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C.J. Cron’s rise in Major League Baseball has been slow but steady. He’s 32 and has played for five teams and is in the middle of his second year with the Rockies. He made his first All-Star game this summer. Yet, the biggest, or should I say longest, individual play of his career took place Friday night in Denver.…Read more...

Heading into Week 1 of the NFL season, the biggest underdogs are the Houston Texans (+7), the New York Jets (+6.5), the Pittsburgh Steelers (+6.5), and the Chicago Bears (+6.5). When it comes to betting, if anybody was interested in picking one of these teams, you’d think they’d choose the spread. Any team projected…Read more...

The US Open could’ve fizzled out after Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal lost. Casual fans are conditioned to look for those four names when following a Grand Slam. While we weren’t watching for Williams’ pursuit of her 24th Slam, we were still watching for Serena. The men’s bracket was more of the same, with the most…Read more...

The Ultimate Fighting Championship isn’t having a banner week with plenty of drama and changes surrounding Saturday’s UFC 279 PPV, mostly caused by headlining welterweight Khamzat Chimaev. The Swedish fighter couldn’t wait until he entered the octagon to throw hands, first getting into a verbal altercation with…Read more...

So far in 2022, the batting average across MLB is .243 — the lowest mark for the entire league since 1968. On-base percentage sits at .312 — the lowest mark since 1972. Slugging percentage is currently at .395 — the lowest since 2014. OPS is at .707, once again, the lowest since 2014. It’s no secret that hitters have…Read more...

The issue I have with nostalgia is it makes people sentimental. Having a deep conversation with anyone is right next to “root canal” on my list of things that I actively avoid. If you’re going to melt into a puddle of tears, I need a 5-foot buffer minimum, and I’m going to slowly back peddle to the nearest exit.

Lamar Jackson sees his market value. With the bank accounts of proven starting quarterbacks soaring, and the number of them throughout the NFL fluctuating, the Ravens starter is one of two former NFL MVPs to be active and not past their prime.Read more...

The odds have always been stacked higher than Russell Wilson’s 5-foot-11 frame. A decade into his NFL career, he’s vanquished the skeptics who thought he was too short to excel under center behind towering offensive linemen. Wilson’s high release which prevents defensive linemen from batting down his attempts from the…Read more...

Thirty-two teams. Sixteen games. Three African-American head coaches. Those stats have been tattooed in the NFL’s Week 1 box score for months. Mike Tomlin, Lovie Smith, and Todd Bowles are the lone Black coaches in the NFL this season due to new Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel identifying as “human.”Read more...

The term “same faces, new places” has never been more relevant after the NFL hosted probably its wildest and most active offseason in history. We even witnessed the greatest of all time do a complete about-face on his retirement.

The NFL has the longest offseason in American sports. Thursday’s season opener was 207 days after the Rams won Super Bowl LVI. The hype surrounding Los Angeles entering the 2022 season was palpable. According to Caesars, the Rams have the fifth-best odds to repeat as champions at +1100 with Buffalo. Tampa Bay, Kansas…Read more...

It’s not uncommon for Major League Baseball teams to sign international players at a young age. While there are certain restrictions in place to prevent teams from signing Americans until they’ve turned 16, international players are under fewer restrictions. Players in countries like the Dominican Republic and…Read more...

With all the quarterback drama swirling around the San Francisco 49ers, other important parts of the team have seemingly flown under the radar. One of those significant pieces is tight end George Kittle. What’s being called a Grade 2 groin strain looks like it will keep Kittle sidelined for the team’s season opener…Read more...

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I know that it’s just an image, from a corporate Twitter account nonetheless. It’s there strictly for engagement purposes.Read more...

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You always have to hope that the Sunday night game, or really any primetime NFL game, is a good one. Because when it’s bad, there’s just far too much dead time for Cris Collinsworth’s brain to drip out of his ear. I don’t mind Collinsworth as much as other people. He can be a little too “Everything is awesome!” in his…Read more...

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The reaction from the sports world came down quickly after Thursday’s passing of Queen Elizabeth II at 96. Tweets and other posts from athletes of British descent and others from around the globe paid tribute to the Queen, who served as the United Kingdom’s monarch for 70 years.

Since 2004, it’s become a tradition for the defending Super Bowl champion to kick off the season at home. The only exceptions came in 2013, when the Baltimore Ravens had to play on the road due to a scheduling conflict with the Orioles, and 2019, when the NFL opted to celebrate its 100th season with a Bears-Packers…Read more...

Can we please stop bothering the people responsible for your digital entertainment? First, She-Hulk doesn’t look right, then Game of Thrones had a glitch, and now the annual gripe fest that is NBA players bemoaning their ratings in NBA 2K games has returned. Please, enough with the outrage. These people have families…Read more...

People, are we really ready to do this? As a football-watching public, we’re going to stand and shout for all to hear that there is going to be a Super Bowl parade that sets a record for snowfall and broken tables.

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The NFL season is finally here, and as usual, there’s lots of optimism and expectations surrounding specific teams. Of the teams with high expectations (playoff push or better), a few have just as good a chance of disappointing their fan base as they do of meeting or exceeding set expectations.

