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The NIL contracts for “student-athletes” have been an overwhelming success, according to many people, including us. They give an unpaid workforce access to a revenue stream, make for great stories when used right, and end this ruse that college athletics should be an altruistic endeavor because kids are getting an…Read more...

Don Maynard, a wide receiver who played in two of professional football’s landmark games during his Hall of Fame career and son of Texas, died on January 10 at the age of 86.

It’s Week 18, and we’ve made it to the end of the season, and so have our rookie quarterbacks. Now let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class finished out the year and the final ranking.

I heard a story from a Cubs fan in New York in November of 2016. I can’t remember who or where exactly. If you heard it too, feel free to remind me on Twitter. Anyway, the guy was parading around Manhattan the day after the Cubs won the World Series in his Cubs hat, as you do. He happened to cross paths with Denzel…Read more...

It’s been four years since that classic national championship between Georgia and Alabama. A lot has changed in that full recruiting cycle since true freshman Tua Tagovailoa threw that 41-yard game-winning touchdown pass to true freshman DeVonta Smith in overtime after taking a 16-yard sack the previous play that…Read more...

Sports fanatics are a passionate and loyal bunch of people who tend to defend their teams’ honor to the point of exhaustion.

I, and every other Bears fan, have become far too used to this Black Monday cycle. Third time in eight years, seventh time in my lifetime. And there’s supposed to be a routine to it. News of whichever dope your team is firing leaks in the morning. You then hear of a press conference scheduled later in the day. Then…Read more...

Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. It’s time to wrap up the season for the league’s most powerless. So, let’s check out the worst teams to close out the regular season in Week 18.Read more...

That’s all folks. The sad moment of the year when Scott Hanson signs off and the final RedZone touchdown montage plays. You’re momentarily hypnotized by the best catches, throws, and runs of the day, and then one moment the Miami Dolphins are in a dogpile in the end zone, and the next Nicki Minaj’s Chun-Li is playing…Read more...

Those lovable, plucky underdogs, the Golden State Warriors. A couple of tough seasons — really one terrible season and another season that ended in disappointment, proved to be a mere traffic jam on the Warriors’ freeway of dominance.

Transcendent athletes are the rarest of birds. Blue-Eyed Golden Doves, if you will.

Perhaps in the social media age, or just our vindictive society, being the best ever at something is going to cause a mass amount of idiocy around you. Then again, when you’re the author of that idiocy, maybe we have to admit that to be the best ever to play any sport, it takes such a singular focus that everything…Read more...

Even when you’re twice – and sometimes three times – as good, it still doesn’t matter. Because in the NFL, owners would rather lose with someone that looks like them instead of winning with a Black head coach.

You could feel the collective frustration of every sports fan outside of Pittsburgh last night. It was as if we all punched the couch at the same time. You could hear it in the wind, a spiritual “THUNK.”

Judges play in New York.

Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. It’s time to wrap up the season for the league’s most powerless. So, let’s check out the worst teams to close out the regular season in Week 18.

That’s all folks. The sad moment of the year when Scott Hanson signs off and the final RedZone touchdown montage plays. You’re momentarily hypnotized by the best catches, throws, and runs of the day, and then one moment the Miami Dolphins are in a dogpile in the end zone, and the next Nicki Minaj’s Chun-Li is playing…Read more...

It may not be possible to feel sorry for someone who got to rake in tens of millions of dollars to live in Barcelona (with a brief sojourn to Munich) and not have to do much. And certainly Liverpool supporters won’t have any sympathy for Philippe Coutinho given the way he exited Anfield for the Nou Camp in 2018.Read more...

The Boston Celtics have one of the richest legacies in North American sports, but as of late, they have not been able to get over that hump to capture another NBA championship. In recent years, their two young stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have led them to multiple Eastern Conference Finals appearances.…Read more...

It is cute, if not delicious, that Tuukka Rask’s imminent return to the Boston Bruins is being greeted as something of the cavalry arriving. Because Bruins fans (and media) have never hesitated to throw whatever available cutlery was around at Tuke Nuke ‘Em every spring because he wasn’t Tim Thomas, when the Bruins…Read more...

Unfortunately, the last week of the year has arrived. On a brighter note, the column has produced nine straight over/under victories, so technically, we’re actually seeking a sweep of the second half of the season in totals. Soak it in as we enter the historic first-ever “Week 18.”

Generally, when there’s talk about interest in hiring you as a coordinator before you’re even fired as a head coach, it’s a sign that you’re seen as a good football mind. It might even be a sign that the team you’re about to be fired from ought to rethink things. Clearly you’re in demand, and maybe you can still be…Read more...

Remember that show Pitch that aired on Fox in 2016? That show revolved around the question: “What if there was a female pitcher in Major League Baseball?” The show was canceled after one season despite tremendous reviews from critics and audiences alike with the detractors calling the show “cliché”. Essentially, some…Read more...

Todd Graham answers the question that absolutely no one was asking.

Across all sports, the Coach of the Year Award has a misleading title. It’s not about who the best coach is; it’s about which team stunned the most people, or which team overcame the most adversity while staying near the top of the league. That’s what voters are really looking for. By that criteria, there are a lot of…Read more...

