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Chip Kelly To The Browns Was A Sure Thing, Until Kelly Spent Nine Hours Eating Dinner With The Eagles [UPDATE] | January 6, 2013 |
 On Friday, NFL.com said Chip Kelly to the Browns was in the works, and that the two sides were just hammering out the details. Browns fans were happy. The brief Pat Shurmur era wasn't the tonic they had hoped for, and Chip Kelly is one of the biggest names on the coaching market. Unfortunately, big names attract other suitors, and sometimes, those other suitors have a better (or at least longer) sales pitch than the Browns. Enter the Eagles. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reports: More » More.. |
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The NHL Lockout Is Over; Play To Start Within The Next Two Weeks [UPDATED] | January 6, 2013 |
 Five days short of a January 11 deadline that would have scuttled the entire season, the NHL and NHLPA have reached a deal that, pending approval from a player vote, will end the lockout and allow for a condensed 50-game season. Teams will likely only play other teams from within their own conference during the shortened regular season. The Associated Press reports: More » More.. |
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Whimsical Local News Segment On The Vikings Turns Violent, Hilarious | January 6, 2013 |
 Everyone in Minnesota was in a frenzy about the Vikings' rematch with the rival Packers yesterday. So, local news stations, why not send your reporters to fancy-looking restaurants to see how football-crazy the town is? As Edward R. Murrow said, "One can never go wrong with the two Fs and P. The two 'F's stand for 'football' and 'food,' the 'P' is for 'people,' FYI. (For your information)." More » More.. |
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Chip Kelly To The Browns Was A Sure Thing, Until Kelly Spent Nine Hours Eating Dinner With The Eagles | January 6, 2013 |
| On Friday, NFL.com said Chip Kelly to the Browns was in the works, and that the two sides were just hammering out the details. Browns fans were happy. The brief Pat Shurmur era wasn't the tonic they had hoped for, and Chip Kelly is one of the biggest names on the coaching market. Unfortunately, big names attract other suitors, and sometimes, those other suitors have a better (or at least longer) sales pitch than the Browns. Enter the Eagles. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reports: More » More.. |
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Mike Shanahan Lied When He Said That A Doctor Cleared Robert Griffin III To Play After He Sprained His Knee In Week 14 | January 6, 2013 |
 During Washington's 31-28 victory over the the Ravens five weeks ago, Haloti Ngata brought down Robert Griffin III during the fourth quarter, leaving Griffin limping. Griffin sat out one play, then returned for four more, going 2/3 and advancing Washington to the Baltimore 16 before intentionally grounding the ball and leaving the game for good. Kirk Cousins would lead the team to an overtime victory that day, and to a blowout win in Cleveland the following week before Griffin returned in Week 16. Doctors ultimately diagnosed Griffin with a sprained knee, and he seemed to have made a full recovery. More » More.. |
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Ray Lewis Is A Festivus Miracle | January 6, 2013 |
 Going back to Brian Billick's days in Baltimore, the Ravens have refused to say the word "playoffs." Instead, the team adopted a code word to be used by the entire organization when describing post-season play (and selling merch): Festivus. More » More.. |
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Here Are A Couple Pictures Of Johnny Manziel Having A Nice Time At A Nightclub After His Cotton Bowl Win | January 6, 2013 |
 Our tipster says that these photos [click to expand] were snapped at Avenue Nightclub in Houston, also known as 4500 Washington Avenue, on the night of Texas A&M's resounding Cotton Bowl victory over Oklahoma. Manziel was in apparent violation of the Avenue dress code, but our tipster notes that he was there with his father, so it's probably OK. More » More.. |
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MLS Isn't Interested In Citi Field, Because When You Can Plow A Massive Park To Build A Soccer Stadium, You Do It | January 6, 2013 |
 The opening of the Barclays Center hasn't been without its challenges. Even after most of the ideological debate—lawsuits over eminent domain stalled the project for years, affordable housing advocates vociferously protested the development—dissipated in the wake of the arena's opening, structural issues remained. The designers stipulated that the arena be built with Cor-Ten, a weathered steel that may be too unstable to coat a sports arena. Those rusty brown panels have already "dripped orange blossoms onto the sidewalk." Recently, 8% of the bolts that join the panels to the stadium needed to be replaced only three months after the arena opened; it was not a sure thing that the panels could withstand Hurricane Sandy. More » More.. |
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Adrian Peterson Says He Will Run For 2,500 Yards In 2013, So Naturally He Will | January 6, 2013 |
