f Page 719 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Soccer, much like football, didn’t come home either
I wanted to resist the urge to give into the Timbers Army’s desire to claim Portland as “Soccer City USA.” It’s quite a label to bestow on yourself, and having grown up in direct opposition to Detroit’s “Hockeytown” self-flagellation, my alarms don’t need much prodding to go off. ...

No-clutch Steph Curry is not the best shooter of all time
Hold the confetti....

Week 14 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser and Prop Bets
Writing these primers while sick isn’t fun. An instant cure all, though, would be securing another winning week. The streak is at five straight entering this slate....

Heisman? Ho-hum, man
Bryce Young is certainly a deserving Heisman Trophy winner. Alabama’s sophomore quarterback has thrown for 4,322 yards with 43 touchdowns and four interceptions this season, completed 68 percent of his passes, and despite not being a big-time runner, carried three scores in himself....

Nikola Jokić's performance brings up the age-old question: ‘How good must your team be in order to win MVP?’
The Denver Nuggets are currently 12-13, tied with the Dallas Mavericks for seventh in the Western Conference. Despite having Aaron Gordon for the entirety of this season, the Nuggets just can’t seem to get going. After starting the season 9-4, the Nuggets dropped six straight games and fell below .5...

It’s hard to rank all the dumb things Urban Meyer has done at Jacksonville — but we're gonna try
I’m not sure who ordered the hit on Urban Meyer, but the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero went No Country for Old Coaches on the Jacksonville Jaguars head man Saturday morning delivering a devastating indictment of his first and maybe last year (mis)leading the team. The piece reads more like a prosecuti...

Uber Everywhere, including from Indianapolis to Champaign
On a dark and stormy (and windy, rainy, tornado-ridden, etc. — you get the drift) Midwestern Friday night, the Arizona basketball team landed in Indianapolis after their flight headed for Champaign-Urbana was diverted due to weather conditions. The No. 11-ranked Wildcats were flying into town the ni...

Don’t worry, Seattle, you’re not losing Megan Rapinoe
It makes for a neat and interesting storyline that Megan Rapinoe is unprotected for Thursday’s NWSL expansion draft, right up until you think about it....

Replicating Pickett’s fake slide? No Ken do
If you liked Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett’s fake slide on the way to a 58-yard touchdown run in the ACC championship game last week, you’ll need to savor it, because you’re not going to see it again....

Give Justin Jefferson his flowers (and a QB) you cowards!
Lost in Minnesota trying to kick their fans in the junk again Thursday night like they have so many times this season — or last — was the performance of Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson....

The Miami Hurricanes and Chicago Bulls have put the pedal to the metal, but don’t expect them to be what they were in the past
The young, promising Chicago Bulls are in second place in the Eastern Conference, and the Miami Hurricanes have high hopes after hiring a new football coach — it’s like it’s 1989 all over again. Fans of both teams have great reason to be excited....
![Chase Claypool’s antics cost Steelers in loss to Vikings [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/444d7239883b6730b8518a79d68f1003.jpg)
Chase Claypool’s antics cost Steelers in loss to Vikings [Updated]
Chase Claypool may have finally received his long-awaited, much-needed wake-up call last night against the Vikings....

Fed-up Flyers fans ready to bag the season
If you’re not a part of Flyers Twitter, well, consider yourself lucky. But you did miss fans of the Orange and Black having a totally normal one on Thursday as a movement to change PFPs to an unhappy fan wearing a bag over his/her head (much like the infamous days of New Orleans fans during the ’Ain...

NFL Week 14: The battle at the bottom of the NFC playoff picture
Most NFL fans will tell you that in recent years the AFC has been a better conference than the NFC. Despite an NFC team winning the Super Bowl last season, they also had a 7-9 team (Washington) reach the playoffs by winning their division, along with an 8-8 team (Chicago) as a wild-card. Meanwhile, ...

Rutgers’ Ron Harper Jr. beats No. 1 Purdue on heave at the buzzer, sets New Jersey ablaze
The best buzzer beaters are the ones when the play-by-play guy’s reaction is all our reactions, when he just screams because, like the rest of us, yelling is the only reaction....

Former Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas dies at age 33
Former Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas died in his home Thursday at 33 years old. ESPN reports that his family believes his cause of death to have been a seizure. Thomas played at Georgia Tech and was picked in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft. He played in the league for nine yea...

So about soccer’s version of Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding… it’s much messier in a less fun way
A month or so ago, it appeared that Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Aminata Diallo purportedly conducted a criminal scheme so dumb that, if it wasn’t already a crime, it would be criminal....

Mike McCarthy should choose his words carefully
Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy returned from his 10-day COVID-19 hiatus this week. And almost immediately upon returning, he said something that will assuredly become bulletin board material by the Washington Football Team in their upcoming NFC East showdown....

Somehow this Coyotes story got dumber… and better
Maybe I should have waited a day. Because nothing with the Arizona Coyotes fails to get better, or funnier, or more abstract when you give it more time. As the layers get unpeeled, the aroma that wafts through the air really defies belief. It is both hilarity and bafflement, mixed in with old people...

With a little luck, the Jazz can make a deep playoff run
The Utah Jazz have been a “Yeah, but… “ team for a few years now. And while it’s better than just being butt, it’s frustrating. You can tell how much of a pretender a team is by how mad their fans get when the media disregards their relevance despite the team winning 50-plus games every year. ...