Month: October 2024

The World Cup: truly a tradition unlike any other, except I guess for the Olympics which it is kind of like in the sense that a bunch of people who only care about a thing every four years suddenly care about it so much. Most of the world, of course, cares about soccer a great deal all the time, but the two people that do this podcast every week mostly care about soccer a little bit some of the time. We are also total dopes. If this seems like a problem, then you honestly need to get yourself into The World Cup Mindset post-haste. The event kicks off on Thursday, and while it is as corrupt and compromised and manifestly fucked as always, it is big and cool and weird and worldwide and fun, and also honestly the alternative is regular-season baseball. Just because Drew and I don’t know a…

Some people are fans of the Houston Texans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Houston Texans. This 2015 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. Your team: Houston Texans Your 2014 record: 9-7. That record translates to 16-0 if you plug in anything better than a desk lamp at quarterback. Your coach: Bill O’Brien. All of Bill Belichick’s charm; none of his success. The best of all worlds, really. Here is O’Brien talking about his own franchise during the premiere of Hard Knocks… “Let’s be honest with each other. This place has no respect in the league, just so you guys are all aware of that. This organization is 96-126. Thirty games below .500. Turn your TV on; nobody talks about the Houston Texans because …

I had a long drive home the night that I found out my son was in grave danger of being born too early. Not long in the sense of distance, but long in an existential way, the way that a minute spent waiting in a dentist's office is far longer than a minute spent hooking up with someone for the first time (SO EXCITING). I had no choice but to leave my wife's bedside in the hospital; we had two other children at home, and my wife said that if I had stayed at the hospital, we would have just made each other cry all night long because we feared for our son's life. So I got in my car, cried into the steering wheel for a few minutes, and then turned the ignition and started the drive home. When you drive alone at night and you don't have the radio on, you feel like you&#x27…

Tennessee 0, San Diego 17. And it's not really as close as the score would indicate. Kerry Collins and Vince Young have booth seen time at quarterback, and honestly, the Titans might be better off just playing without a quarterback. Lure Eric Crouch out of retirement, and run the option. New England 10, NY Jets 0. To be honest, I don't know what the hell's been going on in this game. The Eagles/Giants game lasted about 8 and a half hours, and this one just came on. It seems like every time I look up, though, either Corey Dillon or Laurence Maroney are breaking off a nice run. Kansas City 3, Denver 0. In 91 meetings between the two teams, it's never eve been a scoreless tie at the half. But Damon Huard and Jake Plummer nearly made that happen today. Actually, Hu…

data-mm-id=”_lqkjxv3ay”>Bryce Harper was heckled mercilessly in Washington last night, which is par for the course there and, really, pretty much anywhere when you're a player of his stature. So it was a bit surprising to see him go on the record with a complaint that the jeering ran afoul of his personal standards for such antagonism. Bryce Harper on heckling from right field fans at Nationals Park tonight: "They were fine all game, talking about myself and things like that. I get it everywhere I go. That's nothing new. But the last two innings, it's just not right. It's not right."— Jesse Dougherty (@dougherty_jesse) September 26, 2019"… I owe a lot to those people up there in Philly because they show up for me every single night and they'r…

data-mm-id=”_48s2vu3yx”>Major League Baseball floated a radical change to its postseason and it feels like a version of liquidating assets for a nice short-turn return without pause for what it will mean in the big picture. One of the motivating factors of expanded playoffs is to increase inventory for interested television rights holders. More meaningful games conceivably means more money. That's easy enough to understand.But the idea that a reality-television-inspired selection show in which the best teams choose their opponents has the ability to be a major draw, ratings-or interest-wise, doesn't pass the smell test. First, there's the inevitability of the selections leaking before broadcast, killing all suspense. This has happened during the NCAA Tournament selection…

data-mm-id=”_q1bm670ll”>Tyson Fury dominated Deontay Wilder in their highly-anticipated rematch Sunday night. The Gypsy King lived up to his word and destroyed the American heavyweight champion from the first bell, earning his spit atop the boxing world. Referee Kenny Bayless called it to a halt in the seventh round, as Wilder's corner threw in the towel. It was a good decision as Fury had owned the fight. Fury is now the lineal, WBC and The Ring heavyweight champion and boasts an incredible 30-0-1 record with 21 knockouts.The fight began with both fighters feeling their way through, jabbing and occasionally looking to follow. Both fighters had solid flurries but neither was in trouble despite a few power punches finding a home. Then, out of nowhere, Fury put Wilder down with a hu…

data-mm-id=”_twfqry0ph”>Nearly two months have passed since Rudy Gobert's positive test for COVID-19 essentially shut down the NBA. March 11th was the last time Kevin Huerter and the Atlanta Hawks took the floor for an NBA game. "Travis [Schlenk] had been telling us once one team gets shut down, everybody gets shut down," Huerter told The Big Lead. The Hawks learned of Gobert's positive test during halftime of the Knicks game and knew that meant the season would likely be on hold by the end of the game. Afterwards, the team was informed by Schlenk and team owner Tony Ressler that they should not come into the team facility for the next two days. After that, there were informal workouts allowed that weekend that the entire team showed up to, but come Monday, their pr…