For the first time this past weekend, and intentionally no matter what they may say, WWE and AEW ran PPVs/PLEs on the same weekend, perhaps being in direct competition with each other for the first time since NXT was backed off Wednesday nights. Feels like as good of a time as any to see where the companies are…Read more...

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Steph Curry needs to stop.

A change of scenery doesn’t change a player’s DNA. Coaching staffs can alter the way a quarterback is used and improve his production, but the flaws will surface under intense stress. It’s like Tim Tebow’s throwing motion. The guy could have the footwork of Peyton Manning and the accuracy of Drew Brees in practice,…Read more...

All trophies matter…I guess.

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Throughout this series we’ve been doing this week, we always try to start every preview with a logical outcome. What is expected from the division? How are experts and analysts predicting this division to play out come season’s end? Who’s most likely to exceed expectations, and who’s most likely to fail to reach their…Read more...

The U.S. Open went plaid yesterday.Read more...

As sports media devolves into the same kind of morass that the rest of the media is, and society probably (happy to do my part!), you can kind of split the main outlets into two main categories. There are those who are simply around to belch out something most days of the week, no matter how noxious or nonsensical it…Read more...

The situation in Dallas has gotten so bad that owner Jerry Jones is on the radio attempting to convince folks that 1+1=3. During one of his frequent appearances on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Jones was asked about his optimism heading into the upcoming season. Apparently, Jones has lost all hope in logical reasoning.

Mitch Trubisky is getting another shot in the NFL as a starting quarterback. Not a bad feel-good story for Week 1. It’s hard to be the first quarterback taken at No. 2 in a draft in which Patrick Mahomes was selected eight picks later, especially being that his career has, in most ways, gone the opposite direction.

Triple-digit heat, but not an ounce of shade to be found. It sounds like a lyric from that Alanis Morissette song, “Ironic,” but for San Diego State football fans, it was a reality, a nightmare come to life.

All is well in Baton Rouge. First-year LSU head coach Brian Kelly became the first Tigers’ leader to lose his inaugural game at the helm since Gerry DiNardo in 1995, who helped LSU to momentary failure against then-No. 3 Texas A&M. Kelly’s troops lost to an inconsistent Florida State team in their home state on a…Read more...

Patrick Beverley is a jerk.

As soon as Mets fans let their guards down and enjoyed Timmy Trumpet a little too much, we all knew what was coming next. The team’s lead in the NL East has been dwindling for going on three weeks, and now after losing three straight — two to the Nats and one to the Pirates — New York and Atlanta are tied. To put this…Read more...

Logical outcome: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers get the jump on this division and never relent. Let’s keep it 100: The Panthers, Saints, and Falcons don’t have the cannons to match up to Tampa Bay’s gunpowder on both sides of the ball. Brady breaks Peyton Manning’s single-season passing yardage record, tosses 40 to 45…Read more...

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Logical outcome: The last few years have been a song of Matty Ice and Fire. He’s either an MVP-caliber passer or he’s a borderline starter watching defenders react faster while he gets slower. For the first time in Ryan’s career, he’ll share the backfield with an All-Pro-caliber running back, which should benefit him…Read more...

For the first time this past weekend, and intentionally no matter what they may say, WWE and AEW ran PPVs/PLEs on the same weekend, perhaps being in direct competition with each other for the first time since NXT was backed off Wednesday nights. Feels like as good of a time as any to see where the companies are…Read more...

It’s football season again and this time of year most sites give you their weekly power rankings. But here at Deadspin, we go against the grain, so once again we’re bringing you our Powerless Rankings for 2022. This season we’ve even got a season preview of the teams you can expect to be pulling up the rear all season…Read more...

Before jumping into the specifics of how All Elite Wrestling would be incredibly foolish to not have this weekend’s post-pay-per-view drama lead to a comic-book-style Civil War angle, with the locker room’s figureheads jostling for control of the company based on their vision for professional wrestling’s future, let’s…Read more...

If Todd Boehly’s aim was to connect himself to Chelsea tradition, even if those traditions are only 20 years old or so, he certainly took a huge step by canning Thomas Tuchel as manager today. No manager lasts at Chelsea for very long, no matter how much success they bring. José Mourinho, the first time, was out on…Read more...

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The WTA, the most successful professional league in the history of women’s sports, announced at the start of Week 2 of the U.S. Open that this year’s WTA Finals tournament will be held in Fort Worth, Texas.

It certainly speaks to the world’s ability to completely turn over and surprise you that Nick Kyrgios was installed as the favorite to win the U.S. Open after he pretty much paddled Danil Medvedev and Francis Tiafoe overturned Rafael Nadal. This is Nick Kyrgios after all, who never needed more than a Cottonelle-thin…Read more...

Returning home for one last season is a sacred ideal for NBA vets. Dwyane Wade made his way to Chicago in 2016. Kyrie Irving’s desire to play with Durant in Brooklyn instead of Madison Square Garden with the New York Knicks was influenced by the New Jersey native’s fondness for the New Jersey Nets of yesteryear. Paul…Read more...