owl Page 41 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

CC Sabathia, ex-MLBers to play in revived Negro League East-West All-Star Game
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is set to revive the Negro League’s East-West All-Star game with a legends exhibition in Cooperstown, New York next May. ...

New York Jets get rid of one of Aaron Rodgers' guys
The New York Jets are reportedly releasing quarterback Tim Boyle and signing Seattle Seahawks practice squad quarterback Brett Rypien, according to CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson. ...

T.J. Houshmandzadeh claims his last name was stolen by 'obsessed' fan
Former NFL wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, 46, filed a request for a temporary restraining order in Los Angeles against a woman who allegedly stole his last name. According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the former Cincinnati Bengals receiver claims the fan has stolen his last name and haras...

Call bowl games what they are: Glorified spring practices
There are two reasons making a bowl game is important. The first is the extra month of practice time. For the sake of the student-athletes, NCAA rules limit programs to a finite number of practices and getting three to four more weeks of prep is akin to an extra spring practice. Now that the transfe...

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. ...

Forget their record, the 49ers are the best team in the NFC
Despite being tied for the second-best record in the NFC (and the NFL, for that matter), the San Francisco 49ers are the crème de la crème of the conference. Aside from that three-game slide in the middle of the season, the Niners have dominated the NFC and done it against the best teams. This was c...

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...