The New Orleans Saints have emerged as a candidate to acquire Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr.

The Raiders granted Carr permission to speak with the Saints' front office and he will visit the team on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. It will be the first known meeting between Carr and a potential suitor.

Previous reporting indicated that the Raiders would only allow Carr to meet with teams willing to meet the team’s asking price in trade negotiations.

While there is reportedly no trade imminent, the visit firmly establishes New Orleans as a serious contender to land the nine-year veteran quarterback.

Carr, who has a no-trade clause, signed a three-year, $121.5million extension last April, but was benched for the final two games of the 2022 season in what was called a mutual decision.

Over $40m in Carr's contract becomes guaranteed on February 15, after which the four-time Pro Bowler would become cumbersome to trade.

The trigger date, which Carr has declined to renegotiate, forces the Raiders to urgently pursue a trade partner that both meets the team's asking price and pleases Carr enough to convince him to waive his no-trade clause.

The Saints are looking to improve a quarterback group that included Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton last season, with Taysom Hill continuing to take snaps as a gadget option.

New Orleans are projected to be well over the 2023 salary cap as currently constituted, and would need to restructure a number of contracts – including Carr's – if a trade were to materialise.

Saints coach Dennis Allen was the Raiders' head man in 2014 when the franchise drafted Carr in the second round and started him as a rookie.

Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce are making history at Super Bowl LVII, but so far the experience has been nothing out of the ordinary for their football family.

Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce will become the first brothers to face each other in a Super Bowl on Sunday.

They were team-mates at the University of Cincinnati before both were drafted by Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. Jason was picked by the Eagles in 2011, Reid's penultimate year as head coach in Philadelphia, with Travis then selected by the Chiefs in 2013, Reid's first season in Kansas City.

Both have since experienced Hall of Fame career trajectories, but one will see their resume somewhat blotted at least in part by their sibling in the season-ending showpiece at State Farm Stadium.

But the historic nature of their encounter has not been reflected by the build-up, at least in the mind of elder brother Jason.

Asked about the unique situation of being an opponent to his younger sibling, Jason said: "I don't know, we're handling it pretty good right now, but I think on game day, we're going to truly get the feel of what that's going to be like when all the adrenaline's going, the testosterone is pumping.

"You know, we're both highly competitive individuals. Right now we're still pretty good. We're being like brothers.

"My mom was at the media night last night with cookies. So it's been a pretty normal family affair up to this point.

"But obviously the closer you get to game time, the more the competitive nature is gonna come out."

 

Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid conceded Patrick Mahomes is not 100 per cent healthy ahead of Super Bowl LVII.

Mahomes' health is the dominant storyline for the Chiefs ahead of their clash with the Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium on Sunday.

He suffered a high ankle sprain in the Chiefs' Divisional round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, an injury that forced him to come out of the game before returning in the second half.

Mahomes subsequently played through the injury in the AFC Championship Game with the Cincinnati Bengals, willing them to a thrilling 23-20 victory.

Speaking at Opening Night on Monday, Mahomes said his ankle is "definitely better", however Reid on Tuesday clarified that his star quarterback is still not at full strength.

"Yeah, so I wouldn't tell you he is 100 per cent," Reid said.

"But the training staff works with him endlessly. I guess it'd be a tribute to both of them for Pat coming back for more and for those guys cranking on him."

Despite his ankle issue, Mahomes has still performed at a very high level in the postseason.

Across his two playoff games, Mahomes has completed 69.9 per cent of his passes for 521 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Reid is used to seeing Mahomes producing magic on the field, but even he has been taken aback by what his signal-caller has produced while playing on one healthy ankle.

"So, Julie [Frymyer, Chiefs physical therapist] spent most of the time with him," Reid added. "We've got all the latest greatest stuff to use, technology-wise, so he's used it all and has been able to make these jumps here where he can actually function and play in a game, which is very remarkable."

Aaron Rodgers is going on a four-day "darkness retreat" in an attempt to help evaluate his future amid retirement and trade speculation.

Four-time NFL MVP Rodgers is considering his future with the Green Bay Packers, who missed the 2022 playoffs, amid reports his team are mulling over a trade.

