Category: News

It’s been a little more than five years since Key & Peele went off the air, but the beloved Comedy Central sketch comedy show starring Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele still pops up every now and then. The latest example of this came on Sunday afternoon while the Green Bay Packers took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Packers signal caller Aaron Rodgers made his way into the end zone on what, at first glance, looked like a seven-yard scamper for a score.

Rodgers then took some inspiration from Hingle McCringleberry, a football player depicted by Key who appeared in a handful of pigskin-related sketches. One was an excessive celebration sketch when McCringleberry kept pushing the limit on how many times he can pump his hips in celebration of a score.

After he scored on Sunday, Rodgers made sure to learn from McCringleberry’s mistake and only pumped twice.

The issue that popped up here had nothing to do with the number of pumps — as the rule book says, two is fine — but rather with where Rodgers went down. Upon further review, it was determined that he was down just short of the end zone, meaning the six points got taken off the board. Aaron Jones ended up punching it in on the next play, but he didn’t dive into the Key & Peele bag of tricks to celebrate or anything.

Having Derrick Henry is quite the ace for the Tennessee Titans to have up their sleeve. The team’s standout running back toted the rock 22 times for 212 yards on Sunday afternoon and ended up being the hero in the team’s 42-36 overtime win over the Houston Texans.

The thing that makes Henry such a difficult running back to beat is his ability to turn on the jets despite being 6’3 and 238 pounds. That was on display in the fourth quarter when Tennessee had the ball on its own 6. Ryan Tannehill turned around, handed the ball to the big man, and watched him shoot out of a cannon for a 94-yard score.

The bad news for the Titans is the other team had Deshaun Watson, who is really, really good. Watson threw for touchdowns on each of the Texans’ next two possessions — a 53-yard strike by Will Fuller, then after a Tannehill pick, he marched Houston down the field and found Brandin Cooks in the end zone for six, putting the Romeo Crennel-led squad up, 36-29.

Tannehill atoned for his mistake on the ensuing possession, picking apart the Texans secondary and eventually finding AJ Brown for six.

Stephen Gostkowski drilled the extra point, setting the game up for an overtime period. The Titans won the toss, and Watson seemed to have a pretty good idea of whether or not he was going to get the ball back.

Tennessee got the ball into Henry’s hands on the first two plays of the extra period. One, a run, didn’t go for much, while the other was a simple dump off that he took 53 yards and deep into the heart of Houston territory.

The Titans kept chipping away from there, and facing a third-and-goal from the Houston 5, they decided to do something a little unconventional. Tannehill was sent out wide, Henry lined up alone in the backfield, and they made it clear that they were going to try to win this game by challenging the Texans to prevent him from picking up five yards. Here is how that went:

In what might go down as the NFL’s game of the year, Tennessee came out on top, 42-36, to move to a perfect 4-0 on the season.

Just hours removed from the third episode of their new season, Saturday Night Live has announced the host and musical guest for their upcoming October 24 episode. Dipping into the musical world for both positions, Adele will serve as the show’s host while R&B singer HER will be the musical guest for Saturday’s episode. Overflowed with excitement, Adele took to Instagram to share the news and her reaction to the late-night opportunity.

“Bloooooody hellllll I’m so excited about this!! And also absolutely terrified!” Adele exclaimed in an Instagram post that revealed the news. “I’ve always wanted to do it as a stand alone moment, so that I could roll up my sleeves and fully throw myself into it, but the time has never been right. But if there was ever a time for any of us to jump head first into the deep end with our eyes closed and hope for the best it’s 2020 right?”

She also used the Instagram post to celebrate a dozen years in the music industry. “Itll be almost 12 years to the day that I first appeared on the show, during an election,” she said further down in the post’s caption. “Which went on to break my career in America, so it feels full circle and I just couldn’t possibly say no!” She also commended HER for the talent the promising R&B singer is.

“I am besides myself that H.E.R will be the musical guest!! I love her SO much I can’t wait to melt into a flaming hot mess when she performs, then confuse myself while I laugh my arse off in between it all.”

The announcement comes after Justin Bieber stopped by the show’s most recent episode, one hosted by Issa Rae, to perform and “Holy” and “Lonely.”

Check out Adele’s Instagram post above.

Unless you’re a fan of the Buffalo Bills, this NFL season has been pretty bleak for people in New York. Both the Giants and the Jets have been quite bad, as neither squad picked up a win through the first five weeks of the season. In what might be a good omen for the Jets, which have a game in the mid-afternoon window this week, the Giants were able to break the tri-state area’s season-long losing streak on Sunday afternoon.

