Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It’s not that anyone should have expected the Joe Biden administration to pull the big card and keep U.S. athletes away from Beijing in February. It would have led other nations to do the same, and might have actually been the rare instance of someone standing up to China for all the atrocities it commits. But given…Read more...

It’s Week 13 of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 13.

It was all over for the Miami Dolphins after the trade deadline. They were willing to sell all of their credibility and goodwill to trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, despite the whole “Tanking for Tua [Tagovailoa]” hashtag in 2019. The No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft did not have a proper…Read more...

Every fandom has their cult heroes who seemingly drop in out of the sky and provide a lifelong memory. Phillies fans have Matt Stairs. Bulls fans have Steve Kerr, to an extent (Kerr was a fine player but he does seem an odd choice from the gods to hit a title-clinching shot, no? Then again, he did it with the Spurs…Read more...

Getting that middle finger tattoo may pay off in the long run for Tyron Woodley, because he got the fight that he wanted. Tommy Fury has pulled out of his Dec. 18 pay-per-view bout against Jake Paul. Fury, the former Love Island UK star, sent out a statement through his promoter, Frank Warren, announcing that due to a…Read more...

A few times throughout the season, randomly, there’s a night where it feels like hockey players across the league lose their mind. It’s like a hive mentality, perhaps when the banality of the regular season sinks in or becomes too much to deal with and they have to break out in the only way they know how: trying to…Read more...

If you want to know who has the sweetest gig in America right now, look no further than John Wall of the Houston Rockets. Wall isn’t rehabbing an injury for the first time in years, he’s supposed to be 100 percent healthy, yet he has not suited up for one of Houston’s first 23 games this season.

Look, French is hard. As a French major, I know this. I studied the language for 8 years and still can’t wrap my tongue around some of the sounds my mouth is supposed to make when speaking it (badly). And foreign languages are not easy for some people, and hey, kudos to new Montréal Canadiens Executive Vice President…Read more...

The Philadelphia Flyers fired coach Alain Vigneault on Monday, and the truth is it should have come sooner, and it’s probably not enough.

They got played by an 18-year-old.

We don’t think any of the current seasons taking place now as “COVID seasons” like we did of the previous ones played in empty stadiums/arenas or in weird, neutral venues altogether. But it still very much is, which the Philadelphia Union learned the all-too hard way yesterday.

America’s favorite hipster quarterback is making his return to the field today. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is out with an ankle injury, so for the first time since Week 14 of the 2020 season, Gardner Minshew II will be starting in an NFL game.

The tell-all book business is booming, and Robert Griffin III is jumping into the ring with his book due out in August 2022, titled Surviving Washington. Griffin is set to dish up his recollection of all the dirt that went on behind the scenes during his time in the Nation’s capital as quarterback for the Washington…Read more...

While more and more American players populate the playing squads of clubs across Europe, that hasn’t spurred more esteem for American managers in the game’s bedrock. After today, only Pelligrino Matarazzo of Stuttgart remains in the Big 5 leagues, or really anywhere significant. That’s because, after just four months,…Read more...

The weekly player prop is starting to become a curse of sorts, after another player succumbed to injury and cost us. Fortunately, it didn’t cost a winning week.Read more...

Is there any better representation of American society than the annual championship Saturday halftime Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway? Hey kids, here’s a chance to throw some footballs in a can for the chance to not graduate in crippling debt!Read more...

The news that Ben Roethlisberger “expects this to be his final season playing quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers,” as Adam Schefter reported, is some big-time “duh” stuff.

For weeks, we’ve been dissecting, diagramming, and divining what the College Football Playoff might or should look like at the end of this zany season, and then Saturday’s conference championships came along and made everything pretty darn clear.

“The best defense is a good offense.” — George Washington — Michael Jordan

Mark Turgeon’s ouster at Maryland, just eight games into the season, is a good reminder of how quickly a college program can stumble into irrelevance, as well as the outsized influence of football in conference realignment.Read more...

In 2020, a survey of several Gen Z Americans revealed that only 53 percent considered themselves sports fans, and only 21 percent considered themselves to be “avid” sports fans. Both these figures are the lowest of any age demographic. Gen Z has shown a general disinterest toward professional sports with more of their…Read more...

If you watched Oregon get steamrolled again by Utah on Friday night, you were watching the wrong football game, because the Conference USA title game was where all the action was.

All news is local, and The Columbian got a doozy of a local story out of now-LSU coach Brian Kelly’s sudden decision to bolt from Notre Dame this week.Read more...

On Nov. 4, ESPN published a report detailing the racist and misogynistic culture created by Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver within the organization, which had reached a point where one former executive was quoted as saying “there’s literally nothing you could tell me about him from a misogynistic or race standpoint…Read more...

Do you remember the movie Thank You for Smoking? It was a satirical look at cigarette spokesman Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart aka Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight) who tries to remain a role model to his son despite promoting/defending lung darts.

Brian Kelly’s been down South for all of 72 hours and is ready to challenge every last person who said that he wouldn’t be a culture fit at LSU. You want a culture fit? How’s a brand-spanking-new Southern accent for a culture fit? As Kelly took the floor at halftime of the LSU basketball game Wednesday night, he…Read more...

