Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

I’ve been looking forward to this game ever since I realized that the NFL’s kings of folding under pressure would face off against each other.

The NFL seemed to get full control over its COVID situation in Week 14, after a week that saw players literally being pulled out of pregame warmups because of positive tests.

I thought y’all said this whole team was trash?

Whatever you or I may think or know, the Steelers will retire Ben Roethlisberger’s No. 7 one day, and maybe even one day soon. We can’t win. He’ll be revered by perhaps the most slovenly and up-its-own-ass fanbase in American sports, he’ll probably get a TV gig if he wants one (the fact that he can’t string four words…Read more...

It’s not all that surprising after the Washington Football Team, belatedly, saw the light of the indecency of its name. Cleveland’s MLB team had been moving toward changing its name for a while now, as they began to de-emphasize their Chief Wahoo logo with hats and jerseys that just featured the block “C” or the…Read more...

For the past few years in the Premier League, there’s been a “Big 6” and the rest. The hope has been that some team from outside that aristocratic cabal could crash the party and stay, like Everton or or Leicester or West Ham, all teams that have at least the resources to compete at that level. Anything to break up…Read more...

You can set your watch to Minnesota sports. The Twins will never win a playoff game, the Timberwolves will see anyone with a name you can remember leave to accomplish anything, and no one will ever remember the Wild even exist, as everyone is more concerned with the Gophers anyway. And the Vikings will watch their…Read more...

A taped-on mask is probably the best metaphor we have for the 2020 NFL season.

In one of the trolliest moments of the year, Josh Jacobs, running back for the Las Vegas Raiders, took to Instagram before today’s game and instilled panic in the hearts of fantasy managers everywhere.Read more...

The Dolphins’ Xavien Howard just gave us one of the most spectacular defensive plays of the season.

Florida basketball standout and NBA prospect Keyontae Johnson remains in critical but stable condition on Sunday, one day after he collapsed in the middle of a game and was rushed to the hospital.Read more...

Just after Sarah Fuller calmly kicked her first extra point for Vanderbilt yesterday in a game against Tennessee, ESPN sent out the alert. “With her successful PAT, Sarah Fuller becomes the 1st woman to score in a Power 5 game.”

You know Charley Pride, the country singer. The three-time Grammy winner recorded over 40 No. 1 hit country songs and became the genre’s first Black superstar. But before his music career, Pride was a professional baseball player.

Putting up the first winless season in school history, even in a pandemic year, and capping it with a 70-7 loss to your top rival is a surefire way to lose your job as a college football coach, and that’s exactly what happened to Kevin Sumlin, who got fired by Arizona on Saturday, following the Wildcats’ demolition at…Read more...

Over/Under: 45Read more...

The entire NFL season could’ve been avoided, but here we are somehow nearing its completion. Hard to believe there are just a few more weeks with the Sunday Scaries.Read more...

The first time I mentioned Joe Hall on this website was in my first week here, which was also the first week of the coronavirus pandemic shutting things down. I’d done some research at the New York Public Library, the day before it closed its doors, looking at microfilm of century-old newspapers to learn more about…Read more...

Sarah Fuller became the first woman to score in a Power 5 football game on Saturday, kicking an extra point as Vanderbilt took a first quarter lead against Tennessee.

WNBA players stood in solidarity with two high school girls student-athletes from American Heritage School near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after the school suspended their basketball game Thursday because they wore #BlackLivesMatter black t-shirts.

Meet the new Mets… same as the old Mets?Read more...

Jeff Ermann of Inside MD Sports broke the news on Saturday that Terrapins quarterback Taulia Tagovailioa, linebacker Chance Campbell, “plus another starter and a coordinator” tested positive for COVID-19 and would have to miss Maryland’s game against Rutgers.Read more...

Utah State football players are using their power to take a stand against what they perceived as religious discrimination by their university president.Read more...

University of Florida small forward Keyontae Johnson collapsed on the court during the first half of their game Saturday against Florida State.

