picks Page 44 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
College QBs Are Unprepared For The NFL
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story on what some NFL coaches and executives consider a “crisis” over the future of the quarterback position: an increasing number of prospects, nurtured within the uptempo and spread offenses that are sweeping college football, who enter the league wholly...
America Has Always Wanted To Pretend That Sports Aren't Work
Last month, given the chance to affirm that college athletes have basic labor rights, the National Labor Review Board punted. It’s rare that a sports metaphor so perfectly crafted for lazy headline writers is so fitting, but punting—the most cowardly, spineless, and responsibility-evading decision r...
Bombshell ESPN Report: The Patriots Were Huge Cheaters And Roger Goodell Covered It Up
I want to hug and kiss this beautiful story from ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham and take it out to a fancy dinner. Splendidly reported and brutally damning of both the New England Patriots and Roger Goodell, it alleges that the Patriots’ Spygate scandal was worse than anyone imagined—a...
Someone Appears To Be Trying To Hoax The Marlins President Out Of His Job
When the Miami Marlins sent Marcell Ozuna to the minors on July 5, there was more in play than just giving the slumping third-year outfielder a chance “to get his rhythm back,” as Ozuna’s agent Scott Boras said he was told. Whether Ozuna becomes eligible for arbitration after this season or next dep...
Wife Of Skins GM Apologizes For Accusing ESPN Reporter Of Trading Blow Jobs For Scoops
Yet again setting a new standard for franchise incompetence, the Washington football team has now been humiliated by Jessica McCloughan, wife of general manager Scot McCloughan, having to apologize for accusing an ESPN reporter of giving blow jobs for access....
The NFL Didn't Have To Screw Will Smith's Concussion Movie, Hollywood Already Had
First there was Monday’s release of the first trailer for Concussion, the forthcoming Will Smith vehicle depicting the early days of the NFL’s ongoing defense of its game from the reality that it is very bad for the brains of the men who play it. Then there was an interview between writer/director P...
Surprise Military Reunions At NFL Games Reach Peak Bullshit
During last weekend’s preseason St. Louis Rams game, a familiar ritual played out: With a stadium full of fans and a television audience watching, Rams cheerleader Candace Ruocco Valentine was surprised by the arrival of her husband August Valentine, a Marine Corps first lieutenant, who had just ret...
RGIII Almost Saved Washington, And Then He Didn't
Black Jesus is dead....
Darren Rovell Says Racism Is Okay If The Market Approves; ESPNers Flee
Darren Rovell, a commemorative gift plate from the American Enterprise Institute that somehow talks and writes and uses social media, went there just now on Twitter, and it’s a sight to behold—a service to the nation, in its way. While a market fundamentalist with a neuron or two firing would probab...
The NCAA Has Always Paid Players; Now It's Just Harder To Pretend They Don't
Contrary to popular belief, the NCAA has only ever truly enforced a nationwide prohibition on payments to athletes for three years—from 1948 to 1951. Prior to that, there was no NCAA-wide rule on scholarships at all, meaning that the full flowering of the popularity of college football prior to Worl...
America Has Lost The War Against Guns
Yesterday morning in Roanoke, Va., a man named Vester Lee Flanagan walked up to newscaster Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward as they were filming a segment for local TV station WDBJ, and, using a handgun, shot them to death. (He also critically wounded Vicki Gardner, the woman Parker and Ward we...
Watch Cris Carter Tell NFL Rookies To “Get A Fall Guy” (UPDATE)
At the 2014 Rookie Symposium, Cris Carter and Warren Sapp instructed rookies to get a fall guy in case they got into any legal trouble. The above video was on NFL.com until this afternoon, when they deleted it....
Baylor’s Investigation Of Sam Ukwuachu Was Shameful
As awareness has spread about rape—and pressure has increased on universities to prevent and address it among their students—two justice systems have formed. There’s the one we’ve had for centuries: the cops, the courts, and if it goes to trial, a verdict. Now there’s a second track, one where unive...
The Fight For The Soul Of Black Lives Matter
A week and a half ago, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was speaking in Seattle, Wash., when he was interrupted by two young, black protesters. Marissa Janae Johnson and Mara Jacqeline Willaford, representing the local chapter of Black Lives Matter, called on the Vermont senator to publish his ...
Kain Colter's Union Battle Cost Him More Than He Ever Expected
At 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, lawyers from Northwestern University and the College Athletes Players Association received the call they’d been waiting for since March of last year. The National Labor Relations Board had decided whether or not football players at Northwestern can form a union. It was ...
11 Tips To Intentionally Ruin A Mock Draft
Mock drafts are a charade within a charade. Fantasy football is fake; mock drafts are fake drafts to prepare for the “real” fake draft, for a fake team. The only purpose of mock drafts is to get a general sense where players are going in each round, and that’s only useful for the first five rounds. ...
These Are Our All-Time Favorite Sports Tweets
Inspired by our friends at Vice Sports, we wanted to write paeans to our favorite sports-adjacent tweets. These are not necessarily the best tweets, but they are the tweets that, for one reason or another, have always stuck with us....
We Want To Help Geno Smith Settle His Debt, So Here's $600
Linebacker Ikemefuna Enemkpali found himself out of a job Tuesday after he broke New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith’s jaw over, reportedly, a $600 plane ticket. The third-string linebacker came out of the exchange okay, though, quickly getting picked up by the Buffalo Bills. Meanwhile, Smith is in...
Here Is The Full 2015-16 NBA National TV Schedule
The NBA has released its full 2015-16 schedule, so head on over here or to your favorite team’s website to micro-analyze it. Below you will find a full listing of the national TV schedule, as well as a tally of the number of times each team appears on national TV. But first, a few observations....