THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST WITH JASON ROMANO, FEATURING JAMES MITCHELL
James Mitchell is the team chaplain and director of player development with the New England Patriots. Previously, he was with the Tennessee Titans as their team chaplain.
James joins the show to share about what this 2025-26 season has been like, coming to New England from Tennessee along with head coach Mike Vrabel, the Bible studies and chapel services he’s led, and what it means to see players be outspoken about their faith.
Jason Adam pitching in the 2025 MLB All-Star Game. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST WITH MATT FORTE, FEATURING JASON ADAM
Jason Adam is a pitcher with the San Diego Padres. He was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the 2010 MLB Draft and made his big-league debut with the team in May 2018. In addition to the Royals and Padres, he has also pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Rays. He was selected to his first MLB All-Star Game in 2025.
Today on the podcast, Jason Adam joins Matt Forte to discuss progress in the recovery of his quad tendon rupture from September 2025, how God has helped him through it, dealing with doubt in his career, and the beauty of being a girl dad.
Bills safety Damar Hamlin gets baptized by team chaplain Len Vanden Bos (right) and teammate Christian Benford. (Photo courtesy Len Vanden Bos)
The night of Jan. 2, 2023, changed Damar Hamlin’s life forever. A little more than three years later, the Buffalo Bills safety experienced another life-changing moment — in a very different way — when he decided to get baptized.
On Jan. 9, surrounded by family and members of the Bills organization, Hamlin was baptized by team chaplain Len Vanden Bos and teammate Christian Benford. It was a step Hamlin had been considering for more than a year and one he didn’t want to rush.
“It was important for it to be the right time,” Hamlin told Sports Spectrum last week at Super Bowl Media Row. “I wanted my family to be able to make it up to Buffalo to be there. I don’t want to say that I’m a completely new person, but my sense of direction and purpose and alignment with who I feel like I’m supposed to be has been on point. It brings me peace.”
For many, Hamlin’s name remains tied to the cardiac arrest he suffered during a “Monday Night Football” game against the Cincinnati Bengals in January 2023. The game was suspended as medical personnel worked to revive him on the field, and what followed was an outpouring of prayer that stretched far beyond football.
When he looks back on his life, he can see how God was forming him to endure that experience and use it to point people toward Him.
“My faith was very strong — always,” he said. “I always had an internal connection to the Lord. It feels like my faith before wasn’t built up for everything. It truly feels like every experience that I live, everything that I’ve been through as a kid growing up, it was moments to prepare me for what God was going to bless me with.
“I feel like all the work I was doing, God truly just hand-picked me and said, ‘I’m going to choose you for this.'”
Hamlin believes the experience positioned him to witness something larger than football. It allowed him “to be at the center of so much love, so much prayer, bringing people together,” and it also brought a bigger spotlight to his foundation, the Chasing M’s Foundation. Designed to support youth and community initiatives such as toy drives, educational scholarships and promoting health safety, the foundation expanded its mission after Hamlin’s cardiac arrest to include automated external defibrillator distribution and CPR training.
“I have people who were never believers — ever — dropping to their knees and talking to God and finding God through caring for me,” he said. “That’s a blessed position to be in.”
Hamlin remained in the hospital for almost two weeks following the incident, and there were questions about whether it was safe for him to return to football, if his body even got strong enough for him to be able to. It was a trying time and a season that left him with a new perspective.
“To have that perspective, to know that God chose me for a higher purpose — even beyond the game — it truly makes me feel like a chosen one,” he said.
Hamlin said his faith journey has remained active since that night in Cincinnati. He grew up in a Christian home and later attended a Catholic high school, where he studied the Catholic faith closely. That experience led him to focus even more on his personal relationship with God.
“That’s why I always feel like I’ve been tied to the Lord — even before,” he said. “I really learned the most through the phase of injury I had this season. I tore my pec, like, Week 7 or 8 and I was down for a few weeks.”
But recently, his relationship with both Benford and Vanden Bos has helped him grow even deeper.
“Len truly has just been pushing me and helping me grow within my faith,” Hamlin said. “We meet once a week and continue to grow.”
Following the cardiac arrest, Hamlin returned to the field and played in five games during the 2023 season, then started 14 games in 2024. He was limited to only five in 2025 but described this season as the happiest and most focused he’s felt in his life.
The time away from the field proved formative. He said he felt like he learned more about himself and his faith through that injury than anything else he’s experienced.
“That process really taught me so much about myself,” Hamlin said. “I didn’t have the season I wanted, I had the season I needed. I slowed myself down. I got right with God. I had to listen. I had to sit myself down and listen. The isolation away from the team gave me time. I truly think this period of time that I missed this season will prolong my career for however long that I want to play.
“And it ultimately led to me getting baptized. It was exactly what I needed, so I’m not looking back.”
Klint Kubiak (26) is introduced as the Las Vegas Raiders head coach, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ian Maule)
Klint Kubiak was introduced Tuesday as the new head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, and in his first public comments in the role, he made clear where he believes the opportunity ultimately came from.
“I just want to thank God for the opportunity to sit in front of you guys today,” Kubiak said at his introductory press conference. “God had a plan for this day that I could never have seen and I’m just grateful.”
The 38-year-old becomes one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL after helping lead the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship on Sunday. Powered in part by Kubiak’s offense, the Seahawks finished the regular season with a 14-3 record and earned the No. 1 seed in the NFC en route to the franchise’s second Super Bowl championship. In his one season as Seattle’s offensive coordinator, Kubiak helped the Seahawks offense rank third in points (28.4 per game), eighth in total yards (351.4), eighth in passing yards (228.1) and tie for 10th in rushing yards (123.3).
