Red Wings – Not Screwing Things Up
We are in the dog days of Summer from an NHL reporting perspective. That means a plethora of ‘ranking the offseason’ or ‘way too early prediction’ articles are coming out. As usual, there are plenty of opinions flying around, but one that seems to be consistent across these articles is that the Red Wings have […]
Texas and Alabama’s Fates are Entwined
While the CFB Playoff commitee may be viewed by many as an entirely flawed system for deciding who makes the postseason, for me it throws up one of my favourite storylines for a season – when one team’s early season result against another entwines their fate for the reason of that year. The unexpectedly close […]
NFL Season Preview | AFC South
The AFC South is definitely one of the most condensed divisions in the NFL this season, and especially with the recent events in Indianapolis, one without a clear leader and relative parity through the rest of the teams. It feels like the best place to start when trying to pick apart these teams would be […]
NFL Season Preview | AFC West
The AFC West is probably one of the more interesting divisions in the league – headlined by the Chiefs, who are looking to ride a newly-minted star quarterback into a dynasty, but with the often-overlooked Chargers close behind them. The Raiders appearance on Hard Knocks is probably the most on-the-nose TV appearance for any team, […]
Injuries and Sporting Humanity
“He’s someone doing something that conventional wisdom says is not the thing to do,” said David Shaw, a Stanford graduate who was named the Cardinal’s football coach last month. “But the people here say, ‘I understand.’ ” If I told you the above quote was about Andrew Luck, it would probably not surprise you at […]
How it Happened | Ben Stokes Saves The Ashes
I had always planned to write a post at some point about why Test cricket is such a special thing in the world of sport, and while I already had ample fodder for that article, the events on the 4th day at Headingly just piled a whole load more on top. So to avoid covering […]
NFL Season Preview | AFC North
Like most divisions, the AFC North is about the haves and have-nots. In recent memory the Steelers and Ravens have bossed this division, with the Browns and Bengals writing more punchlines than headlines. It looks like this year the Bengals are going to be left behind as the rest of this division looks set to […]
NFL Season Preview | AFC East
The Patriots dominance of this division over the years has hinged on two major factors. Number 1 is their ability to consistently reinvent themselves, and to find value and cultivate talent seemingly out of nowhere. Number 2 is the inability of the rest of the teams to come close to being able to do this, […]
Clutch: Of Closers and Kickers
I’m going to borrow from the laziest of tropes for speeches and articles and drop in a dictionary definition for the intro to this post: clutch noun (DIFFICULT SITUATION) US a difficult and important situation that needs a lot of skill to deal with successfully: “This team was able to perform in the clutch every […]
A Tale of Two VARs
In the short-lived history thus far of VAR, it’s most significant moment to date was of course in the Champions League semi-final between Man City and Spurs. The debate over the merits or otherwise were therefore naturally amplified when the same technology intervened this weekend to again decide the course of the result against City. […]