Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Amazon’s run a few gift-friendly tool sales for the holidays, but today’s is specifically about stocking stuffers. Everything in the sale is physically (fairly) small, and on sale for under $45.

Stanley drinkware is ostensibly designed for camping, but that trademark hammertone green will look great on your desk at work too (unless it’s the flask, maybe keep that in a drawer).

The Joe Tessitore-Jason Witten-Booger McFarland Monday Night Football crew has been very, hmm, uneven in its first season. Tessitore is blandly Fine; Witten sometimes talks himself into dizzying circles; McFarland’s sideline scooter seems to produce an awful lot of confusion in his analysis. If you are a fan of…Read more...

Taj Gibson lost his shoe on a post move early in the first quarter of tonight’s Kings-Timberwolves game. His shoeless layup went down, which is cool enough, but play did not stop, and so Gibson was forced to hoof it down to the defensive end in a sock, holding his shoe in his right hand.Read more...

The sad, demoralized Bulls are having their asses handed to them in Oklahoma City tonight. Perhaps the familiarity of another grim drubbing was more than they could bear—in the third quarter, down 21 points, they picked several fights all at once:Read more...

This is just an unbelievably cursed combination of proper nouns: Browns head coach Gregg Williams used help from retired coin-operated fortune-teller Phil Jackson to arrange for dead-eyed thinkfluencer Kobe Bryant to deliver a motivational talk to his young team ahead of their week 15 game this past weekend.Read more...

The worst way to fight Edson Barboza is to let the lanky Brazilian have the necessary space to get his terrifying kicks off. Kiwi action fighter Dan Hooker very occasionally (so, like, twice) ruffled Barboza with spurts of pressure in the second round of their fight last weekend on the UFC’s final card on Fox, but…Read more...

The good young Kings beat the good young Mavericks on Sunday, in Luka Dončić’s first career regular season game against the team that unexpectedly passed on drafting him with the second overall pick back in June. Dončić had 28 points on 15 shots and was excellent; Marvin Bagley III, whom the Kings selected ahead of …Read more...

In its effort to continue to tweak every single thing imaginable, MLS announced on Monday that there will be a new playoff format starting in 2019. The league is doing away with the European-influenced two-legged playoffs in favor of a single-elimination tournament, akin to March Madness.

Jalopnik Run for the Hills If You Encounter Any of These Car-Buying Red Flags | Two Cents These Are the 2019 Tax Brackets | Gizmodo It’s 2018, and the iPhone Is Still Super Annoying | Kotaku I Just Unlocked A 2016 Nintendo Game In The Silliest Way Possible | The Takeout Guess which 2 chains that aren’t Papa John’s…Read more...

It’s been nearly 48 hours since Broncos head coach Vance Joseph made what might have been this season’s worst coaching decision (non–Nathan Peterman, Starting Quarterback Division). But now there’s math to let us know just how brutal Joseph’s play-call actually was.Read more...

Here we have 46-year-old surf dude Kelly Slater getting mega pitted at Billabong Pipe Masters this weekend and living to tell the tale. Slater won his matchup against Brazilian surfer Filipe Toledo, though the most impressive thing he did was get back on his board after eating a wave. Slater was pretty much all the…Read more...

Liverpool are legitimate contenders to win all the big trophies this season for the simple reason that their starting lineup is crammed full of players who are amongst the very best at their positions. Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, the forward line generally, the full back tandem…Read more...

If you haven’t heard, white-supremacist whisperer Olivia Nuzzi and guy who was fired from the New Yorker after a sexual misconduct investigation Ryan Lizza are a couple. Congrats to the sex-havers. While I’d usually try to avoid thinking about a woman my age being with a guy who is old enough to be her father, it was…Read more...

There’s a whole lot to chew on (and possibly also retch up) in ESPN reporter Ian O’Connor’s substantial profile of James Dolan up today. Over the course of a two-hour interview, Dolan faced good, tough questions and responded at surprising length. He also displayed his trademark sensitivity and thoughtfulness on a…Read more...

During the Rams’ loss to the Eagles last night, a heckler behind the Rams bench kept pestering cornerback Marcus Peters. Instead of chilling on the bench and ignoring him, Peters walked over and confronted the heckler, repeatedly asking him where he was from.Read more...

