We are just days into 2015 and we have already seen the shot of the year as it will be very difficult to top what Trevor Booker of the Utah Jazz did against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
With 0.2 seconds left on the shot clock, Booker was subbed into the game. By rule, if there is less than 0.3 seconds, a player does not have enough time to catch the ball and shoot, so the only option is to tip the ball towards the basket and hope and that is exactly what Booker did.
Except Booker (No. 33) did it facing away from the basket and over his head.
The announcers' reactions say it all.
Here is another angle.
Amazingly, this was not a set play. After the game, Gordon Hayward, who threw the pass, said he had no idea what Booker was going to do and simply gave him a bounce-pass so that the Thunder couldn't steal the ball and start a fast break.
But what really makes this shot amazing is that Booker had the confidence to take it because apparently he has been practicing it for years.
"I know you won't believe me but I really do practice those shots," Booker told the media after the game. "My cousin Jordan Hill (of the Los Angeles Lakers) texted me after the game, he was like 'they probably won't believe it, but we practiced those shots all the time growing up.'"
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is the most underpaid player in the NFL right now.
He's making a little over $800,000 this year, which is less than 1/20th of what Jay Cutler is making.
That's about to change. Wilson is three years into his four-year rookie contract, which means he's eligible to negotiate an extension starting this offseason.
"They are setting the stage to have an extension done before next season and pay Russell Wilson more than the $20 million per year that the elite quarterbacks get," Rapoport said on NFL Network.
"There's nothing that quite expresses the way I feel like that word," he said when asked if he wanted to apologize for his bad language.
That is one of the simplest, most accurate defenses of the F-word we've heard.
Here's the full exchange:
Brady: I wish I did have a better mouth out there at times. But there's nothing that quite expresses the way I feel like that word.
WEEI: It is a great word.
Brady: It is, it is, especially in the heat of the moment.
WEEI: You're not allowed to say it at home are you?
Brady: No I don't say it at home, of course not. It's pretty well-filtered at the house. Blame CBS and NBC for putting it on TV, don't blame me.
He added: "We’re not choirboys, I know that. You bring us up to a certain level of intensity to the game, you’re job is to go out there and physically, emotionally, mentally dominate the game. You don’t do that at church on Sunday. You’ve got to go to the football field for that."
The New England Patriots dug deep into their bag of tricks and pulled out an fantastic gadget play for a touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens.
With the ball at their own 49-yard line down 28-21 in the third quarter, Tom Brady took the snap in the shotgun and threw it across the field to wide receiver Julian Edelman.
It looked like a forward pass, but it was actually a lateral, which allowed Edelman to then pass it down the sideline to a wide-open Danny Amendola for the touchdown.
The Super Bowl XLIX is fast approaching and already some of the world’s biggest brands are teasing details about the ads they’ll be running during the big game.
We’re compiling everything you need to know about the commercial side of this years big game we’ll keep updating this post right up until February 1, when you can follow our live coverage.
All the brands in this slideshow are organized in alphabetical order for ease of navigation.
Anheuser-Busch
Brewer Anheuser-Busch is going all-out once again in this year’s Super Bowl, this time airing three minutes and thirty seconds of ads during the event.
It has two ads planned for Bud Light, each created by two different agencies, and another for Bud, as Adweek details
“Lost Dog,” has been created by Anomaly and will show how “only your best buds are the ones who always have your back.” It acts as the sequel to last year’s much-loved “Puppy Love” spot.
Another Bud Light spot created by EnergyBBDO is called “Coin” and tells the story of a drinker who plays a life-size Pac Man game.
The final spot is for Bud, which is another Anomaly effort. This ad focuses on how the beer is brewed.
The brewer plans to release each ad online in the week before the game.
Avocados from Mexico
Avocados from Mexico announced in January it will run a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl, but it will keep its TV ad creative under wraps until the game.
In addition to that ad, the brand will also be creating other marketing activations around the football season. That will include social media activity featuring American TV host Mario Lopez and in-store ads.
