Derek Carr bid farewell to Raider Nation in a post he shared on social media Thursday morning.

His his first message since the Las Vegas Raiders benched him for the final two games of the NFL season, Carr said he “never envisioned it ending this way” and that “the fire burning inside of me to win a championship still rages.”

Carr reportedly told Dave Ziegler and Josh McDaniels that he will step away to avoid any distractions on the team.

Carr was not with the Raiders for the final two games after the team benched him to avoid any injuries that could have led to his contract being automatically guaranteed by Feb. 15.

Carr finished among the top half of NFL quarterbacks in multiple passing categories but below the standards of his recent years.

The team also went 6-9 in his starts, all this despite the offseason addition of Davante Adams in a blockbuster trade.

Carr finished with 3,522 passing yards and 24 touchdowns against 14 interceptions. His completion percentage was 60.8%, the lowest he had since his rookie season in 2014 when he was at 58.1%.

Carr averaged above 68% from 2018-2021.

Carr sent a lengthy goodbye on social media, expressing his gratitude to the Raiders, fans and desire to win a Super Bowl.

“Raider Nation it breaks my heart I didn’t get an opportunity to say goodbye in person. We certainly have been on a roller coaster in our 9 years together,” Carr wrote.

“From the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful and appreciative of the years of support you gave to my family and me. We had our share of both heartbreaking moments and thrilling game-winning drives, and it always felt like you were there next to me.

“It’s especially hard to say goodbye because I can honestly say that I gave you everything I had, every single day, in season, and in the offseason. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I hope that I was able to leave you with more than a few great memories as Raiders fans.

“Thank you to the city of Oakland for taking us in. Thank you to the city of Las Vegas for allowing us to proudly call you home. Thank you to the organization, my teammates, all my coaches, staff, and everyone that helped me these last 9 years in those 2 buildings. Thanks to all of Raider Nation that supported, encouraged, pushed, and uplifted me at different times along this journey. Raider Nation truly is special.

“I once said that if I’m not a Raider I would rather be at home and I meant that, but I never envisioned it ending this way. That fire burning inside of to win a championship still rages. A fire no man can extinguish; only God. So I look forward to new a city and a team who, no matter the circumstance, will get everything I have. Winning a championship is what I’ve always wanted and what I will continue to work towards.

“God bless you and with love, DC4.”

The Hillsborough County state attorney’s office announced the decision to drop the charge on Wednesday. An arrest warrant that had been issued for Brown was also nixed.

Prosecutors said they’d “determined we could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt a battery took place.”

On Nov. 28, a woman called police and said Brown threw a shoe at her. She believed he intended to hit her in the face with the projectile, but missed. A warrant was issued for Brown’s arrest, though he was never taken into custody.

As part of its investigation, the Hillsborough County attorney’s office interviewed the woman on Dec. 16.

“After the alleged victim was sworn-in she recanted her previous allegations regarding Mr. Brown’s intent to strike her or cause her bodily harm,” the office said in a statement. “Cases involving domestic violence are often difficult and involve conflicting evidence.”

A judge also denied a request for a temporary protection order against Brown.

Brown, 34, hasn’t played a NFL game since his dramatic exit from a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game last season. Two women previously accused Brown of sexual assault, including one woman who said he raped her. No charges were ever filed in either case.

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Guy, who died Thursday at age 72 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, after a lengthy illness, rewarded Davis’ faith by becoming a beloved Raiders legend and the first and only punter to be named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He won three Super Bowls with the Raiders.

It was Guy who popularized “hang time” with soaring punts that would reach eye level of fans in the outer reaches of a stadium, enabling coverage teams to make tackles and swing field position the way of the Raiders.

In an interview with this news organization in 2014, Guy said he’d never heard the words “hang time” until coach John Madden used them to describe his kicks.

In 1977, Houston coach Bum Phillips accused Guy of using footballs inflated with helium because he’d never seen punts so high. The Oilers sent footballs to Rice University for testing. No helium was found.

