Super Bowl might hinge on middle men as Chiefs, Eagles prep for interior pass rush

• February 8, 2025

By DAVE CAMPBELL AP Pro Football Writer

Once Josh Allen backpedaled from the shotgun snap after the Buffalo Bills had just gone ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs, this crucial 2-point conversion play late in the third quarter of the AFC championship game quickly turned into chaos.

Allen retreated to the 14-yard line, sized up the pressure and desperately darted right as two pass rushers converged. Chris Jones, the star of this daunting Chiefs’ defense, fittingly finished the strip-sack.

Over those few unfortunate seconds for Bills left guard David Edwards, Jones provided yet another vivid example of why he’s been a first team All-Pro for three years in a row.

With a straight-forward bull rush, Jones simply overpowered Edwards from his defensive tackle position and single-handedly destroyed the pocket around Allen. Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis, after pushing right tackle Spencer Brown back more than 5 yards, shrewdly veered left to keep Allen from scrambling around the end and then deftly shed the block with a jump back inside. Karlaftis helped corral Allen low, while Jones hit him high to dislodge the ball.

There’s no better way to blow up a play in the NFL these days than with strong pressure through the middle.

“It’s the most direct path to the quarterback,” NFL Network analyst and former offensive lineman Brian Baldinger said. “The evolution of the quarterback position and the ability of these guys to either extend plays or just become a runner, it’s changed the way people have to rush these guys now. If you can collapse the pocket on the inside, you can make it a lot harder on them.”

The outcome of Super Bowl 59 on Sunday might well hinge on which team can better protect the interior against the fierce pass rush lurking on the other side. The Philadelphia Eagles, led by Pro Bowl pick Jalen Carter, accounted for three of the top eight and four of the top 22 interior pass rushers in the league this season as ranked by Pro Football Focus.

Jones got the highest overall grade for interior defenders in 2024 and was also ranked as the best pass rusher at his position in PFF’s independent analysis.

“He’s got very light feet for a big guy. He’s very big, size-wise. He’s got tremendous hands, and his feet and his hands are always moving. He’s very slippery. It’s hard to get hands on him, and he’s excellent at getting his hands off you. He’s constantly gaining ground while getting to your edge,” Baldinger said. “He just knows when those key moments are and how to win those moments.”

Interior offensive linemen have become increasingly more valuable

Left tackle has always been a premium position for the vital role of blocking the right-handed quarterback’s blind side, and as the quality of pass rushers spread across the league, a right tackle who could also consistently hold his own against a dominant player on the edge became equally important to have. There are 32 tackles in the NFL with contracts carrying an annual average value of $10 million or more, according to salary data compiled by Over The Cap.

But the guards and the centers are catching up in value. There are 20 guards and six centers whose current deals average at least $10 million per year, according to OTC, beginning with Eagles left guard Landon Dickerson. The Chiefs’ Creed Humphrey is the league’s highest-paid center.

Just like with the defensive linemen they’ll be trying to fend off, this Super Bowl will be a showcase of some of the best interior blockers in the game – whose success has been aided by revered veteran offensive line coaches. Kansas City’s Andy Heck is in his 12th season with the team and 21st as an NFL coach. Philadelphia’s Jeff Stoutland is also in his 12th season with the team, spanning three head coaches, and his 41st year of coaching.

Humphrey and left guard Joe Thuney, who recently moved over to left tackle to help shore up an unsettled position, gave the Chiefs a pair of first team All-Pros. Right guard Trey Smith was a Pro Bowl pick who will be a prize free agent at age 25 next month. The Chiefs could move Thuney back to his natural spot if D.J. Humphries is deemed healthy enough to return to left tackle.

For the Eagles, Dickerson was selected for his third straight Pro Bowl. Center Cam Jurgens got his first such honor after stepping in this season for retired stalwart Jason Kelce. Right guard Mekhi Becton, a 2020 first-round draft pick by the New York Jets, was a former tackle who signed with Philadelphia and quickly took to his new position. Dickerson started the NFC championship game at center because Jurgens was dealing with a back injury. Then Dickerson hurt his knee, forcing Jurgens back into duty.

“These guys are playing through pain. I just can’t say enough about how much I respect these guys of what they have to do with their bodies,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “I don’t think anyone knows the half of it, what they have to do to play the long season.”

The job has been getting tougher

Rams great Aaron Donald redefined the defensive tackle position with an eight-time All-Pro career over 10 seasons, and Jones has picked up the baton for the interior pass rushers since Donald retired. But the guards and centers have more than just those freak-of-nature players to be concerned about.

