The president-elect has been clear about his contempt for ‘softer’ rules in America’s most lucrative sport. Will that effect the fight against brain trauma?Earlier this November, an NFL executive gave a fascinating, if bewildering, quote to Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman regarding the future of the nation’s most popular sports league under Donald Trump.“Under President [Barack] Obama, the country was intellectual and looked at facts. I think that’s why our ratings fell,” said the anonymous executive. “People read a lot about our scandals or CTE and didn’t like what they saw. Under Trump, the country will care less about truth or facts. It’ll be [more raw] and brutal. Football will be more of an outlet. We’ll go back to liking our...
Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott are receiving the plaudits as Dallas have surged to 10-1, but they couldn’t have done it without the NFL’s best O-lineIn team sports, even brilliant individuals need a helping hand. Michael Jordan needed Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman. Lionel Messi requires the services of Luis Suárez, Neymar and Andrés Iniesta. And Sidney Crosby knows he would not have won another Stanley Cup for Pittsburgh had Evgeni Malkin not skated with him. Related: An improbably sunny forecast for NFL's playoff-starved Florida pair Continue reading...
The Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have enjoyed surprising reversals of fortune, now with play-off hopes after a combined 3-7 startA funny thing happened on the way to this year’s NFL play-offs: two Florida teams suddenly became relevant again.From the wreckage of a combined 3-7 start to the season – and the distinct possibility of an eighth straight year without post-season play in the Sunshine State – Miami and Tampa Bay have unexpectedly bucked a disturbing trend and given the region’s football fans reason to hope again. Related: How the Chicago Bears became NFL's most untroubled losers Continue reading...
The Dallas Mavericks have said they will not stoop to tanking but most fans would happily undergo pain in return for a little successWhen I read that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban will not allow his abysmal 3-13 basketball team to succumb to the darkness and tank for better odds in the draft lottery, I clutched my imaginary pearls in horror. No team is too good to tank. If the Lakers could do it for three seasons and the Celtics could let their aging championship core stroll up the interstate to Brooklyn, why are the Mavericks of all teams so snooty about it?I understand that tanking a professional sports team is considered a social faux pas akin to manspreading on...
This season will be the ninth of the last 10 in which the Bears have missed the playoffs. And yet there seems little urgency to correct mattersSay this for the Chicago Bears: they lose with a consistent style seen nowhere else in the NFL. While the Cleveland Browns, the league’s standard bearer for failure, seemingly jump from quarterback to quarterback every week and get a new head coach most every season, the Bears fail with a clear plan in place. Never reactionary or quick to pull the trigger on a franchise-altering move, they simply plod ever forward. A steam ship churning towards a horizon that never has a sunrise. In the 24 years since Mike Ditka moved on from Chicago, the...