The Jacksonville Jaguars were a joke long before this season. They’ve made the playoffs seven times in their 27-year history, and four of those were in the first five seasons of their existence. This season will be Jaguars’ fifth in the last six years in which they’ve finished last in the AFC South, which itself is…Read more...

Let’s just begin by talking about Novak Djokovic’s skills. He is very, very good at hitting fuzzy, yellow, bouncy tennis balls. He can hit them very hard, and yet he can also hit them very softly. He makes people clap with delight with how he hits tennis balls. He wins very large trophies. Hitting fuzzy, yellow,…Read more...

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of Kyrie Irving’s own actions.Read more...

“Shut the fuck up.”Read more...

2021 marked the first NFL season with each team playing 17 games in the regular season. Many people were quick to state their displeasure with the expansion, claiming that adding a 17th game hurts the sport and is merely a cash grab only meant to benefit the owners and put the players at greater risk. Valid points,…Read more...

Brandon Brown is the most famous race car driver in America, an incredible thing for a 28-year-old in the second-tier NASCAR Xfinity Series who has won exactly one race since moving up from the NASCAR truck series, where he was winless with only one top-10 finish in 22 races over four seasons.Read more...

Being a Major League catcher is tough. Not only do you have to squat in an uncomfortable position for over an hour everyday for six months while wearing big, heavy pads (the tools of ignorance) in the middle of summer, but you also need to be knowledgeable of your pitching staff and opponents so as to call the best…Read more...

Dana White and the UFC are still printing money. Following a successful 2021 with spectators returning to the arenas for events, the price of the brick is going up. Purchasing a UFC pay-per-view event will now cost $74.99, per Newsday’s Mark LaMonica. This new price increase will be the third since MMA behemoth signed…Read more...

I was never as down on The Athletic as some. I suppose I appreciated their aim, or stated aim, of creating an online sports section, as I was one of the few of my generation, or the ones to come after, to still grow up on sports sections. I was raised on Bob Verdi and Bernie Lincicome (pre-crank) in the Chicago…Read more...

The Dallas Cowboys are closing out another season on shaky ground, even though they’ve already locked up the NFC East title.

Georgia football is currently preparing for its first national championship game since 2017. Georgia men’s basketball, led by head coach Tom Crean, on the other hand, is at the bottom of the SEC standings with a 5-9 record overall. Their last five games consisted of a loss to George Mason, a single-digit victory over…Read more...

Advanced analytics are a touchy subject in the baseball world. Some people love how the game has been broken down into a series of numbers that let even casual fans understand the game better. Others don’t share the same sentiment.

The transfer portal is college football’s most controversial, unpredictable, and ever-changing tool. After a 2021 rule change that eliminated the requirement for transferring athletes to sit out a year before being eligible to play again, this postseason portal activity is exploding.

Feel free to speculate on exactly why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers waited until Thursday afternoon to make this decision, but it is now final, they have released Antonio Brown.

If a newcomer to the wrestling world wanted an exhibition on why AEW makes so much noise for such a new company in the industry, this past week would be it. It has showcased everything the company does well, as well as exemplified the problems it has, and more importantly how it addresses those problems. You really…Read more...

Kyrie Irving is back with the Nets but that doesn’t mean a fairy tale ending to the season is guaranteed

They said they wanted their political agendas and sports to be separate. They never practice what they preach.

If Jordan McNair’s friends or family ever got into a fight with anybody responsible for giving D.J. Durkin a job in football since 2018, it would be understandable.

Yesterday, we spent some time talking about a principled stand that AP voter Hub Arkush took on voting for Aaron Rodgers for MVP. You may not agree with the principles, and they were probably on the self-righteous side (it’s been a habit of Hub’s for years), but at least they were his. And you could understand, even…Read more...

One more win for the Tennessee Titans. All they need is to win one more game and they can clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC. With an 11-5 record, a low mark for a team in first place but that speaks to a lack of a clear best team in the AFC, a home victory against the 4-12 Houston Texans — who have won two of…Read more...

Tuf Borland, Mac McCain, Luther Kirk, Paul Quessenberry, and Pooka Williams all joined an elite group this year. Not many people can say that they have played in an NFL game, but these five men all did exactly that this season.

I’ve gone on record stating that Joe Burrow might be one of the best leaders in the NFL. However, after seeing the stunt he is pulling ahead of his team’s final game of the season with the AFC’s top seed on the line, I have to alter my statement.Read more...

Taylor Heinicke’s fairy tale story might be coming to an end upon the close of this NFL season. It was a nice story last year in the playoffs when he gave Tom Brady and Tampa Bay a run for their money. But after an entire season of watching Heinicke under center for Washington, it’s clear that he is not the long-term…Read more...

Today is one of those days in which the NFL has made a good decision. It doesn’t happen often. The decision to add an extra game to the schedule in a sport that can cause brain damage, during a world-wide pandemic, might be a short term financial win, but it’s making the product worse and is ethically problematic.…Read more...