Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

“Caravans of progress take time to cross a desert of resistance,” wrote Jay Paterno in an op-ed for Arab News yesterday. The self-professed “consultant on politics, leadership, crisis communications and public relations” has a lot to teach us, it turns out. Folks, I’ve harbored a personal “desert of resistance”…Read more...

Freddie Kitchens beat out a host of strong candidates for the Browns’ head coaching job, including Joey Bathrooms, Bobby Closets, and, of course, Gregg Williams.Read more...

Leeds United used to be one of the most famous soccer clubs in England. The Peacocks were the last winners of the English First Division, before it was renamed the Premier League, back in 1992, and their heated rivalries with Manchester United and Chelsea were the stuff of top-flight legend.Read more...

If only all clothes could be bought in packs of 5, or 6, or 8. But, at least for now, we’ll have to settle for just buying the essentials from Hanes in bulk, and right now’s a good time to do so, since Hanes is taking 20% off sitewide. After all, there’s no such thing as too much underwear and undershirts.

The Clemson Tigers, 15-0 and national champions, will make the traditional national championship team visit to the White House tonight. That this visit is happening during a government shutdown has rankled some, especially since not every team is even invited anymore. (Villanova didn’t get one. The Red Sox did. The…Read more...

Popular supplements, Anker soundbars, and USB-C chargers lead off Monday’s best deals.

Andy Murray will not quit the majors without another characteristically nasty fight. His last French Open: five brutal sets before Stan Wawrinka put him to rest. His last Wimbledon: five more sets of agony with his hip all out of sorts. Today at the Australian Open—which, given his retirement announcement, will…Read more...

The baseball panic is rising. With every additional day that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado go unsigned—and Dallas Keuchel and Mike Moustakas and A.J. Pollock and Craig Kimbrel—the drumbeat strengthens: Something is wrong here. After all, as has been pointed out here, every team could use a Manny Machado and none of…Read more...

For unexperienced hockey fighters, there may not be any real strategy to winning a brawl other than “flail more intensely and accurately than your opponent” and “hold on so you don’t fall on your ass.” But when two properly trained punchers square up on the ice, the resulting competition can be as calculated as it is…Read more...

Gizmodo President Trump Mocks Amazon’s ‘Jeff Bozo’ During Unhinged Twitter Rant | Jalopnik The 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Will Slay Hellcats And Camaros With At Least 700 HP | Lifehacker Replace These Words in Your Writing | Cosplay Suspected Cosplay Stalker Destroys Seven Cars During Anime Con [Update] | The…Read more...

In the bleak winter days of mid-January 2017, Rowan Ricardo Phillips rose before dawn. The Australian Open was underway, and he was hellbent on watching every televised ATP men’s match over the course of the year. Phillips’s obsession with the game turned into total spectator immersion, starting Down Under in January…Read more...

Depending on how much you’re willing to believe the reported rumors, there appear to now be clear frontrunners in what seems to be at best to be three-team races for top free agents Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.Read more...

“That was a long-ass drive,” Saints guard Larry Warford said of the relentless march down the field that took up nearly the entire third quarter and gave New Orleans its first lead, the only one it would need in a 20-14 win over the Eagles. And my goodness, yes it was.

If you’ve got the space for it, table tennis is by far the best indoor household game, and this MD Sports table is on sale for just $124 at Walmart today, the best price we’ve seen. When you’re not using it, the whole thing can fold up to take up less floor space, or you can fold up just one half to create a backboard…Read more...

Alshon Jeffery is going to be the scapegoat only because every close game seems to end up with one—something to do with human psychology, I suppose. Yes, he let the ball go through his hands for a game-sealing interception in the Saints’ 20-14 playoff win. But there are plenty of other things to blame, or credit.Read more...

Heisman-winning-QB-but-also-A’s-draft-pick Kyler Murray has a choice to make, and it looks like he’s going to forego a baseball career (for now) to enter the NFL Draft, and it looks like he’s going to announce that as soon as tomorrow. Both the A’s and Major League Baseball have sent envoys to Dallas to convince him…Read more...

