ill Page 266 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Victor Wembanyama is the NBA’s basketball comeuppance
Victor Wembanyama is the evolution of basketball personified. But evolution requires a catalyst. Sure Wembanyama’s genes play a significant part, but decades earlier he could have been Frédéric Weis. Weis was the first French center whose name was seared into the memories of American basketball fans...

Recent history says the Chiefs will win big over the Raiders on Monday Night Football
The Raiders and Chiefs renew their rivalry on Monday Night Football to close out Week 5 of the NFL season. And there’s good news and bad news for the Raiders heading into this matchup. The bad news is that no one expects much out of Las Vegas in this game. That’s also the good news: the Raiders have...

Arsenal, Liverpool, and cycles
There’s always an urge, and sometimes a directive from websites and Twitter and whatever else, to attach meaning or statements to any match or result. Sometimes, two teams just play each other and the score is the score and that’s your story. It’s not an overarching comment on systems, managers, or ...

The Mets didn’t do anything wrong
Perhaps that’s what will kill their fans most. Then again, Mets fans have never needed much prodding to tell the world how miserable it is to be a Mets fan. They’ll certainly have the ammo now....

Good riddance, Yadi
While my baseball fandom was thrown in the trash by the Ricketts family, that doesn’t mean the fires of distaste and hatred burn any less. Our passions and love can ebb and flow, but the force of our animus for former rivals always remains strong. Maybe you’re a Red Sox fan out there that can never ...

For its next trick, the Mariners will juggle orcas while unicycling over a volcano
It takes a lot for the sporting public to notice a Saturday highlight other than a football one in early October. It has to be especially good on a weekend when Alabama staves off an upset, but my god what the Seattle Mariners are doing is beyond good. ...

The Pelicans have finally taken flight
Bourbon Street in New Orleans exists in a loop. Every night the street clicks back into a state of debauchery, repeated with perverse precision. Lonely men drift in and out of red neon strip clubs holding cans of Natty Light. Police on horses stroll between sleeping bums, screaming preachers, pools ...

There’s a reason Mike Leach’s quarterbacks have never cost him his job
The next time a pundit says “Missing on such-and-such QB cost coach X his job” will be my next visit to the psych ward. You know why Spencer Rattler didn’t cost Lincoln Riley his job, and Paul Chryst couldn’t survive Graham Mertz? One looks at a chalkboard as a place to draw plays, and the other see...

Serious question: Was this the worst primetime football game ever?
The J-Lo and Josh Duhamel movie trailer that came on after this game ended was better than the game itself. I don’t even remember the title, but the sheer jubilation I received after I no longer had to watch that football game made that trailer all the more enjoyable. HOLY SMOKES! Both teams were al...

MLB Wild Card Series predictions: Rays-Guardians, Mariners-Blue Jays, Phillies-Cardinals, Padres-Mets
The MLB playoffs begin today, and with that, eight teams will battle for the chance to compete against the Dodgers, Braves, Astros, and Yankees. Yikes! What an awful prize that is, am I right?...

These are the top 10 unbeaten college football teams through Week 6
Week 5 of the College Football season brought chaos. Three matchups between unbeaten teams lived up to the hype, and left us with just 16 perfect teams....

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar should be upset with Kyrie Irving — but where was this energy for Jim Brown?
Kyrie Irving’s antics are infuriating. But, so were Jim Brown’s. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seems only to be irritated by one of them. And that’s the problem....

Old school football is making its return to the NFL in 2022
Ever since the NFL listened to the Indianapolis Colts’ complaints about the contact from the New England Patriots’ defensive backs in the mid-aughts, it has felt like passing in the league went to a new level. No longer was a 25-touchdown season with a 60 percent completion percentage good enough. A...

The 10 most proficient cheaters in the history of sports
There are many forms of cheaters in sports, and often the dumbest of them get the press because they’re as close to dumb criminals as one gets — and everybody loves a dumb criminal. The 2000 Spanish Paralympic basketball team that won gold despite only two of the 12 players actually having a mental ...

Why don’t teams run more QB sneaks?
About a week ago, Jason and Travis Kelce were discussing goal-to-go short-yardage plays on their podcast, “New Heights.” Travis, a pass-catching tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, seemed to think a pass play was the way to go. “I’m running some type of rollout,” said the younger brother. Jason, t...

College football Marty McFly Rankings Week 5: Is UCLA back? Is Chip Kelly back? Do they even qualify for being back?
I think we’re going to need to redefine what is a lost program. For example, if Virginia Tech returns to the form that Frank Beamer consistently had them at, would they be back? I ask because schools that were trying to get back this year are disappearing like Spider-Man in Infinity War. (I can’t re...

These 10 modern-day players’ primes were squandered by inept teams
Mike Trout is the tree that falls in the forest every September. He might as well exist in the cold, vacuum of space. If there’s any evidence that sports are raw and unscripted, it’s Trout’s annual storyline. His slow fade from public consciousness as the playoffs creep closer is in stark contrast t...

Victor Wembanyama is in America, and taking part in a matchup that, on a college court, would be one of the most anticipated of all time
While it was great to see Ja Morant taking off for a 360 dunk on Monday night, and Paolo Banchero throwing it down on two people, that was just preseason Memphis Grizzlies vs. Orlando Magic basketball. The NBA regular season doesn’t begin until Oct. 19. Until that day, any minutes fans see of their ...

Talk shit, get hit! That's what UFC fighter Casey O'Neill was trying to prove
Twitter is a cesspool of insecurity. This is no brilliant revelation. Twitter has long been considered the trolliest of all social media platforms, promoting short, anonymous posts from anyone with internet service. It’s prime real estate for someone to spew vile filth with no repercussions. That’s ...

Micah Parsons declares Dallas Cowboys’ ‘Doomsday Defense’ is back
The Dallas Cowboys are playing the best defensive football we’ve seen from them in quite some time. Last year the defense was good at creating turnovers, but this season they’re barely giving up anything to opposing offenses. Comparisons to past Cowboys defenses are beginning to emerge, and one pers...