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Celebrating 2024 with the best players to ever wear 24
Happy New Year! We’re on to ‘24. Years have become synonymous with athletes and their jersey numbers recently (ask any 23-year-old how their “Jordan Year” is going). In honor of the trend, here are the greatest athletes to ever wear No. 24....

Baltimore Ravens to honor RB who assaulted fiancee in elevator
Ray Rice, the former NFL running back whose career ended after he assaulted his then-fiancee — the charges were dropped — will be honored by his former team Sunday....

Jalen Hurts’ fugazi QB record is evidence that sometimes numbers do lie
The NFL’s Big Data complex, including Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Focus, would have you believe that numbers don’t lie, but the truth is that numbers can be untrustworthy little digits. They don’t explicitly generate faux stats, but accurate statistics can be framed deceptively. For instance, on...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2023: The complete rankings
Welcome to the grand finale of Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities. Here’s hoping 2024 will be better. It probably won’t....

Old beef still sells. Just ask the Cowboys and Jimmy Johnson
As long as the nostalgia of 1990s beef still sells, I’ll never feel old. I was but a child then. A child who looked at box scores in the Chicago Sun-Times and followed the daily drama of the 1997 Chicago Bulls contract negotiations. Even as a youngster, I recognized that Jimmy Johnson and the Dallas...

Where will Russell Wilson go now that Denver cut him?
Updated March 4: The Denver Broncos will release Russell Wilson, as had been speculated. The team will be hit with a record $85 million dead salary cap charge for cutting the veteran QB. ...

Lamar Jackson is inching closer to joining Patrick Mahomes as the only Black QBs with multiple MVPs
Since 2023 has been filled with highs for Black quarterbacks, 2024 might as well keep the party going. And if things hold steady, Patrick Mahomes won’t be the only one anymore....

The Broncos have money problems with Russell Wilson, but at least they’re not the Browns
In case I did not make myself clear on Tuesday, the Deshaun Watson contract is never happening again. In the future, no NFL player will ever receive a fully guaranteed contract. For one thing, Patrick Mahomes is not going to push the Kansas City Chiefs for that type of deal. Two, when the Denver Bro...

Travis Kelce isn't in the honeymoon phase anymore
Travis Kelce let it all out on an episode of his “New Heights” podcast with brother and Philadelphia Eagles center Jason. After the Chiefs lost three of their last four games, Travis called it “a frustrating f**king experience” and said that everyone – including himself – is contributing to the offe...

Reminder: Joe Flacco was Nick Foles before Nick Foles
The Cleveland Browns have officially hit “Riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” status. As long as they have a quarterback with some name recognition — be it Deshaun Watson or Joe Flacco — the team plays with the confidence of a much more dangerous organization. Kevin Stefanski’s club could ...

Anybody up for a game of boff, marry, kill with some fringe NFL playoff teams?
Heading into the final two weeks of the NFL season, the Colts, Texans, Steelers, Bengals, Raiders, Broncos, Rams, Seahawks, Vikings, Falcons, Packers, Buccaneers and Saints are still alive for a playoff spot while only a game away from .500. Of those 12 organizations, which do you think has the best...

Lamar Jackson might win MVP, yet no other teams wanted him during the offseason?
It was about nine months ago when Lamar Jackson wanted to be traded from the Baltimore Ravens. The best quarterback in the history of two forever-linked franchises — the Ravens and the Cleveland Browns — was on the open market. Jackson is the only player besides Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes to ...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: The annual descent into madness continues (40-31)
Welcome once again, dearest and most beloved reader, to Deadspin’s vaunted IDIOT OF THE YEAR awards, the global phenomenon in which we say churlish things about people we dislike. Huzzah!...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: The countdown begins as we look back on 2023 (Nos. 50-41)
Dearest reader! We meet again. It is that time of the year again… uh, namely, the end of the year, when we at Deadspin are proud to present our globally acclaimed celebration of stupidity, IDIOT OF THE YEAR! We’ll be with you as we count down the haughtiest, most hypocritical, and just plain dumbest...

These are the oldest players in NFL history
The NFL is a rough, violent game. The average career length in the modern NFL is just 3.3 years in the league. This is why it’s so impressive to see these NFL legends play so deep into their 40s. How many more names will we see join the ranks of the league’s oldest players in history? ...

This week in the NHL: Sidney Crosby is having a moment; Devon Toews is not happy; the Flyers, well, they're the Flyers
It hasn’t worked in Pittsburgh. While the Penguins made perhaps the offseason’s splashiest move by trading for Erik Karlsson, pairing another surefire Hall of Famer with the three they already had, they’re still only being propped up in the Metro Division by the pointless Blue Jackets. They’re only ...

May old acquaintance be forgot: The notable athletes who retired in 2023
As the curtain falls on 2023, the sports world bids adieu to a tapestry of legends and underdogs across all sports. We highlighted the legacy names who decided to hang it up in 2023. Many on this list are cemented in record books and in the hearts of their die-hard fanbases. Let’s pour out a drink a...

Turns out, the Super League is only mostly dead
If the image of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Barcelona president Joan Laporta taking a fireplace bellows to the Super League this morning makes you giggle, just know to get it in now because it’s going to get a lot more annoying at some point in the future. Yes, the Super League, that ...

If Florida State’s goal is to never get snubbed again, leaving the ACC is a terrible idea
Florida State’s rush to leave the ACC is reactionary in every way. After getting snubbed from the College Football Playoff, the school tried to use the courts and Gov. Ron DeSantis to overturn the committee’s decision. Those methods predictably failed and now the Seminole brass is onto the next dumb...

Zion Williamson and Anthony Edwards are why Gen-Z athletes need NDAs
You can usually tell the age of an athlete by how and where messy gossip about them is revealed. TMZ is one thing. Having a “scorned lover” display your personal life on the internet is another — and a sign that you’re probably a member of Gen Z who doesn’t know the value of non-disclosure agreement...