djdunson Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Milwaukee Bucks should trade Doc Rivers for Jrue Holiday
The NBA has done a spectacular job with Rivalry Week. Sam Presti vs. his mentors in Oklahoma City took a backseat to Chet Holmgren vs. Victor Wembanyama. That clash felt like a future NBA Finals showdown. Devin Booker and Luka Doncic exchanged their usual vitriol and potshots at one another. However...
Andy Reid’s career arc is the inverse of Bill Belichick’s
Now in his sixth consecutive AFC Title game, Andy Reid is making up for lost time after struggling to get over the hump during his decade and change in Philadelphia. The venerable Chiefs coach is a virtuoso playcaller who has shepherded Kansas City to three Super Bowls, two Lombardi Trophies and has...
Doc Rivers is the habit the NBA can’t quit
Adrian Griffin was set up to fail from the start. The moment he was appointed head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, this felt like the making of a tempestuous union. Watching Griffin ink a deal to assume one of the most pressure-filled, win-now jobs in the NBA, then hire former Bucks coach Terry Stotts...
If Karl-Anthony Towns drops 62 in a forest on the same night Embiid delivers 70, does it make a sound?
That sound you heard last night was Karl-Anthony Towns reminding us that he’ll always be in the shadows of his peers. On Monday night in Philadelphia, Joel Embiid painted his magnum opus en route to a 70-point, 18-rebound exhibition of scoring prowess. Embiid’s 70 also came on the 18th anniversary o...
The 2023 Lions feel like the post-Katrina Saints
Another dome team led by an acolyte of Sean Payton with a young, innovative playcaller helming an explosive offense, a rehabilitated quarterback making the most of his second chance and a highly drafted rookie tailback are coalescing to alter the trajectory of a bottom-feeding franchise....
Jordan Love’s best and worst were on display this postseason
No matter how Jordan Love’s season ended, it was an unmitigated success. He put himself in a position to secure a bag from Green Bay this offseason, obliterated the Dallas Cowboys with a 3-touchdown performance in his playoff debut, and was an all-around feel-good story despite the unhappy ending. B...
Just when it looked like Boston area was free of King Sourpuss, Joe Mazzulla says, 'Hold my beer'
In the void left behind by Bill Belichick, Joe Mazzulla’s introverted-ness has risen to the occasion. And no, I’m not talking about the Boston Celtics giving the New England area a front-runner they desperately need. Mazzulla is the boorish head coach of a major professional franchise that the affab...
Sean McDermott, Josh Allen need to finally finish off Patrick Mahomes while they have the chance
The Buffalo Bills are the greatest what-if franchise in NFL history. They’ve repeatedly brushed up against greatness without it rubbing off on them. Next month, Buffalo is approaching the 30th anniversary of Marv Levy’s K-Gun Bills’ fourth Super Bowl loss. ...
Alabama should be applauded for defying historical trends by hiring Kalen Deboer
In response to Nick Saban’s sudden retirement, the Crimson Tide hired Washington’s Kalen Deboer and averted the mistake that’s plagued program after program over the last half-century. Bravo to Alabama for expanding beyond their horizons....
The Pistons should be sending thank you cards to the Lions
Midway through January of 2024, Detroit exists at the cross-section of grief and euphoria. Grief for the terminally ill Detroit Pistons and euphoria towards the Detroit Lions reanimating. Nothing encapsulates the circle of life and sports quite like the present-day 313. There’s even a dash of relief...
The Buffalo Bills don’t need a dome, the city does
Snow is as omnipresent in Buffalo as rivers are in Pittsburgh. Buffalonians are accustomed to sheets of snow piling up on the city’s roads and sidewalks. Highmark Stadium was supposed to host the opening playoff contest of 2024 until Mother Nature intervened, despite the fact that the city has exper...
Tua Tagovailoa’s charlatan season sets Miami up for a difficult choice this offseason
Miami is the nexus of cult phenomenons. Heat Culture, cryptocurrency, crash diets. Over the last year and a half, Tua Tagavailoa has also become a South Beach cult favorite. Tuanon is the most prominent group of devoted believers in the Dolphins quarterback. When the Tuanon founder died last year, T...
Bill Belichick tried to eff around without a first-class Tom Brady clone and found out
From the beginning, Bill Belichick flaunted the egalitarian team culture he sought to establish in New England. Before they took the field for Super Bowl XXXVI, the St. Louis Rams’ Show on Turf offensive starters followed tradition by exiting the dimly lit tunnel one by one by one into the spotlight...
Here's to Golden State learning to age gracefully
Golden State is probably permanently entrenched as a middle-of-the-pack team. There are no renovating crumbling support beams around their Big 3 pillars because they are the source of deterioration. All they can do now is continue their reign as the most well-adjusted teammates ever cobbled together...
Michigan’s national title is a crop in the Big Ten’s budding football harvest
As maize-and-blue confetti streamed from the NRG Stadium rafters, it felt like the Big Ten’s harvest was finally ripening. The national title game was decided when Michigan outmuscled Alabama a week earlier, but Monday night’s national title was merely the coup de grâce in a process that began five ...
Leave it to Jameis Winston to ruin the most innocuous play in football
By now you’ve seen the video of recently fired Atlanta Falcons coach Arthur Smith telling off Saints head coach Dennis Allen with NSFW language after the Saints dispatched Atlanta, 48-17. Jameis Winston’s audible, which allowed Jamaal Williams to rumble into the end zone for his first touchdown of ...
Tyronn Lue unplugged Kawhi Leonard before he could overheat in a playoff atmosphere
This year, the NBA claimed their findings are that load management mumbo jumbo is not supported by scientific data. Yet, the Clippers are still so concerned about Kawhi Leonard’s circuitry that they will unplug him before they risk him overheating and hurting himself when necessary. On Sunday night,...
The 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars had an unnatural loyalty to losing
The Jacksonville Jaguars began the 2023 season with a built-in advantage as the only playoff-ready team in a division of bottom-feeders. After last January’s Wild Card comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers, Trevor Lawrence was expected to continue his ascent both in the AFC and up the ranks of e...
Stephen A. Smith may take a late night television jalopy out for a spin next year
It’s opening night for the 2025 NBA season. After Inside the NBA guffaws its way through the opening game, a portion of the audience siphons off to Apple TV or Prime Video, where Stephen A. Smith is starting his opening monologue. Except he isn’t ranting and raving about Donovan Mitchell and Jalen B...
NFL scriptwriters couldn’t have penned a better ending to the regular season than Bills-Dolphins
Give the NFL credit. The league obviously hired writers from disparate backgrounds to arrange the season’s plotlines. On Sunday, the Week 18 finale will climax with an end-of-season clash of genres between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who couldn’t be more different. The Dolphins even have a...