Football Page 1268 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The NFL Has A New Shutdown Corner
Cool name? Check. Surprisingly competitive team? Check. The league's top cornerback this year? Might be. So why isn't Alterraun Verner a household name yet?...
<em>Daily News</em> Anoints Geno Smith The Next Mark Sanchez
This is either a serious failure of back-page wood creativity, or a really bad omen for Geno Smith....
Reminder: <em>League Of Denial</em> Is Tonight. Here's A Clip You Haven't Seen
Here's a clip from the Frontline documentary League of Denial. It premieres tonight at 9 p.m. tonight on ES—oh right, on PBS....
Reporter Alan Schwarz Changed The NFL; He's Here To Talk Concussions
We're joined now by New York Times enterprise reporter Alan Schwarz. Best known for his groundbreaking work on football's concussion crisis, he also wrote a terrific history of the role of statistics in baseball, and is a regular recipient of warm holiday greetings from Roger Goodell. Have questions...
Insane College Football Drive: 24 Plays, 90 Yards, Zero Points
So if you didn't catch Saturday's Colorado School of Mines-Western New Mexico game—I DVR'd it*—you missed out on one of the longest, strangest, and ultimately fruitless possessions in college football history....
Jadeveon Clowney Shouldn't Play Until He Gets Paid
South Carolina's all-world DE Jadeveon Clowney didn't play this weekend with a muscle strain, or maybe bruised ribs, and also some bone spurs in his foot. He's not been particularly clear on the ailment, or the state of his recovery, and the Gamecocks were surprised and confused that Clowney himself...
Report: Injured Julio Jones Could Be Done For The Season
The Falcons' season just keeps going from bad to worse. Last night's loss to the Jets at home dropped them to 1-4, and now there's this:...
The NFL Can Now Force Teams To Appear On <em>Hard Knocks</em>
After peaking with the Jets, Hard Knocks has had a hell of a time finding teams to go under the documentary microscope for training camp. After a string of refusals the 2012 edition settled for the boring Dolphins, and though the Bengals stepped up this year, it was another forgettable season. But t...
The New Pro Bowl Uniforms Are Here
The Pro Bowl now has a whole bunch of new rules. It's a fantasy draft format instead of conference vs. conference. Kickoffs and kneeldowns are banned. The play clock will be shorter, but will run after incomplete passes. With today's release of the new uniforms, this Pro Bowl absolutely won't look a...
Chart: How Does Your NFL Team Stack Up On Offense and Defense?
Over at Advanced NFL Stats, Brian Burke has put together a great visualization plotting the offensive and defensive performance of the league's 32 teams. It's nothing too complicated—basically a NYMag Approval Matrix for football—but it reveals a lot about the state of the NFL through Week 5....
Impostors Posing As USC Reps Reach Out To Potential Football Coaches
So you know those reports that say USC has reached out to Tony Dungy and (possibly) Jack Del Rio to replace Lane Kiffin? Yeah, well, those overtures never happened. Oh, someone claiming to be from USC did call Dungy and a member of the Denver Broncos coaching staff. Whoever it was just wasn't actual...
D.J. Fluker Picked Up A Linebacker And Body-Slammed Him
This happened somewhere around 2 a.m. EDT this morning, so maybe you missed it. This is rookie lineman D.J. Fluker doing all he could—and then some—to make sure Raiders linebacker Sio Moore doesn't get to Philip Rivers on this play. Unsurprisingly, Fluker was flagged for a personal foul, but holy s...
NFL Getting Rid Of Pink Penalty Flags
The NFL has announced it will return to yellow penalty flags next week, two weeks earlier then planned. Breast cancer awareness is nice, but not as nice as knowing if that's a flag or a stray towel on the field....
Peyton Manning's Naked Bootleg Is Football's Most Unstoppable Weapon
The most impressive touchdown of a game filled with them came at the end of the first half, as Peyton Manning bluffed a handoff to Knowshon Moreno, rolled to his left, and shuffled untouched into the end zone. It was a rare sighting of the Peyton Manning naked bootleg, the secret weapon of our gener...
The Texans' Worst Defender Is Matt Schaub
The Houston Texans' defense has been very good this year. The unit ranks tops in the league in passing yards allowed per game, total yards allowed per game, and is ranked as the fifth-best defense in the league by Football Outsiders' DVOA statistic. These marks are made all the more impressive by th...
Dan Snyder Sucks at PR, According To Dan Snyder's Former PR Company
Adweek magazine ran its version of the Redskins name story a few days ago. The main question under consideration was whether social media have "propelled" the controversy over the team's name. Yes, was the conclusion....
<em>SNL's</em> Jay Pharoah Does A Tremendous Shannon Sharpe Impression
Jay Pharoah is SNL's master impressionist, and although his Barack Obama may be a bit uninspiring, his Shannon Sharpe leaves nothing to be desired. Our only complaint has to do with his tie knot. That sucker needs to be much, much bigger....
<em>Hard Knocks</em> Parody Puts The Show In A Pee Wee Football Training Camp
This, from Funny or Die, is the first episode of Little Knockers, a Hard Knocks parody that gives us what we've always wanted: a Rex Ryan-inspired football coach screaming and cursing at a bunch of 11-year-old boys. It's worth watching just for the chance to see Jerry from Parks and Rec point at kid...
Tony Romo Was Tony Romo, Until He Was Tony Romo
Broncos-Cowboys was the most satisfying game of the season, and not just because it was the sort of record-breaking, no-defense, aerial shootout the NFL seems to be moving toward. No matter what your opinion of Tony Romo coming in, it was confirmed. A win for the Broncos, perhaps a moral victory for...