Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

You know what? Maybe everyone getting along wasn’t so great after all. When you think about it, there haven’t been any real true, deep-down, openly public, hate-filled coaching rivalries in college for awhile. Jimbo Fisher blew all of that up today in about 11 minutes, between 10:04 and 10:15 a.m. central time. He is…Read more...

As people at all points on the political spectrum believe that America is in a godless state, I would like to share a portion of one of my favorite scriptures from the Christian Bible. I believe that I Thessalonians 4:11 can be shared in a public forum of people with various points of view without pitchforks, stones,…Read more...

Carson Wentz is one of those lucky individuals who’s received chance after chance to prove himself as a starting NFL quarterback. Hall of Famer Troy Aikman even suggests this is likely Wentz’ last opportunity to show the league he’s a franchise QB.Read more...

There was a time where Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore was considered one of the top young shutdown corners in the league. During his rookie season, Pro Football Focus gave Lattimore an 87.7 grade in pass coverage, the highest among rookies that year and the highest of Lattimore’s career. After that incredible…Read more...

Sporting leagues should enact a per game minimum of fun-yet-stupid plays attempts. For the NBA, each squad should be required to take at least 15 30-foot plus jumpers. There should be at least two trick plays per team in NFL games. I don’t know what it is for soccer or hockey. Maybe it’s something along the lines of…Read more...

The NHL’s second round hasn’t gotten off to the most rousing start. The Lightning did that efficiency thing where they play just well enough for just long enough to win, even if it did involve Nikita Kucherov turning Aaron Ekblad into a tetherball set. The Avalanche looked unstoppable, and the Rangers tried and failed…Read more...

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Deshaun Watson can take the entire Browns team to Abu freaking Dhabi for all we care — it’s not going to erase the 22 ongoing sexual misconduct and assault cases that he’s still facing. Whether the announcement that he was treating his new offense to a Bahamas trip was an attempt at garnering an ounce of positive…Read more...

Tom Brady’s love affair with the spotlight will take yet another form come 2023 — Netflix announced yesterday that the recently unretired QB will be the executive producer and first subject of a new series, Greatest Roasts of All Time.

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Year Three will be a make-or-break year in Miami for Tua Tagovailoa. While the former Alabama QB has been decent for the Dolphins, he’s yet to lead them to the postseason. There’s absolutely no reason that shouldn’t change in 2022 with how the team has been restructured to focus more on the offensive side of the ball.

What happened to Tarik Cohen is part of the game. Whatever you might consider the game to be. Whether it’s just professional athletes — especially football players — being more susceptible to bodily injury than those who don’t move at 99 miles per hour aiming for each others’ chests to earn a living, or any person…Read more...

Society has a long history of normalizing domestic violence, especially when an athlete is involved.Read more...

The ability of the sports world to churn on through societal decay is dismaying or courageous depending on how you frame it. Oscillating between the stoicism of the Ukrainian national team playing through an invasion, and Black athletes being asked to perform in front of white people a day after a racially motivated…Read more...

Baseball is wacky nowadays. Just a few nights ago we watched Tampa Bay outfielder Brett Phillips pitch to reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. The very next day, Ohtani was on the mound pitching to Phillips. When was the last time something like that happened? We’ve got a universal DH now. This stuff shouldn’t be happening!

The Sacramento Kings received another undeserved lifeline during Tuesday night’s NBA Draft Lottery in the form of a three-pick bounce from their projected slot at 7th to the 4th overall pick. Cue the PTSD. The 2022 Western Conference Finals is a testament to how badly the Sacramento Kings have bungled their past…Read more...

Today is the first day that the US men and the US women’s soccer teams will earn the same wages for performance on the field. The US women’s team has won four World Cup gold medals and four Olympic medals. In 1930, the US men had their best result in World Cup play, finishing third.Read more...

This is going to sound like a conspiracy theory, but hear me out. If you only put your best players in your lineup, you tend to do well. I know, right! Insane! Call me crazy, but so too did they call Galileo crazy when he said the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe, and look where we are now. Basically, I’m a…Read more...

