nfl-playoffs Page 16 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Jim Harbaugh Put All Of His Players' High School Photos Above Their Lockers
It must be hard for NFL coaches to come up with fresh motivational techniques. You can't just slap a "Play Like A Champion" banner above the door or put some mean things that an opponent said about your quarterback on the bulletin board anymore. Those tactics are played out, and San Francisco 49ers...

Matt Bryant Went To His "Happy Place" Before His Game-Winning Kick
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: The Falcons kicker is a Happy Gilmore fan....

National Radio Announcers Just Couldn't Believe The Ravens Let The Clock Expire At The End Of The First OT Period
With all of the changes made to the NFL's overtime rules in recent years, anyone can be forgiven for not understanding some of the basics. But one detail that didn't change is what happens in a playoff game at the conclusion of the first overtime period: the teams move to the other side of the fie...

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 ...

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:...

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:...

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...

Mark Wahlberg Shouts Out The Falcons While Possibly Being Haunted By A Demon In A Football Jersey
D-Block is a video web series that is produced by the Atlanta Falcons linebacking corps and broadcast from the team's locker room. It's wonderful. Earlier this week, D-Block somehow managed to get a shout out from Mark Wahlberg while he was promoting his latest movie, Broken City....

Injured Christian Ponder Couldn't Throw The Ball Farther Than 10 Yards
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: But then, Joe Webb couldn't really either....

The Man The Seahawks Signed To Replace Chris Clemons Hasn't Played In An NFL Game Since 2007
The Seahawks lost 31-year-old defensive end Chris Clemons to an ACL injury in Sunday night's game at Washington's green-painted dust bowl. 22-year-old rookie sack specialist Bruce Irvin will replace him in the starting lineup at the "Leo" position unique to Seattle's defense. Replacing him on the ro...

The Redskins May Have Been Pumping Artificial Crowd Noise Into The Stadium During Yesterday's Game
This morning, DC sports blogger Dan Steinberg retweeted a number of tweets from Redskins fans who claimed to have heard fake crowd noise coming from the FedExField PA system at yesterday's NFC Wild Card game....

Your NFL Wildcard Open Thread
Cincinnati at Houston (NBC), 4:30 p.m.: The Texans may have the superior record but they backed into the playoffs, losing three of their last four, while the Bengals haven't lost a game by more than one point since Week 9. Plus, it'd be more fun if they won, so root for them....

The Bengals Really Could Break Their 8,400-Day Playoff Winless Streak Today
For a summer in college I interned for the sports department of the Columbus Dispatch, which sent me for a few days to cover Cincinnati Bengals training camp. The 1990s had just come to a close—a dismal era even by the Bengals' standards—and the beat writers killed time during practice by stumping o...

Mercifully, Tony Siragusa Will Not Appear On Your Televisions This Playoff Season
Tony Siragusa's book entertained us, even though he lied in the course of promoting it. But he consistently fails to entertain us on NFL telecasts. He also consistently fails to inform us, about football or, for that matter, anything else. This sweater was the high point of his 2012. Kenny Albert an...