Latest news with #SuperBowlXIX
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
49ers well aware that Super Bowl LX is in Santa Clara: ‘That's the dream scenario'
Forty years after the San Francisco 49ers won a Super Bowl played in the Bay Area, this year's team is aiming to repeat history. Levi's Stadium will host Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8, and some members of the 49ers circled the date long ago. 'I think we've been talking about it since we found out two years ago,' Pro Bowl fullback Kyle Juszczyk said earlier this month. 'That's the dream scenario, that it ends there. I hope that's how it works out. It's July. I've got to give you the classic: 'You can't look that far ahead. It's all about training camp in two weeks.' So that's what I'll say.' Juszczyk laughed after offering a cliché rather than a bold proclamation. And his answer made sense given the state of the 49ers as they report to training camp Tuesday. Four decades after the 49ers completed an 18-1 season by winning Super Bowl XIX at Stanford Stadium in January 1985, the 2025 edition doesn't resemble a similar super team. The 49ers are coming off a 6-11 season that was followed by a loss-filled offseason fueled by finances. They parted with eight starters, a group that included linebacker Dre Greenlaw and four Pro Bowl players, and they counted backup tight end Luke Farrell as their most expensive free-agent acquisition. Head coach Kyle Shanahan certainly wasn't talking title after the roster overhaul. In April, Shanahan said the 49ers 'took our shot' in 2024 — a season in which they kept their pricey and loaded roster intact — and indicated they could get back to chasing championships … eventually. 'I'm not enjoying it, but it's something we're going to get through,' Shanahan said. 'And I think we'll come out on the good end here in the long run.' But the spring inspired optimism that the long run could be shorter than expected. The 49ers added 11 draft picks, including four top-100 selections, signed quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner to contract extensions, and traded for pass rusher Bryce Huff. Their Super Bowl window is no longer wide open, but it's not like they've morphed into the Titans. Only five teams — the Eagles, Bills, Ravens, Chiefs and Lions — have better Super Bowls odds than the 49ers (20-1), according to ESPN Bet, which lists them as favorites to win the NFC West after they occupied the cellar in 2024. Those numbers reflect this: The 49ers still employ eight players who have earned All-Pro or Pro Bowl honors since 2023. 'I think we've got a good combination of change,' Juszczyk said, 'but you've still got your centerpieces.' The 49ers are returning nine starters from an offense that ranked fourth in the NFL in yards per game last year despite having three All-Pros — running back Christian McCaffrey, left tackle Trent Williams and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk — miss a combined 30 games. They have lost six starters on defense, but they still have an elite player on every level — pass rusher Nick Bos a, Warner and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir — and used their first five picks on defensive players for the first time since 1981. In addition, they rehired former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh after firing their last two coordinators following one-year stints. Saleh's units ranked among the NFL's top five in yards allowed in his final two seasons as the 49ers coordinator (2019-20) and his last two full seasons as the Jets head coach (2022-23). 'Having Saleh back in the building is really fun because he's really good at his job,' Kittle said. 'And I'm just excited to see what he puts together. What I've loved about playing with Kyle and Saleh is they do a really good job of putting guys in position to succeed. I think he'll do a really good job of constructing our defense in a way that puts guys in position to play at a really high level.' Kittle said the 49ers had 'elite and immaculate vibes' during their offseason program, which was well-attended and devoid of contract drama. However, that's unlikely to be the case when they report to camp Tuesday. Wide receiver Jauan Jennings will reportedly request a trade if he doesn't land a contract extension he's seeking, although the 49ers have no intention of trading him. Jennings' dissatisfaction raises the possibility that the 49ers will begin camp without their top three wideouts with Aiyuk (knee) and Ricky Pearsall (hamstring) on the physically unable to perform list. The situation evokes memories of last year's disastrous season, which was marked by injuries and contract strife. And it's a reminder of unknown challenges the retooled 49ers will face in their bid to snap their 30-season Super Bowl title drought, a quest that appears more daunting than in previous years but not inconceivable. 'I love the guys that we added,' Juszczyk said. 'I feel really good about where we're at right now.'
