nit Page 133 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Gardner Minshew may have had <em>Top Gun</em> on the brain, but he needs to operate the Eagles like a 747 today
America’s favorite hipster quarterback is making his return to the field today. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is out with an ankle injury, so for the first time since Week 14 of the 2020 season, Gardner Minshew II will be starting in an NFL game....

CFP is as easy as 1-2-3… or 2-3-4
For weeks, we’ve been dissecting, diagramming, and divining what the College Football Playoff might or should look like at the end of this zany season, and then Saturday’s conference championships came along and made everything pretty darn clear....

Burnt ends and burned bridges
All news is local, and The Columbian got a doozy of a local story out of now-LSU coach Brian Kelly’s sudden decision to bolt from Notre Dame this week....

Presenting Brian Kelly, Southern gentleman
Brian Kelly’s been down South for all of 72 hours and is ready to challenge every last person who said that he wouldn’t be a culture fit at LSU. You want a culture fit? How’s a brand-spanking-new Southern accent for a culture fit? As Kelly took the floor at halftime of the LSU basketball game Wednes...

Who wants the Arizona Coyotes?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but rumors have started that the Arizona Coyotes could be sold and moved to Houston. I know, it’s been a whole 12 minutes since the last one:...

Antonio Brown’s chef turns out to be a whistleblower!
Turns out the chef was telling the truth! Bucs’ wide receiver Antonio Brown has been suspended by the NFL for three games without pay after “misrepresenting” his COVID vaccination status to the league....

Notre Dame players and fans rally around new coach Marcus Freeman
As the 48-hour mark neared since the news of Brian Kelly’s sudden and shocking departure broke, the Notre Dame football program and fanbase were still reeling. Kelly had hopped on a plane to Baton Rouge on Tuesday morning, at which point LSU quickly began churning out content about winning champions...

Rafa Benitez has become what he beheld
Deep down, Liverpool supporters would tell you they didn’t want to do this to Rafa Benitez when he was announced as Everton’s manager before the season. Or, to put it more accurately, they didn’t want to have to do this. Benitez is still, and will always, be loved by the red half of Liverpool for br...

Wait, I thought the NBA was lowering the age for draft eligibility?
The G League celebrated its 20th season of competition this season but is only on its second of genuine interest to NBA fans. Instead of the occasional player who makes the leap from AAA to a rotation player or a raw draft pick trying to hone their skills, there wasn’t too much to get amped about un...

Happy Birthday, Aaron Rodgers! You’re still a selfish liar
The Aaron Rodgers “farewell to Green Bay” tour bus keeps rolling along and has claimed a few more bystanders that were run into, then backed over, in the process. This time it’s the Packers’ coaching staff catching the brunt of this blame game Rodgers loves to play....

The NFL has a diversity coaching fellowship named after Bill Walsh – a white dude
The NFL sent out a press release this week that screamed, “Hey look, we did a good thing,” while being completely oblivious to the fact that their actions were shameful – which is very on brand for this league....

Would you look at that — the Dolphins and Tua finally showed up this season
It’s amazing how far above average quarterback play can get you in the NFL. A lot of these teams trying to crack the hard candy shell of contending — the Broncos, Dolphins, Falcons, Colts — can take leaps with the right QB, and in the Bucs case, win it all. ...

Idiot of the Month: November’s most mind-blowing acts of stupidity
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! The year is almost over, mercifully. Here are some people who stood out in November for doing dumb things....

MLS is just silly, and it loves it, apparently
The MLS playoffs concluded their second round last night, with some of its trademark goofiness. And in true nothing-means-anything fashion of the whole league, both No. 1 seeds failed to win a game....

Blake Griffin was blindsided by his benching, and the end could be closer than he’d imagined
Former No. 1 overall pick and slam dunk champion Blake Griffin received a rude awakening recently when he was not only benched by head coach Steve Nash but removed from the Nets’ rotation altogether. LaMarcus Aldridge certainly appears to have more left in the tank than Griffin, so being replaced by...

Please God, just anyone but Urban Meyer
I, along with the rest of the Notre Dame fanbase, was hit with an absolute punch in the gut yesterday that has thrown me for the loop of my life. Maybe Jack Swarbrick saw this coming, but this announcement was a complete blindside to everyone else involved with Notre Dame football, players included....

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 ...

Devin Booker is staking his claim for the crown of best shooting guard in the NBA and he’s got a damn good argument
Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker is following in the footsteps of his mentor, Kobe Bryant, staking his claim as the best at his position in the NBA. Like Bryant, it’s taken Booker a few years to scale that mountain of elite two-guards, but I think we can say he has arrived at the peak....

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. ...

A white athletic director told a Black HS player he got his speed from ‘running from the police’ – Tony Humphrey took his power back by walking away from that school
One of the things that make sports so beautiful is that they are an example of people coming together from different walks of life all in the name of the team. Black, white, gay, straight, male, female, non-binary, it doesn’t matter – they’re are all playing for the name on the front of their jersey...