8 Page 18 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A Cowboys-49ers playoff game means so much more than just another wild-card game
January 10, 1982, is the day it all started. Most longtime Niners and Cowboys fans will point to this day as the start of a rivalry that lasted the better part of two decades. The 1981 NFC championship game at Candlestick Park between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys was the beginning of a...

Damian Lillard’s injury, sadly, is exactly what the Trail Blazers needed
If the Portland Trail Blazers ever wondered what an unfortunate but well-timed injury looks like, Damian Lillard’s abdominal issue is it. The team announced Thursday that the All-NBA guard underwent surgery to repair it, and he will be reevaluated in six weeks, with a six-to-eight week timetable to ...

Can Russell Westbrook even fix this?
It’s not breaking news that things are not going well for Russell Westbrook with the Lakers, but things reached a particularly embarrassing point on Wednesday night as the Sacramento Kings’ game ops trolled the former MVP with an “Ice Cold Player Of The Game” scoreboard graphic, on a night when the ...

Lonzo’s Ball-in
Lonzo Ball finally seems to have found the right landing spot in Chicago after playing for two organizations in his first four years as a pro. Zo is living up to all four letters of his last name and balling out for a Bulls squad with the best record in the East. LeBron probably wishes he could get ...

Shaun White isn’t worthy of a spot in the Olympics — discretionary or otherwise
The 2022 Winter Olympics are almost here and that means everyone needs to bone up on their winter U.S. athlete checklist. Let’s see here. Lindsey Vonn retired, so she’s gone. Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t the new Vonn, she’s substantially better and will probably win a gold or two. Fan favorite Chloe Kim a...

Don Maynard, Hall-of-Fame Jet, dead at 86
Don Maynard, a wide receiver who played in two of professional football’s landmark games during his Hall of Fame career and son of Texas, died on January 10 at the age of 86....

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: With Alabama and Georgia set to play in national championship game again, let's look back at the players from four years ago... then and now
It’s been four years since that classic national championship between Georgia and Alabama. A lot has changed in that full recruiting cycle since true freshman Tua Tagovailoa threw that 41-yard game-winning touchdown pass to true freshman DeVonta Smith in overtime after taking a 16-yard sack the prev...

The Celtics need to wake up and move on from either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown
The Boston Celtics have one of the richest legacies in North American sports, but as of late, they have not been able to get over that hump to capture another NBA championship. In recent years, their two young stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have led them to multiple Eastern Conference Finals a...

Give DeMar DeRozan his flowers for putting the Bulls in first place
What a three-game stretch for the fifth-leading scorer in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan. Mr. Anti-analytics has been letting his mid-range shot fly all season, propelling him to a scoring average of 26.9 points per game. With 28 points and six assists on Monday DeRozan was the Chicago Bulls’ leader in poin...

Darkness has fallen upon the Edmonton Oilers once again
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars. Though apparently if you’re covering the Edmonton Oilers or a fan of them, that’s the going theme. Perhaps after years and years of the same problem, Oilers observers are just tired of complaining about the same things, so they’re looking for things tha...

The case for every player on the 2022 MLB Hall of Fame ballot
The 2022 MLB Hall of Fame class will be announced on January 25, 2022, and this year’s ballot is like a potato skin at T.G.I. Friday’s...loaded to all hell. We got storylines galore with all-time greats like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens; legendary newcomers with people like David Ortiz and Alex Rod...

The first surprise of the NIL era has arrived, and it’s Deion Sanders poaching No. 1 football recruit Travis Hunter
Deion Sanders has caused a shift of tectonic plates in the college football world. Since March 2020, Travis Hunter, the No. 1 overall football recruit in America, has been committed to Florida State. Hunter reiterated his commitment to the university in both September and October. The Tampa Times wr...

U.S. national team still appealing for equal pay, as UK pitch invader meanwhile won’t be fined thanks to archaic law
Legal technicalities are robbing women’s soccer players of their dues on both sides of the pond this week. The pitch invader who ran onto the field last week in the middle of a Champions League match (and quickly went viral for getting decked by Chelsea’s Sam Kerr) will not receive a fine for his mi...

Week 14 Sunday started with a slumber, but for a brief window, the Bengals, Bills, and Bears brought the plays necessary to bemuse the audience
Don’t lie, you were bored at 6:15 p.m. EST....

Of course the Blazers say Damian Lillard is untouchable
There are a couple of ways to parse the report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe that the Trail Blazers are not willing to discuss trading Damian Lillard, “one of the Sixers’ top targets” in a potential Ben Simmons deal....

TNF Week 14: For Mike Zimmer, tonight is a must-win
It’s easy to look at the Minnesota Vikings less than a week after handing the Detroit Lions their first victory of the season and see a huge trash can. Losing to the Lions is a harder pill to swallow for a fanbase than losing to Nick Foles in the 2018 NFC Championship Game. However, that loss last w...

CJ and Dame have been fun, but if the Blazers want to salvage this season it’s time to say bye to McCollum
It’s far from all CJ McCollum’s fault the Portland Trail Blazers are struggling, and currently the 10th seed in the Western Conference with an 11-14 record. His field goal and free throw percentages are down, but he’s still averaging 20.6 points per game and shooting nearly 40 percent from the 3-poi...

It’s almost time for college football’s most vacuous tradition: Bowl season! We tell you which bowl games are worth watching and why
Christmas approaches quickly, but college football fans are acutely aware that the real late December holiday is bowl season. Just when visions of the CFB content stream finally slowing to a crawl is dancing in your head, the NCAA presents the most meaningless postseason tradition in American sports...

The Dallas Mavericks are struggling and Luka Dončić deserves some of the blame
For the second straight year, this pipe dream of Luka Dončić being NBA MVP seems to be going up in flames already. Dallas started the season well, but now they’re a game under .500 (11-12) and have lost eight of their last 10 games. It’s not so much Luka’s statistical production, although his shooti...

Phoenix Suns’ solstice coming in part due to steadiness of coaching
On Nov. 4, ESPN published a report detailing the racist and misogynistic culture created by Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver within the organization, which had reached a point where one former executive was quoted as saying “there’s literally nothing you could tell me about him from a misogynistic o...