Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

We’re down to the final eight. No one would’ve picked some of the teams still playing to be here at the beginning of the season, while others were givens. Yet, all are three wins away from winning the Super Bowl. The defending champions never looked the part and the defending runners-up are still part of the field. We…Read more...

There’s a difference between “working at the pleasure” of your alma mater and holding it hostage, and Jim Harbaugh is slowly creeping toward the latter. The University of Michigan coach made an overt pass at the Vikings opening a year ago at this time, and spent parts of this offseason chatting with the Denver Broncos…Read more...

When the Jaguars take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium, it will be Jacksonville’s first time playing in the Divisional Round since 2017 — which is also the last time the Jags made the playoffs. 2017 is coincidentally the same year in which members of the team kneeled against a politician’s…Read more...

Not long ago, former NFL QB Byron Leftwich was a hot-shot coaching candidate du jour. Last offseason, the moribund Jacksonville Jaguars — the team that drafted him — in particular, were ready to go all in on Leftwich as their next head coach.

Dallas Cowboys kicker Brett “The Triple Threat” Maher was anything but automatic during PATs during last Monday’s Wild Card Round victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That was the first Cowboys’ playoff road win since 1992, but Maher certainly didn’t help. He went 1-for-5 on PAT attempts, with zero points added via…Read more...

The thing that organizations like the Philadelphia Flyers, or the NHL, or the You Can Play Project, is that the stories they hope will just go away never do in the timeframe they’re counting on. They continue to fester, and everyone’s inaction on it only prolongs this. The Flyers and their coach, John Tortorella,…Read more...

The NCAA needs a reality check. This week the vanishingly relevant college athletics institution has once again asked Congress to help it stabilize the college sports system, but unless Hunter Biden is suiting up at linebacker for LSU next season, it’ll be hard to motivate the people in charge to fall in love with…Read more...

I know I’m not the only one rolling my eyes at the NBA trying to come up with a midseason tournament format worthy of getting players to compete at the highest level. This is going to be like summer camp for teams once they’re eliminated, and if I was in the league, I’d think about throwing a contest or two for a…Read more...

Perhaps the most damning thing you can say about Everton FC is that most fans probably didn’t know the Premier League had financial fair play rules. It is hard to remember any other club that has come within a mile of being in violation of these rules that no one knows, and seem pretty nebulous when you do get to…Read more...

Mike Brey’s 23rd season as Notre Dame’s head men’s basketball coach will be his last as he’ll reportedly step down at the end of this season. Brey is the winningest coach in Fighting Irish and had an overall record of 481-269 since moving to South Bend in 2000. Before coming to Notre Dame, Brey spent five seasons as…Read more...

I understand that the content must be constantly shoveled into the furnace known as the 24-hour news cycle. That’s a lot of wood to keep on fire, especially when dealing with live television. All of that being said, what NFL Total Access did in comparing Dak Prescott to Brock Purdy looked disrespectful, and glistening…Read more...

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It’s odd how many NFL teams I hate despite not technically having an NFL team I root for. And I don’t feel like I’m in the minority on that either. Not the teamless fan part. The “I hate all of these teams” part. I refused to watch Patriots-Philadelphia Eagles and Patriots-Rams Round Two Super Bowls solely because of…Read more...

Andy Murray must really love tennis. At least he’d better, considering what he puts himself through every match in the past few years and over his whole career. It’s like he can’t get off the court when there have definitely been times he should get off the court, both in making his wins easier and what his body is…Read more...

Former Super Bowl-winning tight end Rob Gronkowski has never been shy about sharing his opinion. The four-time Super Bowl winner was on Up & Adams with Kay Adams this week, and she asked Gronk about Aaron Rodgers’ recent comments about winning more MVP awards. Rodgers said that he thinks he can win another MVP in the…Read more...

