In “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s documentary on the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan never actually said “And I took that personally.” That line is the stuff of memes, but Jordan did not utter it.

What Jordan really said was this: “It became personal with me.” Maybe it’s a small difference, but the actual quote packs more of a punch.

Read it again: “It became personal with me.” Instead of merely saying I’m offended by that, the context translates more to You’ve crossed into different territory now. You’ve awoken something inside of me.

As even the most casual of sports fans know, that’s pretty scary when it comes to Michael Jordan — a man who would rather get a root canal every day for the rest of his life than lose at anything. And if someone thinks they can make Jordan look like a fool while beating him? Buckle up.

Somewhere, hidden between the lines of a 46-page antitrust lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court, that message was sent loud and clear. Less than a month ago, it appeared NASCAR essentially won its lengthy charter battle with race teams by convincing 13 of the 15 owners to sign new agreements. Jim France, the 79-year-old chairman and CEO of NASCAR and a member of its founding family, had seemed to succeed with his old-school approach after many were initially skeptical of his methods.

The owners raised a fuss for more than two years and complained about the terms of the deal, upset at how NASCAR used a divide-and-conquer strategy instead of dealing with them as a group. But ultimately, France held firm and used NASCAR’s weight to strong-arm the teams. When a final deadline was given, almost all of them got in line and signed.

Jordan’s 23XI Racing, along with Front Row Motorsports, suddenly found themselves isolated. The powerhouse team owners like Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske left the holdouts to fend for themselves, and they seemingly had no leverage to do anything about it.

Jordan’s team stood to be the biggest losers after making the most noise, all while looking silly in the process of accomplishing nothing.

“Do they really think they’re going to get a better deal by dragging this out?” one team executive scoffed.

Is it possible that somehow, with all that is known about Jordan, he was still underestimated? If so, that seems like a grave miscalculation. Regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, NASCAR has a serious case on its hands, brought by the same attorney — Jeffrey Kessler — responsible for changing the landscape in other major professional sports (as well as college athletics).

As of now, it seems hard to believe this situation could actually be decided by the courts. NASCAR and France would have to completely open their books, exposing financial records to the public that provide a first-of-their-kind peek behind the curtain of how the money really flows through big-league stock car racing. After all, it’s more likely NASCAR and the teams would settle, perhaps addressing some of the key items that were rejected or ignored during the negotiations (or lack thereof, if you ask the owners).

Either way, the suit threatens NASCAR’s virtual undefeated streak in matters like these. NASCAR has always prevailed when challenged, with the France family’s ability to retain power and control passed down and practiced over multiple generations. It has given the aura that taking on NASCAR in any significant way will always end poorly, and that’s been largely accepted by those in the garage as the cost of doing business.

It’s entirely possible that could happen again now, with NASCAR emerging unscathed. Perhaps the courts won’t agree with 23XI and Front Row, and maybe there’s no pathway to a reasonable settlement other than a few minor concessions that allow both sides to declare victory and move on. Perhaps it’s enough just to increase transparency on both sides; while we don’t know the closely held details of NASCAR’s finances, we also haven’t seen the teams’ books (aside from their constant claims of losing money or barely breaking even).

Both parties should show where the money is going, and that might help the sport more than anything. Is it really that the France family is greedy and keeping most of the revenue for themselves? Or are some teams crying poor while actually generating plenty of money? Until that transparency comes to fruition, it’s unlikely both sides will ever truly get on the same page.

This suit could be the catalyst. The longer this goes on, the greater the chance this legal action delivers significant, unprecedented change to NASCAR. And Jordan is not likely to settle for anything less.

“We can’t give you a specific, ‘This will do it.’ There must be significant change,” said Kessler, the attorney. “No one is bringing this type of fight, this type of lawsuit, to move from a (Grade) D-plus deal to a D deal. That is not going to happen.”

And make no mistake: Even though 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin and Front Row’s Bob Jenkins are fully on board, it’s unlikely all of this would have happened without Jordan.

If Hamlin were on his own, could he really stare down the prospect of losing close to $100 million in charters and not blink? Without 23XI, would Jenkins really be the lone holdout among the team owners and take NASCAR to court by himself?

It’s impossible to imagine the various implications that could accompany a successful suit. Would NASCAR be forced to sell its tracks? Make the teams partners in a league, like NFL and NBA owners?

