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DENVER (AP) — All the losing nearly reduced lefty Kyle Freeland to tears as he recently chatted about the woeful state of his hometown Colorado Rockies.

It’s a gloomy situation with the Rockies off to a 7-33 start — one of the worst in major league history — leading to the dismissal of manager Bud Black on Sunday.

Freeland wears his feelings for his city — to the team he grew up rooting for — on his sleeve. More specifically, his right arm, where there are tattoos of the elevation (5,280), area code (303) and an outline of the mountains. The losses weigh heavily on him.

Change arrived in the Mile High air when Black, the franchise’s winningest manager and the only voice that many of the Rockies players have ever known, was let go.

Now, it’s Warren Schaeffer’s turn to navigate the Rockies away from a season that’s careening toward infamy. The Rockies have the worst start since the 1988 Baltimore Orioles began 6-34. Colorado is on pace for 134 losses a season after the Chicago White Sox went 41-121 — the worst since baseball adopted a 162-game schedule in 1961.

Promoted from third base coach to interim manager, Schaeffer inherits a team that’s second-to-last in runs — despite playing home games at hitter-friendly Coors Field — and first in strikeouts. The pitching staff has surrendered the most runs in the big leagues and fanned the fewest batters.

“It’s on all of our shoulders,” Freeland said of the turnaround. “We need to be better, and we need to continue to progress forward.”

The firing of Black came a day after a 21-0 loss to the San Diego Padres. The news was announced late in a 92-87 loss by the NBA’s Denver Nuggets in Game 4 against Oklahoma City at nearby Ball Arena.

Schaeffer brings energy and exuberance to the Rockies clubhouse. He has been Colorado’s third base and infield coach since the 2023 season. Prior to joining the big league team, he spent 10 seasons as a manager and coach in the Rockies’ minor league system.

“A positive atmosphere in the clubhouse, and we’re ready to move forward,” Schaeffer said Monday before the series opener at Texas that marked his debut at interim manager. “I just want them to play loose. From my vantage point, it’s a fresh start.”

Relief pitcher Jake Bird, one of several Rockies who played for Schaeffer when he was a minor league manager, described him as a good communicator who is intelligent and passionate.

“Something just feels different. So I’m really feeling optimistic about the direction moving forward,” Bird said. “I think our team’s a lot more capable than what we’ve been playing.”

General manager Bill Schmidt said after the move was made Sunday that the 40-year-old Schaeffer’s connection to players was a big part of what he brings to his new role.

“I think just a different voice here — we’re at that point where we needed to do that,” Schmidt said.

It’s an uphill climb for the Rockies to avoid a third straight 100-loss season. They have to go 56-66 the rest of the way. They’ve won back-to-back games just once and have three separate eight-game losing streaks.

Freeland was emotional last week after a start on the mound in which he allowed nine runs (five earned).

“Keep believing in us,” Freeland said of his message to Rockies faithful as he choked up.

For infielder Ryan McMahon, it’s about trusting the process.

“I know how to show up and play baseball. That’s the way I’m wired,” McMahon said. “That’s the way a lot of these guys are wired. The record is what it is at this point. It doesn’t affect the game tonight and doesn’t affect the games after that.”

The Rockies haven’t been to the postseason since 2018. Their only World Series appearance was 2007, when they were swept by the Boston Red Sox. Their manager then was Clint Hurdle, who is now the interim bench coach under Schaeffer.

“I’m obviously in a unique situation, being from here. I grew up with the Rockies. It does mean a ton to me,” said Freeland, who broke into the majors under Black in 2017. “I’m going to be probably more proud of us as a group getting this (turnaround) done than me being a Denver kid, being able to get this team to a postseason or to a World Series.”

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AP Baseball Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report from Arlington, Texas.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Texas Rangers recalled Jake Burger from Triple-A Round Rock on Monday, 10 days after they sent down the struggling first baseman who was one of their top offseason acquisitions.

