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It’s funny, if not remarkable: during a tournament that was mostly about a once-in-a-lifetime achievement before it began, another type of a once-in-a-lifetime achievement has stolen the headlines. While Novak Djokovic goes for the first calendar grand slam in decades later today, and tries to take the all-time lead…Read more...

The Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers opened the 2021 season in a thrilling back-and-forth game that literally came down to which team had possession of the ball last.

This era of Major League Baseball can be defined by a multitude of things: the increased usage of analytics, or perhaps the enormous surge in both home runs and strikeouts. However this era eventually gets defined, one thing is for certain, the bunt is a thing of the past.

We’ve feted Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace, Bill Russell, Rick Adelman, Jay Wright, Lauren Jackson, Yolanda Griffith, Chris Bosh, and Chris Webber this week for their induction into the hoops Hall of Fame.

Thursday was great, but now, the real fun begins. Tomorrow, the NFL season kicks off for 28 franchises. There are a lot of teams with high hopes coming into the season, a lot of promising rookies, a lot of interesting storylines, but most of all, there are a lot of question marks.

Chris Webber produced two very underrated Nas songs.

Last night’s WWE Smackdown card included a 10-man tag team match, which in itself is fairly uncommon. The match was scheduled to be Sami Zayn, Otis, Apollo Crews, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode (the heels) to battle Big E, Rick Boogs, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Rey and Dominik Mysterio.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was fast asleep in a dorm room in Philadelphia. I’d been up late the night before, watching the Giants play the Broncos on Monday Night Football, and baking chocolate chip cookies that I planned to bring up to New York the next day, to share in the press box at Game 2 of the…Read more...

Last night, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys kicked off the 2021-22 NFL season. What was supposed to be a blowout in many fans’ eyes, turned into an absolute thriller that had two lead changes in the final two minutes, as well as a classic Tom Brady last-minute comeback drive to lead to a game-winning field…Read more...

For most MLB fanbases, this part of the season sucks. You think Kansas City Royals fans, Miami Marlins fans, and Pittsburgh Pirates fans are as excited to see these games as they were at the start of the season? The only thing those fan bases are looking forward to are the players in their farm system. They get to see…Read more...

There’s a chance Chris Bosh could still be an active NBA player right now.

It took less than one full quarter for NBC’s Opening Night broadcasting team, helmed by Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, to demonstrate exactly how little they care for the women watching the game.Read more...

Tony Dungy is standing on moral ground. The NFL is standing on legal ground. But in the end, the players could wind up on shaky ground.

Donald Trump refuses to go away, which isn’t surprising. But, when an uninvited guest keeps showing up, at some point, discovering how they manage to get there becomes imperative. The former occupant of the White House discovered that using Black athletes for his benefit is the best vehicle.

Ever since sports gambling has become widely legal, and more teams and leagues sign their own deals with online sports betting companies, there’s been a fear from some corners of the sporting press about the effect it will have.

If baseball media were more interested in anything other than carrying water for the owners, parlaying their connections into free Springsteen tickets, what Hunter Renfroe alleged yesterday would become a story. Luckily for MLB, that’s not the case.

Oh, man. This would’ve been an awful idea.

The 2,000-yard rusher club is one of the most exclusive among all American professional sports. Derrick Henry became the eighth member of this prestigious club last year, rushing for 2,027. The last player to achieve this feat before Henry was Adrian Peterson in 2012. Peterson owns the second greatest rushing season…Read more...

As the resident Dallas Cowboys fan at Deadspin, I’m as big a fan of Tony Romo as anyone. But Romo’s latest assertion finally has me questioning his judgment the way many fans did during his time as Cowboys quarterback.

At halftime last night, you could forgive any USMNT fan for thinking they had never left 1997. I know I did. Here we all were, too late on a school night, watching a US team getting paddled in Central America with the crowd going nuts and the American manager looking utterly clueless and his players completely lost,…Read more...

The NFC West will come down to quarterback play and which defensive unit can get to the quarterback more often this season.Read more...

If you’ve been following the WNBA since it’s first season in 1997, Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson may be two of the stars you remember from the league’s very early incarnations.Read more...

Bengals rookie wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase had some interesting comments earlier this week that helped explain his preseason struggles.

We could sit here all day and discuss how the Bucs are poised for another title run since they didn’t lose a single one of their starters during the offseason, or about how the Falcons should’ve drafted Justin Fields to be the heir apparent to Matty Ice despite how great Kyle Pitts can be. However, those aren’t the…Read more...

Wow, is it really that time of year already?Read more...