The last-place Philadelphia Flyers—a playoff team last year that has already fired its GM this season—have nothing to lose. And when a team is backed into the bottom of the standings without anywhere further to drop, they start to make riskier and more desperate moves. Today, the Flyers made two—firing their coach and…Read more...

This weekend, American rider Katie Compton dusted the field to win the 2018 national cyclocross championships. It was a dominant performance; she overtook hotshot young rider Ellen Noble on a gutsy descent during the first lap, and was then unseen for the remainder of her almost one hour out on the course. She won by…Read more...

Bose’s wireless QuietComfort 35 headphones set the standard for all other brands to follow when it comes to noise-cancelling technology. And right now you can get a pair for $300.Read more...

There is plenty to discuss about Jared Goff and the suddenly mortal Los Angeles Rams, but Goff’s panicked third-quarter interception was so inexplicable that it’d be a disservice to push it any further down this post, so:Read more...

John Wall is still pretty good. It’s okay to have forgotten.

The Nuggets’ 95-86 win over the Raptors on Sunday night wasn’t the prettiest imaginable matchup between each conference’s No. 1 team. It looked a lot more like the league’s No. 4 and No. 7 defense dragging each other through the muck while coping with a rash of injuries and putrid shooting, which happens to be another…Read more...

Zack Steffen, an American soccer player who currently plies his trade on U.S. soil, is set to join the English Premier League’s reigning champions. The Columbus Crew have announced that the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year will be moved to Manchester City Football Club next summer for an undisclosed transfer fee. That fee…Read more...

It might look like a run of the mill USB battery pack, but EnergyFlux’s Enduro pulls double duty as an electric hand warmer. Its 7800mAh of power can recharge your phone a couple of times, or heat the exterior up to 109 degrees for about seven hours, depending on how cold it is outside.

What has been a nightmare season for the Blackhawks has the potential to get a lot worse. Goaltender Corey Crawford, who missed nearly 10 months recovering from a concussion suffered almost exactly one year ago, was concussed again in Sunday night’s 7-3 loss to the Sharks.

Jacksonville Jaguars v. Washington Racists “Week 15 action” news. What will be remembered from this day? Only these words:Read more...

A Dyson vacuum, fitness trackers, anime Blu-Rays and discounted USB-C cables kick off Monday’s best deals.

On April 1, 2016, Colin Dew-Becker joined degenerates nationwide in a nightly ritual: blowing money on daily fantasy sports. He lost $100 on a wager, plus $9 in fees, in an NBA head-to-head contest on FanDuel. In point of fact, Dew-Becker was positively smoked, losing by a score of 221.1 points to 96.3 points. So…Read more...

io9 Ryan Reynolds Sent a Gift to the Guy Who Changed the Avengers: Endgame URL Into a Deadpool Advertisement | Lifehacker Quickly Figure Out What the Visa Requirements Are For Every Country With This Site | Kotaku Marvel At China’s Own Iron Man Type Movie | Jalopnik Lincoln’s Making 80 Special Edition Continentals…Read more...

The Champions League draw for the Round of 16 went down on Monday morning, and three of the four advancing English teams are going to have a very difficult road. Tottenham drew Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund; Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool got perennial powerhouse Bayern Munich; and—in the marquee match-up—a…Read more...

What exactly are the Seahawks? Are they closer to the team that stumbled out to records of 0-2, 2-3, and 4-5? Or to the team that then reeled off four wins in a row and looked entirely ready to come into Santa Clara and claim a playoff berth on their lowly rivals’ home field? Or the team that promptly barfed up a…Read more...

Sawyer makes some of the highest rated insect repellent on Amazon, as well as a portable water filter that we actually like better than LifeStraw, so if you still haven’t found the right gifts for the campers and hikers in your life, Amazon’s one-day Sawyer sale could be just what you were waiting for.

There was no Jesse James horror play this time around for the Steelers. Although Tom Brady did make all of Pittsburgh nervous with a methodical and eerily familiar fourth-quarter drive, it was hindered by a holding penalty and ended with a turnover on downs. The Steelers maintain their slim lead in the AFC North, and…Read more...

Zia Cooke, a South Carolina commit and ESPN’s seventh-ranked prospect from the 2019 class, put on a show Saturday, dropping a career-high 43 points in the fifth game of her senior season. The highlight reel from the game featured pretty much everything you’d want from a high school mixtape: step-back jumpers, and-one…Read more...