“The Raiders Family is mourning the passing of Ray Guy, a legendary punter who revolutionized special teams during his 14 seasons with the Silver and Black,” the Raiders said in a statement Thursday. “The prayers of the entire Raider Nation are with the Guy family at this time.”

The Georgia native was a tremendous all-around athlete, and it was that athletic prowess that enabled him to become a peer to Raiders teammates rather than be considered a specialist. Guy was a standout multi-sport athlete in high school and at Southern Miss and played both safety and quarterback in addition to punting.

Guy was selected four different times as a pitcher in the Major League Baseball draft and intercepted eight passes as a senior at Southern Miss.

“I never really had a teacher, a coach or a special camp to attend to learn the art of punting,” Guy said in his 2014 Hall of Fame induction speech. “My high school coach showed me two things about foot alignment and ball placement, and that was pretty much it.

“I was a good athlete and could have been a major league pitcher or an NBA basketball player, but I knew God had something special for me and eventually one sport would stand out beyond the rest. Playing in the NFL for the Raiders was my destiny, and I never looked back or questioned my decision.”

In a separate 2014 interview, Guy recalled the reaction of his new teammates after being a first-round draft pick. He won them over with his athletic skill as he was the Raiders’ emergency quarterback and a willing and aggressive tackler on kickoff returns.

“I know a lot of the veterans were thinking, ‘What’s Al doing?” Guy said. “He’s drafting a punter with his No. 1 draft choice? How is that going to help?’ But after the first day of practice, it was obvious I was more than just a punter.”

Guy’s career average of 42.4 yards per punt is pedestrian by today’s standards, but he was playing for a strong team that often had good field position. His job was to get maximum altitude on kicks and ideally keep opponents inside the 20-yard line. From 1976-86, he put 210 punts inside the 20-yard line — more than twice the number of any other punter.

The athletic ability of Guy was on full display when the Raiders beat Washington 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa Bay. Lost amid the highlights including Marcus Allen’s 74-yard touchdown run and Jack Squirek’s pick-six before halftime was an early punt from Guy with his back to the end zone.

“The ball was snapped 10 feet high, Ray somehow goes up and gets it and gets off a 42-yard punt,” former Raiders coach Tom Flores said in 2014. “It could have changed the entire game. Nobody even talked about it.”

Current Raiders punter A.J. Cole, an All-Pro punter last season and Pro Bowl participant, is aware of what Guy did to revolutionize the position.

“The Raiders have the greatest history of the punter position of any franchise, and that started with Ray Guy,” Cole told reporters Thursday at practice in Sarasota, Florida. “The level that he got to where his name is pretty much synonymous with NFL punting, that’s not something you see a lot. It’s definitely a sad day. It’s sad to lose a legend like that.”

In 2000, Davis again bucked convention in the NFL Draft by using two draft picks on kickers — place kicker Sebastian Janikowski in the first round and punter Shane Lechler in the sixth.

Lechler played for the Raiders from 2000 through 2012 and was named All-Pro six times with seven Pro Bowl appearances.

Named to the NFL’s All-Pro team six times, Guy made seven Pro Bowls and was named the punter on the NFL’s 1970s All-Decade team as well as the punter on the league’s 75th and 100th anniversary teams.

Guy is also a member of the Mississippi and Georgia sports Hall of Fames as well as the College Football Hall of Fame and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, the latter coming in 2008.

The No. 44 is retired in Guy’s honor at Southern Miss, and the Ray Guy Award is given annually to the top punter in college football.

That all changed once the silver and black bus plastered with Madden’s name and photo began making its way around the valley to coincide with a public memorial for the ex-Raiders coach in mid-February.

The reaction has been so overwhelmingly positive that the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority, which runs the Wheels bus service, unanimously voted to make the Madden Cruiser a permanent part of its routes in Livermore, Dublin and Pleasanton, where Madden lived for 54 years.

“The bus started getting a lot of attention. The public really likes it, so at our last board meeting we decided we’ll keep it as part of the fleet,” said Tony McCaulay, LAVTA’s director of planning and marketing, who first suggested transforming a bus into a rolling Madden memorial.

