sideline

Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid told reporters not to “make too much” of the sideline spat between him and star tight end Travis Kelce during the second quarter of the team’s 22-9 win over the New York Giants on “Sunday Night Football.”

NBC’s cameras caught the two men yelling at each other, with Reid at one point appearing to intentionally give Kelce’s shoulder a hard bump with his own shoulder. The Chiefs were up 6-0 at the time, but the offense had just failed to capitalize on a Giants turnover.

Going into halftime, as the confrontation with Kelce played on viewers’ screens, NBC’s Melissa Stark asked Reid what his message was to the team after seeing “a lot of frustration and emotion from your key players, star players on the sideline.”

“That’s OK, we need some juice,” said Reid, whose team had entered the game 0-2. “So that’s good.”

During his postgame news conference, Reid was asked what he had been trying to get across to Kelce during the exchange.

“I love Travis’ passion, and so I’m OK with that. We didn’t have enough of it,” Reid said. “That second quarter wasn’t where we needed to be. So within reason, you know, he knows — he knows when to back off the pedal, and knows when to push it too. So that’s part I love about him, the guy’s all in. Just sometimes I have to be the policeman.”

Reid added: “Listen, he’s an emotional guy. He’s Irish.”

Asked if the exchange was him telling Kelce to back off a bit, Reid answered: “Don’t make too much of it. He’s a passionate guy, and I love that part. So I’ve been through a lot of things with him, so that’s all part of it. I love that he loves to play the game. That’s what I love. And it’s an emotional game. So I’ll take it.”

Kelce wasn’t made available to speak to reporters after the game.

It’s not the first time the two men made contact during a sideline dispute. Early in the second quarter of Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers on Feb. 12, 2024, Kelce was seen yelling in his coach’s face, grabbing his arm and bumping into him, which appeared to cause Reid to stumble a bit.

After the Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime win in that game, Reid brushed off the incident, telling CBS that Kelce had hugged him and apologized after the incident.

“There’s nobody that I get better than I get him,” said Reid, who was 65 at the time. “He’s a competitive kid and he loves to play.”

Days later, on the “New Heights” podcast, Kelce expressed regret.

“It’s definitely unacceptable,” he said, “and I immediately wished I could take it back.”

On the same podcast, Kelce said: “Unfortunately, sometimes my passion comes out where it looks like it’s negativity, but I’m grateful that [Reid] knows that it’s all because I wanna win this thing with him more than anything.”

The Chiefs hadn’t started 0-2 since 2014, which was Kelce’s first year as a starter and Reid’s second as the team’s coach. The team has since played in five Super Bowls and won three.

This season is off to a slow start also for Kelce, a 10-time Pro Bowl selection. He has 10 catches in 17 targets for 134 yards and one touchdown. During the Chiefs’ 20-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 2, a pass from quarterback Patrick Mahomes bounced out of Kelce’s arms at the goal line and resulted in a game-changing interception by the Eagles’ Patrick Mukuba.

Also during the Philadelphia game, Kelce appeared to point to his crotch as part of a crude gesture aimed toward the opposing sideline after making a 23-yard reception. He was later fined $14,491 by the NFL for unsportsmanlike conduct.

LAS VEGAS — Welcome to Allegiant Stadium.

Remember to tip your Raiders.

The Chargers didn’t forget. They were the most generous tippers in town Monday night, with eight different players swatting away a total of 15 passes and intercepting three more in a 20-9 victory over their AFC West rivals.

It was a defensive masterpiece, one accomplished without star edge rusher Khalil Mack, whose arm was crunched on a tackle, and with linebacker Daiyan Henley — who at times appeared launched from a Circus Circus cannon — on the mend from a nasty stomach bug.

“At times it felt like there were more than 11 out there, especially in the secondary,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said.

Sometimes, a number is more than a number. For example, the Chargers are 2-0, but they’re even better than that because those two wins came against division opponents, counting the season-opening victory over Kansas City. The Chargers play their home opener Sunday against Denver with a chance to run the table on their first three of six division games.

