ac Page 316 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Week 5 NFL Takeaways: The AFC South is entertaining TV
Even though the highly anticipated Sunday Night Football showdown revealed that Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys were no competition for the San Francisco 49ers, the rest of the NFL Week 5 slate was largely entertaining. ...

Behold The Skate Men: NHL Eastern Conference Preview
Like the college kids who crash through the side door into a party with a goofy, boozed-up look on their face, here comes the NHL season as a surprise....

Even Bill Belichick can’t Geppetto New England’s wooden offense to life
Bill Belichick, or whatever is left of him, has had a nominal interest in opening up the New England offense for years now. His interest in the offensive side is merely a cursory obligation. The rules require Belichick to field a quarterback under center but since the day Tom Brady cut ties with him...

Buffalo really dropped the ball against the London-Jacksonville Jaguars
After putting a major league beatdown on the Miami Dolphins last week, it looked like the Buffalo Bills were taking a step toward separating themselves in a highly competitive AFC. One game after scoring 48 points against a hot Dolphins squad, the Bills couldn’t even muster up half of that in Week 5...

The D-List: Mario Cristobal makes Miami look like college football’s Bluth Company
The beauty of college football is that it’s Ground Zero for raw athletes being molded into gems every week before our very eyes. However, pressure doesn’t always make diamonds. Welcome to the D-List, Deadspin Dean’s acknowledgment of college football’s most woeful performances. This is a nod to coll...

This is part of Clayton Kershaw's legacy, too
Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher of the 21st century. This much isn’t really in dispute. A career 2.48 ERA and 2.82 FIP over 16 years is unimpeachable. There’s three Cy Youngs to go with it, and an MVP in 2014 when he had a 1.77 ERA and a 0.857 WHIP, which is beyond stupid. He probably should hav...

Cooper Kupp to make season debut for Rams alongside Puka Nacua
Los Angeles Rams All-Pro wide receiver Cooper Kupp makes his season debut in Week 5 after missing the second half of last year due to injury. Kupp’s return couldn’t come at a better time as LA hosts Philly. In his absence, a new and unlikely star in rookie WR Puka Nacua has emerged as another dynami...

It’s 3 months until 2024, and we’re still talking about COVID
It appears that, yes, we are still doing this. And by this, I mean talking about COVID. The four-year anniversary of Rudy Gobert putting the world on lockdown is six months away, yet Aaron Rodgers and Travis Kelce are in the news for differing views on the vaccine. ...

Colin Kaepernick should absolutely play in the XFL
That Colin Kaepernick will never take another NFL snap should surprise no one, not after a six-year absence, an eight-figure settlement over the league’s blatant collusion to keep him off the field and especially not at his advanced age of 35, when arguably all but the luckiest, elite QBs have begun...

Trade talk is the nadir of sports journalism
Imagine being a Chicago Bears fan — I know empathy is hard, but just try — and going through what they did Thursday only to open ESPN on Friday and see a bunch of misguided, braindead analysts talking about trading Justin Fields. Over his past two starts, the Chicago QB is 43-for-64 for 627 yards wi...

The Michael Oher situation illustrates how white people ignore other white people’s racism
The most frustrating thing about racism isn’t that it still exists, it’s that so many white people refuse to undeniably admit when it happens. Because if your first instinct was to think that Michael Oher was lying or making something out of nothing, you’re the reason why racism is still thriving....

Never play the Bears on a day when a team legend dies. Everyone knows this
Let me take you back to Nov. 7, 1999. ...

The Beard's ego has him stuck between a Rock(et) and a Harden place
James Harden is in limbo. Last season, he was all in on taking a pay cut in an effort to give the Philadelphia 76ers cap flexibility to sign glue guys who would put them over the edge come playoff time. A year later, he’s the acetone on their franchise continuity. His constant bellyaching stemming f...

It’s going to be a good winter in Buffalo
Obviously, it’s never a good winter in Buffalo. And winter never stops, so I’m told. Anyway, the one thing that can make the time pass in the darkest months on the shores of Lake Erie is a hockey team worth watching. Kids, the Buffalo Sabres will very much be worth watching this season. So the resid...

On-campus pregame shows are the latest casualty of college football’s ‘evolution’
As someone who was programmed to watch college football every fall Saturday from birth, the on-campus pregame show (now plural) was the background noise to my morning routine. It’s always fun to see how drunk college kids get just to stand outside and scream on cue for three hours. All of the analys...

Lexi Thompson’s PGA Tour debut comes with a chance at history and to pierce through golf’s sexism
In the modern history of golf, no female has made a cut on a PGA Tour event. Only Babe Didrikson Zaharias has done it ever, playing all four rounds at the 1945 Phoenix Open, and Tucson Open. And as Lexi Thompson becomes the seventh woman to play in a PGA Tour event next week, on a sponsor’s invitati...

Here are all the 20+ Wins Seasons, by franchise, in MLB history
Immaculate Grid has been a hit with baseball stat geeks since its launch in April. While the stats puzzle has since expanded to basketball, football, and hockey, it’s still baseball that makes the game what it is. So if you need help filling out your daily grid, give these stats a look....

Jonathan Taylor and James Harden: Unhappy players in very different situations
So far, James Harden is playing nice for the Philadelphia 76ers at their training camp in Fort Collins, Colo. ESPN’s Tim Bontempts reported that he arrived on Wednesday, the second day of camp, and is “participating in practice.” The 76ers even posted photographs on social media of Harden high-fivin...

NBA Weak Links: Milwaukee‘s 2-guard position could be a sinkhole on their road to a title
A great team is only as strong as its weakest link. At least that’s the consensus among every motivational coach I’ve ever heard. But for the sake of this space, it’s true for NBA contenders as well. I’ll examine the weak spots in some of the most iron-clad lineups in the NBA entering the 2023 seaso...

5 sure-fire ways James Harden can force a trade
The Philadelphia 76ers are entering one of the most important seasons in franchise history, as reigning MVP Joel Embiid desperately wants to contend, and edges ever so closer toward disgruntled. The Sixers have been a soap opera for going on five years (if not longer), and each attempt to build arou...