Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It’s a Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing Packers head coach Matt LaFleur.Read more...

Three games tonight, and the best one features the New York Knicks. God bless if tonight’s a big gambling night for you because this is one of the season’s worst evenings on paper so far. No, it’s not because of the Knicks: Their match-up with the Utah Jazz saves this from being downright abysmal. That won’t stop us…Read more...

The NBA is still trying to conjure the All-Star game for March, and likely in Atlanta, according to ESPN, which seems patently ridiculous. We don’t know how things will look with the coronavirus next week, so we definitely have no clue what they’ll look like in March. But we can guess that it probably won’t look much…Read more...

A paycheck is a paycheck. I’m sure that’s what Erika Nardini would tell anyone who questions why she’s the CEO of Barfstool. It’s what makes the world go round. We know that here very well.

As “Black Monday’’ sits in the NFL’s rear-view mirror, the ongoing conversation around the lack of African-American head coaches continues. The Rooney Rule isn’t working. The Fritz Pollard Alliance is frustrated. And as Roger Goodell and Troy Vincent, the NFL’s head of football operations, sit inside the league’s…Read more...

ESPN reports that the NFL Pro Bowl will not only forego their annual Orlando festivities due to COVID-19, but that the event itself will be held virtually and air on television in place of the in-person game.

Not every NFL prospect takes the same journey. Not every prospect goes off to play college ball for the Alabamas and Clemsons of the world. To the casual football fan, you might not even know what the Mid-American Conference (MAC) is — they’re the NCAA D1 conference that you’ll find playing in the middle of the week.…Read more...

Last week, it was the announcement that NBC would be shutting down NBCSN by the end of 2021. That meant that the network’s NHL and Premier League coverage, as well as various other sports, would be spread between NBC Universal’s other entities, like USA Network. But the real goal seemed to be to get even more live…Read more...

The thing about getting a dream job is that most likely it’ll turn into just another job, i.e. it won’t feel like a dream after some time, and you’ll probably get fired. The latter is even more likely in sports, even more so in soccer, and yet even more so at Chelsea. They cycle through managers like Spinal Tap…Read more...

We have a full slate on a Monday evening. Thank god, because it’s a necessary distraction from the already played-out Conor McGregor memes. Tom Brady is about to play in his 10th Super Bowl, which is the same as the amount of games tonight. How does this keep happening?

Over the summer, Cory Booker told Deadspin that he “would not be here today if it were not for college sports” and the lessons he learned from playing college football. The former tight end was a high school All-American and received a scholarship to play Division I ball at Stanford. But his experience as a college…Read more...

The end of any season sends every player into a reflective period. Well, except for maybe Gronk. So let’s say it sends every player who can spell “reflective” into a reflective period. Months of work, hours of anticipation, to what ends up being the last game, and the assuredness that it all led to you winning it go…Read more...

Ten has always been a number of completion.

In unsurprising yet still shockingly dominant fashion, the Kansas City Chiefs are going back to the Super Bowl. They mollywhopped the Buffalo Bills 38-24, but it was not nearly as close as the score suggests.

With a Super Bowl berth hanging in the balance, down eight points to the greatest quarterback of all time, this year’s presumptive MVP under center, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur opted to kick a field goal with 2:09 left in the game. It was fourth-and-goal from the eight yard line.Read more...

I know how that sounds. Just another big market resident showing up just long enough, take a brief look around, turn my nose up, and declare Pittsburgh not worth the time.Read more...

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski showed his tail on Saturday when addressing a question from a student reporter after the team’s loss to Louisville.

There is something truly hockey about two players wanting to get away from cities and situations they find lacking, and coaches they find dinosaur-like, only to be swapped into the other country’s version of the situations they were trying to escape. But that’s the setting both Patrik Laine and Pierre-Luc Dubois find…Read more...

Over/Under: 54 │ Kickoff: 6:40 p.m. ET │TV: CBSRead more...

Regret can be a heavy burden to carry, especially when the weight on your back is due to your incompetence.

The NFL insisted on playing football for a season and now we get more chalk. So if it’s “normalcy” you seek in 2021, rejoice, you’ll see a lot of familiar faces today.

Conor McGregor was so tranquil that, as Dustin Poirier entered the octagon singing to “The Boss” by James Brown, he pointed his index fingers toward the Etihad Arena rafters and danced.Read more...

Tangling in the paint in the second quarter in Detroit, Dwight Howard was called for a foul for getting his arm up in Isaiah Stewart’s face as he tried to box out while Tyrese Maxey got a shot off in the lane.

The Matthew Stafford era in Detroit is apparently coming to a close, as the two sides have mutually agreed to part ways after Stafford reportedly asked to be traded. As it stands, the Lions will start the 2021 season with a new General Manager, Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator, and quarterback.Read more...