Whereas quarterback Justin Herbert was in the spotlight in the win over the Chiefs, Monday’s game belonged to the defense — starting with Henley’s interception on the first play from scrimmage. He plucked a carom after teammate Alohi Gilman broke up Geno Smith’s first pass.

It was as if the supercharged stadium sprung a hissing leak.

“That’s deflating, bro,” Chargers safety Derwin James said. “It’s deflating to their coordinator — you’ve got your first 15 [plays] drawn up and the first play’s a pick? Very deflating.”

The play had the opposite effect on Henley, who felt so bad before the game his status was downgraded to questionable. He finished with a game-high 10 tackles and a sack.

“Saying I felt like crap is an understatement,” he said. “It was definitely a long game out there, but I got so much motivation just being part of this team, being with a group of guys that got my back no matter what.”

Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley celebrates after sacking Raiders quarterback Geno Smith in the fourth quarter on Monday night.

(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Tony Jefferson had an interception for the Chargers at the end of the first half, and Donte Jackson had one in the end zone near game’s end.

Raiders quarterback Geno Smith was 0 for 11 on passes thrown 10 or more yards downfield, the second-most attempts without a completion since ESPN began tracking the statistic in 2006.

Harbaugh heaped praise on James, calling him “the best safety I’ve ever seen in the history of the National Football League” and “Superman.”

“He was playing at the line of scrimmage, intermediate, deep half, blitzing off the edge,” the coach said. “He can play nickel, dime backer, corner — he’s a five-tool, maybe six-tool player. You’d have to compare him to Willie Mays.”

The Raiders generated 218 yards of offense, 171 fewer than their performance at New England the week before.

“What that really feels like is a real missed opportunity just in general,” Raiders coach Pete Carroll said.

“We didn’t play well enough on the offensive side with the turnovers that add up. … They covered us up pretty good. I’m anxious to see the film.”

That won’t be the feel-good movie of the summer.

The Chargers, meanwhile, spiraled in all the right ways. Herbert threw a laser to Keenan Allen in the back of the end zone, and a pristine rainbow to Quentin Johnston for a 60-yard touchdown. He spun his passes with mechanical precision.

“The guy is exactly what we thought he was for a long time now,” Henley said of Herbert. “He’s been out there controlling and commanding the game, not just the offense, but commanding the game. When we give him the ball, we understand that we can rest knowing that [he] is going to get the job done.”

If this was a yardstick game, the visitors measured up and the Raiders took a ruler-rap across the knuckles, losing to the Chargers for the fourth time in the past five meetings.

Allegiant Stadium crackled with energy for this opener, with Raiders minority owner Tom Brady wearing headphones in the coaches’ box, Lil Jon performing at halftime, and two football rockstars roaming the sidelines — Harbaugh and Carroll — longstanding rivals since their days at Stanford and USC, and San Francisco and Seattle.

Carroll became the first person to coach an NFL game at age 74, and youthful as he is, the game had to sap his spirit a bit. The Chargers were in control throughout.

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh and Raiders coach Pete Carroll shake hands after the Chargers’ win Monday.

(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Both teams are breaking in first-round running backs, rookies Omarion Hampton of the Chargers and Ashton Jeanty of the Raiders. Each made some impressive plays, yet neither was a true game-changer. Hampton absorbed a hit from Maxx Crosby and lost the ball on an exchange when the Chargers were trying to put the game on ice.

In the second half, the Raiders had a 19-play, 11-minute drive that resulted in a field goal, the crowd booing in frustration as the kicking unit ran onto the field. Like winning $5 on a $100 bet.

Two NFL teams have not allowed a first-half touchdown this young season: Green Bay and the Chargers.

Brady, a Fox NFL analyst on Sundays, was able to catch his team after working the Philadelphia-Kansas City game the night before.

He came a fairly long way, and his franchise has a fairly long way to go.

Bilateral meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts were a regular occurrence early in his 25-year tenure.

But as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, those meetings became increasingly less frequent, and their tone appeared less friendly.

Here’s what to know about past meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents:

Putin and Joe Biden

Putin and Biden met only once while holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.

Russia was massing troops on the border with Ukraine, where large swaths of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release.

