Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

The idea that Vince McMahon would return to WWE in some capacity has always hung in the air like a rancid fart from the very moment he was forced into retirement. We didn’t need the whispers or reports or anonymous tips, because we all knew that man with the stubbornness level of a roided-up mule (and matching sense…Read more...

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Deion Sanders had a point last year about the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Read more...

Davante Adams has always been the anti-diva receiver. His contract dispute with the Green Bay Packers was relatively low-key, and he’s rarely spoken negatively of his ex-franchise. Adams’ reunion with his college quarterback Derek Carr ended in a powder keg. While speculation about Carr’s future and the Raiders’…Read more...

The University of Texas has fired men’s head basketball coach Chris Beard. The school announced the move Thursday, with Beard’s removal coming nearly a month after Beard’s arrest on felony domestic violence charges. Beard’s fiancée called Austin police when the two allegedly got into an argument in which Beard…Read more...

In this current era of NBA basketball, it’s all about who can shoot and dominate on the offensive end of the court. The days of lockdown defenders have disappeared and been replaced by terms like, “it’s a make or miss league.” With all the scoring we’ve seen this season, that’s all it is. Boston recently gave up 150…Read more...

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The severity of Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin’s injury was apparent quickly. The details of the 24-year-old needing to be resuscitated on the Paycor Stadium turf in Cincinnati wasn’t widely known until about an hour later, around the same time the NFL officially decided to suspend Monday’s all-important tilt between the…Read more...

Damar Hamlin is awake and holding hands with his family, according to his agent. The Bills safety has been battling for his life since suffering cardiac arrest on the field during a Monday Night Football game against the Bengals.Read more...

The internet is quick to pile on acts of stupidity. People doing dumb shit is like 75 percent of the content that goes viral. A lot of the time, the, I guess, “victims” don’t set out to break the internet. It’s just an ideal combination of circumstances and timing that align. Then there’s Colombian “influencer” Mike…Read more...

After a preseason that featured an explosive back-and-forth with Nick Saban after the Alabama head coach made accusations about cheating and buying players through NIL, Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher responded by producing a disappointing 5-7 season. To turn things around he’s hiring Bobby Petrino to be his…Read more...

Wednesday was a relatively slow offensive night for the NBA. Kevin Durant was the league’s best performer and all he could manage was a season-high 44 points on 68.1/50/100 shooting splits, five assists, and four rebounds. With the way that NBA players have been lighting up the scoreboards, especially since Christmas,…Read more...

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At Monday’s Winter Classic, John Henry appeared, as the hockey team he owns (the Penguins) was playing the Boston Bruins at the ballpark he owns (Fenway Park, as owner of the Red Sox as well). Henry is more reclusive than a lot of owners, so it’s hard to know if he’s as deluded as some billionaires about what his…Read more...

In one of the NBA’s more conspicuously timed sequences, the Cleveland Cavs were “randomly” drug tested just hours after Donovan Mitchell’s 71-point performance Monday night. It feels all too convenient for the association to “randomly” test the Cavs for performance-enhancing drugs one day after Mitchell scored the…Read more...

What determines a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback? Stats? The eye test? System compatibility? It’s hard to determine, and it’s arguably impossible to determine, especially for quarterbacks stuck in terrible situations for the majority of their careers. Matthew Stafford was lucky enough to find a way out of his terrible…Read more...

The biggest event for weirdos and insomniacs, other than maybe the Australian Open, got back to normal service last night. And that’s New Japan Pro Wrestling’s biggest event of the year, Wrestle Kingdom (bell time, 3AM EST). Not only did it mark the return of actually cheering crowds for NJPW shows, which returned…Read more...

We’ve come to a point in NCAA college athletics where the only logical next step is blow it all up. Start anew. Turn the page. Go to rehab and move to Cheyenne. The system is so flawed that we’re excited about affording an unpaid workforce the ability to make money off of sponsorships they have to find themselves.

A woman filed a lawsuit against Northwestern baseball player Chad Readey, alleging violations of the Illinois Gender Violence Act and intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from what she says were incidents of sexual harassment and abuse going back to the time the two were students in junior high and at…Read more...

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When disaster strikes, whether in our personal lives, communities, or even a shared public grief, the cliches can rain from our lips like the tears from our eyes. Sometimes life is too overwhelming to sit in the moment and think of the most eloquent statement to make. It’s why, as Damar Hamlin continued to lay on that…Read more...

As we covered this morning, yesterday a kind of strange story surrounding the USMNT’s Gregg Berhalter broke, because Berhalter got out in front of it. He released a statement claiming that someone had threatened to blackmail him over a domestic abuse situation from Berhatler’s teens, so the US manager decided to admit…Read more...

The San Francisco 49ers have been cooking in ways Russell Wilson hasn’t experienced in years. Since starting the season 3-4, the Niners have reeled off nine wins in a row and have already clinched another NFC West title. Much of that winning streak has come with Brock Purdy leading the way under center. Not only are…Read more...

On Tuesday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career-high 55 points. He was 20-33 from the field, 15-16 from the stripe, and threw in 10 rebounds and seven assists for good measure. It was the kind of performance that people want to see, and will search out on social media, SportsCenter, or anywhere highlights can…Read more...

Scott Van Pelt knows how to advertise himself after developing a loyal fan base after more than two decades on ESPN’s airwaves. The Marylander’s Twitter bio says it best, he anchors the network’s flagship show, SportsCenter, starting at Midnight on the East Coast. Or after the game you’re watching ends, whichever is…Read more...

