sports Page 65 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tyronn Lue unplugged Kawhi Leonard before he could overheat in a playoff atmosphere
This year, the NBA claimed their findings are that load management mumbo jumbo is not supported by scientific data. Yet, the Clippers are still so concerned about Kawhi Leonard’s circuitry that they will unplug him before they risk him overheating and hurting himself when necessary. On Sunday night,...

The Maple Leafs have their problems, but paying their good players isn’t one of them
The free-agent apocalypse that was going to arrive in Toronto next summer has apparently disappeared. Before last summer, Auston Matthews and William Nylander were a season away from unrestricted free agency, and John Tavares and Mitch Marner were two years away. The latter two are still in that spo...

Brandon Aubrey has suddenly given the Cowboys reason to be worried
The Dallas Cowboys are riding high entering the playoffs after securing the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a third consecutive 12-win season. That’s quite the feat for these Cowboys, but means nothing if they can’t break their unlucky streak of bowing out before championship weekend. While Dallas looks p...

DeMeco Ryans is the only choice for NFL Coach of the Year
Mike Tomlin still hasn’t had a losing season. Kevin Stefanski’s squad endured five different starting quarterbacks. Dan Campbell has the Detroit Lions hosting a playoff game and they’re the favorite. But, they all fail in comparison to what DeMeco Ryans has done in Houston. A rookie head coach has t...

The playoffs will not be easy for the Ravens and 49ers
The end of the NFL regular season is always a sad day. It signals that only four weeks of NFL games remain until the second week of September. That means I have to spend my next seven months of Sunday afternoons with commercials since there is no RedZone for the rest of the season. (Also, RedZone on...

Remember when the Eagles were Super Bowl contenders?
My how the mighty have fallen. In September, Jalen Carter looked like the next coming of Aaron Donald and the tush push was the most debated offensive play since the double reverse that won a state championship game in Remember the Titans. After going 10-1 in their first 11 games, the Philadelphia E...

Everyone has a gimmick in the NFL. Until they don’t
The NFL season zips by, which might be one of the hundreds of reasons it remains our national religion. There isn’t really time to get bored with it and everything that happens in it feels truly important. Which means any team that can string a few good weeks together has turned some mythical corner...

The Jets reportedly want to trade Zach Wilson. Good luck
Way to go New York Jets. They halted a losing streak to the New England Patriots that stretched back to the Obama administration. In what might have been Bill Belichick’s final game as head coach of the Patriots, a team that he has dominated since leaving them at the altar in 2000 buried him in the ...

The 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars had an unnatural loyalty to losing
The Jacksonville Jaguars began the 2023 season with a built-in advantage as the only playoff-ready team in a division of bottom-feeders. After last January’s Wild Card comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers, Trevor Lawrence was expected to continue his ascent both in the AFC and up the ranks of e...

Derrick Henry all but confirmed his future following Tennessee’s win over Jacksonville
Titans running back Derrick Henry arrived in Tennessee in 2016 as a second-round pick following an incredible career playing for Nick Saban at Alabama. Henry has topped the 1,000-yard mark in five of his eight seasons with the team and became the eighth player in NFL history to run for more than 2,0...

Stephen A. Smith may take a late night television jalopy out for a spin next year
It’s opening night for the 2025 NBA season. After Inside the NBA guffaws its way through the opening game, a portion of the audience siphons off to Apple TV or Prime Video, where Stephen A. Smith is starting his opening monologue. Except he isn’t ranting and raving about Donovan Mitchell and Jalen B...

Despite a 13-win campaign, it’s still hard to trust the Ravens
After dominating Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Miami in consecutive weeks, the Baltimore Ravens looked like the dominant force everyone had been waiting for all season. Forget about the hiccup Saturday night against Pittsburgh (minus Lamar Jackson), Baltimore is viewed by many as the favorite to ...

The Texans are proof that serendipity is the NFL’s most valuable asset
Think about the Houston Texans’ path to this moment. After gutting out a win over the Indianapolis Colts, 23-19, on Saturday, DeMeco Ryans and CJ Stroud locked up a playoff spot in their rookie campaigns. The team that opted out of hiring Josh McCown because it didn’t want to get sued also let the C...

School fires girls basketball coach, dismisses player after antisemitic incident: report
Updated Jan. 9: Yonkers Public Schools have fired a high school girls basketball coach and dismissed a player from the team as a result of an antisemitic incident Thursday night, the New York Post reported. ...

Bedard's fractured jaw robs fans of upcoming battle of the Connors
Updated Jan. 10: Bedard will miss 6-8 weeks after undergoing surgery to repair his fractured jaw, according to Chicago Blackhawks physician Dr. Michael Terry....

The natives are getting restless at Ohio State and LSU
There’s natural staff turnover — primarily assistants getting poached for better opportunities elsewhere — and then there’s what Ohio State and LSU are purportedly doing. Each head coach is under pressure to make changes after showings not up to program standards, and if history is an indication of ...

ESPN didn’t say Aaron Rodgers was dumb, they said his joke was dumb
The firestorm engulfing ESPN is a product of its own doing, which is what makes all of this Pat McAfee-Aaron Rodgers drama so funny. The worldwide leader hired comic relief and, shockingly, he simultaneously lit Disney and Bristol ablaze from Indiana. In case you missed the fallout from Rodgers insi...

John Fisher's move of A's may have a snag; Jim Harbaugh avoids a choke job; the strange case of Luke Littler
There’s generally little hope for fans when it’s already been announced that their team will move to another city. That hope evaporates more when a league approves it, as MLB has done with the A’s move to Vegas. And yet, there’s always a sliver of light that can’t be extinguished when an owner is so...

Jennifer Botterill exposes hockey-culture stupidity; Kraken mascot beef comes to a head; goalie trouble for top teams
There is a segment of hockey fans that have always wanted to watch the bubble of hockey men discussing hockey things get totally pierced by even just the smallest bit of logic. For that is the true enemy of most things that have been hockey ethos. So a hearty thank you to Jennifer Botterill, who dur...

Darvin Ham in crosshairs; Giannis thinks of Pacers during sex; James Harden, Clippers don't deserve your faith
News flash: The Miami Heat are a better coached team than the Los Angeles Lakers. It showed in the fourth quarter of their Wednesday night matchup. Erik Spoelstra has been with the Heat organization since 1995 — its head coach since 2008. Following nine seasons as an NBA player, Darvin Ham was an as...