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The winless Patriots and Broncos are each other’s better halves this season
Bill Belichick and Sean Payton both being winless through two games has never happened. In fact, this is Belichick’s nadir since 2001, when Tom Brady was just a twinkle in his eye. Both coaches are masters of their domain and intense perfectionists. Unfortunately, their respective teams would only b...

Rams' meaningless game-ending FG embodies everything wrong with NFL and sports gambling
The San Francisco 49ers had the game in the bag. They were up 10 with just over 90 seconds left in the game. The Cooper Kupp-less Rams didn’t replicate the offense that led them to a Super Bowl two seasons ago, and wouldn’t score quickly enough to find another drive beyond the one that began with 1:...

The Dolphins are good and it will only get easier from here
NFL scheduling for the 2023 regular season resulted in the Miami Dolphins having to open their season with two consecutive road games — on two different coasts. They beat the Los Angeles Chargers in southern California in Week 1, and then traveled to Massachusetts for a Week 2 Sunday Night Football ...

Week 2 NFL Takeaways: A bounce back week for Chiefs, Bills, and Giants
Another week of NFL football is in the books. For all of my qualms with the NFL, Week 2 arrived a bit too quickly for my satisfaction. Scott Hanson’s first announcement of “seven hours of commercial free football,” and his second one felt like they were only a few days apart as opposed to an entire ...

Look at what the Bills did to Takeo Spikes!
If there’s one thing NFL teams love to do, it’s bring back fan favorite players to cheer the team on before a big matchup. Just last week, we saw Tom Brady in Foxboro, taking up the mantle of “Patriot for life,” even though he won a Super Bowl with another team, is trying to acquire an ownership int...

Joe Burrow and the Bengals have an even bigger problem than starting the season 0-2
Early in training camp the Cincinnati Bengals were dealt a tough blow with starting signal-caller Joe Burrow suffering a calf injury. He missed most of camp and the entire preseason....

The injury bug bites OBJ again
There was so much optimism entering the 2023 NFL season in Baltimore behind a revamped offense led by former MVP Lamar Jackson with newly signed Odell Beckham Jr, once one of the leagues most exciting receivers, as a weapon. Unfortunately, the injury bug didn’t take long to find OBJ in a Ravens unif...

Travis Kelce shakes off bad karma in first half of Jags game, convinces Mahomes ‘you belong with me’
It’s Week 2 of the NFL season and, as a non-Chiefs fan, I am already tired of Travis Kelce. He doesn’t come off as a bad person, necessarily, just a loud one, and one who likes to yell “We gotta fight…for the right…to paaaarrrrrty!!” every time he’s anywhere near a microphone. Here he is saying it a...

The SEC is a one-bid conference — again
This is a weird season for the SEC thus far. Only one team appears worthy of the playoff, and Georgia didn’t exactly look like world beaters against South Carolina on Saturday either. Tennessee lost to Florida (who already lost to Utah), LSU lost to Florida State, and Alabama lost to Texas. Those th...

Dustin Johnson needs to stop whining and reap what he's sown
You reap what you sow. And Dustin Johnson has no one to blame but himself for not making the United States Ryder Cup team. Once he sold out to Saudi-backed LIV Golf last year for a reported $125 million, his margin for error to make golf’s premier team event became razor-thin. And it shouldn’t be a ...

The Jalen Hurts-AJ Brown ‘drama’ embodies the Eagles' expectations
This time a season ago, the Philadelphia Eagles also were 2-0 coming off a convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings. Unlike last year though, there’s a little controversy surrounding the Birds as Jalen Hurts and wide receiver AJ Brown were caught having an exchange on the sidelines. The incident wa...

What was Chaim Bloom supposed to do?
Just how well is a GM/executive reign supposed to go when the first task given to them is to trade the best player in baseball? That was the road set out for Chaim Bloom, who came to Fenway from Tampa, probably with hopes that he could set up a Rays-with-money set-up like Andrew Friedman in Los Ange...

Here is what we kind of learned from the USMNT’s week
As we and many others stress, international friendlies are weird. Especially when everyone has to fly over from Europe for two games that don’t count for anything while trying to not get hurt. And for the USMNT, there weren’t really too many players trying to carve out a role, or a bigger role, with...

Don't be fooled by the NFL teams that played above and below expectations in Week 1
Week 1 of the NFL season is in the books, and as usual, we’ve got some extreme overreactions to some of the action. We see this every year early on when teams play far above their expected output or well below. So, let’s figure out which teams may have fooled the masses during the opening week of th...

Football is America's version of sportswashing
The sizzle of the grill, the smell of the pizza, the crack of the beer can, and the sound of brass bursting through the speakers, are all signs that football season has arrived. While activity and news from the sport are followed year-round, nothing replaces a week of real game action....

Josh Allen has to stop playing like Carson Wentz if the Bills are going to have a chance
Josh Allen’s trio of picks thrown to New York Jets safety Jordan Whitehead and his two fumbles on one play, were the kiss of death for the Buffalo Bills in their loss to a New York Jets team whose Super Bowl aspirations disappeared after Aaron Rodgers went down with a torn Achilles. However, being h...

Natural grass wouldn’t have prevented Aaron Rodgers’ injury
It’s always interesting to see how leagues and players’ unions react to injuries. Zaza Pachulia stepped under Kawhi Leonard’s foot, and now NBA defenders can’t impede a shooter’s landing zone. Buster Posey getting blasted by Scott Cousins led to MLB banning plays at the plate. On Monday, Aaron Rodge...

Jim Trotter’s lawsuit is a smoking gun for the rampant racism within Roger Goodell’s NFL
White America doesn’t accept racism until they’ve seen it broken down in percentages, watched an innocent Black man be murdered by police in Minneapolis — on repeat — or read a document that encompasses just how systemic this country’s original sin is. The claims in Jim Trotter’s racial discriminati...

Mike Babcock is seemingly at it again, though it's surprising he knows how to use AirPlay
Hockey doesn’t even need to start to be stupid, especially when it comes to a needlessly recycled coach like Mike Babcock. If you don’t recall Babcock since he got fired from the Leafs, you may remember him from such episodes as making Johan Franzen’s life an utter hell or tricking Mitch Marner into...

The New York Jets' O-Line needs to block for whoever is under center
On an early first down Monday night, 38-year-old New York Jets left tackle Duane Brown attempted a poorly executed cut block that resulted in Buffalo Bills edge rusher Leonard Floyd getting a free shot at Aaron Rodgers. New York’s pricey new quarterback lacking time in the pocket to operate behind a...