ward Page 34 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The long road of Cooper Kupp
Heading into the 2013 FCS football season, Eastern Washington was expected to be one of the prominent challengers to the early parts of the North Dakota State dynasty. The red-and-white Eagles were the best team in the Big Sky Conference. They knew it, too, throwing a lot of moxie behind quarterback...

Meet Kenny Washington, the man who broke the NFL's color barrier
LOS ANGELES — There is a lot going on in the NFL shop at the Los Angeles Convention Center. There’s a section for Los Angeles Rams gear, Cincinnati Bengals gear, a place to customize your own gear, places for memorabilia such as autographed helmets and portraits, and a DJ. At the entrance of that NF...

Top 10 Super Bowl one-hit wonders
We all know Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, and Roger Staubach. People like them made a name for themselves by coming up big in the Super Bowl on numerous occasions. Their ability to stay calm and play phenomenal football on the game’s biggest stage is what made them all-time NFL greats, but...

In the other big NBA trade, four-team deadline deal could put Milwaukee over the top again
Many of you probably missed the four-team trade involving seven players and draft picks with all the commotion and reaction over the James Harden-Ben Simmons blockbuster. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Kings, Bucks, Clippers, and Pistons have agreed to the following trade: ...

NBA steals the spotlight from Super Bowl week with blockbuster James Harden for Ben Simmons trade
Wow. So, the trade that felt like it would never happen finally went down. The Brooklyn Nets have agreed to send James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski....

Meet Deadspin’s Super idiots
The Super Bowl is the biggest stage in sports, where stars are made, legends are born… and embarrassment lives forever. There are plays that just don’t get made, sure — like Scott Norwood’s field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV — but there’s a difference between not getting the job done, and screw...

I know just the coach for Auburn
The writing is on the wall for Bryan Harsin at Auburn, to the point where Paul Finebaum is openly speculating about Hugh Freeze coming in from Liberty — after five years of SEC exile — to take the Tigers job....

From bad to worse: 15 years ago the NFL had 2 African-American coaches in the Super Bowl, now they barely have that in the entire league
To fully understand just how bad the NFL is at hiring African-American and Black coaches, a history lesson is needed....

Pro Bowl has become definition of irrelevant for the NFL
The NFL Pro Bowl used to be one of the more exciting parts of the football season, but over the years has become as irrelevant as Motorola’s two-way pager. Watching the most outstanding players the game has to offer each year at the same time has now been reduced to nothing more than filler in betwe...

Jim Harbaugh came crawling back to Michigan… leave his ass on the porch
Michigan has taken back the unfaithful Jim Harbaugh with open arms and tear-filled eyes. It’s not that he cheated on them, but it’s also not for lack of effort. It is almost a little more embarrassing that way for both parties — come on, guys, stand up for yourselves a little! He tried to leave you!...

Kobe on Dwight Howard: 'This shit ain't gonna work'
Anybody who watched the late Kobe Bryant’s career knows he was all business and no-nonsense on the basketball court. So, it’s no surprise that the tandem of Bryant and Dwight Howard didn’t work out when the Lakers acquired the big man back in 2012. Current ESPN analyst and former NBA player Jalen Ro...

Caleb Williams follows Lincoln Riley to USC, furthers OU fans’ spiral
Caleb Williams officially twisted the knives Lincoln Riley stuck in the backs of Oklahoma fans when he left for Southern California as the talented QB announced Tuesday he’s following his coach to USC. He did so via tweet, featuring videos with appearances by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Will Ferrell....

For a moment, it actually felt like L.A. was all in on the Rams
LOS ANGELES — It took a few hours, but a roar finally bellowed out in the sports bar following Aaron Donald’s forced interception of Jimmy Garappolo. A noise level that for most of the game didn’t exceed the level of a drunk birthday party group in the back of a restaurant. The moment Donald envelop...

Brian Kelly dances down the recruiting trail
Danny Lewis, a tight end from New Iberia, La., had been ticketed for Cincinnati, but decommitted from the Bearcats earlier this month. Reopening his recruiting process, Lewis visited Alabama last week, and got some photos of himself all decked out in a Crimson Tide uniform. Neat! Seems like a fun ti...

Joe Burrow and Matthew Stafford are giving me déjà vu of Super Bowl L
I know neither the Rams nor Bengals have punched their way into the Super Bowl yet, but just look at what would be happening if both teams won on Sunday....

C’mon now, 13 seconds is a ton of time
Hey, Bills fans, I know life sucks and everything hurts right now, but it’ll get better. There’s always next year is something Cubs fans tell themselves after their team is mathematically eliminated in August, so don’t tell yourselves that. Tell yourselves that you have one of the best young QBs in ...

Does Tom Thibodeau have any idea what to do with Cam Reddish? So far, it doesn’t look like it
Do me a favor, search “Cam Reddish” on Twitter and see what you find. Yes, I know Twitter is a place where a lot of idiotic and terrible takes call home – especially when it comes to sports, particularly the NBA. But, now and then, people come together in unity to form one tribe – like we all did on...

Cooper Kupp is the NFL’s most valuable player — he just won’t win it because it’s a QB award like the Heisman
Since value is defined as something of “great worth,” it means that Cooper Kupp is just that — ask Rams fans. After a season in which he led the NFL in receptions (145), receiving touchdowns (16), and receiving yards (1,947) — the receiver Triple Crown — Kupp caught 9 passes for 183 yards and one to...

Let’s try to understand the NBA’s defensive player rating and all its absurdity
Analytics can be misleading. Over the last decade, we’ve seen an influx of statistics take over the sports world, and basketball hasn’t been exempt from this revolution — just look at all the three-point attempts we see now across the NBA. But one stat in particular can be even dangerously misleadin...

So this Romelu Lukaku thing is a problem, just not in the way we thought
Back in August, I wrote this. And it sure seemed that way, as Chelsea utterly destroyed Arsenal, spearheaded by Romelu Lukaku. These were the defending European champions, who had just added the best striker from Italy in Lukaku the previous season, and he seemed like the final piece for Chelsea to ...