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Last Oct. 12, Dave Stevens slipped his sneakers on for a 90-minute run through the Dallas morning, a chance to clear his mind before heading to his job as an engineer. Every day he wrestled with small, knotty problems to solve larger ones, and most of his General Electric co-workers agreed that his designs were elegant in their simplicity, which was also a good way to describe Dave. He was quiet insofar as he chose his words carefully and had a spare, dry wit. But he also had a free-spirited streak and had recently begun looking at farmland in Oregon so he could raise livestock with his wife, Patti. It was his vision, at age 53, of an early retirement. Dave also ran to train for the Dallas Marathon, just eight weeks away, aiming to beat his 3:27:03 time from a year earlier. Every so often he would take Patti, speeding ahead before turning back because he didnt like her running alone. But he was solo this morning, looking forward to gauging his pace.Just before 7 a.m., Dave parked at the trail entrance in Valley View Park, threw his wallet into the glove compartment of his SUV and set off on his run. The sun was still half an hour from rising, but early birds getting in their Fitbit steps were already crowding the path. His favorite stretch of the course followed White Rock Creek through a collection of parks before emptying into a lake bordered by well-heeled homes. Once he passed Anderson Bonner Park, it would be a straight shot through Harry Moss Park until he got to West Lawther Drive and the mouth of the lake loop. There, hed make his way around the wooden boardwalks with their picturesque views before starting on the return trip.The temperature was perfect, still in the 70s, and as he started the course, he gulped in the fall air. About an hour later, he was two-thirds through his run and about to pass under the stone bridge that runs above Walnut Hill Lane when something caught his eye.THOMAS JOHNSON RAN to clear his mind too. As long as he could remember, his legs had taken him places. They carried him around the Dallas borough of Oak Cliff, past trouble on the corners and to sports and church programs. As his athletic talent became evident, he stepped up to bigger stages, like the Junior Olympics in Eugene, Oregon, where at age 9 he set a world record for his age group in the long jump. There was a lot about Thomas that made people want to be around him: the ease he had with himself, how he helped other kids and was unfailingly polite. The Friday night lights of suburban Dallas also revealed a young man whose mother had instilled in him a desire to see a broad world -- the kind a good education would bring. By 2012, hed become the fourth-ranked football recruit in the state, and when he arrived at Texas A&M that fall, he emerged as one of Johnny Manziels favorite targets. In just his 10th game, on the road at No. 1 Alabama, the true freshman made a trio of receptions that helped the Aggies past the defending national champion. When he got off the team bus in College Station that night to a raucous celebration, he looked every bit the future NFL star.But Thomas Johnson never stepped onto a football field again. Instead, three years later, he was hurtling toward Dave Stevens by the stone bridge of Walnut Hill Lane.AMERICAS MENTALLY ILL are often overlooked or misunderstood. Interviews with Thomas Johnsons family members, court and police records, and doctors diagnoses show that those closest to the college star were right beside him when he exhibited strange behaviors and acknowledged hearing voices, yet they all had difficulty interpreting the signs. Some were too ill-informed to understand what he needed, while others saw him through the lens of their own social conscience. Law enforcement officials mainly saw him as a typical drug abuser and figured there was nothing about him that a little rehab couldnt cure. His parents were too busy arguing with each other to agree on a diagnosis.Three years after he heard his last stadium cheers, Thomas was unemployed, sleeping on friends couches and, in the rare moments when he opened up, revealing a disturbing side that had already led to two arrests and several months in jail.You do know youre talking to yourself, his mothers sister said to him one day as she watched him carry on a one-way conversation. Im sorry, he replied, shaking his head with embarrassment.Those close to Thomas werent willing to confront the obvious: He was no longer only their problem.LINDA HANKS IS not quite 5 feet tall, with a soft, sometimes faint voice that understates the long-running battle shes waged with the world. Her mother died giving birth to her, and she grew up in Dallas with three sisters who helped her care for her twin brother, who died at 12 from fluid on the brain. She studied design at a two-year college, and after a brief marriage in the late 1980s, she had a fling with a truck driver named Robert Johnson, who lived in her apartment complex.Linda, her faith in the Lord strong, proclaimed the two of them blessed when Thomas, their child, was born in April 1994. But the two never married. And as the years passed, Robert and Linda started hurting each other in the name of fighting over what was best for their son.Linda raised Thomas with a single mothers single-mindedness. Her social services job at a hospital paid for a home in Oak Cliff with a large backyard that she filled with things like tire swings and trampolines, and her happiest memories came from watching Thomas practice the 100-yard dash in their backyard. She taught him to be respectful and not play into anyones prejudices, and she kept a Bible at arms reach to answer any questions he had. She made fashion bags at night to sell at work so she could afford the extra cost of track meets and travel games, and she used what she managed to save to take Thomas on trips -- Disney World one year, Washington, D.C., the next.But to her irritation, Thomas father, whod had multiple convictions for theft, remained in the picture. In fact, Thomas lit up with joy whenever he arrived on their doorstep. But by 2005, the price of taking care of Thomas started to overwhelm Linda. She sought bankruptcy protection, citing just $1,753 a month in take-home pay and a lack of child support.Thomas, a reserved 11-year-old, had already joined a travel football team in Arlington, half an hour away, and was being shuttled back and forth to practice by the teams owner, a wealthy businessman named