Mohammad Hafeez has signed for Middlesex as AB de Villiers' replacement for three Vitality Blast games.

De Villiers' initial stint finished with a victory against Surrey last week, but he will return to the club for the final two games of the group stage, and the knockouts if Middlesex qualify.

Hafeez has been playing in the Global T20 Canada - he hit 85 runs in five innings for Edmonton Royals - and is expected to be available for Wednesday's game at Essex.

This will be Hafeez's first stint in county cricket, though he did play club cricket in the Liverpool League in 2004 and 2005.

Hafeez retired from Test cricket in December, but remains available for white-ball internationals.

He was part of Pakistan's World Cup squad, making 253 runs including a vital 84 against England at Trent Bridge, but was left off their central contracts list last week.

After reaching the knockouts once in the last ten seasons, Middlesex have had an impressive campaign, and sit second in the South Group with five games to play.

De Villiers' shoes will be difficult to fill: in five innings for the club, he made 253 runs, striking at 191.66, including two scores of 88 not out and a 40-ball 64 to sign off against Surrey.

Big Picture

Sri Lanka won their last Test assignment - it was a historic one too - in South Africa, but so much has happened since. New Zealand have had a different kind of high, and a heartbreak to boot, at the World Cup, but are determined to move on and make a fresh start in Sri Lanka, with the Tests part of the World Test Championship.

What's certain is they won't underestimate the hosts, even though they are yet to emerge from their forever-rebuilding state, under another interim coach. In Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, and Henry Nicholls they have a middle order more than capable of batting Sri Lanka out of the game. To bolster their batting unit, they have also recruited former Sri Lanka batting coach Thilan Samaraweera for the duration of the series.

Sri Lanka are coming into the series on the back of a comprehensive ODI series whitewash over Bangladesh. Prior to that, they finished a World Cup campaign that was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. All of it has taken place in the midst of constant backroom turmoil, culminating in head coach Chandika Hathurusingha being replaced in the interim by fast-bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake.

Yet, this Sri Lanka side under Dimuth Karunaratne has shown considerable mental resolve in recent months, especially with their batting, and while most teams would be unsettled by the loss of a coach days before a series, not many sides are as practiced at compartmentalising such chaos as Sri Lanka.

All things considered, though, New Zealand certainly have the edge. Yes, Sri Lanka have beaten South Africa and Australia at home in recent years, but that was with the assistance of the now retired Rangana Herath, and the injured Dilruwan Perera. Sri Lanka's spin-bowling future in Tests still has heavy question marks around it. New Zealand meanwhile are coming on the back of five consecutive series wins, and it would take brave man to bet against them making it six.

Form guide

Sri Lanka WWLDL (last five completed matches, most recent first)

New Zealand WWWDW

In the spotlight

This will be Sri Lanka's first Test at home since Rangana Herath's retirement. There had been a succession plan in place in the shape of Dilruwan Perera, but with him also out injured, Sri Lanka have suddenly lost some 378 wickets worth of spin-bowling experience on home soil. This puts the pressure squarely on Akila Dananjaya to carry Sri Lanka's spin attack on what should be a fairly accommodating Galle surface. While Dananjaya only has 27 Test wickets to his name, 17 of which have come at home, they have come in just five Tests. This will be his first outing in the longer format of the game since he remodelled his action earlier this year.

Left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel was instrumental in New Zealand's away series win against Pakistan last year, and despite having just the five Tests under his belt, he impressed in the warm-up game, where he walked away with a five-for on the only day play was possible. Visiting spinners have also had a fair bit of success in Sri Lanka recently, and Patel and co. will have studied closely.

Team news

Sri Lanka are set to welcome back Dinesh Chandimal, dropped for the series in South Africa because of poor form, and Angelo Mathews, who missed the South Africa tour because of an injury. New Zealand, meanwhile, could field three frontline spinners, with Todd Astle missing out.

Sri Lanka (probable): 1 Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), 2 Lahiru Thirimanne, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Dinesh Chandimal (wk), 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Kusal Perera, 7 Dhananjaya De Silva, 8 Lasith Embuldeniya, 9 Akila Dananjaya 10 Lakshan Sandakan 11 Suranga Lakmal

New Zealand (probable): 1 Jeet Raval, 2 Tom Latham, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Henry Nicholls, 6 BJ Watling, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Ajaz Patel, 9 Will Somerville, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Tim Southee

Pitch and conditions

Galle pitches usually favour spin, so expect the same this time too. Given rain is forecast right through the Test, there's every chance of a five-day affair, unlike recent Tests that have finished early. If it does go there, both sides will want to be bowling on a deteriorating deck, so winning the toss and batting first would be the obvious choice.

Stats and trivia

• If New Zealand win this series 2-0 they will become No.1 ranked Test side in the world for the first time in their history

• Teams winning the toss have batted first in 27 of the 32 Tests played here

• Kane Williamson's 968 runs against Sri Lanka at 80.66 is the most he has scored against a single opponent

• Galle is one of only four venues where a single bowler has more than 100 wickets (Lord's the only non-Sri Lankan venue in the list).

• Tim Southee is six wickets from becoming the second-highest wicket taker in bilateral Tests between Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Muttiah Muralitharan is the highest.

