mot Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Old Football Man hates those sissy rules that protect players
Cue the “old man yells at cloud” Simpsons headline — Hall of Fame coach Bud Grant, who turned 95 yesterday, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he thinks the “boring” parts of football, including fair catches, kneels to end the game, and touchbacks, should be removed from the game. Now, to you an...

Mets fans are going to need some really strong anti-depressants to keep up the optimism
Pete Alonso’s two-run walkoff homer in the 10th inning Thursday improved the New York Mets’ record to 26-14, which is good for the second-most wins in baseball and a six-and-a-half-game lead in the NL East. They have a +44 run differential, put up the fourth most runs in the MLB, and boast the leagu...

Greg Norman still choking on things at age 67
It’s good to see legendary choke artist Greg Norman is still gagging up something. It wasn’t a major championship lead this time, it was a hot take that’s pretty scorching even for someone shilling for a new golf league. Speaking at a promotional event for the new Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, the f...

The good, the bad, and the unknown in athlete investments
Whenever I hear about crypto crashing, I think of the Simpsons episode where the tech bubble bursts and a young startup nerd gives Lisa company stock from a spool of toilet paper. (The joke was tech stocks were so abundant and worthless that their only concrete value was using them to wipe your ass....

Phil Mickelson’s transformation into Shooter McGavin is almost complete
No wonder Phil Mickelson has been hiding out in Dagobah — or is it Elba? Golf’s second-biggest name, who has taken a self-imposed hiatus since his comments on working with a Saudi-backed golf league went viral for all the wrong reasons, is getting the unauthorized biography treatment from Alan Shipn...

What is it, you would say, Donald Fehr does here?
You knew it was trouble as soon as the NHLPA announced it would put out the results of their investigation into the union’s handling of Kyle Beach on a Friday. It’s surprising that organizations haven’t figured out that everyone sees through a Friday newsdump. That suspicion only grew exponentially ...

PGA commissioner cites complacent business plan as proof it isn’t complacent
Denying complacency is a telltale sign of complacency. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan did just that when he said the tour has “zero complacency” while addressing the rival Saudi golf league with the urgency of someone conducting business on the turn. ...


With the MLB trying so little to end the lockout, here are other things they could try less at, too
I’ve seen disgruntled NBA superstars dogging it because they want to be traded, try harder than the MLB has tried to end this lockout. All parties bear some of the onus over these extended, aggravating negotiations, but when given the choice between ripping the proverbial Man, or ripping the people ...

Debacle on ice: Olympics women’s figure skating was the opposite of heartwarming
The scene after the end of the women’s free skate was hard to watch Thursday — tears, screaming, and heartbreak pouring from the Russian athletes expected to sweep the podium, their Olympic experience destroyed by a doping scandal involving the country’s 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva....

Super Bowl Ads Roundup: More cameo than commercial
It feels like tweens put more effort into their TikToks than ad agencies put man hours into Super Bowl ads. Feature a celebrity endorsement — or six — into a commercial and we’re good, right? Don Draper called Peggy Olsen lazy for pitching a Joe Namath cameo in the ’60s, and here we are, 60 years la...

Meet Kenny Washington, the man who broke the NFL's color barrier
LOS ANGELES — There is a lot going on in the NFL shop at the Los Angeles Convention Center. There’s a section for Los Angeles Rams gear, Cincinnati Bengals gear, a place to customize your own gear, places for memorabilia such as autographed helmets and portraits, and a DJ. At the entrance of that NF...

Pro Bowl has become definition of irrelevant for the NFL
The NFL Pro Bowl used to be one of the more exciting parts of the football season, but over the years has become as irrelevant as Motorola’s two-way pager. Watching the most outstanding players the game has to offer each year at the same time has now been reduced to nothing more than filler in betwe...

Let both offenses touch the ball in playoff overtime
I feel like we have this conversation every other year. When a beloved team loses in overtime without their offense ever taking the field, NFL fans get divided into two extreme camps. ...

Josh Allen deserved so much better
Josh Allen had a spectacular postseason. A top-tier showing in NFL history. And it’s over after two games, eight quarters away from a probable lift of the Lombardi Trophy....

Curry’s first buzzer beater, Irving’s ‘breakthrough’ game, and more from a busy NBA Friday
Friday night was a “drink and you missed it” kind of night in the NBA, so if you didn’t catch (or forgot) the many highlights because you went out to dinner, the bar, a buddy’s place, or somewhere else other than in front of your TV watching games, allow me to fill you in while you scroll through yo...

Want to know who’s going to win this weekend? Just look at each team’s last game against the Bears
Sports betting is becoming more and more prevalent in the average sports fan’s life. In 2021, DraftKings saw a 60 percent increase in third-quarter revenue from a year prior. Compared to other countries with more mature gambling systems already in place like the UK, only four percent of gross gaming...

Remember when Novak Djokovic called out Naomi Osaka for not following the rules?
I’m as sick of Novak Djokovic as you are, and as my colleague Grace McDermott wrote yesterday, we’d stop writing about him if he’d stop making us. ...

Screw the celebrity boxing nonsense, let’s get Canelo Alvarez and Jermall Charlo in the ring ASAP
The biggest attraction in legitimate boxing, Canelo Alvarez, could be announcing his next major championship fight soon. The bout that seemed like a pipedream just a few short months ago, pitting Canelo against Jermall Charlo, now has the chance of coming to fruition by May. According to ESPN’s Mike...

Let’s go Brandon? Let’s stop the nonsense
Brandon Brown is the most famous race car driver in America, an incredible thing for a 28-year-old in the second-tier NASCAR Xfinity Series who has won exactly one race since moving up from the NASCAR truck series, where he was winless with only one top-10 finish in 22 races over four seasons....