ESPN REPORT: Sad News For Tennessee Titans As 5 Star Players Depart Team For…

The Achilles tear of Miami linebacker Jaelan Phillips on Black Friday has reignited the debate over the safety of playing on artificial turf as Phillips joins a long list of others who’ve suffered destructive lower-body injuries this season and players demand change to what they say are unnecessarily dangerous fields.
Miami Dolphins v New York Jets
Jaelan Phillips, No. 15, of the Miami Dolphins is helped onto a cart after being injured in a play … [+]GETTY IMAGES
TIMELINE
November 24, 2023The Achilles tear of Miami Dolphins linebacker Jaelan Phillips (who will make $3.8 million this year) on Black Friday prompted several of his teammates to speak out about the dangers of playing on the New York Jets’ turf field at Met Life Stadium: “Something has to change,” Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert said shortly after safety Jevon Holland called the field “trash.”

November 19, 2023Pro Bowler Talanoa Hufanga ($1.1 million), a safety for the San Francisco 49ers, tore his ACL during Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

PROMOTED

November 12, 2023Pittsburg Steelers linebacker Kwon Alexander ($1.3 million) suffered a season-ending Achilles tear Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.

November 5, 2023New York Giants Quarterback Daniel Jones ($46 million) this year, tore his ACL during the team’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders and is out for the season, Coach Brian Daboll said Monday.

November 5, 2023Minnesota Vikings running back Cam Akers ($1.5 million) suffered what could be a season-ending Achilles injury to his left let in a game against the Atlanta Falcons, ESPN reported, the second serious Achilles injury for the athlete, who tore the same tendon on the right side in the first week of the 2021 season.

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October 29, 2023Kendrick Bourne ($5.7 million), the leading wide receiver for the New England Patriots, tore his right ACL against the Miami Dolphins, ESPN reported, ending his seventh NFL season.

October 29, 2023Minnesota Vikings Quarterback Kirk Cousins, who has never missed a game due to an injury, limped to the sidelines in Green Bay on Sunday after what sources told ESPN was likely a season right Achilles tear to his right leg; he’s guaranteed to make $35 million this year.

October 29, 2023Atlanta defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, described by ESPN as the “soul and undisputed leader of the Falcons defense,” exited Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans with a season-ending ACL tear; he’s set to make $17.2 million this year.

October 23, 2023Keaton Mitchell, a running back for the Baltimore Ravens who is set to make $684,666 this year, left the Week 7 game against the Detroit Lions after suffering a hamstring injury.

October 15, 2023Tennessee Titans veteran quarterback Ryan Tannehill ($29.5 million) suffered a high ankle sprain against the Baltimore Ravens in London.

October 8, 2023The Buffalo Bills loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday also came with a likely season-ending knee injury for linebacker Matt Milano (set to make $13.6 million this year), who fractured his leg and potentially hurt his ACL in the first quarter of the London game.

October 8, 2023Minnesota Vikings star receiver Justin Jefferson ($3.3 million) left Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs after an injury to his right hamstring—ESPN reports there is no timetable for Jefferson’s recovery, “but a hamstring injury for a player at his position can be problematic.”

October 1, 2023Buffalo Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White ($14.3 million) suffered a non-contact Achilles injury while covering Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill.

October 1, 2023Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive player Mike Evans ($15.9 million) left a division game against the New Orleans Saints with a hamstring injury and remained out for the rest of the game with no commitment from coaches on when he’ll play again.

October 1, 2023Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett ($4.7 million) was taken out of the game against the Texans with a knee injury that is not an ACL tear, NFL Media reporter Mike Garafolo said Monday, but more tests are needed to confirm what type of injury he sustained and when he’ll return to play.

September 24, 2023Los Angeles Chargers receiver Mike Williams, who will make $20 million this year, won’t play again this season after tearing his ACL in an attempt at a juke move that ended with a tackle from behind in a Sunday game against the Minnesota Vikings.