Burger rejoined the Rangers after playing six games for Round Rock, where he hit .391 (9 for 23) with two homers, six RBIs, three walks and two strikeouts. He homered in back-to-back games Saturday and Sunday.

In his first 30 games with Texas, Burger hit .190 with three homers, 12 RBIs and a team-high 32 strikeouts in 100 at-bats. He was batting seventh and playing first base for Texas on Monday night in the opener of a three-game series against Colorado.

Blaine Crim was optioned to Round Rock.

Crim made his big league debut May 2, the same day he was brought up and Burger was sent down. Crim went 0 for 11 with six strikeouts and a walk while appearing in five games with the Rangers.

The 29-year-old Burger was acquired from Miami in a trade during the winter meetings in December. He hit 29 homers and had 76 RBIs for the Marlins last season, after having a combined 34 homers and 80 RBIs in 2023 when he was with the Chicago White Sox before a trade-deadline deal to Miami.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Wyatt Langford hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning for Texas to end a no-hit bid by the Colorado Rockies in their first game after manager Bud Black was fired, and the Rangers went on to a 2-1 win Monday night.

Rockies rookie right-hander Chase Dollander (2-4) walked the first batter he faced in his seventh big league start, then retired 15 in a row before getting into trouble in the sixth. He issued another leadoff walk, though there with two outs when Langford went deep.

The Rockies fell to 7-34 with their ninth loss in 10 games.

Texas starter Tyler Mahle (4-1) struck out five and walked one in his 6 1/3 innings.

Jacob Webb finished the ninth and worked out of a bases-loaded jam for his first save. Closer Luke Jackson was struck on his right hand by a 111-mph comeback liner on his first pitch and an infield single for Ryan McMahon.

Colorado had taken a 1-0 lead in its first game with interim manager Warren Schaeffer, who had been the third base coach. Hunter Goodman had a leadoff single in the second and scored on a two-out single by Nick Martini.

Langford’s homer was the only hit allowed by Dollander in his six innings. The ninth overall pick from the 2023 amateur draft struck out seven while throwing 49 of his 85 pitches for strikes.
Key moment

Langford’s seventh homer of the season was a 412-foot drive into the Rangers bullpen in right-center field.
Key stat

Mahle’s 1.47 ERA is the second-best in the majors, but this was his first win in his five starts. The Rangers were shut out twice at home during that span.
Up next

Colorado lefty Kyle Freeland (0-4, 6.41 ERA) pitches Tuesday night. Rangers right-hander Jake Leiter (2-2, 5.09) is winless in his last three starts since winning his first two.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

HOUSTON (AP) — Bobby Witt Jr. and Jonathan India each drove in two runs to help Michael Wacha and the Kansas City Royals beat the Houston Astros 7-5 on Monday night.

Michael Massey homered as Kansas City improved to 8-2 in its last 10 games. India finished with three hits, and Witt, Vinnie Pasquantino and Kyle Isbel each had two.

Wacha (3-4) allowed two runs and eight hits in 6 1/3 innings. Carlos Estévez got three outs for his 12th save.

Massey sparked Kansas City’s four-run second with a leadoff drive against rookie Ryan Gusto (3-2) for his second homer. India hit a two-out RBI single and scored on Witt’s first triple of the season. Pasquantino added a run-scoring single.

The Royals added three more in the third. Drew Waters and India each hit an RBI single, and Witt drove in Waters with a sacrifice fly.

Jake Meyers had two hits and scored two runs for Houston, which had won three of four.

Zach Dezenzo hit an RBI double in the seventh for the Astros, and Jeremy Peña added a sacrifice fly. Meyers’ RBI single helped his team close to 7-5 in the eighth.

Gusto allowed seven hits and walked three in 2 1/3 innings.
Key moment

Jose Altuve hit a leadoff single in the ninth for Houston. But Isaac Paredes flied out, Christian Walker struck out and Yainer Diaz flied out.
Key stat

Wacha entered with the least run support among starters at 1.79 runs per game. The Royals had not scored more than two runs with him on the mound in any of his eight starts.
Up next

LHP Kris Bubic (4-2, 1.69 ERA) starts on Tuesday for the Royals against LHP Framber Valdez (2-4, 3.94 ERA).

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas closer Luke Jackson took a 111-mph comeback liner off his pitching hand on the only pitch he threw after coming on in the ninth inning of the Rangers’ 2-1 win over the Colorado Rockies on Monday night.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said X-rays were negative, but that the right hand “swelled up pretty good.” He said a stint on the injured list was certainly a possibility, but that the Rangers would know more Tuesday.

Ryan McMahon was leading off the ninth when he hit the ball right back at Jackson. The ball struck the pitcher’s hand and popped up in the air before falling to the ground on what became an infield single.

Jackson left the game almost immediately after Bochy and athletic trainer Matt Lucero came out of the dugout to check on the pitcher.

“We’ll see how he responds. But that thing blew up right away, so do have some concern,” Bochy said.

“I mean 60 feet away is not that far, especially when those guys can hit as hard as they can,” said Rangers starter Tyler Mahle, who threw 6 1/3 innings for the win. “He was just out there trying to do what he does, and then something crappy like that happens. It just sucks.”

Texas was again without shortstop Corey Seager, who was out of lineup for the fourth time in five games because of hamstring soreness. He homered twice Saturday in the only game he has played in that stretch.

Bochy had said before the game that there could be a pregame move with Seager, but nothing happened then. The two-time World Series MVP missed 10 games when on the IL with a right hamstring strain from April 23 until being reinstated May 3.

Asked after the game if there was any update on Seager, Bochy responded, “No, no. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

The comebacker that struck Jackson came an inning after Brenton Doyle’s hard liner was snagged by Chris Martin, the 6-foot-8 Rangers reliever who was going down to a knee when he made the catch on the ball coming right back at him.

Jacob Webb replaced Jackson, who has eight saves in nine chances, and immediately got a fielder’s choice out. The Rockies then loaded the bases on a single by Michael Toglia and a four-pitch walk to Sean Bouchard.

The game ended and Webb had his first save when Kyle Farmer hit a chopper to third baseman Josh Jung, who stepped on the bag and then threw across to first to complete a double play.

“That walk put him in a jam there,” Bochy said. “He lost it there for four pitches, but then made a pitch when he had to to get the big double play.”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

NEW YORK (AP) — Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks had just taken control of the game with another fourth-quarter kick when Jayson Tatum fell to the court with a potentially severe right leg injury.

The specifics of Tatum’s injury are uncertain but the situation in the Eastern Conference semifinals is clear.

The Knicks need one more victory to reach the conference finals for the first time in 25 years. The Celtics need to match the biggest comeback in NBA history to extend their title reign.

Brunson had 39 points and 12 assists, and the Knicks pushed the defending champions to the brink of elimination with a 121-113 victory Monday night in Game 4.

Blown out in Game 3, the Knicks dominated the second half to become the first home team to win in this series.

“I think it was a sense of urgency, desperation, just knowing that we have a great opportunity,” Brunson said.

The Celtics will have to make the NBA’s 14th comeback from a 3-1 deficit and may have to do it without Tatum, who was carried off the court with a right leg injury with 2:58 left.

Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns each added 23 points and OG Anunoby bounced back from two poor performances by scoring 20 for the Knicks, who can win the series Wednesday night at Boston. If not, they would come back to Madison Square Garden to try to do it Friday night.

“We have to turn that page quickly and do our first job, which is win on Wednesday. That’s the mindset,” Celtics veteran Al Horford said. “As a group, we just have to rally together because obviously we’ve lost our leader, the guy that gets us going.”

Tatum scored 42 points, his high in these playoffs, before he was hurt when the Celtics turned the ball over and his leg gave out as he tried to lunge forward toward the loose ball.

Nobody has come from 3-1 down since Denver did it twice in 2020 at the Walt Disney World resort. It hasn’t happened when a team had to win a true road game since Cleveland rallied past Golden State in the 2016 NBA Finals.

After leading by at least 20 points in the first three games — but blowing the first two of them in Boston — the Celtics had another double-digit lead less than five minutes into this game and were up 62-51 at halftime.

Brunson then scored 18 in a desperate third quarter, when the Knicks played their starters the entire way and outscored the Celtics 37-23 to set up a thrilling final period.

“Just keep fighting,” Bridges said. “We were down way worse before.”

Tatum’s three-point play tied it for the final time at 102-all before Anunoby hit a 3-pointer and the Knicks later put it away for good with an 11-0 burst that made it 116-104.

Derrick White made six 3-pointers and scored 23 points for the Celtics. Jaylen Brown had 20.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

CHICAGO (AP) — The ping-pong balls have spoken: Cooper Flagg might be headed to Dallas to start his NBA career.

And a fan base that lost Luka Doncic this season might have a new star to cheer for.

The Mavericks won the NBA draft lottery on Monday night, giving them the No. 1 pick in next month’s draft — and the first chance to take Flagg, the freshman who led Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season and the consensus player of the year.

A screaming-for-joy Mark Cuban called new Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont — who was at his child’s track meet — with the happy news, and just like that, there’s something to root for in Dallas again after a tumultuous few months where Doncic got traded and the Mavs missed the playoffs. Cuban was so excited that Dumont evidently couldn’t even make out the words he was saying. He just figured they were good ones.

“I am so happy for Mavericks fans,” Dallas CEO Rick Welts said, clutching the envelope with the No. 1 emblazoned on it. “I only got to Dallas January 1st this year. February 1st, we broke the internet. I am just amazed at the depth of emotion and connection that the fan base has with this team. And what happened today, I can’t imagine a better day for Mavs fans. It’s going to really be something special. I can’t wait to get back to Dallas.”

Dallas bucked huge odds to get it done, with only a 1.8% chance — “a 1.8% chance? Are you kidding me?” Welts said — to win the lottery coming into Monday. A Mavs team that went to the NBA Finals last season, then scorned its fans by trading away Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, left the lottery with the biggest prize.

“I didn’t try to think about it too much,” Flagg said on the broadcast of the lottery about what it’ll likely mean for his immediate future. “It was out of my control.”

If Miami had lost in the play-in tournament, the Heat would have had the odds that the Mavericks ended up having — so if the ping-pong balls bounced the same way, they would have had the No. 1 pick.

“I mean come on man,” Heat forward Kevin Love posted on social media when the lottery winner was announced, presumably reacting to seeing a No. 1 pick that could have been Miami’s go elsewhere.

Instead, it was Dallas’ night. And another Texas team nearly stole the show.

San Antonio, with back-to-back rookies of the year in Victor Wembanyama — the prize of the 2023 lottery — and Stephon Castle, will pick second. Philadelphia will pick third, and Charlotte will pick fourth.

“When you jump into the top four again, you put yourself as an organization in a place to make a really big acquisition with a really good player,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And that’s what we’re going to look forward to doing.”

Flagg averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists while leading Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season. He shot 48% from the field, 39% from 3-point range, 84% from the foul line and was The Associated Press’ national player of the year.

And he’s had success against NBA players already. Last summer, when the U.S. Olympic team was holding its training camp in Las Vegas in advance of the Paris Games — where the Americans won gold yet again — Flagg was part of the select team brought in for scrimmages against the Olympians.

Flagg, who was 17 years old at the time, more than held his own in those workouts.

“I don’t know who we’re going to take, but should we take him, I think his resume is pretty strong,” Welts said. “Every time he’s put in a situation that everyone wondered if he could succeed, he’s succeeded and then some.”
The other lottery results

Utah will pick fifth, Washington sixth, New Orleans seventh, Brooklyn eighth, Toronto ninth, Houston 10th, Portland 11th, Chicago 12th, Atlanta 13th and San Antonio 14th.

There were 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick. Utah, Washington and Charlotte had the best odds at 14% each. The Jazz and Wizards got jumped, with San Antonio and Philadelphia moving into the top four.

“This draft is really strong at the top, especially in the top three and we’re very excited,” 76ers basketball operations president Daryl Morey said.

For the Jazz, it was the extension of a trend they didn’t want to see continue — in this format, the team that finished the season with the worst record hasn’t won the lottery. Utah was a league-worst 17-65 this season and got the fifth pick, its worst possible lottery outcome.

There were 14 lottery spots but only 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick because Atlanta’s odds conveyed to San Antonio, essentially meaning the Spurs were in the lottery twice — with a 6% chance of winning on their own, and a 0.7% chance to win with the Hawks’ combinations of ping-pong balls.

This system has been in place since 2019, the latest effort to discourage tanking — the practice where teams aren’t overly interested in winning regular-season games with hopes instead of bettering their chances of winning the No. 1 draft pick.

The teams with the three worst records all have the same chance — 14% — of winning the No. 1 pick, and odds for the remaining lottery teams are gradually reduced from there.
The rest of the draft order

The lottery only sets the order for the first 14 picks in the draft. The rest of the first-round order, for now: Oklahoma City at No. 15, Orlando No. 16, Minnesota No. 17, Washington No. 18, Brooklyn No. 19 and Miami No. 20.

From there, the final 10 picks in the first round are owned by Utah (21), Atlanta (22), Indiana (23), Oklahoma City (24), Orlando (25), Brooklyn (26 and 27), Boston (28), Phoenix (29) and the Los Angeles Clippers (30).

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AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman contributed to this report.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

CHICAGO (AP) — Rick Welts was there, 40 years to the date earlier, when the NBA draft lottery got started. He worked for the league then and was in the room when that first one took place.

And it seems he has spent much of the four decades since debunking the rumors that the 1985 lottery was rigged so the New York Knicks would get Patrick Ewing, too.

Given all the extraordinary measures — including witnesses, accountants, videotaping of the event — that goes into running such a thing, it’s reasonable to conclude that the 2025 lottery wasn’t fixed, either.

But it might fix the Dallas Mavericks.

“The fun starts now,” Welts, the team’s CEO, said Monday night after the Mavs won this year’s lottery and got the chance to draft Duke phenom Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick next month.

More accurately, perhaps, the fun resumes now.

The Mavs were a ton of fun not that long ago. At this time last year, they were making their way to the NBA Finals. Luka Doncic was a star in a city that, sorry Cowboys, isn’t just a football town anymore and hasn’t been for some time. Kyrie Irving was dazzling. There was plenty of fun happening.

And then, well, everyone knows what happened.

The Mavericks stunned the league by pulling off a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers, sending Doncic to be teammates with LeBron James and bringing back Anthony Davis in return. It was like general manager Nico Harrison’s first name had been officially changed to Fire, since that’s all the Mavs heard from their fans for weeks: “Fire Nico, fire Nico, fire Nico.” Players kept getting hurt — Irving tore his ACL about a month after the trade — and hope was realistically gone. Dallas made the play-in, but not the playoffs.

“Honestly, there hasn’t been a lot of fun around the Mavericks for the past three months,” Welts sad. “So, I think for everybody in the organization, from (team governor) Patrick Dumont to Nico Harrison, to coach (Jason) Kidd, to all of our staff, I guess it’s been a lot to carry the last three months. And to have this happen, it’s unbelievable.”

Dumont, who has also taken criticism for allowing Harrison to trade Doncic, wasn’t watching the lottery in real time. He was getting updates from former governor Mark Cuban, who called to say the Mavs jumped into the top four and, he thinks, then to say that the Mavs won. Turns out, Dumont isn’t exactly sure what Cuban said — Cuban was evidently screaming pretty loudly and pretty excitedly.

”Listen, everyone, including Patrick, has been through a lot the past three months,” Welts said. “You know, this is just such a moment of exhilaration, breath of fresh air for the franchise that you really feel like we get a fresh start.”

Welts had been telling any friend who would listen in recent weeks that the Mavs were going to win the lottery. He had no way of knowing, obviously. But the only problem he could foresee after the lottery ended was finding the time to return hundreds of congratulatory text messages.

A good problem to have, indeed. The 1985 lottery, he’ll never forget. Same goes for the 2025 one.

“I have a lot of stories about that one,” Welts said of 1985. “But I’m going to remember this one more.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

The Philadelphia Eagles will start defending their championship at home on Sept. 4 against the NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys in a rare intra-division matchup for the NFL’s annual regular-season kickoff game.

The selection was revealed on Monday by the NFL, the first in a series of announcements of notable games on each of the league’s broadcasters ahead of the full schedule release on Wednesday night.

The Eagles were also chosen to play the Chicago Bears on Nov. 28 on the streaming platform Prime Video’s third edition of Black Friday football and as part of a Saturday doubleheader on Fox on Dec. 20 on the road against the NFC East rival Washington Commanders.

Amazon also announced Monday that the Kansas City Chiefs will host the AFC West rival Denver Broncos on Christmas night on Prime Video. The league plans a tripleheader for the Dec. 25 holiday, which falls this year on a Thursday, with the other two games on Netflix.

The Eagles, Commanders, Bears and Green Bay Packers would thus be natural picks for the two Netflix games, with more turnaround time than any team playing on that Sunday, Dec. 21. That puts Eagles-Packers and Bears-Commanders in line for potential matchups, with all the NFC East and NFC North teams playing each other this season.

The other game on Fox pits the Packers against the Bears, in an NFC North matchup in Chicago. That doubleheader will put the NFL in a ratings competition against the College Football Playoff, with three first-round games scheduled that day — two on TNT and one on ESPN — creating some inevitable overlap.

The NFL will unveil the matchups for its record seven international games this season on Tuesday, along with a handful of marquee games — on ESPN, CBS and Netflix.

The Cowboys-Eagles matchup will be on Thursday night, the leadoff for NBC’s package of primarily Sunday night games. NBC also announced that its streaming service, Peacock, will exclusively broadcast a Saturday night game in Week 17 on Dec. 27, a matchup that will be determined later from a pool of possible options and selected based on the relevancy to the playoff races.

Every team will be alive and well, of course, when the Eagles and Cowboys play in Week 1 for the first time in 25 years. Dallas has opened eight times since against a different NFC East opponent, the New York Giants.

This year, the matchup will feature the first game for the Cowboys under new coach Brian Schottenheimer and the expected return of quarterback Dak Prescott, who missed the second half of last season because of a hamstring injury that contributed to Dallas’ 7-10 finish and its first absence from the playoffs since 2020. Including their annual Thanksgiving Day home games, the Cowboys have won seven straight Thursday games.

The NFL has opened the regular season with a Thursday night game since 2002, largely with the reigning Super Bowl champion as the home team, with a few exceptions. This will be only the fourth time an intra-division game was selected and the first since the Green Bay Packers played the Chicago Bears in 2019. The Bears weren’t the defending champions that year, but the league picked its most-played series to highlight the beginning of its 100th season.

The Dec. 27 matchup will be the fourth game shown exclusively on Peacock, with broadcasts also available on NBC stations in the markets of the competing teams. Peacock had the Eagles’ opener last season against the Green Bay Packers in Brazil on a Friday night as well as an AFC wild-card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 playoffs and a Week 16 game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers in 2023.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL