nwa Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Check it out: The reason we know what players get paid
Just before Major League Baseball’s lockout began, the Mets signed Max Scherzer to a three-year, $130 million contract, a $43.3 million annual average that set a new record and also set a talking point for the labor dispute to come....

Centers aren’t extinct, they’ve just evolved
As humans, we tend to eulogize the extinct with reverence. The Dodo Bird. The Rocky Mountain Locust. The Golden Toad. And why wouldn’t we? It was us who eradicated these precious, sentient creatures. Some theorists would argue it had to do with their inability to adapt. But what if things are adapti...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Tony La Russa, Tommy Tuberville, every NFL referee, and other esteemed dummies
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

Stats don't lie: Tua is one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the NFL
Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has not played poorly in his NFL career. He’s got a 10-7 record as a starter and, believe it or not, he recorded the 10th-highest passer rating for a qualified rookie quarterback since 2000 last year. Despite those numbers though, when compared to the two q...

And just like that… (poof)... NXT is gone
It’s not that it was surprising. Back when WWE announced it was completely reshaping it’s junior brand, NXT, I wrote that it would be the end of what fans of the black and gold had come to love. I guess I’m just impressed (while simultaneously depressed) at how ruthlessly and efficiently it came to ...

So it really wasn’t necessary to blow up the Dolphins a second time after all
It was all over for the Miami Dolphins after the trade deadline. They were willing to sell all of their credibility and goodwill to trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, despite the whole “Tanking for Tua [Tagovailoa]” hashtag in 2019. The No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft did ...

Rockets are stuck in a staring contest with John Wall and there’s no end in sight
If you want to know who has the sweetest gig in America right now, look no further than John Wall of the Houston Rockets. Wall isn’t rehabbing an injury for the first time in years, he’s supposed to be 100 percent healthy, yet he has not suited up for one of Houston’s first 23 games this season....

Here’s a workaround for enjoying Alabama’s talent without enduring ‘Roll Tide!’ chants
As a life ethos, I don’t watch Alabama unless it’s the title game. Not the SEC title game, THE title game. I take that back, I watch the title game and as much of the Tennessee-Alabama game as my girlfriend can stand. They’re too good even for their loaded conference, so save for a title game or ups...

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. ...

Brian Kelly broke up by text after the second date
If you’re a Notre Dame fan, and I assume you’re done trashing your underground hovel and listening to your entire Bob Seger collection, you can look forward to the fact that you’re only about 10 months away from watching Brian Kelly getting his brains beaten in by various SEC schools. It’s a cold wo...

Michael Wacha now playing at the park that saw his star-turn, twice
Michael Wacha is trending toward journeyman status as the starting pitcher is now on his fourth team in as many seasons, inking a one-year deal with the Boston Red Sox on Saturday. The interesting aspect isn’t his effect on Boston’s starting rotation, but rather that he’s playing in the park where h...

Corporate names on sports venues are dumb, we have suggestions
Sick of corporate names on your sports stadiums and arenas? So are we. So, let’s fix it, and get the names of all these places right, once and for all. ...

The world isn’t ready for the Cordarrelle Patterson HOF dilemma yet
Devin Hester is the greatest return man of all time. I don’t think that’s a very controversial opinion. Sure, some people might disagree, but in general, I imagine most people will either agree or understand how I could think he is. Hester was named to both the NFL Hall of Fame’s All-2000's and 2010...

A review of this week’s <em>Man in the Arena: Tom Brady</em> coming up as soon as I find literally anything else to watch
I don’t know how TV critics (like Alan Sepinwall) do their jobs when they’re forced to watch awful shows. How many spinoffs of rich people behaving poorly can you honestly consume before low-brow insults from high-class people lose their effect?...

If an athlete buys an ownership stake in a team and no one knows it, does it make a sound?
What’s the point of owning a sports franchise if you can’t make irresponsible trades, overpay role players, furtively watch from a dimly lit owner’s box or make Roger Goodell eat shit?...

Marcus Stroman cuts the Yankees instead of his hair
The Yankees’ policy on personal appearance has long been worthy of mockery, and mockery it has received, for decades, going back to Don Mattingly’s appearance on The Simpsons, when Montgomery Burns kept telling the first baseman to cut his sideburns....

Adam Schefter wows us once again with his journalistic integrity
The NFL-Adam Schefter Pipeline hit another kink yesterday when the ESPN insider reported on a tip from Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook’s agent, alleging that Cook was a victim of domestic violence and extortion. Just a few hours later, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that Cook’s forme...

Laugh at Michael Thomas the fantasy football entity, not the person
That friend of yours who thinks he’s smarter than your entire fantasy football league can finally drop Michael Thomas from their bench now. The Saints receiver had a season-ending setback while recovering from ankle surgery, and announced the news himself via Twitter:...

Deshaun Watson is staying with the Texans, but neither he nor the NFL look good at the conclusion of the trade deadline
It appears that Deshaun Watson will finish the 2021 season in purgatory with the Houston Texans. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport is reporting that the Texans granted Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross permission to meet with their quarterback on Monday night. He did not leave that meeting confident in Wat...

Victory for MSU! And I need more screens to watch all these great games
It’s one of those Saturdays where even a quadruple-screen setup isn’t enough to keep track of all of the college football fun. As Mike Golic, Jr. so eloquently put it three weekends ago, CFB is “full-blown illegal black market drugs today.” In one of the most fun overall seasons in recent memory, to...