The quarterback only signed a three-year, $150million extension in March but endured a difficult season in which he threw for 3,695 yards, the fewest in any of his full seasons during his career.

Rodgers has not ruled out retirement either and told The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday he will embark on a "darkness retreat" that includes "four nights of complete darkness" to help consider his future.

"I've got a pretty cool opportunity to do a little self-reflection in some isolation," the 39-year-old said. "And then, after that, I feel like I'll be a lot closer to a final, final decision."

Rodgers is yet to decide whether he will continue in the NFL with the Packers or another team, with retirement still an option.

"For sure; it's a real thing, 100 per cent," Rodgers said of retirement.

"That's why it's going to be important to get through this week and to take my isolation retreat and just to be able to contemplate all things my future and then be able to make a decision that I think is best for me moving forward and in the highest interest of my happiness and then move forward."

He added: "It's just kind of sitting in silence, which most of us never do. We rarely even turn our phone off or put the blinds down to sleep in darkness. I'm really looking forward to it."

The Las Vegas Raiders and New York Jets are reportedly interested in Rodgers, who reiterated his commitment to the Packers.

"I'm not a free agent, I'm under contract with the Packers," Rodgers said. "That gets lost in the conversation a lot.

"In years past, there's been a couple of years where we got ousted from the playoffs by the Niners and then I went and played at Pebble and those years were very razzing, I would say, from the crowd. A lot of Niner yells and other various well-timed trash talk.

"This year was a lot more positive, I think. The sentiment was very positive, people wanting me to get traded to their team, and the Raiders fans were probably the most vocal and the most numerous."

American football, its exponents are often fond of saying, is the ultimate team sport. With victory requiring 46 players spread across offense, defense and special teams to perform as close to their best as possible and frequently contingent on telepathic understanding between players executing blocking schemes, route concepts, pass coverages and pressure packages, it is tough to find a flaw in their argument.

In that sense, it is a contradiction that the quarterback position, being the most important for any team, commands so much of the attention. 

Most of the focus will be on the signal-callers in Super Bowl LVII, and rightly so. Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are making history in becoming the first black quarterbacks to face off in a Super Bowl in the Kansas City Chiefs' mouth-watering clash with the Philadelphia Eagles and are both candidates to win the MVP award on Thursday at the NFL Honors ceremony in Phoenix.

While that pair of superstars will obviously have a mammoth part to play in deciding the winner of the Vince Lombardi Trophy, so often it is the game within the game in other areas that settles the NFL's showpiece.

And there are several such granular contests that figure to have a substantial bearing on the outcome in Arizona. Here, Stats Perform digs into the numbers in examining three matchups that could decide Super Bowl LVII.

Chris Jones vs. Isaac Seumalo and Jordan Mailata

When the Chiefs have needed him most in the postseason, Chris Jones has typically delivered. Jones is in the curious position of being established as one the premier defensive linemen in the NFL but still arguably being underrated.

While so much emphasis is placed on the offensive side of the Chiefs' Super Bowl LIV comeback four years ago, Jones was the man who ensured the San Francisco 49ers could not respond with the disruption he provided up front.

In the AFC Championship Game this season, it was Jones – deployed off the edge rather than his familiar interior spot – who easily beat Cincinnati Bengals right tackle Hakeem Adeniji and brought Joe Burrow down for the key fourth-quarter sack that ended a prospective game-winning drive for the Bengals and gave the ball back to Mahomes to lead the Chiefs to a decisive field goal.

Ranked third among all defensive linemen in his aggregate pass rush and run block win rate, Jones is a versatile force who has the talent to disrupt the best-laid plans of the Eagles.

The Eagles rank first in pass block win rate and second in run block win rate, encapsulating the well-rounded nature of their ultra impressive offensive line. However, there are weaknesses, with right guard Isaac Seumalo (61.5 per cent) well below the 70.5 per cent pass block win rate average for his position and left tackle Jordan Mailata (74.3 per cent) only just above the NFL baseline of 72.9 per cent for his spot.

As such, Jones will almost certainly see snaps on the interior where he lines up against Seumalo and others where he is one on one with Mailata. Their ability to hold their own against the best defensive player on the field will go a long way to determining whether the Eagles can justify their status as slight favourites.

Travis Kelce vs. Avonte Maddox

The trade of Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins ultimately did no damage to the Chiefs' status as one of the NFL's pre-eminent modern offenses, with Kansas City leading the league in Efficiency Versus Expected (EVE) on offense in 2022.

With Hill out of the picture, Kelce has unsurprisingly served as the focal point of the attack. Arguably no two players in the NFL enjoy the same level of symbiosis as Mahomes and Kelce consistently display, the future Hall of Fame tight end continuing to confound defenses with his route-running and ability to create yardage after the catch.

His domain while generating those headaches for defenders has primarily been the slot. 

Of Kelce's routes in the 2022 season, 300 have come from the slot, compared to 173 from the outside receiver position and 139 from a traditional tight end alignment. 

Kelce's burn rate, which measures how often a receiver wins his matchup on a play where he is targeted, is 75.0 per cent from the slot, the seventh-best among slots with at least 25 targets. In other words, he has created separation from his defender on three quarters of his slot targets in 2022.

Shutting down Kelce is a challenge few have had much success rising to, but the Eagles have a player who is statistically the best remedy to the threat he poses in slot cornerback Avonte Maddox.

Maddox's combined open percentage allowed across man and zone coverage of 18.1 per cent is the best of any cornerback in the NFL. By that measure, Maddox is the elite at the slot corner position, and he will need to prove it for the Eagles to have any hope of containing Kelce and, in turn, the Chiefs.

Jalen Hurts vs. Chiefs' front seven

Two weeks removed from winning the AFC Championship Game on a sprained ankle, there is the question of how much of a running threat Patrick Mahomes can be in a game where even a sporadic impact from him on the ground would make a significant difference to keeping the Eagles' defense off the front foot.

While he has recently dealt with a sprained shoulder, there will be no such doubts surrounding Hurts. The Eagles will run the ball, and Hurts will be integral to their game plan in doing so.

Hurts and the Eagles have, for the entirety of the season when the starting quarterback has been healthy, done an outstanding job of keeping defenses guessing with a diverse run game built around the zone-read and the read-option.

That presents a rather large problem for the Chiefs, whose primary weakness on defense is – you guessed it – against the run.

The Chiefs rank 17th in run defense EVE, with their performance in that metric dropping to 24th against the rush in neutral situations – when the offense could realistically either run or throw the ball. 

Philadelphia's offense thrives by creating doubt in the defense over what is coming in neutral situations, excelling at doing so to the point in the NFC Championship Game where San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner – who represents the gold standard at his position – was left stationary for key plays as indecision superseded his usually outstanding instincts.

Kansas City's linebackers are not on the same level as Warner, with starters Nick Bolton and Willie Gay Jr. both below the average in run defense win rate (17.7 per cent) for the position. 

Their fallibility in that regard is something the Eagles will endeavour to attack time and again in pursuit of their second Super Bowl. It will take an intelligent and likely more measured approach from a defensive front known for its aggressiveness and an exceptional display of awareness from the Kansas City linebackers for the Chiefs' defense to avoid a long and very painful evening on the biggest stage.

Steve Wilks will be hired as the San Francisco 49ers' new defensive coordinator.

The move was reported by ESPN and NFL Network on Tuesday as the 49ers moved quickly to replace DeMeco Ryans.

With Ryans as DC, the 49ers fell painfully short of this year's Super Bowl following a remarkable run of misfortune that saw the team robbed of four quarterbacks through injury by the end of the NFC Championship Game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Ryans' impressive work saw him land the Houston Texans' head coaching job, leaving the 49ers with a hole to plug on Kyle Shanahan's staff.

Shanahan is turning to Wilks, who was available after the Carolina Panthers hired Frank Reich as their new head coach.

Wilks had been the Panthers' interim coach last year, taking over after Matt Rhule was fired and finishing the season with a respectable 6-6 record.

Rhule's final game as coach, with Wilks his defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach, was a defeat to the 49ers.

