Month: October 2024

The Dallas Cowboys treated the offseason the same way you would a bear that crosses your path in the woods: No sudden moves.

As other Super Bowl contenders were busy wheeling and dealing their way up the NFL food chain, the Cowboys did little to plug any roster gaps or even take care of their own.

Despite the penny-pinching — and the loss of heralded defensive coordinator Dan Quinn — Dallas remains among the top dogs in the NFC. The NFL odds have it near the top of the conference futures, win totals project 10 victories, and look-ahead lines have Big D favored in 14 games.

Are those lofty odds just a reflection of the Cowboys’ public appeal or their actual capacity? We find out in my 2024 Dallas Cowboys betting preview complete with NF…

Eddie Howe believes Dan Burn was unlucky not to make England’s World Cup squad and is adamant his 6ft 6in defender should not abandon hope of a call from Gareth Southgate.

Burn has excelled at centre-half and, more recently, left-back since joining Howe’s Newcastle from Brighton for £13m last January. After proving instrumental in helping the team avoid relegation last season, the 30-year-old has been integral to their rise. Last Tuesday Burn, who grew up in Northumberland idolising Alan Shearer, scored his first goal for Newcastle as they beat Leicester 2-0 in the Carabao Cup quarter-final.

Newcastle’s Howe undecided on picking Joelinton after drink-driving chargeRead more

Howe said of an England call-up: “…

2020 has seen much loss, and the sports world was not spared. Whether it was Hall of Famers, champions or innovators, the we lost a number of giants this year. From Gale Sayers to Don Shula to Tom Seaver to Kobe Bryant, legendary athletes, coaches, and other sports figures have died this year. We look back at some of those we’ve lost. Phil Niekro – December 26 source: Getty Images Phil Niekro played 24 years in the bigs and is considered one of the best knuckleball pitchers of all time. He died in his sleep after a long battle with cancer. Niekro spent two decades of his professional baseball career with the Braves. There, he pitched a no hitter, won five gold gloves and a Roberto Clemente Award. He also was the NL’s strikeout leader in 1977 and NL wins leader in 1974 and 1979. T…

England slipped from their horse at the last but, once they have cleared the grit from their eyes and stopped seeing stars, they may yet find it has waited for them. While the wounds of defeat in Wembley’s biggest game for more than half a century will smart acutely, there is little time for them to fester. In 17 months there will probably be another knife-edge denouement to digest and the task for Gareth Southgate, as the international calendar rattles along at uncommon speed, will be to ensure it is somewhat happier.

If Gianluigi Donnarumma’s parry from Bukayo Saka felt like the end of a journey, there may come an opportunity to present it as the continuation of one: perhaps a trampolining point from one World Cup to another. The coron…

Here it is then: Total Erling. Wherever this current iteration of Manchester City may end up, this was a night when the texture of Pep Guardiola’s team seemed to shift decisively, to take on new forms and new shapes.

Erling Haaland came to the Emirates Stadium with 25 Premier League goals this season. He left with 26, and with a sense, too, of finding his own new gears, of leading City’s attack in every moment of the game rather than wandering around finishing its sentences.

Grealish and Haaland put Manchester City top of table at Arsenal’s expenseRead more

Haaland was a scalpel as well as a bludgeon. He ran through and indeed over the red shirts; but also moved sweetly and cleverly off the ball, producing a pe…

It is an exceptionally rare sight to see the home fans in the lower tier of the Emirates Stadium’s west stand all rise in unison to applaud and salute a visiting player being interviewed by the away team’s club media team, but that was the scene behind the Manchester City technical area at the end of this absorbing 2-2 draw.

There had been a distinct air of inevitability about the idea of Vivianne Miedema scoring on her return to Arsenal, the club where she was idolised during a seven-year spell that brought her 125 goals for the club. So there were absolutely no surprised faces in the stadium when it was the Netherlands forward who delivered the first-half equaliser, flicking the ball between Lotte Wubben-Moy’s legs before firing in w…

Many of the franchise-altering garden of forking path moments in NBA history began with contentious debates over the No.1 pick. In the rare situation where a phenom takes the reins, the second pick becomes the 2023 NBA Draft’s initial pivot point. A month ago, the Charlotte Hornets were left crestfallen after the San Antonio Spurs machine emerged with the rights to draft Victor Wembanyama first overall. Despite the misery of missing out on another phenom, the Hornets can still carve out a contender. But first, they have to choose between a panoply of options. Brandon Miller and Scoot Henderson are prime to join the lineage of draft axis points that will be litigated for decades to come. In 1984, Hakeem Olajuwon was the no-brainer No. 1 overall pick. Right behind them, the Blazers dra…

Lilia Vu stuck her approach shot at the 18th hole 2 feet from the cup to give herself the winning birdie putt, and the United States team clinched its first Solheim Cup victory since 2017 over Team Europe on Sunday at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va. With the U.S. leading Europe 14-11 with four matches to go, Switzerland's Albane Valenzuela led her match against Vu 1 up heading into the final hole. Valenzuela had a long birdie putt to win her match but left it about a foot short. Vu then made her birdie to halve the match and guaranteed the U.S. the 14 1/2 points necessary to end a three-event losing streak to Europe. The U.S. entered the day with a 10-6 lead over Europe and needed just 4 1/2 points out of Sunday's 12 singles matches in order to wrest the Solh…