Daniil Vovchenko scored the game-winner in Severstal’s 4-3 win over Spartak Moscow on Friday with the move invented by Michigan player Mike Legg in 1996 and duplicated by Andrei Svechinikov of the Carolina Hurricanes last season.

This college football season is an exercise in madness, but it’s continuing to be weirdly historic.Read more...

Kyrie Irving has placed himself firmly back in the news cycle. This time it’s for being a hypocrite.

Cam Newton was benched in the fourth quarter last night, and rightfully so — he looked awful, and has for a while.Read more...

Maybe it’s COVID-19.Read more...

Doug Polk has backed up the truck to the tune of almost $1 million in his high-stakes grudge match against Daniel Negreanu.

Dick Allen’s death on Monday is just the latest failure of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Allen had become a popular candidate in recent years, as the sabermetrics movement showed what a powerful and impactful hitter he was. His raw statistics alone — 351 home runs, a .292 career average — are impressive. But they’re even…Read more...

Most of the season, the focus has been on Bill Belichick and Tom Brady recovering from their breakup in different places. Brady moved away, tried to start his whole life over (while still keeping his 6-foot-5 tight-end Teddy Bear for security), make a clean break, that whole thing. Bill is still trying to pick up the…Read more...

Dave Dombrowski is what is still wrong with Major League Baseball.Read more...

Nobody in sports repeats their mistakes quite like the NHL, the league that lost the entire 2004-05 season to a lockout, then came back in 2012 and had another lockout that cost half a season, all after also having half the 1994-95 season wiped out by a lockout.

A youth football coach in Florida assaulted one of his players on December 7, and LeBron James had a lot to say about it.

Sorry, LSU, you aren’t sliding your way out of this one.

Blake Griffin deserves better than this.

Yesterday, we broke down some quarterback and running back matchups to watch in the Week 14 slate. Picking up where we left off, let’s start looking at wide receiver and tight end matchups to help with your playoff roster decisions.Read more...

My short time in talk radio was filled with hurdle after hurdle. Getting a shot on-air was like learning to surf on choppy waters.

It’s dishonest to say that any sporting event can have a feel-good event right now. While sports can be a healthy distraction or unifying force for a community, these days they basically act as a perfect sketch of just about everything wrong with the country’s handling and response to the pandemic, from its wanton…Read more...

Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett has come a long way from November 14, 2019.Read more...

Add Ben & Jerry’s to the list of companies willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick before an NFL team.Read more...

James Harden wants out of the world curated just for him.Read more...

The last few months have revealed the scope of damage dealt by COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands are dead. Millions more have been infected. No one knows yet what lingering health effects they will face.

Watching a football game during a pandemic is a bit like watching people smoke on the sidelines for three hours. No one on the field will die of lung cancer during the game, but, from a public health standpoint, it’s not good.

There’s seemingly a parade of stories about how the only people not getting utterly fucked during this pandemic are the ones who never get utterly fucked. If you feel like you see something like Tom Brady’s boat purchased with money meant for small businesses, it’s because you do. And if there’s a gaping wound in this…Read more...

Because there’s a lot of Canadian TV money invested in it, hockey’s World Junior Championships are still on track to take place at the end of the month. Canada is the host this year for the event that is, to our northern neighbours, analogous on the sports landscape to March Madness, and damn if they’re going to let a…Read more...

The Panthers didn’t have any new positive coronavirus cases on Wednesday, which is good. The eight players that Carolina had to put on the COVID-19 reserve list this week, not so good.

You made the fantasy football playoffs? In this economy? Congratulations, you lucky SOB! Navigating this season of turmoil deserves a lot of respect — or a tip of the hat to lady luck. Either way, as the Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Full disclosure: I went to IU. Historically, we are a basketball school, though even that has fallen in shadow after the glory days of the 80s and early 90s. My point is, we are not, and have never been, a football school.Read more...

Wednesday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals