houston Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Hate James Harden all you want, but the Clippers are actually good
Some people in this world delight when James Harden is not successful as an NBA basketball player. His iso-heavy style of play is an acquired taste, but so is coffee and yet a Starbucks gift card can win the heart of the average American adult. What really grinds peoples’ gears in regard to Harden i...

Houston’s Baby Boy CJ Stroud can take a lick and keep on tickin’
The Houston Texans suffered a setback in a 24-21 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday that throttled them back into a mosh pit of five-loss teams in the AFC. However, not all losses are created equal. Wins are utilized as a quarterback stat too frivolously, but throughout his rookie season, CJ St...

These are the all-time NBA starting fives
While debating politics over Thanksgiving can cause irreplaceable family fissures, debating the all-time starting fives for each NBA team holds way fewer stakes. There are many different ways to build an all-time starting five, all of which illicit strong reactions. Some people prefer to choose the ...

Week 11 NFL Takeaways: Lions, Dolphins and Texans escape disaster
Winning a game does not mean the victorious team is better than the one that lost. The football is oblong and takes several unpredictable bounces every game. Sometimes sure-handed running backs fumble and undependable quarterbacks throw for 400 yards and four touchdown passes....

If Shohei Ohtani stays in the AL West, it sure as hell won't be with the Angels
We’re almost through it. Today we head to the left coast, where the champs live…well, not actually. They’re in the middle, but they play in the division that’s ostensibly supposed to be about the left coast. Anyway, that’s not why you called! Let’s run through the division that had the best race las...

Jacksonville isn't quite ready to join the NFL's elite
Week 10 represented a tremendous opportunity for the Jacksonville Jaguars to show the NFL they were ready to be inserted into conversations with the big dogs in the league. Instead, they got steamrolled at home by the San Francisco 49ers, 34-3. This was an embarrassing loss, but it also had signific...

The Texans' offseason work set rookie QB CJ Stroud up for success
C.J. Stroud is well on his way to the best rookie quarterback performance in NFL history. Usually rookie quarterbacks are limited by their lack of professional experience and/or their coaches’ lack of confidence in their grasp of the complexities of football at the NFL level. Through nine games, the...

Will the Texas Rangers please <i>PLEASE</i> knock off the Astros?
Was it inevitable? One won the American League West, while the other led it for most of the season and was forced to go the wild-card route to make it to this stage. The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros share a state and are bitter rivals and will face each other in the postseason for the first time...

Now comes the tricky part for the Orioles
It’s awfully easy, and too easy, to point at an up-and-coming team like the Rangers that spent a lot of money to augment the players they developed from within and say that’s the reason they clobbered an up-and-coming team like the Orioles that did the exact opposite, basically only adding the decre...

Your MLB team is out, so who do you root for?
Playoff baseball is in full swing. As we move closer to crowning a champion, who do you root for if your team has been eliminated? Do you stick with a club in your favorite squad’s league? Support the underdog? Or just watch football or whatever else is on TV? ...

The Beard's ego has him stuck between a Rock(et) and a Harden place
James Harden is in limbo. Last season, he was all in on taking a pay cut in an effort to give the Philadelphia 76ers cap flexibility to sign glue guys who would put them over the edge come playoff time. A year later, he’s the acetone on their franchise continuity. His constant bellyaching stemming f...

Mariners fans probably have some good suggestions on what Jerry Dipoto can do with his 54 percent
One way to definitely not make your fans feel better about a season in which their team’s growth flattened out instead of turning into the juggernaut promised is to tell them that’s the plan all along. But that’s what Seattle Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto felt was the best salve for the sting of the M’s ...

C.J. Stroud has the Texans at .500 with his cool, calm, and historic play
C.J. Stroud is making it look easy. As we’ve seen firsthand, many recent rookie quarterbacks have struggled as they adjust to the NFL. The QBs atop the 2021 NFL Draft had their bumps, with Mac Jones — who has since twice been benched for Bailey Zappe — looking like the best of that bunch that season...

2023 MLB AL runs batted in leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

Here's who we have winning the American League awards
What a difference a year makes. No race for the American League home run record. The reigning MVP Aaron Judge missed significant time due to injury — and this year’s likely runaway winner Shohei Ohtani’s season ended with him on the IL. The Cy Young and Rookie of the Year races were pretty much deci...

Caleb Williams drops 400 yards on Colorado, barely wins
College football fans still waiting for USC to play a real team will have to wait at least two more weeks, and after the way Notre Dame looked against Duke, I’m not sure if that’s accurate either. Caleb Williams got his first real closeup of the season, lighting up Deion Sanders and the Colorado def...

The NBA script is already rolling as the writers’ strike ends
Ding-dong, the strike is dead. The Deadspin staff’s WGA brethren have come to an agreement with the AMPTP that financially acknowledges the importance of the brains and fingertips that are part of the foundation of entertainment. ...

Someone should look into this agreement Justin Verlander has with Father Time
If you’ve watched enough Justin Verlander starts, there’s always a feeling he has one last card to play when he absolutely needs it. That mostly comes from his habit of keeping his fastball velocity just low enough to be a tease early in his starts, and then somewhere later when he really needs it h...

MLB's new playoff system has created a wonderful, hot mess of a finish
The playoffs are approaching, and perhaps an indirect benefit of expanding them is that the more flawed teams are competing for them, the funnier it can get. ...

Black coaches must remain a priority in XFL-USFL merger
If you’re gonna do it, do it right. And, if the XFL and the USFL are on the verge of a merger, then the new league must continue the XFL’s trend of hiring and employing Black coaches....