Murray vows to learn from defeat

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Favre Era Over in Green Bay as Rodgers Takes Lambeau Leap

Plenty of winners, losers left in the aftermath of Brady's knee injury

The Chargers have been eliminated from the playoffs by the Patriots the past two seasons.

Who are the winners and losers now that New England quarterback Tom Brady is out for the season with a left knee injury? We thought you'd never ask....

• Who wins?: The San Diego Chargers. The defending AFC champion Patriots have had the Chargers' number the last two years, beating them three times in that span, including in the 2006 AFC Divisional round and in the 2007 AFC Championship Game. Without Brady pulling the trigger, the Chargers no longer have quite so much reason to fear the NFL's team of the decade.

And remember, San Diego was still in the game in the fourth quarter of the 2007 AFC title game in Foxboro, despite no LaDainian Tomlinson and quarterback Philip Rivers playing through his own knee ligament injury. This year, the Chargers' only shot at New England may wind up being their highly anticipated Week 6 regular-season matchup in San Diego. Who'd a thunk it?

• Who loses?: The NFL. There's no bigger star in the league than Brady -- sorry Peyton -- and it's a major downer for Roger Goodell's kingdom to lose the league's reigning MVP in Week 1. In a league that spends millions to project (and protect) its image, Brady has been the clef-chinned face of the NFL for a while now, a walking, talking billboard for all that the league is trying to sell. The absence of his unique star power in 2008 lessens more than just the Patriots, it lessens the NFL brand.

The games, of course, will go on, and the train always keeps moving in the NFL. But subtracting Mr. Glamour from the league's glamour team -- in Week 1, no less -- is the worst-case scenario loss for the glamour-loving NFL.

• Who wins?: The Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and Tennessee Titans. I'm not ready to bury the Patriots' chances to defend their division title -- in fact, I still think they'll scrape out 10 wins -- but obviously the Bills and Jets now have legitimate AFC East title hopes where they once only figured to be factors in the conference's wild-card chase. The Patriots still have a very talented roster, but in an NFL that is always a quarterback-dominated world, they wouldn't be the first good team to be doomed by sub-par play at the game's most pivotal position.

Outside the AFC East, the way I plot it out, a team like the Titans that might benefit most from New England coming back to the AFC pack. Tennessee went 10-6 and made the playoffs as a wild-card team last year, and if you still believe that the AFC South will come down to a fight between Indianapolis and Jacksonville, then the Titans might be the team well-positioned to benefit from a Patriots' slide.

• Who loses?: Bill Belichick's coaching reputation. Remember, before Brady started a game in New England, Belichick's record with the Patriots was 5-13 and he was already hearing the drumbeat of speculation regarding his job security. Since Brady took over for the injured Drew Bledsoe in Week 3 of 2001, he's 101-27 as a starter, including playoffs. With Belichick's reputation already having taken a hit last year due to Spygate and New England's shocking Super Bowl loss, being reduced to just another head coach forced to play out a season with his backup quarterback registers as another potentially damaging blow.

Either that or it's another chance to prove his coaching mettle, by answering the question we've all wondered about for years now: Whether Belichick's success with the Patriots had much more to do with Brady than anyone could ever calculate? We're about to find out.

• Who wins?: Matt Cassel. The ex-USC backup to Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart very nearly played his way off New England's roster last month with a horrible preseason showing in which he failed to lead the Patriots to a touchdown on any of the 17 drives he quarterbacked. But he snapped that streak on his first drive of the regular season against Kansas City on Sunday, and now he has the golden opportunity to at least pull off a minor version of what Brady himself accomplished in 2001, when he exceeded all expectations in relief of Bledsoe.

For a guy who hasn't started a meaningful game at quarterback since high school, what more could Cassel ask for than to inherit the reins of the Patriots offense, which obliterated a host of NFL records just last year?

• Who loses?: The Colts-Patriots rivalry. I don't know about you, but Week 9 in the NFL just won't be the same this year. For three consecutive years, the league has scheduled a New England-Indianapolis game for Week 9, and the NFL's premier rivalry has not disappointed. But who knows what it will mean by the time we get to early November this year?

For the first time, it won't be Brady versus Manning, and for all we know the game may not even feature a pair of playoff-bound teams. The Colts were humiliated at home against the lowly Bears Sunday night, and the Patriots needed a Dwayne Bowe-dropped touchdown pass in the final minute to avoid being taken to overtime at home against the even lowlier Chiefs.

