owl Page 41 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Florida State should boycott the Orange Bowl
If they’re going to shut you out, then don’t show up....

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...

If the NFL wanted good refereeing, it would have it
You do have to appreciate that the officiating crew on the league’s Sunday Night game, supposedly the marquee matchup of the week where the entire NFL world tunes in, was able to pack in so much moron-acy into one final drive. The density of clueless officiating in the last minute of Kansas City Chi...

Pittsburgh might have to ride the Mitch Trubisky wave to a playoff berth
Just when Pittsburgh Steeler fans thought it was safe to step out and feel confident about their offense, we had a Mitchell Trubisky sighting Sunday. The Steelers had been rolling, winning three out of their last four games entering Week 13's battle with Arizona. Trubisky came in after Kenny Pickett...

This year’s College Football Playoff controversy is the sport at its best
Amidst all the outrage and taunting on Sunday, I hope everyone took the time to enjoy the rush. A reminder about college sports: the athletes are not as good as the pros. The game is not nearly as polished. What makes up for the majority of participants having no chance at becoming well-paid profess...

The week in the NFL, college football: Sean McDermott facing heat, Deion Sanders fools everyone, Bobby Petrino gets another chance
The Buffalo Bills might be the biggest disappointment of this NFL season. A supposed Super Bowl contender, as predicted by many, can barely stay alive in the wild-card race. Buffalo lost another game on Sunday in Philadelphia, which they could’ve won had their coach not folded in crunch time. Too ma...

The case <i>against</i> Deion Sanders as Sportsperson of the Year
We are on the brink of our last full college football Saturday slate before bowl season. So, it’s apropos that Deion Sanders’ overhype earned him Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year. After announcing Sanders as the recipient of the honor, Sports Illustrated is dodging tomatoes from the Int...

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Defending Trevor Bauer is never a good look
Hello there, esteemed reader, and welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, the world-renowned series in which we mostly just make fun of Aaron Rodgers every few weeks. (Hi, Tom Laforgia!)...

Aaron Rodgers gets a step closer to likely reinjuring himself
Aaron Rodgers has been cleared to return to practice 11 weeks after tearing his Achilles four plays into the New York Jets’ season opener. ...

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. ...

The new Barry Sanders documentary has brought out the love. And some hate
Barry Sanders is one of the greatest players to ever step onto a football field, so when he abruptly retired following the 1998, season it left everyone stunned. One individual who calls Sanders the GOAT RB is Grammy award-winning rapper Eminem. Growing up around Detroit during the Sanders era of do...

Justin Fields and Josh Dobbs capped a week littered with awful QB play
There are far more important things to be thankful for in this world than being a fan of an NFL team with consistent quarterback play. Beginning with that caveat, many Americans do spend a lot of hours watching football. The product is exponentially better when the quarterbacks are above average....

Sean McDermott will be packing up his things in Buffalo sooner rather than later
The Buffalo Bills might be the biggest disappointment of this NFL season. A supposed Super Bowl contender, as predicted by many, can barely stay alive in the wild-card race. Buffalo lost another game on Sunday in Philadelphia, which they could’ve won had their coach not folded in crunch time. Too ma...

Firing Frank Reich isn't going to fix the Carolina Panthers
In 1995, the Carolina Panthers had the best season of any expansion franchise in the history of the NFL. They went 7-9 during a year in which they did not have a home stadium, and played those eight games at Clemson. The next season they went 12-4 and played in the NFC Championship Game, and the 200...

Mike Tomlin has never won Coach of the Year and that needs to change
Seeing a team like this version of the Pittsburgh Steelers in today’s NFL is amazing. They’ve struggled to score points all season, averaging less than 17 per game, yet the Steelers are three games over .500 and currently fifth in the AFC playoff seeding. With a 7-4 record and a point differential o...

Today’s NFL is mediocre, Tom Brady? How about the AFC East throughout your career?
Finally, someone out there has the guts to stand up to Tom Brady. Yes he has six championship rings and is the only player in NFL history to reach 600 career touchdown passes. However, that doesn’t make him infallible. After all, his 2007 New England Patriots did pull a 2015-16 Golden State Warriors...

Deadspin Dead Ringers: Professional athletes and their celebrity doppelgängers
We’ve all heard of doppelgängers — people who aren’t related but look like one another. There’s a whole subreddit dedicated to finding lookalikes. There was a Saturday Night Live short on the subject. But have you ever looked at one of your favorite athletes, or a player on your favorite team and no...

Aaron Rodgers can't stop being a total idiot
It’s been nearly two weeks since America last rolled their eyes at Aaron Rodgers, thus giving him the attention he so desperately craves, so you knew he was going to say something galaxy-brained and bone-headed before the week was up. Luckily, we have Pat McAfee paying him for that, so we were not d...

For one week, at least, Monday Night Football regained its crown as king of must-see NFL action
I have lived long enough to be aware that there are people who have no idea of the enormity of Monday Night Football. The Brady-Manning Bowl of 2005 was an MNF broadcast. For three and a half decades, there was no bigger regular-season NFL stage than that primetime matchup on ABC. ...

The Carolina Panthers have a Dave Tepper problem
In May of 2018, at the Whitley Hotel in Atlanta — known then as the Ritz-Carlton (Buckhead) — Dave Tepper played one of the greatest games of “Big Bank Take Little Bank” of all time. He bought the Carolina Panthers for a then-record $2.275 billion…in CASH....