The NBA is investigating an altercation between Joel Embiid and a Philadelphia sports columnist.
Joel Embiid shouted at and eventually shoved a Philadelphia sports columnist in the 76ers locker room during an exchange of words after Saturday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
The altercation stemmed from a story written by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes that mentioned Embiid’s son and late brother in a criticism of the center’s lack of availability for the 76ers. The column’s lede crossed a line that could unfortunately result in Embiid missing even more time than he already has.
Here’s what Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes wrote, before his altercation with Joel Embiid tonight: pic.twitter.com/7nVvs4RfnP
The altercation began with Embiid confronting Hayes as reporters entered the locker room, according to ESPN, saying “the next time you bring up my dead brother and my son again, you are going to see what I’m going to do to you and I’m going to have to … live with the consequences.”
The NBA is investigating what happened, a league spokesperson told ESPN’s Shams Charania. There hasn’t been mention of discipline for Embiid yet, though that’s completely within the realm of possibility and maybe even an expected consequence for his actions — just like Hayes getting shoved could have been an expected consequence for what he wrote.
Considering the personal nature of the column, Hayes is lucky things didn’t escalate further.
"Joel Embiid got into a physical altercation, shoving a columnist in the postgame locker room tonight." @ShamsCharania on Joel Embiid and the NBA's investigation into the incident on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/p2z3nJqrEY
Using Embiid’s family the way Hayes did was disgusting and completely unnecessary for a critique about how much Embiid plays. I firmly believe in keeping your hands to yourself, but Embiid’s reaction is not hard to understand. If anything, it should be a lesson learned for the entire sports media industry that some things are off limits.
Hayes seemed to understand as much, apologizing on X for the Oct. 23 column just a few hours after it published and removing any mention of Embiid’s family. That it was possible to edit without changing the column proves how unnecessary that part was to begin with.
According to ESPN, Hayes also offered an apology to Embiid during Saturday’s altercation. Embiid, who previously addressed Hayes while talking to reporters Friday, saying “I’ve done way too much for this [expletive] city to be treated like this,” rejected the apology.
“That’s not the [expletive] first time,” Embiid said.
I’m not familiar enough with Hayes to know whether that’s true. But if the column does follow a similar pattern of behavior, Hayes needs to be held equally accountable as Embiid. If he can’t get his points across without personal attacks on athletes, the Inquirer should find a columnist who can.
Pat McAfee just needs to say sorry and shut up about Caitlin Clark and his WNBA hot takes.
On Tuesday, ESPN broadcast personality Pat McAfee turned his on-air apology for calling Indiana Fever rookie guard Caitlin Clark a “white [expletive]” into a confusing stammer where he tried to say he was being complimentary … and how it’s possible he was being racist towards a white person because he’s a part Italian.
McAfee’s ramble of a response immediately reminds you a quote given by the great Michael Scott: “Sometimes, I’ll start a sentence, and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way like an improv conversation. An improversation.”
It’s hard not to think about one of the more cringy episodes of The Office when watching McAfee’s perplexing apology, one where the former NFL punter looks visibly uncomfortable to the point of sweating bullets and speeds through any number of conflicting ideas like a dog with the zoomies.
He says he reached out to Clark via the Fever and that the two are A-OK, but he also refuses to acknowledge that maybe the hot takes that surrounded the expletive might’ve been a bit misinformed and irresponsible.
Rather than just say, “my bad, I really didn’t mean it, let me educate myself and do better,” McAfee seems both willing and unwilling to humble himself to an embarrassing mistake and just move on. It’s a confusing paradox.
It’s a bit more amicable than Stephen A. Smith’s utter refusal to cop to the reasonable idea that First Take might not have been fully interested in covering the WNBA in the past, but it still feels hesitant to fully own the totality of the mistake and anxious to get on with the rest of the “progrum.”
"I utilized a descriptor that I certainly should not have used. …I utilized the words "white bitch" to describe Caitlin Clark as the superstar in Indiana. Now, when I was saying it, I legitimately meant it in a complimentary fashion." – Pat McAfee. pic.twitter.com/dWCIy4Jend
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 4, 2024
McAfee is trapped, like us all, in a constant feedback loop that requires the loudest voices in the “Embrace Debate” sports media room to chirp in on whatever is going viral in the world because that’s what drives viewership, listenership, clicks, shares, all that fun.
As one of ESPN’s flagship talents, he’s basically stuck puffing out his chest and bellowing out whatever he’s capable of opining in the most sensational fashion because that’s what his audience expects.
