MILLGROVE, Ontario — There will be many special moments at Flamboro Speedway this season, including the crowning of a champion.

Can-Am T.Q. Midget Series officials have revealed the tour’s 18-race schedule, which includes five visits to Flamboro Speedway, including the series’ championship night.

The series will visit the third-mile oval for its season opener on May 8, before returning on June 5, July 17, and Aug. 21. They will then crown a Can-Am Midget T.Q. Series champion at Flamboro on Sept. 25.

For more than 50 years, midget racing has taken place across North America, with the Can-Am Midget racing group standing as one of the most successful clubs in both Canada and the United States.

The series was only able to visit Flamboro Speedway on a single occasion during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, but put on a show for the fans watching via GForceTV.

Darren Dryden scored the victory, marking his third win at Flamboro in the last three events, but was heavily challenged throughout, including a late-race battle with Daniel Hawn.

A mid-July weekend will feature the APC United Late Models and Super Stocks and T.Q. Can-Am Midgets set for Saturday, July 17, followed by the Pinty’s Series the next day.

NICHOLS, S.C. – He’s a big-block modified star with the Super DIRTcar Series, a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular, and now, a late model pilot with the Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series.

Stewart Friesen, of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is set to make his series debut in this weekend’s South Carolina doubleheader on Saturday, Feb. 20, at Lake View Motor Speedway and Sunday, Feb. 21, at Cherokee Speedway for the Frostbite 40.

He’s had a packed schedule over the past month – big-block racing in the 50th DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park and his NASCAR commitments at Daytona Int’l Speedway – but he’s motivated to better himself in Halmar Friesen Racing’s newest motorsports venture, the dirt late model.

“The Xtreme [DIRTcar] Series is something I was watching,” Friesen said. “It’s after the big-block and Truck stuff is done for the year. We watched [Brandon] Overton win at Cherokee and then [Chris] Madden win [at Volunteer].

“It’s unique. It’s like, we could almost race every weekend, 12 months out of the year with the late model.”

Like the Canadian, several of the drivers competing this weekend have yet to make a lap around Lake View Motor Speedway. However, the majority of them are familiar with the three-eighths-mile Cherokee Speedway. Even Friesen.

He and his new Cornett-powered Halmar International Longhorn Chassis first got to know each other in their initial testing session at Cherokee last month. He also picked up a big-block modified victory at Cherokee last May with the Short Track Super Series.

Following his test at Cherokee last month, he then made the trip further south to race at All-Tech Raceway and in East Bay Raceway Park’s Winternationals, marking his first competitive nights in the car.

While he was unable to qualify for a feature in those events, he broke through with a second-fast qualifying effort in his group, a heat race win and a seventh-place finish in the second night of competition at Bubba Raceway Park on Feb. 2.

“That last race at Bubba, we were just getting comfortable and learning about the car,” Friesen said. “It all kind of fell into place for us. Our guys getting comfortable working on the car, myself getting comfortable with the shocks and springs and stuff and getting comfortable in the seat as well.”

He’s won numerous races with the Super DIRTcar Series, took a checkered flag with the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series in 2015 and even has two NASCAR victories in his Truck. He’s mastered his skills in all three disciplines and is ready to take on the new challenge of a dirt late model.

“It’s cool. It’s definitely unique,” Friesen said. “It’s a different experience from the Truck, the [big-block] modified or even the sprint car racing I did some years ago. Definitely something I’ve always wanted to do, being a fan of that discipline of racing.”

He’s said before that there are “zero moral victories,” even when it comes to something as new and challenging as the Late Model is to him. When he missed the final transfer spot by one position to get in the feature of his only East Bay appearance last month, a strong feeling of frustration set in. But while that relentless desire to improve and compete against the best drivers fuels him, he knows it’s going to take some time for he and the car to fully mesh.

“We’re realistic about our goals with the late model,” Friesen said. “Especially in Florida during the Speedweeks chase when there was 60s, high-50s car-count; East Bay had like 76 the night we ran there. So, our first goal was just to qualify for a feature.”

With three new tracks now under his belt in a late model, all of different sizes and surface types, Friesen’s ready to apply all he’s learned in the past month and tackle a fourth new venue this weekend at Lake View.

“I probably learned more about racing and that style in those couple of weeks than I have in the last 10 years between the Modified and Truck races,” Friesen said. “It’s a whole different discipline, but it’s been really exciting and a lot of fun to learn that.”

