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Fool's Ball Week 5! Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

Sean Payton has plenty of options for how he will spend next fall, but one will not be coaching the New Orleans Saints. The longtime head coach announced Tuesday that he is stepping down from his job with the Saints after 16 years at the helm, and while he isn’t ruling out coaching again, he said his plans “are not to be coaching in 2022.” “I don’t know what’s next and it kind of feels good,” Payton said Tuesday during a heartfelt press conference. “I don’t like the word retirement. … I still have a vision for doing things in...

Nebraska dropped a 23-20 heartbreaker in overtime at Michigan State on Saturday, further warming the seat on which head coach Scott Frost resides. The Cornhuskers dropped to 2-3 this year with the loss and are now a paltry 14-23 under Frost since he took the job prior to the 2108 season.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers players have been enjoying the offseason since their dominant Super Bowl win last month, but wide receiver Jaydon Mickens has found himself in some legal trouble. Mickens was arrested last week in Los Angeles on a gun-related charge. According to TMZ, the 26-year-old was pulled over on March 5 when police noticed his window tints were too dark. A gun was found inside the car during the traffic stop. Mickens was arrested and charged with having a concealed weapon, which is a felony. The gun was not on his person at the time. The Buccaneers said they...

The NFL has pushed back its Week 12 game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers to 3:40 p.m., marking the game’s third postponement because of the Ravens’ COVID-19 outbreak, according to multiple reports. With Baltimore already slated to face the Dallas Cowboys next Monday, the NFL also is moving Pittsburgh’s next scheduled game Sunday against the Washington Football Team back one day, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The latest shift to Wednesday comes after the NFL ordered the Ravens’ facility to remain closed Monday morning, and a reported threat of a wildcat strike by Baltimore players if the game...

The $200,000 bail set Sunday for DeAndre Baker sounds like an onerous amount, but it was not, given that the Giants cornerback signed a four-year contract worth $10.5 million and last year received a signing bonus of $5.67 million. SNIP This could be an indication that despite the serious charges against Baker — four counts of armed robbery with a firearm and four counts of aggravated assault — the case might be unraveling, with witnesses recanting on their initial statements, a local defense attorney said. “From what has been presented to the public from the arraignment it seems that this...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a stop to major sports with increasing concerns for whether or not the 2020 college football season will start on time. As coaches and college administrators continue to navigate their way through an unprecedented time, there is reportedly talk about moving the upcoming season into 2021. According to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, one possibility being discussed around the NCAA is playing the season in spring 2021. The idea, which has reportedly been talked about by coaches and administrators, would allow teams more time to prepare for a potential season.

Is Tom Brady thinking this season could be his last? The six-time Super Bowl champion's latest tweet, quoting the Jay-Z track “My 1st Song,” sent New England Patriots fans into a frenzy as he appears to be thinking retirement. “’Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first!’” Brady wrote to go along with several photos of himself participating in minicamp Tuesday. Though the tweet appeared to be fairly innocuous, Brady didn’t offer much of an explanation about the message and it made fans contemplate the end of the quarterback’s career. Brady turns 42 in August and...

College football Saturdays are back, so let's stop and ponder a journalism mystery linked to the new football coaching regime at the University of Virginia. The feature at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville is pretty direct, starting with the headline: "Part of the Bronco way is no work on Sunday." Bronco is not a reference to a mascot, in Wahoo land, but to the school's new head coach – Bronco Mendenhall. Things are not off to a good start there, so times are a bit tense. Here is the overture: The day after Virginia’s season-opening loss to Richmond, Ruffin McNeill,...

here is a resounding feeling across all of football that the rookie season of Joey Bosa isn't heading toward trouble. It isn't close to over. Actually, what three general managers said in interviews was that it is over. It's done. It's gone. The dumbass Chargers flushed it down the toilet. "If Joey Bosa ended his dispute tomorrow," said one NFC general manager, "he would barely get something from his rookie year. But it won't end tomorrow. It could be weeks. So effectively, the Chargers threw away the rookie year of their own high draft pick."