If you’re the kind of person who enters into the NFL season looking for drama, welcome to the NFC North.

Welcome to the NFC East — home to the teams that engender the most yelling on Twitter and, not unrelated to that, where the entire division last season finished a combined 17 games under .500.

It was thought that this season would be one too early for the Blue Jays. All of their legacy entrants were in MLB full-time, but there would be growing pains, and the pitching wasn’t quite there. And both of those things are still true. But sometimes you can’t predict the league coming back to you just enough.

Late last week, one of hockey’s more annoying fights seemed to have reached yet another conclusion, when the NHL, the NHLPA, and the IIHF reached an agreement on sending NHL players to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. As with everything these days, it’s COVID-dependent, but the NHL schedule has a three week gap in…Read more...

Players get all the hype. Coaches usually get all the blame. But some rise above it to reach the pinnacles of success as the masterminds behind the championship rings.

There is a new sheriff in town, ready to dominate the AFC East for the next decade, and his name is Josh Allen. For a long time, the Buffalo Bills were the doormat of the division, only to be outdone by the New York Jets most years. But even the lowly Jets managed to play in back-to-back AFC championship games during…Read more...

On rare occasions, it’s possible to be both the culprit and the victim. And in the case of Clinton Portis and the other 14 players who allegedly defrauded the NFL of millions, that seems to be it.Read more...

Alright, who had cereal mascot playing umpire in the seats at LoanDepot Stadium on their 2021 scorecard? Nobody? That makes sense.Read more...

Look at a photo of Rudy Gobert in any game. Typically, he’ll be wearing the same knee sleeves with padding that most other players do, maybe an arm-sleeve or two, and that’s probably it. Let’s not make this about Gobert, though — let’s take another center: Nikola Jokić. Usually, it’s just leg sleeves with nothing on…Read more...

This is the most important season of Ezekiel Elliott’s career.

Like it or not, this is still Kansas City’s division to lose. It’s not very often we can look at a team that went to the Super Bowl two years in a row and go “Wow! They really improved this offseason.” Yet, that’s exactly what the Chiefs did. The biggest problem for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl was their poor…Read more...

My fear is that once or twice a year, until my bosses find out that I’m just an absurd algorithm devised out of some combination of bong water and Primus records and they fire “me” (even though I don’t exist in physical form), I’ll be writing some piece about how this is the time that AEW can, should, and needs to…Read more...

The AFC South is a division that could have a significant impact on the playoff picture by the end of the year.

The main story of the U.S. Open, other than the plethora of five-set matches, or three-set matches for the women, has been the surprising runs of a few teenagers in both the women’s and men’s side of the draw. The longest run so far is by a young Canadian named Leylah Fernandez, who has kneecapped a couple former No.…Read more...

As Derek Jeter gains entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame today in Cooperstown, N.Y., there can be only one thought by most.Read more...

All eyes will be on Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns in 2021 after making the postseason for the first time since 2002 last year. A major storyline for the Browns this year will be Mayfield’s contract status. Baker is eligible for an extension of his rookie deal, but the Browns are being cautious (wisely) and…Read more...

The AFC East has been one of the NFL focal points this offseason.

(CW: Abuse, physical violence)

It’s really hanging one out there to call this Mets season particularly Mets-y. Every season in Queens has an element of the weird and inexplicable to it that only the Mets can conjure. They never settle quietly into the background. But this year, well, through Jacob deGrom’s injury and Javy Baez letting it slip that…Read more...

It’s been a hellacious two-year run for Chris Paul since being traded away from the Houston Rockets because of behind-the-scenes tension between CP3 and James Harden.Read more...

The NBA is notorious for “randomly” drug testing its players after seeing things that might be out of the ordinary.

Anytime an all-time great moves into broadcasting following their playing career, it’s a risky proposition for how people will ultimately view their legacy. Whether or not that matters is entirely up to them, and some would say it shouldn’t. But depending on how the player performs on the desk or in the booth, there…Read more...

Perhaps I doomed them last Wednesday when I told my editor the US Men’s National Team would qualify for the World Cup easily. The power of the motherfuck grows every day. That won’t comfort anyone, especially me, as the US has certainly stubbed its toe in its first two qualifiers, even if it hasn’t fully tripped over…Read more...

Brooklyn Nets forward Blake Griffin showed that he can be just as petty as the next person during a recent podcast appearance while shuffling through packs of basketball cards and coming across one of his own. Appearing on the Pardon My Take podcast, Griffin opened a pack of trading cards to one of his own from his…Read more...

It’s not breaking news that Derrick Henry is one of the most dominant running backs of the past 20 seasons.