Wilks described himself as "disappointed but not defeated" when the Panthers instead hired Reich for the 2023 season.

But if Wilks has ambitions of landing another top job, his new role with the 49ers looks a good fit.

Ryans' predecessor Robert Saleh also departed for a head coaching role with the New York Jets.

Before his 12 games at the helm of the Panthers, Wilks had a single season as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, when they were a miserable 3-13 in the 49ers' NFC West.

Buffalo Bills co-owner Kim Pegula is recovering from suffering a cardiac arrest last June, but "where she ends up is still unknown".

American tennis star Jessica Pegula, the world number four, provided an update on her mother's condition in a long Players' Tribune article on Tuesday.

The five-time grand slam singles quarter-finalist revealed her sister, Kelly, saved their 53-year-old's mother live by giving her CPR after their father woke up to her going into cardiac arrest nine months ago.

Kim, co-owner and president of both NFL franchise the Bills and NHL team the Buffalo Sabres, is back at home and doctors are "blown away" by her "miracle" recovery.

She is, however, suffering from significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues and the family have come to the realisation that she is unlikely to resume her roles with the Bills and Sabres.

Jessica revealed that three months before her mother fell ill, her sister had decided to learn CPR.

She wrote: "Kelly called me one day and said she was going to get her CPR certification as a requirement for a job she wanted. I said: 'No way, I have been meaning to do that but haven't gotten around to it.”

"She relayed to me how nervous she was about it and hoped she passed the class. I remember her telling us what she was doing in our family group chat, and my mom even responded: 'Nice Kells! Now if we have a heart attack, you can revive us.'"

She added: "Today, my mom is still in recovery, and although it is the same answer every time someone asks me, it is true, she is improving every day. She is dealing with significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues.

"She can read, write, and understand pretty well, but she has trouble finding the words to respond. It is hard to deal with and it takes a lot of patience to communicate with her, but I thank God every day that we can still communicate with her at all. The doctors continue to be blown away by her recovery, considering where she started, and her determination is the driving force of that."

Jessica was a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open last month, having been considering whether she should call time on her career.

She stated: "Suddenly, I went from 'Let's celebrate top 10 in the world' to 'Do I need to start thinking about my career after tennis a lot sooner than I thought?' 'Does my dad and family need help?' 'Maybe I should just go back to school and work for the family.'

"I am 28 and I take pride in being able to handle every situation thrown at me, but this was A LOT."

She was also hit hard by seeing Damar Hamlin collapse on the field while playing for the Bills last month.

"Then in January we came to some bizarre, messed-up, full circle moment." she wrote. "Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during the Monday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals. My stomach sunk because it felt like the exact same thing all over again."

Last year's French Open women's doubles runner-up continued: "It has been a tough year, but at the same time I feel lucky and blessed. I am thankful she is still with us when other families may not have been so lucky.

"That she even had a chance at recovery when the first week in the hospital seemed so dim. Thankful for the doctors that aided in her recovery. Thankful that she is now home, that she gets to watch the Bills, Sabres and my tennis matches. She never watched my matches before, because she got too nervous. Now she watches all of them.

"Thank you to the Buffalo community for your patience. I know you have wanted answers and it took us a while to get there, but it finally felt like it was time. Thank you to everyone who has respected privacy and shown me and my family tremendous support throughout this ongoing journey."

Jalen Hurts believes he and Patrick Mahomes will be "uplifting the next generation" in Sunday's Super Bowl, the first time both starting quarterbacks will have been African Americans.

Philadelphia Eagles signal caller Hurts will be making his Super Bowl debut, while Mahomes has featured twice before, experiencing both winning and losing.

Ahead of the State Farm Stadium showpiece, both men were in demand at Monday's Opening Night, with Hurts confident he can cope with the pressure of the big occasion.

"It's been what it's been my whole career," the 24-year-old said. "I ain't worked this hard to stay the same. I've put the work in to have opportunities like this, so it'll be a fun one.

"As a team we've come a long way. I don't want to make this about me. I want to make this about the work we've put in. We want to go out there and prepare to play our best game, when we need it most."

His role and the battle with Mahomes will be under the spotlight, however much Hurts does not want to make the narrative about his own performance.

