Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP fileAt this point, nobody knows how far Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, can or will go to get an answer to his question about what the Patriots and the NFL knew, and when did they know it. (Just like appending a scandal with -gate in honor of Watergate, you have to ask the big Watergate question every time a -gate pops up.)
Much about Specter’s timing — the week of the Super Bowl — to bring up Spygate again is curious, and even more curious when you see one of his major campaign backers is a home-state company of some note. That would be Comcast, the cable operator locked in battle with the NFL in many markets, with the NFL demanding its network be on everyone’s cable for a nice, high price, and Comcast wanting to shove it only on those who buy an all-sports tier, though Comcast’s own cable sports network is on basic.
Whatever Specter’s motives, allegations of past misdeeds involving video equipment are popping up all over the place, such as a report in the Boston Herald that a Patriots spy taped the St. Louis Rams during their walk-through before Super Bowl XXXVI. The league said it investigated the claim during the earlier Spygate investigation, and dismissed it.
Anything that could put a taint on its defining franchise for the new millennium can’t help but do the same for the NFL as a whole. That other team owners, including Indianapolis’ Jim Irsay, say they are satisfied with how Goodell handled Spygate says less about what New England did than their own fears that the team’s problems could drag everyone down. No matter that an enterprising soul on the Web site Fark.com found a 2002 New York Times article with allegations a Rams spy might have been seen at a Patriots practice before Super Bowl XXXVI.
As Major League Baseball has learned, it gets very messy when you have to start defending yourself on charges that cheating altered the nature of the game. Suddenly, other off-the-field problems start getting bigger. Maybe people will start asking again how San Diego linebacker Shawne Merriman made the Pro Bowl the same year he was suspended for steroid use.
And Goodell might start doing the Bud Selig uncomfortable squirm.
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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