Wednesday’s Sports In Brief
PRO FOOTBALL
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — This time, Tom Brady says he’s done for good.
The seven-time Super Bowl winner with New England and Tampa Bay announced his retirement from the NFL on Wednesday, exactly a year after first saying his playing days were over, by posting a brief video on social media.
He briefly retired after the 2021 season but wound up coming back for one more year with the Buccaneers. He retires at age 45, the owner of virtually every meaningful NFL passing record in an unprecedented 23-year career.
The Buccaneers — with whom he won a Super Bowl two seasons ago — made the playoffs again this season, losing in their playoff opener.
Brady is the NFL’s career leader in yards passing (89,214) and touchdowns (649). He is the only player to win more than five Super Bowls and has been MVP of the game five times. He won three NFL MVP awards, was a first-team All-Pro three times and was selected to the Pro Bowl 15 times.
It was announced last year that when Brady retires from playing, he would join Fox Sports as a television analyst in a 10-year, $375 million deal. Brady and model Gisele Bündchen finalized their divorce this past fall, during the Bucs’ season.
FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — Bobby Beathard, the architect of four Super Bowl-winning teams with two organizations, has died. He was 86.
A spokesperson for the Washington Commanders said Beathard’s family told the team he died Monday at his home in Franklin less than a week after his 86th birthday. A cause of death was not immediately available.
Beathard was director of player personnel for two of the NFL championships by Miami in the 1970s and served as general manager for two more by Washington in the ’80s. He also scouted for Kansas City when the Chiefs won the American Football League title and made Super Bowl I following the 1966 season and was GM with San Diego when the Chargers got there in the mid-1990s.
Part of seven teams that made the Super Bowl during his lengthy front office career, Beathard was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. Washington added him to the organization’s Ring of Honor in 2016.
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is set to call plays in 2023 after the club parted ways with offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.
Owner/general manager Jerry Jones told reporters at the Senior Bowl that McCarthy will run a version of the West Coast offense he used when calling plays as head coach in Green Bay from 2006-18.
The Los Angeles Chargers hired Moore as offensive coordinator Monday, a day after the Cowboys announced Moore’s departure.
CAMBRIDGE, Ohio (AP) — Josh Sills, a reserve offensive lineman for the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles, has been indicted on rape and kidnapping charges that stem from an incident in Ohio just over three years ago.
Sills, an undrafted free agent who appeared in just one game this season, was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list. That means he can’t practice, play or travel with the team as it prepares for the Super Bowl.
The rookie, who played at West Virginia and Oklahoma State, was indicted Tuesday by a Guernsey County grand jury in Ohio and ordered to appear in court Feb. 16, four days after the Eagles are to play Kansas City in the Super Bowl.
Sills’ attorney, Michael Connick, said the allegations are false and that Sills will be aggressively defended.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
The opening of college football’s traditional signing period for high school prospects brought an apparent end to two of the cycle’s most notable recruitments.
Blue-chip quarterback Jaden Rashada, who signed with Florida in December and then asked to be released from the commitment when a name, imagine and likeness deal fell through, announced e is going to Arizona State.
Also in the Pac-12, Cormani McClain, previously committed to Miami, signed with Colorado to make it two straight years that coach Deion Sanders has landed a five-star cornerback.
Rashada’s recruitment made national headlines and became something of a cautionary tale for the college football’s NIL era. The four-star recruit from California was the focal point of a recruiting fight between Miami and Florida. That led to a bidding war between booster-run collectives that try to secure sponsorship deals for athletes from those schools.
Rashada had originally given a verbal commitment to Miami, but flipped to Florida and signed with the Gators during the early signing period after being offered an NIL deal that could have been worth more than $13 million.
When it became clear that Gator Collective, which is not part of the University of Florida or its athletic department, did not have the money to fund the deal, Rashada asked to be released from his national letter of intent.
Rashada becomes the highest-profile high school recruit in new Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham’s first signing class. Rashada’s father, Harlen, was part of Arizona State’s football team in the 1990s.
BASEBALL
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to narrowly consider Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption, a filing made in a case involving four eliminated minor league teams hoping to end the sport’s century-old legal protection.
MLB cut the minimum guaranteed minor league affiliation agreements from 160 to 120 in September 2020 and took over running the minors from the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, which had been in charge since 1901.
The parent companies of the Staten Island Yankees, Tri-City ValleyCats, Salem-Keizer Volcanoes and Norwich Sea Unicorns sued MLB in December 2021 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleging a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act caused by “a horizontal agreement between competitors that has artificially reduced and capped output in the market for MiLB teams affiliated with MLB clubs.”
The suit was dismissed in October by a judge who cited the antitrust exemption created by a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the Federal League. The teams then asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to send the case onto the Supreme Court.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — AL batting champion Luis Arraez went to a salary arbitration hearing against the Miami Marlins, who acquired the infielder from the Minnesota Twins last month.
Arraez asked for a raise from $2.2 million to $6.1 million, and the Marlins argued for $5 million. The case was heard by John Stout, Mark Burstein and Scott Buchheit, who are expected to issue a decision Thursday.
Arraez hit .316 with eight homers, 49 RBIs and a .795 OPS, starting 61 games at first base, 34 at designated hitter and 31 at second.
SEATTLE (AP) — Dylan Moore and the Seattle Mariners have agreed to a three-year contract worth $8,875,000, avoiding a salary arbitration hearing, two people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement, first reported by ESPN, had not been announced.
BASKETBALL
DETROIT (AP) — The NBA game between the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons scheduled for Wednesday night was postponed because the Pistons were stranded in Dallas amid a winter storm.
The Pistons were unable to fly home to Detroit following their game Monday night against the Mavericks, the NBA announced about 6 1/2 hours before tipoff. The league said the date for the rescheduled game would be announced later.
DENVER (AP) — Michael Malone might coach Nikola Jokic in the All-Star Game. He might get the rare chance to coach against him, too.
Malone and the staff of the Denver Nuggets have clinched their trip to Salt Lake City for All-Star weekend. Malone will coach Team LeBron — the team that will be drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James — in the Feb. 19 matchup.
Boston interim coach Joe Mazzulla will coach Team Giannis, the team that will be drafted by Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Malone and the Nuggets’ staff were locked into the All-Star trip Wednesday night when Portland beat Memphis.
NEW YORK (AP) — Breanna Stewart couldn’t turn down a chance to play in New York and potentially help the Liberty win their first WNBA championship.
The most coveted free agent this offseason, who won the WNBA MVP award in 2018, announced on social media that she was going to New York. Stewart had spent her entire career in Seattle since the Storm drafted her No. 1 overall in 2016. She won two championships with the team in 2018 and 2020.
OLYMPICS
The new leader of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee reiterated the federation’s support for exploring a way for Russian athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics as neutrals, while insisting the current sanctions against the country remain in place.
Gene Sykes, who took over for Susanne Lyons as USOPC chair on Jan. 1, wrote a letter to athletes and other U.S. stakeholders last week after the International Olympic Committee announced it was moving forward in trying to craft a way for some Russians to compete. They have been banned from most major international competitions since the country invaded Ukraine last February.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lobbied French President Emmanuel Macron to not allow Russians at the Paris Games. Leaders in Latvia have threatened to boycott the Olympics if Russia is allowed.
SOCCER
A federal judge granted final approval to the equal pay lawsuit settlement between female players and the U.S. Soccer Federation, cutting legal fees from $6.6 million to $5.5 million.
The Jan. 4 order on legal fees by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner in Los Angeles was referenced in an order by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking the parties if they objected to dismissal of the appeal, which remains pending.
Players sued the USSF in 2019, seeking damages under the federal Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Credit: Wednesday’s Sports In Brief
