Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

After a Week 1 that saw bettors nail their underdog pick of the week — Chicago over San Francisco — gamblers are riding the hot hand and rolling with Da Bears once again in Week 2 to take down their “owner” Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. However, this time the Bears aren’t alone, they’ve got company: The…Read more...

The partnership between the NFL and the German Bundesliga, the top tier of the country’s professional soccer scene, is an interesting pair on its own. They both dominate their domestic markets. Dirk Nowitzki and Leon Draisaitl have come from Deutschland to dominate in North America. Steve Cherundolo and Frankie Hejduk…Read more...

There are so many good games featuring at least one ranked school this weekend that it’s easy to overlook the unranked matchups that are still compelling this early in the season before teams amass nicks and cuts and flaws and people deem their season a loss. If you’ve only got one TV/screen, you’re doing it wrong,…Read more...

In back-to-back weeks, the Washington Commanders have circled the drain. In a matchup of turd-bowl franchises racing to the sewers, Sunday’s Week 1 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Washington didn’t stink for a change.Read more...

Last night’s Chargers-Chiefs game was fantastic, a display of two of the best young talents in the game at quarterback. Ultimately, the Chiefs walked away with the 27-24 victory, proving that the road to an AFC West title still runs through Kansas City.Read more...

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It’s not much of a leap now that a sports broadcast is completely on streaming. The NFL was the last to jump the River Styx (though I guess no one really jumps The Styx), though plenty of people have been watching Monday Night through the ESPN app and the like. But Amazon bought the Thursday Night package, and last…Read more...

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If you think Geno Smith’s performance Monday night was a fluke, you haven’t been paying attention.

Boxing is finally getting it right.Read more...

We could argue all day about who the bigger puddle of vomit come to life is: Dan Snyder or Robert Sarver? The allegations against both are heinous, and no one in their right mind would voluntarily work under them if they didn’t own one of the 30 places to work as an NBA or NFL player. While the investigation into…Read more...

Cordarrelle Patterson’s NFL career began with him as a purple blur for the Minnesota Vikings.

I know several fans might be inclined to think this Thursday Night Football game will be lower scoring than we’re anticipating. L.A.’s Keenan Allen was ruled out, and this will be the first time in the Justin Herbert era that the Chiefs will be without Tyreek Hill. However, in case last week wasn’t enough evidence…Read more...

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In recent years, the NCAA has saved its best Week 1 college football matchups for neutral sites — mainly NFL stadiums.Read more...

Chargers running back Austin Ekeler opened a big can of worms on Yahoo’s Fantasy Football Forecast with Matt Harmon. Ekeler commented on his stat line from Week 1 against the Raiders and admitted that he needs to play better, then went so far as to welcome “constructive criticism” from fantasy football fans.Read more...

I won’t be alone in saying that Roger Federer was the first winner I consistently cheered for. Part of that was growing up in Chicago, when as a child, being a fan of a consistent winner really wasn’t much of an option (as it is now. And everything turns, turns, turns…). But a sports fan’s natural inclination to any…Read more...

As someone who prefers Marvel comics to DC — you can like both but every nerd has a favorite child — I find DC’s attempt to replicate Marvel Studios’ somewhat coherent movie IP charming. Really, really bad and borderline unwatchable, but charming nonetheless. So when I see The Rock announce that “The hierarchy of…Read more...

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Tom Brady is the most accomplished champion in his field. One thing he probably hasn’t won, though, is an argument with his supermodel wife. Prior to the season, Brady retired, which finally gave Gisele a fully-present husband in the fall for the first time since they’ve been married. It’s still not clear whether she…Read more...

The term “must win” is one of the more overused phrases in the sports world. It’s hard to wrap your mind around a game in Week 2 of the NFL season being categorized as such, but with that said, the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders, who meet Sunday in Sin City, find themselves in a difficult situation this week.…Read more...

I guess it’s safe to say that if Sean Payton was the coach of the Miami Dolphins, Tua Tagovailoa would have little to possibly no room for error as a starter.Read more...

For the segment of college football fans who blackout with anger every time Notre Dame makes the College Football Playoff, this season could not have started better. Marcus Freeman’s team came up short against Ohio State and then stumbled trying to get back up against Marshall, and there’s really no conceivable route…Read more...

We never get to say goodbye anymore.Read more...

It’s fair to call Jon Moxley an All Elite Wrestling OG despite his unique path to stardom. He wasn’t at All In, the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes self-promoted show that started as an online bet and ended up the first non-WWE or WCW event to sell more than 10,000 tickets on American soil in 25 years. Maybe more…Read more...

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It’s been a little over a week since 19-year-old chess prodigy Hans Niemann shocked the world at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, taking down the top-rated player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, 31. Here’s a short recap of the fallout:Read more...

