The big sweepstakes for free agent pitchers is in the books, with the four biggest names—David Price, Zack Greinke, Johnny Cueto and Jordan Zimmerman—all having made their decisions. The Boston Red Sox, the team I root for, “won” the bidding for Price, but to me this looks like a Pyrrhic victory. I think the Red […]
The Wisconsin Badger basketball team beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last night 64-49 and fans walked out of the Kohl Center with hope that this young team could find itself by the time Big Ten play begins in two weeks. By the postgame press conference, their coach had retired. Bo Ryan made his rumored retirement effective […]
In an NFL media culture that so often simplifies quarterback play to simple wins and losses, the underrating of Russell Wilson has been a mystery. The Seattle Seahawks’ fourth-year quarterback can win Super Bowls and engineer comebacks, but his own role is perpetually dismissed as being either the product of the Legion of Boom defense […]
Brad Stevens has the Boston Celtics on a good path. In the third year of a five-year contract, Stevens has overseen a rebuilding project that made the playoffs last year in a weak Eastern Conference and is a good bet to back there this season in a stronger East. Stevens is well-regarded in Boston, by […]
DeSean Jackson was the story, both good and bad for the Washington Redskins after last night’s crushing 19-16 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Jackson made the game’s biggest blunder with the score tied 9-9 late in the fourth quarter when he reversed field on a punt return, tried to force something that clearly wasn’t there […]
The college bowls start in twelve days with a schedule bookended by the Arizona teams—it’s Arizona-New Mexico as the first game on December 19 and the final game on January 2 is Arizona State-West Virginia. Neither one of those games does much for me, but in between there’s a whole lot of interesting matchups, from […]
The Big Ten Championship Game had all the earmarks of a night that just wasn’t going to be Michigan State’s. They had made critical mistakes with penalties at big moments, negating drives and costing themselves points. They allowed an 85-yard touchdown pass. Connor Cook wasn’t sharp and Iowa’s secondary was sticking to Sparty receivers like […]
If you’re wondering whether a city seeing all four of its teams win in this tight of a timeframe is a record, the answer is yes. In fact, Boston broke its own record. The previous best was eleven years, when these teams all won between 2001 and 2011. The Patriots and Red Sox each winning again moved up the timetable
Even when they’re not playing, Ohio State looms large in the College Football Playoff rankings. The Buckeyes are at the center of two key questions regarding the New Year’s Six bowl games in general, and the four CFP teams in particular. And how the Committee answers those questions will tell us a lot over how […]
I’m generally not a conspiracy theorist, but it was late in the fourth quarter of the Sunday Night Patriots-Broncos game that I became one. New England was hanging on to a 21-17 lead, with Denver inside the 10-yard line and facing a second-and-goal. Defensive tackle Alan Branch made a great bulrush up the middle, sacked […]
It was earlier in the week, when Urban Meyer took the podium to address the fallout from Ohio State’s 17-14 loss to Michigan State last Saturday, that I became concerned about my belief, held for several weeks, that the Buckeyes were going to lose in Ann Arbor. Meyer did something few head coaches will do—he […]
The Washington Redskins got everything they needed on Thanksgiving Day. The Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys not only lost, but looked the part of being completely finished. The Eagles appear to have mailed it on Chip Kelly. The Cowboys lost Tony Romo again. If that’s the case, it means the NFC East is a two-team […]
