The World of Sports

New on Sports Illustrated: Stars-Avalanche Preview

<a href="https://www.si.com/nhl/game/2262006">
The Dallas Stars seem to subscribe to the theory that the fourth victory in a playoff series is the hardest to get.
They'll have three chances to do so, beginning Monday night against the Colorado Avalanche.
The Stars took a 3-1 advantage in their Western Conference second-round series with a 5-4 victory Sunday in Edmonton, Alberta. Radek Faksa had a goal and two assists for the Stars.
"We're a confident group and (Game 5) is going to be the hardest game," said Stars defenseman John Klingberg, who had a goal and an assist. "It always is when you can close out a series. We expect Colorado to be even better (Monday)."
In their first-round series against Calgary, the Stars fell behind by three goals just 6:34 into Game 6 before rallying for a clinching 7-3 victory.
"We're keeping our composure," Stars forward Jamie Benn said. "We know how hard that Game 6 was against Calgary. Obviously, we didn't get off to a good start at all. We'll sit on this one for a couple hours and then move on and get right back at it (Monday)."
The Stars took a 3-0 lead Sunday in the opening 10:45, including two power-play goals, before the Avalanche could even get a shot on net.
Colorado pulled within 3-2 before Dallas' Roope Hintz and Denis Gurianov scored 32 seconds apart early in the third period to restore the three-goal advantage. It was Gurianov's eighth goal of the playoffs, tying the league high.
"They came out hard and earned their bounces. All of a sudden we're down 3-0," said Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, who extended his points streak to 12 games. "We got better, I felt, as the game wore on. ... We had a push earlier in the third to (try and) tie it up. Obviously getting down in a hole early didn't help us."
Colorado's Valeri Nichushkin scored his second goal of the game at 11:24 of the third and Vladislav Namestnikov tallied with four seconds left in regulation, but by that time it was too late.
"The game was a little bit closer than what the score was for part of it, we just gave them too many opportunities to capitalize," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "We've got to be better. It's a defensive improvement we have to make."
Bednar pulled goaltender Pavel Francouz, playing for the injured Philipp Grubauer, after Dallas scored its fifth goal with 11:58 remaining. Michael Hutchinson made his playoff debut and stopped all three shots he faced.
Dallas, which scored the fewest regular-season goals (180) of any Western Conference team to make the playoffs, has 19 through the first four games of this series.
"It just seems like when one team gets one goal, it kind of gives them a boost," Benn said. "I'm not sure why it's going back and forth like this, but it is. And you've just got to handle the momentum as it comes."
--Field Level Media
</a>

New on Sports Illustrated: Stars-Avalanche Preview

The Dallas Stars seem to subscribe to the theory that the fourth victory in a playoff series is the hardest to get. They'll have three...

New on Sports Illustrated: Major League Wrestling Returning to TV in November After Eight-Month Hiatus

<a href="https://www.si.com/wrestling/2020/08/31/mlw-court-bauer-tv-return-november">
MLW CEO Court Bauer tells SI that the promotion will begin taping fresh content in October and will begin airing on television again a month later.
Major League Wrestling is returning this fall, beginning with a set of television tapings in October.
MLW CEO Court Bauer confirmed that his company will begin airing fresh content in early November, with filming set to take place at an undisclosed East Coast venue.
“The hibernation is over,” said Bauer. “We’ll air in November on a weeknight in primetime on Fubo Sports Network, and our content will also be available on DAZN, which includes exclusive content, and Saturday nights on beIN. As for the filming, we’re not going to publicly announce our location. If fans were to show up, it would just cause a wave of complications with the COVID protocol, but we are very excited to return for our fans.”
The timing is right for MLW to return, Bauer explained, because he and his team have solidified their plans to safely run tapings amid the pandemic.
“We hired a COVID Compliance Officer, Mike Kitlas, and there will be frequent testing,” said Bauer. “We’re going to test before everyone gets on a plane, when they land, and then again during the tapings. We’ll be cleaning the trucks and the set every day. We have a protocol to follow, and we will ensure that guidelines will be met to keep everyone safe. That will include scheduling, transportation, locker room social distancing, and wearing masks, which will apply for talent, staff, and production.”
A potential change for MLW is the name of its weekly broadcast. This will either start the third season of MLW: Fusion or mark a return to a familiar name for longtime MLW fans with MLW Underground.
“We’ve had a lot of fans let us know they prefer Underground,” said Bauer. “That’s something we’re going to pin down in the weeks ahead.”
MLW’s empty arena setting will be presented uniquely, with Bauer eager to showcase a gritty, MMA type of environment for viewers.
“We’re going to have more of a Raging Bull setting,” said Bauer, who is also in charge of MLW creative. “We’ve had the luxury to see what works in this era. Our competitors have been forced due to contractual obligations to put programming on the air every night of the week. For us, from a creative perspective,
</a><a href="https://www.si.com/wrestling/2020/06/29/major-league-wrestling-return-pandemic">we have been able to recharge</a>, assess and determine the best way to move forward. That is really going to enhance our viewing experience.”
The tapings will feature familiar faces in MLW World Champion Jacob Fatu, Tom Lawlor, Alex Hammerstone, Myron Reed, Salina de la Renta, Richard Holliday, Brian Pillman Jr. and rising star Calvin Tankman, who has potential to soon be the face of the promotion. Bauer also confirmed there is potential for additions from AAA and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
“We’ll have top talent from MLW and beyond,” said Bauer, whose promotion partnered with AAA before going on hiatus in March, as well as worked out an agreement with New Japan Pro Wrestling for Lawlor to appear on NJPW Strong this summer. “We learned during this break who had our back, and I think people will be very surprised by what opportunities have been borne from that.”
Even in a vastly crowded field with competitors like WWE and AEW, the MLW product resonates due to its wildly talented roster. Bauer believes his collection of stars will help create a distinctly different presentation of pro wrestling in the empty arena era.
“We spent the whole summer building our business to emerge from the pandemic ready to run on a larger scale,” said Bauer. “It’s now the right time for us to safely get back to work, and our talent is going to put on a great show in our return.”
Justin Barrasso can be reached at <a href="mailto:JBarrasso@gmail.com">JBarrasso@gmail.com</a>. Follow him on Twitter @<a href="https://twitter.com/JustinBarrasso">JustinBarrasso</a>.

New on Sports Illustrated: Major League Wrestling Returning to TV in November After Eight-Month Hiatus

MLW CEO Court Bauer tells SI that the promotion will begin taping fresh content in October and will begin airing on television again a mont...