If the teams end up prevailing or at least sparking meaningful change in how the Cup Series operates — making stock car racing more lucrative and attracting further investments in the process — it would somehow only add to Jordan’s sports legacy. He would not just be a transformational figure in basketball, but credited with something that would have been unthinkable even five years ago: Being the figure who helped alter the face of NASCAR forever.

GO DEEPER

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(Top photo of Michael Jordan: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

BALTIMORE — The backslapping of goodbyes in the Baltimore Orioles clubhouse was deafening, the official obituary for a team that has been playing dead for months.

This much is clear: The honeymoon is over.

Last year, when this group was swept out of the American League Division Series by the eventual champion Texas Rangers, the reasons seemed valid. They were young, inexperienced. They had simply run out of gas in October. There was dejection, but it was hard to be too upset at a team that had stunned the sport by winning 101 games and the AL East. Over and over, those around the team offered variations of the same phrase: It was just the beginning of a long window for this young core.

The window is here. And if the organization, everyone from general manager Mike Elias on down, doesn’t learn from its mistakes, it could slam shut sooner than anyone thought.

A new ownership group, led by David Rubenstein, will take a close look at the business in its first full offseason, and the list of upgrades and to-dos is long. This front office would be wise to do its own autopsy, after a listless 2-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals that should send shock waves through every corner of Camden Yards.

“It all came crashing down on us sooner than anyone expected it to,” catcher James McCann said of an Orioles team with World Series expectations that was 20 games over .500 in the first half of the season.

This isn’t just about Jordan Westburg’s injury, though when Westburg fractured his hand, the Orioles’ offense took a nosedive in August and September. Nor is it about the alarming play of catcher Adley Rutschman, who is either hurt or just went the better part of four months as a below-average offensive player.

And it isn’t just about playing things too safe at the trade deadline, though you could certainly start there. The Orioles were a .500 team in the second half of the season, and were it not for the acquisition of Wednesday’s starter, Zach Eflin, the deadline could be chalked up as a total failure. It is the second successive season Elias and his group opted not to make a big splash but to instead hold on to most of their top prospects and carefully cultivated farm system.

Maybe bigger moves weren’t out there, but there were other paths to upgrade. One, closer Lucas Erceg, stared them in the face as he finished the job for the Royals in both wild-card games. Two more, the San Diego Padres’ Tanner Scott and Jason Adam, were significant enough bullpen upgrades that it makes you wonder: How many games could they have changed for the Orioles? Being bold can invigorate a clubhouse. Being safe, for the second season in a row, can be deflating. “It’s better than nothing,” a member of last year’s team texted me after the team acquired Jack Flaherty and Shintaro Fujinami, both busts, last July. Was it, though?

Optics matter. Clubhouse dynamics matter. Experience matters. Especially in the postseason.

Kansas City, a small-market team, infused its club with four new players at the deadline and added another trio in August on waivers. It prioritized veterans, knowing postseason experience was important. Who in the Orioles lineup has the experience and cache to call a pregame meeting to light a fire, or keep things loose in the dugout? Veterans matter, even when they don’t show up in the numbers.

Of course, the Orioles could have added Scott, Adam, Erceg and vintage Mariano Rivera at the deadline and it still wouldn’t have helped much against Kansas City. The O’s lineup looked flummoxed and miserable the past two days, flailing at pitches outside the zone, desperate to hit a three-run homer with no one on base. In perhaps the lasting image of this series, Colton Cowser struck out swinging at a ball that hit him in the fifth inning with the bases loaded. Had he kept his bat on his shoulders, the Orioles would have taken the lead.

The O’s scored one run the entire series, running the organization’s playoff losing streak to 10 in the process. They never led and, dating back to last year’s sweep against Texas, have had the lead in just one inning in five postseason games. These don’t just feel like losses; they feel almost inevitable. That is what needs to change.

O’s became the 4th team to win ≥ 90 regular-season games, make the playoffs and go winless in the playoffs in consecutive seasons. Brewers are about to join them.
Others:
2021-22 Cardinals
2018-19 A’s
1969-70 Twins@Stathead

— Rob Daniels (@oriolesfactoids) October 3, 2024

“Last year, Game 1 (we had an) opportunity, didn’t win, but then the next two kind of got out of hand,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “This year, you felt like these were two winnable games.”

The Orioles front office and coaches will spend a long time unpacking all the reasons they became a .500 team: injuries, underperformance, over-reliance on their young stars. The players, eyes red-rimmed and shocked, will retreat to their offseason homes and wonder what could have been.

