ea Page 348 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Cubs are doing their best to piss away their wildcard spot
On the morning of September 7th, life was pretty good for the Chicago Cubs. They had just, essentially, ended the San Francisco Giants season by sweeping them in three games at Wrigley, leaving San Francisco 5.5 games behind the Cubs and 2.5 games out of any wildcard spot. The Cubs meanwhile were on...

The Houston Astros don’t deserve a first-round bye
With playoff baseball rapidly approaching and the standings nearly complete, this feels like a good time to point out a flaw in the new six-team format (other than increasing the number of games per round). If you’re going to hand out first-round byes, give them to the two best teams in each league....

Is The Rock vs. Roman Reigns worthy of a Wrestlemania main event with both guys part-time?
Outside of completely catering to society as a whole and pushing its current roster and storylines to the back burner, there isn’t a match the WWE can put on that would draw a bigger box office than The Rock returning to the ring for a first-time ever matchup with his cousin and current Undisputed W...

The Jalen Hurts-AJ Brown ‘drama’ embodies the Eagles' expectations
This time a season ago, the Philadelphia Eagles also were 2-0 coming off a convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings. Unlike last year though, there’s a little controversy surrounding the Birds as Jalen Hurts and wide receiver AJ Brown were caught having an exchange on the sidelines. The incident wa...

Behold, the magic of the Blue Jays' face-plant!
It’s been a wonky season for the Toronto Blue Jays. It was supposed to be the one where they leaped from just a playoff team to AL East titan. Didn’t work out. Part of it is that Alek Manoah started throwing wiffle balls. Another part is that Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s power went to the zoo for most of...

For once, you can't blame this Vikings' prime-time loss on Kirk Cousins
We might have to retire our opinions on Primetime Kirk. ...

Maybe the Rangers don't suck anymore? Baseball's most unpredictable team looks great right now
I can’t think of a more apropos recent example of a roller coaster during baseball’s regular season than this year’s Texas Rangers. In the month of August, the Rangers were viewed both as the American League’s leading contender to make the World Series and also had a large swath of their fan base th...

What was Chaim Bloom supposed to do?
Just how well is a GM/executive reign supposed to go when the first task given to them is to trade the best player in baseball? That was the road set out for Chaim Bloom, who came to Fenway from Tampa, probably with hopes that he could set up a Rays-with-money set-up like Andrew Friedman in Los Ange...

Name something dumber than Jay Norvell talking smack about Deion Sanders
This week, ESPN’s College GameDay is setting up shop in Boulder, Colo., for Prime University’s cakewalk contest against Colorado State. Colorado are 23-point favorites, but the Worldwide Leader needs a reason to hop onto the Deion bandwagon before it loses steam once the schedule toughens up. Even b...

Here's why victims of sexual trauma often don't fight back
Last weekend, allegations that now-suspended MSU football coach Mel Tucker had sexually harassed anti-sexual assault advocate Brenda Tracy hit the news and, as always when a prominent man in the world of sports is accused, X/Twitter and other social media platforms were besieged by those speculating...

The secret to Giannis' success: No fraternizing with the enemy
Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the brightest stars the NBA has to offer. He’s a two-time league MVP, NBA Champion, Finals MVP, seven-time All-Star, and All-NBA selection, among many other accolades. You might wonder how a guy who’s accomplished so much before age 30 keeps the fire lit to come back ...

Michigan State should not benefit from Mel Tucker, but it will
Secretly, the grossest thing about this Mel Tucker scandal — outside of all the unverifiable tips being sent to the Deadspin general email — is that Michigan State might actually benefit from its own incompetence. Tucker would be owed an $80 million buyout if he were fired for being an abhorrent foo...

Jets owner Woody Johnson would never sign Colin Kaepernick, no matter the year
Sometimes you just have to put the request in despite already knowing the outcome. That was the case when Colin Kaepernick’s agent reached out to the New York Jets after Aaron Rodgers went down with a torn Achilles on Monday Night Football against the Buffalo Bills....

The Atlanta machine just keeps rolling on
While Atlanta fans apparently are pretty touchy about any perceived criticism of their club, even we have to admit there’s something pretty baller about clinching the NL East one day after the Philadelphia Phillies broadcasters were bitching about the bravado Atlanta showed as they were kicking the ...

Lack of parity in college football playoff system has made the whole thing a bore
Entering the 10th and final year of the 4-team College Football Playoff, we have a 2-time defending national champion in Georgia, who is one of only five teams to win a title in the post-BCS era. It’s been an oversaturation at the top with the same teams playing in the most important games of the y...

Giannis Antetokounmpo continues to throw down the gauntlet when it comes to re-signing with Milwaukee
The 2022-23 season was supposed to be the revenge of the Milwaukee Bucks. Their championship defense in 2022 was cut short when Khris Middleton was injured in the first round against the Chicago Bulls. A season that had already been dampened by Brook Lopez missing all but 13 regular-season games. Gi...

Austin Ekeler pulls no punches in criticizing Chargers teammates, coaching staff
The Chargers opened the 2023 regular season in a thrilling game in Los Angeles against the Miami Dolphins, where they came up short, 36-34. Austin Ekeler did his part for the Chargers, rushing for 117 yards, a touchdown, and adding four receptions for another 47 yards. Ultimately, this wasn’t enough...

Protecting Daniel Jones goes beyond yanking him during a blowout
Count Dallas Cowboy linebacker Micah Parsons among those who thought Daniel Jones should’ve been relieved, at some point, during the Cowboys thrashing of the New York Giants on Sunday night. Speaking on his podcast that I will never listen to, Parsons — who recorded one of Dallas’ seven sacks of Jon...

Here is what we kind of learned from the USMNT’s week
As we and many others stress, international friendlies are weird. Especially when everyone has to fly over from Europe for two games that don’t count for anything while trying to not get hurt. And for the USMNT, there weren’t really too many players trying to carve out a role, or a bigger role, with...

Don't be fooled by the NFL teams that played above and below expectations in Week 1
Week 1 of the NFL season is in the books, and as usual, we’ve got some extreme overreactions to some of the action. We see this every year early on when teams play far above their expected output or well below. So, let’s figure out which teams may have fooled the masses during the opening week of th...