Tom Brady is a "good bet" to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at the first time of asking, though he will still have to wait five years.
Brady called time on his playing career on Wednesday, a year on from retiring for the first time.
While that stint out of the game only lasted 40 days, the legendary quarterback – a seven-time Super Bowl champion – said he was retiring "for good" this time around.
Brady is sure to go down as one of the greatest athletes of all time, though that does not mean he will be able to skip any queue in order to become a Hall of Famer.
Indeed, while Hall of Fame chief communications officer Rich Desrosiers believes Brady will make it into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, the earliest that will come will be 2028.
"Even Tom Brady has to wait, even Peyton Manning had to wait," Desrosiers told Stats Perform when asked if Brady could be fast-tracked into the Hall of Fame.
"There's some others that we can assume will be or would have been first ballot types of people – Peyton Manning, one that I mentioned, this same conversation came up with him.
"You've got a couple of guys out there whose clocks are running: a Larry Fitzgerald, let's say a Drew Brees.
"I think many people assume they'd be first-ballot guys. It's just something the hall doesn't want to do, because then you've created a precedent, you've established a line, and who's making that determination?
"It's also unfair to the people who are queued up right now to be part of the class of 2024. If Tom were to have the five-year mandatory waiting period waived, then he's really knocking someone else out of the class of 2024, who has been waiting to get in, and we have many players who are on their second, third, fourth, fifth, even 10th year of eligibility.
"[If] all of a sudden, you're just saying, 'we're going to let somebody jump that line', you've displaced somebody else who's gone through the process. So it's not going to happen."
Asked if Brady will be into the Hall of Fame as soon as he can, Desrosiers said: "I would think so. Right now, we have 49 selectors.
"These are 49 mostly active journalists from around the country. They meet and consider the candidacies and each person who's up for election has a presenter who presents the case for the person under consideration.
"The debate might last five minutes 10 minutes, 20. There's been debates on candidates that have gone into 25-30 minute range when you really are starting to weigh this person against that person in the past, and I think it may have started with Brett Farve – Brett's presenter stood up and said two words – 'Brett Farve' and sat back down.
"It happened again with Peyton Manning, and I'm pretty sure that whoever is the presenter for Tom Brady will take a similar approach. They'll just say, 'Tom Brady', sit down.
"Nothing can ever be assumed. But it's probably a pretty good bet."
On Brady's illustrious career, Desrosiers added: "There's people far more talented than I am in debating those things. We'll let them debate that but it's hard to argue with seven Super Bowl championships, five Super Bowl MVPs, he's virtually passing every record, whatever number you want to throw out there.
"He's at the top or near the top of every offensive statistical category there is and a winner, and the longevity – there's plenty of boxes, you can check on the side of the ledger that says greatest of all time for sure."
Browns score late touchdown to end Steelers' streak in snowy contest
Nick Chubb ran for a 2-yard touchdown in heavy snow with 57 seconds left, and the Cleveland Browns stunned division rival Pittsburgh 24-19 on Thursday night, ending the Steelers' five-game winning streak.
Chubb's score came in his first game against the AFC North-leading Steelers (8-3) since the running back sustained a season-ending left knee injury on a carry last year at Pittsburgh.
The Browns (3-8) had blown a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter and were down 19-18 before getting the ball back with 3:22 remaining after Pittsburgh punter Corliss Waitman shanked a 16-yarder.
With snow piling up and covering the yard lines on the field, Cleveland's Jameis Winston completed a third-down pass to Jerry Jeudy to the Pittsburgh 9. Two plays later, Chubb barrelled into the end zone.
The Steelers had one last chance, but quarterback Russell Wilson's Hail Mary on the final play was knocked down by Browns safety Grant Delpit in the end zone, touching off a wild celebration at Huntington Bank Field.
Slot deserves praise for modest approach to Liverpool job – Mills
Arne Slot deserves praise for not being "arrogant" with his approach to succeeding Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool boss, according to Danny Mills.
The Dutchman has made a hugely positive start to life at Anfield since replacing long-serving Klopp ahead of the 2024-25 season.
The 28 points Slot has collected is the joint-most of any manager in their opening 11 Premier League games along with Guus Hiddink at Chelsea.
Liverpool's only blemish on an otherwise perfect start to the top-flight campaign was a 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest in September.
Indeed, only in 2019-20 (31 points) have Liverpool collected more points after 11 games of a Premier League season than their 28 this campaign.
