dea Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Chasing the Bengals' path to glory
The avalanche started with the fifth pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Cincinnati Bengals selected Ja’Marr Chase from LSU, reuniting Chase with national-championship teammate and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow, Cincy’s selection with the No. 1 overall pick in 2020. Those were far from t...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: Billy Hoyle is the king of the silver screen
When Billy Hoyle told Sidney Deane he’s hustled players a helluva lot better than him, I was skeptical. How many times can you show up to a pickup game and aww shucks your way into a wad of cash? Well after six rounds and thousands of votes, it seems the scheme is still humming along....

Duke's Jon Scheyer faces an impossible task
As of this past Saturday, we have officially entered the Jon Scheyer era in Duke basketball. A first-time head coach, hand-picked by Mike Krzyzewski as his successor, Scheyer has been rising the ranks as an assistant coach with the Blue Devils since 2013....

Stop laughing at the Lakers for two seconds and give the Phoenix Suns a standing ovation
For those of you who were still awake when the Los Angeles Lakers sandcastle of a 2021-22 season finally washed away, we had a good time didn’t we? The jokes have been piling up all season with this new roster that improved on none of their weaknesses from last season and also had none of their stre...

Three key positions the Dallas Cowboys must select in the 2022 NFL Draft
It’s been a turbulent time in Dallas since their season ended at the hands of long-time rival San Francisco 49ers in January’s wildcard round debacle. Since then, the Cowboys have traded Amari Cooper, had Randy Gregory stolen right from under them, cut La’el Collins, and let wide receiver Cedrick Wi...

We are too broken and hopeless to deserve a Maple Leafs-Panthers series
At least for one night, I didn’t manage to motherfuck something. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers put on a hockey game dressed as Calvinball last night, with the Cats getting a 7-6 win in OT. It wasn’t even that simple, if a 7-6 game can ever be simple....

Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell need to head for Splitsville soon
It’s time to face the music. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are a more discordant duo than Salt Lake City and jazz. Always have been and always will be. Their partnership has been filled with more personal drama than team success. The oversized egos don’t match the playoff wins. Great partnerships...

Mississippi Boondoggle comes back to Favre’s drug that maybe never was
Brett Favre has never satisfactorily answered why he took a million bucks of state money, intended for needy kids, to do a radio PSA. He just kind of said that he did it, and promised to pay the money back, and then tried not to do so....

Fictional Hooper Bracket: National Championship
Look at the people getting this one right. For all the moronic governors, members of Congress, and former presidents that who been elected but have nothing better to do than make their constituents’ lives worse — but still win by tapping into those tried-and-true methods of racism, misogyny, homopho...

We’ve got champ-age and chunkage!
The NCAA championship game will be remembered for Kansas’ record comeback in the second half. Or maybe UNC’s abstract shot selection in the last five minutes. Bill Self gets a second national title, and Hubert Davis misses the chance to have half as many national titles as Dean Smith. But North Caro...

U.S. gets England in World Cup Group Stage
As the United States men’s national team backed into the FIFA World Cup on Wednesday night, Friday’s draw couldn’t have realistically worked out any better for them....

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Final Four
We got an all-blueblood Final Four. I know we enjoyed Saint Peter’s, but as happy as I am for Shaheen Holloway’s new contract — of course this is yet another example of a college coach capitalizing off of his hard-playing talent for a much better job, but the Peacocks pull their home bleachers out o...

Who are we taking to Qatar?
The USMNT punched their ticket with a true let’s-not-fuck-this-up-royally performance in Costa Rica. So now the attention turns to who are the 23 souls that Gregg Berhalter will be putting on the plane for the tournament. Our intrepid soccer goofuses Sam Fels and Eric Blum have some ideas....

NFL finally did something, for the playoffs at least
The annual NFL owners’ meetings always bring a flurry of storylines, rumors, and occasionally rule changes. This year’s meetings brought some pretty significant changes. Per a release from the NFL, the free kick formation rules that were tested in 2021 will be made permanent starting this year. That...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Elite Eight
Welcome to the Elite Eight of the Fictional Hoopers Tournament. All the fat and sinew (Sandy Lyle and Steve Urkel) have been trimmed, and the characters left are all from powerhouse pictures. No one has been able to knock off either of White Men Can’t Jump’s main characters (celebrated last night at...

LeBron’s entire year has been a Razzie
On Oscar weekend, Space Jam: A New Legacy is being honored with a surprising distinction that has LeBron James stans flying their flags at half-mast. This isn’t a LeBron hate space, but we’ve got to keep it 100. I used to joke that LeBron would have been the perfect casting choice for Magic Johnson ...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Round of 16
Bugs is the best bunny left in our Sweet 16...

Kevin Durant says Dirk Nowitzki is the best shooting big of all time, but it's actually Kevin Durant
I’m not surprised that Kevin Durant has a great deal of respect for Dirk Nowitzki’s game. Prior to Dirk becoming one of the best players in the league, all the basketball players who were bigger than most of the other basketball players were scoffed at for not playing with their back to the basket. ...

NFL teams, don’t think too hard, if you need a QB, draft Malik Willis
Malik Willis played quarterback at Liberty University (yuck and yuck) for two years after transferring from Auburn. He measured in at the combine at 6½-feet tall, and in Liberty’s biggest game of the year, at Mississippi, he threw for less than 200 yards, three interceptions, and rushed for less tha...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: Western U. Region - Round 2
The Western University Region is strictly for hoopers, and the matchups reflected that. Love & Basketball’s Monica Wright McCall and White Men Can’t Jump’s Sidney Dean adore the game, and people clearly rewarded them for it. The talent and force of Grandmama and Ty Crane were too much for Deacon Mos...