aba Page 38 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A division-consuming storyline may be the platform that AEW's women’s roster needs to launch
A rising tide lifts all boats, so they tell me. The tide on the women’s side of AEW, for pretty much its entire three-plus-year existence, seemed pretty stagnant, with the occasional spike that promised more but rarely delivered a change in altitude. While not wanting to put too much on her shoulder...

Novak Djokovic once again wins Djokovic Open
Once you claim a trophy double-digit times, the tournament is yours. So if the French Open is the Nadal Open, then the Australian Open is now the Djokovic Open. Djoker didn’t so much ease to a straight-sets win over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final, two sets went to a tiebreak, so much as he simply m...

NFL QB candidates for the Daniel Jones ‘Don’t give up on me just yet’ award
One of the biggest stories to come out of a very eventful New York Giants season was the emergence of Daniel Jones. Jones went from not having his option picked up to being nicknamed “Vanilla Vick” and the team most likely franchise tagging him. There are two narratives to come of this development. ...

NFL Coach of the Year: The Good, the Snubbed, and the Bumbling
NFL Coach of the Year finalists are out, and we’re ranking them, plus an added bonus of a couple of snubs and coaches who need to stay as far away as possible from any awards. Some names are expected, and others might surprise you by where they land on the list. ...

Asuka must win the Royal Rumble
I’m not stupid. Well, I’m not that stupid. At least some of the time, when the few neurons I have left fire at the same time. I know Rhea Ripley is winning the Royal Rumble on Saturday. You know Rhea Ripley is winning the Royal Rumble on Saturday. And that’s not a bad thing! She’s great. But it shou...

Jim Harbaugh just had a cookie, he doesn't need another one
There’s a difference between “working at the pleasure” of your alma mater and holding it hostage, and Jim Harbaugh is slowly creeping toward the latter. The University of Michigan coach made an overt pass at the Vikings opening a year ago at this time, and spent parts of this offseason chatting with...

NCAA to Congress: Stop us before we NIL again
The NCAA needs a reality check. This week the vanishingly relevant college athletics institution has once again asked Congress to help it stabilize the college sports system, but unless Hunter Biden is suiting up at linebacker for LSU next season, it’ll be hard to motivate the people in charge to fa...

How enticing are each of the offensive coordinator openings?
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. Leftwich just finished up his fourth season as Tampa’s OC, having reached the playoffs each of the last three seasons — or every season with Tom Brady at quarterback. However, despite the playoff berth, 2022 was hard to watch. The ...

Here are the 11 best possible Super Bowl LVII matchups
The NFL postseason is upon us, and as usual, anything can happen when it’s, win or go home. This year’s AFC field feels like a three-team race, while the NFC looks pretty open. Some teams don’t have a great shot, but it’s always fun to play matchmaker and look at the most exciting potential Super Bo...

In the end, we worked ourselves
It was such a perfect setting for Mercedes Moné, the former Sasha Banks, to arrive on AEW Dynamite last night. It’s not that Tony Khan could have possibly known ahead of time that the previous night, WWE would be awash in rumors and reports that they were selling to the Saudi PIF (later denied, thou...

Brady vs. the 'Boys
The Dallas Cowboys ended the 2022 regular season the same way it began — with a loss. After dropping their Week 18 matchup to the Washington Commanders, the Cowboys get a rematch with the team who gave them a Week 1 thrashing — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers led by Tom Brady aka Father Time. The 45-year-o...

Is Georgia football poised to take over from Alabama?
On New Year’s Eve, Georgia experienced — for the first time all season — how hard it can be to repeat as National Champions. On Monday night, the atmospheric river that dumped rain all day on Southern California may have been more of an obstacle for the Bulldogs than TCU was....

Every team in the NFL playoffs, ranked
Aaron Rodgers couldn’t beat the Detroit Lions. Who’d have thought I’d be uttering that statement at the beginning of the season? And with that loss, the NFL playoffs are set. Throughout the regular season, we laughed, cried, held our heads in shock, and Tom Brady endured his first losing season as a...

I’m picking Max Duggan and TCU in the college football championship — picking TCU like a fox
When college football opponents have had the Georgia Bulldogs’ full attention this year, it hasn’t gone great. From the opener against Oregon to the SEC title game against LSU and the Tennessee game in between, every time we think there’s a hint of vulnerability, the Dawgs come out and trample squad...

Jimbo Fisher now has a creep, a racist, and a bonafide maniac on his coaching staff
After a preseason that featured an explosive back-and-forth with Nick Saban after the Alabama head coach made accusations about cheating and buying players through NIL, Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher responded by producing a disappointing 5-7 season. To turn things around he’s hiring Bobby Pe...

Wrestle Kingdom puts NJPW back on track, maybe on some new ones too
The biggest event for weirdos and insomniacs, other than maybe the Australian Open, got back to normal service last night. And that’s New Japan Pro Wrestling’s biggest event of the year, Wrestle Kingdom (bell time, 3 a.m. EST). Not only did it mark the return of actually cheering crowds for NJPW sho...

What were the best and worst sports trends in 2022?
As 2023 approaches, it gives media outlets opportunities to do wrap-ups, year-end lists, and rank anything else in the timeframe of the past 12 months. It’s really the only upside of time being arbitrary and a construct of people in power to make sure the plebeians arrive at the salt mines at 9 a.m....

The James Harden and Houston Rockets reunion is a pie-in-the-sky dream
James Harden is a deeply unserious franchise cornerstone. However, in the midst of a pivotal, legacy-defining season for his career, Harden may be eyeing a return in free agency to the Rockets franchise he forced his way out of two years ago, according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. ...

Under the Coaching Tree: Ranking the Top 10 Coaching Trees in NFL history
Ho ho ho, folks! Christmas is here, and good ol’ jolly St. Nick is heading down the chimney with exactly what you asked for. If you’re an NFL head coach though, that probably means he’s headed down the chimney with a talented assistant to put on your staff to make you look even better. Until they le...

Everybody Hurts sometimes
With three weeks left in the regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles have all but locked up the top seed in the NFC, needing just one win or a loss from both the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers in order to secure home-field advantage through the NFC Championship and a first-round bye. With...