New York played host to Washington, with the two sides playing one of the less dynamic games you’ll see. Still, the Giants were able to come out on top, 20-13, thanks to a big play in the fourth quarter by rookie linebacker Tae Crowder.

Washington signal caller Kyle Allen dropped back on a third-and-9 late in the fourth quarter. He was swarmed by the New York defense and lost control of the ball, putting it on the deck right in the vicinity of Crowder. The guy who had the distinction of bring Mr. Irrelevant in the 2020 NFL Draft scooped it up, took off in the other direction, and despite nearly getting chased down at the very end, made his way to the end zone.

Because this is the Giants we are talking about here, they did manage to make things interesting regardless. Washington was able to find the end zone on its final drive of the game when Allen dropped a dime into the arms of Cam Sims.

They decided to go for the win, but New York’s defense held up and prevented them from converting. Washington’s attempt at an onside kick failed, and as a result, the final pick of the 2020 NFL Draft is a hero in the Big Apple.

It’s no doubt that Hit-Boy is high on the list of potential candidates for producer of the year. In fact, a very strong argument could be put forth for why he should win that title. The Fontana, California-born producer has served as the executive producer on three impressive albums this year: Nas’ King’s Disease, Big Sean’s Detroit 2, and Benny The Butcher’s new album, Burden Of Proof. Speaking on the latter album, Hit-Boy revealed an interesting piece of information that stems from the album’s creation and the bit of help he got creating a song from it.

Taking to Twitter shortly after the album released, Hit-Boy revealed Jay-Z helped him create one of the album’s songs, “One Way Flight,” which features Freddie Gibbs. “I ain’t gon bull sh*t you I emailed jay z and he helped me arrange “one way flight” featuring @FreddieGibbs veteran level shit,” Hit-Boy said in the tweet. “That spacing is the sh*t !!!”

The track is one of the many highlights from Benny The Butcher’s Burden Of Proof, one that arrives at the backend of a month worth of releases from Griselda members. The “One Way Flight” track is also Benny and Freddie’s second collaboration of the year as the two linked up for “Frank Lucas” from Freddie and The Alchemist’s joint album, Alfredo.

Burden Of Proof is out now via Griselda/EMPIRE. Get it here.

With their 46th season well underway, Saturday Night Live has hosted a fairly good list of hosts and musical guests, some of which includes Megan Thee Stallion, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, and Justin Bieber. The show welcomed Issa Rae as the host on Saturday night and the Insecure creator and actress appeared in a few sketches, including one called “Your Voice Chicago.” While some may have enjoyed the skit, Kanye West was one person who did not as he did not appreciate the diss that was sent his way in it.

Kanye said he would be “praying” for Issa and her family after Rae took a shot at the rapper in the SNL skit. The “Your Voice Chicago” skit featured Rae, who played a political commentator named Jamele Demmings, and a host played by Kenan Thompson. Speaking on the election, Rae vowed to vote for every Black candidate on the election ballot. Thompson’s character points to each of the Black candidate’s political inexperience, but Rae manages to put a positive light on each point of concern. Preparing to go on commercial break, Thompson’s character promises to discusses the presidential race between “Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kanye West,” to which Rae replies, “Kanye?! Eff him!”

Sharing his response on Twitter, Kanye said, “Ive always said SNL uses black people to hold other black people back…My heart goes out to Issa Rae.” He added, “I’m praying for her and her family… I know that the twenty years of service that I’ve paid in the entertainment field has furthered our ability to be more successful.”

You can watch the skit and read Kanye’s response above.

The coronavirus pandemic stripped many artists of their bread and butter: performing at live concerts. Festivals and big venues have been put on hold for the most part, leaving artists to wait patiently in hopes of a return at a sooner than later date. Another effect of the pandemic itself lands on the concert venues themselves, however, with many suffering a significant financial blow as a result of shutting things down. With that in mind, Foo Fighters took their talents to the Save Our Stages Festival to deliver a half-hour performance in an effort to help those venues in need.

The #SOSFest was held at the Troubadour in Los Angeles where the band opted to treat fans with performance of their greatest hits, playing “Skin and Bones”, “My Hero,” and “These Days,” while Dave Grohl sprinkled solo performances of his own as he played “Times Like These” and “Everlong.”

Happy to be performing together once again, the band shared a few stories form past performance at the Troubadour. Grohl reflected on playing at the venue with his pre-Nirvana band Scream while Pat Smear recalled watching The Go-Go’s perform and getting into a fight with Tom Waits.

