ap Page 1194 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Changes are coming to the NFL scouting combine that are long overdue
Today is one of those days in which the NFL has made a good decision. It doesn’t happen often. The decision to add an extra game to the schedule in a sport that can cause brain damage, during a world-wide pandemic, might be a short term financial win, but it’s making the product worse and is ethical...
![Novak Djokovic denied entry into Australia over visa issue [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/b66888400ab4c7e638ff0fb6a8e5618c.jpg)
Novak Djokovic denied entry into Australia over visa issue [Updated]
The Australian Open might have given the controversial OK to unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic, but the Victorian State Government in Australia has not proved quite as accommodating....

Here’s why Colts/Jags should be the game everyone watches out for in Week 18
Imagine you’re taking part in an annual contest at your workplace to determine the finalists for a coveted prize. Everybody wants this prize. People have cheated, backstabbed, and played dirty in the past in order to win this prize. It’s that great. As the time period for determining who the finalis...

Give DeMar DeRozan his flowers for putting the Bulls in first place
What a three-game stretch for the fifth-leading scorer in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan. Mr. Anti-analytics has been letting his mid-range shot fly all season, propelling him to a scoring average of 26.9 points per game. With 28 points and six assists on Monday DeRozan was the Chicago Bulls’ leader in poin...

Rob Manfred wants his Pravda
The thing about work stoppages in sports, and really anywhere involving a very well-known company, is that P.R. is a part of it. Rob Manfred is, somehow, the first commissioner to get most of the public to back the players’ side, as he did during the pandemic when the owners and players were trying ...

Changing the World Cup to every two years could (but won’t) help soccer’s have-nots
Changing the World Cup to a biennial event is an awful idea. That’s not the most groundbreaking statement, but I wanted to put it bluntly because that’s the point I want you to remember from the rest of this. And if FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to be believed, and the move has a majority backi...

Top 10 sports moments of 2021
Happy New Years’ Eve everybody! I hope you’re getting ready to kiss 2021 goodbye and good riddance, but before we celebrate another revolution around the sun and kick off 2022, I want to take one last look at some cool moments from the past 365 days....

Let there be mayonnaise
Well, there it was in all its glory. The much-anticipated mess of viscous white goop rained down upon the cap of South Carolina’s head coach, Shane Beamer, following his victory over North Carolina in what commentators called “the highest stakes bowl game outside of the college football playoff.” Th...

Aaaand we’re back to the start
This is my last Mourning After of 2021, and in some ways it feels like the first. Not that we’ve been running in place, so much as we sprinted around the track and ended up back where we started. Which is how Jerry Seinfeld described horse racing, I guess. “We were just here! What was the rush?!”...

Out of shape? James Harden says absolutely not after returning home for Christmas to pound on the Lakers and Clippers
Christmas at home might be the turning point in James Harden’s 2021-22 season. The Brooklyn Nets played at Crypto.com arena against the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day, against the Los Angeles Clippers on Dec. 27, and in between those two games, Harden’s high school in Lakewood, Calif., retired ...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #7: Kyrie Irving, who dunked mercilessly on rational thought
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #8: Rob Manfred, who got everything wrong
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #9: Ted Cruz, captain of the anti-vax Dream Team
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

Week 16 NFL Powerless Rankings: Jacksonville is still real bad
Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. The end of the NFL season is near, and we know all the cellar dwellers at this point. So, let’s check out the worst of the worst from Week 16....

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #10: Thom Brennaman — and there’s a deep drive by Castellanos
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

Week 16 Takeaways: If your holiday season was dampened by your favorite NFL team, buck up, 2022 just might return some holiday cheer
As I gather myself after watching the Insecure series finale, I’m also confronted with the fact that the 2021 NFL season is also nearly complete. Of course there’s a five-week postseason awaiting us football fans, but less than half of the NFL teams will play in that tournament. Fans in Chicago, New...

2021's most inspiring sports figures
Just a few short years ago, there was a push for athletes to be nothing more than mute entertainers. Luckily enough, they refused to “shut up” or “stick to” whatever sport they played....

Check it out: The reason we know what players get paid
Just before Major League Baseball’s lockout began, the Mets signed Max Scherzer to a three-year, $130 million contract, a $43.3 million annual average that set a new record and also set a talking point for the labor dispute to come....

Centers aren’t extinct, they’ve just evolved
As humans, we tend to eulogize the extinct with reverence. The Dodo Bird. The Rocky Mountain Locust. The Golden Toad. And why wouldn’t we? It was us who eradicated these precious, sentient creatures. Some theorists would argue it had to do with their inability to adapt. But what if things are adapti...

Inter Milan lost their two best players and manager but might win Serie A again anyway
It is not agreed upon defending-your-title strategy to watch one’s manager, and one of the best in the business in Antonio Conte, walk out the door in a huff mere weeks after said title due to disagreements over the financial planning. Though to be fair, that is kind of Conte’s finishing move. Still...