What would it take for the Cleveland Browns to bench quarterback Deshaun Watson? It’s the biggest topic surrounding a floundering team as it faces the Philadelphia Eagles, in need of a win of their own coming off a bye. Jayden Daniels has captivated the league so far in 2024. But has he seen a test…

LOS ANGELES — With the Los Angeles Dodgers on the brink and their season at risk of yet another early postseason exit, it was Kiké Hernández who spoke. As a young role player for a perennial contenders years ago, Hernández was known as a promising goofball whose game flashed as much as his jokes. He…

Will the NHL’s newest club finish as one of the highest-scoring teams in the league? Will Pierre-Luc Dubois finally find a long-term home with the Washington Capitals? Are players like Juraj Slafkovský going to make a significant jump in their production? Those were among the responses The Athletic got this week when it asked its…

It sank. Of course it did. It was a several-hundred-pound goalpost heaved into the Cumberland River, but any of the students who marched down Broadway could be forgiven for thinking it might float. That’s because a few described something like magic in the air that night. The goalpost, however, wasn’t as buoyant as the raucous…

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables has seen it all in his 15 trips to the Cotton Bowl for the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry game, long known as the Red River Shootout. He remembers losing his first as a Sooners assistant 38-28 in 1999 but dominating the Longhorns 63-14 the next year en route to a national championship. There…

By Fabian Ardaya, Tim Britton, Will Sammon and Eno Sarris The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets both put away division rivals in the NLDS to keep their postseason hopes alive and reach the NLCS. The Dodgers overcame a 2-1 series deficit against the Padres, storming back to shut out San Diego in a…

The cold war between tennis players and the sport’s integrity authority grew several degrees hotter this week, as the leading but nascent organizing body for tennis players directly questioned the methods by which tennis polices doping and corruption. In a letter addressed to Karen Moorehouse, the chief executive of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA)…

It looked like a play from the NFL. Christian Pulisic tussled with his blocker and former team-mate, Yacine Adli, then ran a route from inside to out. He got open for Theo Hernandez’s looping ball to the far post, leapt and executed a magnificent volley back across goal in the style of AC Milan great…

A squeeze play sent one American League Division Series to Game 5, as Cleveland’s David Fry hit a pinch hit homer and then bunted home the winning run in the Guardians’ come-from-behind road win over the Detroit Tigers. Meanwhile, benches cleared in an otherwise quiet evening in Kansas City, Mo., where the New York Yankees…

DURHAM, N.H. — The Downeaster train whooshes northward on a fall afternoon, past lily-covered ponds, over rusted bridges and through the reds and yellows of the New England woods. Halfway between Boston and Portland, Maine, the train horn blasts, and the conductor hurries down the aisle, keys jangling at his hip. “Durham stop,” he calls…