Doug Williams became the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl in 1988, when he led the then Washington Redskins to victory over John Elway and the Denver Broncos.

Now Hurts and Mahomes take centre stage, and Hurts said: "It's historic. Think about all the rich history in this game. To be a part of such a historic moment is special.

"There's so many quarterbacks before me, including Pat, that laid the foundation for me to have this opportunity. Seven African American quarterbacks to play in this game and now the first time for two to go head-to-head, and that's uplifting the next generation of quarterbacks.

"That four-year-old, five-year-old kid back in Houston, back in Philly, back in Texas, Louisiana, wherever across the world, regardless of what someone may say or have an opinion about you, you can do it.

"I value the platform I have, I'm sure Pat does, as well. We just want to inspire the next people."

Hurts said Philadelphia, who won their lone Super Bowl in the 2017 season, would be ready to add a second.

"We're coming to finish the job we set out to do," he said.

"We definitely respect our opponent. They're a really good team. They play good on both sides of the ball and special teams, and we want to go out and what we've done the entire time: to try to play clean football and play together, most importantly."

Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni acknowledges his Kansas City Chiefs exit under Andy Reid left him with a "chip on your shoulder" ahead of their Super Bowl LVII encounter.

The two will face off on Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Arizona, with the former set to face off against the team he started his NFL coaching career with in 2009.

Sirianni worked his way through the ranks to become receivers coach with the Chiefs but exited the role in 2013 after Reid arrived as head coach, having brought assistant David Culley with him.

Though he has no issue with how his departure was handled by Reid, Sirianni still looks upon his departure as motivation to get the better of his opposite number years later.

"Do you always have this little chip on your shoulder? Sure, yeah, you do," he said. "But that's who I am as a coach and as a person.

"I want to make sure I'm working my butt off to get as good as I possibly can. You hold on to some of those things.

"Did I want to leave Kansas City? No. My future wife was from there, she had a nice teaching job, she had all her friends there, her mom and dad were a half-hour down the road.

"Of course I didn't want to leave there. But when I look at it, God's always put me in great positions and guided my paths. I know I don't say stuff like that all the time, but I know he has."

Sirianni subsequently joined the San Diego Chargers, holding a number of positions he became offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts.

He posted a 9-8 record in his first year in charge of the Eagles in 2021, before bettering that with a 14-3 finish this season to set them on the path to Super Bowl LVII.

Patrick Mahomes never wants to experience the sour taste of defeat in a Super Bowl again, as the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback prepares to face the Philadelphia Eagles.

Mahomes was MVP when the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV three years ago, but a year later they were outgunned by Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Last season saw Kansas City edged out by the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, so they missed out on the biggest game of the year.

This time they are back in the spotlight in Phoenix, raring to go at Glendale's State Farm Stadium, and Mahomes underlined the highs and lows of the Super Bowl as he looked back on his mixed bag of experiences.

"The win is amazing," said Mahomes. "It's one of the best moments of your entire life. You take away all the positives from that.

"But that loss, that stings. That motivates you for years. That's what it's done for me. It's motivated me to be back in this game again. I want to make sure that I can have that winning feeling and not that losing one because that losing feeling is one you'll never forget."

He said the Eagles possess "one of the best defensive lines in history", and with both teams managing NFL-best 14-3 records in the regular season it is clear Sunday's match will see the two best teams of the year duke it out for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Ahead of Super Bowl LVII, Mahomes spoke at Opening Night, saying: "The motivating factor is to be the best.

"You're in the biggest game of your life, and you want to go out there and make memories with your teammates. I think the biggest motivating factor is to step on that field and try to be the best. We know we have a great challenge in the Philadelphia Eagles, so it'll be a great game."

There will be a first sight of two African American quarterbacks going head to head in a Super Bowl, with Mahomes facing Jalen Hurts.

"It's special," Mahomes said.

"I have a lot of respect for the guys who came before me and laid the foundation. To play against a guy like Jalen – a genuine, great dude who has worked his tail off to be in the position that he's in – it's going to be a special game and a special moment for a lot of kids to watch."