Ted Ehrhardt. When Teds son Mitchell learned about Thomas financial troubles, he volunteered an idea: Why doesnt Thomas just live with us?It didnt happen overnight, Ehrhardt says. Hed been visiting and hanging out with my son and spending every weekend with us for three years, doing the things that we do as family.Ehrhardt, whose company installs and services fire alarm systems, paid for Thomas to attend Oakridge, a prestigious private school in Arlington, and took him on vacations to an island he owns in the Caribbean. A photo from the summer of 2008 shows Ted, a sometime sports agent, his wife, Stacey, and their three sons posing with Thomas on their private beach, all dressed in matching white shirts and khakis.But as much as Linda wanted Thomas to see the world outside Oak Cliff, she winced when she opened a local magazine in April 2009, a year after he moved to Arlington, and read a profile about her son headlined Most Grateful Player. The piece included a quote from Thomas, then a freshman, saying that before he met the Ehrhardts, I was going to school in Dallas and getting into trouble.Linda was stung by the suggestion that he was better off without her. And she became even more upset when Thomas father married and moved to a home just 5 miles from the Ehrhardts. In December 2009, Linda drove to Arlington to tell the Ehrhardts she wanted her 15-year-old son back. Theyre separating us, she said. Thats not the way it started out, you know?Thomas didnt show much emotion as his mother spoke. It wasnt like he was bawling or crying, Ted recalls. It was more like, My mom needs me. I need to go home with her.Back in Oak Cliff, Linda rented her house so she could move Thomas closer to a magnet school, Skyline High, which has produced eight NFL players since 1994. But the arrangement didnt go as planned. Thomas announced that he wanted to start spending more time with his father and alternated between Roberts home in Arlington and the apartment of his fathers sister near Skyline.Skyline went 9-3 and 14-1 in his two seasons. But as Thomas became an Under Armour All-American wide receiver and Robert took an active role in managing his future, Linda felt more and more isolated from her son. It was like the vultures were all over him, she says. It just seemed like every person that came into Thomas life was trying to control him and exclude me.She also saw dark forces at work in the recruitment process.I know people say black magic dont exist, she says. But [after Thomas committed] its like he went to sleep and woke up a totally different kid.IN THE SUMMER of 2012, Thomas joined a hopeful Aggies team that was entering the SEC with a new coach, Kevin Sumlin, and weapons at almost every position. The only glaring vacancy was at quarterback, and Sumlin chose an obscure redshirt freshman, Manziel, to fill it.A close friend of Lindas whod died years earlier and had acted as a godfather to Thomas left him an inheritance for when he turned 18. He wasnt shy about spending it, buying a Chevy Malibu for himself and a Chrysler Sebring for his mother, gifts for friends and an engagement ring for a girl he was dating back home.On the field, his quiet confidence meshed with Manziels bravado. When the Aggies rolled into Tuscaloosa on Nov. 10, 2012, they were ranked 15th with a 7-2 record. Alabama was undefeated, but the Aggies scarcely needed three minutes to score their first touchdown. By the end of the first quarter, A&M was up 20-0 in a game it would hold on to win 29-24. Thomas caught only three passes, but each one helped keep a scoring drive alive.Then, in the aftermath of the Aggies biggest win in more than a decade, Thomas abruptly left College Station -- a departure that even now is blurred by questions. In the weeks before the game, Thomas had begun comparing himself to the character played by Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic film about a loner who hears a voice that tells him to deliver a sacred text to a secret location on the West Coast.According to his roommate, linebacker Michael Richardson, he was breaking it down to us, and we were like, What are you watching, bro? It was like he [had watched] a completely different movie. By then, Richardson says, something had spiritually messed him up. Hed sit in his room for hours, reading his Bible and smoking weed. He got distant from everybody. I told him he needed help.In an interview, Robert Johnson says his son confessed that hed started smoking synthetic marijuana, or K-2. I said, Youve got to be out of your mind, he recalls. Thomas answer -- Ah, Dad, its all good -- hardly encouraged him.Two days after the Alabama game, the Aggies had a special-teams meeting scheduled at the Bright Football Complex. Because Thomas Malibu had broken down, Richardson offered to give him a lift. Nah, its OK, he said. Ill see you there. Instead, shortly after 1 p.m., Thomas walked out of their apartment with the television on and didnt come back. The engagement ring hed bought for his girlfriend was in his pocket; he wanted to give it to her personally. His knapsack was full of Bibles.There was a Greyhound station 30 miles away, in Hearne, and Thomas walked the entire way. His feet became so blistered that he took off his shoes to walk the final stretch barefoot. It wasnt until the next day, when he failed to show up to a second straight practice, that his coaches realized he was gone.As Brian Polian, then the Aggies special-teams coordinator, recalls: We had law enforcement from different agencies trying to track him down, and no answers. Adds Richardson: We had cops watching our house. They didnt know if someone had done something to Thomas, and honestly, neither did we.According to a campus police report, Aggies wide receivers coach David Beaty told an officer that Thomas had been very religious in recent weeks. When the officer followed up with Linda, she confirmed that a change had come over her son. In fact, she said, she was concerned enough about the messages he was getting from the Bible that shed brought him to a Dallas-area minister so that Thomas could better understand what he was reading.Linda, however, never referred Thomas to a health professional. And there is no evidence that anyone in authority at A&M did either.Sumlin and Beaty, now the head coach at Kansas, declined to speak with Outside the Lines. And A&M athletic department spokesman Alan Cannon cited federal student privacy restrictions when saying he could not comment about a current or former students