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Before Tadej Pogacar became a hypertuned killer on a bike, before he won any of his record-tying five Tours de France, before he was able to push the boundaries of the volume and variety of races that any single rider could win, he first had to break through. He did so seven years ago at the 2019 Vuelta a España, wherein he won three stages and finished third overall despite coming to Spain to learn how to race and to support Fabio Aru. Pogacar's talent was as obvious as his inexperience, and that Vuelta remains a fascinating snapshot of the state of sport right before he redefined it: rim brakes, Nairo Quintana, a version of Pogacar that didn't know what he was doing. We'll never see that stuff again, though we will get Pogi at the Vuelta for the second and perhaps final time. Why does the Vuelta matter so much to Pogacar? There is not much more left for him to win. It can be a difficult memory exercise, but the world's best cyclists haven't won like Pogacar has for at least four decades. Guys used to specialize, or at least be burdened by the variety of terrain. But Pogacar has won every major stage race except the Tour of the Basque Country. He has won every monument except Paris-Roubaix. He has everything: five Tours, 13 Monuments, a span and breadth of career-wide victory unseen since the days of steel frames. Pogacar is a student of the sport, which has fueled a completist streak. He will do his best to win the Tour every year, and he'll usually succeed, but it's the other stuff that intrigues. Pogacar rocked up to Romandie and the Tour de Suisse this year and smoked the field. The Vuelta is the only Grand Tour left for him to win.

It feels like the World Cup just ended, and yet somehow, some way, the Premier League is already back. England's top flight kicks off on Friday with defending champi—oops, I mean attacking champion; sorry Mikel—Arsenal taking on newly promoted Championship champion Coventry City in North London, before everyone else takes the field over the weekend. It's a quick turnaround after the six-week odyssey that ended with Donald Trump trying to insert himself in Spain's trophy celebration, but that's life in soccer's grossly bloated calendar. As someone who cares about player fitness and the quality of play, I'm concerned that this is going to be a messy season. As someone who misses watching games every weekend, I could not be more excited. Fittingly, the Premier League itself is a real mess right now. Arsenal should feel confident about its chances to repeat, but there's no telling where any of the other 19 teams might finish. (OK, well, there's one team that will almost certainly finish 20th, but I'll get to that later.) There's been a ton of upheaval in England ahead of this season, and with the transfer window not closing until Sept. 1, more could be on the way. With uncertainty thick in the air like London fog, rather than previewing every team one by one, it felt more prudent to take a wider look at the league. I've picked five storylines that will take center stage starting with Friday's season-opening kickoff. These aren't the only riveting plot lines to follow, but they are ones that will go a long way toward deciding who wins the title, who rises, who falls, and who ends up on their asses, covered in shame. Speaking of, let's start with that most volatile of positions, the new Premier League manager.

It’s been a summer of bad news for anybody with favorable feelings (me!) about Texas Tech. The New York Times joined the pigpile this week with a feature story whose subhead said the school had become a “a dystopian academic nightmare.” As if this year’s athletics debacles weren’t nausea-inducing enough. How can a guy (me!) root for a place like this?  The Times piece mulled the aggressive missteps taken by Brandon Creighton, the low-aiming and cartoonishly evil chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, while altering the curriculum to suit his radically conservative agenda—like generating fear among the faculty by sending sloppy AI-generated reports and scary memos which told professors which specific lessons they’re going to have to stop teaching for being too left-leaning, some of which included lessons that weren’t even being taught. One instructor, described as a medieval historian, said he dropped classroom discussion of Viking mythology because there were references to “gender-changing gods like Loki and Odin,” and felt Joan of Arc was also off-limits because that topic could lead to references of her “cross-dressing.” A creative writing teacher told of quitting her job after being warned by the administration about using a book titled Voice of the Fish, because a character describes himself as “transmasculine.” This is, of course, the exact stuff Creighton was brought to Lubbock to do. He had no strong ties to Tech or past as an academic when he got the job. He’d been a politician, holding office in the Texas House and Senate since 2007, and was a leading proponent of many of the state’s shittiest statutes. His record shows he loves racist monuments, hates anything LGBTQ, fears Plato, led the fight to ban abortion in his state, and can be trusted to treat concepts like diversity, equity, inclusion, compassion, fairness, and decency with contempt. He showed he had all the wrong stuff to take over a college by authoring Senate Bill 37, the legislation signed into law last year by yucky Governor Greg Abbott that sentenced academic freedom to death at all the schools in the state university system. 

Some people are fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. Your team: Ctrl-V.

