Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

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...

James Harden has just strong-armed his way out of his second team in two years. What’s weird is that he was in two completely different situations.Read more...

Ahead of yesterday’s Super Bowl, rumors began to swirl online that the NFL tried to censor halftime headliner Dr. Dre, pressuring him not to use the line “still not loving the police” from his 1999 hit Still D.R.E..

Over the first two months of the NFL season, it looked like Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals would have the inside track to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. We know that didn’t come to fruition, and the second half of the year was pretty much a disaster for the Cardinals, based on how strongly they started…Read more...

The Premier League might not have much of a title race at the moment (a lot is going to have go right for Liverpool and a lot wrong for City to change that), but it’s relegation fight will be, to quote Jim Ross, “A Saturday night on payday weekend in Muskogee.”

It started in what looks like an airplane hangar in the bowels of the Los Angeles Convention Center. There are tables, desks, some lonely coolers, and a section of booths off to the right. That’s where the media picks up their credentials for Super Bowl week. It’s a bit more of a process than normal — as far as I…Read more...

Offensive highlights litter every catalog of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history, and even fewer of those great plays involve lumbering defensive linemen. A two-yard loss isn’t as exciting as a 25-yard scoring throw or a running back trampling an entire defense. But when the story of Super Bowl LVI is retold,…Read more...

I know you probably read the headline and thumbed your way to Twitter already to mock me for my recency bias, but I don’t think it’s that far-fetched anymore. Stafford has always been one of the most statistically-gifted quarterbacks in the NFL. However, the knock against him was always his inability to win. Now, in…Read more...

Not many outside of Southern Ohio have seen a year No. 3 from Joe Burrow as a starting quarterback. He never started a game in his three seasons at Ohio State and had two superb years at LSU. His second year taking the mantle of the Cincinnati Bengals ended with a 23-20 loss in Super Bowl LVI to the Rams. Now seven…Read more...

I used to be fine with Cris Collinsworth. I didn’t think he was God’s gift to analysis or anything. But he showed just enough passion to be lively without being cloying. He didn’t really sound like he was trying to do a Madden impression. And he showed just enough under the surface to be interesting. He didn’t just…Read more...

Raheem Morris got a bonus, but he won’t be getting a promotion.

It feels like tweens put more effort into their TikToks than ad agencies put man hours into Super Bowl ads. Feature a celebrity endorsement — or six — into a commercial and we’re good, right? Don Draper called Peggy Olsen lazy for pitching a Joe Namath cameo in the ’60s, and here we are, 60 years later, and DraftKings…Read more...

Patience is a virtue — sometimes you have to wait an entire half for a makeup call. And yet I don’t think the Rams are complaining after beating the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20, in their home stadium, to win their first Super Bowl in Los Angeles.Read more...

LOS ANGELES — I’m normally against concerts in arenas. Dating back to when I saw old Kanye at the United Center during the Glow in the Dark Tour in 2008. A concert is supposed to be an obnoxiously loud party where people drink, smoke, meditate, or whatever to become fully enveloped by the atmosphere and music take…Read more...

The Rams have made history by joining the Colts and Raiders as the only franchises to win the Super Bowl representing different cities, but they’ve also accomplished something just for Los Angeles.

Around the NFL, it’s common practice for teams to script their first 15 offensive plays. Why? This is usually before teams can adjust on defense. That makes the first few drives the perfect opportunity for a coaching staff to strut its stuff. You can often figure out a staff’s plan for attacking an opposing defense by…Read more...

This story has been updated.Read more...

After 17 regular-season games and four postseason matchups, a Super Bowl berth can mean an immense physical toll for participants on both sidelines. Despite the NFL’s best attempts to cut down on the grizzly knee ligament injuries and concussions that threatened their league, injuries are a part of the game.Read more...

The NFL is the only league of the four major North American sports that use roman numerals in the moniker of its championship. The MLB, NBA, and NHL all use the year in which the championship occurs. But the NFL decided to go a different route with their naming convention.Read more...

There are a lot of good reasons to cheer for both sides in this Super Bowl. Perhaps you like the underdog story of the Bengals so you cheer for them. Maybe you like the incredible career arc of Matthew Stafford so you’re opting for the Rams. It could be the emergence of Joe Burrow, the greatness of Aaron Donald, the…Read more...