It turns out it’s not just the public that’s gotten excited about the Memorial Madden Cruiser. McCaulay says the Madden bus is far and away the favorite of Wheels mechanics and drivers.

In the end, it was much easier to keep McCaulay’s brainchild in service than it was to create a proper way to salute the Hall of Fame coach and iconic broadcaster. While the bus’ message was simple — a farewell salute is all over the bus: “Honoring Pleasanton’s own John Madden, 1936-2021. Coach – Broadcaster – Icon” – finding a way to get it onto the side of a bus certainly wasn’t.

When McCaulay thought his idea wouldn’t come to fruition when he found out it was going to cost $12-14K just for the licensing rights for the photos used on the bus. Then, it would cost an additional $7,000 for the actual wrap that sticks onto the bus.

“There was just no way we could do that,” McCaulay said.

But just when it all looked bleak, McCaulay’s project came back to life in true, old-time Raider comeback fashion. The Raiders organization wound up donating images of Madden at no cost. Then, Lamar Transit Advertising decided it would take care of rolling the sticky vinyl wrap onto the bus for free.

How’s that for a “Holy Roller,” Raiders fans?

Brady’s reported 10-year, $375 million deal won’t be paid by the Buccaneers, the Patriots or any other NFL franchise hoping to have the seven-time Super Bowl champion under center.

He’ll instead earn the money broadcasting for FOX after his playing career ends.

In a league that has introduced dramatic shifts in extra points, overtime and the schedule itself (Hello, 17-game regular season), perhaps the greatest change has taken place in the broadcast booth, where exorbitant media rights deals and broadcasting contracts have altered the fan experience and made the rich even richer.

When teams take the field this fall, here are some of the changes you can expect.

Monday Night Football

Two of the most notable offseason acquisitions in the NFL this year belong to ESPN, which signed former FOX partners Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to serve as the play-by-play voice and color commentators on Monday Night Football.

For the second straight year, the NFL will have one wild-card round playoff matchup take place on Monday Night Football.

Thursday Night Football

After airing on FOX and Amazon Prime Video from 2018-2021, Thursday Night Football will now be exclusive to Amazon’s streaming platform. The service went on a massive hiring spree this spring, luring Al Michaels away from NBC and Sunday Night Football to work alongside former ESPN college football color commentator Kirk Herbstreit in the booth.

Amazon has also hired former NFL stars such as Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick and others to work on studio shows and live productions.

Sundays on FOX

With Buck and Aikman headed to ESPN, FOX elevated Kevin Burkhardt and former NFL tight end Greg Olsen to its top play-by-play and color commentator positions. Burkhardt and Olsen will be joined by sideline reporters Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi on FOX’s biggest game each week.

Olsen’s time in FOX’s No. 1 booth could be short-lived, and he knows it. Brady is already paid nearly twice as much as the next highest-earning analyst in football (Tony Romo), and FOX isn’t going to relegate him to the bench when his time comes.

Sunday Night Football

After Michaels departed for Amazon, NBC named Mike Tirico as the play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Football. Tirico will work alongside Michaels’ former partner, Cris Collinsworth, and new sideline reporter Melissa Stark, who replaces Michele Tafoya after Tafoya changed careers to become a political advisor and commentator.

Overtime

Following one of the most thrilling overtime finishes in NFL postseason history, the league amended playoff overtime rules to allow both teams an opportunity to possess the football.

After the Chiefs scored a touchdown on the first possession of their AFC Divisional Round matchup to cap off a 42-36 win over the Bills in January, the Colts and Eagles proposed a rule change that was adopted that requires both teams to possess the ball.

If the score is tied after each team has one possession, the next team to score wins the game. If the score remains tied at the end of an initial 15-minute overtime period, play will resume following a two-minute intermission, and teams will continue playing until a winner is determined.

NFL expands the Rooney Rule

In March, the NFL announced changes to the Rooney Rule which now requires all teams to interview at least two women and/or persons of color when filling prominent positions in an organization.

