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I see what you’re doing Nick Saban. You knew that you were going to have two players selected top five in the NFL Draft, and you were not about to let that recruiting opportunity go to waste. It was time to remind the world who the true boss is in college football.

Welcome to the Deadspin 2023 NFL Draft tracker. If you love the NFL, but hate sitting through the NFL Draft, you’ve come to the right place. Maybe you’re out playing pickleball, or you can’t stand Roger Goodell, or the annual traditions of super-cringey interviews with players and family put you off.Read more...

Draft stock is as volatile as any investment traded online. In the past few years, Reddit has been surprisingly instrumental in socially engineering artificial increases in the stock of both. The reliability is iffy, but that hasn’t stopped gamblers working sportsbooks from going all in based on a post over at…Read more...

Welcome to the Deadspin 2023 NFL Draft tracker. If you love the NFL, but hate sitting through the NFL Draft, you’ve come to the right place. Maybe you’re out playing pickleball, or you can’t stand Roger Goodell, or the annual traditions of super-cringey interviews with players and family put you off.Read more...

After months of back and forth, the Ravens finally paid their man, signing star quarterback Lamar Jackson to a reported five-year, $260 million contract extension. The deal makes the former MVP the highest-paid player in league history, eclipsing Jalen Hurts’ new deal with the Eagles. Josina Anderson is reporting…Read more...

Any team lacking a true QB1 that is picking No. 15 or lower in the 2023 NFL Draft needs to take a long look at former Tennessee Volunteers signal-caller Hendon Hooker. He has his flaws, but on the field, they are no worse than any of the top quarterback prospects. His are just different. Hooker has ideal size,…Read more...

Jimmy Butler is the validation I needed that NBA playoff basketball is America’s fifth major professional sports league among the “Big Four.” From the pace to the way games are scheduled as a series to the effort, it’s almost a parallel Association. Golden State has been historically bad on the road —until their…Read more...

There’s nothing worse than waking up after a long night of being a hot mess, knowing the “Are you alive?” texts from friends are going to start rolling in as soon as they wake up. You just want to bury yourself in the sheets and sleep through the whole ordeal. However, if you’re the Cleveland Cavaliers, you’re in luck…Read more...

The NFL Draft has arrived, and because of that, the rumor mill around the league is working overtime. Now that Aaron Rodgers is officially a New York Jet, the biggest storyline to pay attention to is the contract situation with Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens. Jackson is sticking to his guns about wanting over…Read more...

The Miami Heat became the NBA’s sixth No. 8 seed to topple their conference’s top seed in the playoffs after beating Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Thursday night will be one of those evenings when sports fans show their appreciation for the inventor of the “previous channel” button. Round One of the 2023 NFL Draft will be on ABC, while Game 6 of the First Round matchup between the No. 2 Boston Celtics and the No. 7 Atlanta Hawks (Boston leads 3-2) will be on…Read more...

My brother had a college friend who had an overarching theory of Led Zeppelin. This isn’t much of a surprise, as I assume college students for some 40 years all had their own theory of Led Zeppelin. I remember telling a friend that I had to have a serious talk with him, made it sound really grave, the subject of which…Read more...

The Chicago Bears failed in the most ideal way possible last season. They finished with the worst record in the NFL, and still found a way to unleash breathtaking athleticism from Justin Fields.Read more...

I won’t pretend to be any kind of basketball expert, and my brethren here will spend the day breaking down the Milwaukee Bucks coughing up a curd-ridden hairball in the first round to the Miami Heat. But I know a deer caught in headlights look when I see one, and Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer spent all of Game 5 with…Read more...

The Boston Red Sox are going to have to have a sale at the MLB trade deadline, which could include a pitcher (Chris) with that surname.

The NFL Draft has finally arrived, and each year, we can always expect the unexpected once it rolls around. Most years, we see trades of all kinds, some of which have changed teams for the better, and others for the worse. We never know when it will happen, but each year brings many surprises that can’t be accounted…Read more...

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The NBA Western Conference playoffs have been competitive to a point. The games themselves are good yet it looks like we’re only going to get one, maybe two Game 6s. The Los Angeles Clippers and Minnesota Timberwolves got bounced Tuesday, and as valiant as they fought — injuries or self-inflicted wounds be damned — it…Read more...

“If he’s a good hitter how come he doesn’t hit good?”Read more...

Being escorted through the New York Jets practice complex, newly anointed quarterback Aaron Rodgers couldn’t help, but notice the solitary Super Bowl III trophy preserved since Namath’s guarantee 54 years ago.Read more...

There aren’t a lot of NFL Draft takes left in this burlap sack I call a brain, so my apologies if this is recycled, but is Daniel Jones deserving of a No. 1 wide receiver? The New York Giants quarterback got paid this offseason, and now Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are stuck — err, excuse me — have the privilege of…Read more...

The 2023 NFL Draft is just a day away and, per the norm, the quarterbacks in the class are the main talking point. The hope for the quarterback-needy teams in the NFL is that they can land one of the top guys in the draft and lock in a franchise cornerstone for the next half-decade, at the very least. But with four…Read more...

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the 1983 NFL Draft, which produced eight Hall of Famers at six different positions. These players ended up winning a combined seven Super Bowls and shit ton of awards.