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Live Fast Motorsports announced Thursday that Scott Heckert will wheel the No. 78 Ford Mustang with Motorsport Games as the primary sponsor during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event on the Daytona Int’l Speedway Road Course.

“We are so excited to have Scott driving for us at the Daytona Road Course,” said team co-owner B.J. McLeod. “He’s an absolute wheel-man on road courses, and his stats show just that.”

“This is a special moment for me and it’s even better that I get to drive for two of my close friends,” said Heckert. “It’s been great getting to witness B.J. and Matt (Tifft) build this new team and I’m honored to represent them at their first road course race.”

When B.J. and Jessica McLeod brought on Heckert as their second driver in their late-model driver development program, they would have never imagined their relationship with Heckert would blossom to what it has transpired to be over time. In 2016, Heckert made his Xfinity Series debut with BJ McLeod Motorsports where he earned his finish in the Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen Int’l.

Heckert also found success in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East after racing full-time for three years. In 2014, Heckert earned two road course wins in the K&N Series at Watkins Glen and Virginia Int’l Raceway. In 2015, Heckert drove for Justin Marks and HScott Motorsports where he recorded two wins, again, at Watkins Glen as well as Bowman Gray Stadium.

What a lot of people don't realize about the first NHL Winter Classic is that it very well could have been the last NHL Winter Classic.

We remember Sidney Crosby scoring the game-winning goal on New Year's Day in 2008, in front of a raucous and frozen stadium crowd in Buffalo in a game that looked like it was being played inside a snow globe.

We remember that game between the Penguins and Sabres sparking the NHL's new era of outdoor games, which has spanned from Fenway Park to the Cotton Bowl to Dodger Stadium. We remember it as the moment when the NHL, still reeling from its canceled lockout season in 2004-05, showed it could transcend its niche status, plant its flag on a day meant for college football and draw a stadium's worth of fans to watch a regular-season hockey game.

What we don't really remember from that game: the risk.

The risk that the gameplay could be more atrocious than it was. The risk that a player could suffer a significant injury due to the unwieldy conditions. That no one, from fans to sponsors, would actually care enough about the outdoor game gimmick to want a second edition.

"If minor things had been different -- the weather maybe two or three degrees warmer than it was -- maybe the Winter Classic goes away," recalled Bill Daly to Sports Business Journal.

Instead, 11 more Winter Classic games and 19 other outdoor games would follow, including this weekend's NHL games at Lake Tahoe, pitting the Colorado Avalanche against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday and the Philadelphia Flyers against the Boston Bruins on Sunday.

These games are like nothing the NHL has attempted before: outdoor games played without fans in attendance, whose success is completely reliant on the quality of the game itself and the landscape (and waterscape) around the rink.

It's hockey as it was meant to be played, on a "frozen pond" in the middle of a winter vista. But there's no stadium sell-out crowd buying $30 hats. There's no sponsor-filled village of booths and kiosks around the venue.

The Lake Tahoe games are either going to rewrite the rules of the league's outdoor game strategy or they're going to be a one-and-done pandemic curio. Essentially, this is another "Winter Classic moment" for the NHL.

It was in an interview with ESPN in December 2019 that Nicky Butt branded Adnan Januzaj the "biggest disappointment" of all the players to have come through Manchester United's academy.

"I don't think I've seen a player, probably since Ryan Giggs, who was as good as that," Butt said. "He was unbelievable. In my eyes he should have gone on to be a world superstar."

It's more than three-and-a-half years since Januzaj left United for Real Sociedad, and as he prepares to face his former club in the Europa League on Thursday, he is asked about Butt's claim.

"What he said, it's true," he says. "But the only problem is that I didn't have the right coach to get me on my level and to push me."

Januzaj's time at United encapsulates perfectly why the club have found it so difficult in the years since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. With new managers came new ideas, and while Januzaj flourished under David Moyes, he could not win over Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho.

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He had only just turned 18 when he was named on the bench for the first time in Ferguson's final game, a 5-5 draw with West Bromwich Albion in May 2013. Handed his senior debut by Moyes the following season, he made 35 appearances in a breakthrough campaign. He scored twice on his first Premier League start in a 2-1 win over Sunderland in October 2013 and signed a five-year contract just two weeks later. His rise was so spectacular that he earned a place in the Belgium squad for the 2014 World Cup.