Brett Favre getting in hot water over inappropriate texts is nothing new. However, his latest scandal reaches the highest office of the Mississippi executive branch of government.Read more...

Week 1 gave us some surprises, late-game blunders, and heroics we’ve come to expect from the NFL each week. For some teams that captured a Week 1 victory, it was business as usual. But for others, there is still plenty of doubt whether Week 1 is the start of something magical or if they’re faking the funk.

I don’t envy the task that MLB has. I also don’t trust that anyone in charge of it has any sense of the challenge, but that’s another topic for another time. Baseball’s charm will always be rooted in its history and simply the amount of time it has been part of American culture. While pro football may have been around…Read more...

Mark it down now. John Brooks, one of the two Americans in any severity of contention to claim one of the 26 United States men’s national team spots on the plane to Qatar, will be watching the games on a TV screen. Brandon Vazquez, the 23-year-old FC Cincinnati striker with 16 goals this season, won’t make his…Read more...

One of my favorite parts of NFL coverage is no matter how bad you were at your job, you qualify as an expert because some clueless owner made the mistake of hiring you. Imagine if you hired a plumber, he came over and not only didn’t unclog your toilet but clogged the others in the house and was so incompetent you had…Read more...

The Shohei Ohtani love has officially gone off the rails.

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CBS has mostly been a gift to soccer fans. Unlike Turner when it bought the Champions League rights, forgot about it until the day before the tournament started, and then dusted off some closet and called whatever former USMNT members were within an hour’s flight of the studio, CBS has taken its coverage very…Read more...

It was a pretty good week for teams still working their way back to the arbitrary standards that their fans set for them, and the rate at which ranked schools and heavy favorites were going down Saturday, I was a little nervous. I’m not quite sure what this list will look like once all of these teams’ journeys fail to…Read more...

Following Dallas’ opening day massacre at the hands of Tampa Bay, former Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was on Twitter touting how he’d be a good presence in the locker room to get the team’s “attitude” heading in the right direction.Read more...

The San Francisco Giants have been one of the biggest disappointments of 2022. That was expected. We couldn’t expect Brandon Crawford to have another career year at 35 years old. Brandon Belt, Darin Ruf (no longer with the team), and Mike Yastrzemski have all had down seasons. Kevin Gausman is gone, and while his…Read more...

It took almost a year, but the NBA has finally completed its investigation into Robert Sarver and the Phoenix Suns.

The unbearable heat of Qatar pushed the FIFA World Cup out of the summer months for the first time in the tournament’s history. In 2022, the quadrennial footballing soccer showcase won’t crown a new champion before jackets come out of closets across America. The upcoming global event will run from Nov. 20 to Dec. 18,…Read more...

In his NFL head coaching debut, Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett’s pall extended beyond football notoriety. On the same night Quinta Brunson accepted her Emmy for outstanding writing for a comedy series over the still body of Jimmy Kimmel, Hackett played dead during what should have been a defining moment…Read more...

Last night, Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season wrapped up, giving us a sight we didn’t think we’d see all year: The Seattle Seahawks sitting atop the NFC West standings. Geno Smith and company gave Broncos country the business, taking down the heavy favorite by a final of 17-16. The Broncos had several chances to win the…Read more...

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Do you remember the wide receiver carousel of the offseason? Do you remember when star wideouts were being moved like they were 30-year-old NBA players with a salary-matching contract (looking at you Trevor Ariza)? Do you remember when teams elected not to pay their best pass-catchers because they didn’t think they…Read more...

Is Geno Smith back? Or did he finally arrive?

The Broncos might end up being good. Russell Wilson didn’t look terrible, the team fumbled on the brink of the endzone multiple times, and receivers who wiggled open got the ball. For one night though, everyone — mostly Seahawks fans — who rolls their eyes at Russ’ well-manicured public image and dad-joke leadership…Read more...

The Baltimore Ravens lucked out with their Week 1 opponent. They are still recovering from the injury wrecking ball that blasted through their roster last season. Fortunately for them, Lamar Jackson was back in his position as their starting quarterback for the first time since the second quarter of the Ravens’ Dec.…Read more...

It could end up being the pacemaker that saved Chicago, going down in history along with other objects we revere like a lamp next to a cow, disco records, and all the dirt we moved to reverse the flow of the Chicago River to send our shit to St. Louis (where it belongs and they deserve) to name a few. We’re a weird…Read more...

Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season is officially in the books and it’s time to look at the teams that stunk it up. Week 1 gave us plenty of sloppy football to process and some of the teams in this first ranking might surprise you. Then there are the others you probably predicted in the preseason.