abr Page 36 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Chris Paul has another NBA rule change to get used to
At the beginning of the 2021-22 NBA season, the rule changes were irksome to players used to getting touch fouls by lunging into unsuspecting defenders to draw contact and a whistle. Trae Young, Damian Lillard, and James Harden were just a few stars to sound off about the changes, but as the season ...

For the Houston Astros, it can be as simple as one pitch
I am guilty, as well as many others, of thinking of the Astros as the same Godzilla offense as they were in 2017, whatever means they used to get there. I hear Astros and think whatever batter they’re sending to the plate sends thousands of Tokyo residents scurrying for cover. And the Astros offense...

Get good players, win good prizes
It obviously seems way too simple to distill the NLCS that kicks off tonight between the Phillies and Padres as two teams that just traded for or signed a bunch of good players. It’s a damning statement on where MLB is at the moment that this seems such a radical fucking idea. It’s the easiest thing...

The AP poll really needs to start taking strength of schedule into consideration more
The USC Trojans came into this season with very high expectations, and that’s saying a lot considering their a historic program whose fans expect nothing short of a Pac-12 title and a top-10 postseason finish every year. The additions of head coach Lincoln Riley and quarterback Caleb Williams had So...

College Football Marty McFly Rankings Week 6: Tennessee, L.A. football, and Texas are all back
Like a poorly thought-through movie-to-TV series, it appears the Marty McFly rankings are on life support. The actor I hired to play Michael J. Fox’s character is no Michael J. Fox, the de-aging for Christopher Lloyd is too expensive, and the DeLoreans keep breaking down. Never mind that these are t...

Let’s hope rest doesn’t matter much
Right at the top, I’ll admit this is all a forlorn hope. Whatever happens in the first season of baseball’s expanded playoffs isn’t going to cause too much of a ripple in how the sport looks and how teams are managed. I get that. But we can at least start here. ...

College football Marty McFly Rankings Week 5: Is UCLA back? Is Chip Kelly back? Do they even qualify for being back?
I think we’re going to need to redefine what is a lost program. For example, if Virginia Tech returns to the form that Frank Beamer consistently had them at, would they be back? I ask because schools that were trying to get back this year are disappearing like Spider-Man in Infinity War. (I can’t re...

Aaron Judge is having the greatest season ever — Yes, I said it!
When all is said and done, Aaron Judge will have had the greatest single season anyone has put together in MLB history....

Saturday was a perfect example of why the best college football coaches are coveted like Infinity Stones
Oklahoma getting caught by Kansas State is an annual tradition for the Sooners, and it happened again Saturday night, with the visiting team pulling out a 41-34 upset in Norman. Running back Deuce Vaughn and quarterback Adrian Martinez combined for 264 yards on the ground, with Martinez adding anoth...

Best non-MVP seasons in MLB history
The MVP Award is the pinnacle of baseball. Anybody who wins that award has cemented themselves in the annals of baseball history, and while one win doesn’t guarantee enshrinement in Cooperstown, it’s still one of the highest honors a baseball player can ever receive. The only bad thing about the awa...

Let’s not forget, Mitch Trubisky had a six-TD game too
Trailing 35-14 heading into the fourth quarter, the Miami Dolphins scored 28 points in the final frame to cap off a remarkable comeback against the Baltimore Ravens. Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had six touchdown passes on the day, marking just his second career game with more than two passing t...

It was a good day for karma
Sports fandom is a series of choices. You have to tell yourself a lot of things that might be a fudging of the truth, or outright lies to get through to the next game, the next season, whatever it might be (remember I’m a Bears fan). So yeah, there are shithead fans everywhere, and something that go...

Amazon came to football and no one died
It’s not much of a leap now that a sports broadcast is completely on streaming. The NFL was the last to jump the River Styx (though I guess no one really jumps The Styx), though plenty of people have been watching Monday Night through the ESPN app and the like. But Amazon bought the Thursday Night p...

Many want Shohei Ohtani to be the best player ever, but this season belongs to Aaron Judge
The Shohei Ohtani love has officially gone off the rails....

What are the odds? Try zero
In his NFL head coaching debut, Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett’s pall extended beyond football notoriety. On the same night Quinta Brunson accepted her Emmy for outstanding writing for a comedy series over the still body of Jimmy Kimmel, Hackett played dead during what should have been ...

Here's what you missed from college football while watching Alabama-Texas
To begin the Saturday marathon of college football most of us were watching the shitshow in Austin that turned into an early Heisman resume builder for defending-award recipient Bryce Young. Plenty of other weird stuff went down in the early window of intercollegiate gridiron. Aside from Alabama, th...

Dominican Republic prospects pissed after Angels alter their deals
It’s not uncommon for Major League Baseball teams to sign international players at a young age. While there are certain restrictions in place to prevent teams from signing Americans until they’ve turned 16, international players are under fewer restrictions. Players in countries like the Dominican R...

CJ Stroud is a Heisman favorite, which can only mean he’s due for disappointment
The Heisman chase is officially underway, as sportsbooks have declared Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud the early favorite. He’s not just a favorite though, he’s an abnormally huge favorite. According to OddsChecker US, Stroud is being given +200 odds (or a 33.3 percent chance) to win the Heisman. T...

The Oregon Ducks’ biggest pro sports star of this century is… Justin Herbert?
Since 2000, the Oregon Ducks football team has reached double-digit wins 12 times. That’s more than a lot of schools in that span, including college football programs laden with tradition like Michigan (eight seasons), Florida (nine), Notre Dame (nine), and USC (11). There have been many unforgettab...
