pe Page 348 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

Week 5 NFL Takeaways: The AFC South is entertaining TV
Even though the highly anticipated Sunday Night Football showdown revealed that Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys were no competition for the San Francisco 49ers, the rest of the NFL Week 5 slate was largely entertaining. ...

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...

This is part of Clayton Kershaw's legacy, too
Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher of the 21st century. This much isn’t really in dispute. A career 2.48 ERA and 2.82 FIP over 16 years is unimpeachable. There’s three Cy Youngs to go with it, and an MVP in 2014 when he had a 1.77 ERA and a 0.857 WHIP, which is beyond stupid. He probably should hav...

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...

Your MLB team is out, so who do you root for?
Playoff baseball is in full swing. As we move closer to crowning a champion, who do you root for if your team has been eliminated? Do you stick with a club in your favorite squad’s league? Support the underdog? Or just watch football or whatever else is on TV? ...

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...

Did Joel Embiid commit to Team USA just for the tampering?
Apparently, all it takes to convince American hoops players to represent their country is an insult or a loss at the FIBAs. Whether it was Noah Lyles, the B team’s fourth-place finish, or the human instinct to ape the cool kids, Team USA looks to be loaded for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. ...

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...

It’s going to be a good winter in Buffalo
Obviously, it’s never a good winter in Buffalo. And winter never stops, so I’m told. Anyway, the one thing that can make the time pass in the darkest months on the shores of Lake Erie is a hockey team worth watching. Kids, the Buffalo Sabres will very much be worth watching this season. So the resid...

Lexi Thompson’s PGA Tour debut comes with a chance at history and to pierce through golf’s sexism
In the modern history of golf, no female has made a cut on a PGA Tour event. Only Babe Didrikson Zaharias has done it ever, playing all four rounds at the 1945 Phoenix Open, and Tucson Open. And as Lexi Thompson becomes the seventh woman to play in a PGA Tour event next week, on a sponsor’s invitati...

Here are all the 20+ Wins Seasons, by franchise, in MLB history
Immaculate Grid has been a hit with baseball stat geeks since its launch in April. While the stats puzzle has since expanded to basketball, football, and hockey, it’s still baseball that makes the game what it is. So if you need help filling out your daily grid, give these stats a look....

MLB got what it deserves with its wild-card round
MLB and Rob Manfred don’t really have to care what happens in the wildcard round. Their only aim was to provide more playoff baseball, good or not, because its mere existence netted them more TV cash. So the fact that MLB will get no Game 3s, no interesting storylines, and barely any drama, followin...

NBA Weak Links: Milwaukee‘s 2-guard position could be a sinkhole on their road to a title
A great team is only as strong as its weakest link. At least that’s the consensus among every motivational coach I’ve ever heard. But for the sake of this space, it’s true for NBA contenders as well. I’ll examine the weak spots in some of the most iron-clad lineups in the NBA entering the 2023 seaso...