Sean McVay is regarded as one of the best head coaches in the NFL. His offensive mind is second only to the defensive genius of Bill Belichick, as evidenced by their battle in Super Bowl LIII.

This is what it’s come to for the Nets.

As of Saturday, the line on Super Bowl LVI is Rams -4, one of the closer spreads in the big game’s history. Though the Bengals are technically the home team, the Rams are, of course, playing in their own home stadium, so the current line suggests these are two evenly matched teams. Though the Super Bowl is meant to…Read more...

Fact, an American team primarily made up of NCAA players took down a veteran Canadian team 4-2 in the preliminary round of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing late Friday night.Read more...

Super Bowl LVI will feature four NFL Honors Awards winners: Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase (OROY) and Joe Burrow (CPOY) as well as the Rams’ Cooper Kupp (OPOY). Rams’ offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth also won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, but that’s not important for the context of this piece.Read more...

You can add “Sexual misconduct allegations against a U.S. coach” to the list of off-the-slopes issues overshadowing the on-snow and -ice accomplishments at the Winter Olympics. In a series of Instagram posts Friday, former U.S. snowboard cross athlete Callan Chythlook-Sifsof alleged current U.S. snowboarding coach…Read more...

Super Bowl LVI will be considered by some a homecoming for LSU. Former Tigers who will be playing in this game include Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase for the Cincinnati Bengals, and Odell Beckahm Jr. and 2003 National Champion Andrew Whitworth for the Los Angeles Rams. LSU is tied with Florida for the school with the…Read more...

Matt Stafford leading the Rams this Sunday is the closest that Detroit has ever been to being in a Super Bowl — and some fans are embracing that fact more than others.Read more...

The Mavericks’ Kristaps Porziņģis acquisition and subsequent trade has been one of the most embarrassing and impactful mistakes of modern NBA history. Especially when it comes to surrounding their young superstar, Luka Dončić, with a contending roster.

When it was first reported that Ben Simmons didn’t want to play in Philadelphia anymore, fans and the media immediately rushed to create dream trade scenarios for the 76ers. Even considering Simmons’ awful performance in the most recent postseason, the three-time All-Star still had some trade value left to offer. As…Read more...

For the first time in several years, I don’t think anyone was too upset with any of the award recipients during the NFL Honors ceremony last night. Sure, some salty Packers fans might be upset that Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel won Coach of the Year — just as I predicted I might add — but aside from that, the NFL Honors…Read more...

LOS ANGELES — There is a lot going on in the NFL shop at the Los Angeles Convention Center. There’s a section for Los Angeles Rams gear, Cincinnati Bengals gear, a place to customize your own gear, places for memorabilia such as autographed helmets and portraits, and a DJ. At the entrance of that NFL shop, take an…Read more...

LOS ANGELES — If you saw Eugene at a Chevron station or a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles, at first glance you might not notice anything out of the ordinary. He is a Black man with a dark complexion clear enough in the early evening light that some might ask for his skincare routine. He’s under 6 feet tall, with a gray…Read more...

Since University of Pennsylvania senior Lia Thomas crushed her competition at the Zippy Invitational with the nation’s fastest times in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle, she became a cause célèbre in the crosshairs of the NCAA’s latest transgender athletes brouhaha.

NFL America should root for the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

The Chicago Bears are in a familiar position, starting all over again. Since they fired Lovie Smith following their 10-6 2013 season in which they missed the playoffs for the third consecutive season, they have relieved three coaches of their duties. They followed a predictable pattern with each hire. Smith was a…Read more...

I don’t know whose idea it was to hold the NBA All-Star Draft the same day as the trade deadline, but they deserve a massive raise.

For me, the highlight of my week has been Ickey Woods doing the griddy.Read more...

It’s obvious that the inclusion of the NHL at the 2022 Winter Olympics would’ve given a facelift to the United States men’s hockey roster competing in Beijing. Leaving Auston Matthews, Connor Hellebuyck and plenty of others at home takes away some of the best in the world. The Americans are far from the only ones with…Read more...

I know Shaun White never had a chance with me, even if he wasn’t an obnoxious, harassing tool. 20 years ago, snowboarding was forced into the Olympics so Americans could win an event for once. They mostly did, White did most of that, and he’s been bothering us ever since.