“For it to happen two years in a row is a tough pill to swallow,” said first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, who, like many of his teammates, had no answers for how this team slid so far from July on. For how the entire lineup dipped in runs per game, slugging percentage, OPS and every other tangible metric as the season wore on.

Someone better find those answers. Next year, the Orioles won’t have ace Corbin Burnes — who came over last offseason in a fantastic trade by the front office — or Anthony Santander, who hit a team-leading 44 home runs and is also headed to free agency. Those are big shoes to fill.

Make no mistake: This is still a talented young team. But never has an offseason felt more critical. Never has there been a time to aggressively chase upgrades and not waste another year of a young, controllable, cheap core.

Windows change. Injuries happen; players age. The Orioles don’t even have to leave the division for proof of how quickly things can turn sour. Just look at the Toronto Blue Jays.

The front office has proved it can build a minor-league system and develop an enviable group of young, big-league talent. It has done a terrific job turning around an organization that was in dire straits. Now it’s time to figure out how to take the next step.

Good isn’t good enough anymore. And just getting to October can’t be, either.

(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

The NFL’s biggest surprise teams through Week 4 reside at opposite ends of the standings.

The Minnesota Vikings are 4-0 after losing their highly drafted rookie quarterback and substituting the well-traveled Sam Darnold in his place.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are 0-4 less than four months after rewarding their quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, with a $275 million extension.

Here’s another surprise: Lawrence’s statistical production through his 54 career starts mirrors the production for Darnold to the same point in his career (Darnold has made starts No. 57-60 this season).

It’s early for a Jaguars autopsy, but so far, Jacksonville fits the profile of a team that overestimated itself, symbolized most resoundingly when paying its quarterback. The team is facing tough questions earlier than anticipated because winnable games slipped away, leaving the Jaguars 0-4 for the second time in four seasons with Lawrence, and for the fourth time in 13 seasons with owner Shad Khan.

The schedule delivers beatable opponents over the next three weeks in the Indianapolis Colts (2-2), Chicago Bears (2-2) and New England Patriots (1-3), but enough has gone wrong through the Jaguars’ first four games to examine the evidence. Including that Darnold-Lawrence comp.

“It will not end well”

The Jaguars are not the only team to invest market-setting dollars in a quarterback carrying question marks long before there was a deadline for making a decision. The Miami Dolphins acted similarly with Tua Tagovailoa, as did the Arizona Cardinals with Kyler Murray. Both Lawrence and Murray signed extensions with two years remaining on their rookie contracts.

Shortly after the Jaguars extended Lawrence’s deal for $55 million annually, 50 coaches and executives voting in my 2024 Quarterback Tiers survey combined to place Lawrence in Tier 3. Lawrence ranked 16th. Tagovailoa was one spot higher. Murray was one spot lower. (Those three quarterbacks’ teams are a combined 2-10 this season.)

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The deal for Lawrence came after the Jaguars lost five of their final six games last season, with the only victory coming against Carolina, when Lawrence was unavailable because of injury.

“They have a quarterback they think is a superstar, and he is not a superstar,” a QB Tiers voter said over the summer. “Ownership thinks he is a superstar. It will not end well.”

The implication was that Lawrence can be good, but not great, and that he isn’t good enough consistently enough to meet sky-high expectations.

“Make no mistake, this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever,” Khan told fans in late August. “Best players, best coaches. But most importantly, let’s prove it by winning now.”

The Darnold comp

Through 54 starts, Darnold and Lawrence had identical won-lost records (20-34), the same yards per pass attempt (6.7) and nearly the same average air yards per attempt. Their passer ratings lagged. Darnold took more sacks. Lawrence suffered from more dropped passes.

Lawrence had the better expected points added (EPA) per pass play, but in looking at the table below, we would never conclude that one of these quarterbacks deserved a market-setting extension, while the other was an abject failure.

Both players experienced terrible team situations early in their careers — Darnold with the New York Jets in the NFL’s largest media market, Lawrence with Jacksonville in its smallest.

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“Good players can be in bad situations, bad players can be in good situations and it takes a little while to figure out the true merit sometimes,” a veteran coach said.

Lawrence badly missed two open receivers, Christian Kirk and rookie Brian Thomas Jr., for what would have been long touchdown passes during the Jaguars’ 24-20 defeat at Houston in Week 4.

