The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-03)

D2 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 3 , 2020

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AUTO RACING

Hamilton is winner

of British Grand Prix

L ewis Hamilton held on to
win the British Grand Prix on
Sunday in Silver stone, England,
despite a puncture on the last lap
to clinch an 87th career win and
move within four of Michael
Schumacher ’s Formula One
record.
The championship leader’s
record-extending seventh
Silverstone win saw him finish six
seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Max
Verstappen , who unexpectedly
moved up a p lace after Hamilton’s
Mercedes teammate, Valtteri
Bottas , su stained a p uncture with
three laps left.
With Hamilton so far ahead,
Verstappen went in for a t ire
change in a bid to gain an extra
point for the fastest lap, but th at
pit stop ultimately cost him the
victory because Hamilton’s front
left shredded with half a lap to go.
V erstappen made up most of
the 25-second gap but ran out of
time.
Charles Leclerc finished third
for Ferrari with Daniel Ricciardo

fourth for R enault and Lando Norris fifth for McLaren. Seba stian Vettel , a four-time F1 champion, placed 10th and has failed to get into the top five for his worst season start s ince 2008.

PRO BASKETBALL Bria Hartley scored a career- high 27 points as the Phoenix Mercury beat the New York Liberty, 96 -67, in WNBA action in Bradenton, Fla. Diana Taurasi had 18 points, nine assists and three steals and Brittney Griner added 16 points for Phoenix (2-2). New York’s Sabrina Ionescu , the No. 1 pick in April’s draft, did not play because of an ankle injury suffered Friday and is expected to miss a month. Kia Nurse led the Liberty (0-4) with 16 points but made just 3 of 17 shots from the field.... Kelsey Mitchell was 4 of 5 from three-point range and finished with 23 points, Candice Dupree added 21, and the Indiana Fever erased an early double-digit deficit to be at the Atlanta Dream, 93-77. Teaira McCowan had 12 points and rookie Julie Allemand

added 10 points, nine assists and six rebounds for Indiana (2-2). Courtney Williams scored 18 points for Atlanta (2-2).... A’ja Wilson scored 19 points to lead five Las Vegas players in double figures in the Aces’ 79-70 victory over the Dallas Wings. Kayla McBride and Lind say Allen had 11 points apiece and Jackie Young and Dea rica Hamby each added 10 for Las Vegas (2-2). Arike Ogunbowale led Dallas (2-2) with 20 points.

COLLEGE B ASKETBALL B ig Ten player of the year Luka Garza announced he is withdrawing from the NBA draft and will return to Iowa for his senior season. “My heart is in Iowa City,” said Garza, who attended Maret School. “I love this place too much to leave it. I love my teammates, coaches, community, fans and university. It would have been way too hard to close the book without the last chapter.” The 6-foot-11, 260-pound center scored 20 or more points in the last 16 games of his junior season, the longest streak by an

Iowa player since 1971. He led the Hawkeyes to 20 wins before the novel coronavirus ended the season. Garza was a consensus first- team all-American and runner-up for the Associated Press national player of the year award. Garza’s 15 double-doubles were the most by an Iowa player since

His 23.9 points per game
ranked fifth nationally, and his
26.2-point average in conference
games was the highest since
Purdue ’s Glenn Robinson
averaged 31.1 in 1994....
A rizona State guard Remy
Martin is withdrawing from the
NBA draft and will return for his
senior season in the desert.
A 6-foot guard, Martin is the
Pac-12’ s leading returning scorer
after averaging 19.1 points in
2019 -20. He also averaged 4.1
assists....
Michigan State ’s Xavier
Tillman is skipping his senior
season and staying in the NBA
draft.
Tillman, who announced he
plans to hire a n agent, average d
13.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per
game this past season.
Meanwhile, Spartans guard

Aaron Henry said he would withdraw from the draft and return to school. Henry would be the team’s top returning scorer at 10.0 points a game.

MISC. Antonio Sanabria scored twice for Genoa, which beat visiting Hellas Verona, 3-0, to finish four points ahead of Lecce and ensure a 14th straight soccer season in Italy’s Serie A. Lecce lost, 4-3, at home to Parma and dropped down to the second division....

T he New York Empire won the World Team Tennis title, with CoCo Vandeweghe and Nicole Melichar surviving a championship point against the Chicago Smash in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. The Empire edged the expansion Smash, 21-20, with the title decided in a super tiebreaker. With the match in extended play at 20-20 and at 6-all in the best-of-13 super tiebreaker, Vandeweghe hit a winner off Sloane Stephens ’s serve. — From news services

DIGEST

BY SAM FORTIER

One of the Washington Football
Team’s biggest surprises late last
season was Steven Sims Jr. The
5-foot-10, 176-pound undrafted
rookie wide receiver compiled
20 catches, 230 yards and four
touchdowns over the last four
weeks. Washington now expects
Sims to step into a s izable role, and
when asked which players he
needed to get the ball to most this
season, offensive coordinator
Scott Turner named Sims first.
Sims recently spoke with The
Washington Post about the Red-
skins’ new offense, his prepara-
tion for a b igger role, quarterback
Dwayne Haskins’s evolving lead-
ership and Coach Ron Rivera’s
past with small wide receivers,
which he said gives him “more
motivation than [he] ever need-
ed.”
(This interview has been edited
and condensed for clarity.)