If you directly asked the NBA powers how they would feel about a Memphis Grizzlies-Denver Nuggets matchup in the Western Conference Finals, I think they’d offer a “We’d love that.” However, if you asked the same people the same question in an anonymous poll, I’m pretty sure the responses would be something vastly more…Read more...

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LaMelo Ball’s lost season was cursed before it even began. On Wednesday night, the Charlotte Hornets guard sprained his ankle after teammate P.J. Washington landed on it during a rare win over the Houston Rockets. Entering the night, Houston was the only team in the league with a more hopeless record than Charlotte.…Read more...

Anytime the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers get together, it’s a big deal for both franchises and the fan bases. But one radio host for 105.3 The Fan in Dallas chose to make it a little too personal by wishing injury on an opposing player. One of the hosts for “GBag Nation,” The Fan’s afternoon drive show,…Read more...

Last week, LSU was forced to beef up security around their gymnastics team, after fans of Olivia “Livvy” Dunne showed up at a meet the TikTok star was attending and disrupted the routines of fellow competitors. A video of a crush of young men, waiting for Dunne outside the competition, chanting her name, has been…Read more...

It’ll be the elephant in the room only as long as the Bills and Bengals choose it to be. The coaches and their 53-man rosters have prepared, traveled, and mentally dialed themselves in to face one another before. It’s a little hard to believe that Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on Cincinnati’s…Read more...

Here we go again with the Chargers. This franchise has what should be another life-changing, mega-talented quarterback in their building, and management’s response is to waste his prime. That’s where the situation seems to be heading in Los Angeles. Instead of showing Brandon Staley the door in favor of an HC who…Read more...

In the Summer of 2016, Max Kellerman predicted that Tom Brady’s skill would fall off a cliff. “Tom Brady’s just about done. It could be his next game he plays, it could be a year from now, but he is going to fall off a cliff. Tom Brady is going to be a bum in short order.”

In less than a month as the new head football coach at Bethune-Cookman University — a Historically Black College & University (HBCU) — Ed Reed has already unsurprisingly proven why he never should have been hired. Over the weekend, the College and Pro Football Hall of Famer took to social media to rant and rave in…Read more...

It’s all but official it seems. By all accounts, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will soon fire offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. Leftwich just finished up his fourth season as Tampa’s OC, having reached the playoffs each of the last three seasons — or every season with Tom Brady at quarterback. However, despite the…Read more...

No one gets the Pete Sampras, except for Pete Sampras, obviously. It’s so rare to see a tennis player walk off the court for the final time having just won a Grand Slam, still capable of more but sated with what was already accomplished and unable to ignore the poetry of that particular signoff. The kind of…Read more...

It hasn’t been a great week for NBC Sports football analyst Tony Dungy. He made up one-half of perhaps the most low-energy broadcast team we’ve ever heard on Saturday night (along with Al Michaels, and has been getting flack for it ever since. Dungy has also been getting roasted, and rightly so, by Cyd Zeigler over at OutSportsRead more...

There were few more highly touted prospects in the one-and-done era of men’s College Basketball than John Wall. Born and raised in Raleigh, N.C., it would make sense that he would want to attend the University of North Carolina. However, Wall alleges that a meeting with 2008-09 National Player of the Year — Tyler…Read more...

It’s always funny to me when a sportswriter says LeBron James or Steph Curry would be worth double or triple on the free market. While that may be true, that’s not reality. The salary cap is the reality, and they’ll have to accept the $40 million salary they’re currently earning. The same goes for Florida QB recruit…Read more...

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The NFL is going through one of its greatest quarterback renaissances in league history. It’s never been clearer, you can’t win a Super Bowl without an elite quarterback. Of the eight teams remaining in the postseason, only one team — the New York Giants — has a proven non-elite signal caller at the helm. That’s…Read more...

Following the Dallas Cowboys’ 31-14 slaughtering of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dak Prescott stepped to the podium and did what a veteran NFL quarterback is supposed to do. He exhibited the leadership qualities you like to see in your franchise star. Prescott having Brett Maher’s back was needed after missing four…Read more...

