The Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills faced similar decisions after another promising season ended short of the Super Bowl.

The Packers opted to give coach Matt LaFleur a contract extension in hopes that he can still get the team over the hump, while the Bills fired coach Sean McDermott following an unprecedented sixth straight season that featured a playoff win and no Super Bowl appearance.

LaFleur and McDermott were two of the four NFL coaches with at least seven seasons at their current spots and no Super Bowl titles, with Kyle Shanahan having just finished his ninth season with San Francisco and Zac Taylor his seventh in Cincinnati. Andy Reid is the longest tenured coach and has won three Super Bowl titles in 13 seasons in Kansas City.

The four long-term coaches without a title had success, combining for 25 playoff wins and 21 postseason appearances without winning it all. Shanahan lost twice in the Super Bowl in the 2019 and ’23 seasons, while Taylor fell short in 2021 with the Bengals.

Whether Shanahan, LaFleur or Taylor will break through and win it all at their current spots remains unknown, history shows that’s much less certain. Only one coach hired since the start of the Super Bowl era in 1966 won his first championship with a team later than his eighth season; Bill Cowher won it all with Pittsburgh after the end of his 14th season in 2005.

There have been 36 coaches to win a Super Bowl with Vince Lombardi, Weeb Ewbank, Hank Stram and Tom Landry all having been on the job before the first Super Bowl was played.

Of the other 32 winners, exactly half won their first title within their first three seasons with a team, while 12 others did it in the fourth or fifth season. The only ones besides to Cowher to take longer than five years were Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll (year six), Reid (year seven) and the Raiders’ John Madden (year eight).

There were more than 60 other coaches who had at least six seasons with a team who didn’t win it all.

McDermott’s eight playoff wins are the most for any coach in the Super Bowl era who hasn’t made it to the title game, and the Bills were the first team to win a playoff game in six straight seasons without reaching a Super Bowl.

Shanahan’s nine playoff wins are the fourth most for a coach who hasn’t won it all.

LaFleur has made the playoffs in six of seven seasons with Green Bay but has just three playoff wins to show for it and hasn’t made it past the divisional round since losing his second straight NFC title game in the 2020 season against Tampa Bay.

In all, there have been a record-tying 10 coaching changes this offseason, matching the previous high last reached in 2022. The only other seasons with 10 came in 2006, 1997 and 1978.

Only two of the 10 coaches hired four years ago remain on the job with Kevin O’Connell about to enter his fifth season in Minnesota and Todd Bowles the same in Tampa.

Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams, front, scores a touchdown after evading a tackle by Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson during the second half of an NFL football divisional playoff game Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

OT odds

The change in the playoff overtime rules that went into place when Kansas City knocked out Buffalo in the 2021 divisional round with an opening drive touchdown had a big impact on this season’s divisional round.

With both teams now guaranteed a chance at one possession even if the first team scores a touchdown, the choice of whether to take the ball or kick off in overtime is more complicated.

Shanahan chose getting the ball in the first game under the new rules in Super Bowl 58 and the 49ers lost when they settled for a field goal on the opening drive against Kansas City. The Chiefs drove for a game-ending TD — with help of a fourth-down conversion when the Chiefs knew they needed a score.

There were two overtime games this weekend and both teams that won the toss opted to kick, choosing the advantage of knowing what the first team did on the opening possession. While that is sound strategy if overtime lasts only two possessions, it is a disadvantage if the game is tied after two possessions. That’s what happened in both games this weekend.

Denver and the Rams both drove for winning field goals on the third possession of overtime when it was sudden death, taking advantage of the extra possession that the team that won the coin toss didn’t get.

Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Jarrett Stidham is tackled by Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle T.Y. McGill during the first half of an NFL preseason football game, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Quarterback shuffle

The injury that knocked Denver’s Bo Nix out of the playoffs has created a most unusual situation with Jarrett Stidham set to start the AFC title game after not throwing a single pass during a game the last two seasons.

When Stidham takes the field against New England on Sunday, it will be 749 days since his last pass attempt in the regular season or playoffs in Week 18 of the 2022 season against Las Vegas. According to the NFL research department, that will be more than double the previous longest stretch without a pass attempt by a playoff starter with Joe Webb having gone 370 days before his 2012 wild-card start for Minnesota against Green Bay.