More and more teams will slide their edge defenders inside on passing downs for a matchup advantage. Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, for one extreme example, repeatedly put his four best pass rushers in standup positions on the line on third downs.

“The guys we’re going against are bigger, and as they get bigger they’re still staying fast, they’re still staying twitchy,” Vikings right guard Dalton Risner said earlier this postseason. “The game of football is ever changing, ever evolving. Everyone’s trying to figure out one way to one-up it.”

The teams with more vulnerability in the middle play at their own peril. Take the Vikings as another example, with interior pass protection that has been a problem for the past several years. Their 14-win season went up in flames when they were blown out in Week 18 by the Detroit Lions and in their wild-card round playoff game by the Rams. Quarterback Sam Darnold was swallowed up by the rush in those games, starting up the middle.

The Chiefs and Eagles are here because they’ve kept that from happening.

“How many pressures you gave up and how many sacks you gave up, those are the stats that we all know,” Sirianni said. “Sometimes you only get focused on for the negative thing. But I love offensive linemen. I’ve always loved offensive linemen because of that selflessness they have. They’re protectors, right? They’re there to protect and serve other people. That’s the best thing you can say about a human being, that you want to do well for yourself to do well for others.”

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Anita horse racing consensus picks for Saturday, February 8, 2025

• February 8, 2025

The consensus box of Santa Anita horse racing picks comes from handicappers Bob Mieszerski, Eddie Wilson, Kevin Modesti and Mark Ratzky. Here are the picks for thoroughbred races on Saturday, February 8, 2024.

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​ Orange County Register 

County of Orange adds former Supervisor Andrew Do to civil lawsuit

• February 8, 2025

Former Supervisor Andrew Do has been added as a defendant in Orange County’s lawsuits against Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization, two nonprofits it is accusing of embezzling public pandemic funds for personal gain.

As the First District supervisor, Do directed millions in discretionary funds to the two groups for meal programs. He has since pleaded guilty in federal court to taking more than $550,000 in bribes to steer $10 million to Viet America Society. He is now awaiting sentencing.

Do resigned in October as part of his plea deal.

After Viet America Society missed several deadlines to produce documents proving the money was properly spent, the county filed its lawsuit in August accusing the nonprofit and some of its leadership, including Do’s daughter, of pocketing much of the funds provided for the meals program and a Vietnam War memorial.

The county also alleged in a separate lawsuit filed in August that Hand to Hand Relief’s leaders “audaciously pillaged” millions in taxpayer dollars instead of using the money to feed vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 emergency. General ledgers, described in the lawsuit as “woefully inadequate,” showed nonprofit officials made nearly $130,000 in ATM cash withdrawals and spent more than $100,000 on fast food purchases, the county alleges.

The county amended its suit in January to include Do.

Eliot Kreiger, Do’s lawyer representing him in the civil lawsuit, declined to comment when reached Friday, Feb. 7.

​ Orange County Register 

Supervisor Kathryn Barger: Taking action a month on from the Eaton fire

• February 8, 2025

Walking and driving through the streets of Altadena one month since the Eaton fire hits hard. Since that fateful seventh day of January, I have treaded the scorched streets countless times and spoken with hundreds of residents worried about their futures. I have listened to their fears, anger, and frustrations. As mayor of this town, every encounter and conversation has fueled my commitment to crafting a covenant with Eaton fire survivors – a promise to deliver a new beginning and rebuild stronger and more quickly than ever.

My promise to rebuild goes hand in hand with my launch of the Altadena Recovery Commission this week — a focused and pragmatic effort to organize, resource, and support the long-term recovery of our beloved Altadena.

When we think about recovery, we must think beyond simply reconstructing what was lost. Our mission is bigger than rebuilding houses and businesses. We must also work hard to restore hope with tangible and scalable solutions that are accessible, sustainable, and can be delivered quickly.

This is where the Altadena Recovery Commission comes in and will serve a critical purpose. Commission members will be laser focused on operationalizing and delivering a wide array of rebuilding options that can be executed with both urgency and expertise. Certainly, subject matter experts across many public sectors serving Los Angeles County play a critical role in restoring our roads, utilities, and public spaces. But through the Altadena Recovery Commission, community members and private-sector leaders in housing development, architecture, and finance will complement our county’s efforts, infusing additional expertise and speed.

My promise to rebuild is also based on the fact that we have an opportunity to modernize our infrastructure, to create scalable and cost efficient housing solutions, and to ensure that every resident — no matter their economic standing — has an option to return home.