 We'd scoff if anyone other than Adrian Peterson were to say, as Adrian Peterson did this week, that he doesn't just want to break the single-season rushing record, he wants to obliterate it. Actually, the way he put it to Marshall Faulk on the NFL Network was: More » More.. |
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Deadspin Up All Night: Val Venis | January 6, 2013 |
 Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. We'll be here tonight, wrapping up these wildcard games, and Sean and Tim and I are back it tomorrow. See ya. More » More.. |
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Who Wants To Sex J.J. Watt? Bengals-Texans, In Three Gifs | January 6, 2013 |
 So, 23 years now, and a guaranteed extra 365 days (at least) on that 8,400 day playoff winless streak for the Bengals. Yikes! They sure do suck. Matt Schaub played just OK but still completed 29/38 passes, Arian Foster ran for 140 yards, and J.J. Watt continued to be a sort of revolutionarily good defensive end. Watt showed how he's altering the game on one of his deflections, for which he gave the Mutombo finger wag you see above. More » More.. |
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The Joe Webb Experiment Did Not Work: Vikings-Packers, In Two GIFs | January 6, 2013 |
 Green Bay 24, Minnesota 10: You know how the most important part of the Hippocratic Oath is primum non nocere, or "do no harm"? Probably you do, because they kept showing that promo for that show about the schizophrenic doctor called Do No Harm? Joe Webb subbed in for an injured Christian Ponder tonight and instead of being the just barely competent game manager Ponder had been all year, Webb did a lot of harm. He overthrew receivers. He underthrew recievers. He threw an interception to Sam Shields. He kept throwing the ball in the air every time he saw pressure. Like, straight up in the air, the way you see above. It's a small miracle he wasn't picked off more than once. Before a couple consecutive completions when the game was fairly well out of hand, Webb was 7/25 with a 22.9 QB rating—if it weren't for the final four minutes (final line: 11/30, 180 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) he'd have had a historically awful game. He did much harm. This was roughly a middle-of-the-road result result when Webb dropped back to pass tonight: More » More.. |
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The NHL Lockout Is Over; Play To Start Within The Next Two Weeks | January 6, 2013 |
| Five days short of a January 11 deadline that would have scuttled the entire season, the NHL and NHLPA have reached a deal that, pending approval from a player vote, will end the lockout and allow for a condensed 50 game season. Teams will likely only play other teams from within their own conference during the shortened regular season. The Associated Press reports: More » More.. |
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Your NFL Wildcard Open Thread | January 6, 2013 |
 Cincinnati at Houston (NBC), 4:30 p.m.: The Texans may have the superior record but they backed into the playoffs, losing three of their last four, while the Bengals haven't lost a game by more than one point since Week 9. Plus, it'd be more fun if they won, so root for them. More » More.. |
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Newsday, Like Twitter Users, Simply Cannot Tell Brian Kelly And Chip Kelly Apart | January 6, 2013 |
 Two college football coaches, both named Kelly. Chip has just completed a marvelous season marred only by the fact that his Oregon Ducks did not get to compete for a national championship and stand to finish third or perhaps second in the final polls. Brian has one of the two teams playing for the national title in a couple of days and logically does not have time to do much other than try and figure out how to beat Alabama. Chip this week has been talking with the Cleveland Browns, an alleged NFL team. Brian this week has been coaching his ass off for Notre Dame and would be kind of an idiot for even acknowledging the existence of an NFL. More » More.. |
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A Mad Genius Zlatan Ibrahimovic Fan Bought His Favorite Player's Domain Name, Will Give It Back If He Completes One Of Twelve Challenges | January 6, 2013 |
 Paris Saint-Germain acquired the services of Zlatan Ibrahimovic from AC Milan over the summer, and since his old team confirmed that he'd be heading to the Paris club, "Ibrahimovic," reports UK's Metro, has been "rumoured to be looking to strengthen his marketing ties in France." That could conceivably mean buying a French domain name, and, like so many rich people that have been haunted by their failure to own the best possible domain name and taunted by the people that do, Zlatan will face a problem should he try to acquire Zlantan.fr. Someone already did, and is holding it ransom. More » More.. |
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Your Open Thread For The USA-Sweden World Juniors Final, Which We Think Is Going On Right Now | January 6, 2013 |
 What a country we have here! The Americans stumbled a bit in the early rounds of the 2013 world junior hockey championship—they went 2-2, with losses to Canada and Russia—but they're in the final nonetheless. (Canada and Russia, you'll notice, are in the consolation game. USA! USA! USA!) If you want to know how they got there, read our old pal Katie Bakes. More » More.. |
