It’s early in the afternoon on a Tuesday in mid-June, with the Chicago Bears having just closed the first padless practice of their mandatory three-day veteran’s minicamp, and Jay Cutleris uncharacteristically relaxed and at ease. Expectations for Cutler have gradually approached sea level from their astronomic provenance, as Chicago shuffled through four offensive coordinators in his six seasons as a Bear. [&hellip

Malcolm Butler deflated an elated (Danger)Russell Wilson more dramatically than the Pats could (allegedly) lower the air pressure of a Wilson football with a pump and a needle. Quarterbacks will always be the casual fan’s central focus, but candid cornerbacks were the fulcrum that kept the gears of the past league year spinning. Richard Sherman served as the mouthpiece for [&hellip

The success of Josh Smith could be a blow to the analytical revolution Daryl Morey has cultivated as the chairperson for the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and as the Houston Rockets general manager. For the first half of his tenure, Morey’s quantitative approach to roster management, which relied on data compilation that determines how a player projects to fit [&hellip

The collective coaching IQs on the field for the second of two New Years Day national semifinals made Ohio State and Alabama seem like a meeting of the world’s greatest mathematicians at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ohio State offensive coordinator Tom Herman, the 2014 Broyles Award winner as the nation’s top assistant vs. his Alabama counterpart Lane Kiffin, another 2014 Broyles Award [&hellip

Despite a lifeless showing in their 26-20 loss to Indianapolis on Monday, the Bengals’ low self-esteem and their bizarre “hey, the grass is always greener in the other cemetery” complacency won’t allow them to escape their abusive Andy Dalton-Marvin Lewis relationship cycle. The second half of winter is upon us, marking the arrival of two things; playoff football of the [&hellip