joe Page 35 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The MVP race is a 2-man cage match

The MVP discussion has been whittled down to an A and B conversation between Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts. Joe Burrow is eavesdropping, but in the final quarter of the season, he is on the outside looking in. As things currently stand, Mahomes occupies the B slot in this race as Hurts is edging o...

Does Joe Maddon agree with the 2023 MLB rule changes?

Week 14 NFL Takeaways: Byemaggedon Part II, Ugly Wins Attack

There were a handful of upsets in Week 14, but for the most part, chalk held up. The teams that were expected to win, and also contend in the playoffs, held serve during the final week of byes in the 2022 season....

Jared Goff is playing well— the Lions still need to pick a quarterback

The Detroit Lions are currently 5-7 — two games away from a wild card spot. They have won four of their last five, and their lone loss was by only three points to the Buffalo Bills — a team many people consider Super Bowl favorites. With five games left on their schedule, only two are against teams ...

Jets fans are right to think the world is against them, says new study

The New York Jets are a poverty franchise. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010. I don’t care what the outlook for the team is, until they win a playoff game, my stance on the matter isn’t changing. There’s reason to be optimistic given Robert Saleh’s solid start as head coach, Breece Hall’s...

Soccer reporter Grant Wahl dies in Qatar [Updated]

America’s most prominent soccer reporter, Grant Wahl, has passed away while covering the World Cup in Doha, Qatar, according to his brother, Eric....

World Cup Diary Day 18: Croatia, Argentina advance in penalty kicks

As extra time started, neither Brazil nor Croatia showed any urgency. The weight of a FIFA World Cup quarterfinal entering the additional 30 minutes-plus after going scoreless in the contest’s original time could’ve been swapped for the rhythm of a Tuesday exhibition. World Cups are how every countr...

The Brittney Griner-Viktor Bout deal is being unfairly criticized [See the exchange]

The end of Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia arrived early Thursday morning, after the White House announced that she was on an airplane returning home safe and sound. The timing was a surprise to everyone outside of the Biden and Griner family’s inner circle. However, the two individuals invol...

The phone call that changed Joe Maddon's life

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....

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...

The NBA’s newest award is a better fit for MLB teams

It’s bad enough that there have been 16 NBA playoff spots since 1984. At that time there were only 23 teams in the league. It’s 2022, and still more than half of the league gets into the playoffs, and that’s not even counting the highly entertaining Play-in Tournament. Sure the New Orleans Pelicans ...

The ManningCast sports media revolution should not have been televised

It would be interesting to see how much ESPN was responsible for of the $1.5 billion that Disney lost last quarter in the streaming section. What section of the Mothership do the contracts for Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and the Mannings fall under? After a year-plus, the nuance of the ManningCast has wo...

Red, white, and the blues

How far do moral victories and actual losses go for the United States men’s national team? After failing to defeat The Netherlands at the World Cup, U.S. Soccer needs to take a hard look in the mirror....

Kirk Cousins is the ultimate measuring stick for Super Bowl viability

The term “measuring stick” game is seldom used in professional football. The term indicates a game that will determine whether or not a team is the real deal or not and is used more in a college football setting since those teams can change drastically from year to year. ...

NBA Players As <i>Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</i> Characters

Warning: Spoilers ahead...

Sean Payton is haunting coaches on the hot seat

It’s rare to read scuttlebutt about which job a coach wants. The job market for unemployed coaches typically works the other way around. Jobs open up, a slew of coaching candidates cram into the interview lobby. Sean Payton is in a unique position where he can call the shots. ...

The biggest World Cup upsets of all time

As Saudi Arabia shocked the globe by defeating Lionel Messi and World Cup favorites Argentina on Tuesday, it provided the most recent example of a tremendous upset victory at the quadrennial showcase. Argentina was No. 3 in the FIFA rankings and Saudi Arabia was the second-lowest ranked team to play...

Is there closure for Ben Simmons in Philly?

Maybe one day Philadelphia sports fans will forgive Ben Simmons for not taking the court at all for the 76ers last season, not shooting in four consecutive fourth quarters, and the play in which he passed the ball to the only Sixer who was arguably a worse shooter than him instead of dunking on Trae...