nwa Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

DeMeco Ryans is the only choice for NFL Coach of the Year
Mike Tomlin still hasn’t had a losing season. Kevin Stefanski’s squad endured five different starting quarterbacks. Dan Campbell has the Detroit Lions hosting a playoff game and they’re the favorite. But, they all fail in comparison to what DeMeco Ryans has done in Houston. A rookie head coach has t...

The playoffs will not be easy for the Ravens and 49ers
The end of the NFL regular season is always a sad day. It signals that only four weeks of NFL games remain until the second week of September. That means I have to spend my next seven months of Sunday afternoons with commercials since there is no RedZone for the rest of the season. (Also, RedZone on...

The 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars had an unnatural loyalty to losing
The Jacksonville Jaguars began the 2023 season with a built-in advantage as the only playoff-ready team in a division of bottom-feeders. After last January’s Wild Card comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers, Trevor Lawrence was expected to continue his ascent both in the AFC and up the ranks of e...

The Texans are proof that serendipity is the NFL’s most valuable asset
Think about the Houston Texans’ path to this moment. After gutting out a win over the Indianapolis Colts, 23-19, on Saturday, DeMeco Ryans and CJ Stroud locked up a playoff spot in their rookie campaigns. The team that opted out of hiring Josh McCown because it didn’t want to get sued also let the C...

NFL scriptwriters couldn’t have penned a better ending to the regular season than Bills-Dolphins
Give the NFL credit. The league obviously hired writers from disparate backgrounds to arrange the season’s plotlines. On Sunday, the Week 18 finale will climax with an end-of-season clash of genres between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who couldn’t be more different. The Dolphins even have a...

This week in the NFL: Travis Kelce is not pleased; Russell Wilson done in Denver?; Antonio Pierce disrespected in Vegas
Travic Kelce let it all out on an episode of his “New Heights” podcast with brother and Philadelphia Eagles center Jason. After the Chiefs lost three of their last four games, Travis called it “a frustrating f**king experience” and said that everyone – including himself – is contributing to the offe...

Where will Russell Wilson go now that Denver cut him?
Updated March 4: The Denver Broncos will release Russell Wilson, as had been speculated. The team will be hit with a record $85 million dead salary cap charge for cutting the veteran QB. ...

The Broncos have money problems with Russell Wilson, but at least they’re not the Browns
In case I did not make myself clear on Tuesday, the Deshaun Watson contract is never happening again. In the future, no NFL player will ever receive a fully guaranteed contract. For one thing, Patrick Mahomes is not going to push the Kansas City Chiefs for that type of deal. Two, when the Denver Bro...

Reminder: Joe Flacco was Nick Foles before Nick Foles
The Cleveland Browns have officially hit “Riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” status. As long as they have a quarterback with some name recognition — be it Deshaun Watson or Joe Flacco — the team plays with the confidence of a much more dangerous organization. Kevin Stefanski’s club could ...

Lamar Jackson might win MVP, yet no other teams wanted him during the offseason?
It was about nine months ago when Lamar Jackson wanted to be traded from the Baltimore Ravens. The best quarterback in the history of two forever-linked franchises — the Ravens and the Cleveland Browns — was on the open market. Jackson is the only player besides Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes to ...

The Flyers are good right now, but having faith in them might be like believing in Santa Claus
For the past 10 years or so, the Flyers have just muddled. There has never been any particular direction. Sometimes they’ve been kinda good, but nowhere near good enough to do anything that mattered. Sometimes they’ve been kinda bad, occasionally really bad, but never by design with their sights set...

This week in football: Chiefs' act is getting so old; No Supe for Al Michaels; Tommy DeVito's stupid situation with the Giants
Full disclosure, I’ve never been on board with the Kansas City Chiefs. Sure, they were, for a while, the best team in America, with a young and exciting generational talent under center and a head coach who never had to answer for anything because he wears Hawaiian shirts, has a funny mustache, and ...

The Washington Wizards can't even tank properly
For some pro franchises, when it rains, it most certainly pours. The Washington Wizards entered the season with seemingly new life behind the acquisition of former Golden State Warrior Jordan Poole. Thus far, the tandem of Poole and Kyle Kuzma has been underwhelming, to say the least. The Wizards fe...

The Dolphins’ fatal flaw can’t be on the offensive side of the ball, can it?
The Miami Dolphins offense can cook like no other unit we’ve seen in a long time. Mike McDaniel has perfectly calibrated pre-snap motion, the running game, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and Tua Tagovailoa to form the Greatest Show on Surf. It’s a diabolical mix of talent and scheme that’s borderline im...

Ranking the NBA's rookie class so far (And No. 1 is not who you think it is)
With all the hyperbole around Victor Wembanyama being the next generational talent, it’s fair no one expected competition against him winning Rookie of the Year Award. But after sitting all last season due to an early leg injury — Chet Holmgren has beaten the injury-prone allegations to emerge as th...

Joe Flacco is doing something no one thought possible
There is a whole mess of teams clustered together with 7-6 records in the AFC. One of those teams is not the Cleveland Browns. Joe Flacco stepped in as a starting quarterback for the injured Deshaun Watson and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Even with Thompson-Robinson now healthy, head coach Kevin Stefan...

At least 1 person thinks Joe Flacco should start for Cleveland
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski has yet to name a starting quarterback for Cleveland’s upcoming game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. With Deshaun Watson sidelined for the season, the Browns have started three different signal-callers — rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson, journeyman backup P.J. W...

NFL quarterbacks are becoming an endangered species
It is hard enough to find a starting-caliber NFL quarterback. There certainly are not 32 in the league right now. Finding one in the draft is like discovering that your grandma’s furniture is a valuable antique. ...

Green Bay has this winning-franchise thing down to a science
The Green Bay Packers are one of the handful of NFL franchises that has done precious little losing since the turn of the millennium. Even in the decade prior to Y2K, they experienced sustained success. The Packers seem to have a firm grasp on NFL team building, including the most important part — q...

The contrived vilification of Malika Andrews has reached a tipping point
There’s no such thing as a good echo chamber. Eventually, bad narratives begin bouncing around, spreading and taking root at a cellular level. ...