And while we're at it, we just got cheated out of two games of Brady versus Brett Favre in the AFC East wars, which was the potential Super Bowl matchup that almost everyone seemed to be hoping for in February. Now? Depending on Brady's rehabilitation, and Favre's year-by-year decision-making when it comes to retirement, it's possible that No. 12 and No. 4 never meet again.

• Who wins?: Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris and LaMont Jordan. Without Brady leading the aerial circus in New England, look for the Patriots to marginally re-invent themselves as an offensive team that puts increased emphasis on the running game and less demands on an inexperienced quarterback like Cassel. That's where running backs Maroney, Morris and Jordan should benefit, with all of them getting a larger workload than expected this season.

The Patriots will likely prioritize a much more balanced attack than their pass-heavy approach of last season. And there's no way they'll put Cassel in the shotgun formation 70 percent of the time, as they did Brady last year. Later in the season, when the weather turns colder and the elements become very much a factor in the AFC East, we could see New England morph into more of a smash-mouth team that tries to shorten the game and lessen the passing game load that will rest on Cassel's young shoulders.

• Who loses?: Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Jabar Gaffney. No matter who's playing quarterback, the Patriots will still try and get the ball into Moss's big-play-making hands every chance they get. But without Brady looking for Moss first on almost every play, there's no way the 11th-year receiver will come close to matching his monster, record-breaking numbers of last year (98 catches for 1,493 yards, 23 touchdowns). Moss will be busy, but it won't be last year's magic carpet ride.

The two receivers who stand to suffer the most in terms of statistical slippage with Cassel at the helm are Welker and Gaffney, the team's No. 2 and No. 3 pass-catchers. Welker was a chains-mover extraordinaire last year, catching a whopping 112 passes for 1,175 yards, and making many of his receptions seem like little more than extended hand-offs. Gaffney too had his moments, albeit with a relatively quiet 36 receptions for 449 yards and five touchdowns. New England can't possibly make up for that kind of passing-game production with Brady down for the count.

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Pioneer Haskins dies at 78

Don Haskins, photographed here in 1976, won 719 games in his career.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- The glow from Don Haskins' greatest triumph was mostly a memory when Disney decided to take another look.

Then came the movie "Glory Road" and a whole new generation learned what Bob Knight already knew about his old friend's career -- and legacy.

"Don got more out of his teams and players than any coach who has ever coached college basketball," Knight said.

Haskins, the Hall of Fame coach credited with helping break color barriers in college sports in 1966 when he used five black starters to win a national basketball title for Texas Western, died Sunday. He was 78.

Dr. Dwayne Aboud, Haskins' physician, told reporters Sunday that Haskins had been suffering from congestive heart failure and died at home about 4:30 p.m. MDT. He was surrounded by friends and relatives, Aboud said.

"As many of you know, Coach Haskins has had some cardiac problems. He opted not to go back to the hospital but to remain at home," Aboud said, standing outside the UTEP basketball arena named for Haskins.

As word of Haskins' death spread Sunday afternoon, those who knew him were quick to sing his praises.

"The word unique does not begin to describe Don Haskins," Knight, the winningest men's coach in the sport's history, said Sunday. "There is no one who has ever coached that I respected and admired more than Don Haskins. I've had no better friend that I enjoyed more than Don Haskins."

"The myth that surrounds Don Haskins in the movie 'Glory Road' and what he did for black players is better said that he cared like that for all his players," Knight added. "To me that tells me more about the man than anything. ... There was never anyone like him before and there will never be one like him again."

Haskins, who was white, was an old-time coach who believed in hard work and was known for his gruff demeanor. That attitude was portrayed in the 2006 movie that chronicled Haskins' improbable rise to national fame in the 1966 championship game against an all-white, heavily favored Kentucky team coached by Adolph Rupp.

Nolan Richardson, who coached Arkansas to a national title, played for two years under Haskins.

"I think one of the truest legacies that he could ever leave was what happened in 1966. He was never political. Those were the times and the days the black kids didn't play at other schools, but he started five and was able to win with them without worrying about what color they were," Richardson said.

Haskins retired in 1999 after 38 seasons at the school. He had a 719-353 record and won seven Western Athletic Conference titles. He took UTEP to 14 NCAA tournaments and to the NIT seven times and briefly worked as an adviser with the Chicago Bulls.

Haskins, 19th on the Division I men's victory list, turned down several more lucrative offers, including one with the now-defunct American Basketball Association, to remain at UTEP as one of the lowest paid coaches in the WAC.

