He is precocious, greatness cast adrift, forced into the MLB lifeboat. And his admission is handcuffs that prevent him from getting at least what his older, lesser valued peers received. | | | | Borussia Dortmund celebrates after Schalke gives up an own goal.
(Christof Koepsel/Bongarts/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “He is precocious, greatness cast adrift, forced into the MLB lifeboat. And his admission is handcuffs that prevent him from getting at least what his older, lesser valued peers received.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// What's the right way to end an era? The GIANTS did it quickly, but painfully. They benched ELI MANNING Tuesday, sacking him for GENO SMITH, an uninspiring veteran, and DAVIS WEBB, their third-round pick. Cue the outrage. Looking at you, MIKE FRANCESA. Was there a better way? The Giants are 2-9. Manning has two SUPER BOWL rings but was never a great quarterback. He's been bad for two seasons. But he's a Giants legend and benching legends is hard. There's never a good time to do it. DEREK JETER hit .256 his last season and played nearly every game. PEYTON MANNING had an injury to mitigate his benching and still got his job back despite nearly leading the NFL in interceptions. The decision is more emotional than practical. How loyal can a team be if sports is supposed to be a meritocracy? Will you anger your fans? Anger your players? Did the Giants botch the mechanics? Would starting Webb make the change easier to take? The Giants won two titles with a superb defense and some luck. Manning was clutch but not consistent. How long should the Giants have kept looking back? Is it more important to mollify fans during a bad season? Did the Giants know benching a below-average quarterback could be so hard?... What's the best part of the college football calendar? Bowl season? Signing Day? Conference championship weekend? Give me the week after the end of the regular season. Crazy things happen when a bunch of schools need head coaches. Not just at TENNESSEE. JIMMY SEXTON is on everybody's speed dial. If your coach is any good he's getting a raise or a new job. Trickle down economics that actually works. Fired coach still gets paid. New coach gets a new deal. MIKE GUNDY always flirts with leaving OKLAHOMA STATE. A bunch of coaches get raises for staying in place. PENN STATE needs a new offensive coordinator, so someone will get a promotion. If only CONGRESS could pass a jobs act that works this well... Let's take it back to the way-back machine. LARRY BIRD made his SPORTS ILLUSTRATED debut 40 years ago. MICHAEL JORDAN hit the cover for the first time 34 years ago, then he appeared on 49 more. SHAQ looks back at his NBA debut 25 years ago... Soccer's ridiculous gender wage gap... I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
|
|
 | MMQB |
| To bring his comeback tale to a cinematic conclusion, Josh Gordon needs you to believe in him. The problem: It's unclear which version of the exiled Browns receiver's story serves him-or those around him-best. | | |
|
 | Columbia Journalism Review |
| “The desire to punch other boys in the nose will survive in our culture,” A. J. Liebling wrote in The Sweet Science, a collection of his midcentury boxing reporting for The New Yorker. The desire to pick fights, however, has proven far easier to tame than our overpowering urge to watch them. | | |
|
 | Bloomberg |
| Competitive video games now require $20 million franchise fees, training facilities, and outside capital. | | |
|
 | Sports Illustrated |
| For better or worse, the Oklahoma quarterback's exploits have been one of college football's most reliably interesting plot lines over the last three seasons. And as his career winds down, he's got his eyes on a show-stopping finale. | | |
|
 | Land of 10 |
| The 1992 House of Pain classic ,Jump Around, today is one of the centerpieces of the Camp Randall Stadium experience — the highlight of the interval between the third and fourth quarters for nearly two decades now. The tradition turns 20 next October, which means it’s almost old enough to legally drink. Which is sort of perfect, given that the whole shebang started in a bar. | | |
|
 | The New Yorker |
| Even when there was, objectively speaking, very little to celebrate, supporting the Peruvian national team felt necessary to me, a way of reminding myself who I was. | | |
|
 | ADWEEK |
| How an irreverent sports site made the big leagues. | | |
|
 | Slate |
| Why so many sports writers are defending the honor of an authoritarian coach. | | |
|
 | Bleacher Report |
| Less than an hour before jotting his name on a piece of paper that would alter his life, Orlando Brown and his mother pulled into the parking lot at Sugarloaf Mills Mall just outside Atlanta. | | |
|
 | FiveThirtyEight |
| For the past few seasons, the best defenders in the NBA have been some combination of Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert and Kawhi Leonard. But with Leonard and Gobert out for all or much of the season so far and Green's production falling off just a bit, we've got some new blood in contention to be the NBA's best defender. | | |
|
 | Aeon Magazine |
| Americans are getting slower. It sounds outlandish because life, in general, is becoming faster. Compared with a generation ago, things move more quickly: cars go faster, communication is instantaneous, deliveries arrive the next day. According to a 2007 study, we are even walking faster than ever. | | |
|
 | SB Nation |
| Martino wants to reform American soccer, and he has specific proposals to do it: Subsidizing youth soccer costs, regional training centers, major investment in NWSL, and a futsal court at every school. | | |
|
 | BBC Sport |
| Three coaches and an ineligible player but Chapecoense stayed up. One year on from the devastating crash, the Brazilian club are still punching above their weight. | | |
|
 | Baseball Prospectus |
| Joey Votto could expand our understanding of what plate discipline can mean. | | |
|
 | The Conversation |
| A raft of tough new anti-scalping laws have just been introduce in Victoria, But are problems with existing ticketing systems driving fans into the hands of scalpers -- and can technology help? | | |
|
| Sports Illustrated |
| The Big Diesel reflects on his NBA debut and discusses his place in basketball's pantheon of pivot. | | |
|
 | Quartz |
| Saving net neutrality rules is one of the only few things uniting Americans these days. | | |
|
 | Highsnobiety |
| Storror is the extreme parkour team taking streetwear to the rooftops, combining high-adrenaline jumps with their own wavy garms. | | |
|
 | The New York Times |
| The International Olympic Committee’s decision next week on how to punish Russia will be informed by diaries seen exclusively by The New York Times. | | |
|
 | Men's Journal |
| At 71-0, Bobby Gunn is the king of illicit bare-knuckle boxing. Now 42, he's fighting for something he's never known: recognition. | | |
|
 | YouTube |
| | | | | | | | |
|
|
| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
|
|
