Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

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With the news that Aaron Rodgers has emerged from his darkness retreat and will soon regale the people with the tablets he has produced, and certainly not the tablets or whatever else he definitely did not take while locked away by himself in obsidian, it got us to thinking who else could use some time in a prison…Read more...

The easiest way to protect yourself from outside criticism is to critique others. Negativity begets negativity, and I don’t even know where this is going because I’m here to tell you about insufferable fan bases.

In a time in which more people are realizing the importance of self-care and self-worth, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL is in a situation with his employer that highlights the struggle that oftentimes comes with achieving self-sufficiency. The Baltimore Ravens don’t want to pay Lamar Jackson — the second…Read more...

The idea of arbitration for determining a baseball player’s salary has never sat right with anyone, other than maybe the front offices that get to save a few hundred grand here and there. There was a time when a few scribes would keep a scoreboard, and some still do. But the concept of two sides trying to come to an…Read more...

Before I get started, I want to make something clear. Trey Lance’s injury history is something that cannot be understated. He needs to stay healthy, and if he can’t, he shouldn’t be considered a franchise-caliber quarterback. This isn’t about his history of serious ouchies and boo-boos sidelining him for practically…Read more...

I never thought I’d say, “You know what, maybe J.J. Redick doesn’t suck,” but he’s surprisingly insightful in his post-playing career gig at ESPN. The former Blue Devil understands how the current iteration of the game is played as well as any analyst for the network and takes a refreshing approach to comparing eras…Read more...

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Remember Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” phase when he went on The Dan Patrick Show mid-bender and rambled incoherently? After that, there was a span of a week or two where we didn’t know if it was schtick or an addict relapsing in the most public way. Once it was clear that Sheen was really struggling, the jokes weren’t as…Read more...

Alabama hoops star Brandon Miller hit the game-winning shot against South Carolina in Columbia last night, amidst chants of “Lock him up! Lock him up!” raining down from the rafters. The chant referred to Miller’s presence when 23-year-old Jamea Jonae Harris was allegedly shot and killed by a longtime friend of former…Read more...

There was a time during the midst of 2020 in which Adam Silver and the NBA owned the world. The combination of an amazing All-Star Game in Chicago with a new dramatic ending, the sad and tragic death of Kobe Bryant, and the league’s decision to shut things down — becoming the first warning that this COVID-19 was super…Read more...

There’s no high school basketball LeaguePass — yet. Aside from the Bronny James hypebeast machine, the top prospects in the upcoming draft are previewed to the general public through the diligent scouting done by professional analysts or scouts who scour camps, national showcases, and high school gymnasiums for the…Read more...

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It is certainly a wonderful place to be, and a comment on what the USWNT has built over generations, that they can win three straight games over three decent-to-good teams in the SheBelieves Cup, conceding only one goal, and the overriding emotion is still more apprehensive than swagger. That is the downside when the…Read more...

March 2022: The Los Angeles Rams were less than a month removed from their Super Bowl parade and NFL free agency was just underway. Fans were a naive group prior to that 2022 offseason, having no idea about the storm of game-changing moves that lay immediately in front of us. Before Russell Wilson to the Broncos,…Read more...

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Bob Sturm of The Athletic explains in a recent piece that scouts are whispering that Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is done — without actually saying it. “He has very little left in his legs, and the word is out.” So, in other words, scouts are noticing what most of the football world has known for at…Read more...

Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss both spoke at Seton Hall University last week. The discussion kept coming back to money — from the one dollar that started the WTA Tour back in 1970, to the $50 million to buy a National Women’s Soccer League team, to the ratings for live women’s sports that keep going up.

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Once the Phoenix Suns pulled off the blockbuster trade of the year for Kevin Durant, many pundits began to pencil them in as the Western Conference representative in the NBA Finals. Looking at their core of Devin Booker, Chris Paul, DeAndre Ayton, plus Durant, it’s easy to see why they’d be catapulted back up the…Read more...

For as much worship as billionaires seem to get around here, and the runway they receive to shape our society to benefit them more and more, they are a cranky bunch. There’s always more money to be made, money they’ll never know what to do with, there’s always someone else to fuck over, and as it seems there’s always…Read more...

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Nearly two years to the day the Atlanta Hawks fired Lloyd Pierce, his replacement Nate McMillan met the same fate. We knew his coaching position was terminal two months ago when an argument between McMillan and Young spilled out into the public sphere. And while Young’s poor relationship with McMcMillan has him…Read more...

Alabama’s men’s basketball program thought it had left its ties to the January murder of Jamea Jonae Harris in the past when it dismissed Darius Miles. It might’ve for about a month, until Tuesday, when a Tuscaloosa Police Department detective testified that the Crimson Tide’s best player, Brandon Miller, brought…Read more...

The Chicago Bears own the No. 1 pick — congratulations on yet another successful tank — and some hosts of sports debate shows are weighing whether they should trade Justin Fields and then draft Bryce Young. This is ridiculous and not going to happen.Read more...

Madden developers must be shitting their britches right now. Despite being the third-best-selling game of 2022 in the U.S., the Madden developers are finally doing something they’ve never done before — putting effort into their product.

Most every time it’s happened, when Liverpool are up 2-0 at Anfield within a game’s first 15 minutes, especially on a European night, and the stadium is coming loose with noise and the team is swarming, teams tend to fold. That kind of atmosphere once folded Lionel Messi’s Barcelona not so long ago. It once bowed Jose…Read more...

At first, without thinking, rage is the appropriate response to seeing Meyers Leonard’s re-entry back into the NBA, as it was reported on Tuesday he’ll sign a 10-day contract with the Milwaukee Bucks after being out of the league for nearly two years after uttering an antisemitic slur on a video-game live stream. The…Read more...

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As part of what appears to be a player safety initiative, the NCAA Rules Committee is considering changing a few rules in order to limit players’ “exposures” on the field. What does that mean exactly? Well, according to reports, these changes are intended to protect player health, and could, in turn, shorten games as…Read more...

The policies to determine someone’s “biological sex” are getting weirder and weirder — not to mention illogical. Just this month Florida tried to institute a policy to track the period data of female students, only dropping the idea after severe backlash. There are many reasons a cis girl might not menstruate…Read more...

It tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Major League Soccer that A) the season starts in five days and you likely didn’t know that, and B) with only five days to go is when the league actually finalized what the playoff system for this season will be. That’s right, teams didn’t know exactly what…Read more...

Kill me if I’m ever so compelled to write into a publication — instead of just leaking that sludge onto social media — to tsk-tsk the Kansas City Chiefs for drinking during a fucking Super Bowl parade. As someone who’s edited uncut letters to the editor before, no one is more self-righteous than the letter writer.…Read more...

The New York Jets are stuck between a rock and a hard place, otherwise known as Aaron Rodgers and Derek Carr. On one hand, the quarterback upgrade they’ve been clamoring for just ghosted everyone so he could embark on a darkness retreat. After two decades in Green Bay, it’s fair to wonder if he’s up to becoming the…Read more...

The Atlantic Division in the NHL was already a hell gauntlet. With the Boston Bruins suddenly turning into a team of frost giants that can skate (then again, it’s probably likely frost giants could always skate, given the conditions in the Jotunheim), it’s only become more so. It’s just three teams right now, but for…Read more...

I didn’t plan on writing anything about Tiger Woods’ stupid, sexist, juvenile joke with pal Justin Thomas at the Genesis Invitational last week. After all, lots of people have already written about it more eloquently than I will. If you missed the moment, Woods handed Thomas a tampon during the first round of the…Read more...

After still being unclear as to what his style of play is on offense and defense after three seasons at Jackson State University, Deion Sanders has now informed us on what he looks for when he’s recruiting, as he prepares to enter his first season at the University of Colorado. Unsurprisingly, his ideology is based on…Read more...

The Los Angeles Lakers’ first half of the 2022-23 season was so putrid, they spent it trying to offload their backcourt. In the end, there were takers for Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley. It wasn’t the teams that traded for Russ and Pat Bev at the deadline though as each guard was promptly bought out. It took a…Read more...

I get it. In a lot of the country, it’s that part of the winter where it seems like it might never end (though it’s been quite mild here). The charm of spring training, whatever anyone tells you, is merely seeing the sun and warmth (though it was quite cold in Arizona recently). When the games start, fans may tell you…Read more...

If you were like me, and god help you if you are, and you needed some sort of wrestling cleanse after WWE barfed up WWE things on Saturday, then Mercedes Moné came to your rescue late in the night. Mercedes made her return to the ring in NJPW’s Battle In The Valley in San Jose, wrestling Kairi (the former Kairi Sane…Read more...

Do we still have to take Russell Westbrook seriously? I mean, if you can’t play with LeBron James or Kevin Durant, who can you fit next to? Whichever franchise signs him next will be his fifth in six years (unless he ruins it back with the Wizards), and we’re firmly in “This guy might be out of the league with gas…Read more...

Leather is popping, grunts from a mound are being emitted, and GMs are already coming up with lame excuses in the sun — it must be spring training! Pitchers and catchers have reported in Florida and Arizona, and very soon there will be actual games played. They won’t count, of course, and will be accompanied by a lot…Read more...

While filming FOX’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test last June, three-time Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy was surrounded by several fellow faces familiar to sports fans. Danny Amendola, Dwight Howard, Carli Lloyd, Nastia Liukin and Mike Piazza were also cast on the show. A World Cup winner, a Super Bowl champ and…Read more...

After throwing slop at a wall like everybody else trying to figure out the best route for the NBA regular season and All-Star break to matter, I have the ultimate solution. There is no better idea, and even though it won’t happen, the potential to overwhelm the news cycle is so alluring that Adam Silver has to…Read more...

The player-empowerment era has created more avenues for athletes to flex their own team-building ability, but Kyrie Irving’s Saturday media availability during All-Star Weekend touched on an issue he’s extremely familiar with — trade requests. Irving’s response to inquiries about the topic illustrates his problematic…Read more...

Let’s start by being complimentary. It’s a new thing for me but I’m getting old and trying to evolve before my cholesterol count gets me. Thanks to the work that Sami Zayn and Roman Reigns have put in over the past six months, what is usually a run-of-the-mill PLE, Elimination Chamber, rose to the level of a must-see…Read more...

All-Star Saturday has always had cookout vibes, and McClung earned another invite for next year. But someone had to bring the unseasoned cole slaw. Karl Malone’s presence as an ambassador and a judge who got entirely too many nods from the NBA and the broadcast made things way too awkward. Malone — who impregnated a…Read more...

Nobody should be surprised that Mac McClung won the dunk contest. If you’re a hoops fan, McClung has been in the public eye for some time now because he can dunk well enough to go viral. Add in that he’s a 6-foot-2 white guy, and you have a recipe for internet fame.Read more...

NBA All-Star Weekend kicked off yesterday with commissioner Adam Silver unveiling several features soon to become part of the future live game streaming experience. The annual Tech Summit always offers a solid glimpse into the future, and fans were abuzz wondering what technical marvels would be coming to the NBA…Read more...