npr Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Adam Thielen Blows Up Over Medical Timeout, Passes Concussion Protocol, Scores Touchdown
Adam Thielen got pretty well smashed on an incomplete pass from Kirk Cousins in the third quarter of Thursday night’s Vikings-Rams game. Thielen had the ball, but Cory Littleton’s forearm and then Cory Littleton’s knee crashed into Thielen’s head and jarred the ball loose, and Thielen seemed like he...

32 Paragraphs About 32 Teams: A Thinking Fan's Guide To The NFL Season
The following is excerpted from the team chapters of the always-excellent Football Outsiders Almanac. Buy it here as a PDF, or here in print....

This Triple Play Confused The Hell Out Of Everyone Involved<em></em>
Triple plays are always cool, but the best instances are the ones that leave everyone—fielders, runners, fans, broadcasters—kind of confused about what exactly just happened. Last night’s Angels-Rangers game gave us one of those....

Masa Saito Was A Great Wrestler And Half Of Pro Wrestling's Most Famous Arrest
Masanori “Masa” Saito, known as Mr. Saito to a generation of American wrestling fans, passed away at the age of 76 last weekend following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. An Olympic freestyle wrestler in 1964, Saito was a legendarily hard man and among the most universally respected people ...

ROH And NJPW Just Ended WWE's 58-Year Stranglehold On Madison Square Garden
Decades of pro wrestling history were upended via joint press release on Thursday when Ring of Honor, New Japan, and Madison Square Garden announced a joint show at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” for April 6, 2019. Unless an unannounced (but previously reported) planned show from Mexican promotion ...

Someone's Lying About How A Sex Offender Got On Kenny Omega's NJPW Show
For wrestling fans, last Friday was a great night to stay in. The night was packed with free or cheap live pro wrestling streaming, with the three highest profile shows coming from companies that have a strong working agreement. New Japan Pro Wrestling had its roster spread across two of three simul...

Why Your Children's Television Program Sucks: <i>Transformers Prime</i>
A look at the awful children’s programming you’re forced to endure before you can finally kick the kids out of the TV room to watch sports for eight hours....

Announcers Go Nuts As AB de Villiers Jacks Huge Dinger Right Out Of The Stadium<em></em>
There is a cricket ball bouncing down the streets of Bangalore right now after legendary batsman AB de Villiers cranked an enormous dong entirely out of M. Chinnaswamy Stadium....

The "All In" Anti-WWE Supershow Sold More Than 10,000 Tickets. What's Next?
One year ago today, a random Twitter user tweeted at Wrestling Observer Newsletter editor Dave Meltzer to ask if he thought that Ring of Honor, the number two pro wrestling promotion in the United States, could sell out a 10,000 seat arena. Meltzer didn’t think so, but Cody Rhodes, a regular in the ...

Ethiopian Soccer Coach Fired For Socking A Ref In The Face
Video replay in soccer sucks, but goal line technology is great. The biggest advocate for the introduction of this tech in Ethiopian soccer is probably the referee of this weekend’s Defence Force vs. Welwalo Adigrat match, since it probably would’ve saved him from getting fed this fist sandwich:...

Why Your Children's Television Program Sucks: <i>Mighty Morphin Power Rangers</i>
A look at the awful children’s programming you’re forced to endure before you can finally kick the kids out of the TV room to watch sports for eight hours. Image by Jim Cooke....

Horrendously Sucky Reds Fire Bryan Price After 3-15 Start
The Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals have each won three games this season. Royals manager Ned Yost earned some slack since he’s three years removed from winning the World Series. Reds manager Bryan Price ... said the word “fuck” 77 times after losing a game in 2015. The team fired him today....

Jurickson Profar's Been Through the Damn Wringer
God, I feel so bad for Jurickson Profar. Once the consensus top overall prospect in baseball, Profar has spent the last few years sustaining and sort-of-recovering-from a series of increasingly strange injuries. That bad luck has reduced him from a franchise cornerstone to a guy who, at 25, mostly s...

The Most Fun Thing About Every Baseball Team This Year
There has, over the past several months, been plenty of conversation (and a few official rule changes) directed to answering the question of what baseball needs. Games need to be faster, or extra innings need to be spicier, or broadcasts need more mentions of launch angle. The spike in home runs is ...

MLB Season Preview: What You Need To Know For 40 Minutes Of Marlins Baseball
Aw shit yeah, buddies, it’s Opening Day! The good kind of Opening Day, too. One of those classics on which all 30 teams—well, except for the Nats and Reds and Tigers and Pirates, because their games have already been postponed—play on the same day and it’s non-stop baseball. I do have one piece of b...

Goalkeeper Tries To Pretend He Didn't Do The Incredibly Dumb Thing He Just Did
To throw a ball into one’s own net is the single worst thing a goalkeeper can do. To throw the ball into one’s own net, and for that colossal boner to not be the biggest takeaway from the incident in question, takes some serious work. So we doff our cap to this Ethiopian keeper who managed just that...

Russian Team Scores Late Game-Winning Goal In Most Assholish Way Possible
Good sportsmanship: seeing an opponent fall in pain while in the process of making an easy clearance and kicking the ball out of play. Bad sportsmanship: seeing an opponent fall in pain while in the process of making an easy clearance and stealing the ball from the injured fellow in order to go scor...

NFL Gets Sassy While Clearing Panthers Of Any Concussion Protocol Violations
When we last saw Cam Newton, he was once again at the center of an NFL concussion protocol controversy. After taking a blow to his head during his team’s playoff loss to the New Orleans Saints, Newton was slow to get up and eventually went to the ground as he tried to return to the sidelines. From a...
![Gronk Questionable To Return To AFC Championship After "Head Injury" [Update: He's Out]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/luffeuohhhvqykoimp8n.jpg)
Gronk Questionable To Return To AFC Championship After "Head Injury" [Update: He's Out]
Rob Gronkowski left the field in the first half of today’s AFC Championship after absorbing a helmet-to-helmet hit from Jaguars safety Barry Church. Tom Brady’s pass left Gronk in a vulnerable position stretching for the grab, and Church was flagged for unnecessary roughness. Gronk seemed wobbly on ...

Does The Panthers' Excuse For Cam Newton's Very Brief Concussion Exam Pass Muster?
The NFL and NFLPA are reportedly investigating the circumstances surrounding that massive hit to the brain Cam Newton took in the fourth quarter of yesterday’s loss to New Orleans. Newton was slow to get up after it happened. He fell to the ground as he left the field. He was tested for a concussion...