Patrick Mahomes' injured ankle is "definitely better" than before the AFC Championship Game as he prepares for his third Super Bowl appearance on Sunday.

Mahomes helped the Chiefs reach a third Super Bowl in five seasons by helping Kansas City defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Conference Championship on January 29.

It was a case of the MVP frontrunner overcoming the odds, knocking off a Bengals team that had stunned them at the same stage last season despite playing on a sprained ankle he suffered in the Divisional round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Mahomes will now go against a vaunted Eagles defense in a mouth-watering Super Bowl LVII clash at State Farm Stadium in Arizona.

And he goes into the game seemingly in much improved shape.

Asked about his ankle at Super Bowl Opening Night in Phoenix on Monday, Mahomes replied: "It's definitely better for sure.

"You never know until you get into the game, but it's definitely better than it was this time last week before the game.

"I'll play through all the injuries that the trainers let me play through."

He then joked: "[Tight end] Travis Kelce hurts my feelings like every single day and I still play so I'm still going to play through it and try to get a win."

Mahomes threw for 5,250 yards and 41 touchdowns in the regular season, marking the second time in his already glittering career he has surpassed 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns in the same season.

The Eagles represent arguably his biggest test yet, though, their defense the best in the NFL by yards per play allowed. In two playoff games, Philadelphia's defense has given up a combined 14 points.

The Minnesota Vikings announced Monday that they have named Brian Flores defensive coordinator as the team turns to the former Miami Dolphins head coach to fix one of the NFL's most porous units in 2022.

Flores, who went 24-25 in three seasons with the Dolphins before being controversially fired following the 2021 campaign, spent this past season as a senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The 41-year-old previously served 11 seasons on Bill Belichick’s staff with the New England Patriots before joining Miami in 2019. Flores was part of four Super Bowl-winning teams with New England and handled defensive play-calling duties in his final season there in 2018, helping the Pats to a 13-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53.

ESPN reported Sunday that Flores was one of three finalists, along with New York Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, for the Arizona Cardinals head coaching position that remains unfilled. He also previously spoke with the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons for those teams' defensive coordinator openings.

Flores replaces Ed Donatell, who was fired shortly after Minnesota's 31-24 loss to the Giants in the opening round of the playoffs. The Vikings finished this past season 31st among the NFL's 32 teams in both total yards allowed and passing yards allowed and were tied for 28th in scoring defence after yielding 25.1 points per game.

In his lone season with the Steelers, Flores was part of a staff that helped the Steelers allow just seven rushing touchdowns – tied for the fewest in the NFL – and had the league’s sixth-lowest completion percentage against (61.3 per cent).

Flores, who is Black, still has a class-action lawsuit pending against the NFL alleging racial discrimination in its hiring practices following his dismissal by the Dolphins in January 2022.

The suit also alleged that the Giants and Denver Broncos interviewed Flores for open head coaching positions only to satisfy the league’s Rooney Rule that requires teams to interview minority candidates for such vacancies.

Tom Brady will wait until the 2024 NFL season to launch his new career in broadcasting with Fox Sports.

The seven-time Super Bowl champion retired last week after a 23-year career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Brady signed a 10-year deal to become Fox Sports' lead analyst last May once his playing days had come to an end, reported to be worth $375million.

However, the 45-year-old will not be involved in any capacity in next season's coverage as he intends to take his first year out from the sport since 1999.

"I want to be great at what I do," Brady told Fox Sports 1's The Herd.

"I was talking even last week with the people at Fox Sports, and the leadership there allowing me to start my opportunity in the fall of 2024 is something that's great for me.

"I'll take some time to really learn, become great at what I want to do, become great at thinking about the opportunity and make sure I don't rush into anything."

Brady announced his retirement in a short video posted on his social media channels last Wednesday.

He had called time on his illustrious career a year ago, on February 1 2022, only to announce 40 days later that he was making a comeback.

And the legendary quarterback says he wanted to make the latest retirement announcement a low-key affair.

"For me, I know in my heart how I feel," he said. "I put it out on the field for 23 years and I'm super proud of what's been accomplished. 