ESPN’s Monday featured discussions on the Clark/Carter hard foul featured the best and worst that comes with discussing sensitive topics like this, with the best of it coming from people who have a firm grasp on the nuances of the WNBA and a level-headed approach to how those nuances interact with each other. McAfee found himself looking like the court jester.
McAfee’s Monday blindfolded belly flop into the Clark discourse did speak to an unsubtle truth about what happened over the weekend on the hard foul. Most people found Carter’s move unnecessary, but McAfee cracked open the ugly angle to this that white audiences feel Clark is being treated unfairly because she’s white, and the rest of the WNBA should just be grateful she’s there and bringing in all the money and eyeballs. It’s icky and unhelpful.
Monday's Pat McAfee Show opened with a Caitlin Clark PowerPoint:
"I would like the media people that continue to say, 'This rookie class, this rookie class, this rookie class'. Nah, just call it for what it is — there's one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a superstar." pic.twitter.com/psGNQXts5O
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 3, 2024
Very thoughtful, emotionally honest responses from ESPN talents like Monica McNutt, Elle Duncan, Chiney Ogwumike and Rebecca Lobo did a much, much, much better job actually dealing with the nuances of the situation than McAfee’s ill-informed grievance politics.
There was an earnest influx of perspectives between those four women, ranging from an acknowledgement of Clark’s justified popularity and the vital need for other women in the WNBA to be respected in how they’ve propped up the league. They were able to grapple with how Carter’s move was unnecessary, but also not the end of the world, not all that uncommon with the WNBA’s past or indicative of how the rest of the league operates.
McNutt’s comments hit particularly hard, arguing that Clark’s arrival may well cause some jealousy and frustration, if only because people are human and the women who have built the league up for the past few decades might feel a little understandable resentment to the gobs of endorsement deals and fawning that Clark received before even stepping on an WNBA court.
All of them gave Clark her very deserved flowers while discussing all the complicated variables in this situation with class and grace and treating all of its players fairly and with proper context.
Our sports media atmosphere, of which McAfee has skyrocketed to the summit, is not built for these types of conversations, if only because they’re typically dominated by uninformed men parroting the same, tired ideas because that’s what their general audience is used to hearing.
ESPN would be wise to continue to amplify women, women with WNBA experience in particular, to discuss Clark, particularly because they’re much more capable of nuance, empathy and brutal honesty than the folks who started watching WNBA social media clips a month ago.
However, we’re stuck with McAfee, and he’s stuck talking about things he doesn’t fully understand. We don’t need his show cancelled and his career ended when he screws up; we just need him to understand the gravity of his platform and do a much better job.
For McAfee, apologizing means listening and actually growing past your mistake. Trying to villainize him doesn’t help; he’s clearly at least somewhat remorseful for what happened and clearly worried about the pushback from his jughead broadcast flub.
If he’s genuinely remorseful for what happened, he needs to just say he’s sorry and let smarter people than him educate him on how to do better in the future. For once, the loudest guy in the room would do well by just saying sorry and shutting up.
The White Sox are a reflection of Jerry Reinsdorf’s ownership
John Fisher had a plan, at least, nefarious as it may have been. The Oakland Athletics’ owner slowly transformed a once proud, successful ball club into a glorified Triple-A team with a specific purpose in mind: Alienate the fanbase, let the stadium fall apart and use the apathy to scam his way into a new city willing to pay for a brand new home. It was transparent through and through.
The Ricketts family had a plan, too, much to the indignation of Cubs fans. After letting the Chicago’s 2016 World Series core unceremoniously disband, the owners focused on “cleaning up” Wrigleyville by spending more on politicians than players, attracting big-name companies to move into the area and turning the old neighborhood ballpark into a year-round destination.
John Angelos may constantly lie to the media who cover the Baltimore Orioles, but it’s a lot easier for fans to stomach when you’re growing one of the more exciting teams in baseball along the way.
Jerry Reinsdorf is just a loser. He has been for decades now. And that works out just fine because when you’re a billionaire like Reinsdorf there are no consequences for your actions. Everything has gone swimmingly for him since purchasing his controlling stake in the White Sox for $19 million in 1981.
Since a charmed run through the 2005 postseason, the White Sox have made the playoffs on just three occasions. They were bounced in the first round each time while winning just one game in all three October appearances.
Here is the list of meaningful front office organizational changes made since that World Series run:
General Manager Kenny Williams was promoted to Executive Vice President in 2012
Assistant General Manager Rick Hahn was promoted to General Manager to replace Williams
This is where it would be worthwhile to summarize the last 20 years of abject ineptitude. Alas, there is no possible way to explain what’s happened to the White Sox under the Reinsdorf-Williams-Hahn regime better than Berto from the West Side did by calling into ESPN 1000 on Wednesday.