medical care. Cannon did say, however, that football players, like all students, receive orientation materials that make them aware of resources on campus, including mental health counseling.The statewide manhunt for Thomas came to an end three days after his departure, when Robert Johnson found him at the home of a high school friend, talking in a garage. The truck driver tried to coax his son out, but Thomas wouldnt budge. Seeing no other option, Robert called the police. When Thomas spotted a squad car pulling up, he bolted out a back door and started running. Thomas is crazy, his friend told the officers. He believes hes Jesus.With a helicopter searching overhead, Thomas ran to a nearby park, where he frantically called his girlfriend. Im hungry, Im cold. Will you just come see me? he begged.Frightened for Thomas safety, his girlfriend informed detectives, who arranged to follow her as she drove to the park. When he got into her car shivering and disheveled, she drove straight into a prearranged traffic stop. Thomas was taken into custody without incident and transported to a psychiatric hospital, Green Oaks, for evaluation.After three days of court-ordered supervision, Thomas left Green Oaks with his father. I said, Son, I need you to tell me whats going on. If you dont tell me, I dont know how to help you, Robert recalls.Thomas reply, he says, was pleading: Dad, Im hearing these voices in my head. ... Theyre just telling me to do different things. Stuff I dont want to do.A few days later, Robert brought his son to an outpatient facility where, he says, Thomas received a diagnosis of schizophrenia. But in a foreshadowing of his future, Thomas refused medication or long-term care. He didnt want to go to a hospital because he was afraid hed be treated like a nutcase, Robert says.Unless someone petitioned the court to declare him incompetent -- a drastic step that no one was ready to take -- Thomas was free to chart his own course.ELIJAH SMITH WANTED to be just like Thomas.Six years younger than his second cousin, he had visions of becoming a football star and was thrilled that he got to drive with Thomas to College Station in the summer of 2012 to check out his new home.But just six months later, soon after Thomas was released from Green Oaks, Elijah saw a different side of his cousin. Please forgive me, Thomas said when he stopped by Elijahs house one evening. I sold my soul to the devil.Elijah told Thomas it was late and he needed to get some rest. But Thomas left, only to return past midnight to speak to Elijahs father, Roderick.We have to deliver Elijah, Roderick recalls him saying.Deliver him where?To the crucifixion.No, you wont be delivering him tonight, Roderick said, stepping back. Thomas looked up to his second cousins bedroom.Is Elijah up?Elijah is not up, Roderick answered. And Im not gonna go wake him up.God dont sleep, Thomas replied.The sound of the two men talking roused Elijah, who turned on the bathroom light.See, Thomas said. I told you God dont sleep.Later, Roderick told his son that he should stop hanging around Thomas. He also phoned his uncle Robert to say something was seriously wrong with Thomas.What happened next is the subject of some debate. Robert says he arrived at the apartment that Thomas shared with his mother in the company of a doctor and social worker in the hopes he could coax Thomas to a hospital. But he says Linda blocked their way, insisting it was another attempt by him to separate her from her son.Linda, for her part, denies that ever happened. Instead, she says, they threw around schizophrenia. I dont know. I dont know much about it. ... I think it was something else going on that was mind-altering. In some form or fashion, his mind had been altered.REMARKABLY, EVEN AFTER Thomas formally withdrew from A&M in December 2012, severing ties with the university and removing any potential for medical care on campus, his football career wasnt over. Terance Perine, a personal trainer and friend of the family, emailed coaches to see whether there was any interest in him and says he got a bite from TCU. But Thomas never called the school to follow up. He never responded, Perine says.Perine also tried junior colleges. But the results were the same. Finally, he gave up and arranged an interview for Thomas at McDonalds. That didnt go any better.Robert also tried to find his son a job. He attempted to teach Thomas how to drive a truck, get him work in the oil fields. Each time, the answer came back, No, Dad, thats not what I want to do. One day, Thomas expressed an interest in selling cars. I went and bought him new clothes and got ready to take him to a friend of mine who sold cars, Robert says. He said, No, that aint what I said I want to do.It was during this period that Thomas began to take walks that, family members say, lasted as long as a day. I asked him why he walked so much and he said it was because he couldnt sleep, recalls Brenda Cradler, his mothers sister. He said the voices in his head wouldnt stop.On April 8, 2014 -- three days after the Aggies finished their spring practice and 16 months after he left A&M -- Thomas decided to return to College Station. But his car was broken down and couldnt make the trip, so he went to a place where he knew he could find a substitute: the day care center that his mothers other sister, Clarissa Pitts, ran in her home.Thomas waited until he saw his aunt leave in the afternoon, then broke a window and grabbed the keys to her Chevy van. After about 90 minutes, he drove off to College Station.When Clarissa returned that night to see her home burglarized, she called the police and handed over a security video. It showed her nephew pacing around with a kitchen knife, looking nervously out the windows every few minutes.Clarissa wasnt the only one unnerved by Thomas behavior that day. Richardson, his former roommate, recalls that Coach Beaty called him in a panic when Thomas showed up at the Bright Football Complex and was walking in circles and talking to himself. He said [Thomas] came down with a backpack and looked bad and was trying to get on the team, Richardson says. Beaty offered to get Thomas help. But TJ didnt want to hear that, Richardson says. Coach Beaty had to get him escorted out because he was getting aggressive.On the way back home the next afternoon, Thomas was arrested outside Waco by a cop whod been alerted to the stolen van and who transported him to Dallas County Jail. Many of those closest to Thomas hoped hed finally hit bottom, that hed finally get the help he needed. But little changed. Instead, he spent three months in the jail before another Samaritan stepped into the picture -- Dave Stephenson, a sports marketing executive who was close to Thomas old coaches at Skyline.In July 2014, Stephenson bailed Thomas out of jail and brought him to a care pastor he knew in Dallas for a counseling session. After 90 minutes with Thomas, Stephenson recalls, the pastor told us that he was very complex, that there were a lot of issues with his mother and father that he hadnt resolved.The two developed something they called the Jeremiah 29:11 Plan, which involved a mix of Bible study, work on the farm where Stephenson lives, drug testing and sessions with a psychologist. They also persuaded Clarissa to drop the stolen-car charge if Thomas completed the program.And so it was that Thomas found himself residing on a 4-acre expanse 50 miles outside Dallas, in yet another place that was supposed to offer him sanctuary. He woke up to Bible study each morning, ate a full breakfast, then drove to a nearby gym for a workout before returning for counseling with Stephenson and his wife, Lisa. The couple also hired a consultant to help make sure Thomas would be NCAA-eligible, hoping to pick up where Perine left off.But early in August 2014, on the very day that Thomas was scheduled to have his first session with a psychologist, he announced hed spoken with his mother and was leaving their farm without making the visit. Stephenson tried to talk Thomas into staying. Not only would leaving violate the terms of his diversion program, Stephenson said, but Thomas would be putting himself into the same environment that had seemed to stoke his erratic behavior. We didnt know what to do, Stephenson says.Eventually, the couple agreed to drive Thomas to an overnight visit with Linda. The next day, though, when he called Linda to arrange to pick him up, she told him Thomas had left and she didnt know where hed gone. We never heard from Linda again, says Stephenson, who immediately notified Thomas probation officer. She didnt take our calls.A WEEK AFTER he was reunited with Linda, Thomas walked to his aunt Clarissas home in Duncanville, about 20 miles away, with the intent of apologizing for taking her van. But his hair was dirty and matted, his eyes were darting, and his disheveled look convinced his aunt that he was a danger to her kids. She huddled them inside her home, locked the doors and called the police.Thomas was on his aunts porch when two police cruisers pulled up. Why are you here? he asked one of the cops who got out. When the officer replied that he was responding to a report of suspicious activity, Thomas said, I didnt call anyone, and he started walking off. The officer blocked his path, but Thomas ignored him and broke into a full sprint. He was captured a few blocks away and booked on a misdemeanor charge of evading arrest.Over the next year, Thomas went into a complete free fall. He tested positive for marijuana, missed an appointment with his probation officer, failed to pay $640 in court costs and neglected to enroll in a safe-neighborhoods program. But when he appeared before a Dallas County magistrate on the evasion charge in January 2015, he was treated like just a drug addict with a low-level rap sheet. The judge suspended a 45-day jail sentence in favor of having Thomas complete a six-month stay in a drug rehabilitation center.Everyone just assumed he had a drug problem, Brenda Cradler says. But it wasnt drugs. It was not that at all.(A representative for the Dallas County district attorney declined to comment for this story.)When Thomas was finally released in July 2015, the anger he had previously shown in flashes was residing much closer to the surface. He also began to tell a story about why he had left Texas A&M three years earlier.In separate interviews with Outside the Lines, five people -- Thomas mother and father, his aunt Brenda and two others who know him well -- recalled him using similar language to describe an episode that he said traumatized him at a team celebration after hed returned from the Alabama game in November 2012.He told me hed been raped, Linda says. And he was really angry. Believe me, he was really angry.The Texas A&M police report into Thomas 2012 disappearance does not mention anything about a sex crime. Polian says he never heard talk of an investigation in any meeting. And Cannon, the football department spokesman, says no incident ever came to his attention. Richardson says Thomas was in fine spirits when he went out with the team that night. He usually stayed in that house, so it was a big deal that he came out with us, the ex-roommate recalls. We all tried to have a good time. And we did.Whatever happened that night, he couldnt handle it, his aunt Brenda says. He could not handle it. He could not handle it.LINDA HANKS SPENT the evening of Oct. 10, 2015, with Thomas watching War Room, a film celebrated for its message about prayer. She says she felt the way she used to feel -- like her son was still the center of her world.Linda had spent every last bit of her praying power on Thomas. She prayed beside him, prayed at church, prayed alone and now she was praying as they watched the movie about prayer.Thomas was in a good mood as he watched the movie and giggled through the funny parts, like he did when they used to watch The Three Stooges together. When the film ended at 9:30 p.m., he got up and announced he was going out. He didnt say where, and Linda didnt ask.When she awoke on Sunday morning and saw that her son hadnt returned, Linda showered, dressed for church and was about to leave when she heard a key turn in her front door. Linda recalls that Thomas stormed inside in the anger zone.He was looking for something -- I dont know what, she says. When I asked him, he started calling me all outta my name, meaning he cursed at her.You cant stay with me calling me outta my name, Linda remembers saying. I love you. And Ive stood by you. But I cant take that. As she puts it, It wasnt like I said, Get out. I said, You cant be that way to me and live here with me.But the effect on Thomas was the same. He stormed out of the house with a long-bladed knife, hurling insults at Linda as he left.I dont think she wanted to push him away, her sister Brenda says. Sometimes we find these safe spots and say, Well, you know, it may not go away, but I can control it. ... I believe she was trying to protect him. I believe her love