MOORESVILLE, N.C. – NTT IndyCar Series teams will have little time to unpack from a fast weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla., and empty out their notebooks before heading to Texas Motor Speedway for a doubleheader on the high-banked, high-speed oval.

Consider that Indy car teams and drivers will participate in four races on three distinctly different racing venues in a 14-day period, and it’s obvious that diversity is the key to success.

Just 10 days ago, IndyCar opened its season on the 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural terrain road course at Barber Motorsports Park, with 24-year-old Alex Palou winning the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.

Seven days later, it was 21-year-old Colton Herta dominating the field on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg for his fourth career Indy car win.

That equals the number of victories Colton’s father, Bryan Herta, had in his entire career.

Oh, by the way – Bryan oversees Colton’s race strategy at Andretti Autosport this season, the first time the father and son have worked together.

But there is no rest for the weary as IndyCar kicks into high gear, with doubleheader races at the 1.5-mile Texas oval this weekend.

The Genesys 300 is Saturday night, with the green flag waving at 7:40 p.m. ET. That race is scheduled for 212 laps and 318 miles.

The XPEL 375 takes the green flag Sunday at 5:15 p.m. ET and is even longer – 248 laps or 372 miles.

Fourteen days will feature four races on three different types of circuits.

“Yeah, it’s perfect for a rookie,” Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin told SPEED SPORT. “Exactly what I want.

“Ideally I’d love to do something a little bit more. I’d love to have a bit more time on each one, but that’s not how it works,” McLaughlin added. “I feel like I just got myself sorted on the road course, we jumped on the street course, which had a different tire, got a feel for the tire there, and now I’m going to jump into an oval and basically throw out the past two weeks’ work and focus on something totally different.

“But that’s why we love it.”

One of McLaughlin’s Team Penske teammates sized up the extremely fast-paced start to the season.

“It’s going to be flat out,” Josef Newgarden said after Sunday’s race. “We’ve got to be on it here. We knew we were going to rattle through four races pretty quickly, and then when you really count May into that, you’re getting through a third of the season pretty fast.

“We’ll know where we’re at pretty solidly in this championship hopefully by the time we get to June, but we need to stay focused and get through this next period pretty quickly with the best results possible.”

– Green Savoree Promotions partner Kevin Savoree continues to hold out hope that there will be a race in Toronto on July 11, but the fate of the Toronto Honda Indy lies in the hands of Premier of Ontario Doug Ford and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Ontario is amid a ferocious third wave of COVID-19 and Ontario is in near total lockdown. Also, the rollout of any COVID-19 vaccines has been slow and somewhat confusing to many Canadian citizens, so it appears highly unrealistic that a street race can be held just two months from now.

Penske Entertainment CEO and IndyCar President Mark Miles has said if the Honda Indy Toronto cannot take place, the race would be added to an already existing race weekend to make a doubleheader.

The most obvious choice would be the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, because it is another Green Savoree controlled racing facility.

Mid-Ohio is already on the schedule for a July 4 race date and there is growing talk that it would be extremely easy for the Indianapolis-based teams to add a race on Saturday, July 3 to the schedule.

But there is also discussion in the paddock to add the Toronto race to World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, a track owned by Curtis Francois and not part of Green Savoree Promotions. That track is already on the schedule for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on Aug. 21.

The movement that wants to add a second date to Gateway hopes to see one more oval race on the schedule for this year. Currently, there are just four ovals on the calendar, and two of them are this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

“I just want to race at the best places possible, without regard to whether it’s a road course, a street race or an oval,” team owner Chip Ganassi said last Sunday.

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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Fans of sprint car racing may have to wait a while to see Christopher Bell back in the discipline again, and when he returns, it won’t be behind the wheel of his own car.

Bell confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the CB Industries No. 21 sprint car team, which he raced in partnership with his friend Chad Boat since debuting it at Fremont (Ohio) Speedway in September of 2019, has been shuttered.

Bell broke the news in response to a question from SPEED SPORT during a Toyota Racing videoconference ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Kansas Speedway.

“Unfortunately, the 21 is no more … the sprint car operation is no more,” Bell said.

Bell also admitted that he won’t be doing any dirt racing at all for the time being. He’s in the midst of his first full season with Joe Gibbs Racing and his second year of racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.

“Right now, for me, sprint car racing and dirt racing as a whole has been put on hold, but I look forward to the day that I can get back out to the dirt tracks and race,” Bell continued. “It won’t be in the (No.) 21 car in the near future but, hopefully, it will be driving for another person.”

During his time as an owner/driver in the sprint car world, Bell tallied a World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series win at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Ind., as well as a podium finish during Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek last summer among the highlights.

Bell declined to comment when asked what factors led to the parking of his sprint car.

However, Bell did note that — when he is able to return to dirt-track competition — he’d be interested in reuniting with former car owner Kevin Swindell if the opportunity arose to do so.

Bell drove for Swindell SpeedLab for a brief stint in 2019, with three top-five finishes against the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series at Volusia Speedway Park that year among the pairing’s highlights.

“Kevin Swindell and I have stayed great friends and I’d love to get back into the (No.) 39 at some point,” Bell tipped. “I’m not sure what the future holds, but not [dirt racing] for the time being.”

FORT WORTH, Texas – NASCAR and Texas Motor Speedway officials unveiled a radically-different format for the $1 million NASCAR All-Star Race, scheduled for June 13 at the 1.5-mile quad-oval.

NASCAR’s all-star night will be held at Texas for the first time in its 37-year history, with an Old West theme during driver introductions and a minor technical tweak from the current aerodynamic package.

The race, which will total 100 laps, will be broken up into six segments. The first four segments will be 15 laps each, followed by a 30-lap segment with a mandatory, four-tire pit stop and then a 10-lap sprint to the checkered flag for the event’s million-dollar payout.

In between, however, there will be numerous shakeups to the running order.

The initial starting lineup will be set by a random draw, with a random inversion of eight to 12 positions coming before the start of the second 15-lap segment that will be aired live on FS1 and Big Hoss TV.

Following the end of segment two, the entire field will be inverted before the start of segment three, with another random inversion of eight to 12 positions coming before the fourth 15-lap segment begins.

At the end of lap 60, when the fourth segment concludes, the lineup for the fifth segment will be set by the cumulative finish from the first four stages. The driver with the lowest cumulative total starts on the pole, with the second-lowest total lining up second, and so on.

All cars must come down pit road for a compulsory four-tire stop at some point during the 30-lap fifth segment, with the fastest pit crew among those stops earning a $100,000 bonus for their efforts.

The running order at lap 90, following the end of segment five, will determine the starting lineup for the 10-lap dash to the finish that awards a $1 million prize to the race winner.

Only green-flag laps will count during this year’s running of the NASCAR All-Star Race.

From a technical standpoint, all elements of the current Cup Series car will remain the same for the All-Star Race, except for the tapered spacer, which will be reduced to 57/64ths of an inch.

The spacer change will reduce horsepower from roughly 550 – the normal level for intermediate-style race tracks – to 510 for the annual exhibition race. It’s the same tapered spacer size utilized for the superspeedway events at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

“Texas has always felt like an All-Star market; it is a big-event market and Texas Motor Speedway thrives under a bright spotlight,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “The entire Speedway Motorsports and TMS team has done an incredible job embracing and elevating this event, creating a fun, must-see show for fans at the track and watching from home on FS1.”

“I call this ‘NASCAR All-Star Race: Texas Edition,’” added Texas Motor Speedway President and General Manager Eddie Gossage. “Drivers and pit crews better pack their lunch pails because they are going to have to work extremely hard to earn the honor of celebrating in victory lane. This is a full metal rodeo for a big ol’ bag of dough.”

Prior to the NASCAR All-Star Race, the three-segment, 50-lap NASCAR Open will take place, with the winner of each stage advancing into the main event.

Segments of 20, 20 and 10 laps will make up the 50-lap distance for the NASCAR Open.

The final driver to make the All-Star Race will be the winner of the Fan Vote, awarded to the driver with the most votes who is not already in the $1 million showcase.

More information on the Fan Vote, which opens May 13, is available at www.nascar.com.

Seventeen drivers have currently locked themselves into the NASCAR All-Star Race, which will include points race winners from 2020 and ’21, as well as past All-Star Race winners and NASCAR Cup Series champions who are competing full time this season.

Those currently locked into the All-Star Race include, in alphabetical order: Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, William Byron, Cole Custer, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Michael McDowell, Ryan Newman and Martin Truex Jr.

Coverage of the NASCAR All-Star Race begins June 13 at 5 p.m. ET on FS1, with the NASCAR Open following at 6 p.m. ET and the All-Star Race feature kicking off at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM.

Manchester City took a big step towards their first Champions League final as goals by Kevin De Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez earned them a 2-1 comeback win at Paris Saint-Germain in the semifinal first leg on Wednesday.

