playoffs Page 11 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

HEAR ME OUT: MLB should restructure league like Euro soccer
It’s always neat when a European sporting event comes along and provides some games to watch during the daytime hours here in North America. Right now, it’s the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020 soccer tournament, and while the teams involved are national sides, part of the nature of soccer is that there’s...

A 12-team playoff won’t change the fact that the same schools win every year
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like a 12-team college football playoff format could be on the horizon. ...

Run the NBA play-in tournament as a series of high-stakes gauntlet matches
The NBA wants to have an in-season tournament, and a lot of the reaction to this idea is that it’s terrible, that it’s basketball trying to be soccer, that it’s a huge waste of time....

Deadspin Fixes: The NHL schedule
Yesterday over at ESPN, Greg Wyshynski put forth a report that says the NHL is looking to start next season somewhere around October 12. It’s a little later than a season would normally start, thanks to this season ending in the middle of July for two teams at least, and maybe more if the league has...

Steelers were total garbage in end-of-year stench stretch
It’s Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing the Pittsburgh Steelers for getting embarrassed by the Cleveland Browns in the playoffs....

The Browns haven’t won a playoff game since DJ Jazzy Jeff was on TV, that could change Sunday
Well, well, well... look what we have here. ...

Guess Brian Kelly and Notre Dame won't have to worry about boycotting the Rose Bowl
Brian Kelly threatened not to take Notre Dame to the Rose Bowl if players’ parents weren’t allowed to attend the College Football Playoff semifinal....

Fantasy Football Semifinals: WRs and TEs to get you the title!
I broke down some quarterback and running back matchups to watch earlier, so let’s not waste any time and get right in on the wide receivers and tight ends. Time to go get that money. ...

MLB owners' concern over vaccine is really just them telling on themselves, for the 738th time
If it feels like MLB owners are always coming here for an argument, that’s pretty much because they always are. While the comatose-snail-slow free agent and trade market can be partially traced to the usual, contemporary miserliness of the cabal of 30 (though most certainly not collusion, no sir), a...

What the NFL's postseason expansion talks suggest
The NFL jumped into the flying-by-their-ass pool Monday by reportedly discussing expanding this year’s playoffs to 16 teams. This coming after they expanded it to 14 already, and they may just jump over that this January without ever trying it....

Kevin Cash continues to win by knowing how to lose
The Astros-Rays matchup for the right to head to Texas (boy, that makes it sound like a pyrrhic victory) has a lot of angles to it. It’s the league’s best contact team in the Astros vs. one of the worst in the Rays. It’s a bullpen full of darkness-bringers in Tampa versus one made up of guys who sou...

In Fernando Tatis Jr., baseball finally has a must-see TV star
The storylines are plentiful as MLB’s Division Series kickoff today....

Finally, The MLB Playoffs Will Look Like Baseball
It’s been a mangled, peeps-in-the-chili baseball season, and anyone who tries to tell you different is either selling something, thinks the sky is green (not when it’s actually been orange), or is just clinging to one of the pillars of their life so desperately in order to believe that something, an...

Does It Make Sense for NBA to Have a Play-in Game?
With an NBA play bubble comes a new wave of postseason play, set to begin Saturday afternoon. The winner of the Portland Trailblazers/Memphis Grizzles showdown will become the 8th seed and be rewarded with a first-round series against the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers....

Do You Mind If We Dance With Your Dates? - NHL First Round Preview: Eastern Conference
In a bit of true hockey hilarity, the actual NHL bubble-ized playoffs will begin without either of the “hosts” on Tuesday. Both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers scheduled a date for their respective faces with the pavement, and hence will have to watch these modified playoffs take place i...

Hear Me Out: NBA Resumes With Playoff Teams Drafting Players From Non-Playoff Teams
Whether it’s in Las Vegas or Orlando or somewhere else, the NBA eventually is going to get back to playing. It’s not something that should happen quickly, and a lot still has to be worked out, including how to protect high-risk individuals in the league, before there’s another game....

It Took A Global Pandemic, But The Opportunity Is Here To Fix MLS' Dreadful Playoff System
When talking about MLS, it always feels necessary to proclaim your position and biases from the outset. Generally, any fight about the structure or workings of the domestic soccer league starts a food-fight of varying grossness, so it’s a good idea to stake out your position clearly so you know whic...

Screw It. Now That Coronavirus Has Ruined Everything, Let's Expand All Playoffs To Include Every Single Freakin' Team.
It was Major League Baseball that got the conversation started about expanding playoffs, and the NFL got on board when it included additional wild-card teams in its proposed collective bargaining agreement. At the time, it seemed for all the world like a stupid cash grab that would dilute the specia...

Zlatan Ibrahimović On MLS Playoffs: "I Think The System Is Shit"
Zlatan Ibrahimović’s summer of righteous discontent continues. Less than a month after taking a dump on MLS’s best player, likening his own presence in the league to a “Ferrari among Fiats,” and even calling an opposing coach a “little bitch,” the L.A. Galaxy striker has today taken aim at the leagu...

A Neat Playoff Idea: Let The Top Seeds Choose Their Opponents
Credit goes to the Maple Leafs announcers on TSN for bringing this to my attention tonight, even though it was decided on at the start of the season, but here is a fun idea to mix up the playoffs from the Southern Professional Hockey League:...