I’m Rachel Nichols, and this is the story.
I want to start in the NFL with Tennessee head coach Robert Salah.
It’s fair to say that when listing the league’s coaching giants, you’re not gonna hear Salah’s name in there.
The man has a 21-41 record as a head coach.
In fact, this season, his Titans are 1-5 with a start so bad that the team president felt he had to issue.
Fans a written apology.
And yet yesterday, Robert Salah showed all of us that while he may never be among the NFL’s greatest , he is clearly one of its most high character, stepping way out on a limb for a player who’d become nearly radioactive.
This all started about a week ago when seven-year veteran defensive tackle Jordan Elliott got into a dispute with a teammate.
The two were at the Titans practice facility.
Elliott was sent off the field.
He instead went all the way to the parking lot where he proceeded to pull a gun out of his car.
The incident was diffused in the moment by a fellow teammate, but bringing a gun onto a practice facility grounds is clearly against NFL rules, and the discipline also clear.
Elliott was released on Tuesday, with the Titans issuing a statement that was just 41 clipped words long, citing an incident at our team facility.
Robert Salah could have left it at that.
After all, he’s certainly got his own issues to deal with.
Despite being in the first of a five-year contract, there are already reports his job is in jeopardy.
But Salah didn’t just leave it.
He didn’t refer reporters to the team’s statement when he met with them yesterday afternoon.
Instead, he did this.
This is a man who’s a father, a great husband.
He’s never committed a crime in his entire life, and he pulled a gun in the parking lot.
And the first question that I think everyone forgets to ask is why would a great man, a great father, a man who shows up on time every day, works his ass off every day, contributes the way he’s supposed to contribute, is well liked in the locker room.
Why did he go off the rails and grab a gun?
And to me, those are small signs of a cry of help in terms of, obviously there’s something greater happening.
In the last year, the NFL has lost two outstanding young men to taking their own lives because they may have had help.
They may have been crying for help, and everyone ignored it.
And I’m not saying that’s where he was.
I’m not going to speak on that, but I will stand on the table for Jordan’s character.
Unfortunately, rules are rules with regards to guns on property.
And uh, and sometimes it’s far greater than the knee jerk reaction of kicking somebody and kicking somebody when they’re down.
My message to 31 other teams would be if you need a hell of a run stopping tackle that can help you on a playoff run, give me a call.
I’ll tell you everything you need to know about him.
Um, he’s a good man, made a, made a terrible, uh, had a terrible lapse in judgment, um, that I recognize as a call for help more than a, than a criminal act.
Now that is how you speak the truth about something important, even when it’s not convenient.
By the way, the two men whose tragic suicides that Salah referred to there are Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Nealon, who was just 24 years old, and Vikings receiver Ronal Moore, who was just 25.
And remember that just a couple of weeks ago we had veteran Eagles lineman Lane Johnson abruptly retire.
Tired due to mental health issues he previously identified as depression and anxiety.
Also remember that after he did that, one of the most prominent sports commentators in the country ripped him to shreds for it.
Look, if you look at things as only black or white, it may sound easy to play a game for a living and make a lot of money doing it.
It may sound unforgivable for a man to pull a gun while in the midst of an argument with a teammate.
But gosh, guys, the world isn’t black and white, and Robert Salah reminded everyone of that yesterday.
I don’t know Jordan Elliott, but after listening to his coach, I sure hope he gets the help he needs.
And I also sure hope we’d see him in the league again.
The NFL needs guys with the overall character Salah describes Elliott as having, and it needs men like Robert Salah as well.
All right, let’s get to some college football, where the loudest second guessing of Ohio State coach Ryan Day this week is coming from a very unlikely source, the man he replaced.
Urban Meyer won 3 national titles, including, of course, Ohio State’s in 2014, and Day was his offensive coordinator before taking over the program four years later.
So it is striking that Meyers said he was perplexed that Day decided to throw freshman Luke Fahey onto the field when starter Julian Sam was injured over the weekend instead of five-star sophomore Tavion Saint Clair.
Say, by the way, is now out indefinitely with an arm injury.
So now Day has to decide who’s going to replace him for the rest of the way here.
Both quarterbacks are going to get first team reps in practice, but really, the edge is clearly with the 5’11, 206 pound freshman instead of the much more imposing and much more highly recruited 6’4, 235 pound Saint Clair.
Day said he had faith in his decision, saying that winning with the third string backup has been done before, a reference to that.
2014 national championship team.
If you don’t remember, starter Braxton Miller hurt his shoulder before the season.
JT Barrett broke his ankle against Michigan, and a third stringer named Cardale Jones beat Wisconsin 59 to 0, then beat Alabama and then Oregon for the national title.
Now I agree with Day.
That is an inspiring story to draw on.
But it also doesn’t really apply to a situation in 2026.
In 2014, Cardale was a redshirt sophomore in his third year in that quarterback room.
And back then, leaving wasn’t really much of an option.
Until 2021, a college football player who transferred usually had to sit out a year before he could play again.
Today, that backup just leaves.
Ohio State’s own.
