il Page 716 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

17 NFL games, 2,000 yards rushing, 7-9 records and more math to make your head hurt
The NFL has officially voted to expand the regular season to 17 games, opening up a whole can of oddities to accompany it. What happens to single-season NFL records? What about playoff seeding? What even is a .500 team? There’s so much to unpack. I’m sitting over here absorbing this news playing a h...

How NOT to talk about the Deshaun Watson allegations
On Sunday, three new lawsuits were filed against Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, all three accusing Watson of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by women who worked as massage therapists for him at one time or another. That brings the grand total of lawsuits filed against Watson, alleging subst...

‘Oh-fer’ Evan Fournier is already making history as a Boston Celtic
We’ve heard about that damn trade exception for months....

NL West Preview: The Rise of San Diego, the reign of L.A.
With Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, the Padres have the best left side of the infield in baseball and two MVP candidates to lead their lineup....

Brian Cashman was ‘heartbroken’ about Masahiro Tanaka’s experiences with racism, but such reactions insult people of color
The ability to feign disbelief can be more harmful than the act that caused the initial shock. It’s a skill that some white people are either born with or have acquired over time. It’s a classic argument of nature vs. nurture, and Brian Cashman is the latest example....

NL East Preview: Are the Mets good enough to topple the Braves?
You could make a definitive argument that the National League East is the strongest 1-through-5 division in Major League Baseball, so long as no one fucks this up....

With Francisco Lindor and Anthony Rizzo seeking extensions, it's a tale of two owners
Lindor-palooza has apparently begun. News broke last night that the Mets have offered Francisco Lindor a 10-year, $325 million extension to his deal that ends after the season. Lindor is apparently after a 12-year, $385 million deal. As always, both sides are making noise about negotiations being cu...

The Flyers have eaten another one
As every sport relies more heavily on analytics to tell us what’s really going on, there are fewer and fewer occurrences that seemingly spring from a different plane of existence. Something beyond explanation. Things that are only familiar to Wiccans. We can just about always point to some number or...

NIL could help get rid of pay disparities, and it’s time for NCAA to get it together
It’s only a matter of time before college athletes get paid in some form or fashion....

The last Opening Day
Of course it’s not the last Opening Day this week. There will be a baseball season after 2021. It’s likely that it will be in 2022. But it could not be! You can’t imagine that MLB owners and the MLBPA would lose a full season and another World Series to a work stoppage. But also, you can’t rule it o...

MLB and MLBPA need to pull All-Star Game out of Georgia after passing ‘Jim Crow’-era voting laws
Major League Baseball should take action....

If white athletes took a knee after mass shootings, we’d have gun reform
The most glaring misconception about white privilege is that some white people believe it angers people of color not to have it. That’s a lie. We’re upset because we have to watch as you waste it, knowing all the good we would do with it if we had it....

Taylor Hall runs from the living and the dead
Taylor Hall is for sale again. It seems he’s destined for this, toiling away on an also-ran while the speculation about his next stop, and his impending free agency, consumes all the oxygen around him. He has become a drifter, the object of blame for an organization-wide failure. Is it merely coinci...

Ayanna Pressley wins pastries from Ilhan Omar in Boston-Minnesota hockey bet
Ayanna Pressley is, as we’re led to believe they say where she’s from, wicked smart....

Who the hell is going to stop the UConn women? No one, if they keep doing this
It wasn’t the Paige Bueckers-Caitilin Clark show many expected, but it was more of a reminder that UConn is still as close to unbeatable as they come. ...

Jarred Kelenic reassignment means Mariners aren't even hiding service time manipulation
Jarred Kelenic is a future star for the Mariners, who have not been to the playoffs since 2001. The centerpiece of the trade in which Seattle dumped Robinson Canó’s salary on the Mets, Kelenic came to spring training this year, got a real, not just happy-to-be-in-camp uniform number, 10, and then we...

SEE IT: Figure skater’s ‘Joker’ routine will leave you grinning, & Gary Glitter won't see a dime
Josefin Taljegård will not be among the favorites for the figure skating medal podium at next year’s Olympics in Beijing after finishing 15th at the world championships on home ice in Stockholm. ...

NBA trade deadline winners and losers (Can you guess which ones go where?)
There were 16 trades involving 23 organizations and 46 players yesterday, making it the most active trade deadline ever. ...

NFL Draft season is officially bonkers with ’Fins flipping picks with 49ers, then Eagles
Oh, hell yes. NFL draft madness is now officially underway. The Miami Dolphins this afternoon traded their No. 3 overall pick to the San Francisco 49ers for the No. 12 pick, a compensatory 2021 3rd round pick, and first-round picks in 2022 and 2023. This trade news broke roughly one hour before BYU ...

The Miami Heat adding Victor Oladipo is a continued stick-up of other NBA Teams
Even at 76 years old, Pat Riley still does things the ski-mask way. ...