picks Page 53 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Marshawn Lynch Already Explained Why He Hates Talking To The Media
By now, Marshawn Lynch's natural reticence to speak to reporters—even when contractually obligated to do so—has metastasized into something else entirely; after a season of locker-room verbal combat, it's less shyness than it is defiance. Defiance of league regulations he believes are illogical, of ...

NFL Players Should Unionize
The National Football League had its way with Marshawn Lynch this week, reportedly threatening to fine the Seattle Seahawks running back $500,000 if he didn't speak to reporters. This is just one more in a series of incidents in which the league has threatened players with disproportionate penalties...

Whatever Happened To The Ripken Kidnapping Case?
At approximately 8:35 p.m. on July 24, 2012, the police in Baltimore County, Md., received a 911 call regarding a suspicious car. A local couple had spotted a silver sedan parked in a pull-off area of some property they owned by the intersection of Ebenezer Road and Pulaski Highway, near White Mar...

Did TV's Go-To Ball Boy Expert On Ballghazi Inflate His Credentials?
Eric Kester may be the only guy who's come out ahead from Ballghazi so far....

There Are No War Heroes: A Veteran's Review Of <em>American Sniper</em>
American Sniper will likely be the most controversial and divisive movie of 2015, and it's mid-January. From concerns over the baldly anti-Muslim social-media rants it has inspired to titular real-life protagonist Chris Kyle's debatable status as a hero to his notorious unreliability as a non-fict...

Draymond Green Is A Taunting Goon, And He's My Favorite NBA Player
A lot of Golden State Warriors players are goons. Andrew Bogut is a goon. David Lee is a goon. Draymond Green is a goon. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson might run the most beautiful offense in the league, but the Warriors' goonery is an important component of their league-leading defense. But they...

Tom Brady Talking About Balls: The Supercut
Our equipment guys do a great job of breaking the balls. To me they're perfect. I don't want anyone rubbing 'em. I wouldn't want anyone touching those. Whatever feels good that day... I'm not squeezing the balls. It's not part of my process. Breaking the balls. Some guys like old balls. I tell them ...

Basketball Is Dead. The Knicks And Sixers Murdered It.
All the precious, fragile, bitterly-won gains of humankind's wretched, fitful, brave, millennia-long upward struggle went up in white-hot magnesium flames last night in Philadelphia and burned away to powder. All for nothing. All fantasies, every damn one. The Knicks and Sixers have shown us ours...

How To Survive At The Poker Table
Poker used to be cool. From Wild Bill Hickok getting shot up over aces and eights to Paul Newman and Robert Shaw eyefucking each other in The Sting, it has always held a place in American culture as the game you'd find grown-ass men playing in the smoke-filled back rooms of grown-ass places. Blame...

Report: NFL Was Aware Of Patriots Deflation Allegations Before Sunday
This, at least, answers one of the peripheral questions surrounding claims that the Patriots illegally deflated Tom Brady's footballs: just how and when the Colts and the NFL became aware of the funny business....

The Ballghazi Takes Are Here, And They Are Fucking Insane
You knew they were coming, America. The second the Patriots got busted for doctoring footballs, you knew the TAKENAMI would rush in. And VERILY IT HAS COME TO PASS. Oh, people. Oh, this is my Christmas. These takes are so pure in their stridency, so firm in their conviction that ROGER GOODELL M...

The Patriots' Ballghazi Scandal Cannot Be Overblown Enough
If you've been struggling to care about the Patriots being accused of deflating footballs, and have been hoping the whole thing would just blow over so we could get to talking about a truly excellent and fascinating Super Bowl matchup, you, my friend, are shit out of luck. Ballghazi is real, and it ...

Report: 11 Of 12 Patriots-Supplied Footballs Were Underinflated
There has been two days worth of smoke surrounding Ballghazi, and now it looks like there might actually be a fire. According to ESPN's Chris Mortensen, the NFL's investigation into whether the Patriots deflated footballs during Sunday's AFC Championship Game has found that 11 out of the 12 balls th...

Robert Allenby's Kidnapping Story Just Keeps Getting Weirder
Golfer Robert Allenby, whose story of being kidnapped from a Hawaii wine bar, beaten, and dumped in the street sounded too incredible to be true, probably needs to explain why his only witness now says that everything he's claimed is wrong....

How To Meet Your Significant Other's Parents Without Terrifying Them
Of all the fraught rites of new-relationship escalation—Facebook status changes and move-ins and one of you using the toilet while the other showers and so on—none inspires more anticipatory dread than the Parent Meet. And for a whole host of legitimate reasons: the psychic weight of parental app...

Reports: D'Qwell Jackson's INT Triggered Deflated Ball Investigation
The NFL's investigation into whether the Patriots deflated footballs during their AFC Championship Game victory over the Colts was triggered by Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson's second quarter interception, according to reports from both WCVB's Mike Lynch and Newsday's Bob Glauber. Lynch reports ...

This Is How Close The Seahawks Came To Never Even Starting A Comeback
At The MMQB, Robert Klemko has a fascinating breakdown of the Seahawks' fake field goal that got them on the board and set the stage for their historic comeback. And it's incredible just how specific a scenario the Seahawks required to even give the green light for punter Jon Ryan to loft that tou...

MLS Is Putting The Fix In For Toronto FC, Right Before Our Eyes
Not that this is any real secret, but it deserves to be said as often as possible: MLS is rigged. The league jointly owns each individual team, centrally controls all major decisions, and has a rule book as regularly erased and written over as a chalk board. With yesterday's reported news that Juven...
![Patriots Under NFL Investigation For Deflating Footballs [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/nd1hgkzxcuyzoameq25e.jpg)
Patriots Under NFL Investigation For Deflating Footballs [Update]
WTHR's Bob Kravitz is reporting the NFL is investigating whether the New England Patriots illegally deflated footballs during the team's AFC Championship game against the Colts Sunday night....

Let's Laugh At These Poor Seahawks Fans Who Left The Game Early
Things were not looking very good for the Seahawks with a few minutes left in regulation. Then Seattle ran off a miracle comeback filled with miracle plays, and won on an overtime touchdown. It was a wonderful game. And these poor suckers missed the comeback because they left early. ...