PSG went ahead courtesy of a Marquinhos header in the first half, but Mauricio Pochettino's side lost control after the break with De Bruyne and Mahrez finding the back of the net in the space of eight minutes to secure City's 18th consecutive away win in all competitions.

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Last year's runners-up PSG then found themselves down to 10 men as midfielder Idrissa Gueye picked up a straight red card in the 77th minute for a reckless challenge on Ilkay Gundogan.

"The second half was much better; the way the first goal went in was a little bit lucky, but we played great football in the second half, we did well," De Bruyne said.

Next Tuesday, Man City will need to show the same away form that enabled them to beat Barcelona at Camp Nou and Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in previous rounds if they are to progress.

"At half-time, I told the players we needed to be ourselves. We needed to be more aggressive, and we didn't let them breathe after the break," City manager Pep Guardiola said.

Guardiola added: "I told them 'I understand you guys, I was a player myself. If you lose you lose but you have to try to play our game. What is our identity as a team without the ball and with the ball'?"

Bernardo Silva explained to ESPN: "[Guardiola told City at the break] that we have to have the ball more, that we have to enjoy more, that we have to try to press them more.

"We know that when you play against a great team like PSG, you are not going to have the ball the whole 90 minutes. You know that you are going to have periods in which you are going to be better than them and others in which you are going to be not as good.

"We are very happy to have materialised those moments in which we had been on top by scoring two goals. Now there are 90 minutes to play and there is still a very tough path ahead."

Pochettino agreed the visitors were the better team after the interval.

"The key was that we didn't show the same energy with the ball than in the first half," Pochettino said after the match.

"But we are confident that we can turn this around and approach the second leg the same way. The first half showed that we were right in our approach of the game.

"We just have to keep the same intensity with the ball. That's what we have to improve."

Marquinhos said that PSG needed more composure.

"Sometimes you have to be strategic and intelligent. We conceded two really stupid goals. These are details that will count," he said.

"Above all, we need to have personality. We have to have the mentality to win, to do whatever it takes to get through. We are very close, it's not the time to have doubts."

City dominated the early possession, but PSG were the more dangerous side with Neymar testing City goalkeeper Ederson twice.

Marquinhos, returning to the team from an injury suffered in the quarterfinal first leg against Bayern Munich, put the hosts in front when he headed home Angel Di Maria's whipped corner in the 15th minute.

City, overly cautious for fear of being punished on the break, were again exposed on a set piece when Leandro Paredes headed Neymar's corner just wide.

Guardiola's City side lacked their usual composure, with Joao Cancelo picking up a yellow card for a challenge on Kylian Mbappe.

City's first real chance came in the 42nd minute when Phil Foden, played infield by Silva, shot too close to PSG goalkeeper Keylor Navas.

The visitors were more attack-minded in the second half, and they equalised after 64 minutes when De Bruyne -- from a corner by Oleksandr Zinchenko, who had just replaced Cancelo -- sent in a cross and Navas failed to react as it curled into the far corner of the net.

Navas was beaten again seven minutes later when Mahrez's free kick flew through an inadequate PSG wall.

Gueye's dismissal for a wild tackle on Gundogan made City's task easier, and they will take a big advantage into the second leg in Manchester.

"A game of two halves." Rarely in Manchester City's history has this expression made so much sense.

Like they were in Dortmund, in the quarterfinal second leg when they were 1-0 down at half-time and facing the prospect of a disappointing Champions League exit, Pep Guardiola's players were behind against Paris Saint-Germain in the French capital on Wednesday in their semifinal first leg. Deservedly behind, too. The Parisians were too good for City's press, buildup and movement. But again, like all great teams do, they fought back.

Man City showed their character and found a way of not just getting back into the game, but forcing PSG into mistakes that cost them two goals. From being almost unable to create anything in the first 45 minutes, which was so unlike City, the second 45 minutes were everything this team is about: intensity, pressure, aggression and intelligence. Suddenly, it was PSG who were unrecognisable.

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The Premier League leaders played much higher up the pitch, finally got full-backs Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo involved, and Kevin De Bruyne was more prevalent. They took the ball away from PSG, preventing them from playing out from the back as well as they did in the first half. Without the ball, there is not much Marco Verratti, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe can do. City made them chase after the ball instead of having it at their feet, and it made all the difference in a 2-1 victory.

The character showed by Guardiola's players to come back into this game, to boss the second half in the way they did, is deserving of high praise. And when you are on top but still trailing 1-0, you need your best players to step up -- and City's did.

