mat Page 59 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Deadspin Fixes: the MLB playoff format
I noticed Dodgers fans were already bitching to protect themselves even before first pitch about the unfairness of the playoff system that saw their team win 106 games yet faced with the indignity of having to play in the Wild-Card Game. Followed nicely with Yankees fans complaining last night, beca...

NFL Week 4 Rookie QB Rankings: Justin Fields jumps Trevor Lawrence
The 2021 NFL Draft class will be a focal point of the NFL for years to come. The class included five quarterbacks who have a chance to make a significant impact on their franchises this season and beyond....

A few MLB postseason storylines you might not know
As the baseball playoffs begin, you already know the big storylines....

The madness of King Nagy
As a Bears fan, I don’t really want to turn this website into As Halas Hall Turns, constantly tracking the latest confusing bit of postmodern performance art Matt Nagy is putting on when it comes to Justin Fields....

The fastest quarterback to win 100 regular-season games is Black — his name is Russell Wilson
Sunday was a huge day for Russell Wilson. His team, the Seattle Seahawks, knocked off the 49ers on the road, 28-21, avoiding the distinction of worst record in the highly contested NFC West. Wilson’s name, meanwhile, was solidified in the record books in a way once thought impossible for a man who l...

Kyler Murray and Cardinals give Rams a two-piece spicy combo in L.A.
Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals are for real. They showed it to us in Week 1 when they smacked up the Tennessee Titans. Now they’ve done the same thing to the Rams, who were coming off a dominant performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a week ago....

NFL Week 4 Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser, and Prop Bets
If not for a fluke missed extra point at the end of Chargers-Chiefs last week, we’d be coming off a perfect 4-0 week. But nothing wrong with a 3-0-1 showing (thanks to buying the half-point there)....

Idiot of the Month: Do you remember September? We hope not
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we ruminate on some cringey happenings from weeks past....

Thursday Night Football is a rematch of the 2020 BCS Championship — but the real story is Urban Meyer’s incompetence
Some people consider Trevor Lawrence’s Clemson career one of the greatest college careers of all-time. The man never lost a regular-season game, won a National Championship, and was promptly drafted first overall as soon as he became eligible....

Kellen Moore is going to get a head coaching job before Eric Bieniemy and Byron Leftwich because he's white
When “Black Monday” — the annual day when NFL head coaches get fired after the regular season — takes place in January, the last two offensive coordinators that have won Super Bowls will more than likely find themselves in a situation where they’ll be watching a younger colleague yet to make the pla...

Famous kneecap-biting Lions are tired of getting kicked in the butt with 60-yard field goals
Last Sunday, the Detroit Lions were moments away from their first victory of the 2021 NFL season, the first of new head coach Dan Campbell’s career. They led the Ravens 17-16 with only three seconds left on the clock. Then, Justin Tucker, the most accurate kicker in the history of the NFL trotted ou...

We said depth would be the main thing
If it feels like World Cup qualifiers are boomeranging right back into your consciousness after not much of a break from the last ones, you’re not alone. This is the normal calendar, you just had a year off from it thanks to the pandemic, but just wait until qualifiers are crammed into January and F...

...If it weren’t for those meddling Mariners
Friday, July 23. If you’re an A’s fan or player, you wake up feeling pretty good. I’d say it’s a beautiful day in the Bay Area, but July tends to be pretty miserable there. And anyway, you’re in Seattle this morning, and it is lovely there. As far as your team’s fortunes, everything is ok. Not great...

Week 3 Rookie QB rankings: Trevor Lawrence still tossing INTs
The 2021 NFL Draft class will be a focal point of the NFL for years to come. The class included five quarterbacks who have a chance to make significant impacts on their franchises this season and beyond. ...

Maybe the Manningcast works because they don’t meet with coaches
In this age of working from home, and the push-and-pull with companies around the nation at the moment about whether to return to the office or not, we can all find inspiration in Peyton and Eli Manning saying they want to analyze Monday Night Football but they don’t see why they should have to leav...

DeSean Jackson roasts Bucs en route to record-setting day
On Sunday, the Rams put a nice little whooping on Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 34-24. Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford may receive the bulk of his team’s praise for the win, but DeSean Jackson had a great game in his own right — and not only that, he set a record in the process. ...

The last thing we need is a Maple Leafs docuseries
The whole behind-the-scenes docuseries has been a bit played out. Hard Knocks started it, and it came to hockey almost a decade ago with the 24/7 series that tracked the two teams in that given year’s Winter Classic for the month leading up to the New Year’s Day game. Some of it was compelling stuff...

Rams show they’re the best team in the league as Matthew Stafford cooks up Bucs like a beef brisket
The Rams are an impressive football team. We’ve known this for a few years now. They were an elite quarterback away from having a chance to win a Super Bowl....

Adam Gase always leaves winning in his wake
Adam Gase is known for two things: having crazy eyes and losing football games. The man fooled dozens of NFL teams into thinking he was capable of coaching an NFL team. He rode the success of Peyton Manning in Denver into not one, but two head coaching gigs. ...

Is Scotty Miller the key to a Bucs’ victory tomorrow?
Rams-Bucs is the biggest game of Week 3 of the NFL. On one hand, we have the reigning Super Bowl champion Buccaneers, and on the other lies arguably the most talented team in the NFC. These teams met last year in Week 11 of last season with the Rams taking the victory by a score of 27-24. Tom Brady ...