It’s often stated that pitchers are weird, which helps explain why they tend to wet themselves every time it’s even suggested they need to change their routine. Just watch what happens when MLB tries to put in a pitch clock next season. The streets will run yellow with hurler urine!Read more...

After three years of embarrassing tanking, GM Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder have returned to relevance. They came into the NBA Lottery with the sixth-best odds at the top pick in the 2022 NBA Draft and ended up with the second pick in the draft. The Orlando Magic won the first pick and will have first dibs…Read more...

For most of his career, it was impossible to picture Lionel Messi in any other jersey than the blue and maroon of Barcelona. Nine months into his stay with Paris Saint-Germain, transfer talk for one of the best to ever lace up a pair of boots is surfacing once more, with a report coming out on Tuesday that Messi will…Read more...

The Minnesota Timberwolves were eliminated from the playoffs on April 29, and with that 114-106 loss to Memphis, we thought all aspects of the T-Wolves franchise would be gone until next season. For those of us who enjoy Anthony Edwards putting guys on posters and stupid fouls from Karl Anthony-Towns, it was a mildly…Read more...

This year’s Eastern Conference Finals matchup should be a rough, rugged, defensive series that will most likely come down to game seven. The Heat and Celtics are pretty evenly matched and familiar, having faced off in the ECF just two years ago. This will be the third meeting for the Heat and Celtics in the conference…Read more...

The second round of the playoffs worked, in part, the way that the NHL dreamed up when it went to this postseason format of divisional brackets. You can question the wisdom of it happening in the second round, but we’re getting the Battle of Alberta and the Battle of Florida now.Read more...

Before the 2021 NFL season started, before the preseason started, before team minicamps started, from the moment Ja’Marr Chase was drafted, people were calling him a bust. I’m not some saint in this situation either. I wholeheartedly believed that the Bengals should’ve selected Penei Sewell with the fifth overall…Read more...

Brace yourselves — we’ve got an automatic addition to the college football all-name team coming to Oklahoma from Tyler Junior College. Joining the ranks of Nebraska’s DeColdest “ToEvaDoIt” Crawford and Alabama’s Kool-Aid McKinstry, the Sooners throw their hat into the ring with sophomore quarterback transfer General…Read more...

I think it’s fair to say that Dallas isn’t going to get the press that Boston has been getting since about a month into its second-half turnaround. Jayson Tatum has been unbelievable, which is new for him because he’s lacked the consistency that’s demanded of great players. What Luka Dončić is doing offensively isn’t…Read more...

Sasha Banks and Naomi took their ball and went home. This is far from a work or part of WWE’s scripted episodic weekly television programming. Two of Vince McMahon’s most talented female performers walked out of Scope Arena in Norfolk, Va., and didn’t return despite being booked in last evening’s original main-event…Read more...

Despite Phil Mickelson sticking his foot so far down his throat it almost came out the other end, LIV (read: Saudi-backed league) golf continues to press forward with their plan of an eight-event series that begins this June in London and includes five tournaments in America. The only problem? Mickelson and Greg NormanRead more...

Ever since the Seattle Seahawks traded Russell Wilson, they feel like a team that’s lacked direction, especially in the quarterback department. Although the Seahawks seem hell-bent on rocking with Drew Lock under center in 2022, NBC Sports’ Peter King says Drew Brees would be a good fit in Seattle should he actually…Read more...

This is yet another distasteful side effect of the NHL’s salary cap. Fans and observers of a certain team, especially a successful one, have to start judging just how much sand is left in the hourglass. They have to weigh the age of the best players, salaries of those players, when contracts run out, how much money…Read more...

If the success of Boston’s Ime Udoka and New Orleans’ Willie Green has taught NBA ownership anything, when it comes to hiring coaches, it should be out with the old, in with the new. These two rising coaching stars stepped into dysfunctional messes, with Udoka trying to bring together a team that was fractured under…Read more...

