il Page 650 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: 40 of the dullest tools from 2021's shed
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

High-profile QBs hitting the college transfer portal
In 2019, The Athletic reported that there was a 75 percent chance that a top-50 quarterback recruit would transfer schools if he didn’t see playing time in his first two seasons. And if he did see playing time — still a 45 percent chance he would choose to move elsewhere. The college quarterback eco...

Some great wrestling matches from the year that was
That time again. This year’s list feels a little more genuine, as wrestling (outside of Japan at least) was able to get out of the TV-studio era and back in front of the crowds it so desperately needs. Whether that was or is a really good idea at the moment, we’ll save for another time. Trying to ju...

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....

Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson have underwhelmed, but maybe they can overwhelm against each other this weekend? Maybe?
Don’t turn off that Jags-Jets game this Sunday by default. Yes, watching that matchup may be causing the waves of nausea you’re feeling, but you also may have just eaten too many candy canes on Christmas Day, so wait it out for a quarter at least. Hear me out....

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...

The best from bowl games with non-New Year’s Six names
Making fun of lesser bowl games is easy and fun. Do we really need a Boca Raton Bowl? Or a LendingTree Bowl? Or a Gasparilla Bowl? Or a Cameilla Bowl? Or a Hertz Bowl? Or a Guaranteed Rate Bowl? (Only one of those is fake.) No, probably not. The answer to “Who’s better: Eastern Michigan or Liberty?”...

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...

Joe Burrow: Cincinnati is too boring to get COVID
As COVID wipes out swaths of NFL rosters throughout the country, Cincinnati QB Joe Burrow has offered up his theory on how the Bengals have stayed relatively healthy during this time. No, not extra testing or vaccine mandates — it’s literally just that Cincinnati is, well, boring....

Thursday Night Football, Week 16: San Francisco vs. Tennessee in 2021 finale
It’s a battle of hot and cold teams fighting for postseason positioning tonight as the 49ers travel to Tennessee for the final Thursday Night Football matchup of the year. The 49ers have averaged over 28 points per game over their last four. Meanwhile, the Titans have averaged under 15. The Titans c...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Cole Beasley, Enes Kanter, Ron DeSantis, and more doofs
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

Gilbert Arenas claims he spent rookie salary before playing a single NBA game, slept at Warriors Arena in Oakland
Former NBA player Gilbert Arenas recently sat down with VLAD TV to talk about his career, among other things, and he also touched on how he’d pretty much spent his entire rookie salary of $845,000 before game one of the 2001-02 season....

Hate Jake Paul all you want, but at least he’s about to get Amanda Serrano what she deserves
Amanda Serrano has been lighting up her opponents for many years. At 33 years old she has been a professional fighter since 2009 and has only lost one fight. She has a 42-1-1 record for her professional boxing career, and has a 2-0-1 MMA record. Her calling card: pure power. ...

LeBron James brings pregame cigar to Staples Center, cementing fact that he doesn’t care what we think anymore
LeBron James has officially entered the “senior citizen” stage of his career where he just doesn’t care what anyone says or thinks of his actions. Channeling his inner Michael Jordan, James was seen strolling into Staples Center Tuesday night to face the Phoenix Suns, cigar in hand. The NBA on TNT c...

After three years and two seasons of BIG3 dominance, Iso Joe is back in the NBA
It’s been kind of a drag watching the NBA for the past two weeks. In the last nine days, seven games have been cancelled. For the teams that have been able to play some have been forced to get through games with less than optimal lineups. The Brooklyn Nets haven’t played since Saturday and in that g...

2021 was an incredibly fun year for the USMNT, let’s never do it again
As stated many times before, what the USMNT attempted, and really accomplished, in 2021 is unheard of in international soccer. Turning the entire roster over to children at once just isn’t done. Usually, teams are trying to blend generations, mixing in the aging vets (around 30) with those in their ...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Tony La Russa, Tommy Tuberville, every NFL referee, and other esteemed dummies
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

Come on Daryl Morey, let’s get this Ben Simmons trade done already
Ben Simmons has yet to play a single game this season for the Philadelphia 76ers. The window for his full return to the team seems to have been slammed shut once Doc Rivers booted Simmons (figuratively, unlike Urban Meyer) out of practice in October for refusing to participate in team drills. Now th...

It’s the lack of answers that's so frustrating
I see the sentiment a lot the past couple days that it’s March 2020 all over again. But it isn’t. We are armed with so much more information than we were then, and there are vaccines. The one thing…well, I won’t say “miss” about March 2020 and beyond, because it sucked, but perhaps the biggest diffe...