All teams must also have at least one woman or person of color on staff as an offensive assistant, which is designed to expand the head coaching pipeline in a league in which head coaches now predominantly come from an offensive background.

Practice squads grow

NFL teams were permitted to carry 12 players on their practice squads in 2020 and 2021, but that number is increasing to 16 players in 2022. A team is now allowed to elevate a player from the practice squad to the active roster three times per season before needing to place a player on waivers, which should help teams such as the 49ers that often look to fill the back-end of their depth charts with players who have been practicing in their system throughout the regular season.

Of the 16 players on the practice squad, a maximum of six can be veterans with any number of years of experience in the NFL.

Injured reserve rules change

In each of the last two years, a player could be placed on the injured reserve list and had to remain inactive for three weeks before returning to the active roster. Entering 2022, the NFL has tightened restrictions on injured reserve lists, as players must spend a minimum of four weeks on the IR while teams are also limited in the number of players they can activate from IR over the course of a season.

Last year, the number of players allowed to return after spending their three weeks on IR was unlimited. Going forward, teams will be permitted to reactivate only eight from the list.

The cover boy: John Madden, as he was for its debut in 1988.

Such a tribute drew acclaim from throughout the sports world for the Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and award-winning broadcaster, who passed away last December at age 85.

Thus, a void will be felt throughout the NFL world this season, and the long-running video game bearing his name honored him by putting vintage photos of him on their cover.

Of course, in years past, some cringed at who would get picked for that display. Sure, they would be the NFL’s hottest name, but, often, they’d get hurt that ensuing season.

The Madden Curse, they called it. Madden himself dismissed such a notion. After all, football is an inherently hazardous sport that can endanger anyone. Yes, the 49ers’ Garrison Hearst got hurt in the 1988 season but Patrick Mahomes led the 2019 Chiefs to a Super Bowl win (against the 49ers) in their “Madden” cover days.

In dedicating this year’s cover to him, EA Sports added the appropriate words “Thanks, Coach,” and that touch was appreciated by Washington Commanders coach Ron Rivera, who was mentored by Madden.

“His legacy, as far as the game is concerned, was he simplified it for the fans,” Rivera said on the Commanders’ Twitter handle. “He brought it to life, that it wasn’t just about X’s and O’s. It’s was how X’s and O’s worked. And he added colorful languages to it, like ‘Pow’ and ‘Bam.’ It inspired a whole new style of fans.”

Madden’s connection with the video game began decades ago, when Trip Hawkins asked him to help design it. Madden didn’t realize how transcendent it would become, how it’s linked future generations to the sport he adored.

“Kids, they used to learn playing out in the street, playing in the park,” Madden told this news organization in 2015. “They don’t play in the street or park anymore. They learn on video games.”

Which, in a way, was fine. Madden saw “Madden” as an educational tool.

“That was the start of it,” Madden recalled. “We had to get all 22 players on the screen, and that took five years. They didn’t want linemen. Most games then, it was just like a passing league with quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs.”

Although he’s known for having coached the Raiders to their first Super Bowl win in his decadent decade, and as ingrained as he became in American pop culture as a broadcaster and advertising pitchman, Madden was a teacher at heart.

Is it possible the Madden Curse — not nearly as old as its baseball counterparts but perhaps more entrenched in pop culture — also has ended, and we never even realized it?

Or is more heartbreak lurking, just another bad break and a season or two away?

The Madden NFL video game franchise is one of the most successful in the world. Redwood City-based EA Sports has sold around 150 million copies of a game credited with teaching legions of fans – and many current NFL players and coaches – the nuances of football because of its realistic style of play.

Just as notable has been the decades-long enigma known as the Madden Curse.

Not familiar? Simply put, it’s the explanation often suggested for the terrible injuries or abrupt declines in performance that have followed an inordinate number of players who have graced the cover of the Madden NFL game over the past 25 years.

The instances have become less frequent in recent years, largely because Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, the cover players for three of the past five editions, appear to be curse resistant. And there will be no curse this season: John Madden, the former Raiders head coach, legendary broadcaster and driving force for the video game, is back on the cover for the first time since 1998, a tribute after his death in December at the age of 85.