New on Sports Illustrated: How Gigi Wu Found and Lost Herself in the Clouds

<a href="https://www.si.com/more-sports/2020/08/31/fatal-calling-of-the-bikini-climber-daily-cover">
Taiwan's highest peaks gave her solace and purpose—and they carried her to swimsuited social media fame. But the mountains got something from her, too.
When Gigi Wu was alone in the mountains she usually rang a friend around 6 p.m. She would let him know that miles of slick and jagged terrain were behind her. That she had finally freed herself of her 65-pound pack and was preparing to settle on a flat patch of earth for the night. That she would soon prepare her tea and rice, just as the stars started to shimmer.
But on a cold Saturday afternoon in January 2019, Alex Yang’s phone rang at 4:30. Too early, he thought. Too soon.
Yang, a 52-year-old construction materials salesman with flecks of gray in his dark hair and a long, symmetrical face, took the call in his Taipei office. Wu, famous on social media for summiting some of the most menacing mountains in Taiwan—and, more pointedly, for posing at the end of each climb wearing only a bikini, the pics of which populated her Facebook page—was ringing on the satellite phone that Yang had bought her so she could stay tethered to the world during her increasingly dangerous solo sojourns. Wu, 36, typically spoke with a measured rasp, but now her words seemed hurried through the static. Over a frantic 30 seconds, as her voice faded in and out, Yang deciphered that she had tumbled down a cliff and couldn’t move her legs. She needed help.
<figure><img height="814" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc0OTIyOTMzOTk3Njc1NzQ1/dcovbikinihiker_v.jpg" width="620" /></figure>
Wu begged her hiking friend to remember the article they’d recently discussed. The one about a trail that long ago connected villages inhabited by Taiwan’s aboriginal people, but that had gone untended and largely unused as far back as 1895, when Japan took control of the island. Remember that trail?
He did. He also knew that temperatures in those mountains would likely dip near freezing at night. Yang told her to stay warm—and then the call fell dead.
His mind churned. Wu’s voice conveyed a sense of urgency but not fear. He knew she kept the phone in her pack; her gear and food must be within reach. Besides, she had thousands of miles and hundreds of summits behind her. She was too experienced, too hearty, to succumb.
As Wu lay alone, Yang rushed to relay the call’s coordinates to authorities at Yushan National Park, which spans 260,000 verdant acres across the middle of Taiwan. Then he tried to call his friend back. Every five minutes. Again and again and again.
Deep into the night he texted updates and reassurances, with no response. The local fire department was summoning rescue hikers. Helicopters would be coming. Her saviors would surge through the mountains to extract her.
Stay warm.
<img height="940" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc0Nzk3OTE2MDg5NjI0MzM1/daily_cover_recirc_unit_summer_2020.png" width="620" /></a>
***
Gigi had been the only person at the bedside of her 63-year-old father, Sheng-cin, when a stroke felled him in April 2014. That day she lost the man who opened his heart to the Persian cat, Peggy, that she adopted during her brief time away at technical school. Who swam with her in the river near her grandparents’ home when she was a child. Who showed her how to forage for snails on the river’s banks, back when her hair was cropped boyishly close, not grown long enough to billow on breezy mountaintops.
When Gigi’s employer, an international trading firm, asked her later that year to move to China, she took stock of her life. Her older sister, Yu-chi, had married and moved out of the family’s modest fourth-floor flat in New Taipei City; her mother, Su-ran, was in her 60s and grieving. It was with this in mind that she quit her job, stayed home and directed the savings she’d amassed throughout her 20s toward a hobby that provided an escape from this profound new pain.
<figure><img height="412" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc0OTIzNDA2OTgwOTQ5MjE3/1592988484170.jpg" width="620" />
<figcaption>Gigi (right) with Sheng-cin, whose death left her reeling.</figcaption>
</figure>
Gigi first encountered Alex Yang in 2014 on Jade Mountain, home to the highest peak in Northeast Asia, at 12,966 feet. They embarked on that trip with a climbing group organized by a travel agency, then bonded over their love of photography as they ascended. Still, Yang was shocked when, at the summit, his new friend shed her gear, down to a swimsuit top, and set up a photo shoot.
Wu explained a challenge and a dare. She was trying to conquer the 100 Peaks of Taiwan, a group of mountains, each at least 3,000 meters (or roughly 10,000 feet) above sea level, that are deemed to be the most demanding on the island. And at some point along the way she’d lost a bet with a friend, the payout being that she had to pose in a bikini top when she reached her next summit. Eventually, what started out as a dare for a slender, demure girl who had grown up hiding behind glasses turned into a tradition for a 5' 6" young woman learning to lean into her beauty and her bravery. In the early mountaintop photos Wu posted to Facebook, her hair was stringy and unkempt. Unflattering, baggy hiking pants hung from her hips. As months passed, though, she pulled on increasingly vibrant swimsuits, her hair grew longer and straighter, her poses turned more provocative. And with each photo she attracted more attention, more followers.
<iframe height="459" width="552" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D828086213912819%26set%3Da.827211337333640&show_text=true&width=552&height=459&appId" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
To some, the whole endeavor seemed a vanity project: sensationalism in a sacred space. But those close to her saw a devoted hiker using her allure to promote and preserve the mountains’ beauty. On Facebook, Wu captioned her bikini photos with details about the routes she had taken to the top and alerted fellow hikers about difficult portions of each ascent. She interspersed the glam shots with snaps of misty forests and craggy trails, translucent mountain pools and vistas hanging above endless floors of clouds. While male commenters tended to laud her body, female followers christened her a mountain goddess.
In July 2016, when Wu finally reached all 100 summits, the accomplishment drew relative renown in a country where casual sexism reigns—where it’s common for a man to critique a female coworker’s hairstyle or weight. As it does elsewhere, the male gaze has shaped how Taiwanese women are expected to present themselves. Wu, friends believe, sought to reclaim her body. What some saw as an object of lust she turned into a symbol of pride, posing only on hard-to-reach plateaus where her fortitude would overshadow her figure. Anyone ogling her had to also gaze upon her success.
It was impossible, after all, to write off her accomplishment as some simple stunt. Taiwan’s topography rises sharply from the sea, presenting a formidable challenge for even the most experienced climber. Except for the few trails the government maintains, most are laden with endless corridors of wet brush, and they tend to follow ridgelines or streambeds, making them more difficult to navigate than those that gently wind up mountainsides. Access to those paths had been cut off for decades, and when martial law on the island ceased in 1987, stringent regulation persisted, partly because the mountains had once been taken up by military strongholds. The government declared the bulk of the ancient trails off-limits to the public. Yet, as Wu’s mountaineering savvy grew, so did her inclination to sidestep sanctioned routes and push the archaic boundaries that Taiwan’s hiking community had for years lobbied the government to lift.
Even then: As influencers go, Wu was small-time compared with Taiwan’s fashion and lifestyle elite, whose Instagram accounts are designed to profit from far more followers than her 14,000. Again and again she passed up opportunities to leverage her notoriety, turning down sponsorship deals from hiking equipment companies and declining a partnership with a mountain tour outfit. Even as Wu’s savings dwindled, she remained wary of letting outside interests dictate the trails she hiked or the clothes she wore. She focused her posts instead on documenting where climbers could find water or cell service. She collected trash along her trails, took on extra weight to help injured or exhausted hikers and pushed herself to explore new terrain. Yang, by then a close friend, bought her the satellite phone and a Garmin GPS. Now she was aiming beyond the 100 Peaks; her goal was to summit every one of Taiwan’s 268 mountains that top 3,000 meters.
<iframe height="609" width="552" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D917723671615739%26set%3Da.113093572078757&show_text=true&width=552&height=609&appId" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Relatives, meanwhile, began prodding Su-ran, asking how she had lost control of her daughter. Why doesn’t Gigi work? When will she abandon these adventures? And at home those conversations devolved into disputes. Gigi flitted in and out of their shared flat, only occasionally calling to ask her mother to make extra food for dinner. By 2018 she was spending nearly as many nights in the wilderness as she was in her bed.
On the mountains, too, a similar distance grew. As Gigi gained experience, fellow hikers struggled to keep pace, slowing her progress. She squabbled occasionally with friends over which trails to pursue, and to avoid those tensions gravitated toward solo outings, a dangerous undertaking on unfamiliar trails. In May 2017, she set out alone across the Central Mountain Range before turning back, noting later online that a mistake made while hiking solo “can be your last.” A year later she posted a photo of her legs, scarred and bruised from a dangerous fall that she said almost took her life.
Near the end of a three-week trip in December 2018, she rejoined her fellow hikers for a party at one of the massive cabins scattered along the country’s sanctioned trails. Some 150 people mingled there and in the surrounding campgrounds, and Wu bounced from group to group, engaging with those who wanted her and those who idolized her.
Camped on the edge of the party that night was 55-year-old Jon Solomon, a Massachusetts native who since the ’80s had been hiking the country’s toughest mountains. Solomon is an advocate of “ultralight” hiking; he aims for a slight food and equipment load, which helps him keep balance on Taiwanese trails frequently made soggy and slippery by subtropical jungles butting up against alpine forests. And when he ran into Wu the next day during one of her elaborate photo shoots, he was astounded by what she carried. Before setting out on a trip she and Yang would weigh her pack. For longer journeys the goal was to stay below 70 pounds—more than double Solomon’s typical haul.
Solomon and Wu traded notes that afternoon, and he encouraged her to lighten her load. She showed him her sustenance: candy bars that provided relatively little fuel for their weight, plus rice and noodles that required bulky cookware and, on occasion, extra water. He recommended swapping the candy for dehydrated meals. More concerning to Solomon, though, was the substantial equipment Wu had carried for her summit photo shoots, including a Canon 5D Mark III camera (about the weight of a pineapple), a pair of large lenses and an unwieldy tripod. Perhaps she could settle for less cumbersome gear? If she lost her balance, a light pack—one better proportioned to her body mass—was less likely to overpower and tug her down the mountain.
No one else at that mountain gathering, Solomon recalls thinking, would be inclined to offer such advice to Taiwan’s most famous hiker, but he tried.
Nearly two years later he still recalls how Wu cut their conversation short, politely waving off his suggestions, and stepped back in front of her camera.
<iframe height="590" width="552" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D1132056893515748%26set%3Da.113093572078757&show_text=true&width=552&height=590&appId" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
***
On Jan. 11, 2019, after riding three trains and a bus, then spending a night in a cheap hotel favored by hikers, Wu hit the trailhead on a two-week trek through Yushan National Park in Central Taiwan. Her pack was laden with photo equipment, plus the food Yang had helped her purchase: bread, cheese, meat, coffee, rice milk, pineapple cakes, noodles . . . . She planned to start on the Batongguan Historical Trail, a familiar path, but then deviate (without an official permit) onto an unsanctioned and perilous aboriginal trail that neither she nor her hiking buddies had ever attempted. Her route would be a circuit, beginning and ending at the Dongpu hot springs to the west of the mountains, where Yang planned to pick her up on the 24th. On the first day of her hike Wu came upon a dead dog inside a mountain cabin, and carefully carried it outside.
