Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Kings became the first NHL team to fire its coach this season, ditching John Stevens after barely more than a full season with him at the helm. The long-time assistant and short-time bench boss was let go just 10 games into the year, and he’ll be replaced on an interim basis by Willie…Read more...

It was a great game. The Saints scored 35 first-half points, with Drew Brees throwing for three scores. Jared Goff led the Rams all the way back from a 21-point deficit to tie things up in the fourth. Then, late in the fourth quarter, the Saints had the ball in their own territory leading by just three. It was third…Read more...

If your supply of pantry staples like coffee, tea, and protein bars was running low, now’s your chance to replenish your stash. Amazon has marked down all of the above in today’s Gold Box, including a few of our favorites. Get your daily does of veggies with cans of V8, munch guilt-free on the Maple Sea Salt RXBAR…Read more...

You don’t necessarily need to buy a new mattress to get a better night’s sleep: Sometimes, a mattress pad will do, and one of Amazon’s most popular options is 25% off today with promo code KINJAPAD.

Michael Thomas caught a 72-yard touchdown to give the Saints a double-digit lead with under four minutes to play against the undefeated Los Angeles Rams. But things got better for New Orleans: Thomas celebrated the touchdown by recreating the Joe Horn touchdown cell phone celebration from 2003. A touchdown celebration…Read more...

The Bucks decided to run one of the most Wisconsin in-game fan contests ever on Sunday. In order to receive an autographed basketball, a fan had to name more cheeses than Milwaukee guard Sterling Brown did in the span of 30 seconds (17). With a foam cheese on her head, and a toddler on her arm, this Wisconsin woman…Read more...

This twinkle-toed touchdown reception by Rams running back Malcolm Brown, in which he somehow manages to dodge two onrushing Saints defenders and keep his feet inbounds despite having to do it all with just a sliver of grass between him, them, and the sideline, is just incredible.

The Seahawks have already shown that they’re more than capable of pulling off some impressive touchdown celebrations, but they decided to step up the choreography for this week. After Russell Wilson connected with Jaron Brown on a 10-yard touchdown pass in the back of the end zone, the team’s receiving core broke out…Read more...

After starting the season with wins against Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, the Lions have gone from a team that had dark horse potential to one that is definitively ass. This afternoon, the Vikings took advantage.Read more...

It took over seven games, 59 receptions and 898 yards but Julio Jones finally scored his first touchdown of the season. Matt Ryan connected with his star receiver on a 3rd-and-two screen pass at Washington’s 35-yard line. The recently-traded HaHa Clinton-Dix almost forced Jones to fall before crossing the goal line,…Read more...

Last year, Minnesota high school St. Michael-Albertville made news when they gagged up a huge late lead by letting Maple Grove score 19 points in the game’s final 59 seconds. On Friday, STMA found redemption by pulling off a wild fourth-quarter comeback of their own that featured three consecutive onside kick…Read more...

On a 1st-and-10 at the Buccaneers 33-yard line, the Panthers dialed up a double-reverse for second-year receiver Curtis Samuel, who proceeded to embarrass the hell out of nearly every single player on Tampa Bay’s defense for a touchdown.Read more...

Basketball star and no-rent housing innovator Joel Embiid had a monster game against the Pistons yesterday. And in his 39-point performance—32 of them coming in a scorching first half—Embiid achieved his twin goals of clowning on and growing his real estate investments with his favorite rival/unwitting business…Read more...

If you weren’t watching the EFC 75 event that took place in Cape Town, South Africa, you missed out on a potential knockout of the year candidate. Just 70 seconds into the first round of the fight, Mzwandile “Shakebone” Hlongwa knocked the lights out of his opponent Torbjorn Madsen with a spinning elbow from hell.Read more...

It’s never the wisest decision to put a quarterback who was once a Heisman favorite this season in position to beat you with his arm. But that’s exactly where the Longhorns placed Mountaineer QB Will Grier on Saturday, and they paid the price in excruciating fashion.Read more...

