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🚨Headlines
🎉 Dickie V is cancer free: Dick Vitale’s vocal cords are cancer free and he’s been cleared to return to work. The 85-year-old hopes to be back on the sidelines calling games this month.
⚾️ HOF voting update: Ichiro Suzuki (100% of the vote), C.C. Sabathia (90.7%), Billy Wagner (84.7%) and Carlos Beltran (76.3%) are all trending towards Hall of Fame induction with roughly one-third of ballots publicly known.
🔥 L.A. wildfires: The devastating wildfires led to an NHL postponement and have impacted numerous athletes and their families. More postponements could be coming in the NBA, and the NFL is considering moving Monday’s Rams-Vikings playoff game to Phoenix.
⛳️ TGL was a hit: Tuesday’s TGL debut averaged nearly 1 million viewers on ESPN, double the PGA Tour’s final round broadcast of The Sentry on Sunday.
🏒 Hockey in the sunshine: The NHL will hold the Winter Classic and Stadium Series (annual outdoor games) in Miami and Tampa next season. “It’s going to be a little unusual,” said commissioner Gary Bettman.
🏈 5 days of football
January has always been a good sports month, but the expanded College Football Playoff has made it great.
Consider what’s coming: The next five days are football heaven, with eight win-or-go-home playoff games in the span of 96 hours.
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Tonight: CFP Semifinal (Orange Bowl)
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Friday: CFP Semifinal (Cotton Bowl)
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Saturday: NFL Playoffs (3 games)
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Sunday: NFL Playoffs (2 games)
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Monday: NFL Playoffs (1 game)
Plus: Add in the NBA, NHL, college hoops, soccer, golf, the first tennis Grand Slam of 2025 and more, and you’ve got one of the best sports weekends of the year, full stop.
The big picture: The front part of the year (Jan-Feb) is getting better for sports (and will get even better when the NFL inevitably adds an 18th game), while the summer is getting worse. Colin Cowherd talked about this in a recent interview with Ryen Russillo.
📸 Pics du jour
Cleveland — The Cavaliers beat the Thunder, 129-122, in matchup of the NBA’s top two teams, snapping OKC’s 15-game win streak and extending their own win streak to 11.
Washington, D.C. — The Capitals beat the Canucks, 2-1 (OT), to reclaim sole possession of the best record in the East. Not bad for a team that opened the season with the 23rd-best odds to win the Stanley Cup.
College Park, Maryland — JuJu Watkins (21 points, 9 rebounds) and No. 4 USC came back to beat No. 8 Maryland on the road, 79-74, and hand the Terps their first loss of the season.
Melbourne, Australia — Defending Australian Open champions Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner pose with their trophies ahead of their first-round matches this weekend. Here’s the draw for this year’s tournament.
⚾️ MLB free agency: The best players still available
29 of our top 50 MLB free agents (including seven of the top 10) have signed this offseason, but you can make a solid squad with the players who are still available.
The All-Free Agent Team:
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C: Yasmani Grandal, 36: The veteran’s best days are behind him, but he can still provide value as an experienced backup.
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1B: Pete Alonso, 30: Since his debut in 2019, only Aaron Judge has hit more homers than the Polar Bear.
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2B: Jorge Polanco, 31: A knee injury led to a career-worst season in Seattle, but he’s an intriguing buy-low candidate closing in on 1,000 career hits.
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3B: Alex Bregman, 31: The longtime Astro just snagged his first Gold Glove and has hit at least 23 homers in three straight seasons.
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SS: Ha-Seong Kim, 29: The elite and versatile defender posted a career-high walk rate and career-low strikeout rate last season in San Diego.
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OF: Anthony Santander, 30: His 44 home runs last year in Baltimore were the fifth-most ever by a switch hitter.
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OF: Jurickson Profar, 32: It took (much) longer than expected, but the former wunderkind finally broke out in 2024 with a career-high .839 OPS and his first All-Star nod.
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OF: Randal Grichuk, 33: He’s quietly put up 10 straight seasons with double-digit homers and posted a career-high 140 OPS+ last season in Arizona.
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DH: Justin Turner, 40: You can’t overlook the age, but the wily veteran is still an above-average hitter and would be an excellent clubhouse presence.
Rotation:
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RHP: Rōki Sasaki, 23: The most coveted free agent behind only Juan Soto, the Japanese flamethrower is available via the posting system for next to nothing thanks to his age.
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RHP: Jack Flaherty, 29: The former superstar had a career resurgence last year with the Tigers and Dodgers, and should see a hefty raise considering he’s on the right side of 30.
