america Page 119 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

2021's most inspiring sports figures
Just a few short years ago, there was a push for athletes to be nothing more than mute entertainers. Luckily enough, they refused to “shut up” or “stick to” whatever sport they played....

The best from bowl games with non-New Year’s Six names
Making fun of lesser bowl games is easy and fun. Do we really need a Boca Raton Bowl? Or a LendingTree Bowl? Or a Gasparilla Bowl? Or a Cameilla Bowl? Or a Hertz Bowl? Or a Guaranteed Rate Bowl? (Only one of those is fake.) No, probably not. The answer to “Who’s better: Eastern Michigan or Liberty?”...

NFL Week 16: Will we see another Tampa Tom tantrum?
Week 15 of the NFL season felt great. Not because there was a ton of good football on television, but rather because of how poorly Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played. Brady was shut out for just the third time in his career, a 9-0 loss at the hands of the New Orleans Saints....

Get a grip, Jerry, Ezekiel Elliott is a role player these days
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and his delusion about the team knows no bounds. We’ve seen this over the years, and Jones reminded us of this during an interview on 105.3 The fan in Dallas earlier this week. ...

Rutgers is going to a bowl!
Rutgers’ claim to fame is playing in the first college football game, which the Scarlet Knights — then known as the Queensmen — won by the first scorigami ever, 6-4....

LeBron James brings pregame cigar to Staples Center, cementing fact that he doesn’t care what we think anymore
LeBron James has officially entered the “senior citizen” stage of his career where he just doesn’t care what anyone says or thinks of his actions. Channeling his inner Michael Jordan, James was seen strolling into Staples Center Tuesday night to face the Phoenix Suns, cigar in hand. The NBA on TNT c...

It’s 2021, time for college football bowls to branch out from Gatorade dumping
As french fries rained down upon the head of Wyoming head football coach Craig Bohl against the bright blue background of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl yesterday in place of the usual victory Gatorade bath, I thought to myself as I (and many others) do every year — why don’t all bowl games do somethi...

Hear me out: We laughed at Dan Campbell, but at least this season he was the right man for the job in Detroit
There was no better choice for coach for the 2021 Detroit Lions than Dan Campbell. Sure sometimes he seems more like a caricature of a football coach than a real one when he gets carried away talking about toughness with those broad shoulders, and the Lions aren’t actually a better football team tha...

The end is here for Cam
There comes a time in every football player’s career when they must face the harsh reality that their career is rapidly winding down. The Carolina Panthers and Cam Newton seem to be at this point, and it’s also time for us, as the NFL viewing public, to admit the same....

You ever watch two teams try to lose?
It used to be, long ago, when things made slightly more sense and RC Cola was a thing, that Monday Night Football was the premier game of the week. Which made it a great mystery why ABC would subject the nation to Dan Dierdorf blabbering about something at best tangentially connected to what went on...

2021 Rookie QB Rankings: We have a new QB at the top... for a week at least
It’s Week 15 of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks have been front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 15....

What have they done with Bill Belichick?
Bill Belichick felt he was unfair to reporters after the New England Patriots’ 27-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday. It was the Patriots’ first loss since Oct. 17 to the Dallas Cowboys, and that came in overtime....

Tom Brady lost his cool, and his MVP award, on Sunday night
Tom Brady was mad as hell Sunday night....

If going for two is your thing, then make it your thing
The going-for-two discussion will likely become the most annoying debate in sports, usurping reliever usage and Hall-of-Fame credentials. Poor execution is different than a poor decision, and the play-call for the Baltimore Ravens in their 31-30 loss to the Packers was pretty piss-poor. Two weeks ag...

Week 15 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser and Prop Bets
So remember last week when I was sick? Yeah uh, that turned out to be COVID. Just like so many players the last several days, I, too, fell victim to the COVID list. Nevertheless, that didn’t prevent another 3-1 week, our sixth straight winning showing. Now that I’m activated, I can get back to conti...

Stats don't lie: Tua is one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the NFL
Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has not played poorly in his NFL career. He’s got a 10-7 record as a starter and, believe it or not, he recorded the 10th-highest passer rating for a qualified rookie quarterback since 2000 last year. Despite those numbers though, when compared to the two q...

Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving become eighth, ninth Nets players to enter COVID protocols
Kevin Durant and, yes, Kyrie Irving, have entered the chat, err, COVID protocols, becoming the eighth and ninth Nets player to do so, and Brooklyn seems to be going the way of the Chicago Bulls, who are on a break from action due to a similar rash of positive tests....
![[UPDATE] This is fine: Kyrie Irving already in COVID protocols](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/0124ba961e791e1e056e5b9b9ac99d38.jpg)
[UPDATE] This is fine: Kyrie Irving already in COVID protocols
Less than two hours after this piece was published, the Nets announced that Kyrie Irving has entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols, because of course he did....

NFL Week 15: Four straight days of games with COVID taking over
The NFL, despite all its ongoing problems with CTE, horrible additions to the rulebook, and comically bad press with the likes of Jon Gruden and Dan Snyder, did have one thing going for it throughout the 2021 season: They hadn’t had a serious COVID outbreak....

Liverpool manager makes the case for not shutting down English Premier League — and he might be onto something
With seemingly every major sports league in “This is fine” mode, the prevailing logic on how to calm the spread of the virus is to take a break to allow the latest variant-induced wave to pass so COVID-ravaged teams don’t have to scramble to fill lineups. English Premier League clubs have been hit s...