But historically, trouble has soon followed for the Madden cover boys.

Debates rage about which players actually have been cursed, but an argument can be made that 16 of the 24 players who have been featured on the cover got hurt, saw their performance drop off dramatically or suffered some sort of massive in-season or playoff letdown that season. That doesn’t even account for Barry Sanders, who made the cover in 1999 and shortly before that season even began, stunned the NFL by retiring while still in his prime and never played again.

Technically, the Madden Curse isn’t a curse in the fairytale — or horror movie — sense. But a lot of fans believe something is, or was, going on. When game producers opened up the cover slot to a fan vote, fans didn’t vote for their own team’s stars, they voted for their rivals, hoping for a foe’s downfall by the curse.

Players have publicly put on a brave face, with mixed results.

Brady tempted fate when he was named the cover player for Madden 18, filming a tongue-in-cheek commercial where he walked under a ladder and broke a mirror. Brady not only avoided injury, but was the league MVP that cover season. His Patriots, however, were upset by the Eagles in the 2018 Super Bowl.

Former Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander, asked about the Madden Curse when he was picked for the front of the ’07 game, replied, “Do you want to be hurt and on the cover or just hurt?” Alexander broke his foot weeks after his cover debuted and was out of the league two years later at age 31.

Publicly, only one player has declined a cover opportunity – then-Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson for the ’08 cover, but reportedly, that was over how much he’d be paid.

But players talk. And they’ve seen what has happened to so many of their colleagues.

Peyton Manning, one of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks, who retired in 2016 after winning Super Bowl 50, devoted an episode of his ESPN+ series “Peyton’s Places” to the Madden Curse.

Manning somewhat surprisingly never made a Madden NFL cover and conceded, “I’m a little hurt that I was never asked.”

But would he have agreed?

“The answer is absolutely not,” Manning continued. “No. Freaking. Chance.”

With that, Manning and Garrison Hearst, the episode guest who posed the question, burst out laughing on the set.

Hearst, the former 49ers star running back, knows a little about the topic. To many, he was patient zero of the Madden Curse.

During the 1998 season, Hearst became the first player ever featured on a Madden NFL cover, but broke his ankle shortly after the game was released and missed the next two seasons.

Hearst developed avascular necrosis, the same condition that ended the career of Bo Jackson, who was the biggest name in professional sports — and virtually unstoppable as the star of a rival football video game — when he got hurt. But as Manning noted to Hearst, there’s no such thing as a Tecmo Bowl Curse.

Only Madden.

It wasn’t until several years following Hearst’s injury – after cover stars Eddie George, Daunte Culpepper, Marshall Faulk and Michael Vick were struck down in succession in the early 2000s – that the legend of the Madden Curse began to really take hold. The concept didn’t even have a name until Alyssa Roenigk coined the phrase in a 2002 ESPN The Magazine article.

By 2012, after Donovan McNabb, Alexander, Vince Young, Troy Polamalu and even Brett Favre and Drew Brees (to some extent) also suffered misfortunes after making the cover, the Madden Curse was part of NFL lore.

So, does Hearst believe in a Madden Curse?

“I don’t want to, because that means I’m the first one to start it,” Hearst told Manning. “But something’s going on. Look where I am, on ESPN+ (talking about it).”

Of course, not everyone buys into the curse talk, including the guy whose name has been on the box of every Madden NFL game ever sold and whose likeness was splashed across the first eight editions of the game.

“I was on the cover for several years, and I never once even pulled a hamstring,” Madden once said. “It’s a violent sport. Injuries are going to happen.”

EA Sports’ public stance was if the players didn’t think there was a curse, neither did they. But in 2010, the company reportedly began developing a comedy film based around a former star player who abruptly comes out of retirement at the same time he is on the cover of a popular video game and has to endure a series of setbacks – not unlike how Favre’s 2008 season unfolded.