This White Sox fan went on one of the most legendary sports fan rants you will ever hear
That doesn’t excuse the White Sox starting 7-19, and in a position to sell, during a year they expected to contend for the American League Central crown despite slashing the payroll by $25 million. But it does inform it.
When a team owner doesn’t demand or invest in a successful product, the front office has no pressure to deliver one. No courage is required to fall on a sword with a collapsable blade.
“It’s the players who play the game, and when they don’t achieve at the level we’ve projected, they certainly bear a level of responsibility for that,” Hahn told reporters this week. “But at the end of the day, the people who put the players on the roster, put them on the field, are the ones who bear the responsibility if that group doesn’t achieve. That’s me.”
All of this would be infuriating on its own if the White Sox didn’t insist they were Chicago’s “Blue Collar” team. There is no indication from the field to the front office to the owner’s box that anyone involved cares enough to work hard or take meaningful action.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Daryl Van Schouwen published an interview with Williams that was more or less a rehashing of every talking point the Sox have used over the last two decades.
“Accountability around here is not a problem,” Williams said.
He’s absolutely correct. Not only is accountability not a problem — it’s not even a concern. Why would it be when you can over-promise and under-deliver with impunity?
Williams is the second-longest tenured executive in Major League Baseball behind the Yankees’ Brian Cashman, who has 21 postseason appearances, four World Series titles and six pennants. No organization except the White Sox allows someone to run the show for this long without a damn good reason.
The Fishers and the Ricketts and the Angelos have all accepted this truth in their own way and used it to their advantage. Jerry Reinsdorf is 87 years old and has apparently decided even a modicum of subterfuge simply isn’t worth the effort.
There’s no need to field a winning team when a failed one is just as bearable.
The league, though, credited the 25-year-old forward with 20 games served after he missed the whole 2022-23 season without a contract as a restricted free agent. That credit means Bridges will only serve a 10-game suspension if and when he signs a new contract and returns to the NBA.
It makes no sense why the league would call this a 30-game suspension if Bridges is only missing 10 games. It just feels performative so they can say it was the most significant punishment for a domestic violence case in league history, exceeding the 24-game suspension for Jeffrey Taylor in 2014.
But adding the 20-game credit just softens the actual discipline. Why should he get credit for 20 games served of a suspension from when he wasn’t even on an NBA roster?
During an interview with the Associated Press Sports Editors on Tuesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver tried to explain why the league made this unusual decision. Via CBS Sports:
“The process (with Bridges) was that we worked with his representatives and the players association that he sat out the entire season,” Silver said. “And so we felt, on the balance, that because he had sat out an entire season and not been paid for an entire season, that we thought in fairness that would give him partial credit, I think, for having sat out that season.”
According to the commissioner, Bridges already “lost out on millions of dollars” by missing the entire campaign. But he wasn’t officially suspended for the 2022-23 season, so this is nothing more than a thinly-veiled 10-game suspension.
That is the bare minimum punishment from the league, as noted by veteran NBA reporter David Aldridge (via The Athletic):
And, keep in mind: 10 games is the absolute minimum the league can suspend a player for what it deems “Unlawful Violence,” as enumerated in Section 7 of Article VI of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The language is clear: “When a player is convicted of (including a plea of guilty, no contest, or nolo contendere to) a violent felony, he shall immediately be suspended by the NBA for a minimum of ten (10) games.”
The 20-game credit would have made more sound logic if Bridges were signed with a team last season. He would have gone on administrative leave as the league investigated the incident, and the time he missed would have counted toward his suspension.
That happened earlier this season when Grizzlies All-Star Ja Morant was suspended for eight games due to conduct detrimental to the league, which included the five games he missed while the league investigated the matter.
But that scenario was impossible for Bridges, who was not employed by an NBA team. So providing him with a 20-game credit makes the 30-game suspension just an arbitrary number if the actual time missed while actually in the league is only 10 games.
Silver and the NBA could have done much more to discipline Bridges’ misconduct. But instead, they took a route that was the least harsh measure possible.
McMahon’s return is a middle finger to WWE employees and talent.
The Monday Night Raw after Wrestlemania is reliably one of the most-viewed Raws of the year. It’s an opportunity to unpack the results from the biggest live event on the calendar and begin new storylines, often with debuting talent eager to shine in front of a raucous audience.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the superstar-turned-executive, jumped on this opportunity. He opened the show in the center of the ring, launching into a long promo about how things weren’t going to change now that the company had been bought by Endeavor. He promised the storylines and development he’d ushered in over the nine months since longtime CEO Vince McMahon retired would remain in place, carrying the banner of one of the WWE’s most popular stretches in recent history.
