Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

If there's any NBA trading block resident who deserves to transition to a contender this season, it's not James Harden or Damian Lillard, it's newcomer Buddy Hield. At least Dame Time has advanced to the brink of a Conference Finals. Hield has never even sailed the postseason waters. His 548 games played without a...Read more...

It isn't a question as to who the male tennis GOAT is anymore. In recent years Novak Djokovic's almost-robotic dominance as he continues to age has pushed him ahead of his contemporaries and predecessors. One of Djokovic's greatest challengers to the crown conceded the throne recently when Rafael Nadal stated the...Read more...

Since America encourages maximum luxury that is far too expensive for the average person, of course, a project combining sports and extravagance is headed for college towns. Sports Illustrated has already built a sports-themed resort in the Dominican Republic, where the 2023 Swimsuit issue was shot. Beginning in 2025,...Read more...

There are so many more interesting teams than the New York Jets and Giants, Denver Broncos, and Chicago Bears, but from now through Thanksgiving, NFL fans will be subjected to those franchises 13 times on national TV. It's early, and there's still time to course correct, yet after just two weeks, those four teams are...Read more...

I was once discussing the Catholic Church abuse scandal with some friends. The main thrust of the conversation was this: Is there something about the Church that specifically causes priests to abuse children? Or are predators attracted to the Church because they know they can abuse there? We never came to a...Read more...

Time moves fast for a company trying to send its stock price up a percentage of a point. Yes, this is how big corporate America works. Cut employee expenditure to as lean as possible while maximizing revenue. WWE cashing in on a new $1.4 billion deal to move Smackdown back to USA Network is a perfect opportunity to...Read more...

I have no idea if Mel Tucker thought things were consensual - or if he even asked. I'm clueless when it comes to knowing if Brenda Tracy had a motive. But what I, and you, know is that Mel Tucker owned up to doing what he did - making sexual comments" about Tracy while masturbating" during a late-night intimate...Read more...

One of the best/least consequential storylines in all of sports is of the big man who goes to Hakeem Olajuwon's Dream Shake academy to learn one of the most lethal, and unteachable, moves in the history of the NBA. At $50,000 a session, it's as close to a Ponzi scheme as you're going to get without it technically...Read more...

It's obvious a fandom is completely beaten down and without hope when all they ask for is for their team to just be bad and unnoticeable.Read more...

A potential Cam Akers deal has been rumored for quite some time, and the LA Rams finally found a trade partner willing to take him off their hands.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith should be in his Danny Glover I'm too old for this" stage of his career. The Buckeyes' longtime athletic director is retiring in 2024, and presumably moving somewhere warm because Columbus is not the place. After this season, NIL isn't his problem anymore.Read more...

After starting the season 0-2, things got a whole lot worse for the Chicago Bears on Wednesday.Read more...

I did not wake up on a slow news Wednesday expecting a peal of life wisdom to fall from the tongue of Christopher Mad Dog" Russo. He comes in out of the bullpen on ESPN's First Take, bringing heat, as the bluster from the AM radio past going up against the cable television present top gas bagger, Stephen A. Smith.Read more...

New Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton's tenure in the Mile High City is off to a rocky start. His team lost the first two games of the season by a combined three points against Las Vegas and Washington, respectively. The offense looks to be moving in the right direction under Payton, but now the defense seems to...Read more...

Boston College has placed its men's and women's swimming and diving teams on an indefinite suspension after the university's leadership found there was rampant hazing in the program, the school announced Wednesday.Read more...

The only thing worse than meeting your heroes is dating them. I can't speak from experience, but that sounds like a good opening to a piece about the downsides of dating the world's pop queen. Travis Kelce is somewhat affable, seems like a total bro, and people still find him attractive even with the molester...Read more...

Stating we've never seen something like this before" in sports is usually overused.Read more...

It would be folly to pin too much on just a handful of games, no matter how good the Baltimore Orioles have looked. But then again, October doesn't really adhere to trends or reason or logic either. When you get to this point in the season and try to look forward, you can throw darts at stardust, and it's just as...Read more...

In 2022, the Cleveland Browns sent three first-round picks, a third-round pick, and two fourth-round picks to the Houston Texans to acquire quarterback Deshaun Watson, whom they promptly rewarded with a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million deal. Not only that, the franchise stood by him during accusation after...Read more...

The Dallas Cowboys are off to another hot start, and the hype train has kicked into high gear after two impressive wins to start the 2023 campaign.Read more...

On Monday, the guillotine hovering over HBO's Winning Time finally dropped when the series joined a growing collection of shows canceled by the network. Declining ratings and criticism from its stars, who insisted that Adam McKay's Lakers series based on Jeff Pearlman's biographical account, turned them into...Read more...

Adam Wainwright represents a lot for St. Louis Cardinals fans. He's the final player standing from the club's latest but not-so-recent recent World Series victory, a pitcher who was a mainstay of a consistently good to great staff for almost two decades, and a cornerstone in the clubhouse both on and off the mound.Read more...

The Pips were nothing without Gladys Knight. The Jackson Five wasn't the same without Michael. Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots are an average football team - at best - without Tom Brady.Read more...

There is no longer season than the MLB one, and it's understandable that just about everyone is at the end of their rope and not ready to deal with any sort of guff from any sort of swine.Read more...

The sports insider wars may have to be fought on new battlegrounds.Read more...