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Mike Francesa Cannot Work In This Filth | January 6, 2013 |
 Via Awful Announcing, WFAN's sports talk radio creature from the black lagoon Mike Francesa decided to start yesterday's show with the one thing he knows his listeners care about most: how messy the previous show's hosts left his desk. It's a fun rant though, especially coming from a guy who knows how to rant, and who needs his desk to be clean so he can use it as a pillow. More » More.. |
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Dwight Howard, On The Difference Between The Clippers And The Lakers: "They Share The Ball" | January 6, 2013 |
 The confounding Lakers lost last night to the Clippers by five after going into the fourth quarter down 16. The loss dropped them to 15-17, 11th in a Western Conference that has roughly 11 solid contenders for the playoffs. While the team is still working to develop chemistry and Dwight Howard's back is clearly still bothering him, the disappointment can scarcely be blamed on injuries any more: the line-up, which, depending on how the rest of Howard's career plays out, features four likely Hall of Famers and a fifth that was once considered an MVP talent, is fully intact. This is the squad, and it has been since Steve Nash returned on Christmas day. This team, the one that sounded unstoppable before it stepped on the court, has played four games since its Christmas win over the Knicks and gone 1-3. More » More.. |
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Lance Armstrong May Or May Not Admit To Doing The Thing For Which He's Most Famous | January 6, 2013 |
 The New York Times is reporting that professional doper Lance Armstrong may admit to doping for professional gain, because he would gain professionally from the admission by fast-tracking the process by which he could compete in sporting events again. It takes some work to remember a time when Armstrong, the best ever in a sport that's synonymous with doping, wasn't associated with performance enhancing drugs. Suspicions have dogged Armstrong since 1999 at the latest, when he threatened a fellow cyclist who wrote about drugs in cycling for a French newspaper, and in 2004, L.A. Confidential alleged doping directly. Since August, Armstrong's cycling achievements have been overshadowed by his immense and impressive doping achievements, and now, like Jesse James admitting that he robbed banks, Armstrong is considering to confessing to the crime which has come to define him: More » More.. |
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Memo To Steubenville: It Is Actually Possible To Just Suspend Everyone After Assault Allegations Surface | January 6, 2013 |
 Officials at Steubenville high school, in particular head football coach Reno Saccoccia, have rightfully drawn criticism for their inaction in the wake of charges brought against two Steubenville students and football players for allegedly sexually assaulting a female student from a nearby school. Though those two students were suspended for the season, many who witnessed the assault and failed to stop it were permitted to play, including some that had essentially live-tweeted the incident as it unfolded. Hamline University, a small school in St. Paul, MN, is not playing that game: After a woman accused a Hamline basketball player of assault and his teammates of a negligent response, the whole team is tabled pending further review. More » More.. |
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A Group Of Bros Infiltrated The Knicks Locker Room, Asked Gregg Popovich About J.R. Smith, And Got Kicked Out After Snapping A Picture Of Half-Naked Carmelo | January 6, 2013 |
 On Thursday night, Peter and his friends had courtside tickets to Knicks-Spurs, a gift from a family friend that meant an up-close view of the game in which Stephen Jackson injured himself tripping over Mike Bloomberg's waitress and J.R. Smith did this. After it ended, they did what anyone would do after spending a few hours next to (and drinking with) the beautiful people in the rarefied air that rings the court at Madison Square Garden: They pushed their luck. In this case, that meant wandering off the court after the final buzzer to see if they could find their way into the Knicks' locker room. They did. Easily. More » More.. |
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Mike Stoops Hopping Around Like An Idiot Was Oklahoma's Only Defensive Highlight In Last Night's Cotton Bowl | January 6, 2013 |
 Heisman hero Johnny Manziel lit up the Oklahoma defense last night en route to a 41-13 thrashing of Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl last night, accumulating 516 total yards—229 of them on the ground. More » More.. |
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Steelers Safety Ryan Clark Made A Good Point About Hypocritical Steelers Fans | January 6, 2013 |
 If there's one thing we learned while sifting through the assorted vitriolic, typo-ridden responses to the Why Your Team Sucks series, it's that many fans have no perspective when it comes to their favorite teams and players. Morals go out the window ("He basically paid his debt to society!"), logical fallacies become tent poles of backseat strategizing ("He just needs receivers!"), and expectations change drastically according the color of uniform a given player is wearing ("We traded him because he's a traitor!"). Anyone who draws attention to any of these things is, obviously, a hater, and more pertinently, a fan of the rival team. It's math. More » More.. |
