ball Page 362 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The best under-the-radar wide receiver gets his shot at the champs
LA Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp has quietly become one of the more unstoppable pass-catchers in the NFL over the past couple of years. He’s already third in receiving yards this season with 271, and he’s tied for first in receptions with 16 through two games. Now Kupp is catching passes from a bon...

Stupid is as stupid doesn’t do
Andrew Wiggins’ refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine — as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, and backed by ESPN’s reporting — is a near-perfect intersection of inanity....

The Panthers’ defense is definitely legit (and Sam Darnold might be too)
The Carolina Panthers are back, y’all. Be it by popular or unpopular demand, this team looks good. Former third overall pick Sam Darnold looks like a professional football player in his first two starts for the Panthers. A change of scenery — namely, getting the hell away from the New York Jets — se...

One-handed RB Kayleb Wagner breaks Derrick Henry’s high school rushing record
We here at Deadspin have written numerous times about how dominant Tennessee Titans halfback Derrick Henry was in high school. He was a football boogeyman, the type of guy coaches would tell their players about as a scary story when sitting around the campfire. He put up video game numbers every wee...

Tonight’s <em>Thursday Night Football</em> game will be an embarrassment that the NFL, Houston Texans, and Deshaun Watson deserve
Tonight, on Thursday Night Football — the third day of the week that the NFL is trying to conquer — the worst sports league when it comes to handling crises will showcase one of its most problematic teams, whose even-more problematic quarterback will be the main topic of discussion despite not being...

Parity might actually be returning to college football
Parity? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years. *Long draw from a cigarette*...

CONCACAF just CONCACAF’d like never before
The most CONCACAF thing happened on Tuesday night, which is an enormous statement to make if you know anything about how CONCACAF works....

Another Oakland A’s window is closing without much to show for it
Considering the constraints (some of them self-imposed, admittedly), it’s kind of amazing how often the A’s can reinvent themselves and put together a window of contention. The problem is those windows don’t tend to lead anywhere....

Bengals' passing on Penei Sewell is an All-Pro boon to Lions for years to come
Penei Sewell is a beast. I can’t say it any simpler than that....

Did Kevin Kiermaier take things too far on Monday?
Welcome to this MLB edition of “Is This cheating?” During the sixth inning of the Blue Jays-Rays game on Monday, Tampa Bay outfielder Kevin Kiermaier ran through a hold sign from third base coach Rodney Linares. Kiermaier had just hit a single to the third baseman Jake Lamb, who proceeded to throw t...

We are witnessing a multi-team choke for the ages
When August began, the Mets were in first place in the National League East, which was the fifth-best record in the Senior Circuit. The Padres were right ahead of them, holding the second wild-card position as the Giants and Dodgers battled at the top of the West. And the Reds, though seven and a ha...

New Liga MX-MLS Cup is way cool, and might set up more cool stuff (I said ‘might’… this <i>is</i> MLS after all)
If I were the cynical sort (perish the thought!), I might suggest that MLS realizes its main stream of income, expansion, might be drying up in the coming years. That’s if you go by the “MLS is a Ponzi scheme” theory, which one has to admit has some legs. Charlotte and St. Louis join the league in t...

The NBA needs to follow the WNBA’s lead on vaccination rates
As NBA training camps open next week, while most of the sports world is focused on college football and the NFL, the leading story around the league has centered on the drama in Philadelphia with Ben Simmons. However, there’s something else people should still be discussing — COVID-19....

The Ben Simmons soap opera continues with Doc Rivers pleading for him to stay
Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers is trying to do more damage control than Olivia Pope....

Baker Mayfield returns from arm injury to throw awesome block
Former No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield may not have the golden touch when passing the ball, but he showed the world last Sunday that he is one tough son of a gun. During the second quarter of the Browns’ 31-21 win over the Houston Texans, Mayfield launched a pass that was intercepted, but during t...

How far is T.J. from that ‘elite’ tight end tier?
Travis Kelce, Darren Waller, George Kittle. Those are the only three tight ends that most agree are at the top of the position. There are a few people out there who believe Kittle’s solid two-year stretch of 2018 and 2019 overshadow his greater flaws as a pass-catcher. There are those who believe Tr...

Randy Moss hasn’t retired his mouth
During Randy Moss’ Hall of Fame career, he was known for running his mouth (too much sometimes) and backing it up on the field. Moss would raise his outside hand on go routes, signaling to his quarterback that he was open. Sometimes Moss would throw up the signal before he’d even run past the unluck...

Max Scherzer trade to Dodgers is one of the greatest deadline deals of all time
Where does Max Scherzer to the Dodgers rank among MLB’s best deadline deals?...

Watch out for Deebo, Packers
After trouncing the defenseless Detroit Simbas on Monday Night Football, Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers head west for a showdown with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. The Niners are one of seven remaining undefeated teams in the NFL after Week 2, with three of those teams residing i...

Who is wearing the NFL's lowest numbers?
The NFL opened up the lower range of the number spectrum this year, allowing players all over the field to wear uniforms 1 through 19. So, how’s it going? It bothers Tom Brady a bit to see defensive players wearing single digits, we know that, but not too many even are. It’s still a fresh thing, and...