Former coach Eddie Sutton said Haskins "had a tremendous impact on the college game. Anybody who's been around college basketball dating back to those days, they've seen how it changed after Texas Western won the national championship."

Sutton said he hadn't talked to Haskins for at least six weeks.

"Don had not been in good health and was having a hard time," Sutton said. "He'll be dearly missed. He was a great basketball coach."

Haskins, born in Enid, Okla., played for Hall of Fame coach Henry "Hank" Iba at Oklahoma State, back when the school was still Oklahoma A&M. Haskins was later an assistant under Iba for the 1972 U.S. Olympic team in Munich.

As a coach, Haskins became a star early in his career by leading his Miners to the 1966 NCAA championship game, then making the controversial decision to start five blacks against Kentucky. The Miners won 72-65, and shortly after that many schools began recruiting black players.

"He took a school that had no reason to be a basketball giant and made it into one," Knight said.

Haskins said he wasn't trying to make a social statement with his lineup; he was simply starting his best players. The move, however, raised the ire of some who sent Haskins hate mail and even death threats during the racially charged era.

"When they won the national championship against the University of Kentucky, that changed college basketball," Sutton said. "At that time, there weren't many teams in the South or Southwest that had African-Americans playing. There was a change in the recruiting of the black athlete. It really changed after that. They've had a great impact on the game."

The coach always was focused on the game of basketball. He had a reputation for working his players hard.

"Our practices wore us out so much that we'd have to rest up before the games," said Harry Flournoy, a starter in the 1966 championship. "If you work hard all the time and if you go after every loose ball, you see things like that (championship) happen."

Haskins helped Nate Archibald, Tim Hardaway and Antonio Davis, among others, make it to the NBA.

In November 2000, Haskins was awarded the John Thompson Foundation's Outstanding Achievement Award during a tournament hosted by Arkansas.

"We couldn't think of anyone that deserves this recognition more than coach Haskins," Richardson said. "He opened the door for African-American players to play basketball."

Former UTEP and current Kentucky coach Billy Gillespie said every conversation he had with Haskins left an impression.

"I looked forward to the phone calls after each and every game. He was watching almost every game of our team," Gillespie said. "It was just like having another coach on the bench present at every single practice. I took every single thing he said to heart. I knew he didn't have any agenda, he was just trying to help one of his friends win a game."

Doc Sadler, also a former UTEP coach and now head coach at Nebraska, said Haskins called frequently last season just to discuss strategy and outcome.

"If you were one of his guys, you were one of his guys," Sadler said. "He was bigger than life. The word I was told was that he was the John Wayne of college basketball. He had that much respect."

Haskins was hired in 1961 as a virtual unknown. Ben Collins, the school's athletic director at the time, said he consulted people who knew more about basketball than he did. And from the beginning, Collins said Sunday, he never had a second thought.

"He was a success almost from his first year," Collins said. "That in itself speaks a lot about his ability as a basketball coach."

Haskins' health had been an issue for several years, stretching back to his final season at UTEP when he was often forced to remain seated during games. The program that Haskins built struggled after twice being slapped with NCAA sanctions. Serious health concerns continued in his retirement. In the midst of a series of book signings and other appearances Haskins was hospitalized with various woes.

In recent weeks his health had declined rapidly, prompting friends and some former players to make special visits to see the ailing coach.

"It was a blessing ... for us to go by and visit with Coach Haskins," said Togo Railey, a guard/forward for Haskins' 1966 team.

"He was still just full of life, as sick as he was. We talked about of our old friends. Don, as sick as he was, had a little smirk on his face and was telling jokes and fibbing on one and another. It was just a blessing."

After his retirement, Haskins kept close ties with the Miners. The school's most recent hire, Tony Barbee, said he even met with Haskins just after accepting the job.

"We are losing a national treasure," Barbee said. "I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know him over the last two years. The information he shared with me was invaluable to a first-time head coach. He is a Hall of Fame coach and a Hall of Fame person."

UTEP athletic director Bob Stull called Haskins an "icon."

"He has had a huge impact on the city and the University of Texas at El Paso," Stull said. "He remains one of the most revered and honored coaches in basketball history. His decision to start five black players in the 1966 national championship game ... changed college basketball and the sports world. He will always be remembered for that."

Haskins is survived by wife Mary and son Brent, David and Steve. A fourth son, Mark, died in 1994.

Brent Haskins said the family would likely schedule a private funeral and burial before a public memorial service at UTEP.

"My father was beloved by the city of El Paso and he loved El Paso too," Brent Haskins said. "It was a mutual relationship."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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