games Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It doesn’t matter whether NFL playoff games are on Peacock: Millions will tune in anyway
The NFL has outgrown being just a professional football league. It has become America’s favorite TV show. But unlike most sitcoms, dramas or reality shows, Roger Goodell knows that ratings will remain consistent no matter which network/streaming app his production is broadcast on. This league has gu...

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...

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...

John Fisher's move of A's may have a snag; Jim Harbaugh avoids a choke job; the strange case of Luke Littler
There’s generally little hope for fans when it’s already been announced that their team will move to another city. That hope evaporates more when a league approves it, as MLB has done with the A’s move to Vegas. And yet, there’s always a sliver of light that can’t be extinguished when an owner is so...

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 ...

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...

The wacky ways these NFL teams can make — or miss — the playoffs
As the NFL heads into the final week of the regular season, there are still division titles and playoff berths to be decided....

Michigan’s talent level stops another Jim Harbaugh dry heave
There were many who had their headlines and stories written, piling on a third-straight CFP semifinal loss for Jim Harbaugh on top of his lost Super Bowl and two lost NFC Championship games. Nice sets come in threes and all that. And he still may add that next Monday. ...

Jalen Hurts’ fugazi QB record is evidence that sometimes numbers do lie
The NFL’s Big Data complex, including Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Focus, would have you believe that numbers don’t lie, but the truth is that numbers can be untrustworthy little digits. They don’t explicitly generate faux stats, but accurate statistics can be framed deceptively. For instance, on...

Cade Cunningham did all he could to keep the Pistons out of the record book
Cade Cunningham was special on Tuesday night. He played like the best guard in the NBA. Of his 41 points, he scored 37 of them in the second half. He went 13-of-16 from the field and a perfect 3-of-3 from the 3-point line. When the Detroit Pistons were down, 108-103, to the Brooklyn Nets with three ...

This week in the NFL, NCAA: A Black vs. white game?; Aaron Rodgers fooling no one; Chargers coaching intrigue; time to talk MVP Award
The Week 15 finale on Monday Night Football has the biggest NFC playoff ramifications of any game on the slate. The Philadelphia Eagles travel to Seattle to face the Seahawks in a game neither can afford to lose this late in the season. It’s pretty apropos of these teams closing out Week 15, seeing ...

Why does the NFL refuse to return the bench press competition to Pro Bowl weekend?
The list of events for the Pro Bowl games was released on Wednesday. This annual celebration of the NFL’s top players has turned into summer camp. Like summer camp for kids, not training camp or an Illinois music festival. The players compete in events like dodgeball and tug of war, and the game is ...

It's time to take a hard look at who deserves to win NFL MVP
We have three Sundays left. Three more Sundays until that IV is ripped out of our arms and we are forced to trudge through the subsequent eight months not being able to start the week with at least 10 NFL games. With the holidays on the way to provide a bit of a distraction from that fate, let’s tal...

Monday night's doubleheader was everything that is great about football
Part of football’s charm is its unpredictability. “Any given Sunday,” is more than a cliche. It is a phrase that accurately describes the sport as long as you’re not literal about the day of the week. There are a large number of moving parts attempting to work in unison while being slammed into by o...

Liverpool uses smoke, mirrors and its depth to get back on top of the Premier League table
Following the Premier League this year, it feels that the term “Mentality Monsters” should be emblazoned on the front of Liverpool’s shirts instead of their Standard Chartered sponsorship. Jurgen Klopp coined that term after the hallucination of the 4-0 comeback over Barcelona in 2019, Steve Kerr co...

Biden supports Indigenous Olympic lacrosse team
With lacrosse being added to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, it is only right that the group of people who invented the sport get an invite too. ...

This year’s College Football Playoff controversy is the sport at its best
Amidst all the outrage and taunting on Sunday, I hope everyone took the time to enjoy the rush. A reminder about college sports: the athletes are not as good as the pros. The game is not nearly as polished. What makes up for the majority of participants having no chance at becoming well-paid profess...

Sports Illustrated has become its own Sidd Finch in the age of AI-Generated journalism
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into every corridor of society has created a surreal state of journalism in 2023. In its infancy, everyone is feeling around in the dark, stumbling over AI-generated content. A bevy of outlets, this site included, have dabbled in AI-generated content....

These were the best NBA games ever played on Thanksgiving or Christmas
It’s been more than two decades since we’ve seen an NBA game on Thanksgiving. And for the sake of communion and fellowship, we’re better for it. It’s not like the TV won’t be on anyway. With Fox News and CNN rotting our brains and the NFL providing an annual doubleheader, there’s plenty to go numb f...

So 2 AFC North teams clubbed each other into oblivion after a short week? Shocker
The NFL is eventually going to win. People can push back on the product, and complain about Thursday Night Football and overseas football all they want, but in due time changes become normalized, and even the most inept schedule makers hit on a matchup. Enter the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Rav...