Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Back in the era of slavery — which wasn’t as long ago as racists, conservatives, and the GOP would like you to believe — Black bodies would be stripped naked, or close to it, and put on the auction block where they were sold to the highest white bidders. Their height, weight, skin color, sexual organs, teeth, and…Read more...

The Cincinnati Bengals have overcome quite a bit of adversity to get to Super Bowl LVI. They had to claw their way to an AFC North championship after some bad regular-season losses, including the infamous 400-yard Mike White game against the New York Jets, followed by getting smoked by Cleveland Browns, 41-16, the…Read more...

There was no force on earth that would’ve stopped the Buffalo Bills from dragging the New England Patriots up and down the field during that 47-17 Wild-Card beatdown. But maybe that’s not the Patriots’ first-round opponent if they were able to land Odell Beckham Jr. after he was released by the Cleveland Browns in…Read more...

We would hardly be the first to point out that if the MLB owners had spent as much time talking to the MLB Players Association as they have trying to swing the PR war, the regular season just might start on time (we’re only about two or three weeks from Opening Day being delayed, and there is more hope of Joe Strummer…Read more...

So, the cat seems to have entirely escaped the bag at this point. James Harden allegedly wants out of Brooklyn barely one calendar year into his stint with the team. It sounds like it’s more than just the part-time status of teammate Kyrie Irving that’s bugging Harden. Although the Nets, losers of eight straight, may…Read more...

Brian Flores’ racial discrimination suit against the NFL has put almost every African-American coach under a CT scan, giving them permission to discuss their experiences interviewing for head coaching jobs. So far, few of them have taken the opportunity to directly criticize the team owners they may need final…Read more...

LOS ANGELES — There is no lack of confidence with the Cincinnati Bengals. Quarterback Joe Burrow returned from an ACL injury and mostly picked up where he left off in 2020, being the steadying force behind center that the Bengals have spent years trying to find. There’s JaMarr Chase, who is basically the same…Read more...

Whoever finally convinced Roger Goodell and the NFL that having a team and holding events in Las Vegas was a good idea really pulled a fast one. Vegas claimed another NFL player on Sunday night, following the AFCs’ 41-35 victory over the NFC.

It’s still worth it, every so often, to consider how impressive it is that the Ricketts family pissed all over the glow of being the ownership group that brought the first World Series title to the Northside of Chicago in 100 years to being universally hated in less than five.

To fully understand just how bad the NFL is at hiring African-American and Black coaches, a history lesson is needed.

Tiki Barber isn’t the only one, just the most recent one.

At least we can say the Winter Olympics are practiced at holding their events in a communist dictatorship, as they’ve held two of the last three in one. We’re just about three or four days into the whole thing, and already the stories of athletes being held against their will, shitty facilities, unprepared venues, and…Read more...

Close your eyes for a moment and think of all the terrible organizations in the NFL. Well, maybe don’t close your eyes, you should keep reading. Just take a second to think.

Since the Dallas Cowboys season ended in the wildcard round of the postseason, it feels more and more like Jerry Jones is already looking to the future of his head coach position. That spot, currently occupied by Mike McCarthy, feels less secure by the day. Jones is all over the map regarding his head coach. One day…Read more...

It all started with Stephen A. Smith’s Thursday appearance on NBA Today, which included a searing hot take about Kevin Durant. The Brooklyn Nets at the time were on a six-game losing streak that on Friday extended to seven. They are currently on a five-game Western Conference road trip that ends following this…Read more...

If you thought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win over the Kansas City Chiefs was bad last year, wait till you hear about the Super Bowl V, more commonly known as the “blooper bowl.” In the Big Game between the Baltimore Colts and Dallas Cowboys, the teams combined for 6 interceptions, 546 yards of total offense, a missed…Read more...

The NFL Pro Bowl used to be one of the more exciting parts of the football season, but over the years has become as irrelevant as Motorola’s two-way pager. Watching the most outstanding players the game has to offer each year at the same time has now been reduced to nothing more than filler in between championship…Read more...

