In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
The Baylor Bears became the first college basketball team to ever compile a 40-0 record and win the national championship. Brittney Griner's 26 points and 13 boards helped her team to an 80-61 victory over Stanford Notre Dame, and earned the undefeated Bears a permanent place in the history books. "Alright, just say it," said the Washington Wizards. "You think they could beat us too, right? Just say it, damn you!"
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
Steve Nash said that he wouldn't be coming back to the Suns next season if there wasn't some improvement in the roster, and that he'd be willing to talk to the Miami Heat about a free agent signing. "And that goes double for my pal Browning," he said, patting the pistol he wore in a side holster. Reporters asked what he meant, but he just narrowed his eyes, patted the pistol again, and said, "I am a dog, and I have the heart that Rick does not. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll mosey down to South Beach now, in fact, with a quick detour to New Orleans. I've heard the people there are merrymakers, and I do intend to join the saturnalia."
With just four business days left before the start of the NFL free agency period, it's high time for us to start the final portion of our sprawling, seemingly endless free agent preview. After standing in for agents, scoffing at the largesse of owners, and identifying comparables for the pool's key players, it's finally time to approach free agency from the perspective of the league's general managers and player personnel departments.
The marriage between Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts whimpered its way to a conclusion on Tuesday night, as Chris Mortensen reported that the team will release Manning to avoid paying the $28 million roster bonus due to the future Hall of Famer. Although Manning could eventually choose to re-sign with the Colts on lesser terms, the decision likely brings Manning's 14-year career with the team to an end. He finishes with 54,828 passing yards and 399 passing touchdowns in blue and white; only Brett Favre and Dan Marino have more passing yards and passing touchdowns for a single team.
Oh mannnnn, it's day three of the Robert Griffin III Watch, aka GRIFFINSANITY, and I haven't slept for 72 hours. I'm just afraid I'm going to miss something, you know what I mean? What if there's a crazy rumor? What if there's a rumor that Griffin III and Eli Manning got in a fistfight at a McDonald's, and now he's going to the Redskins so he can have his revenge on the field for years to come?
In fact, let's make that an official rumor. I'm calling it. Eli, Griffin, McDonald's, Redskins. Post it on your blogs because it's as good as true. If you want a reason, just say that Griffin called the Shamrock Shake "total crap," and Eli has a Shamrock Shake tattoo on his foot. Instant conflict.
Here's a quick recap of the RG3 Griffinsanity Watch so far:
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
Phil Mickelson out-dueled Tiger Woods by 11 shots in the final round to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. At the press conference, an angry Woods said that the only reason Mickelson beat him is that he was able to stabilize his putter by nestling it between his ample breasts.
The Yankees are in trade talks with the Pirates that may involve sending A.J. Burnett to Pittsburgh. It turns out the Yankees are on the lookout for a DH and a few young prospects, while the Pirates need someone who can belch redneck anthems and get arrested for cooking meth in a motel bathtub.
1. Dave Winfield
Bill Barnwell has respect for two kinds of people: those who work hard, and those who accept nothing but the best. I think Bill has fallen in love: "I think we need to honor Dave Winfield, he who would not go out and pick up Chinese food until the end of the Giants game and would not settle for any quality of Chinese food below P.F. Chang's. Congratulations, Dave Winfield, on keeping your standards high."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
A source reported that the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a nine-year, $214 million deal with former Brewers slugger Prince Fielder. The hefty contract was a bitter pill to swallow for Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge, who is currently being paid in worthless foreclosed Detroit homes.
How close were Sunday's conference championship games? Well, if you consider the final scores to be a sign of how close they were, let's go with the closest ever. Two three-point wins meant that the combined margin of victory for the Patriots and Giants was just six points. That's never happened before; in fact, the combined score differential of the two conference championship games has never been in single digits. The previous record was 12, set several times, most recently last year.
Close games inevitably produce heroes and scapegoats, the validity of which we discussed Monday. Today, we're going to get past Billy Cundiff, Lee Evans, and Kyle Williams to take a look at those players who offered a little more or a little less over the course of the entire game, as opposed to making their name on one or two big plays. This is the conference championship edition of "The Fabulous and the Flops."
This is a rough time to have ties to the Baltimore Ravens. I mean, Tom Brady was doing everything in his power to give the Ravens a spot in the Super Bowl, but they strangely refused to take it. And now that they're out, Baltimore fans (and, I suspect, many of the players) are upset and left with two guys to blame — Billy Cundiff with the missed kick and, more important, Lee Evans with the go-ahead touchdown drop.
The next few days will naturally be filled with hate speech toward these two. (I'd recommend Billy and Lee not return to Baltimore, and instead catch the rest of the Sundance Film Festival, sans Internet, television, or humans who have Internet/televisions.) But the attention of Ravens fans needs to be focused on the good that came out of Sunday's 23-20 loss. Believe it or not, there are a few reasons for Baltimore fans to forcibly turn that frown upside down.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
Eli Manning threw for 316 yards and two touchdowns and Lawrence Tynes hit the game-winning 31-yard field goal as the Giants advanced won the NFC championship with a 20-17 win over the 49ers. After the game, Satan lazily turned on his television and came across Tom Coughlin's post-game press conference. "Holy shit," he said, shuffling through some papers, "I still haven't collected that guy's soul from 2008?!"
Billy Cundiff shanked a 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left as Tom Brady and the Patriots survived to win the AFC championship 23-20. After the game, former Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood placed a sympathetic phone call to Cundiff. "Don't worry," said Norwood. "People will forget this after a few- sorry, hold on a second Billy, someone's urinating on my window again."
Hey, remember that time Craig Robinson, of Flip Flop Fly Ball fame, made that graphic for the baseball playoffs? That was cool, right? Good news: We asked him to do it again for the NFL playoffs. And this one even has an awesome bit involving the National Mall.
With the Divisional Round of the playoffs in the books, it's time to take a look at some of the numbers and storylines from this week's games in "The Fabulous and the Flops." And while we could just make this simple and pick guys like Vernon Davis and Eli Manning to be stars and Roman Harper and Tim Tebow as scrubs, it would be a little redundant by now; you already know what they did. Instead, we're going to take a glance at some of the less obvious performances from this past week.
By Shane Ryan at
David Butler II/US Presswire David Butler II/US Presswire
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
In his greatest act of humility yet, Tim Tebow threw for just nine completions and 136 yards as the New England Patriots crushed the Denver Broncos 45-10. The most awkward part of the game came when Bill Belichick demanded that Tebow acknowledge his own mediocrity as a quarterback, saying he had the power to blow him out or give him a close, honorable defeat, and Tebow was like, "You could have no power at all against me unless it had been give you from above, therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greatest sin," and Broncos head coach John Fox was like, "hey, wackos, leave me out of this."
As always, we detail the sordid and the successful every Tuesday in our weekly look back at the previous weekend's games; this is "The Fabulous and the Flops" for Week 15.
This week, we'll identify the player who might qualify as the worst backup quarterback … ever. We'll point out which quarterback looks like a different man during the second half, try to compare a player to a couch, and note which head coach was brave enough to own up to his mistakes on Sunday. We'll start, though, with the blowout from last Thursday night.