In a press release, Avocados from Mexico explained the reasoning behind advertising a warm weather fruit during the middle of winter: During the month of last year’s Super Bowl, 70 million avocados were sold in the US.
Carnival Corp
The travel and leisure company — which owns brands including Carnvial Cruise Lines, Costa Cruises and P&O Cruises — announced in December it will be airing its first Super Bowl commercial this year.
The 60-second spot will be created by BBDO and directed by Hollywood director Wally Pfister, who has previously worked on blockbusters such as Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.
Carnival is sourcing the commercial from its "World's Leading Cruise Lines Marketing Challenge," which gave North American consumers the chance to "join" the company's marketing team and vote on their favorite creative concepts. The challenge is now down to its final four ads (the image on the right is taken from the "Getaway" spot.)
Oregon and Ohio State will battle in the college football championship game as two of the most dominant programs in college football. But it wasn't that long ago when Oregon was mediocre and Ohio State was moving in the wrong direction.
In 2008, Ohio State's football program ranked second with $68.2 million in revenue while Oregon ranked just 36th at $24.8 million. Three years later, Ohio State had fallen to $58.1 million as the program was placed on probation and Oregon rose all the way up to $51.9 million.
Oregon's big leap came in the first year after their appearance in the BCS Championship game, a season that showed the program was on the rise and here to stay. A year later, Ohio State hired Urban Meyer to be their head coach, going 12-0 in his first season, and reversing the downward trend of the program's bottom line.
Marshawn Lynch is known for his weird press conferences after the game. He has been fined for refusing to talk to the press, and when he does speak, he never gives any straight answers.
On Saturday night after the Seahawks beat the Panthers 31-17, Lynch responded to reporters by only saying "I'm thankful." At first, Lynch isn't even answering questions and just says "So y'all gonna try again? That's what we're gonna do?"
It's safe to say Lynch is never going to give reporters the answers they want.
Down 26-21 in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys went for it on 4th and 2. Tony Romo lobbed the ball toward the endzone to Dez Bryant. With incredible athleticism, Bryant leapt up to make an amazing catch that was eventually overturned.
The refs ruled a complete pass, and a first down for Dallas at the 1-yard line, but Packers head coach Mike McCarthy threw the red challange flag for an official review to see if Bryant had control of the ball the entire time. After a review, the officials reversed the call and the Packers got the ball at their own 32.
Looking at the play from another angle, the ball does appear to touch the ground:
By the rules, the refs made the correct call:
But as many are pointing out, it's not the greatest rule. Bryant made an incredibly athletic play, stayed in bounds, took three steps, and his elbow hit the ground as the ball popped loose.
Like many watching the game at the time, I was convinced that it was a great catch, but by the letter of the law, it should have been overturned because he did not control the ball going to the ground.
After the game, Mike Pereira, a former NFL official and the former vice president of officiating for the NFL, explained on FOX why the reversal was correct. But after listening to his explanation I am actually less convinced that the right call was made.
The issue comes with whether or not Bryant made "a football move" before losing control. If Bryant does make a football move, it is a catch and a fumble (that he recovered). One example of a football move is stretching the ball towards the end zone, which it appears that Bryant did.
However, according to Pereira, it was not enough of a stretch.
"If you're going to the ground, you have to prove that you have the ball long enough to perform an act common to the game and do so," said Pereira. "And part of that is stretching all the way out and to me even though he moved the ball a little bit forward, they are not going to consider that a football act."
And herein lies the problem.
Pereira admits Bryant stretches the ball towards the end zone, but apparently it wasn't enough. So, now the official must determine the degree of stretching and reaching by the receiver as if they don't have enough to worry about.
It would seem that the player either reaches with the ball or he doesn't and Bryant pretty clearly tried to stretch the ball forward only being limited in actual distance by his shoulder pads.
After the game, Bryant was just as confused as anyone, saying he reached for the goal line and didn't understand why it was overturned.
Dez Bryant: "What am I supposed to do? I'm just reaching for the goal line. I don't understand."
