sports Page 416 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Pitt is a three-point favorite against Clemson this weekend… how did it come to this?
Yep, you read that right. The University of Pittsburgh is favored Saturday against the formerly formidable Clemson Tigers — the same team that made appearances in six College Football Playoffs in a span of six years, winning two championships along the way. With the way Dabo Swinney’s team is playin...

NFL Week 7: Chiefs take on Titans aaaand…
If you’re not a fantasy football player, you might want to avert your eyes on Sunday, because there isn’t a single matchup that really jumps off the page at you. In fact, there is only one game set to take place between two teams with winning records: Cincinnati (4-2) at Baltimore (5-1), but Cincinn...

Trae Young feels disrespected — and that’s a good thing
The Atlanta Hawks blasted the Dallas Mavericks in their season opener, 113-87, with Trae Young racking up 14 assists and Deandre Hunter holding Luka to 18 points on almost as many attempts (17). Afterward, Young had a message for the haters:...

Seven things the Raiders could have done for Black people to atone for Gruden <i>besides</i> having Yolanda Adams & Grambling State’s band perform
The Raiders can’t do better because they don’t want to do better....

He may still be Mad Max, but he’s also a weary warrior right now
The Braves are facing down the possibility of blowing a 3-1 lead to the Dodgers in the NLCS for the second year in a row after an 11-2 rout in Los Angeles last night. As they head back home to Atlanta, the Braves’ offense prepares to face Max Scherzer in Game 6 — a sentence that’s not as daunting as...

Cam Newton’s odds of being signed are looking up now that he’s vaccinated
Former MVP Cam Newton hasn’t stepped foot on an NFL field since he was released by the New England Patriots just days before the regular season. Now that Newton is vaccinated, it seems his chances of catching on with a team this season may have increased....

Of course it’s going back to Atlanta
I’m going to get out ahead of this and just condemn the Braves. I know what happens now, because my motherfuck skills have risen to a level I can no longer control or understand. I just speculated on what the baseball world would think of Dave Roberts. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t think th...

Sometimes you have to just sit back and appreciate what’s on offer
Perhaps I’m feeling wistful because last October, we didn’t have our normal schedule. There’s a clock to this, a rhythm, that we have spent our entire lives attuned to. Hockey and basketball start during the MLB playoffs. Go a year without it, and suddenly the axis is off, red lights are blinking, t...

Ex-exec offers peek inside the high school nightmare that is the Mavericks’ front office
You always have to take the word of a former/disgruntled employee with a few grains of a salt and a shot of tequila (and a lime if that’s your thing), so when former Mavs front office exec Haralabos Voulgaris compares your franchise’s dysfunction to “high school drama,” it’s fair to be skeptical. Ye...

Daryl Morey: ‘This could take years’
Philadelphia 76ers general manager Daryl Morey saw what happened Tuesday just like the rest of the world. He knows that 76ers guard/forward Ben Simmons refused to fully participate in practice and was asked to leave by coach Doc Rivers. He knows that center Joel Embiid is on the record expressing hi...

Joey Gallo is this generation’s Adam Dunn
Nothing against him, but New York Yankees outfielder Joey Gallo is irrelevant in Major League Baseball right this second. His team isn’t in the playoffs. He’s never played for any of the teams involved in either Championship Series. He’s at home watching the games from his couch, the same as you and...

Like a comet streaking across the sky, a rare look into the personable side of Nick Saban
For the second time this season, we’ve been privileged to get a glimpse into the part of Alabama coach Nick Saban that’s not a myopic, grumpy, brooding football coach. In September, Alabama safety Jordan Battle told the media that Saban loves a good “deez nuts” joke, much to the chagrin of what soun...

The New England Revs are going to set the league points record, and they’re not going to play any defense to do it
While MLS still has its fair share of issues, the one thing you have to give it credit for is that during the regular season, the league rewards teams that just say, “Fuck it, it’s free cake.” They don’t generally live on in history, because wonky defensive teams get found out by the extremely callo...

Gordon Hayward and Miles Bridges, the rap duo for a better America
If you thought Run the Jewels’ RTJ3 slapped, just wait until a new interracial rap duo from North Carolina releases their debut project. They don’t have a name yet, but for now let’s just call them “A Couple of Forwards for the Hornets.”...

Champagne Papi vs Montrezl Harrell: Who wants the smoke?
Former L.A. Laker and Clipper Montrezl Harrell completely showed out in his debut with the Washington Wizards Wednesday night — but not just in the context of the game. Harrell scored 22 points and grabbed 9 rebounds in the Wizards’ 98-93 victory over the Toronto Raptors. But it was Harrell’s intera...

<i>Thursday Night Football: </i>Broncos need to show they can be better than mediocre
The Browns and the Broncos play tonight in Ohio in what might be one of the most mediocre Thursday night matchups that we’ll see all season....

Creighton lost a top recruit after coach’s ‘plantation’ plea — now he’s at Kentucky with an NIL Porsche deal!
Greg McDermott was “this close” to signing TyTy Washington — arguably the highest-ranked recruit in the history of Creighton basketball — last season in a year in which he was coaching a Top-25 team. But then, he just had to mess it all up by saying something super racist:...

The Tomahawk Chop is a shameful reminder of America’s continuing genocide against indigenous nations
It’s 2021. Only a single win away from the Word Series, the Atlanta Braves seem poised to take one of the most visible stages in American sports for the first time since 1999. If they do, 10 million people will be tuning in to their home games to see their majority white fanbase in their majority wh...

Who’s the weird-ass video game rendering now, chumps?
Night two of the NBA season came through strong, delivering a double-overtime thriller where the New York Knicks bested the Boston Celtics, 138-134, in front of the home crowd at Madison Square Garden. This night was supposed to be about the return of NYC’s own Kemba Walker, but by the end of the ni...

America’s pastime indeed
Whether the label of “pastime” still applies to baseball, specifically Major League Baseball, I don’t know. It’s certainly not America’s favorite sport anymore, if that’s what gives a game and league that mantle. But it certainly does represent what America is these days, which isn’t a good thing. ...