The Cleveland Browns are 6-6, which given the last 20 years of football in northeast Ohio wouldn’t normally be cause for a meltdown, but coming off of their best season since returning to the NFL in 1999, not only reaching the postseason but beating the hated Steelers in the Wild Card round, expectations were for much more this year than .500 football.
There are plenty of reasons for the Browns stagnating this season, with injuries playing a significant role in early defensive woes and, more recently, the offense falling off. Their latest effort saw the offense look awful in a 16-10 loss in Baltimore, as the Browns could not take advantage of four Ravens turnovers forced by the defense. They struggled to run the ball as Baltimore crowded the box, daring a banged up Baker Mayfield to beat them with his arm, something he was incapable of doing on Sunday night.
Frustration is mounting in Cleveland, and while Mayfield is very clearly not at 100 percent, that he continues to play requires some form of criticism to land on his shoulders, no matter his health status. Most famously, Mayfield was ripped by Odell Beckham Sr. on Instagram a few weeks ago, leading to Beckham Jr.’s release from the team, where he eventually landed in Los Angeles with the Rams. Normally, one player’s dad posting angrily about the QB on social media would be an anomaly, but in Cleveland it’s becoming something of a regular occurrence as Kareem Hunt’s dad apparently took the “next man up” mentality to Facebook on Sunday in some now-deleted posts ripping Mayfield for being “scared to throw” and blaming the Browns for continuing to play him when he’s clearly hurt.
It’s not ideal, and Mayfield hasn’t exactly helped his own cause by firing back at fans booing him and his own family members posting angry messages in his defense on their own social media. All told, the Browns are in a rather dreadful spot right now and the bye week will hopefully allow things to calm down, guys to possibly get a bit healthier, and a late kick to the postseason may be in order. If that doesn’t happen, frustration will only grow and we can only wonder whose father will be the next to post his way into headlines.
Taylor Swift isn’t short on praise by any means, but still, some compliments hit different. Such was the case with some recent words from Billy Joel.
In a recent USA Today interview, the legend was asked about his thoughts on some current artists. He mentioned Swift, saying, “Taylor is also a very talented girl and she’s productive and keeps coming up with great concepts and songs and she’s huge. You have to give her high marks. She knows music and she knows how to write. She’s like that generation’s Beatles.”
Swift caught wind of that and she was pretty floored by it. In a recent interview with Extra, she was asked about Joel’s compliment and she said, “That honestly broke my brain… I don’t really know how to process words like that from someone like him. I’m a huge fan of his, that’s an icon saying that. I don’t know if that really happened, I need to see a video.”
Coming from Jacksonville, Florida, newcomer Nardo Wick has explosively crossed over with his new single “Who Want Smoke” with 21 Savage and G Herbo. He continues his hot streak with another new single backed by some of the biggest names in street rap, “Me Or Sum,” tapping Future and Lil Baby for a timely assist. The three rappers share their blunt observations on transactional relationships, offering material possessions in exchange for physical affection.
Although still a relative rookie in the rap game, Nardo Wick’s breakthrough single has already charted on the Hot 100, debuting at No. 17 in October and accruing 60 million streams across all major platforms. Notoriously, Wick claims he had to shoot the “Who Want Smoke” video twice simply because the gun-laden original concept couldn’t be shared on his social media. He also featured on the Judas And The Black Messiah soundtrack last year, likely contributing to the buzz for his new music before the release of his viral single.
However, tapping in with big names like 21 Savage, G Herbo, Future, and Lil Baby seems to have raised his profile enough that he’s got more attention for his music than his legal issues, which is the sweet spot when it comes to crossing over and becoming a star.
After starting his first 18 games of the season for the New York Knicks, Kemba Walker is out of the rotation “as of right now,” according to head coach Tom Thibodeau. Alec Burks will replace Walker as the team’s starting point guard, Thibodeau told reporters on Monday.
Thibodeau said he’s going to shrink the rotation and that “it would be tough to play three small guards together.”
Kemba Walker is out of the Knicks rotation “as of right now,” Tom Thibodeau says. He says he will tighten the rotation moving forward. “It would be tough to play three small guards together,” Thibodeau says. Says he has great respect for Walker and all he’s accomplished.
New York is flush with ball-handling options in the backcourt beyond Walker, including Burks, Immanuel Quickley and Derrick Rose (who is injured currently). Not to mention, Evan Fournier has started all 20 games this year.
Hitting 41.3 percent of his threes, Walker remains a dynamite shooter, but knee issues have sapped a good bit of his explosiveness and ability to create inside the arc. He’s making just 44.7 percent of his two-pointers — his lowest mark since 2014-15 — and his 11.7 points per game are the lowest of his career. Even on a per 100 possessions basis, his 23.5 points ties his career-low. Similarly, his 21.1 percent usage rate is more than four points south of his previous career-low.
The Knicks will kick off the Burks-at-point-guard experiment on Tuesday night when they face the Brooklyn Nets inside Barclays Center. A win would move them to 12-9 and mark a second straight victory over a playoff contender after defeating the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.
Amy Schneider, a transgender woman and engineering manager from Oakland, California, is already building quite the legacy over on Jeopardy!While this is largely in part to her impressive eight-time winning streak that kicked off during the middle of Transgender Awareness Week (and has already grossed her over $250,000 in winnings), another part of what makes Schneider such an endearing Jeopardy! champ is all the transparency, charm, and grace she displays after her victories — and her latest tweets opening up about her on-screen nod to the Transgender community are no exception.
Since securing her first win on November 17, Schneider has taken to Twitter nearly every night to walk her followers through both her strategies and feelings while playing the legendary game show. Through her tweets, Schneider has consistently shown a great deal of compassion towards her fellow Jeopardy! contestants, celebrating the success of former transgender champion Kate Freeman directly following her own Jeopardy! debut, and lamenting about how the worst part of the show is that, in order to win, “the other contestants have to lose” on November 25. On November 26, however, Schneider used her platform to talk about a subtle gesture she made on the prior day’s episode: wearing a special pin on Thanksgiving to honor the Transgender community.
“So, obviously the thing I hinted at yesterday was the trans flag pin I wore in today’s episode (not going to spoil anything else about the episode yet), so I wanted to explain a bit about why I chose to wear it,” Schneider began.
In the tweets that followed, Schneider explained the reason why she wore the Transgender flag pin solely on Thanksgiving, writing that while she fortunately doesn’t “think about being trans all that often,” she is aware that “Thanksgiving is a holiday that is all about family. And that can be hard for anybody who has been ostracized or otherwise cut off from their family a group which, sadly, still includes a disproportionately high number of trans people, especially trans youth and trans people of color.” Schneider then added that she felt it was therefore a good day for her to “show my membership in, and support of, a community that might be having a hard time right now,” before encouraging folks to find an “organization that helps LGBTQ people in need” to donate to this holiday season. Schneider then listed a couple of her personal favorites, Trans Lifeline and the Transgender Law Center.
So this holiday season, as you spend time with family and loved ones, and as you budget out your shopping plans, I would love it if you could find a way to donate to an organization that helps LGBTQ people in need.
Roger Stone may look like a cartoon villain, but Donald Trump’s biggest fanboy is reportedly terrified of returning to the mean streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Stone has since retired to Florida, but according to a recent NY Mag story, his choice to fly down South may have been influenced by his growing right-wing notoriety amongst the bluer crowd of the UWS.
“Stone says he loves New York but hasn’t returned to the city since the FBI raided him in 2019,” journalist Shawn McCreesh writes. “When he is here, he claims the Upper West Side is no longer safe for him. ‘People who don’t share my political point of view might verbally and sometimes physically attack me,’ he says.”
The interview is part of a larger piece about a nondescript bar on the UWS that is host to the more conservative set — everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to Ann Coulter frequent its tackily-decorated booths. Stone, who used to live near the cafe, called it “an oasis of red in a sea of blue.” In other words, it’s a safe space for Republicans to joke about building prisons on top of landfills.
Despite offering no evidence to back up his claim that he’s ever been attacked while walking around the affluent, incredibly posh neighborhood, Stone seems to think his affiliation with Trump is reason enough for concern. And hey, he may have a point. Currently, the businessman is facing a civil suit from the Justice Department and the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6th insurrection just subpoenaed him for information, and reports came to light that he was seen marching with white nationalist groups like the Oath Keepers on the morning of the attack. So really, it sounds like his “safe space” from liberals could be a jail cell.