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Watch The World Champion USA Junior Hockey Team Sing The Loudest And Most Off-Key Rendition Of The National Anthem Ever | January 6, 2013 |
 We won! Though we were widely considered underdogs to the Russian and Canadian teams, the USA squad made it to the finals of the World Junior Championships in Russia and triumphed over Sweden, 3-1, to take the gold medal. Not only was it hockey—hockey still exists—it was a great American triumph, as Florida Panthers draft pick Rocco Grimaldi scored the tying and go-ahead goals after a less-than-promising start to the game. More » More.. |
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Snowmageddon And 18 Other Things Fox Affiliates Are Airing Instead Of Today's Historic Live F.A. Cup Broadcast | January 6, 2013 |
 For the first time in history, an English F.A. Cup match is being aired live on American broadcast television. The highly-anticipated West Ham-Man United match on Fox didn't grab the excitement of all the News Corp affiliates, though, and that's not especially surprising. It's happened before. In fact, it happens every time Fox broadcasts soccer. Local affiliates—be they because of obligations to carry other sports (as is the case in some markets today) or the desire to run infomercials (most of them) continue to shy away from these historic broadcasts. Here, then, are what 19 Fox affiliates across the country are broadcasting right now instead of live soccer: More » More.. |
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Jose Canseco Will Not Be The Next Mayor Of Toronto, Despite Promises To "Work Out The Citizen Thing" | January 6, 2013 |
 Insane and hilariously clumsy Toronto mayor Rob Ford is fighting for political life after a judge ruled that Ford had violated conflict-of-interest laws by voting during a council debate concerning his obligation to reimburse lobbyists that had donated $3,150 to his charitable football foundation. If an appeals court upholds that judgment, Ford will be forced to vacate the position, creating a leadership vacuum clearing the way for Jose Canseco, who declared his intention to run in the tweet above and received a frankly terrifying amount of support. More » More.. |
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How To Make Shrimp Linguine: A Guide For Lovers | January 6, 2013 |
 Look. Wonderful as these foodstuffs are, it's not all pot roasts and chili and disturbingly alien holiday candies out there in the world of eating; nor should it be in your kitchen. Sometimes you're not looking to spend all day slow-cooking some large quantity of rich, meaty food to serve to a lot of people. Sometimes you're looking to prepare something quick and elegant to impress one specific someone, or at least to temporarily distract one specific someone from the fact that, after she schlepped the kids to grandma's house and put on makeup and lit romantic scented candles to overwhelm the nauseating smell of dried-up baby formula, you couldn't even be bothered to change out of your cutoff jorts. More » More.. |
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The Bengals Really Could Break Their 8,400-Day Playoff Winless Streak Today | January 6, 2013 |
 For a summer in college I interned for the sports department of the Columbus Dispatch, which sent me for a few days to cover Cincinnati Bengals training camp. The 1990s had just come to a close—a dismal era even by the Bengals' standards—and the beat writers killed time during practice by stumping one another with trivia of the damned. How many 12-loss seasons did the Bengals have in the '90s? (That would be five.) How long since they had a winning season? (At the time, fully 10 years.) Among this crowd, dumping on the team was a form of reminiscing, a gallows humor for reporters who'd been held captive (working weekends, skipping holidays, missing wives and kids) by a team that was stuck in second gear for an entire decade. Unspoken was another stumper question: Can you believe we spent our lives covering this farce? More » More.. |
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"Johnny Footbaaaaalllll": Two Drunk Ladies Hijacked The CBS Cotton Bowl Pre-Game Show | January 6, 2013 |
 The Cotton Bowl was an occasion for much revelry for fans of Texas A&M, who went into the contest confident about their odds against Oklahoma and got to see local hero Johnny Manziel for the first time since he picked up his Heisman in New York. That means, of course, that filming the pre-game set piece in the Cowboys Stadium parking lot required setting up a camera—and shooting live—in perilous territory. Jeff Jamison made it, oh, zero seconds into his segment on CBS DFW before getting accosted. More » More.. |
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The Original Quote For Vancouver's $514 Million Stadium Renovation Was A Mere $100 Million | January 6, 2013 |
 The $514 million renovation of Vancouver's BC Place stadium, home to the BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps as well as the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, was more than 400 percent over budget, a Vancouver business paper is reporting. More » More.. |
