Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

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...

The NHL schedule has been jumbled by the league’s latest COVID-19 outbreaks, resulting not only in games being postponed now, but the withdrawal of the game’s top players from the upcoming Olympics.

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...

The phrase “once in a generation” seems to be tossed too often, far more often than it should be in sports, but when it came to John Madden, this couldn’t even begin to sum up what he represented. Madden passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday but left a lasting legacy unlike any we’ve ever seen.

Question: Have you ever been out in public and seen a kid being a terror to anything and everything in sight, as the child ignores their parent’s pathetic pleas to stop?Read more...

The Miami Dolphins are the first NFL team ever to post a seven-game losing streak and a seven-game winning streak in the same season. It’s not an anomaly stemming from the new 17-game schedule either, as it only took the Fins 15 games to go from “How the hell was this team predicted to win 10-plus games?” to “How the…Read more...

Since Week 9 of the NFL season, Matt Stafford has thrown for 1,862 yards (266 yards per game), 14 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions. Those are good numbers. Not great, but good. From Weeks 1-8 though, Stafford was on a different planet. The move from Detroit to L.A. seemingly sparked new life into the former first…Read more...

Christmas at home might be the turning point in James Harden’s 2021-22 season. The Brooklyn Nets played at Crypto.com arena against the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day, against the Los Angeles Clippers on Dec. 27, and in between those two games, Harden’s high school in Lakewood, Calif., retired his jersey. A whiff…Read more...

Just a few months ago, seeing the Kansas City Chiefs atop the AFC standings would’ve been unthinkable, considering that they were 3-4 and just suffered a 24-point loss to the Tennessee Titans. Well, with two weeks left in the regular season, the Chiefs have won eight straight games and retaken the top seed in the AFC…Read more...

During a recent Twitch interview with Adin Ross, Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns was asked his opinion on Russell Westbrook and kept it 100. Towns and Ross were on the topic of stat chasing, and Towns, while also praising Westbrook for being a great player, did acknowledge that he plays to fill up…Read more...

There was a feeling of triumph when USMNT fans first heard that American players had landed at some of the biggest clubs in the world in 2020. It was something of an arrival, not just for the players themselves but the US program as a whole. When you can place players at Barcelona and Juventus, you’re a real-ass…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...

After his comments yesterday, I have to wonder whether Alabama linebacker Will Anderson has considered a career in comedy. I mean, only if this whole football thing doesn’t work out for him. It’s only the Crimson Tide he plays for, after all, so I wouldn’t really be putting all my eggs in one basket if I were him. At…Read more...