was strong. But she smothered him. I mean, what do you do with that?Linda decided not to go to church that morning. Instead, she took her Bible into a small closet that she uses for prayer, closed the door and fell to her knees.AT 7:32 ON Monday, Oct. 12, the sun had just risen over the Walnut Hill Lane Bridge when a pedestrian called 911 to report a huge crazed man in the park. The witness was scared enough to take out a can of pepper spray and later remarked: The best way to describe it is his brain was clearly in another atmosphere. I knew this guy was trouble, a scary stare.Twenty minutes after the police dispatcher was given a description of a man wearing a gray hoodie, Dave Stevens was in full stride on the final leg of his run. As he approached the bridge, he most likely had only a few seconds to process the man with the scary stare and the machete who was lunging at him.A cyclist phoned 911 to report what he thought at first glance was a man chopping wood. But before police could respond to that call, Thomas was already walking down the path and asking a passerby to borrow a cellphone. After calmly dialing 911, he told the dispatcher, Theres a man laying down with a sword in his head and not moving.Then he walked back to Dave Stevens and waited. When the police arrived, he told an officer, I just committed capital murder.PATTI STEVENS SPENT a day furiously calling police stations before she got word that her husband, who was without identification when he was found, was the victim in the White Rock murder. A week later, as neighbors criticized the Dallas PDs slow response to the initial 911 call, Patti was still trying to make sense of it all when she sat down with a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, Naomi Martin.Martin opened with a question about what Patti liked most about Dave when they first met, but Patti, to her own surprise, seemed unprepared to dial her memory that far back. Oh gosh, oh my gosh. He was just such a quiet, polite ... She stammered. Oh, I should have thought about that.Daves parents, whod flown in from Michigan, jumped in to help. He liked competition, especially from himself, said Harry Stevens, a retired college professor. He really liked to see his [marathon] numbers get better. He had that inner competition.Slowly finding her voice, Patti picked up the thread. He was always a gentleman, she said. Whenever Id walk through a door, Dave would hold it open for me. ... A perfectionist at home too. Very thorough. Turning to the home that theyd built in the Dallas suburb of Sunnyvale, she added: My sweet husband let me basically have everything I wanted.With the interview drawing to a close, Martin asked Patti, What do you see being next from here? But the weight of looking forward seemed to be too much. Through tears, she replied: Ill just say, Dave was the love of my life. And Im lost without him.Six days later, a Saturday, Patti gathered some photos of herself and Dave and arrayed them on her kitchen table. Next, she scribbled a few personal details on a note for Martin, in case The Dallas Morning News wanted to write about her again.Finally, Patti walked into her garage, closed the door and turned on her SUV. Lying on the floor beside the vehicle, she waited for the carbon monoxide to take her away.CURRENTLY, THOMAS JOHNSON is lodged at Dallas County Jail, where hes refusing to see visitors, including his parents and his attorney. A court-appointed psychiatrist has found him incompetent to stand trial on an indictment that charges him with intentionally and knowingly caus[ing] the death of Dave Stevens by inflicting chop wounds to deceased with a machete. He is awaiting transfer to a state psychiatric facility, where hell stay until a judge rules hes fit to stand trial.One of the few times his father has been able to see him came hours after his arrest. Thomas was still in his street clothes in the jail, and the two faced each other through thick glass.Are you OK? Robert asked through a telephone.Im good, Thomas replied. I killed a man, Dad.Robert stared into his sons eyes.So youre not all right? Robert said, a crack in his voice.No, Dad, Thomas replied. Im good.Additional reporting by Caitlin Stanco and Mike Ehrlich of Outside the Lines.Shaun AssaelAssael is one of the original staff members at ESPN Magazine, and a member of the networks Enterprise & Investigations Group. He is a contributor to Outside the Lines and the author of four books. His most recent is The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin and Heavyweights, due out this fall. A native New Yorker, he now lives in North Carolina.Jean-Jacques TaylorTaylor joined ESPNDallas.com in August 2011. A native of Dallas, Taylor spent the past 20 years writing for The Dallas Morning News, where he covered high schools sports, the Texas Rangers and spent 11 seasons covering the Dallas Cowboys before becoming a general columnist in 2006.join the conversation follow @ESPNfollow @ESPN Jordan Lyles Brewers Jersey . PAUL, Minn. Mike Moustakas Jersey ., and Rudi Swiegers of Kipling, Sask., took sixth spot on Saturday in pairs at the NHK Trophy ISU Grand Prix figure skating competition. https://www.cheapbrewers.com/959y-freddy-peralta-jersey-brewers.html . In Europe, top teams seem to be largely happy with their squads after spending nearly $1 billion in the off-season. And although English league clubs are unlikely to splash cash in January, Arsenal and Chelsea could be tempted to strengthen their squads with new strikers. Milwaukee Brewers Gear . -- Whether Jeremy Hill deserves a prominent role in LSUs offence this early in the season is a matter for debate. Hank Aaron Brewers Jersey . It was the second consecutive win for the Pacers (2-5), who lost their first five preseason games. Jeff Teague led the Hawks (1-5) with 17 points and eight assists and Al Horford had 12 points and seven rebounds. Mike Scott scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. MercedesLewis Hamilton: Its been a really good day. Monza is always an amazing track to drive and the fans always come out to show their support. We made good progress through our programme across the two sessions and our long run pace felt good.We split the tyre compounds between Nico and myself so we could learn as much as possible going into qualifying and the race and were looking quite strong. Weve still got some work to do this evening to analyse all the data and prepare the car but Im confident we can take the fight to the rest of the grid.Nico