stark Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are proof that having a <i>Napoleon</i> complex isn’t all bad
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees....

NFL scriptwriters couldn’t have penned a better ending to the regular season than Bills-Dolphins
Give the NFL credit. The league obviously hired writers from disparate backgrounds to arrange the season’s plotlines. On Sunday, the Week 18 finale will climax with an end-of-season clash of genres between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who couldn’t be more different. The Dolphins even have a...

NFL's and NBC's ploy to get people to watch Saturday’s game on Peacock
The NFL is laying off the commercials for a night . . . game on a holiday weekend that airs on Peacock. The Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Chargers matchup on Saturday will feature a 40 percent reduction in ads, with zero commercials during the final 15 minutes. Ideally, that’ll be accompanied by a runni...

We’re being held hostage by bad or pointless football
The first two games of the NFL’s Saturday football lineup featured four backup quarterbacks. Instead of Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins, Anthony Richardson and Kenny Pickett, we got Jake Browning, Nick Mullens, Gardner Minshew and Mitch Trubisky. Thank god for Jared Goff and Russell Wilson in the night gam...

Yes Charissa, sideline reporters are journalists
Last week, Charissa Thompson opened her yap on the podcast Pardon My Take and, for reasons still largely not understood by the rest of us, thought it was super-cute to admit that she has, in the past, made up sideline reports. How adorable!...

Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions won a game that mattered
Sometimes overreactions are appropriate. And in the case of Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions, they’ve earned every hysterical and asinine hot take fans and analysts will make about them Friday morning — and maybe throughout the rest of the season. It’s time to drink the Kool-Aid. The Lions are leg...

Is Deion Sanders ushering in a positionless era at Colorado?
Deion Sanders is an iconoclast, if nothing else. Sanders has gone against the grain by taking the rarely traveled SWAC route to a Power 5 coaching job, in addition to his use of the transfer portal, his braggadocious coaching style, his deals with Barstool and decision to sign with Colorado over mor...

Is this finally the year for the New York Jets?
As Aaron Rodgers steps into the Showtime spotlight of the Big Apple, he will have to do his best Magic Johnson impersonation to get the most out of his many talented options. Rodgers has two of his trusted pass catchers from Green Bay by his side in Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb, as well as a rising...

After the ESPN shakeup, we still have Hubie Brown to keep teaching us basketball
Following its highest-rated NBA Playoff in two decades, ESPN decided to take a hatchet to its game coverage of the league. Gone from the network entirely are Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Replacing them on the No. 1 commentator team alongside Mike Breen are Doris Burke and Doc Rivers. Ryan Ruocco...

Brandon Lowe may be the best of Tampa Bay's nameless bunch
The Tampa Bay Rays are off to one of the best starts to an MLB season in recent memory. A 30th win through 40 games gives the club the best record through that mark since the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who went 35-5 en route to a 104-win season and a World Series title....

Realistically, how many concussions should Tony Stark have?
It’s time for another rousing rendition of: Does. the NFL. Care?! America’s favorite game show where we rate how much the Shield protects its players. Today’s question centers around a shiny new helmet “designed to reduce QB concussions.” The NFL and NFLPA approved the use of the Zero2 Matrix QB hel...

The best (and worst) moments of the Super Bowl's first half
The pre-game on FOX ridiculously started at noon. And we’ve been here the entire time. You didn’t miss anything until approximately 5:30 pm ET, when FOX aired the first Snackin’ with the Stars ad....

Let's remember (forget?) the worst Super Bowl halftime shows
When you think of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the names that come to mind are the biggest stars and best performers in the music industry. It didn’t used to be that glamorous, though. ...

Sunday's NFL losers explain their various terrible decisions
Hey, what a SUPER Wild Card Weekend, am I right? We might not have seen great NFL football, or great officiating, or even great decision-making from players and coaches alike, but we did see plenty of chaos. And, as we all know, chaos is where the real fun begins — unless your team is the one fumbli...

Stay away, Gronk
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport is reporting that Rob Gronkowski is considering a return to the NFL. Gronkowski tweeted “I’m kinda bored,” on Dec. 21. According to Rapaport, a handful of teams reached out to him to see if he was serious. ...
![The Brittney Griner-Viktor Bout deal is being unfairly criticized [See the exchange]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/c9f5a7ba9128dfe695f74949a3126e62.jpg)
The Brittney Griner-Viktor Bout deal is being unfairly criticized [See the exchange]
The end of Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia arrived early Thursday morning, after the White House announced that she was on an airplane returning home safe and sound. The timing was a surprise to everyone outside of the Biden and Griner family’s inner circle. However, the two individuals invol...

NBA Players As <i>Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</i> Characters
Warning: Spoilers ahead...

FTR is so good Tony Khan can’t book them
FTR — Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler — are the best wrestlers in the world....

Front offices are bitching about the pitcher limit, which probably means it’ll work
I get caught in the trap as much as anyone, but I’m an impulsive guy. Baseball isn’t like other sports, where you can change one rule, any rule, and see the effects on Opening Day. In baseball, everything takes some time to have an effect....
