mat Page 55 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Sooners’ planned move to the SEC might’ve pushed Riley to USC
There were too many openings at too many big colleges for a notable school or two not to be on the losing side even after being on the side of winning for so long. In a not so subtle reminder that there’s always a bigger fish, Lincoln Riley opted for Southern California rather than the Southeastern ...

As rivalry week comes to a close, what does the CFP picture look like now?
It took 10 years for Michigan to beat Ohio State, and what feels like another 10 years in college football has passed since the Wolverines finally claimed their first-ever spot in a Big Ten championship game....

Max Scherzer is the big name (so far) in this week’s frenzy, but does it mean anything?
No, I’m not asking, “Does it mean anything for the Mets?” Because as we all know, everything is meaningless to the Mets. Look for Scherzer to head for an MRI in June and discover that there are dozens of tiny, ambulatory gummy bears living in there. This is the Mets, after all. ...

Dmitry Kulikov is the best defenseman in the NHL (just go with me on this)
It’s a sensationalist headline, and obviously one I don’t truly believe, at least fully. That doesn’t make it a lie either, and Kulikov sums up the Minnesota Wild’s surprising start that has them atop the Central Division by four points. ...

Start spreading the news, the Green Bay Packers are scary good
The scariest thing about the Green Bay Packers is that they will only get better as the season goes on....

Why did anyone think an ex-Lion would help?
In some ways, NFL teams and fanbases can be a lot like that friend you have who makes terrible romantic choices. No matter how many times you explain to them that no, they can’t “fix” that person, or “save” them, they still try. And it always ends in tears when said romantic prospect turns out to be...

Week 12 NFL Powerless Ranking: All around the world same song
We’re in the second half of the NFL season, and we can separate the contenders from the pretenders. We’ll talk about the contenders later because this list is about the less fortunate teams in the league. Let’s check out the worst of the worst from Week 12. Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Ranki...

Week 12 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser, and Prop Bets
If CeeDee Lamb didn’t get hurt leading up to halftime, the column was looking at a 4-0 week. Instead, we took an otherwise delicious 3-1 showing going into Thanksgiving. Let’s be thankful for not having action on any of those wacky games and opting to wait till the weekend....

Revisiting the Bears' absurd offer for Russell Wilson
The most recent NFL offseason was so chock full of Aaron Rodgers news that it’s easy to forget all the drama that surrounded Russell Wilson and his relationship with the Seattle Seahawks. While Wilson claimed he wanted to remain in Seattle, he did express discontent with how team personnel decisions...

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is my college football team to be good
The idea of getting back to a previous, dominant form is antithetical to moving forward. By looking back and chasing past eras, schools like USC, Miami, Nebraska and others are envisioning levels of dominance that are extremely rare and difficult to replicate — or in some cases *cough* Texas *cough*...

Here are some more billionaire tears for you to drink up
The temptation is to label the Mets’ offseason a disaster so far, except that it doesn’t seem so out of character for the Mets. It’s kind of just a Mets offseason. Maybe it’s accentuated and louder than a normal Mets offseason, but the foundation is still very much the Queens baseball club. A clown ...

‘Fire Nagy’ chants popping up everywhere — including at his son’s HS game — is going too far
Bears fans, I know you’re upset. This season has been a disaster. They haven’t won a game since Oct. 10, and their most recent loss is to the Baltimore Ravens sans Lamar Jackson. Chicago’s defense has been disappointing, and the offense… has been somewhere between atrocious and promising all season,...

Bears look like Lions’ best shot at a win this year
It’s been nearly a year since the Detroit Lions won a football game. In early December 2020, they managed a 34-30 victory over the Bears, before dropping the last four games of the season. In 2021, Dan Campbell’s squad dropped eight straight — until, rejoice, rejoice, a tie against the Steelers a fe...

Darryl Sutter might look like Sam the Eagle but he’s doing that thing again
Merely by looking at him, and certainly when you hear him talk, it’s easy to dismiss Darryl Sutter as the hilt of old-school NHL coaches. Throw in the fact that he was nothing more than a bottom-six grinder in his playing career, and you’d be forgiven for concluding that he would send his teams out ...

Hey, look over here, the Suns look like title contenders again
Chris Paul is like that overachieving student who never gets enough credit for doing more than the assignment required. Yes, Chris, your diorama features impeccable detail, but I don’t have a grade higher than an A+ to give you, and you already have enough extra credit that you could not show up for...

Home wasn’t the cure for the cursed Islanders
Things were stacked against the New York Islanders before a puck was even dropped this season. The new UBS Arena, which would end this weird New York area odyssey they’ve been on since that ill-fated decision to play at Barclays Arena, which didn’t ever plan for hockey, wasn’t ready until this past ...

I’m almost free
When you’re a fan of a team, you can’t really identify some threshold or benchmark before you know a coach will be fired. You can say before a season that this record wouldn’t be good enough, but you can never be sure, especially when it comes to the Chicago Bears. After all, all of us Bears fans we...

It turns out Jalen Hurts is good when he gets help from the rushing game
The Philadelphia Eagles are just one of many unanswerable questions in the NFL this year. Their record says they’re bad. Their quality of opponent and matchup data says they’re good. They just handed the Broncos a three-possession loss, and the Broncos were just one week removed from handing the Dal...

Someone please think of the children of Chicago and spare them from Matt Nagy's coaching
Can Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy do anything right? The supposed “offensive genius” currently has Chicago ranking second to last in total offense — more than 20 yards behind the third-worst team, Seattle — and tied WITH DETROIT for the third-fewest points scored in the NFL this season. Nagy has more ...

Trevor Bauer joins the worst people in America in celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse
Kyle Rittenhouse got away with murder, acquitted on all charges in the two killings that he admitted to last year, because he was able to convince a Wisconsin jury, with the help of a sympathetic-to-say-the-least judge, that he was acting in self-defense after having brought a rifle across state lin...