But the upheaval at United, of which Januzaj became a victim, was only just beginning.

Moyes was sacked in April 2014 and replaced with Van Gaal. Januzaj's performances the previous season had seen him inherit Ryan Giggs' No. 11 shirt, but with Van Gaal in charge he hardly got a chance to wear it.

A key part of Moyes' squad, Januzaj found himself on the fringes under Van Gaal. In the Dutchman's first year, he started just seven league games. The following season, in August 2015, Januzaj was handed a rare start in United's second game of the season and scored the only goal in a 1-0 win at Aston Villa. But by the end of the month he had been shipped off on loan to Borussia Dortmund. He would go on to make just three more appearances for the club.

Speaking about Januzaj a year ago, Butt ended by saying pointedly: "Talent gets you through the gate here but what will keep you here is character and commitment." Now 26, Januzaj has a different interpretation of why his time at Old Trafford was cut short.

"When Van Gaal came I was playing one game out of six, so it was difficult, and I was like, 'What am I doing here?'" he tells ESPN. "The first season under Moyes I was getting game time to show myself. I think I played 30 or 35 games. Then it was one game and five on the bench and with my quality, I didn't understand.

"The only thing that the coach can use against you is if you're not training well, but I know myself, I was training well. It's never been an excuse for me, I've always trained hard since I started football.

"People were always talking about me, I've done this, I've done that, and it was difficult. When you're 18 and you're being criticised like that, it's difficult. Especially when you're being criticised without getting games. I can understand it if I was playing 10 games and eight were bad games but it was not the case. Sometimes people outside don't understand these things.

"At Manchester United, the most disappointing thing was that I wasn't getting games. At that point I just wanted to leave the club. It was a difficult situation."

Van Gaal was eventually sacked in May 2016, but hopes of winning back his place under Jose Mourinho were ended when he was ushered out the door in a loan move to Sunderland to be reunited with Moyes.

"I wanted to leave United because I wanted to get games," he says. "I went to Sunderland, we all know it's not a team for me and not a team where I would enjoy my football, but I went there because I wanted to have games. I wanted to play, that was the only thing. It was last minute and it was like, 'You have to go.'"

Januzaj struggled, Sunderland were relegated and Moyes resigned. In July 2017, just three years after being tipped for the top at United, Januzaj joined Real Sociedad for €11 million.

"The club and the coaches have helped me to be happy here," he says. "Once you're happy in your life, you can be happy on the pitch. Here I have more opportunities than I had in Manchester and the more you play, the more you can show yourself and you can flourish.

"At United I didn't have that many chances, especially when Van Gaal and Mourinho came. When they came there it was more difficult for me because I was a young player. I was 18 or 19 and I just had to accept things. Before that I had people who believed in me like Ferguson. If he had stayed there longer I think I would have played longer for Manchester United."

Januzaj insists he will have nothing to prove when he lines up against United for Sociedad in their Europa League round-of-32 first leg on Thursday. He has ambitions to play in the Champions League and to be part of the Belgium squad for this summer's European Championship and the World Cup next year, but insists his focus for now is doing his best for the club who gave him a fresh start.

"I live very well here, it's a great city to live and the people are very nice," he says. "It's a big club here in Spain and everything is going very well for me so I'm really happy.

"We are an attacking team, we have good attacking players. It's always been a club that has had great players, we try to play attractive football and we have good young players so the club is going very well.

"I'm 26 and still young. Sometimes people think I'm 35 because I've been so long in the game. I have to focus here and the rest follows. If you perform for your club, the rest follows. I'm really happy here and enjoying myself and hopefully I can keep going like this."

Sri Lanka fast bowler Dhammika Prasad has announced his retirement from international cricket at age 37.

Prasad played the last of his 25 Tests in October 2015, following which a serious shoulder injury impeded his career. Prasad eventually made a first-class comeback, following surgery, but could not quite break back into the national team.

Before that injury, however, he was one of Sri Lanka's premier quicks, remembered with particular fondness for his second-innings 5 for 50 at Headingley in 2014, which led to Sri Lanka winning their first series in England. That was his only five-wicket haul in Tests, but he was nevertheless impressive at home in 2015, taking four wickets in an innings consecutively against India.

Prasad finished with 75 Test wickets at an average of 35.97, and also took 32 ODI wickets at 30.50 in 24 games. He has a further 276 first-class wickets, largely for his Sinhalese Sports Club side, whom he has played for since 2002.