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RHP: Nick Pivetta, 32: Surprising stat alert: Among the 112 pitchers who’ve thrown at least 200 innings since 2023, Pivetta’s 30% strikeout rate ranks fifth.
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LHP: Jose Quintana, 36: A lefty with a sub-4.00 ERA in three consecutive seasons? Yeah, that’ll play.
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RHP: Max Scherzer, 40: Injuries limited him to just nine starts last year in Texas, but the future first ballot Hall of Famer should still land a one-year deal.
Bullpen:
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LHP: Tanner Scott, 30: Scott’s 4.0 WAR last season ranked second among all relievers.
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RHP: Jeff Hoffman, 32: The first-time All-Star has become one of the most reliable relievers in baseball.
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RHP: Carlos Estévez, 32: His 57 saves over the last two years are the ninth-most in the league.
🎙️ Fresh pod: Free agent roundup (Baseball Bar-B-Cast)
🏈 The NFL’s bottom 10 stunk it up in 2024
The NFL’s cellar dwellers collectively had one of the worst seasons in recent memory in 2024.
By the numbers: The worst 10 teams averaged just 4.1 wins this season, which is by far the fewest of the 17-game era. In fact, the wonky COVID season (when teams played 16 games) was the only year since 2008 during which the bottom 10 averaged fewer wins.
The bottom 10:
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Bears: 5-12
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Saints: 5-12
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Panthers: 5-12
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Jets: 5-12
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Raiders: 4-13
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Jaguars: 4-13
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Patriots: 4-13
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Giants: 3-14
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Browns: 3-14
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Titans: 3-14
Consider this: In each of the last three seasons, three teams in the bottom 10 won seven games. This year, no teams in the bottom 10 won more than five.
Meanwhile, at the top… A record 15 teams won at least 10 games this season, with the obvious caveat that they now have 17 games to accomplish that feat.
Good read: How non-playoff teams can find success in 2025 (Matt Harmon, Yahoo Sports)
✍️ Good reads
🏈 Is the Deep South’s college football reign over? (Ross Dellenger, Yahoo Sports)
From 2006 through 2022, a team from the Deep South won 16 of 17 national championships. Alabama won six; LSU, Clemson, Georgia and Florida each won twice; and Auburn and Florida State have titles, too.
What’s just as astonishing is that all seven of those programs finished runner-up over that stretch — all losing to their own southern brethren. But as the CFP semifinals arrive this week, the Deep South is nowhere to be found.
🏀 NBA greats think this D-II coach is a basketball genius. So why don’t you know who he is? (CJ Moore, The Athletic)
Nova Southeastern coach Jim Crutchfield invented a system based on math and an experiment from a pickup game. He spent years as a tennis coach before he could try it. Now he has NBA coaches like Erik Spoelstra and Joe Mazzulla wanting to understand his genius.
The world of an average college basketball coach is foreign to Crutchfield. He barely watches any other basketball, and when he does, he caps out at about five minutes. He’s currently binge-watching “The West Wing”. His favorite show is “Dateline”.
📺 Watchlist: Thursday Night (College) Football
Penn State and Notre Dame meet tonight in the Orange Bowl* (7:30pm ET, ESPN) with a spot in the CFP title game on the line.
Two wins from history: In 2019, Penn State’s James Franklin said his goal was “to be the first African-American football coach to win a college national championship.” Five years later, he and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman are two wins away from doing just that.
More to watch:
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🏀 NBA: Timberwolves at Magic (7pm, NBA)
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🏀 NCAAM: No. 20 Purdue at Rutgers (6pm, FS1); No. 15 Oregon at Ohio State (6pm, BTN)
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🏀 NCAAW: Texas A&M at No. 2 South Carolina (5pm, ESPN2); No. 14 Duke at No. 19 UNC (7pm, ACC); No. 18 Alabama at No. 5 Texas (8pm, SEC+)
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⛳️ PGA: Sony Open (12pm, ESPN+; 7pm, Golf) … At Honolulu’s Waialae Country Club.
*Pregame reading: Should Notre Dame be in a conference? (Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports)
🏈 NFL trivia
The Commanders haven’t won a playoff game since 2005 (third-longest drought in the NFL). Coincidentally, that win came against the Buccaneers, who they play this weekend.
Question: Who were the starting QBs in that game?
Hint: Both lefties.
Answer at the bottom.
🏈 Who ya got: Josh or Lamar?
The NFL MVP race is incredibly close. With all due respect to Joe Burrow and Saquon Barkley, it comes down to Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. Who ya got?
Click to vote:
Your vote will be recorded once you click. Thanks for participating! We’ll share the results tomorrow.
Trivia answer: Mark Brunell (Washington) and Chris Simms (Tampa Bay)
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