The Eaton fire took a big toll not just on our physical landscape but also on the hearts and minds of nearly every resident in Los Angeles County. One month later, as many community members are still wading through the early fog of recovery, let me be clear: the buck stops with the county when it comes to rebuilding Altadena and I am committed to ensuring that every available resource is utilized to support my constituents. Altadena will recover. We will rebuild, and we will do it together.

It is no coincidence that the Altadena Recovery Commission’s acronym is ARC. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Today, I build on that sentiment and apply it to our community’s recovery: The arc of rebuilding Altadena will bend toward a stronger and more vibrant community. The Eaton fire will not define us. Instead, we will define our future by coming together, by taking action, and by refusing to accept anything less than a full and complete recovery.

Kathryn Barger is chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and represents Altadena.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump official’s directive tying transportation grants to birth rates could hinder blue states

• February 8, 2025

By JEFF McMURRAY and SUSAN HAIGH

CHICAGO (AP) — Shortly after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy circulated a memo that instructed his department to prioritize families by, among other things, giving preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average when awarding grants.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the directive last week “deeply frightening,” and Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray called it “disturbingly dystopian.”

The memo also calls for prohibiting governments that get Department of Transportation funds from imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and requiring their cooperation with the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

With hundreds of billions of dollars in transportation money still unspent from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, such changes could be a boon for projects in Republican-majority states, which on average have higher fertility rates than those leaning Democratic.

States controlled by Democrats were generally more receptive to mask and vaccine rules to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and have been more resistant to Trump’s immigration raids.

More births for more roads?

All administrations set their own rules for choosing which transportation projects to prioritize. But some of Duffy’s directives were received as highly unusual.

“Distributing transportation funding based marriage and birth rates is bizarre and a little creepy,” said Kevin DeGood, senior director of infrastructure and housing policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “States and regions with aging populations tend, on average, to have lower birth rates … Are they somehow not deserving of transportation investment?”

According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022, the 14 states with the highest fertility rates backed Trump in the November election while the bottom 11 plus the District of Columbia supported Democrat Kamala Harris. Marriage rates tend to skew higher for red states too, but by a smaller margin.

Vice President JD Vance has long expressed concern about declining birth rates, citing national economic needs as well as the inherent value of children.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn raised the idea of tying transportation funding to population growth during Duffy’s confirmation hearing.

“People are leaving some of these blue states and coming to places like Tennessee,” she said. “And this means that we need to look at where those federal highway dollars are spent and placing them in areas with growing needs rather than areas that are losing population.”

Sarah Hayford, sociology professor and director of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University, said she had never heard of birth rates being used to set funding priorities.

“I was a little surprised,” she said. “Often the policy around birth rates is trying to address challenges or barriers to people not having children. This seems more focused on rewarding people for already having children.”

The U.S. birth rate has been declining since 2007, which Hayford attributes in part to economic uncertainty during the Great Recession. She said research has tied higher birth rates to areas with lower education.

Longstanding transportation policy already considers where kids live, said Beth Jarosz, senior program director at the nonpartisan and nonprofit Population Reference Bureau.

“If what you’re trying to do is support families, birth rates aren’t necessarily the best way to do that,” she said, pointing out that many growing families move to new communities when they find their homes are too small.

The Department of Transportation has not responded to questions about the memo.

So far, lawmakers and advocates are unaware of birth and marriage rates being linked to non-transportation grants.

Blue states push back

Blumenthal said the transportation secretary’s focus on birth and marriage rates was “reminiscent of what you might see in the People’s Republic of China.”

“On its face, it’s social engineering. But clearly and indisputably, it is a dagger aimed at blue states,” he said. “It is patently discriminatory if you look at the numbers. This criteria was designed to punish blue states and coerce states to change their lawful policy on tolls, vaccines and immigration.”

U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Maryland Democrat, said he feared Duffy’s directives would harm some grants already announced — including $85 million awarded to Baltimore in the final weeks of the Biden administration to transform a blighted stretch of U.S. 40 known as the “highway to nowhere.”

“If it’s an effort to reward red states, he ought to just go ahead and say that,” Mfume said. “Otherwise, there will be a lot of challenges by states and advocacy organizations all over the country who have no choice but to fight back, and that fight will become a legal one.”

Yet Jarosz said the policy’s political intentions are unclear, noting communities like San Diego and Sacramento in California are above the national average in terms of birth rates, while certain rural areas of the country are below.

Is this even legal?

Legal experts say it is too early to know whether anything in Duffy’s memo could be struck down by the courts.