USA Today
14-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
7 most explosive Eagles heading into the 2025 season include two dynamic rookies
With the rookies and veterans set to report to the NovaCare Complex next Tuesday, we're looking at the seven most explosive players on the Eagles roster. The Eagles are nine days away from reporting to the NovaCare Complex for training camp. Nick Sirianni's team is focused on having a singular goal for the 2025 NFL regular season. Howie Roseman orchestrated another roster makeover in free agency, the 10-player NFL Draft, and several talented undrafted free agents. Training Camp begins in late July, with July 22 as the report day, followed by a practice on July 23. Although a surprise move or two could still be on the way, the majority of the work has been completed. After watching 12 players depart in free agency, Roseman added two dynamic SEC linebackers, an All-American pass rusher, three offensive linemen, and an accomplished quarterback from Philadelphia. With the rookies and veterans set to report to the NovaCare Complex on Monday, July 21, we're looking at the seven most explosive players on the Eagles roster. QB Jalen Hurts Hurts broke his Super Bowl QB record with 72 rushing yards, becoming the first QB to have multiple Super Bowls with a 100+ passer rating and 50+ rushing yards. He is the second QB to post a 115+ rating and rush for 50+ yards in a Super Bowl, along with Joe Montana in Super Bowl XIX (1/20/85). RB Saquon Barkley Barkley's 2,005 rushing yards were the eighth most in a regular season in NFL history, and he compiled an NFL-high 46 runs of 10-plus yards in 2024. WR A.J. Brown In 2024, Brown ranked 1st in receiving average (16.1) (min. 60 catches) and 3rd in receiving yards per game (83.0) (min. 13 games), behind Ja'Marr Chase (100.5) and Justin Jefferson (90.2). DT Jalen Carter During the 2024 regular season, Carter was 4th among interior defensive linemen with an 81.5 PFF pass-rush grade, behind Chris Jones (91.0), Cameron Heyward (87.2), and Jeffery Simmons (81.6) in that category. LB Jihaad Campbell (Rookie) Campbell was named to a list of players who could make an immediate impact for Philadelphia at linebacker. The 6'3", 235-pounder has sideline-to-sideline speed and impressive coverage skills. He also flourished as a quality pass rusher, registering five sacks in 2024. During his final season in Tuscaloosa, Campbell was putting together a stellar 2024 campaign before suffering a torn left labrum, totaling career-highs in tackles (117) and sacks (5.0) in 13 games. He was named first-team All-SEC and was a semifinalist for the Butkus Award, presented annually to the nation's top linebacker. DB Andrew Mukuba (Rookie) Over his final 26 games in college, Mukuba recorded 18 pass breakups and committed zero penalties. That's impressive for a player who's aggressive at the catch point. Mukuba allowed just 74 yards and a 12.1 passer rating on 401 coverage snaps last season, per PFF. At 6-0, 186 pounds, Mukuba is undersized but makes up for it with excellent ball skills and instincts. He possesses good length and exhibits ball-hawking tendencies, tying the SEC lead with five interceptions in 2024. If he were a few inches taller and 15 pounds heavier, Mukuba would've been a first-round pick. DB Cooper DeJean DeJean, who did not allow a TD in coverage in 2024, became the youngest player (22) to record an INT-TD in a Super Bowl when he had a 38-yard INT-TD against Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LIX.
USA Today
06-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
14 Dolphins selections named best NFL draft picks ever taken at slot
Some of the greatest players in NFL history have donned the aqua and orange. In ESPN's look back at the best NFL draft pick ever at every draft slot from No. 1 to No. 262, 14 Dolphins selections found their way onto the list. ESPN's Ben Solak took "best" to mean some combination of "most talented" and "most succesful" and added some extra weight for players that were lifers with one franchise. Here's a look at the 14 Dolphins NFL draft selections that garnered inclusion from ESPN. Miami Dolphins' NFL draft selections included among ESPN's best ever Dolphins Hall of Famers Dan Marino, Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas were no-brainers on this ESPN list. Marino passed for 61,361 yards to rank ninth all-time in NFL history. Marino finished with 420 touchdown passes and guided the Dolphins to an appearance in Super Bowl XIX. During that 1984 season, Marino became the first NFL quarterback to pass for more than 5,000 yards in a season and set a single-season passing touchdowns record at the time with 48. Taylor was a six-time Pro Bowler and three-time first-team All-Pro. Taylor was named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year in 2006 after registering 62 total tackles, a team-high 13.5 sacks, two interceptions returned for scores, 11 passes defensed, 10 forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries. During his 12-year stretch with Miami, Thomas led the Dolphins in tackles in 10 seasons and racked up 100 tackles in each of his first 11 seasons. Throughout his career, Thomas registered 20.5 sacks and amassed 17 interceptions for 170 yards and four touchdowns. Thomas was voted first-team All-Pro five times and was a seven-time Pro Bowler. Six players from the list were selected in the 1970s, four in the 1980s, three in the 1990s and one in 2019. Of course, quarterback Joe Theismann never played for the Dolphins. Theismann was drafted by the franchise in 1971, but he initially opted to play in the CFL with the Toronto Argonauts. In an ironic twist, Theismann would later beat the Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII with the then-Washington Redskins who Miami traded Theismann's rights to in 1974.