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Exclusive: Rick Fox Is Also Staying At Rex Ryan's Resort In The Bahamas | January 5, 2013 |
 We've fought a nice little game of old-timey tabloid one-upsmanship with the New York Daily News this week. The NYDN broke the story on Wednesday that Rex Ryan had escaped from New York on a personal vacation. We countered with news of his whereabouts. The Daily News, for its part, dispatched a reporter and photographer to the Bahamian resort we identified, and snapped a photo of Ryan's upper-arm artwork. We're ready to up the ante again. A high-placed Bahamian source tells us that Rick Fox is also staying at the Cove Atlantis resort. Who is tattooed on his arm? Vanessa Williams? Eliza Dushku? A smaller Rick Fox, wearing a Kareem Rush jersey and a come-hither look? Your move, Daily News. More » More.. |
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Chip Kelly Is Reportedly The Next Head Coach Of The Cleveland Browns | January 5, 2013 |
 We mentioned Thursday night that we're big fans of Chip Kelly and the team he built at Oregon in his four years as head coach. We also mentioned that the Fiesta Bowl—which Oregon won, 35-17, over Kansas State—would probably be Kelly's Ducks' last hurrah. More » More.. |
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Deadspin Up All Night: Wine And Roses | January 5, 2013 |
 Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Go ahead and do something fun tonight. The usual weekend warriors will be here dive into the NFL playoffs with you tomorrow. More » More.. |
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Here's A 29-Team Roundup Of Fans' Dumbest Giancarlo Stanton Trade Proposals | January 5, 2013 |
 Originally published in Baseball Prospectus. More » More.. |
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Ask Melinda Henneberger About Notre Dame's Sexual Assault Problem | January 5, 2013 |
 Melinda Henneberger is a political writer for the Washington Post who runs the paper's She the People blog. She's also a Notre Dame alumna who has done extensive reporting for the National Catholic Reporter about the school's shameful treatment of women who have made sexual assault allegations against Fighting Irish football players, including some cases going as far back as the 1970s. One of those women was Lizzy Seeberg, a 19-year-old who killed herself in September 2010, just 10 days after she was allegedly sexually assaulted by an unnamed player who will suit up for Notre Dame in Monday night's BCS title game against Alabama. More » More.. |
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Dear ESPN Announcers: Please Stop Inventing Merits Of Terrible Bowl Games | January 5, 2013 |
 We can understand why so many mediocre bowls line our on-screen guides every December and early January: They're lucrative for everyone (well, almost everyone) involved. Local dignitaries in moderate-sized middle American metropolises gotta eat. But we could really do without all the specious shilling. On this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen, NPR's Mike Pesca airs his grievances with particular reference to Shreveport's AdvoCare v100 Independence Bowl, whose spectators are pictured above. More » More.. |
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The NFL In Mexico Is The NFL Reduced To Its Essence | January 5, 2013 |
 MEXICO CITY—Freedom Sports & Fun Bar is located in a neighborhood here called Del Valle, where many of the streets are named after American cities. Boston, Detroit, and Sacramento run east and west just outside the bar. But inside, the only city with any cachet is Pittsburgh, especially on Sundays in the fall, when the bar fills up with hundreds of locals, all members of Steeler Nation Mexico. They wear black and gold lucha libre masks, ponchos, and tattoos. They eat Steelers cupcakes. They wave "Toallas Terribles." More » More.. |
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Women's College Hockey Team Shut Down For Hazing | January 5, 2013 |
 Dalhousie University, in Halifax, wasn't having a great season. The Tigers were 2-8-2, good for last in their division. They're probably not going to climb out of that hole since the team forfeited all their remaining games, after all but a handful of players have been suspended for their roles in freshman hazing earlier this year. More » More.. |
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Should Steroids-Era Sportswriters Be Kept Out Of The Hall Of Fame Voting? | January 5, 2013 |
 Jeff Pearlman has an interview up with Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, one of the most accomplished baseball writers working. It's long and covers numerous subjects, but it only addresses steroids in two areas: Verducci's groundbreaking 2002 cover story on PEDs in MLB, and whether hindsight makes him view the McGwire/Sosa home run chase differently. More » More.. |
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Dead Letters: "Tim Tebow Should Sue Your Dick In-Taking Ass For This Filthy Piece Of Garbage Full Of Lies." | January 5, 2013 |
 Welcome back to Dead Letters, the feature in which we reprint our favorite fan mail from throughout the week. It's like Deleted Scenes, but without all the scuzz money. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters. More » More.. |
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