopping legs making debut appearances at the show. I had the chance to see most of them in action in person, and it’s made me pretty excited – and just a little nervous – at what’s to come this year.
However, not all of these next-generation robots can win the title of the best robot vacuum we’ve tested, and in fact, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion only a few of the new flagships I’ve seen so far might fit the bill.
Best robot vacuums from CES 2025: robovacs now have arms, but at what cost?! – YouTube
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Raise your hands in the air
The most obvious and attention-grabbing development has been in obstacle clearance hardware, with both Roborock and Dreame flexing their design skills by adding limbs to their upcoming robot vacuums.
First up, there’s the one-armed Roborock Saros Z70, which won our award for the Best robot vacuum at CES for its retractable robot arm which can collect items weighing up to 300g / 10.5oz (like socks and toys), and safely deposit them in an assigned area to allow for a fuller coverage clean.
Not only is the Z70 informed by its AI and obstacle detection, but there’s also a camera on the arm to help it with fine motor movements. This doubles as a secondary camera for home monitoring, allowing you to get a higher view at home by manually controlling the arm. It’s expected to launch in May or June of 2025, with no official pricing confirmed as of right now. Judging by the hardware and Roborock’s price history, expect anything upwards of $2,000 / £1,500 when it hits the market later this year.
Then there are models like the upcoming Dreame X50 Ultra, a robot vacuum with retractable legs that allow it to climb steps up to 6cm / 2-inches. While it didn’t always behave exactly as intended during CES demos, I did manage to catch it in action, and was pretty impressed by its hop-and-pivot technique (less so by the almighty ‘thunk’ as it traverses back down steps). It will go on ***** in the US from February 13 for $1,699.99, and in *** from February 7 at a list price of £1,299.
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Dreame X50 Ultra Complete descending a step – YouTube
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I’d be remiss to mention that really, this is an iteration on existing retractable wheel-based clearance hardware, with brands like Eureka demonstrating similar tech in its J15 model. It’s also of note that really, steps aren’t what this will be most useful for; small barriers in-between rooms, furnishings with feet that stand proud from the floor and particularly thick-pile carpets are most likely to benefit from this new clearance technology.
I’m testing the X50 Ultra out out as we speak, and am intrigued to see how well it differentiates between dangerous ledges and manageable ones on the descent – nobody wants a robovac that launches itself into the abyss.
Heads down, thumbs up
The next trend rolling out across a range of robot vacuums is retractable LiDAR (or Light Detection and Ranging) or front-mounted sensors. LiDAR is one of the ways in which robot vacuums navigate – this remote sensing technology uses laser pulses to create 3D models of its surroundings, allowing robovacs to access hard-to-reach, dark spaces like underneath furniture.
The problem? Well, many LiDAR sensors are placed on top of robot vacuums, housed in a short beacon which can add anything from an average of 0.75-1.5-inches / 2-4cm to the vacuum’s overall height. Great, except for the fact that this also limits the robovac’s access to those very same hard-to-reach places.
This year at CES, a number of robot vacuum brands demonstrated their workarounds; models like the aforementioned Dreame X50 Ultra as well as the Mova V50 Ultra and Roborock Saros 10 all sport retractable LiDAR scanners, which sink into the device when it’s time to clean underneath low-clearance obstacles. Also great, except for that this might present its own challenges in that without LiDAR, these vacuums will now have lower visibility in the very spaces LiDAR presents the most benefit.
Of course, we won’t know until we’ve tested these bots in the months ahead, but my personal feeling is that models like the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni, which opts for embedded LiDAR sensors without a periscope, might come out on top in the long run.
Mop till you drop
If you’ve been following robot vacuum news for more than a year or so, you’ll know all about the recent ***** in combination robot vacuum and mops. More and more flagship devices feature mopping tech, or at least include a combination model as part of the product range.
The issue? Well, I’ve not encountered many robot vacuums that are particularly good at mopping. Whether due to poor on-board spill and dirt detection or just that some stains need a good amount of elbow grease, most combination robot vacuum and mops are decent at best.
That could all be about to change with new mopping form factors and software, however. Models like the new Narwal Flow series at CES opt for roller mops, which could offer faster rotations, improved in-motion mop pad cleaning and better mobility for cleaning hard-to-reach areas.
(Image credit: Narwal)
The Flow’s fabric-covered roller constantly rotates, in the opposite direction to the movements of the robot. It’s soaked with clean water by its onboard water tank, while dirty water is fed into a separate, dirty water tank, meaning the robovac cleans itself on-the-go instead of once it returns to the docking station.
It offers wood floor management and edge cleaning, jutting to the side when needed, meaning you can clean all the way up to your skirting boards – though as with vacuuming, those pesky corners are likely to remain an issue. The Flow series is also compatible with Narwal’s automatic water exchange module, which allows you to plumb Narwal robot vacuums for automated clean and dirty water management.
