Sonny Giuliano Articles - Page 37

It was to be expected that there would be plenty of blowback following Nick Saban’s surprising retirement announcement last week. There was the immediate transfer portal entries of Alabama star wide receiver Isaiah Bond and emerging tight end Amari Niblack, and now, the potential quarterback of the future in Tuscaloosa is entering the transfer portal before he had a […]

The last time the Detroit Lions were in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs, I was still a month and a half away from being born. On January 5th, 1992, the Lions routed the Dallas Cowboys by the final score of 38-6 in a game played at the Pontiac Silverdome. This was one year […]

The Indiana Pacers made the first splashy move of 2024, acquiring two-time NBA All-Star Pascal Siakam from the Toronto Raptors for Bruce Brown, Kira Lewis Jr., Jordan Nwora, two 2024 1st-round picks and a conditional 1st-round pick in 2026. In Siakam, the Pacers are adding a versatile forward who has a Most Improved Player Award […]

For well over a decade now, Richard Sherman has proven he’s completely unafraid to step in and voice his mind on a topic that he’s passionate about. Whether it’s in regard to San Francisco “trying him” with “a sorry receiver” like Michael Crabtree on the deciding play of the NFC Championship or Skip Bayless minimizing […]

Ron Rivera is 62 years old and has already accumulated a 102-103-2 record as a head coach, but if the recently fired head coach of the Washington Commanders had it his way, his coaching career would not yet be coming to an end. “I have several opportunities right now,” Rivera told John Keim of ESPN. […]

There’s good reason the Super Bowl pulls in an average audience of roughly 100 million viewers each year, and it’s not just based on the fact that the game is the culmination of yet another NFL season. There’s a weight to the entire day that makes the result of the game feel elevated. Celebrities stop in to […]

I don’t know what kind of poker player New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo is, but I do know that unlike Lady Gaga’s, I can read Mayo’s poker face. In an interview with WBZ, the CBS News affiliate station in Boston, the new Patriots head coach was asked about his excitement for April’s NFL […]

With a 13-4 record during the regular season, the Baltimore Ravens earned the #1 seed in the AFC, which meant that they had the luxury of remaining spectators for Super Wild Card weekend — it even allowed John Harbaugh to fly down to Houston and watch his brother Jim and the Michigan Wolverines win a […]

It was a unique homecoming situation for Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford on Sunday night, returning to Detroit to face the Lions for the first time since being traded to the Rams ahead of the 2021 NFL season. But what went under the radar compared to Stafford’s homecoming was that of Jared Goff, who […]

A couple weeks back, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit made some headlines when he suggested that with the introduction of the twelve-team College Football Playoff format next season, the college football postseason as we know it should cease to exist. Here’s exactly what Herbstreit said (h/t Kristian Dyer of Yahoo Sports): “Don’t play bowls. We’ll have the […]

My goodness gracious what a wild week of college hoops it was! Purdue… upset! Kansas… upset! Houston… upset! Arizona… upset! Kentucky… upset! And all by unranked teams, mind you. I don’t know, the calendar may say it’s smack dab in the middle of January, but it’s feeling more and more like March by the day […]

The University of Michigan may be Jim Harbaugh’s alma mater, but before he returned to Ann Arbor in 2015 to coach the Wolverines, Harbaugh had previously done all of his coaching on the West Coast. Now, less than a week after leading the Michigan Wolverines to their first National Championship since 1997, Jim Harbaugh now […]

For all the football fans out there who are expecting to see the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills play their Wild Card round playoff game on Monday afternoon, I’m going to advise you not to hold your breath just yet. With a brutal winter storm still wreaking havoc on Western New York, there is a […]

Back in November, when asked about Sam Hauser’s defense, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla stopped short of saying it. “I think he’s a much better defender than people think,” Joe Mazzulla said after a Nov. 13th Celtics win over the New York Knicks. “I can’t say why, or else I’ll get in trouble.” Well, two […]

The Cleveland Browns walked into NRG Stadium on Saturday afternoon as a road favorite against the upstart Houston Texans, but when the sixty minutes were up, the Browns Dawg Pound had to tuck their collective tail between it’s legs, because they were on the losing end of a 45-14 beatdown. On both sides of the […]

After such a promising start to the 2023 season, the Miami Dolphins hopes of playing in their first Super Bowl since 1985 flamed out in Kansas City on Saturday night. Actually, given how bitterly cold it was at Arrowhead Stadium during the Dolphins 26-7 loss to the Chiefs, maybe it’s more accurate to say that […]

Before I get to Kalen DeBoer, Nick Saban, and all things Alabama football in the 21st century, I’d like to start with a short story about Ray Perkins. Some old school football fans will recognize the name, and surely, most Alabama fans probably will too, but chances are the name Ray Perkins doesn’t ring a […]

His name is Bond. Isaiah Bond. And soon, Bond could be turning in his Crimson Tide uniform for one that’s got more of a Burnt Orange hue to it. (Just to clear up any confusion, this is not the Bond we’re accustomed to seeing in a fancy tux, canoodling with gorgeous women, and sipping on a martini, […]

After moving on from league-wide punching bag Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco in December following an embarrassing Thursday Night Football loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, Dean Spanos and the Los Angeles Chargers aren’t wasting any time trying to find their next head coach. “Chargers completed an interview today with 49ers’ defensive coordinator Steve […]

The fact that it’s 2024 and the headline to this article would start with “How Browns quarterback Joe Flacco” is insane for many reasons, but the fact that the back half of the headline concludes with “can surpass Tom Brady, Brett Favre in NFL Playoff history” is beyond insane. Mind-blowing is the adjective I’d be […]

I present to you, without comment, Nikola Jokic, a basketball genius: He's different 🃏 pic.twitter.com/Zu425oBizw — Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) January 13, 2024 To be honest with you, I don’t even know what to say. I know it’s my job, as a writer, to conjure up the right combination of words to properly analyze not only […]

It’s difficult to recall a time in NFL history where so much of the discourse heading into Wild Card Weekend was on the coaches who weren’t coaching in the Playoffs. But with seven job openings, plus Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, and Mike Vrabel all on the open market, and with Jim Harbaugh looming, it’s understandable that this […]

In LeBron James’ long and illustrious career, he’s been named to the All-NBA 1st Team a record 13 times. That’s as many as 1st Team appearances as Kevin Durant and Wilt Chamberlain have combined for. It’s a testament to LeBron’s remarkable durability and his night to night excellence over the course of a two-decade-long career that […]

After the Michigan football team won their first National Title since 1997, Wolverines fans immediately had to put their guard up. Ever since Harbaugh left the NFL to coach his alma mater back in 2015, the assumption has been that someday, when the right team came calling and made the right sort of offer, Jim […]

When Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews went down with an ugly-looking ankle injury thanks to a hip-drop tackle on November 16th against the Cincinnati Bengals, the immediate assumption was that Andrews, a multiple-time Pro Bowler and Lamar Jackson’s go-to weapon, would be lost for the season. Even after Ravens head John Harbaugh came out a […]

There are three words that can send a literal and metaphorical shiver down the spine of any folks who have lived in Western New York at any point in their life, as I did from the time I was born until I was eighteen. Those three words are Lake Effect Snow, and that’s exactly what is […]

It was a dream season in many respects for the Washington Huskies this year, winning the Pac-12 in it’s final year of existence and making it all the way to the National Championship Game before running into the eventual champs, the undefeated Michigan Wolverines. But as is so often the case when non-traditional powerhouses exceed […]

In the span of 24 hours, three of the most accomplished football coaches of the 21st century departed their positions, marking the end of some sort of era. Bill Belichick’s New England departure did not come as a surprise. It was long rumored than Belichick and the Patriots would potentially part ways at the end […]

Just one day after announcing that Bill Belichick would not be returning for his 25th season as head coach in New England, the Patriots have officially announced that Jerod Mayo, a former Patriots linebacker and an assistant under Belichick for the last five seasons, would be taking over as head coach. In some respects, this […]

The Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons split their two meetings on the field this year, and now, there’s a chance that a rubber match between the two NFC South rivals could take place off the field. With Bill Belichick suddenly a “free agent” after 24 seasons as the head coach of the New England Patriots, it’s expected […]

The Utah Utes had been on the losing end of seven consecutive meetings with the UCLA Bruins going into Thursday night’s game, and apparently that had been the cause for quite a bit of pent-up frustration. Or at least that’s what the scoreboard showed at the end of the game. Despite only trailing by ten […]

You know that Matt Nagy has really taken a sledgehammer to the Kansas City Chiefs offense and battered it to smithereens when it’s worth reporting on the injury updates of wide receivers Kadarius Toney and Justyn Ross, but hey, here we are! For the record, Kadarius Toney and Justyn Ross have both been given questionable […]

The Cleveland Browns will be on the road in their opening game of the 2023 postseason, visiting the Houston Texans, the surprising champion of the AFC South, in the 4/5 matchup on the AFC side of the Playoffs. It’s an interesting matchup on many levels — two franchises who have had very little success in […]

Following a whirlwind 24 hour window where both Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick were relieved of their duties, the NFL’s list of longest-tenured head coaches has been shaken up a bit. Below is the list of all coaches currently in the league — because of the […]

When a 31-year-old Sean McVay arrived as the Los Angeles Rams head coach in 2017, he was joining an NFC West division that had recently been dominated by Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks. At that point in time, Carroll was entering his 8th season with the Seahawks, and in his first seven seasons, he […]

After 24 seasons that included 266 regular season wins, eighteen playoff appearances, nine AFC titles, and six Super Bowl rings, the New England Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick have mutually agreed to part ways, per Adam Schefter and Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. With the all-time record for wins in sight and a handful of […]

Back in October, former New England Patriot and current Tennessee Titans head coach travelled to Foxborough during the Titans bye week to be inducted into the Patriots Ring of Honor. Vrabel seemed to be overjoyed to have the opportunity to head back to New England to accept the honor, and now, soon enough, Vrabel could be […]

So let’s just start here… the quote you’re about to read, which was delivered by Chicago Bears wide receiver DJ Moore after Chicago’s season-ending loss to the Green Bay Packers, is a much nicer take on Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy than I would provide. Yes, as the kids say, there is certainly a significant […]

Many years before Emmitt Smith retired from the NFL as the league’s leading rusher, a former MVP, and a three-time Super Bowl champion, Smith was a Florida Gator. In just three years in Gainesville, Emmitt Smith became the fourth leading rusher in SEC history (he’s now down to 11th on that list) and played well […]