Rosberg: The car felt pretty good during P1 but we need to work on the balance of the car overnight as the one lap pace didnt feel 100% during P2. We also need to analyse the data from running all three tyres across the two sessions. Still, its great to be back here at Monza, the tifosi always come out in force to show their support and its great news that well be coming back here for at least the next three years.Paddy Lowe, executive director (technical): Its been a fine, sunny day here at Monza and a large, enthusiastic crowd turned out in support along with the traditional excited Italian commentary in the background as a quick lap was posted. We ran a fairly normal programme apart from the insertion of the Pirelli test tyre at the start of P1.Otherwise, running soft and super soft during P1 and a split across the two drivers in P2. Doing this allowed us to collate data on all three compounds at low and high fuel. We didnt encounter any problems with either car but well need to address the balance on both ahead of qualifying tomorrow.FerrariKimi Raikkonen: The morning ran smoothly and the first practice session was pretty good. The second one was a bit messy with the new tires and the yellow flags, but overall it was not too bad and the car was feeling ok. Obviously there are things to improve, but we started the weekend pretty ok.The new engine is a small step, its part of the normal progress, we would not put in the car anything that wouldnt improve our performance. We try to improve in all areas and I think we are going in the right direction. The atmosphere here in Monza is always very nice, there are a lot of fans and the feeling is good, then we have to do well on the circuit.Sebastian Vettel: Its Friday after all, which means its not the most important part of the weekend, even if its important that we ran and that we had a decent speed. In general the car feels good, but we still need to improve from where we are, we need to make it feel good in every corner and bring it together; but other than that, the first impression is positive.We have a new engine, so I think its doing what it is supposed to do. Obviously on Friday you try a lot of different things, so we need to wait until tomorrow and Sunday to see where we are. Now we need to improve the car, focusing on ourselves. Its really good news that Monza will stay for another three years. We need this track in the calendar, its fantastic. Monza means history, tradition, racing...WilliamsValtteri Bottas: Today went well. Its always nice to drive here in Monza and we got everything that was planned done so we have plenty of information on downforce levels and how the tyres are performing in short and long runs. For sure we have a lot of work to do for tomorrow, but overall it was a good day. I think its going to be very close here and, looking at today and the long run pace we had, we definitely can have a good week. Its too early to speculate much more than that, but I think we have an opportunity to be in reasonable positions this weekend.Felipe Massa: It wasnt a fantastic Friday for me personally as we had a couple of issues in FP1 and FP2 that limited my track time and what I could learn about the car. Im in a very relaxed place after announcing my retirement plans yesterday, so my focus now is on having a competitive final eight races. Ill be working hard overnight with the team to keep improving the car so that we can have another good result for Williams at what is a very special track for me.Rob Smedley, head of performance engineering: Its been a bit of a disjointed day today with reliability issues, especially with Felipes car. He lost about 50 minutes with a turbo issue in FP1, and then about 30 minutes in FP2 as we had to change his brake-by-wire system.The main focus has been on assessing downforce levels to find the right compromise between downforce and drag, and I think we got some really clear answers on this towards the end of the session. Both drivers are right there on low and high fuel, so whilst there are a few things for us to do tonight, were confident going into tomorrows running.Red BullMax Verstappen: It was a good day on track. We knew that it would be a more difficult weekend for the team as this is definitely the most challenging track for us on the calendar, but I think it wasnt too bad today and we can definitely improve for tomorrow.We found a good balance in between the sectors so its now up to us and the car. For the moment we are a little bit too far behind Mercedes, but if we get everything sorted for tomorrow, we can get closer. They definitely look very strong. Difficult to say what tomorrow brings, it will for sure be tougher than Spa and I think you can clearly see that, but well do our best.Daniel Ricciardo: After todays action I think we are more or less where we expected to be. I would like to be closer to Ferrari but we didnt really find the times on the super-softs, though the softs felt competitive. I think tomorrow it will tighten up at the top even more. I expect Mercedes to lock out the front row and Ferrari look like the next best. Fifth and sixth for now is not too bad and gives us plenty to work on for tomorrow.Monza is a very high speed circuit so if you have the right race car you have the opportunity to overtake. Even if youre a little bit down on top speed you can get a good slipstream and use DRS to make a pass. Looking at strategy here in the past it has typically been a one stop race so that limits the options and even in todays heat the tyres lasted well so I cant see that changing for now. Max did a fairly long stint on the supersofts and the result looked good.Force IndiaNico Hulkenberg: Its been a relatively short Friday for me, being in the car for FP2 only; but the afternoon went to plan and it was interesting to see our pace during the long runs. We managed some good runs and the team should have plenty of data to work with tonight. At this stage, I am not as happy as I would like to be with the car: I am still struggling a bit with the balance, so we need to improve things. We need to find some more harmony in the car to get us in better shape for tomorrow.Sergio Perez: I dont think today went as well as we thought it would. The balance of the car is still not where I want it to be so we need to understand why that is the case. There are still a couple of tenths we can find and that should be a good starting point. The times show the battle in the midfield is even closer than usual, so