Somewhere between an earthquake in Vanuatu and the International Monetary Fund’s latest shrug at sovereign debt, today’s football scores have arrived like a pack of nicotine patches at an AA meeting: briefly distracting, mildly uplifting, and ultimately unable to cure the deeper addictions of a planet that still believes 22 millionaires kicking a sphere somehow…
Quinshon Judkins and the Geopolitics of a 40-Time By the time Quinshon Judkins, Mississippi-bred running back with thighs that could embargo a small shipping lane, announced his transfer to Ohio State, the tremor was felt from Lagos to Luxembourg. Not because anyone in Lagos can immediately locate Starkville on a map (they can’t; most Americans…
Steelers Score: How 21-18 in Pittsburgh Echoes Louder Than a UN Resolution By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Somewhere Over the Atlantic The final whistle in Pittsburgh confirmed what every diplomat secretly knows: a 21-18 Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the Baltimore Ravens reverberates farther than any communiqué from Geneva. While the scoreboard flickered like…
Max Brosmer and the Great Global Quarterback Shortage By Our Resident Cynic-at-Large, filing from an airport lounge that still smells of last week’s despair The planet is running out of quarterbacks. Not metaphorical ones—actual 6-foot-something Americans who can fling a leather ellipsoid sixty yards while evading 300-pound men with the ethical flexibility of payday lenders….
Ronde Barber, the Man Who Tackled the World (and Barely Bruised It) If you whisper “Ronde Barber” in a smoky bar in Lisbon, the bartender will probably slide you an espresso and ask whether you mean the guy who single-handedly reminded Europe that American football exists or the balding deity who once ended the Philadelphia…
Fever vs Aces: How a Niche Sports Showdown Became a Global Thermometer By the time the “Fever vs Aces” WNBA Finals rematch tipped off in Las Vegas last night, bookmakers from Manila to Manchester had already moved more money on Caitlin Clark’s three-point percentage than most central banks shift in a week. What began as…
Barça Game: The 90-Minute Global Séance Where Four Continents Scream at a Ball By the time the Camp Nou clock hit 21:05 CET, the planet had already synchronized its pulse. In Lagos, a generator coughed to life so a barber shop could keep the TV humming; in Seoul, office workers who’d “gone for a smoke”…
The Curious Diplomatic Career of Jalen Hurts By: A. Cynic, somewhere over the Atlantic, nursing lukewarm coffee and an even colder worldview It began, like most modern miracles, as a 240-character punchline: “So the Eagles’ QB is now the de-facto ambassador to half the planet?” Somewhere between the Super Bowl parade and a Nike spot…
Dan Quinn’s Second Life: From Super-Bowl Collapse to Global Gridiron Diplomat By International Desk, Dave’s Locker Atlanta, Georgia—That Dan Quinn is again gainfully employed as an NFL head coach is either a testament to redemption narratives Americans can’t resist or proof that the league’s memory is shorter than a TikTok clip of a cat knocking…
Top 25 College Football: A Global Satire in Shoulder Pads By Dave’s Locker Foreign Correspondent, still jet-lagged from covering a Bolivian llama race The American ritual known as the AP Top-25 college football poll dropped this week, and—like a drone strike on good taste—it instantly colonized timelines from Lagos to Lahore. Why, you ask, should…
Jeremy McNichols: The Running Back Who Ran All the Way to the End of the Earth (and Found a Job in Doha) If you’d told a 10-year-old Jeremy McNichols in 2005 that his future résumé would one day list stops in Boise, Nashville, Jacksonville, Denver, Atlanta, Tampa, and—why not—Doha, he probably would’ve asked whether the…
Barcelona vs. Getafe: A Micro-El Clásico in the Shadow of a Burning Planet By the time the Camp Nou—sorry, the Spotify Camp Nou—flickers to life this Sunday, half the planet will already be doom-scrolling about methane leaks, crypto crashes, or whichever missile test North Korea scheduled for prime time. Yet, in a tidy 105 ×…
