Someone has to think about the players and not what's convenient for the media or TV. | | | | The Browns went 0-16.
(Justin Berl/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Someone has to think about the players and not what's convenient for the media or TV.”
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| | rantnrave:// What happened to the hot stove? This is MLB's frozen winter. YU DARVISH -- the top pitching free agent -- is unsigned. JD MARTINEZ, LORENZO CAIN, ERIC HOSMER -- the top hitters -- are still out there. Nobody has signed a contract worth more than $60 million. The only feeding frenzy was for SHOHEI OHTANI -- a 23-year-old who signed for the minimum, a $2.315 million signing bonus, and a $20 million posting fee. Baseball's never been richer or more frugal. MLB front offices have become so smart there's no one left to outsmart. Analytics have become so pervasive that teams have nearly similar player evaluations. It could look like collusion or every team putting the same price on a player. Paying for free agents has long come with a winner's curse but teams couldn't avoid it. Not anymore, it seems. Teams don’t want to pay top dollars for past-their-prime free agents. The value is in players in their pre-free agent years. Free agents are still looking for contracts on the old scale, but do those exist? The real test will be next winter when MANNY MACHADO, BRYCE HARPER, and CLAYTON KERSHAW hit the market. If those players can't get paid then free agency might be broken and in need of a fix. Should players be able to hit free agency earlier? After five years? After four? Is the luxury tax -- which is keeping the DODGERS and YANKEES from going HAM -- more like a hard cap? Baseball benefits from an exciting offseason. Boring isn't good for anyone... Welcome to 2018. The PATRIOTS and STEELERS have first round byes. The BROWNS are bad. ALABAMA is in the national title game. LEBRON is great. The YANKEES are stacked. The LIGHTNING are good. DUKE and MICHIGAN STATE are atop the polls. Happy new year... I'll finally be able to get that six-pack from sitting on the couch all day.... How much is the first playoff appearance in 18 years worth to BILLS fans?... He sacks quarterbacks on Sunday, then lets his mind play... Just like SUN TZU wrote in the ART OF WAR. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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| Competitive parking may not inspire the popular imagination like NASCAR or the NBA, but a handful of enthusiasts are hoping to change that. Welcome to the National Valet Olympics. Ellis M. Dumont founded Advanced Parking Concepts in Verona, New Jersey, when he was 28 years old. | | |
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| John Skipper cited "substance addiction" as the reason for abruptly stepping down in December but both his actions before the announcement and Disney's incentives to push him out suggest a different narrative, writes the author of an oral history of ESPN. | | |
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| If you've ever rolled your eyes at a metaphor about how Tom Brady throws a football, you know that sportswriting can withstand a lot. What it hasn't shown it can absorb-or, rather, what its gatekeepers haven't shown they will tolerate-is shaggy political opining on Twitter. | | |
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| Cho is the first Asian-American general manager in the N.B.A., first of the Portland Trail Blazers, in 2010, and then of the Charlotte Hornets. He is also the founder of a food blog, Bigtime Bites. The site reviews dishes rather than restaurants, and it only covers food that people love. | | |
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| The third overall pick in 2013, Jordan was a classic bust—quickly falling into complacency and alcohol and drug abuse that, compounded by injury, cost him more than two full seasons. Through a torturous emotional and physical recovery program, and the help of committed friends, he returned this year with the Seahawks, and has made a cautiously hopeful mark over the past month. | | |
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| Rob Gorodetsky is the bold and brash bettor Las Vegas and the sports world doesn't know what to make of. | | |
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| The image was after the P.J. Carlesimo incident and at the tightest possible intersection of sports and race — not in a good way. | | |
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| While seemingly everyone from the Papa John's guy to the President of the United States has seen fit to weigh in on the NFL's season-long TV ratings slide, pro football's Kung Fu Grip on American viewing habits remains indisputable. | | |
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| It wasn't just cold at Lambeau Field. With the temperature at 13 below zero at kickoff, and the wind chill at 36 below, Dec. 31, 1967, ranked as the coldest New Year's Eve day that Green Bay, Wisconsin, had ever witnessed. | | |
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| How Khabib Nurmagomedov transcended the ethnic divide in Russia. | | |
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| Tired of losing assistants to bigger jobs, Mike Gundy was determined to find an under-the-radar talent who could stick around. His journey involved an online search, a firefighter who doubled as a film coordinator and, eventually, a home run hire. | | |
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| LiGay launched in May, held its first official tournament in November and now has 16 teams across the country. | | |
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| Patriots receiver Chris Hogan and his wife, surgeon Ashley Boccio, truly want what’s best for each other and do whatever they can to make it happen. | | |
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| Man Kaur of India has won 17 gold medals in her age category. And now she's trying her hand at javelin. | | |
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| The brash New Orleans big man has finally been accepted. But it never would've happened without another big personality of the past: Allen Iverson. | | |
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| Bas[t]eball goes back, back, back to 1786. | | |
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| It wouldn't be the first time a great player was denied proper Hall of Fame consideration, but it will be a special kind of horrible if Andruw Jones falls off the writers' ballot after one year. | | |
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| Designed to be nonsensical, ee gammings is developing a following. | | |
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| An unbelievable game opened my eyes to everything I’ve been missing. | | |
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| Black athletes didn’t “politicize” American sports. They’ve been a battleground from the very beginning. | | |
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