we need to keep pushing to come out on top.In the morning session I had a chance to try the Halo for the first time. It was just an installation lap, but I didnt feel it gave me any problems with visibility. Getting out of the car is a bit more of a struggle, but it will be interesting to see how this technology develops over time.Alfonso Celis: I am really happy about how the day went. It was an honour to be able to drive in Monza - its a place with such an incredible history. The most important thing, for me, is to keep showing the team that I am progressing and not making mistakes. As always, the priority is to bring the car home in one piece, but every time I get in the car my confidence increases and I can push a little more.Monza is not an easy track to drive, even though the car is very good, especially if you are not in the car every other weekend. You have very high speeds, especially on a light downforce set-up, and trying not to lock the brakes at the end of the straights is a challenge. Every time you go out its a compromise between pushing hard and looking after the car, but I am happy with my performance and I am pleased the team is satisfied with it.Bob Fernley, deputy team principal: We always see a very tight grid in Monza and todays practice times suggest the same will be true this year. There is very little to choose between the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh fastest teams, so there is a lot riding on the qualifying session tomorrow. Today was fairly routine: we worked through our programme, gathered the tyre data we needed on all three compounds and have to make some important decisions tonight on how to approach the weekend.We ran Alfonso in place of Nico this morning and he did a very good job once again. Nico and Sergio were not especially happy with the car balance this afternoon, so we made a few set-up changes to resolve those issues - but, as often happens, to improve one area involves a compromise somewhere else. That said, we will do our homework; make the changes required to improve, and we will be working hard to secure our place in Q3 tomorrow.Toro RossoCarlos Sainz: I think its been a busy Friday, as expected. There was a lot of testing going on in the background during both practice sessions and Im happy to have tried everything and completed the run plan. Obviously, Im not so satisfied with the pace, but we expected this here... Now its time to work hard tonight and see how to get a bit closer to the top ten.Daniil Kvyat: It was a productive Friday. We gathered plenty of data, important for our knowledge, and we now have a lot of work to do. This track isnt an easy one for us so we have a bit of a difficult weekend ahead.Phil Charles, chief race engineer: At recent races we have under-delivered relative to our expected performance level. As a result, we have invested a lot of todays running in completing a program to re-test some of the car changes we made just before the summer break. Monza is quite stand-out in terms of wing level and so to give the most representative results looking forward to the rest of the year, a lot of the running today was completed on a wing level which is not perfectly suited to the long Monza straights.ddddddddddddThe program involved lots of constant speed procedures on track and lots of changes in the garage. The mechanics worked particularly hard to get us through this busy program and the drivers and engineers did a good job to ensure comparable laps. We know coming to Monza that this will be a quite difficult home race for us given our usual straight line rankings and no power unit development with our 2015 engine. However, I hope that the tests completed today will give us a good direction going forwards, even if the data analysis job is very large in the short term and we will need to be in damage limitation mode at this event.RenaultKevin Magnussen: The car was a bit of a handful in the morning so we worked on dialling out the understeer and improving the ride to enable faster and more consistent laps. We got ourselves to a better balance for the afternoon and the degradation was better than we expected. Physically I feel fine in the car, its just like being back in the office, so there are no areas of concern in that regard. Tomorrow we want to be further up the order as Sunday should be an interesting race.Jolyon Palmer: Weve not set the world alight for pace today but weve been able to work through our programme and were confident to be able to take a step forward tomorrow. Its a great track and it feels really special to blast through the trees. We saw in Spa that we could improve significantly between Friday and Saturday so were looking for something similar here in Monza.Bob Bell, chief technical officer: We completed a full programme today with the cars, drivers and team performing exactly as required. In our evaluations we played particular attention to the performance of the Pirelli super soft compound tyre as its a step softer than wed usually see for Monza and we were pleasantly pleased at its performance opportunities. As usual, well scour the data accumulated with the objective of being faster on track for tomorrows qualifying session.McLarenFernando Alonso: We didnt have perfect reliability today - there are still some concerns here and there - but it wasnt anything really significant, which is good news. Nonetheless, we need to take care of every last detail because we dont want to lose out on scoring some points when it matters most.It was a positive day. We need to go away and look at what weve tested today - we ran some interesting prototype parts that are being evaluated for the future - but were reasonably happyWe didnt expect to get both cars into the top 10 at a high-speed track like this, but we need to keep our feet on the ground as we know that we tend to slip back a little on Saturday afternoons. We wouldnt realistically expect to get into Q3 tomorrow; so, if we do, itll be a nice surprise.Jenson Button: The Halo trial this morning was okay - there were no major issues with it. Perhaps it could be a little more difficult to see the lights on the start-line and in the pit-stops, but there are still so many possibilities to move things around. It feels a little strange: at 200mph, instead of focusing on the next corner, youre focusing on something dead ahead of your eyes - which can make you a little cross-eyed.It could be possible to get into Q3 tomorrow: we didnt do anything different today to what