In the third quarter of Friday’s game between the Bulls and the Warriors, Bobby Portis attempted to set a screen on Kevin Durant so that Kris Dunn could get to the basket. Durant tried to get past Portis using a swim move—not unlike what a defensive lineman uses to get to a QB—and ended up pulling Portis’s arm, and…Read more...

The Predators capped their season’s longest road trip with a 6-3 loss at Carolina, but not before Filip Forsberg scored one of the niftiest goals of the year. It wasn’t particularly flashy—it’s tough to even see what happened at full speed—but it was smart as hell.

The L.A. Kings brought Snoop Dogg to a home game against the Penguins to drop the ceremonial first puck. Unlike most guests, however, he was allowed to call part of the game too. The results were about as delightfully on-brand as you’d expect.

It’s 28-7 Patriots as I write this midway though the second quarter, and New England is taking apart the Chargers defense that looked so impressive in last week’s win over Baltimore. But what works against Lamar Jackson doesn’t work against Tom Brady.

Football coaches have tried a lot of motivational techniques over the years. Tony Sparano dug a hole and buried a football. Jay Norvell wore a blue shirt. Jon Gruden sends players who play well to good teams. Jack Del Rio did whatever he did that resulted in his punter suffering an ax wound. Most of these are very…Read more...

About midway through the first half of Saint Joseph’s match-up against Duquesne on Saturday, Pierfrancesco Oliva drove to the rim looking for a layup. Dukes defender Michael Hughes rose up and blocked the shot, causing Oliva to fall down hard to the floor. The Hawks player immediately grabbed his leg and began…Read more...

The Celtics fell 105-103 in Orlando on Saturday, and they are, by their own high standards, scuffling. Boston is 25-17, only good enough for fifth in the East. It’s a real comedown for a team that came within a game of the Finals last year without two of their best players. So it’s hard to separate Kyrie Irving’s…Read more...

The National Lacrosse League’s Georgia Swarm moved to 4-0 with a 13-11 win in Philadelphia on Saturday, led by star forward Lyle Thompson’s three goals and three assists. But the game was marred by comments from Philadelphia Wings’ PA announcer, as well as from some fans:

Blake Griffin had a solid revenge game against his former team on Saturday. In his first game back to Los Angeles since getting traded to Detroit, he put up 44 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals in the 109-104 victory. It even looked like he got a chance to stick it to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer…Read more...

The Bradley Center, home to the Milwaukee Bucks for 30 years, as well as Marquette hoops and the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, was partially imploded Sunday morning, as workers detonated charges to bring down the roof. It wasn’t a full demolition, as the arena is too close to nearby buildings (including the Bucks’ new…Read more...

The Rams’ offensive line is in the soul-protecting business. The Cowboys’ vaunted defensive front, fresh off holding the Seahawks’ NFL-best ground game to just 73 yards rushing in last week’s wild card win, spent all week talking, dreaming, drooling over the havoc they were going to wreak at the line of scrimmage.…Read more...

Anker’s Eufy RoboVac 11+ isn’t the company’s newest or most powerful robotic vacuum, but it’ll still do the yeoman’s work of keeping your floors clean by bopping around your house every day with basically zero input from you. It’s also extraordinarily quiet, compared to my Roomba.

Support your New Years fitness goals by loading up on protein from this Quest Nutrition Gold Box. Boxes of bars in scrumptious flavors like cinnamon roll and apple pie, so you’ll actually enjoy feeding those newfound muscles of yours.Read more...

Perhaps when Jon Gruden insisted that he got “a lot of phone calls from people who are dying to come and play here,” he was telling the truth, and those players didn’t mention how long they planned on staying. Even the briefest stints in Oakland appear to be performance-enhancing.Read more...

The officials in tonight’s Cowboys-Rams game made their own avant-garde contribution to the NFL’s constantly expanding reality. Is a catch a catch if no one recovers what is later ruled a fumble? Did a play actually end on the one-inch line if it was originally ruled a touchdown? And now: can a quarterback be ruled…Read more...

Jim Boylen’s tenure as the Chicago Bulls’ interim head coach been marked by near-mutiny from his own players and rarely-seen open mocking from other teams, but also: the actual basketball has been really shitty. The Bulls are 5-13 under Boylen, a hair better than their 5-19 start under possible future Timberwolves…Read more...

The Kansas City Chiefs rolled over the Indianapolis Colts, 31-13, to advance to the AFC Championship Game. To keep themselves amused during the blowout, Chiefs fans threw snowballs onto the field at least three different times.Read more...

Are you tired of sportswriters over-ascribing thinking to every physical motion and intent to every split-second decision? Then you’ve come to the wrong damn blog post! Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes mostly just missed on his most ambitious throws in the divisional round today, but early in the second half, he dipped his…Read more...

Have you ever found yourself wondering, “I like college gymnastics but can it be more like a video game?”Read more...

The Chiefs are manhandling the Colts on both sides of the ball right now, but the game is still faintly in reach thanks to this blocked punt by Najee Goode and end-zone recovery by Zach Pascal.Read more...

Duke forward Cam Reddish had been ice cold for over a month, shooting just 25% from the field since the Blue Devils’ Dec. 1 win over Stetson. Instead, Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett have carried the load over an eight-game winning streak.Read more...

Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett’s contract was set to expire after the 2019 season, but Ian Rapoport reports that Jerry Jones will extend it after the playoffs—no matter what happens tonight against the Rams.Read more...

With Grayson Allen on to antagonizing and endangering opponents in the NBA, NC State forward Wyatt Walker has taken up his mantle in the ACC. The Samford transfer was ejected just two minutes into Saturday’s game for the maneuver you see above.

It took two extra periods of play for the Georgetown Hoyas to take down the Providence Friars this afternoon, 96-90. But the home team wouldn’t have gotten to that second overtime in the first place were not for two freshman sinking two clutch shots, including one buzzer-beater, when the Hoyas needed them most.

Up three with 11.8 seconds left in the game, the Northern Kentucky Norse ran a creative inbounds play try and get away from Wright State’s attempts at fouling. The home players lined up in what can only be described as a four-receiver set, trips right. The player to the left of the inbounder/quarterback ran a comeback…Read more...

Rookie phenom Luka Dončić put the Dallas Mavericks on his back in the final 90 seconds of their matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves last night. His first two clutch baskets came at the rim thanks to picks that DeAndre Jordan set. The first drive resulted in a heavily-contested layup, and the second resulted in…Read more...

After an institutional fuck-up prevented her from playing the sport she loves for 16 games over 43 days, Maori Davenport made her triumphant return to the basketball court on Friday night for Charles Henderson High. Needless to say, everyone in the gym that night was pretty hyped she was back—especially Davenport…Read more...

Get some good sleep and save some money with Casper’s Winter Sale, now through January 21. If you spend over $1,000, the sleep retailer will knock off $100, plus they’ll gift you with $25 to use toward a future purchase. And unlike other Casper promotions, you don’t have to buy a mattress to take advantage of it. So,…Read more...

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy announced today that his website’s comments section, long one of the most vile places on the internet, has been shuttered “until further notice.” His reasoning was that the biggest fans of the site were just too racist:

Last week, USA Gymnastics asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to approve $88,000 in holiday bonuses for its office staff. On Thursday, the Orange County Register reported that the gymnasts on the U.S. men’s national team have not received their monthly support checks from the federation, and that coaches who worked with…Read more...

Two days after Gary Kubiak was tabbed as the next offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos, Gary Kubiak will not be the next offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos.

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.

Two days after Trevor Bauer sort of admitted it was wrong of him to harass a 21-year-old woman on Twitter, he’s still very tender about the topic. When the Cleveland pitcher was asked about it today in a media session with reporters, he literally fled the scrum before the reporter could even finish asking his question.

I eat fruit every day, not because I am supposed to but because I want to. So far today I have eaten two clementines and some grapes. I will probably eat one, maybe two more clementines before the day is through. I have no idea if eating this much fruit is healthy and I do not care. Kill me, fruit. It’s how I wanna go…Read more...