season Page 80 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
João Félix Has Arrived
Release clauses in soccer are oftentimes more symbolic than anything else. Clubs with leverage will often drop a sky high release clause (the amount of money they would have to accept for a player, whether they want to sell him or not) on a promising young player mostly just to scare off interest fr...
Barcelona Signed Frenkie De Jong And Now Must Figure Out Who They Want Him To Be
It is glaringly obvious that Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong is one of the most exciting prospects in world soccer today. While I and most others writing about him now, after the hotly contested courtship that involved pretty much all the game’s biggest clubs finally came to a close when Barcelona ...
Baseball Doesn't Need Collusion To Turn Off The Hot Stove
The baseball panic is rising. With every additional day that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado go unsigned—and Dallas Keuchel and Mike Moustakas and A.J. Pollock and Craig Kimbrel—the drumbeat strengthens: Something is wrong here. After all, as has been pointed out here, every team could use a Manny Ma...
How Is Christian Pulisic Going To Fit In At Chelsea?
On Wednesday, Premier League giants Chelsea purchased Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for an astronomical €64 million (nearly $73 million). After finishing out this season in Germany, the winger will officially become a member of one of the biggest clubs in the world, in the best league in ...
Hot Damn, Chelsea Just Bought Christian Pulisic For A Shit-Ton Of Money
The rumor mill has been in overdrive these past few weeks about Christian Pulisic’s future, and today we got official confirmation of a move that still feels a little shocking: Premier League giants Chelsea have purchased the artist formally known as America’s Wonderteen from Borussia Dortmund for a...
Army's Beatdown Of Houston Reached The "Punt From The Black Knights' 30" Stage
The Houston Cougars were thoroughly spanked by the Army Black Knights in the Armed Forces Bowl. While some coaches would want their players to play hard through the final whistle of the game—despite being down well over 40 points—Houston coach Major Applewhite raised the white flag early in the seco...
A Timely Preview Of The 2018-19 NBA Season, Which, Ah, Hm, Appears To Have Begun Already
Well hello there, fellow basketball enthusiast! It’s that time again: Time for the NBA season to have begun literally over two hours ago, when the Celtics and Sixers tipped off in Boston. There could be no better time than this to look ahead to what the 2018-19 season has in store for us, except may...
Steve Kerr Says "I Don't Want To Be Here," Gets Ejected, Waves Goodbye
The Warriors left Klay Thompson and Draymond Green out of Monday’s preseason game against the Suns. Who cares! No team maybe ever has had any less use for the preseason than the 2018-2019 Golden State Warriors. Steve Kerr knows this. Watch him thank the referees for hitting him with technical fouls ...
Are The NHL's Mini-Dynasties Dead?
Until the Capitals broke through to win their first Cup, the Penguins, Blackhawks, and Kings dominated the NHL as the most effective triumvirate since Roman times. Instead of ending with stabbings and civil war, the modern NHL version collapsed for more mundane reasons involving salary caps and agin...
A 2018–19 NHL Season Preview Of Every Team, From Best To Islanders
Hell yeah, hockey is back! After suffering through three months of sports that do not involve ice, and night after night of 90-degree temperatures with no A/C (though that one might just be me), the most beautiful and fun game in the world has returned to save you from five-hour ALDS games and lopsi...
No One Involved In Putting Malik Monk Into Hornets Preseason Game Notices He Isn't Wearing A Jersey
Things like this will not help to defeat the perception that second-year Hornets guard Malik Monk is destined to settle in as a J.R. Smith/Nick Young-style NBA eccentric: ...
All You Need Is Spite: A Very Emotional NHL Season Preview
Boys and girls and babes, we all learned so much during the 2017–2018 NHL season. For example, I learned that chaos rules the universe, sports predictions are horoscopes but less accurate, and hockey games are won by pure, defiant, you-said-I-couldn’t-do-it spite and very little else....
Doug Pederson, Scolding Reporter For Asking Same Question A Different Way: "Ask It A Different Way"
By my count, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was asked five different times about the status of Carson Wentz in his Sunday afternoon press conference. The first was something like “has Carson been cleared for contact,” and from there the assorted reporters tried out a few promising variations....
Kiko Alonso Makes Important Third-Down Tackle, Promptly Runs To The Wrong Sideline
Late in the first quarter of Saturday’s Dolphins-Ravens preseason tilt, Dolphins linebacker Kiko Alonso brought down Maxx Williams on a short completion on third-and-17, forcing the Ravens to bring on their field goal unit. Alonso kind of rolled off of Williams, then trotted over to the sideline. Th...
Why Would Todd Gurley Need Preseason, Anyway?
Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay decided, for various reasons, not to play all but one of his starters in his team’s first two preseason games. Most will sit out Saturday’s game against Houston, including quarterback Jared Goff and running back Todd Gurley. Next week, per tradition, no starters wil...
32 Paragraphs About 32 Teams: A Thinking Fan's Guide To The NFL Season
The following is excerpted from the team chapters of the always-excellent Football Outsiders Almanac. Buy it here as a PDF, or here in print....
Does Anyone Remember Jim?
In February of 2017, at some conservative event in Maryland, Donald Trump said that Paris was a ruined city because too many brown and black people live there now. (I’m giving you the gist.) He attributed this opinion to his friend “Jim,” a “very, very substantial guy.” Is this jogging your memory?...
The Best Dribbler In The World Is Back In The Premier League
The best, most unstoppable dribbler in world soccer will be playing in the Premier League this season. Though it’s probably not the player you think....
What's Your Greatest Live Sports Regret?
A good tweet from our deceased former colleague Cerebral Commie Aisle about the perils of leaving a game too early—...
Looney Tunes Characters, Ranked
Who would do this? And why? Drew Magary would, was the thing, and was gonna, and I’d rather die than let his rankings speak for the site and wind up with history recording that the place where I work said “R&B/Soul” was the second-best Looney Tunes character of all time. So we turned it into a scien...