“My grandmother Gigi is all the way down with Jesus. Because she didn’t know who Jada was, I put on a movie of hers and worked out that by the time Jada arrived my grandmother would be watching the love scene,” Smith said about the first time Pinkett Smith met his family, according to Insider. “When she walked in, my grandmother was in the middle of the scene and she looked up and said to Jada, ‘When I was growing up people didn’t have to take their clothes off to make a movie.’”
Jada was not amused:
Will later added that Jada “took him aside later that night” and asked what he had been thinking playing the prank. “I said, ‘I promise you it’s funny, maybe not now, but one day this is going to provide us with years of joy.’ We have been together for 27 years and she literally hasn’t chuckled once!” Will told the show.
She didn’t chuckle once? Jada must have just watched Suicide Squad.
In the lead-up to Spider-Man: No Way Home, which threatens to dramatically alter the life of Peter Parker if not the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland has been dropping heavy hints that is time as Spidey might be over. In recent interviews, he described No Way Home as feeling like “the end” and voiced concerns about not wanting to play Spider-Man into his 30s. Heck, GQ even reported that Holland’s contract is complete after filming No Way Home. However, not all is what it seemed to be.
While fans have been obsessing over Holland’s words and what they might mean for his future as Spider-Man, Sony producer Amy Pascal is already setting the record straight that Holland isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Via Fandango:
Amy Pascal: This is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel – [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie. We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel, it just isn’t part of… we’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three. This is not the last of our MCU movies.
Fandango: It’s great to know that this collaboration is going to continue.
Amy Pascal: Yes, Marvel and Sony are going to keep going together as partners.
Of course, it’s impossible to know until No Way Home hits theaters, but this should probably put a hole in the fan theory that the film will see Miles Morales take Peter Parker’s place as Spider-Man. While Holland has said in interviews that Miles is the future of Spider-Man, it’s starting to look like, at most, he could have a brief introduction in No Way Home.
As for Miles’ chances of showing up in the next Spidey trilogy, though, it could certainly happen.
However, those same fans have become sleuths rivaling the most persistent private investigators in the week since it was reported that Lil Baby and Saweetie went on a shopping date in New York. A post from Saweetie’s account sitting on an anonymous man’s lap was compared to a post from Lil Baby’s account, with fans noticing the similarities in wardrobe between the man in both photos.
Around the same time, Quavo posted an Instagram Story with the text, “Ain’t trippin’ we can swap it out!” Naturally, fans decided that this meant he was commenting on the supposed relationship between his ex and his fellow Atlanta trap rapper, proposing to take a pass at Lil Baby’s ex, Jayda Cheaves.
Lil baby and saweetie??? Quavo talkin about a swap?? Jayda liking??? Lmaooo so much tea going on pic.twitter.com/SFqc5sWU1X
Of course, Lil Baby just denied the rumors himself, tweeting, “Baby not dating NO ONE!! I’m Single!” While the photographic evidence appears to suggest otherwise, we’ll wait for those two to confirm their relationship before jumping to any conclusions.
The Succession Report Card is a weekly recap feature where we attempt to assign grades to the important people, things, and themes from each episode of ‘Succession.’ The grades are entirely subjective and the criteria for scoring will change from week to week and occasionally mid-week. Someone might get detention. It’ll probably be Roman.
UPROXX
Shiv
HBO
Shiv is:
Really cranky about her status and influence in the family taking a sudden flume ride down the toilet
Kind of not super jazzed that her husband is not going to prison
Moping around in chauffeured vehicles
Dancing like a person who just grew limbs that morning in a frantic attempt to exorcise all these demons
It’s not great!
GRADE: F
MUST IMPROVE: General body mechanics
Connor
HBO
This big goof. This self-important bozo. Polling at one percent in a presidential race he has no business tinkering with and so happy about it that he slipped and fell and shattered his entire arm (“ranch stuff”) and covered it up with a weird vibe-destroying trench coat that he refused to take off despite numerous requests from numerous parties. I kind of love him.
Also: Did anyone else think there was another reason he wouldn’t take the coat off? Like, I kept expecting him to whip it off at a dramatic moment to reveal a flashing CONNOR 4 PRES sign on his back. I’m going to go ahead and believe it was there anyway and that he just never found a good opportunity to show it off and went home without ever displaying it. That would be classic Connor.