Behind the scenes, it was a very different story. McMahon wasn’t just back, his fingerprints were all over the three-hour show — and it soon became apparent in the ring.
Long promos and limited action were once again commonplace. One hundred eighty minutes of broadcast time gave way to five actual wrestling matches. Brock Lesnar came out, teamed with Cody Rhodes and betrayed him all in roughly a two-and-a-half-hour span, effectively recreating John Cena’s post-Wrestlemania arc from 11 years earlier.
This was all very familiar, because it was all Vince McMahon’s plan.
McMahon’s fingerprints were all over Raw, from his “in case of emergency, deploy Brock” ethos to the scattered, hastily rewritten nature of the show itself. Many character motivations, after months-long chases, were abandoned or ignored. Everything felt like it had been thrown together on the fly, because it was.
This show is categorically different than how it was laid out even a few hours ago. At least two matches scrapped or changed
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) April 4, 2023
This is a big deal. WWE had spent the last nine months rebuilding goodwill following McMahon’s departure — a retirement that came on the heels of disclosing a years-long pattern of sexual misconduct in the workplace and more than $17 million in costs related to covering up, then investigating, said conduct. Levesque’s role as the head of creative (i.e. the guy who approves all the matches, promos, etc.) wasn’t just stepping into a void. It brought new energy and compelling storytelling to a company whose production had been uneven in recent years.
McMahon’s return threatens to undo all that. It also sends a distinct message about how the new ownership views his past behavior: it sees McMahon as an asset despite all his liabilities. We know Endeavor doesn’t care about the behavior of the rich guys who lead its combat sport cash cows. Just earlier this year, it turned a blind eye to Dana White striking his wife.
McMahon told CNBC Monday that he’d “owned up” to his mistakes and moved on, even if that meant no real consequences after a pattern of sexual misconduct with subordinates. Those “mistakes” eventually led him to sell his business for more than $9 billion and then regain control over the company just as he had before retirement. There’s a lesson here, and it’s not a tale of accountability.
This doesn’t just impact corporate workers. Rising talent and mid-card staples were given the opportunity to flourish over the previous nine months. But with just one night back at the stick and a handful of rewrites, McMahon reportedly undid that progress and listed back toward his preference of established stars and a trusted, if stale, formula.
Vince McMahon was changing lots of things and in Gorilla at Raw. It caused a big hit to WWE morale.
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) April 4, 2023
Per Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, some wrestlers backstage were “very frustrated” at the prospect of going backward and erasing all the momentum the previous eight months had built. WWE took steps to separate itself from a rising tide of wrestling, standing tall above rivals like AEW, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Impact. McMahon’s return threatens to sink Raw, Smackdown and the rest of the company’s programming back into the same loop it had been stuck in throughout the bulk of the last decade.
It’s still entirely too early to figure out what the end result will be. Levesque remains in charge of the creative side of things, though McMahon reportedly has final say over what makes it to broadcast. WWE has momentum after a strong Wrestlemania 39 — albeit one that started better than it finished.
But Endeavor’s purchase and McMahon’s return suggests years of predatory behavior can be hand-waved away, effectively telling women employees they’re taking a man, who has made his living talking and hyping up the thoroughly unbelievable, at his word. Or that his behavior simply does not matter. Indiscretions past or future have no consequence other than money, something McMahon now has more than ever of after selling the company he grew into pro wrestling shorthand for billions of dollars.
This hard reset is a signal anything in the WWE can be undone, including whatever workplace misconduct might arise. It also covers nine months of progress and fresh storylines if the first Raw after Wrestlemania is any indication. Morale is reportedly low among WWE employees after McMahon’s return to the helm. It’s easy to understand why.
The NBA gave Brooks a slap on the wrist when he should have been suspended.
The NBA fined Dillon Brooks $35,000 Friday for pushing a camera person to the ground while chasing a loose ball in Wednesday’s game against the Heat.
It was a slap on the wrist for a player who deserved much more as an habitual line-stepper.
The push wasn’t incredibly hard, nor did it appear to happen with the intent to injure. If it was any other player, there was enough reasonable doubt to think it wasn’t intentional at all. But everything we know about Brooks removes that doubt.
Even the NBA knows he did it on purpose. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been a punishment. In a statement, the league called the incident an “unsportsmanlike act of shoving a camera person.”
Dillon Brooks was fined $35k for “the unsportsmanlike act of shoving a camera person on the sideline after pursuing a loose ball,” the NBA announced. pic.twitter.com/dPFLnzFFcc
Just look at the follow-through on the push and the casual walkaway. Whether he wanted to hurt the guy or not, injury was possible. Brooks should’ve been suspended a game at least. Maybe more.
