Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

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

This offseason will most certainly be a busy one for quarterbacks. A handful of big-name starters are sure to be wearing new uniforms in 2021, either through free agency, retirement, or because they no longer fit with their current team. Here are five starting QBs likely to end up on another team, or gone from the…Read more...

Sometimes you just have to see it to believe it. This is one of those times.

By now, you know that Dez Bryant tested positive for COVID-19 just minutes before last night’s game.

As college basketball continues to be the live-action version of the cartoon dog sitting at his breakfast nook amongst an inferno, it is screaming for someone, anyone, to act like an actual adult. For a group of people that claim to be leaders and shapers of men, no one seems to be acting like either.

Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin is in hot water after a video on his Instagram showed him inappropriately grabbing a woman’s chest.Read more...

We know what you’re trying to say, Odell. And honestly, you’re not wrong.

A wide swath of soccer fans have been clamoring for a promotion/relegation system for MLS. Hell, even a small slice of fans of other sports with the loosest grip on reality, especially with the rash of tank-jobs in MLB or the NBA, have said promotion/relegation would put a halt to that phenomenon, as far-fetched as it…Read more...

It’s rare you get any spikiness from ESPN, or evidence of a spine, and especially when it comes to college basketball. For the most part, every analyst for college hoops on the World Wide Leader is there to be a cheerleader and get a good taste of various coaches’ asses. It’s why every coach is addressed as “Coach…Read more...

The saga of the COVID outbreak within the Baltimore Ravens organization just won’t quit. Twenty minutes before their Tuesday night game with the Cowboys was set to get started, Ravens receiver and former Cowboy Dez Bryant tweeted that he was pulled from his pre-game warmups because he had tested positive for COVID.

Now that the baseball Winter Meetings have begun, such as they are in this altered pandemic-form, some real moves are being made. Lance Lynn and Adam Eaton have joined the White Sox either via trade or signing, Carlos Santana has got on the Royals express to 72 wins, and rumors are flying after the non-tender deadline.

Three years ago, Sean McVay could seemingly do no wrong. He was the wunderkind of the NFL, a savant of offensive play-calling, the maestro of the second coming of the “Greatest Show on Turf.” Whatever he touched turned to gold. Any assistant lucky enough to shake his hand suddenly shot up job boards around the league.

With only a few weeks left in the NFL regular season, and with Philip Rivers turning 39 today, it’s time to take a look at some of the grizzled vets of the league. Actually, the grizzliest, if you will. Some should probably hang it up after week 17. Others may have a few years left in the tank.

Tuesday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

In a stunning scene on soccer’s biggest stage, players from PSG and Basaksehir walked off the field at Parc de Princes in the first half after an assistant coach for Basaksehir, former player Pierre Webo, accused the fourth official of calling him the n-word.

The Dodgers won their first championship since 1988 with Justin Turner on the field until the eighth inning of the deciding game, even though he had coronavirus, and then didn’t stop him from coming back out to celebrate with the team, taking his mask down and exposing more people to the virus.Read more...

When COVID-19 cancels the greatest rivalry in sports, then maybe sports shouldn’t be happening.Read more...

Let’s not complicate this.

Brian O’Nora opted out of umpiring in the 2020 season, and baseball hardly missed him. According to Bloomberg Businessweek’s Umpire Auditor, from 2012-19, O’Nora had a correct call rate of 87 percent, the same percentage as notoriously lousy umps Joe West and Kerwin Danley, and a point worse than the gold standard of…Read more...

Because hockey can’t have nice things, nor does it really deserve them: In the immediate aftermath of the news that they had locked in on a starting date for a new season and the players had turned back to the owners, a lawsuit against one of its signature teams for staying silent on sexual assault came on the scene.…Read more...

It’s Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr.Read more...

Every so often, a blind squirrel finds a nut. And there’s been no blinder squirrel than the NHL players’ union over the years. This is a side that got locked out for an entire season and still got a salary cap with no exceptions enforced on it. Eight years later it got locked out again and got an even worse salary cap…Read more...

For at least one more year, the 1972 Miami Dolphins remain as the only perfect season in NFL history. The Pittsburgh Steelers, who were 11-0 entering their game tonight, shockingly lost, in their own house, to the 4-7 Washington Football Team of the miserable NFC East.

I haven’t paid attention to boxing since I was a kid, which pretty much makes me like 95 percent of the rest of the world. Ever since Redman and Method Man led Roy Jones Jr., my favorite boxer, to the ring, I couldn’t really see what more the sport could offer. That didn’t stop my heart from sinking just a little when…Read more...

Monday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

Claressa Shields was getting her hair done when we spoke. Not because she was celebrating the holidays. She was preparing for war.Read more...

Editor’s note: This story was originally published about an hour before we learned that Dick Allen had died at age 78 at his home in Wampum, Pa. Changes have been made throughout to reflect that.Read more...

Kinda?

The Jets lost in the Jetsiest way possible yesterday, and it falls squarely on the shoulders of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. In an atrocious display of hubris and arrogance, Gregg Williams made arguably the dumbest defensive play-call in NFL history, and he was fired this morning for it.

It’s time once again to highlight the teams stinking up the joint every single week.Read more...

Coronavirus “kicked my butt,” said Cleveland’s Myles Garrett.

Less is always more.

Aaron Rodgers isn’t just in the NFL MVP race. Let’s face it, he’s leading the way.

Fourteen months removed from being thrown out of his Ferrari in a near-death experience, Errol Spence rebounded to outclass Danny Garcia Saturday evening in Dallas. The bout left many calling for Spence to defend his WBC and IBF Welterweight Championships against WBO Welterweight Champion and arguable pound-for-pound…Read more...

Remember when I wrote that Jalen Hurts should have been starting in Philly a few weeks ago?Read more...

After a wild Week 12 left us watching Wednesday afternoon football due to COVID-19, Week 13 gave us a return to normalcy, at least the 2020 version of it.

You know it’s 2020 when the Cleveland Browns are being considered for Super Bowl contention.

If there ever was a lawsuit where you wish both sides could lose and then be sucked into a portal shuttling them to a dimension of goo and detritus, it would be Major League Baseball’s lawsuit against the biggest insurance companies in the land.Read more...

Logan Paul just agreed to a date to get Nate Robinson’d.

The Las Vegas Raiders almost made history today by losing to arguably the worst team that has ever decided to participate in an NFL season.

This column is not an indictment of LeBron James, Breanna Stewart, Patrick Mahomes, Naomi Osaka, or Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. It is, however, a callout of Sports Illustrated for limiting their “2020 Sportsperson of the Year: The Activist Athlete” to those who were “champions on the field, champions for others off it.”