"I just wanted to keep last week really short and sweet. I felt like I've given a lot, I've gained a lot, I've learned a lot, and life is about exciting things ahead, too.

"I've loved my time in football. It's absolutely an incredible love in my life. It's hard to make decisions like that, but it's certainly the right time."

On his next chapter away from the field, Brady added: "I want to be great at what I do, and that always takes some time, strategising, learning, growing and evolving. 

"I have so many people to rely on and support me in that world, too. 

"It's going to be a great opportunity for me to take some time to prepare for my broadcasting job, but also catching up on other parts of my life that need some time and energy."

Outside of the World Cup and the Olympic Games, no sporting event commands attention quite like the Super Bowl. 

The build-up to an opening kick-off witnessed by a cavalcade of television and smartphone cameras is a week-long celebration of North America's dominant professional sport, a seven-day period in which talking heads agonise over every storyline in the only game of the year that doubles as a de-facto national holiday in the United States.

On occasion, such storylines may be contrived in a bid to create excitement for a matchup that does not instantly capture the imagination. Yet the modern NFL is one spoilt by the number of captivating contenders that reside in the league, and commissioner Roger Goodell could not have asked for a more enticing Super Bowl clash than the one that will take place in Arizona on Sunday.

Indeed, the meeting between AFC Champions the Kansas City Chiefs and NFC Champions the Philadelphia Eagles is one positively teeming with storylines that make Super Bowl LVII a game worthy of the ceaseless hype it will receive before Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts and Co. settle matters on the field in their fight to secure the Vince Lombardi Trophy. 

Mahomes and Hurts are poised to make history with their duel at State Farm Stadium. Their matchup is the first in the Super Bowl between two black starting quarterbacks and, by the time the Chiefs and Eagles have taken the field, one of them will likely have been crowned as MVP — both are finalists for the league’s most prestigious individual honour, which will be announced at a ceremony in Phoenix on Thursday.

Theirs is a battle between a signal-caller who is by this point established as the gold standard of his generation, with a prospective second MVP for Mahomes just reward for a campaign in which he threw for 50 passing touchdowns and over 5,000 yards in the same season for the second time in his career, and a quarterback who seems to be in the midst of an unexpected rise to the elite after startling growth in his second full season as a starter.

Yet both head into the game with plenty to prove. Mahomes will consider it past time to end his wait for a second Super Bowl title after breaking the hearts of the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, while there will be many still questioning whether Hurts can excel against this calibre of opposition. The Eagles went 14-1 with him as the starter in the regular season but faced only six teams who finished the year with a winning record. So far in the postseason, they have blown out an overachieving New York Giants team and seen a mouth-watering NFC Championship Game with the 49ers reduced to a no-contest after injuries left San Francisco with no healthy quarterbacks.

But questions about the opposition Hurts has faced do nothing to detract from the quality of his overall play. He has performed extremely impressively as a deep-ball thrower, with his passer rating of 112.1 on passes of 21 air yards or more the fourth-best among quarterbacks with at least 25 such attempts. The Eagles have utilised Hurts’ running ability to devastating effect as he has rushed for 13 touchdowns, while the Philadelphia quarterback ranks fourth in yards over expected in true passing situations (among quarterbacks with at least 100 such throws).

Mahomes is second by the same measure, illustrating this game’s status as a legitimate matchup between two of the very best at the game’s most important position.

Both Mahomes and Hurts will depend heavily on a man named Kelce as they look to guide their team to glory, with Travis and Jason becoming the first brothers to play against each other in the Super Bowl. Tight end Travis Kelce became the undisputed top option in the Kansas City offense in the wake of the Tyreek Hill trade and added another hugely impressive season to a Hall of Fame resume. 

His campaign featured 1,338 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns with his 19 receptions of at least 20 yards the most of any tight end and the seventh-most in the NFL. The impact of an offensive lineman can sometimes be less tangible, but no center in the league makes their presence as obvious as Jason Kelce, the engine to an Eagles line that ranks first in pass block win rate and second in run block win rate, according to Stats Perform data.

