From Minecraft to Mario Kart, plenty of NFL teams had younger fans in mind while revealing schedules in the growing tradition of videos on the social platform X.
The Los Angeles Chargers and Indianapolis Colts had Minecraft themes, and both poked fun at a fight in a Starbucks between NFL reporters Ian Rapoport and Jordan Schultz that went viral during the NFL combine this year.
The winner for comedic effect Wednesday night was the Chicago Bears playing off the common name of new coach Ben Johnson, featuring Emmy Award-winning actor and comedian Lamorne Morris.
Johnson is wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey when he says he's going to be at the game all day and asks Morris to email him the schedule. Morris pretends to know how to send the email but ends up sending “the entire schedule to every Ben Johnson on the Chicago Bears marketing list.”
The rest of the video is Morris and Bears players, including quarterback Caleb Williams, trying to track down all the Ben Johnsons and destroying computers and cellphones along the way.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrated their 50th season with the longest of the 32 videos, a 10-minute version featuring former coach Jon Gruden. The Bucs won their first Super Bowl during the 2002 season under Gruden.
He resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2021 over emails he sent containing racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments seven years before his 2018 hiring by the Raiders.
The video from the Bills started with star quarterback Josh Allen shooting baskets while taking a call from general manager Brandon Beane, who tells him he's trying to figure out how to reveal the schedule. When Allen says “just use AI,” Beane looks confused and appears to research the term on his computer.
Beane calls retired NBA star Allen Iverson, who reveals the schedule by simply holding up a piece of a paper. Iverson can't resist the temptation to give his other nickname, “The Answer.”
The Tennessee Titans decided to poke fun at the countless advertisements for medical treatments, with a spoof called “Schedule-rizi.” Just as in the real ads, the video includes an exhausting list of potential side effects, before the participants finish by saying, “Thanks, Schedule-rizi.”
Somehow, the Chargers and Colts ended up with the same approach of a Minecraft theme, and both making a spoof of the Rapoport-Schultz scuffle. They were among a number of videos featuring video games or action figures. The teams included Washington, San Francisco and Seattle.
The Atlanta Falcons appealed to a couple of generations with their Mario Kart theme. The team “selected” promising running back Bijan Robinson as the single player and had his go-kart knocking out Atlanta opponents along the way.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson watches players during the NFL football team's rookie camp in Lake Forest, Ill., Saturday, May 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
FILE - Sun filters through the stadium as cheerleaders line up before an NFL football game between Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Chargers at Wembley stadium in London, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The U.S.-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Islamic State group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria's national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
Associated Press journalist Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Sandbag barriers used as fighting positions by Kurdish fighters, left inside a destroyed mosque in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People flee the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
A Syrian military police convoy enters the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles and ammunitions left at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
