Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

If you’re like me, looking for anything football-related to fill the void that the end of the NFL season left in your soul, then you were probably jumping for joy when the USFL revealed their uniforms for their first season since 1985.Read more...

I tried. I tried to focus on the competitions and athletes at the Olympics instead of wallowing in the politics, conditions, and COVID of it all. No longer. I can’t take it anymore. The men’s skiing halfpipe final was more scary to watch than it was fun because gale-force winds (probably an exaggeration) toned down…Read more...

Brian Flores’ time in the NFL isn’t up yet. After suing the league for racial discrimination in a class action lawsuit earlier this month following his firing from the Miami Dolphins and an alleged sham interview with the New York Giants, Flores has been hired as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ senior defensive assistant and…Read more...

So what’s all this about Brady coming back?Read more...

Get ready for more of the gridiron rotation of Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Clemson and occasionally others. College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock announced Friday that the CFP will stay at its current four-team format through the end of the 2025, when its current 12-year contract also expires.…Read more...

Mason Marchment had his first career hat trick Friday night, leading the Florida Panthers to a 6-2 rout of the Minnesota Wild in a game that could be a Stanley Cup Final preview.

The National Basketball Association has had some great players step onto the court in its 75-year history. Some outstanding players have been left off the All-Star team each season in the NBA. Many of these names get snubbed year after year, and others made their names off big moments but probably should have been…Read more...

What a farce the International Olympic Committee has made of the Games this year. By not installing real sanctions against Russia for institutionalizing a surreptitious doping program in Sochi, and by not barring an athlete who tested positive for a banned substance, we were witness to the oddest of Olympic spectacles…Read more...

The scene after the end of the women’s free skate was hard to watch Thursday — tears, screaming, and heartbreak pouring from the Russian athletes expected to sweep the podium, their Olympic experience destroyed by a doping scandal involving the country’s 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva.Read more...

The amount of money made off college athletes in this country is insane.Read more...

Lia Thomas, the Penn swimmer whose teammates tried to get her banned from competition because she’s trans, turned in a dominant swim at the Ivy League championships Thursday. Her performance, along with that of Yale’s Iszac Henig, sparked coverage by the Daily Mail, and writer Alex Hammer provided a master class on…Read more...

It feels strange to say this, but it’s hard to get too into baseball’s labor negotiations right now, to try to read the tea leaves of a 15-minute meeting on Thursday, who might be willing to budge on which issues, any of it.Read more...

Phil Mickelson will stop at nothing to spite the PGA Tour — not even willingly joining up with the Saudis’ new golf league while simultaneously acknowledging their human rights abuses.

Nearly three years after Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in his Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019, a jury found former team executive Eric Kay guilty of distributing fentanyl-laced narcotics and causing the death of the 27-year-old.Read more...

The ability to come away victorious in close games is a great way to determine a team’s championship viability. The final five minutes of a close is when we get to see each team’s talent and coaching at the forefront. It’s when we get our best approximation of a team’s ceiling, and by golly, the Phoenix Suns are…Read more...

I know he had an amazing, arguably perfect year, but let’s chill out on the talk of Cooper Kupp being the greatest receiver in the game.Read more...

When I’m left sifting through the rubble, struggling to find any remnant of hope in the disaster that has befallen me, I try to remember advice my father never stops giving me: “You can’t control the things that happen to you, but you can control how you react to them.”Read more...

I know, I know — college football is far from our collective minds at the moment, what with Super Bowl Sunday this past week and March Madness fast approaching. But the best kind of drama is CFB drama, and the best kind of CFB drama is Group of 5 drama.Read more...

Matthew Stafford’s awareness might’ve not been at an all-time high during the Rams’ Super Bowl parade on Wednesday. He was captured chugging a bottle of Don Julio 1942 Tequila with a can of 805 Beer in his other hand. That’s the only reasoning for an incredibly poor choice that took place later in the festivities, as…Read more...

Guilty people tend to do guilty things. The simple-minded do dumb stuff, like returning to the scene of the crime. The smarter ones will appoint someone from their accuser’s group to defend them. The NFL does a lot of stupid things, but they’ve never been dumb. Hiring Loretta Lynch as counsel is proof of that, and…Read more...

Giannis Antetokounmpo has been playing at an MVP level for so long the media stopped giving him the award. It’s a level that very few players have reached. Depending on their side of the argument, people lament that Michael Jordan and/or LeBron James should have considerably more MVP trophies because they were the…Read more...

Talk your shit, Natalie Spooner.Read more...

Apparently, it’s possible to play poker, bet big on a hand, fold, and win anyway. At least, it’s possible if you’re Jim Harbaugh.

Three years ago, Tyler Skaggs’ death rocked Major League Baseball. Yet, the trial of Eric Kay, the Los Angeles Angels’ ex-Communications Director who allegedly sold Skaggs the opioid he OD’d on, has taken place on the fringes of the sports media sphere. Kay is facing felony charges of distributing opioids and causing…Read more...

Earlier today, ESPN reported that they had uncovered documents revealing that an upper executive in the Dallas Cowboys organization — described by some as an extended member of the Jones family — was accused of voyeurism by four Cowboys cheerleaders in 2015.Read more...