A combination of heavy rain and dozens of large, cleated football players stomping around on it for a couple hours meant yesterday’s Duke-Miami game, played for some reason in the Dolphins’ stadium, took place on top of a surface that looked more like a swamp than a football field. Which is bad news for the Jets and…Read more...

UMBC men’s basketball became one of the few programs that got to lift multiple banners to commemorate the previous season’s accomplishments on Friday. The first celebrated the Retrievers’ American East Championship. The second was just another reminder that they were the first No. 16 seed to knock out No. 1 seed in a…Read more...

I have never been so happy to have a blog of mine age so poorly.

The Arizona Cardinals became the latest team to realize Sam Bradford had no purpose being on their roster and cut the nine-year veteran on Saturday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.Read more...

Louisville’s football program is in utter disarray as their scumbag head coach continues to torpedo the team into nationally-televised embarrassments like today’s 77-16 loss to Clemson. But none of that matters because CLEMSON SCORED ANOTHER FAT GUY TOUCHDOWN, BABY!Read more...

ESPN issued an on-air apology to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey for comments that political analyst James Carville made during his appearance on College Gameday about the conference being inherently biased towards No. 1 Alabama.

Another day, another record for Simone Biles. Her record-breaking run at the 2018 worlds championships in Doha started with the all-around final on Thursday where she picked up her fourth all-around gold, making her the first woman to do so. She also tied Vitaly Scherbo for most world championship gold medals won at…Read more...

Demarai Gray scored what turned out to be the winning goal in Leicester City’s first game since owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha tragically died in a helicopter crash outside of King Power stadium last Saturday. To celebrate, Gray took off his jersey to reveal a shirt honoring the late Thai owner. Every Leicester City…Read more...

Nebraska got off to a surprise start against No. 8 Ohio State on Saturday, striking first off a 12-play drive of 75 yards to take an early 7-0 lead. The Cornhuskers followed this up by immediately giving all of their momentum back to the Buckeyes with this failed attempt at a kickoff.Read more...

The Vancouver Canucks took on the Colorado Avalanche on Friday in a thrilling 7-6 overtime victory. Among the 13 goals scored that night, the one that stood out the most came from Brock Boeser in the second period off of a pass by Swedish rookie standout Elias Pettersson that would make Henrik and Daniel Sedin proud.

Jimmy Butler stunk last night in the Timberwolves’ 116-99 loss against the Warriors. He scored 21 points on 23 shot attempts—which included a dismal 0-for-8 from three—and was a minus-19 during his time on the floor. But thanks to the disruptive saga that he’s created for himself, that wasn’t the focus of his postgame…Read more...

The Raptors played with some pretty mediocre effort on Friday which kept the terrible Phoenix Suns actually in a game going into the fourth quarter. One of the things that helped Toronto flip the switch and get the offense going was earning some quality assists through the legs of rookie big man Deandre Ayton.Read more...

Shams Charania is an NBA reporter for The Athletic and also works as an “NBA insider” for the “digital television sports network” Stadium, which was founded and is co-owned by Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf. An NBA reporter having two different jobs in the same field, one of which makes him the employee of an NBA…Read more...

Once the call was made to go on with WWE Crown Jewel, the second event of WWE’s 10-year contract with Saudi Arabia, one question loomed larger than any other going: What would this thing look like? The promotion’s first Saudi show, April’s Greatest Royal Rumble, was unvarnished pro-Saudi propaganda, even exploiting…Read more...

Clayton Kershaw’s velocity may be trending in the wrong direction, but he’s still a damn ace, and as such he was considered one of the huge targets in what many have expected to be a landscape-altering winter of baseball mega-stars chasing the free-agency big bucks to new towns and new teams. Not so!Read more...

Simone Biles won her fourth world all-around title on Thursday, but not in the way that she or her coaches or her fans had hoped she would. Biles fell on her vault in the first rotation and then fell off the beam in the third. She still managed to pull out the all-around win—her fourth, a new record—due to excellent…Read more...

What’s better than hitting the Shammgod, the coolest move in basketball? Providing an immediate historical reenactment, just in case anybody missed it. Russell Westbrook, thank you for your service.

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

This quarterback update on the Bills is sadder and more revealing than it’s meant to be:Read more...

The best place to spend the holiday season is curled up by the fire — of course, you need a fireplace to do that. If you’re craving the smell of firewood and that feeling of warmth from real crackling flames, consider taking advantage of Wayfair’s sale on indoor fireplaces, with some units up to 70% off. There are…Read more...

Former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Jim Boylan, who had been with the team from 2013 until this past offseason, filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County court today alleging age discrimination against his former team.Read more...

Justin Wayne was a bust. The fifth overall pick in the 2000 MLB draft, Wayne appeared in just 26 games over three seasons with the Florida Marlins, putting up an ERA over 6 (but earning a World Series ring along the way). Wayne’s post-baseball career was more successful, and more lucrative, at least right until he got…Read more...

On Sept. 20, Lakers czar Magic Johnson told ESPN that he assured coach Luke Walton that he’d be fine if the 2018-19 campaign were to get off to a slow start, since integrating a hodgepodge of new players into the team, including LeBron James, takes time.Read more...

Donald Trump is horrible and disgusting, and the menagerie of melting, gelatinous creatures surrounding him are also horrible and disgusting, but they’re not really new. The behavior they’ve exhibited over the last three years came into focus, in Facebook and before long silences at family dinners, during the years…Read more...

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Of course we take TMZ headlines with a grain of salt, but we’re really hoping this one is true: Boston Red Sox players reportedly left a $195,000 tip on a roughly $300,000 nightclub bill after celebrating the team’s World Series win last weekend. TMZ says it’s seen the receipt and can verify the whopper of a gratuity.Read more...

The language that Joel Embiid uses can be taken as an ice core sample of the language the internet is using at any given time. The Sixers center is one of the NBA’s savviest disciples of the Do-It-For-The-‘Gram ethos, a skilled user of meme and timely dialect, always hitting the right notes to Maximize Engagement. “I…Read more...

This might be difficult to believe, but up until today Simone Biles had never won a world championship gold medal on the vault.Read more...

Roger Federer has cut an unusual path into the fourth round at Paris: he played just two sets of tennis to get there. He had a first-round bye, then second-round opponent Milos Raonic withdrew from the tournament, and then he defeated the sleepy pirate Fabio Fognini, 6-4, 6-3. So all of a sudden, a slightly creaky,…Read more...

The Raiders suffered their most humiliating loss of the season Thursday night, a dismal 34–3 pounding to a one-win 49ers team that came into the game with a bottom-ten scoring offense, a bottom-ten scoring defense, and a rookie quarterback making his first career start. The Raiders opened up with a field goal, then…Read more...

Where Wild Card’s set of trading cards for the 1992 presidential election is concerned, the question is less how the set came to be than why. The how part is easy: Given a smallish photo budget, a sufficiently defective sense of judgment, and no meaningful pressure to sell any of the cards, a company could…Read more...

The horses had all the hay they needed, the random bucket of water had been emptied into the wash trough, the cook had his sacks of grain or flour or whatever, and there were no more logs to split. The menial morning chores were done. And I thought, Shit, I guess now I gotta go have a thrilling Old West adventure. I…Read more...

Maryland backup punter Matthew Barber was involved in a physical altercation with at least one teammate after Tuesday’s team practice, and he later told the Baltimore Sun that he was attacked because other players thought that he had been a whistleblower during the investigation into the football program that led to…Read more...

Bol Bol is not your average 7-foot-2 basketball player. He is not awkward, not stiff, not gangly. He does not succeed solely on his height—though it certainly helps. He is mobile, and he is athletic, and he is offensive-minded. Physically, his body can’t help but remind you of his famous father. But a more immediate…Read more...

Perhaps it was giving too much credit to a pathetic Oakland Raiders squad to have thought that 49ers quarterback Nick Mullens, who started last night’s game despite never having taken a snap in regular-season NFL action, was going to have a hard time. But even though it came against a team as lifeless as the Raiders,…Read more...