football Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Sick, Sad World of Sports: Jumbo holiday edition
The holidays are a stressful time for everyone, including criminals, athletes moonlighting as criminals, and criminals moonlighting as athletes. ...

A soft, out-of-conference schedule is the way to go for major college football programs
The oddsmakers got it right with Washington on Monday night. The underdog Huskies ran out of magic wishes in the National Championship Game and for once did not beat the point spread against them. Their lack of girth was exposed all night on Monday in a 34-13 loss to Michigan. Neither team faced str...

Leave it to Jameis Winston to ruin the most innocuous play in football
By now you’ve seen the video of recently fired Atlanta Falcons coach Arthur Smith telling off Saints head coach Dennis Allen with NSFW language after the Saints dispatched Atlanta, 48-17. Jameis Winston’s audible, which allowed Jamaal Williams to rumble into the end zone for his first touchdown of ...

Sometimes the magic of the FA Cup is getting your teeth kicked in
Every sports fan likes to complain. That’s the main point, really. I’m a Chicago Bears fan, for God’s sake. I’m made of gripes now. But we have it pretty good over here in the States, when compared to what you might go through in other parts of the world. What we would have all gone through had we b...

Brandon Aubrey has suddenly given the Cowboys reason to be worried
The Dallas Cowboys are riding high entering the playoffs after securing the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a third consecutive 12-win season. That’s quite the feat for these Cowboys, but means nothing if they can’t break their unlucky streak of bowing out before championship weekend. While Dallas looks p...

DeMeco Ryans is the only choice for NFL Coach of the Year
Mike Tomlin still hasn’t had a losing season. Kevin Stefanski’s squad endured five different starting quarterbacks. Dan Campbell has the Detroit Lions hosting a playoff game and they’re the favorite. But, they all fail in comparison to what DeMeco Ryans has done in Houston. A rookie head coach has t...

The playoffs will not be easy for the Ravens and 49ers
The end of the NFL regular season is always a sad day. It signals that only four weeks of NFL games remain until the second week of September. That means I have to spend my next seven months of Sunday afternoons with commercials since there is no RedZone for the rest of the season. (Also, RedZone on...

Remember when the Eagles were Super Bowl contenders?
My how the mighty have fallen. In September, Jalen Carter looked like the next coming of Aaron Donald and the tush push was the most debated offensive play since the double reverse that won a state championship game in Remember the Titans. After going 10-1 in their first 11 games, the Philadelphia E...

Everyone has a gimmick in the NFL. Until they don’t
The NFL season zips by, which might be one of the hundreds of reasons it remains our national religion. There isn’t really time to get bored with it and everything that happens in it feels truly important. Which means any team that can string a few good weeks together has turned some mythical corner...

The Jets reportedly want to trade Zach Wilson. Good luck
Way to go New York Jets. They halted a losing streak to the New England Patriots that stretched back to the Obama administration. In what might have been Bill Belichick’s final game as head coach of the Patriots, a team that he has dominated since leaving them at the altar in 2000 buried him in the ...

Despite a 13-win campaign, it’s still hard to trust the Ravens
After dominating Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Miami in consecutive weeks, the Baltimore Ravens looked like the dominant force everyone had been waiting for all season. Forget about the hiccup Saturday night against Pittsburgh (minus Lamar Jackson), Baltimore is viewed by many as the favorite to ...

The Texans are proof that serendipity is the NFL’s most valuable asset
Think about the Houston Texans’ path to this moment. After gutting out a win over the Indianapolis Colts, 23-19, on Saturday, DeMeco Ryans and CJ Stroud locked up a playoff spot in their rookie campaigns. The team that opted out of hiring Josh McCown because it didn’t want to get sued also let the C...

The natives are getting restless at Ohio State and LSU
There’s natural staff turnover — primarily assistants getting poached for better opportunities elsewhere — and then there’s what Ohio State and LSU are purportedly doing. Each head coach is under pressure to make changes after showings not up to program standards, and if history is an indication of ...

Jimmy Kimmel-Aaron Rodgers libel suit looms; Justin Fields is not the answer in 2024; ESPN apologizes for live, bare boob
Near the end of Justin Fields’ triumphant win over the Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears fans serenaded him with a passionate “We want Justin” chant. The chorus reached a fever pitch on a night when Fields threw for north of 260 yards and one touchdown in a blowout win over the Atlanta Falcons. Through...

Aaron Rodgers, who played 4 snaps, somehow voted team's Most Inspirational Player
New York Jets players voted to give the team’s Most Inspirational Player Award — named after Dennis Byrd, the defensive end who was paralyzed during a 1992 game and had to relearn how to walk — to Aaron Rodgers, the guy who tore his Achilles four snaps into Gang Green’s opener and vowed to return bu...

The NBA was on fire in its return to Thursday night on TNT
My original plan was to write about Giannis Antetokounmpo and Victor Wembanyama going head-to-head on Thursday night. These two skyscrapers, who were born on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, played basketball like the Empire State Building if Dr. Octopus’ metallic arms were attached. Those two ...

NCAA-ESPN's new broadcast deal is great for women's sports
The NCAA and ESPN agreed to an eight-year, $115 million annual deal to broadcast 40 different championships including the women’s college basketball tournament....

From Jerry Richardson to Dave Tepper, the Carolina Panthers have written the manual on trash owners
Three million dollars (total) in fines. Two atrocious owners. One franchise. The Carolina Panthers are a mess....

Want to reduce college football Bowl opt-outs? Pay the players
The bowl opt-outs are a letdown, but we all saw what happened to Jaylon Smith. During the 2016 Fiesta Bowl — which was not a playoff game — his leg was mangled. A projected top-five pick fell to the second round. Since then, many star players have made the intelligent business decision to not play i...