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Euro 2021: Memphis Depay gets to try again
To make it to the very top levels of any sport as an athlete, it must take an unfathomable reservoir of self-belief. With all the obstacles, the sheer amount of work, and all the days where the dream must seem as close as one of Saturn’s moons, one would have to be able to call on a never-ending sup...

Things aren’t looking so hot in Green Bay
Have you ever seen “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly?” No, seriously. The 1966 Western starring Clint Eastwood is a classic, featuring horses and gunfights and bravado and all that toxic Hollywood macho “this is what a man is” stuff. The movie reaches a boiling point in a three-way standoff between E...

Euro 2021: For the last time, is this Belgium’s time?
For European teams, the lack of opportunities to actually win a trophy can muddy the results they do get. There’s only a trophy on offer every two years (when there isn’t a pandemic), and perhaps Spain at the beginning of the last decade altered our perception of what’s success and what isn’t....

This hat has LOSER written all over it
Even apparel makers think the Detroit Lions are losers....

How do you solve a problem like Weston McKennie?
There are about 400 lessons that fans could have learned about the U.S. Men’s National team last night. And they spread over the entire spectrum of endless hope of things we’ve never imagined to complete and total disaster we’re sadly all too familiar with. Projecting this team into the future, beca...

U.S. beats Mexico in some combination of soccer, whirlyball, and Fury Road
The CONCACAF Nations League isn’t really supposed to be anything. It’s something of a cheap mockery of Europe’s Nations League, which was really only conjured to get rid of meaningless friendlies in years between major competitions. So, even that’s not really a thing. The CONCACAF version is basical...

If Tannehill can make two reads, the Julio Jones Titans should be Super Bowl favorites
As everyone knows by now, Julio Jones is going to be a Tennessee Titan. ...

Euro 2021: Can Italy score enough to make some serious noise?
While the teeth-gnashing on these shores during the last World Cup were enough to drown out the laments of everyone else in the world, you may have forgotten that a true giant of the international game wasn’t in Russia either. That would be Italy, the first time they didn’t partake in the tournament...

How many Tampa Bay Lightning players do you think Tom Brady can name?
It’s no big deal if Tom Brady isn’t familiar with anyone on the team, and he was just glad to agree to serve as the Bolts’ “fan captain” for Saturday’s Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s also hilarious to see the big-time Cameo video energy that Brady brought to the table to fire up the Ta...

Road warrior Kawhi Leonard joins NBA elite with season-saver in Dallas
If you were watching Game 6 of Clippers-Mavericks on Friday night, you heard about a hundred times how there’s never been a series in the NBA where the road team won the first six games — until now, since Los Angeles notched a 104-97 victory behind 45 points from Kawhi Leonard....

USMNT knocks off Honduras, but doesn’t look so hot
We USMNT fans have been dreaming for a while about what the team could be with the influx of young stars plying their trade in Europe over the past two years. Problem was, it had been more than 500 days since the national team played a game with anything riding on it, thanks to the pandemic. Can’t k...

Alex Nedeljkovic may not win the Calder Trophy, but he’s undoubtedly been the NHL’s most valuable rookie
Earlier today, the three finalists for the 2021 Calder Trophy were named....

Will we actually see an NBA Finals without LeBron?
We might be in store for something very rare in the NBA — a Finals that doesn’t include LeBron James. With the Lakers down 3-2 to the Phoenix Suns, the possibility is becoming more and more likely that the defending champs won’t make it out of the first round. Not seeing Lebron making a deep playoff...

How is Brazil the better choice for Copa America?
You may be getting your large-sporting-events-that-shouldn’t-be-taking-place confused, and it would be understandable. There’s the Olympics, which just lost 10,000 volunteers, is in a state of emergency, and yet welcoming thousands of athletes from 200 countries — doesn’t seem all that sharp. There’...

MLB doesn’t need a 'face of baseball,' and the proof is in the playoffs
Mike Trout has as many MVP awards as career playoff games played, with three, and for as much talk as there might be in baseball — even from the commissioner — about MLB’s need for the best player of his generation to take on the mantle of the face of the game, no amount of marketing can make up for...

Ertz so good, but he’s 31
Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz is a 3-time Pro Bowler, Super Bowl champ, and husband to a gold medalist soccer player. Those are some pretty solid accomplishments. Mr. Julie Ertz is just two years removed from a Pro Bowl season in which he caught 88 passes for 916 yards and six touchdowns. ...

Hey, Knicks fans: At least you’re not the Maple Leafs
How bad was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collapse? It’s better to be a Knicks fan right now....

Naomi Osaka was bullied out of the French Open
In 2006, Zach Greinke almost quit baseball. Racked with social anxiety, Greinke told the media he thought, “Why am I putting myself through torture when I didn’t really want to do it? I mean, I enjoyed playing, but everything else that went with it I didn’t.”...

Now the Leafs have the calamity they’ve always wanted
Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from...

If it’s not the Leafs this season, which teams have the best (worst?) shot at passing the Rangers 54-year Cup futility?
The New York Rangers are the historic gold standard for futility in the NHL, having gone 54 years without winning the Stanley Cup until finally getting the job done in 1994 (see Mark Messier with the Cup above) — after decades of being taunted with “1940” chants in enemy arenas....