Rangana Herath, a long-time Sri Lanka team-mate, paid tribute to Prasad's exploits on Thursday.

"We had never won a series in England, and when Dhammika took wickets on that fourth day in Leeds, it set us up for victory and that was a remarkable thing," he said. "When he and I bowled together, I knew he would be putting pressure on the batsman from the other end - either keeping the runs down, or threatening their wickets.

"I also remember something to laugh about. In 2015, when we played India at home, he had a heated argument with Ishant Sharma on the field. At the time we all thought it would be something that went on for a long time. But that same evening, we saw him and Ishant having a coffee together at the hotel. They hadn't waited for the end of the match - they made up that evening itself."

Marvan Atapattu, another SSC stalwart, and Prasad's coach in 2014 during that memorable Headingley spell, was also effusive in his praise.

"Generally fast bowlers like to bowl with the new ball first thing in the day when the conditions suit them, but Dhammika was someone you could call on anytime," Atapattu said.

"He'd want the ball at all times of the day, no matter what condition it was in. If it was 5pm, and he was bowling with an old ball, and there was a batsman batting on 150, he'd still take the ball, because he wanted to get that breakthrough for the team. Those are rare qualities from a cricketer."

Prasad had spent the last few years attempting to make a comeback for Sri Lanka, but his bowling had not quite been the same since the shoulder injury and consequent surgery. He hopes to play another domestic season for SSC before quitting entirely, though this year's season may not be played, due to Covid-19.

Sam Curran has been ruled out of the remainder of England's Test series in India due to the logistical difficulties of travelling solo during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead he will now rejoin the squad on February 26, midway through the third Test, along with the rest of England's white-ball players ahead of the five T20I series in March.

Curran played in both of England's Tests against Sri Lanka last month, claiming three wickets at 38.00 in the 2-0 series win. However, instead of then flying on to Chennai for the first Two Tests against India, he returned home alongside his fellow multi-format players, Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood, for a pre-arranged break from the team's biosecure bubble.

Bairstow and Wood have now returned to training following their quarantine period, and expect to be available for selection when the third Test gets underway in Ahmedabad next week. Curran, however, was granted an extended break, given that he had been in locked-down environments since the start of the England Test summer in July, including his stint with Chennai Super Kings at the IPL.

According to the ECB, the original plan had been for Curran to fly to Ahmedabad in time to make himself available for the fourth Test, starting on March 4.

But, with no direct flights available from the UK, and the cost of a charter flight being prohibitive for a solo passenger, Curran would have been required to make a stop-over en route - a situation that could have made social distancing problematic, especially in the event of issues arising during his transit period.

Furthermore, had any fellow passenger on a commercial flight tested positive on arrival in India, Curran would have run the risk of being placed in isolation before he had the opportunity to join up with the rest of the England squad.

"On the basis of the above, and to give Sam the best chance of minimising his risk of exposure to the virus, it was decided to delay his return so that he could travel on the charter flight with the white-ball squad members due to fly on 26 February," an ECB spokesman said.

The journey that Curran's team-mates endured in rejoining the England Test squad may have been a factor in the decision to postpone his trip. Speaking to the media on Thursday, Bairstow related how he, Wood and other members of the ECB back-room staff had had to take a seven-and-a-half-hour bus journey from Bangalore to Chennai, and navigate the difficulties of social distancing, even before the rigours of their six-day quarantine period.

"The journey [home] was fine, we just flew into Heathrow," Bairstow said. "The journey back out was four hours down to Heathrow where we nearly broke down, which was interesting. Then we had the flight out to Bangalore. We arrived there, had our tests and had to wait in the airport for our results to be negative.

"Then we had a seven-and-a-half-hour bus journey across India to Chennai. We weren't allowed to stop on that journey either, which was interesting. I'll let you have your own thoughts about how that trip was.

"We went to our bedrooms, where unfortunately there wasn't any fresh air which naturally made the quarantine period tough. We go through that, all the tests came back negative, and rejoined the group a couple of days ago.

"It's tricky with the logistics, the quarantine periods. It's especially very tricky when you're on a plane with other people. You've been quarantined at home effectively, because you don't want to contract the virus for your loved ones within your family, but also you don't want to contract the virus because then then you can't board a plane to come out to rejoin the tour.

