DeVonta Smith is the Eagles nominee for 2024 Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award
The NFL released its 32 nominees for the tenth annual Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award on Wednesday morning. Since its inception in 2014, each NFL team has nominated one of its players for the award, which recognizes players around the league who exemplify outstanding sportsmanship on the field. The award honors the late founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pro Football Hall of Famer, Art Rooney Sr.
“Sportsmanship is the core of the game, the vanguard of public confidence, the keeper of game integrity,” said Troy Vincent, NFL executive vice president of football operations. “These Rooney Sportsmanship Award nominees exemplify the spirit of fair play and the values of respect, integrity, commitment to team, and resiliency at the highest level of competition.”
Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver was nominated for this prestigious award. His extraordinary leadership and sportsmanship have been evident throughout this season as he helps out the younger guys on defense while still putting up great numbers on the field.
Current NFL player’s votes determine the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award winner. The winner will be announced during NFL Honors and receive a $25,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to a charity of his choice.
Since 2014, no Philadelphia Eagles and two wide receivers (Matthew Slater and Larry Fitzgerald) have won the award.
With two comeback wins, the Lions and Chiefs proved they’ve got alligator blood.
It’s not a bold statement to suggest the teams with the best record in each conference will meet in Super Bowl 59. But the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions have a momentum behind them that feels more powerful than a Wild Card bye.
The two teams are a combined 17-1. There have been a few blowouts in that pile, but Week 10 reinforced the quality that could propel the Chiefs to their third straight Super Bowl and the Lions to their first ever. These two teams are built with alligator blood. They’re capable of going through long periods of inactivity replicating death, just to thoroughly destroy an opponent when the moment is right.
Against the Denver Broncos, the Chiefs dug an early 14-3 hole before slowly coming to life. With their run game shuttered — Kansas City’s tailbacks averaged 2.4 yards per carry — Patrick Mahomes had a typical 2024 performance. He didn’t overwhelm with gaudy numbers, but he put his team in position to win with a late scoring drive.
Denver answered and its win probability climbed to 80 percent after a last minute drive set up a potential 35-yard game-winning field goal. But Will Lutz’s kick never sniffed the goalposts.
The Houston Texans had a 92.1 percent win probability at halftime of their primetime game against the Lions, and that was before Jared Goff threw his fourth and fifth interceptions of the evening. Instead, Houston failed to score a single point in the second half. Goff course corrected for three straight scoring drives to erase a 16-point deficit thanks to a field goal that cleared the left upright by millimeters.
These weren’t merely two wins from good teams — these were triumphs in the face of what looked like certain defeat. No one would have faulted Detroit or Kansas City for a regular season stumble either against a division rival (Denver) or on the road against a likely playoff team (Houston). Instead, each turned a reset week into another victory and even more distance between themselves and the rest of their respective conferences.
That wasn’t anything new for the Chiefs. So far they’ve come out victorious because:
Isaiah Likely’s feet are a centimeter too big (Week 1, 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens)
the Bengals gave up a 4th-and-16 via pass interference (Week 2, 26-25 win over the Cincinnati Bengals)
Raheem Morris drew up a brutal fourth-and-1 run for Bijan Robinson (Week 3, 22-17 win over the Atlanta Falcons)
Justin Herbert couldn’t create two-minute drill magic (Week 4, 17-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers)
and Baker Mayfield couldn’t call a coin flip correctly (Week 9, 30-24 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
Taken as one-off games, Kansas City seems lucky. But as an overall trend, this is a team that cannot be buried; a shuffling zombie capable of invading any safe house to ruin your day.
The Lions haven’t dealt with as much drama, but have been similarly resourceful in victory. They can win by lighting up the scoreboard like a firework show, as seen in three different games in which Detroit has scored at least 42 points. They can win a slopfest, as they did in Week 9 at a rainy Lambeau Field. They can thrive even when Goff throws five interceptions or throws for fewer than 200 yards — in fact, they’re 3-0 in that latter category this year.
It’s easy to give the Chiefs the benefit of the doubt because they’re the Chiefs. They’ve been to the Super Bowl four of the last five seasons. But this is new territory for Detroit.
The Lions have more to prove, and they’re getting it done with a versatile offense but also a top five defense that’s turned 2023’s fatal flaw — a thin secondary — into a strength. Detroit’s -0.072 expected points added (EPA) per opponent dropback ranks fifth in the NFL; in 2023 that same unit ranked 25th. The Chiefs aren’t quite as solid defensively, but Steve Spagnuolo’s unit clamps shut when necessary and sits just outside the top 10 with the ability to break through over the back end of the season.
via rbsdm.com
This all leads to a very chalky conclusion. The Chiefs and Lions seem destined for an exciting, occasionally frustrating Super Bowl matchup in which both teams seem cooked and find ways to rally.
There’s still time to derail this — eight weeks for injuries to pile up and the loose threads of early autumn to blossom into wholesale unravelings. But Kansas City and Detroit keep winning, ugliness be damned. That’s scary for the rest of the NFL in 2024.
Kendrick Lamar is about to pop out at the Super Bowl
Kendrick Lamar is having quite the year after a high-profile rap feud, and it just got even bigger after he announced Sunday he’ll be doing the halftime show for Super Bowl 59 in February.
Set to take place on Feb. 9, 2025, this season’s Super Bowl will happen at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. K. Dot will follow Usher as the halftime performer, though it won’t be his first halftime appearance.
If Lamar’s recent Ken and Friends show was a preview of what to expect, it’s going to be a great show. And if this line from Lamar’s announcement video — “there’s only one opportunity to win a championship. There’s no round twos” — sounded like a another petty jab at Drake, it probably was.
The Kansas City Chiefs are still celebrating their victory in Super Bowl LVIII, but all eyes are looking forward to the upcoming Super Bowl LIX — which will be played at the Caesars Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints. The 2025 Super Bowl figures to be the championship game’s biggest event yet, and FOX Sports is already building anticipation for their keystone broadcast.
FOX Sports released a teaser trailer for Super Bowl LIX starring their mascot “Cleatus the Robot,” who found himself wandering the desert after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas. The hitchhiking robot was picked up by revelers in a party bus, complete with a brass band, Mardi Gras beads, and a pet snake, before they hit the road for “New Orleans or Bust!”
Once it hosts Super Bowl LIX, New Orleans will tie Miami for being the cities to have hosted the most NFL title games (11). It’s going to be the first Super Bowl that New Orleans has hosted since 2013, but another successful event could lead to more championship games in the future. Maybe the Saints can play in one of them themselves.
This is really cool — the NFL will hold Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome to close out its upcoming 2024 season, and for the first time the league has partnered with a local artist to design the championship game’s unique logo.
And they selected Tahj Williams, Queen of the Golden Eagle Black Masking Indians, as the artist. A specialist in intricate beadwork, Williams created a handmade logo in vibrant colors to represent Super Bowl LIX that recalls the ornate costumes she and her community assemble each year for Mardi Gras, capping off Carnival season. It’s a special design for a special event. And that title game will be here before we know it.
