owl Page 43 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Note to the next Bills' offensive coordinator: Don’t ask Josh Allen to do everything
The Buffalo Bills’ championship window feels like it’s closing for no other reason than Josh Allen’s regression. The team’s inexcusable loss to the Denver Broncos on Monday night would lead you to believe that Ken Dorsey was the hangnail that ailed Allen and not the QB’s knack for turnovers. That th...

It’s true: The Cleveland Browns are a force
Playing against the Cleveland Browns without OT Morgan Moses on Sunday was not an ideal scenario for the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens would go on to lose their other bookend offensive tackle — Ronnie Stanley — in the fourth quarter and top cornerback Marlon Humphrey in the third. While this is far f...

The Giants are lucky they can’t be demoted to the XFL or USFL
If not for the logos on the helmets, you might not recognize the New York Giants as a pro football team. They were absolutely slaughtered for the second time this season by the Dallas Cowboys, 49-17, to fall to a paltry 2-8 record for the 2023 campaign. The G-Men are in quarterback purgatory with an...

The Texans' offseason work set rookie QB CJ Stroud up for success
C.J. Stroud is well on his way to the best rookie quarterback performance in NFL history. Usually rookie quarterbacks are limited by their lack of professional experience and/or their coaches’ lack of confidence in their grasp of the complexities of football at the NFL level. Through nine games, the...

Jared Goff is playing like the best quarterback in the NFL
Jared Goff’s time with the Detroit Lions began the same way that it ended with the Los Angeles Rams, disappointing. By Week 7 of his first season with the Lions, Dan Campbell looked at the media, took a deep breath, and criticized Goff during a postgame press conference. At that point in the season,...

Looks like the Vikings are throwing in the towel, ready to trade Kirk Cousins
After a Week 5 loss to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, the Minnesota Vikings are off to a 1-4 start and seem to be throwing in the towel. On Monday, news broke that the Vikings are now “more open” to trading quarterback Kirk Cousins. On Tuesday, more news out of Minnesota shed ...

How Joe Burrow got his groove back
When the Seattle Seahawks defensive coaches go over the game tape of Cincinnati Bengals vs. Arizona Cardinals with players, the first play that they should show is Joe Burrow’s 10-yard scramble at the end of the third quarter. The second should be Burrow running in a literal circle to evade a rusher...

A lot of NFL teams tanking for Caleb Williams already have a QB
If you’ve found yourself noticing more bad football than usual in the NFL, you’re not wrong. After five weeks, there are seven teams with one win or fewer, and none of them are the New York Jets, Houston Texans, or Washington Commanders. The New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, ...

The San Francisco 49ers sure look like the next Super Bowl champs
I was tempted to turn the Sunday Night Football game off when Cris Collinsworth said that the San Francisco 49ers “throw slants to the fullback,” after Kyle Juszczyk caught a seven-yard pass off of a slant route. Collinsworth, forcing me to listen to what I just saw, snapped me out of my trance. I t...

Maybe we should just ban adults from all sporting events
Asking adults to conduct themselves in a mature manner, unfortunately, is a big ask. Decency and common sense do not automatically come with age. Adults act poorly in restaurants, department stores, airline flights, and pretty much any other public space. Sporting events from T-Ball to the Super Bow...

Even Bill Belichick can’t Geppetto New England’s wooden offense to life
Bill Belichick, or whatever is left of him, has had a nominal interest in opening up the New England offense for years now. His interest in the offensive side is merely a cursory obligation. The rules require Belichick to field a quarterback under center but since the day Tom Brady cut ties with him...

Buffalo really dropped the ball against the London-Jacksonville Jaguars
After putting a major league beatdown on the Miami Dolphins last week, it looked like the Buffalo Bills were taking a step toward separating themselves in a highly competitive AFC. One game after scoring 48 points against a hot Dolphins squad, the Bills couldn’t even muster up half of that in Week 5...

Cooper Kupp to make season debut for Rams alongside Puka Nacua
Los Angeles Rams All-Pro wide receiver Cooper Kupp makes his season debut in Week 5 after missing the second half of last year due to injury. Kupp’s return couldn’t come at a better time as LA hosts Philly. In his absence, a new and unlikely star in rookie WR Puka Nacua has emerged as another dynami...

The Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers can afford to gamble
A couple of early season behemoths in the NFL rolled the dice with house money Friday as the San Francisco 49ers’ defense got scarier with the addition of edge rusher Randy Gregory, and the Miami Dolphins’ offense folded Chase Claypool into a ridiculously talented group of skill players. The two tra...

Colin Kaepernick should absolutely play in the XFL
That Colin Kaepernick will never take another NFL snap should surprise no one, not after a six-year absence, an eight-figure settlement over the league’s blatant collusion to keep him off the field and especially not at his advanced age of 35, when arguably all but the luckiest, elite QBs have begun...

Trade talk is the nadir of sports journalism
Imagine being a Chicago Bears fan — I know empathy is hard, but just try — and going through what they did Thursday only to open ESPN on Friday and see a bunch of misguided, braindead analysts talking about trading Justin Fields. Over his past two starts, the Chicago QB is 43-for-64 for 627 yards wi...

Never play the Bears on a day when a team legend dies. Everyone knows this
Let me take you back to Nov. 7, 1999. ...

Brock Purdy still lives like a backup quarterback
Brock Purdy appears to be a frugal man. As the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, I do not blame him. Careers for the player selected in that spot tend to not last long, and he had the expensive pleasure of being drafted by a team in California. The San Francisco 49ers play and practice in Santa Clar...

There's no truly dominant NFL team so far this season
Heading into Week 5 of the 2023 NFL season there still isn’t a team that’s jumped out ahead of the pack as the clear-cut favorite being head and shoulders above the rest. We always hear the word parity, and we see it even at the top with the best teams. Nobody looks like a world-beater who could ree...

Taylor Swift is the first woman the NFL has ever prioritized. And it's nothing worth celebrating
The NFL doesn’t care about Taylor Swift — or women. Like most men, the NFL only cares about what Taylor Swift — and women — can do for them. ...