As Marc noted, this is due to lighting. Unfortunately with sports we don't generally get to choose locations/poses and sometimes the lighting just sucks. On a football field, when you have strong downward angled lighting behind the player and a fair but lesser amount of front or side illumination, you get the effect you see in your foggy photo. Here are a couple of examples with the EF 24-70 f2.8 lens post game, both the same night, same field, post-game celebration but very different lighting where the players are strongly back illuminated and the second where the players are closer to the endzone and not directly backlit.
I have captured similar game photos with my EF 70-200 f2.8 IS III and no lens is going to make a difference, my favorite EF 400 f2.8 IS II will do the same under those conditions. You can improve things in post but nothing will totally get away from the issue, basically when lighting conditions really suck then that is going to have a major impact on the final image. I know for the fields I shoot where the problems occur and I try to avoid the problem angles at those positions but it isn't always possible.
Both photos with 1DX II and EF 24-70 f2.8 with very different results, the difference is in the lighting intensity and location. The washed out photo has already been heavily corrected for contrast in post, the original file is worse than your "bad lens" example.
Rodger
If it's the RF 70-200 2.8 I think you will be a big fan!
I'll start with, if ever you are in Chicago let me know so you can stop by and punch me. Hopefully you get the joke but when I review someone it's a little awkward. Hence you get the punch.
The image is pretty good, a little soft and the focus point looks to be on the jersey, the panthers text and the number look sharper then the eyes, that looks like your focus point. Also, you are a little over overexposed. What type of metering do you normally use?
Your stuff looks good, I think you are on a good path and have to tweak a couple things. I've been photographing both commercially and as a hobby for a long time, I still need to review and tweak. Sports photographers, professionals shoot a ton of frames to get their keepers so keep that in mind. How long have you had the passion for sports photography?
I also asked wq9nsc (Rodger) to circle back as he is a very good sports photographer that can add value.
I downloaded the image and tweaked it a bit in PS, just knocked the exposure down .55, just to compare.