Having a mascot/nickname that’s intimidating is essential in sports. There’s a reason why teams are never called the “librarians” or the “kittens.” And ever since Miami Football introduced the turnover chain a few years ago, we’ve seen multiple teams replicate the gimmick. But, every now and then, somebody takes it…Read more...

That was quite an exhilarating second round of NBA Playoff action… until it wasn’t.Read more...

There are one or two players who make the leap toward legitimate superstar status every playoffs. This year it was Jason Tatum and Ja Morant. To those who have been watching, Luka Dončić was finally given the opportunity to show what he could do in the second round, which is much of the same domination he’s leveled…Read more...

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There was a baseball game on the Northside of Chicago last night. I didn’t watch it. I haven’t watched any of them. But Twitter tends to tell me if there’s anything that happens of note with the Cubs. I can’t say I’m not informed. I just don’t have to watch Marquee Network’s high school AV Club level production to get…Read more...

Patrick Beverley sure didn’t waste any time jumping on the Chris Paul slander wagon following Phoenix’ Game 7 loss to Dallas. Pat Bev was up bright and early on ESPN, throwing jab after jab after jab at long-time rival CP3. Nowadays, it feels like we hear the phrase, “keep it real,” far too often, but Beverley did…Read more...

Over the weekend, Jameis Winston’s commentary about realizing his passion “wasn’t football,” it was “playing football” seems to have resonated with Drew Brees. It was also more interesting than anything he’s ever said in the public sphere. Brees is going through a pseudo-mid-life crisis exacerbated by career changes…Read more...

As of March, it has been 25 years since I had my introduction to society. My ninth birthday was in my sights, as was the end of the school year. Springtime in Chicagoland may not always bring sunshine and flowers, but it does come with promise. The occasional 60-70 degree day gives just enough hope that the dirty snow…Read more...

Wow. Freaking wow.Read more...

Sports only serve as an escape from society if you’re white.

Much like the Canadiens-Leafs series last year, this is why the NHL rejiggered its playoff system nearly a decade ago. To get things like the Edmonton Oilers vs. the Calgary Flames in the playoffs. OK, Gary Bettman’s NHL was only really concerned with getting Penguins-Capitals as often as possible and never really…Read more...

Last week, the NBA presented and christened its Eastern Conference Finals Trophy after Larry Bird. It was a well-deserved honor for an old Hick from French Lick, who helped pave the NBA’s Gilded Age. However, King James should be the most revered monarch over the East. LeBron was the Eastern Conference rep in the NBA…Read more...

When it comes to truly historic pants-shittings, they generally get to be known simply by the name of the place they took place. Say “Belo Horizonte” to any fan with even a reasonable amount of soccer knowledge, and they’ll know it was Germany 7-1 Brazil. Except that was a deeply flawed Brazil team that was lucky to…Read more...

After rushing for 16,000 yards in the NFL, Frank Gore is entering the next phase of his career as a professional athlete and stepping into the boxing ring. On Saturday, Gore had his first pro boxing match on his 39th birthday against Yaya Olorunsola in Biloxi, Miss., for Gamebred Boxing. Gore took the bout furiously,…Read more...

Playoff Draymond Green showed up in Game 6 against the Memphis Grizzlies. Then, the Golden State Warriors forward took a break from basking in the glow of his 14 point, 15-rebound, eight-assist performance to address ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins’ comments about his 24 combined points in the first five games of the…Read more...

The Milwaukee Bucks did not have enough to finish off the Boston Celtics in Game 6 at home on Friday. Just like in the Bucks’ win on Wednesday night in Boston, they were down double digits going into the fourth quarter after a third-quarter Celtics run. The Celtics would extend the lead early in the fourth, but this…Read more...

Ezekiel Elliott had one of the best starts to his NFL career of any Cowboys player in recent memory. As good as Elliott was during his rookie season in 2016, his production has declined every year since. Many fans in Dallas, including owner Jerry Jones, continue to hold out hope of a return to the Zeke of old.