He now takes over in Las Vegas tasked with leading the Raiders back to the playoffs for the first time since 2021. With young stars in tight end Brock Bowers and running back Ashton Jeanty already on the roster, the Raiders hold the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and are expected to select quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy and led Indiana to a national championship.
But Kubiak said his identity is rooted in something far deeper than wins, losses or job titles.
“I see my identity as a child of God,” he said during Tuesday’s press conference. “I know that I’m sitting right here because of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t always that way. I’ve had some great mentors that helped me who know the Gospels better. My goal is to live out the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes and let those values show through in my current coaching. I fall short of that a lot, but I always go back to the building blocks, which is the Bible.”
How great is this from Klint Kubiak? New Las Vegas Raiders head coach shares about his faith at his introductory press conference.
Kubiak has been open about that foundation throughout his rise in the NFL. Last week during Super Bowl LX Opening Night, he told Sports Spectrum that learning to separate his identity from his profession changed the way he approached coaching and life.
“Your identity is not in your job; our identity is in Christ,” Kubiak told Sports Spectrum. “When I learned that, and I spent more time in the Word from all the mentors I had in coaching that helped me get into Bible studies and read the Word every day, it took a really heavy load off just knowing that I’m a child of God.
“Football is something that I do, but trying to be a good father and be a faithful husband is way more important than any of that.”
"This is my favorite question of the night … Our identity is in Christ."
Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak shared about his faith and gifting his entire team a Bible at Christmas pic.twitter.com/zt2ecn3d1s
Kubiak’s faith has also shaped the way he relates to players. During the Seahawks’ 2025 season, he provided one of the team’s most memorable off-the-field moments by purchasing Bibles for every player and coach as a Christmas gift.
“That’s the most important thing,” Kubiak told Sports Spectrum when asked about the gesture. “You’re trying to find Christmas gifts for guys every year to show them that you love them, and what better gift than that?”
Kubiak is taking over for Pete Carroll, who went 3-14 in his only season leading the Raiders, which followed 14 years at the helm of the Seahawks, including the franchise’s first Super Bowl win in 2013-14. Prior to Kubiak’s lone season with Seattle, he was the offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints (2024) and Minnesota Vikings (2021), and held various other roles with numerous teams. He is the son of former NFL coach and player Gary Kubiak.
As he begins his tenure in Las Vegas, Kubiak said he hopes the values he draws from Scripture will continue to guide his leadership — even as he navigates the pressures that come with leading an NFL franchise.
“I fall short,” he said during Tuesday’s press conference, “but I always go back to the Bible.”
Christian McCaffrey (center) with the 2026 Bart Starr Award. (Photo courtesy of Instagram@christianmccaffrey)
As hundreds of celebrities, media personnel and former NFL greats descended on the Bay Area last week to celebrate football at Super Bowl LX, football and faith in Christ were celebrated in a powerful way at the annual Super Bowl Breakfast on Saturday morning.
The pinnacle of the morning, as it is each year, was the presentation of the esteemed Bart Starr Award, given this year to San Francisco 49ers star running back Christian McCaffrey.
“I feel just immense gratitude as I’m standing up here receiving this award that means so much to me,” McCaffrey said as he began his acceptance speech at the breakfast.
In his speech, McCaffrey told of the joy of reaching a Super Bowl (which he did in February 2024 with the 49ers) followed by the discouragement of another season derailed by injuries (he played only four games in 2024-25).
“It was in those moments where God was the most evident,” McCaffrey said Saturday morning. “I found myself relying on many verses, one being Psalm 23: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want’ (v. 1). And that, to me, is something that I stuck with for that entire year.
“To stop wanting. To truly surrender. And that was something for me that in prayer and in my support staff and all the people who helped me, I didn’t make it about winning Super Bowls anymore. I didn’t make it about anything else other than surrendering to what the Lord had in store for me.”
Another Bible verse that McCaffrey said has deeply impacted him came from the Book of Exodus.
“The things that were consistent for me — that I truly believe I wouldn’t be standing up here without it — was God, my faith in Jesus, and the people around me. And the verse this year, that I gotta continue to say to myself, is Exodus 14:14, which is, ‘The Lord will fight for you, you must only be still.’ … When you know that all you have to do is be still, all you have to do is continue fighting, all you have to do is show up and do the best job you can, let God fight for you.”
However, being named the recipient of the Bart Starr Award seemed to mean a little something extra to the 29-year-old running back.
“To Athletes in Action, thanks for giving our faith a platform,” McCaffrey said as he concluded his acceptance speech. “Thanks for making this award not just about football but about people like myself and the communities that I’ve been so blessed to be a part of. I just want to say thank you guys for being here and standing for something bigger than yourself, just like we as football players do.”
“[Jesus] never did anything wrong, and He died on a cross to pay the price for all the things that I did — that we did — wrong,” Jones said. “Then He rose from the dead. More than 500 people saw Him after He rose, and many of them wrote about it in the Bible. He did all this so that you and I could be in relationship with God. To not have to earn His favor by what we do or what we say, but to be completely forgiven and in right standing with Him regardless of what we’ve done or said.
“So life in relationship with Him, today and for all eternity, is a free gift. Nothing you and I can do can earn it. All it takes is simply to acknowledge Jesus as your Savior and trust in Him to direct your life.”
