champ Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The best games on the NBA schedule this week — only one back-to-back
Don’t let anyone tell you the NBA schedule during the regular season is a poor entertainment product. Of course, a single game does not impact a team’s overall record the same way that it does an NFL team. In the NBA teams play multiple games per week. That is not changing anytime soon, especially w...

NFC Championship: Once again it comes down to the QB position for Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers
What was built up to be a mega clash between the two toughest teams in the NFC turned into a dud before halftime. The 49ers couldn’t make it out of the first quarter against the Eagles before Brock Purdy left the game with an elbow injury. Josh Johnson filled in to finish the first half before going...

Novak Djokovic once again wins Djokovic Open
Once you claim a trophy double-digit times, the tournament is yours. So if the French Open is the Nadal Open, then the Australian Open is now the Djokovic Open. Djoker didn’t so much ease to a straight-sets win over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final, two sets went to a tiebreak, so much as he simply m...

Qualifying for Copa America 2024 should only help the USMNT
Here’s a compliment sandwich. The 2024 Copa America, South America’s premier international soccer tournament, will again be played in the United States after America hosted the showcase for the first time in 2016. Despite being the host nation, the USMNT hasn’t directly qualified to play in the even...

Bettors believe Brock Purdy's feel-good story ends in Philly
No rookie quarterback has ever reached the Super Bowl. San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is one win away from making history, and he’d do so as a seventh-round rookie most people paid no mind to on the final day of the draft. Still, despite the remarkable story, bettors seem to think histo...

Are the Jets trying to lure Aaron Rodgers to New York with Hackett hire?
The 2023 New York Jets are going to have a different quarterback than they did in 2022. I’m not a fan of the team, but even I’d be damned if the Jets opted to compete for an AFC East title with Joe Flacco, Mike White, or Zach Wilson again next year. Luckily, Gang Green is seen as the frontrunner for...

US Soccer is rebooting the USMNT…again
There’s burning the ships, and then there’s this. ...

Dana White’s <em>Power Slap</em> is the worst thing I’ve ever seen
Power Slap: Road to the Title is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. The new “hit” show on TBS that airs at the coveted 10 p.m. ET time slot on Wednesdays is so bad that it puts viewers in the shoes of the participants, because you feel like you’re getting a concussion watching it. As a lifelong fan o...

The NFC Championship Game’s weakest links
The Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers have been the NFC’s two-headed monsters all season. For the majority of this season, they’ve been the kaijus of the conference. However, the bigger they are, the harder the fall — and one of these behemoths has to end the weekend with a gaping hole in ...

The AFC Championship Game’s weakest links
A championship-caliber unit is only as strong as its weakest link. Entering Championship Weekend, the rosters are so deep, and refined that it gets tougher to find dents in their armors. These aren’t the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears. The Kansas City Chiefs found a way around their lack of go-to ...

The NFC Championship is actually Jalen Hurts vs. Brock Purdy II
I doubt a college football game from 2019 will be used as scouting tape for an NFC Championship Game, especially when Brock Purdy was only a sophomore and that was the sole season that Jalen Hurts played in Lincoln Riley’s offense at Oklahoma. ...

Top 5 non-QB playmakers remaining in the NFL playoffs
We’re down to the final four teams remaining in the NFL playoffs. One of these teams will make history by winning LVII. All these teams have numerous playmakers, but like anything else, there are always a few who stand out above the rest. So, we’ll rank the top five non-QB playmakers remaining in th...

Serie A has another massive financial scandal on its hands
Maybe you were a wee lad or lass all the way back in…2006? Is that what it says here? OK. Well maybe you were just in high school or college then, and that was the last big Serie A scandal, known as “Calciopoli,” which saw Juventus punted to Serie B and other clubs docked points and money. That was ...

Best games on the NBA schedule this week: The West is rising
Don’t let anyone tell you the NBA schedule during the regular season is a poor entertainment product. Of course, a single game does not impact a team’s overall record the same way that it does an NFL team. In the NBA teams play multiple games per week. That is not changing anytime soon, especially w...

A passing of the torch took place this season in the demise of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers
As the NFL community awaits Tom Brady’s decision about the next step in his career, one can’t help but notice the changing of the guard we witnessed during the 2022 season. For the first time since 2009, the divisional round of the postseason does not include a game where Brady or Aaron Rodgers is o...

Wide Right: The biggest missed kicks in NFL playoff history
About halfway through the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Wild Card game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars, Chargers’ kicker Cameron Dicker missed a seemingly insignificant field goal wide left. No matter though. The Chargers were up 10, and with so little time, three points wou...
![Jay Briscoe, indy wrestling legend, dead at 38 [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/0cc585ef8fb2dceb088cb500046ab8cd.png)
Jay Briscoe, indy wrestling legend, dead at 38 [Updated]
One-half of the best professional wrestling tag team of all-time to never get a chance in a major promotion died Tuesday night. Jay Briscoe was involved in a fatal car crash in Laurel, Delaware. Briscoe, whose real name was Jamin Pugh, was 38....

Napoli are Showtime
While Arsenal have gobbled up most of the world’s oxygen in the “came from nowhere to lead the league” category, there’s another team in Europe that’s outside the usual cast of characters that is destroying the competition. And while Arsenal may be a joy to watch, they’ve got nothing on S.S.C. Napol...

Tom Brady doesn’t wanna be out here
One of my many personal nightmares, as a Chicago Bears fan, is of course the 2010 NFC Championship game. The one where Jay Cutler got hurt and launched 1,000 ships of idiotic takes he, the Bears, and really we as a city never recovered from. And of course, it was the Green Bay Packers. Oh, what we m...