In 2007, as the Madden Curse was really picking up steam, former EA Sports marketing director Christopher Erb conceded to Time Magazine, “I haven’t told this to people, but I’ve got a bottle of Champagne in my office that we’re ready to pop once someone breaks the curse.”

That bottle remained on ice for a few more years until former Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson started to reverse the curse in 2012, when, as the Madden NFL cover player, he had a career year, catching 122 passes for nearly 2,000 yards.

Brady and Mahomes have also helped tamp down curse talk in recent years. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pair of star quarterbacks are the only players to appear twice on the Madden NFL cover, including together on last year’s edition.

Mahomes gave many people reason to believe the curse was finally over after the 2019 season, when the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback not only became the first active Madden cover player to play in and win the Super Bowl, but he was the MVP in beating the 49ers.

“What Curse?” EA Sports triumphantly tweeted shortly after the game.

Only time will tell if the Madden NFL curse has really been reversed.

“I get choked up, because there’s a lot of misunderstanding out there right now … what you read, what you hear, what you watch on TV,” Gruden told reporters and an audience at Arkansas’ Little Rock Touchdown Club on Tuesday.

The 59-year-old Gruden addressed his forced resignation as Raiders coach last October after his racist, misogynistic and homophobic slurs in emails from 2010-2018 were revealed.

“I’m not gonna say anything but honest things here,” Gruden told the audience. “I’m ashamed about what has come about in these emails, and I’ll make no excuses for it. It’s shameful.

“But I am a good person, I believe that. I go to church. I’ve been married for 31 years. I got three great boys. I still love football. I made some mistakes, but I don’t think anybody else in here hasn’t. And I just ask for forgiveness, and hopefully I get another shot.”

Gruden has a pending lawsuit accusing the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell of sabotaging his career by allowing the emails to be leaked.

“I don’t really want to say too much,” Gruden said. “I don’t really want to be involved in this, honestly. I want it to all go away. I’m sorry if I’ve offended anybody. It’s something that’s still in the news, and I want this to all be about the games and the players.”

Gruden was in the fourth year of a 10-year, $100 million contract to coach the Raiders when he stepped away after revelations from the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Commanders’ “hostile workplace culture.” Gruden’s emails to former Raiders executive and onetime Washington executive Bruce Allen were among the items from the investigation that were reported.

Gruden’s lawyers assert the NFL and Goodell were looking to destroy the coach’s “career and reputation” by conducting a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” to apply pressure to end Gruden’s tenure with the Raiders.

Gruden’s second stint with the Raiders was a disappointing one even before the email controversy led to his undoing in Las Vegas. The Raiders were just 22-31 in his three-plus seasons.

Gruden, who had success in his first NFL head coaching job with the Raiders from 1998-2001, won a Super Bowl title at the Raiders’ expense while beating Oakland 48-21 in the Super Bowl in 2003 while coaching Tampa Bay. He still lives in Tampa Bay, where he told the audience he still helps high school players and teams in the area.

But he’s hoping for another shot at coaching in the NFL, or perhaps a return to the broadcast booth.

“It’s tough,” Gruden said. “It’s really tough. (Football’s) in my blood. It’s really what I’m all about. I miss the journey. You know, putting a team together, developing a team, the ups and downs that football brings. I miss all that.”

Before rejoining the Raiders in 2018, Gruden was an analyst on ESPN’s Monday Night Football from 2009-17. He said Tuesday that even talking about football again would appeal to him.

“I’ve had some good jobs, so hopefully there’s one out there for me.”

Raiders and Aces owner Mark Davis said Sunday he doesn’t remember particulars of a deal that would have brought quarterback Tom Brady and tight end Rob Gronkowski to Las Vegas in 2020.

UFC president Dana White said Saturday that former Raiders coach Jon Gruden blocked a deal that would have had the star New England Patriots duo land with the Raiders.

Gruden did not return phone calls or texts for comment from the Review-Journal on Saturday or Sunday.

Brady ultimately signed with the Buccaneers as a free agent and was later joined by Gronkowski via trade. The two then led Tampa Bay to a win in Super Bowl 55.

