mad Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Cody Rhodes is nuts
Cody and Brandi Rhodes must be insane, right? The couple integral to the founding of All Elite Wrestling, with a strong family heritage inside the squared circle, has left the upstart promotion they helped lay brick and tile for and could head back to their former employer, World Wrestling Entertain...
What were the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history?
As of Saturday, the line on Super Bowl LVI is Rams -4, one of the closer spreads in the big game’s history. Though the Bengals are technically the home team, the Rams are, of course, playing in their own home stadium, so the current line suggests these are two evenly matched teams. Though the Super ...
When a Super Bowl is in town, the unhoused are unwelcome
LOS ANGELES — If you saw Eugene at a Chevron station or a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles, at first glance you might not notice anything out of the ordinary. He is a Black man with a dark complexion clear enough in the early evening light that some might ask for his skincare routine. He’s under 6 feet tall,...
The Senior Bowl ceased public weigh-ins that resemble slave auctions the same week Brian Flores filed his lawsuit against the NFL
Back in the era of slavery — which wasn’t as long ago as racists, conservatives, and the GOP would like you to believe — Black bodies would be stripped naked, or close to it, and put on the auction block where they were sold to the highest white bidders. Their height, weight, skin color, sexual orga...
A modern tragedy: Chad Johnson wants to get breakfast
All Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson wanted was to get some breakfast. He’d flown all the way to Las Vegas for an opportunity to be around the best players in the NFL today, and all he wanted was to congratulate a few of the guys who’d earned the Pro Bowl title this season and perhaps treat them to a nice m...
Who is the best player to bet on for Super Bowl MVP?
One of the most popular prop bets for the Super Bowl is determining who will walk away with the game’s MVP award. Every year, we see people convince themselves that a non-quarterback has a shot at taking home the hardware, and more than half the time, they’re proven wrong. In 55 Super Bowls, a quart...
Hank’s for nothing, old buddy
Henrik Lundqvist’s No. 30 was raised to the Madison Square Garden rafters Friday night, a well-deserved honor for the future Hall of Famer who backstopped the Rangers for 15 years and won everything but a Stanley Cup as one of the best and most consistent goalies in the business....
Porzingis to the basket and the cash... D'OH!
The hottest new trend in NBA betting seems to be first basket parlays. Essentially, a bettor guesses which player will score the first basket in a given game. On December 29, 2021, Jim James thought he’d give one of these parlays a shot. He put $100 on a four-game parlay assuming that Jaylen Brown w...
Does Tom Thibodeau have any idea what to do with Cam Reddish? So far, it doesn’t look like it
Do me a favor, search “Cam Reddish” on Twitter and see what you find. Yes, I know Twitter is a place where a lot of idiotic and terrible takes call home – especially when it comes to sports, particularly the NBA. But, now and then, people come together in unity to form one tribe – like we all did on...
Difficult Super Bowl Trivia: Part 1
It’s the 20th anniversary of the Tuck Rule Game, or the Snow Game, depending on whether or not you’re from New England. That was the night in Foxboro that the Patriots got the benefit of a controversial call on what appeared to be a Tom Brady fumble, tied and won the game on Adam Vinatieri field goa...
The Rangers are a mystery that analytics can't figure out
The best way to determine the best teams in any sport is to look at the standings, right? If they’ve been playing well, they’ll be near the top of the league. As Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.”...
The women are coming for baseball
It’s probably too early to call it a new era, but with names like Rachel Balkovec and Genevieve Beacom making the headlines, America’s pastime is definitely due for a change-up. Earlier this week, Balkovec was hired as the new manager of the Yankees’ minor league affiliate the Tampa Tarpons. This hi...
Jon Lester just gave more of a s–t than you
Sadly, the, “You’re not winning this game,” term used to describe a transcendent performance from an athlete that just seems a Herculean or galactic level of defiance and denial has been co-opted by Bill Simmons. Which means it’s become as cartoonish as he has....
Help wanted: Bullpen catcher
Being a Major League catcher is tough. Not only do you have to squat in an uncomfortable position for over an hour everyday for six months while wearing big, heavy pads (the tools of ignorance) in the middle of summer, but you also need to be knowledgeable of your pitching staff and opponents so as ...
A date has been set for the unveiling of the Washington Football Team’s new name, if they could only set a date to stop being a clown show
It took some years but the Washington Football Team is finally going to have a name that is neither a racial slur nor the name a middle schooler would choose in create-a-franchise mode, if forced by parents to play Madden instead of Grand Theft Auto. Washington announced today that on Feb. 2 its new...
Week 17 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser and Prop Bets
Happy New Year, though sadly, that means we’re winding down on the football calendar, entering the penultimate week of the campaign. Let’s make the most of it while we still have regular season football....
Changing the World Cup to every two years could (but won’t) help soccer’s have-nots
Changing the World Cup to a biennial event is an awful idea. That’s not the most groundbreaking statement, but I wanted to put it bluntly because that’s the point I want you to remember from the rest of this. And if FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to be believed, and the move has a majority backi...
Madden NFL paved the path for other video game sports franchises
When you think of video games and sports, you think of John Madden. (Thank god this is written, and I don’t have to try to do the voice.) The first sports video game I ever played was Madden NFL 92 when I was 6, and even though it’s not my preferred game anymore, there’s no doubt it’s still the de f...
John Madden’s legacy is something different to multiple generations of fans
The phrase “once in a generation” seems to be tossed too often, far more often than it should be in sports, but when it came to John Madden, this couldn’t even begin to sum up what he represented. Madden passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday but left a lasting legacy unlike any we’ve ever seen....
All this fun and you get paid, too!
I’ll level with you. I didn’t really think that much of John Madden as an analyst, at least for most of my experience listening to him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think his personality or presence didn’t warrant his standing at the top of the broadcasting game. They very much did. And perhaps I’m ju...