Stidham’s four career starts are the fewest ever for a QB starting in a conference championship game — one fewer than Jeff Hostetler had when he started the 1990 NFC title game for the Giants. Hostetler had four career regular-season starts and had won the divisional round when he started that win over San Francisco.

The Broncos will be the ninth team to start multiple quarterbacks in the same postseason and will try to become the fifth to get wins from both. Buffalo was the last to do it when backup Frank Reich won two games in place of the injured Jim Kelly in the 1992 playoffs before Kelly returned and won the AFC title game. The Bills lost the Super Bowl to Dallas.

The 1972 Dolphins, who finished a perfect 17-0, were the only Super Bowl champions to use two starting quarterbacks in the playoffs with Earl Morrall winning the first two rounds before Bob Griese returned from a broken leg to win the Super Bowl.

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MILAN (AP) — Two Olympic cauldrons for the Milan Cortina Games will pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci.

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“For the first time in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, two cauldrons (in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo) will be lit and extinguished simultaneously in two different locations,” organizers said in a statement.

The design has been revealed and it is a sun-like structure that is inspired by Leonardo’s intricate knot patterns. Leonardo spent almost 25 years of his life in Milan and many of his most famous works are from his time in the city.

The cauldrons have been designed to open and close — with a diameter that expands from 3.1 meters to 4.5 meters — and will contain the Olympic flame at their core, encased in a glass and metal container.

The cauldron in Milan will be at the city’s Arco della Pace, while it will be in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

They will be lit simultaneously during the widespread opening ceremony on Feb. 6 and extinguished on Feb. 22. They will burn with the Paralympic flame from March 6-15.

There will also be a special show lasting three to five minutes, hourly at the Milan cauldron in the evenings during the Olympics.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By DAVE SKRETTA

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The best figure skater of his generation may just go down as the best of any generation. He’s capable of landing jumps nobody else can, with creativity that is nearly unmatched and plenty of artistry to go with all of his otherworldly execution.

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All that Ilia Malinin must do now is deliver on the Olympic stage.

The 20-year-old American phenom has waited four long years for the Milan Cortina Games, after he was controversially left off the U.S. team for the Beijing Olympics. It was primarily due to his age and inexperience — it certainly wasn’t due to his ability, which had already put him in rarified air — and it fueled Malinin during the past quadrennial to become the best in the world.

Malinin has won the past two world titles, the latest last year in Boston with relative ease. He hasn’t lost a competition in about two years, whether it be lower-level tune-ups, elite-level Grand Prix events or the national championships, where Malinin triumphed for the fourth consecutive time in St. Louis earlier this month.

The scores that he has posted along the way rival the best in history, including the standard set by his countryman, Nathan Chen.

“Ilia is a whole different, like, factor,” says his U.S. teammate, Amber Glenn. “I mean, he’s the son of two incredible figure skaters, and he’s just built, quite literally, different. And like, it’s insane. He’s both talented and hard working, and it’s amazing what he does.”

A family affair

Malinin’s Russian-born mother, Tatiana Malinina, competed at the 1998 Olympics for Uzbekistan, and won the prestigious Grand Prix Final the next year. His Russian-born father, Roman Skorniakov, competed for Uzbekistan at both the 1998 and 2002 Winter Games.

Malinin’s genes go deeper, though. His grandfather, Valery Malinin, competed for the Soviet Union and still coaches in Russia.

So it was never really a question whether he would go into the family business.

Malinin would tag along to the rink with his parents as a kid, though back then he preferred soccer to skating. But once he began to hit those big jumps that have become his hallmark, Malinin was committed. His parents coached him to the junior world title in 2022 after he had missed out on the Winter Games.

With Hall of Fame coach Rafael Arutyunyan soon joining his team, Malinin won his first senior U.S. title, then began winning on the Grand Prix stage. The gold medals soon began to pile up in the most elite competitions in figure skating.

“Ilia challenges himself constantly,” explains Arutyunyan, who coached Chen to gold at the Beijing Games. “Our biggest challenge is keeping the team of people who work with him on the same page. We’re all there for him when he needs his team most.”