GRADE: F
MUST IMPROVE: Ranch stuff
UPROXX
Turning 40, generally
HBO
The thing about turning 40 is that it can get weird. I assume. I’m not there yet. I am very young and cool. But there’s something about that number that makes people lose their minds a little bit, in a whole “Who am I?”/“What have I done?”/“Is this all there is?” way. Most people deal with it by, like, buying a convertible or swearing they’ll finally write that novel they’ve been tinkering with in their heads for decades without putting a single word on a single page, but some, apparently, also throw massive ragers with multiple themed rooms and a huge performative vagina entrance and a plan to sing a song while strapped to a cross as a kind of ironic, nut-nut, anti-fragile art piece that all gets scrapped in a moment of self-reflective panic that may or may not have been induced by a huge pile of cocaine.
Two sides of the same coin, really.
GRADE: D-
MUST IMPROVE: Aging gracefully
Roman
HBO
See, here’s the thing about Roman: His schtick is adorable/harmless when he’s a loser with bad ideas who just wants to talk trash and hide on the periphery of the action. He’s just a snarky little boy with mommy issues and no real purpose. But once he starts finding any kind of success at anything, but especially something important, and especially something he can lord over the siblings who have for years treated him as a flighty little clown, it all becomes less fun. Now, these barbs have sharper edges. Now they sting and hurt and dig. Now he actually deserves the punch he’s been asking for his entire life, all because he can’t take his win with the Lukas Matsson thing with even a shred of dignity.
I’m mad about it. I wish Kendall had clobbered him. I hope he gets mugged walking home. I hope a seagull poops on his head and someone takes a picture of it and posts it online.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: Winning gracefully
Logan
HBO
Let’s see:
Spying on his grandchildren
Sending his son a birthday card that has a buyout agreement and a general vibe that cuts off relations
Has potential business partners openly wondering how soon he’ll die
Could be better, even with the apparent good news about the investigation.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: Like… fathering?
Naomi Pierce
HBO
Naomi thought she was showing up for a big stupid but fun celebration for her boyfriend’s 40th and instead she ended up frantically looking for a gift his ex-wife brought from his children and getting her own gift demeaned and offering him the saddest sexual favors you’ve ever seen and stroking his head at the end of the night like he’s an 11-year-old whose dog died. This is not how Naomi thought this night was going to play out. She just wants to have a good time. She doesn’t want… all this.
GRADE: D+
MUST IMPROVE: Gift-giving
UPROXX
Kendall
HBO
Good news and bad news here. Mostly bad. Let’s start there.
BAD: Big stupid birthday party went sideways in predictable ways. Had a full-on meltdown when he realized his siblings were only there for business and had no interest in him personally. Couldn’t find the gift his kids made for him in the room full of gifts from strangers who only use him for his money and status. Dad tried to buy him out with a card that literally had “Happy Birthday” crossed out. Built a literal treehouse at the party and used it as a VIP room. Chickened out of his show-stopping performance at the end, which is probably good news for him but it’s bad news for me because I wanted to see it. Generally just alone and sad and starting to realize it. Has now told two of his three siblings that they’re not real people, which is generally true but the way he delivered it made him look/sad pathetic/crazy.
GOOD: He did almost hit that high note in “Honesty” when he was warming up, which I did not expect.
GRADE: C-
MUST IMPROVE: So much
Various Karls, Franks, and Karolinas
HBO
I love Karl so much.
GRADE: C
MUST IMPROVE: Getting their own standalone episode, because I need to see it, just like what Frank and Karl were up to this whole episode while Kendall’s party was going to hell.
Gerri
HBO
Led a midday champagne toast and then was not heard from again. The best possible outcome for anyone on this show.
GRADE: C+
MUST IMPROVE: I feel like Gerri should run with this and start doing champagne toasts every day at lunch, in part for morale and in part to drink champagne at work
Tom
HBO
Hmm. Let’s go back to the bullet points for Tom…
Appears to have avoided prison and celebrated by trashing Greg’s office
Got a little boost from Logan saying “I’ll remember this” about Tom’s near-sacrifice, which was nice even though Logan absolutely will not remember it and has probably forgotten about it already
Took the wrong drugs in the wrong order and found himself shouting at actors inside a compliment tunnel
Is not happy even though he should be
Tom is a fascinating man. A therapist could make a career out of a case study of anyone on this show, but I feel like Tom might be the most troubled of all of them. That’s not a small feat, especially considering the thing where Roman just made like half a dozen jokes about his mother’s vagina. So… congrats?
