Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It was a fine display yesterday of the cycle of white people who have never been told they’re wrong for various reasons.

Who doesn’t like earning money, huh? Everyone does. That’s why we all can use some friendly betting advice from time to time. To that end, if you’re looking just to do straight bets, there’s a new trend in NFL betting that’s been incredibly positive for some people.Read more...

Stephen Curry had one of those nights on Monday inside Chase Center against the Atlanta Hawks. You know, one of those nights where you start off hot and just get hotter as the game flows along until you look up and you’ve dropped 50 on fools. Yeah, me neither. But that’s precisely the kind of night Curry had against…Read more...

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ESPN did it again on Monday night: They went too far with the tragedy/trauma porn.

Outside of Ohio State, it’s hard to definitively say what’s real and what’s Iowa in the Big 10. The conference has had six teams ranked in the top 10 — Penn State twice, Iowa twice, Michigan and Michigan State — lose over the past five weeks. Two of those six upsets have come at (and due to) the hands of David Bell…Read more...

Everybody hates punting. I know there’s a big movement to give punters the respect they deserve, and yes, punters are people, but you can’t deny that punting is the worst part of football. When the most exciting part of a punt is how favorably/unfavorably it bounces, you know it’s not an exciting part of the game.…Read more...

Every now and again in life, you just have to fight back and say “enough is enough.” Reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokić had a come-to-Jesus moment Monday night when he shoulder tackled Markieff Morris of the Miami Heat.

It’s not 1971, it’s not 1983, it’s not 1995, it’s not even 2001, but Nebraska it can’t be like this. They haven’t finished a season at or above .500 since 2016. Since Scott Frost became coach in 2018, they’ve finished with a winning percentage better than .400 once. Nebraska is making some changes, many in fact, but…Read more...

If it feels like I come here every four to six weeks or so to bemoan WWE’s latest release and wonder how they could waste such a talent so thoroughly that they’re simply discarded like the recycling, it’s kind of because I do. We could do this all day, and by now you probably already have your own list of wrestlers…Read more...

Villanova is a better basketball program than Michigan State. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The Wildcats have more program wins and national titles than the Spartans.

It was comeback city in Chicago last night, as the Bulls and the Bears both mounted fourth quarter efforts against their respective opponents, to — ahem — varied success.

Aaron Rodgers has turned himself into the latest iteration of Rudy Gobert, the guy who fucked around and found out when it came to COVID-19 protocols. Rodgers’ lies throughout his coronavirus saga have made him a rightful target of scorn from everyone who has actually taken this pandemic seriously — including a couple…Read more...

Generally, I think it’s loser shit to blame the refs or bad calls for a loss. There’s almost always a chance to overcome them, and either you’re good enough or you’re not. I’m not even salty as a Bears fan about losing to the Steelers, 29-27, due to a couple of horrible calls, because in the grand scheme of things the…Read more...

We’ve reached the midway point of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are always 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 9.

It was there at Soldier Field last Sunday. It didn’t result in a win, but it was there. The electricity, the oohs, the aahs, the dazzling, the breathtaking type of football that Bears fans have been clawing at their walls waiting to see from quarterback Justin Fields.

The Russell Westbrook experiment in Los Angeles has not clicked yet, and I don’t know if it ever will. LeBron James missing games with an injury doesn’t help, but things were scary even when he was playing. Acquiring Westbrook was a LeBron decision, made in place of trading for a much better shooter in Buddy Hield…Read more...

You probably don’t remember Dan O’Toole and Jay Onrait. They were the Canadian SportsCentre guys (yes, the e goes there up north) that Fox Sports brought in to host its competitor to SportsCenter (with the e where it belongs down here) when FS1 launched. You don’t remember the former, because no one watched it, which…Read more...

The NFL had a case of the upsets in Week 9. Some teams were dealing with extenuating circumstances, such as the Green Bay Packers without MVP quarterback Aaron “I discount double-checked the coronavirus myself” Rodgers and the New Orleans Saints trying to get quarterback Trevor Siemian to play like it’s Week 3 in 2016…Read more...

Welp, here we go again with Matthew Stafford. It must be extremely tough to be a fan of Stafford. Just when you think he’s rolling along and nothing can stop him, Stafford lays a giant egg in a game that he should win. It almost sounds like being a Dallas Cowboys fan. So, I get it.

While Manchester United have done their best to make sure the Premier League doesn’t become completely stratified into just a “top four and everyone else,” and Arsenal and Tottenham have made the idea of a “Big Six” laughable, that only works if there are other teams willing to crash through the door left so…Read more...

Mark Cuban saw it coming. Adam Silver did not.Read more...

On Sunday, ahead of noon kickoff across the country, FOX analyst Terry Bradshaw let Aaron Rodgers have it for lying about being vaccinated for COVID back in August.Read more...