There are other roller mop devices out there, but Narwal’s is among the most detail-oriented I’ve seen. Plus, it also offers some excellent vacuuming features like CarpetBoost cleaning, wherein the device shuffles back and forth to dislodge even the most stubborn hairs and debris with its brushroll, and leverages a brushroll cover to increase the pressure and improve lift.
An honorable mention goes to Ecovacs’ Deebot X8 Pro Omni, which made its debut at IFA last year but had a strong presence at CES. It partners with vacuum-focused sister-brand Tineco to improve its mopping prowess, featuring an on-the-go self-washing mop much like the Dreame X50 Ultra, as well as improved edge cleaning.
Elsewhere, more iterative updates appeared in models like the Eureka J15, which now offers improved transparent spill detection and cleaning, thanks to its dual camera system using both an infrared camera and a full HD camera to create 3D images of your floor.
Robovacs gone rogue
It’s exciting to see disruptive new technologies finding their way into robot vacuums. New mechanized and motorized parts bring more opportunities for intelligent design, but they also mean there’s a whole lot more that can go wrong with these devices.
I’ve seen countless costly robotic cleaners with jammed appendages, or robovacs suffering fatal injuries due to navigation miscalculation. And that’s not what you want from a robot vacuum that costs upwards of $1,500 / £1,000 / AU$3000.
That’s not to say I have any reason to believe the models coming up this year will be bad robot vacuums, but market-first features with complex hardware and software are an easy recipe for a whole load of kooky behavior in real-world settings.
Whether it’s an arm, a leg, or a retractable sensor, I’m a little concerned that this next wave of robot vacuums are more flashy than they are functional. Still, it’s super exciting to see these advances, and competition drives innovation, so hopefully the robot vacuums I saw at CES 2025 are just the first step in improving automated home cleaning.
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How a Super Bowl blackout in New Orleans nearly altered Ravens, 49ers and NFL history
How a Super Bowl blackout in New Orleans nearly altered Ravens, 49ers and NFL history
“This is Steve Tasker, sideline reporter for the Super Bowl 47. If you’re expecting to hear our friend Jim Nantz, it may be a moment before he gets on.”
When the audio of Super Bowl XLVII between the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens suddenly cut out early in the third quarter on Feb. 3, 2013, the millions watching the CBS broadcast might have suspected something was amiss.
When Tasker, assigned to work the 49ers sideline, was the first voice anyone heard, it was confirmed. There was no power in the broadcast booth, elevators and escalators ground to a halt and so did the game — for 34 minutes.
“Half the power in New Orleans stadium, the Superdome here, is out,” Tasker announced to the world.
For some Ravens players, the stoppage was suspicious. Jacoby Jones had returned the second-half kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown, Baltimore was leading 28-6 and the Ravens had just sacked 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick on second down. The Super Bowl was about to be a rout and then the lights went out? Linebacker Ray Lewis smelled a rat.
“You cannot tell me someone wasn’t sitting there, and when they say, ‘The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something,’” he said in an interview for NFL Films’ “America’s Game” later that year. “That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness.”
The actual explanation was more mundane. A newly installed device called a relay automatically cut power to the stadium when the amperage hit a certain level because the factory settings were too low.
Entergy, the local electric company, vows that won’t happen Sunday when the Super Bowl returns to New Orleans for the first time in 12 years. The company no longer uses the equipment responsible for the blackout, there are better redundancies for electrical flow and the stadium has hosted more than a decade of New Orleans Saints games and concerts since without incident.
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From Super Bowls to ‘last resort,’ Michael Jordan to ‘No mas,’ the Superdome has seen it all
Those concerts, significantly, have included Beyonce, whose halftime show in 2013 preceded the blackout, and Taylor Swift, who brought 200,000 fans to the Caesars Superdome over three nights in October.
“Some called that weekend the ultimate tabletop exercise,” Entergy said in a statement.
While the 49ers laugh at Lewis’ conspiracy theory — “We had the same delay they did,” offensive tackle Joe Staley said — there’s no question they benefited from the reset.
They barrelled into their locker room at halftime intent on fixing everything that had gone wrong in the first half, quickly going over the tactical changes they’d make. Then they had nowhere to go.
A Super Bowl halftime is twice as long as a regular-season version and because there was so much staging equipment, the players couldn’t get onto the field. Instead, they were cooped up in the locker room.
The 49ers note that the Ravens got away with a holding penalty against fullback Bruce Miller on Jones’ kick-return touchdown to start the third quarter. But there also was a sense that the long halftime had an effect.