Kylian Mbappé is only 23, but his plunge into the world soccer scene keeps growing. The French dynamo, playing for his home country’s most successful club over the last dozen years, Paris Saint-Germain, as well as being an integral member of France’s national team, keeps scoring critical goals. Two in the last week…Read more...

The Lakers have been on the struggle bus all season long. Now the idea of the team trading Anthony Davis has been broached, and it might make more sense than people think. Stephen A. Smith talked about this on First Take and made some valid points.Read more...

The second the Rams’ Super Bowl win over the Bengals was final on Sunday, the narrative about Matthew Stafford’s Hall of Fame candidacy took off and hasn’t slowed down since.

Watching the Rams walk a tightrope without a net this season was exhilarating. They traded two first round picks for Matthew Stafford, and people who hated the deal were a Tom Brady comeback away from laughing at Stan Kroenke and Los Angeles for being so frivolous with their assets. (I would’ve been one of those peopleRead more...

No one has mastered the art of talking without saying anything like coaches. It’s called “coach speak.” Deion Sanders, however, is his own man. Instead of saying as little as possible, he always seems to find a way to say too much — even when it contradicts things he’s said in the past.Read more...

Are you a college student? Are you bored with constantly dominating your intramural games? Are you willing to transfer to a school in Indiana? If so, I have some interesting news for you.

In a Super Bowl aftermath filled with narratives from OBJ’s unlikely comeback, to Eric Weddle going back into retirement, to discussions of whether Joe Burrow would be back, there’s been one wholesome moment that has captured the attention of football fans throughout the country — the story of Van Jefferson’s wife…Read more...

Hours before Coach K’s dizzy spell sent him to the locker room in Duke’s win over Wake Forest, excerpts from Ian O’Connor’s upcoming book, Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski” detailed a brief power struggle within Duke last year over Coach K’s plans to name his replacement. O’Connor’s insider book claims…Read more...

Sidney Crosby scored his 500th career goal on Tuesday night, and of course he did because the Penguins were playing the Flyers and exactly 10 percent of Crosby’s career goals have come in the Battle of Pennsylvania.

Every year in the NBA, there’s at least one highly sought-after role player traded away at the deadline that has no intention of suiting up for their new team. And many times, that feeling is mutual. This year that guy is Goran Dragić. He was traded from the Toronto Raptors to the San Antonio Spurs, and the word…Read more...

So, about those Miracle on Ice comparisons for the United States men’s hockey team in Beijing…

So, apparently, James Harden didn’t pick and choose his trade destination in the deal that sent him to the Brooklyn Nets last January. If you’d asked most people, including those in the media, about how that trade went down, most would undoubtedly have told you that Harden chose to play with old OKC buddy Kevin Durant…Read more...

Cody and Brandi Rhodes must be insane, right? The couple integral to the founding of All Elite Wrestling, with a strong family heritage inside the squared circle, has left the upstart promotion they helped lay brick and tile for and could head back to their former employer, World Wrestling Entertainment, per multiple…Read more...

Though it’s an absolute classic, Stephen Ross is probably not going to be able to effectively use a “Sike! Gotcha!” to get out of this one.Read more...

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred claimed that while MLB and the MLBPA were far removed from an agreement on several key topics, one topic everyone supposedly agreed on was that minor leaguers were not paid well enough.Read more...

Neil Young gets credit for the line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” but Kurt Cobain made it infamous. That dichotomy stuck with me, and it’s impossible not to see it in sports.

Draymond Green hasn’t been on the court for the Golden State Warriors since their Jan. 5 loss (aside from the opening tip when Klay Thompson returned) to the Dallas Mavericks. In Green’s absence, the Warriors are 13-8, but in watching the team, it’s clear to see just how important Draymond is to the overall…Read more...

Unsurprisingly, Emmanuel Acho doesn’t have anything to say.Read more...

Chis Paul is the NBA’s Copernicus. He needs to be the offensive axis, and his arrival placed the Suns near the center of the NBA galaxy. The Western Conference’s heliocentric age began, and we didn’t even know it because everyone has been so eager to babble about the Lakers, Nets, Sixers, and Warriors.Read more...

LeBron James has no shame.Read more...

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You would think that after watching Rafael Nadal become the first player to reach 21 grand slam wins, Novak Djokovic would have gained some sort of perspective, knowing that he himself had cost himself the chance to be the first one to do it, which he’ll never have again. That maybe, just maybe, he would see the error…Read more...

The Los Angeles Rams are world champions after defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in Super Bowl LVI Sunday night. Matthew Stafford and the Rams’ passing attack put on quite the show, but the same cannot be said for their running game. LA finished with one of the worst total rushing performances in Super Bowl…Read more...

It wouldn’t be a proper Winter Olympics without a figure skating melodrama. It’s earned a reputation as the Olympics’ closest equivalent to soap opera. In 2002, a judge cheating scandal led to a reform of the entire scoring system. Tonya Harding’s sabotage of Nancy Kerrigan before the ‘92 Olympics and the Chinese…Read more...