Quotes

"We were too attacking perhaps in our last game here. We couldn't for example stop the flow of runs. Now we have plans to move forward and all the spinners are in good shape."
Dimuth Karunaratne on lessons from Galle 2018

"The guys that are here were part of a fantastic series in the UAE where spin bowling was the dominant art. They are really looking forward to the opportunity in another country where the conditions will be slightly different again."
Kane Williamson is bullish about his spinners' chances

James Pattinson has been rested for the Lord's Ashes Test, leaving Josh Hazlewood in line to make his entry into the series at the venue where he delivered his best spells of the 2015 series.

Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were both in Australia's 12-man squad unveiled on Tuesday morning, but Pattinson will be rested after his often hostile displays at Edgbaston in the tourists' opening win. This will mean Australia have a fresh Pattinson at their disposal for the third Test, to be played at Leeds next week.

Australia squad (for second Test): Tim Paine (capt & wk), David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Matthew Wade, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood

More to follow

Steven Smith is an avowed tennis fanatic, and for England captain Joe Root, the Australian's treasure trove of quirks, pops and ticks are akin to some of the more audible grunts heard on the ATP and WTA tours.

Having had more than a week to ponder where his team went wrong against Smith at Edgbaston, Root has reasoned that the hosts were too quick to try different things in reflexive response to the Australian maestro's many batting foibles. In doing so, they lost sight of the fact that, under the sustained pressure of a tight line, Smith is only a little less susceptible to edging into the cordon than the average batsman.

ALSO READ: Why Steven Smith is the best of the Fab Four

"It's something you've got to look past," Root said at Lord's. "A lot of what he does is try to put you off in a way, trying to make it look extremely different so you have to think way outside the box. You look at his dismissals over a period of time, it's not far away from everyone else's, the movements before and after it might look slightly different.

"You're always looking at different ways how you can try and get someone out. I think maybe one thing that could have done slightly better, me personally as captain, was stick to a plan for a little bit longer, give it a chance to work a little bit more. But he did play well. I think it was 18 times early on in that first innings he played and missed.

"It could have been very different. In some ways, that's a sign that plans are working. We've just got to be a little bit more patient with it. And he's got to start again this week ... new challenge, new wicket, different atmosphere. It's just being really clear on how we want to go about it. When we got to a plan we've got to be really ruthless with it, stick to it, make sure if we're not getting him out we're containing him, and building pressure on him at the other end."

"He's had a slightly different journey to a lot of the other guys and has gained a lot of experience, whether it be under pressure in Twenty20 cricket and obviously the World Cup now as well, and I think that can stand guys in just as good a stead as three or four seasons in county cricket" Joe Root on Jofra Archer

Root is eager to unleash Jofra Archer on the Australians in what appears likely to be an impact role based on short spells at the debutant's very fastest. This is the sort of pace England have not been able to call on against Smith since Mark Wood in the 2015 Ashes.

"It'd be nice if he was staying up at 88-92mph, round that bracket, for the chances he gets to bowl," Root said. "He's very skilful as well. Everyone talks about his pace and his easy action but he's got some very good skills. He gets the ball moving around both ways. Factor that in with the pace he bowls, he will cause a lot of problems, I'm sure.

ALSO READ: Nicholas - England's allrounders give Root options and flair

"He's a very skilful young man. He's got a very good record in red-ball cricket. There will be question marks about his workloads coming into the game, but I think, importantly, if we manage that well, he's proven over the last couple of years when he has played county cricket that he can manage that well. He's a very exciting prospect."

Archer has had a novel path to the England side, although Root noted that it was unlikely to affect him: the fast man's relaxed approach is such that he was able to sneak a nap at the very moment his World Cup campaign was about to begin.

"He's very confident, which is great. Someone coming in with that attitude is just what you want. He's very relaxed," Root said. "I remember his first World Cup game, we'd just done the anthems, it was obviously a huge occasion, playing South Africa ... I reckon before the first ball was bowled he was asleep in the dressing room, making sure he was ready to go when he has to bowl.

"He is very relaxed, he knows what he needs to do to prepare well. For a young man, he's quite mature in terms of cricket, which is again a great quality to have. I think you need a balance of different characters in the dressing room to even things out. It keeps it interesting. As long as collectively when you're on the field you're in the same frame of mind and you're very clear on how you want to go about things, it works really nicely. You don't want 11 players exactly the same.

"You see it a lot in the modern game with the schedule the way it is, with the amount of white-ball opportunities there are around. Guys want to go and play in that. He's had a slightly different journey to a lot of the other guys and has gained a lot of experience, whether it be under pressure in Twenty20 cricket and obviously the World Cup now as well, and I think that can stand guys in just as good a stead as three or four seasons in county cricket."

Looking back on how England came to lose at Edgbaston, having been placed under growing pressure by Australia up to the moment at which the home side cracked on the final day, Root argued that the loss of James Anderson with injury had placed the entire team - batsmen and bowlers alike - in unfamiliar territory.

"I think it did harm us having only three bowlers," Root said. "I think it caught up with us in the second innings. You set a team up in a certain way and then obviously the workloads got a lot more than we probably expected to, whereas Australia went into the game with that and are used to playing with a three-man seam attack. Whereas we, over a long period of time now, have gone with three seamers and Ben [Stokes] as an allrounder that offers a huge amount with the ball.

