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The Finings Will Continue Until Morale Worsens
When Amon Ra St. Brown scored a second-quarter touchdown today against the New York Jets, he did not simply drop the ball in the end zone and walk off the field without acknowledging any teammates, the crowd, or anyone else. But he should have. The National Football League has fined him nearly $60,000 for four incidences of rampant fun-having (miming smoking) in the Lions' 41-31 Week 2 loss to the Buffalo Bills, so he should deprive the league of that amount of fun in the future. Childish? ...
Austin Romaine Will Always Have Saturday
There is a possibility that Austin Romaine will be a fine professional football player, make boatloads of money more than whatever he is taking in as a linebacker at Texas Tech, and maybe get drafted by an NFL team that isn't awful. Maybe he'll be known as more than just The Guy Named After A Lettuce. But even if bad luck in the athlete business besets him and none of these things happen, he's still got Saturday, and if that isn't enough to get him free drinks in Lubbock for a decade, then ...
Stephen Curry Leaves $20 Million In His Work Clothes
Stephen Curry has proven himself yet again to be an enemy of the proletariat and an implacable foe of the Third American Dream. And this time, the cost to him and his burgeoning empire was a mere $20,000,000 (give or take the odd day trip to Monte Carlo), the difference between what he could have made over the next two seasons, $136.7 million, and what he'll get. What a sap. Curry just re-upped with Golden State The Corporate Name, formerly GSW Sports LLC, for two more years plus a player o...
Pete Crow-Armstrong Has Answered Every Question
There will probably be some voters who give the National League MVP ballot a hard look and pore over all the possibilities, or just vote for Shohei Ohtani out of pure reflex. Which is fine enough as it goes. This is one of the quirks of democracy: Sometimes you have to let people be wrong for their own reasons, at least until we expand the vote to children above the age of birth, family pets, and animals who live in national parks. But it's far more likely that when those votes are counted,...
Even The Weather Hates Ed Sheeran
After Ed Sheeran went through all that trouble to appease New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, he'll end up not playing at his stadium anyway. The musician's shows, scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Foxborough, Mass., have been canceled because of the incoming nor'easter expected to hit the East Coast this weekend. At least one good thing's coming out of this storm. "Due to the severe weather warnings in place in Boston and across New England throughout the weekend and following cons...
Paula González-Nasser Gives Location Scouts Their Due
Sofia rises early to drive from Brooklyn to the Manhattan production office where she works as a location scout. She’s tasked with finding spots in which to film an upcoming television pilot: a few apartments and, randomly, a fish store. Her day brings her around the city and in contact with a variety of people—a tech guy who shows her how to hack the system to avoid parking tickets, an old friend she hasn’t seen in years, a man who insists on dinner as recompense when she shows up late to sco...
Let’s Make These Games As Stupid As Possible
Welcome to the Defector College Football Watch Guide , where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about. Ray: In case you missed it, the greatest play since the 109-yard field goal return that won the 2013 Iron Bowl is still resonating around Downmarket College Football America , a moment of pure end-game lunacy between Vanderbilt and North Carolina State that serves to remind us all that the best and maybe only r...
Manchester City Found Guilty Of More Than 100 Financial Rule Breaches
Remember when the Premier League charged Manchester City with over 100 instances of financial maneuvering which ran afoul of league rules? It's possible you've forgotten all about that, since the league's investigation began all the way back in 2019, and the charges were announced in 2023. The long timeline here is owed to City's continued refusal to cooperate with the Premier League and the efforts of their expensive legal teams. But time moves forward nonetheless, and so at long last we hare...
This Is A Cry For Help
At midnight, Taylor Swift released a four-song update to her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl , which came out last October and had the cultural impact of a Skechers sneaker drop. Despite juicing its commercial success with several variants on the physical copies for sale , responses to the album from critics and fans alike have been lukewarm at best. Certainly nobody that I know liked hearing Travis Kelce’s dick compared to a redwood tree. One might think that after reaching the econom...
Eight Teams, Eight Qualms: A Guide To The 2026 WNBA Playoffs
The 2026 WNBA playoffs begin on Sunday, following the league’s longest-ever regular season, one in which it felt like any team could win on any given night. (Except the Connecticut Sun.) As an ethical and objective journalist with no real rooting interest, I could be excited on everyone’s behalf. Unfortunately, my objectivity manifests as being nervous on everyone’s behalf for the postseason. Here’s a reason for concern about each team, grouped by first-round matchup. (1) Minnesota Lynx:...
The Packers Are All Fucked Up
There are certain early-season losses, even hefty ones, that you can write off. Especially if they happen overseas or on a Thursday night, where good teams can be afflicted by all sorts of rest/recovery issues that throw them off balance. But man, if you are a Green Bay Packers fan, I'm not sure how you even begin to cope with what happened last night. The Packers lost to the Falcons—the same Falcons who lost their first two games to the Steelers and Panthers by a combined score of 54-16 an...
Racehorse Owner Told To Rename His Hitleresque Steed
The Jockey Club , the leading sanctioning body in what’s left of the sport of horse racing in the U.S., sent out a clear message Wednesday to anybody thinking of naming their horse after Hitler: Don’t name your horse after Hitler . The two-year-old colt Austrian Painter made his racing debut Monday with a win in the third race at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Obligatory: He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.97, and paid $9.00 . Afterward, the Jockey Club received objections about the...
