eli Page 46 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NFL refs have got to be smarter about breaking rulebook they enforce [Update]

Before they ever officiate a professional game, NFL officials have the league’s nearly 300-page rulebook drilled into their hippocampus. Which is why we know the two officials captured on video appearing to collect an autograph from Tampa Bay Bucs receiver Mike Evans had to have known better....

Despite getting handled by the Chiefs, the 49ers have the formula to be the most dangerous team in the NFC

Don’t be fooled by the 49ers’ Week 7, 44-23 loss to the Chiefs. San Francisco is good, and they’re only going to get better as the season moves along. Kansas City has rolled over many teams similarly during Patrick Mahomes’ tenure. Remember, there isn’t a Chiefs equivalent in the NFC. The Niners pos...

Every James Bond villain’s sports owner counterpart

It’s a struggle to get billionaire owners to see themselves as the public views them. When you’re heavily isolated and surrounded by yes men, it’s easy to think your plan for league domination is flawless, and your various exploits are on the level and wouldn’t get any person without an army of lawy...

France may be without their spine at the World Cup, and they won’t be alone

Crowbarring a World Cup into the middle of the club season in winter was always a dumb idea, probably equal to the idea that the tournament ever could have been held in the summer in Qatar, which is what the country and FIFA were originally selling when they awarded it to Qatar (and it was literally...

This is exactly how concussions should be handled

The match had a simple, yet effective, build. It made All Elite Wrestling’s fan base excited because of the easy-to-spot ramifications. AEW World Champion Jon Moxley put his belt on the line against former champion Hangman Page in a first-time matchup, a dream clash for fans — on television for free...

It’s going really well in Vancouver

Nothing goes right for the Vancouver Canucks. This is an immutable law of hockey and the NHL. It’s mostly comedy fodder for everyone outside of British Columbia, and probably for more sadistic jokes within. It becomes less funny when you’ve spent a decade or two listening to Canucks fans bemoan thei...

Catching up with the soap opera drama of the NBA

The NBA is one of the longest-running unscripted nighttime soaps on television. Even outside of tip-offs and the final buzzer, its headliners are some of the most accessible figures in professional sports. The rosters are smaller, their faces aren’t obstructed, their games air nightly for at least h...

Get good players, win good prizes

It obviously seems way too simple to distill the NLCS that kicks off tonight between the Phillies and Padres as two teams that just traded for or signed a bunch of good players. It’s a damning statement on where MLB is at the moment that this seems such a radical fucking idea. It’s the easiest thing...

W. Kamau Bell on Michael Jordan and privilege

If you need something to complain about, complain about MLB relievers

Having no love for the Dodgers (I was threatened with far too many stabbings in the Dodger Stadium upper deck at an impressionable age to get over it), I certainly am gleaning at least a modicum of joy over their fans’ wailing about seeing a 111-win team eat it at the first hurdle in the postseason....

It’s never been easy to win a World Series

The past 24 hours or so have been filled with shrieking referendums on the MLB playoffs and its structure. Not that this structure is really all that different from what came before. But the hope, expressed by yours truly as well, was that making the lower-seeded teams play one or two more games bef...

With offense winning titles in other sports, playoff baseball is still about pitching

The Dodgers, Braves, and Yankees combined to win 311 regular season games over the course of the regular season, but the playoffs have been a beautiful disaster so far. Mid-’90s alternative rock references notwithstanding, all three clubs received first-round byes, and only New York isn’t on the bri...

Sticky substances are back in fashion for the postseason, it seems

In a little over a year since MLB enabled umpires to routinely check pitchers for illegal foreign substances, there have been a few ejections, pitchers making scenes by stripping to their undergarments, and above all else, there’s been a drastic drop in some pitchers’ spin rates....

The NBA’s Western Conference is going to be like bumper cars with all the movement this season

It’s October, so Halloween season is upon us, but it’s also time for the NBA to return. All the talk and some drama will be shoved aside as teams return to the court, hoping to do what the Golden State Warriors did last season in raising the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals trophy....

How should he be remembered?

On July 26 of this year, the Jackie Robinson Museum had its soft opening. The SoHo ribbon-cutting occurred 14 years after plans for the cathedral to honor the man who broke baseball’s color barrier and ended racial segregation of Black players relegated to the Negro Leagues were first announced. The...

Jason Peters has a few words about Philly fans

Jason Peters officially became a Dallas Cowboy yesterday by blasting the Philadelphia Eagles fan base. This culminates a heel turn of epic proportions after Peters signed with Dallas just before the start of the season. Peters went in on the Eagles, but he told no lies. Of all the cities in America,...

Steve Kerr is in crisis-management mode, but when is he not?

The Golden State Warriors like to act like they’re a buttoned-up, professional franchise that abstains from drama. The chemistry and coaching have been likened to the Tim Duncan Spurs or the peak “Onto Cleveland” Patriots. While they’ve had consistent success and won championships like those teams, ...

Don’t be in such a rush to show your genius

When you come at the Houston Astros, you’d best not miss. ...

The Pelicans have finally taken flight

Bourbon Street in New Orleans exists in a loop. Every night the street clicks back into a state of debauchery, repeated with perverse precision. Lonely men drift in and out of red neon strip clubs holding cans of Natty Light. Police on horses stroll between sleeping bums, screaming preachers, pools ...

AEW only has a problem if you think it does

We can probably say the honeymoon is over....