Tag: #breaking

The Saints lost to Vikings on the most heartbreaking double-doink FG fail that you’ll ever see

The players’ reactions during this double-doink FG fail were too good.

The Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints kicked off Sunday’s Week 4 action with a thriller in London that came down to the last second and was decided by a double-doink missed FG attempt on a 61-yard field goal attempt by the Saints that somehow didn’t bounce through for three points.

The Vikings were able to hold on to the 28-25 victory and improve to 3-1 with the win but I’m still not sure how that kick by the Saints didn’t fall the other way and send the game to overtime.

This incredible angle on the replay shows just how close it was:

My goodness.

The players’ reactions during it were too good:

Twitter had reactions.

Ole Miss coaches went absolutely wild after game-winning fumble recovery against Kentucky

Big guys hugging in a tiny booth

Admit it, you thought No. 14 Ole Miss was going to blow it against No. 7 Kentucky, too.

How could you not? After the Rebels took a 19-12 halftime lead, Kentucky kept clawing back in and made things a three-point game in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Even worse, the Cats were moving the ball downfield with relative ease.

When Kentucky (+6.5) went from its own 34-yard line to the Ole Miss eight-yard line in just four plays and with 51 seconds left on the clock, it looked like the Rebels’ homecoming game was headed for a heartbreaking loss.

That was until Ole Miss forced an incredible fumble recovery on first-and-goal to secure the win.

Perhaps no one in Oxford celebrated as hard as the Ole Miss coaches who packed into the tiny coordinators booth at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and nearly fell out onto the field as they realized they won the game, 22-19.

Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. looks like he briefly forgot he still had to call the ensuing kneel-down plays and tried to take a break from celebrating, but couldn’t get himself to calm down and quickly rejoined the dogpile.

College football remains the absolute best.

Unless you’re a Kentucky fan today.

Featured image via ESPN

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Fans poured in support for Brittney Griner after Russian authorities sentenced WNBA star to 9 years in prison

Free Brittney Griner. Free Brittney Griner. Free Brittney Griner.

Brittney Griner’s situation in Russia has shifted from precarious to straight-up disastrous.

The WNBA star made her final appeal in a Russian court on Thursday by issuing an apology to her family, her fans and her team for her “honest mistake” of carrying less than a gram carrying cannabis oil in her luggage upon arrival in Russia.

It seems that the apology fell on deaf ears with Russian authorities. The judge sentenced Griner to nine years in prison after finding her guilty of drug smuggling, per ABC News’ James Longman.

It was only a half year off of the 9.5 years prosecutors requested from the judge ahead of the sentencing.

In her statement, Griner said she never meant to heart anyone and begged Russian authorities not to “end my life here.”

“I never meant to hurt anybody. I never meant to put in jeopardy the Russian population. I never meant to break any laws here. I made an honest mistake and I hope that in your ruling that it doesn’t end my life here.”

Griner now has a nine-year sentence and is gravely in danger for obvious reasons.

The Russian justice system is mysterious at best and sinister at its worst — particularly for someone like Griner who is a gay, Black woman. Russia isn’t known for being kind to people like her.

She needs help and she needs it fast. No one knows what will happen to her over there and, honestly, it’s terrifying to think about.

That’s why fans everywhere passionately voiced their support for Griner after we learned of the sentencing:

NBA players and fans paid tributes to Bill Russell, who passed away at age 88

Bill Russell was an absolute legend. RIP.

It’s a sad day for basketball fans everywhere as the great Bill Russell, the winner of 11 NBA titles in his 13-year career with the Boston Celtics, died Sunday at age 88, his family announced on social media.

Russell, who also won two NBA titles as head coach of the Celtics, is one of the greatest players in basketball history and has the NBA Finals MVP award named after him. He was a five-time NBA MVP, 12-time All-Star, and a Hall of Famer.

In 2011 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from president Obama for his many years of civil rights activism that helped lead to huge societal changes.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke about that important work:

“Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect, and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league, At the height of of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps. Through the taunts, threats, and unthinkable adversity, Bill rose above it all and remained true to his belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.”

Russell was always quick with his classic laugh and huge smile and seemed to be just one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.

Here’s the announcement from his family:

Here is Silver’s full statement:

The NBA world paid tributes to Russell.

The Baker Mayfield trade gives Panthers QB the perfect revenge game setup for Week 1

Browns. Panthers. Week 1. Baker Mayfield revenge game?

Baker Mayfield is a Cleveland Brown no longer.

After a long (it was LOOOONG) wait after the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson and an unhappy Mayfield made it clear he was done with the franchise that made him the first overall pick of the NFL Draft in 2018, Cleveland dealt him to the Carolina Panthers.

Here’s where it gets really fun: Guess who the Panthers play in Week 1 of the 2022 season?

Oh, that’s right. It’s the … CLEVELAND BROWNS! REVENGE GAME TIME BABY!

Of course, lots of NFL fans and reporters noted that and sent all kinds of tweets on the subject:

Dejounte Murray trade grades: Who won the Hawks and Spurs deal?

Dejounte Murray is heading to Atlanta to play with Trae Young. Let’s grade the deal.

It’s happened: A much discussed deal between the San Antonio Spurs and the Atlanta Hawks that sends Dejounte Murray — a terrific point guard coming off his first All-Star season who can score and defend — to a team that pairs him in its backcourt with Trae Young.

WOW. Think about that. Scary.

Plus, the Spurs appear to be fully tanking and the Hawks now look on paper like a team that could be really good in the East.

As we’ve done in the past, we’ll grade the trade for both sides to help break down who won and lost the deal.

The Giants were justifiably upset after an apparent inning-ending grounder was called foul

The Reds scored FIVE runs after that.

The San Francisco Giants are going to look back at Sunday’s loss to the Reds and wonder what could have been with that third-inning grounder.

With the Reds already up a couple runs in the third, Joey Votto hit a chopping grounder down the first-base line that Brandon Belt calmly fielded and stepped on first. It seemed simple enough in real time — an inning-ending groundout to first base. But first base umpire Gabe Morales gave Votto new life with a foul call.

It was initially unclear what Morales was seeing, but he appeared to rule that Belt’s glove was in foul territory when he fielded the ball in front of the bag.

While it was tough to definitively tell from the replay angles provided, it did look like Belt fielded the ball in fair territory and swung his glove towards the line *after* already fielding the ball. By that, it should have been a fair ball and an out. The terribly flawed MLB replay rules don’t allow for fair-foul reviews in the infield, so the Giants were stuck with the ruling.

Votto and the Reds would take advantage of the fortunate call and tack on five more runs in the inning. The Reds won, 10-3, and as you could expect, Giants fans were not pleased with Morales there.

Terrible umpiring helped spark a massive bench-clearing brawl between the Angels and Mariners

This brawl was WILD.

Heading into Sunday’s game with the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels, there was an expectation of fireworks between the two teams. And, oh man, it didn’t take long for those tensions to boil over.

Saturday’s game ended with Mike Trout taking issue with a pitch from Mariners closer Erik Swanson that came close to his head. Shohei Ohtani also avoided a high-and-tight fastball before his massive home run. So, the Angels went into the game ready to send a message — as lame as those unwritten rules are.

In the first inning, Andrew Wantz threw behind Julio Rodriguez’s head, and the Mariners wanted an ejection right there. They absolutely had a point because in the second inning, Wantz was able to get a shot in at Jesse Winker. It shouldn’t have happened, and a good umpire would have known that.

But just like that, the brawl was ON.

As Winker and the Mariners bench were calling for Wantz to be ejected, Winker took exception with something said from the Angels dugout. He charged through the weak restraint from the umpires, and benches cleared.

Now, this was a legitimate brawl. Anthony Rendon — who is out with a season-ending wrist injury — was involved in the action. J.P. Crawford also got right in the middle of the fight.

MLB is going to have to spend plenty of time looking at this film because discipline is definitely going to come down from the league office. Of course, this could have been avoided if umpire John Bacon took control of the game in the first inning, but it’s just another example of poor umpiring this season.

Fans also had plenty of thoughts on the brawl.

Top recruit Arch Manning shocked the college football world with his commitment to Texas

Texas back?!

It seems like the recruitment of No. 1 overall 2023 recruit Arch Manning has gone on forever, but on Thursday, it finally came to an end with the Texas Longhorns securing the coveted commitment from the quarterback phenom.

Manning — the son of Cooper Manning and grandson of Archie Manning (also Peyton and Eli’s nephew) — announced his commitment to Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns on Twitter in his only tweet after Georgia had been considered the clubhouse leader in recent weeks. And despite rumors of Texas’ resurgence in the recruitment race, reports had Georgia feeling confident about signing Manning.

That late push from Texas — along with an official visit to Austin — ended up being enough.

Manning has been a starting quarterback on his high school team since his freshman season and will almost certainly step on campus as the Texas starter in 2023.

As expected, the news had college football fans in quite a frenzy on Twitter.

Videos show that the Avalanche may have had too many men on the ice for Game 4 OT winner

Controversy!

Jon Cooper warned us all in the one question he answered after his Tampa Bay Lightning lost Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final after Nazem Kadri’s OT goal that shocked everyone.

“You’re gonna see what I mean when you see the winning goal,” the head coach said. “My heart breaks for the players because we probably still should be playing.”

What was he referring to? It appeared to a lot of people — and machines, because the NHL official game sheet showed this too! — noticed there might have been six Avalanche players on the ice for that game-winner.

Here are some videos that back that up: