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:
Forget Tom Brady. Forget LeBron James. Forget Tiger Woods, if you hadn’t already. With a thrilling five-set win over Marin Cilic in the Australian Open final, Roger Federer, in the midst of the greatest late-career comeback sport has ever seen, won his 20th major and undoubtedly clinched his spot as the greatest athlete of his generation.
Federer, 36, had now won three of the last six Grand Slams. He’s the best tennis player in the world, again, at an age when Pete Sampras had already been retired for a half-decade. His longevity is stunning: When he returned to the winner’s circle at last year’s Australian Open, it was supposed to be an epilogue to a tremendous career. Turns out it merely started another chapter.
How rare is Federer’s mid-30s dominance? In the past 45 years, only five men have ever won a Slam while older than 30 years, 10 months. None won multiple titles past that age and the oldest among them was aged 32. Federer, on the other hand, has four titles since hitting that age – almost as much as everybody else who’s ever picked up a racquet since 1973, combined. He has three Slams since turning 35 when no one of this, of the previous era, had one older than 32. It’s another assortment of firsts for a player who’s been setting them since 2003.
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With all the recent success, it’s hard to remember just how impossible this all seemed as recently as 13 months ago. Yet the doubting of Roger Federer started long before that.
At the start of this decade, Federer was already widely considered the greatest tennis player in history. With his sublime footwork, picturesque backhand and an unparalleled on-court genius, Federer won 11 of 17 of Grand Slams from 2003-07 and then five of the next 10 after that. Overall, from the 2003 Wimbledon through the 2010 Australian Open, Federer won 16 of 27 majors and played in the finals of six more. Amazingly, for a seven-year stretch, there were only five majors that didn’t feature Roger Federer on the final Sunday.
And then Federer turned 30, an age at which some athletes (quarterbacks, basketball players, soccer stars) are hitting their prime while others (running backs, Olympic athletes and tennis players) are on their way over the hill. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were five years younger than Federer and hitting their strides just as Federer was fading. The new guard was in and Fed, like so many before him, would likely fade into the tennis ether. Players simply didn’t last this long. Federer knew this as well as anyone: At one point in 2009, he announced that making it to the the 2012 London Olympics was a goal of his.
He was to be an ancient 30 years old at those Games.
After he won the 2010 Australian Open, Federer went nine majors without a win (and eight without playing in the final), prompting endless questions about whether he’d ever get another major to his name. When he ended that noise by winning seventh Wimbledon in 2012, tying his idol Pete Sampras for most all time, it merely started the cycle anew. “Could Federer ever win again (again)?”
The general consensus was that he couldn’t. Federer would keep playing his graceful brand of tennis to some success – win some tournaments, make another deep run or two in a major, but that was it. Thirty-year-olds simply didn’t hang around that long. Federer might be able to stick with Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray for a little longer, but even the extraordinary Swiss master couldn’t keep Father Time on the run forever.
That was six years ago. And in in the interim it got way worse before it got better.
In 2013, Federer fell to No. 7 in the rankings – his first time out of the top three in a decade. He lost a shock match in the second round of Wimbledon, snapping his record streak of 36-straight Grand Slam quarterfinals. In three of the next four majors, he’d fail to reach the quarters and his ranking would fall to No. 8 – a place it hadn’t been in 12 years.
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But Federer modernized his game – changing to a 97-inch racquet head that would purportedly give him more power, if less control. After a grace period, Federer was able to get both power and control and soon he was whipping his classic one-handed backhand like it was his heyday. Along with a Steph Curry jump shot, the Federer backhand is the most beautiful sight in sports. Firm, but smooth. Powerful, but controlled. He manipulates the ball as if the racquet was an extension of his hand. (When Federer said in a press conference that he wouldn’t teach his kid the one-hander, it prompted Chris Clarey of The New York Times to liken it to Da Vinci telling his kids not to draw.)
Federer was competitive in a few Grand Slam finals during that time – all losses to Djokovic, who was now the immovable force Federer used to be – but he was playing well enough where it was realistic to think that if he got a favorable Grand Slam draw and saw some of his rivals drop out early in the tournament, he could get one more title before hanging up his racquets.
Then the injuries started. Federer, who had played in a record 65-straight majors, slipped while giving his daughters a bath at the 2016 Australian Open and had to miss that year’s French Open. A comeback at Wimbledon almost got him to the final, but the back trouble from that accident in Melbourne proved to be too much to overcome and Federer made the unprecedented move of sitting out the rest of the season off to recuperate. He’d endured the rigors of 15 endless tennis seasons. Perhaps the break would reinvigorate his game. Or perhaps his career would be felled by the same back issues that had ended so many before him.
It was the former. By a lot.
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Federer made his Grand Slam return at the 2017 Australian Open and, ranked No. 17, looked fresher than he had in a decade. He won the major, his first in nearly five years. The predicted recipe for a title (hope some rivals lose, play short matches and ride an easy draw to a title) was thrown out in Melbourne as Federer played three of the world’s best in the final three rounds and went to five sets in each. In the final, he met his arch-rival Rafael Nadal in a match that may have had more riding on it than any other in history. With a win, Federer would win Slam No. 18, extending his record and finally snapping his drought. If Nadal won, he’d get his 15th, just two behind Federer. With his requisite win on the red clay of Roland Garros, Nadal could have been on Federer’s heels, just one Slam behind, and suddenly the G.O.A.T. debate would have been up for grabs once more. (The Spaniard also extend his career dominance over Federer – which has been in a sticking point with the anti-Fed faction who ask how Federer can be the best if he can’t beat Nadal?)
Down a break in the final set, Federer stormed back to beat Nadal, got on the winning side of that two-Slam swing and set off one of the most stunning seasons in tennis history. Federer won both springtime American hard court tournaments (beating Nadal both times and changing the entire tenor of that rivalry), had his best start to a season in 11 years, then unorthodoxly skipped the entire clay-court season, dominated the field at Wimbledon without dropping a set and then played strong to close the season. He finished 52-5 with two Slams, three Masters 1000 titles and his best winning percentage in 11 years (and his fourth-best ever).
He entered this year’s tournament in Melbourne as the favorite and the only healthy member of the Big Five. (Andy Murray was out while Djokovic, Nadal and Stan Wawrinka were compromised.) At 36, he was the freshest of all. Federer survived the carnage that saw other top seeds fall in every round and made the final against Cilic, the tall, powerful Croatian who beat Federer in the 2014 U.S. Open semifinal (when the draw had opened up and Federer looked like he’d finally get that elusive major) but was bested by The Fed in last year’s Wimbledon final.
Federer took the first set with ease, lost a tiebreak in an even second set, cruised in the third and then went up a break in the fourth. He was three games from another major. And then it all fell apart. Suddenly, Cilic looked like he did during his U.S. Open title run and Federer had the uncertainty and doubt that had plagued him during his down years. When the Swiss was experiencing his semifinal and finals losses at majors back in 2013-16, it wasn’t because he was getting run off the court, it was because he couldn’t get the big point at the big moment. He was almost allergic to break points then. When his serve abandoned him in the fourth set, the crowd at Rod Laver Arena – rabidly pro-Federer, as crowds always are – went quiet. It was happening again. Federer couldn’t locate a first serve, Cilic had him moving and a fifth set would be a dogfight in which Cilic seemed to have the upper-hand.
But after saving two break points in his opening service game and breaking Cilic the next game, Federer cruised to a 6-1 final-set win, his victory only delayed by a last-shot challenge (just like it’d been in 2017 against Nadal). Was it more remarkable that Federer is the second-oldest Grand Slam champion ever (and the oldest in 45 years) or that it would have been a major surprise if he wasn’t?
This Australian Open was the 200th Grand Slam played in the Open era (which began in 1968). Federer has won 20 of those, or one out of every 10. He’s won three of the last six. Since he was supposed to be washed up at age 30, Federer has won four majors. Meanwhile, no player born in 1989 or later has ever been the victor at a Grand Slam. Those players could be as old as 29 now, the same age Federer was when the whispers first started as his tennis mortality.
No career in any sport can compare. The dominance of the early years coupled with the unexpected resurgence in the twilight. It’d be like if Jack Nicklaus had won the ’86 Masters and then followed it up with the ’86 U.S. Open, ’87 U.S. Open and a few player of the year awards.
There are other once-in-a-generation athletes currently playing other sports. One will be on center stage next Sunday, as 40-year-old Tom Brady goes for his sixth Super Bowl title. LeBron James may not be Michael Jordan, but that’s always been far too casually thrown around as an insult instead of a celebration that LeBron is even in the same conversation. Tiger had the greatest run that this sporting generation has ever seen, but it was eight years of magic followed by eight years of pain.
Each of those other greats has a “yeah, but” attached to their case. Brady’s success is tied to Bill Belichick’s, which isn’t a knock, it just makes them more of a G.O.A.T. team than G.O.A.T. individuals. (Imagine Brady without Belichick and vice-versa. One is Aaron Rodgers the other is Bill Parcells. Hall of Fame worthy, but not historic.) Then there’s LeBron, who hasn’t been his best on the big stage and has suffered from his indecisiveness. Tiger – well, you know what happened with Tiger.
Yet Roger Federer persists. He looks as fresh at 36 as he did at 26 and plays with an intensity and appreciation that can only come with perspective gained by a player who almost saw it all disappear. Federer knows he’s one stumble away from a back injury that’ll ruin his career and plays like it. But it’s not a tentative game; Federer is playing like it’s okay that each point might be his last. He’s content with it.
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The win in Melbourne allowed Federer to successfully defend a Grand Slam title for the first time in a decade. At the end, he wept, an emotional release for all the self-doubt that followed the greatness, all the greatness that followed the self-doubt and the appreciation that maybe he won’t ever again be standing at center court holding a trophy aloft.
But the last time Federer wept on the court after an Australian Open final, he’d just lost to Rafael Nadal, capping a six-month period in which Nadal had defeated him in the greatest tennis match ever played (which snapped Federer’s record Wimbledon winning streak at five tournaments and 41 matches) and then another Slam final in Melbourne. At the time, the speculation was that Federer could see the end was coming. Nadal was younger, faster and fitter. Federer was on his way to 30. The end was in sight.
Among so many incredible Serena Williams matches, the 2012 London Olympics final was unforgettable.
When Serena Williams is on the court, time stops. You feel the power of her serve, every shot inches you closer to the TV and you celebrate each won point with a little more gusto than the last.
When she’s serving her opponent off the court, you feel like you could run through a wall after each ace. Watching her play is magical, electric. She’s the type of athlete who can (and rightfully so) command the attention of sports fans everywhere and get them to drop everything else to tune in. I’ll wake up at any hour to watch her play.
To the heartbreak of countless fans, 40-year-old Serena, the greatest to ever play the game, is expected to close her tennis career with the 2022 U.S. Open, after more than 1,000 career singles matches, 73 singles titles, 23 Grand Slam trophies and more than a quarter century as a pro.
“There’s still a little left in me,” she cheekily said Wednesday after beating the No. 2 player in the world, Anett Kontaveit, to advance to the third round Friday against Ajla Tomljanovic.
(TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
But there’s one spectacular Serena victory that floods my mind anytime her dominance is mentioned. Sure, there is an abundance of her matches that exemplify the unparalleled player she is, tremendous longevity included. Maybe you’re thinking of her first U.S. Open (and Grand Slam) win at 17 in 1999, or her 2013 French Open win after an 11-year drought, or when she won the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant against older sister Venus — a legend in her own right who jokingly said it was unfairly two against one.
There’s an argument to be made for many of them. That’s what happens when you’re the greatest tennis player of all time and one of the best athletes in history. But the Serena match regularly conjured in my memory when I think of her strength on the court — and one that is undeniably one of her best career performances — wasn’t actually a Grand Slam or in a tournament perennially on the calendar.
It was the unforgettable 2012 London Olympics final. Tennis at the Olympics doesn’t quite carry the same umph as other sports when you have four Grand Slams on the calendar each year. But that final, that victory, was special to Serena and perfectly epitomized her strength and power, the kind of champion she is and how her adoring fans will remember her.
Lopsided, jaw-dropping, truly unbelievable, it was a quintessential Serena match amid one of several peaks in her career — and it took her just 62 minutes to take down Maria Sharapova for gold. SIXTY-TWO MINUTES.
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During the London Olympics — sandwiched in August between her fifth Wimbledon and her fourth U.S. Open victories — Serena lost just 17 games in six matches on her way to winning her one and only singles gold medal, completing her career Golden Slam.
Draped in red, white and blue, she was calm, confident, focused and poised, and certainly played like it. You’d never know she was competing for a prize she’d never won, and even if she had 10 gold medals at home, she surely would have played in the same aggressive manner.
(Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports)
Serving first and on the attack, Serena came out firing against Sharapova, and within minutes, it became clear what kind of dominant match fans were in for. With her peak-Serena fiery serve pushing 120 miles per hour, she racked up 10 total aces, three in the first game alone to set the match’s speedy pace. She forced Sharapova running up and down the baseline from the start, ace or not, breaking her opponent nearly every chance she got.
“Her serve is, by far, the most beautiful serve ever in the history of our sport,” Billie Jean King noted Monday in a touching tribute to Serena following her first-round U.S. Open victory. Most beautiful and unquestionably one of the most powerful and difficult to return, then and now.
When she’s on the court, you feel like you’re battling alongside her, as her intensity draws you in and captures your undivided attention. I seldom yell at my TV during sports, but with Serena, every point won or lost feels personal because she pulls you in so deep.
You fist pump with her after every ace, argue close calls with the unknowing chair umpire, hold your breath when she inches toward the net, shout when she wins a break point and pray she wins the first set, knowing she’s 100-3 in majors when she does. When she yells, “Come on!” after a won point, you get goosebumps.
Even rewatching this 10-year-old Olympic final, I was captivated — and frustrated with her unforced errors, knowing 2012 Serena is better than that.
In this decade-old Olympic final, Serena didn’t relinquish a point until the third game, notably exhausting Sharapova regardless of who ended up with the winner. And in the occasional instances when Sharapova sent her into a sprint, her footwork was impeccable. She moved with tremendous speed and elegance, totally commanding the baseline with every forceful return. Mesmerizing. You couldn’t take your eyes off her.
After just 30 minutes and change, in part thanks to a hard-fought fourth game, Serena won the quick opening set, 6-0. Long before she became an Olympic champion, it was obvious this was a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime kind of match.
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What comes to mind when you think of Serena’s strength beyond the court is even more powerful.
If she wanted to have a successful tennis career, she needed to be strong. Her opponents aside, she’s been a constant target throughout her career with people commenting on and criticizing her. Her personality, her body, her hair, her fashion, her playing style, her attitude, the way she celebrates, the way she loses. The thinly (or sometimes never) veiled racist and sexist criticisms lobbed against her — especially when the same language would seldom be used to describe her white men counterparts — forced her to be strong.
But that’s who she is. Instead of fleeing, she fights back for herself and in defense of others.
When women athletes face tough choices between their careers or growing their families — a contemplation Serena recently noted that men seldom have to consider — it’s often either/or, not both.
And only the incorrect would have blamed her had she not returned to competition after giving birth to daughter Olympia in 2017, especially after what she endured.
Then 35, she had to fight to save her own life as she suffered a pulmonary embolism, where at least one artery in the lungs is blocked by a blood clot, following an emergency C-section. She nearly died but transformed her traumatic experience into advocacy, taking her ongoing fight for equity for women, and particularly women of color, to another level and highlighting the tragically high statistics of Black women dying from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.
She remained open about her recovery and postpartum challenges, surely a comfort to the many people around the world in comparable situations. Whether it was about her struggles with postpartum depression or getting back in shape or her famous 2018 French Open black catsuit for “all the moms out there that had a tough pregnancy,” Serena was more transparent than any reasonable person would have expected her to be.
Serena Williams, to @jon_wertheim, on the cat suit: "All the moms out there that had a tough pregnancy and have to come back and try to be fierce, in a middle of everything. That's what this represents. You can't beat a cat suit, right?" pic.twitter.com/XycL3WeNbj
An inspiration when she didn’t need to be and an ally of working parents, she’s a hero by so many definitions of the word.
And she did all that while making an improbable comeback to both the Wimbledon final and U.S. Open final within about a year of giving birth. Though she didn’t win either, her journey to those two finals was a victory in itself.
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The second set of the 2012 Olympic final began like the first with a couple powerful aces from Serena to lock up the first game. Even without an ace, there were times when Serena returned it so impossibly hard that Sharapova didn’t even move her feet to attempt to hit it. The ball would whiz by her, as Serena racked up (break) point after (break) point.
“There’s plenty of sympathy around for Sharapova, but from my point of view, this has got to be a total admiration for what Williams is doing here,” the Olympic broadcast noted about the crowd’s roaring between Games 2 and 3 in the second set. “She’s demolishing a young woman, who, up until [July], was the world’s top player. …
“Safe to say we’re seeing something special here from Serena.”
Somehow, “demolishing” was an understatement, and “special” doesn’t come close to doing this match justice. Serena picked Sharapova’s game apart seemingly with ease while performing at a spectacularly elite level with no hope for her opponent to catch up — or catch her breath.
Serena controlled the pace and points in this match so flawlessly that it took Sharapova a full 45 minutes to win her one and only game of the match, cutting the lead to 3-1 in the second set. And you better believe Sharapova fought to earn every single winner, and vice versa, of course.
(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Even when Sharapova had the opportunity to break Serena in the second set, neither gave in and were stuck at 40-40 for what felt like forever. Serena kept digging, kept pushing to ultimately win with her serve still on fire to go up, 4-1.
This is where her power makes you feel like there’s nothing else in the world going on at that moment except the match, when she’s won the first set and crosses the halfway point in the second one. You can feel the tension leading up to an impending victory. The crowd, which is often in her corner, can feel it too. Her opponents certainly don’t go down without a fight, but peak Serena, this Serena, was unbeatable.
This particular match felt over only a few minutes after it started, and Serena closed her first singles Olympic victory in the same way she began it: with a couple more jaw-dropping aces, match-point included.
Just like that, barely an hour later, Serena Williams was an Olympic gold medalist in women’s singles, and she delightfully jumped for joy before famously doing the crip walk.
Sixty-two minutes and a true rout against someone mistakenly labeled as a rival. No one is comparable to Serena.
Serena is everything — everything we love about sports, everything we hope our favorite athlete can achieve, everything to so many tennis fans with an immeasurably mammoth impact.
Whether she wins Grand Slam No. 24 to tie Margaret Court’s all-time record with a U.S. Open victory or not — her 23 wins are already the record in the Open Era — it doesn’t alter her legendary GOAT status on the court nor will it diminish the groundbreaking leader she is off it. She’s the greatest ever to play the game, and those of us who have been cherishing every match, every serve over the last few years, never knowing if it’d be her last, will do the same as she plays for what’s expected to be one last tournament.
Serena can be down but never counted out, and if she wins No. 24, great. But she has nothing left to prove as an irreplaceable legend on the court, and every match, every win, has been a gift. She’s a hero and an absolute icon who, like Venus, blasted open barriers for women of color in a predominantly white sport and demanded equality.
Her longevity is extraordinary, and her evolution away from tennis — she’s been purposeful in not saying retirement — is surely just as hard on her fans as it is for her. With the U.S. Open expected to be her final tournament, they’ll be there treasuring every serve, every ace, every point and, hopefully, one last twirl.