Before setting off again, Wu consulted a weather report. The skies, she read, would be clear on the 18th and the 19th, which looked to be two of her journey’s most arduous legs. On the first of those days, right before she planned to split off onto the aboriginal trail—descending the northwest face of Jupen Mountain, a 10,223-foot peak—she posted a picture on Facebook: a blanket of clouds captioned CELEBRATING TODAY.
On the 19th, Wu veered from any clear trail. Her route was a vestige of an old one, her boots crushing wide swaths of shale and detritus from the thick canopy of trees. The terrain would have demanded that she negotiate the steepest descents using her hands to brace against tree trunks while keeping her footing in unceasingly damp conditions.
The weather reports, though, had erred. Conditions worsened with every hour. Around noon Wu messaged another friend who had helped her map out a route. She had reached an altitude of almost 8,000 feet and planned to push down closer to 5,000 before setting up camp near a small river at the base of two long ridges. When she arrived she promised to let him know she was safe.
That friend says he never heard from her. Instead, at 4:30, Yang’s phone rang.
By the time he took Wu’s distress call and relayed the coordinates to park authorities—who in turn relayed them to the Nantou County Fire Department (typically tasked with mountain rescues) and then to the National Airborne Service Corps—the day had grown too late and the weather too poor to send out help on foot or by air. A new forecast suggested the skies would clear early in the morning. And while the temperature was predicted to dip overnight, it wasn’t expected to fall below freezing.
At dawn, though, the rain kept coming. With the helicopters grounded in the fog, Lin Cheng-yi, a 38-year veteran of the fire department’s Third Squadron, called upon volunteers from the Kalibuan, a segment of Taiwan’s aboriginal Bunun tribe that tends to live at high elevations. Adept hikers, the Kalibuan often work as mountain guides for travel companies, and many of them help when a hiker goes missing.
At 8 a.m. on the 20th, a firefighter and two Kalibuan, including a 52-year-old tribesman named Buaq Soqluman—bare-scalped and stout—hopped into the bed of a blue pickup truck. They began ascending gravelly mountain roads in hopes of rescuing a woman who once posed for a picture with a member of the Kalibuan tribe when they crossed paths on the trail, and who had photographed their remote mountains to share that beauty with the urban masses along the coasts.
<figure><img height="803" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc0OTIzNjM4NjQwNzQ3NzQ1/resize.jpg" width="620" />
<figcaption>Gigi's rescue operation, based out of a baseball diamond at a local primary school.</figcaption>
</figure>
Armed with Wu’s coordinates, plus food, tents, clothing, ropes and a portable stretcher that could be hooked to an airlift rig, the Kalibuan traversed a mountain road up to 8,200 feet, the closest they could get to her last known location, before setting off into unfamiliar terrain on foot. Another team of three men—two Kalibuan and a firefighter—hung back, hoping they might be able to get closer to Wu by helicopter. But the fog and the rain lingered, so they, too, set off by foot, around 1 p.m.
That afternoon, 100 miles to the north, police knocked on Su-ran’s door and described a scenario she had never allowed herself to consider. Her daughter, the expert hiker, was in danger.
***
After barreling down slick slopes for hours on end, 45 pounds of equipment strapped across each of their backs, the first rescue team finally reached an altitude around 5,000 feet, near the coordinates Wu had relayed to Yang. They knew she had been alive at least within the last 28 hours, roughly, and as night began to blanket the mountains, they believed they had found her. Well below them, Soqluman says, a mass—maybe a body—rested among a cluster of hiking equipment on a narrow platform jutting out from a cliffside that descended hundreds of feet to a river.
A fall to the bottom would have meant certain death. But it appeared Wu had been lucky enough to land on that flat outcropping of earth after a 100-odd-foot tumble. Soqluman called down, but his cries drew no response, no movement. The mass below them lay quiet and still in the darkness.
Rain and poor visibility made it impossible to descend the cliff face that night. Temperatures again dropped, just above freezing, too wet and too cold to start a fire, so Soqluman says the men retreated to their tents and waited, anguished, for dawn. The next day they rigged ropes to the cliffside and over several hours navigated a path down the steep slope laden with trees, wet leaves and stone.
Wu was lying on her back, eyes closed and mouth bloodied, when Soqluman reached her that morning. No breath. No pulse. Skin cold to the touch. Her backpack had settled near her, a satellite and cellphone by her right side and a flashlight tied to her left wrist. A silver aluminum sleeping pad covered most of her body, but her jacket was laid out next to her—perhaps odd to a hiking outsider, given the night’s chill. Debris from food and drink littered the ground.
Without cover from the rain and cold, Soqluman surmised, she must have died the night after her fall. She was wearing hiking clothes, but the material was thin. As the cold gripped her, and as she was unable to dig the tent out of her backpack, moderate hypothermia would have induced amnesia and lethargy. Eventually, she would have ceased shivering and felt warm, accounting for the cast-aside jacket. As her condition worsened she may have hallucinated, perhaps explaining the toothbrush that seemed to have been carefully placed by her right hand. She might have believed she was settling in for another night’s sleep in the mountains, no different from all the others. Her heart rate and breathing would have slowed. A coma would have followed. Then death.
The Kalibuan couldn’t determine what had caused Wu’s fall, but vanity didn’t seem to have been a factor. Her camera equipment was tucked neatly in its bag. The rescuers found her identification in her backpack, then reported her death to the fire station. Receiving the news, Lin wished they had found her in time, but he understood that others could have died if they had challenged nature more aggressively.
Owing to the uneven weather and the location of the body, it would be another two days before a ground team and a trio of helicopters could begin extricating Wu from her resting place. Rescuers first had to chainsaw three trees to create clearance for the air unit. Finally, on the morning of Jan. 23, a UH-60 Blackhawk hung 200 feet above Wu’s corpse for an agonizing 38 minutes, the pilot holding the craft steady against wind cutting down from the mountain while a team hoisted the body onto a metal stretcher. An orange bag concealed Gigi from view. The aluminum hiking mat remained draped over her, flapping in the rotor’s wash.
For Johnny Chiang, the rescue team’s brigade commander back at base, the recovery proved the most arduous of his 32-year air-rescue career. Ultimately, he was sorry he was unable to save the woman who snapped one of his favorite pictures, capturing a chopper as it hovered over Jiaming Lake, along the park’s southern border. Days later, he would place the photograph in Wu’s coffin.
***
After the Kalibuan made their grim discovery, the news spread first among the dozen journalists awaiting word of Wu’s fate at the primary school that her rescue team had used as its base of operation. Soon, though, the rest of the country knew.
In Taipei City, Su-ran had retreated to a Buddhist and Taoist temple after the police first showed up at her door; when she finally emerged from her prayers, a friend told her what everyone else had already learned.
<figure><img height="465" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc0OTIzNjc2NzU4NTgyNjIz/1592988488731.jpg" width="620" />
<figcaption>Gigi with Su-ran.</figcaption>
</figure>
Solomon, a month removed from his encounter with Gigi, was in Hong Kong when he heard of Wu’s death. The news rattled him, but he wasn’t shocked, given how she’d rebuked his gentle warning.
Thousands flocked to Wu’s Facebook page, which turned into a memorial, loving goodbyes interspersed with photos of the climber wearing bright swimsuits atop the mountains she had conquered. Admirers praised her for spurring interest in climbing among her countrywomen, for exemplifying the inner strengths they themselves may not have realized, for being a role model to young girls who might not otherwise have strived for anything beyond physical beauty.
Alongside the praise, though, were harsh criticisms. Commenters suggested she had perished in a shallow pursuit of fame. Some incorrectly surmised that she’d been hiking wearing only a bikini—of course she froze to death, they chided. Headlines across the world, meanwhile, framed her as Taiwan’s glamorous BIKINI CLIMBER, not an experienced mountaineer. Based on a persona that sprung from a dare, Wu was hastily lumped in with a small subset of social media risk takers who have died chasing clout, and with the hundreds more people around the world who have perished mid-selfie over the past decade.
Su-ran was stung by those scathing words, including some from family members, who insisted she should have done more to rein in her daughter’s dangerous pursuits. The Taiwanese government weighed in, too, threatening to fine Su-ran $60,000 because her daughter had been hiking on an unsanctioned trail when helicopters and a cadre of climbers were marshaled to save her. In the end, Gigi’s climbing friends intervened, and the government relented.
In New Taipei City that January, 300-odd people attended Wu’s funeral, many of them hikers who’d traveled from far corners of the island to stand in a room overstuffed with mourners. They filled a memory book with messages of love and support, and Yang played a video capturing his friend’s transformation from a little girl who’d frolicked in rivers to a revered mountain goddess.
After Wu’s cremation, friends placed her ashes in a small box, which they deposited into a shallow hole under the shade of a fir tree in a southeast New Taipei City cemetery. A small stone, largely indistinguishable from others around it, would mark her grave in the most pristine portion of a vast burial ground carved into a hillside and often blanketed by mist in the winter.
One climbing friend, Rhode Lo, says he quit hiking for six months after Wu’s death. Yang says he rarely ventures into the hills anymore. Without Gigi to provide color, the mountains seem muted.
Wu’s old bedroom remains untouched; her hiking journals lie about, alongside memorial messages from fellow climbers. Su-ran lives alone now, but her daughter’s extended family works to stave off the loneliness, whether it’s a phone call or a shared meal. Lo sometimes will walk with her through the misty park where Gigi’s ashes comingle with nature.
Su-ran has smooth skin for a woman of 70; the deep lines around her eyes reveal themselves only when she smiles. More often, though, she stares down for long stretches, the grief of losing Gigi overcoming her. She worries about how—if, even—her daughter will be remembered. That’s why she settled on the anonymous stone under the shade of a fir tree. Gigi left behind no children, who customarily tend their parents’ graves in Taiwan.
Wu’s legacy persists, though. A few days after her death, a former government official publicly called attention to the fact that most of Taiwan’s hiking fatalities—Wu was one of eight who died in Yushan last year—were unregistered adventurers, many of whom had fudged their itineraries and traveled on forbidden trails to skirt onerous regulations, making search and rescue operations more challenging. The government responded by urging better mountaineering and wilderness education, and officials started drafting amendments that would require warning signs be placed in dangerous mountain areas, absolving the government of liability in accidents.
Finally, last October, the country’s prime minister, Su Tseng-chang, announced a monumental shift, which media and mountaineers credited to the awareness raised by Wu and later by her death. The government would lift access restrictions to the forests and mountains that had existed for decades, and Taiwan would invest nearly $23 million to restore 78 trails, renovate 35 cabins and improve route signage. Crucially, more cell towers would go up, helping imperiled hikers like Gigi maintain contact with the outside world.
Soqluman spent his youth hunting in those mountains. His livelihood now depends on them. And he welcomes the chance, finally, for others in his country to interact freely with that territory. When he and his fellow rescuers reached Wu’s body on that cliffside platform, they stood in silence—trees rustling around them, river bubbling hundreds of feet below—and muttered a soft prayer before they began the delicate task of preparing her body to be spirited away.
They did not realize then the futility of their work. Even with ropes and carabiners and helicopters, they could never pull her from that place. Gigi Wu had long since given her life to the mountains.
<iframe height="590" width="552" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D1179412802113490%26set%3Da.113093572078757&show_text=true&width=552&height=590&appId" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
<a href="https://www.si.com/tag/daily-cover">Read more of SI's Daily Covers stories here</a>

