austin Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

We've got 2 words for ya: Sixers-Nets
We need a Philadelphia 76ers vs. Brooklyn Nets series in the postseason. For the trolling, if not the talent. These teams squared off Wednesday night with only Philly at full strength since Kevin Durant is still sidelined for Brooklyn. Although he wasn’t on the court, Durant managed to make his pres...

Lakers and Pelicans stars should be back...sometime soon
Somehow the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans are simultaneously in different and similar situations. One major commonality they share is all-star caliber talent due to soon return to action — Anthony Davis for the Los Angeles Lakers and Brandon Ingram for the Pelicans....

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 ...

The Chargers blowing a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars was something, but it wasn’t art
There are levels to collapses. There’s the March Madness telegraphed loss, where one group of 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds gets tight, and the other group gets hot. Obviously, we’ve seen golfers do it, and there’s not a lot funnier than a guy going from the 17th tee box to the beer tent. And then ther...

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...

Tyreek Hill is complaining about lack of targets in K.C.? Is there no way to make receivers happy nowadays?
Since Patrick Mahomes took over as the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2018, Tyreek Hill is fourth in the NFL in targets, behind only Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, and former teammate Travis Kelce. Yet despite this hefty usage in the Chiefs’ offense, Hill wanted more....

Austin Reaves is young, but his steady presence has been crucial for the Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers have turned their season around....

The transfer window coinciding with bowl season is as profoundly stupid as it sounds
Unlike most people, I enjoy bowl season. Despite how irrelevant it is to the final outcome of the season, eclectic matchups are the best kinds of matchups. They determine bragging rights for people whose values still align with those of their conference. Programs who only schedule cream puffs when i...

By all means, the 49ers should have no trouble with the Chargers
The Los Angeles Chargers are a very good football team. Even in the absence of Keenan Allen and Mike Williams for parts of the season, the downfall of JC Jackson, and the abysmal play of Jerry Tiller on the D-line — thankfully he just got waived — the Chargers have played their way to a 5-3 record a...

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: AL Central
We continue our whip around the baseball offseason by looking at the American League’s worst division, which was won by a team that wasn’t even trying to win, the AL Central....

The feel-good story of a sports Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers?
We, the American people, have had a lot of fun at the Los Angeles Lakers’ expense for most of 2022. LeBron James missed significant time early last season, and Anthony Davis missed the majority of the 2021-22 season. However, it became clear in January, when both of them were on the court around the...

Steelers-Bucs epitomized why Todd Bowles’ ‘stop making a big deal’ comments were so dangerous
Todd Bowles has forgotten where he came from — and who he is. Hopefully, Sunday’s loss from Mike Tomin (and Brian Flores) helped him remember. ...

Manny Machado is great, whether anyone bothers to notice or not
There’s been so much noise around the San Diego Padres for a few years now, it’s quite understandable that Manny Machado has sort of sunk under the radar. There has been a raft of buzz-worthy players acquired by the Padres since Machado in 2019. He didn’t win an MVP like his fellow prize of that par...

These are the top 10 unbeaten college football teams through Week 5
A quarter of the way through the college football season, you start to get a sense of which teams are for real, and which teams are not....

Top 5 potential landing spots for Saquon Barkley
New York Giants halfback Saquon Barkley is in the final year of his rookie contract. In that time, he’s won a Rookie of the Year Award, had two 1,000-yard rushing seasons, and...scored just four times in the last two-plus years due to injuries....

Acknowledge him! No, not Roman Reigns — this guy
He’s professional wrestling’s rookie of the year. Logan Paul has shown an ability well beyond having his debut match only five months ago. He clearly has the work ethic to be a good wrestler, and Paul has the fan base on his own to make any WWE interaction newsworthy. To think the soon-to-be-officia...

Jaylen Watson's pick-6 is on Brandon Staley, not Justin Herbert
Last night’s Chargers-Chiefs game was fantastic, a display of two of the best young talents in the game at quarterback. Ultimately, the Chiefs walked away with the 27-24 victory, proving that the road to an AFC West title still runs through Kansas City....

LA Chargers’ Austin Ekeler invites trolls into social media DMs
Chargers running back Austin Ekeler opened a big can of worms on Yahoo’s Fantasy Football Forecast with Matt Harmon. Ekeler commented on his stat line from Week 1 against the Raiders and admitted that he needs to play better, then went so far as to welcome “constructive criticism” from fantasy footb...

At least we know Gabe Kapler isn't to blame for the Giants' underwhelming season
The San Francisco Giants have been one of the biggest disappointments of 2022. That was expected. We couldn’t expect Brandon Crawford to have another career year at 35 years old. Brandon Belt, Darin Ruf (no longer with the team), and Mike Yastrzemski have all had down seasons. Kevin Gausman is gone,...

Stephen A. Smith forgets the basics of football
Stephen A. Smith is great television. The way he casually cascades between idioms in an excited, commanding voice is magnificent. I get jealous of his inflection just watching him. That said, he’s also had a series of brain farts that can’t be overlooked. Whether it’s ranting about nonexistent ties ...