Our injured lists are all piling up, and some of us are scrapping for those last-minute pick-ups to help secure a victory or avoid an embarrassing loss. Quick! Here are a few guys possibly lingering on your waiver wire to consider as you search for anyone who can help gain you those coveted 30 or so fantasy points…Read more...

The 76ers may have won the James Harden trade after all.Read more...

Nobody has ever accused Tony DeAngelo of being smart, and Deadspin’s No. 19 Idiot of the Year for 2020 is off to a strong start toward making our 2021 list.Read more...

I was wrong.Read more...

Who else watched the TNT broadcast on Thursday night and thought, “Damn, do I really watch more basketball than Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley?” Then again, some of y’all have probably felt that way for years. (The terrifying thing is many of you might be correct.)Read more...

Trevor Bauer remains unsigned, and Ken Rosenthal reported on the Mets’ interest in the Cy Young winner on Friday night, including Bauer putting some spin on a big reason that a New York team would be reluctant to sign him, namely his own description of himself as being “good at two things in this world, throwing…Read more...

With quarterback Deshaun Watson specifically asking that the Texans to interview top-tier candidates like Robert Saleh and Eric Bieniemy, the Texans, according to the NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, apparently are considering naming *checks notes* Josh McCown head coach.Read more...

Hank Aaron made the number 44 cool for power hitters in the MLB. There are a handful of greats that have donned the number in his wake, carrying the tradition forward, and they have done so for decades.Read more...

Pour one out for the former Outdoor Life Network.

Roughly an hour before I sat down to write this, Barry Bonds Tweeted out an ode to Hank Aaron, who has passed at age 86.Read more...

If there was any doubt that superstar Patrick Mahomes was going to play in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills, there isn’t anymore. Mahomes has cleared the concussion protocol and will be suiting up with a consecutive Super Bowl appearance on the line.Read more...

Hank Aaron, who died on Friday at the age of 86, held Major League Baseball’s home run record for 33 years between when he passed Babe Ruth with his 715th dinger in 1974 and when Barry Bonds hit No. 756 in 2007.

The reactions to the loss of all-time legend Hank Aaron have been profound, and deservedly so. Everyone from athletes past and present to sports reporters that had the honor of interacting with the icon are sharing their condolences and stories. It has been a heartwarming display.Read more...

The great Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron, one of baseball’s greatest players, died on Friday morning.Read more...

Hank Aaron had a remarkable career and distinguished life. The kid from Mobile, Ala. lived a good life, despite the hardships of racism and the many death threats he received as he sought to break Babe Ruth’s hallowed home run record, a feat he achieved in April of 1974.Read more...

President Biden doesn’t seem to care about sports as much as his predecessor, and that’s probably a good thing.Read more...

It would be very….I guess we call it “this age” as 2021 hasn’t really separated itself from 2020 yet, for leagues like the NBA, NHL, various soccer leagues, and UEFA as a whole to avoid the Olympics like the plague, and then watch them canceled.Read more...

In football, there is no position more coveted than that of the starting quarterback. The quarterback is the leader, the facilitator, the field general for an offense. He is the engine that makes the team go. It is on his shoulders — literally — to determine the production and success of a football franchise. Since…Read more...

The hypocrisy of Celtics guard Marcus Smart is mind-boggling.

You would have thought that after going through a disaster of an era with a phony-tough gasbag (who might also be a rapist) as a coach, the Detroit Lions would try and go the other direction. Maybe hire someone simply smart who is good at his job and might think about moving the team in the general direction of this…Read more...

There’s few things hockey fans love more than a goalie goal. You might get one per season, and they’re met with joyous celebrations, as we’ve all just seen something rare and beautiful. Like the perfect breakfast sandwich where the egg yolk runoff is still contained within the sandwich (yes, I’m hungry, why do you…Read more...

Much like a couple of nights ago, the slate tonight is thinner than your life-span when flying an airplane in Grand Theft Auto V. Seriously, even nearly eight years later I still can’t get the hang of it. Sucks when virtual condos just get in your way sometimes.Read more...

He’s commanding in the octagon, but polarizing in real life. He’s also breakable and heavily flawed. And now, Conor McGregor is being sued by the woman who accused him of sexual assault back in 2018.

We tuned in to see the return of Kyrie Irving as he was finally going to join James Harden and Kevin Durant in the most offensively-gifted trio in NBA history. What we wound up getting was a coming-out party from a rising star, as Cleveland’s Collin Sexton crashed Brooklyn’s bash as the Cavs defeated the Nets 147-135…Read more...

The NHL isn’t dealing with anything the other leagues haven’t already. On a day when the NBA had to postpone its sixth straight game for the Wizards, the NHL took the MLB route and pinned the blame on the players. Four Capital players were placed on the COVID unavailable list — Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Samsonov, Evgeni…Read more...

Philip Rivers has officially announced his retirement, capping a long career and leaving a 2020 playoff team now without a starting quarterback. The Indianapolis Colts have a very strong roster and should be considered a contender entering next year, but it will largely hinge on who will be under center.