David Beckham’s son Brooklyn training at Manchester United for possible academy spot

Brooklyn takes on PSG's Thiago Silva. (Getty)

David Beckham's playing career is over, but his oldest son is now getting a chance to start his own life as a footballer with the very same club where his father began: Manchester United.

At 14 years old, Brooklyn is the same age his father was when he signed with Man United — the club where David made his (brand) name over the course of a decade in the first team. But as the Guardian explains, Brooklyn still has some proving to do before he's given a spot in the club's academy.

From the Guardian:

United's coaching staff have been monitoring the 14-year-old after inviting him to the club where his father made almost 400 appearances, winning the Premier League six times, the FA Cup twice and the European Cup.

Brooklyn, who was in the academy at LA Galaxy during Beckham's time in Major League Soccer, had a run-out with Chelsea at the start of the year before signing up for Queens Park Rangers' junior set-up.

Beckham took him into United's training ground in Carrington on Thursday and other sessions are planned before the academy staff establish whether the teenager should be given the chance to shine at the club where his father started his long and illustrious career.

It's unclear whether Brooklyn Beckham was holding out for a shot at joining Man United or if he just couldn't cut it in his trials with Chelsea and QPR. But even if he doesn't catch on with the Premier League champions, he will probably still have a chance to play for his father one day.

David Beckham has reportedly chosen Miami for the MLS expansion team he will own at a heavily discounted buy-in fee as part of his original playing contract with the league from back in 2007. When the AP asked Beckham if he would like to have Brooklyn play for his MLS club (once it exists), Beckham said, "Yes, hopefully, hopefully." He added:

''As long as the boys are happy, as long as they enjoy playing football and they have fun doing it then, whether they play at professional level or whether they play at Sunday league level, I don't care. [...]

''Obviously, any time the boys go and train at a club, there's a certain amount of pressure on them because it's highlighted and that's a shame at times,'' Beckham said. ''But they are level-headed children, they are fun, they love playing the game. So we will see.''

Brooklyn isn't the only Beckham offspring attracting attention from top Premier League clubs, though. Arsenal reportedly signed 10-year-old Romeo Beckham to their youth academy in September.

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Brooks Peck is the editor of Dirty Tackle on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow on Twitter!

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North Texas beats Rice to earn bowl eligibility for first time since 2004

(USA Today Sports Images)

North Texas is going to a bowl game for the first time in nine seasons and everyone associated with the program is giddy about it.

The Mean Green earned their sixth victory of the season with a late defensive stand to beat Rice 28-16 on Halloween night at Apogee Stadium. But the win didn't just clinch bowl eligibility. It also put the program in legitimate contention for the Conference USA West Division title and hopeful someone can knock off frontrunning Tulane.

How excited are they Denton, Texas? The game story from the official North Texas athletic department website used a rather large Victory-in-Europe kind of headline after the game making sure we all know the Mean Green can now be selected to play in one of the 35 bowls on the slate this year.

(meangreensports.com)

The last time the Mean Green played in a bowl it was in the Sun Belt Conference and lost to Southern Miss from Conference USA in the 2004 New Orleans Bowl. This season North Texas can count a conference win over Southern Miss among the victories that led to achieving bowl eligibility.

That 55-14 victory over Southern Miss a week ago was the biggest road victory for the Mean Green since 1958 and the most points scored on the road by the program since 1962.

North Texas could end up back in the New Orleans bowl against a team from its former conference or the Liberty, Hawaii, Military or the Beef O Brady's St. Petersburg Bowls. All have agreements with Conference USA.

It's another nice turn-around story for coach Dan McCarney who led Iowa State to five bowl games in his final seven seasons in Ames, Iowa, during his previous head coaching job. The Cyclones had been winless before he took over that program in the 1990s.

The Mean Green were 3-9 three years ago in the season that led to hiring McCarney.

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Kyle Ringo is the assistant editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kyle.ringo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Rapid React: Bengals vs. Dolphins

Bernard's Breakout (USAT)

Thursday night’s Bengals/Dolphins game started slow but had a wild finish, ending with a safety in overtime for just the third time in NFL history. The victory snapped a four-game losing streak for the Dolphins, who nearly blew a second-half 17-3 lead for the second week in a row. The biggest story of the night was Giovani Bernard , who had a coming out party in front of a national audience only to leave late with a rib injury.

Bernard gained 79 yards on just nine carries (he once again wasn’t getting the ball enough even before he was forced from the game), scoring two touchdowns, including one that might be the favorite for run of the year. Seriously, how ridiculous was that? He broke at least five tackles and made Brent Grimes look silly not once but twice. Bernard also caught all four of his targets for another 25 yards receiving. He entered without gaudy broken tackle numbers (six) on the year, but Pro Football Focus graded him as the league’s fifth most valuable back anyway, despite him seeing a modest 270 snaps. Let’s hope Bernard’s rib injury isn’t serious and he starts getting more touches moving forward.

After getting 9.9 YPA with an 11:2 TD:INT ratio over his previous three games, Andy Dalton got 6.4 YPA and posted a 0:3 TD:INT ratio Thursday. He had to deal with numerous drops (most egregiously by Mohamed Sanu but also surprisingly including a terrible one by A.J. Green on third down), but this was a poor performance by October’s AFC Offensive Player of the Month. He’s somehow on pace to throw 28 touchdowns this season despite tossing zero in three games. Dalton has clearly made strides during his third year, but he remains inconsistent and not an elite fantasy option despite the recent hot streak. Brad Nessler had just finished saying how Dalton had been intercepted only one time in his career in the red zone (where he had a 45:1 TD:INT ratio) when he proceeded to throw a pick-six on the very next play.

It was actually fairly remarkable Ryan Tannehill, who entered on pace to finish with the second most sacks in NFL history, was taken down just three times considering Miami’s patchwork offensive line (the Jonathan Martin story sounds sad). Although that might’ve had something to do with the Bengals losing Geno Atkins to a potentially serious knee injury, which would be brutal news to a defense already missing three of its starters for the year. Atkins, who entered with the second most QB hurries among D tackles, is easily one of the best defensive players in football.

Lamar Miller has now totaled 241 yards over the past two weeks, getting 41 touches over that span. He’s up to 4.8 YPC on the season and has been targeted 10 times in the passing game over the past three games after seeing just five looks over the season’s first five contests. He likely would have been given even more touches Thursday, but he was briefly benched after losing a fumble. And as good as Miller looked otherwise, the fumble play was head scratching. Why didn’t he just run to the left, which almost certainly would have resulted in an easy touchdown? Poor vision aside on that play, Miller was highly impressive and hopefully continues to separate himself from Daniel Thomas down the stretch. The RB landscape right now in fantasy football might be as dire as it’s ever been, so him becoming something even close to a workhorse would be a welcome sight.

I actually did think Brian Hartline got both feet in during his big catch late in the fourth quarter, but how is that not at least reviewed? The booth blew that…Early in the third quarter, a Jermaine Gresham hold prevented yet another Marvin Jones TD. It would’ve been Jones’ seventh score over the past four games….Facing a Dolphins defense that entered having allowed the second-most fantasy points to opposing tight ends, Gresham and Tyler Eifert combined to secure just six of 11 targets for 47 yards and no scores…With 1:29 left in the fourth quarter on 3rd-and-four, I’m not sure why the Bengals attempted a pass that went 40 yards in the air…Miami didn’t run an offensive play in the third quarter until 2:03 was left…The over/under was 42.5 points in most places, so you're either feeling really lucky or are extremely upset right now if you bet that considering the total was 40 entering overtime...Cameron Wake was a beast, recording three sacks and both forcing and recovering a fumble.

During a 4th-and-1 situation in the first quarter, Mike Mayock said the Dolphins should definitely kick the field goal. When Caleb Sturgis then missed the 34-yard attempt, making him successful on just one of his previous six attempts, there was no second-guessing the decision making (or his own recommendation). I promise he (and this goes for every announcer/color commentator) would’ve criticized them if they had gone for it but fallen short. This drives me crazy (and of course, regardless of outcome, the no-brainer decision there was to go for it)…After getting beaten by Mike Wallace in overtime, Terrence Newman smartly tackled him, as a 38-yard pass interference penalty was better than a game-ending 86-yard touchdown, and I especially appreciated it as someone facing Wallace in a fantasy league.

