Sports Illustrated for Kids Magazine (December 2019)

“That was the BIG OVERSIGHT the Browns made,” says longtime Cleveland star Joe Thomas. “You

can’t understand the true pain and human toll that losing has on your fans, your players, and your coaches.”



paths out of mediocrity without embarking

on a roster overhaul, as two recent Super
Bowl teams have done. (The Rams went
4–12 before improving seven wins in coach
Sean McVay’s first season and making the
Super Bowl in his second, while the Eagles
rose from back-to-back losing seasons to
Super Bowl champions.) If the Dolphins
are following the lead of the Browns, who
followed the lead of success stories from
Major League Baseball—where Cleveland’s
chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta spent
two decades as a scout, then an executive—
that raises the question of whether tank-
ing strategies in other sports translate to
the NFL.
“That was the big oversight that the Browns made
T
when they went with their strategy,” says Joe Thomas, FIRS T O WORS T
the Browns’ former left tackle, who retired after the After being part of Motomura. “It’s not a strategy that
four Super Bowl
winless 2017 season. “I don’t think you can understand is necessarily superior to making
championship teams
the true pain and the human toll that losing in the NFL in New England, smart trades, doing player develop-
has on your organization, your fans, and your players Flores has his work cut ment [well], and getting good free
and coaches, because there’s only 16 games and they’re out for him in Miami. agents.” The 2019 NBA champion
16 violent games. Whereas in baseball if you lose, oh Toronto Raptors were built around
well, you play tomorrow night.” a core of savvy free-agent and trade acquisitions; only one

After the Patriots’ game, when the defense was on the of their playoff rotation players (Pascal Siakam) was a Rap-
field for more than 36 minutes, linebacker Jerome Baker tors first-round pick. The dominant franchise of the 2010s,
explained, “Days like this, you’ve gotta start recovery now.” the Golden State Warriors, was built without ever selecting
During the 1–31 stretch in Cleveland, Thomas noticed how in the top five of the NBA draft.
the extra minutes the defense was on the field accrued to After the Dolphins traded Tunsil and Stills, Flores was the
a couple extra games over the course of the year. “Physi- lone member of the organization put in front of the media to
cally, it is so much harder if you’re a linebacker playing in explain the move. Two weeks later, when they moved Minkah
a game that is a blowout in the other team’s favor,” says Fitzpatrick, the team sent out Grier, perhaps a recognition of
Thomas, “because you just have a battering ram coming at the fact that the person trying to motivate the locker room
you 30 times in the second half.” shouldn’t be the one explaining the teardown.
At that press conference, Grier described himself in “lock-
N 2016, Akira Motomura, an associate professor of step” with Flores. When Ross set the team on this path, he
I economics at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, gave Grier control of football operations and also changed

published an article in the Journal of Sports Economics the organization’s power structure, with Flores reporting SPORTS ILLUSTRATED •
studying the success of tanking in the NBA over an to Grier instead of the owner.
18-year period. He was surprised at the results of the statisti- Back in the locker room, Baker, still recovering from the
cal analysis, which showed that having more and higher game in his locker stall, said they need to stay together—this
draft picks did not correlate with a team’s improvement over physically taxing game leaves them no choice. OCTOBER 7, 2019
a four-year period. What did help, he found, was having “All I know is I get paid to do a job,” he says. “Whoever

better pickers. “Just getting more picks and accumulating is out there with me, I expect the same. If somebody else is
GREG NELSON higher picks by being bad doesn’t seem to help by itself as a worrying about the future, I have to focus on now. Hopefully, 51


±
I am there in the future.”
strategy, unless you make good use of those picks,” says

UNUSUAL ASSIST

In a hockey game between the Wilmington
Wizards and the Morganville Mystics, a puck
rebounds off of Mystics goalie Bobby Delmore and
Illustrations by
Sean Tiffany flies straight up. Wizards forward Mattias Forsberg
knocks the puck out of the air with the blade of
his stick. It then deflects off his teammate
Brady Hill’s visor and into the net. Delmore
thinks it should not be a goal because
Forsberg’s stick was well above the
crossbar of the net when he made
contact with the puck. The
Wizards argue that it’s Hill’s
goal, so the position of
Forsberg’s stick
shouldn’t matter.
What’s the call?









































KNOWING THE ANGLES

The Levittown Lightning are playing the Uniondale Panthers under
NCAA rules for women’s hockey. Lightning forward Amie Page is skating with
the puck behind her net, and is being guarded closely by Panthers defenseman
he places a marker and picks up one of the
Ginny Murnane. As Page skates toward the corner, Murnane positions herself
two balls and cleans it. Hanley complains
such that Page runs out of space near the boards. Eventually, Page and
that Albert should get a penalty stroke, as he
Murnane bump into each other in the corner, where Murnane proceeds to win
is cleaning a ball outside of the permissible
the puck in a board battle. The Lightning complain that Murnane illegally
times. What’s the call?
bodychecked Page. The Panthers think the play was legal and the contact was
ANSWERS ON PAGE 55 incidental. You’re the referee. Is there a penalty?



52 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS

GAMES





ALL-STAR PICTURE PUZZLE


Do these photos look the same to you? Look again. The original photo of Capitals
captain Alex Ovechkin battling the Blues is on top. We made eight changes to the
image on the bottom. Time yourself to see how long it takes you to find all eight.










\> MYSTERY ATHLETE


CLUE #1 Through Week 7 of the
2019 NFL season, the Mystery
Athlete was sixth on the league’s
all-time passing yards list.
CLUE #2 Leading up to this season,
the Mystery Athlete made eight
Pro Bowls. He led the NFL in yards
per attempt from 2008 through ’10,
the year he led the league in
passing yards (4,710).
CLUE #3 The day the Giants drafted
the Mystery Athlete in 2004, they
traded him to the Chargers.


THE MYSTERY ATHLETE IS:














TRIVIA

CHALLENGE
SCOTT ROVAK/NHLI/GETTY IMAGES (PICTURE PUZZLE); STEVEN RYAN/GETTY IMAGES (ALONSO)




Mets first baseman
Pete Alonso (right)
led the majors in
home runs this
year and set a
new rookie
single-season
mark (53).
Whose record
Time
SCORE:
 Yourself! did he break?
A. Cody Bellinger

B. Juan Soto
OUT OF 8
C. Aaron Judge




SIKIDS.COM / 53

ART Javier Báez
Asher, 10,
GALLERY New York




Edited by Kid Reporter
Shaan Gandhi


















Brady Skjei
Jake, 11,
New York


































Dak
Prescott
Brennan, 10,
Texas





LeBron
James
Hayden, 10, Send your drawings to:
Virginia ART GALLERY, SI Kids,
225 Liberty Street, 7th Floor,
New York, NY 10281. Please
include your name, address,
date of birth, and the name
of the athlete.







54 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS

Send your cards to: COMIC CARDS, SI Kids,
225 Liberty Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10281.
Please include your name, address, and date of birth.





ANSWERS


COMIC
● What’s the Call? (page 52)
CARDS 1. No goal. Players cannot hit the
puck into the net with a high stick
(one above the crossbar of the goal),
even if it deflects off a teammate.
How do you 2. Albert does not get a penalty
do, ma’am? stroke. PGA rules allow a golfer to
clean a ball to identify it.
3. There is no penalty. Bodychecking
is not allowed in women’s hockey,
but the NCAA rule book makes a
distinction between checking and
body contact that results from
angling, which is what Murnane is
doing in this instance.
Benson, 9, California
● Picture Puzzle (page 53)
The eight changes made to the
When is photo are circled.
the last time
that batter
shaved?










Smile for
the camera! ● Trivia (page 53)
C. Aaron Judge



● Mystery Athlete (page 53)
Philip Rivers, quarterback,
Los Angeles Chargers

Nate, 12, Maryland Thomas, 12, Ohio




These aren’t
my shoes!


COURTESY OF THE RIVERS FAMILY (RIVERS AS A KID); FRED VUICH (RIVERS ACTION)








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SIKIDS.COM / 55

there are so many penalties
called in today’s nfl that
i smell a conspiracy.











By Bill Hinds




so i’m going I hope none of these
undercover to big dudes get thirsty
investigate. while i’m staking out
the game.






















leapin’ zebras!
So that’s what’s
going on!
















the flags are throwing
themselves and the
whistles are tweeting
on their own.












we don’t know what
causes it. we just call
offensive holding and
move on.


















56 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS



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