Next Media Animation, the Taiwanese animation company that produces short cartoons recapping the news of the day, has its best muse in sports, where the lines between good and evil lend themselves to pictures of angry video game characters, and events are just cartoonish enough to spark the overactive NMA imagination. It's a vision of what sportswriting once was: loose with the facts, endlessly biased, and happy to caricature villians and add fantastical unlikelihoods to its summaries. There's also the fact that some of the jokes are clearly lost in translation, CGI characters doing anything looks weird, and the good people at NMA are obviously a little insane. Nonetheless, this is more or less the way the year went down. This year, NMA incorporated photoshops from Deadspin co…

Time for your letters: Jayson: Who's the most overused ESPN analyst (any sport)? My choice is Herm Edwards: The guy has a losing record as a head coach, never won a Super Bowl, and was an average player, yet ESPN asks him questions about football all the time like he's a football prophet. Not only do they ask him about football, but they happily bring on "Coach" to offer up his wisdom on LeBron and Donald Sterling and other non-NFL issues that he's somehow even less qualified to discuss. If a nuclear bomb got dropped on New York, they would trot out Herm Edwards to offer his fucking take. I assume Edwards has a year-round contract and ESPN needs to squeeze as much airtime out of him as possible so that they don't have to pay for another analyst in the st…

data-mm-id=”_33ahirakx”>The Los Angeles Chargers are under the gun this week as more reports continue to surface concerning the franchise's dismal outlook in Los Angeles. Obviously this week we got the bombshell about the NFL potentially wanting the franchise to move to London and since that report, others have chimed in to verify that the league is, indeed, concerned with that's happening in LA. On Wednesday, the NFL Network's Steve Wyche added his voice to the mix.While appearing on The Darren Smith Show on XTRA 1360 in San Diego, Wyche clearly stated that the NFL was looking at the Chargers' long-time viability in Los Angeles. Check out the full segment below:Wyche had the following to say about the situation:””I had never heard the London aspect of it, but witho…

data-mm-id=”_3slw3py7e”>Steve Cohen was supposed to save the New York Mets, now he may never get the chance. Reports emerged on Tuesday claiming the billionaire's attempt to become the franchise's primary owner was "on life support" and the purchase appeared to be all but dead.The disastrous ownership of Fred Wilpon was supposed to be over, instead it looks like it will continue indefinitely. In December it was reported that Cohen planned to buy out Wilpon. The Wilpon family reportedly planned to sell 80 percent of the team to Cohen, but would stay on for at least five years as Cohen transitioned into his ownership role. Not so fast.The deal has reportedly fallen apart because the Wilpons changed the terms of the deal late in the process and Cohen objected. That mea…

data-mm-id=”_el3m99l74″>Pat McAfee has established himself as one of the fastest rising stars in sports media since his abrupt retirement from the NFL in 2017. He has a highly-successful podcast, on-field analyst gigs on several broadcasts and has been mentioned a possible booth option for future NFL broadcasts. Then the former Pro-Bowl punter went and tweeted about possibly joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and people on Twitter lost their minds. I have no clue how folks are gonna stop Tampa now.*Heading to the backyard to see if I can kick a ball still— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) April 21, 2020Over the last few weeks, the Bucs have gone from an NFL afterthought to the hottest hot spot this side of the sun. Tom Brady signed with them in free agency and Rob Gronkowski unretired and …

data-mm-id=”_i5k6s7rkk”>Heading into the NBA restart in Orlando, it felt like any one of a million things could go wrong. But three weeks into the grand experiment with the playoffs around the corner, it has been shockingly smooth sailing. Sure, the Lou Williams debacle wasn't great, but other than that players have stuck to the rules and it's resulted in consecutive weeks of no positive coronavirus tests from the bubble. While it's of course important to remember that there's still three months to go until the season is complete, it's encouraging to see everything go as well as it has. Adam Silver said as much in an SI interview with Chris Mannix published this morning, calling the current situation "better than we envisioned." He did note, however, …

data-mm-id=”_utq3gwn1x”>The College Football Playoff selection committee released its latest batch of rankings Tuesday night and let me tell you, they don't make a lick of sense. Several teams in the top 10 moved, but not how most would have predicted. The logic for the rankings doesn't appear to apply equally to all the teams, with some getting punished for the same things others are rewarded for. It's a big damn mess. The top five teams remained the same this week, as Alabama (10-0), Notre Dame (10-0), Clemson (9-1) and Ohio State (5-0) remained in the coveted top four spots, while Texas A&M (7-1) lurks at No. 5. But here's where things get weird. Iowa State (8-2) jumped to No. 6 after a week off and Florida only dropped from sixth to seventh after losing to a…

data-mm-id=”_lvqiusfqp”>A few times a year, Skip Bayless will break out of his false outrage persona and act like a true and irrational fan. This only happens when he is tweeting about Vanderbilt sports. Bayless graduated from the university nearly 50 years ago and their sports teams remain his only true rooting interest; everything else is viewed through the veneer of content. So it seemed shockingly genuine yesterday when Bayless busted out the all-caps tweets blaming a "phantom" hit-by-pitch call that led to Vanderbilt's upset loss in the College World Series regional round. The Commodores lost to Xavier, 2-1. Bayless was mad because the winning run was granted to Xavier after a very close and questionable HBP with the bases loaded and two outs. Rain delay means I hav…

data-mm-id=”_vjwlw6zmo”>Angel Hernandez is the worst umpire Major League Baseball has to offer, and he continues to prove it over and over again. On Thursday night, that happened again, this time with an impossibly bad call. Hernandez rung Bryce Harper up on a check swing call, then ejected the Philadelphia Phillies superstar when he rightly expressed his displeasure. The call came in the bottom of the third inning, as Harper was up with one out in a 1-1 game. On a 3-2 pitch, the lefty appeared to hold up his swing on a low slider from Pittsburgh Pirates righty Luis Ortiz. Hernandez, who was the third base umpire, thought otherwise. Check this out:Bryce was just ejected for being correct pic.twitter.com/NUDPF9OOOB— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) September 28, 2023You will not …

data-mm-id=”_8uetix97m”>One of the things we like to think about is how early in the morning Skip Bayless awakes to do his best thinking and cardiovascular exercise. One has to get up at Today Show host hours to fight like hell to take a small market share away from First Take and there can't be any days off. Time zones create a hilarious reality where the 71-year-old contrarian has to get worked up to a fever pitch before most people in Los Angeles are eating breakfast, ranting and raving about whatever topic in sports might yield a short-lived social bump. Today it was the Philadelphia Eagles on the heels of their thrilling overtime victory over the Buffalo Bills, which ran their season record to 10-1. Once again Nick Sirianni's team pulled a rabbit out of their hat and bea…