Rodions Kurucs, an intriguing prospect out of Latvia, earned his second career start for the Brooklyn Nets today. At one point in the third quarter, the 20-year-old rookie grabbed a board and headed up the fast break. Kurucs tore down the floor until he spotted a teammate wide-open in the left corner for three. The…Read more...

The most useful takeaway from Washington’s 16-13 win over Jacksonville wasn’t that the Jaguars are in a very dark place right now, but that a quarterback like Josh Johnson, seven years removed from his last start, can still be successful in the NFL despite an extended layoff from football. Huh!Read more...

Sebastian Janikowski exists to blast long field goals and basically do nothing else. He’s also 40 years old. Sure, it would’ve been nice if he tried to tackle 49ers kick returner Richie James Jr. on this 97-yard touchdown, but that’s asking a lot.

Russell Westbrook needed 22 minutes to get on the board. It didn’t matter, because the Thunder have that other guy, too. Carrying the scoring load for Oklahoma City once again was Paul George, who went off for 33 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, with no turnovers. Behind another wild December night from the…Read more...

Bills rookie linebacker Tremaine Edmunds assisted in a stop at the line of scrimmage to force a fourth down and punt from the Lions in the first half today. His teammate Jerry Hughes also tried to help, but instead had his helmet stuck to the back of Edmunds’s jersey. Aw, they like each other.Read more...

A player on a successful team will sometimes be required to step up and go beyond their position’s normal responsibilities. For his part today, Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota tried his hand at becoming a crackback blocker.Read more...

Bears pass rusher Khalil Mack is almost impossible to stop with his left-arm move, but he introduced a new devastating technique in today’s game against the Packers: the butt sack.Read more...

At 33 years old, Alex Ovechkin is having the best season of his career. He leads the NHL in goals scored with 29 (six ahead of second-place Patrik Laine), and has 17 goals and six assists in his last 14 games, including a six-game goal streak. He also recently became the first player in 17 years to score consecutive…Read more...

Fighting a mascot is a bad idea—mascot’s advantages: padding, potential athleticism, people care about it more than you—and it becomes an even worse idea when the cameras are rolling. The Chicago Blackhawks’ Tommy Hawk scuffled with a fan after Friday night’s game, and he handled himself well.Read more...

LeBron James posted 24 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, his second triple-double of the season, and then sat out the whole fourth quarter as the Lakers lashed the Hornets Saturday. As LeBron headed off the court to rest his bones, he took Lonzo Ball aside and told him to look up: the 21-year-old was just three…Read more...

As Stanford women’s volleyball players filed into the locker room following their title-winning, five-set victory over Nebraska Saturday, one well-placed photographer captured some mascot violence drawn on the Cardinal’s whiteboard. The @NCAAVolleyball account tweeted then deleted the photo, presumably after noticing…Read more...

The Cleveland Browns have not had a winning season since 2007. The closest they’ve been to .500 was a 7-9 campaign in 2014, and that becomes even sadder with the reminder that those Browns, under then-head coach Mike Pettine, had squandered a 7-4 start to get there. (He was fired after his second season when the team…Read more...

For a limited time, a bunch of Goodthreads and Buttoned Down clothes are on sale for about 20%-50% off. There are tons of fits and styles available from these Amazon brands, so surely you can upgrade to a few new pieces for the new year.Read more...

Hurdles are one of the most disrespectful ways someone can get past his opponent on the football field. The move not only makes for an incredible highlight, it also makes a defender look smaller and sillier than in most other evasive maneuvers. But hurdles also carry the risk making a ball carrier look like a child…Read more...

Thirty-year-old Swiss skier Mark Gisin was hospitalized on Saturday after losing control on the Saslong downhill course and crashing down the mountain during a World Cup downhill run. After multiple nasty bumps down the course, he laid motionless on the snow before medical personnel could get to him. He was ultimately…Read more...

Just two days removed from a 20-point loss to the Kawhi-less Toronto Raptors, the Golden State Warriors were looking for a bounce-back win against the up-and-coming Sacramento Kings. Thanks to the efforts of Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson—who combined for 95 points—they were able to fend off a late-game…Read more...