It is hard to look at Olivier Giroud and think “grafter.” Because it’s not hard to look at Giroud at all. Ask Leslie Jones. It would be silly to suggest that people don’t make conclusions based on how a player looks. It’s hard to reconcile him as a pure, old-school center forward. Strong, holds up the play, brings his…Read more...

The US came extremely close to a podium spot in the only Winter Olympic discipline they’ve never medaled in: The biathlon. I’m not an expert on the sport, I’m only pretending to be after watching a couple hours of competition, but when I heard the announcers say we’ve never even medaled in the biathlon, I was shocked.Read more...

Saturday might have been the day that put Claude Giroux’s eventual candidacy for the Hall of Fame over the top. That’s a strange thing for an All-Star Game MVP nod, but sometimes you need a cherry on the sundae to bring it home.Read more...

We never got to see Micah “The Lion” Parsons run an official 40-yard dash. When the 2021 NFL combine was canceled due to COVID concerns, we were robbed of an opportunity to see several strong prospects like Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Ja’Marr Chase, Patrick Surtain II, and Micah Parsons strut their physical prowess.…Read more...

Roger Goodell isn’t fooling anyone. After releasing their initial statement regarding Brian Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit against the league that stated they would “defend against these claims, which are without merit” and that “diversity is core to everything we do,” the NFL has conveniently leaked a new memo…Read more...

Fans fighting each other is nothing new. It’s so prevalent in soccer that they made a movie about it. While I wouldn’t recommend “Green Street Hooligans” because Elijah Wood playing a Harvard dropout-turned-soccer hooligan is as ridiculous as it sounds, I have been guilty of sharing fan fight videos on group chats…Read more...

Most Power Five Conference college football programs take as much of a deep breath as they can after the traditional National Signing Day, taking place the first Wednesday of every February. Teams’ rosters are as set as possible in the transfer-portal era of the sport after inking the final parts of your yearly…Read more...

All Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson wanted was to get some breakfast. He’d flown all the way to Las Vegas for an opportunity to be around the best players in the NFL today, and all he wanted was to congratulate a few of the guys who’d earned the Pro Bowl title this season and perhaps treat them to a nice meal at the…Read more...

The NHL doesn’t even know how to properly execute a fix.

Michigan has taken back the unfaithful Jim Harbaugh with open arms and tear-filled eyes. It’s not that he cheated on them, but it’s also not for lack of effort. It is almost a little more embarrassing that way for both parties — come on, guys, stand up for yourselves a little! He tried to leave you!

Move over Tom Brady, there’s a new retirement in the news, and it belongs to MLB umpire Joe West. After 46 years, 43 seasons, and over 5,000 games West is officially calling it quits.Read more...

The Olympics are underway, and China is showing the world that all that talk about totalitarianism and suppression of freedom is… uh… well, let’s check in with Sjoerd den Daas, the East Asia correspondent for the Dutch news network NOS.

Golf and boxing — could two sports be more different? Both have been around for centuries, but on the opposite sides of the class spectrum — golf historically (and, some may argue, presently) reserved for the “gentlemen” of society, an extremely exclusive hobby that has long prided itself on its decorum and propriety,…Read more...

New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban has always been a pretty divisive player. Some fans think the former Norris Trophy winner is one of the dirtiest players in the NHL. Yet several retired players and referees have come to Subban’s defense claiming that the slew foot technique he’s become known for is just a bad…Read more...

There are few names that drum up hockey fans at large with such visceral rage as Tom Wilson. His introduction to the league has been well-documented as a young, tough, ultra-physical, trash-talking specimen Capitals’ fans adore. The rest of the league’s fans, not so much. Especially in Boston and New York these days.

Q: When was the only time that a quarterback won the Super Bowl in the same year that his alma mater won college’s national title?

It’s strange how much enjoyment I get out of watching other people react to sporting events, movies, TV shows, etc. If someone had been filming me during Damian Lillard’s walk-off 40 footer to go to the second round of the playoffs and end Oklahoma City’s season/run of relevancy, they would’ve seen a grown man jumping…Read more...

Q1: What is the only previous matchup of two No. 1 overall draft picks as Super Bowl starting quarterbacks?

Anybody who watched the late Kobe Bryant’s career knows he was all business and no-nonsense on the basketball court. So, it’s no surprise that the tandem of Bryant and Dwight Howard didn’t work out when the Lakers acquired the big man back in 2012. Current ESPN analyst and former NBA player Jalen Rose was on All The…Read more...

I guess that’s not completely fair. They have one idea. It’s a Hail Mary to try to reclaim the PR battle for themselves which the players union has had in their pocket ever since Rob Manfred started throwing all of his toys out of the crib about the reduced schedule of 2020. It’s half of an idea, maybe.Read more...

To the people who believe that race talk, specifically talk about racism affecting Black people, has no place in sports, they might melt like the Wicked Witch of the West if they watch a future documentary that ESPN Films announced has recently started production. Colin Kaepernick, along with Spike Lee and his 40…Read more...

Philadelphia 76ers’ guard Ben Simmons has not played a single game all season. Why? He wants to be traded. Why? Because after an abysmal 2021 postseason that saw Simmons shoot 34.2 percent from the free throw line before getting bounced by the Atlanta Hawks in the second round, Simmons rightfully received tons of…Read more...

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform hosted a roundtable hearing today regarding the ongoing sexual harassment and sexist culture at the Washington Commanders (formerly the Washington Football Team, and before that, a racist slur), organization under the leadership of owner Dan Snyder. Five women and one man…Read more...

This past Tuesday, ESPN started their MLB top-100 all-time list by revealing numbers 100-51. While there were some questionable choices to make the list (i.e.: Bryce Harper, but that might just be my bias showing up), the list was generally viewed fairly well. Nobody was too upset with where everyone was placed. Then…Read more...

“Love to hate” is a term that gets lazily thrown around by media types. It’s generally the only phrase they can come up with to describe someone who is generally hated or reviled but also pulls in huge attention. Or it’s used as a cover for not actually digging into why someone is loathed by the masses. Trevor Bauer…Read more...

Call this the Idiot’s Guide to World Cup Qualifying. The diehard American Outlaws probably know this information by heart. Casual fans may know some. Most general sports fans in America will only tune in to soccer should the United States men’s national team make it to the World Cup, meaning it’ll be more than eight…Read more...

It’s strange how normalized greatness is during something’s golden age. If you look at music for example, hip-hop peaked in the ’90s for a lot of people like classic rock did in the ’60s and ’70s. However, even when 2Pac and Biggie were at the apex, rappers like Nas and Jay-Z weren’t in the picture for the title belt.…Read more...

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been pretty successful during his tenure as shot-caller in Big D, winning an NBA championship in 2011 and appearing in another Finals in 2006. Cuban is also a successful businessman and has even become a bit of a television star on the back of his reality tv show, Shark Tank. But…Read more...

Brian Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL has multiple elements to it. On different levels, Flores is alleging, and claiming to have receipts for, behavior in the league that’s long been suspected, but would be damning to have shown as true — especially to the extent that Flores is alleging.Read more...

Lyrics stay with us forever.

It wasn’t supposed to last this long. When Michael Jordan slightly pushed off Bryon Russell to square up for a 17-foot jump shot with 5.2 seconds left in 1998, the future was a giant question mark. The moment the shot clock expired, the rebuild began. Bulls fans knew the band was broken up. This would be the sixth and…Read more...

To: Detroit

There’s no doubt Tom Brady won championships at a rate we’ve never seen before in the NFL, with no fellow football players lifting as many titles as the longtime Patriot and most-recent Buccaneer did. He alone holds the record for most Super Bowls won by an individual player.Read more...