September 21, 2023Trevon Diggs ($22.3 million), star cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys, suffered a left ACL tear during one-on-one red zone practice drills that will end his season.

September 18, 2023Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb ($9.3 million) suffered a season ending MCL tear and hurt his ACL in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers—the injury was so gruesome ESPN declined to show the replay and he’ll likely need two different surgeries to repair the damage.

September 11, 2023Aaron Rodgers ($50.2 million) threw just four snaps in his debut as quarterback for the New York Jets before rupturing his Achilles in the team’s season opener against the Buffalo Bills; he underwent an innovative surgery two days later to place an internal brace called an Achilles “speed bridge” in the back of his left leg that the NFL says could help him hit his goal of a playoff return.

September 10, 2023Baltimore Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins ($1.8 million) won’t return this season after tearing his Achilles in the team’s opener against the Houston Texans as he was tackled on the way to the end zone after a reception.

September 10, 2023Two-time All-Pro player Jack Conklin ($13.6 million) right tackle for the Cleveland Browns, tore his ACL in the first week of regular season play and won’t return this season after Trey Hendrickson of the Bengals “awkwardly” rolled under Conlink’s leg in the second quarter, per the NFL.

September 10, 2023It’s unlikely Broncos safety Caden Sterns ($843,000) will return after suffering a torn patellar tendon in the first week of season play against the Las Vegas Raiders, NBC Sports reported—Sterns went down on his second defensive snap with the injury after missing the last 12 games of the 2022-23 season with a hip injury.

September 10, 2023Running back Evan Hull ($711,000) had one carry and one reception in his NFL debut for the Indianapolis Colts before he suffered a knee injury, tearing his meniscus in Week 1 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, USA Today reported.

Cleveland Browns v Pittsburgh Steelers
Nick Chubb of the Cleveland Browns reacts after hurting his knee during the second quarter of the … [+]GETTY IMAGES
SURPRISING FACT
Of this year’s 23 major leg injuries so far, 13 have occurred on a turf or partially turf field. Injuries have most commonly happened this season on M&T Bank Stadium’s grass field, U.S. Bank Stadium’s turf and at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, which uses turf for NFL games. Rodgers and Tannehill were hurt on turf, Chubb and Diggs were injured on grass. Lambeau Field in Green Bay, where Cousins was injured, has a hybrid turf mix of synthetic and natural grass.

KEY BACKGROUND
The argument over whether fields should be made of natural or artificial materials is not a new one, but the spate of recent injuries has brought it back to the public consciousness. There are 15 stadiums (serving 17 teams) in the NFL that use artificial grass for their fields and 15 that use turf. The NFL Players Association has argued for a full switch to natural grass surfaces over artificial turf fields for years, and Rodgers advocated for the move to be league-wide last fall before he tore his Achilles. Artificial surfaces are softer and allow for “more wobble” when feet hit the ground, he said, leading to more extreme non-contact injuries. The union renewed its call for the change again after Rodgers’ injury and called it “the easiest decision the NFL can make.” NBC News on Sunday reported that of the 10 stadiums with the highest injury counts between 2017 and 2022, seven of them had artificial surfaces. Sports Info Solutions, a sports analytics company, told NBC that players were also more likely to suffer injuries that forced them to leave a game when on synthetic turf.

Buffalo Bills v New York Jets
Aaron Rodgers of the New York Jets sits down after tearing his Achilles after a sack by Leonard … [+]GETTY IMAGES
CONTRA
The NFL has argued that artificial turf fields exist for a reason and that the dangers are equal. Jeff Miller, NFL executive vice president, has said the league is focused on cutting down on the number of injuries regardless of playing surface, and the type of field is left mostly up to NFL owners with control of their home stadiums. Grass fields are more expensive to maintain that turf on the whole, and they must be well kept and of high-quality grass, which can struggle in colder parts of the country in the winter months, CBS reported. The Tennessee Titans have said they switched to turf simply because the natural grass was impossible to keep up.