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Blake Griffin and Chris Paul hook up for 3 straight massive alley-oop dunks (Video)

Running buddies. (Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images)

As you might have expected, given the matchup, offense was a much bigger story than defense in the first half of Thursday's West Coast contest between the Los Angeles Clippers (the NBA's No. 4 offense a year ago, fueled by the Chris Paul-Blake Griffin tandem) and the Golden State Warriors (No. 10, sparked by the white-hot shooting of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson). The pair of point-scoring powerhouses combined for 123 points in 24 minutes, shooting a combined 49.4 percent from the floor and 42.9 percent from 3-point range, giving viewers at home nearly as much offense in a half as the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks managed in four full quarters in the early game of TNT's first doubleheader of the 2013-14 NBA season.

Midway through the third quarter, though, the Clippers' attention turned to defense as the Warriors' attention turned to, I don't know, tilt-a-whirls, or perhaps the exact nature of the limitless energy directed through the Quantum Bands worn by the Marvel superhero Quasar. (Whatever it was on, it wasn't crisp offensive basketball, is the point.) That combination of attention and inattention allowed the Clippers to get out in transition and, as you might have heard, they can be pretty good at that — as they showed on three consecutive monstrous Paul-to-Griffin hookups:

There are a lot of ways to score six points in an NBA game; this one, I think it's fair to say, ranks among the most stylish. (Go back and watch where Blake took off on No. 2. And then go back and watch it again. And watch it one more time, since, apparently, these things come in threes.)

This sequence, which spanned all of 32 seconds of game time, didn't put the Warriors away or anything — far from it, considering the Warriors have a couple of guys who can score six points pretty stylishly themselves — but it did remind us that, whether Griffin or anyone else wants us to bury the moniker in a pine box 6 feet deep, this iteration of the Clippers will always be located somewhere within the greater Lob City metropolitan area.

Video via Maxa711Clips.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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NHL Three Stars: Lundqvist blanks Sabres; Coyotes comeback on Predators

Getty Images No. 1 Star: Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers

Lunqvist recorded his 47th career shutout with 29 saves during a 2-0 blanking of the Buffalo Sabres. Goals from Derick Brassard and Chris Kreider were enough to give the Rangers their second straight win since coming off a nine-game road trip to start the season. Kreider's came off a bad angle bank shot:

No. 2 Star: Thomas Greiss, Phoenix Coyotes

The first period wasn't kind to him, but Greiss recovered and helped the Coyotes to a 5-4 shootout victory over the Nashville Predators. After allowing three goals in the opening 20 minutes, Greiss settled down and ended up making 36 saves and made sure none of the six Nashville shooters beat him in the shootout. In the process, his teammates dug themselves out of a 3-0 hole with two goals in each of the second and third periods.

No. 3 Star: Ryan Miller, Buffalo Sabres

Miller was the only positive for the Sabres in their loss to the Rangers with his 44 saves. Afterward, Miller said of the team's troubles, "When everyone wants this to stop, it’ll stop."

Honorable mention: Marc Staal played in his 400th NHL game and Dan Girardi his 500th ... Zdeno Chara scored a game-tying power play goal with 2:50 left in the third period and Jarome Iginla netted the only goal in the shootout as the Boston Bruins edged the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 ... Carl Soderberg (Bruins) and Jordan Szwarz (Coyotes) each scored their first NHL goals ... With the win, Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett tied Bob Francis for the franchise lead in wins (165).

Did You Know? "Boston's one shot in the first was its fewest in a period since getting just one in the third period of a win over New Jersey on Jan. 5, 2008." (AP)

Dishonorable mention: Opponents are outscoring the Sabres 20-2 in the first period this season ... Anaheim's power play went 0-for-4 and fell to 4-for-55 on the season, good enough for last in the league ... Matt Hendricks left the game for the Predators in the first period after hitting his face on the ice in the aftermath of a collision with Derek Morris.