Former Leeds United and Manchester City defender Mills has been particularly impressed by Slot's approach to a new era at Anfield.
"Arne Slot has surprised me," Mills told Stats Perform. "They did have a difficult defeat against Nottingham Forest at home. That was a defeat not many people saw that coming, but the start he's had is unbelievable. It's incredible.
"Training might be slightly different, but the style of play is very similar. The players are comfortable with it. They've been high-energy, closing people down, and playing at 100 miles an hour when they win the ball back.
"It shows managerial intelligence to understand the players' qualities and build on what they had when they were successful. He hasn't overthought it or tinkered too much.
"He hasn’t been arrogant and said, 'I'm going to rip it up and start fresh'. It wasn't broken; it was already successful. He's just added to it."
Liverpool won a first ever Premier League title during Klopp's eight-and-a-half years in charge, as well the Champions League in 2018-19.
Klopp also lifted the FA Cup, two EFL Cups, the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, setting a high benchmark to follow.
"Liverpool identified the man they wanted, brought him in, and he's been very clever," Mills added. "He looked at the squad and thought, 'these are good players. I don't need to change too much'.
"That's smart because Liverpool were very successful under Klopp. If you come in and rip up the playbook and it doesn't work, players will question why they're not doing what worked under Klopp."
Liverpool have conceded just six goals in the Premier League this season – four fewer than next-best Nottingham Forest.
They are conceding at a rate of around 0.5 goals per game, compared to around 1.1 in Klopp's final season in charge (41 goals in 38 matches).
"Slot has tweaked things slightly, maybe made them more defensively solid, which they needed to really challenge," Mills said. "Championship-winning or Champions League-winning teams are built on solid defences.
"You don't win without that. He's shored up the defence and allowed the players to continue doing what they were doing before."
'Enigma' Haaland offers too much threat to be left out, says Mills
Former Manchester City defender Danny Mills believes Erling Haaland is an "enigma", which is why it is so hard to leave him out of the side.
Haaland has been a revelation since joining City in July 2023, and he has won the Premier League Golden Boot in both seasons so far, while also scooping up the Premier League Player of the Year award in his debut campaign.
He has scored 105 goals in 114 appearances in all competitions for City, netting 16 times this term already.
Haaland is averaging 1.09 goals per game in the Premier League this season, after making a record-breaking start to the campaign in which he scored 10 times in the opening six matches.
Mills, who played for City between 2004 and 2009, thinks the 24-year-old's high-scoring record comes down to the efficient way he approaches matches.
"Erling Haaland is a bit of an enigma," Mills told Stats Perform. "He's not your usual centre forward.
"We expect our centre forwards to either drop deep, be a bit of a playmaker and create chances, or put on a high press, work the channels, and have lots of touches, closing people down.
"Haaland stands in the middle of the pitch, makes the runs when he needs to, is very efficient, and puts the ball in the back of the net more often than not. He gets himself in good positions.
"We can talk about him missing big chances, but he's also scored an awful lot of goals. That's the thing — a centre forward will always say you're better off being in the position and missing the chance than not being in the position because the goals will come. Everybody misses chances."
Haaland also set the record for most Premier League goals in a single season in 2022-23, with 36, and he once again sits top of the goalscoring charts this term, though he has seen his goals dry up somewhat in recent weeks after his lightning-quick start.
The Norwegian netted his 12th Premier League goal of the campaign in City's 2-1 loss to Brighton before the international break, ending a run of three games in all competitions without a goal.
Nobody has had more shots than Haaland in the English top-flight this season (55), while only Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins (11) has missed more big chances than him (10).
Mills suggested that Haaland is held to a higher standard than other forwards in the competition, but says even when he is not scoring, he offers too much to be left out of the starting line-up.
"When we talk about patchy form for Erling Haaland, patchy form for him is still way better than most other players' form. It's better than 95% of Premier League strikers," Mills added.
"That's why he gets criticised for missing big chances, because we expect him to score every single time. But he's just different.
"I think it's very, very difficult to leave him out because he offers so much. He's so big, strong, powerful, and scores all types of weird and interesting goals at times.
"He occupies three or four defenders because they’re all worried about his pace in behind, his aerial ability, or what he's doing. Leaving him out would be a big, big call.
"It's not like he's going through a drought. An Erling Haaland drought is that he hasn't scored for two games. There are centre forwards all over the world who would love that to be their record, not their drought.
"So, I think we need to have some perspective. Yes, he might miss one or two chances, but he's a massive threat and a fantastic goalscorer."
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