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🚨 Headlines

🏈 Vrabel comes home: Former Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls in New England, has been hired as the franchise’s next head coach.

🏀 Flagg goes off: Cooper Flagg gave the Cameron Crazies a thrill on Saturday, scoring an ACC freshman record 42 points (11-14 FG, 4-6 3PT, 16-17 FG) and adding 7 assists and 6 boards in Duke’s 86-78 win over Notre Dame.

🏈 All-Pros: The Ravens, Eagles and Lions each had an NFL-best six players named to the All-Pro rosters. Baltimore (QB, FB, LB, CB) and Detroit (WR, RT, S, P) led the way with four first-team selections.

⚽️ Barça win El Clásico: Barcelona routed Real Madrid, 5-2, to win the club’s record-extending 15th Spanish Super Cup title.

⚾️ Ballpark ban: The two Yankees fans who interfered with Mookie Betts during Game 4 of the World Series have been banned from all MLB ballparks indefinitely.

🏈 Doink!

The Commanders ended their 19-year playoff win drought in dramatic fashion on Sunday night when Zane Gonzalez’s kick bounced through the uprights as time expired to clinch a 23-20 win over the Buccaneers.

“THEY DOINKED THEIR WAY TO THE DIVISIONAL ROUND! UNBELIEVABLE!”

— Mike Tirico (NBC)

“THE CARDIAC COMMANDERS ARE THE CLUTCH COMMANDERS! WE’LL SEE YOU IN DETROIT!”

— Bram Weinstein (radio)

Victory at last: This is Washington’s first playoff win since Jan. 7, 2006, which also came against the Bucs. Only the Dolphins (Dec. 30, 2000) and Raiders (Jan. 19, 2003) entered the season with longer active droughts. A generational curse has been lifted.

• Rookie sensation: Jayden Daniels impressed as he has all season, becoming the first rookie QB since Russell Wilson in 2012 to win a road playoff game.

• Wild stat: Alex Ovechkin scored 848 NHL goals between the Commanders’ two most recent playoff wins.

Scoreboard: None of the other four games this weekend were particularly close…

• Bills 31, Broncos 7: Buffalo cruised past Denver to set up a tantalizing matchup: Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson on Sunday night in Buffalo, where the stakes will be much bigger than which one wins MVP.

• Ravens 28, Steelers 14: Derrick Henry (186 yds, 2 TD) steamrolled the Steelers, who became the first 10-win team in NFL history to end the season on a five-game losing streak and have now lost four consecutive playoff games by 11+ points.

• Eagles 22, Packers 10: The highlight of this game may have been the saxophone national anthem from this dude in a custom Starter jacket. Telling stat: The Packers finished 0-6 against the Eagles, Lions and Vikings this season.

• Texans 32, Chargers 12: “For 17 regular-season games, it felt different for the Chargers. All of it. The scheme, the energy, the resilience and joy. And maybe most of all, the backbone,” writes Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson. “Then came Saturday.”

Of note: The lack of close games during wild card weekend is becoming a theme… Since the NFL expanded the playoffs to 14 teams, just five of the 29 wild card games have been decided by less than a touchdown.

Divisional Round: Texans at Chiefs (4:30pm ET) and Commanders at Lions (8pm) on Saturday, followed by Vikings/Rams at Eagles (3pm) and Ravens at Bills (6:30pm) on Sunday.

📸 Sports Photos of the Year

Over 2,000 photographers from nearly 100 countries submitted entries for the 2025 World Sports Photography Awards. The contest awarded Gold, Bronze, Silver and Special Merit honors in 24 sports categories, and also selected three overall winners, shown here.

🥇 “Golden Moment” — Brazil’s Gabriel Medina recorded the highest single wave score in Olympic history (9.90) this past summer in Tahiti, and this shot of him exiting the wave might just be the coolest photo I’ve seen in my entire life. Just incredible.

🥈 “Heaven” — Biathlete Deedra Irwin racing through the clouds at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Utah. A truly epic shot.

🥉 “Zebra Crossing” — A rally car driver appeared in no mood to slow down as zebras crossed the road during the East Africa Safari Classic in Kenya.

🏆 The Grand Finale: Buckeyes vs. Irish

The first national championship game of the 12-team College Football Playoff will feature two Midwest schools — neither of whom won a conference championship game — facing off in the heart of SEC country, which won’t have a team in the title game for the second straight year.

• When: Jan. 20 (8pm ET, ESPN)

• Where: Atlanta (Mercedes-Benz Stadium)

How they got here: The eighth-seeded Buckeyes beat No. 9 Tennessee and No. 1 Oregon by a combined score of 83-38 before taking down No. 5 Texas, 28-14, in Friday’s thrilling semifinal. The seventh-seeded Fighting Irish handled No. 10 Indiana and No. 2 Georgia before squeaking past No. 6 Penn State, 27-24, on Thursday.

By the numbers:

• 9.5 points: Ohio State opened as a 9.5-point favorite (via BetMGM), which would be tied for the second-largest spread in a CFP title game if it holds. Georgia was -13.5 against TCU in 2022 (won 65-7) and Alabama was -9.5 against Ohio State in 2020 (won 52-24).

