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Referees are a necessary part of any sporting event. It’s just unfortunate how they sometimes become the focal point of contests. This is apparent in far too many NFL games every week, and it’s at a point where some of their calls are absolutely absurd. NFL refs are constantly throwing flags that make-or-break games…Read more...

It’s not that the World Cup on the field erased what we all know about the World Cup off the field. It is actually possible for something to be two things at once. Qatar got what it really wanted out of all this, which was a heaping pile of money the size of Kilimanjaro. Only they will know whether that was enough to…Read more...

It’s time to check in on the teams that can’t get out of their own way. We’re finally in the home stretch of the 2022 NFL season, and much of it has been unpredictable, but there are always a few teams we expect to disappoint their fanbase. Now let’s get into Week 15's powerless ranking.

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Previously on The Brooklyn Nets…Read more...

Dearest reader! We meet again. It is that time of the year again… uh, namely, the end of the year, when we at Deadspin are proud to present our globally acclaimed celebration of stupidity, IDIOT OF THE YEAR! We’ll be with you over the next few weeks as we count down the haughtiest, most hypocritical, and just plain…Read more...

Maybe years ago, like a couple decades, Andrés Cantor was something of a cartoon to non-soccer fans with his outsized “GOOOOOOOOOOOOL!” calls making the rounds on various highlight shows as evidence of how silly soccer was to the agnostics and why it should never be bothered with.

Oops, Dak did it again. He played with your heart, and Dallas lost the game. Shocker.Read more...

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I’ll admit I was one of the ones that had hope. While the WWE product had left me cold at best for a long while, and utterly bewildered at worst, when Triple H took over creative I had hope. After all, my re-entrance to wrestling fandom was due to HHH’s NXT on WWE Network. Indirectly, and he’ll never take…Read more...

It’s the pinnacle of soccer. The World Cup is a spectacle unlike any other in sport. And to truly be considered the greatest to ever lace up your cleats, you need to have lifted the trophy. Why can’t Dan Marino be in the discussion for the greatest quarterback of all time? He never won a Super Bowl. What’s the main…Read more...

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Putting the cart before the horse never works — especially for a coach that has a history of coming up short.Read more...

On Saturday, of all days, Jeff Saturday suffered the most embarrassing and pitiful loss in NFL history. His Indianapolis Colts blew a 33-point lead, the largest lead ever given up in an NFL game.

The last four weeks of the NFL regular season have a different meaning to different teams and fanbases. However, the one commonality that all teams share is that the end is nigh. Soon, 18 of the NFL’s 32 franchises will be in team building mode until post-Labor Day 2023.

Going into Week 15, the New York Giants had the same record (7-5-1) as the division rival they played to a tie two weeks prior. This despite the Giantsg gettin off to a surprising, yet still thunderous, 6-1 start to the 2022 season.

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2018 and the Miami Dolphins didn’t make the playoffs. So their Dec. 9 matchup is far from one of the most memorable regular-season matchups in NFL history.

It seems like something of a missed opportunity that my favorite Lionel Messi moment came 11 years ago. There’s been so much since. It just happened to be on my 30th birthday, on a day where pretty much everything went wrong (a fine introduction to one’s 30s, it could be easily argued). Barcelona that day were playing…Read more...

The Los Angeles Lakers were great on Friday night. They dominated one of the best teams in the Western Conference — the Denver Nuggets.

How do you chuck the trophy away twice and still walk away with it?Read more...

Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens have gone nearly the entire 2022 season and have yet to come to an agreement on a contract extension. We knew this would be the case entering the season, but now we’re going to find out where loyalties lay in a worst-case scenario. Jackson went down with a knee injury during…Read more...

Buffalo and Miami did their best to try to follow up what happened in Minnesota. The third game of Saturday’s NFL triple header ultimately failed because when the Vikings decide they’re going to play a drunk football game, it’s Frank the Tank taking his first sip of booze.

The silence was deafening at U.S. Bank Stadium Saturday afternoon. The home team Minnesota Vikings came into the game with a 10-3 record, holding a half-game lead over the San Francisco 49ers for the second-seed in the NFC. Their opponent was the Indianapolis Colts, who earlier this year, became the laughingstocks of…Read more...

One of the best parts about fantasy football is the ability to gloat over your friends and family. Obviously, the only person with no place to gloat is the one who finishes last place. That’s why most leagues have last-place punishments, something meant to embarrass the worst player in the league that year.

The World Cup comes to a conclusion this weekend with the third-place game wrapping up earlier today — Croatia defeated tournament Cinderella Morocco 2-1 — and the finals between Argentina and France taking place tomorrow. Lionel Messi’s legacy is on the line, meanwhile, Kylian Mbappé is attempting to add to his…Read more...

Load management is going to happen in the NBA regardless of the league’s best efforts. Organizations have been taught to value the postseason over everything because of ringzzzzz culture, and that mindset only gets reinforced by teams like the Phoenix Suns busting their asses to win 64 games a year ago and didn’t make…Read more...

After Argentina easily dispatched Croatia in the World Cup semifinals, the prophecy of Lionel Messi lifting the one piece of hardware that’d separate him from many of soccer’s other all-time greats is one win away. He’ll have that chance in what’s likely his final game on the sports’ biggest stage. It would either be…Read more...

Alexander Ovechkin is the best pure goal-scorer in NHL history. That’s not up for debate. The longtime Washington Capital hasn’t been hockey’s best player for years, but his ability to put the puck in the back of the net is nearly as good as it was 15 years ago when he scored 65 goals during the 2007-08 season. The…Read more...

The people who scream that sports should be an escape are usually the ones most in need of a reminder about empathy, equality, a natural disaster, or an ongoing war. Sports can be a great distraction for those who actually need it.Read more...

The Chicago Bears are coming off a bye week. That is pretty much the only advantage they have over the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend. Still, despite the obvious disparity in talent between the two squads, bettors seem inclined to reach for the stars, just as they did with the Texans over the Cowboys last weekend.

Everything they’ve done all season has led up to this game: The [insert sponsor] Bowl. These teams worked all season long so that they could get six wins and the opportunity to play in the postseason. At least that’s what bowl games are supposed to be: The culmination of the season. But if anything they’re just a…Read more...

This is not (totally) a hit piece on Pat McAfee. It’s more about how we should categorize what McAfee does, because The Athletic — you know that sports site owned by The New York Times — named him its Sports Media Person of the Year, and that implies that he’s a journalist.

The same people keep picking the same people because they only surround themselves with the same people.

Since Patrick Mahomes took over as the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2018, Tyreek Hill is fourth in the NFL in targets, behind only Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, and former teammate Travis Kelce. Yet despite this hefty usage in the Chiefs’ offense, Hill wanted more.Read more...

It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK. At least that’s what Golden State Warriors fans are telling themselves this season. Currently sitting at 14-15, Steph Curry and Co. are 10th in the West, right on the bubble for a play-in game.Read more...

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What a weird hire. The dumpster-fire organization known as the NCAA had to make the right move in naming its next president. Mark Emmert’s tenure left the NCAA a mess so bad people questioned why the organization even existed in the first place. To fix all the issues at hand, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is on…Read more...

The Golden State Warriors lost again last night. On Tuesday, the Phoenix Suns dropped a game to the lowly Houston Rockets for the second time this month. Those two wins account for 22.2 percent of the Rockets’ victories this season.

A week ago on Thursday Night Football, the NFL world paid witness to a pretty odd kickoff strategy from the Las Vegas Raiders during their game against the Los Angeles Rams. After the first drive of the game resulted in a Raiders touchdown, kicker Daniel Carlson had to boot the ball away, but he didn’t do so in a…Read more...

Week 15 kicks off with an NFC West rivalry between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks. It’s been a while since a Niners-Seahawks game this late in the season had playoff ramifications for both teams.

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In surreal sporting news, Iranian soccer player Amir Nasr-Azadani is apparently facing possible execution for taking part in a protest for basic women’s rights in Isfahan, Iran. The government deemed the Sept. 16 protest an armed riot as three security agents were killed in the fracas.

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LeBron James’ fans must simply concede. The charade is over. That flimsy argument is washed. James isn’t the G.O.A.T. And who said so? Who settled this long-running barbershop debate? Well, the NBA, itself.Read more...

Russell Wilson has been arguably the biggest disappointment of the 2022 NFL season, and that’s saying a lot considering the Los Angeles Rams are fresh off a Super Bowl and currently hold a top-five draft pick. Wilson was brought to the Mile High City in exchange for a king’s ransom, but he was worth it, considering…Read more...

I don’t know who incepted Joel Embiid, but someone got him to question Philly fans’ faith in him. The All-NBA center has been strangely disconnected this season. The team is lifeless, and you wouldn’t suspect that Embiid leads the league in scoring if he didn’t pop up on the ticker with a 40- or 50-bomb every so…Read more...

You would think that there wouldn’t be much of anywhere to hide for the NWSL after not only the Yates Report came out in the fall but the NWSL’s and NWSLPA’s joint report followed it yesterday, both detailing the rampant mistreatment, abuse, and ass-covering that followed that various coaches, front offices, the…Read more...

What if you just Morocco’d Morocco?Read more...

It takes a unique, football-crazy, overall-crazy, and dedicated individual to want to coach college football. Most aren’t considered consistently great at the craft despite huge contracts and buyouts. Mike Leach bucked the trend first with his dazzling offenses, then carved out his path with his personality and…Read more...