GRADE: C+
MUST IMPROVE: Drug staggering, happiness
UPROXX
Lukas Matsson
HBO
I guess my only real problem here with this computer-brained weirdo billionaire is that he’s played by Alexander Skarsgard and I simply cannot see that man on a screen without assuming he’s playing a murderer. I don’t know why I’m like this. It’s not his fault. I see him there talking about privacy and pussy and pasta and internet speed and my brain starts shouting “HE’S GOING TO MURDER SOMEONE.”
It doesn’t help that he went on and on about wanting Logan to die. Part of me is convinced the next episode will open with him standing over Logan’s body with a bloody ice pick in his hands. It’s fine. Don’t worry. I’m doing great
GRADE: B-
MUST IMPROVE: I mean, it doesn’t look like he got any of his three P’s this night unless he swung by Olive Garden on the way home.
Kerry
HBO
Just a meteoric rise for Kerry, Logan’s much younger assistant who he’s probably sleeping with, at least according to his children. She went from nowhere to the background to giggling over memes on a private plane to drinking and cussing and offering input on important business matters, all in about three weeks. We will need to continue monitoring this situation. If she maintains this pace, she could be the new president by the finale.
GRADE: B-
MUST IMPROVE: Not burning too bright too fast
Billy Joel, generally
HBO
A lot of people bust on Billy Joel now because his biggest hits sound a little dated and he had that trouble with driving around the Hamptons after a few cocktails, but please consider: Billy Joel is a 5’6 dude from New York who had a piano and a cocky little attitude and turned that into about a quarter billion dollars and a brief marriage to America’s Sweetheart Christie Brinkley. He sold out Madison Square Garden dozens of times and was chauffeured there and back home via private helicopter. He wrote and performed the song “Why Should I Worry?” from the Oliver & Company cartoon, which is a good and fun song that I will not apologize for listening to still today.
That’s a pretty full life. Good for Billy Joel.
GRADE: B
MUST IMPROVE: Leave Billy Joel alone
Willa
HBO
Connor is a dope and a putz and Willa could do better tomorrow before lunch if she wanted to, but still, good for her for standing up for him, just shouting down hecklers and various security personnel, getting all fired up and peppery about it even though the man she’s defending has the personality and vibe of a room temperature vanilla milkshake.
GRADE: B+
MUST IMPROVE: We gotta get Willa outta here, before it’s too late.
Tiny Wu-Tang
HBO
On one hand, I love them very much, sight unseen, both as a general concept (children performing cuss-laden rap songs that are sometimes about martial arts for some reason) and in this specific scenario (of course Kendall would hire them for this), and I wish them nothing but the whole entire world going forward.
On the other hand, I am more angry than you can possibly imagine that I did not get to see them perform. Like, I was vibrating with excitement about it when I first heard someone describe their act. I was giddy. It was, for a brief moment in time, the only thing I wanted in the whole entire world. So, this one stings. It was cruel. To me. I suspect it will be weeks, if not months or years, before I finally get over it.
It’s tempting to take her down a letter grade because her apartment is currently littered with He-Man lunch boxes that she doesn’t know what to do with and because she failed to get Springsteen to show up to improve the vibes (lol Kendall), but in an episode with no Jess Jordan, who was apparently not invited to the party, which was either extremely rude or an unintentional act of kindness on Kendall’s part, I have no choice but to bump her into the highest echelon.
We’ll discuss this more in a second.
GRADE: A-
MUST IMPROVE: I’m sorry but, based on nothing but my own misplaced rock-solid belief, I think Jess could have gotten Springsteen there.
Cousin Greg
HBO
Cousin Greg…
Showed up looking like a gangly version of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, with a nice suit and slick hair
Tried to ask out Comfry despite multiple people laughing in his face about the idea and his first attempt devolving into what appeared to be an old-timey Southern gentleman impression that he wouldn’t or couldn’t stop doing
Kept touching/poking the picture of Kendall on the LCD screen in the saddest display of revenge you’ve ever seen after Kendall — kidding, but not kidding, but kidding, but serious — called him a parasite
Got a date with Comfry after all, possibly only because of their mutual annoyance with Kendall in the moment, but still
Is not going to jail, probably
He’s a sweet boy.
GRADE: A+
MUST IMPROVE: Upper body strength, just based on him trying to put his desk back after Tom flipped it over.
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TheRealKaliyah (@TheRealKaliyah) 