Judge Declines To Seal Josh Jacobs Video, But Cautions Against It Becoming Public
Brown County Circuit Judge Marc Hammer ended his temporary seal Thursday on records in Josh Jacobs's domestic-violence criminal case. But that doesn't mean the records, which includes video showing the Green Bay Packers running back throwing his ex-girlfriend to the ground, will immediately become public. Though Hammer unsealed the files, he also had strong words of caution for those who will decide what is released. "Our [state] Constitution provides in part that crime victims are entitled...
It Sucks To Be Alex Bregman Right Now
The person in the photo above is not a strange wanderer whose arrival at the local inn coincided with that of a growing pestilence. That is Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman, photographed in the dugout two nights ago. Bregman looks like that because he was struck by a foul ball while standing in the on-deck circle during last Sunday's game against the Reds. He suffered multiple facial fractures , which is obvious by the look of him. Here he is this morning arriving at Wrigley Field: ...
Revisiting Weezer’s Cringe Masterpiece At 30
The second project is probably always the hardest. This is especially true if it follows a successful debut. You make something great, and by some act of the gods it catches fire and becomes the new, hot thing—a one-in-a-million shot. But then comes the next thing, the followup to your great big deal of a project. It’s a haunting and intense proposition. When I was at NYU for an MFA, I met a lot of famous and successful authors, and I remember one of the pieces of advice was to just write the ...
Sean Payton, After Wrongly Accusing Mike Macdonald Of Cheating, Is Somehow The Only One Not Groveling
The NFL schedule is not likely to renew the fading historical rivalry between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks. The two teams are now separated by the conference divide, and, though both teams are currently good, you'd be a fool to bet on the Super Bowl producing any particular matchup, especially one featuring Bo Nix's ass. But though proximity cannot suffice, the rivalry was juiced up this week by an out-of-nowhere controversy involving the teams' head coaches and some shit that w...
Blitzing All The Time Is Analytics
Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo . You can also read Drew over at SFGATE , and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it . An internet lifetime ago, ESPN football columnist Gregg Easterbrook was one of my go-to reads. Easterbrook was a pundit for The Atlantic by day, but moonlit over at ESPN's Page 2 to write his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column every week during the ...
The NWSL’s Struggling Teams Are Falling Behind
The 2026 NWSL season has provided some astonishingly fun soccer, and many off-field successes too: The league has boasted some record attendances , salaries , and goal-scoring this year, not to mention a few signings from at least a couple of the big European clubs it lusts after. But recently there have been too many reminders that although the NWSL has raised its ceiling, the floor is still in hell. On Sept. 13, Savannah DeMelo, the star Racing Louisville midfielder who suffered a cardiac...
No One Should Win The AL West
A week ago, we explained in scabrous detail the multiplicity of shortcomings of the American League by focusing on the Central division and blaming it at least indirectly on the Pope's inability to close . But like most short-term trend stories in baseball, it quickly proved to be in error. Defector regrets not just the misidentification but also hiring the nitwit who made the observation. Steps, we assure you, will be taken. In fact, it is not the AL Central that was dragging down the clas...
The Secret Life And Crimes Of The American Office Plant
When we set out to do a supersized season of Normal Gossip , it was all tee-hee, ha ha, look at all these funny goofs we have! And then we went through The Process and made 12 actual episodes of silly, unhinged, or just plain weird stories. Now? We need a nap. Luckily for everyone, we saved the best for last! There was no way we were going to do a season of all-stars without bringing back our dowager queen, Kelsey McKinney! For our finale (for real this time), we brought Kelsey a story a...
Ryen Russillo Hawks Troughs Of Sodium In Grim Video
Barstool Sports podcaster Ryen Russillo has an urgent message for you: He will be dead in 72 hours unless $12 million is wired to the following bank acc—sorry, my mistake. I just assumed that's what he was going to say based on the haunting thumbnail on this video. Now that I've played it, I see that Russillo is simply interested in selling you some appallingly lit food. https://twitter.com/TheRyenRussillo/status/2102566992217776535 The video appears to have been shot in a study room a...
How Do I Get My Kid To Be A Sports Sicko Without Turning Myself Into A Vile Sports Parent?
Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas , where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at [email protected] . This week, Giri answers a question about how to encourage your child to love your favorite sport.
One Game Is Not Enough To Deem Anyone A Fraud … But Two Games Is
In the grand scheme of things, Week 1 of the NFL season means nothing. There are still 16 games to go afterward, and a lot of teams use that first game as a kind of unofficial preseason game to iron out all the kinks. After just one week, it wouldn’t be fair to make such grand pronouncements as “The Falcons may never win another game,” or “Boy, the Lions are kinda fucked,” or “Justin Herbert has gone from overrated to just plain sucking ass.” But after two games? Well now, I think that’s a ...
The Protect College Sports Act Reveals The Dark Heart Of Management
The Protect College Sports Act passed another procedural vote Tuesday in the Senate, by a 70-21 margin. It will clear a few more procedural steps this week before going up for a final vote, at which point it is expected to pass and be sent to the House. In the meantime, it continues to mutate into a worse and more exploitative version of itself. More than 35 amendments were added to the PCSA yesterday, and one in particular stands out. Republican Senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville am...
Ireland Going Ahead With Israel Matches Against Everybody’s Wishes
Ireland and Israel are, at least for now, set for some really weird soccer matches. Unfriendlies, you might say. Their national men’s teams have a home-and-home series scheduled to open this weekend, only there are no home games for either side. Both matches will be played in Central Europe: one in an empty stadium, the other with only Israeli fans. The top story in Ireland these days, sports or otherwise, is that the games will be played at all. “I think we all agree we shouldn’t be in t...
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