ick Page 253 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

All this fun and you get paid, too!
I’ll level with you. I didn’t really think that much of John Madden as an analyst, at least for most of my experience listening to him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think his personality or presence didn’t warrant his standing at the top of the broadcasting game. They very much did. And perhaps I’m ju...

The Kansas City Curse
Just a few months ago, seeing the Kansas City Chiefs atop the AFC standings would’ve been unthinkable, considering that they were 3-4 and just suffered a 24-point loss to the Tennessee Titans. Well, with two weeks left in the regular season, the Chiefs have won eight straight games and retaken the t...

Longtime underdog Alabama set to take on perennial powerhouse Cincinnati in CFP
After his comments yesterday, I have to wonder whether Alabama linebacker Will Anderson has considered a career in comedy. I mean, only if this whole football thing doesn’t work out for him. It’s only the Crimson Tide he plays for, after all, so I wouldn’t really be putting all my eggs in one basket...

Lakers on their way to wrong kind of history
Injuries and the novel coronavirus have played a role in it, to be sure, as has the fact that they’re now up to 22 players used this season and it’s not even January, but the Lakers stink....

Monday night's Bulls-Hawks game showed how Omicron is owning the NBA
Just two days after the Omicron variant ruined the highly-anticipated Christmas Day lineup that the NBA unveiled months ago, the Chicago Bulls traveled to Atlanta to face the Hawks in a game that had the communications staff of both teams Googling the names on their rosters....

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #9: Ted Cruz, captain of the anti-vax Dream Team
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

Week 16 Takeaways: If your holiday season was dampened by your favorite NFL team, buck up, 2022 just might return some holiday cheer
As I gather myself after watching the Insecure series finale, I’m also confronted with the fact that the 2021 NFL season is also nearly complete. Of course there’s a five-week postseason awaiting us football fans, but less than half of the NFL teams will play in that tournament. Fans in Chicago, New...

All the ways Urban was about ‘team team team’
Usually when someone fails it’s an opportunity to reflect, to see where things went wrong so that you can improve. Was I bad at my job? Do I not get along with others? Do I have an odor unsuitable for the workplace?...

Some great wrestling matches from the year that was
That time again. This year’s list feels a little more genuine, as wrestling (outside of Japan at least) was able to get out of the TV-studio era and back in front of the crowds it so desperately needs. Whether that was or is a really good idea at the moment, we’ll save for another time. Trying to ju...

2021's most inspiring sports figures
Just a few short years ago, there was a push for athletes to be nothing more than mute entertainers. Luckily enough, they refused to “shut up” or “stick to” whatever sport they played....

Centers aren’t extinct, they’ve just evolved
As humans, we tend to eulogize the extinct with reverence. The Dodo Bird. The Rocky Mountain Locust. The Golden Toad. And why wouldn’t we? It was us who eradicated these precious, sentient creatures. Some theorists would argue it had to do with their inability to adapt. But what if things are adapti...

The best from bowl games with non-New Year’s Six names
Making fun of lesser bowl games is easy and fun. Do we really need a Boca Raton Bowl? Or a LendingTree Bowl? Or a Gasparilla Bowl? Or a Cameilla Bowl? Or a Hertz Bowl? Or a Guaranteed Rate Bowl? (Only one of those is fake.) No, probably not. The answer to “Who’s better: Eastern Michigan or Liberty?”...

NFL Week 16: Will we see another Tampa Tom tantrum?
Week 15 of the NFL season felt great. Not because there was a ton of good football on television, but rather because of how poorly Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played. Brady was shut out for just the third time in his career, a 9-0 loss at the hands of the New Orleans Saints....

Thursday Night Football, Week 16: San Francisco vs. Tennessee in 2021 finale
It’s a battle of hot and cold teams fighting for postseason positioning tonight as the 49ers travel to Tennessee for the final Thursday Night Football matchup of the year. The 49ers have averaged over 28 points per game over their last four. Meanwhile, the Titans have averaged under 15. The Titans c...

Don't look now, but Saquon Barkley could be turning into David Johnson
Just 3.6 yards per carry (career-low), 3.1 receptions per game, and on pace to record the fewest touchdowns per game of his career....

Aaron Rodgers still feels like he's being cancelled, so now he’s siding with Barstool
Why Aaron? Why do you have to be like this? ...

Hear me out: We laughed at Dan Campbell, but at least this season he was the right man for the job in Detroit
There was no better choice for coach for the 2021 Detroit Lions than Dan Campbell. Sure sometimes he seems more like a caricature of a football coach than a real one when he gets carried away talking about toughness with those broad shoulders, and the Lions aren’t actually a better football team tha...

The end is here for Cam
There comes a time in every football player’s career when they must face the harsh reality that their career is rapidly winding down. The Carolina Panthers and Cam Newton seem to be at this point, and it’s also time for us, as the NFL viewing public, to admit the same....

2021 Rookie QB Rankings: We have a new QB at the top... for a week at least
It’s Week 15 of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks have been front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 15....

What have they done with Bill Belichick?
Bill Belichick felt he was unfair to reporters after the New England Patriots’ 27-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday. It was the Patriots’ first loss since Oct. 17 to the Dallas Cowboys, and that came in overtime....