Putin and Biden talked for three hours, with no breakthroughs. They exchanged expressions of mutual respect, but firmly restated their starkly different views on various issues.

They spoke again via videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded, and Putin demanded guarantees that Kyiv wouldn’t join NATO –- something Washington and its allies said was a nonstarter.

Another phone call between the two came in February 2022, less than two weeks before the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped cold, with no publicly disclosed conversations between them since the invasion.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met President Trump six times during the American’s first term — at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — but most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and openly questioned the firm finding by his own intelligence agencies.

His remarks were a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rattle Western allies in service of his political concerns.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Since Trump returned to the White House this year, he and Putin have had about a half-dozen publicly disclosed telephone conversations.

Putin and Barack Obama

President Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin became prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also traveled to the U.S.

Under Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously presented a big “reset” button to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in 2009. One problem: instead of “reset” in Russian, they used another word meaning “overload.”

After Putin returned to office in 2012, tensions rose between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow just as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing international condemnation.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War.

The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad further complicated ties. Putin and Obama last met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

Putin and President Bush met 28 times during Bush’s two terms, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. They hosted each other for talks and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S., met regularly on the sidelines of international summits and forums, and boasted of improving ties between onetime rivals.

After the first meeting with Putin in 2001, Bush said he “looked the man in the eye” and “found him very straightforward and trustworthy,” getting “a sense of his soul.”

In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that significantly reduced both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.

He has called Bush “a decent person and a good friend,” adding that good relations with him helped find a way out of “the most acute and conflict situations.”

Putin and Bill Clinton

President Clinton traveled to Moscow in June 2000, less than a month after Putin was inaugurated as president for the first time in a tenure that has stretched to the present day.

The two had a one-on-one meeting, an informal dinner, a tour of the Kremlin from Putin, and attended a jazz concert. Their agenda included discussions on arms control, turbulence in Russia’s North Caucasus region, and the situation in the Balkans.

At a news conference the next day, Clinton said Russia under Putin “has the chance to build prosperity and strength, while safeguarding that freedom and the rule of law.”

The two also met in July of that same year at the G8 summit in Japan, in September — at the Millennium Summit at the U.N. headquarters in New York, and in November at the APEC summit in Brunei.

In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last year, Putin said he asked Clinton in 2000 if Russia could join NATO, and the U.S. president reportedly said it was “interesting,” and, “I think yes,” but later backtracked and said it “wasn’t possible at the moment.” Putin used the anecdote to illustrate his point about the West’s hostility toward Russia, “a big country with its own opinion.”

“We just realized that they are not waiting for us there, that’s all. OK, fine,” he said.

Litvinova writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report.

Colorado football coach Deion Sanders addressed his health issues Monday during a news conference, acknowledging that he’d kept the worst of it a secret, not even informing his sons or his team.

Sanders said he had his bladder removed in May to address a cancerous tumor. His scan looked normal from the vascular side, he said, but a visit to Janet Kukreja, Sanders’ doctor at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, revealed the tumor.

Sanders, 57, opted for a bladder removal and creation of a new bladder to remove the cancer from the organ. He said he was fortunate and urged others not to delay getting medical attention when symptoms occur.

“Let’s stop being ashamed of it,” he said he decided. “Let’s deal with it. Let’s deal with it head on.

“This wasn’t easy. Everyone, get checked out. Because if it wasn’t for me getting tested for something else, they wouldn’t have stumbled upon this. …. This could have been a whole other gathering if I hadn’t. It’s been tough. I think I dropped about 25 pounds.”

He said urinating is, well, different now.

“I can’t pee like I used to pee,” he said. “I depend on Depends, if you know what I mean.”

Sanders said he has returned to coaching, and smiled when he said folks shouldn’t be surprised if they see a portable toilet on the sidelines during games this fall.

Sanders had been absent for several months, and he lauded his coaching staff for picking up the slack and not asking too many questions. He has long had blood circulation issues in his legs that led to the amputation of two toes and several surgeries since 2021.

“Thank God the [coaches] are good enough that I don’t have to babysit,” Sanders said. “They didn’t know. They found out yesterday like the rest of the team. The team that didn’t disclose this to anyone.”