Talk about a load-bearing hyphen. After a half-season of half-threatened retirement and full-frenzy speculation, the status quo simply continues: As the Formula 1 summer break comes to a close, Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen announced before Verstappen's home race that he has re-signed—not resigned!—with the team for four more years, extending his contract through 2030. This is the least interesting outcome of F1's purported silly season, though it is still somehow notable thanks to the culture of clear communication (read: complaining) in the sport. Verstappen has not been quiet about his displeasure with this year's regulations; that his team had significant early-season struggles obviously factored into his annoyance. Thus, the speculation began. Perhaps Verstappen would go to another team. Perhaps Verstappen would simply and most dramatically express his displeasure by retiring from the formula entirely. The leap from regulation displeasure to a full retirement was, in no small part, a self-fueled rumor. Retiring at age 28 would be shocking for any F1 driver, much less an all-time great, though Verstappen has been vocal from the start of his career that he would leave the sport as soon as his interest waned. Verstappen was regularly moonlighting in GT3 racing and praising the older-school style of racing there. After the Canadian Grand Prix, Verstappen declared that another year, should the regulations not be modified, was "just mentally not doable for me."

I don't get nervous before recording episodes of The Distraction, and was surprised to notice during our more recent live episodes that even the usual bite of anxiety which comes with going onstage was just a fairly mild nibble. Some of this is because Drew does a lot of the annoying work required to make the podcast happen, but most of it owes to how comfortable I've become doing this show with him and for the audience that followed us from The Deadcast over to The Distraction, for the past [number redacted] years. That also explains why I was so anxious about recording this one, which will be the penultimate episode of the show. This was one I didn't really know how to do, until it was time to do it. Then it was easy. That's the thing with getting to talk to a friend for an hour every week for so long—around six years together doing this show, more than a year doing The Deadcast together at Deadspin, and much longer than that for Drew. It's easy and fun in a way that doesn't quite align with the idea of "work," even when it's a little bit sad. Much of this episode is about the years we've spent doing this podcast together and what it has meant to us. We also discuss the podcasts that will replace it: a new concept from Drew that will arrive in Week 1 of the NFL season, and one co-hosted by me that is a little less far along in its progress, but will be along in time.

In a kinder world, WNBA expansion teams are allowed to flail and muck about in peace for a few years before anyone pays close attention to them. But this is an unkind world, one that finds the Golden State Valkyries second in the standings and headed to the playoffs for the second time in their two years of existence. You can understand why a Toronto Tempo fan might have been hoping for something more in the team’s inaugural season. For the last time the Tempo won a game, you’ll need to go back to July 12, when they hosted the New York Liberty and eked out a victory, 93-91, despite leading by 20 points late in the third quarter. (Frankly, beating the Liberty shouldn’t even count.) Toronto’s 93-82 loss to the Mystics on Wednesday night extended their losing streak to 12 games and dropped their record to 10-25 with nine left to play. What’s gone wrong? By typical expansion-team standards, nothing really. But it did seem like the Tempo assembled their team with higher ambitions this past offseason. Unlike expansion classmate Portland or Golden State last year, the Tempo made big plays in the free-agent market, signing Marina Mabrey and Brittney Sykes to two-year max contracts, a multimillion-dollar backcourt to inaugurate the new CBA. When their offer-sheet play for Washington Mystics center Shakira Austin didn’t work, they also gave a $1 million contract to the expansion-coded Temi Fagbenle, who played for Golden State last season. “How quickly are you all looking to compete in a league that continues to grow in this golden era of talent?” ESPN’s Malika Andrews asked Tempo GM Monica Wright Rogers after the expansion draft in April. “The goal is to do that right away,” Wright Rogers answered.

We had moderate hopes for Tugboat Wilkinson in his Major League debut, just because his nickname and carriage merge so harmoniously. But because the San Francisco Giants clearly hate all of you, we didn't get nearly enough tug, or boat. Wilkinson, whose real name is Matt, is only the second Tugboat in Major League history after Thurman Munson, and he comes by his nickname with the fullest honesty. He is listed at 6-foot-1, 250 pounds, and has the front porch to suggest that the second number may be only an estimate, but that's not the hook. It's not even the fact that his best pitch has the 1934-styled nickname "invisiball."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP2U7x_w7_k

Olivia Miles made her first bucket of Wednesday night's game against the Golden State Valkyries early in the first quarter. It was a pull-up jumper from the left elbow, and the broadcast camera zoomed in on her face as she backpedaled down the court. After a moment of thought, she said something to herself: "They can't fucking guard me." Perhaps it was a needed reminder. The Valkyries, after all, boast the WNBA's most ferocious defense, and just two nights previous had reminded everyone how disruptive they can be for a young, dynamic guard. Paige Bueckers left Monday night's game against the Valks with 21 points, but she needed 18 shots to get there, turned the ball over seven times, and was minus-10 in an eight-point loss. That's life playing against the Valks, who defend high up the court, never stop swarming, and can unleash Gabby Willams and Veronica Burton on any opposing guard who looks too comfortable. Except for Miles. Aside from a twisted ankle that forced her to the bench for the game's final minutes, Miles was about as comfortable as someone enjoying a post-meal snooze in their favorite recliner. As soon as the ball was tipped, she went about extracting all the drama from this highly anticipated game between the league's top seeds, controlling the game with her playmaking and scoring. The Lynx won, 77-66, and never trailed for a second. Miles missed two shots all game, finished with 20 points and seven assists in 30 minutes, and only turned it over twice.

Some people are fans of the Green Bay Packers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Green Bay Packers. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. Your team: