The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-01)

PRO FOOTBALL

NFL suspends embattled

wideout Antonio Brown for

eight games, clarifying his

status for this season. D2

JERRY BREWER

Roger Goodell is trying to

reshape his legacy, but

NFL owners’ behavior may

overshadow his efforts. D2

KLMNO

SPORTS

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

BY STEVEN GOFF

In FA Cup final,

a rare American

Pulisic is expected to become t he third U.S.-born player

to start in the English t ournament’s 139 title matches

after his breakout Premier League season with Chelsea

DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

C hristian Pulisic, 21, will follow in the footsteps of A merican stars T im Howard and John Harkes when Chelsea faces Arsenal at famed Wembley Stadium in London.

BY AVA WALLACE

In the battle between the last

two clubs invited to the NBA’s

22-squad Florida bubble, the

Phoenix Suns, at least for one

game Friday, proved the better

team. The Washington Wizards,

meanwhile, proved they have a lot

of improvement left to make in a

short amount of time.

The Wizards began their eight-

game sprint through the league’s

restarted regular season Friday

with a disappointing 125-112 loss

to the Suns at the ESPN Wide

World of Sports Complex in Kis-

simmee, Fla. Although the team

repeatedly has declared its desire

to make a playoff push even with-

out Bradley Beal and Davis Ber-

tans anchoring the roster — a tall

task that will require the ninth-

place Wizards (24-41) to get with-

in four games of the eighth-place

team in the Eastern Conference

just to force a play-in round —

Washington has other ways of

measuring success in Florida.

With Beal at home nursing an

injured rotator cuff and Bertans

having decided to sit out the bub-

ble ahead of his impending free

agency, the Wizards want their

young players to expand their

games. They want to work on

team chemistry. And for the past

week, Coach Scott Brooks has

been preaching the importance of

defensive communication and

defending without fouling.

On Friday, the Wizards fell

short of those basic defensive

goals, even as Brooks praised his

SEE WIZARDS ON D3

In return,

Wizards’

defense

falters

SUNS 125,

WIZARDS 112

Phoenix’s big first half

is too much to overcome

BY DAVE SHEININ

Even as MLB struggled to con-

tain the chaos spawned by this

week’s novel coronavirus out-

break among the Miami Marlins

— which forced the postpone-

ment of 14 games and upended

the schedules of six teams from

the National League East and

American League East — new

cases among the St. Louis Cardi-

nals on Friday created an addi-

tional crisis and raised new ques-

tions about the season’s viability

amid a pandemic.

The Cardinals’ game Friday in

Milwaukee, which was to be the

Brewers’ home opener, was post-

poned, MLB announced, and will

be made up as part of a double-

header Sunday; the teams’ game

scheduled for Saturday remained

on as of Friday evening.

The rescheduling, MLB’s state-

ment said, “is consistent with

protocols to allow enough time

for additional testing and contact

tracing to be conducted.”

Still, that meant six teams, or

20 percent of the majors, sat idle

Friday because of coronavirus-re-

lated postponements: the Cardi-

nals, Brewers, Marlins, Philadel-

phia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays

and Washington Nationals. The

St. Louis cases involve two play-

ers.

The Cardinals’ samples that

produced the positive tests were

taken Wednesday in Minneapo-

lis, where St. Louis played the

SEE CARDINALS ON D5

Cardinals’

cases push

MLB closer

to the brink

New coronavirus crisis

raises fresh questions

about season’s viability

JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Q uarterbacks Alex Smith, left, and Dwayne Haskins have a new position coach in Ken Zampese.

Wizards vs. Nets

Tomorrow, 2 p.m., NBCSW

more change. A new system,

new play caller, new terminolo-

gy and a renewed focus on the

details.

So Rivera wanted a plan.

“I had one sheet,” quarter-

backs coach Ken Zampese said

in a video conference call with

reporters Thursday. “Because it

is not easy, but the steps aren’t

hard.... There’s an urgency and

there’s an on-the-clock

SEE WASHINGTON ON D2

played nine games as a rookie

and still appeared to be early on

in his development, and the

team’s future at the most impor-

tant position was headed for

BY NICKI JHABVALA

Shortly after Ron Rivera was

hired to fix the Washington

Football Team, he set out to

build a coaching staff that

brought both familiarity and a

concrete plan for developing

players — young quarterbacks

especially.

Alex Smith was out indefi-

nitely with a devastating leg in-

jury, Dwayne Haskins had

To win job, QB must know language

Washington’s offense

unfamiliar to Haskins

but not to Smith, Allen

BY SAMANTHA PELL

AND AMANDA COLETTA

toronto — As professional
sports leagues spent the spring
searching for ways to salvage their
seasons after the novel coronavi-
rus forced a shutdown in March,
the best solution for the NHL
became increasingly obvious.
The safest place to stage a mod-
ified playoffs turned out to be
where the sport is most popular.
As a country, Canada has been far
more successful in controlling the
virus than the United States, so
this week 24 NHL teams have
gathered within strictly enforced
perimeters in Toronto and Ed-
monton to compete in a postsea-
son that begins Saturday.
Having an entire postseason
tournament in Canada, where the
sport is woven into so many as-
pects of life, is welcome for many

Canadians. More than 4.3 million

of them watched the two exhibi-

tion games involving Canadian

teams Tuesday night, the most-

watched exhibition games in the

history of Sportsnet.

But even as most citizens here

embrace the game’s return, they

can’t do so in all the usual ways,

with arenas closed to spectators

and gatherings at bars limited by

the country’s coronavirus precau-

tions. And some see the accom-

modations made to the league in

direct contrast with the national

discipline that helped corral the

virus.

Still, amid such widespread

global uncertainty, the return of a

cultural mainstay offers some

comfort.

“I think with everything that’s

gone on in the last few months,

weeks, I think everybody is look-

ing for some positivity or some

normalcy,” said Washington Capi-

tals defenseman Brenden Dillon,

a Surrey, B.C., native. “Sports is

such a big part of everybody’s life.

... This is what we know. This is
what a lot of us have done since we
were super young.”
SEE HOCKEY ON D3

Canadians take comfort

in hosting NHL’s restart

Return of hockey brings

a sense of normalcy

during precarious times

FA Cup final: Arsenal vs. Chelsea Today, 12:30 p.m., ESPN+

since Wanderers edged Royal Engi-

neers at a cricket ground in 1872.

An American in the FA Cup

final? Harrumph. Like a Brit

starting Game 7 of the World

Series.

It’s an exclusive club, one that,

since Harkes’s advancement, has

opened its doors to a U.S. national

team player twice.

Goalkeeper Tim Howard start-

ed in the final for both Manchester

United (2004) and Everton (2009).

And on Saturday, at a northwest

London landmark rebuilt in 2007

for the Olympics, Hershey, Pa.,

phenom Christian Pulisic is ex-

pected to start for Chelsea against

capital city rival Arsenal.

The 21-year-old winger has

been in terrific form since English

SEE PULISIC ON D3

S

heffield Wednesday’s bus

rumbled toward the nar-

row doors of old Wemb-

ley Stadium, with sup-

porters drenched in blue

forming a human funnel. It was

May 1993, and John Harkes was

about to experience what no

known American had before him.

“It looked like you were going

in to see the Wizard of Oz,” he said

this week. “Where is the wizard?

Is he giving out the medals?”

By way of Kearny, N.J., and the

University of Virginia, the 26-year-

old midfielder already had per-

formed at the revered stadium

twice that spring in a lesser cup

competition. This was different.

This was for the FA Cup trophy,

which, except in times of world war,

has been presented continuously