ford Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Whoa! The Premier League starts this weekend!
Most of the attention of the soccer world is fixed on the Women’s World Cup. And whatever’s left over is on Lionel Messi’s daily brace. But the world of soccer never stops, and in that fashion, the Premier League returns this weekend (so does La Liga but we can hold off on yet another discussion of ...

Nikola Jokić might be the most boring top-rated player ever in <em>NBA 2K24</em>
The player most deserving of the highest rating in NBA 2K24 is Nikola Jokić. Whether he is actually the best player in the NBA is irrelevant to him earning that distinction. The way that he bulldozed his opposition while leading the Denver Nuggets to their first NBA Championship, no other player sho...

Stanford is the most vulnerable school in college athletics because of conference realignment
The domino effect of Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12 for the SEC (leading to the dismantling of the Pac-12 two years later) is a turn of events that would’ve been nearly impossible to predict. The catalyst for the Power Five’s west coast entry point being almost no more wasn’t UCLA and USC tra...

Jake Paul and Nate Diaz set boxing back at least a week, probably more
The only reason to watch Jake Paul box is to see a YouTube personality get hit in the face. Like that Twitch star who started a riot in Union Square this week; get him in a pair of gloves and let a New Yorker of equal stature go a few rounds. On Saturday night in Dallas, Nate Diaz, a 37-year-old UFC...

Dodgers, Chelsea FC owner might be the uniting force to save women's hockey
There are two famous rivalries in North American women’s hockey: Canada vs. the USA, and the PWHPA versus the PHF. One rivalry will continue in perpetuity at every World Championship and Olympic Games, while the other is dead....

The stars and emcees who crossed the line between hip-hop and the NBA
This story is part of our new Hip-Hop: ’73 Till Infinity series, a celebration of the genre’s 50th anniversary....

Not all of Dan Campbell’s motivational tactics are permissible
It appears that Dan Campbell did not take in all of the lessons from the early COVID pandemic classic, The Tiger King. What made the documentary a seminal pop culture moment is that there was nothing else to watch in late March 2020, and characters who were so boorish, and ostentatious that they mad...

Pat McAfee certainly knows the douchebag playbook
When you hand a bloated gas bag a Brink’s truck to work for your company, it can’t be much of a surprise when he acts like a bloated gas bag. People tend to keep doing whatever made them rich. Pat McAfee at least figured out that much, and ESPN is almost certainly getting what it paid for, whatever ...

Crawford-Spence was an all-timer — just not in the way fans expected
The only ruling necessary after Terence Crawford’s TKO of Errol Spence Jr. was whether Saturday’s fight at the T Mobile Center in Las Vegas met the hype. It was one-sided throughout, as Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) put Spence (28-1, 22 KOS) on the canvas in the second round for the first time in Spence’s...

Where did the American heavyweight boxing champions go?
Errol Spence and Terence Crawford’s highly-anticipated welterweight Fight of the Year doubles as a ring showdown for the pound-for-pound crown that boxing aficionados have been counting down to for years....

Is Saquon Barkley stuck in a time loop, or just us?
On the surface, Saquon Barkley’s new contract with the New York Giants feels a lot like the franchise tag. It’s a one-year deal worth roughly the amount of same money — $10.1 million fully guaranteed vs. $10.091 million via the franchise tag — but with about a million in incentives. The main distinc...

NFL causes social media stir by posting entire Falcons Super Bowl collapse on Twitter
The NFL knows that football fans are starting to itch. No games have been played since the week of Valentine’s Day. Scott Hanson is sending out his weekly summer countdown of how many Sundays remain until the RedZone returns to our lives — nine weeks. Still, that first Sunday is after Labor Day. Wit...

The Charlotte Hornets are a soap opera
Throughout the history of NBA teams that have called Charlotte, North Carolina home, a second-round trip to the playoffs has been the furthest point any franchise has made it. And while this iteration of the Hornets has nothing to do with the ones from yesteryear, they do feature something that prob...

Immaculate Grid was designed for the unsalvageable like me, and the LA Kings try to convince themselves
There almost certainly is a sordid side to Immaculate Grid, just as there is to Wordle, or Numble, or Framed. In just the week I’ve been playing the Grid, I’ve probably given away my birth certificate, passport, and most of my DNA. And yet I’m not going to stop, and neither are you. ...

First-round NBA Draft grades on a pass/fail system
If you’re like most underachievers and procrastinators, the letter grade doesn’t matter as long as you pass. I’ve lived most of my life by the mantra that “C’s are for degrees” and look where it’s gotten me: Writing about sports for living, and passing judgment upon others without retaliation....

Lou Williams announces his retirement from the NBA while leaving behind an interesting legacy
Former three-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner Lou Williams has officially announced his retirement from the NBA. Williams will go down as one of the best role players in NBA history and possibly the greatest sixth man of all time. Along with his accolades, Williams also made it cool, and acce...

The New York Yankees are running out of numbers to issue
The New York Yankees have a long, storied history, with 45 players being inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Bronx Bombers have also retired the numbers of their greats — players and managers, including some that aren’t in Cooperstown. All in all, the Yankees have retired 22 numbers — including from...

Michael Jordan failed as Charlotte Hornets owner
It turns out he is human. With Michael Jordan completing his sale of the Charlotte Hornets on Friday, his report card as the majority owner of the team can officially be stamped with a big, red “FAIL.”That said, MJ’s biggest flaw wasn’t draft history, or front office acumen, it was the choice of fra...

Kirby Smart: New Nick Saban, or Urban Meyer with a visor?
The Georgia Bulldogs football program entered rarified territory after back-to-back titles this year, joining Alabama, and USC as the only programs to accomplish that feat this century. Kirby Smart has constructed a doomsday machine in Nick Saban’s image, and the proof is not only clear from the win...

The most anticipated boxing matchup in years had a rough SEO day
There is not a lot of room in the news cycle at the moment. Much of it is being swallowed up by Donald Trump being arraigned for allegedly turning Mar-A-Lago into a Hoarders episode using classified documents. (He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.) In sports, the LIV-PGA merger is being investigated by...