Week 13 is normally when we start seeing the NFL playoff picture unfold. However, in 2021, we’re still unsure if there are even any good teams in the league. The NFL is so tightly knit nowadays that even the 0-10-1 Detroit Lions still have not been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

In high school, I skipped my ninth-grade team and started on JV. It’s still – top to bottom – the most talented team I’ve ever played on. We were even better than the varsity team. But, in one game we were just going through the motions. At halftime, our coach made us do cardio in the locker room – even though we were…Read more...

Stop the free agent talk! The lockout has commenced and with it there will be no more free agent signings until MLB and the MLB Players’ Association agree on a new CBA for the next five years. That being said, there are still several big-name free agents who remained unsigned through the Wednesday CBA deadline, the…Read more...

Gonzaga freshman Chet Holmgren was the top high school recruit in his class and is the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. As such, he’s subject to a lot of scrutiny.Read more...

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but rumors have started that the Arizona Coyotes could be sold and moved to Houston. I know, it’s been a whole 12 minutes since the last one:

It’s funny how much weight we give anecdotal evidence in arguments. Did LeBron ever eat a tainted pizza and win a title the day after? How many playoff buzzer-beaters does Curry have? Michael never beat a 73-win team in The Finals.

We can go through the numbers, but they don’t really tell the story. We can see that the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 152-79, that nine different players scored in double figures for Memphis, that they shot 62 percent from the floor, yadda yadda yadda. It’s like counting how many colors Mich…Read more...

Turns out the chef was telling the truth! Bucs’ wide receiver Antonio Brown has been suspended by the NFL for three games without pay after “misrepresenting” his COVID vaccination status to the league.

Today was supposed to be the big day for New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson. A fractured foot has kept him off the court for this entire season as the Pelicans have sputtered to a 6-18 start. Williamson was cleared on Friday to participate in full team activities, and The Athletic’s Shams Charania said…Read more...

As one of the cornerstone franchises in the NBA, it’s a rarity to see a Los Angeles Lakers game bumped from a scheduled National television slot the day before that game. But that’s what’s happened to the Lakers-Clippers matchup that was set to tip-off Friday night on ESPN. Instead, we get the rematch from a couple of…Read more...

You are looking live at Brent Musburger who once again is more riled up at the response to racism and misogyny than the actions that evoke a response. These days he’s the radio play-by-play person for the Las Vegas Raiders. He was talking on JT the Brick’s KRLV show about Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL, throwing…Read more...

Versatility isn’t talked about enough in the NFL. We talk about minimally when evaluating defensive draft prospects. “He’s great in man and zone”, “he can stuff the run and drop back into coverage”, “he has the size to be an effective pass rusher, but also the speed to keep up with slot receivers”, yada yada yada.Read more...

As a life ethos, I don’t watch Alabama unless it’s the title game. Not the SEC title game, THE title game. I take that back, I watch the title game and as much of the Tennessee-Alabama game as my girlfriend can stand. They’re too good even for their loaded conference, so save for a title game or upset bid or two,…Read more...

As the 48-hour mark neared since the news of Brian Kelly’s sudden and shocking departure broke, the Notre Dame football program and fanbase were still reeling. Kelly had hopped on a plane to Baton Rouge on Tuesday morning, at which point LSU quickly began churning out content about winning championships and talking…Read more...

At first glance, the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints find themselves in similar situations heading into Week 13. The Cowboys have lost three of their last four and sit just two games up on the Washington Football Team for first-place in the NFC East. Meanwhile, the Saints have dropped their last four contests,…Read more...

TW: domestic abuseRead more...

Deep down, Liverpool supporters would tell you they didn’t want to do this to Rafa Benitez when he was announced as Everton’s manager before the season. Or, to put it more accurately, they didn’t want to have to do this. Benitez is still, and will always, be loved by the red half of Liverpool for bringing the club’s…Read more...

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) decided that enough was enough and it could not continue its business relationship with China, but the right decision could come with a significant financial cost. WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon released a statement that the organization will be suspending all tournaments in…Read more...

The G League celebrated its 20th season of competition this season but is only on its second of genuine interest to NBA fans. Instead of the occasional player who makes the leap from AAA to a rotation player or a raw draft pick trying to hone their skills, there wasn’t too much to get amped about until last year with…Read more...

There are plenty of reasons to ignore Buster Olney, not only for the duration of the lockout, but beyond. ESPN’s baseball version of Adam Schefter is routinely a water carrier for some of the worst the sport has to offer, from caping for Zack Scott, to floating “ideas” that he then accidentally reveals are straight…Read more...

The Aaron Rodgers “farewell to Green Bay” tour bus keeps rolling along and has claimed a few more bystanders that were run into, then backed over, in the process. This time it’s the Packers’ coaching staff catching the brunt of this blame game Rodgers loves to play.

The NFL sent out a press release this week that screamed, “Hey look, we did a good thing,” while being completely oblivious to the fact that their actions were shameful – which is very on brand for this league.Read more...

Major League Baseball is now locking out its players, and given that it’s the offseason, there shouldn’t be much way to notice other than the sudden lack of hot stove activity. The league, though, has gone out of its way to remind everyone online, taking all player-related content off of MLB.com, right down to…Read more...

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) decided that enough was enough and it could not continue its business relationship with China, but the right decision could come with a significant financial cost. WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon released a statement that the organization will be suspending all tournaments in…Read more...