"These freak things happen sometimes and when you do get those extra workloads on a good wicket against someone playing as well as Steve did, makes it very difficult for you. It'll be completely different this week, I'm sure. Every team has different ways of operating as well. Of course, you always want to control the scoreboard, taking wickets, going at two an over and bowling sides out for 100. It doesn't always work like that.

"It's how quickly you can adapt, knowing when to be a little bit more aggressive and when to suck it up, and are you skilful enough to manage that as a bowling group and me as the captain. That's always the challenge and we'll be exactly the same this week."

Root is also conscious of Nathan Lyon, whose hold over England at Edgbaston grew in parallel to that of Australia's as a whole. "I thought in the first innings we played him very well, and then as the conditions came more into his favour with the scoreboard pressure [Australia] had made it a lot easier for him to operate," Root said of Lyon. "It's a different pressure bowling it like that and he dealt with it very well. It's fair to say, bar Jason [Roy], he bowled us out. So credit to him.

"We'll have to make sure that if we find ourselves in a similar scenario throughout the four games we try and combat that a little bit differently, being a little bit smarter, trying to take those men around the bat out of the equation a little bit more. But it's how you do that with minimal risk, which is always the art of batting especially in the fourth innings of the game - against a high-quality spinner like Nathan."

Barcelona have begun negotiating a cash deal with a player exchange to sign Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain, sources have told ESPN FC.

According to ESPN FC sources, Barca are prepared to offer as much as €100 million with Philippe Coutinho and Ivan Rakitic -- who Barca will need to convince in order to make the switch -- included as part of the deal.

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Until now, Barca had hoped to negotiate using only players. As well as Coutinho and Rakitic, the Spanish champions had considered adding Ousmane Dembele and Nelson Semedo despite the fact the Portugal international is considered "unsellable."

However, sources have told ESPN FC that PSG are not too keen on Rakitic, but are interested in Coutinho and continue to push for Semedo to be included in the deal.

An initial offer of €60m plus Coutinho from Barcelona has already been rejected by PSG, according to ESPN FC sources.

A meeting between the two clubs has been arranged for Tuesday and sources have told ESPN FC that Camp Nou president Josep Maria Bartomeu has chosen director of football Eric Abidal and technical secretary Javier Bordas to represent them. Also in attendance will be Andre Cury, the club's director based in Brazil, who has a strong relationship with Neymar's family.

PSG sporting director Leonardo will be present alongside trusted No. 2 Aneglo Castellazzi and super-agent Pini Zahavi, who brokered Neymar's move from Barca to the Ligue 1 side, is also expected.

Barca still believe this deal is "very complicated," but Real Madrid's inability to meet PSG's demands could help the Blaugrana.

Madrid president Florentino Perez is interested in the Brazil international's signature but having failed to find the funds to sign Paul Pogba from Manchester United, who was manager Zinedine Zidane's No. 1 target, it is unlikely they can afford Neymar.

Madrid are still in the race, however, due to Perez's relationship with Neymar Snr., while they also have more financial power than Barca. However, sources have told ESPN FC that a return to Camp Nou is the Brazil international's preferred choice.

Barca's financial situation is not at its healthiest, but Bartomeu is ready to make one final push to secure Neymar's return.

Coutinho appears resigned to the fact his future lies outside of Barca and would see PSG as a good opportunity to continue his career. Bayern Munich remain interested, but Barca deem him crucial in any negotiations for Neymar. Coutinho is the Catalan club's record signing, having cost €160m in January 2018.

Another player who could be used as a makeweight is Rakitic. Having been vital in Ernesto Valverde's first two seasons, the Barca boss refused to confirm the Croatia international would remain at the club. When asked about Rakitic's future, he replied: "I don't know if he will stay."

The departures of Coutinho and Rakitic would free up wages for incoming players, with the duo among the highest-paid players at the club.

This week is deemed "vital" in understanding how much cash will be required to complete the transaction. Barcelona are confident, though they are awaiting a gesture from Neymar to reject the rumours of a move to Real Madrid.

Barca defender Gerard Pique said recently that the "squad are in contact with him," but added the chats are "private." Pique also invited Neymar to make a statement of intent.

ESPN FC first reported than a deal for Neymar was "doable," despite the impending arrival of Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid in June.

Information from ESPN FC's France correspondent Julien Laurens was also used in this report

CHIBA, Japan -- First-round NBA draft pick Rui Hachimura scored 35 points to lead Japan to a 99-89 win over New Zealand in a World Cup warm-up game at Port Chiba Arena.

Hachimura became the first player from Japan to be chosen in the first round of the NBA draft, taken with the No. 9 overall pick by the rebuilding Washington Wizards in June. The former Gonzaga University star played in the NBA's Summer League for the Wizards and next will take up national duties for Japan at the World Cup and for other warm-up games, including against New Zealand again on Wednesday.

"We got off to a good start and went from there ... I want to lead this team,'' Hachimura said after Monday's game. "I'm just happy to be back in Japan after a while for these friendly games.''

The 21-year-old from Toyama Prefecture scored 22 points in the first half and impressed Detroit Pistons head coach Dwane Casey.

"I think he's going to be a heckuva player, the NBA is a physical game, a tough game. He's got a great body for the NBA,'' Casey, who is in Japan for a coaching clinic and was at the game as a spectator, told Kyodo News. "I see Rui ... developing his game to move out to the 3-point line. Because that's where the NBA is. Great kid, great work ethic.''

Tai Webster led New Zealand with 18 points. Japan played without Memphis Grizzlies forward Yuta Watanabe, who has an ankle injury. Japan opens its World Cup competition against Turkey on Sept. 1 in Shanghai and then takes on Czech Republic and the United States. The top two teams in the group will advance to the second round.

For years, the New Orleans Saints held back Drew Brees from winning his second Super Bowl. Now, could the biggest obstacle for the 2019 Saints actually be their star quarterback?

They enter the season with a 15.7% chance of winning the Super Bowl per ESPN's Football Power Index, odds that are second in the NFL behind the Chiefs, but those numbers surely rely upon the future Hall of Fame quarterback continuing to play at his accepted level of greatness.

In 2018, Brees was great ... until he wasn't. Through the first 11 games, he put together what might be the best stretch of play we've ever seen from an NFL quarterback, with the Saints starting 10-1 while averaging more than 37 points per game. Over his final four games of the regular season and in the Saints' two postseason contests, though -- sandwiched around a Teddy Bridgewater start in Week 17 -- Brees looked ordinary:

Overnight, he went from playing like an MVP to putting up numbers in the range of quarterbacks such as Derek Carr and Case Keenum. And while it was lost in the shuffle of the infamous missed pass-interference call against Nickell Robey-Coleman late in the fourth quarter of the NFC title game, Brees didn't play all that well in that loss to the Rams, averaging just 6.2 yards per attempt and turning a pair of short fields into just three points before throwing an interception on the first possession of overtime.

Do the Saints have something to be concerned about with their star quarterback? At 40 years old, Brees is in barely charted territory; the only other passers in league history to make it through a full season as a starter in their age-40 campaign are Tom Brady and Brett Favre. The good news for New Orleans is that both played well and made deep playoff runs, although Saints fans won't need to be reminded of how Favre's 2009 season ended.

Normally, I like to go through the research before detailing what I've found, but I'm going to stick the findings up here first this time. The best answer to the Brees question I just posed is "maybe." I don't think what happened at the end of 2018 necessarily indicates that Brees is going to be at the Carr level again in 2019. Simultaneously, though, there's no guarantee we will see the old Brees, because we just don't have a big enough sample of Hall of Fame quarterbacks getting to this point of their careers in the modern era to know what triggers their decline. Brees could fall off and become a middling quarterback for reasons totally unrelated to what we saw last season. So could Brady. Father Time arrives without warning.

Perhaps most important for Saints fans, even given that I expect New Orleans to decline in 2019, I still think the Saints are a viable Super Bowl contender if the Brees from those final few weeks shows up, given their strength elsewhere on the roster. Figuring out which edition of Brees will show up for the majority of 2019 is virtually impossible, but in going through a series of questions related to that bigger question, I think we can get to some interesting stuff about aging, quarterback play and what might happen with the Saints this season.

What happened at the end of 2019?

After watching those games again and looking over the numbers, there's not a clear, obvious cause for what happened to Brees after Thanksgiving. The best explanation is a confluence of factors coming together to drive the decline, including:

Regression toward the mean. In short, it might not be realistically possible for any quarterback to play for a full season as well as Brees had over the first 11 games of 2018. He wasn't due to struggle -- that's the gambler's fallacy -- but his true talent baseline isn't completing more than 76% of his passes while throwing nearly 15 touchdown passes for every interception, because nobody is that good.

As an example, take Brees' competition at the time for the MVP award, eventual winner Patrick Mahomes. Through the first 12 weeks of the season, Mahomes posted a Total QBR of 82.6, a passer rating of 117.9 and averaged just over 10.0 adjusted yards per attempt, or AY/A. (I'll be using AY/A, which counts touchdowns as worth 20 additional yards and interceptions as a 45-yard penalty, as an improvement upon passer rating in this piece. You can read more about that statistic here.)

After Week 12, Mahomes declined, albeit far more gently than his competition in New Orleans. From Week 13 on, Mahomes posted a Total QBR of 72.9, a passer rating of 103.6 and averaged 8.7 AY/A. It's just hard for any quarterback to be as good as Brees (or Mahomes) was during the first three months of the season, so it would have been natural to expect some drop-off from the Saints star over December and January. Obviously, Brees declined more than we would have expected given his history, so that's not enough of an answer on its own.

The road trip. Brees has exhibited a pronounced home/road split during his career; the Purdue product has averaged 8.1 AY/A and thrown 2.7 touchdowns for every interception at home, but Brees has fallen off to 7.1 AY/A while averaging 1.8 scores for every pick on the road. His decline started with three consecutive games on the road before a home game against the Steelers, in which he went 27-of-39 for 326 yards with a touchdown in his best outing of the final six. (He sat out the meaningless Week 17 game against the Panthers.)

Brees' road drop-off is typically attributed to weather after moving away from the climate-controlled confines of the Superdome, but I don't think weather played a big part here. His road trip included a game against the Cowboys in the Jerry Dome, a 71-degree afternoon in Tampa, Florida, and a 48-degree night game against the Panthers in Charlotte, North Carolina. His coldest game of the season was a 39-degree road game against the Bengals in early November, when the future Hall of Famer went a near-perfect 22-of-25 for 265 yards and three touchdowns. And when you include the two playoff games, Brees played exactly as many games at home as he did on the road during this six-game decline, so traveling doesn't tell the full story, either.

The deep passes. Brees was an absolute savage on deep throws during his dominant start, but that mastery seemed to fade as the season went along. The NFL defines deep passes as throws traveling 16 or more yards in the air, and during the first 11 games, Brees completed more than 60% of those throws, averaged nearly 17 yards per attempt and tossed nine touchdown passes against just one pick.

During his six-game end to the season, though, Brees completed just 41.3% of those passes, averaged 10.8 yards per attempt and threw two picks against one lone touchdown pass, which came on his first deep attempt of that stretch, to Keith Kirkwood. During one stretch against the Panthers and Steelers, Brees was just 1-of-9 for 19 yards on deep throws.

In watching Brees actually throw, though, I don't see a quarterback who was struggling to hit his receivers downfield. He was playing well and generally putting the ball in the right place at the right time. That 1-of-9 stretch included potentially six perfect or nearly perfect throws, with those passes either dropped, broken up by defenders who made great plays or caught.

The Saints coaches didn't appear to think that Brees was struggling to complete deep throws, either, given that the veteran quarterback was dialing them up about as frequently as he had been during that early run. He averaged 5.7 deep passes per game during the 11-game start to the season, and he averaged five deep throws per game through his next five starts. The sixth game was the loss to the Rams, which is a good representation of what Brees dealt with here.

The Rams played a fair amount of two-deep coverage and tried to force everything underneath, which is why Brees was 11-of-13 on throws to Alvin Kamara in the NFC Championship Game. Brees took four deep shots during that game. One was a perfectly placed pass to tight end Dan Arnold, only for the backup to drop a would-be touchdown on the final attempt of the opening drive. The second was a third-and-17 dig route to Ted Ginn Jr., who got open, only for Brees either to expect Ginn to settle on the route or throw behind his receiver. The third was the 43-yard pass to Ginn in the fourth quarter that set up the fateful non-call, and while that throw hung on Brees a bit, he put the pass where it needed to go. The fourth and final throw was his last pass of the season, the interception he threw while being hit in his motion (and arguably in the helmet) by Dante Fowler Jr.

As with the bigger picture, it's not as though Brees just forgot how to hit his receivers downfield. He naturally regressed toward the rest of the league and had some bad luck in a small sample.

A red zone decline. Again, the Saints were just running too hot to keep going at their pre-Thanksgiving rate. Brees & Co. averaged 5.7 points per red zone trip through the first 12 weeks of the season, which is ridiculous, even by their standards. For context, between the first 12 weeks of the season from 2013 to 2017, the Saints averaged just under an even 5.0 points per red zone trip. From Week 13 on, the Saints hit 4.9 points per red zone trip, which is right at the league average over that same time frame.

Brees' performance didn't slip much in the red zone over that stretch, either by the numbers or on tape, although he did put a slant to Michael Thomas low two plays before the infamous no-call against Robey-Coleman. They dropped one of his 72 red zone pass attempts during the first 12 weeks of the season, only to put three of Brees' 32 attempts on the ground afterward. Arnold dropped a would-be touchdown in the first quarter against the Rams, Ginn dropped a quick out in the same game, and Tommylee Lewis dropped a slant on a pick play inside the 5-yard line against the Cowboys which might have gone for a score. The Arnold drive ended in a field goal, and Smith's drop was on first-and-goal on a series which ended with Kamara getting stuffed at the goal line. Both games were decided by three points.

Pressure. The Saints lost star left tackle Terron Armstead in that 51-14 victory over the Bengals, but there's not a real clear correlation between Armstead's absence and Brees' drop-off. They scored 79 points in the first two games Armstead missed, wins against the Eagles and Falcons. Armstead did sit out the three-game road trip, but he was back on the field for Brees' three subsequent home starts to end the season.

Furthermore, Brees wasn't pressured at a significantly higher rate during his decline. He was actually pressured more frequently during his hot start (20.8%) than his subsequent falloff (19.5%). What changed was how successful opposing teams were when they did pressure Brees. Before Thanksgiving, teams turned just under 13% of their pressures against Brees into sacks. Afterward, that figure nearly doubled, to 25%.

The pressure also told with takeaways. After throwing two interceptions through 12 weeks, Brees threw five over the ensuing six games. Three were a direct result of pressure -- this short-armed checkdown to Kamara against the Cowboys, a rushed screen pass against the Buccaneers and the season-ending interception against the Rams.

The other two were different stories. One was a very good throw to Arnold against the Panthers, only for the ball to be dislodged by Thomas Davis' helmet and picked off by James Bradberry. The other was an underthrown bomb on the first play of the game against the Eagles on a play that should have resulted in a long Ginn touchdown, only for Cre'von LeBlanc to take away the pass.

What about that play against Atlanta?

In an attempt to draw a clear line between Brees' two seasons, some have pointed to the Thanksgiving night win over the Falcons and the tackle Brees attempted on his second interception of the season. After an ill-advised throw was picked off by Damontae Kazee, the Falcons safety attempted to return the pass for a pick-six. Kazee should have been (and eventually was) ruled down at the point of the catch, but without a whistle being blown, Brees attempted to take on blocking Falcons corner Desmond Trufant and was whipped sideways as Kazee ran past.

The timing on a macro level makes sense, given that Brees' second season started with the Cowboys game the following week. The problem with that theory, though, is that Brees threw that interception against the Falcons in the first quarter. Over the remainder of the game, he went 10-of-15 for 115 yards with three touchdowns and no picks. The Saints didn't need much from Brees in a game during which they ran for 150 yards and the Falcons turned the ball over four times, but when they called on their star quarterback, he was efficient and extremely effective.

Is it possible that Brees rode an adrenaline high (or a painkilling shot) in the game, woke up sore, and then wasn't the same player after that Thursday night game? I suppose, but Occam's razor suggests that Brees wouldn't have been his usual dominant self for three quarters after the hit before suddenly declining the following week against Dallas. I'm skeptical the hit played a significant role in his falloff.

Did Brees simply get tired?

Every quarterback wears down some as the season goes along, but I don't think there's a strong case for fatigue as the most likely cause of the decline. Brees doesn't have a notable track record of declining as the year goes along. Over his career, he has roughly posted the same AY/A in September (7.37 AY/A) as he has in December and January regular-season games (7.35 AY/A).

Could Brees' age make him more likely to gas out late in the season? Perhaps. I went back through 2001 and split the league's quarterbacks into four groups by their age as of Sept. 1 in each season to see if older quarterbacks were more likely to decline toward the end of the season than their younger counterparts. Brees fell into the camp of quarterbacks who were 36 and older, and the rest were split up with 31-35-year-olds, 26-30-year-olds and the 25-and-younger crowd.

When you compare their AY/A in December and regular season-games from January to their performance in September, October and November, the elder statesmen do drop off by about 6.6%. It's not enough to explain the entirety of Brees' decline, given that his regular-season AY/A fell off by about 33% between the first three months of the season and his three-game stretch in December, but it's probably some small part of the equation.

With that being said, it's hardly as if the Saints overworked Brees. The same quarterback who once routinely topped 450 passes between September and November -- topping out at 492 in 2012 -- threw only 384 passes through his first 12 games between September and November this time around.

So, has Brees lost it?

He could come back as a mediocre quarterback in 2019, but I don't think last season's falloff is enough to prove anything. For one, he wasn't even that bad; he wasn't that far off statistically from league average over his six-game stint. Brees looked better than his numbers on tape. All of the infrastructure surrounding him returns besides Mark Ingram, and the Saints actually upgraded offensive weapons by adding Jared Cook.

Brees has also come back from worse stints in the past. I put together a rolling five-game average of AY/A for each of his games with 10 or more pass attempts and then constructed a weighted league average to measure how Brees compared to the rest of the NFL's quarterbacks. I didn't include postseason games, but in the final five games of 2018, Brees was 7.5% below league average.

Even given that he was as high as 44.1% above league average earlier in the season, 7.5% below average just isn't remarkably bad. Brees was 3.7% below average over a five-game stint in December 2016 after throwing three interceptions in back-to-back games and nine over a five-game stretch. He showed no ill effects the following season. In October 2015, Brees dropped to 7.2% below average and then proceeded to throw 28 touchdowns against nine picks the rest of the way. Randomness and the aforementioned factors in a small sample are more likely to have driven Brees' decline than an inescapable, terminal plunge. My most likely outcome for him is that he's about halfway between league average and the lofty heights of his 11-game start to 2018.

With that being said, though, there's a chance Brees does drop to replacement level in 2019. Every quarterback in this age bracket has some chance of turning into a pumpkin in any given season without warning. Even if I don't think those final few games represent a meaningful indicator, history tells us Brees has some chance of falling out of contention in 2019.

What happens to Hall of Fame quarterbacks as they approach/pass 40?

Generally, they're great until the bottom suddenly falls out. We don't have many modern quarterbacks who really compare to Brees, so we don't have a huge sample of what happens at the end of their careers. From what we've seen, things generally don't end well. When you look at these past two generations of star quarterbacks, their careers seem to end one of three ways:

• Serious injuries: Troy Aikman (retired after age-34 season), Steve Young (38)

• Significant, sudden decline: Brett Favre (41), Jim Kelly (36), Dan Marino (38), Peyton Manning (39)

• Above-average play before leaving on own terms: John Elway (38), Joe Montana (38)

The one guy who doesn't really fit into any one group is Warren Moon, who was a Pro Bowler for the Seahawks in his age-41 season before being benched for Jon Kitna the following year and spending two seasons with the Chiefs as a backup. Aikman could also fit in the serious decline group, given that he had been right at or above league average for his entire career before taking a major step backward and posting a 78 AY/A+ in that final year before his concussion issues.

When my colleague Mike Triplett asked the Saints earlier this month whether they were concerned about Brees' disappointing end to 2018, they responded in the way you might expect: by expressing their confidence that Brees would continue to be great. Quarterbacks coach Joe Lombardi even referenced Nicholas Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness" while suggesting what happened to Brees was more due to random chance than any sort of pattern. I mostly agree.

Where I disagree with Lombardi, though, is in what he said to Triplett next. "Listen, we didn't just score 48 points and then all of a sudden, one day later, age caught up to him," Lombardi said. "That's ridiculous, it's absurd."

