Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

If Mike Tomlin were white, he’d be on the Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches and it wouldn’t be debatable.

If ever there was an organization that embodied “one step forward, slip in your own vomit and fall back,” it’s U.S. Soccer as it can’t ever seem to keep everything flowing smoothly at the same time.

The Australian Open might have given the controversial OK to unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic, but the Victorian State Government in Australia has not proved quite as accommodating.Read more...

You had a feeling when it was announced hours before Sunday’s Day 1 PPV premium live event that Roman Reigns had tested positive for COVID, and that Brock Lesnar was going to be moved to the Raw title match, what would happen. That feeling only grew when then-champion Big E delivered his backstage promo, and if you…Read more...

Jim Harbaugh’s tenure at Michigan is done.

You might not have realized that the NFL MVP debate might get annoying in the same fashion as the Baseball Hall of Fame ones do. I know, just when you thought you could find an escape.

There are a bunch of caveats I could throw at Cale Makar’s goal in OT against the ’Hawks to give the Avs a 4-3 win. I’ve never been a fan of 3-on-3 overtime, as it’s a forced gimmick. It’s an artificial stage meant to generate highlights like this without the usual context. Makar wouldn’t have had this kind of space…Read more...

Imagine you’re taking part in an annual contest at your workplace to determine the finalists for a coveted prize. Everybody wants this prize. People have cheated, backstabbed, and played dirty in the past in order to win this prize. It’s that great. As the time period for determining who the finalists will be closes…Read more...

The Dallas Mavericks aren’t wasting any more time. They will honor the GOAT of their franchise on Wednesday when they hang Dirk Nowitzki’s No. 41 jersey in the rafters of the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

What a three-game stretch for the fifth-leading scorer in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan. Mr. Anti-analytics has been letting his mid-range shot fly all season, propelling him to a scoring average of 26.9 points per game. With 28 points and six assists on Monday DeRozan was the Chicago Bulls’ leader in points and assists as…Read more...

Yet again, the major sports set out to prove that the rules don’t apply to the moneymakers — even when the rules are in the interest of public health and ending an ongoing pandemic. Twenty-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic will be allowed to play in the Australian Open after receiving a medical exemption from the…Read more...

More than half of the NFL remains in playoff contention heading into the final week of the season. That includes teams like the Packers, who have clinched home-field advantage throughout the postseason, and it includes teams like the Raiders and Chargers, who play each other but can both get into the playoffs if they…Read more...

It took some years but the Washington Football Team is finally going to have a name that is neither a racial slur nor the name a middle schooler would choose in create-a-franchise mode, if forced by parents to play Madden instead of Grand Theft Auto. Washington announced today that on Feb. 2 its new name and logo will…Read more...

Russell Westbrook had another stinker Sunday against the Timberwolves, although the Lakers won, 108-103. Westbrook nearly had a double-double with points and turnovers in this game. Russ scored 20 but had nine turnovers in the process with only five assists. After the game, Westbrook clapped back at the notion of the…Read more...

There was a time in my life when nothing was as exciting as the start of the NFL season, the Bears season, here in Chicagoland.

Between the transfer portal, NIL, and the evolution of athletes realizing that they’re the most important aspect of sports – which is a business – it’s starting to become quite clear where people stand on this issue. There’s no question where Kirk Herbstreit’s loyalty lies – and isn’t with the players.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars. Though apparently if you’re covering the Edmonton Oilers or a fan of them, that’s the going theme. Perhaps after years and years of the same problem, Oilers observers are just tired of complaining about the same things, so they’re looking for things that aren’t there…Read more...

It’s easy to just want to blame this all on Antonio Brown.

Most would honestly prefer it if ESPN, and other outlets that broadcast sports, not even attempt to provide any semblance of balance to their coverage of players or teams or individuals who have anything resembling a checkered past. Just be the megaphone for the league you’re in bed with, because we know you are…Read more...

The thing about work stoppages in sports, and really anywhere involving a very well-known company, is that P.R. is a part of it. Rob Manfred is, somehow, the first commissioner to get most of the public to back the players’ side, as he did during the pandemic when the owners and players were trying to figure out what…Read more...

It’s Week 17 of the NFL season, and our rookie quarterbacks have just about made it through the year, with only a couple of whom living up to the hype. Now let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 17.

Antonio Brown needs help. But we know that in the same we know how good he is at football. This season, we found out that Aaron Rodgers is a “critical thinker” that believes he’s the smartest person in every room. He’s also extremely good.

Call me naive, an optimist.

Would ya look at that. No bye weeks, the first Sunday of the season in which every game not on Monday Night Football is played on Sunday, and we get an entertaining week of football.

Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. The end of the NFL season is near, and we know all the cellar dwellers at this point and who will be slotted one and two in April’s NFL Draft. So, let’s check out the worst of the worst from Week 17.

A postseason is not an exhibition, it’s a tournament to declare a champion — except in major college sports. Men’s college basketball has the NIT, and college football there’s bowl season. Both were more prestigious decades ago, but at least no one is harping about the sanctity of the NIT anymore. College football’s…Read more...

Something rather odd occurred during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-New York Jets game, where Antonio Brown pulled off his jersey and shoulder pads in the third quarter and threw up the peace sign as he walked toward the locker room.

Stephen Curry and the Warriors were at it again on New Year’s day, taking down Donovan Mitchell and the Jazz, 123-116. In the process of showing Utah they aren’t quite on Golden State’s level, Curry set another 3-pt record by making a three in his 158th consecutive game. Curry set the record initially back in November…Read more...

As it’s always been (and sometimes it feels always will be) that the one big hole on the US Men’s international team is the one up top, a central striker. You never want to be in a place where you’re wondering if there’s any way to make Jozy Altidore 10 years younger. It’s Jozy Altidore, after all. But such were the…Read more...

Happy New Year, though sadly, that means we’re winding down on the football calendar, entering the penultimate week of the campaign. Let’s make the most of it while we still have regular season football.

Changing the World Cup to a biennial event is an awful idea. That’s not the most groundbreaking statement, but I wanted to put it bluntly because that’s the point I want you to remember from the rest of this. And if FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to be believed, and the move has a majority backing, it could go…Read more...

Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”Read more...

The 2022 MLB Hall of Fame class will be announced on January 25, 2022, and this year’s ballot is like a potato skin at T.G.I. Friday’s...loaded to all hell. We got storylines galore with all-time greats like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens; legendary newcomers with people like David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez; others with…Read more...

As 2021 comes to a close, we’re granted the opportunity to look back fondly (or not so fondly) on all the insane things that happened in sports this year, from the athlete anti-vax movement to the entire Urban Meyer saga, from the NHL’s near-constant blunders to the NCAA’s unprecedented coaching carousel and the…Read more...

Bishop Sycamore, for getting itself broadcast on ESPN despite being a fake school and not winning a game in two yearsRead more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10:Read more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:Read more...

It’s a shame that Magic Johnson wants no part of this new HBO series about the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s. The trailer for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, was released in early December, and the series will debut on HBO Max in March 2022.

The top matchup of the week features the Dallas Cowboys (11-4) and Arizona Cardinals (10-5) will clash at AT&T Stadium on Sunday. While the Cowboys are still in the hunt for the No. 1 seed in the NFC, the Cardinals, on the other hand, are looking for help in capturing the NFC West title.

Happy New Years’ Eve everybody! I hope you’re getting ready to kiss 2021 goodbye and good riddance, but before we celebrate another revolution around the sun and kick off 2022, I want to take one last look at some cool moments from the past 365 days.

Well, there it was in all its glory. The much-anticipated mess of viscous white goop rained down upon the cap of South Carolina’s head coach, Shane Beamer, following his victory over North Carolina in what commentators called “the highest stakes bowl game outside of the college football playoff.” That is, of course,…Read more...

Remember, LeBron James is not a pure scorer, so we’ve been told since his high school days. What was supposed to make his game special was his once-in-a-generation athleticism to go along with his Magic Johnson-like court vision. James dunking on the world and launching passes from one side of the court to the other…Read more...

Jerry Jones must be snoozing during Cowboys games if he seriously views Mike McCarthy as the “difference-maker”Read more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:Read more...

This is my last Mourning After of 2021, and in some ways it feels like the first. Not that we’ve been running in place, so much as we sprinted around the track and ended up back where we started. Which is how Jerry Seinfeld described horse racing, I guess. “We were just here! What was the rush?!”Read more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:Read more...

When you think of video games and sports, you think of John Madden. (Thank god this is written, and I don’t have to try to do the voice.) The first sports video game I ever played was Madden NFL 92 when I was 6, and even though it’s not my preferred game anymore, there’s no doubt it’s still the de facto sports video…Read more...

John Lynch really tried to explain away his Twitter gaffe by claiming that he was in church. On Christmas Eve, the day following Jimmy Garoppolo’s two interception performance in the San Francisco 49ers Week 16 loss to the Tennessee Titans, Lynch liked a tweet that had tagged him. It was from @40tee9er, an account…Read more...

I realize that I’m biased, being one of the louder and more consistent “Cody Sucks!” voices around. But if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s the idea that we just have to wait around and bow to the booking of major wrestling companies, and accept that they will all eventually come good and make sense. It’s the WWE…Read more...