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  • Is Arch Manning in ‘EA Sports College Football 25?’ Why Texas QB is reportedly sitting out of highly-anticipated game

    Is Arch Manning in ‘EA Sports College Football 25?’ Why Texas QB is reportedly sitting out of highly-anticipated game

    Arch. Man. Ning. He’s not in the game.

    Over 10,000 student athletes have already opted into the wildly-anticipated “EA Sports College Football 25,” but one of the sport’s most recognizable backups has reportedly decided to sit out of the upcoming video game, per Orangebloods’ Anwar Richardson.

    Manning, who is expected to be No. 2 on the Longhorns depth chart behind 2024 Heisman hopeful Quinn Ewers as a redshirt freshman, reportedly did not opt in to the game. That means Texas fans can expect to see “QB #16” on the Texas depth chart instead of “A. Manning,” a name that exudes eminence in the football world.

    Manning, the 19-year-old nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning and son of Cooper Manning, is already one of college football’s most valuable student athletes in terms of NIL. That likely made it a bit easier for the quarterback to pull his name out of the video game, which will have a ton of eyes upon come its release (which is still undetermined).

    Why did Arch Manning opt out of “EA Sports College Football 25?”

    Manning reportedly will sit out of “EA Sports College Football 25” because he is “focused on playing football on the field,” per Orangebloods’ Anwar Richardson.

    A five-star recruit and 2023’s top recruit by 247Sports composite, Manning immediately became one of college football’s most valuable student athletes upon joining the Longhorns last season.

    REQUIRED READING: Xavier Worthy: Fastest man in football? What to know about the NFL combine record holder

    “EA Sports College Football 25” NIL incentive

    When dealing with a pool as large as “EA Sports College Football 25” was, the NIL incentive was bound to be relatively paltry.

    Players who opted into the game earned $600 and a copy of the game ($70 retail value, though there are likely to be multiple editions and it’s unclear what edition players would get in that case). As…

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  • Jason Kelce retires: How Eagles legend stacks up amongst the greatest centers in NFL history

    Jason Kelce retires: How Eagles legend stacks up amongst the greatest centers in NFL history

    PHILADELPHIA — Jason Kelce, who retired Monday after 13 NFL seasons — all with the Philadelphia Eagles — is going to be remembered as one of the greatest centers in NFL history. The only center to earn six First-Team All-Pro honors and win a Super Bowl title, Kelce solidified his Hall of Fame status when he earned his final All-Pro selection in his final season, separating him from many of the all-time greats at his position. 

    Kelce earned all six of his First Team All-Pro selections in his 30s, the most ever by any player in his 30s (Jerry Rice and Bruce Smith are second with five). He went out at the top of his game, earning three First Team All-Pro honors in his final three seasons. Kelce and Dwight Stephenson are the only two players in the Super Bowl era to earn three consecutive First Team All-Pro and Pro Bowl selections in each of their final three seasons. 

    While it’s hard to measure Kelce’s greatness with the other legendary centers in NFL history, ProFootballReference.com’s Approximate Value (AV) is one measuring tool. Approximate Value is an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year (since 1960), but it’s also greater based on number of games and seasons played. 

    Mike Webster has the most seasons of a 15+ approximate value (four), but Jim Otto has the most seasons with 10+ approximate value (12). The statistic is difficult to measure, but Kelce is classified amongst the all-time greats at center. He also has the second-highest approximate value for any center who’s played fewer than 200 games. 

    How does Kelce stack up against the great centers? This isn’t a definitive ranking, more of a list compiled by a way to compare eras using Approximate Value. 

    Jim Otto (163 AV)

    Arguably the greatest center in NFL history, Otto earned 10 First Team All-Pro selections and 12 Pro Bowl selections in his 15-year career with the…

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  • Former NFL Pro Bowler Braylon Edwards saves 80-year-old man’s life during locker room assault

    Former NFL Pro Bowler Braylon Edwards saves 80-year-old man’s life during locker room assault

    USATSI

    Former NFL wide receiver Braylon Edwards rescued an 80-year-old man who was being assaulted inside a Michigan YMCA locker room this past Friday. 

    Edwards, a standout receiver at Michigan who enjoyed an eight-year NFL career, stopped a 25-year-old from further assaulting the elderly man. Edwards said he initially heard an argument about music and how loud it was being played. The argument escalated to the point where Edwards heard pushing and shoving. 

    “Once I heard a thud, that’s when I got up and turned around,” Edwards said, via Click on Detroit.com. “And then I see the guy for what I was thinking was reaching for a phone underneath the victim grabs the back of the victim’s head by the hair, and he was about to slam it down on the counter.” 

    Edwards said the man who was assaulting the elderly man fought him as well. He has since been arrested and remains in custody. 

    The 80-year-old is in the hospital but is expected to be OK. Edwards said that he is hoping to meet him after he is discharged. 

    “At the end of the day, that’s what you do,” Edwards said. “My mom, my grandmother, my father. In the moment … these are the people that you think about.” 

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  • Report: 49ers expected to address Aiyuk extension after free agency

    Report: 49ers expected to address Aiyuk extension after free agency

    Report: 49ers expected to address Aiyuk extension after free agency originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

    Another 49ers offseason, another contract extension saga — this time, for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk.

    But San Francisco has an excellent track record of paying its proven stars what they deserve, and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport doesn’t believe that will change with Aiyuk.

    “My understanding is obviously there are teams who would love to trade for the very, very talented young receiver,” Rapoport said Sunday on NFL Network. “The 49ers firmly believe he is in their plans; I would expect them to get to work on a new deal for him, probably after free agency.”

    Rapoport’s report is on par with how the 49ers have operated in the past when it came to extensions for their best players, including George Kittle, Fred Warner, Deebo Samuel and Nick Bosa — all of whom signed their new contracts close to or after the start of training camp.

    And with plenty to decide on currently, from the 2024 NFL Draft to improving the team in free agency, it makes sense that general manager John Lynch would want to take care of business in a specific order.

    But even though the 49ers have had no trouble paying their players in recent offseasons, Aiyuk, who is entering the fifth and final year of his rookie deal, left his future with San Francisco open as he answered questions from local reporters during locker clean-out day two days after Super Bowl LVIII.

    “If that’s the right move, yeah,” Aiyuk responded when asked if he hopes to remain with the 49ers moving forward, before noting that right move would look like “being a champion.”

    Lynch, however, has made it perfectly clear where the 49ers stand.

    “Brandon’s one that we think incredibly highly of,” Lynch said this past week at the NFL Scouting Combine. “One of my favorite just guys around our building, the way he approaches the game. He’s a competitor. He’s a warrior. He plays with such a physicality, also with a grace, the way…

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  • Former NFL player Braylon Edwards saves 80-year-old man from gym locker room attack

    Former NFL player Braylon Edwards saves 80-year-old man from gym locker room attack

    Braylon Edwards saved a few errant passes in his historic career with the Michigan Wolverines and in the NFL, but probably made the his most important save yet when he intervened in an attack on Friday.

    Detroit news outlet WDIV reported that the wide receiver saved an 80-year-old’s life in a YMCA locker room in Farmington Hills, Mich. about 30 minutes outside of the “Motor City.” While recounting the story, Edwards said that he walked into the locker room after his workout and heard a little bit of scuffling about “someone playing some music too loud.” He decided to mind his own business before he could tell the situation escalated.

    “I heard a thud,” he said. “That’s what got me up. That’s what got me to turn around.”

    Edwards said he found a 25-year-old man beating up the 80-year-old victim.

    “He grabs the back of the victim’s head by the hair and he was about to slam it down on the counter,” the Wolverines’ all-time leading receiver recalled. “I grabbed him, subdued him.”

    Edwards said that he “didn’t know it was that serious” and thought maybe the extent of the victim’s injuries was a concussion. He realized that he probably did save the man’s life after police told him about the severity of the situation.

    “At the end of the day, I was just, that’s what you do,” he said. “People go to work out, they have a good time, they live 80 years, and this isn’t how they expect for something maybe (to) take their life. … My mom, my grandmother, my father, in that moment, when you come back home, these are the people you think about.”

    The names of the victim and the alleged assailant have not been made public. Police said the 25-year-old man ran away from the YMCA after the incident and local schools were placed on lockdown. The suspect was arrested for attacking both the older man and someone who stopped the fight, who turned out…

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  • Josh Jacobs landing spots: Ravens, Chargers ideal locations for former NFL rushing champion

    Josh Jacobs landing spots: Ravens, Chargers ideal locations for former NFL rushing champion

    Josh Jacobs was the premier running back in last year’s talented free agent class at his position. Jacobs was coming off his first NFL rushing title, leading the league in rushing yards (1,653), yards from scrimmage (2,053), and rushing yards per game (97.2) — having the right to demand a high salary at his position. 

    The Las Vegas Raiders placed the franchise tag on Jacobs, even after he was the first player for the franchise to win the rushing title since Marcus Allen in 1985. That resulted in a holdout as no agreement was reached between the two sides before the franchise tag contract deadline passed in July. Jacobs and the Raiders eventually came to terms in late-August on an adjusted one-year contract worth up to $12 million, leaving Jacobs with even more to prove in 2023.

    Jacobs had his worst season as a pro, having 233 carries for 805 yards and six touchdowns — all career lows. He also had a career-low 3.5 yards per carry and 1,101 yards from scrimmage. Not exactly the best season in an attempt to earn a long-term deal. 

    Omitting the 2022 season, Jacobs averaged 973…

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  • Big Ten, SEC power grab tough to stomach but difficult to argue amid College Football Playoff negotiations

    Big Ten, SEC power grab tough to stomach but difficult to argue amid College Football Playoff negotiations

    The expanded College Football Playoff is beginning to look like an invitational.

    The Big Ten and SEC have grown so powerful and so bold, they are acting like the world is not enough; they’ll settle for most of the expanded playoff bracket.

    The two giants have united like collegiate Wonder Twins, and their demands are extensive. The conferences, which at one point sought as many as four automatic berths each — an allowance perhaps never even considered before — in a further-expanded CFP bracket, now seem to be OK with three each. Well, that’s if the Big Ten and SEC are also automatically granted the top two seeds (which would come with byes) in a 14-team iteration of an expanded bracket that would begin in 2026. 

    “It just means more” has never meant more. 

    This is about threading a needle through access and money and scheduling and outrage and, well, egos too. There will be plenty of that in the coming days until this latest CFP disturbance is settled. And surely, some will question that teams should need to earn those top two spots by more than their conference affiliation.

    Still, a hard truth must be acknowledged: The Big Ten and SEC really do run things. They really do deserve at least some dispensation. That’s tough to swallow in a sport like college football, which has occasionally been dominated by swagger and smack talk off the field.

    What’s difficult is to watch the CFP sausage being made and stuffed through a 14-team bracket.

    The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame’s administrator, who will continue to meet this month as the CFP Management Committee, are under a hard deadline. ESPN needs to know what it is on the table as it seeks to extend its media rights agreement with the CFP. The conferences need to figure out how they…

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  • NFL combine: Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy takes field in Indy after national title run

    NFL combine: Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy takes field in Indy after national title run

    J.J. McCarthy took the field on Saturday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in his latest quest to improve his draft stock before April.

    The former Michigan quarterback, who led the Wolverines to their first national title in decades earlier this year, didn’t participate in the broad or vertical jumps or the 40-yard dash due to what he called “hamstring tightness.” He did, though, throw in the on-field workout.

    He got some pretty good looks in, too, including one perfect deep ball.

    While it wasn’t perfect — McCarthy often struggles to throw left outside the numbers, which he did again on Saturday — he did seem to have a very large fan base watching him in Indianapolis.

    McCarthy racked up a career-high 2,991 yards and 22 touchdowns while throwing just four interceptions last season with the Wolverines. He threw for 221 yards and had three touchdowns in their overtime win against Alabama in the Rose Bowl, and then led the Wolverines to a blowout win over Washington to win the program’s first national championship since 1997.

    He quickly declared for the NFL Draft after winning the title. It’s unclear where McCarthy will fall in the draft later this spring, though Yahoo Sports’ Charles McDonald and Nate Tice had him going No. 11 overall to the Minnesota Vikings in their latest mock draft.

    While McCarthy is well aware that there are better quarterbacks than him in this year’s draft class on paper — he’s the fourth quarterback off the board in Yahoo Sports’ latest mock draft behind Drake Maye, Caleb Williams and Heisman winner Jayden Daniels — McCarthy knows he’s the only quarterback to mount an undefeated national title run, and he’s not afraid to lean into it.

    While he threw on Saturday, J.J. McCarthy didn’t run the 40-yard dash or participate in the broad or vertical jumps due to hamstring tightness. (AP/Darron Cummings)

    “You know, like, stats for me aren’t really the big thing, and all I really cared about was being the best…

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