With those throws presumably in mind, coach Doug Pederson pushed back when asked after the game about possibly taking over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Press Taylor.

“For what?” Pederson replied. “I thought he called a great game. As coaches, we can’t go out there and make the plays. It’s a two-way street.”

Lawrence missed Thomas along the right sideline for what would have been another big gain. Receivers made diving catches to secure two shorter throws. Other passes were imprecise enough to limit yards after the catch. Most of the misses were overthrows.

“When someone is so consistently spraying the ball and they are a guy who was a No. 1 overall (draft choice), I almost always feel like there is some element of, I don’t want to say the yips, but some sort of mechanical, fundamental thing,” NFL quarterback-turned-analyst J.T. O’Sullivan said while breaking down every Jaguars offensive play from Week 4 for his Patreon subscribers.

O’Sullivan noted that Lawrence in this game hopped backward unnecessarily while throwing. Bad habits can set in when quarterbacks do not trust their pass protection. Lawrence took a punishing hit early in the Houston game as the Texans’ physical defensive front asserted itself.

The Jaguars rank 16th in ESPN’s pass-block win rate metric and 23rd in Pro Football Focus’ pass-block grading, which doesn’t seem so bad. Reviews from within the league have been harsher.

“They play up front like they can’t wait until the play is over — tough to watch,” a personnel executive said before the Houston game. “The quarterback is missing easy throws. There’s bad body language. Just in general, offensively, a downtrodden group.”

Considering a potential Wentz parallel

The Philadelphia Eagles ranked 18th in offensive EPA per play during Pederson’s Super Bowl-winning tenure as their coach from 2016 to 2020. That period encompassed the rise and fall of Carson Wentz. Is Lawrence following a similar arc on a smaller scale?

The chart above compares the cumulative pass EPA for Wentz and Lawrence when both were with Pederson, pegged to career start number. The line for Wentz begins at career start No. 1, while the line for Lawrence begins at career start No. 18. There’s nothing definitive here, but this could be worth revisiting as the 2024 season progresses.

Pederson benched Wentz late in their fifth and final season together. Lawrence remains early in his fourth NFL season and third with Pederson. His five-year contract extension begins in 2026. He’s likely going to be in Jacksonville for years to come, no matter who is coaching.

Nine consecutive defeats for Lawrence

Lawrence’s current nine-game losing streak as a starter moves him one away from matching Carson Palmer (2010) and Jared Goff (2020-21) for the longest such streaks since 2000 for quarterbacks drafted No. 1.

Ten would also match the Jaguars’ franchise record, held by Chad Henne and Blake Bortles.

Darnold has been there before, once losing nine straight with the Jets. But his recent team and individual production far outpaces that of Lawrence, as the table below shows.

The decision to extend Lawrence’s contract at such an expensive price does not stand alone among choices inviting scrutiny for Jacksonville. They used the first pick in the 2022 draft for Travon Walker instead of Aidan Hutchinson. Bigger-picture defensive changes also stand out.

Last season, the Jaguars ranked 23rd on offense and 11th on defense as measured by EPA per play. They fired defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell and seven defensive assistants.

The offense ranks about the same this season (24th), but the defense ranks much worse (30th) while transitioning to a new style. Under coordinator Ryan Nielsen, Jacksonville is playing man coverage at the second-highest rate (42 percent) after having the third-lowest rate (15 percent) last season.

Darnold, backed by the NFL’s top-ranked defense by EPA per play, has attempted only two passes while trailing this season. The Jaguars’ record and Lawrence’s role in it would likely be footnotes if Jacksonville were getting that kind of production from its defense this season.

The defensive changes could still pay off. Lawrence and the offense could still hit stride.

The Jaguars were close to breaking open their season-opening game at Miami, but running back Travis Etienne fumbled as he neared the goal line. The Dolphins scored an 80-yard touchdown two plays later. Jacksonville led Houston 20-17 late in the third quarter when Tank Bigsby’s 58-yard run gave the Jaguars first-and-goal from the 4. Jacksonville turned over the ball on downs.

The 24-20 defeat to Houston dropped the Jaguars to 1-4 since the start of last season in games decided by four or fewer points. Such things tend to even out. The evening out cannot happen fast enough for a team set to induct its only winning coach, Tom Coughlin, into its Ring of Honor in Week 5.

(Photo of Trevor Lawrence, right, and Doug Pederson: Bryan Bennett / Getty Images)

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