Shannon Sharpe returned to FS1’s Undisputed on Wednesday morning after missing Tuesday’s show due to the way he was affected by what happened to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on Monday Night Football — and Skip Bayless’ insensitive tweet about it.Read more...

Former second-overall draft pick Ja Morant is the face of one of the best franchises in the NBA right now. The Memphis Grizzlies are 23-13, giving them the second-best record in the Western Conference, and the fourth-best record across the league. Amid all the celebration, though, comes a lawsuit against the team’s…Read more...

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To suggest that US Soccer is a byzantine organization would be to suggest that they have any sort of rules and protocols in place. It rarely feels like they do, and sort of just make stuff up as they go, with mostly everyone screaming about protecting their phony baloney jobs. It’s how Gregg Berhalter can end up with…Read more...

For those who turned on the North Carolina State radio broadcast to listen to a friendly voice narrate a bowl game, with a silly sponsorship, against a former conference foe — Maryland — who better to do it than Gary Hahn? He is in his fourth decade as the Wolfpacks’ play-by-play announcer, and surely he could get…Read more...

Prior to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin fighting for his life on Monday Night Football after collapsing in front of a horrified national audience, the ongoing NFL season was already a more regressive step back in the player safety department than any in recent memory. Hamlin being loaded into an ambulance while…Read more...

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In lighter sports news, Donovan Mitchell dropped 71 points against the Bulls on Monday night in a 145-134 overtime win. He was 22-34 from the floor, 7-15 from deep, and 20-25 from the freethrow line. It was the highest individual scoring performance since Kobe Bryant’s 81, and with that, Mitchell joined only six other…Read more...

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The best way to avoid apologizing for hitting a woman is to never do it in the first place. Guess that never went through UFC President Dana White’s brain on New Year’s Eve, when he was seen getting into a physical altercation with his wife, Anna, at a nightclub in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Eyewitnesses told TMZ, which…Read more...

Last night, we witnessed one of the scariest moments in NFL history. The image of Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin getting up from a hit just to fall down unconscious moments later will be ingrained in my mind for a very long time. As players, coaches, and medical staff from both teams circled around Hamlin, tears…Read more...

Maybe Nathan MacKinnon is going to have to ban everyone from drinking soda again. Or let them drink soda, whatever isn’t what they’ve been doing this season.Read more...

Fox Sports 1 analyst and NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe was trending all over the place this morning for his absence across from FOX’s “Undisputed” with co-host Skip Bayless. It isn’t clear at this moment why Sharpe skipped the show Tuesday morning, roughly 12 hours after Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the…Read more...

Boomer Esiason saying “there’s a douchiness” to Mac Jones’ facial expressions is like Cristiano Ronaldo calling someone a narcissist, Kobe Bryant telling a teammate they’re a ball hog, or Mike Ditka criticizing a coach for being too abrasive. The only correct response is, “MF’er, what did you just say?”Read more...

It’s time to check in on the teams that can’t get out of their own way. The final two weeks of the 2022 NFL season are upon us, and it’s been a wild season filled with ups, downs, triumphs, and disappointment for all 32 squads. Now let’s get into the Week 17 powerless ranking.Read more...

On the second day of the new year, one of the most anticipated games on the schedule of this country’s most popular sport came to a standstill in the first quarter, when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle against Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins. Hamlin was given CPR, loaded onto an ambulance…Read more...

I’ve spent a lot of time in this space trying to figure out the nature of fandom, the magnetism of sports, and where it all fits in our lives. The best I’ve come up with, and it’s probably not all that accurate, is that fandom is the allure of feeling part of something, of being part of a group, a sense of belonging,…Read more...

Medical personnel likely saved Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin’s life Monday night in the first quarter of a late-season NFL game between Buffalo and the Bengals. It was a terrifying moment, which was clear in the eyes of the players and coaches on that field, watching for nine long minutes as the medical team administered…Read more...

In the immediate aftermath of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffering a horrific injury that caused an ambulance to be driven to midfield of Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Skip Bayless decided it was time to make it about himself. The FS1 talk show host thought it was best on a tweet that included “This late in the…Read more...

In the middle of the first quarter of Monday Night Football, Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle against Cincinnati. Hamlin completed the tackle, stood up for a few moments, and fell to the turf. Medical help attended to Hamlin immediately with no quick injury designation given in the…Read more...

For 90 years, the Washington Commanders have been one of four NFL franchises to exist without a mascot. The Jets, Giants, and Packers are the other three. As part of the organization’s complete brand revamp, the Commanders commenced a fan vote for a new mascot and in September the candidates were whittled down to a…Read more...

Sports video games are notoriously awful. Rarely anything about them changes from year to year aside from roster updates and an occasional graphics overhaul. Gameplay stays relatively the same, thus the fun stays about the same as well. Actually, the fun may be decreasing as several sports franchises turn their…Read more...

Happy new year and welcome to the grand finale of Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities — here’s hoping 2023 will be better. It probably won’t.Read more...

The Las Vegas Raiders’ 2022 offseason had fans filled with optimism for the team’s future. After acquiring All-Pro receiver Davante Adams from the Green Bay Packers in March, the Raiders signed their franchise quarterback Derek Carr to a three-year extension. The two of them played together in college and anticipated…Read more...

Sometimes the narrative writes itself. And then, when you’re extremely lucky, it just falls in your lap. The Big Ten had two opportunities to send at least one representative — either Michigan or Ohio State — to the College Football Playoff.