“I remember coach (Jim) Harbaugh coming up and asking, ‘Were we warmed up?’” the 49ers strength coach at the time, Mark Uyeyama, recalled. “And I go, ‘Uhhh — clearly (Jones) was.’”
The 49ers then ran two plays — a 29-yard pass to Michael Crabtree and a 3-yard run by Frank Gore — before Kaepernick was sacked by Arthur Jones. Following that play, color commentator Phil Simms was in mid-sentence when the broadcast went silent at 7:37 p.m. local time.
The 49ers had the ball trailing 28-6 when the power suddenly went out in the Superdome. (Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
An attack? A shooter? Those thoughts flashed through everyone’s mind. The Sandy Hook shooting had happened a month and a half earlier and the 49ers had been on hand at a game in New England where the victims were remembered.
“The first thing that went through my head is an act of terrorism,” then-49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “And what’s coming next? First, they cut the power. And now what? My whole family’s there.”
“I honestly thought it was a terrorist attack initially,” said Wink Martindale, then the Ravens’ inside linebackers coach. “You just didn’t know. Right away, you’re looking up where you know your family is sitting and everything else to make sure everyone was OK.”
After a few moments, those thoughts dissipated. There was an initial groan from the crowd, but there was no panic or commotion. The Superdome was quiet.
“To their credit, everyone remained calm,” Tasker said in a phone interview.
“Why is the clock stopped?”
Throwback to the lights going out during Ravens vs. 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII pic.twitter.com/BD5qbuhjmq
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) December 25, 2023
He said everyone’s first task was to find out what happened and how long the game would be delayed. The sideline reporters had stopped using wireless microphones six years earlier during rainy Super Bowl XLI because those mics had gone out. Tasker had a cable attached to his mic in New Orleans that stretched only as far as the numbers on the field. The league officials he wanted to interview were safely huddled at midfield and didn’t want to be interviewed on camera. So he strolled to midfield, got as much information as he could, then was approached by Jim Harbaugh on his way back to the sideline.
“He wanted to know what they told me,” Tasker said.
The 49ers had an advantage in that they’d gone through something similar the year before when a transformer blew outside of Candlestick Park, causing two delays during a “Monday Night Football” game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Uyeyama said he reminded players how well they’d handled that wait on the sideline.
“We were better prepared than we were against Pittsburgh,” Uyeyama said. “And we’d put (Ben) Roethlisberger on his back all game. So we were walking around and communicating with the guys, ‘Remember, Pittsburgh.’”
The teams initially were told the game would resume in about 15 minutes and that everyone should remain on the field. They heard the same refrain — 15 minutes — when they checked in later.
“The longer it went, you had to get yourself back in coaching mode,” Martindale said. “It was like, ‘Holy s—, we have to start stretching.’ We knew we were in trouble. I know analytics say there’s no such thing as momentum, but that’s bulls—. The lights going out changed the momentum of the game. We were killing them when the lights went out. We had an older team than them and it really took us a while to get loose again and get going.”
Said 49ers safety Donte Whitner: “Football is a game based on momentum. And whenever you have a lull like that, it’s a good opportunity for the team that’s not playing well to regroup and recover.”
He said linebackers Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman discussed strategy. Justin Smith, the elder statesman of the defense, made sure everyone stayed focused and calm.
“I remember vividly hearing Dashon Goldson continue to say, ‘Not today. Not today. We’re too good. We’re too great of a defense,’” Whitner recalled. “And what he was referring to was, ‘Let’s not make the simple mistakes that will beat us.’”
The blackout officially last 34 minutes and seemed to lead to a huge momentum swing for the 49ers. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
On offense, Roman made only a quick visit to the locker room at halftime. The 49ers had scored only two field goals at that point and he needed to rework the entire game plan. Roman spoke briefly to the players, then approached Harbaugh.
“I just said, ‘Hey, Jim, I’ve gotta get upstairs and get things figured out,’” Roman said.
He was back in the coach’s booth before Beyonce began her show and felt good about the alterations he’d made.
“Then they returned the kickoff and it was like the price of poker has changed even greater,” Roman said. “It was like, ‘Oh my God. Now we’re in quite a hole.’”
He made even more adjustments after the stadium lost power. The radio headsets connecting him and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to the sideline didn’t work and in fact were one of the last things to come online before the game resumed.
So Roman bounced plays and ideas off of receivers coach John Morton. The 49ers would run the ball occasionally to keep Lewis and the Ravens defense honest. Otherwise, they’d attack through the air.
“We were gonna be ultra-aggressive,” Roman said. “We had so much talent on the team, it was only a matter of time.”
He was right. The 49ers punted immediately after play resumed but scored on a 31-yard Kaepernick-to-Crabtree pass when they got the ball back. Then they scored on their next three possessions, cutting Baltimore’s lead to 31-29 with just under 10 minutes to play. It was as if the blackout had created two distinct games.
“It was like a track meet from that point forward,” Roman said.
But while the Ravens scored once more — on a Justin Tucker 38-yard field goal — the 49ers offense got bogged down deep in the red zone in the final minutes.
San Francisco seemed to have a great shot for a go-ahead touchdown after Gore’s 33-yard run to the 7-yard line with 2:39 to go. That carry, however, left Gore — one of the best short-yardage runners in the NFL — winded and his replacement, LaMichael James, was stopped for a 2-yard gain on first down.
A quarterback keeper that likely would have scored a touchdown was wiped out when Jim Harbaugh called a timeout to avoid a play-clock violation. When the last of three throws to Crabtree in the corner of the end zone sailed over the receiver’s head, the Ravens knew they had finally halted San Francisco’s momentum and hung on for the win.
“If we would have lost that game, I would have walked away saying, ‘It was because the power went out and the long delay,’” Martindale said. “We were just killing them otherwise.”
Said Roman: “Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough. That was a bizarre day in our lives, for sure.”
Despite being the lone face and the voice for the Super Bowl broadcast for a few uncertain minutes, Tasker said he didn’t receive much attention following the game. Instead, his phone started blowing up six days later when “Saturday Night Live” — with Taran Killam playing Tasker — spoofed the blackout with a cold open.
“That’s when I knew I’d finally made it,” Tasker said with a laugh.
(Top photo: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
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Pelican News
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The first-person survival horror game “Blood Hunting” is coming to Xbox X/S on February 14th (2025)
The first-person survival horror game “Blood Hunting” is coming to Xbox X/S on February 14th (2025)
“The South Lyon-based (MI, the US) indie games developer Holcomb Entertainment, are today very happy and excited to announce that their first-person survival horror game “Blood Hunting“, is coming to the Xbox Series X/S via the MS store on February 14th, 2025 (the game is available to pre-order right now!).'” – Jonasd Ek, TGG.
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#firstperson #survival #horror #game #Blood #Hunting #coming #Xbox #February #14th
Pelican News
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Asteroid 2024 YR4 may hit Earth in 2032 – how worried should we be?
Asteroid 2024 YR4 may hit Earth in 2032 – how worried should we be?
Asteroids have the potential to cause widespread destruction
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Telescopes around the world are currently trained on a building-sized asteroid hurtling in Earth’s direction, in an effort to try to understand whether it might hit us. Our current best guess is that this object, called 2024 YR4, has a 1-in-53 chance of striking in 2032, the highest risk of any known asteroid. But what does that number really mean, and when should we start panicking?
Astronomers are continuously tracking thousands of asteroids as they move through our solar system. This information is then collated at the Minor Planet Center,…
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#Asteroid #YR4 #hit #Earth #worried
Pelican News
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Samsung Galaxy F16 Price Range in India, Specifications Tipped; May Feature Dimensity 6300 Chipset
Samsung Galaxy F16 Price Range in India, Specifications Tipped; May Feature Dimensity 6300 Chipset
Samsung Galaxy F16 could be launched in India in the near future. The South Korean smartphone brand is yet to reveal an exact launch date, but specifications and the purported price range of the Galaxy F16 handset have already been leaked by a tipster. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy F16 is said to be equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset. It is expected to feature a triple rear camera unit, which will include a 50-megapixel primary camera. The Galaxy F16 is likely to debut as a rebranded version of the Galaxy A16 5G.
Samsung Galaxy F16 Price in India (Expected)
Tipster Debayan Roy (@Gadgetsdata) suggested the price range and specifications of the Galaxy F16 on X. As per the post, the handset will be priced under Rs. 15,000 in India. For comparison, the Galaxy A16 was launched in India in October 2024, with a price tag of Rs. 18,999 for the 8GB+128GB RAM and storage configuration.
The Galaxy F16 is tipped to sport a 6.7-inch full-HD+ AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. It could run on a 6nm Dimensity 6300 processor from MediaTek, alongside 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. It is said to feature a triple rear camera unit comprising a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 5-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera and an unspecified third sensor.
Samsung is likely to equip the Galaxy F16 with a 13-megapixel front camera for selfies and video chats. It could support up to 25W fast wired charging. The Galaxy A16 also boasts the same specifications.
Flipkart recently teased the arrival of a new Galaxy F-series phone in India. The upcoming device is likely the Galaxy F16 5G. The support page for Galaxy F16 with model number SM-E166P/DS is currently live on the Samsung India website. It earlier appeared on the Wi-Fi Alliance database and the listing showed that it will have dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity.
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#Samsung #Galaxy #F16 #Price #Range #India #Specifications #Tipped #Feature #Dimensity #Chipset
Pelican News
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