Wasn't ESPN, but I found it: http://deadspin.com/5984919/i-am-a…

The rule is that either the ball or 2 players must be between the man and the goal line, and goalies do count. Everyone flipped out in the South Africa / Mexico game in the last World Cup because no one properly understood the rule - including the announcers - and thought that it only had to be one defender.

When Jordan turned 50, ESPN asked a bunch of NBA players what they thought they could beat Jordan at. Most seemed terrified to suggest "basketball" and said something like singing, golf, etc.

Whatever stats you're looking at are complete horseshit.

1. Why do you assume that compensating athletes means doing away with scholarships? There's absolutely no reason to think that would happen. The one-step-slow linebacker would probably still get a scholarship and graduate debt-free, and may even end up with a few thousand extra in his pocket.

The parallels to slavery aren't that ridiculous, though perhaps indentured servitude is more accurate.

"No, you can't. You get a flag for everything even remotely celebratory in the NFL"

You're citing the "National Coalition Against Violent Athletes" - hardly an unbiased source. They claim "...The publishing of these statistics were upsetting to anyone affiliated with college sports. In fact, the Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sport and Society refused to publish these statistics." It…

Right? Because Google is sooo hard. Here's a 2012 survey of 16 studies (http://www.northeastern.edu/sportinsociety…)

"Crimes being unreported, victims being pressured, threatened, etc."

By "these monsters", did you mean "people"? Because crime rates for football players are generally lower than in the general population.

So if a guy is arrested for [insert offense here], it's off-limits to report on it until a jury has convicted him and, presumably, all of his appeals have been exhausted? After all, that's the only way to make sure that they guy is really and truly guilty, right?

So now you're just taking Sportscenter's Top 10 and turning it into 10 separate Deadspin posts?