FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Some of the defining moments of Pete Carroll’s 18 years as an NFL coach have ties to the New England Patriots.
He won his first playoff game during his first season as the Patriots' coach in 1997. And he was fired by the Patriots following the 1999 season, beginning a 10-year hiatus from the league.
Then, after a successful return to the NFL that included a 2014 Super Bowl win with Seattle, his Seahawks came up short in the championship game the following season when New England’s Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson’s pass at the goal line.
Carroll, who is about to begin his first season as the Las Vegas Raiders' coach, was asked this week about whether it still meant something to play against the Patriots.
“Yeah, it does,” he said.
Sunday’s matchup represents a reset for both Las Vegas and New England.
Both are coming off coaching changes after 4-13 finishes last season, with Mike Vrabel leading the latest Patriots rebuild after Jerod Mayo was fired.
Vrabel entered training camp with a three-pronged agenda: build a roster, get players to buy into earning their roles and prepare them to win.
The group that will take the field for New England is younger and more athletic on defense. And the Patriots should have better protection and more weapons around second-year quarterback Drake Maye.
Vrabel said he and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels plan to be cautious opposite an experienced, defensive-minded coach like Carroll.
“The one thing you don’t want to be is too cute, certainly, in Week 1 or at any time,” Vrabel said.
Stefon Diggs was the Patriots' top offensive free agent signing, brought in to give Maye a proven pass catcher after a 2024 season that saw only one receiver exceed 50 catches.
Diggs has five 100-reception seasons in his career but played sparingly this preseason after knee surgery that limited him to eight games in 2024 with Houston.
While expectations will be high for the 31-year-old to produce like he did before the injury, Diggs pointed to some advice he got from New England receivers coach Todd Downing.
“Eat what’s on your plate,” Diggs said. “Everybody gets some plays here and there or whatever you got, if you got this many targets or that many targets, eat what’s on your plate. That’s what’s important to me at this point. Squeezing that lemon and making fruit punch. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty has received a taste of the NFL in training camp and the preseason, but now it begins for real for the sixth pick in the draft.
Las Vegas is placing a lot of its hopes in Jeanty, the Heisman Trophy runner-up last year at Boise State. He had a season for the ages, leading the country with 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns rushing and falling just 27 yards short of Barry Sanders’ college record set during his Heisman Trophy-winning season in 1988.
Even at 5-foot-8 and 208 pounds, Jeanty is willing to run through defenders as much as around them. He showed in a preseason game against San Francisco that he could be physical at the NFL level, bulldozing cornerback Deommodore Lenoir on his way to a 13-yard gain.
“I’ve been a pretty physical player and the scenarios I was put in, I kind of had to,” Jeanty said. “But, obviously, you want to pick and choose your battles. The season is long, and I want to be available throughout the whole season.”
Raiders defensive end Malcolm Koonce will play his first game since the 2023 season. He missed all of last year after tearing an ACL in training camp.
Much was expected of Koonce last year after he ended the previous season with six sacks in his final four games.
Koonce signed a one-year, $12 million contract in March and has been slowly eased back into the lineup.
“Super excited,” Koonce said. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about all through camp. Actually, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since I got injured.”
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FILE - Cleveland Browns coaching and personnel consultant Mike Vrabel, left, stands on the field before an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers, Aug. 10, 2024, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/David Richard, File)
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Pete Carroll watches during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, in Glendale. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
HAVANA (AP) — Cuban soldiers wearing white gloves marched out of a plane on Thursday carrying urns with the remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela as trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport.
Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies of colonels, lieutenants, majors and captains as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, next to Revolution Square, with the urns and placed them on a long table next to the pictures of those killed so people could pay their respects.
Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized in almost half a century.
Hours earlier, state television showed images of more than a dozen wounded people described as “combatants” accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. Some were in wheelchairs.
Those injured and the remains of those killed arrived as tensions grow between Cuba and the U.S., with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.
Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.
Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb as commander of Cuba's Armed Forces, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.
Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casa said Venezuela was not a distant land for those killed, but a “natural extension of their homeland.”
“The enemy speaks to an audience of high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy,” Álvarez said in apparent reference to the U.S. “We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother.”
Álvarez called those slain “heroes,” saying that they were an example of honor and “a lesson for those who waver.”
“We reaffirm that if this painful chapter of history has demonstrated anything, it is that imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.
Thousands of Cubans lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.
“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” said Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, adding that she hopes no one invades given the ongoing threats.
When asked why she showed up despite the difficulties Cubans face, Gómez replied, “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”
Cuba recently released the names and ranks of 32 military personnel — ranging in age from 26 to 60 — who were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the raid on his residence on January 3. They included members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the island’s two security agencies.
Cuban and Venezuelan authorities have said that the uniformed personnel were part of protection agreements between the two countries.
A demonstration was planned for Friday across from the U.S. Embassy in an open-air forum known as the Anti-Imperialist Tribune. Officials have said they expect the demonstration to be massive.
“People are upset and hurt. There’s a lot of talk on social media; but many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.
In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a Cubana de Aviación civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.
In December 1989, officials organized “Operation Tribute” to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in the war that defeated the South African army and ended the apartheid system. In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.
The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived four years in Venezuela.
“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”
A day before the remains of those killed arrived in Cuba, the U.S. announced $3 million in additional aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa.
The first flight took off on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.
Jeremy Lewin, the State Department official in charge of foreign assistance, said the U.S. was working with Cuba’s Catholic Church to distribute aid.
“There’s nothing political about cans of tuna and rice and beans and pasta,” he said Thursday, warning that the Cuban government should not intervene or divert supplies. “We will be watching, and we will hold them accountable.”
Lewin said he saw no contradiction between cutting off Venezuelan oil and offering aid, saying that “the Cuban regime was taking illegitimate profits from the narco-terrorists.”
He said the U.S. hopes that delivering aid via the Catholic Church will be part of a new and broader push to deliver assistance directly to the Cuban people.
“Ultimately, the regime has to make a choice," Lewin said. “Step down or better provide towards people.”
Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would provide “billions and billions of dollars” in assistance, as well as investment and development: “That’s what lies on the other side of the regime for the Cuban people.”
The announcement riled Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
“The U.S. government is exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes,” he said in a statement. “As a matter of principle, Cuba does not oppose assistance from governments or organizations, provided it benefits the people and the needs of those affected are not used for political gain under the guise of humanitarian aid.”
Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