Just imagine the heartwarming scene, the one fans have been clamoring for. It’s 2 in the afternoon, U.S. time, as thousands of miles away Cody Rhodes caresses the belt that was introduced to WWE a month prior, at a show drenched in blood money that has an incredible wrestling history of…Goldberg nearly killing an aged…Read more...

In the months leading up to the NCAA Tournament, the conversation around Alabama’s men’s basketball team was less about how good they were, and more about the drama they were involved in off the court. And while some have forgotten about the tragic death of Jamea Jonae Harris and what her friends and family are still…Read more...

The Atlanta Hawks Game 5 escapade in Boston has forced the delay of a Janet Jackson concert that was supposed to take place at State Farm Arena on Thursday night.Read more...

With one day left from Day One of the NFL Draft, folks are either speculating about what teams will do, making stuff up to look cool on Twitter, or watching the clock until the event begins in Kansas City. So of course, the Detroit Lions had to make headlines again — this time about a potential draft selection.Read more...

As you get older, all you really ask of sports is to keep you entertained and to provide something interesting to talk about from time to time. You want good teams playing a lively style, and you want them playing another team with perhaps a good story and some verve to them. At the very least, you want to watch games…Read more...

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Aaron Rodgers is with the New York Jets. Thank goodness it finally happened. The anticipation was annoying, and resulted in me gaining more knowledge of Rodgers’ personal life than I cared to have.Read more...

The World Cup is always a measure of health and a team’s ability to deal with it. It comes at the end of a long season — unless you’ve fisted it into a desert, totalitarian country that makes you have it in the middle of the season — and players have logged the most possible miles before they play in the biggest…Read more...

The SEC is threatening extreme punishment for fanbases who rush the field or court after big home wins. Two of the potential repercussions are an immediate forfeiture of the win that’s being celebrated, or ceding the rights to the winner’s next home game between the two teams. So LSU’s win over Alabama in Baton Rouge…Read more...

Jimmy Butler had a memorable Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday, dropping 56 points in a 119-114 victory over the No. 1 seed.Read more...

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Entering the playoffs, Milwaukee was seen as head and shoulders above the rest of the Eastern Conference despite dealing with injuries to key players all season. Someone forgot to pass that memo to the Miami Heat, who have come out the gates smoking hot and now have a 3-1 lead over the Bucks.Read more...

Hockey looking back on its history is not usually a good thing. The game is better now, it’s faster now, there is more skill than ever before, and the sport is better off now that it’s moved out of its bar brawl past, even if Flyers fans still base their entire existence on thinking that’s how the game still works.Read more...

If I were to ask the casual NFL fan for an over/under for the number of mock drafts penned regarding the 2023 iteration starting Thursday, I don’t think anyone comes within 10,000 of the actual number. Maybe a staunch cynic gleans what the question is implying and throws out an obscene number, but that’s about it…Read more...

It was a 30 and over night on Monday during the NBA Playoffs. For those who didn’t burn “Many Men” onto a blank CD, and dance with a crush to “Into You,” the night wasn’t for you. The evening began on Biscayne Bay in Miami with 33-year-old Jimmy Butler dropping 56 points on the Milwaukee Bucks. It ended in LA Live…Read more...

At a time in which it appears that Major League Baseball is seemingly doing all it can to keep African-Americans from being on Big League rosters, a group in Salt Lake, Utah is throwing its hat in the ring to land a franchise in the coming years. Remember this the next time MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred mentions…Read more...

Monday night’s pandemonium was indicative of the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler era. Grinding and persevering have defined the Heat for the last four seasons. When the odds are against him, Jimmy Buckets rises to the top of the food chain, but Game 4 was the capstone in his postseason cap. In the pantheon of postseason…Read more...

We here on the shores of Lake Michigan have been eating it from our neighbors to the north, the Green Bay Packers, for 25 years or so. When it goes on that long, you really stop dreaming of revenge or the tables ever turning your way, and certainly of things evening out. But there’s always a faint ember or two. You…Read more...

Thank goodness this game of “hard to get” has finally come to its conclusion, and along with it one less reason for Aaron Rodgers to appear on my timeline. The deal has been completed between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets.

The NBA playoffs are a months-long meat grinder that consumes tired NBA bodies and spits out the bones of all but one champion. Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Ja Morant have all missed significant time in the postseason nursing injuries. The playoff meat grinder may have dealt a fatal blow to the…Read more...

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I’m not always one to agree with ESPN analyst and former NBA hooper Jay Williams, but he was on point in his comments regarding Julius Randle on Monday morning. Williams went off Monday during a segment of Keyshawn, Jay, and Max, where he pointed out how Randle ducked the media following the Knicks’ Game 4 win over…Read more...

My favorite part of the NBA playoffs is certainly not riding the highs and lows of the Jimmy Butler experience. As great as he plays two-three games per series, he’s better as an antagonist that a great team has to overcome. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best player in the NBA, and with him returning to the floor, the …Read more...

Anthony Richardson should be off the board in a blur whether he goes number one to the Carolina Panthers, third to whoever trades up with Arizona, or fourth to the Colts. However, the Seahawks drafting Richardson as the anchor of their budding offensive track team is the best fit.Read more...

The first round of the NBA playoffs usually isn’t all that good, which doesn’t stop people from complaining about it. The difference between the top seeds and lower seeds is large enough that those series should result in nothing more than dress rehearsals for the true powers and the later rounds. Which is what we’ve…Read more...