dor Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Fedor Smolov is that guy
After years of political tension between the countries, Russia officially invaded Ukraine on Wednesday, bringing swift sanctions and reaction from around the world, as countries almost unanimously opposed the actions spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin....

The timing of Mike Tomlin hiring Brian Flores is … odd
Brian Flores is gainfully employed again. But is it for the right reasons?...

NFL award winners haven't been Super in the big game
Super Bowl LVI will feature four NFL Honors Awards winners: Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase (OROY) and Joe Burrow (CPOY) as well as the Rams’ Cooper Kupp (OPOY). Rams’ offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth also won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, but that’s not important for the context of this pie...

Pittsburgh's well represented in the Super Bowl
Super Bowl LVI will be considered by some a homecoming for LSU. Former Tigers who will be playing in this game include Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase for the Cincinnati Bengals, and Odell Beckahm Jr. and 2003 National Champion Andrew Whitworth for the Los Angeles Rams. LSU is tied with Florida for the...

The Mavericks are a mess
The Mavericks’ Kristaps Porziņģis acquisition and subsequent trade has been one of the most embarrassing and impactful mistakes of modern NBA history. Especially when it comes to surrounding their young superstar, Luka Dončić, with a contending roster....

I know just the coach for Auburn
The writing is on the wall for Bryan Harsin at Auburn, to the point where Paul Finebaum is openly speculating about Hugh Freeze coming in from Liberty — after five years of SEC exile — to take the Tigers job....

Why this Chicago Bulls moment matters
It wasn’t supposed to last this long. When Michael Jordan slightly pushed off Bryon Russell to square up for a 17-foot jump shot with 5.2 seconds left in 1998, the future was a giant question mark. The moment the shot clock expired, the rebuild began. Bulls fans knew the band was broken up. This wou...

Brian Kelly dances down the recruiting trail
Danny Lewis, a tight end from New Iberia, La., had been ticketed for Cincinnati, but decommitted from the Bearcats earlier this month. Reopening his recruiting process, Lewis visited Alabama last week, and got some photos of himself all decked out in a Crimson Tide uniform. Neat! Seems like a fun ti...

And this is how you want to decide what players are paid?
Wherever you land on the Hall of Fame debate — be it a certain player or the whole process or anything in between — or wherever you are on the CBA negotiations, yesterday was simply a hilarious day for how people want players rewarded for what they do on the field, be it money or esteem....

Hall of Fame voters dig the nice guy cheats
We’ve known for several years now that 2022 was going to be a landmark year which would set the standard for Major League Baseball Hall of Fame voting for years to come. Baseball progressives had been pleading their case for years for people like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to make the Hall of Fam...

The USMNT heading to the arctic seems just a touch chicken
It’s been beaten into the ground and then shot repeatedly, but it’s hard to stress enough how different and weird this World Cup qualifying schedule is. Just the three-game windows, spread over just seven days, make for nearly impossible logistics. ...

Let’s talk about Julius Randle and the thumbs down
“Shut the fuck up.”...

Changes are coming to the NFL scouting combine that are long overdue
Today is one of those days in which the NFL has made a good decision. It doesn’t happen often. The decision to add an extra game to the schedule in a sport that can cause brain damage, during a world-wide pandemic, might be a short term financial win, but it’s making the product worse and is ethical...

The Cooperstown case for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, once and for all
Call me naive, an optimist....

The fight for the USMNT’s #9 spot moves to the European theater
As it’s always been (and sometimes it feels always will be) that the one big hole on the US Men’s international team is the one up top, a central striker. You never want to be in a place where you’re wondering if there’s any way to make Jozy Altidore 10 years younger. It’s Jozy Altidore, after all. ...

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...

All this fun and you get paid, too!
I’ll level with you. I didn’t really think that much of John Madden as an analyst, at least for most of my experience listening to him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think his personality or presence didn’t warrant his standing at the top of the broadcasting game. They very much did. And perhaps I’m ju...

You ever watch two teams try to lose?
It used to be, long ago, when things made slightly more sense and RC Cola was a thing, that Monday Night Football was the premier game of the week. Which made it a great mystery why ABC would subject the nation to Dan Dierdorf blabbering about something at best tangentially connected to what went on...

Here’s a dumb baseball argument
Before we get into this at all, it has to be stated that Dan Szymborski, and his ZiPS computer projections, have changed the way most people watch and evaluate baseball. They are revolutionary, so to call him to the mat isn’t really fair. It’s what ESPN asked, he did his job. But this latest piece, ...

A Hall of Fame announcement we can all get behind
In the past, I’ve tried to remove myself from Hall-of-Fame debates. Because at the end of the day, they’re really no more useful or material than the Oscars or Grammys. You’re basically debating someone’s opinion. And because of the esteem these things have gotten over the years, you’re debating the...