Sixteen years ago today, a quiet Fourth of July afternoon was interrupted with the stunning news that former NFL quarterback Steve McNair had been shot and killed.
McNair was only 36 at the time.
The official explanation never made complete sense. Quickly solved as a murder-suicide, with McNair shot by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, who then supposedly shot herself.
The rush to close the case seemed odd. Police concluded that Kazemi shot McNair execution style, twice in the chest and twice in the head.
A subsequent effort to re-open the case ultimately failed. The issue was pressed by Vincent Hill, a former Nashville police officer who aggressively pursued the theory that it was not a murder-suicide.
In 2018, SI.com took a closer look at the unanswered questions in Fall of a Titan, a podcast series.
“I could make a case that things don’t add up,” former Titans coach Jeff Fisher said in a 2024 Netflix documentary on the McNair murder. “I don’t want to speculate. Just let it go.”
Even now, it’s hard to let it go. It’s hard not to wonder whether someone got away with double murder. And while that won’t change the fact that McNair was killed on this day in 2009, there’s a nagging sense that justice may not have been done.
McNair was the NFL’s co-MVP in 2003, and he led the team to the Super Bowl in 1999.
The third overall pick in 1995 out of Alcorn State, McNair spent 13 seasons in the NFL — 11 with the Oilers/Titans and two with the Ravens. The Titans retired his number (9) in 2019.
Veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins had played 12 NFL seasons for four different teams before joining the Ravens this offseason, and from the outside looking in, Hopkins saw something missing.
According to Jamison Hensley of ESPN, Hopkins told others in the Ravens facility that he might — or might not — be that missing piece.
“It seems like there’s been a piece that’s been missing,” Hopkins said. “I could be that addition. I could not be that addition.”
Whether Hopkins proves to be that missing piece will be determined largely by whether he can build a rapport with quarterback Lamar Jackson. He says he doesn’t know how long that will take.
“I don’t think it’s a [set] time frame,” Hopkins said. “A guy like Lamar, who’s a veteran quarterback, he’s played a lot of football. Myself, I play a lot of football. We see things differently, but I’ve had rookie quarterbacks that have taken longer. So, it differs.”
At 33 years old, Hopkins is on the down side of his career, but he might just be the missing piece for Jackson and the Ravens to get to the Super Bowl.
Wide receiver Rashod Bateman signed a three-year contract extension with the Ravens last month, but his return to the team for the 2025 season wasn’t a sure thing earlier in the offseason.
A report in May said the Cowboys looked into trading for Bateman and Bateman confirmed that he was apprised of that interest. That report said the talks didn’t go far, but Bateman said “it was a possibility” that he would be on the move to Dallas before he and the Ravens pivoted to hammering out a new deal.
Bateman said he’s “thankful” that General Manager Eric DeCosta was able to work things out.
“That’s the first thing I told him: I don’t want to go anywhere else. ‘I know you’ve got a lot of stuff to work through and we’ll figure it out when we figure it out,’” Bateman said, via Jeff Zrebiec of TheAthletic.com. “It took time, but it takes time with a lot of people’s contracts. He had a lot of contracts to get done, and maybe more to get done in the future. To be a priority for him in that way is important. He shows he values me.”
The Cowboys eventually looked elsewhere in the AFC North for receiver help and traded for George Pickens, so the Ravens won’t have to deal with him as they try for another division title later this year.
Lamar Jackson is a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, an elite passer and perhaps the best running quarterback ever. But there’s one thing he admits does not come naturally to him: Being a team leader.
Jackson told Kevin Hart that the toughest adjustment for him in becoming a franchise quarterback has been leadership, because he recognizes its importance but doesn’t feel that speaking out in front of the team is one of his natural gifts the way running and throwing are.
“Just being a leader. I’m going to say being a leader because I’m really not outspoken,” Jackson said when asked what has been hard for him to adjust to. “Being vocal with my guys, like ‘Let’s do this and that’ with a great motivational speech, I don’t have that. I just pretty much lead by example. I’m going to go out there, I’m going to work hard and I expect that out of you, but as I’ve been growing in the league it’s like ‘No, you got to talk to the guys.’ Coaches like to tell me, ‘You’ve got to talk to the guys.’ I’m like, all right, I’ll talk to them one-on-one. Certain things I’m seeing, I’ve got to voice it more, voice my opinion more to those guys.”
With a Super Bowl standing out as the one piece missing from Jackson’s Hall of Fame résumé, Jackson is determined to lead his team to a championship.
With former Ravens kicker Justin Tucker accepting a 10-game suspension in lieu of defending himself in a full-blown hearing, the evidence the NFL developed in support of the allegations against Tucker will remain under wraps. The lawyers representing his accusers are nevertheless pleased with how the league went about its business.
Via Jeff Zrebiec of TheAthletic.com, attorneys Michael Belsky and Catherine Dickinson called the NFL’s investigation “incredibly thorough and thoughtful” during a Friday press conference. They said that the NFL interviewed 15 of the individuals who claimed that Tucker engaged in improper conduct during massage-therapy sessions.
The lawyers, who represent 13 of the accusers, also said that Tucker’s ongoing proclamation of innocence has left “many of the victims, our clients, with the stain of a denial.”
“There was an opening here for an early discussion between Mr. Tucker and the victims and the NFL,” Belsky said. “There was a way that this could have happened and gone down in a way that was different than how it did. Unfortunately, Mr. Tucker dug in with his denials, and we are where we are today.”
It’s unclear where it will go from here. The lawyers said that the course of action is currently “TBD.”
If/when any of the accusers sue, the first question will be whether any potential statutes of limitations bar the claims.
