I just want to point out that coaches like Bobby Petrino and Hugh Freeze, who should be banned for life from the collegiate ranks, are still getting high-profile coordinator and head coaching opportunities. Yet Bieniemy, who isn’t a saint but also didn’t wreck his motorcycle with his mistress on the...
The NCAA took another L in court this week, racking up appearances and losses in litigation like it was trying to nab the Republican nomination for president. A federal judge in Tennessee ruled that the NCAA can’t enforce key NIL rules that prohibit universities from using name, image and likeness m...
In a surprise act for the NBA in February, there was some life in a couple of regular season games Friday. First, the Miami Heat played a little too rough with Zion Williamson, and it led to four ejections. Then later, a garbage time layup in the Charlotte Hornets-Golden State Warriors game prompted...
The New York Giants have a couple months to decide how they’re going to screw up their first-round pick. By all accounts, this is a deep quarterback draft, with a handful of prospects flirting with franchise guy potential. There are three to four teams with QB needs ahead of the G-Men, so at No. 6, ...
It felt like the NBA used to be a lot more consistent. The teams that were good in the regular season also were good in the postseason, for the most part, and if you looked and/or played like a scrub, you were usually dismissed like one. During this era, it’s almost as if you should wait to lay futu...
Prestige and journalism shouldn’t go hand-in-hand together. Sure, there are outlets with enough history and money to have ethics departments, fact-checkers, and paying subscribers, but the omnipresent tier — the ones controlling the rights to the big sports — are cost-cutting corporate slugs like th...
Hours after it was announced that the College Football Playoff would adopt a 5+7 format, the conference commissioners leaked that 14- and 16-team formats have been discussed. Jim Phillips, ACC commissioner and captain of a drowning vessel, said “At the end of the day, it’s about the right model.” Th...
There’s a lot of nerves surrounding the release of College Football 25. What’s it going to play like? Is it just going to be Madden but with NCAA schools? In that case, kill me now. But also, what’s Dynasty mode going to feature? Will there be a transfer portal? NIL contracts? Will realignment be an...
The New England Patriots dynasty ended when Tom Brady left for Tampa Bay, but now it’s officially over as the Pats’ run is getting The Last Dance treatment. Yes, only a season past Bill Belichick’s departure, Apple+ has a nine-parter called The Dynasty coming out whenever. What they won’t tell you i...
Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught, and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe....
There was no shortage of allegedly heinous behavior to start the new year, with Chicago Bulls fans booing a widow, Vince McMahon resigning in disgrace (again) and various big-name athletes unaware of the age of consent. ...
The dirty little secret about Super Bowl ads is viewers can watch them before the Big Game, with companies (presumably) wanting to stretch the impact of their most expensive spots of the year. Why anyone would seek out commercials before they’re forced to watch them, I have no idea, but, uh, yeah, i...
Throwing a basketball off the backboard to yourself is quickly becoming a loophole. The latest NBA player to do it was Tyrese Haliburton, and he didn’t even do it to throw himself an alley-oop. The Indiana Pacers point guard picked up his dribble, almost double dribbled and then threw the ball off t...
All the outrage over an old-ish head coach stepping down to take a cushy consulting/coordinating job is a little much. Chip Kelly going from head coach of the UCLA Bruins to running one of the most talented offenses in the country at Ohio State is exactly how I’d want to spend my twilight years if I...
The NBA trade deadline was unsurprisingly mundane except for one team: the Dallas Mavericks. Sitting at 29-23, good for eighth in the West, GM Nico Harrison jettisoned Richaun Holmes, Seth Curry, Grant Williams and draft picks in two separate trades for PJ Washington from the Charlotte Hornets, and ...
The run-up to this year’s Super Bowl has been bereft of a few notable storylines. There’s barely any talk about X’s and O’s, only a little prognosticating on Patrick Mahomes’ legacy, and almost zero chatter about the most famous non-football participant from last year’s Big Game: Donna Kelce. ...
Perhaps the juiciest story to come out of college football’s National Signing Day centered not on a recruit but an ESPN analyst. According to Dominic Raiola, father of top three QB recruit Dylan Raiola, Kirk Herbstriet reached out to him to endorse Dylan flipping from Georgia to Nebraska. ...
There are enough patsies in need of a quarterback that Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles would be foolish to not take the many godfather offers that will come his way before the NFL Draft on April 25. Chief among them are the Washington Commanders, who have a new owner, new GM and new coach desperately tr...
The new joint venture between ESPN, Fox and Warner is something sports fans have been craving since the streaming wars started. Instead of flipping back and forth between apps, illegal streams and cable, all while juggling borrowed passwords and other people’s logins, we’ll be able to stay on one se...
A meniscus injury might be the most dangerous of all knee injuries for the simple fact that it’s not treated like a major knee injury. Reigning MVP Joel Embiid just underwent a procedure to repair a meniscus injury in his left knee, and will be reevaluated in four weeks, but for someone with his his...