"But then you're on a plane with people you've never met, and then you get to the airport and are greeted by a lot of loving Indian supporters and fans. It can be tricky trying to make sure you're doing everything you can in your remit to make sure you don't get the virus, but then there's things you can't help, like other people and the spaces they get into.

"You're then quarantined in your rooms hoping you haven't caught anything on the journey over because you'd be in the room for another 14 days. Yes, it is quite mentally taxing."

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Roush Fenway Racing set a goal to reduce its carbon footprint even as it raced a pair of gas-guzzling cars all across the country.

The initiative started with small environmentally conscious measures that eventually grew into a companywide initiative. With support from partner Castrol, RFR became the first carbon neutral team in NASCAR.

Roush Fenway on Thursday announced its carbon neutrality certification according to the PAS 2060 standard, verified by independent third party ERM CVS. Roush reached the status throughout its entire organization, including operations and its two race teams, for 2020.

The team will mark the achievement Sunday at Daytona International Speedway with a special paint scheme on Ryan Newman's car. The Ford is typically a dominant green with red accents when Castrol sponsors the No. 6.

Newman's car this week will be stark white with a gray Castrol badge and muted logos from partners that supported the initiative. It created a clean look that symbolizes the minimalistic path to carbon neutrality. In its sponsorship negotiations with RFR, Castrol mandated a contract clause that the team work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offset the balance.

"We've spent months tracking, quantifying, measuring our existing carbon footprint and ways to reduce our carbon footprint," RFR president Steve Newmark said. "There's no doubt that we have unavoidable carbon emissions in how we operate our business. When you race cars and travel around the country to do so, that will inevitably be part of our operations.

"We're trying to show that even companies in an industry like ours can take steps to reduce overall emissions, and our hope is that it will set an example for other teams and the racing industry."

To become carbon neutral, RFR set a goal to recycle 90% of every race car, including oil, rubber, aluminum and carbon fiber. The organization has reduced its overall waste produced by more than 100 tons over the past decade, switched to LED lighting throughout its campus, reduced energy consumption costs through computer-controlled HVAC systems and installed reflective roofing membranes to reduce solar heat gain.

Rainwater runoff at its North Carolina facility is captured and contained for landscape irrigation, and idling has been prohibited on campus to reduce emissions and air pollutants. The fleet of Roush company cars is being converted to Ford electric and hybrid vehicles.

Newman already has the all-electric Mustang Mach-E, the first Ford production developed from the ground up to produce a zero-emission vehicle.

"We as a society have to take notice to make an impact," Newman said. "I've never been one to pride myself in driving around an electric vehicle, but the reality is that makes a big impact. I'm a V-8 [engine] guy with the rumble, and a hot rod sounds good, looks good and take the kids for ice cream in it -- that's me, right?

"The reality is that comes with a cost to our environment, and I'm aware of that more so than ever. There are things that we can all be doing better."

Newman noted that once a week he picks up 15 gallons of trash from the road in front of his North Carolina farm. He fills 5-gallon buckets with wrappers, bottles, beer cans and bags from fast food restaurants and convenience stores.

"It's sad that people can be that nasty," Newman said. "Their mindset has nothing to do with greenhouse gases, or carbon footprints and offsets. They are more worried about not having trash on the floor of their car. They don't care about what they are driving; they don't care if it has a catalytic converters; they don't care if the oil has been changed or what happened to the oil after.

"It's a challenge, and the whole message here is that you don't have to do that. You can be efficient. You just have to be smarter."

The NFL has informed teams that the 2021 salary cap will be no lower than $180 million, a slight increase from last year's previous agreement between the league and the NFL Players Association.

The league told teams in a memo Thursday morning that $180 million is not the final 2021 cap figure, just an adjustment of the cap "floor" established last summer in negotiations between the NFL and the NFLPA.

The final 2021 cap figure, the memo says, "will be set following review of the final 2020 revenue figure and other audit and accounting adjustments." The new league year and free agency are scheduled to begin March 17.

Sources familiar with the negotiations told ESPN that the final number is likely to be between $180 million and $185 million, though almost certainly on the lower end of that range.

"As you know, one aspect of the agreements negotiated last summer with the NFLPA to address operations during the pandemic provides that the 2021 Salary Cap will be no less than $175 million," the memo said. "Following discussions with the union that addressed both actual 2020 revenues and projected attendance for the 2021 season, we have agreed to increase the minimum Salary Cap for the 2021 League Year to $180 million. We will promptly advise all clubs as soon as the Salary Cap is set."