The NFL has one problem when something most observers agree is a great catch is being overturned on a technicality. They have another problem entirely when they are asking officials to judge degrees of stretching.
The New England Patriots used just four offensive lineman during a series of three plays in the third quarter of their 35-31 comeback win over the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night.
It totally confused the Ravens and was so unexpected that the NBC announcers didn't even catch it during the live broadcast.
An explanation:
Under NFL rules the offense effectively has to have five players on the line of scrimmage who are ineligible to catch a pass. Normally, these five players are the offensive linemen, and they're stacked together in the middle of the field.
The Patriots didn't do that on those three plays. They used four clearly identifiable offensive linemen and had another player who was lined up in a different part of the formation declare himself as the fifth ineligible player.
The problem: The Ravens didn't know who that ineligible player would be until the referee announced it a few seconds before the play started. The Patriots were basically playing hide-and-seek with which receivers were eligible and which were linemen disguised as receivers.
Bill Belichick got to the heart of that deception when he said, "We had six eligible receivers on the field, but only five were eligible."
The Patriots scored a touchdown on the drive in which they used the four-linemen formation, and went on to win.
Here's a quick breakdown of how this worked:
1. Before the play, running back Shane Vereen declared himself ineligible to the referee. The referee announced it over the public-address system a few seconds before the snap. Vereen then lined up in the slot at the bottom of the screen, where you would typically find a wide receiver.
2. On the same play, the player lined up in the traditional left-tackle position, Michael Hoomanawanui, was actually an eligible receiver. He is the guy who eventually caught the ball:
3. When the ball is snapped, Hoomanawanui just leaks down the field, and no one guards him because he appeared to be an offensive lineman:
4. Vereen, meanwhile, stands around because as an ineligible player, he is not allowed to run downfield:
The Patriots ran the play three times, and they got a first down every time.
It's smart. It probably would not work over an extended time, but when you whip it out in a playoff game in which the defense has no idea what's going on, it is lethal.
The Ravens were angry because they thought the referees didn't give them enough time to match up after the Patriots made a substitution. Harbaugh even took a penalty after the third time the Patriots did this to get the referee's attention. He explained:
We wanted an opportunity to be able to ID who the eligible players were. What [the Patriots] were doing was they announce the ineligible player and then Tom [Brady] would take them to the line right away and snap the ball before we had a chance to figure out who was lined up where. That was the deception part of it. It was clearly deception.
So the officials told me after that they would give us the opportunity to do that, which they probably should've done during that series but they didn't really understand what was happening.
Harbaugh isn't wrong. But there's nothing in the rulebook that says the referees have to delay the play until the defense can get perfectly lined up. By rule, the ref must hold up the play after the offensive substitution only until the defense has had a "reasonable time to complete its substitutions."
As Peter King pointed out in his MMQB column, there was a solid seven to 10 seconds between when the referee announced who was ineligible and when Brady snapped the ball. That qualifies as a "reasonable" amount of time.
The Patriots were triumphant after the game. Tom Brady told reporters:
Maybe those guys gotta study the rulebook and figure it out. We obviously knew what we were doing, and we made some pretty important plays. It was a real good weapon for us.
As Grantland's Bill Barnwell notes, don't expect to see this strategy become commonplace. While it's legal right now, the tactic does go against the spirit of the substitution rule, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see the NFL tweak the rules to stop Belichick from exploiting this in the future.
The Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night fell to 19-19 in a 103-84 blowout loss to the Sacramento Kings.
It was Cleveland's fifth straight loss and its eighth loss in nine games, eight of which have been without the injured LeBron James.
Even with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in the lineup, the Cavs are getting destroyed without LeBron.
Their defense remains extremely poor, and now they're underperforming on offense. In the eight games without LeBron, they have as many as 100 points just once, and their offensive rating has been 26th in the NBA.
It's very disappointing. We hoped that we would be able to go at least .500 with him out. We feel like we have enough talent. But we just had a tough go without him. Obviously he brings so much to the table, but we just need to find a way to play without him ... but we just don't want to put a lot of pressure on him thinking that if he's out or if he gets in foul trouble, that we can't win a basketball game.
Irving added, "Regardless of what happens, whoever is out there when LeBron comes back, you just still got to be a basketball player."
When asked why the Cavs were still struggling with two max-level players in the lineup, head coach David Blatt took a strange, almost veiled criticism of Love by saying, "Well, Kev's not a max player yet, is he?"
It's technically true (Love's contract is one year and a few million dollars short of being a "max" contract under NBA rules), but it's still a weird thing to say.
All of this is bad news for the future of the Cavaliers.
Love, who has been disappointing this season, is an unrestricted free agent next summer, and he could leave Cleveland after it surrendered two No. 1 draft picks (including Andrew Wiggins) to get him. In 2016, James will also be a free agent, and there are already murmurs that he could leave if Cleveland doesn't improve.
The Cavs are also capped out because of the salaries of James, Love, Irving, and Anderson Varejao. They can't get much better through free agency beyond adding cheap veterans. In addition, two of the Cavs' younger players with room to grow, Iman Shumpert and Tristan Thompson, are restricted free agents this summer, and the Cavs could be forced to match big contracts for them or lose them.
As mentioned, Cleveland gave up two No. 1 picks in Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett for Love, and they also recently traded two future first-rounders for Timofey Mozgov. They can't get better through free agency because of their salary-cap situation, and they can't get better through the draft because they traded a bunch of picks for Love, Mozgov, Shumpert, and J.R. Smith.
This team has put all of its stock into the LeBron-Kyrie-Love triumvirate, and it could become a very messy situation if things don't go according to plan on the court. The fact this is a below-average NBA team when you take LeBron out of the equation suggests it is further from championship contention than anyone realized.
The NFL has run into yet another huge controversy with its catch rule that people hate and that many believe cost the Dallas Cowboys a win in the playoffs when Dez Bryant's amazing catch was overturned.
Even now, after the catch has been watched ad nauseam from numerous different angles and every conceivable speed, the debate rages on as to whether Bryant possessed the ball long enough and whether he performed a "football act."
The reason the debate is far from settled is because the NFL's catch rule is so complicated, and the reason the rule is so complicated dates back 15 years before Sunday's 26-21 Green Bay victory to another catch that was overturned, costing a team a chance to win a playoff game.
In the NFC championship game following the 1999 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were trailing by 11-5 to the St. Louis Rams with about a minute to play and the ball at the Rams' 35-yard line. The Bucs, facing a long second-and-23, appeared to complete a 12-yard pass to Bert Emanuel.
But the Rams challenged the call, and the catch was overturned.
In 1999, the NFL's catch rule was pretty basic, if not silly. No matter what the receiver did with the ball, if it touched the ground during the attempt to make the catch, the rule said it was an incomplete pass.
So even though Emanuel clearly controlled the ball, it did touch the ground.
Instead of a manageable third-and-11, the Bucs faced a third-and-23 and two plays later, the game was over, and the Rams moved on to the Super Bowl.
The following season, the NFL changed the rule, now known as the Bert Emanuel Rule. The result is that the ball can touch the ground as long as the player maintains control throughout the process.
But that change brought up other gray areas, the biggest of which is the concept of when does the actual catch stop and when is a player performing what the league calls "a football act."
So the rule has become even more complicated, and officials must now determine, in the case of the Bryant non-catch, whether the player has taken controlled steps and is reaching or if this is all just part of the process of falling to the ground.
And this all started with Emanuel. To most observers, Emanuel made a good football play and caught the ball. So to avoid that happening again, the NFL complicated the heck out of the rulebook only to be once again facing the same situation.
Dartmouth religion professor Randall Balmer has said he initially designed the course to help student-athletes who may have trouble keeping up with the workload at the Ivy League college. Close to 70% of the 272 students enrolled in "Sports, Ethics, and Religion" last semester were Dartmouth varsity athletes, The Dartmouth reports, including more than half of the football, men's hockey, and men's basketball teams.
Balmer, who also taught the course, lectured on topics such as fanatical fans, the origins of various sports, and "muscular Christianity." Students were responsible for midterm and final exams, as well as writing a five-to-seven-page book review for their final paper.
Here's the course description included in the syllabus:
A survey of the origins and development of the culture of athletic competition in America, with roots in the Greek athletic ideal and in the "Muscular Christianity" movement of nineteenth-century England. We'll examine the peculiar (religious?) passion that Americans invest in sports as well as the role that sports has played as an engine for social change. We look, finally, at some of the ethical issues surrounding organized sports.
The class also included three debates that all enrolled students participated in — on college-athlete compensation, politically correct mascots, and sports venues funded by taxpayers.
A Dartmouth spokesperson sent Business Insider the following statement:
The Academic Honor Principle is a foundational element of a Dartmouth education. The integrity and excellence of that experience require trust between our faculty and students. For this reason we treat all academic honor code violations as major misconduct. The actions of a group of students for possible violations of the honor principle relating to misrepresentation of class attendance and participation are under judicial review.
Check out the full syllabus below, via The Dartmouth:
The Broncos dispute the report, saying it was just a strain, not a full tear.
Schefter hit back by getting extra detailed, tweeting, "Specifically: Peyton Manning has a torn rectus femoris, which runs down center of thigh. Bruising was so severe it spread to back of his leg."
Manning struggled in the last several weeks of the season. His slump culminated in a 24-13 playoff loss to the Indianapolis Colts where he seemed to lack zip on the ball.
"Broncos doctors knew about the injury, and Manning did what he could to intentionally conceal the injury from as many people as he could, sources said."
Schefter says Manning suffered the injury in the first half of a Week 15 game against San Diego. The next week he threw four interceptions in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Manning was listed in the injury report on Sunday as "probable" with a thigh injury. That doesn't mean much. NFL teams will sometimes put guys on the injury reports who are seemingly perfectly healthy, like the Patriots did with Tom Brady for years.
There were no reports that Manning had a major injury before the game.
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The Atlanta Hawks, at 29-8, are in first place in the Eastern Conference, much to the surprise of the NBA world.
Though Atlanta has made the playoffs for seven straight seasons, it has long occupied the NBA's least desirable position: a middling playoff contender, not good enough to make deep postseason runs, not bad enough to acquire a top draft pick.
Yet this season, the Hawks, winners of eight in a row and 22 of their past 24 games, have finally put it all together. Despite not having a franchise name or a single superstar, a series of smart draft picks, signings, and trades have made the Hawks the best team in the East.
Here's how:
1. Smart draft Picks (Al Horford, Jeff Teague, Dennis Schroeder)
The Hawks' most recognizable name is Al Horford, who is one of the most underrated big men in the NBA. He was drafted No. 3 overall in 2007. Now he is the lone piece remaining from the Joe Johnson/Josh Smith days.
Horford has become the backbone of the Hawks' defense and one of their most consistent offensive players. Though he doesn't put up superstar numbers, he is a big man worth a career 14 points and nine rebounds a night who can post up and shoot from the midrange. Injuries have limited him the past two seasons, but when healthy he is one of the Hawks' best players.
Point guard Jeff Teague was taken 19th overall in the 2009 draft and has improved every year. Teague is averaging a career-high 17 points, 48% shooting, 7.2 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.8 steals this season. The Hawks ultimately made the right choice two summers ago when they decided to match a contract offer for Teague in free agency.
Dennis Schroeder, a German-born point guard whom the Hawks drafted at No. 17 two years ago, is a candidate for most improved player this season. Schroeder helps lead the Hawks' bench unit with averages of eight points and three assists per game, and he has been on the court in crunch time at times.
2. Cheap free-agent signings (Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll, Pero Antic, Mike Budenholzer)
The Hawks quietly made one of the bigger free-agent steals in recent years by giving power forward Paul Millsap a two-year, $19 million deal in 2013. Millsap joins Horford in the Hawks' frontcourt, adding another big body who can stretch the floor, post up, rebound, and make smart passes. This season he is averaging 17 points, eight rebounds, and three assists per game.
