With Walcott and later Sturridge Welbeck injured, Wenger often played Ramsey on the right with Özil and Cazorla through the middle.

+1 mawkish take

. . . as just the fact that he was retained and paid by the NFL colors his objectivity . . . At the hearing he said he considered the NFL to be his client, and thus refused to divulge some of his conversations with the league, citing attorney-client privilege.

That’s Rachel Brown:

You’re welcome on our bandwagon so long as you weren’t one of the dudes relentlessly mocking the Astros’ ineptitude for the past four years. Which basically rules out half of the Deadspin staff and approximately 100% of my baseball friend fans.

What? I mean, I suppose that depends on what kind of litigation we are talking about, but parties issue subpoenas to non-parties all the time. And certainly if Brady files suit in federal court his emails/text/documents would be part of discovery.

Correction: Thomas wrote that in a concurrence, not a dissent.

More galling was Thomas’s dissent from the Ayala opinion handed down yesterday, in which he responded to the Kennedy concurrence’s discussion of solitary confinement, and essentially said that unless convicted murderers are buried alive and forced to spend their entire sentence in coffins, they have no grounds to…

The last two unintelligibles: “You are such a negative asshole, and you bring the whole fucking team down;” and “If I see you again I will fucking rape you to death.”

ESPN was reporting before the game that if LBJ won the MVP, it was probably going to be awarded to him on TV in the tunnel. He still would have been pissed, but that might have taken some of the sting out.

I mean, I’d probably be talking too if the Weeknd was doing whispery vocals about my evening plans.

Man, that last verse, with the countermelody. . . who’s chopping onions in here?

Kevin Dyson getting tackled at the 1 at the end of Super Bowl XXXIV — closest any team of mine has come to winning any championship. I hate you, Kurt Warner.

What you're missing is that they clearly had that information before the draft, because all teams do medical due diligence before selecting someone, and decided to draft him anyway.

What? After the draft, the Astros had material medical information indicating that Aiken was at a higher risk for TJ surgery, but still offered him $5 million—only $1.5 million less than the initial offer—in recognition of the fact that that risk diminished his value. At the time, you—and others—argued that the…

It was a joke, no? He had to know the mic would pick that up, and his faux-embarrassment seems like a bit over the top. Am I alone in thinking this?

The white dude in question is a 7'2" 300 lb freshman that gets significant playing time, so he's not your typical white scrub. That said, he's from Hokes Bluff, Arkansas and his name is Isaac Haas, so, yeah.

Is it really likely that plaintiffs accept a cash settlement? This seems like the type of case where the high fees are a stick for plaintiffs to wield against defendants, but the real interest is in getting relief from the blackout rules. Admittedly, I knew nothing about this case before clicking on your article,…

What about that first goal? Both passes were inch-perfect.

Nothing on the Messi rumors? I know it's January and rumors are a dime a dozen, but given everything—the firing of Zubi and departure of Puyol, Messi following Chelsea, Felipe Luis, and Fabregas on Instagram, his public complaints—isn't at least worth a mention? He's the best player in the world.