aw Page 158 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Let’s use the Girlfriend Transfer Portal Theory to figure out where Caleb Williams is headed
The transfer portal is college football’s most controversial, unpredictable, and ever-changing tool. After a 2021 rule change that eliminated the requirement for transferring athletes to sit out a year before being eligible to play again, this postseason portal activity is exploding....

If you ever wanted to be an NFL player, this was your year
Tuf Borland, Mac McCain, Luther Kirk, Paul Quessenberry, and Pooka Williams all joined an elite group this year. Not many people can say that they have played in an NFL game, but these five men all did exactly that this season....

Mike Tomlin is proof that NFL owners’ unwillingness to hire more Black coaches is a stupid and willful decision
If Mike Tomlin were white, he’d be on the Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches and it wouldn’t be debatable....

Give DeMar DeRozan his flowers for putting the Bulls in first place
What a three-game stretch for the fifth-leading scorer in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan. Mr. Anti-analytics has been letting his mid-range shot fly all season, propelling him to a scoring average of 26.9 points per game. With 28 points and six assists on Monday DeRozan was the Chicago Bulls’ leader in poin...

You play to win the game… or do you?
More than half of the NFL remains in playoff contention heading into the final week of the season. That includes teams like the Packers, who have clinched home-field advantage throughout the postseason, and it includes teams like the Raiders and Chargers, who play each other but can both get into th...

Rookie Quarterback Rankings: Mac on the attack... again
It’s Week 17 of the NFL season, and our rookie quarterbacks have just about made it through the year, with only a couple of whom living up to the hype. Now let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 17. ...

Changing the World Cup to every two years could (but won’t) help soccer’s have-nots
Changing the World Cup to a biennial event is an awful idea. That’s not the most groundbreaking statement, but I wanted to put it bluntly because that’s the point I want you to remember from the rest of this. And if FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to be believed, and the move has a majority backi...

The case for every player on the 2022 MLB Hall of Fame ballot
The 2022 MLB Hall of Fame class will be announced on January 25, 2022, and this year’s ballot is like a potato skin at T.G.I. Friday’s...loaded to all hell. We got storylines galore with all-time greats like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens; legendary newcomers with people like David Ortiz and Alex Rod...

Jordan vs. LeBron, the SEC, Urban Meyer and other things we’d like to leave in 2021
As 2021 comes to a close, we’re granted the opportunity to look back fondly (or not so fondly) on all the insane things that happened in sports this year, from the athlete anti-vax movement to the entire Urban Meyer saga, from the NHL’s near-constant blunders to the NCAA’s unprecedented coaching car...

Magic wants no part of scripted series about the Showtime Lakers
It’s a shame that Magic Johnson wants no part of this new HBO series about the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s. The trailer for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, was released in early December, and the series will debut on HBO Max in March 2022....

LeBron James sets his sights on Kareem’s points record you never thought would be broken
Remember, LeBron James is not a pure scorer, so we’ve been told since his high school days. What was supposed to make his game special was his once-in-a-generation athleticism to go along with his Magic Johnson-like court vision. James dunking on the world and launching passes from one side of the c...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #4: Chicago Blackhawks, equal parts heinous and incompetent
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

Madden NFL paved the path for other video game sports franchises
When you think of video games and sports, you think of John Madden. (Thank god this is written, and I don’t have to try to do the voice.) The first sports video game I ever played was Madden NFL 92 when I was 6, and even though it’s not my preferred game anymore, there’s no doubt it’s still the de f...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #5: Urban Meyer, who kicked the kicker and screwed the pooch
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

2021 Rookie Quarterback Rankings: Have the Texans found their new quarterback?
It’s Week 16 of the NFL season, and our rookie quarterbacks are now in the home stretch, with some living up to the hype and others not so much. Now let’s look at how last year’s draft class fared in Week 16....

Lakers on their way to wrong kind of history
Injuries and the novel coronavirus have played a role in it, to be sure, as has the fact that they’re now up to 22 players used this season and it’s not even January, but the Lakers stink....

Monday night's Bulls-Hawks game showed how Omicron is owning the NBA
Just two days after the Omicron variant ruined the highly-anticipated Christmas Day lineup that the NBA unveiled months ago, the Chicago Bulls traveled to Atlanta to face the Hawks in a game that had the communications staff of both teams Googling the names on their rosters....

Week 16 NFL Powerless Rankings: Jacksonville is still real bad
Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. The end of the NFL season is near, and we know all the cellar dwellers at this point. So, let’s check out the worst of the worst from Week 16....

All the ways Urban was about ‘team team team’
Usually when someone fails it’s an opportunity to reflect, to see where things went wrong so that you can improve. Was I bad at my job? Do I not get along with others? Do I have an odor unsuitable for the workplace?...

High-profile QBs hitting the college transfer portal
In 2019, The Athletic reported that there was a 75 percent chance that a top-50 quarterback recruit would transfer schools if he didn’t see playing time in his first two seasons. And if he did see playing time — still a 45 percent chance he would choose to move elsewhere. The college quarterback eco...