I don't think it's quite as unlikely as Lombardi is suggesting. At the very least, we have several recent examples of quarterbacks playing at a world-class level before suddenly, inexplicably declining, including a strong comp for what happened to Brees last season:

• Favre threw 33 touchdown passes against seven picks during his age-40 season in 2009 and put an exclamation point on his season with a four-touchdown, 148.7-passer rating game against the Giants. He threw for four more touchdowns in a 34-3 blowout of the Cowboys in the divisional round before he famously threw a pair of picks in the dramatic NFC title game loss to the Saints. The following season, Favre threw just 11 touchdown passes against 19 interceptions and subsequently retired.

• Kelly was above league average at 35, including a 237-yard, four-touchdown game against the Rams in December 1995. The Bills made the playoffs and scored 37 points in a wild-card game win, although he wasn't spectacular. The following season, a 36-year-old Kelly threw 14 touchdown passes against 19 picks, his sack rate spiked to 8.9%, and the future Hall of Famer subsequently retired.

• Marino was an above-average passer at age 37, including a 355-yard, four-touchdown performance in Week 16 of the 1998 season against the Broncos. He had a couple of big games left in him, including a 393-yard, two-touchdown performance against the Colts in Week 4 of the following year, but Marino threw 12 touchdown passes against 17 picks that year, struggled to stay healthy, and retired after a 62-7 playoff loss to the Jaguars.

• The most obvious comparison might be Manning, who was an MVP candidate during his age-38 season in 2014. Manning threw for 257 yards and four touchdowns in a 39-36 win over the Dolphins. He was averaging 323.5 passing yards per game with 34 touchdowns against nine interceptions through that Dolphins win; over the final five games of the regular season, the former Colts star averaged 233.8 yards per game with five touchdowns against six picks. Manning struggled in a playoff loss to his old employers and threw for nine touchdowns against just 17 picks in a 2015 season where he was benched for Brock Osweiler.

Aikman and Young both retired as a result of injuries. The only guys who rode off on their horse into the sunset while playing well were Elway, who left after winning his second consecutive Super Bowl, and Montana, who had come back after missing the better part of two full seasons with injuries. Brees is now older than both were.

In looking through the end of each player's career, there's no sort of trend or indicator I can find that represented proof of their coming decline. If I do the same rolling AY/A average for each of them as I did for Brees, they resided in similarly lofty heights to Brees before declining rapidly in their final season.

As a Broncos player, Manning only dropped below league average over a five-game sample by Week 17 of the 2014 season, when his AY/A was 5.1% below the mark. Despite the fact that he was 34.2% above league average over a five-game stretch as recently as Week 9, Manning never made it back above league average. Does that mean Brees will follow in Manning's footsteps this upcoming season? It's possible, but one dominant quarterback's career path isn't proof that Brees will follow suit.

The instructive way to think about quarterback aging, I think, is like this: As a Hall of Fame-caliber passer enters his late 30s, there's some percentage chance that he'll suddenly lose it and become a replacement-level quarterback. Those chances grow greater with each advancing year of aging. The risk increases for passers with injury histories and for quarterbacks whose infrastructure collapses around them. Neither of those categories fit Brees, but as a 40-year-old quarterback, there's just not enough of a sample size to say much about his chances of declining.

Is there a 10% chance Brees drastically declines and is barely playable in 2019? I buy that. How about 20%? Maybe. Or 50%? That seems too high. It seems crazy to think that the bottom could suddenly fall out for a quarterback as good as Brees (or, for that matter, Brady), but the same was true for these other Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks too. The thing about falling off a cliff is that you don't see it coming.

Can the Saints win even if Brees does crater?

They can, and I don't have to go back very far for an example of how to pull it off. I brought up Manning's 2014-15 decline as the most plausible comparison for a Brees drop-off, but you also probably remember what happened as Manning went from an MVP candidate in 2014 to Osweiler-grade in 2015: The Broncos won Super Bowl 50! They had to bench Manning for Osweiler and then sub Manning back in for part of Week 17 and the playoffs, but the Broncos rode home-field advantage to the Super Bowl and then handily beat the Panthers in Santa Clara 24-10.

Manning was a passenger on that trip. He was barely passable even during the postseason, completing 55.4% of his passes while averaging 5.8 AY/A. He didn't even fill the classic game-manager role by holding on to the football, as the future Hall of Famer turned the ball over three times in three games. He finished 11th among the league's 12 quarterbacks that postseason in Total QBR, with a mark of 28.4.

The Broncos won that Super Bowl because of what was around their quarterback, namely, the defense. Denver's defense forced seven takeaways in three games and absolutely beat up opposing quarterbacks. Von Miller & Co. racked up 14 sacks and a staggering 33 knockdowns over three games, including 17 knockdowns of Tom Brady in the AFC Championship Game. Injuries helped, too; the Steelers were without Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell and had a gimpy Ben Roethlisberger after a brutal wild-card game against the Bengals, and the Patriots were without starting left tackle Nate Solder for most of that season.

It's not difficult to imagine the Saints winning games on the strength of their defense. The 2015 Broncos led the league in defensive DVOA, coming in 25.8% below league average. (With defensive DVOA, below average is good.) The Saints were only 11th in the league last season, with a DVOA 2.9% below league average, but they improved mightily after replacing Ken Crawley with Eli Apple. Over the second half of the season and into the playoffs, New Orleans boasted the fifth-best defense in football on a per-game basis by win probability added. Given its young talent on that side of the ball, it's not out of the question that this defense sticks as one of the top five defenses in football in 2019.

Of course, the Saints' offense also should be better than that of the 2015 Broncos, even if Brees does fall off. In Teddy Bridgewater, the Saints should have a better backup than the Broncos did with Osweiler. Their running game is also likely to be better than that Broncos team was at running the ball if Alvin Kamara stays healthy, though they'll need to adjust after losing center Max Unger to retirement. That Broncos team ranked 25th in offensive DVOA; a Saints team with Bridgewater under center for half of the season should theoretically be able to top that mark.

"I don't know" isn't the most satisfying answer anyone can give for what Brees will do in 2019, but it's the most realistic response to the question. Anyone who tells you they know for sure how Brees will play is lying. Given how he has played at a high level for the vast majority of his career, my best guess is that he'll continue to maintain a Pro Bowl-caliber level of play, minus some moderate penalty for aging. After what Brees showed before and after Thanksgiving last season, though, the error bars for any projection are far larger than they would be for most veteran quarterbacks. Everything from an MVP award to a benching-worthy campaign is possible for him this season.

The elite orienteer explains how every second counts in her sport

Megan Carter-Davies joined her first orienteering club – the Mid-Wales OC – as an eight-year-old and became a member of the Welsh junior squad after a couple of years, running her first junior inter-regionals and junior home internationals aged 12.

She has gone on to place 20th at the World Orienteering Championships and hopes to improve on that at this year’s event in Østfold, Norway.

Here Carter-Davies shares some insight into her sport and its crossover with running.

Athletics Weekly: What was your route into orienteering? Were you a runner, or an orienteer, first?

Megan Carter-Davies: A bit of both. I started doing cross-country races in primary school and also first tried orienteering when I was eight years old. I continued with both, and as I got more into orienteering, the running became more important to me. I started to focus on training when I was about 14.

READ MORE: World Orienteering Week: Interview with Ralph Street

AW: What do you love most about orienteering?

MCD: I absolutely love the feeling of racing, having to stay focused the whole time. At elite level, every second counts. We run hard for the entire race across rough terrain, up and down hills, weaving through trees and ducking under branches. At the same time we read the map (while running!), look up to see where we need to go, make decisions about our route, and all while being conscious of our next step. Undoubtedly mistakes are made, so it’s all to play for while you’re out there. I also love that we get to run in so many interesting and beautiful places.

AW: How do you prepare for major championships? Do you have an ‘average’ training week?

MCD: During the week, my training is similar to that of a typical 5km or 10km runner. On the weekends it’s time for orienteering – both to practise the technical skills and get some time running in tougher terrain. It takes time to organise orienteering so I usually go to local races for this. Overall, this puts me at around 60km a week, supplemented by a cycle commute on week days and a bit of gym work.

AW: Can you talk about the crossover between the two sports and the necessary skillsets?

MCD: Forest orienteering is most similar to trail or fell running in the athletics world, with hills and uneven ground. We call it ‘forest’ but it could also be on sand dunes or a moorland. The map reading takes time to pick up as there are a lot of different things to consider like contours, vegetation, direction and distance judgement. Mistakes are fairly common in this style of orienteering, but those who can navigate better and keep mistakes to a minimum tend to succeed. We also have orienteering in urban areas. The navigation is simpler since it’s easy to make sense of the buildings and roads. The challenge comes with making quick decisions as you can race so much faster on tarmac. While you still need to be agile, speed is a more important factor here than in the forest. Many of the world champions in the sprint distance (short urban races) have also represented their country in athletics somehow. In terms of skills, it would be easier for runners to get involved in urban orienteering but, if you want to try ‘forest’ orienteering, there are usually club members at local races who will be happy to help.

READ MORE: World Orienteering Week: Interview with Cat Taylor

AW: What are your key 2019 targets in both running and orienteering?

MCD: Last year I came 20th at the World Championships, and my aim for this year is to improve on that. I am working on getting faster and would like to be able to run close to a 17-minute 5km time this summer. Other than that, I will keep orienteering as much as I can. I have a couple of training camps in Scandinavia lined up so I can get used to racing in similar forests ahead of the World Champs in Norway in August. As a team, we are aiming for a top result in the relays too.

AW: What are you most proud of having achieved in your elite career so far?

MCD: I think the coolest moment was at the World University Champs in 2016. After great performances from Charlotte Ward, Peter Hodkinson and Kris Jones, I was sent out in first place for the last leg of the sprint relay and got to bring us home to the gold medal! It was great to race with them again in the World Champs last year. I’m also proud of my 20th place in the World Champs middle distance last year and happy that I was able to make an easy transition from junior to senior level.

British number one Johanna Konta's US Open preparations continued with a second straight defeat as she lost in the Cincinnati Masters first round.

Konta, 28, was beaten 6-3 3-6 7-5 by Swedish qualifier Rebecca Petersen.

The world number 14 trailed 4-1 in the final set but recovered to level at 4-4 before Petersen took her fourth break point of the match to seal victory.

Konta lost to Ukrainian teenager Dayana Yastremska in the first round of the Rogers Cup in Toronto last week.

Meanwhile, seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams, 39, ended a four-match losing streak by beating fellow American Lauren Davis 7-5 6-2.