we normally do on a Friday, so its definitely possible. The cars working reasonably well - Im pretty happy. Long-run pace still needs some work if were to fight for points, but if we can get on top of it, we should be looking all right.Eric Boullier, racing director: Its always a fantastic feeling to be here in Italy in late summer, and at Monza - one of the greatest and most historic racetracks in the world.Both drivers enjoyed a relatively smooth day - Fernando had a small hydraulic leak right at the end of FP1, which minimally impacted on the start of his afternoon programme. Then he had a minor clutch issue once the car had been rebuilt and sent back out on the track - but both were routinely resolved.It was interesting to get the opportunity to test the Halo for the first time. We ran it on Jensons car, for a short run at the start of FP1, and, aside from a couple of minor observations, he didnt report any drawbacks with it. As we know, its still in development, and McLaren will play its role in providing feedback to the FIA and the Technical Working Group as its refined ahead of its introduction in 2018.Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda Head of F1 Project & Executive Chief Engineer: Both of todays free practice sessions were very busy, focusing on matching the balance of the car with the low downforce set-up and the power unit, and adapting to the fast circuit of Monza.On the final lap of FP1, Fernandos gears would not engage due to a hydraulic leak on a connector. We replaced this small part between the two free practice sessions, and, owing to the swift work of the mechanics, we were able to get him out for another busy running session in FP2 with only a slight delay.As it is with every Friday, it is hard to determine our performance in comparison to other teams, but it was a good sign to be able to stay within the middle of the pack on this power circuit. We gathered lots of information today, so we will work hard to analyse and apply to the power unit for tomorrows final practice session and qualifying.SauberMarcus Ericsson: It was a good Friday. We tried all the different compounds - medium, soft and supersoft - and got some data on low as well as high-fuel runs. We continued to work on our aero package that we introduced in Spa. All in all it was a positive day during which we gathered interesting information.Felipe Nasr: It was again another useful Friday. In the morning we focused on further analysis on the aero package. Thus, FP1 was dedicated to a lot of work on the aerodynamic side of the car. Later on in the afternoon we were able to do short and long-runs on different tyre compounds. It is positive that we were also able to do a race simulation. I feel we still have some work to do for the rest of the weekend, but overall it was a good Friday.ManorPascal Wehrlein: Monza is a very different track to Spa, so we were testing different aero parts on the car this morning to find solutions. We did improve in this afternoon session, which I am happy about.There is still a lot of work to do as we are not yet where we want to be, especially for Monza, but there is more potential in the car and we can work on that tomorrow.Esteban Ocon: Yes, overall it was a pretty good day, except at the end. Sometimes you get problems, but Im pretty happy with the pace. We have to keep working that way, with one more practice tomorrow. We couldnt do the long runs but we managed to do the short runs, which is good preparation to our qualifying. Im feeling positive. Id like to think we can be in a good position tomorrow.Dave Ryan, team principal: Not bad for a Friday, I guess, but I think its fair to say we need to extract a bit more one-lap performance from the car for qualifying tomorrow if we are going to feature in Q2, which is certainly our goal for this event.Both Pascal and Esteban did a great job today, so no worries there whatsoever. Its just a case of getting a bit more out of the car, but after all the work the guys put in today we know where we have to be stronger. Lets see what the engineers come up with overnight and take it from there.Other than that, its a fairly normal Friday evening for us. Both cars are having scheduled engine changes with the only thing out of the ordinary being the investigation work taking place on the electrical systems on Estebans car as a result of him stopping out on the circuit early in FP2. Im confident that will be resolved easily enough so, all in all, reasonably comfortable with todays effort.HaasRomain Grosjean: It was a pretty good day at the office. The car felt good this morning straightaway. It was the same again in the afternoon, with higher track temperatures. The guys did a good job. Its a very good car for Monza. We tried different compounds. I did a high-fuel, low-fuel outing. There were no major issues. There are a few small things we can improve but, generally, Im very happy with the car.Esteban Gutierrez: We completed our program working a lot on understanding the tires behavior, because here we require a lot of traction and the tires temperature directly affects that. Were trying our best to find the maximum traction without compromising the overall balance of the car.I think well have some interesting data to analyze so we can fine tune everything for tomorrow. The pack is very tight, so itll be important to get everything spot on throughout each sector, which will be a challenge, but thats competition and its what we love doing.Guenther Steiner, team principal: FP2 was a pretty good session for us. No major issues. We ran through our program as planned. It seems weve found a respectable balance with the car. In the midfield its very tight, so we still dont know where well be tomorrow after qualifying. Well evaluate all the data weve collected from today and see what we want to try tomorrow to make the cars go faster.PireliPaul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director: We thought that Belgium was hot, but the track temperatures we saw today were even hotter: peaking at 46 degrees centigrade. This will have an effect on tyres, but we have to see what conditions will be like for the remainder of the weekend. Traditionally, a one-stopper has been the winning strategy, but this year were introducing the supersoft to Monza for the first time. How that tyre - which is about half a second faster than the soft so far - could perform in the race as part of the overall strategy was a big focus of the work in free practice today. ' ' '