Q: When you got to [Washing-
ton], you were undrafted and un-
der the radar. Now there are some
real expectations. What can you
continue from last season?
A: [Last year’s success] was just a
lot with the connection me and
Dwayne have. We built it early in
the season, from the day I g ot
there to living in his house. It
worked out perfectly. I’m a Chris-
tian man, so God just put every-
thing in place for a reason.

Q: Wait, you lived with Dwayne
last season?
A: I d idn’t have a home in Virgin-
ia as soon as we got back from
[training camp in Richmond].
When we came back to Ashburn,
we had a few weeks before camp
was over, so I stayed with Dwayne
for around a month.

Q: What was that like?
A: It was fun. Dwayne, he loves
football, just like me. All he wants
to do is watch football, talk foot-

ball and work. I was on his schedule [because I didn’t have a c ar], so we were up early. I w as [at the team’s facility] on a quarterback’s schedule, so I was there before other receivers were. I f eel like that was a blessing in disguise.

Q: This offseason, you have con- tinued working with Dwayne and wide receivers Terry McLaurin and Kelvin Harmon. What have you seen from those guys? A: It’s like we never left [the facility]. Timing, chemistry, everything — it’s going very well. We’re running smooth, calling plays from the new offense. You see Dwayne’s leadership out here. We’re just a bunch of guys playing pickup with routes.... [If anyone messes up], he’s telling guys, “I don’t like the energy.” He said that yesterday. To see that in Dwayne, that’s big for me. That’s what I saw from him late [last] year, correcting [former left tackle] Donald Penn in the huddle. He’s telling him, “Hey, Penn, shut up. I’ve got to say this play, [and] you’re sitting here going back and forth with the refs. We got to move on. We got a whole new play coming. A w hole new clock is started and already running.” It’s good to see those things, that leadership and chem- istr y.

Q: How has your rapport devel- oped with Dwayne? A: We have been working on that. [Last year], Dwayne overthrew me on some passes. I was running hard, but I f eel like I underesti- mated Dwayne’s arm and he threw it to lead me away from the defenders. If we miss a big play or a big catch, we just say it’s a b ig- money play. We le ft a l ot of money out there on the field.

Q: During your workouts, how does the new offense feel? A: I’m not going to say it’s easy, because we’re all still going

through some of the basics, but it’s more simple. We’re on the number system. The offense of last year, everybody’s getting tagged, the formations, the mo- tions, this and that. It was a lot more complex.

Q: You have played wide receiver and some running back, and Scott Turner likes shifting guys around. What do you expect for your role? A: I s till feel like I’ll be the same kind of guy. Just give me t he ball. I do feel like I’m going to run more routes this year, though. I f eel strongly about that.

Q: If the offense attacks down- field a l ot, space could open un- derneath. Could that be a place for you to thrive? A: Definitely. I’ll strive in that area, but of course I feel like I want to run routes and be down the field. I want to show that I can run routes as well. I’m not just a gadget player. I’m a receiver, and I run routes.

Q: How have you prepared for a larger role? A: My conditioning, getting in better shape to play maybe 90 plays in a game. Last year, I saw it out of Terry. He might’ve ran 60 routes in a game. Just a c razy amount of wear-and-tear.

Q: It could be tough if you have to balance a bigger offensive role and special teams. A: I don ’t think it’s different. I’m ready for whatever. We have a new staff, so that makes it even more in my head, like, “These guys didn’t watch you practice for a whole year last year.” They don’t know.... What I’ve done up to now means nothing. I h ave to prove myself again. The only small receiver Ron Ri- vera ever had was Steve Smith. When my agent called and told me that, that was more motivation than I ever needed.

Q: Wait, talk me through that. A: It wasn’t a b ad talk. It was right after we signed [Cody] Latimer, right after the draft. It was like, [Rivera] brought in bigger bodies [at wide receiver]. I was like, “Okay, that’s what he likes.” I’m not saying I’m on the cut block. I’m just saying: “Be d ifferent. Be another Steve Smith.” He started off the same guy. They only thought he was going to be a returner, and he’s a [potential] Hall of Famer.... He was a small guy who played big. He wasn’t going to limit himself to being 5-9.

Q: You guys have a r eally young receivers group. Only one of the 13 wide receivers on the roster has more than three years in the league [Latimer, seven]. What are the challenges and benefits of that? A: For me, [the challenge] was learning the system and termi- nology and everything. How I can be in so many diffe rent pl aces, and we’re still calling the same play?... Then the benefits of it are we’re a young group and everybody’s different, but we’re all still pushing each other and tak- ing from each other’s games.

Q: What are your expectations for this season? Do you have num- bers in mind? A: I d o, but that’s something I keep to myself.