Los Angeles Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Jim Lampley wasn't supposed to fall in love with boxing. Instead, he became its voice
Jim Lampley has been the voice of boxing for a generation of Americans, which is remarkable because the assignment was only supposed to last one fight. In the winter of 1986, Lampley had a new contract and a new boss who wanted him out. So Dennis Swanson, the head of the ABC's sports division, ordered Lampley to cover Mike Tyson's first fight on network TV in the hopes, Lampley said, he would embarrass himself and slink away. Instead, Lampley nailed the assignment and a year later began what would be an unparalleled three-decade career calling fights for HBO. 'I knew from the moment I called that first fight I was home,' said Lampley, 76, whose work earned him induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. 'I understood that was where I was supposed to be.' So 18 months later, on his agent's advice, Lampley walked into Swanson's office, signed the papers that separated him from ABC Sports, and never looked back. That's one of several stories Lampley tells in 'It Happened: A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television,' an autobiography of an admittedly charmed 50-year career in broadcasting. 'My life story reads like a fictional narrative. That's the reason for the title,' Lampley said. 'It's the only way you can respond to something as totally counterintuitive, unexpected and filled with blessings as my career is to say, 'it happened.' 'I can't talk about anything that ever happened to me with anything less than astonishment.' The title of the book, written with journalist Art Chansky, is also a paean to Lampley's most famous call — the narration of George Foreman's stunning knockout of Michael Moorer, which allowed Foreman to become, at 45, the oldest heavyweight champion in history. 'Down goes Moorer on a right hand!. An unbelievably close-in right-hand shot! 'It happened! It happened!' In the book, Lampley takes readers inside locker rooms in every league and into the conference rooms of every network. He shares family stories of growing up in the South at the start of the civil rights movement and dishes celebrity gossip about some of the biggest names in sports and broadcasting. But if the career he describes was marked by good fortune — he got his first break at 24 when, still in graduate school, he was chosen from a field of 432 candidates to serve as the first network sideline reporter on ABC's college football broadcasts — he was also very good at what he did. Over his dozen years at ABC he called two Indy 500s, broadcast Major League Baseball, traveled the world reporting for 'Wide World of Sports,' interviewed President Ronald Reagan at Daytona, presided over the trophy presentation after Super Bowl XIX and covered the first of 14 Olympics. He interviewed Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig after the U.S. hockey team's Miracle on Ice, worked with Billie Jean King at Wimbledon, saw Richard Petty's final NASCAR victory and was close enough to smell the sweat at every significant title fight between 1988 and 2018. 'Given his long career across several networks, he probably has some juicy stories to tell,' said Daniel Durbin, a professor at the USC Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society. Yet it was a career that proved memorable as much for Lampley's timing as for his talent. 'Jim was one of a group of 1970s college students who grew into sportscasters, that included Jim Nantz, Al Michaels, and Bob Costas,' Durbin continued. 'They pursued careers in a sort of golden age of sportscasting when 'Monday Night Football' had shown the tremendous potential of prime-time sports and ESPN and, later, Fox Sports were just on the horizon. 'He was a consistently strong sportscaster. A very good, workmanlike boxing broadcaster; well-prepared, clear and effective in his calls.' And every time his career seemed to reach a fork in the road, he inevitably chose the right path — one that has him returning to do blow by blow, this time on DAZN PPV, for a May 2 world championship card featuring Ryan Garcia, Teófimo López and Devin Haney, in separate bouts, live from Times Square. It will be his first fight call since HBO ended its boxing programming in 2018. In between his start at ABC and his return to his ring-side seat this week, Lampley was the first program host listeners heard on WFAN, helping it grow into the biggest sports-talk station in the country; anchored coverage of the Olympics and the NFL on NBC; appeared regularly on 'The CBS Morning Show' and had his own syndicated interview program, 'One on One With Jim Lampley.' 'I was working all the time,' he said. 'I was making piles of money, one paycheck on top of another.' But he's also remembered in Los Angeles for a life-changing five-year stint as co-anchor of the nightly news on Channel 2. 'When I was forced out of ABC Sports, my next gig, my landing spot, was at KCBS-TV,' Lampley said on an hourlong Zoom call from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., where he sat before a wall covered with dozens of the media credentials he has gathered over the decades. 'The first thing I said to my agent was 'that's a local station. That's not a network gig'.' It came with a big contract though. And when the station brought in Bree Walker to join him behind the anchor desk, Lampley's personal life, as well as his career, took a turn. 'There was a giant promotional campaign and a lot of hoopla,' Lampley remembered in an interview long on detail and short on regret. 'Yes, it probably boosted my image. [But] I found myself in a situation where I felt ill-equipped to compete with her particular studio skills on air. 'I decided that my best defense would be to get her to fall in love with me.' And she did, marrying Lampley and having a son with him before the couple divorced after nine years. It was 'Anchorman' 14 years before the Will Ferrell movie made Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone household names. Months after moving to Los Angeles, Lampley also signed his first contract to call boxing on HBO, the job that would come to define his career. It was a job he was always meant to have since one of his earliest memories was of his widowed mother sitting him down in front of a television set perched on a TV dinner tray and putting on a Sugar Ray Robinson fight. He was 6. Eight years later he was in the Miami Beach Convention Hall to watch his boyhood idol Cassius Clay knock out Sonny Liston, and more than a quarter-century after that, Lampley was ringside in Tokyo for HBO when Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, making him the only broadcaster to be present for the two greatest upsets in heavyweight boxing history. So it has been a uniquely lucky life. And, as the title of the book says, it happened. 'This was the way it was supposed to go,' Lampley said with a smile. 'It was preordained.' Lampley will be in Los Angeles for a pair of book signings, on May 8 at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble at The Grove and on May 10 at 2 p.m. at the Wild Card Boxing Club. The event at the Grove will feature a Q and A session moderated by KCBS-TV sports director Jim Hill.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
When and where will Super Bowl LX be played in 2026?
Super Bowl LIX may have just ended, but that doesn't mean it's too early to start thinking ahead to next year. Here's everything we know about the next NFL championship game: Feb. 8, 2026. Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, home field of the San Francisco 49ers. It will be the second Super Bowl at that location, following the Denver Broncos' 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 following the 2015 season, and the third in the Bay Area, after Stanford Stadium hosted Super Bowl XIX (49ers 38, Miami Dolphins 16) following the 1984 season. Read more: Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara selected to host Super Bowl LX in 2026 The game will be broadcast on NBC and streamed on Peacock. "Sunday Night Football" announcers Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth will likely man the booth, although Tirico might be stretched a little thin. He also will serve as the host of NBC's prime time Olympics coverage during the Milano Cortina Winter Games from Feb. 6-22. In addition, Tirico has been named the lead NBA play-by-play announcer for NBC and Peacock starting this fall. Just a tad early to know that. The Kansas City Chiefs are a pretty safe bet to pencil in as the AFC representative, seeing that they've played in five of the last six Super Bowls. Or maybe the Buffalo Bills or Baltimore Ravens will finally get over the hump. For the NFC, the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles could be back. Or maybe the Detroit Lions can take care of some unfinished business from the past two seasons. Or the Washington Commanders might continue their meteoric rise. Read more: Fans say the games are rigged for the Chiefs. Are the officials on Kansas City's side? We probably won't know for quite some time — but since Kendrick Lamar headlined this year's show, it's only fair that Drake gets his turn next year, right? Or if the NFL wants to highlight some Bay Area talent, there are plenty of intriguing options, including Green Day, Metallica, Journey (and/or former lead singer Steve Perry?), the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, E-40, Too Short and — perhaps the most intriguing of them all — MC Hammer. Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
