Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

ESPN issued an on-air apology to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey for comments that political analyst James Carville made during his appearance on College Gameday about the conference being inherently biased towards No. 1 Alabama.

Another day, another record for Simone Biles. Her record-breaking run at the 2018 worlds championships in Doha started with the all-around final on Thursday where she picked up her fourth all-around gold, making her the first woman to do so. She also tied Vitaly Scherbo for most world championship gold medals won at…Read more...

Demarai Gray scored what turned out to be the winning goal in Leicester City’s first game since owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha tragically died in a helicopter crash outside of King Power stadium last Saturday. To celebrate, Gray took off his jersey to reveal a shirt honoring the late Thai owner. Every Leicester City…Read more...

Nebraska got off to a surprise start against No. 8 Ohio State on Saturday, striking first off a 12-play drive of 75 yards to take an early 7-0 lead. The Cornhuskers followed this up by immediately giving all of their momentum back to the Buckeyes with this failed attempt at a kickoff.Read more...

The Vancouver Canucks took on the Colorado Avalanche on Friday in a thrilling 7-6 overtime victory. Among the 13 goals scored that night, the one that stood out the most came from Brock Boeser in the second period off of a pass by Swedish rookie standout Elias Pettersson that would make Henrik and Daniel Sedin proud.

Jimmy Butler stunk last night in the Timberwolves’ 116-99 loss against the Warriors. He scored 21 points on 23 shot attempts—which included a dismal 0-for-8 from three—and was a minus-19 during his time on the floor. But thanks to the disruptive saga that he’s created for himself, that wasn’t the focus of his postgame…Read more...

The Raptors played with some pretty mediocre effort on Friday which kept the terrible Phoenix Suns actually in a game going into the fourth quarter. One of the things that helped Toronto flip the switch and get the offense going was earning some quality assists through the legs of rookie big man Deandre Ayton.Read more...

Shams Charania is an NBA reporter for The Athletic and also works as an “NBA insider” for the “digital television sports network” Stadium, which was founded and is co-owned by Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf. An NBA reporter having two different jobs in the same field, one of which makes him the employee of an NBA…Read more...

Once the call was made to go on with WWE Crown Jewel, the second event of WWE’s 10-year contract with Saudi Arabia, one question loomed larger than any other going: What would this thing look like? The promotion’s first Saudi show, April’s Greatest Royal Rumble, was unvarnished pro-Saudi propaganda, even exploiting…Read more...

Clayton Kershaw’s velocity may be trending in the wrong direction, but he’s still a damn ace, and as such he was considered one of the huge targets in what many have expected to be a landscape-altering winter of baseball mega-stars chasing the free-agency big bucks to new towns and new teams. Not so!Read more...

Simone Biles won her fourth world all-around title on Thursday, but not in the way that she or her coaches or her fans had hoped she would. Biles fell on her vault in the first rotation and then fell off the beam in the third. She still managed to pull out the all-around win—her fourth, a new record—due to excellent…Read more...

What’s better than hitting the Shammgod, the coolest move in basketball? Providing an immediate historical reenactment, just in case anybody missed it. Russell Westbrook, thank you for your service.

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.

This quarterback update on the Bills is sadder and more revealing than it’s meant to be:Read more...

The best place to spend the holiday season is curled up by the fire — of course, you need a fireplace to do that. If you’re craving the smell of firewood and that feeling of warmth from real crackling flames, consider taking advantage of Wayfair’s sale on indoor fireplaces, with some units up to 70% off. There are…Read more...

Former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Jim Boylan, who had been with the team from 2013 until this past offseason, filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County court today alleging age discrimination against his former team.Read more...

Justin Wayne was a bust. The fifth overall pick in the 2000 MLB draft, Wayne appeared in just 26 games over three seasons with the Florida Marlins, putting up an ERA over 6 (but earning a World Series ring along the way). Wayne’s post-baseball career was more successful, and more lucrative, at least right until he got…Read more...

On Sept. 20, Lakers czar Magic Johnson told ESPN that he assured coach Luke Walton that he’d be fine if the 2018-19 campaign were to get off to a slow start, since integrating a hodgepodge of new players into the team, including LeBron James, takes time.Read more...

Donald Trump is horrible and disgusting, and the menagerie of melting, gelatinous creatures surrounding him are also horrible and disgusting, but they’re not really new. The behavior they’ve exhibited over the last three years came into focus, in Facebook and before long silences at family dinners, during the years…Read more...

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Of course we take TMZ headlines with a grain of salt, but we’re really hoping this one is true: Boston Red Sox players reportedly left a $195,000 tip on a roughly $300,000 nightclub bill after celebrating the team’s World Series win last weekend. TMZ says it’s seen the receipt and can verify the whopper of a gratuity.Read more...

The language that Joel Embiid uses can be taken as an ice core sample of the language the internet is using at any given time. The Sixers center is one of the NBA’s savviest disciples of the Do-It-For-The-‘Gram ethos, a skilled user of meme and timely dialect, always hitting the right notes to Maximize Engagement. “I…Read more...

This might be difficult to believe, but up until today Simone Biles had never won a world championship gold medal on the vault.Read more...

Roger Federer has cut an unusual path into the fourth round at Paris: he played just two sets of tennis to get there. He had a first-round bye, then second-round opponent Milos Raonic withdrew from the tournament, and then he defeated the sleepy pirate Fabio Fognini, 6-4, 6-3. So all of a sudden, a slightly creaky,…Read more...

The Raiders suffered their most humiliating loss of the season Thursday night, a dismal 34–3 pounding to a one-win 49ers team that came into the game with a bottom-ten scoring offense, a bottom-ten scoring defense, and a rookie quarterback making his first career start. The Raiders opened up with a field goal, then…Read more...

Where Wild Card’s set of trading cards for the 1992 presidential election is concerned, the question is less how the set came to be than why. The how part is easy: Given a smallish photo budget, a sufficiently defective sense of judgment, and no meaningful pressure to sell any of the cards, a company could…Read more...

The horses had all the hay they needed, the random bucket of water had been emptied into the wash trough, the cook had his sacks of grain or flour or whatever, and there were no more logs to split. The menial morning chores were done. And I thought, Shit, I guess now I gotta go have a thrilling Old West adventure. I…Read more...

Maryland backup punter Matthew Barber was involved in a physical altercation with at least one teammate after Tuesday’s team practice, and he later told the Baltimore Sun that he was attacked because other players thought that he had been a whistleblower during the investigation into the football program that led to…Read more...

Bol Bol is not your average 7-foot-2 basketball player. He is not awkward, not stiff, not gangly. He does not succeed solely on his height—though it certainly helps. He is mobile, and he is athletic, and he is offensive-minded. Physically, his body can’t help but remind you of his famous father. But a more immediate…Read more...

Perhaps it was giving too much credit to a pathetic Oakland Raiders squad to have thought that 49ers quarterback Nick Mullens, who started last night’s game despite never having taken a snap in regular-season NFL action, was going to have a hard time. But even though it came against a team as lifeless as the Raiders,…Read more...

I always get stuck on the “t.” It’d be a hell of a lot easier to say the name of Montreal Canadiens rookie center Jesperi Kotkaniemi (Cot-Kuh-Nee-Emmy) five times fast if it weren’t for that dang “t” at the end of the first syllable. But alas, this is everyone’s problem now—the 18-year-old third-overall pick out of…Read more...

Jalopnik Why Won’t Dealers Negotiate On Pre-Owned Cars? | Gizmodo Man Shot by His Own Dog Proves That in Virtually Any Scenario, They Are Still Good Boys | Kotaku The Internet Reacts To Piranha Plant In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Lifehacker How to Manage Your Seasonal Depression | The Takeout Tamales are a treat for…Read more...

It happened again! Nine months after two Trail Blazers fans played an infuriatingly bad game of tic-tac-toe between quarters, that game has a challenger for the title.Read more...

There are quite a few permutations of the Lord of the Rings films out there on Blu-ray, but the extended editions are the ones you want, and the extended trilogy pack is down to $26 at at Amazon today, complete with all three extended films totaling 11 hours, plus 26 hours of special features to boot. No wonder it’s…Read more...