MLS had its “Decision Day” yesterday, the last day of the regular season when all of its playoff spots get shaken out. The permutation for the top, middle, and bottom of the playoff picture were David Lynch-level convoluted, so sometimes it’s best to express the happenings in one highlight:

It was qualifying-offer season over the weekend for MLB teams. Maybe the most interesting name to not get a qualifying offer, meaning he could sign anywhere without draft-pick compensation, was only the best pitcher of his generation in Clayton Kershaw.

The NFL season is halfway done, and now we know who the contenders are and the teams we can write off as pretenders. We can talk about the contenders another time because this list is about those less fortunate teams in the league. Now it’s time to check out the worst of the worst from Week 9.

The start of the season hasn’t been the NBA 2K simulation that most thought it would be for the Brooklyn Nets, but James Harden had himself a moment over the weekend that sums up the Nets’ slow start this year.Read more...

Some Minnesota Vikings players gave their front office a little elbow nudge to make a roster move this week. Wide receiver Justin Jefferson and cornerback Cam Dantzier both played their college football at LSU and made their pitch for another former Tiger to become a member of the team — Odell Beckham Jr.

Canelo Álvarez not only fulfilled his promise of becoming the first undisputed 168-pound super middleweight champion in boxing Saturday night, but Canelo also inflicted the pain and damage on Caleb Plant he promised before the fight.

Yeah, so I did write this last year. The Reds only ended up moving Raisel Iglesias, and you can always fashion a bullpen out of the leftovers, scraps, and spare duct tape you have laying around if you’re determined enough. The Reds didn’t move anything else, and were competitive until the season’s final throes.…Read more...

Oof, a rare goose egg came out of last week’s action, though to be fair, that was easily one of the most bizarre football slates any of us had ever seen. When something like Mike White beating the surging Bengals outright to sink our teaser happens, just try to laugh and move on.Read more...

Finally, something interesting about Northwestern football.Read more...

Maybe college football coaches are overrated. Not individual college football coaches. The entire concept of college football coaches.

Christmas might have come early for Portland Trail Blazer fans, as team president Neil Olshey is being investigated for allegedly creating a toxic workplace, Yahoo Sports reported Saturday. Olshey has been with the organization as general manager since 2012, and despite the Trail Blazers making the playoffs every…Read more...

The Las Vegas Raiders are in the midst of one of the most tumultuous seasons we’ve ever seen. First it was their head coach, Jon Gruden, whose leaked emails revealed racist and misogynistic tendencies from the Super Bowl-winning coach. Less than a month later, the team’s leading receiver and 2020 first-round draft…Read more...

Say what you will about college football, but Saturdays are never boring.Read more...

The Atlanta Braves won the World Series, and, after going through a comically horrible championship parade, they now have the daunting task of attempting to become the first repeat World Series winner since 2000. The 29 other Major League clubs are all looking to knock the Braves off their throne, and there’s a likely…Read more...

Deron Williams announced Friday that he is becoming the latest boxing/MMA enthusiast to get in the ring.

Conference realignment trickle-down has officially reached the Football Championship Series, as the Sun Belt Conference officially announced the addition of James Madison University Saturday by a unanimous vote of its members’ CEOs.Read more...

Mental health has been a hot-button issue in sports the past few years. Dating back to 2017, when Cleveland Cavaliers’ forward Kevin Love stepped away from his team after a panic attack suffered in the middle of a game, we’ve started seeing more athletes either take a stand in support of people with mental health…Read more...

Sorry, not sorry, Kyrie Irving, but those hopes that incoming New York mayor Eric Adams will relax the city’s vaccine rules to allow “World B. Flat” to suit up for the Nets after the inauguration at the turn of the new year?

On the night that Edmonton retired Kevin Lowe’s number 4, the Oilers and Rangers paid tribute the best way they could, by reviving the 1980s with an 11-goal thriller.

You would think that after the year they’ve had — after the past couple of weeks they’ve had — USA Hockey would want to steer clear of anything remotely controversial. The organization could cynically circle the wagons or engage in some reflection about its place in the sport’s toxic culture, but USA Hockey needed a…Read more...

Well, looks like Aaron Rodgers has gone full QAnon.

Oh, wow, look another Texas Longhorns football coach is underwhelming.

Half a billion dollars.

No Aaron Rodgers for the Packers. Possibly no Kyler Murray for the Cardinals. But it’s alright. Their teams are both facing opponents with four losses. Oh… it’s the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

Less than two weeks ago, Mike White’s mere presence on an NFL roster seemed a miracle. He muddled through a 6-7 senior season with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, had a poor performance at the 2018 Combine, and wound up a fifth-round draft pick from the Dallas Cowboys, where he was then cut from the practice squad.…Read more...

This isn’t a story about how Aaron Rodgers is a liar that tried to run game on the NFL, the media, and his fans. It’s one about how unfortunate things happen to quarterbacks before they travel to Kansas City.Read more...

Los Angeles Rams’ receiver Cooper Kupp is on pace for 1,964 yards in 17 games. The all-time single-season record for receiving yards is, in fact, that same 1,964, and was set in 2012 by former Detroit Lions’ receiver Calvin Johnson.Read more...