“These memories and these experiences that we had here were life-changing and formative experiences that inspired us to play music,” Grohl said as their set came to an end. “I can only imagine there are millions and millions of other people just like us that have done the same and it’s made their lives a better place. So it’s crucial that we do everything we can to make sure these venues survive in order to be there to inspire the next generation of musicians to go on and do beautiful things with their lives, like make music.”

You can watch their performance above.

There is a bit of a misconception about cornerbacks. Some believe that if a corner could catch, they’d play wide receiver, but because they can not, they play corner. There’s a lot more that goes into it than that, but in the case of rookie Atlanta Falcons cornerback AJ Terrell, his issue appears to be that he doesn’t use his hands when he reels in passes.

Terrell and the Falcons traveled to Minnesota to take on the Vikings on Sunday afternoon, and in the first half of action, Atlanta’s defense forced three picks en route to a 20-0 halftime lead. The most impressive of these picks came via the former Clemson standout, who reeled in a Kirk Cousins pass intended for fellow rookie Justin Jefferson.

The thing that made this so impressive was that Terrell snatched the ball with his hands, but lost his grip on it. He had to improvise, and eventually, he used his legs to secure the ball and give the Falcons the ball on the Viking 40.

This was one heck of a way for Terrell to pick off an opposing quarterback for the first time in his NFL career. Still, while this was a great play, I assume his coaches would prefer he doesn’t need to use his legs next time.

Saturday Night Live continued to lampoon Donald Trump in most of its Weekend Update jokes, but the best one of the night had nothing to do with modern American politics. Instead, it was Heidi Gardner’s sendup of drug-addled one-note characters from the 80s that proved to be a highlight of the SNL mainstay.

The setup is that “famous 80s cocaine wife Carla” is appearing to talk about the state of bars and nightlife in New York due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Insert Gardner, in a slinky golden dress and fur, twirling her hair and embodying every tragic female stereotype from 80s drug movies.

“So, uh, where’s the afterparty?” Carla asks, playing off a clearly bewildered Michael Che as the character builds a fictional relationship with Che that quickly goes way too far. “Where we going tonight, Michael?”

Gardner presses both Che and Colin Jost about dancing with her, does a few bumps of… something from her makeup case, and just generally plays a clearly out-of-control figure driven to do something drastic. The parody is pretty obviously absurd, and it causes Che to break with laughter several times as she hints something very bad could happen if you get mixed up with a character like her.

“I have a ton of jobs, Michael. Dice-blower, home-wrecker. Plantiff,” Carla says. “Plus my husband Bobby has a lot of men working for him.”

Gardner says Bobby works in “scaffolding garbage construction” and wouldn’t be very happy if she knew he was talking to Che.

“Let’s call him,” Gardner says, inexplicably pulling out a Victorian telephone and causing a scene. She said she was at “church” and wasn’t talking to Che, then asked to put him on the phone. Che declines, then suggests that Carla should probably go.

“Don’t get rid of me, Michael,” Gardner pleads. “I mean, sure I’m a little rough around the edges, but I’m still the same girl you met at the Update desk three minutes ago. Let me give you a son, Michael.”

It spirals out of control from there, pulling out a gun to fumble with in a fake fight with Che while he sat motionless next to her. It was very weird and an accurate teardown of weak, sexist characters you often see in those period pieces. Gardner breaking character and declaring “directed by David O. Russell” at the end was a very pointed and funny finish to a rare sketch concept where she was allowed to lean into the weirdness of parodying a mostly forgotten film trope. But it stole the show on a night where SNL’s political and quarantine-focused humor was upstaged by an extremely out of left field blast from the past.

The Daryl Morey era with the Houston Rockets came to an end last week when the franchise’s longtime general manager came to an agreement with ownership that would see him walk away. Simultaneously a lightning rod for criticism and arguably the league’s single-biggest proponent for an analytics-driven approach to the game during his tenure, Morey’s Rockets won a whole lot of games during his 14 years in Houston, even if the team never was able to get over the hump and win a ring.

The news of his resignation seemingly came out of left field, even if reports indicated it had been in the cards ever since the Rockets’ season ended in the conference semifinals. And after a few days of things being quiet in Houston, Morey took out a page in the local paper in which he thanked the city “for an amazing 14 years” and made it a point to shout out James Harden, who Morey wrote “changed my life.”

Morey, of course, traded for Harden when he was a promising sixth man for the Oklahoma City Thunder, then proceeded to build an offense around him and turned him into one of the most ruthlessly efficient offensive basketball players in history. It is impossible to tell the story of Morey without mentioning Harden’s role in the entire thing, and while both of their futures are going to be fascinating — the former in his next job as he searches for the next Harden, the latter as he plays on a team that is not led by Morey — it’s cool to see how much Morey appreciates the face of his now-former franchise.