BIG NUMBER
$312.2 million. That’s how much the players out for the season due to ACL or Achilles tears and other leg injuries will make this year, combined.

TANGENT
The nature of American football as a full-contact game has led to criticism and scrutiny, especially when it comes to damaging hits. The most common injuries in football are strains and sprains, which happen in both contact and non-contact settings, along with dislocations, fractures and concussions. The NFL reports 213 players got concussions in regular or pre-season games last year, up from 187 in 2021 and 172 in 2020. There were no pre-season games in 2020. The league has been heavily scrutinized as an increasing number of players are diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from major hits, which leads to debilitating symptoms including mental health changes and death. Damar Hamlin, a Buffalo Bills safety, went into cardiac arrest following a tackle last year. He has since recovered and is cleared to play again.

Los Angeles Chargers v Minnesota Vikings
Mike Williams, No. 81, of the Los Angeles Chargers is carted off the field during the fourth quarter … [+]GETTY IMAGES
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2024 Scotus-John Roberts by Alex Wong-Getty Images-1×1
DAILY COVER
How John Roberts Became The Supreme Court’s Richest Justice
Building up a nest egg in private practice paid off for Roberts, allowing him to go into public serv… [+] ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
Dec 19, 2023,06:30am EST
The chief justice was already rich by the time he joined the Supreme Court. Forbes estimates his fortune has roughly quintupled since then.
By Kyle Mullins, Forbes Staff
In June 2017, the most powerful jurist in America took the stage at the Cardigan Mountain School, a tony private boarding school in Canaan, New Hampshire that costs over $70,000 a year. Chief Justice John Roberts stood before dozens of ninth-grade boys, including his own son, and shared some wisdom. “One important clue to living a good life,” he said, “is to not to try to live the good life.”

That may be so—but Roberts seems to have found a formula for doing both. He’s worth an estimated $25 million, much more than anyone else on the Supreme Court and more than twice as much as the president of the United States. How did he get so rich? First, Roberts and his wife Jane stashed away a pile of money after years in private practice. Then, with more than $3 million by the time he was age 46, Roberts took a low-paying, still-fulfilling job as a federal judge while his wife continued to earn big bucks. He ascended to chief justice in 2005 and stayed in the stock market, allowing his nest egg to swell as the economy boomed. Today, John and Jane Roberts have an estimated $20 million in liquid assets, in addition to several homes and a multimillion-dollar pension waiting for the chief justice when he retires.

ROBERTS’ RICHES
The chief justice and his wife have four homes and a multimillion-dollar pension, but most of their wealth is concentrated in liquid assets, which they’ve invested aggressively over the years.

Born in Buffalo, New York in 1955, Roberts largely grew up in Long Beach, Indiana, an elite lakefront town on the Michigan border once populated exclusively by whites. The son of a Bethlehem Steel company man, Roberts quickly put himself on the inside track to the heights of American society, applying to the exclusive La Lumiere School nearby with an admissions essay that explained, “I want to get the best job by getting the best education.”

After graduating from La Lumiere, he stuck true to that same philosophy, enrolling at Harvard. He studied history and planned to become a professor, graduating in just three years near the top of his class in 1976. He had trouble finding a job teaching, though, so he took the same route a lot of smart graduates follow when they aren’t sure what they want to do with their lives–he went to law school, staying in Cambridge.

After Harvard Law, Roberts landed two year-long clerkships, the second with future Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He then joined the Reagan administration in 1981, serving in the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office until 1986. Roberts remembers those years fondly, reminiscing in a 2006 speech that the work was often “mundane,” but that President Reagan “never let us forget that we were building a cathedral, that we were part of a greater enterprise.”

