ja Page 131 - 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....
Week 13.5 NFL Powerless Rankings: Nothing good is happening for these teams
At the intersection of Week 14 and Week 13, it’s time to take an unsettling look at this season’s worst. These are the squads who need a 12th man on the field to keep pace with their peers because whatever they’re doing right now isn’t working. Let’s dive in, but hold your nose, the stench is strong...
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 ...
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...
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...
Baker Mayfield claimed by Rams
Looks like Baker Mayfield is indeed headed to California, but not to the Bay Area to join Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers, as many have suspected....
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’...
Get the NFC South out of here
Nearly every NFL season there is at least one division that if ripped from the league and cast into the sea, the product would be much better. This season, that division is the NFC South. ...
The Mets prove you don’t have to have holes if you don’t want to
The Mets don’t have to be unique. There are plenty of teams that wouldn’t have to use the departure of a player like Jacob deGrom as an excuse to declare it’s all over for them, that they’d have to find a new way, and to take a step back. You can get away with that if you’re the Astros and your mino...
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...
Week 13 NFL Takeaways: Separation Sunday, the air at the top is getting thinner
The NFL regular season goes way too far into winter, but the home stretch is here. The time for some to assert dominance and others to sink claws into the final playoff spots has come....
Can the 49ers reset the NFL quarterback market?
If any team can settle the quarterback market a bit it’s the 2022 San Francisco 49ers....
Draymond Green eclipsing Michael Jordan illustrates how much offenses have evolved
In the opening minute of regulation against the Houston Rockets on Saturday night, Jordan Poole picked up his between-the-legs dribble and whipped a pass to Draymond Green in the short corner. Green caught the pass and rose to drain his only points of the night. It had no effect on the final score, ...
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,...