Q: Okay, the most important question: What have you been working on for this year’s touch- down celebrations? A: I’m thinking about doing something creative. I’m still going to do the South Side — I’m going to always do the South Side. But [this] year, I mig ht do a little fan thing, [like a vote]. How y’all want to see Steven Sims act a fool in the end zone this week? [email protected]

With role in o≠ense growing, Sims hugely motivated

JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST

Steven Sims Jr. was told the only small wideout Ron Rivera ever had was Steve Smith. “That was more motivation than I ever needed.”

es within teams’ facilities to assist with distancing measures and contact tracing. Players can be disciplined for engaging in any high-risk behavior that threatens to spread the virus while they are away from team facilities. A player must test negative three times after reporting to camp just to be allowed inside the facility. “This is all of us in it together,” Cleveland Browns center JC Tret- ter, the union’s president, said during the recent NFLPA video conference. “So about doing the right thing — everybody in that community, everybody in that facility has to do the right thing.” The NFL has said it expects to receive testing results within 24 hours. That still might allow time for an asymptomatic carrier to unwittingly expose others within a facility before a positive test result is known. Other safety measures would have to compen- sate. “If you look at things that are going on in our world right now,” Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said Thursday, “and our country in terms of the new normal, in terms of the way we live and deal with this stuff, whether it’s gro- cery shopping or how we get gas and all that, you’ve got to figure it out and find a way to do things a little bit differently.” If total buy-in by all partici- pants is required, the NFL may be hard-pressed to avoid the divi- sions affecting the response of the country as a whole. Carolina Panthers tackle Russell Okung wrote Wednesday on Twitter: “I’ve never cared less about scien- tist recommendations than now, they are the new politicians.” The economic agreement struck between the league and NFLPA reflects the possibility of the season being canceled. The NFL’s competition committee and the league office’s football operations department are study- ing scenarios by which teams could be shut down, an entire week of regular season games could be postponed or play could be halted. “We don’t believe that the right way of looking at this is somehow bending covid to football,” Smith said. “We’ve got to bend football to the virus.” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote last week in a letter to fans that the league and NFLPA hope to have “a healthy and complete 2020 season.” Around the league, fingers are crossed. “Every decision we make this year needs to be made through a medical lens of what’s the safest and healthiest way to move forward,” Tretter said. “So as we look through all of these issues, the only way we’re going to be able to make it through a full season is if that’s the criteria on which we make our decisions.” [email protected]

P ayton told reporters Wednesday, “There’ll be some suspended games.” Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer, said in a phone interview last week that he remained “cautiously optimistic” about the season but recognized “this is going to be hard.” Players and coaches are being asked whether they think a full season is possible. “I can’t call it,” Baltimore Ra- vens quarterback Lamar Jackson, the reigning league MVP, said in a midweek video conference. “I feel here, I just know what we have going on in this building, we’re doing a pretty good job. We’ve got our [trackers] on, making sure we’re all staying safely apart from each other. We’ve got our hand sanitizer.... We’ve got our masks on throughout the building, and no one that I know of has covid-19 [the disease caused by the coronavirus]. I feel like we’ve been doing a pretty good job. I can’t speak for everyone else. I hope we can finish the season, though.” Jackson called himself “the new bubble boy.” But while sports such as the NBA, the NHL and MLS are operating successfully with players gathered at one or two sites and isolated from the outside world in bubble environ- ments, the NFL’s model is more like MLB’s, with teams playing in their home cities and their own stadiums. Baseball’s ongoing issues, primarily surrounding the Miami Marlins, are ominous. “If you see that kind of out- break in Major League Baseball,” said Zachary O. Binney, an epide- miologist at Oxford College of Emory University, “I would expect the NFL to have a more difficult time because you have more people and more contact.

... T hey’re trying to do essential-
ly what MLB has done. And
unless you believe that your peo-
ple are going to be that much
more responsible or your proto-
cols are that much better, I’m
afraid you’re going to see the
same scenario.”
Anthony S. Fauci, the director
of the National Institute of Aller-
gy and Infectious Diseases, told
CNN in mid-June that “football
may not happen this year” with-
out players in a bubble. But while
Sills said Monday that “we abso-
lutely have to remain flexible
about everything we’re doing,” a
bubble setup that has teams gath-
ered at a s ingle site or a small
number of sites has not appealed
to the NFL or NFLPA — in part
because of the number of players,
coaches and staffers who would
be involved, the amount of space
that would be required and the
length of the full season ahead.
Binney said he wants to see the
NFL play and suggests teams
might be able to use “home-mar-
ket bubbles” with players, coach-
es and staffers isolated from their
communities in selected hotels.
“This all goes back to the fact
we haven’t gotten the virus under
control [in the United States],
and that makes it more difficult
to take steps toward normality,”
Binney said in a phone interview.
The NFL has set up what it
regards as a mini-bubble at each
team’s facility, with strict proto-
cols in effect but with players,
coaches and staffers going home
at day’s end. Players are to be
tested daily for at least the first
two weeks of training camp, with
a possible switch to every other
day thereafter based on the rate
of positive tests. Players, coaches
and staffers wear tracking devic-

NFL FROM D1

As challenges increase,

the NFL pushes forward

DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS Allen Sills, NFL chief medical officer, says of the 2020 season: “This is going to be hard.”

The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-03)

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