Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Shortly after Ryan Shazier’s injury during Monday’s Steelers-Bengals game, I got a message from Tim Marchman. The NFL has that manipulative injury music, he posited, referring to the sad piano song that they play going into commercial breaks as a player is carted off the field. Doesn’t WWE have their own version for…Read more...

Tomorrow, former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State physician Larry Nassar will be sentenced in federal court in Grand Rapids, Mich. pursuant to his guilty plea on child pornography charges. And 2012 Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney will be in the courtroom, watching as her former team doctor, a man she says…Read more...

Herm Edwards hasn’t been a professional football coach since 2008, and he hasn’t worked for a college team since the 1980s. Fashions and customs have certainly changed since then, apparently to Edwards’s surprise.

The Kansas City Chiefs, once 5-0 and Super Bowl favorites, are in a freefall. They’re 6-6 and dropped out of first place in the AFC West. On Sunday, they went up 14-0 on the Jets five minutes into the game—and lost, 38-31.Read more...

Fresh off the release of his two gorgeous original songs for Call Me By Your Name, weepy music man Sufjan Stevens has released a brand new track for the film I, Tonya, and—hmm, wait...I’m receiving word that this song, entitled “Tonya Harding,” is not actually related to the film I, Tonya at all. Their shared release…Read more...

Earlier this week, freshman guard LiAngelo Ball was pulled from UCLA without ever playing a game, since he was suspended indefinitely after shoplifting on a team trip to China. At the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in Manhattan today, NCAA President Mark Emmert was asked about Ball, to which he gave a…Read more...

Three months after giving birth to her daughter, and one year after winning the 2017 Australian Open for her 23rd major title while nine weeks pregnant, Serena Williams appears on track to defend her title and, should she win, tie hateful crone Margaret Court as the winningest tennis player in history.

I don’t know exactly what Bradley Beal had been trying to do in the five consecutive games the Wizards played without John Wall prior to last night’s visit to the Blazers in Portland. The Washington Post’s Candace Buckner has it that he was trying to create shots for others in the absence of one of the game’s best…Read more...

Retired Barcelona legend Carles Puyol expected to fiddle around with an assortment of (plastic) balls when he participated in last week’s World Cup group draw in host country Russia. But what he could not have expected was being accosted by a lady telling him “I want to fuck you, I have so big dick,” before whipping…Read more...

Here at Deadspin we’re not entirely opposed to making fervent valuations based exclusively on personal bias; but after releasing a highly contested ranking of pizza chains, we wanted to check our work. Five hungry and very stupid staffers, who failed to fully appreciate the gravity of what they committed themselves…Read more...

Here’s a fairly mundane play from last night’s game between the Raptors and Suns, which was made spectacular by the quick thinking of the camera operator under the basket.

Today’s deals start off with Super Mario Odyssey, RTIC coolers and tumblers, Blunt umbrellas, and many more.Read more...

io9 Rian Johnson Teases a Mysterious New Weapon in Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Jalopnik Local Dodge Viper Leaving Cars And Coffee Briefly Considers Accelerating Before Crash | Kotaku Portal Gets Its Own Bridge Building Game | The A.V. Club Stephen Dillane really hated his performance as Stannis on Game Of Thrones | …Read more...

The Houston Astros confirmed earlier this week that Dallas Keuchel has a minor foot injury. The pitcher, an all-star this season who started two games in the World Series, got hurt in a curious way: He fell during the championship parade and sprained his ankle.Read more...

There’s a weird tic of hockey writers where every great save has to be framed as a “save of the year candidate.” I do this too. Was tempted to do it here. Why? Why can’t we just set up a great save with “here’s a great save”? Do we not trust readers to watch a highlight unless we position it as a potential…Read more...

The Canadiens had looked like they’d gotten things figured out, winning five straight since the return of Carey Price from injury. (Funny how that works. You get the best goaltender in the world back in net, and he gives up six total goals in five games, and you win them all, and suddenly you’re third in the…Read more...

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Beyoncé showed up at tonight’s Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Ceremony to present Colin Kaepernick with the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, given annually to an athlete who uses sports as a platform to change the world.Read more...

The last few minutes of the Raptors’ victory over the Suns brought a scary moment for Phoenix fans, as Devin Booker was carried off the court by teammates with what looked to be a groin injury.Read more...

Ball State’s Taylor Persons nailed a spectacular three with 1.7 seconds remaining in a tie game to upset number-nine ranked Notre Dame in South Bend tonight, giving his Cardinals their first-ever win in 10 tries against the Fighting Irish. The final score was 80-77, in a game Notre Dame was favored to win by 17.Read more...

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.Read more...

It only took Florida State a few days to find a replacement head coach after Jimbo Fisher took a king’s ransom to move to Texas A&M. The Seminoles, who became bowl eligible with a win in a rescheduled game against Louisiana-Monroe this past weekend, announced today that they’ve hired Willie Taggart, who coached…Read more...

Tasty stuff on the hot stove today, folks: The Cardinals have signed right-handed pitcher Miles Mikolas to a two-year deal. You may know his name from very brief stints with the Padres and Rangers from 2012 through 2014 (unlikely), or from his quite good performance in Japan over the past several years. But you should…Read more...

Stephen Curry ended the night on crutches after rolling his right ankle in the final minute of Golden State’s game against New Orleans yesterday. Today, the team has announced that Curry is out indefinitely, with at least two weeks until doctors re-evaluate his injury.Read more...

CBS Sports has blamed a “technical issue” for scraping blogs from various SB Nation team sites and posting them in full on its website with no attribution, according to a statement from CBS Sports Digital to Deadspin.Read more...

