ill Page 255 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Brittney Griner is free
At long last, a deal has been struck to release WNBA player Brittney Griner from a Russian prison. She was sentenced to a draconian nine years after a small amount of cannabis oil was found in a vape cartridge in her luggage....
Willson Contreras is a Cardinal, and the Cubs let it happen
The St. Louis Cardinals found their replacement for now-retired catcher Yadier Molina, agreeing to terms with Willson Contreras on a five-year, $87 million deal. After refusing to move Contreras at the trade deadline, or pay him, the last remaining position player from the Chicago Cubs World Series ...
There is a lot more than a championship on the line with Jimmy G’s injury situation
It’s Wednesday, Dec. 7, and there is still no clear picture of the timeline for Jimmy Garoppolo’s return to the field. ...
LeSean McCoy has some of the wildest takes in football
Shady McCoy was one of the most exciting football players of the 2010s. He led the NFL in rushing in 2013, scored 17 touchdowns in 2011, reached five straight Pro Bowls, won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2019 and 2020 (although he wasn’t really a factor on either team at that point), and was named to ...
A decade-plus of Eastern Conference mediocrity can’t be easily forgotten
It’s weird how much energy goes into debating which conference is the NBA’s best. It makes sense in college football because schools can’t play all 100-plus teams each year, and strength of schedule determines playoff spots. But in basketball, with all 30 organizations facing each other at least twi...
World Cup 2022 Daily Diary: Day 17 - Quarterfinals are set
Oh we got narratives! New ones! Old ones! Tired ones! Exciting ones! If you can find better narratives than here…fuck it!...
Make the Heisman Trophy more than the 'Best QB' award it’s become
The Heisman Trophy has been college football’s most prestigious award since University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger was awarded the first stiff-armed prototype in 1935. Since then, Chicago has dumped its football program and the award has morphed into a Quarterback of the Year award. That lazin...
The transfer window coinciding with bowl season is as profoundly stupid as it sounds
Unlike most people, I enjoy bowl season. Despite how irrelevant it is to the final outcome of the season, eclectic matchups are the best kinds of matchups. They determine bragging rights for people whose values still align with those of their conference. Programs who only schedule cream puffs when i...
Carl Nassib helped save the Buccaneers’ season
The effect of an individual defensive player is hard to measure by statistics alone. It’s actually hard to even measure offensive players by traditional numbers. (What do 1,000 yards mean? Is it right to hold a single player responsible for his average yards per touch? How much should an individual’...
The Phillies don’t know when to settle
Dave Dombrowski and the Philadelphia Phillies apparently don’t understand the new atmosphere of baseball. The expanded playoffs mean, or were supposed to mean, that teams don’t have to go all out for 95-to-100 wins anymore. The Phightins are proof! 87 wins and a trip to the World Series!! You just h...
Deion Sanders is borrowing too much of his Colorado strategy from Elon Musk
Fear not Boulder, Colorado, Deion Sanders is here to save Colorado football. All he needed when he stepped off a private jet was his own silk cape to accompany his messiah complex. If the extremes and excesses of the NIL era were molded into human form, it would be the man known as Coach Prime....
Herschel Walker is a threat to society — it’s time to get him out of the paint
Somewhere between the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 6, and the early hours of Wednesday, Dec. 7, we will know the results of another crucial election in Georgia that has national implications. But, more than that, we will know if the Republican Party was successful in electing a Senator strictly because ...
Trae Young and Nate McMillan are surviving instead of thriving with each other
Here’s a multiple-choice essay question. You’ve got a blossoming superstar in Trae Young who has plateaued after some early career triumphs. Young is 24, played in a conference finals two seasons ago, but he’s also got a penchant for taking too many heat-check shots which are exhilarating to watch g...
Deion Sanders’ pimping of Jackson State and HBCU culture is finally over
What started with a lavish indoor pep rally during the height of the pandemic — putting the health of students and school employees at risk — ended with a cowardice move to dodge reporters, as the head coach of a 12-0 football team that just won its second straight Southwestern Athletic Conference C...
Lions, and Jaguars, and bets, oh my!
As the NFL season marches toward its conclusion, bettors understand which teams are good, which teams are bad, and which teams have no shot of reaching the postseason. All of that will play a role in how betting lines are made, change over the course of the week, and how they are bet on. Oftentimes,...
USC craps out in Vegas, but Trojans were playing entirely with house money
If you told USC fans before the season that the eulogy for the Trojans’ College Football Playoff hopes wouldn’t be penned until after the conference title game, their reaction would’ve been euphoric. Though the first year under Lincoln Riley ended in disappointment — you don’t come a win away from t...
It’s never been easier to rebuild or bottom out in college football
The transfer window for college football players doesn’t officially open until Dec. 5., but that hasn’t stopped disgruntled wide receivers, linemen, linebackers, QBs, running backs, and every other position from making their intentions known. Per ESPN, there were 3,085 transfers in 2021-22, almost d...