Raheem Mostert left Thursday night’s totally awful and pointless contest between the 49ers and Raiders in the third quarter, after he was tripped on an inside run, tried to brace his fall, and had his right forearm bend in several wrong directions. This video is extremely unpleasant:Read more...

Well this was all very dramatic. DC United were down 2–1 in the 116th minute of Thursday night’s knockout round match against Columbus Crew, until Nick DeLeon ripped home a clutch equalizer from the edge of the box off a blown clearance.Read more...

Wednesday night, after his Pelicans lost to the Warriors, Anthony Davis said he’d like to see DeMarcus Cousins return to the Pelicans in free agency. That seems like it might be a long shot—apart from New Orleans’s looming salary crunch, there’s the matter of Cousins playing for one of the NBA’s all-time great teams,…Read more...

De’Aaron Fox spent his Thursday night leading the plucky Kings to a dominant road win in Atlanta. I do not expect you to take that very seriously! There are data points you mark in the The Kings Might Be Good column—a 6–3 record; road wins over the Thunder and Heat; a five-game winning streak; offensive and defensive…Read more...

Hue Jackson finished his tenure as head coach of the Cleveland Browns with a record of three wins, 36 losses, and one tie. In hindsight, it’s remarkable that Jackson was given a second year in charge after starting the 2016 season 0–14 and finishing 1–15; it’s even more incredible that he was given a third season…Read more...

This development will not have the day-to-day importance to players on the University of Maryland football team as the firing of head coach DJ Durkin, but it is nonetheless another step in the right direction: James T. Brady, the chair of Maryland’s board of regents, has resigned, effective immediately.Read more...

Longtime football writer Paul Zimmerman, better known as Dr. Z, died today at age 86, his former colleague Peter King announced. Zimmerman hadn’t written for years due to a series of strokes, but for a time he was one of the best football writers out there and worth remembering today. Here’s what I wrote for The…Read more...

Winnipeg Jets wonderkid Patrik Laine has had a bit of a slow start to his third NHL season, earning just five points in his first 12 games and going scoreless in his last five. But a return to his home country of Finland, for a game this afternoon against the Panthers, seems to have jump-started the young sniper.Read more...

Last April, Stephen A. Smith rained down righteous fury upon then-Knicks president Phil Jackson. New York fans have probably never felt in greater alignment with ESPN’s handsomely compensated take ejaculator. It was beautiful and cathartic to witness, all storm and fury, audible saliva froth and recklessly abandoned…Read more...

Back in 2013, Sam Mikulak entered the men’s all-around final at the world championships as the second-highest qualifier behind Japanese demigod, Kohei Uchimura. The gold medal was out of the question with Uchimura still very much in his unbeatable prime, but it looked like the American had a very good shot at making…Read more...

Browns defensive coordinator and interim head coach Gregg Williams, who preserved his job and earned a promotion simply by being the least bad of Cleveland’s three senior coaches, wants you to know he doesn’t have to be here. Other teams have been falling over themselves to hire Gregg Williams, best known for a 17-31…Read more...

BOISE, ID—On paper, Paulette Jordan is the kind of candidate Native peoples dreamt of a generation ago.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that during Tuesday’s football practice, which was presided over by briefly reinstated and then subsequently fired head coach DJ Durkin, Maryland punter Matt Barber was attacked by teammates who believed he spoke to investigators looking into the death of Jordan McNair and Durkin’s…Read more...

The behavior of two asshole fans threatened to ruin the spectacle of yesterday’s Scottish Premiership match between rivals Hearts and Hibernian. One of the assholes punched Hearts’ keeper in the face in the middle of the match, and the other chucked a coin at Hibs’ manager, striking the coach square in the face.Read more...

Uggs may be a controversial shoe, but when you’re in your own home, comfort should trump fashion every time. For those who can’t resist the call of the coziness, Ugg slippers are currently on sale at Nordstrom Rack, in styles for both men and women. With colder temps on the way, your soon-to-be shivering toes will be…Read more...