Although it is difficult to make a legal argument for funding equality based on political affiliation, federal law does protect against discrimination over such things as race, sex, and disabilities.

Joel Roberson, who handles transportation and infrastructure cases at the Washington, D.C., law firm Holland & Knight, said administrations have widespread authority to set their own criteria for awarding money. However, communities denied funding could file a lawsuit arguing they endured an illegal “disparate impact.”

As for whether Trump could redirect transportation grants awarded under Biden, Roberson said it largely depends on the status of the project and whether Congress has already appropriated the funding.

State transportation officials have expressed confidence that the new guidelines won’t impact the federal funds states use to set their own transportation priorities and build roads. But many other grants are awarded at the discretion of the administration in power.

Less clear is the status of some already approved discretionary grants, such as an agreement signed just before former President Joe Biden left office committing $1.9 billion toward a nearly $5.7 billion project to add four new L stations in South Side Chicago.

Blumenthal, a former state attorney general and federal prosecutor, said Duffy’s edict created “uncertainty and confusion” and pointed out it doesn’t carry any legal weight like statutes and regulations do. He predicted courts would ultimately reject the policy.

“Anybody can write a memo,” Blumenthal said.

Haigh reported from Hartford, Connecticut.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump says he’s revoking Biden’s security clearance, ending intelligence briefings in payback move

• February 8, 2025

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s revoking former President Joe Biden’s security clearance and ending the daily intelligence briefings he’s receiving in payback for Biden doing the same to him in 2021.

Trump announced his decision in a post on his social media platform shortly after he arrived at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach for the weekend.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump wrote. “He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents.”

The move is the latest in a vengeance tour of Washington that Trump promised during his campaign. He has previously revoked security clearances from more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.” He’s also revoked security details assigned to protect former government officials who have criticized him, including his own former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who faces threats from Iran, and former infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci.

Biden didn’t immediately comment on the move.

Biden ended Trump’s intelligence briefings after Trump helped spur efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. At the time, Biden said Trump’s “erratic” behavior should prevent him from getting the intel briefings.

Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Trump to continue having access to such information.

“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”

in 2022, federal agents searched Trump’s Florida home and seized boxes of classified records. He was indicted on dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. He pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. A judge dismissed the charges, ruling the special counsel who brought them was illegally appointed, and the Justice Department gave up appeals after Trump was elected in November.

In his post, Trump cited the special counsel report last year into Biden’s handling of classified documents, saying, “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.”

He ended his post by saying, “I will always protect our National Security — JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Special counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden’s handling of classified information and found that criminal charges were not warranted but delivered a bitingly critical assessment of his handling of sensitive government records. The report described Biden’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It said Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.

Trump has the right to end the briefings for Biden because it is a sitting president’s decision on whether a past president should continue to have access to classified information.

​ Orange County Register 

Threats follow Michigan lawmaker who said she had surgery to remove reproductive organs

• February 8, 2025

By ISABELLA VOLMERT

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan state lawmaker told a crowd protesting President Trump’s early actions this week that she underwent elective surgery to remove her reproductive organs.

State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky’s account was cheered by the left-leaning protestors and condemned by right-wing social media accounts.

The 36-year-old Democrat said the surgery was a personal decision she had been considering for a few years and was finalized by Trump’s election. She wanted to validate the fears other women might have about access to contraception by sharing it.

She told The Associated Press that she has received threats since speaking this week, referring at least one of them to Michigan authorities. The Associated Press reached out to Michigan State police for comment.

“I don’t fully grasp the level of animosity that people have about this,” Pohutsky said.

Pohutsky told large crowd gathered in Lansing at the state Capitol Wednesday that she chose last month to have a bilateral salpingectomy to remove her fallopian tubes. While abortion is constitutionally protected in Michigan and state lawmakers have bolstered contraceptive access, she said the decision was prompted by doubts that the Trump administration will not target access.

“Pretty much all of these executive orders have come straight out of Project 2025, and that same document outlines a process for limiting access to contraception,” she said.

After Trump’s election, physicians reported a rise in women seeking both long-term birth control and permanent sterilizations. Trump told a Pittsburgh television station in May that he was open to supporting regulations on contraception, and later walked back his comments saying that he “has never and will never” advocate for restricting birth control and other contraceptives.

Pohutsky said her decision to have the surgery was a conversation she and her husband were having for a couple of years, and she made the appointment for the surgery after the November election. She later considered rescheduling it since it was on a session day, but decided to go through with it after seeing Trump’s executive actions.