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Bad Andy Dalton emerges in Bengals’ brutal loss

Andy Dalton (USA Today Sports Images) Earlier on Thursday, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton was named the NFL's Offensive Player of the Month for October for his brilliant, four-game run up to Thursday night's loss to the Miami Dolphins.

Did the league forget that October had one more day?

Dalton threw for 338 yards but was picked three times — all in crucial situations. Two of the three were on Dalton, thrown against coverage in which the Dolphins corners were squatting on underneath routes.

The first one was right before the half, with the Dolphins nursing a 7-3 lead. Dalton had driven the Bengals to their own 35-yard line with 33 seconds left, hoping to get in range for strong-legged kicker Mike Nugent. Dalton, though, underthrew A.J. Green on the comeback route, and Dolphins corner Dimitri Patterson undercut it for the pick. The Dolphins kicked a field goal before the half to make it a 10-3 lead.

Dalton's next pick was his worst. With the Bengals knocking on the door at the Dolphins' 10-yard line and the score still 10-3, threw the ball on the "out" route where it absolutely could not go — to the inside of Marvin Jones, who had gained separation on his man. Instead, Dolphins corner Brent Grimes jumped on it, picked off the pass and raced 94 yards the other way for a huge momentum-killing score.

The third interception actually came on one of Dalton's best throws of the night. With the safety drafting toward Green to Dalton's left, he made the right read and floated a gorgeous pass into traffic to Muhamed Sanu in traffic down the seam. But Sanu couldn't catch the pass that hit his hand, and linebacker Dannell Ellerbe snagged it for the INT in a 17-17 game and the Bengals possessing all the momentum. (The referees missed the helmet-to-helmet call from Jimmy Wilson on Sanu, for what it's worth.)

Dalton did a lot of good things, but way too many bad ones, in the loss. Not all of it was his fault — there were at least four drops, and the pass protection was weak on some key plays — but Dalton needs to shoulder some of the blame. He seemingly had turned the corner in the past month, but Thursday was a big setback.

It was punctuated with the walk-off safety in overtime.

The Bengals might have lost their chance at a Super Bowl with the devastating Geno Atkins injury. But they certainly will not get there without Dalton playing better than he did in the Dolphins loss.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Dolphins beat Bengals on walk-off safety in Halloween nightmare for the visitors

The Cincinnati Bengals made history Thursday night and suffered a brutal loss in the process, falling 22-20 on a walk-off safety by Cameron Wake in overtime.

Even with the heroics of Giovani Bernard, who ripped off an insane touchdown run that shifted the momentum back in the Bengals' favor after a 17-3 deficit, they couldn't stop the Dolphins from tying the game in regulation and winning it in overtime.

Wake's sack of Andy Dalton capped off the miserable game for the Bengals, who blew countless opportunities to win a fun but ugly game in Miami. There was some dispute whether Dalton had gotten out of the end zone on the play, but it was reviewed by the booth and upheld.

Dalton finished with 338 yards, his fourth straight 300-yard game, but he also threw three interceptions. One was a perfect throw and not his fault on a bad Mohamed Sanu drop (plus a missed helmet-to-helmet call by the officials), but the other two were undercut "out" routes that Dalton threw off target — and one was run back 94 yards for a touchdown by Dolphins corner Brent Grimes after the Bengals were knocking on the door.

Dalton also took two red-zone sacks, and fumbled on one of them (also a Wake sack, when Andre Smith was beaten to the outside), in the first half. But he was haunted by drops, too, with at least two each from A.J. Green and Sanu. Green had a big night with a career-high 11 catches for 128 yards, and Bernard was outstanding with 104 yards from scrimmage and two scores.

But Bernard left with a rib injury and All Pro defensive tackle Geno Atkins left on a cart with a first-half right knee injury. Neither returned to the game, and the news doesn't appear to be good on Atkins, of whom Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said had "an ACL situation."

