One of my favorite plays in football is the “catch from behind/chase-down” — in which what looks like a long touchdown play is thwarted by a gritty player who makes a lung-searing sprint to keep the ball out of the end zone. I always have had a sort of romantic attachment to this kind of […]

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In the spring of 1986, the three-sport star athlete Mark Collins of San Bernardino’s Pacific High School was one of the top prospects in the National Football League player draft. You could ask anyone. He was a leader as well as an elite athlete, and the NFL did not miss him, even if he was […]

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Been a while since I had the nerve to hold myself to a ridiculous plan to report on a sports event, to spend X-number of hours on the road — or in the air, or both. This was back before I got old and my nerves frayed. I have written about several of my hare-brained […]

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At this moment, only one story commands the attention of European sports fans. And that would be the misguided attempt by a dozen of the continent’s best-known clubs to break away from the European Champions League and form their own elite competition — which they plan to call the Super League. Twelve clubs have announced […]

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For a month, maybe two, it looked like one of the most competitive Premier League battles in recent history. In the early going, to scan the upper half of the league table was to find several names few would have expected. West Ham, Everton, Tottenham and Leicester City all had their turn at the top […]

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The National Football League’s Super Bowl is not a big deal in France. That may be mostly because the game kicks off at about 12.30 a.m. (technically, Monday morning) in Central European time. For people with jobs that begin before noon, it’s rough because dawn is about to break when the typical SB ends. (I […]

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I am not going to argue against any reasonable trade the Rams could make to replace Jared Goff at quarterback. And I certainly will not criticize a deal that brings in clutch quarterback Matthew Stafford from the Detroit Lions in exchange for Goff and three high draft picks. It was in the middle of this […]

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I wish I had the time and energy to look this up, or call some agency that would look it up for me, and pay them to do it, but … … I don’t and I don’t. So, I will own up to cherry-picking these NFL stats from The Athletic pertaining to the Rams playoff […]

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The Lakers, kingpins of the National Basketball Association. The Dodgers, top of the heap in Major League baseball. The Rams, still in competition for the Super Bowl. Thus, it is possible, if still improbable, that the champs of the three most popular American professional sports leagues could all be found in Los Angeles.

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I might have suggested the Los Angeles Rams would take a page from the “psyching ourselves up” playbook and lecture fans and the media about “how nobody believes in us,” ahead of their game against Arizona on Sunday. But we couldn’t go there because Rams fans, perhaps more enthusiastic than informed, apparently helped bet a […]

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