Last summer, while negotiating the terms under which the league would proceed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL and the NFLPA agreed to that original salary cap floor of $175 million per team for 2021. This was to guard against revenue losses sending the cap even lower.

One source said Thursday that the revenue numbers on which the cap is annually based would have led to a salary cap of roughly $160 million per team, which would have been a disastrously large drop from the $198.2 million cap under which teams operated in 2020.

With the floor now set at $180 million, the cap will be roughly $20 million higher than it would have been otherwise. That $20 million or so will have to be "borrowed" against future caps, and the manner in which that will happen is a subject of ongoing negotiations between the league and its players union.

To use a rough example: If revenue projections deliver a $220 million salary cap in 2022 and a $230 million cap in 2023, the sides could agree to reduce those numbers by $10 million each of those two years to make up for this year's $20 million discrepancy.

The final 2021 cap figure could take some time to finalize, as the NFL continues to negotiate new contracts with its TV network partners. New TV contracts would obviously affect revenue projections and could lead to an expansion of the NFL regular season to 17 games as early as this year.

But one source close to the talks said the best-case outcome of those negotiations still likely wouldn't raise this year's cap beyond about $185 million.

Teams are allowed to roll over cap room from previous years, so any extra room teams had under 2020's $198.2 million salary cap can be applied to 2021's cap.

Total attendance this past season was 1.2 million, down from 17 million in 2019. Thirteen teams didn't allow fans in the regular season; other clubs limited crowd size to provide social distancing in compliance with health and safety regulations in their state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Eight days before Super Bowl LV had officially put a bow on the 2020 NFL season, the calliope music already could be heard.

The league's 2021 quarterback carousel was in motion.

Yes, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers still had to settle the business of a championship, but the Detroit Lions had agreed on Jan. 30 to ship quarterback Matthew Stafford -- he told the Detroit Free Press' Mitch Albom this past week, "I wanted to shoot my shot" -- to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Goff and a pile of draft picks.

And the always constant, and almost always maddening, pursuit of the "it'' guy behind center was officially up and running for the new season. Personnel executives around the league have said that this offseason could result in the most changes behind center from one season to the next that anyone has seen. The record? Well, that would be 16 different opening-day starters from the 1998 season compared to 1999. In 1998 the league had 30 teams in it as the expansion Cleveland Browns would start play in 1999 -- that means 16 of the 30 teams that were open for business in both of those seasons changed starting quarterbacks, or 53%.

A big reason so many teams changed their starting QBs that year can be deduced by looking at the teams that did not. Five future Hall of Famers -- Brett Favre, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Dan Marino and Peyton Manning -- were in place then and seven of the 14 teams that did not make a change had a quarterback who already had started, or would eventually start, behind center in at least one Super Bowl for them.

That total doesn't even include Kordell Stewart, who had four rushing attempts in Super Bowl XXX as a Steelers rookie before eventually becoming the team's starting quarterback in 1997.

Jim Harbaugh and Scott Mitchell were the only quarterbacks in the mix who started the season opener for one team in 1998 and then started the season opener with another team in 1999. Harbaugh started the 1998 opener with Baltimore and the 1999 opener with San Diego. Mitchell started the 1998 opener with Detroit and the 1999 opener with Baltimore.

President Bill Clinton was in his second term in office in September 1999. The No. 1 song was Enrique Iglesias' "Bailamos." Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing" was one week away from its debut. And there were nine new coaches in the league as the NFL began the most drastic shuffling ever of its quarterback deck:

Baltimore Ravens

Quarterback: Scott Mitchell

Mitchell opened the 1999 season as the starter for the Ravens, replacing the departed Harbaugh, but the Ravens also started Stoney Case and Tony Banks behind center before their 8-8 season was done as they averaged just 189 passing yards per game.

Buffalo Bills

Quarterback: Doug Flutie

Rob Johnson, who started six games for the Bills in 1998, was replaced by Flutie -- at least until the playoffs. Flutie started 15 games that season as the Bills went on to an 11-5 record, but Flutie was rested in the regular-season finale with some other starters as Johnson threw for 287 yards and two touchdowns. Wade Phillips elected to start Johnson in the Bills' wild-card game in Tennessee the following week. The Titans won the game in the closing seconds with the "Music City Miracle'' kickoff return.