The Dolphins deserve some praise in what was a brutal October, with four straight losses coming in after a 3-0 start. The other bad news this week was the disturbing story about Jonathan Martin leaving the team amid talk of him being hazed by teammates. But Wake and a feisty defense, coupled with a solid run game — especially after Atkins left — allowed the Dolphins to even their record to .500 through eight games.

All around, though, it was a horrific Halloween nightmare for the Bengals, who were just starting to show themselves as a Super Bowl contender coming into the game. Instead, they fall to 6-3, their credentials are in doubt following such a sloppy game and they now must hold their collective breaths over the Bernard and Atkins injuries.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Derrick Rose hits game-winner in regular-season home return to push Bulls past Knicks (Video)

Derrick Rose sent Bulls fans home happy. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

He'd been cold for most of the game, going just 6 for 22 from the floor, but with his Chicago Bulls trailing the New York Knicks by one and 10.8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, there wasn't a single soul watching who believed anybody else but Derrick Rose was getting the ball ... and in his first regular-season game back at the United Center since April 2012, Chicago's point guard delivered.

After leading by as many as 13 points, the Bulls trailed 81-80 in the final minute after going ice-cold from the field and allowing the Knicks to rip off a 15-4 run that spanned nearly eight minutes. But Knicks center Tyson Chandler split a pair of free throws at with just under 11 seconds left, leaving the door open for the Bulls to re-take the lead if they could shake their shivers and find an elusive answer.

Mr. Rose, please report to the red courtesy phone:

Rose broke free early on that final possession due to what appeared to be some miscommunication by the Knicks. Point guard Raymond Felton was guarding the inbounds pass (although he had his back to Luol Deng while watching Rose) and Iman Shumpert was unable to get around a sound screen set by Carlos Boozer at the left elbow, allowing Rose to sprint clear to the right wing.

Felton hustled to recover, and Knicks center Tyson Chandler disengaged from Chicago counterpart Joakim Noah to sink to the paint, putting two bodies between Rose and the basket, but after catching with a head of steam, Rose got his spot on the right baseline and uncorked a floater, finding the touch that had seemed to elude him for much of his first two games back from surgery to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament he suffered in his left knee during the first game of the Bulls' 2012 postseason run.

New York had a chance to tie, getting the ball down a point with just over five seconds left, but a contested Carmelo Anthony 3-pointer was off the mark and Chandler's put-back attempt was unsuccessful, giving the Bulls an 82-81 win in their home opener. Both teams now stand at 1-1 on the year.

Rose finished with a team-high 18 points on 7 for 23 shooting to go with six rebounds and three assists in 34 minutes. Deng added 17 (8 for 15 from the field) plus six assists without a turnover and strong defense on Anthony in 40 minutes of playing time. Noah chipped in 15 rebounds and five assists in the win.

Anthony led the Knicks with a game-high 22 points, albeit on 8 for 24 shooting, to go with six rebounds, six assists, six steals and two blocks. Chandler looked sensational, grabbing 19 rebounds and blocking four shots, and keying a defensive run that held Chicago to just 11 points on 2 for 15 shooting in the fourth quarter of what was, frankly, an ugly game, as the two teams combined to shoot just 38.3 percent from the floor. One of the two makes, though, was the one that gave the Bulls a win in Rose's return. It doesn't mean that the 2010-11 MVP's all the game, but it still makes for a pretty nice homecoming.

Video via Maxa711Clips.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Run of the year? Giovani Bernard makes a case with sidewinding TD romp (GIF)

Please, can Giovani Bernard play more than, um, half the snaps?

The leading candidate for the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year — granted, it's a slow year on that side of the ball — has been a super playmaker for the Cincinnati Bengals this season.

But it can be frustrating to watch his coaches keep him on the sidelines so much. After Thursday's sidewinding touchdown run, however, they might not have any more excuses to do so.

Bernard ran right, was walled off, reversed field 10 yards into his own backfield, went all the way to the far sideline and — with Andy Dalton as a lead blocker — ripped off a 35-yard touchdown that required him to run about three times that distance all told.

Brilliant stuff. We might have paired it up with Lamar Miller's run earlier in the game, except Miller coughed it up once he entered the red zone.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Rory McIlroy is leading the HSBC Champions thanks to an opening 7-under 65

Rory McIlroy — Getty Images To say that 2013 has been a disappointment for Rory McIlroy would be an incredible understatement. The former No. 1 player in the world not only failed to win a major for a third straight season, but didn't win a single golf tournament all season, struggling in the majors and looking confused by his golf swing all year.

A duel against Tiger Woods might have been just the thing that got McIlroy going, and his golf swing, and putting stroke, seemed to be locked in at the final World Golf Championship event of the year. McIlroy opened with a round of 7-under 65, carding eight birdies and looking in total control of his game all day at the Sheshan International Golf Club in China.

Rory leads a pretty salty leaderboard by two shots heading into the second round, and below are some highlights of his opening round at the HSBC Champions.

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Shane Bacon is the editor of Devil Ball Golf and Busted Racquet on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shanebaconblogs@yahoo.com or

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The Hot Seat: Northwestern visits Nebraska as both teams are coming off losses

(USA Today Sports Images)

Welcome to The Hot Seat, where each week we will preview a game that could make a coach's season or maybe end his tenure. It's Big 10 time.

The circumstances surrounding Northwestern and Nebraska as the two teams get set to meet on Saturday are not what we thought they'd be.

Nebraska still has legitimate dreams of a Big 10 title and a Rose Bowl berth, but they were tampered significantly with Saturday's loss at Minnesota. Northwestern had those dreams too, especially after being 4-0 and hosting Ohio State and College Gameday.

Now after four consecutive losses, those dreams are gone. Well, they could still be there. They're just not realistic.

Questions surrounded Bo Pelini's status as Nebraska head coach following the Huskers' loss to UCLA in September and the leak of the 2011 audio of his comments about Nebraska fans. Those suspicions about his future arose again after Nebraska was soundly outplayed at Minnesota. This is the once-strong (and still fairly mighty) Nebraska football program after all. Lots of fans and former players won't stand for losing to Minnesota and UCLA in the same season.

Is it fair? Well, those expectations come with the job, even if Nebraska will never be realistically what it once was in the Tom Osborne era. And while Bo has nothing to do with what's happened at Florida Atlantic, the questions about his brother are inevitably going to be asked after the game on Saturday. His response to them is likely going to depend heavily on the result of the football game.

Pat Fitzgerald is entrenched at Northwestern. It's become his program. But that ownership is in both losing and winning. A year after breaking its bowl losing streak, Northwestern is on a losing streak that's similar to what it endured a two years ago. In 2011, the Wildcats lost four Big 10 games in a row (and five overall) before defeating Indiana and... Nebraska. And that was in Lincoln, nonetheless. That's the only conference game that Nebraska has lost in its Big Ten tenure.

Plus, a Northwestern victory puts them just one win away from bowl eligibility with a winnable game against Illinois remaining. If it happens, the reaction after the UCLA and Minnesota games could be just the prelude for Pelini.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Metta World Peace took the subway from Queens to his first game with the Knicks

Metta World Peace and a nice young lady share a moment on the F train. (Photo via @jimbaumbach)

What, you expected Metta World Peace to drive to Madison Square Garden? Clearly, you've never tried taking the L.I.E. inbound in the late afternoon or fighting Fifth Avenue at rush hour. No, as any New York transit veteran knows, the smart move is to hop on the F and take it to 34th Street-Herald Square ... which is precisely what the Queensbridge native, former St. John's University standout and newly minted New York Knicks forward did before his team's season-opening matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday, as reported by fellow commuter Jim Baumbach of Newsday:

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The vibrations of the arriving F train getting louder by the second, the man formerly known as Ron Artest stood up from the bench where he had been sitting (next to a surprised fan, of course) and laughed as he watched the train come to stop.

"This," he said, "is something I've always wanted to do."

Then he boarded the subway car, bound for the Garden. [...]

As he took the F into the city, World Peace spoke with Baumbach about how the actual separation between Queensbridge and MSG — about four miles and 20 or so minutes on the train — differed from how long it took him, and how far he had to go, to make the trip himself:

Of course he was disappointed that the Knicks passed on him in 1999 to take Frederic Weis, who never played a game for them. But the St. John's product has come to believe that he was too immature then to handle what comes with playing at home.

"I was 19 years old, making a ton of money and I didn't know what to do with it," he said while riding the train, occasionally glancing out the window behind him for signs of where he was.

Throughout his career, he said he entertained thoughts of joining the Knicks, but said he didn't think the interest ever was reciprocated. Eventually, he said he figured it wasn't meant to be for him.

"I never thought this day would come," he said.

Nor did a lot of us.

After all, the former Ron Artest's NBA career had spanned 14 seasons and five franchises before this summer, and while New York fans who love World Peace's hard-nosed defense and, shall we say, colorful demeanor had always wished for a '99 draft do-over, it never seemed like a realistic possibility that he'd get back to the Big Apple, whether in trade (there was some smoke back in 2007, but evidently no fire) or his lone entry into free agency (the Cleveland Cavaliers were allegedly interested in him during the summer of '09, but he wound up signing with the Los Angeles Lakers). But then this offseason rolled around, and the Lakers needed to pare down their luxury tax bill, and the Knicks needed a cheap frontcourt defender. Peas, meet carrots.

World Peace's first game as a Knick went about as expected — a few nice defensive plays, a few somewhat scary offensive possessions, a bit less mobility and deterrence at age 33 than in his bruising prime, and a warm welcome from the fans at the World's Most Famous Arena. Metta finished with four points, four rebounds, a steal and a turnover in 18 minutes of run in the Knicks' 90-83 home-opening win over the Milwaukee Bucks. I'm not sure if he took the train home afterward, but if he did, at least we know he went home having successfully experienced the satisfying conclusion of a journey some 15 years in the making.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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Former safety Hamza Abdullah goes on long Twitter rant against NFL, references thoughts of suicide

(USA Today Sports Images)

For four seasons, I covered Hamza Abdullah in Denver. He was friendly, smart, and I can't remember seeing him get angry. My interactions with him were the limited ones between player and reporter, but he was always calm.

That's why Abdullah's rant against the NFL from his verified Twitter account, cussing the league repeatedly for not caring more about players' well being, was so shocking. The former NFL safety talked about death and whether his family would be better off without him, and feared the thoughts that creep into his head. He implied that he has had suicidal thoughts.

Knowing Abdullah's mellow public demeanor, his raw anger put a very harsh light on the issue of player safety and their well being in retirement.

A lot of Abdullah's string of angry messages had expletives, but here's an edited excerpt (the first post about the NFL is at the bottom, and continues by scrolling up):

Abdullah also cussed NFL commisisoner Roger Goodell and the NFL Players Association.

Abdullah broke in with the Broncos and played for them from 2005-08, and played with the Cardinals from 2009-2011. He talked about two incidents, both in 2007, in which he was knocked out. He said the first time, "they said I lost my contact." The second time he was knocked out, less than a month later, "they said I got poked in the eye!" He had another angry tweet about the NFL misdiagnosing injuries. He said the reason players cover up injuries is because their contracts aren't guaranteed.

Abdullah said all players should see a psychiatrist once a week after leaving the game, and he shouldn't have to pay $120 a week to "save my (expletive) life," that the NFL should pay for it.

The most frightening part of his Twitter messages came when he talked about thoughts of death. He said "How many former players have to kill themselves before you guys (expletive) realize, that they're pushing us to it."

We've seen and read enough stories of long-term brain injuries and former players having personality changes after leaving the game to know it's not an issue that will go away, just because the NFL settled the concussion lawsuits earlier this year. Abdullah just turned 30 years old. Most of his life is still ahead of him.

Seeing these thoughts from Abdullah, and knowing how uncharacteristic those messages seem from the cheerful player I covered years ago, should make everyone wonder how many former players are dealing with the same kind of strife and dark thoughts after leaving the game, and how the NFL can do more to help them.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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