Handing out awards in the middle of the season is always a little silly, because just about anyone can spasm 40 games of brilliance. But hey, we’re here to be silly! So it feels like a great time to go over the first half of the NHL season and see who is the leader in the clubhouse for the baubles handed out at the…Read more...

The LIV Golf tour may finally have a broadcast partner, and it’s every bit as bootleg as you’d imagine for a league that stays putting the cart before the horse. According to reports, the Saudi-funded golf league is nearing a deal with the CW. Yes, that’s right. The network that brought you The Flash, the frog, and…Read more...

I’ve seen kiddie pools deeper than the unseasoned jambalaya VP Rob Pelinka has assembled for the Lakers around LeBron James. As a consequence, James’ enduring existence on a sub-.500 borderline playoff squad has created a rift where trade speculation festers and boils. During a recent appearance on The Ultimate…Read more...

Of course, a single game does not impact a team’s overall record the same way that it does an NFL team. In the NBA, teams play multiple games per week. That is not changing anytime soon, especially with the Golden State Warriors needing to host as many events as possible in their palatial $1.4 billion estate.

The NFL community is on Tom Brady watch. And by the NFL, I mean the producers at ESPN and Adam Schefter. If you’re wondering where he’s going to end up, you’ve come to a place. (And should probably return to your Google search.)Read more...

One-half of the best professional wrestling tag team of all-time to never get a chance in a major promotion died Tuesday night. Jay Briscoe was involved in a fatal car crash in Laurel, Delaware. Briscoe, whose real name was Jamin Pugh, was 38.

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As a former employee of Pro Football Focus, I can confidently tell you that the rating system the company built its reputation on is utter hogwash. I want to be clear, PFF is an incredible company that provides great analysis through articles, and advanced stats that only they keep track of, but their overall player…Read more...

This is becoming, sadly and infuriatingly, a familiar story in sports. The NHL wants you to believe that “hockey is for everyone,” except that it never seems to filter down to anyone in the game below the tagline.

Walk into any bar in Baltimore and randomly shout the name “Angelos.” Chances are someone within earshot will have some sort of visceral thoughts on the family that own a majority of the Orioles. Same as Steinbrenner in The Bronx or Buss in Los Angeles. The Angelos family patriarch, Peter, is 93. Team CEO, son John…Read more...

I found myself getting distracted several times while watching the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins’ Wild Card weekend matchup. This time it wasn’t from fans hurling ice chunks at Dolphin players but it was by what Mike McDaniel was wearing on his head.

Artists are often great at capitalizing on a moment and saying what everyone is thinking in a creative and eye-capturing fashion. Enter Preston Pannek, whose mural of Luka Dončić holding a “Please send help” sign perfectly encapsulates the season the Dallas Mavericks are having. And like any fascist government, upset…Read more...

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson exists as an extension of the Ozzie Newsome era. The final pick of the first round of the 2019 Draft has been absolutely dynamite, yet oddly polarizing. Since assuming control of a 4-5 Ravens team from Joe Flacco midway through the 2018 campaign, Jackson has consistently…Read more...

The biggest lies in human history are as follows:Read more...

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The NFL used to be a league full of expression and originality, and much of that was on display in the endzone during touchdown celebrations. We used to look forward to certain players scoring in anticipation of their signature dance or seeing what new move they’d come up with that week. All the originality seems to…Read more...

George Santos, Anthony Devolder, or whatever identity he’s assumed by the time this is published, pulled off one of the most daring cons in U.S. history during the midterm election cycle. In an era of con artists exploring extreme lengths to swindle their way into office, Santos faking a resume, spending months…Read more...

For all of the teams vying for one of the top three quarterbacks in the 2023 NFL Draft — or pretty much any organization in search of a new option under center — the most important factor is the coach. That’s an obvious statement, and one I felt dumb writing, but count me among the many who thought Daniel Jones wasn’t…Read more...