mark Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Lamar Jackson's top target returning for AFC Championship game
One of the league’s best offenses is getting even better, just in time for the AFC Championship. ...

NBA player averaging 12.5 ppg says he's got 'nothing to prove'
Either Deandre Ayton fell and bumped his head somewhere in Portland, or he’s the most ridiculous guy in the city. Apparently, after five and a half years in the NBA, Ayton feels he no longer needs to prove himself. Ayton let this slip while speaking with Mark Medina of Basketball Intelligence. It ha...

If Karl-Anthony Towns drops 62 in a forest on the same night Embiid delivers 70, does it make a sound?
That sound you heard last night was Karl-Anthony Towns reminding us that he’ll always be in the shadows of his peers. On Monday night in Philadelphia, Joel Embiid painted his magnum opus en route to a 70-point, 18-rebound exhibition of scoring prowess. Embiid’s 70 also came on the 18th anniversary o...

Ranking the final 4 teams in NFL playoffs
The stage is set. Four teams remain. Aside from some gut-wrenching, soul-crushing losses by the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys, these are pretty much the teams we expected to make it this far. ...

WWE Monday Night Raw headed to Netflix in 2025
World Wrestling Entertainment is moving its flagship show Monday Night Raw to Netflix starting in 2025....

C.J. Stroud and every rookie QB to win an NFL playoff game
C.J. Stroud became the latest rookie QB to win a playoff game for his team. The Houston Texans shellacked the Cleveland Browns, 45-14, and the second overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft looked terrific....

How suspected or confirmed PED users have fared in Baseball Hall of Fame voting
Is Gary Sheffield more Hall of Fame worthy than Alex Rodriguez, despite the fact that both are inextricably linked to performing enhancing drugs?...

Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff joined some elite company
After the Wild Card Round of the NFL playoffs, Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff have etched their names in history, joining a short list of quarterbacks to win a postseason game with two different teams....

The NFL buying ESPN is the final frontier in the effort to kill sports journalism
Last week, my colleague Sean Beckwith wrote about the NFL possibly buying a stake in ESPN, and the potential for the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports to become nothing more than the PR arm of the most popular league in America (at least, more than it already is). Yesterday, over at The Nat...

Mark Davis needs to quit dragging this out and name Antonio Pierce the Raiders head coach
Mark Davis is making this coaching situation more complicated than it needs to be. Interim head coach Antonio Pierce is the obvious permanent choice. This really is the hire that should’ve happened already. The odds of the Raiders luring one of this year’s top candidates to Las Vegas are slim. Pierc...

Yes, the Ravens look strong, but the numbers say 'buyer beware'
The Baltimore Ravens will play their first playoff game of the season this coming weekend after securing a bye due to being the AFC’s top seed. They finished the season 13-4, and despite not having key players like tight end Mark Andrews or wide receiver Devin Duvernay, they trampled almost everyone...

Bills Mafia definitely having a good laugh at the expense of frostbit Chiefs fans
It’s a good thing Kansas City goes on the road this weekend because I’m not sure their fans have thawed yet. According to reports, 69 people were treated by the fire department during Saturday’s Wild Card win, with half showing signs of hypothermia. Fifteen people were sent to the hospital, with thr...

Can the Bruins win without any centers?
The Boston Bruins are the perfect team in the NHL to have the eternal-long fatalism vs. determinism debate. They sit atop the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference once again, just as they did last year. Just as last year, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand are two of the best players in the league...

All the remaining NFL playoff teams, ranked
Anything can happen in the playoffs, and I mean anything. In just the wild-card round alone, we saw:...

The Buffalo Bills don’t need a dome, the city does
Snow is as omnipresent in Buffalo as rivers are in Pittsburgh. Buffalonians are accustomed to sheets of snow piling up on the city’s roads and sidewalks. Highmark Stadium was supposed to host the opening playoff contest of 2024 until Mother Nature intervened, despite the fact that the city has exper...

The Winnipeg Jets zoomed to the top of the NHL while you weren't looking
It’s hard to be an afterthought for an NHL team in Canada, and yet it kind of feels like the Winnipeg Jets are one. They’re not grouped with either of the other blocks. They aren’t near Toronto or Montreal in the Atlantic Division, and even the Ottawa Senators get more shine from being caught betwee...

Sick, Sad World of Sports: Jumbo holiday edition
The holidays are a stressful time for everyone, including criminals, athletes moonlighting as criminals, and criminals moonlighting as athletes. ...

In honor of the Magic retiring Shaq's number, here is every NBA team's retired jersey numbers
With the announcement that the Orlando Magic will retire Shaquille O’Neal’s jersey, the NBA has finally done it! All 30 teams have officially retired a jersey number for a specific player (Yes, before Shaq, the Magic’s only jersey retired was No. 6 for “The Sixth Man,” a.k.a the fans)....

The NBA's participation policy wasn't meant for guys like Dorian Finney-Smith
The NBA likely implemented its player participation policy — read: anti-load management protocol — so that fans wouldn’t attend games only to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis, or Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, in street clothes. ...

NHL contenders have something of a goalie crisis
The NHL is almost certainly delighted that it’s seen an uptick in scoring the past three seasons (though down a skosh this season from last). It probably should pull a muscle patting itself on the back for the crackdown on goalie equipment leading to lower average save percentages across the Origina...