Gizmodo Don’t Buy Anyone an Echo | Offspring How to Keep Your Kids Out of Your Bed | Kotaku Destiny 2 Gets Its First Major Balance Patch | Jalopnik Three Racing Cheats You’ve Never Heard Of | The Takeout Is it safe to eat deli meats with that metallic sheen? |Read more...

Welcome to Bad Quarterback Performance Of The Week, a recurring feature in which we celebrate the worst quarterback play the NFL has to offer.Read more...

Desus Nice and The Kid Mero just tackled esports on their comedy talk show, thanks to Riot’s latest masturbatory advertisement showcasing League of Legends pro players. Riot’s video, which juxtaposes clips of notable esports haters like Colin Cowherd with emotional esports moments like Faker crying, argues that people…Read more...

Over seven years after the body of Lorenzen Wright was found near Memphis, Tenn., a man has been indicted today for the first-degree murder of the former NBA player by a Shelby County grand jury.Read more...

We are currently at that point in the baseball calendar when we are not strictly speaking really on the baseball calendar. Baseball-adjacent things are happening, or threatening to happen. Shohei Ohtani is giving the fans of seven teams a chance to think happy baseball thoughts, there are various depressing trade…Read more...

Thanks to Brendan Karet and Dave Weigel, the Deadspin staff has spent the last half hour or so watching this video of a husky man in business casual wailing away on some meat, and then following the Youtube rabbit hole down to, uh, more videos of What If Game Of Thrones But Middle Management?Read more...

You probably remember the rules of chess, but what’s actually happening there on the board? How many moves are Grandmasters really thinking ahead? Why do they never actually checkmate the opponent? Is my life just like a game of chess?

Around the time of Trump’s inauguration, when America’s maximum dissolute liberal rage was seeking an outlet, there was discussion of a general strike. Then, it was an implausible fantasy. Now? Let’s have a serious talk.Read more...

The International Olympic Committee announced today that it has banned Russia—but not all Russian athletes—from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as an unprecedented punishment for systemic doping, including at the 2014 Games in Sochi.Read more...

Thomas the Tank Engine, as a children’s book and TV series, may be vaguely authoritarian, but as a toy, it’s weirdly entertaining. Watch in awe (or at least with surprisingly strong interest) as the locomotive does totally sick tricks like a 50-50 grind, or a barrel roll onto a parallel track.Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking paracord bracelets, farting, Alabama, and more.

Fresh off his 41-point statement game on Friday, Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell has remained hot as hell. His contribution to Utah’s all-devouring 116-69 destruction of the Wizards was 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting; he sat the entire fourth quarter. Mitchell’s 16.7 points per game put him third among all rookies and…Read more...

In a piece published at CBS Sports on Tuesday, reporter Matt Norlander chatted up several of college basketball’s top coaches, hoping to find a path inside the minds of these titans, these innovators. The main question being posed is the one that’s been vexing the sport since the FBI fucked everyone’s shit up in the…Read more...

The Philadelphia Fusion, the Comcast-owned Overwatch League team, just pulled out of their pre-season matches, citing “player logistics issues.” The Fusion had been scheduled to play the debut match of the OWL pre-season against the Florida Mayhem tomorrow.

Now that the Giants have fired Ben McAdoo, someone else has to be the spiritual successor to Jim Tomsula, a former doormat salesman whose figurative and literal hunger earned him exactly one season leading the 49ers, but oh, what a season it was. Jaguars coach Doug Marrone already seems like a viable candidate to fill…Read more...

Youtheory Racing’s No. 55 truck sent a wheel flying across a desert when their truck landed nose-first into the dirt while trying to qualify for the Pahrump Nugget 250 Best in the Desert race. No one was hurt, but it just looks like a ridiculous trucksplosion.

Social media was abuzz this weekend with a video depicting a baby-faced Sunderland fan sitting alongside his fellow supporters at the Stadium of Light, taking in the day’s match while also appearing to take a pleasant shit right there on his seat. The kid, later revealed to be 17-year-old Callum Mawson, has since come…Read more...

According to ESPN, a protective order has been filed against Oklahoma running back Rodney Anderson. The woman who filed the order says that Anderson sexually assaulted her on November 16.

Through the first 810 games of his career, Kevin Durant was ejected just twice. Through the first 18 games of this season, he’s been booted off the floor three times. Last night brought us the latest incident, in which Durant got into it with Boogie Cousins during the final minutes of the game, earning himself a…Read more...

Field Guide 10 Useful Windows 10 Features You Probably Never Use But Should | Lifehacker How to Survive a Plane Crash | Jalopnik All The Craigslist Shitboxes Jalopnik Readers Have Been Tempting Me With Lately (Vol. 2) | Kotaku Manga Confronting Homophobia In Japan Getting Live-Action TV Drama | The A.V. Club MSNBC…Read more...

A grimy football game can be fun, sometimes. Messy, brutal, even a little bit of dirty play can raise the stakes, or at least turn a game into a car wreck that can’t be looked away from. Steelers-Bengals was not fun.

Ah, ugly holiday sweaters. A tradition that never ceases to outdo itself. If you have one (or more) of these parties coming up, Amazon has a Gold Box full of some really great options. Truly, these are the pinnacle of ironic ugliness and they’re on sale, today only.

Pizza stones help you quickly achieve crispier crusts (or crispier anything) in the oven, and the best one you can buy has a rare discount today, just for our readers.

Tonight’s Steelers-Bengals game was brutal—football that can charitably be described as “old-school” and accurately, necessarily described as “sickening.” The hits came and kept coming, with the injury count ticking upward. The night’s worst injury, though, happened only minutes after kick-off, when Ryan Shazier was…Read more...

The Grizzlies snapped their 11-game losing streak tonight with a 95-92 win over the Timberwolves, and Marc Gasol was pretty pumped about it. Enough to clearly drop a “fuck it” in his televised postgame comments.Read more...