Carolina Panthers

Quarterback: Steve Beuerlein

Beuerlein had replaced Kerry Collins during the 1998 season -- Collins had essentially benched himself that year. Beuerlein threw for a career-best 4,436 yards and 36 touchdowns for the Panthers in 1999. Beuerlein never threw more than 19 touchdown passes in any of his other 13 seasons in the league.

Chicago Bears

Quarterback: Shane Matthews

Erik Kramer, the 1998 starter, had signed in San Diego and the Bears selected Cade McNown with the No. 12 pick in the 1999 draft. Matthews started the first five games of the season -- he had seven starts overall that year -- as McNown started six games and Jim Miller started three.

Cincinnati Bengals

Quarterback: Jeff Blake

The Bengals released Neil O'Donnell after the 1998 season, took Akili Smith with third pick of the 1999 draft and then started Jeff Blake in 12 games that season.

Denver Broncos

Quarterback: Brian Griese

The only organic move in the bunch, as future Hall of Famer John Elway retired after the Broncos closed out the 1998 season with the second of the team's back-to-back Super Bowl wins. Brian Griese opened the 1999 season at quarterback, a job that got much more difficult when Terrell Davis suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 4 against the Jets.

Detroit Lions

Quarterback: Charlie Batch

Batch did not open, or close, the 1998 season behind center for the Lions even though he started 12 games as a rookie that year. Scott Mitchell started the first two games of the 1998 season and Frank Reich started the last. Batch then opened the 1999 season as the Lions' starter.

Minnesota Vikings

Quarterback: Randall Cunningham

For a team that finished 15-1 in 1998, the Vikings were certainly busy with the quarterback depth chart in the offseason that followed. They shipped their opening-day starter of 1998, Brad Johnson, who suffered a lower leg fracture in Week 2 and was replaced by Randall Cunningham the rest of the way, to Washington for three draft picks. They then used one of those picks -- No. 11 overall -- to take Daunte Culpepper as Jeff George, who had been signed in free agency, eventually replaced Cunningham as the starting quarterback in Week 7.

New York Giants

Quarterback: Kent Graham

Graham, who had replaced a benched Danny Kanell as the Giants' starter 10 games into the 1998 season, opened and started nine games in 1999 before he was replaced by Kerry Collins.

New York Jets

Quarterback: Vinny Testaverde

Glenn Foley opened the 1998 season before a rib injury forced him to the sideline. Testaverde, who played in place of Foley for much of the remainder of 1998, opened the 1999 season only to suffer a torn Achilles in the second quarter of the Jets' Week 1 loss to the Patriots.

Oakland Raiders

Quarterback: Rich Gannon

Jeff George, who started the 1998 season opener and was one of three quarterbacks to start games for the Raiders that year (Donald Hollas and Wade Wilson were the others), moved on in free agency for 1999 and Rich Gannon started a six-year run behind center with the Raiders that included an MVP award in 2002.

Philadelphia Eagles

Quarterback: Doug Pederson

After using three different starters on the way to a 3-13 finish in 1998, the Eagles used the second pick of the 1999 draft to select Donovan McNabb as their quarterback of the future, much to the chagrin of the busloads of angry Eagles fans in attendance in New York City who then booed him. Their future head coach Doug Pederson, however, started the first nine games of 1999 before McNabb took over.

San Diego Chargers

Quarterback: Jim Harbaugh

Ryan Leaf, who had started as a rookie in 1998, suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in training camp in 1999, so Harbaugh started 12 games that season.

St. Louis Rams

Quarterback: Kurt Warner

Newly signed Trent Green was supposed to take over for Tony Banks in the 1999 season, but Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason and the glass slipper fit Warner quite nicely as he then launched a Hall of Fame career in a campaign that included 41 TDs and a Super Bowl win.

Seattle Seahawks

Quarterback: Jon Kitna

Warren Moon, who had started 10 games in 1998 as a 42-year-old, moved on to Kansas City as Kitna won the team's starting job in 1999.

Washington Football Team

Quarterback: Brad Johnson

After Trent Green had been the team's starter in 1998, Washington traded its first-, second- and third-round picks to the Minnesota Vikings for Brad Johnson as the team's starter in 1999. Two months later Washington would get some draft picks back when the New Orleans Saints sent eight picks (six in the 1999 draft, two in the 2000 draft) for Washington's No. 5 pick as the Saints selected Ricky Williams.