This was a special night for Riyad Mahrez. He was back home, in Paris, where he was born and raised. The Parc des Princes is a stadium he used to visit when he was younger to watch Les Rouge et Bleu, and playing there now, for the first time in his career, was always going to be very meaningful. Before this first leg, he would have dreamt of playing a key role in this clash. And he did, just as he did against Borussia Dortmund (an assist at home, a goal away) and Borussia Monchengladbach (scoring in the second leg of their round-of-16 tie). His performance on Wednesday, scoring the winner and being a constant threat, was one of his best since joining Manchester in 2018.

This year, the Algeria international has been one of City's key contributors, alongside Ilkay Gundogan, Ruben Dias, Phil Foden and De Bruyne. Of course, De Bruyne.

This was a special evening for the City captain. Until last weekend, there were doubts about whether he would be fit for this game. The ankle injury he suffered against Chelsea 10 days ago in the FA Cup semifinal loss put his participation in this first leg in jeopardy. For a while, he and Guardiola indicated they didn't think that he would be able to play. And after a pretty anonymous first half, De Bruyne stepped up after the break, even if, as he admitted himself, his goal was rather fortuitous.

"They are an unbelievable team with great players up front," he said after the match. "We pressed them differently after 30 minutes and we put them under more pressure. Then we played great in the second half, even if we are a bit lucky on our first goal. What changed in the second half was that we played more with the ball. It was too rushed in the first half. We tried to go forward too quickly, which is not our game. We tried to find space more patiently, and we did.

"We kept going after the first goal, but there is still a game to go, so we have to focus. We know we will suffer. We know how good they are. We know we have to work hard for the team at times, it will be the same in the second game."

Mahrez and De Bruyne led the way, City went for it, and their character and mental strength made the difference. They forced the Parisians into mistakes. Keylor Navas should have done better on De Bruyne's cross-turned-shot, and only Presnel Kimpembe and Leandro Paredes know what on earth they were doing in the wall on Mahrez's free-kick goal. Naturally, Guardiola was a happy man after the game.

"The second half was excellent in every department," he explained. "We need time to be more ourselves. In the first half, we didn't play free. In Dortmund, we conceded a goal first and then we came back, like tonight. I want us to be ourselves. We can only play in one way so we have to get it right."

If PSG lost their way and their focus, as we saw with Idrissa Gueye's red card, it is because Manchester City took the game away from them. In the second half, the hosts threw away everything they had worked so hard to create in the first. Marquinhos' goal made history as the centre-back became only the third player in history to score in the Champions League quarterfinals and semifinals two seasons in a row, after goal-scoring greats Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann. It was not enough on Wednesday. But there is still a second leg for PSG to turn things around.

"We have to believe and go there to play, score goals and win," PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino said after the game, ruing the "two accident goals" his team conceded. "It is difficult to accept. It is painful that it happens in a Champions League semifinal."

Travelling to Manchester has been happy hunting for PSG, having won their past two Champions League trips there, including earlier this season. Those results came in the red half of the city, though. Can they do the same on the blue side of town?

David Warner will not look back very fondly at the match that got him his 50th IPL half-century and his 10,000th T20 run. Warner struggled to 57 off 55 against the Chennai Super Kings, contributing to a sluggish start as the Sunrisers Hyderabad slumped to a seven-wicket defeat to stay at the bottom of the points table in IPL 2021.

"I take full responsibility. The way that I batted was obviously very slow," Warner told host broadcaster Star Sports at the end of the match. "I was hitting a lot of fielders and [was] very, very frustrated... Look I take full responsibility from a batting point of view. I felt [that with] Manish [Pandey] coming back into the team, the way that he batted was exceptional. And obviously Kane [Williamson] and Kedar [Jadhav] towards the back end there, they put some boundaries away and got us to a respectable total. I felt that we were probably just below par from where we were. But yeah look, at the end of the day, I'll take full responsibility."

It is not that Warner wasn't trying to get the ball away, but he never found the combination of timing and placement right. A lot of his forcing shots couldn't hit the gaps, and those that did hadn't travelled sweetly enough off the bat and could therefore be cut off. ESPNcricinfo's control percentage illustrates both points: Warner was not in control of his shots for 20% of his innings which comes down to 11 balls, a high enough figure anyway given the length of his innings.

