owl Page 116 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Will we actually see an NBA Finals without LeBron?
We might be in store for something very rare in the NBA — a Finals that doesn’t include LeBron James. With the Lakers down 3-2 to the Phoenix Suns, the possibility is becoming more and more likely that the defending champs won’t make it out of the first round. Not seeing Lebron making a deep playoff...

Ertz so good, but he’s 31
Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz is a 3-time Pro Bowler, Super Bowl champ, and husband to a gold medalist soccer player. Those are some pretty solid accomplishments. Mr. Julie Ertz is just two years removed from a Pro Bowl season in which he caught 88 passes for 916 yards and six touchdowns. ...

Naomi Osaka was bullied out of the French Open
In 2006, Zach Greinke almost quit baseball. Racked with social anxiety, Greinke told the media he thought, “Why am I putting myself through torture when I didn’t really want to do it? I mean, I enjoyed playing, but everything else that went with it I didn’t.”...

Why is 6-foot-3 Mac Jones suddenly being criticized for his lack of size?
We judge a lot of things based on size: Texas BBQ, television monitors, people’s homes, yadda yadda yadda. NFL quarterbacks are no exception. Everything about them gets judged based on their size. Not even Joe Burrow’s hands were exempt from the harsh eye of NFL media. As OTA’s have kicked off acros...

Matt Nagy being on the hot seat in Chicago makes zero sense (to non-Bears fans)
When the Chicago Bears shocked the NFL world by trading up nine spots to select Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields with the 11th overall pick, the entire football world applauded Chicago for such a great move. The lack of a consistent starting quarterback had been the biggest elephant on the Bears...

NFL’s all-time scoring leader packs up his legendary cleats
Kickers are people too, and Adam Vinatieri is the greatest kicker of all time. Put some damn respect on his name. The 48-year old veteran, who is the all-time leading scorer in NFL history, announced his retirement yesterday on the Pat McAfee Show....

Aaron Rodgers singing Taylor Swift makes it seem the Packers aren’t <i>the 1</i>
Aaron Rodgers is out here singing Taylor Swift’s the 1 on camera, yeah it might be wraps for the Packers....

Cincy has a true leader in Burrow, too bad the Bengals aren’t treating him like one
Joe Burrow makes me want to run through a brick wall head first, and I’m not even a Bengals fan....

People are yelling about the Cowboys letting another player wear Tony Romo’s No. 9, because everything’s louder in Texas
Retiring jerseys is kinda a weird thing. Across all sports, each team has their own process. Some retire numbers liberally (ahem, ex-New York Yankees Nos. 1 through 10), and others have retired the numbers of seemingly unworthy players, like the Oklahoma City Thunder retiring… Nick Collison’s No. 4....

Run the NBA play-in tournament as a series of high-stakes gauntlet matches
The NBA wants to have an in-season tournament, and a lot of the reaction to this idea is that it’s terrible, that it’s basketball trying to be soccer, that it’s a huge waste of time....

Who are the oldest champions in sports?
Sports aren’t always a young person’s game....

The rhinestone goat is worthy of Simone Biles
Before yesterday, I had no idea what a Yurchenko double pike was. But Simone Biles taught me, and probably some of you, last night....

Falcons would be nuts if they let Julio Jones escape to Patriots
The Patriots have reportedly been weighing the idea of trading for Julio Jones, and the seven-time Pro Bowl receiver is said to be interested in going to New England, so it makes all the sense in the world for the Falcons not to trade him....

The 21 best multi-sport athletes of the 21st century (yes, there are that many!)
Tim Tebow is attempting a return to football, attending minicamp with the Jacksonville Jaguars, this time as a tight end after he ran out of chances as a quarterback in 2015 when the Philadelphia Eagles cut him. In the interim, Tebow pursued a baseball career, making it as far as Triple-A in the Met...

Which team would most benefit from adding Julio Jones?
Quintorris Lopez Jones — more commonly known as Julio Jones — has been an Atlanta Falcon his entire Hall of Fame career. But with new weapons in town, team money problems, and 32 candles on his birthday cake this year, Jones and the Falcons may be parting ways before the start of 2021....

Cam Heyward thinks 2021 first-round pick Najee Harris has legs of steel
When a team drafts a running back in the first round of the NFL Draft, everyone expects him to carry a heavy workload for his new team (especially when his legs look like tree trunks), but Pittsburgh’s Cam Heyward might be expecting a little bit too much out of his new teammate, Najee Harris. ...

Hey, the NHL playoffs are actually pretty great
Playoff hockey is really cool, and my Twitter timeline seems to agree. It was littered yesterday with tweets echoing the sentiment that playoff hockey is the best of sports. I have to be honest — even my football-loving heart would agree. Seemingly every year, there’s a physicality and an intensity ...

The Gut ‘lets the belly breathe’
Quinn Meinerz gives us all belly laughs — literally...

Aaron Jones’ twin brother is getting another shot to play in Green Bay
Rookie mini-camp is an exciting time for all involved. It gives the new guys their first opportunity to strut their stuff in front of their coaches and teammates. Plus, it gives football-hungry fans something to talk about for a little over a week until we inevitably realize that the NFL season is s...

Happy 38th birthday to the indestructible Frank Gore, who deserves a Hall of Fame bust with a bow on it
Today, Frank Gore is another year older. At a spry (by NFL standards) 38 years old, he’s at the age when he’s outlasting quarterbacks, which is just not something running backs get to do....