Both Kelce brothers were drafted by Andy Reid, Jason picked in 2011 when the 64-year-old was Eagles head coach, with Travis then selected in his first year in Kansas City in 2013, a tenure in Philadelphia defined by frustrating near-misses coming to an end in 2012.

Reid lost three successive NFC Championship Games with the Eagles between the 2001 and 2003 seasons before finally getting them to the Super Bowl in the 2004 campaign, with his time management skills vehemently criticised in a loss to the New England Patriots.

He got back to the NFC Championship Game one more time with Philadelphia in the 2008 season, but never did so again following a loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Though his triumph with the Chiefs four years ago will obviously have softened the pain of seeing the Eagles get over the hump without him in the 2017 campaign, a contest between a man who could never quite get job done in Philadelphia and a coach in Nick Sirianni who is a game away from winning the Super Bowl in his second season is a fascinating plot point in a heavyweight encounter. 

Such will be the attention on messrs Mahomes, Hurts, Reid and the brothers Kelce that some of the critical battles on which the destination of the Lombardi could hinge may well fly under the radar.

Chief among them will be the fight in the trenches. Defensive Player of the Year contender Chris Jones has led the way for a Kansas City defensive line that has tallied 18 quarterback hits in the postseason, tied for the most among 2022 playoff teams. However, he and his team-mates up front will be tested not only in defeating the blocks of the Philadelphia offensive line but in tempering the aggressiveness by which Steve Spagnuolo's defense has come to be defined against a diverse Philadelphia ground game that is well-equipped to use it against Kansas City.

In comparison to Jones, Kansas City’s young secondary is an underrated aspect of the Chiefs’ roster. The Chiefs' defense ranks 11th in open percentage allowed, though the prospective return of cornerback L'Jarius Sneed from a head injury will be key to their hopes of limiting the impact of the Eagles' star receiver duo of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, who rank 11th and 13th respectively in combined open percentage across man and zone coverage. 

Sneed has lost just 22 of his 76-man coverage matchups. Only four players to have faced 75 such matchups have allowed a receiver to get open less often.

Stopping the Eagles is of course only half the battle for Kansas City and, for as frequently as 'Mahomes magic' has rescued the Chiefs, he cannot do it alone.

Encouragingly, the Chiefs rank ninth in rushing offense in Stats Perform's Efficiency Versus Expected metric and are going against an Eagles defense 21st by the same metric against the run.

The Eagles largely shut down the 49er run game in the NFC Championship Game, but that was primarily due to the fact the Philadelphia defense could focus solely on stopping the ground attack with the threat of the passing game removed.

With Philadelphia having played an offense that was reduced solely to running the ball, the Chiefs will have received an in-depth look at how the Eagles fit their defense to stop the rush, potentially improving their odds of finding weaknesses in that area and taking advantage of them.

Mahomes remains the primary weapon and most will expect and want to see a bewitching duel between and the top two MVP candidates. Yet the Super Bowl can throw up unexpected heroes and, though there are bonafide stars and storylines aplenty, the post-game tales could well be of the job the Eagles did on Jones, how rookie Isiah Pacheco gashed Philadelphia’s run defense or how Sneed and Jaylen Watson kept Brown and Smith at bay. There's plenty of intrigue beneath the surface in a potential all-time classic.

Wide receiver A.J. Green has decided to step away from the NFL after 12 years.

The 34-year-old took to social media to announce the decision to retire on Monday.

"Thank you to all who have supported, encouraged and inspired me throughout my career," he wrote on Twitter. "Special thank you to the University of Georgia, Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals for the opportunity to pursue my dreams.

"I've stayed true to the game and it owes me nothing. Be blessed.. Love y'all! The next chapter begins."

Green was drafted fourth overall in 2011 by the Bengals and earned his first of seven consecutive Pro Bowl selections that season after leading the team with 65 receptions, 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns.

His best season came in 2013, when he had career highs of 98 receptions for 1,426 yards and 11 TDs.

After 10 seasons with the Bengals, Green signed as a free agent with Arizona, where he spent the final two seasons.

He ranks second all-time in Cincinnati franchise history in career receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns and ends his career with 727 receptions for 10,514 yards and 70 touchdowns in 158 games.

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