Career Highlights: Walter Payton might be regarded as the greatest Chicago Bear of all time and one of the best to ever play, according to fans and media.
Payton’s professional origin began in 1975 when the Bears selected him in the first round of the NFL Draft. He was the fourth overall pick.
The Bears hadn’t had a winning season or a great running back since Gale Sayers retired in 1972. Payton was a gift the Bears needed from the football gods.
However, his rookie season showed otherwise. He finished with 679 yards and seven touchdowns, but led the league in yards per kickoff return.
Payton was ready to improve for the following season.
In 1976, Payton rushed for 1,390 yards and scored 13 touchdowns. He played in the 1977 Pro Bowl and won the MVP award for the game.
Payton’s early years of improving never stopped. In his 1977 season, Payton rushed for 1,852 yards and scored 16 touchdowns. He was the league’s leading scorer that season.
On October 7, 1984 Payton broke the NFL’s career rushing record.
In 1985 — the best year in the history of Chicago football — Payton rushed for more than 1,500 yards and helped the Bears get to Super Bowl XX.
Mike Ditka, who coached the winning Super Bowl team, said that one of the biggest regrets he made in his life was not letting Payton score a touchdown in the game, using quarterback Jim McMahon and defensive tackle William Perry to run the ball instead.
COVID ravaged McKinley County, where roughly 74% of the population is non-Hispanic Native American — mostly Navajo and Zuni — and access to resources is scarce.
USA TODAY
As new cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across the U.S. and Europe, a patient from the Netherlands was airlifted to a German intensive care unit Friday, the first such international airlift since the global pandemic began.
In the U.S., new coronavirus restrictions in Chicago go into effect Friday for two weeks as the nation’s third largest city fights a surge of COVID-19 infections. Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced a 10 p.m. curfew for all nonessential businesses and ordered bars and breweries without food licenses to shut down indoor service.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana, more high school football fans will be allowed to attend games in open-air stadiums in some parishes starting Friday. Stadiums will be allowed to have crowds at 50% capacity in parishes where less than 5% of coronavirus tests have been positive in the last two weeks, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday.
Here’s what to know today:
France surpassed 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. India, Brazil, Russia, Argentina and Spain previously passed that grim milestone.
The U.S. reported more than 71,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins data. The last time daily cases exceeded 71,000 was during the summer surge in July.
Wyoming on Thursday became one of the last states to reach 10,000 cases, with half of its infections reported in the last month, according to USA TODAY analysis. Only New Hampshire (9,994), Maine (6,063) and Vermont (1,987) had less than 10,000 cases as of Thursday night.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden sparred bitterly over the pandemic Thursday during the second and final debate. Trump claimed the virus would “go away” while Biden warned of a “dark winter.”
Pfizer is the only leading drug company that’s producing a coronavirus vaccine to allow minors into trails. The company recently lowered the age of participation to 16, aiming to include at least 3,000 older teens.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the antiviral drug remdesivir as a treatment for patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 8.4million cases and 223,000deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 41.7million cases and 1.1million deaths.
🗺️ Mapping coronavirus: Track the U.S. outbreak in your state.
When will there be a COVID-19 vaccine? In general, scientists and public health experts say a COVID-19 vaccine could be approved at the earliest by December, but that doesn’t mean it will be widely available to most Americans. The federal government is developing a distribution plan that would get vaccines to various populations first, such as essential workers, those most vulnerable to COVID-19 and the elderly. See what USA TODAY’s expert panel has to say.
Why people of color are dying from COVID-19: Communities
LIVERPOOL: Everton coach Carlo Ancelotti is hopeful playmaker James Rodriguez will be fit in time for Sunday’s Premier League clash at Southampton, a day after saying he expected the Colombia international to miss the match.
Rodriguez sustained an injury after a challenge from Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk early in last weekend’s Merseyside derby draw at Goodison Park, although he stayed on for the full 90 minutes.
Ancelotti had earlier suggested Rodriguez would be unable to face the Saints, but on Friday (Oct 23) confirmed the player had resumed partial training.
“He is not definitely out,” Ancelotti told reporters. “Fortunately his recovery was really good and he trained today, just a partial training session.
“I hope he trains tomorrow and is in condition to play on Sunday. We are really confident he can maybe play.”
READ: Pickford criticism for van Dijk injury is over the top, says Everton’s Ancelotti
READ: Cinema football screenings show contradictions of COVID curbs, says charity chief
Ancelotti said centre-back Ben Godfrey, who made his Everton debut against Liverpool, will be deployed at right-back against the Saints, with Jonjoe Kenny yet to recover from an ankle injury.
League leaders Everton are unbeaten this season, having recorded four wins in addition to the draw against reigning champions Liverpool.
“The start was good, now there is a consistency to show every game,” Ancelotti said.
“(Southampton) are trying to play without the ball with high intensity, they are really compact. We have to be smart, we have to be clever with the ball. If we are, we could have chances to win the game.”
It has been a roller-coaster year for sports, and we’re nowhere near done. In recent weeks, the advent of rapid testing for COVID-19 appears to have led several college conferences, the Big Ten and Pac-12 among them, to reverse earlier decisions and declare that they’ll play a fall football season after all. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott went so far as to call the conference’s agreement with Quidel to provide daily rapid-results testing “a game-changer” that will give student-athletes “the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”
We’ll be watching the coming weeks to see how that plays out—but the truth is, it’s probably not the biggest challenge facing the sports industry. No, the biggest challenge is this: How, and how soon, can conferences and leagues get fans back in the stands?
The abrupt restart of the college season has brought that question to the fore, as have plans by the National Football League (NFL) to play a full schedule. After eight months of watching on our screens and amid clear COVID-19 fatigue, the idea of a contest played in front of a packed house of electric-energy fans is beyond enticing. It’s the feeling of being part of something bigger, something communal, that appeals to so many sports fans.
But considering how many teams themselves are having trouble staying COVID-free, is the idea of fans in the stands even remotely worth considering? We’ll get to what we know about that (and what we don’t) in a moment. For now, staying true to sports, let’s look at the statistics.
In the NFL, money driven by in-stadium attendance is estimated to account for about 30 percent of league-wide revenue—somewhere in the area of $4 billion to $5 billion annually. So, as you might expect, the NFL is aggressively trying to figure out how soon it can fill the stands. It has left that decision to the individual teams. Of the league’s 32 franchises, 17 have plans to permit fans or are already doing so, but their approaches vary wildly, with the Dallas Cowboys permitting close to 25,000 fans per game, while the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles have been allowing about 5,500 in recent weeks. Following tumultuous recent weeks, with games being postponed and rescheduled, fan attendance will continue to be a hot topic.
In college football, the numbers change by the day. Already some 30 teams have plans to bring back 10,000 or more fans to their stadiums, and many more will do so in the thousands. Here, too, the financial incentive is powerful; college football teams generate revenue that can range from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and, in high-powered conferences like the SEC, Big Ten and Big-12, their success often is used to fund other athletic programs at their schools.
All of it matters. And none of it is possible unless having fans games can be deemed safe. So, is it?
“The idea of just opening a stadium and letting the crowds come back to capacity in
CFLAA Will Offer VoxNeuro’s Cognitive Health Assessments™ to Its Members
VoxNeuro and the Canadian Football League Alumni Association (CFLAA) are joining forces to offer objective cognitive assessment to CFLAA members, including Canadian football players, former CFL players, and other communities of interest. Through the partnership, these groups will also raise awareness of long term impacts of head trauma, like concussion. For ageing Canadians who have experienced head-trauma throughout their lives, a growing concern is understanding its relationship with cognitive decline.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201019005188/en/
Legends Luncheon with Canadian Football League Alumni Association members. Courtesy of the CFLAA.
Under the terms of the agreement, VoxNeuro and the CFLAA will collaborate to share the message that long-term effects of head-trauma, from concussion and sub-concussive blows, are prevalent, and not exclusive to athletes who have dedicated their lives to playing impact or high-risk sports. Brain injuries can happen to anyone and each injury is unique – meaning they need to be assessed and treated accordingly.
“We are excited about our collaboration with VoxNeuro. The CFLAA is committed to provide health and wellness support to our members and to the community we serve. We can only do that by aligning with like minded partners. VoxNeuro and its team are such a partner.” – Leo Ezerins, Executive Director and Founder of CFLAA
The CFLAA and VoxNeuro will introduce a significant new neurotechnology to support the health of the CFLAA’s members. The neurotechnology, which assesses cognitive function in an easily accessible clinical setting, will give guidance to providing a solution to any cognitive deficiencies the CFLAA members are experiencing.
This partnership and neurotechnology have a historical tie – VoxNeuro was founded following a breakthrough study of ex-CFL players that used the neurotechnology VoxNeuro has since advanced and made clinically available, called Cognitive Health Assessments™.
VoxNeuro’s Cognitive Health Assessments™ combine imaging and functional tests, drawing on strengths from the most trusted brain assessments used clinically today. The data provided in a patient report differentiates between true cognitive decline and perceived decline due to symptoms caused by situational factors, such as stress, general fatigue or mood.
The ability to make these differentiations is massively impactful for this patient population who are uncertain about the health of their brain, and long-term impacts they may be experiencing from historical injuries. Regardless of the time post injury, the reports help healthcare professionals create targeted plans specific to a patient’s needs and track their performance over time.
VoxNeuro’s technology is the only cognitive assessment in the world today that uses objective, quantifiable neurophysiological data to inform healthcare providers & patients with the specifics of various cognitive brain functions, such as:
Executive Function
Memory
Information Processing
Concentration
Attention
Language Comprehension
The awareness campaign will involve various speaking engagements, events and collaborations with other not-for-profit organizations focused on brain health that both groups actively collaborate with, following the mission to improve brain health across Canada.
“Many CFLAA members have experienced numerous concussive and sub-concussive blows
Napoli blasted four goals in a devastating 20-minute first half spell as they thumped Atalanta 4-1 in Serie A on Saturday, handing the visitors a taste of their own medicine.
Free-scoring Atalanta, last season’s top-scorers with 98 goals, had netted 13 goals in winning their first three games but had no answer to Napoli’s attacks in an extraordinary first half.
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Mexico international Hirving Lozano, out of favour with coach Gennaro Gattuso last season, set Napoli on their way with two goals in four minutes.
The player known as “Chucky” tapped in from Giovanni Di Lorenzo’s cross in the 23rd minute and curled in the second after Dries Mertens pounced on a mix-up in the Atalanta midfield.
Matteo Politano fired the third on the half hour and forward Victor Osimhen took advantage of more poor defending to score the fourth before the interval.
Napoli goalkeeper David Ospina’s kick upfield was misjudged by Cristian Romero and Osimhen, signed from Lille in the summer, chested the ball down and scored with a shot on the turn to net his first goal for his new club.
Romero partially made amends by setting up Atalanta’s consolation for substitute Sam Lammers in the 69th minute. He won possession, charged upfield and released Lammers who clipped his shot past Ospina.
Atalanta remained on nine points from four games, one ahead of Napoli.
Napoli have won all three of their games on the pitch, scoring 12 goals and conceding one.
However, Serie A’s disciplinary committee handed them a 3-0 defeat for failing to play a match against Juventus amid confusion over the COVID-19 rules and they also had a point deducted.