In DeMarre Carroll, the Hawks brought in a strong defender on the wing to help build their fifth-ranked defense. Carroll signed a cheap two-year, $5 million deal in 2013, reigniting his career after several listless seasons with Denver, Houston, and Utah. He has averaged 11 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.4 steals in two seasons with Atlanta.
Pero Antic, a burly 7-footer from Macedonia, was signed in 2013 after playing several seasons in Eastern Europe. Though Antic doesn't put up big numbers off the bench, he gives the Hawks a legitimate center to match up with bigger teams.
Much of the credit for Atlanta's recent surge also has to go to head coach Mike Budenholzer. Budenholzer was an assistant under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio for several years, and he has brought the Spurs' style of fast, in-and-out, pass-happy offense to Atlanta. Budenholzer is an early candidate for coach of the year.
3. Trades for role players who fit (Kyle Korver, Thabo Sefolosha)
The Hawks haven't made any blockbuster trades, but they have done a good job of acquiring players who fit while not giving much up in return.
Kyle Korver was acquired from the Chicago Bulls in 2012 for a trade exception and some cash. Korver said he was disappointed to leave the Bulls, but he has since become a pivotal player for the Hawks. He re-signed with Atlanta in 2013 for four years, $24 million. He leads the team in on-court offensive rating, and he is shooting an absurd 52% on six 3-point attempts per game.
The Hawks also added another solid wing defender in Thabo Sefolosha this past summer. They got Sefolosha from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for the draft rights to a European player. Sefolosha also doesn't put up big numbers, but he'll play a crucial role for Atlanta in the playoffs because of his defensive abilities.
4. Getting rid of overpaid stars (Joe Johnson, Josh Smith)
None of this would be possible if the Hawks hadn't abandoned their highly paid core of Johnson and Smith.
The team let Smith leave for the Pistons in summer 2013, refusing to pay him the $54 million that Detroit offered. Two years later that looks like a wise move. The Pistons waived Smith in December and have since caught fire.
When the inaugural college-football championship game kicks off tonight, one of the first things many fans will notice is the unusual look of the end zones.
Rather than end zones painted in each school's colors, as is typical for bowl games and the now-defunct BCS National Championship Game, the end zones in AT&T Stadium will be black, with merely the College Football Playoff logo and each school's name.
Now, compare that to last year's BCS Championship Game field at the Rose Bowl, which had a more traditional look for Florida State and Auburn.
The reason for the change is simple: branding.
"The concept for this was to match the colors of the [College Football Playoff] branding," a spokesperson for CFP told Business Insider.
Notice that the playoff logo is black with a gold football, and everywhere you look, some version of that black-and-gold football can be seen.
Even the trophy is gold and black.
This tactic is reminiscent of NCAA's basketball tournament, when all courts are altered to follow a template based on the blue NCAA logo.
The border around every court is black, like the end zones in Monday night's championship will be, and include the name of the arena in NCAA blue.
The branding takes away from the individuality and the character of the arenas and stadiums. But it also makes it clear in any photo or during any highlight reel exactly what is being watched, whether it's a men's basketball game or the college-football championship game.
According to the playoff spokesperson, no decision has been made on the appearance of the field in future seasons. But if the NCAA men's basketball tournament is any indication, black end zones are probably here to stay.
After two weeks of playoffs just four teams are still alive in the NFL and among those, no team is as hot as the defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks.
Since starting the season just 3-3, the Seahawks have won ten of 11 games en route to the NFC championship game and they are doing it in dominating fashion. At the midpoint of the regular season, the Seahawks had outscored their opponents by just 22 points, worst among the teams still alive. Since that time, Seattle has outscored their opponents by 132 points, 20 more than any of the other three teams.
The Indianapolis Colts are last among the four remaining playoff teams. However, things have been better recently, outscoring their opponents by 59 points since week 11, second only to the Seahawks during that stretch, albeit with the help of an extra playoff game.
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