ty Page 546 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Do Colder NFL Games Have Fewer Penalties?
While watching some insanely frigid football last weekend, one Deadspinner wondered if there were fewer flags in cold NFL games, the result of referees deciding, consciously or not, to speed games up and get the hell off the field. Without scrutinizing hundreds of hours of game tape we can't really ...

Reply Allpocalypse Brings Media World To Screeching Halt
This afternoon, the Columbia Journalism School sent out a mass email to hundreds of media members inviting them and their organizations to register for an upcoming career fair....

The Florida Panthers Want $80 Million In Taxpayer Money, Just Because
The use of public funds on sports stadiums and arenas is bad enough, but at least there's a concrete goal: a new building, or renovations. The Florida Panthers have asked Broward County for $80 million in tax revenue with no specific end in mind; they'd just really like the cash....

Kevin Durant Tweets Smoking Selfie, Deletes It, Says He Was Hacked
This isn't scandalous as much as it is weird. Kevin Durant tweeted a photo of himself smoking—from what seems to be a hookah—before quickly deleting it and claiming his phone was hacked. Hookah's legal. (One can obviously pack other, non-NBA-approved things into a hookah, but there's no proof of tha...

Ric Flair Claims He's Received Death Threats From Panthers Fans
Ric Flair is one of North Carolina's favorite sons. He's also a stylin', profilin', limousine ridin', jet flyin', kiss-stealin', wheelin' and dealin' son of a gun, so when the 49ers invited him to address the team, he said hell yes. But now the 49ers are heading to Charlotte, and Panthers fans aren'...

Reports: Jay Gruden Will Be New Redskins Head Coach
That's the word from just about everywhere. The Bengals' offensive coordinator, and one of the most successful players and coaches in Arena League history, is expected to be introduced later today....

Chris Kluwe Says Wishing Unemployment On Mike Priefer Was "Too Harsh"
In his column alleging that Vikings special teams coach Mike Preifer used homophobic slurs and pushed him off the team, Chris Kluwe said he wanted to make sure Priefer "never holds a coaching position again in the NFL, and ideally never coaches at any level." He's backing off that a bit....

Tyson Vs. Ali
A performance piece at PS122 reviewed in the Times and also featured in the Wall Street Journal. ...

How Deadspin's HOF Vote Stacked Up Against The Final Tally
In our polling, 56.4 percent of Deadspin voters thought that Mark McGwire was HOF-worthy, while just 11.0 percent of BBWAA voters put him on their ballot. That 45.4 percentage point difference makes McGwire—by one measure—the player whom our voters were most bullish on, relative to the writers. McGw...


Robin Lopez Has Some Mysterious Beef With The Raptors' Mascot
Willamette Week has a pretty great interview with Blazers center Robin Lopez, one of the smarter and funnier guys in the league. It's well worth your time, but I want to draw your attention to one cryptic exchange:...

Recently Retired German Soccer Player Announces His Homosexuality
Thomas Hitzlsperger, in an interview in German paper Die Zeit, has announced today that he is gay. This makes the former Stuttgart captain, who also played in England just last season, the highest-profile soccer player to come out as gay....

Trademark Agency Rejects "Redskins" Application As "Derogatory"
Late last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied an application to register a trademark for "Redskins Hog Rinds," a product wholly unrelated to the Washington football team. The USPTO's reasoning for refusing the trademark is simple: It's offensive....
![Hey, Stupid Sports Radio Guy, You Owe This Man $100 [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/19bu7iqq36aucjpg.jpg)
Hey, Stupid Sports Radio Guy, You Owe This Man $100 [Update]
Last year, some dumb sports radio guy in Denver named Darren McKee did a thing that only a dumb sports radio guy would do: he bet reader Charles $100 that the Ravens would make the playoffs this year. Now, with the Ravens' season having ended without a playoff berth, it appears that McKee is not a m...

Is "Discipline" Overrated In The NFL?
The 2013-14 Seahawks finished the year with a 13-3 record, a +186 point differential, and +40.1 percent DVOA, making them arguably the best team in the NFL. They also led the league in penalties (128) and penalty yards (1,193). Baltimore led in both categories last year and won the Super Bowl over t...

Ohio State DE Was Suspended For Ecstasy
On New Year's Day it was announced that Ohio State's all-conference defensive end Noah Spence was suspended for three games, including the Orange Bowl. Now we know why. Spence's family says he tested positive for ecstasy, and had to argue his suspension down from a full season because the Big Ten co...

Jameis Winston's Accuser Didn't Have A Chance
The decision not to charge Jameis Winston didn't teach us anything about the Florida State QB's guilt or innocence, but it did hammer home an old lesson: The system is stacked against sexual assault victims....

By Any Rational Measure, FSU Is The Better Team. So What?
College bowl games are far too fleeting and superfluous to serve as the basis for any lasting conclusions, even about the teams playing in them. In fact, if the 2013-14 bowl season has taught us anything–and I'd really prefer that it hasn't, but if it has, in spite of itself–it is that attempting to...

How Will Muschamp And Florida Sold Their Disastrous Season
I wasn't yet in Gainesville for the first press conference, held immediately after the season opener. Will Muschamp's Florida Gators had just demolished Toledo in a tune-up, an easy victory foreseen by just about everybody. The Gators had gone 11-1 the previous regular season, and only BCS politics ...

YOU ARE OLD: Bradley Beal Wore "23" Because Of LeBron, Not MJ
Bradley Beal always wore the number 23, from AAU ball to preps to his single year of college. He had to switch to No. 3 when he was drafted by the Wizards, since that number's unofficially retired for one Michael Jeffrey Jordan. You'd think Beal would be honored. But no, it turns out, he wore 23 bec...