Malinin has never needed it as much as now.

As the Milan Cortina Games draw nearer, the pressure is mounting, on the ice and off. Malinin has a number of corporate sponsors, and that comes with a certain amount of weight. His face is omnipresent in NBC spots leading up to its broadcast of the Olympics. And he is accosted by fans for photos and autographs just about everywhere he goes.

“With my team, we’ve been planning a strategic plan to prepare myself mentally and physically, so when I get to the Olympics, that’s when I’m at my peak,” Malinin told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview. “We’ve talked for months, and managing what I train and how I train specifically, and what I’m going to do at all the competitions leading up to the Olympics.”

In a class of his own

Malinin began his season by capturing the Lombardia Trophy, then he dominated the Grand Prix de France and Skate Canada, where his score of 333.81 was nearly 80 points better than second-place Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia.

In fact, his personal-best score nearly broke the world record of 335.30 points, set by Chen in 2019 at the Grand Prix Final.

Then, Malinin added another Grand Prix Final title of his own in December, and another national championship in January.

Malinin won that won easily, despite a dialed-back free skate as he sorted out some issues with a new set of skates.

“He has such a passionate fire for skating,” says his choreographer, Shae-Lynn Bourne. “He’s one of those that have skates on an hour before we work and an hour after we work. He just puts the time in, and he’s constantly — not just loves to skate, but he’s not someone who will ever coast, or just go on what he knows he can do. He constantly wants to be challenged.”

That’s why Malinin pushed himself to land the quad axel, a 4 1/2-rotation jump nobody else has landed in competition. And it was the impetus behind his signature “raspberry twist,” and a myriad other spins, leaps and moves that seem to defy gravity and logic.

“It’s been amazing to see him, not only how he deals with the pressure but how he’s really matured as a person,” says Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian. “We’re behind him every step of the way. Everyone feels that way.”

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By SAMY MAGDY

CAIRO (AP) — Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.

It was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October and comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.

The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, a 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.

The Israeli military said one strike came after it spotted and struck several people who were operating a drone in central Gaza that posed a threat to its troops.

A mounting death toll

The other 13-year-old was shot and killed by troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over his body on a hospital bed.

The boy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told The Associated Press that he left to gather firewood so she could cook.

“He went out in the morning, hungry,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”

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Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike on the central town of Zahraa hit a vehicle carrying three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman.

Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work in the newly established camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.

He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.

Video footage circulating online showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage, with debris scattered about.

Nasser Hospital officials also said they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.

In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.

The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire that stopped the war between Hamas and Israel went into effect in October.

More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

A mother’s plea

The first phase of the October ceasefire that paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas focused on the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza.

The bodies of all but one hostage have been returned to Israel. Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as Rani, was killed while fighting Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war. Gvili’s body still has not been recovered.

His relatives on Wednesday called again on the government and Trump to ensure the release of his remains.

“We need to continue to amplify Rani’s voice, explain about him, talk about him, and explain to the world that we, the people of Israel, will not give up on anyone,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said. She told the AP the family still doesn’t “really know where he is.”

Hamas said Wednesday it has provided “all information” it has on Gvili’s body to the ceasefire mediators, and accused Israel of obstructing search efforts in areas it controls in the Gaza Strip.

The ceasefire also allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food. But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war in 2023, and fuel for generators is scarce.

More than 100 children have died since the start of the ceasefire — including a 27-day-old girl who died from hypothermia over the weekend.

Israel targets more sites in Lebanon

Israel’s air force carried out strikes Wednesday in three villages in southern Lebanon that it said were part of the militant Hezbollah group’s infrastructure.

The strikes came more than an hour after the Israeli military issued warnings to evacuate the areas, including southern village of Qennarit, just south of the port city of Sidon.

Earlier Wednesday, two drone strikes hit cars in the villages of Bazouriyeh and Zahrani, killing two people, according to state-run National News Agency.

The strikes were the latest in near-daily Israeli military action since a ceasefire signed more than a year ago ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. The agreement included a Lebanese pledge to disarm militant groups, which Israel says has not been fulfilled.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.