New on Sports Illustrated: How Gigi Wu Found and Lost Herself in the Clouds

Taiwan's highest peaks gave her solace and purpose—and they carried her to swimsuited social media fame. But the mountains got somethin...

New on Sports Illustrated: Lyon Wins 5th Straight Women's Champions League Title

<a href="https://www.si.com/soccer/2020/08/31/lyon-wins-womens-champions-league-title-wolfsburg">
The French power's dominance in the competition continued after a 3-1 win over Wolfsburg.
SAN SEBASTIÁN, Spain (AP) — Lyon extended its European dominance by beating Wolfsburg 3-1 to win its fifth straight women’s Champions League title on Sunday.
Eugénie Le Sommer, Saki Kumagai and Sara Bjork Gunnarsdóttir scored for Lyon as it clinched a record-extending seventh Champions League trophy.
Wolfsburg, seeking its third title after back-to-back triumphs in 2013 and 2014, got on the board with Alex Popp after its French rival had opened a two-goal lead in the first half.
Wolfsburg also lost the final to Lyon in 2016 and 2018.
Le Sommer opened the scoring in the 25th minute before Kumagai added to the lead shortly before halftime.
Gunnarsdóttir sealed the victory in the 88th after Popp had got Wolfsburg on the board in the 58th.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"></blockquote>
</div>
</a>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We played a great season, we can be proud, and I can proud to be part of this team,” Popp said.
Lyon’s Le Sommer, Wendie Renard and Sarah Bouhaddi each won their seventh European title, moving them one clear of the men’s record held by Paco Gento.
“It’s actually quite difficult to believe we have managed our fifth straight title, to be honest,” Bouhaddi said. “We’re super proud of ourselves, it was a very difficult competition.”
<div>View the <a href="https://www.si.com/soccer/2020/08/31/lyon-wins-womens-champions-league-title-wolfsburg">original article</a> to see embedded media.</div>
It was the fourth final between the two clubs, and their third in the last five years. Wolfsburg’s only triumph over Lyon came in the first final between the teams in 2013.
It was Wolfsburg’s first loss in 41 games, since a 4-2 home defeat in the Champions League quarterfinals against Lyon in March 2019. Lyon still hasn’t lost a competitive match since the French Cup final against Paris Saint-Germain in May 2018.
In the semifinals of the final-eight mini tournament played without fans in northern Spain, Lyon beat PSG and Wolfsburg defeated Barcelona.
The final was played at Real Sociedad’s Anoeta Stadium in the Basque city of San Sebastián. Athletic Bilbao’s San Mamés stadium also hosted games.

New on Sports Illustrated: Lyon Wins 5th Straight Women's Champions League Title

The French power's dominance in the competition continued after a 3-1 win over Wolfsburg. SAN SEBASTIÁN, Spain (AP) — Lyon extended it...

New on Sports Illustrated: The American League Playoff Picture Is Almost Settled Already

<a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/08/31/american-league-playoff-picture-settled">
With a little less than a month to go in the season, there’s precious little drama in the American League playoff picture.
One of the expected benefits of expanding baseball’s postseason field to 16 teams was a playoff race involving practically every team. But with a little less than a month to go in the season, there’s precious little drama in the American League playoff picture.
According to
</a><a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds">Fangraphs’ playoff odds</a>, there are seven AL teams with at least a 94 percent chance to occupy one of the junior circuit’s eight spots—the Rays, Yankees, White Sox, Indians, Twins, Athletics and Astros. The National League has just four clubs (Braves, Cubs, Dodgers and Padres) with playoff probabilities greater than 65 percent.
While every NL team except for the Pirates and Diamondbacks are projected to have at least 15 percent playoff odds, there are six AL teams whom Fangraphs gives less than a 3 percent chance to play in October—the Red Sox, Orioles, Royals, Mariners, Rangers and Angels.
LAWS: <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/08/24/los-angeles-angels-fail-mike-trout#:%7e:text=The%20Angels%20Have%20Built%20a%20Tradition%20of%20Painfully%20Disappointing%20Baseball&text=Instead%2C%20after%20losing%20in%20extra,a%20record%20of%209%2D20.">The Angels Have Built a Tradition of Painfully Disappointing Baseball</a>
In the "middle" are the Blue Jays—whose playoff odds are up to 78.7 percent after Teoscar Hernandez’s <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1300194119579566080">walk-off heroics</a> on Sunday against the Orioles—and the Tigers, who have won five in a row against the Cubs and Twins to get back to .500 and increase their odds to 20.9 percent. 
That is a pretty clean divide between the two tiers even though Detroit is only two games behind the Blue Jays and a few other clubs could close the gap with a week like Detroit just had. But you begin to understand why the predictive models are so pessimistic on a late playoff push if you look at each team’s run differential, which is more indicative of a team's true talent and better at forecasting future success than a team's record. The Blue Jays and every team above them in the league standings have at least a +15 run differential. The Tigers and every team below them have, at best, given up 19 more runs than they’ve scored.
How’d we get here, and is there any hope for one of the current also-rans to make a run? It doesn’t seem like any of them are holding out much hope. Detroit has yet to make a trade with the deadline just hours away and nearly every team under .500 has taken on a seller’s stance. The Red Sox and Angels, the two most talented teams of the bunch, are locked in the cellars of their respective divisions because of their wretched pitching staffs.
There are still plenty of reasons to pay attention to the American League. The White Sox, a young team who have matured ahead of schedule, are tied for first place amid a three-team race for the AL Central after Luis Robert <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1300190375492161539">cranked a walk-off home run</a> against the Royals on Sunday. The Rays and Yankees epitomize a David and Goliath battle in the East. The villainous Astros and their attempt to catch whistleblower Mike Fiers and the A’s could provide even more fireworks after <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/suspensions-fines-likely-after-astros-athletics-brawl-in-as-sweep">the two teams' brawl earlier this month</a> stoked the rivalry every baseball fan wanted to see this season.
But if you’re looking for an exciting wild-card race, you’ll almost certainly have to look toward the National League.
<h2>Quick hits:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Sunday was the five-year anniversary of Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter against the Dodgers, which helped him win that year’s Cy Young award over Zack Greinke, then pitching for Los Angeles. But a lot can change in five years. Arrieta was shelled by the Braves, who <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1300221383159566336">scored 10 runs in the second inning</a>, seven of which were credited to Arrieta, en route to a wild 12-10 win for Atlanta over the Phillies.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Adam Wainwright tossed a complete game on his 39th birthday, showing he and battery mate Yadier Molina still know how to work their way around a lineup. The grizzled Cardinals veteran owns a 2.65 ERA through five starts, and has clearly <a href="https://twitter.com/UncleCharlie50/status/1300205916189593601">earned the respect of rotation mate Jack Flaherty</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The Dodgers finished August with a record 57 home runs, surpassing the previous best mark set by the Braves last June. Los Angeles still hasn’t lost a series this season. The rest of baseball has to hope they don't make a big splash before Monday's trade deadline and get even stronger.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1300154249448484870"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<ul>
<li>The Mets’ latest bullpen breakdown was perhaps its worst, as the Yankees recovered from being down five runs when down to their last strike. Aaron Hicks <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1300164607034765313">launched the game-tying home run</a> and Gio Urshela <a href="https://twitter.com/Yankees/status/1300171490193633280">provided the go-ahead single</a> off Edwin Diaz, who has converted just one save in four opportunities since regaining the closer job following Seth Lugo’s move to the rotation. Maybe shoot a text to your neighborhood Mets fan to check up on them.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Yankees pitcher Michael King's spike stuck in the dirt during his windup to give us the best blooper of the day.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/Cut4/status/1300139657460699137"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

New on Sports Illustrated: The American League Playoff Picture Is Almost Settled Already

With a little less than a month to go in the season, there’s precious little drama in the American League playoff picture. One of the expe...

New on Sports Illustrated: Murray Outduels Mitchell to Set Up First Game 7 in the Bubble

<a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2020/08/31/jamal-murray-outduels-donovan-mitchell-game-6">
Jamal Murray extended his torrid run with 50 more points, leading the Denver Nuggets to a 119-107 victory over the Utah Jazz on Sunday night.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The Jamal Murray-Donovan Mitchell duel will be settled in the first Game 7 in the bubble.
Murray extended his torrid run with 50 more points, leading the Denver Nuggets to a 119-107 victory over the Utah Jazz on Sunday night.
Murray had his second 50-point game of the series to equal Mitchell, who finished with 44 in this one. No player has ever had more in an entire postseason.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"></blockquote>
</div>
</a>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
They will go at it one more time Tuesday night, with the winner advancing to face the Los Angeles Clippers, who finished off the Dallas Mavericks in six games on the same court a few hours earlier.
Murray and his teammates are trying to become the 12th team to rally from a 3-1 deficit to win a series and the first since 2016, when the Cleveland Cavaliers completed the only one of those comebacks that came in the NBA Finals.
“They believe in me, I believe in them and we’re trying to be this 12th team to come back from down 3-1,” said Murray, whose right sneaker had a picture of George Floyd and his left Breonna Taylor, two Black people killed by police this spring.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1300275599274110978"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Mitchell was disappointed the Jazz had missed a chance to wrap up the series in Game 5, but understands the interest in seeing he and Murray square off in the ultimate contest.
“As a fan perspective I see it and I respect it, but I can’t tell you as a player that I want to play Game 7 if we’re up 3-1,” he said. “I don’t think anybody wants to do that but we’re here, so play the hand that you’re dealt and we’re going to go out there and execute and do what we’ve got to do.”
The Nuggets won the opener, but the Jazz won the next three games and were in good shape to finish it in Game 5, holding a 15-point lead in the third quarter.
Murray led the charge back in that game, finishing with 42 points, and then was a sizzling 17 of 24 in Game 6, going 9 for 12 behind the 3-point arc.
“Last game he got to the rim and we wanted to take that away. Other than trapping him, we’re trying to make him hit contested shots and he’s doing that,” Utah coach Quin Snyder said.
Mitchell also hit nine 3-pointers and increased what was the NBA’s top-scoring average in these playoffs at 37.6 points per game.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1300282223778824194"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
In the fourth quarter alone, Murray outscored Mitchell 21-17, helping prevent the Jazz from ever getting close enough to have a real chance of finishing the series.
Murray had a little more help, with Nikola Jokic scoring 22 points and Jerami Grant adding 18.

New on Sports Illustrated: Murray Outduels Mitchell to Set Up First Game 7 in the Bubble

Jamal Murray extended his torrid run with 50 more points, leading the Denver Nuggets to a 119-107 victory over the Utah Jazz on Sunday nigh...