He was in control for 44 balls, but those yielded only 56 runs. Normally, when a batter of Warner's ability is in control for that many balls, you would expect a higher yield. But against the Super Kings, he couldn't pierce the gaps even when he timed the ball well. The lack of runs told on Warner, who audibly indulged in self-recrimination and angry, frustrated swings of the bat after yet another ball had not gone where he wanted it to.

"I hit probably 15 good shots to fielders, [as] simple as that," he said. "I can't do much about it. They're the ones that make or break your innings I think. In the first six overs, I hit [to] the fielder four or five times. There was one guy on the leg side, I hit it straight to him with a full toss. It gets frustrating as a batsman when you're out there. But at the end of the day, I took too many balls."

The Sunrisers' coach Trevor Bayliss acknowledged that Warner was finding it tough but backed his captain to come good at the post-match press conference.

"Look I think David will be the first to admit he struggled to hit the gaps today," Bayliss said. "He hit a lot of balls to the field today. Obviously, with David that doesn't happen a lot. Tonight it did, so yeah that put us a bit behind the eight-ball, but the other guys batted really well in a team effort. Unfortunately, 170 [171] wasn't quite enough. I thought they bowled pretty well and then obviously batted well."

Warner's 55-ball 57 was worth only 24 points on ESPNcricinfo's Smart Stats. An indication of how low that is, is demonstrated by how much Kane Williamson's 26* off 10 deliveries was worth, which was nearly double at 44 points.

Williamson's knock, in fact, was worth more than even Pandey's 61 off 46. Pandey didn't accelerate enough through the middle overs and at the death. The Sunrisers have top-heavy batting in their playing XI, with Warner, Jonny Bairstow and Williamson expected to do the heavy lifting. Ordinarily, an innings where Warner has faced 55 balls might have yielded 75 to 100 runs for them. But this happened to be one of those days when everything went wrong for Warner.

With the team sitting at the bottom of the points table and time to catch up running out, they will need this to be a one-off.

A "change in attitude" in dealing with the various challenges posed by playing during a pandemic has resulted in a change in fortunes for the Chennai Super Kings, according to captain MS Dhoni and coach Stephen Fleming.

Six months ago, the Super Kings left the UAE having endured their worst-ever showing at the IPL, not making the playoffs for the first time since the tournament's inception in 2008. Now, they are back on a familiar perch, top of the points table six games into IPL 2021, having completed another convincing victory, this time against the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Speaking at the post-match presentation in Delhi, Dhoni elaborated. "One of the facts was, five to six months we were out of cricket [before IPL 2020]. Nothing was really allowed. It was not like you could go and practice on your own, that also makes it slightly more difficult. Then the change of venue [from India to the UAE], and you know quarantine, it was a slightly longer quarantine, people were not used to it. There were quite a few factors that could have resulted in that [poor showing].

"But overall, I think to really sum it up nicely, the players have taken more responsibility this year - you will be facing adverse things but ultimately it boils down to how each and every individual rises to the occasion and does that 10% extra for the team."

At the post-match press conference, Fleming spoke on similar lines. "It was tough in the UAE. We had a pretty bad run. A lot of things went against us, which we didn't make too much of at the time. We got a pretty big knock at the start of the tournament with a number of reasons, but [during] the last part of the tournament we were really comfortable. We made some changes around our attitude towards what we were doing, and then we were really sure [of] what style we wanted to play going into this year's IPL."

The Super Kings had a rocky start to IPL 2020, with more than ten of their contingent testing positive for Covid-19, and their batting mainstay over several seasons Suresh Raina returning home for personal reasons before the tournament began. While nothing more on the matter has been officially revealed, it is understood that he had told the team management that he had issues with staying in the bio-secure bubble.

"We needed to play a faster game, we needed to keep evolving if we were not in Chennai. And that's what we are trying to do"

Stephen Fleming

The Super Kings subsequently did not seem to be able to fix on a playing XI in the early part of the season, fielding 17 players across the first six matches and winning only two in that period. Eventually, they would go on to play 20 players across the season. By comparison, this year they have fielded 13 players in the first six games - with nine playing in all the matches so far - and have won five of these.

Both Dhoni and Fleming admitted this clarity over the XI was a plus. "Whenever you start a tournament, you may or may not face some kind of issue with the playing XI," Dhoni said. "If there are a few issues, the earlier you settle it, the better it is, because it gives some sort of a settled view to the team-mates."

