preview Page 333 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Forget LeBron & Giannis, these are NBA players who <em>need </em>to show out in 2020-21
Just as the headline reads....
Coastal Carolina is your national champion, don’t care what anyone says
If you look at Coastal Carolina’s season, it’s almost hard to believe that it was 2020. The Chanticleers’ run was remarkable, starting with a 15-point win on the road against a Big 12 school (Kansas, but still), and then a rampage through the Sun Belt Conference, with only one postponement — and you...
Division Series playoff preview: Where the hell are we?
Baseball has gotten back to the playoff rounds we remember, sort of. The wild card round, which everyone thought was going to produce some real chaos and be totally unfair, only threw up one true upset: the Marlins beating the Cubs, because the Cubs can’t hit fastballs, which seems like it’s on the ...
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, NFC West: American Football’s Equivalent of the Group of Death
The NFC West may be one of the most exciting divisions in the league this season....
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, AFC West: The Home of the Champs and a New Football Town in Vegas
For many football fans, the AFC West standings are already a foregone conclusion....
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, NFC South: All Eyes on Tompa Bay & Brees’ Last Stand
Outside of Tom Brady stunning the sports world by joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the NFC South will be a key watch for plenty of other reasons....
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, AFC South: Who Will Emerge as This Year’s January Darlings?
The AFC South likely will not be a division at the top of most people’s radars to start the year....
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, AFC North: Young Guns and Scumbag Ben
This is yet another division that seems to be perennially up for grabs between a couple of teams, at least on paper, but unlike the NFC North, this division is fresh and exciting. A rookie quarterback! An MVP quarterback that Bill Polian wanted to convert to wide receiver! An annual dogfight to the ...
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, NFC North: The 'No One Else Wanted to Preview This Stale Division' Division
As usual, the road to . . . well, maybe not the Super Bowl, but at least the playoffs goes through Green Bay. And while Aaron Rodgers and the Packers aren’t as dominant as they once were, despite going 13-3 in Matt LaFleur’s first season as a head coach, no one else in the division has really steppe...
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, AFC East: Tom’s Gone. Who’s Got Next?
For the past two decades, the safest bet in sports was for the to win their division. Not anymore....
The Deadspin 2020 NFL Previews, NFC East: Can Anyone Break Up This Two-Horse Town?
There was a time not too long ago when the NFC East was considered one of the most competitive divisions in football. Over the past decade, the division has had two Super Bowl winners (Eagles, Giants), exciting Washington teams and the Dallas Cowboys. But the days of parity in the NFC East are over....
A Timely Preview Of The 2019–20 NBA Season, Which Will Begin Any Day Now
Oh. Hello, casual basketball fan. I did not see you there, looking the other way, rightly paying attention to the 2019 World Series instead of the ragged, sloppy opening games of the NBA’s very long and low-key regular season, which I am now hearing actually happened two days ago. Ah. Hm. That can’t...
31 Guys, 31 Teams: Your 2019–20 NHL Season Preview
It’s here! The hockey is finally here! Tonight, on this most special of nights, we’ll see meaningful puck drops across North America for the first time since June, and I could not be happier. Thank you for clicking on this preview, and in doing so choosing to enjoy or learn about the best game you ...
Thailand's World Cup Hopes Could Hinge On Not Getting Stomped By The USWNT
In a few hours’ time, barring a sequence of events so improbable as to not even merit serious concern, the USWNT will have easily beaten Thailand in the two countries’ opening 2019 Women’s World Cup match. The extent of that essentially guaranteed result—as in, whether the U.S.’s impending victory l...
The USWNT Is Better Than Ever, But So Is Everyone Else
The United States enter the World Cup as the best in the world, the team with the most top-to-bottom talent, and the reigning champions. They also enter the tournament facing the toughest field in the competition’s history, and though they have improved over the last four years in key places, they a...
Sweden Will Live Or Die By Their Conservative Philosophy
The most famous United States result since the win in the 2015 World Cup final happened in Brazil in the summer of 2016. It was the Summer Olympics, and Sweden turtled up to frustrate the Americans in the quarterfinals, grinding out a 35 percent-possession 1-1 draw before winning on penalties. It’s ...
It's Great That Chile Are Here, But They Will Probably Get Torn To Shreds
Like pretty much every South American women’s team not named Brazil, Chile have forever struggled for attention and support from their country. While men’s soccer dominates the minds of fans, Chile’s women hadn’t qualified for a single Olympics or World Cup before this year. How could they hope to w...
The Netherlands Are The Most Fierce And Wild-Eyed Of All The World Cup Dark Horses
There’s a tier below the highest level of Women’s World Cup contenders, and that second tier is the most interesting in the tournament. The top teams are known quantities. It’s pretty easy to figure out how and how well the United States, France, Germany, maybe even England will play. Once you get b...
New Zealand Have Gone Through Hell, And Now They're Back To Being Mediocre
New Zealand are the cockroaches of women’s international soccer—they’re always around. By virtue of playing in limp-ass Oceania and therefore having the luxury to qualify for the biggest tournaments simply by beating up on the even tinier nations around them, New Zealand essentially get free admissi...
Cameroon, The Cinderellas Of The Last World Cup, Are Back For Another Dance
A side effect of women’s soccer being so discouraged and underfunded in most every part of the world is that only rarely do we see many true upsets or surprises. The traditional powers usually have such enormous structural advantages, and have had them for so long, that they almost always win, and w...