Morris

‘Best player’ in NFL? Bijan Robinson makes his case on ‘MNF’

Bijan Robinson is the best player in football.

That’s what Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris said about his star running back Monday night after a 24-14 win over reigning MVP Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.

While Morris may be somewhat biased toward his own player, national TV viewers might have trouble arguing with him after what they witnessed Robinson accomplish on this week’s “Monday Night Football.”

The third-year player tied his career high with 170 rushing yards (the most for a Falcons player during a prime time TV game) in 19 carries. That included a spectacular 81-yard touchdown run in the second quarter that was the longest run of his career as well the longest in the NFL this season. It’s also tied for the second-longest rushing touchdown in Falcons history.

Robinson now has three plays from scrimmage of 50 yards or more this season after having only one longer than 30 yards last year.

“IIt’s just a thing of my game where I want to get better at and continue to get better at every single day,” Robinson said after the game. “And you know, if I can get better at that and breaking those long runs, it’s only helping the team.”

Robinson also caught six passes from quarterback Michael Penix Jr. for 68 yards for a total of 238 yards from scrimmage, the most ever for a Falcons running back.

“There are some people who are just born to be a certain athlete,” Falcons receiver Drake London said after the game. “Like you have certain people who are born to be basketball players, such as LeBron [James]. You have people who are born to be football players, like they have the perfect body shape for it. Now, [Robinson] goes out there, and it’s like art. It’s amazing to see.”

Speaking of James, the Lakers superstar also took notice of Robinson’s performance.

“Bijan so COLD!!!!!!!!!” James posted on X during the game.

A first-round draft pick in 2023 and a Pro Bowl selection last year, Robinson leads the league with 822 yards from scrimmage this season (484 rushing and 338 receiving), and it’s not even all that close.

The Falcons are one of only six teams that have had their bye weeks already, meaning Robinson has compiled his total in five games. The next 11 players on the list — starting with San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey at No. 2 with 780 yards — have all played in six games.

If he keeps this pace, Robinson will finish the season with 2,797 yards from scrimmage, which would break the current record of 2,509 yards set by Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson in 2009. Johnson’s record was set during a 16-game season; Robinson is on pace to have 2,630 yards after his 16th game of the 17-game season.

So maybe Morris wasn’t being all that biased in his post-game comments about Robinson after all.

“He’s the best player in football,” Morris told reporters. “I’ve said it multiple times, I can’t say it enough. You can always have your pick, you can always go out there and figure out who you want to vote for, but in my opinion, he’s the best player in football.”

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Mitch McConnell’s legacy comes under fire in Kentucky race to replace him in the Senate

Republican Nate Morris had deftly warmed up a crowd of party faithful, gushing about President Donald Trump and recounting his own life’s journey — from hardscrabble childhood to wealthy entrepreneur — when he turned his attention to the man he wants to replace, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

That’s when things got feisty. While bashing Kentucky’s longest-serving senator at a GOP dinner on the eve of Saturday’s Fancy Farm picnic, a tradition-laden stop on the state’s political circuit, Morris was cut off in midsentence by a party activist in the crowd, who noted that McConnell isn’t seeking reelection and pointedly asked Morris: “What are you running on?”

Morris touted his hard line stance on immigration and defended Trump’s tariffs as a boon for American manufacturing. But he didn’t retreat from his harsh critique of McConnell.

“We’ve seen 40 years of doing it the same way,” Morris said. “And, yes, he’s not on the ballot, but his legacy is on the ballot. Do you want 40 more years of that? I don’t think you do.”

McConnell’s blunt-force approach used against him

The pushback from a county GOP chairman revealed the political risks of attacking the 83-year-old McConnell in the twilight of his career. Towering over Kentucky politics for decades, McConnell is regarded as the master strategist behind the GOP’s rise to power in a state long dominated by Democrats. The state Republican headquarters bears McConnell’s name. As the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, McConnell guided Republican policymaking and helped forge a conservative Supreme Court. Back home, his appropriating skills showered Kentucky with federal funding.

Now, his blunt-force style of campaigning — which undercut so many foes — is being used against him.

Morris is running against two other prominent Republicans — U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron — for McConnell’s seat. The outcome will be decided in the spring primary next year. Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

All three Republican hopefuls lavish praise on Trump — in hopes of landing his endorsement — but also have ties to McConnell, who mentored generations of aspirational Republicans. Cameron and Barr have chided McConnell at times, but it’s been mild compared to Morris’ attacks. Morris interned for McConnell but glosses over that connection.

McConnell pushes back

At events surrounding the Fancy Farm picnic, an event long known for caustic zingers that he has always relished, McConnell showed no sign of backing down.

“Surely this isn’t true, but I’ve heard that one of the candidates running for my office wants to be different,” McConnell told a Republican crowd that included Morris at a pre-picnic breakfast in Mayfield. “Now, I’m wondering how you’d want to be different from the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. I’m wondering how you’d want to be different in supporting President Trump.”

McConnell received multiple standing ovations. Morris stayed seated.

McConnell has consistently voted for Trump’s policies more often than Kentucky’s other Republican senator, Rand Paul, according to a Congressional Quarterly voting analysis. McConnell recently supported Trump’s signature tax and spending measure. Paul opposed it, saying it would drive up debt.

Yet Morris has taken on McConnell, who has famously had an up-and-down relationship with Trump.

McConnell teamed with Trump to put conservatives on the federal bench and pass tax cuts during the president’s first term. McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals. But the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters.

McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024, but in a biography by Michael Tackett of The Associated Press, released shortly before the election, McConnell described him as “a despicable human being.”

Running against career politicians

Morris, who started a waste management technology company, says the senator has been insufficiently loyal to Trump and allowed festering issues like immigration and the national debt to grow worse during his years in Senate leadership.

Morris wants to tether his opponents to McConnell while running on anti-establishment themes that his campaign thinks will appeal to legions of Trump supporters in the Bluegrass State.

“Let’s face it, folks, career politicians have run this country off a cliff,” Morris said.

Morris’ rivals sum up the anti-McConnell attacks as an angry, backward-looking message. Cameron called it a diversionary tactic to obscure what he said is Morris’ lack of both a message and credibility as a supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement.

“He can’t talk about his actual record. So he has to choose to pick on an 83-year-old,” Cameron said.

At Fancy Farm, where candidates hurl insults at one another against a backdrop of bingo games and barbecue feasts, Morris took a swipe at McConnell’s health.

“I have a serious question: who here can honestly tell me that it’s a good thing to have a senior citizen who freezes on national television during his press conferences as our U.S. senator?” Morris said. “It seems, to me, maybe just maybe, Mitch’s time to leave the Senate was a long time ago.”

McConnell had his customary front-row seat for much of the event but wasn’t there for Morris’ remarks. He typically leaves before all the speeches are delivered and exited before his would-be successors spoke.

Living by the sword

McConnell complimented Trump in his speech, singling out Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.

“He turned Iran’s nuclear program into a pile of rocks,” McConnell, a steadfast advocate for a muscular U.S. foreign policy, said to cheers.

At the GOP dinner the night before in Calvert City, where candidates typically are more politely received, party activist Frank Amaro confronted Morris for his anti-McConnell barrage.

“He keeps bashing Mitch McConnell like he’s running against Mitch McConnell,” Amaro, a county Republican chairman, said afterward. “Overall, he’s helped Kentucky and the United States, especially our Supreme Court, more than any other U.S. senator in this country.”

But Morris’ blistering assessment of McConnell hit the mark with Trump supporter Patrick Marion, who applied the dreaded Republican-in-Name-Only label to McConnell.

“Personally, I think Mitch has been a RINO for way too long,” Marion said later. “I don’t think he was a true MAGA supporter of President Trump.”

Afterward, Morris was in no mood to back off.

“He’s the nastiest politician maybe in the history of this state if not in the history of this country,” Morris said of McConnell. “Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

Schreiner writes for the Associated Press.

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Marcus Morris, ex-Clipper, allegedly owes casinos over $200K

Marcus Morris Sr. was denied bond during a hearing Tuesday morning in Florida’s Broward County two days after the former NBA player was arrested at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on felony fraud charges out of Nevada.

The judge denied Morris’ motion to set bond, saying that she did not have the jurisdiction to make such a ruling for an out-of-state case.

Footage from Tuesday’s hearing, posted online by TMZ, shows Morris in attendance, wearing a jail-issued beige jumpsuit and handcuffs. NBA free agent Markieff Morris also attended in support of his twin brother.

Records from the Las Vegas Township Justice Court indicate that warrants were issued earlier this year, one in March and the other in June, for Morris’ arrest. The Boca Raton, Fla., resident faces the same two felony counts in each case — drawing or passing a check for $1,200 or more with the intent to defraud and theft valued at $100,000 or more.

Yony Noy, an agent for Morris, has maintained on social media that Morris’ legal troubles stem from an outstanding marker with a casino.

During the proceedings, the prosecuting attorney representing the state of Florida, confirmed that there are two warrants for Morris’ arrest in Nevada and both are for outstanding markers for more than $100,000 each.

The prosecuting attorney also indicated that although Nevada is looking to extradite Morris, it is also willing to consider dismissing the charges if Morris’ debts are paid in full. An attorney representing Morris said that “a large payment” had already been sent via wire in an effort to resolve the issue.

Morris made more than $100 million in salary during an 11-year NBA career that included four seasons with the Clippers.

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Adam Sandler salutes ‘Happy Gilmore’ gator: ‘Gonna miss you’

Adam Sandler has no crocodile tears for “Happy Gilmore” co-star Morris the alligator — he has fond jokes instead.

The “Punch-Drunk Love” actor and comedian on Wednesday shared a playful tribute honoring his reptilian co-star who died Sunday of old age at a gator farm in southern Colorado. In the tribute, shared to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), Sandler remembered the alligator’s time on the set of his quirky 1996 golf comedy.

“We are all gonna miss you. You could be hard on directors, make-up artists, costumers — really anyone with arms or legs,” Sandler captioned a movie still featuring himself and Morris, “but I know you did it for the ultimate good of the film.”

Jay Young, the owner and operator of Colorado Gator Farm, announced Morris’s death in an emotional video shared to Facebook. “He started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn’t lunging at us and wasn’t taking food,” Young said, stroking the reptile’s head.

“I know it’s strange to people that we get so attached to an alligator, to all of our animals,” Young added. “He had a happy time here, and he died of old age.”

In “Happy Gilmore,” Sandler’s unlikely golf star confronts the feisty gator played by Morris after a golf ball lands in his toothy jaws. After an unsuccessful attempt, Happy dives into the golf course pond where he pummels the reptile and retrieves the ball.

Morris was best known for “Happy Gilmore,” but also appeared in numerous screen projects including “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dr. Dolittle 2” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” before he retired in 2006. He was found as an illegal pet in the backyard of a Los Angeles home and sent to the Colorado Gator Farm.

In his tribute, Sandler said he learned a “powerful lesson” from Morris on the set of their film after he refused to “come out of your trailer” without the bait of 40 heads of lettuce: “Never compromise your art.” The “Wedding Singer” and “50 First Dates” star also reminisced on totally real encounters with the gator including sharing a candy bar.

“You let me have the bigger half,” he joked. “But that’s who you were.”

According to Sandler, Morris was a Hollywood veteran with classy habits. The “Uncut Gems” star joked that the alligator, despite his character’s death in the first film, sent the “Happy Gilmore” team a “fruit basket and [a] hilarious note” ahead of the long-anticipated sequel, which premieres in July.

“I will miss the sound of your tail sliding through the tall grass, your cold, bumpy skin, but, most of all, I will miss your infectious laugh,” Sandler concluded his eulogy. “Thanks to Mr. Young for taking care of you all these years, and vaya con dios, old friend.”

Colorado Gator Farm announced on Monday that it decided to preserve Morris’ body via taxidermy “so that he can continue to scare children for years to come.”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” the farm said on Facebook.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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