New on Sports Illustrated: How Tom Brady is Already Getting the Most Out of His Teammates in Tampa

<a href="https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/08/31/tom-brady-leading-new-teammates-social-justice-yannick-ngakoue">
Tom Brady's training camp in Tampa Bay: high standards, encouraging words and a players-only meeting. Plus, how football took a back seat to social justice issues this week, Yannick Ngakoue's move to Minnesota, recapping Albert's camp trip and much more.
TAMPA— I spent two days down here and, full disclosure, Day 1 had me wondering.
There were throws in the dirt. There were drops. Maybe strangest of all, there was No. 12, the hyper-intense, hyper-detailed legendary prize-fighter of a quarterback, in the middle of it all, handing the situation with, weirdly enough … positivity?
Nice play, Huddy!
Way to go, Mike!
Great bench route, Chris!
All day, fellas!
This, at least to me, looked like a different Tom Brady than the one I’d seen in New England over the last two decades. And coupled with the practice I was watching—the kind that would set him off on the practice fields of Foxboro—I started to think about, and probably overthink, what I was seeing.
That was eight days ago. The next day, last Monday, I asked Bruce Arians about this relentless sunshine-pumping, coming from the most relentless competitor I’ve ever been around.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Arians told me, laughing. “I mean, he has not gotten on anybody’s ass at all. If he’s gonna get on anybody’s ass, it’s back behind when somebody else is taking reps. Then, he’ll talk to them.”
And then, Arians revealed that Brady actually did say something after that practice.
“He gave a great speech to the whole offense, once the coaches left the room,” Arians continued. “His leadership is unquestionable. But man, he is so positive with those guys out there. They’re just eating it up.”
Meet the new Tom Brady, same as the old Tom Brady.
The packaging is different. But the idea hasn’t changed.
The second day I was there was much better.
<figure><img height="345" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc1MDY0Mzc3NzM5NzE2Mzk1/tom-brady-yannick-ngakoue-jamarr-chase.jpg" width="620" /></figure>
***
We’re 10 days out from real NFL football. I can’t wait, nor can I wait for all of you to get a look inside this week’s column. Here, you’ll find …
• A look at a wild week in the NFL on the social justice front.
• Details on the big Sunday trade that made Yannick Ngakoue a Viking.
• A fun look at the seven-camp swing I took.
• A ton of notes.
But we’re starting at Camp 12.
***
As it turns out, that players-only meeting wasn’t exactly Brady flipping over the Gatorade table, either. Instead, the quarterback, after waiting for the coaches to clear the room, delivered a very clear, concise message to his teammates.
“You gotta show up every day,” is how O.J. Howard recalled it. “There’s no days off. With a lot of guys in general, for me, playing football over the years, when you have so much talent, it can get to the point where you start going through the motions, because you can depend on someone else to step up and make a play. But it shouldn’t be that way. It should be everyone on the same page, everyone coming with their hard hat every day.”
“Tom, he expects us to come to work with a lot of energy and to compete every single day,” second-year slot receiver Scotty Miller added. “And we set these goals, and we gotta put in the work to achieve these goals. That’s what he expects from us every single day, to go out there with our goals in mind, give it our all and compete with energy. If we do that, as you know, we got all the talent in the world, all the talent we need to get to where we want to go.
“That’s what Tom wanted out of us—we cannot take a day off, ever.”
Which is how we get back to this being the same Brady.
He’s 43 now and, by all accounts, he’s done everything he can to blend in with everyone else here. The stories of how he greets new teammates—Hi, I’m Tom—as if he needed the introduction to them are the same as they were in New England. By now, you know
</a><a href="https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/05/21/ryan-jenses-tom-brady-tampa-bay-buccaneers-workouts">he organized the workouts</a> on the campus of tony Berkeley Prep this summer, and he played a couple rounds of golf before camp with Arians and quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen.
“I think we split,” Arians said. “He had the pro for his partner, the pro shot like 65. So we got our ass kicked that day. But I think Clyde and I got him the next time.”
But make no mistake about this—his presence is felt in every inch of this place, and has been since the minute he arrived. That, in fact, is part of what attracted the Bucs to him in the first place. They knew that Brady’s standard would be their collective standard once he punched the clock the first time and they’ve gotten what they paid for, in full, in that regard.
That meeting was one piece of it. There are plenty more.
Attention to detail. Brady’s played quarterback in the NFL for two decades, so his volume of knowledge is off the charts. That much doesn’t need to be restated. But what you may not know is that it’s at the point now where he’s not just capable of running an offense—if you’re a teammate of his, he could probably be your position coach too.
And by that, I mean, there are pretty minute details he’s drilling the fellas on.
“Last year, I had a problem—I never really noticed it, it was just a bad habit. I would, when I was running my vertical routes, or routes down the field, turn my head back too soon, and it’d have me running with my shoulders sideways,” Howard said. “And Tom kept stressing to me, Keep your shoulders forward, keep your arms pumping, and find the ball late, just track it. He’s done a great job with me on that. I’m keeping those shoulders straight, and it helps allow me not to slow down in my routes.”
“One thing that he’s focused on with me, let’s say I’m running a deep ball, whether it be a fade or go, there’s certain yardage where, once we beat the DB, he wants us to get our eyes up, get our eyes back to him,” Miller said. “That way, he can really feel us out, he can tell if we want a back-shoulder ball, or if we really beat the guy, he’ll put it over the top. We have a bunch of different deep concepts where he wants us to give us his eyes at specific yard markers. That’s one detail that’s been key for us.”
So in Howard’s example, a teammate of Brady’s is playing faster. In Miller’s, a teammate is helping Brady throw a better ball. And everyone benefits.
Building confidence. Here’s why I chose to speak to Miller and Howard: Several Bucs people brought them up as guys who’ve exploded as players for having Brady as their quarterback. Part of that’s from details like the ones mentioned above. Another part is simpler. They’re <a href="https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/08/24/tom-brady-buccaneers-teammates-earl-thomas-daniel-jones">more confident</a>, in general, getting to work with him.
“When the Greatest of All Time tells you you’re pretty good—like, Hey, what a route! Great job! Or, Try this, and it works—it gives you a ton of confidence,” Arians said. “That’s really all it takes, that one little bit of confidence, and he can take that next step to become a heck of a player.”
Both guys confirmed that, as I was told, they are playing with more confidence than they had been before. It helps, of course, being in their second year in Arians’s offense.
But neither questioned that Brady’s helping to unlock that self-assuredness, too.
“He just gives us so many specifics, in where he wants us to be, so many details,” Miller said. “So when I know those things, and I know exactly what I’m doing out there, and what he wants me to do, I think that really helps me go out there and play fast, and be myself and make plays.”
“How to get open on certain routes, how he’s expecting the defender to play certain coverages vs. certain routes, and what he expects out of us as receivers and tight ends, all of that has allowed me to play fast,” Howard said. “It’s definitely been really helpful for me.”
The standard’s up for the coaches, too. Over the years, both Josh McDaniels and Bill O’Brien have said how tough it was coaching Brady—he was so smart, and so prepared, that an offensive coach had to work overtime to give him something new or challenge him in a way he hadn’t been challenged before.
Arians has certainly felt that.
And for him, Christensen and senior assistant Tom Moore, the time they had working with Peyton Manning in Indianapolis helped ready them for this experience. So just as Brady’s been pushed to learn a whole new language (Howard told me the offense is “really the same” as it was last year), he’s pushing the staff in his own way—which probably explains why he and OC Byron Leftwich were inseparable in the two days I was here.
“The verbiage was all new, so that part was a little hard on him,” Arians said. “Just learning all the verbiage—Hey, I wanna change this protection, what’s that called? And getting to where it’s a second language to him, that’s still happening. But yeah, having been with Peyton, as his coach, if it was an hour meeting, you better have two hours’ worth of stuff, because if you brought an hour, he’d buzz through it, and get bored, then get pissed.
“And it’s the same with Tom. He wants all the information. It’s fun, I’m happy he’s into the virtual reality stuff too, because that really has allowed him to get live reps over again.”
He’s holding himself to that standard too. Which is probably the ultimate key here. It’s hard to preach it if you’re not practicing it. Brady is, without question, doing that, and that virtual reality program is proof.
Per Arians, Brady hadn’t used the technology, from a company called Strivr, before. The coach actually started with it back in Arizona, and Carson Palmer raved about it to Arians (<a href="https://www.si.com/nfl/2015/11/18/nfl-carson-palmer-arizona-cardinals-inside-game-plan">see Peter King’s 2015 story for The MMQB about Palmer using it</a>), so Arians went to Brady with the idea. Brady, in turn, saw it as a new way to stack more work on top of what he was already doing in learning his new offense.
That is to say, he embraced it right away.
“Everything we do, we film for virtual reality with Strivr,” Arians said. “When you go back in, you put a headset on and you’re actually back at practice. And you see the exact play you just ran, versus the right blitz, so you can have all those practice reps over again. You can sit in the room and drop back, or just sit there and watch it. We did this all the time in Arizona, our backup quarterbacks, that’s how they got a lot of reps in practice.
“He’d never had it. He was like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ You turn around and see the running back, you look out, you see the coach. It’s crazy how good it is.”
So when another player walks by the room, after another 100-degree practice, and sees Brady wearing a headset in a dark room, and moving his feet around like a boxer during some downtime? Chances are, he’ll feel compelled to be just as invested.
***
Now, the elephant in the room is that what Brady’s doing is, and continues to be, without precedent. We saw how fast Manning lost it at the end. Brett Favre, too. And Brady’s 43, which makes it difficult not to think that a quick demise will eventually be in play.
But the quarterback the players are seeing in Tampa is the same one many of them have watched since they were kindergartners—and that’s not an exaggeration (Howard was a first-grader when Brady won his first Super Bowl, and Miller was in preschool). And if he can maintain that, which, again, isn’t guaranteed, then there are a lot of pieces in place here.
Brady’s got Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Miller at receiver; Howard, Rob Gronkowski and Cam Brate at tight end; Ronald Jones and Shady McCoy at tailback; plus a line that’s improved, and is adding a first-round tackle.
“I’m pretty stoked, man,” Howard said. “We have a lot of talent. It’s gonna be special to see. Every week, it’s gonna be a new guy making plays. There are always guys making plays here, every practice. Live bullets, it’s gonna be fun to go out there every week and see—Hey, it may be your day, it may be Scotty’s day, it may be someone else’s day. It’s gonna be fun.”
Miller then used the same word, stoked, before adding, “I’m extremely excited.”
Arians is too, for sure. And it’s not just because of that talent he’s putting around Brady, either. It’s all of the above, plus how this has become Camp 12 and how that’s affected everyone in the building.
The expectations externally are, of course, higher than they’ve been for Tampa since Jon Gruden’s heyday. And that’s OK with the guys here. Because internally, thanks to Brady, that bar’s been set even higher. For the coach, that much was clear on that Sunday, eight days ago, after he heard what came out of that meeting.
“It was just reinforcement, Hey, there’s too much talent in here. We’ve gotta pick it up, we don’t have that much time left,” Arians recounted, before emphasizing that he’s trying to drive that home too. “Every day I talk to them about it. If we stay healthy, if we beat the virus, we’re gonna beat a lot of teams.”
And if you listen to Brady out there, it’s not hard to hear how he deeply he believes it.
<iframe height="482" width="100%" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm?p=DGT4935950864" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
***
<h2>FOOTBALL TAKES A BACK SEAT</h2>
Overnight, Monday into Tuesday, Lions coach Matt Patricia got a text from his chief of staff, Kevin Anderson, that was pretty simple and direct.
You see what’s happening in Wisconsin?
Patricia woke up to that on Tuesday morning and, since he’d been knee deep in camp work, answered that he hadn’t seen much yet, but that he’d get right on it. It didn’t take long for the 45-year-old, as he started reading, to understand the gravity of the situation.
“I don’t really feel like talking about football,” he told the players, as they gathered for a team meeting a couple hours later, coming back from a day off on Monday.
So for about two-and-a-half hours thereafter, the coaches and players spoke frankly and openly about the shooting of Jacob Blake, which, to those in the room, felt like a continuation of the discussions they had in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in May. And as the meeting wound down, the coaches handed the baton to the players, asking them how they’d like to handle the rest of the day.
On Tuesday, practice wound up getting canceled and the team staged a demonstration outside its practice facility, one that went viral on social media, with veteran safety Duron Harmon addressing the media thereafter. Eventually, later in the week, the Lions would get back to work. But the precedent they set sparked a tidal wave of cancellations across sports.
On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks decided to strike instead of playing against the Orlando Magic, and the NBA’s whole playoff slate for that night was canceled. And NFL teams started to follow the Lions’ lead too.
In Indianapolis, the Colts’ social impact committee went to coach Frank Reich to voice its feeling that football needed to take a backseat for a day, after a players-only meeting earlier Wednesday night. Reich agreed, and addressed the team on Thursday morning, fully willing to concede that he needed to follow the players’ lead on this one.
What he said, I’m told, was along these lines: What happens with white privilege, we want to talk about these things when it’s convenient for us. The Black man doesn’t have that luxury.
From there, the Colts had all players and coaches register to vote, then the players went into six hours of meetings with David Thornton and player engagement staff. They came out with four areas where they wanted to focus their efforts: voter registration, police relationships in the Black community, education for underprivileged children and food access for school kids who might be missing classroom time due to the pandemic.
So did teams like the Lions and Colts change the world this week? Maybe not.
But I’d tell their stories to give you a microcosm of what’s happening in the NFL. These are sensitive topics for a lot of people and, as such, in some places the discussions within teams got emotional and even contentious, from what I understand. But as I see it, that’s a good thing.
That means people are being honest with each other, and making themselves vulnerable, and my feeling is that’s what leads to real progress. In fact, that’s probably why we saw so many teams emerge from these meetings with actionable plans—because they were able to sort through what was really important to the guys in the room.
