In 1993, an 11-1 Notre Dame squad finished second in the polls to a 12-1 Florida State team the Fighting Irish had defeated during the regular season. Notre Dame fans were furious at being denied a national championship because of the sport’s refusal to settle its champion on the field. The school’s athletic director, Dick […]

There aren’t many ideal times to be desperate for a franchise quarterback, but the upcoming offseason is shaping up to be trickier than most in that regard. The 2025 NFL Draft class is spotty, with a couple of team executives recently telling The Athletic there isn’t a quarterback coming out who’d be ranked ahead of […]

A sharp, anxious intake of breath, followed by a round of applause that carries a mixture of quiet admiration and, more than anything, relief. On other occasions, it ends with supporters shaking their heads and asking why. We are talking about the crowd reaction to — and I’m borrowing this description from a colleague who […]

Two guys are sitting in a bar. They could be talking about who the Giants’ next quarterback should be, or what went wrong with Daniel Jones. Instead, they are talking about Eli Manning, as, it seems, they have been for most of the last two decades. They are debating whether he should be voted into […]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — If only for a little while, first-year Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick was reliving his past life as a basketball podcaster. And the topic of this episode — recorded during his pregame media session before a game against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night — was the NBA’s decline in television […]

Even at the age of 28, Joe Burrow has experienced nearly all that the game of football offers. He’s played for an Ohio high school state title. He’s won a national championship and Heisman Trophy. He’s reached the Super Bowl, recovered from major injuries (twice), become the highest-paid player in the league, set franchise records […]

Who will win the first 12-team College Football Playoff? Six teams received at least one vote in our survey of 30 college football writers and editors at The Athletic, a big change from 10 years of postseason tournaments in which only four teams were in the field. Though Oregon got a majority of the votes, plenty […]

By Zack Rosenblatt, Dianna Russini and Michael Silver Woody Johnson decided to do his own research. The New York Jets’ owner was at his house in Palm Beach, Fla., last February, discussing potential offseason acquisitions with team decision-makers as they watched game tape. Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, a former Denver Broncos first-round pick, flashed on […]