Davis attended the WNBA playoff game between the Aces and Phoenix on Saturday night at Michelob Ultra Arena. Las Vegas beat the Mercury 117-80 to win the best-of-three playoff series 2-0.

“I heard about (White’s comments),” Davis said. “That was what — two to three years ago or something? I don’t know, man. Talk to Dana. I remember that Tom Brady went to Tampa Bay. That’s basically what I remember.

“I have no idea. Dana has the stories. I love Dana. He is a great, great promoter. Why would this make me upset? I was busy watching (the Raiders beat Miami 15-13) and the basketball game (Saturday).”

White appeared on “UFC 278 with the Gronks” on ESPN+. Gronkowski prompted White to tell the story about Brady nearly signing in Las Vegas.

“It was almost a done deal, and at the last minute, Gruden blew it up and said he didn’t want them,” White said. “It was crazy. Brady was already looking for housing here.”

White then was asked about the revelation during the postfight news conference in Salt Lake City.

He hung his head and grinned as the question was posed.

“I didn’t want to talk about that, but (Gronkowski) sort of sucked me into it on live TV,” White said. “It’s true. I talked Brady into playing for the Raiders, and Gronk was coming with him. They were negotiating the deal, and they were really close to getting it done. Then Gruden pulled the deal, and Brady was not happy about it. Neither was I. And that’s that.

“I own a box (at Allegiant Stadium). I wanted Brady to play there, you know? But, yeah, it’s true. And I thought I would never tell that story publicly, but I don’t know what the hell Gronk was doing tonight that he brought that up. But, yeah. It would have been amazing for the city and amazing for the Raiders. I mean, the first year there, and they have Brady and Gronk. So, yeah. I’m sure Mark Davis is real happy to hear this story.”

Gronkowski confirmed the story on the telecast.

Dana White says Brady and Gronk Raiders "was almost a done deal." #UFC278 pic.twitter.com/buWEXxi5Ho

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) August 21, 2022

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LAS VEGAS — Former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch was asleep and smelled of alcohol when Las Vegas police found him in his damaged sports car and arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, according to an arrest report made public Thursday.

Lynch’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, responded in a statement that Lynch’s car “was safely parked and not in operation” when police arrived early Tuesday and a driving while intoxicated charge won’t stick.

“Marshawn was not pulled over for a DUI,” the statement said. “We are confident that when all evidence is presented, this will not be a DUI under Nevada law.”

The arresting officer, Kevin Barker, reported that Lynch’s black 2020 Shelby GT500 was “undriveable,” with one missing front wheel and the rear driver’s side and front passenger wheels badly damaged.

The arrest report said investigators found markings suggesting the vehicle “hit sidewalk areas” before stopping in an industrial section of downtown Las Vegas not far from Main Street.

“The driver was asleep behind the wheel with the driver’s door open leaning back in the seat,” the report said, “with bloodshot, watery eyes and had one shoe on and one shoe off.”

The 7:30 a.m. Tuesday arrest came the morning after the Seattle Seahawks — the team for which Lynch played most of his 12 NFL seasons — announced that Lynch had been hired as a broadcast special correspondent.

Lynch also played for the Buffalo Bills and Oakland Raiders.

The arrest report said Lynch, 36, was uncooperative with officers and fell asleep several times during questioning. Jail officers “had to use a restraint chair to force a blood draw” after a judge issued a warrant, the report said.

Lynch was later released from Las Vegas City Jail pending a Dec. 7 court date in Las Vegas Municipal Court.

Results of his blood test were not immediately made public. Nevada law bans driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08% or more.

Court records show that Lynch entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor vehicle parking charge and fined $750 in April in a case that saw charges of failing to report or remain at the scene of an accident dismissed.

Schonfeld, who represented Lynch in that case, declined Thursday to comment about it.

Lynch’s attorneys said in their statement that he “appreciates and is thankful for everyone’s concern and support.”

Lynch had 10,413 career rushing yards and 85 rushing touchdowns from 2007-19 and was chosen for the Pro Bowl five times. He won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks in 2013.