The Browns are on the brink of a winless season and the projected No1 draft pick has reportedly said he doesn’t want to play there. How’s your week going?There is no football futility quite like the touchdowns you think you have until you don’t have them. And for the Cleveland Browns – a franchise that breathes futility through two incarnations – Sunday seemed like a particularly bleak low.On the way to what likely will be 0-16, the Browns nearly tasted elation. It came on a snow-covered field in Chicago with the serendipitous union of April’s No2 draft pick, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky, throwing a pass into the waiting arms of April’s No1 draft pick, Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett. Garrett...
The NFL can’t get out of its way with video replays and confusing rules deciding games and the NBA isn’t much better, but don’t expect anything to be doneDo you have an idea for a new sport that would feature some of the greatest athletes in the world, but instead of having the athletes decide the outcome in the final minutes, the game falls into the hands of officials and coaches? Then the American market is right for you. Yes, the United States, home to more than 300m people, seems to love sports that are at their worst at the very end. Sunday night’s Steelers-Patriots matchup brought in the biggest TV ratings of the 2017 season, with 27m people tuning...
Some of our favourite videos this year, including a ref’s-eye view of Madrid, a Japanese team-skipping world record the best badminton rally ever and more 1) Way back when in January, Rod Stewart was invited to conduct the Scottish Cup fifth round draw. And what a job he did, grinning mischievously before swooping ostentatiously to pluck balls out of the pot. He also appeared to prod SFA president Alan McRae under the podium and distracted Alan Stubbs to the point that the former defender called out the wrong number – confusing No6 (Greenock Morton) with No9 (Inverness Caledonian Thistle) – when announcing Celtic’s opponents. The televised draw concluded with Stewart, sporting a leopard-print scarf, ignoring a handshake from McRae, and...
The Panthers are 10-4 and a team no one wants to face in January, but they’ve lost an owner in an era where the old harassment game is no longer playedWhen one of the NFL’s most stable and respected owners is forced to sell his team the rest of sports should know there is no room for creepy comments, lurid stares and strange requests to come to the owner’s suite. The harassment game, long accepted with knowing smiles and smarmy smirks, has been shut down. As #metoo hashtags embolden women to talk about the dignity that has been stripped from their lives, there are plenty of players, coaches, executives and owners holding their breath wondering if past crimes will catch...
While the eyes of the NFL are trained on Sunday’s Patriots-Steelers showdown, the once-toothless Jaguars are quietly emerging as a contender in the AFCThe NFL is focused this week on Sunday afternoon’s Steelers-Patriots matchup set for Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. The 11-2 Steelers versus the 10-3 Patriots, the winner likely earning home-field advantage throughout the AFC play-offs, where many think the two sides will inevitably meet again in the conference championship game. But amid the hype over Pittsburgh and New England, there is one team being completely overlooked, a team that in fact went through both the Steelers and Patriots to reach the Super Bowl two years ago: the Denver Broncos.No, not the woeful 2017 Denver Broncos, a team that...