A $35,000 fine to someone with a base salary of $11.4 million is a drop in the bucket. Brooks makes about $139,000 a game, according to figures from Spotrac. This fine is equivalent to suspending him for a single quarter.
I’m not a fan of punishment for the sake of it, but a suspension would’ve made clear this won’t be tolerated. When Dennis Rodman kicked a camera person in 1997, he was suspended 11 games and fined $25,000. The NBA didn’t send that message this time, which is a shame because nobody deserves the indignity of being pushed on their back for no reason. Especially not the very camera people who help broadcast the game and its players to the masses.
“We wanted to be legendary,” Georgia DB Kelee Ringo said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — It was over long before it actually ended. But when it did, the Georgia Bulldogs reveled.
Smoke hovered over the field at SoFi Stadium as they lit their celebratory cigars. College Football Playoff-branded confetti trickled onto their shoulders, undeterred by the misty weather. They jumped in each other’s arms, danced with newspapers announcing their second straight title, tossed on-field souvenirs to their families in the stands and began declaring a three-peat future for their budding dynasty.
When history looks back on Georgia’s second consecutive national title win, a 65-7 beatdown over TCU, the offensive brilliance of Stetson Bennett and Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey and the rest of the Bulldogs will tell the story. The 58-point differential will be remembered as the most dominating beatdown ever in a college bowl game, including the national championship. People will joke about Georgia hitting the over all by itself. And rightfully so.
Don’t forget that defense, though. The defense that lost so many key players to the NFL Draft last year. The defense that was perplexingly dominant yet unable to keep some opponents at a distance during Georgia’s perfect 15-0 season.
But defense wins championships, amirite?
So while Georgia’s offensive fireworks broke records Monday night in a game where its talent overwhelmed TCU, the Bulldogs’ defense deserves its moment too.
That Georgia defense forced three turnovers, all in the first half, and 25-year-old Bennett and co. quickly capitalized on each takeaway opportunity, including finding Adonai Mitchell for a 22-yard touchdown at the end of the second quarter just 10 seconds after Javon Bullard picked off TCU’s Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan deep in Horned Frogs territory.
It helped that the Bulldogs basically had the mostly dull game locked up at the break with their 38-7 lead — the most points ever scored in a half of a College Football Playoff title game.
“We wanted to be legendary, as a group, and I feel like we were able to do that, man,” said sophomore defensive back Kelee Ringo, who declared for the 2023 NFL Draft after the game. “Just the love throughout this entire locker room definitely helped us throughout the entire time from last year and also this year.”
The back-to-back champs’ smothering defense limited TCU to converting just two out of 11 total third-down opportunities and zero fourth downs. It held the Horned Frogs — who entered the title game averaging 474.1 yards per game — to a measly 188 total yards. 188. Duggan threw for more than that in all but two games, including Monday, he started this season.
This was not the same defense we saw barely a week earlier that gave up 41 points and 467 yards to a talented Ohio State team in a nail-biter that almost swung the other way. This was the championship-caliber defense with bright spots throughout the undefeated season that showed up and shut down almost anything the Horned Frogs tried to get away with.
“Every single time something’s went wrong, no matter where it is — the secondary, inside the box or anything like that — we’ve answered the bell and next play or whenever the time came that we needed to answer that,” Ringo said. “Just how we faced adversity this entire year as a defense, and also an offense, man, it’s been great.”
Since their one-point win over the Buckeyes in the semifinal game, the defense amped up its aggression, Ringo added, and things like in-practice turnover competitions certainly helped.
Although Ringo said he’s won that contest in practice a couple times, Bullard ultimately won the final turnover competition of the season, intercepting Duggan twice in the first half.
“As a kid, you know, you always dream of moments like this,” the sophomore defensive back said. “And just to see those moments and accomplishments and things like that come true, it’s just a surreal feeling.”
As much as the Bulldogs put on a stunner and ran up the score so much it had TCU fans leaving at halftime, or not long after it, their defense put on an impressive clinic, relentlessly suffocating TCU at every turn. Duggan took five sacks, tying a season-high, from five different Georgia players.
Even the Horned Frogs’ lone score of the game was a short little run into the end zone in the first quarter — though it came on the heels of a stunning 60-yard reception from Derius Davis — and that was it. They barely made it into Georgia territory for the rest of the game.
It seemed like if one Georgia defender went in for a tackle, there were five. If TCU made it past the line of scrimmage, one blink and the whole front seven practically was dog-piled on the ball-carrier. They made it impossible for TCU to ignite anything, holding the Horned Frogs to just four plays of 10 yards or more and keeping them scoreless in a half for the first time this season.
“We just wanted to play for each other,” said defensive back Kamari Lassiter, who finished with three tackles. “We made it personal for each other, and we became powerful, and we just wanted to knock guys out with a bang.”
By the time the title game was almost over — in a literal sense because it was over by halftime — Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was subbing out players on both sides of the ball, eliciting a mock-senior day vibe after a less-than-competitive game.
And with several key members of this championship roster expected to enter the 2023 NFL Draft, Georgia will again have to make adjustments if it wants to pull off a three-peat. But Monday, it was all about the seniors and those who played their last game as a Bulldog.
“You win it for each other, you fight for your brothers,” said defensive back JaCorey Thomas, who’s already looking forward. “We don’t replace; we reload. We just keep reloading next year, next year, next year, so hopefully we’ll go back to back to back.”
Movies made about football often try to inspire the same feeling you get when you watch the actual game.
Filmmakers want to make you feel like you’re sitting in the stands, watching your favorite athletes compete for sports’ glory. They want to capture the joys of victory, the agonies of defeat, the warmth of sportsmanship, the endurance of brotherhood and all the fixin’s in between the hash marks.
No football movie ever made people feel like they needed a hot shower like Oliver Stone’s smash-bang trash epic Any Given Sunday.
Some movies, like Kevin Costner’s Draft Day, sought to make the NFL Draft feel like a Michael Bay movie’s worth of explosive intrigue. Other movies, like the Keanu Reeves comedy, The Replacements, wanted to buffet the classic underdog story with humor and locker room platitudes. “Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever,” quoth Shane Falco.
You want a touching story about a high school football team overcoming the odds? Remember the Titans and We Are Marshall have your back. You want a far-fetched comedy that hinges on the stranger parts of the sport? Look for The Longest Yard and The Waterboy. Aching for something that makes you remember your heydays on the gridiron? Varsity Blues and Friday Night Lights fly off the shelves. Want to watch a dog go wide to win a football game? Meet Air Bud: Golden Receiver.
The list goes on and on: Rudy, Jerry Maguire, The Blind Side, North Dallas Forty, Invincible, Little Giants, Brian’s Song, The Game Plan, Leatherheads, The Last Boy Scout, Heaven Can Wait, insert your favorite here.
Some of those movies are fantastic. Some of those movies suck. However, they all have something usually in common. They don’t make you feel guilt.
Every now and then, a football movie will emerge from the tunnel and make you feel a little weird about your unfettered love of the sport. The Will Smith-starrer Concussion dealt with the rash of CTE that spread through the league and the NFL’s attempt to smooth it over. Patton Oswalt’s Big Fan dealt with the unhealthier sides of fandom and hero worship. James Caan’s The Program tried to show the darker sides of what can happen in a locker room. Last year’s overlooked National Champions imagined a world where two star players refused to play in a title game because of the NCAA’s regressive labor rules.
However, there’s nothing like Any Given Sunday.
(Warner Bros.)
Stone’s frenzied satire of the NFL continues to be the electrifying epitaph to a game that will, in all likelihood, one day crumble under the weight of its gladiator mentality. The JFK and Born on the Fourth of July filmmaker saw in 1999 a truth that still evades most of the league. Football, as exciting and financially lucrative as it is, is a barbaric, scuzzy contest of blood, sweat and tears that wears its athletes down to a fine powder and rewards their sacrifice with fleeting fame and glory.
While the game has shaped itself up a bit since Stone’s Miami Sharks took the field, the scathing satire he unearthed with Any Given Sunday continues to be prescient. It’s why this is the best movie ever made about football. It grits its teeth to tell you uncomfortable truths.
The film dramatizes a fictional Sharks, an organization on the decline with a legendary coach (Al Pacino’s Tony D’Amato) and new ownership (Cameron Diaz’s Christina Pagniacci). Stone’s NFL locker room isn’t the rah-rah den of sentiment seen in other films. It’s somewhere between a party bus and a wrestling ring, equal parts fearsome and debaucherous. On top of the Pacino and Diaz clash, Stone adds on a classic trope – a third-string quarterback takes to water after his improbable game play – and gives it a stylized edge.
The film deals with the uglier sides of professional sports –coaching/ownership struggles, Shakespearean togglings for power, ethical dilemmas around concussions and prescription drugs, the decline of careers in a sport ready to discard anyone not maximizing their contracts.
There aren’t many heroes in Stone’s NFL. D’Amato isn’t your typical inspirational sports movie coach, far more a foul-mouthed hot-head. Pagniacci is a power player ready to cut throats and ignore criminal activity to win games. Jamie Foxx’s underdog quarterback Willie Beamen is an arrogant jerk that’s hard to root for. James Woods’ Dr. Harvey Mandrake is the shady team doctor ready to carry out Pagniacci’s edict to put players in harm’s way. Only Dennis Quaid’s aging quarterback Jack Rooney and Lawrence Taylor (yes, that L.T.) fading linebacker Luther Lavay are easy to sympathize with.
Stone’s ability to wring the skeeze out of a multi-billion dollar enterprise wasn’t a surprise. Early in his career, Stone had as good of a knack as any to challenge powerful American enterprises with a lot of flash and substance. Filmmaker Adam McKay’s jump from studio comedies to sociopolitical satires owes a lot to Stone’s smash-edit, in-your-face style.
With Any Given Sunday, Stone took on the shield with a rusty dagger. It’s one of the bravest sports films of all time, if only because it actually tries to excavate the ugly realities behind the most popular sport in America. It’s a marvelous breakdown of football from all angles, so gloriously overwrought in a way that captures nearly everything about the sport that makes it such a strange, difficult, dirty, addictive monster.
(Robert Zuckerman Warner Bros.)
That’s the catch, isn’t it? Even when we know about all the hazards and unethical dealings, we still tune in every week, amazed at what we’re watching. It’s a drug, just like any other larger-than-life spectacle. Stone isn’t trying to vilify football fans as much as pick up the big rock and show its supporters all the worms and grubs slithering around underneath.
There is a reason the film has stayed around as it has. Former NFL wide receiver Greg Jennings told Sports Illustratedthat the film wasn’t that too far off from how the actual game plays out week-by-week.
“A lot of components in that movie that are just flat-out real,” Jennings said (via Slashfilm). “The concept of not playing, guys getting hurt, you being inserted, guys shooting up, doing whatever it takes to stay on the football field, getting the big hit, letting winning and their individual success divide them from the guys in the locker room, it happens!”
“The NFL was very nasty. They hated the script,” Stone told Entertainment Weekly in a 2020 oral history of the film. “They tried to kill the deal by telling players not to be involved.”
Notorious Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had to step in to help Stone even get a stadium to film in.
“We barely got the stadiums. Jerry Jones helped by telling them to f*** off and giving us Texas Stadium. It was a fight all the way,” Stone said in the EW piece. “And then when the film came out, the NFL went out of its way to completely blackball us. There was no coverage from the sports shows. It was not fun to fight them, it’s like fighting the Pentagon.”
The fact that the NFL got so up-in-arms about the film’s release speaks volumes. Not much scares the NFL, but Stone’s film did. It spoke truth to power, even when that truth was spiked with the most noxious concoction known to man.
Any Given Sunday is the best-ever football movie because it’s actually about football, and not the other way around. It’s decorated with a black eye and grass stains, but it’s never afraid to get back in the huddle. It’s one of the few sports movies to ever look the beast in the eyes instead of give it a belly rub.
Williams was among the preseason Heisman favorites, and if you’ve watched him and the Trojans play throughout the 2022 season, it’s clear he should have consistently been toward the top. In September, we argued if he maintained his prolific pace, which he pretty much has, he would easily be a finalist, if not the winner. But just two weeks ago, he inexplicably wasn’t even among sportsbooks’ top-5 contenders.
Now, given the way the sophomore quarterback has performed under pressure in must-win situations as USC fought for a spot in the College Football Playoff, along with how some of his fellow Heisman contenders have faltered, it should be his trophy.
Regardless of how the Pac-12 championship game goes Friday against Utah, Williams surely has done enough to earn most of the Heisman votes.
This isn’t a recency-bias argument — though most of Williams’ competition has evaporated in recent weeks— and if you disagree, you haven’t watched him shine this season.
Now, that’s not to say he’s been running away with it all season. Players like Stroud, Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker, North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye and Michigan running back Blake Corum have had largely stellar seasons too, and they all deserve to be in contention.
But Stroud and the Buckeyes haven’t faced the toughest competition, and in their biggest test of the season against Michigan, they failed big time. Maye has been an interesting combination of somehow a dark-horse but also a favorite, but back-to-back losses for the Tar Heels — including an overtime loss to N.C. State last week — don’t bode well for his hopes.
Although Corum is one of the best running backs in the country, he’s injured and was on the bench for most of the Wolverines’ win over Ohio State. He was already facing an uphill Heisman battle as a running back in a quarterback-heavy race and hasn’t been able to pad his stats.
On the season so far, he’s thrown for 3,712 yards (No. 7 nationally) with a high of 470 against UCLA and 34 touchdowns (T-No. 6) — though his completion percentage is stuck at 65.8, thanks in part to four games where he didn’t crack 60 percent. He also has 10 rushing touchdowns, landing him among the top-10 for quarterbacks, and boasts a sixth-best 168.5 QB rating.
The Oklahoma transfer who followed Lincoln Riley to Southern California absolutely stunned Saturday in USC’s 38-27 win over Notre Dame, helping to keep the Trojans’ playoff dreams alive. Just like he did in the win over UCLA a couple weeks ago, and during the unexpected challenges from Cal and Arizona in the weeks before that.
Against the Fighting Irish, Williams completed 18 of 22 passes, more than 80 percent, and threw for 232 yards and one touchdown while also running for 35 yards and three more scores.
But beyond stats, it’s the way Williams plays; the way he scrambles to extend plays and escape sack attempts, the way he slings it down the field, the way he scans his options even as his pocket collapses, the way he seems to so effortlessly sneak into the end zone himself. And he can punt!
He hasn’t been perfect this year with a small handful of down games. But when he’s on fire — along with several very talented USC receivers — it’s impossible to look away.
Williams is dazzling to watch with a magician-like style that’s sometimes reminiscent of Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray — which surely isn’t a coincidence considering all of them have showcased their talent in now-USC coach Riley’s offensive system. He’s brilliant on the ground and can seemingly predict gaps before they appear.
Williams has thrown for at least 400 yards in two games (UCLA and Arizona), at least 340 yards in six and less than 200 yards in just two matchups (Oregon State and Washington State) — though USC won both those games anyway.
And even in the Trojans’ lone loss so far to then-No. 20 Utah, he could hardly be faulted, save for taking four sacks. Despite the one-point loss, Williams threw for five touchdowns and ran for 57 yards, including a jaw-dropping 55-yard dash.
So really, unless he completes almost no passes and frequently turns the ball over in a Pac-12 title loss — USC is currently a 2.5-point favorite — the Heisman Trophy should be his (and even then, there’d surely still be a strong argument in his favor).
If you don’t think Williams has earned it, you haven’t been paying attention.
We just witnessed one of the best moments of the 2022 college football season last Saturday: Tennessee taking down perennial juggernaut Alabama in an all-timer of a win for the Volunteers.
The photos and videos of those goalposts enveloped in a sea of orange were everywhere, the kind of marketing for a program and university you can’t buy.
Which is why I’m shocked to find out that the university … asked people to donate money to replace the goalposts.
This is serious. Look at this:
Y'all remember how we tore the goalposts down, hauled em out of Neyland and dumped em in the Tennessee River?
Yeah that was awesome.
Anywho, turns out that in order to play next week's game, we need goalposts on our field. Could y'all help us out? 🙏 https://t.co/NSMoL3SzPX
2. The replacement goalposts, per WATE, cost between $10,000 and $20,000, but “officials say the rest of the money will be spent on installation fees and other repairs, like those needed on the turf.”
3. Where does the extra money go? To “the Tennessee Fund,” which gives money to other Vols varsity athletic programs.
4. The school already has a spare set of goalposts ready, as it should.
5. The SEC did fine the school $100,000.
UT FINED: The SEC has levied a $100,000 fine against the University of Tennessee after a wild, field-storming celebration after the win against Alabama. And the school is seeking donations to replace the goalposts. https://t.co/rfqAi3U7s3
This is the reality of higher education in 2022: When it comes to pouncing on an opportunity to fundraise at a university, every school does it. And this one’s a slam dunk: We just beat the Crimson Tide, celebrate by throwing a few bucks our way.
But framing it to the student body as, “Gee, you broke our goalposts, can you just help us out so we can play a football next week?” That’s gross.
We are scraping by at $54.6 million this year in revenue share from the league alone, forget anything else.
The University of Tennessee has a $1.34 billion endowment and their athletic department brought in $143 million in revenue in 2021, but @Vol_Football is asking for donations to replace the goal posts students tore down after defeating Alabama. https://t.co/Y1z2DbIvUX
Optics matter, especially in a case where it seems like the school could easily foot the bill. So just don’t do it! Even if the goal here was to go viral with a little tongue-in-cheek plea, it’s negative marketing — Tennessee’s athletic program suddenly looks like one starving for cash when they’re swimming in it.
I’m going to give the last word to UT president Randy Boyd, who had this to say about the goalposts while smoking his celebratory cigar and answering the question of how much it’ll cost to replace the goalposts:
