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.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has 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.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
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.
APThe new Women’s Professional Soccer league is allowing players to tweet during Sunday’s inaugural match between the Los Angeles Sol and the Washington Freedom.
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who does media consulting for sports clients, said athletes are smart to use sites such as Twitter and Facebook to their advantage.
“You have the old geezers like me who read newspapers, and you have the future of the fan base, young kids, who don’t,” Fleischer said. “They increasingly get their news and their information online and on social networks.”
He wonders if Alex Rodriguez would have had an easier time navigating his recent drug scandal if he used social networks to rally supporters.
“The bottom line of social networking is, it helps athletes play both offense and defense,” Fleischer said. “On offense, they directly communicate with their fan base, and they can make their fan base grow. Defense, for those times, for those few athletes where something goes wrong, it’s helpful to have a fan base that rallies around you.”
Fleischer doesn’t advise athletes to ignore traditional reporters, who he says still hold significant — if waning — influence. But the Twitter trend has occasionally left scribes scrambling to keep up.
That was the case after Armstrong’s crash.
While reporters were trying to get details, Astana team director Johan Bruyneel confirmed the injury through Twitter and Leipheimer posted a video link.
A few hours later, Armstrong was tweeting: “I’m alive!” On Wednesday, Armstrong posted a photo of himself in a hospital bed minutes before he was wheeled into surgery.
Armstrong regularly tweets insider tidbits and makes a point of noting when an anti-doping official shows up unannounced to administer a drug test. By doing so, he reinforces his long-held stance that he’s the most frequently tested athlete and hasn’t failed a drug test.
“You talk about doping, and doping in sport, the most important thing is the whereabouts. All you’ve got to do is look at my Twitter. I mean, every hour you know exactly where I am,” he said.
The same goes for O’Neal, who posts late-night photos of himself and tweets jokes when he isn’t giving away tickets.
After Villanueva’s halftime tweet, O’Neal decided to see if he could get away with it. “Attention all twitterers I’m a tweet at halftime and not get fined like vill a new wave a whteva his name is,” he posted Saturday.
Sure enough, another post came through at the half: “Shhhhhhh.”
Phoenix Suns coach Alvin Gentry joked that O’Neal can do whatever he wants as long as he’s getting 25 points and 11 rebounds per game. But Shaq got a rise out of Villanueva, who sent a tweet to tweak O’Neal’s college team: “the last name is spelled V-I-L-L-A-N-U-E-V-A... similar to how you spell LSU... L-O-S-T :)”
As of Wednesday, O’Neal had more than 414,000 followers, and Armstrong wasn’t far behind. Part of their appeal is that they don’t put out slick, milquetoast posts written by their public relations representatives.
“The athlete has to do it themselves,” Fleischer said. “The PR department can’t do it for them. It has to be genuine, it has to be real.”
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.
NEW YORK (AP) - As the glow fades from the Giants' Super Bowl triumph, some New York sports fans are tuning in to basketball and hockey, with the Rangers in first place and the Knicks' overnight sensation, Jeremy Lin, sparking "Lin-sanity.''
Robins: This year, six new breeds will be making their debut on the green carpet for the Westminster Dog Show, which begins Monday.
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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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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.