It’s Friday, so here comes your weekend tip sheet …
• Joe Burrow played very well in Arizona last week.
But that’s not the best news to come out of his 317-yard, three-touchdown breakthrough in the Bengals’ 34–20 win over the Cardinals. The best news, for the coaches and Burrow’s teammates, is there was plenty of reason to believe that flourish was just the start.
“He was a different player,” one staffer said.
And that showed up on some of his biggest plays against the Cardinals, both in how he was moving and the confidence with which he was moving.
Author: Michael
The Browns ruled quarterback Deshaun Watson out for Sunday’s game against the 49ers on Friday, meaning backup P.J. Walker will make the start.
Watson injured his throwing shoulder in Week 3 against the Titans, and the injury forced him to miss the team’s subsequent game against the Ravens. Despite recovering last week on a bye, Watson didn’t return to practice this week and will miss his second consecutive game.
Although Dorian Thompson-Robinson started two weeks ago, the rookie struggled against the Ravens, recording just 121 passing yards and three interceptions.
Sunday is just around the corner and that means it is the perfect time to enter SI Sportsbook’s Perfect 10 contest for the chance to win $10,000.
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Thursday night’s game in Kansas City didn’t go well for the Broncos.
The final score was 19–8, but that obscures just how miserable Denver was in its loss to the Chiefs. The Broncos managed just 197 yards of total offense, including a mere 82 passing yards, gave up four sacks, turned the ball over three times and didn’t score until late in the fourth quarter.
The Denver defense was actually pretty good, limiting Kansas City to a single touchdown, but it also had its issues. Take, for example, one bizarre play by Broncos defensive back Damarri Mathis in the third quarter.
It’s time to have a sane Brock Purdy discussion.
Welcome back to Establish the Fun, where football is fun and I’m establishing that quicker than the 4×4 relay team the Miami Dolphins currently employ. We’re at the six week point in the season, and it really does feel like we’re beginning to see teams lean into the true identity of what they’ll be on both sides of the ball this year. Every team has a gimmick, like professional wrestling. It’s now up to the respective teams to get the gimmick over to the point that they win games and make the Super Bowl.
I have a confession to make.
I haven’t been watching a lot of the MLB playoffs this postseason. Besides the fact that the Wild Card barely even happened with three out of the four games being immediate sweeps, the fact of the matter is that as a Yankees fan it’s been downright depressing to go from such preseason high hopes to downright ending the year in shambles.
So instead I started watching Yellowstone (talk about late to the party!) and watching NFL games – even the dreaded Thursday Night Amazon games.
But when I do turn the games on, I’ve been watching the Phillies.
Thursday night’s game between Houston and West Virginia was a wild one.
The two teams combined to score 42 points in the fourth quarter, including a touchdown by the Mountaineers that gave them a four-point lead with just 12 seconds to play. Things were looking grim for the Cougars, but thanks to a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on West Virginia, Houston was able to get into Hail Mary range, putting the game in the hands of quarterback Donovan Smith.
Lexi Thompson is teeing it up in this week’s Shriners Children’s Open. That makes her the seventh woman to ever compete against the men on the PGA Tour. Thompson receiving a sponsor’s invitation into the event is a testament to not only her as a player, but for the Tour’s acknowledgment and promotion of gender equality while simultaneously bringing more exposure to women’s golf.
Patrick Mahomes is still great, but the structure around him has deteriorated to a degree and it’s a slog to score points even against bad defenses.
Saquon Barkley doesn’t begrudge unhappy football fans for booing their team. But heckling injured players crosses a line in his view. That’s what provoked the running back to shout back at a fan in Miami who was jeering Daniel Jones while the Giants quarterback was being checked for a neck injury Sunday.
Barkley explained his behavior to reporters Thursday in response to a video posted to X (formerly Twitter) of him yelling at a fan from the sideline.