Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

As I’ve written in the past, I got back into wrestling in 2015 because of (then) Daniel Bryan. Thing was, I didn’t get to see him wrestle. Ok, once, in WrestleMania 31’s opening ladder match, which was the usual spot-fest between seven different guys. And he did win that, but it wasn’t the best showcase of what he…Read more...

It appears that Deshaun Watson will finish the 2021 season in purgatory with the Houston Texans. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport is reporting that the Texans granted Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross permission to meet with their quarterback on Monday night. He did not leave that meeting confident in Watson’s status for…Read more...

The Los Angeles Rams have had a busy week leading up to the NFL trade deadline. On Monday, they finalized a trade to snag Von Miller away from the Denver Broncos. The Rams had also been seeking a trade partner for the services of DeSean Jackson. According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, if the Rams can’t find a trade…Read more...

In September 2020, the NCAA announced that it would make Election Day a mandatory day off for student athletes, with no competitions or practices allowed to take place on the first Tuesday of November. This ruling came out just a few weeks prior to a presidential election that saw widespread attempts at voter…Read more...

Instagram and Twitter don’t make situations better, but they can definitely make them more entertaining

I don’t blame overconfident NBA players for attempting to take over a game when the only people excited for the Austin Rivers experience are opposing fans. I think it’s less, “I got this,” and more “I want to do the fun thing, too.” Who wants to watch someone play video games when you could have the sticks?Read more...

Four months ago, the NCAA begrudgingly stepped aside after name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation was enacted – finally allowing college athletes to make money off the things that they were born with. But, the billion-dollar “nonprofit” institution that’s made its money off the backs of unpaid athletes refused to…Read more...

Michigan football fans learned two things about their storied program on Saturday.

The person who was the happiest after the Kansas City Chiefs bounced back after an ugly loss to the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football was likely not in the home locker room at Arrowhead Stadium after the game, and probably has no association with the Kansas City metropolitan area. That person is a man in New…Read more...

You ever get really into a band? Listen to their album for a full week? Buy a T-shirt? Even get to the point where you see them a couple times, maybe in a couple different venues? Maybe after the first album it was in a small club.Read more...

We’re about halfway through the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks have been front and center with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s take a look at how our young wards fared in Week 8.

The Tennessee Titans have been on a tear in recent weeks. They have won four consecutive games, including back-to-back victories in weeks 6 and 7 against the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. Sunday’s win gave them a comfortable three-game lead in the AFC South — but disaster has struck the Titans. The king has…Read more...

The Los Angeles Rams define what an aggressive front office approach looks like in the NFL. Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the Denver Broncos are trading All-Pro linebacker Von Miller to the Rams for a bag of Ruffles and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew. The Rams care nothing about draft picks, and they care even less…Read more...

Maybe it’s only people of older generations, of which I’m a part, who still perceive the position of “commissioner” as some sort of custodian of a particular sport. Even though we know in our minds that all they’re just the hand of the owners, and exist to ensure maximized profits, our hearts still cling to a very…Read more...

For the average NFL viewer, the true horror didn’t arrive on Halloween, it arrived in Week 7 with six teams on a bye week. Not only were there less games, but the ones that were played were much less entertaining than a Saw movie marathon.Read more...

If you woke up this morning and hopped on social media, you probably saw that Robin Williams was trending on at least one platform. As often happens on social media, there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for Robin Williams to be top-of-mind for people today. It’s not his birthday, nor the anniversary of his death.…Read more...

As many suspected a few weeks ago when the story broke, the Jon Gruden email leak isn’t the last we’ve heard of the former Las Vegas Raiders head coach. According to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, Gruden is considering taking legal action against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Dan Campbell isn’t the type that under-promises and over-delivers. The data proves he’s the opposite.

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, the world-renowned monthly series where we direct sophomoric insults and, occasionally, pointed commentary at those sports figures most deserving of the smoke. We are but a day removed from Halloween, yet those listed after the jump have been cosplaying as morons far longer…Read more...

The regular season mattering is fun. It lets you celebrate wins over everyone because every game means something. Chelsea have been able to celebrate two more times than any other team in the Premier League. They’re only three and five points clear of Liverpool and Man City, but in a race that values consistency over…Read more...

The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t playing exactly as well as we all thought they would. Through seven weeks, the reigning AFC champions are 3-4, tied for last place in their division, and just not looking like the Chiefs we’ve come to know, love, and/or root against in recent years. Star quarterback Patrick Mahomes has…Read more...

It’s one of those Saturdays where even a quadruple-screen setup isn’t enough to keep track of all of the college football fun. As Mike Golic, Jr. so eloquently put it three weekends ago, CFB is “full-blown illegal black market drugs today.” In one of the most fun overall seasons in recent memory, today’s noon slot…Read more...

A 3-1 week or better is always the goal. Fortunately, we were able to reel off another such showing last weekend, this one coming at a crucial time following the one and only below-.500 performance of the year. Let’s shoot for the same result.

Matt Nagy is a COVID scratch against San Francisco on Sunday, and the timing may be fateful. The Bears are 3-4, and finding criticism of Nagy is pretty easy. I mean really easy. Like finding a Squid Game Halloween costume easy.