Her decision was criticized by a few high profile conservative voices on X, including the right wing influencer account Libs of TikTok and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro quoted a post about her with “So many broken people.” Libs of TikTok has since deleted its post on X.

​ Orange County Register 

Coastal Commission rejects Newport Harbor proposal to try reconfigured mooring field

• February 8, 2025

City plans to try out condensing an offshore mooring field in Newport Harbor to make more space for navigation and tidy up the cluster of boats has been shot down by the California Coastal Commission.

The commission’s nearly unanimous vote earlier in the week delighted boaters who had voiced concerns over the proposal – they argued it would instead make navigation unsafe and the city didn’t even consider the larger Newport Beach Yacht Club mooring field nearby for the pilot project, which the public boaters took as discrimination.

The proposed plan was to be launched at the 5.5-acre mooring field north of Balboa Peninsula and east of Bay Island and would have added seven new city-owned moorings for a total of 62 – and they would have been charged a much higher fee. Another recent proposal to increase mooring fees – to better match market rates and recoup harbor costs, city officials said – is on hold while the State Lands Commission reviews the plan that would also move the mooring permits to a city licensing program. Mooring permits have long been a commodity privately traded and sold for often large amounts of money.

“I’m very concerned with the comments heard today around safety and what appears to be a lack of communication between the mooring holders in that field and the harbor and the port commission,” said Justin Cummings, the commission’s chairperson. “There are rare instances where you have a group of people impacted that are all 100% against the proposal that’s come before us. There’s not a single mooring holder today that’s said they would be OK with this. To have an entire group say, ‘We don’t support this and are concerned for our safety,’ really makes me want to support them in this.”

“I do hope we can find a way forward between the harbor and the users so that we can create something that increases access and provides for a higher level of safety and environmental improvements,” he added.

The Newport Harbor is one of the largest small-craft recreational harbors on the West Coast with 1,200 moorning, of which 800 are offshore. If the proposed configuration proved successful, Newport Beach officials said it would be replicated in the harbor’s nine other public fields. There are three private boating groups that use mooring fields with city permits, but are given autonomy to operate and configure their sections.

“We went in there thinking they had the staff recommendation ready to approve,” said Chris Bliss, a Dana Point boater who has moored his boat in Newport Harbor for years. “We were all kind of down. At the end, it was the most incredible redemption. We’ve talked to the city and they have been completely deaf and blind. It was a fantastic outcome.”

The mooring reconfiguration, which would have changed single moorings to double-row moorings was designed, city officials said, after listening to public comments from commercial operators, homeowners associations and yacht clubs. A harbor subcommittee has been looking since 2018 at how to improve the mooring fields, making them safer, but also clearing more space for other harbor users.

“I’m disappointed with the outcome,” said Paul Blank, the city’s harbor master. He said the plan was vetted in multiple public and private forums, including with Newport Beach Mooring Association representatives.

“I believe the project would have significantly improved navigability in and around the mooring field,” he said. “We have evidence for this from third-party independent sources.”

The current mooring field, city staff said, poorly utilizes the open water space and reduces the “navigable waterways between the mooring rows.” The proposed changes would decrease the footprint of the mooring field and result in an increase of open water space surrounding the field by 2 acres, they said.

The proposed double-row design replicates San Diego’s America’s Cup Harbor.

But speakers at the commission meeting – there were at least 40 experienced boaters and captains – pointed to the differences between the two harbors and showed videos of why they did not think the proposal would work.

Newport Harbor has stronger tides and winds than the smaller and more protected San Diego harbor, they argued.

They said the new layout, which they thought would provide limited protection from offshore winds, currents and extreme seasonal tides, would make it much harder to navigate with mooring rows configured in tandem compared to the existing single rows.

The new configuration would be complicated for older, disabled and novice boaters, increasing the risk of collisions while reducing overall access, speakers said.

And they also argued there was the appearance of discrimination when comparing the space in the private yacht club mooring fields to those used by the “working class demographic,” which they said would have been forced into a denser configuration.

“The double-row plan is framed as an improvement, but this one makes using the mooring more dangerous,” said Anne Stenton, president of the Newport Mooring Association. “Mooring a boat is not like parking a car. It’s more like landing an airplane given currents and winds that have to be accounted for. It requires a safe place on all four sides of a mooring in order to have time to react to conditions.”

Stenton added that the association is open to working with the city on improvements at the mooring fields, but the city has not engaged with their concerns, she said. “We fear this is being done to us, not with us.”

​ Orange County Register