Former Tennessee Titans star tight end Frank Wycheck suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head, at the time of his death just over a year ago.
Wycheck’s family confirmed the CTE diagnosis in a statement released Thursday, 13 months after the three-time Pro Bowler died from an apparent fall inside his home.
A study of Wycheck’s brain conducted at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center concluded that Wycheck had CTE Stage III, according to his family. Stage IV is the most severe diagnosis.
“Our family is grateful to learn of his confirmed CTE diagnosis in hopes to continue our father’s desire to bring awareness, increased intervention, education, and support for NFL alumni and their families related to CTE,” Wycheck’s daughter, Deanna Wycheck Szabo, said in a statement. “Our hope is that NFL alumni, who believe they are suffering from CTE, will be given the much-needed resources and guidance prior to their symptoms reaching a debilitating state. With on-going CTE research and diagnosis’, we hope future NFL alumni and families will be explicitly given an outline and plan of action in receiving care and treatment.”
Wycheck was found dead at his Chattanooga, Tennessee, home on Dec. 9, 2023. He was 52.
The family’s announcement came one day after the 25th anniversary of the “Music City Miracle,” a play co-authored by Wycheck that stands as one of the most famous moments in NFL history.
At the end of the Titans’ wild-card playoff game against the
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Marcel Louis-Jacques, ESPN
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill did not walk back his recent comments about a potential exit from Miami but also never requested a trade during a meeting with the team this week, general manager Chris Grier said Tuesday.
Hill hinted that he was open to leaving the Dolphins following Sunday’s season-ending loss to the New York Jets, a game he removed himself from. Miami coach Mike McDaniel dismissed Hill’s actions as “emotional” after the game but commented further on the matter during Tuesday’s news conference.
“We met for, I want to say, an hour yesterday,” McDaniel said. “I think I was very direct with him, he was very honest, and it was great terms that we were discussing. Discussed multiple things, including, without wavering, that it’s not acceptable to leave the game and it won’t be tolerated in the future. He embraced accountability, and I wouldn’t say there was anything necessarily to fix as much as we had to clear the air in a rough and tumultuous situation.”
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Hill’s actions might be reflective of an overall issue the Dolphins faced behind the scenes this season. Multiple players alluded to unspecified teammates being repeatedly late to team meetings, which McDaniel confirmed Tuesday.
McDaniel said he fined players multiple times but concluded that the current punitive system was “not enough” and said changes will need to be made moving forward.
“I think it’s important that you let guys know that we’re at the point in our team where guys are firmly aware of the expectations,” he said. “And if your actions continually lead to final offenses that you’re telling me without words that you don’t want to be here. So, I think it’s very clear — I think it’s not an indictment necessarily of all [players], but we are subject to everyone’s actions as a football team, so we’ll address those as such.”
Hill turned in his worst statistical season since 2019, recording 81 catches for 959 yards and six touchdowns in 17 games. He played six of those games without starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, which he said made things difficult this season.
In his final evaluation of Tagovailoa’s season, Grier said the quarterback’s growth as a leader was notable. However, in his first season since signing a four-year, $212.1 million extension in July, he missed six games to injury — four while on injured reserve due to a concussion and the final two games due to a hip injury. Grier said that Tagovailoa must prioritize staying on the field.
“He needs to be available. He needs to know how to protect himself,” Grier said. “He needs to control what he can control. He understands that not being available after taking chances of risk is not acceptable to us.”
Tagovailoa, the NFL’s passing leader in 2023, said last week that he’d be available if the Dolphins were to make the playoffs, but McDaniel said he was at high risk to exacerbate the “unique muscle injury” if he didn’t allow himself to heal.
Grier said that the injury doesn’t pose any long-term concern for the team and that he is expected to be ready for the 2025 season.
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Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In an offseason that figures to bring plenty of change after a 6-11 finish, the San Francisco 49ers made their first major move Monday, relieving Brian Schneider of his duties as special teams coordinator, sources told ESPN.
Schneider’s firing comes as little surprise after he oversaw a special teams unit that was among the worst in the NFL in 2024. The Niners finished 32nd in the league in expected points added on special teams at negative-47.67, which was nearly 24 more points lost than the next-closest team (the Atlanta Falcons at negative-23.9).
In San Francisco’s lost season, special teams’ errors seemed to happen nearly every week, including missed field goals, successful fake punts allowed, costly penalties, muffed return attempts and a middling punting unit.
At the team’s bye in late October, coach Kyle Shanahan said he had “no concerns” with Schneider and that moving on from him “hasn’t entered my head at all.” But Shanahan also was holding out hope that things would turn for the better on special teams.
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In November, Shanahan said the Niners were spending “a lot” of meeting time and practice time trying to improve on special teams but also acknowledged the trickle-down effect of the team’s injuries also wasn’t helping those efforts.
“We have mixed a lot of guys in there,” Shanahan said then. “I do think guys are getting better, but we’ve got to make sure that we don’t make those dumb plays where we can cause a penalty, where we can cause a turnover and those are the things that we’ve really got to clean up.”
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Mike Reiss, ESPN Staff Writer
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he plans to move quickly to hire a head coach, while also addressing the decision to fire Jerod Mayo after just one season.
“This whole situation is on me,” Kraft said Monday. “I feel terrible for Jerod, because I put him in an untenable situation. I know that he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job.
“In the end, I’m a fan of this team first, and now I have to go out and find a coach who can get us back to the playoffs and hopefully championships.”
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The Patriots, who were 4-13 under Mayo, have already submitted a request to speak with