And that says, to me, that the league took more steps forward on the social front this week, and more meaningful ones than those taken simply by writing checks.
What’ll be interesting from here is to see owner involvement. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, who’s been pretty progressive in this area for some time, said on a call with local and national media on Sunday that he sees a “sea change” among owners—“they’re embarrassed by our country, embarrassed and hurt.”
I can say that players are eager to see the owners show it. I’ve been asked a lot the last couple days if I think NFL players might walk away from games like the NBA, WNBA, MLB and NHL players did last week. The truth is, I’d need to know what’s happening in our country at a given time to answer that. I don’t know what the climate will be in America in 10 days, when the Chiefs and Texans kick off, nor do I have a clue what it’ll be in two months.
But I do know this—the players will want the support of their bosses going forward, no matter what happens next, and that could impact their decision-making in how they handle wherever all of this goes. If Lurie’s right, they’ll get it.
***
<h2>YANNICK GETS HIS WISH</h2>
Overnight on Saturday into Sunday, the Vikings and Yannick Ngakoue’s camp were working through proposals—some that included a lower base and incentives, others just a hard cut from the $17.788 million franchise tag Ngakoue had been assigned in March—and by the time the sun came up in the Central time zone, the deal was done. And one thing was abundantly clear.
Ngakoue very badly wanted out of Jacksonville.
How badly? He was willing to take $5.788 million less (without incentives) than he otherwise would’ve made just to stay with the Jaguars for the next four months. And so now, on that one-year, $12 million deal, he gets to play opposite Danielle Hunter, and for Mike Zimmer, on a team that’s made the playoffs in three of the last five years and had a top-10 scoring defense the last five years in a row.
The rest of the fallout for the parties involved …
For Ngakoue: The trouble here is next year’s franchise tag number might wind up being lower than this year’s (because of the falling cap) and, in taking the pay cut, he loses the benefit of the second tag being 120% of his previous year’s cap number. That said, the Vikings made a good-faith pledge to Ngakoue’s camp to negotiate a fair long-term deal when it’s allowed by rule, after the 2020 season. He’ll still be just 25 then. And he’s seen as an exceedingly good fit for Mike Zimmer’s defense, which should help him put up the kind of year that would prompt a mega-offer from Minnesota.
For the Vikings: They replace Everson Griffen and, again, have one of the best bookend pass-rush tandems in football, and give a core that’s aging—Kirk Cousins is 32; Harrison Smith is 31; Kyle Rudolph and Adam Thielen are 30; Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks are 28—another Pro Bowl-level talent to go to battle with. And Hunter, also 25, and Ngakoue set up as pieces to build around long-term, after the older guys are gone.
For the Jaguars: All the way back at the draft, you heard, Jacksonville’s the Trevor Lawrence team, which was essentially a way of saying that the Jags were stripping down the operation in 2020 with their eyes on 2021 and beyond. Hard to argue that now, when you look at the list of players gone from a stellar defense that carried the team to the AFC title game just 31 months ago …
• DE Yannick Ngakoue
• DE Dante Fowler
• DL Calais Campbell
• DT Marcell Dareus
• DT Malik Jackson
• LB Paul Posluszny
• LB Telvin Smith
• CB Jalen Ramsey
• CB A.J. Bouye
That’s a lot of talent out the door. Conversely, the Jags had three of the top 42 picks in April’s draft (C.J. Henderson, K’Lavon Chaisson, Laviska Shenault), and have four picks in the first two rounds of next year’s draft. That doesn’t guarantee anything, and they’d still almost certainly need to be the worst team in football to get Lawrence (it’s unlikely whoever lands that pick trades it). But at the very least, the direction here is clear. Also, waiting wound up being prudent. The Vikings’ haul was the first hard offer they got that involved a second-round pick (and they got the 2022 conditional fifth, that could be a third or fourth, to boot).
And so, with five days left until final cuts, the trade market finally moved. We’ll have more on that in a minute.
***
<h2>A CAMP TRIP UNLIKE ANY OTHER</h2>
This year’s camp trip was super different for me. Normally, I’ll try and see close to three-quarters of the league between the end of July and the opener. And this year, because of (very understandable) access rules, there wasn’t great value in doing that.
But what’s happening now is historic, and so there was plenty of value in getting out and seeing how all of this was working. So I decided I’d rent a car, go down the East Coast and hit all the teams I could along the way—then go to Florida to see a certain older man who spent his professional prime in the Northeast, and chose to go to a warmer climate to close out his career.
The result was a seven-camp itinerary, and <a href="https://www.si.com/author/albert-breer">a bunch of stories</a> gathered along the way. And some smaller stuff for me to parcel out to you guys too. Here’s some of that …
Signs of COVID-19
Patriots: At the far end of the team’s practice field, there’s a giant trailer that’d been used for … I’m not sure what over the years. I’ve never seen it open before. This year, there are two windows that, from far away, almost look like where you’d order from a food truck. One has a sign that says “athletic training” on it, the other “equipment,” two vital pieces of the football operation displaced as a result of distancing measures taken.
Jets: When you pull into the team’s expansive suburban facility, and get past the guard shack, you basically circle the practice field to get to the parking lot—and once you take a right at the corner, you can see a line of four tents set up to left, with maybe a dozen workers in hospital scrubs, plastic jackets and masks. By the time I arrived, their busy time had just ended. Media was instructed not to show up before a certain time, which allowed for all the testing to happen as guys arrived, and before reporters got there.
Giants: Four luxury coach busses are parked right at the side of the practice field, in a way that looks vaguely like a visiting high school team would arrive for a scrimmage. Why are they there? The Giants moved 90% of their football operations into MetLife Stadium, across a massive parking lot. So the players and coaches commute over from the stadium to the team’s practice facility, to use the fields there, via bus.
Eagles: I brought a neck gaiter and a cloth mask with me on the trip. The Eagles were the one team I visited where that wasn’t good enough. As all reporters enter, and go through the normal protocol—getting your temperature taken, and showing that you answered the standard questionnaire online—they’re handed paper masks (the kind you’d get in a hospital) for practice. Which, I learned on that day, get really warm when it’s 90 and humid.
Ravens: Anyone who’s been to Baltimore’s facility knows why it’s referred to as The Castle. It was modeled after a well-known country club, and looks palatial as a result. And while that ambiance is still there, it’s definitely a different feeling pulling past security and entering the facility, which is tucked in the woods in Owings Mills. The first thing you see? Three signs: Testing A-G, Testing H-Q, Testing R-Z.
Buccaneers: Here, media arrives at a prescribed time, and then lines up for temperature taking—without anyone getting out of a car. Once you pull up to the gate of a fenced-in parking lot, to the right of the team facility, you show the guard a green checkmark on your phone, signifying completion of a COVID-19 questionnaire, and then you dip your head, so he can take your temperature.
Dolphins: After going through the same stuff I did at the previous six stops—filling out a questionnaire on symptoms and who I’d crossed paths with, and getting my temperature taken—a PR assistant handed me a pass with a seat assignment (not normal at camp). It said 118 and basically had me sharing a relatively expansive pavilion area atop the stands with the Miami Herald’s Armando Salguero. The purpose, obviously, was to keep reporters spread out, and we got an internet connection, large fan, and power outlet for our troubles.
Name to watch
Patriots: OLB/ILB Josh Uche. Primarily an EDGE player at Michigan, New England saw inside/outside versatility with Uche because of his build and instincts, and it’s clear that he’s made an impression early in training camp. Bill Belichick has overseen transitioning EDGE/linebacker hybrids off the line of scrimmage in the past (Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Kyle Van Noy). And if Uche can pull it off, it sure could help fill the void left by Dont’a Hightower’s opt out.
Jets: TE Chris Herndon. It wasn’t hard to see him jump out on the day I was there, and it’s just as obvious, talking to people there, how losing Herndon last year (he only played in one game, due to injury and suspension) affected Sam Darnold. The staff loves the rapport they’ve seen between the two with Herndon back now. If Darnold’s draft classmate can stay healthy, he could well wind up being a centerpiece in the passing game.
<figure><img height="349" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc1MDY0Mzk2MjYxNzYyODU5/evan-engram-giants.jpg" width="620" />
<figcaption>A 2017 first-rounder, Engram had 44 catches last season despite missing eight games.</figcaption>
</figure>
Giants: TE Evan Engram. It’s not breaking any news to say Engram’s got a boatload of ability. Everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that injuries have been a problem. But what was interesting to me was just how dominant he was in practice the day I was there, and how he’s fit into new coach Joe Judge’s program. In the former first-round pick, the staff has found a worker, and a very football-intelligent player, which is exactly what they’re looking for across the board.
Eagles: DE Josh Sweat. The former five-star prep recruit looked freakish on the day I was there, and Philly has pretty consistently seen the big, long defensive end flash that ability the last few weeks. I watched him at the end of a two-minute period absolutely turnstile left tackle Andre Dillard (obviously, before Dillard got hurt) for a sack. Sweat’s another guy where health remains the question. But man, he can play.
Ravens: WR Hollywood Brown/TE Mark Andrews. Alright, so these aren’t really breakout candidates—these guys were 1-2 in catches, yards and touchdown catches for the team last year. But both guys changed their bodies this offseason, and the coaches believe both are playing faster as a result now. Which is a pretty scary prospect, given all the Ravens were already giving defenses to account for.
Bucs: CB/S Antoine Winfield Jr. The second-round pick has been making plays on a daily basis, and Tampa’s going to find a way to get him on the field as a rookie. For Arians, Winfield brings hints of what the coach had in Tyrann Mathieu and Budda Baker in Arizona, a combo safety who can do a million different things. Having a player like that also should go a long way in further unlocking Todd Bowles’s hyper-aggressive scheme.
Dolphins: G Solomon Kindley. Post-Laremy Tunsil, Miami needs help all over the offensive line. Kindley, a fourth-round pick, looks ready to give it to the Dolphins. Through a physical camp, he’s excelled to the point where I’d be surprised if he isn’t starting against the Patriots on Sept. 13. He’ll likely be one of two or three rookies on that line, which also happens to be why going with Ryan Fitzpatrick, for now, is the smart play for Miami.
Lingering question
Patriots: How will the rookies play? New England may wind up relying on more of them this year, and more heavily on them at certain spots (LB, TE), than they’ve relied on a group of rookies in a decade, going back to the Devin McCourty/Rob Gronkowski/Aaron Hernandez class of 2010.
Jets: Who’s playing receiver? There are questions about the line, too, but at least there they know who’ll be on the field. At receiver, it’s more of a scramble, with Breshad Perriman, Chris Hogan, Jamison Crowder, Denzel Mims, Braxton Berrios and darkhorse Jeff Smith in the mix.
Giants: How will rookies fare at the tackle spots? It sure looks like you could have both spots manned by draft picks, with Andrew Thomas on the left side and Matt Peart on the right. How they hold up should help determine Daniel Jones’s 2020 fate.
Eagles: Who’s playing guard? With Dillard down, and Jason Peters back out at left tackle, the question is who’ll take Brandon Brooks’s old spot. They’ve spent a lot of time developing Matt Pryor, drafted Jack Driscoll high and have an intriguing prospect in ex-Australian rugby star Jordan Mailata as contenders. But it’s important to remember that, in Brooks, they’re replacing an elite player.
Ravens: How do the pieces in the secondary fit together? With Earl Thomas gone, DeShon Elliott slides into his old role. But then the questions become how they deploy Jimmy Smith, who could become the kind of combo player Brandon Carr was last year, and how Chuck Clark is affected. High-class problem here, but one that has to be worked out for Wink Martindale to run as flexible a scheme as he did last year.
Bucs: Is there enough offensive line depth? Tristan Wirfs turned a corner over the last 10 days at right tackle and Alex Cappa’s coming along at guard, so Tampa feels good about the two question marks they entered camp with up front. But a couple injuries could create a very real problem.
Dolphins: How young is too young on the offensive line? Yup, another line question in a year where lines are going to be tested, thanks to the relative lack of work they’ve gotten together. Miami has three guys in Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Kindley who they like. Would you be OK playing all three? There’s not a ton of NFL precedent for it.
***
<h2>TEN TAKEAWAYS</h2>
The trade market’s been slow, and I’m not sure how much the Ngakoue deal shifts that paradigm. Thing is, we knew for months that Ngakoue was available. There was another trade this week, with linebacker Raekwon McMillan going from Miami to Vegas, but that was the result of the Dolphins actively shopping McMillan. Situations like those are fairly cut and dried. The players were clearly available. Conversely, deals aren’t happening organically this year, as they normally would be, for a few different reasons.
1) No one is getting to see other teams’ players in preseason. So most talks between teams to this point, I’m told, have consisted of personnel guys asking, Where are you guys heavy and where are you guys light? And there’s a lot of guessing going on.
2) The prospect of a cap shortfall in 2021 gives teams less financial flexibility to take on guys with big numbers in future years, or work on extensions with guys in contract years.
3) Despite the NFL’s outstanding start on the COVID front, teams still have their guard up, and they know that depth could wind up being a bigger factor this year than ever before (and it’s always important). So, naturally, spare parts are less dispensable.
4) Expanded practice squads, and the allowance for six veterans to be among the 16, changes some dynamics. There might be, for instance, a guy who won’t make your 53 this year that you’d have shopped in the past, but now want to sneak through to your practice squad.
Now, some things may wind up shaking loose this week. I certainly think there’ll be players out there on the block for fiscal reasons. And in other cases, maybe some team will take a swing on a guy who might not have been thought to be available—and hit. But for the most part, the way things are trending, I’d guess there’ll be less trade action in general than we’ve had in the past, and maybe a lot less than we had in a very active 2019.
LSU WR Ja’Marr Chase is one <a href="https://www.si.com/college/lsu/football/jamarr-chase-opts-out-of-2020-season">college opt-out</a> who should get your attention. Not only is he fully expected to be the top receiver taken next year, had he been draft-eligible, he may have been the first receiver to go back in April, too. “He’s easy [to evaluate],” said one AFC college scouting director. “He’s a first-rounder, no doubt about it, and the best receiver in the class. You can compare his height and weight to [Minnesota opt-out Rashod] Bateman, but he’s a step faster, he’s stronger, just a really strong kid, with very good hands. And he’s a really good athlete. … He comes from a good [high school] program there in New Orleans, he was a five-star recruit, yeah, he’s an easy evaluation. He blocks, he plays hard, just does everything. He’s just really good, there are no holes in skill set. You’ll have to see how fast he is, that’s the question, but word out of there is he’s faster than you’d think.” So yeah, tough to argue with the call Chase is making.