It's an odd tightrope to walk in the teeter-totter that is perception versus reality. Crystal-clear communication makes the division between the two less murky, if not pristine. And maybe I'm too glued to my phone, or the overall appeal of social media has made me think that America is angrier than it ever has been...Read more...

Nearly everything Dwayne The Rock" Johnson has touched over the past 20 years in sports & entertainment has turned into gold. His Midas touch began in pro wrestling behind Vince McMahon and the WWF/WWE, then carried over to the big screen in Hollywood. Johnson revamped McMahon's twice-failed XFL project when he...Read more...

The seas are parting, the sky is clearing, and the writers and actors are striking at just the right time for college football's lord and savior to start his ascent.Read more...

This summer, NFL Players Association president J.C. Tretter's ill-advised suggestion that running backs fake injuries to create leverage set off alarms around the league. On Monday, the NFL finally responded by filing an expected grievance against the NFLPA.Read more...

Nope, not really! But my editors and management insist that these posts are longer than three words, so I guess I'll have to explain. If Manchester City waltzed to last year's trophy, only really sweating in the final for about an hour against a stubborn Inter, they very well may never get out of a rolling beach chair...Read more...

Superstition in sports has been around for ages and has only gotten worse.Read more...

The football season is upon us, and at least one notable fan can't fully participate: Phil Mickelson. While you're probably saying, Duh, he's a golfer," let me explain. Normally, the face of LIV Golf would be wallowing with the other degenerates, tracking juicy lines, and calling in three-team parlays.Read more...

At least one part of the mystery surrounding former Patriot and journeyman safety Sergio Brown is solved. It appears Brown is safe and sound in Mexico City, following a since-deleted Instagram post that tagged his location and several more this morning that appear to mock law enforcement's attempts to locate him.

If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive there are two things we could be sure of - he wouldn't be a Dallas Cowboys fan, and he wouldn't like Jerry Jones.Read more...

There was little offense early during the Cleveland Browns-Pittsburgh Steelers Week 2 Monday Night football matchup. The two teams played hot potato, turning the ball over back and forth, and the end of the first quarter had to be played over again after replay review.Read more...

It's always been the mantra of Rob Manfred that MLB wouldn't look towards expansion until the stadium situations for the A's and Rays were settled. After all, anywhere they'd award an expansion team could still be used as leverage for those teams to wrangle all the tax giveaways and government handouts they could get...Read more...

The NFL is the Buffalo Bills' world and we're all just living in it.Read more...

As Brandon Johnson hauled in the tip-drill Hail Mary pass from Russell Wilson, the entire District of Columbia and surrounding areas let out several expletives, I'm sure.Read more...

When the Los Angeles Rams announced that Cooper Kupp would begin the season on injured reserve, that was supposed to significantly hinder their offense. He was targeted 191 times during his first-team All-Pro 2021 campaign. In 2022, Kupp had 98 targets in only nine games. In his place has stepped rookie fifth-round...Read more...

Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley is in a rough spot. Staley's crew lost another close game Sunday, and following the loss, he let reporters have it over the continuing narrative that the team's playoff loss to Jacksonville in January has carried over into this season. Whether that's the case or not,...Read more...

I'll throw out all the caveats first, because that's what every hockey fan outside of Chicago wants.Read more...

Bill Belichick and Sean Payton both being winless through two games has never happened. In fact, this is Belichick's nadir since 2001, when Tom Brady was just a twinkle in his eye. Both coaches are masters of their domain and intense perfectionists. Unfortunately, their respective teams would only be among the league's...Read more...

Yes, we have been here before. It was the beginning of last season that Manchester United started like ass, got utterly thwacked by Brighton, manager Erik Ten Hag made them run a few more miles in training, and then it was fine for a while. It was mostly fine because Marcus Rashford turned into the Human Torch, and...Read more...

The San Francisco 49ers had the game in the bag. They were up 10 with just over 90 seconds left in the game. The Cooper Kupp-less Rams didn't replicate the offense that led them to a Super Bowl two seasons ago, and wouldn't score quickly enough to find another drive beyond the one that began with 1:34 remaining in the...Read more...

The Jets are finding out quickly that every game isn't going to be like Week 1, where they were gifted a win by Josh Allen, and the Buffalo Bills. Life without Aaron Rodgers will be just like it was before he arrived. All this talk about rolling with Zach Wilson already looks like a huge mistake. It's easy to see that...Read more...

No matter how hard white people try, some things just can't be gentrified.

NFL scheduling for the 2023 regular season resulted in the Miami Dolphins having to open their season with two consecutive road games - on two different coasts. They beat the Los Angeles Chargers in southern California in Week 1, and then traveled to Massachusetts for a Week 2 Sunday Night Football matchup against the ...Read more...

It has to be asked what did the Columbus Blue Jackets think they were going to get by hiring Mike Babcock?Read more...

Another week of NFL football is in the books. For all of my qualms with the NFL, Week 2 arrived a bit too quickly for my satisfaction. Scott Hanson's first announcement of seven hours of commercial free football," and his second one felt like they were only a few days apart as opposed to an entire week.Read more...

If there's one thing NFL teams love to do, it's bring back fan favorite players to cheer the team on before a big matchup. Just last week, we saw Tom Brady in Foxboro, taking up the mantle of Patriot for life," even though he won a Super Bowl with another team, is trying to acquire an ownership interest in still...Read more...