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NFL can’t shake perception of not caring

Even when the NFL institutes a rule designed to reduce concussions, it can’t shake the perception that it doesn’t care what players and coaches think. The league took a step toward eliminating kickoffs this week by enhancing the touchback rule for a one-year trial with a priority on player safety. The receiving team will now get the ball at its own 25 with a fair catch of a kickoff anywhere behind that yard line. Some of the league’s most prominent coaches criticized the decision. “My thing is, where does it stop? I mean, you start taking pieces and you know, we’ll see ...

NFL schedule not all about home-field edge

By Jim Caltagirone sports@altoonamirror.com With the announcement that five NFL games will be played in London and Frankfurt during the 2023 season, fans in select American cities are left to ponder how exactly they benefit from the international outreach. As the league schedule trickled out during the second week of May, it became painfully obvious to fans of Jacksonville, Buffalo, Tennessee, Kansas City and New England that they will have one less opportunity to see their favorite team play a home game during the upcoming season. Since international games are played at a ...

PGA Tour has made mess out of LIV presence

Byron York Andrews McMeel Syndicate For more than a year, professional golf has been engulfed in a civil war over money and politics. The cause has been the creation of a new tour, funded by the vastly wealthy government of Saudi Arabia, to challenge the dominance — some would say the monopoly — of the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour has reacted like any other business facing a potentially mortal threat. It has tried to strangle the new tour, known as LIV Golf, by threatening lifetime banishment for any PGA Tour player who defects to the new league. It has carried through on ...

Mailbag

With Lestochi’s hiring, time for BG to turn page One of the darkest chapters in the annals of Bishop Guilfoyle ended with the hiring of Ryan Lestochi as boys basketball coach. Only those privy to the behind the scenes maneuvers know how many others were offered the position before Lestochi accepted it. The unacceptable dismissal of Chris Drenning and his loyal, dedicated assistants came as shock and complete surprise to the Bishop Guilfoyle community but not to a select few school board members, administrators and I have to assume my friend and athletic director Joe ...

The little things add up in sports

By Jeff Bartlett Things I miss… n The days we kept track of RBIs (yes it’s plural), home runs and batting average. Not exit velocity and bat speed. n When players played. Not took off a quarter of every season off for some contrived term called “load management”, and then got hurt and missed the playoffs anyway. n When pro golfers looked more like the guys at your local muny — a little wobbly in the middle but loaded with personality. Not the GQ crew that dot the fairways now with every one named Harrison, Justin or Cameron. n When they just showed highlights on ESPN, ...

Wembanyama mania is on the NBA horizon

By Tim Reynolds The Associated Press Victor Wembanyama’s first basket on a recent Sunday night game looked so easy. He deflected a pass, ran it down, dribbled twice and dunked the ball with his left hand. And 15,000 people — about four or five times the size of the usual crowd at his home games — roared. He’s called a generational talent, though really, there’s never been one in France quite like Wembanyama. The 7-foot-3, 19-year-old, soon-to-be No. 1 pick in the NBA draft is on his farewell tour of his homeland, playing his final pro games there before he comes to ...