Three year backup Lincoln Kienholz left for Louisville in January.
That’s how they ended up choosing between a freshman and a sophomore who had barely played, like barely guys.
Fahey went 0 for 2 after he came in for the injured in last weekend.
Sinclair has thrown 7 passes all season.
Then again, whoever wins the job does still get Jeremiah Smith to throw to and a.
Defense that just held a top five Indiana team to 15 points.
So yeah, coach , Ohio State can absolutely still win games.
And yes, it has been done before.
It’s just that Urban did it with a third stringer who was already in his 3rd year in the building.
In 2026, that guy is usually left for somewhere else, and that part isn’t perplexing at all.
OK, let’s get back to the NFL because on Sunday, the Steelers and Saints are set to play in the NFL’s first ever regular season game in France just outside of Paris, which frankly is making a lot of people nervous.
France is right now experiencing a wave of national protests over living costs, conditions in schools.
Last weekend, about 2400 people were arrested.
Officials have even created curfews in parts of Paris and Lyon.
The league’s response, it’s basically been, we got this.
NFL officials say they never even considered moving this one because they have confidence in their security plan.
But that’s not a confidence everyone else involved in the game shares.
Steelers safety Jaquan Brisker said it looks crazy out there.
And Danny Watt, the wife of Steelers star TJ Watt, posted a pretty direct question for the league on her Instagram story, reading, Tell me.
How this one makes sense.
Well, I can answer that for you, Danny.
What it makes is money.
The NFL is playing a record 9 games outside the US this season, and it’s already talking about going to 10 next year.
And they’ve been upfront about why.
If they can convert foreign football fans into American football fans, then TV contracts for American games follow.
Some have even floated adding European teams to the NFL.
NFL, which would of course create even more cash flow.
Now, I don’t begrudge the league its business strategy.
The NBA has long been having its teams play overseas games and has profited so much off of spreading its game internationally that they’re already working on setting up an entirely new league called NBA Europe.
But here’s the thing, as Gene Hackman reminded all of us in the movie Hoosiers, a basketball court is a basketball court.
A basketball court, no matter how big the building is.
The lines are the same length.
The rim is still 10 ft high, whether you’re in Indiana or Paris.
Not so true for the NFL.
Remember Brazil back in September?
The Ravens and Cowboys played in Rio on a field so patchy, workers were trimming the grass with mowers and scissors.
Then right before kickoff, TV cameras showed freshly stitched grass ripping right up.
This past Sunday in London, rain made the grass at Wembley so slick, umpire Larry Smith slipped in the 1st quarter, hurt his leg, and had to be carted off the field.
And of course, there’s Jalen Hurts, who has blood clots in both lungs that may have been exacerbated by the Eagles flying him back and forth to London.
Now Philadelphia made those decisions, but the league is who built the schedule that put him on those planes.
Now, I’m certainly hopeful this weekend’s game in Paris will all go smooth.
Smoothly.
But even if it does, it doesn’t mean that going this hard on international games in season is a great idea.
So to answer Danny Watts’s question, this one makes perfect sense on a spreadsheet.
What doesn’t make sense is putting the players on the field in the cost column.
The World Series, guys, is tomorrow night.
The Brewers are going to play their first World Series game in 44 years.
Resale tickets are nearly 3000, nearly as pricey as the Super Bowl, and it’s kind of understandable why.
After 44 years of waiting, a lot of people want in.
But some of those people are this team’s most loyal fans, and this week the Brewers kind of let them down.
Now this all started more than a decade ago when the team decided to make some money by.
Selling 1000 of what they called timeless tickets, each cost $1000 and was good for any future home game, including playoff games, including any possible World Series.
The card that came with these tickets promised quote the best available seat locations, meaning the best seats left when you cash them in.
Over the years, many fans had cashed in their timeless tickets.
Sure, many in fact did it through the course of this playoff run, but.
Others held on to them, having faith a World Series was still on the horizon.
And they put in their requests a day before World Series tickets went on sale.
The day before tickets went on sale.
That means in theory, when all seats were available, right?
I mean, yeah, take out the ones allocated to each team, the television broadcast, and there’s some others obligated to sponsors, but that still leaves plenty of amazing seats.
But many of the fans involved said.
The team only offered them the upper deck or standing room tickets, even as better spots went on sale to the public.
And let’s not forget to scalpers, not nice for us.
Although the team does get credit for quickly admitting to the Switcheroo, apologizing, and they even sweeten the deal.
Those fans keep the World Series seats they were sent, you know, the upper deck and the standing room ones to Game one, but they also get to keep and still use their timeless tickets at another opportunity.
I’m glad this got straightened out because let’s be honest, this whole World Series is about the triumph of the little guy.
In the big picture, it applies to two small payroll clubs.
They’re the ones who are going to be out on the field.
But it also means the fans in the stands who deserve this moment as much as the players do.
And that’s what makes sports special, because at Sports Illustrated, the games may end, but the stories don’t.
I’m Rachel Nichols.
Thanks so much for watching.
We’ll see you tomorrow.
