Football

While most of the sports media is falling over themselves to say how stupid Bill Belichick is to go for it on 4th and 2, Time Magazine came out last week with their 50 Best Inventions of 2009. Number 31: The No-Punt Offense… As Sports Illustrated explained in a recent story, Kevin Kelley, coach of […]

Do you believe in karma? If you do and you’re a Cincinnati Bengals fan, you may want to shield your eyes from the rest of the season. The Bengals have signed running back Larry Johnson as an “insurance” policy against injuries to their other running backs, including Cedric Benson who’s nursing a hip injury. On […]

This was supposed to be his third chance. His big breakout. Brady Quinn was being named the starter of the Cleveland Browns for the third time in the last two seasons, and we were finally going to see the player who earned first-round draft status. And then he had to play a game…and had one […]

All anyone is discussing around the NFL today is the end of the Colts’ 35-34 stunner over the Patriots on Sunday night. Not the Colts coming back from 17 down in the fourth, but Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4th and 2 from HIS OWN 28 with a little over […]

Wow, what a great trade the Chicago Bears made in getting quarterback Jay Cutler. He was going to be the missing piece that would finally give Chicago a big-league quarterback. The Bears and their fans must be having buyers' remorse after Cutler's latest flameout — five interceptions in a 10-6 loss at San Francisco; the […]

I always find it humbling to see a story like this that puts life into perspective. No matter how bad my day is, no matter what goes wrong, no matter how much back pain I have, my life isn’t nearly the struggle that this kid’s life is. Brenden Adams seems like such a nice kid, […]

Tony Dungy, who retired from the NFL last season but just won’t go away, has now thrown his endorsement to Florida quarterback Tim Tebow (right), calling the Gator star a “franchise quarterback.” He claims the run-first QB is a better NFL prospect than Sam Bradford, Jake Locker and every other college signal-caller. Given how much […]

Oh how quickly the stars of two Outsports faves are fading in the NFL. I’ve written before about the demise of Brady Quinn in Cleveland. It seems he’s on the precipice of losing about $11 million this year because he couldn’t hang onto the starting job there. He’s also put his Cleveland-area house up for […]

The Tennessee Titans are 0-6 and are coming off a 59-0 loss to New England, so Titans fans are not a happy bunch. They are less happy after Titans coach Jeff Fisher donned a Peyton Manning jersey at a fundraiser Tuesday because he “wanted to feel like a winner.” Manning plays for the arch-rival Indianapolis […]

I keep waiting for the Denver Broncos to wake up and realize they are supposed to be mediocre. But they keep surprising me and their 34-23 win at the San Diego Chargers on Monday night convinces me they are legit. Denver used two kick returns for touchdowns by Eddie Royal and a suffocating defense to […]

Brett Favre got all the pregame hype prior to his first game against his old team, the Green Bay Packers, on Monday night. And while Favre played quite well, the real story was along the offensive line. Favre was barely touched and on one play had 7 1/2 seconds to throw. His counterpart, Aaron Rodgers, […]

Speaking of fortune-telling, I was thinking today about the drafting of one Brady Quinn. If you remember, the Cleveland Browns chased him down late in the first round of the 2007 draft, giving up a first- and second-round pick for him. The reasoning was, “We’ll have to draft a quarterback next year anyway, so let’s […]

The herd got culled this weekend at the top of the college football standings. No. 4 Mississippi, No. 5 Penn State, No. 6 Cal and No. 9 Miami all lost. This means new life for one-loss teams like Virginia Tech and USC, but the reality is that Texas and either LSU, Florida or Alabama from […]

Last year I picked NFL games against the spread on the Michael Irvin Show on ESPN Radio. This year, I'm going up against Michael, former Cowboy Nate Newton and Michael's co-host and dear friend of mine, Kevin Kiley. We'll be picking around 10 games per week, and I already have the lead after two weeks. […]

How bizarre was the Indianapolis Colts’ 27-23 thriller over the Miami Dolphins on Monday? The Dolphins ran 84 plays, the Colts 35. The Dolphins had 49 rushes for 239 yards, the Colts 11 for 61. The Dolphins held the ball for 45:07, the Colts for 14:53. Yet the Colts improbably still won. It was the […]

Jake Locker USC saw its chances for a spot in the BCS title game take a major hit even before we officially reached autumn. The Trojans' 16-13 loss to Washington looked eerily familiar to losses in previous years to UCLA, Stanford and Oregon State — conference losses to weaker foes that hurt USC's national ranking. […]

New England Patriots fans will extol the 11-point comeback by Tom Brady that led to a 25-24 win Monday in the NFL season opener for both teams. But an impartial observer will point out the obvious — the Buffalo Bills choked it away. They had an 11-point lead (24-13) with 5:30 to play, then played […]

You might never see a more stunning ending to an NFL game — the Denver Broncos beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 12-7, on an 87-yard touchdown pass with 12 seconds left. Thankfully, the game was called by Gus "The Screamer" Johnson for CBS. Video here. You might never see a more stunning ending to an NFL […]

The first game of the NFL season looked a lot like the end of the last season — the Pittsburgh Steelers did enough to survive while the Tennessee Titans played well enough to win but blew several scoring chances. The Steelers’ 13-10 win in overtime wasn’t a thing of beauty, but I found it mostly […]

In a classic example of “new media” at work, we learned today that Brady Quinn will start at quarterback for the Cleveland Browns this week. The Browns were being coy about the news, but Buffalo receiver Terrell Owens posted a congratulatory message on his Twitter account, that was then linked to by Pro Football Talk. […]