With Huascar Ynoa on the IL with a shoulder injury and ace Charlie Morton out with a broken leg, the Braves are now looking at two back-to-back bullpen games as their starting pitchers rest up. The pen’s performance closing out for Morton in Game 1 and for Ian Anderson yesterday should give Atlanta fans little reason…Read more...

The NHL is not in a good place, and that’s good. For too long have victims of high-ranking members in NHL front offices gone unseen and unheard.

Florida-Georgia, “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” might have a little less doubt than usual about who’s going to win this year, what with the Bulldogs being No. 1 by a mile and the Gators being out of the top 25. The last three seasons, the rivalry has been a matchup of top-10 foes, with the lower-ranked…Read more...

Once you get past the Astros merely being there again after suffering no meaningful consequences for their cheating, and the racist Chop, and the scheduled attendance of Donald Trump at Game 4, and the idea that losing awaiting-trial-on-felony-charges Marcell Ozuna was some kind of “adversity” that Atlanta had to…Read more...

The University of Tennessee has a plan to prevent another trash blizzard in response to this month’s debacle when Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss visited Knoxville.

Facebook tried to go full pivot yesterday with a rebranding of its name. For those of you who haven’t figured out that Facebook is a bottomless pit of frustration, despair, bigotry, misinformation, etc. and deleted your account — or forgot your login and don’t have access to your college email anymore (now I feel old)…Read more...

Yesterday, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called upon Major League Baseball to stop using the term “bullpen.”

James Wiseman — the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft — played only three games during his lone freshman season for the Memphis Tigers. After being ruled ineligible by the NCAA because his college coach, Penny Hardaway, previously loaned his family $11,500 in moving expenses — when Hardaway was his high school…Read more...

The Detroit Lions are the last remaining winless team in the NFL. Coincidentally, the Detroit Pistons are the last winless team remaining in the NBA, but that’s irrelevant right now. The fact is that, despite the Lions record starting with a zero, they’re one of the best terrible teams we’ve seen in recent memory.

Don’t look now, but Aaron Rodgers is the MVP of the NFL — again.

We had a pair of fourth quarter thrillers on our hands last night, as two surprising unbeaten teams in the NBA and NFL tried to keep their winning streaks alive. The Bulls mounted a late comeback against the Knicks, which would be a largely meaningless phrase if both teams hadn’t shocked their long-suffering fan bases…Read more...

If, by instinct, you turned on TNT last night at 8 p.m. EST expecting to see Ernie, Charles, Kenny, Shaq setting up a prime time basketball game, you received an unpleasant surprise: Hotel Transylvania 2.

The NFL is continuing its tradition of not doing enough to promote diversity by doubling the Rooney Rule requirement to interview at least two external minority general manager/executive/coordinator candidates. Head coaching slots were already under this rule, but now, along with GM roles, must include at least one…Read more...

A day late, and really 11 years late, Joe Quenneville resigned from his head coaching gig, though now it’s with the Florida Panthers. Quenneville was cowardly and disgustingly allowed to be behind the bench Wednesday night for the Cats, not even an hour after Kyle Beach had poured his heart out on TSN. It was yet…Read more...

The news flashed out of nowhere, which is probably the most worrying thing. The Padres hired Bob Melvin as a manager, which is great for them. Melvin has been making the most out of whatever he’s been given in Oakland for a decade now, and a lot of that time it has been a mishmash of misfit toys. He’ll immediately…Read more...

Philly’s favorite son, Allen Iverson, has been keeping a close eye on the 76ers’ dilemma regarding Ben Simmons wanting to leave town. Iverson gave Philadelphia the best years of his career and even led the team to its last NBA Finals appearance in 2001. There aren’t too many athletes who know that rabid, cantankerous…Read more...

He is a fan favorite in Chicago, yet never came close to averaging 20 points per game.Read more...

Yesterday, the Houston Texans traded their lead running back, Mark Ingram, to the New Orleans Saints along with a swap of late-round draft picks.

If the world ended today (because that’s the only way the NBA season would end today, and I hate cliches, but this one is useful in this case), the NBA would finish with the fewest free throw attempts per game in the history of the league. Even though we’re only five games into the season and players haven’t yet…Read more...

As I’ve repeatedly stated, this was the season I really tried to follow MLS closely. It’s been mostly hit, some miss, but it’s hard to not see the charm. It is perhaps the last bastion of the true No. 10, where the space in midfield allows them to work their magic and drive teams to success. It’s where some teams…Read more...

Ugh. Russell Westbrook has become a “guardian of the game” guy, and it couldn’t be more disappointing.

Thursday Night Football has a reputation for being underwhelming. Just look at the seven Thursday games we’ve had thus far this season. Only two were really enticing matchups: Week 1's Cowboys-Bucs and Week 5's Rams-Seahawks. Luckily, in Week 8, we get another thrilling matchup between the 7-0 Arizona Cardinals and…Read more...

Take two for Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Ky….well, the third member of Brooklyn’s big trio is on a leave of absence, and maybe that is part of the reason for the Nets’ struggles early on this season.Read more...

With a forecast in the low 50s and scattered showers in the morning, the Wolverines are coming to East Lansing this Saturday — on the eve of Halloween, it’s got all the makings to be the perfect day of good old Midwestern college football.Read more...

(TW: Sexual assault)

It couldn’t end any other way, especially when you bone it and get zipped by Rayo Vallecano to fall to ninth in the La Liga table.