drew Page 13 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Texas Rangers don’t need Jacob deGrom to be one of MLB's best teams
The weirdest part of the news of Jacob deGrom’s impending season-ending Tommy John surgery, which in all likelihood could keep him out of the Texas Rangers’ rotation until the beginning of the 2025 season, is that the first-place team in the American League West doesn’t need him. Is deGrom a massive...

Anthony Bennett and the NBA Lottery's biggest draft busts of the last decade
Every day, fans of Aleksej “Poku” Pokusevski, Josh Green, or James Wiseman swear next year is the year their favorite players are not the bums the rest of the NBA thinks they are. I went through the last decade, from 2013-2023, and highlighted the 10 players who are on track to be the biggest busts ...

Jon Gruden embarks on 12-step process to be an NFL head coach again
Remember when an NFL team had to pay Jon Gruden $100 million to lure him outside of the booth? There was a time when front offices watched Monday Night Football, and were impressed by Gruden’s QB camp. Cam Newton or Andrew Luck or Patrick Mahomes would wander into a film room, and sit through Chucky...

Justin Jefferson among the 25 best NFL players under 25 years old
The NFL is stocked with young talent. The number of players who are still relatively fresh in the league, but who are also among the best players in their position is growing, and it’s only fair to take stock of those players by ranking the top 25 players under the age of 25. Only players who are un...

AI-generated hot takes are scarier than deepfaked podcasts
Sports media is the most cavernous of echo chambers. The takes write themselves, and the only catch is finding a stooge willing to scream some dumb shit. Most people hesitate to get all Skip Bayless-y because rational humans view trading their morals to become a walking Twitter troll as a bad thing....

After winning the Victor Wembanyama lottery, San Antonio’s work is only just beginning
The conventional thinking is that Victor Wembanyama will be in safe hands with Gregg Popovich in San Antonio. But there’s no guarantee that the Wembanyama era will be anywhere as fruitful as Pop’s last dynasty or that he’ll have the best career out of any prospect in this draft, but I wouldn’t bet a...

Good effort JJ, but invoking America’s gun problem is not the way to defend Ja Morant
JJ Redick is correct that there is a macro issue in this country with politicians using firearms as campaign posters. A majority of Americans would agree with him on that. In one space of that mass of plutocracy, policy, and posturing is Ja Morant posing with one of this country’s most polarizing an...

The Toronto Maple Leafs are about to do something stupid
The rest of the employees of the Springfield Power Plant gathering around the control center of Sector 7-G, with Lenny narrating for everyone the normal practice, “Get ready everyone, he’s about to do something stupid…” is what the NHL is now, gathering around The Six and wondering just what the Tor...

Chicago Cubs skipper David Ross is clueless
Modern baseball thinking has it that the manager in the dugout is just an extension of the front office. He pressed the buttons he was told to, and if he can help manage personalities and keep a bunch of millionaires from knifing each other over seven hot months, so much the better. So maybe David R...

Colts' owner Jim Irsay makes case for Andrew Luck to stay retired
By complaining about the Washington Commanders’ attempt to woo Andrew Luck out of retirement, owner Jim Irsay only served to further guarantee that the former Indianapolis Colts quarterback stays gone. If you have an IQ high enough to open a refrigerator, you know not to act like a possessive child,...

Meet the Mets…they stink
The thing about being Steve Cohen, and being the New York Mets, is that it has to work. Otherwise, it’s less likely that other owners are going to feel the need to compete with him. The MLB expanded playoffs kills a lot of that urge anyway, but if the Mets are running away with the NL East year afte...

Overanalyzing Jordan Poole’s shot is NBA voyeurism at its finest
After nearly 48 minutes, the Los Angeles Lakers were spent as the Golden State Warriors were hitting their stride and discovering their second wind. Following a late flurry of points, the Warriors trailed by three in the final seconds when Jordan Poole launched a three-pointer from the parking lot. ...

Is Caleb Williams the real deal or more fool’s gold from Lincoln Riley?
Caleb Williams is the 2024 NFL Draft’s most anticipated gem. A perfect, gleaming, status-altering figure who’ll lift the fortunes of the team that drafts him — but also completely out of reach for now. The Washington Commanders, Las Vegas Raiders, Atlanta Falcons, and New Orleans Saints all sit in p...

We said the Pirates would be interesting
Guess who has the second-best record in baseball. No, really, go on. Maybe you watch a ton of baseball and you already know. But if you’ve been distracted by NHL and NBA playoffs, the answer may surprise you. It’s a certain team that a certain charming and handsome writer not so long ago said very w...

Examining the 2023 NFL Draft’s most polarizing war rooms
Drafting is an inexact science. If it were an exact one, teams wouldn’t rely on so much vacuous football speak during the evaluation period. That uncertainty is what makes the draft an annual crapshoot. The 2023 edition is no different. After the top two picks, the draft pivoted into unpredictable t...

Credit the Warriors for their resilience as much as their shooting
Stephen Curry signed his rookie contract extension with the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 30, 2012. That day was the start of the 2012-13 NBA Regular Season. At that time Curry had never been named an NBA All-Star or to an All-NBA Team. The Warriors went on to make the playoffs for the first time si...

Why pay for a Lamborghini when your QB can’t drive a stick?
There aren’t a lot of NFL Draft takes left in this burlap sack I call a brain, so my apologies if this is recycled, but is Daniel Jones deserving of a No. 1 wide receiver? The New York Giants quarterback got paid this offseason, and now Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are stuck — err, excuse me — have t...

The Grizzlies sure are some whiny villains
I wouldn’t have thought giving someone a vanilla nut-tap on national TV and in front of 18,000 was actually a media conspiracy. I’m glad Memphis’ Dillon Brooks taught me better. ...

Is the Cubs hot start a mirage? Will the Astros remain under .500? Let's examine
It’s about 20 games into the MLB regular season. It’s a small sample size, but no longer so small that we can completely dismiss it. Just like every year, there are some teams that are over-performing and underperforming expectations, but which of these surprising records are actually telling the tr...

Tua Tagovailoa to the NFL: I just can't quit you
Tua Tagovailoa is returning as quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, but he admitted in a press conference Wednesday afternoon that he’d considered hanging up his cleats this offseason. After suffering multiple concussions in a matter of days during the 2022 NFL campaign, Tua said he and his family dis...