v Page 2701 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

TV Ratings For Ravens-Broncos Were Bananas
The NFL is invincible. After a season of unnecessary distractions and safety crises and owner collusion and labor stoppages, in the course of two days the sport managed to put on two games that were so good they make you want to run through a fucking brick wall. Saturday's slugfest in Denver and yes...

Iowa Basketball Player Throws Shoe, Nearly Decapitates Own Coach
Iowa's offense is dangerous. The Hawkeyes' Aaron White wasn't trying to plunk head coach Fran McCaffery after Northwestern's Alex Marcotullio lost his shoe during the second half yesterday. White was actually trying to get the shoe off the floor as quickly as possible so Iowa could continue to run i...

Brendon Ayanbadejo Is Already Chirping About The Patriots' "Gimmick" Offense
Ravens LB Brendon Ayanbadejo made headlines last summer when he very publicly announced his support of Maryland's gay-marriage referendum. Now he's opening himself up to an even more hateful bunch of opponents—Pats fans. (See?) Ayanbadejo didn't even wait for New England to finish its asskicking of ...

Denver's CBS Affiliate Seems Really Confused About Which Teams Are Playing In The AFC Championship
As you already know, the Denver Broncos fell this weekend to the Baltimore Ravens in a double-OT thriller. The city of Denver, it seems, is still a bit in denial. Here's a graphic that ran during last night's 6 p.m. newscast, one that's exceptionally bizarre to the point you wonder how it got on TV...

Fox Gets Conservative: Did The Denver Coach's Risk-Averse Strategy Cost The Broncos A Playoff Victory?
NFL coaches will often refer to "playing the percentages." But if there's one thing I've learned by studying strategic decisions, it's that coaches don't have a firm grasp of those percentages. And when anyone is uncertain of the odds, he'll fall back on the sure thing. That was the case with Bronco...

Sports Video Gaming Must Face Its Own Era Of Excess
Wednesday was supposed to be a day of no news in Major League Baseball. There are no league games in January, of course; pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 29 days. And exit polling had long foreseen the shutout ballot, for the first time since 1996, that the Baseball Writers Associa...

Man Performs Feat Even More Incredible Than Making A Half-Court Shot For $1,000
No one will ever confuse me with Nate Silver, but I have to think attempting a half-court shot and having the ball firmly wedge itself between the backboard and the rim is much, much further down the list of likely outcomes than "made shot."...
![Atlanta Finally Wins A Playoff Game And Brandon Spikes Over-Celebrates: Falcons-Seahawks And Patriots-Texans, In GIFs [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18bf2wkhhylx6gif.gif)
Atlanta Finally Wins A Playoff Game And Brandon Spikes Over-Celebrates: Falcons-Seahawks And Patriots-Texans, In GIFs [Updated]
Here's where we're putting all of our divisional round GIFs for the Falcons' tense win over the Seahawks and the Patriots' not-so-tense win over the Texans. Click through for everything from Richard Sherman clap-clap-clapping in Roddy White's face (after losing him in coverage) to Bill Belichick ne...

The Mayor Of Denver Has To Do The Ray Lewis Dance Now
Mayors of rival cities make cities make light-hearted bets on the outcome of sporting events all the time. Just yesterday the Packers-49ers game had chocolates, cheese curds, sparkling wine, "a free admission day to the Children's Museum" and bread, beer, more chocolates and a "a free admission day ...

Reminder: Peyton Manning Still Better Than Tim Tebow
Broncos fans should be used to this by now: a big time, Super Bowl-winning quarterback lost to an obviously lesser quarterback in an overtime classic in Denver. The comparisons have been as inescapable as they are stupid:...

Justin Tucker's Practice Kicks Before His Game-Winner Were Not Allowed, But They Were Also Not Not Allowed
Before Justin Tucker made the field goal that ended the the fifth longest game in NFL history yesterday, he jogged onto the field between the two overtimes and had an assistant coach hold the ball for him while he practiced his kicks. Champ Bailey was dismayed, as you can see in the video above, b...

N.C. State Upset Duke Yesterday On The Strength Of This <i>Braveheart</i>-Inspired Speech (Probably)
I'll be honest, I watched this thinking it would be stupid and boring and not worth watching. But you know what? It's kind of fun. And let's be honest, these guys are the red-headed stepchildren of Carolina, they deserve a little moment in the sun. So here's a little Braveheart-themed pep rally be...

James Harden Crossover Gives Jrue Holiday Whiplash
The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Houston Rockets 107-100 last night and oh, who cares? Do yourself a favor: skip to the :09 mark of this video and watch in slow motion how James Harden crosses up Jrue Holiday. Looks pretty bad, right? Now go back to the beginning and watch in real time as James Har...

H, Y, and Z Are Your Money Letters: How To Beat Scrabble's Flawed Points System, Using Google-Powered Math
This week the director of research at Google, a fellow named Peter Norvig, published on his blog the results of a fascinating deep-dive into the English language. If you're at all interested in letter frequency or word frequency, you owe it to yourself to at least skim Norvig's post. Essentially the...

A Summit Of Two Of The Most Widely Loved And Reviled Football Players In The NFL Took Place After Ravens-Broncos
A tableau: Peyton Manning and Ray Lewis talking in a Mile High Stadium locker room, 90 minutes after the end of the pitched battle that was their AFC divisional playoff matchup, 85 minutes after Ray Lewis yelled Bible verse at Solomon Wilcots, and about six hours after the game started. There's just...

Watch Ray Lewis Yell About Weapons After The Ravens Beat The Broncos
Here's Ray Lewis's response to Solomon Wilcots's first post-game question after the Ravens beat the Broncos in double overtime. He's quoting Isaiah 54:17, which in the New King James Version reads:...
![Infinite Manningfaces For The Game Of The Year And Colin Kaepernick Fooling All Of Wisconsin: Saturday's NFL Playoff Games, In GIFs [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18bbm90l4gtejgif.gif)
Infinite Manningfaces For The Game Of The Year And Colin Kaepernick Fooling All Of Wisconsin: Saturday's NFL Playoff Games, In GIFs [Updated]
Here's where we're stashing all of our GIFs for today's AFC and NFC divisional playoff games in Denver and San Francisco. Click through for the highlights, from Peyton Manning making many variations on that face, to Colin Kaepernick using a fake handoff to trick the Green Bay defense, score a touchd...

Your Divisional Playoffs Open Thread
Baltimore at Denver, 4:30 p.m. (CBS): It'll be cold and probably lopsided, but the first thing might negate the second thing, so who knows. It'll also either be the last game of Ray Lewis's career or the last game of Peyton Manning's much-ballyhooed comeback season, so there are good schadenfreude ...

Cold Weather Football Is The Best: Answering All Your Questions About Today's 20° Below Freezing AFC Divisional Game
So, what's the weather going to be like in Denver today? Accuweather says it's currently 12° Fahrenheit. The high today is 16°, and the temperature is expected to drop back down to 8° by the evening, when the game will be finishing up. There will be snow, too, if not blankets of it: Flurries fell a...

No. 1 Duke Suffers First Loss To Some Team Or Other As Nation Revels In Annual Guilty Pleasure
It's not the Yankees losing in the divisionals, nor a conference rival pantsing Alabama midseason. Nor is it quite the Lakers fizzling in May, or the Cowboys losing year after year after year after delicious year....