Next, Roberts made money. He went into private practice in 1986, working in appellate law at Hogan and Hartson, a D.C. firm where he became a partner in 1987. He then returned to government during the George H.W. Bush administration to serve in the solicitor general’s office under Ken Starr, where he overlapped briefly with Brett Kavanaugh, his future colleague on the Supreme Court. In 1992, Bush appointed Roberts, then 37, to a circuit court position. But when the president lost to Bill Clinton that year, Roberts’ nomination lapsed, and he went back to private practice. By the early 2000s, Roberts had argued 39 cases in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of both the government and private clients and was making more than $700,000 a year.

Roberts’ personal life also fell into place during this time. He bought a 2,500-square-foot home in Bethesda, Maryland for $370,000 in 1989, taking out a $296,000 loan to pay for it. In 1996, he married Jane Sullivan, a Bronx-raised woman with Irish roots whose legal career was also accelerating. Sullivan worked in technology law at D.C. firm Shaw Pittman in the 1990s and eventually became a partner.

In 2000, when they were in their mid-40s, the couple adopted two babies, a boy and a girl. They continued to sock away money, and in May 2001, Roberts listed his net worth at $3.8 million.

The second Bush presidency brought another stalled nomination for Roberts in a Senate briefly controlled by Democrats. But by January 2003, Republicans had gained a majority, and Roberts finally got the hearing he had been denied for a decade. He sailed through on a voice vote in May, earning a judgeship on the prestigious D.C. Circuit—and a salary of $164,000, a huge pay cut from private practice. By then, though, he was already comfortable. Six months later, he and Jane sold their Bethesda property for $670,000, almost double what they paid for it, and upgraded to a 3,200-square-foot home in Chevy Chase, Maryland for $1.2 million.

In July 2005, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme Court. That same month, Bush nominated Roberts to fill her seat. Before Roberts got a hearing, however, Chief Justice Rehnquist—Roberts’ longtime mentor—died after a long battle with cancer. Bush switched Roberts’ nomination to the chief justice slot, nominating Samuel Alito to fill O’Connor’s seat instead.

Naturally, partisan differences emerged in the confirmation process, though not enough to cause any real concern for Roberts, who made it through the Senate with a 78-22 vote, the widest margin of all currently sitting justices. In just three short years, he had ascended from appellate lawyer to the head of the judicial branch.

His finances were also doing well. The promotion came with a 21% pay bump to a $208,100 salary. Senate documents show that Roberts’ net worth had increased to $5.3 million in 2005. Just a year later, he and Jane bought a $475,000 cottage—borrowing $375,000—on remote Hupper Island, Maine, a locale accessible only by boat. It’s worth an estimated $800,000 today, and Roberts has no debt recorded against it.

In 2007, Jane took a new job as a partner at Major, Lindsey and Africa, a legal recruiting firm. It proved lucrative: Over the next eight years, she made more than $10.3 million in commissions, an average of nearly $1.3 million per year, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider that a whistleblower shared with Congress. In 2019, she switched jobs again, becoming managing partner at Macrae, Inc., another legal recruiting firm that has reported skyrocketing revenues in recent years.

The power couple has remained relatively liquid. Forbes estimates that Jane and John Roberts are currently sitting on a pile of investments worth more than $20 million. But they’ve also enjoyed their money. In 2016, the couple bought a second, larger property on Hupper Island right next to the original for $1.5 million. Today, it’s worth around $1.75 million, net of about $600,000 of debt, bringing their total real estate equity on the island to $2 million. Their Maryland home is worth $2.3 million or so today and has an estimated $600,000 of debt left on it. The couple also has a stake in a family cottage in Ireland worth roughly $15,000. Add in Roberts’ about $2.2 million pension—every year after he retires, he’ll be paid his Supreme Court salary, currently $298,500, for the rest of his life—and you get a full picture of the couple’s roughly $25 million fortune.

“I felt very privileged to have the opportunity,” Roberts once said, “and to serve a country that has been so good to me and my family.”

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Kyle Mullins
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I’m a reporter on Forbes’ Money in Politics team, where I investigate all things related to the intersection of money and politics, including megadonors, fundraising organizations, the… Read More

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