Football Page 1626 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NFL Week Seventeen, Update #1
• In the afternoon's one important game, the Jets lead the Raiders 7-3 late in the second quarter. Give the Raiders credit, they're not just going to lay there and take it. Chad Pennington has managed to complete 12 of 16 passes and only has 67 passing yards to show for it. This week's Raiders featu...

As The Mess Begins To Unfold...
If the Giants lose tonight, tomorrow's NFL day gets a lot more interesting and confusing. If they win tonight, a playoff spot is theirs, most likely. If they lose, though, there are four other teams, all of them terrible, that could claim the spot tomorrow. I don't care much about either of these te...

Danny White And Herschel Walker Would Like To Wish You A Belated Merry Christmas
In case you needed a little push to take down the last of those Christmas decorations, this should stomp out your remaining holiday cheer. We offer you the 1986 Dallas Cowboys singing Christmas in Dallas, proving that there were other disasters besides the Challenger Space Shuttle and Iran-Contra th...

Car Penetrates Fred Smoot's Face
Fred Smoot's jaw is broken in five places as the result of a recent car accident, and he's out of the hospital and recovering, according to Vikings head coach Brad Childress. There aren't a lot of details available at the moment, but there is no reason to believe (well, not much reason, anyway) that...

Doug Johnson Must Be Some Kind Of Douchebag
With a staggering 39% of the vote, Terrell Owens was the "winner" of an SI.com poll among NFL athletes on the subject of the league's most annoying player. Owens was one of only two players to get into a double digit percentage, the other being Joey Porter with a disappointing 10%....

Spit Shield Purchases Skyrocketing In North Carolina
Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, beloved in many places that are not Seattle, may have given some clues yesterday about his plans for the future. He didn't announce anything, but said he'd have something to say about it next week. If he was going to stay, though, why wait to say it?...

Ref Played Bird, Quarterback Played Randy Johnson
Umpire Garth DeFelice couldn't get out of the way in time when Garrard threw a pass over the middle, and when he turned away from the ball, it hit him and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. DeFelice stayed on the ground for several minutes, but he eventually walked off the field. Garrard, showing c...

So Much Favre Love You'll Blow Your Head Off
By week 17 of the NFL season, most teams are either already locked into their playoff positions or already eliminated. That means the average NFL player cares as much about the 16th game of the season as Shaq cares about the 10th through 70th games of the NBA season....

NFL Week Sixteen, Update #1
• Texans 21, Colts 14. The latest running back to beat up the Colts defense... ladies and gentlemen, Ron Dayne. Dayne has 88 yards and two touchdowns in the first half, and the Texans lead the Colts, 21-14. Manning's been sharp, Addai's been productive, and Marvin is Marvin... but none of it matters...

It's A Big Day For The Millen Haters
The latest in Lions fan protests is happening, oh, any time now. At some point in the second quarter, Lions fans are urged to walk out of Ford Field en masse. The goal, I believe, is not necessarily to voice their anger with Matt Millen, but rather with the guy who won't fire him, team owner William...

A Year From Now, Art Shell Will Be Wearing A Santa Suit In A Mall
I know that the appropriate thing to do here is to make a hateful comment towards the NFL Network, but you know what? I get the NFL Network. The NFL Network and me are on pretty good terms....

Not A Good Way To Be Added As A Friend
John Brantley is a top-rated high school quarterback who had initially planned on attending Texas before deciding instead to stay closer to home in Florida, reportedly because his girlfriend goes there. Because nothing in the world is more pure, charming and altruistic than collegiate athletic rec...

Ryan Leaf: Demoted, Promoted Or Just Sad?
If you were watching the Las Vegas Bowl between BYU and Oregon last night — and who wasn't? — you might have seen a sideline interview with none other than former Washington State Cougars star Ryan Leaf. (He is also known by some for his postcollegiate endeavors.) Leaf's brother is the quarterback a...

Oh, Brett, Won't You Just Let Us Into Your Heart?
What could be a more fitting final image of Brett Favre's career as a Green Bay Packer than throwing an interception for a touchdown (to Fred Smoot, of all people) and winning anyway because of three field goals from a guy named "Dave Rayner?" OK, well, maybe lots of things — we were kind of assumin...

It's Brett Favre's Last Game In Green Bay! (Totally!)
A statement we kind of can't believe we're making: Brett Favre might as well go ahead and come back next year. It's no like Aaron Rodgers is all raring to go or anything; the Packers are directionless and boring otherwise, so we might as well watch The Gunslinger Mentality flip shit in the air 16 mo...

One Small Step For A Harbaugh, One Giant Leap For Mankind
Not 24 hours after Jim Harbaugh was introduced as the new head football coach at Stanford on Tuesday, there was a fairly large earthquake centered in Berkeley, home of rival Cal. A sign from the football gods? The answers are unclear; although personally we think that if God were going to punish t...

Yes. It Was, Uh, A Verbal Slip, And In No Way A Glimpse Into A Total Lack Of Football Understanding
If you'll remember yesterday, ESPN "analyst" Desmond Howard made a particularly egregious error during a discussion of the football bowl game he was looking most forward to, claiming it was a California-Texas game that wasn't actually happening. (Cal plays Texas A&M.)...

What The Kids In Nashville Are Up To
This is Tennessee Titans wide receiver Drew Bennett, from yesterday's Tennessean, reminding us once again how happy we are that they let white people play football....

Desmond Howard, Mythical Bowl Expert
We don't mean to be smug about this, we really don't: Live television is awfully difficult, with all the flashing lights and camera cues and clock countdowns, and the possibility that a single screwup will end up pointed out and mocked by little twerps like us. It's hard. We appreciate it....