nf Page 873 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights


TV Ratings For Ravens-Broncos Were Bananas
The NFL is invincible. After a season of unnecessary distractions and safety crises and owner collusion and labor stoppages, in the course of two days the sport managed to put on two games that were so good they make you want to run through a fucking brick wall. Saturday's slugfest in Denver and yes...

Brendon Ayanbadejo Is Already Chirping About The Patriots' "Gimmick" Offense
Ravens LB Brendon Ayanbadejo made headlines last summer when he very publicly announced his support of Maryland's gay-marriage referendum. Now he's opening himself up to an even more hateful bunch of opponents—Pats fans. (See?) Ayanbadejo didn't even wait for New England to finish its asskicking of ...

Denver's CBS Affiliate Seems Really Confused About Which Teams Are Playing In The AFC Championship
As you already know, the Denver Broncos fell this weekend to the Baltimore Ravens in a double-OT thriller. The city of Denver, it seems, is still a bit in denial. Here's a graphic that ran during last night's 6 p.m. newscast, one that's exceptionally bizarre to the point you wonder how it got on TV...

Fox Gets Conservative: Did The Denver Coach's Risk-Averse Strategy Cost The Broncos A Playoff Victory?
NFL coaches will often refer to "playing the percentages." But if there's one thing I've learned by studying strategic decisions, it's that coaches don't have a firm grasp of those percentages. And when anyone is uncertain of the odds, he'll fall back on the sure thing. That was the case with Bronco...

Titans Wide Receiver Kenny Britt Wanted For Questioning In Connection With His Brother's Stabbing
Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt dropped off his recently stabbed younger brother at a Jersey City hospital late on Saturday night, and has not spent his Sunday cooperating with the subsequent police investigation. The Jersey Journal reports:...
![Atlanta Finally Wins A Playoff Game And Brandon Spikes Over-Celebrates: Falcons-Seahawks And Patriots-Texans, In GIFs [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18bf2wkhhylx6gif.gif)
Atlanta Finally Wins A Playoff Game And Brandon Spikes Over-Celebrates: Falcons-Seahawks And Patriots-Texans, In GIFs [Updated]
Here's where we're putting all of our divisional round GIFs for the Falcons' tense win over the Seahawks and the Patriots' not-so-tense win over the Texans. Click through for everything from Richard Sherman clap-clap-clapping in Roddy White's face (after losing him in coverage) to Bill Belichick ne...

The Mayor Of Denver Has To Do The Ray Lewis Dance Now
Mayors of rival cities make cities make light-hearted bets on the outcome of sporting events all the time. Just yesterday the Packers-49ers game had chocolates, cheese curds, sparkling wine, "a free admission day to the Children's Museum" and bread, beer, more chocolates and a "a free admission day ...

Reminder: Peyton Manning Still Better Than Tim Tebow
Broncos fans should be used to this by now: a big time, Super Bowl-winning quarterback lost to an obviously lesser quarterback in an overtime classic in Denver. The comparisons have been as inescapable as they are stupid:...

Jason Taylor Went Through Absolute Hell To Play Football
If it wasn't already obvious that football players are bad at diagnosing their own injuries—and that football is an immensely brutal game—Dan LeBatard's story about Jason Taylor in today's Miami Herald drives the point home in graphic detail:...

Justin Tucker's Practice Kicks Before His Game-Winner Were Not Allowed, But They Were Also Not Not Allowed
Before Justin Tucker made the field goal that ended the the fifth longest game in NFL history yesterday, he jogged onto the field between the two overtimes and had an assistant coach hold the ball for him while he practiced his kicks. Champ Bailey was dismayed, as you can see in the video above, b...

Roger Goodell Thinks That Robert Griffin III Knee Injury Saga Played Out Just Fine
The problem with football players is that they they're born not wanting to act in their own best interests, especially with regards to their long-term health. That's why they play football. In theory, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be acting in his own best interest by acting in theirs—after ...

A Summit Of Two Of The Most Widely Loved And Reviled Football Players In The NFL Took Place After Ravens-Broncos
A tableau: Peyton Manning and Ray Lewis talking in a Mile High Stadium locker room, 90 minutes after the end of the pitched battle that was their AFC divisional playoff matchup, 85 minutes after Ray Lewis yelled Bible verse at Solomon Wilcots, and about six hours after the game started. There's just...

Watch Ray Lewis Yell About Weapons After The Ravens Beat The Broncos
Here's Ray Lewis's response to Solomon Wilcots's first post-game question after the Ravens beat the Broncos in double overtime. He's quoting Isaiah 54:17, which in the New King James Version reads:...
![Infinite Manningfaces For The Game Of The Year And Colin Kaepernick Fooling All Of Wisconsin: Saturday's NFL Playoff Games, In GIFs [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18bbm90l4gtejgif.gif)
Infinite Manningfaces For The Game Of The Year And Colin Kaepernick Fooling All Of Wisconsin: Saturday's NFL Playoff Games, In GIFs [Updated]
Here's where we're stashing all of our GIFs for today's AFC and NFC divisional playoff games in Denver and San Francisco. Click through for the highlights, from Peyton Manning making many variations on that face, to Colin Kaepernick using a fake handoff to trick the Green Bay defense, score a touchd...

The Philadelphia Eagles Can't Buy A Coach
We've had our laughs about the various coaching firings and hirings in the NFL in the wake of the NFL's Black Monday: Getting rid of Lovie Smith made no sense, Rex Ryan went to the Bahamas and everyone thought maybe he'd been fired, Doug Marrone got hired on the strength of sort of turning around Sy...

Your Divisional Playoffs Open Thread
Baltimore at Denver, 4:30 p.m. (CBS): It'll be cold and probably lopsided, but the first thing might negate the second thing, so who knows. It'll also either be the last game of Ray Lewis's career or the last game of Peyton Manning's much-ballyhooed comeback season, so there are good schadenfreude ...

Cold Weather Football Is The Best: Answering All Your Questions About Today's 20° Below Freezing AFC Divisional Game
So, what's the weather going to be like in Denver today? Accuweather says it's currently 12° Fahrenheit. The high today is 16°, and the temperature is expected to drop back down to 8° by the evening, when the game will be finishing up. There will be snow, too, if not blankets of it: Flurries fell a...

New Browns Head Coach Rob Chudzinski May Have The Clevelandest Surname In The NFL
As strange as it was to see the Browns fire Pat Shurmur after a 5-11 season—after all, isn't that merely upholding The Browns Way?—it seemed even more peculiar for them to hire in his place a 44-year-old without a lick of NFL head-coaching experience....
