Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco headed into this season without a guaranteed contract for next season and beyond. Fast forward to today; Flacco and his Baltimore Ravens are preparing to square off against the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl this coming Sunday. Are we ready to call him elite yet?

There’s been talk of yet another Michael Jordan comeback in the air, and as of yet, nobody’s quite figured out if it’s actually serious or not. With Air Jordan’s 50th birthday fast approaching (on Feb. 19th), fans and critics alike are taking a good hard look at the man’s Hall of Fame speech and reconsidering the possibility of him putting on a uniform for one last, symbolic game.

In the NBA, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now. Teams are getting smaller, and the action is increasingly moving away from the basket. This isn’t necessarily a new trend, but it has been a somewhat controversial one. Gerard Spalding sheds some light on which of the current teams are pulling it off in 2012-13 and which have found success doing the exact opposite.

Is the role of NHL goon less and less significant with each passing year? Was it every truly instrumental to the game in the first place? Tim Kolupanowich suggests as much while taking a good look at the difference between Toronto’s Colton Orr and Los Angeles’ Steve Bernier, between Maple Leaf Mike Brown and iconic Red Wing Kris Draper.

From Cam Newton to Robert Griffin III to Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick, many of the NFL’s most exciting young quarterbacks are frequently running systems and schemes that haven’t been seen much at this level, and they’re finding great success in doing so. One of the most intriguing elements that’s shown up to some extent in most of these new attacks is what’s known as the zone read. Might this be San Francisco’s ticket to Super Bowl success this weekend?

The mantra pops up on Twitter, retweeted with exuberance; it surfaces in a Facebook post drawing dozens of likes; it dominates the thoughts of diehard fans akin to children counting down the days toward Christmas. Suddenly, well, this cold, harsh winter isn’t so bad after all. Ladies and gentlemen, “Pitchers and catchers are reporting”. Soon.

The NHL is back, finally. However, as refreshing as it is to see actual games being played and hockey highlights daily in lieu of witnessing Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr bickering at each other in public in a sad, vain attempt to win a public relations battle, the hockey fan in me is rarely satisfied. […]

Dearest Ray Lewis, How are you? I write to you a couple of days after of your team’s dismissal of the New England Patriots in the 2012 AFC Championship, it’s probably dawned on you that you’re heading to your second Super Bowl. This game in New Orleans in two weeks will be the last game […]

Although Derrick Rose’s absence in Chicago is obvious, the fact that the franchise hasn’t spiraled out of control without its far and away best player is a testament to the rest of the squad around him. Mark Milner takes a thorough look at Carlos Boozer and the rest of the Bulls who have kept the Eastern Conference contender afloat all along.

In killing the trade that would have sent four prospects to the Diamondbacks in his stead, Justin Upton has sent a simple message to an entire city: I’m just not that into you. It was a team already on his no-trade list, so you can’t really blame him, but why? What could one possibly have against Seattle? Harlan Ambrose speculates.