In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
On a night when Kobe Bryant was hampered with a stomach issue, Ty Lawson scored 32 points and the Nuggets forced a Game 7 with a 113-96 win over the Lakers. "It sucks when you're sick for a big playoff game, doesn't it?" said Michael Jordan, in a really sarcastic phone call to Bryant. "So hard to play well. So hard to win. Hey, good luck man. Good luck with everything. Jordan out."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
John Elway and the Denver Broncos officially introduced Peyton Manning in a press conference after signing the free agent to a deal that could be worth as much as $96 million over five years. "I'm happy to join the Mile High club under a legend like John Elway," said Manning, in a really unfortunate opening statement followed by an even more unfortunate joke: "Even if it does get a little hard to breathe!"
It's finally here! With free agency just 24 hours away, we finish up our free agent preview today with a look at the teams who we think should spend exorbitant sums of money to improve themselves over the next couple of weeks. And while last year's free agency period was overshadowed by the lockout and the mass confusion that emanated from said work stoppage, it's good to see that this year's shopping spree will not be overshadowed by any pressing NFL business that could have been resolved months ago.
Well, shit. Just when we thought Bountygate was going to occupy us for the next few weeks, the league decided to add a spending scandal to the mix and dramatically change the financial outlook for the Cowboys and Redskins. Toss in Peyton Manning's nationwide tour and the holding period that a fifth of the league seems to be in while waiting for his decision, and it seems like the crop of veteran free agents we expected to be the lead story are basically irrelevant right about now.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Randy Moss is back in football. The 35-year-old receiver signed a one-year deal with the 49ers after working out for Jim Harbaugh. Sources reported that the workout went really well, except for an awkward moment near the end when Harbaugh shoved Moss to the ground while shaking hands, and Moss responded by aggressively mooning him.
The Robert Griffin III trade on Friday night produced more than a marked uptick in celebrations on U Street; it set into motion a series of events that should have a profound impact on the NFL as it heads into free agency this week. We don't know how the trade between the Redskins and Rams will play out over the next five years, but we do know that there are nearly a dozen teams who felt the reverberations of the RG3 deal and its resulting events. Teams handing out makeup contracts! Cap space being carved out! Peyton Manning sleeping overnight in desperately desirous cities! We have to take the temperature of the rest of the league right now to see how this RG3 deal has, well, heated things up. (Get it?) (You get it, right?) (It's a fev … OK, sorry.)
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.
There is the victory you enjoy in private, at the end of a hard-fought day, with the family or close friends, feelings of ambient, total satisfaction in the chest and a cold beer in hand. And then there is the victory experienced in public: the gratuitous bat-flip and slow trot, the penalty for excessive celebration you’ll gladly take, kissing your badge to taunt the opposing fans. Generally, this second type of celebration is not permitted to NFL coaches; a fist-pump and a smile are about as swaggy as it gets. Which is why a good press conference can make for such great theater, the delicate and unlikely battlefield where these hypercompetitive leaders of hypercompetitive men might begin to work through some those accruing aggressions.
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."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday
The dream semifinal is set in Australia, as both Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal won their quarterfinal matches. Nadal holds a 7-2 lead in Grand Slam matches, but Federer has promised that he's going to break out his sickest cream-colored outfit yet to just priss the hell out of Nadal. "I'm gonna priss him 'til he blushes," Federer vowed. "Just delicately flip my hair, prance around like a schoolboy, and get my priss on something severe. Ya heard?"
A source indicated that the Big East will add Navy to the football lineup in 2015. The move was reportedly made to give the conference the option to be buried at sea when it dies from sucking.
This late in the playoffs, nothing comes easy, and that was certainly true of the New York Giants 20-17 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers. Ostensibly the game was won — or lost — because of San Francisco punt returner Kyle Williams's fumble in overtime, which set up Eli Manning and the Giants for a short, game winning field goal in sudden death. But outside of a few mistakes, the game was incredibly well played. particularly by the defenses. And it was also the type of game where stats can be a bit misleading: 49ers quarterback Alex Smith, as a result of a couple of well placed throws to tight-end Vernon Davis, had the edge over Eli Manning in some key passing statistics, including passer rating and yards per pass attempt, which is my favorite non-advanced passing metric. But those belied the reality: Manning put in an incredible performance against an absolutely ferocious defense, repeatedly delivering key throws under pressure (which he was under constantly). It took him an incredible 58 pass attempts (plus six sacks, making 64 called pass plays) to generate just over 300 yards, but the Giants run-game was nearly non-existent until late. Indeed, if not for the symbiotic relationship Manning had with receiver Victor Cruz — who had 10 key catches for 142 yards — there would have been no 17 hard-fought points, no overtime, no Super Bowl berth.
For those who reside outside New York’s tristate area, I’d imagine Sunday’s NFC championship game was a pretty unsatisfying affair. When the most notable player in a game is a guy who muffed two punts and Alex Smith is busy being Alex Smith-y, nobody is having fun. Well, almost nobody.
For defensive-line junkies like me, Sunday night was quite the fix.
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."