I think Brian Urlacher’s social-media activity last week is indicative of how we’ve stopped listening to each other. If you missed it, the Hall of Famer lined up Brett Favre playing through his father’s death—and starring in a MNF game the night after it happened—as an equivalent to NBA players deciding not to play playoff games this week. It’s a little ridiculous to compare the two to begin with. Favre played through personal tragedy, in part because he thought it was the best way to honor his dad. If he’d decided he couldn’t go that night? I don’t think anyone would’ve thought less of him. He made a choice that was his own, and his way of going through the grieving process was, I’m pretty sure, respected by everyone. What happened in Wisconsin last week connects in no way to that, nor does the response of the NBA players. In fact, if I try and contort myself to find the connection, it’d actually be this—just as Favre’s decision to play that night illuminated his dad’s life, the basketball players’ collective decision not to play illuminated a problem that’s deeply personal for a whole lot of them. But that’s just the false equivalency piece of it. To me, what’s worse is completely ignoring what athletes across sports were doing in skipping practices and games this week. My interpretation is that they were saying, We won’t be your distraction this time around. I’d say it worked, too. Instead of listening to that, though, Urlacher drew his own conclusions. Which, to me, reflects how we’ve become so divided as a country. No one seems to listen to anyone outside their own echo chamber anymore. And that sucks.
I’m excited to see what the Seahawks secondary looks like. Jamal Adams has come as advertised through his first few weeks in Seattle. But just as notable has been the emergence of second-year centerfielder Marquise Blair—who flashed speed and playmaking ability throughout, now 16 months out from Seattle having taken him in the second round. And theoretically, you could say that he’d be easy to slot into the old Earl Thomas role, with Quandre Diggs as a movable piece. The only thing is that Blair has the flexibility to move down and cover in the slot. And Adams does too. And this is why Pete Carroll and those in Seattle have been pretty tight-lipped about where the defense he’s run for over a decade there is going next. Given the versatility of the three safeties, and that the Seahawks are happy with outside corners Shaquill Griffin and Tre Flowers, Carroll and DC Ken Norton have a lot at their fingertips, and I’d expect they’re going to look a little different on defense than they have as a result.
<figure><img height="352" src="https://www.si.com/.image/c_fit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MTc1MDY0NDM1NDUzMzM5NDM1/mitchell-trubisky-nick-foles-bears.jpg" width="620" />
<figcaption>Newcomer Foles (right) appears to have the upper hand on Trubisky.</figcaption>
</figure>
My sense is that Nick Foles is a nose ahead of Mitch Trubisky in the Bears’ QB competition. And it doesn’t surprise me, while we’re there, that Matt Nagy would want to try and keep quiet who the winner of that derby is until the very end (which is what he said he’ll do after Saturday’s scrimmage at Soldier Field). To me, it’s the only true-to-life battle at that position in the league. In Miami, Ryan Fitzpatrick is taking the first-team reps. Tyrod Taylor’s doing the same for the Chargers. And Cam Newton’s clearly emerged in New England. It’s hard to blame those coaches, given the constraints at hand, and the need to build rapport and develop a scheme for the offensive players ahead of Week 1. In Chicago, as Nagy promised, the reps have been split, and if you’re going this far into the summer with it (we’re seven days away from a game week), then I understand wanting to keep the Lions, at the very least, in the dark on who they’re preparing to face in Week 1 for long as possible. In the end, I do think Foles will maintain the slim lead he has now. But I also believe the Bears coaches are being earnest in wanting to see more before making the call there final.
Alexander Mattison’s emergence in Minnesota adds an interesting layer to the Dalvin Cook saga. One big reason why NFL teams are so reluctant to give running backs big money is pretty simple—they’re too easy to find. You don’t need to spend a first-round pick on one. And maybe if you’re looking in the third or fourth round, you won’t find Zeke Elliott or Saquon Barkley. But what you might find is often close enough. Which brings us to Mattison. The Vikings spent a third-round pick on him in 2019, he averaged 4.6 yards per carry as a rookie and he’s hit the ground running in Year 2. I’m told he looks faster and more explosive than he did before, and has had a great camp carrying himself like a seasoned pro. Now, is he Cook? Probably not. But consider this—Mattison is due just $2.2 million total over the next three years. Re-upping Cook might cost you $15 million per year. I’m not great at math, but I’d say it wouldn’t be hard to come by an analysis that going with Mattison over Cook after this year is the right thing to do. And that also, by the way, is why Cook has to do all he can to get paid. His leverage, based on all the above, isn’t getting stronger with time.
I’ve heard the Texans’ work through a month has been crisp. And that’s, at least in part, thanks to the focus over the last couple years on culture. The players the Texans have brought in—guys like Brandin Cooks and Randall Cobb—are pros, and the practices have reflected that, as has the toughness of a team that’s now built through the lines of scrimmage. It took some gambling, of course, to get here, and it’s certainly possible the exodus of guys like Jadeveon Clowney and DeAndre Hopkins will exact a price when the games come. But my sense is Bill O’Brien has the building where he wants it. And it’s something he actually brought up, when we discussed players policing each other this year, in being careful COVID-wise. “Every year, your team’s different. This year we really wanted to have a team that had really good leaders,” he told me. “Deshaun Watson and J.J. Watt and Brandon Dunn and Bernardrick McKinney and Darren Fells, and then we added other great leaders like Brandin Cooks and Randall Cobb, in addition to Nick Martin and Laremy Tunsil, guys like Justin Reid, there’s no doubt that they’re going to police each other. These guys wanna win. It’s really important to them to be a winning football team.” And, again, that’s shown up, with kickoff just 10 days away.
I’m not surprised in the least to hear Dwayne Haskins’s assessment of his relationship with Alex Smith, a few weeks in. In meeting with the D.C. media, Haskins referred to Smith as a “big brother” and a mentor, and that would surprise no in San Francisco or Kansas City, who saw him with Colin Kaepernick or Patrick Mahomes. Just the same, I know Haskins’s excitement for Smith is genuine. “He got some 9-on-9 reps in, and a couple times, he felt how real that pass rush is," Haskins said. “Alex is an ultra-competitive guy, and we had a conversation after practice today about just how important it was for him to get back out there. I'm extremely happy for him, proud of him, have so much respect for him and know what type of guy he is on and off the field.” There’s also, obviously, real football benefit here for Haskins and Kyle Allen, in working with Smith. The staff there has seen it up close—how Smith is able to draw on his own experiences, and his ups and downs, to give the younger QBs lessons. And his off-the-charts retention in learning the offense has both set a high bar for the others and given Smith instant credibility as not just a player, but a teacher in that room. I don’t know if Haskins will wind up being the long-term answer in D.C., or if Allen will be either, for that matter. But I do know that both guys have a better shot at it, and the team will probably get an answer on it more quickly, because Smith is in the room.
File this away: Solomon Thomas is playing really well in Niners camp. The first draft pick of the Kyle Shanahan/John Lynch era has been largely a disappointment in San Francisco, and the team didn’t pick up his injury-guaranteed fifth-year option for 2021. And yes, the thought of it clicking for Thomas has come up before—a year ago the arrival of then-new D-line coach Kris Kocurek, who brough an aggressive style and wider splits, was expected to be a boon for Thomas. Thing is, last year, in a loaded position group, snaps were hard to come by. This year, with DeForest Buckner gone, there should be more opportunity for Thomas. And the Niners are at least hopeful that the former third overall pick is in as good a position as he’s ever been to take advantage of it.
One thing that was crystal clear at training camp: There was a ton more 11-on-11 than I’ve become accustomed to seeing. So the idea that coaches might rethink the idea of camp? Yeah, you can throw that out the window all together. The loss of joint practices and preseason games, and any semblance of offseason on-field work, simply had coaches trying to replace what they could of what they were missing. And it was interesting in talking to John Harbaugh about his brother Jim, and whether he’d consulted with the Michigan coach on how they work around time constraints at the college level. John said he had, but then added that even what colleges are working with isn’t totally applicable. “I always know what they’re doing as far as how he organizes his camp, his scripts, his timeframe,” John said. “It is like the colleges, but the difference is the colleges, they have spring practices, and they also build up to this. They bring their guys back in June and they’re there all summer, they’re working conditioning all summer, they’re doing individual workouts. They even do 7-on-7 on their own, they do group work on their own. According to the rules, it’s legal. So it is like college in the pure sense of training camp. It’s not like college in that we’re not getting as much work as they’re getting leading into it. It’s not exactly like college.” And thus, in many ways, NFL coaches were working, in certain ways, from scratch on this one. And that the result of that was fairly consistent, from camp to camp, to me, was interesting.
***
<h2>SIX FROM THE SIDELINE</h2>
1) Yes, I watched Austin Peay-Central Arkansas on Saturday night. And yes, I checked on Saturday morning to see if College GameDay was on. (It wasn’t.)
2) In the weirdest of college football seasons, we have more games this coming weekend, but not a major conference game until the weekend after that. The first one? Trevor Lawrence and Clemson take on Wake Forest at noon on Sept. 12.
3) The Big Ten’s handling of the cancellation of its fall season has been a total crapshow. That’s established, and reinforced, by how the other conferences were caught off guard by the announcement, after working with the Big Ten on plans before that. And now, as I see it, the league (and I’m a fourth-generation Big Ten alum, for clarity’s sake) has an opportunity. They can watch the SEC, ACC and Big 12 open camps. They can watch the rates at their own schools. They can, yes, communicate with their football coaches. And they can be open-minded in considering an October start in the process. Whether the conference office or school presidents like it or not, the Big Ten is much more SEC than it is Ivy League. Football is a huge part of the identity of our schools. And it should be treated as such.
4) Really great idea by the NBA to turn their arenas into polling places in November, and it should be especially important in an election year when, because of COVID, having a lot of space is really important.
5) That mess between the Mets and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on canceling the game the other night was … not that surprising, given how baseball has handled 2020.
6) My camp trip was the first time I'd left New England since the lockdown began in March, and I gotta say that I'm worried for our cities. Pretty tough seeing these places I'd been countless times looking like ghost towns, with storefronts boarded up, and pieces of their identities stripped away. I don't know how we're going to fix it, but it’s going to take a lot of work.
***
<h2>BEST OF THE NFL INTERNET</h2>
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/Prez/status/1299807473088356352"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Good message, but I have a feeling there’s a BCC on this tweet, so to speak.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/FieldYates/status/1298675777047793664"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
We all thought 2012 was a banner draft class for quarterbacks. I’m not sure many thought the 5' 10" guy who was the sixth taken among them would wind up being the best one.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1299489020381032450"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Mike Tomlin’s going into Year 14 in Pittsburgh, just one shy of Bill Cowher’s 15 years. Watch this, and you’ll see how he’s been able to last that long. And you’ll also see, or get a reminder, that X’s and O’s aren’t the biggest part of that job.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/Vikings/status/1299499437522325504"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
This, from the team that’s been at Ground Zero for all this over the last three months. S/o to Mike Zimmer, for turning it over to his players.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/Ravens/status/1299856994237636615"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
This is great.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/JoeyB/status/1298963580948221952"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Not hard to notice how Joe Burrow was out in front in May in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, and now he’s out in front again. Good for him.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/davehydesports/status/1299331689487925250"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Listen to Brian Flores.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/MiamiDolphins/status/1298606126485745665"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Didn’t expect the no-look from Ryan Fitzpatrick (and while we’re here, I’ll send our best to him and his family as they grieve the loss of Fitzpatrick’s mother).
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/thecheckdown/status/1297605094163091456"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
And here’s the guy we do expect the no-look from, plus a reminder that we’re now 10 days away from getting to watch him play in a real true-to-life football game.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/RS_Arizona/status/1299176206097502208"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
Imagine trying to cover Emmanuel Sanders.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/teddyb_h2o/status/1300079344480591872"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
You won’t find an NFL person who hasn’t been rooting for Teddy Bridgewater the last four years. One of the most likable, genuine guys in the league, and now a fantastic story, too.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/brgridiron/status/1298277879239913474"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
J.K. Dobbins has already impressed the Ravens coaches with his competitive streak and his feel out there. And I’m told Mark Ingram’s really taken him under his wing, recognizing that Dobbins is in great position to be his successor as Baltimore’s bell cow.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/AlbertBreer/status/1300166472346611714"></a></blockquote>
<script async="async" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
I usually don’t use my own tweets here, but Lurie wasn’t screwing around on that call.
***
<h2>WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW</h2>
Media access to practice ended in a lot of cities on Sunday. And I’m not telling you that to complain. I’d hope most of us in my line of work have made peace with this being a very different year, and this is after we’d normally be getting kicked out of practice (calendar-wise) anyway.
But I do believe we’ll feel two impacts on that end.
1) The information flow heading toward opening weekend is going to shift in the coming days.
2) Teams can now effectively set their depth charts and work on more specific scheme stuff without as much concern for it becoming public knowledge.
And so, really, this just sets another piece of uncharted territory as we continue on with this season of unprecedenteds.

New on Sports Illustrated: How Tom Brady is Already Getting the Most Out of His Teammates in Tampa

Tom Brady's training camp in Tampa Bay: high standards, encouraging words and a players-only meeting. Plus, how football took a back se...