Obviously, it’s never a good winter in Buffalo. And winter never stops, so I’m told. Anyway, the one thing that can make the time pass in the darkest months on the shores of Lake Erie is a hockey team worth watching. Kids, the Buffalo Sabres will very much be worth watching this season. So the residents may only need two batches of foot warmers each day. If you’re in search of a second team or are unaffiliated but need a team slightly below the glitterati to pay more attention to, and kind of attach yourself, the Sabres are probably the ticket. Mostly because they have firepower for days. This is a team that will come as close to a real-life version of “Hit The Ice” as any (was I the only one to ever play this game? With the live octopus on the ice? Forget it). Sabres games ar…

Some people are fans of the Oakland Raiders. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Oakland Raiders. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. Your team: Oakland Raiders. For two or three more years. And here I thought McCarran airport couldn’t get any more destitute. By now you know the story: owner and “first man you see in the nudist colony lobby” Mark Davis agreed to move the team to Las Vegas after using Vegas tycoon Sheldon Adelson to secure $750 million in local tax money (for a stadium complex that will cost nearly TWO BILLION DOLLARS), and then turning around and cutting Adelson out of the deal when he wanted a piece of the action. I’m sure that Adelson isn’t plotting ways to undermine the Raider…

Italy's Serie A is a league of stories, full of characters, narratives, plots, tensions, climaxes, and clichés. Time and again, the line between fact and fiction becomes so blurred that you just have to throw your hands up and shrug. You really couldn't make a lot of this stuff up. Here's a storia, and the biggest one looming over the league right now. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC), which controls soccer in Italy, recently held elections for president. The candidates were Demetrio Albertini, a former AC Milan and Italy midfielder, and Carlo Tavecchio, a career politician with five convictions for crimes ranging from forgery to tax evasion. Naturally, Tavecchio was heavily favored a few weeks before the election. Then he started talking. At the end of July, Tave…

Every year it's the same thing. Right around the all-star break, LeBron James throws down a few dunks in practice, waits for the video to get out, and basks in all the "Why won't LeBron do the dunk contest?" chatter. LeBron threw down at least three dunks after practice in Phoenix today, via this video from Sports360AZ. The first is super-impressive: He hurls the ball a long way off a column—not the back wall, but a column—and takes off 15 nine feet from the rim. The second and third have a lower degree of difficulty, but part of the wow factor is how easy he makes them look. That's what happens when you're 6'8" and among the most athletic people on the planet. Still, we've got six awesome dunkers this year. LeBron: Either dunk or get…

data-mm-id=”_20v3nx9we”>After the Tennessee Titans' 20-13 victory over the New England Patriots in the AFC Wild Card game, much of the media focus was on how the Patriots lost the game and possibly their grip on their dynasty. However, lost in all of that was the story of the team that beat those Patriots, a team that early in the season looked like they would miss out on the playoffs.Now the Tennessee Titans may be the most quietly dangerous team in football, and it may be too soon to write them off as cannon-fodder for the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens when the two teams square off in the divisional round next week.The Ravens' obvious advantage is an offense led by presumptive NFL MVP Lamar Jackson, coming up against a Tennessee pass defense which hasn't put up a truly e…

data-mm-id=”_govsurzxa”>Fans and analysts alike are firing up the creative processes of their brains to concoct a realistic scenario in which professional sports could return in the span of six-to-eight weeks. It's a tough exercise because based off the opinions of various medical experts, things are still in the process of getting worse before they get better. The return of sports may yet be a while coming, but coming up with scenarios in which they return earlier than expected is helpful in keeping us all optimistic. To whit, Jay Williams took a crack at an outside-the-box scenario on Golic & Wingo this morning in which the NBA could not only return, but play a full playoff bracket when June rolls around. How might they do this? By holding the playoffs … on a pair of cruis…