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez drove his friend to a remote spot in an industrial park in the dead of night and — still fuming from a fight at a nightclub three nights earlier — "orchestrated his execution," prosecutors alleged in a Massachusetts court Wednesday. Hernandez pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and five firearms charges, including possessing a large-capacity firearm, more than a week after the body of Odin Lloyd, 27, was found near his Massachusetts home. A judge ordered him held without bail. Hernandez "drove the victim to the remote spot, and he then orchestrated...

Colin Kaepernick will start Sunday's game against the New Orleans Saints over Alex Smith, according to a report. San Diego-based Sports Illustrated writer Jim Trotter tweeted Wednesday evening that Jim Harbaugh informed Smith of his decision and that it was not due to the former No. 1 overall pick's recent concussion. Just over an hour after Trotter's tweet, a producer with ESPN followed up with a tweet that complicates matters: Trotter Tweet: BREAKING: Jim Harbaugh has informed Alex Smith that Colin Kaepernick will start Sunday, per source. Said decision not based on health. Seth Markman: Alex Smith just told @TDESPN...

Well, the statistics are in and NFL football star Tim Tebow has yet one more sterling accomplishment--but this one is not about football. It's about his book, "Through My Eyes," about his Christian life story. With staggeringly high sales, Tim Tebow has become the #1 best-selling religious author in America for 2011. Tim explains how his dad told him early in life that becoming a star gives a person a platform for good or evil. He also taught Tim that success opens the door to all sorts of temptations. So Tim purposed in his heart to become a good role...

Eight players from the Mexican national team have been sent home in disgrace after allegedly inviting prostitutes into the team's Copa America training camp. The eight - Jonathan dos Santos, Nestor Vidrio, Javier Cortes, David Cabrera, Nestor Claderon, Israel Jimenez, Jorge Hernandez and Marco Fabian - were dismissed on Tuesday, just hours before the team were due to fly to Argentina for the start of the Copa America from their training base in Ecuador. They were caught after some members of the squad reported that some personal items, including laptops, iPads, mobile phones and cash, had been stolen from their...

Today on the blog, as promised, we're going to talk football. No issues of war and peace, no making cruel fun of a second rate American President, no water-boarding the Treasury Secretary today. Its Friday, its playoff time, and it's my blog so there's no one to stop me. This weekend is wildcard weekend, which traditionally means none of these teams are going to the Super Bowl. There have been exceptions, but sometimes exceptions only prove the rule . The Steelers, Patriots, Bears, and Falcons are watching the other 8 playoff teams beat the hell out of each other from...

"In the moments immediately after another unsettling defeat that prompted the Washington Redskins to question much about themselves, many team leaders were united on this: Changing the head coach alone will not solve their problems. To be sure, many things are going poorly for the Redskins, as evidenced by a 20-17 loss to the formerly winless Carolina Panthers on Sunday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium. Washington was undone, in large part, by a strange sequence of events on a punt in the fourth quarter that resulted in a turnover that Carolina quickly capitalized on to score the go-ahead touchdown....

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America's love affair with sports is undeniable. I, along with millions of others, watched every minute of the Super Bowl, and was deeply disappointed by the outcome. However, I wonder if it is morally wrong for the American public to be so wrapped up in the Bears and the Colts while so many of our young men and women are in harm's way in Iraq. Why not put the College Bowl games, the NFL playoffs, the NCAA basketball championship, professional basketball and baseball playoffs, etc., on hold until our troops are back home? In this manner, maybe we could all...

The Army-Navy game…the nation’s rivalry…the nation’s classic. This is the only college football game where tens of millions of Americans, at home and abroad, on the seas and under them, root for one team or the other on the first Saturday of every December. Yet, 99.9% of them are not alumni of either Annapolis or West Point. That is why the game has been the nation’s most enduring rivalry for nearly all of its 113 years and 103 games. For decades, it’s been the logical conclusion to each college football season, whether it was played on the Saturday following Thanksgiving...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Two young men - one a Marine Corps officer - were shot to death Saturday at a tailgate party before a college football game, and authorities were searching for two suspects. Witnesses said a fistfight preceded the shootings. One victim was dead at the scene; the other died at a hospital. Neither was a student at the university. The victims, identified as Kevin M. McCann, 23, of Chicago, and 2nd Lt. Brett Johnson Harman, 23, of Park Ridge, Ill., were tailgating before North Carolina State University's season-opening football game against Richmond. A witness, Brian Smith, 31,...