"The challenge we had - and most franchises had - was that we weren't sure where we were going to play," Fleming said. He said the team worked towards correcting this in the latter part of the 2020 season, with an eye on IPL 2021. "We worked really hard on that in Dubai. It wasn't that we just ran the season out, we made sure we made the most of every opportunity we had. We finished that well. To be honest, we were only one, maybe two, games away from getting through [to the qualifiers]. So it wasn't actually a disaster - the finish was really good.

"So we took a lot out of that, and in the off season we just looked at players that could fit and do a job - not just in Chennai but in conditions that were still a bit foreign. We needed to play a faster game, we needed to keep evolving if we were not in Chennai. And that's what we are trying to do; we are not the finished product by any means, but we're playing well at the moment."

That said, Dhoni had a special word of praise for the players who have not got their chance yet. "For the last 8-10 years we've not really changed a lot of players in our squad, and also we appreciate the ones who are not playing a lot," he said. "Keeping the dressing-room atmosphere healthy is very important. I think the individuals, we need to credit them, because those are the persons who need to [not take sitting out personally and] really digest it, because it's not an easy thing - when you are at the top level you want to play. I feel we need to give extra credit to the players who have not played so far."

SEATTLE -- General manager John Schneider says that he never "actively negotiated" with any teams that called the Seattle Seahawks about a possible trade for Russell Wilson.

Coach Pete Carroll says the organization and Wilson are in a "fantastic place" and that the Seahawks were never going to trade their star quarterback.

Schneider and Carroll spoke publicly Wednesday for the first time since Wilson aired his frustrations with the organization during media interviews in February. Among Wilson's frustrations was all the hits he's taken over his nine-year career with Seattle.

"There was some stuff that was said that had to be dealt with, and it has been," Carroll said. "So Russ is in a great place right now, and he's been in a great place throughout the offseason. We have communicated throughout all of the things just like I always have ...

"Right now, he is as jacked up as he's ever been. He's in the process of turning over our new offensive stuff that is different from the past and things that we need to learn. He's totally after it and doing a great job, his mentality is strong and his conditioning is right. He's doing a great job. So things were said, things were said. And sometimes you have to deal with stuff and that's how we take care of our business. We're in a fantastic place right now and really excited about this team and this season and this draft coming up and all of that."

ESPN's Adam Schefter reported in March that the Chicago Bears made an aggressive pursuit of Wilson but were told that the Seahawks weren't trading him at that time. Asked about that report, Schneider said a number of teams called Seattle about Wilson, but he declined to specify.

"There was no active negotiations going on," he said.

Asked if Wilson's post-Super Bowl comments violated Carroll's No. 1 rule -- always protect the team -- Carroll said they "challenged" the rule. Carroll said Wilson wasn't any more frustrated than he was after Seattle's loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round.

"Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson are two of the most passionate and competitive people that I know, and passionate people just say passionate things," Schneider said. "I think that it just kind of came out."

Carroll declined to get into specifics on why he and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer parted ways after the season, a decision that led to Seattle hiring Shane Waldron as his replacement.

Carroll referred to Pro Bowl safety Jamal Adams as the Seahawks' No. 1 pick in this year's draft, a reference to how Seattle gave up a package of draft picks including this year's first- and third-rounders in last summer's trade with the New York Jets.

Both Carroll and Schneider talked about Adams being a part of the team's future. He's entering the fifth and final year of the rookie deal Seattle inherited from the Jets. A source has told ESPN that there's confidence in the organization that a long-term deal will get done with Adams during this offseason.

"We want him here long term, for sure," Schneider said.

Schneider said he can't discuss defensive end Aldon Smith's recent arrest in connection with an alleged second-degree battery in Louisiana. Asked about Smith's past, which includes a domestic violence allegation, Schneider alluded to a blanket statement he made years ago about how the Seahawks would avoid players involved in such incidents and said he's since learned that every situation should be treated individually.

MIAMI -- The San Antonio Spurs do not expect starting guard Derrick White back this season because of a sprained right ankle, coach Gregg Popovich said Wednesday.

White was injured in the Spurs' win Monday in Washington. The fourth-year guard is averaging a career-best 15.4 points this season for San Antonio, which played 18 of its first 19 games this season without White because of a toe injury.

"You can imagine his spirits are not high," Popovich said.

San Antonio was at Miami on Wednesday night.

White is not expected to require surgery. Rookie guard Devin Vassell will take White's place in the starting lineup, Popovich said.

"When he gets minutes, he's played well," Popovich said of Vassell.

White has averaged 10.8 points in 188 games over his four seasons in San Antonio. He has been the Spurs' third-leading scorer this season behind DeMar DeRozan and Dejounte Murray.