• 9-1: Speaking of betting lines, favorites are 9-1 outright and 8-2 against the spread in this year’s playoff. They’d be undefeated if it wasn’t for a surge of late money on Thursday that made Penn State a slight favorite over Notre Dame before kickoff.

• 33.4 million: That’s the viewership record for a CFP title game, set back in 2014 when Ohio State played Oregon in the first title game of the four-team era. Could that number be topped a week from today when the sport’s biggest draw and most prestigious brand face off?

• $4,088: The average ticket price was $4,088 as of Sunday, per TicketIQ, making this the most expensive national championship ticket since they began tracking it in 2011. For those seeking just to make it through the gates, the get-in price currently stands at $2,223.

Head-to-head: This is the ninth meeting between these two programs. Notre Dame won the first two games nearly a century ago (1935-36), but Ohio State has won all six since then (1995, 1996, 2006, 2016, 2022, 2023) to take a commanding lead in the all-time series.

Good read: How Jack Sawyer punched Ohio State’s ticket to the title game in 83 long, glorious yards (Ross Dellenger, Yahoo Sports)

Sawyer was Ryan Day’s first-ever commitment after he was elevated to head coach. He’s an Ohio kid from the Columbus suburb of Pickerington, a town of about 23,000 where he grew up with a Scarlet and Gray-painted room covered in Buckeyes decals.

He’s a two-year starter, a three-year letterman and was the highest-rated recruit in Ohio State’s 2021 signing class. More recently, you may know him as the guy who prevented Michigan players from planting the flag at midfield of Ohio Stadium.

Perhaps, the Wolverines sparked something in this team. The Buckeyes are playing like we all thought they would — the most talented roster in the sport and the preseason national championship favorites.

⚾️ Players of the century (so far)

From MLB.com:

In 1999, as the world anticipated the turn of the century and the dawn of a new millennium, MLB named its “All-Century Team,” selecting 30 players to represent baseball’s best of the 1900s. 25 years later, it’s a good time to consider the best players of the 2000s… so far.

Our take: MLB.com made this list by selecting the player at each position with the highest Baseball Reference WAR (wins above replacement) since 2000. That’s certainly a valid way to identify the “best players,” and we mostly agree with the results. But there are three cases where we’d give the nod to someone else, cumulative WAR be damned…

1. Shortstop: Francisco Lindor (49.6 WAR) is a stud, but this spot belongs to Derek Jeter (47.9). That’s to say nothing of Alex Rodriguez, who compiled 35.9 WAR in the four seasons he spent playing shortstop this century before joining Jeter in New York and shifting to third.

2. Third base: Speaking of A-Rod… for as good as Adrián Beltré (89.5) was, you simply can’t have a team-of-the-century without including Rodriguez (54.0), who won two MVPs in pinstripes while solidifying himself as one of the greatest players of all time.

3. Right field: Mookie Betts (69.6) may have already secured his spot in Cooperstown, but Ichiro Suzuki (60.0) is arguably the best hitter to ever live and might soon join Mariano Rivera as the only unanimous Hall of Famers when votes are announced next week.

Close calls: Justin Verlander (more K’s, better in postseason) vs. Clayton Kershaw (better ERA, higher peak) is a fascinating conversation … Robinson Canó (68.1 WAR) is the answer at second base, but Chase Utley (64.5) is much closer than you’d think … Buster Posey (better bat) vs. Yadier Molina (better glove, longevity) is a discussion on what we value behind the dish.

✍️ Extra points

🎾 First-round shocker: Unseeded American Alex Michelsen took down No. 11 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first major upset of the Australian Open.

🏀 Historic comeback: Pittsburgh rallied from a 32-point deficit on Sunday to stun SMU and tie the largest comeback in NCAA women’s basketball history. One of the nuttiest box scores I’ve ever seen… 28-0 (!!!) third quarter.

⚽️ Spurs avoid disaster: Tottenham needed extra time to beat Tamworth, a tiny club with part-time players that is currently 16th in the fifth tier of English football. It was 0-0 after 90 minutes before Spurs exploded for three goals.

⛳️ Playoff Nick: Nick Taylor chipped in from 60 feet for eagle on the 72nd hole at the Sony Open to force a playoff, where he beat Nico Echavarria for his fifth PGA Tour victory — and third straight in a playoff.

🏀 Streaks snapped: The longest winning streak in D1 men’s hoops (12 games) and the NBA (12 games) both ended this weekend, with UC San Diego losing to UC Irvine and the Cavaliers losing to the Pacers.

⚽️ He’s back: David Moyes is returning as Everton manager 12 years after his first stint at Goodison Park — an 11-year run that saw the Toffees reach the Champions League and the FA Cup Final.

📺 Watchlist: Wild Card Monday

The Vikings and Rams meet tonight (8pm ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN2) in Glendale, Arizona, for the final spot in the divisional round.

Neutral site: Tonight’s game was relocated from SoFi Stadium due to the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles. Minnesota moved from a 1-point favorite to a 2.5-point favorite after the news broke on Thursday.

More to watch:

• 🎾 Australian Open: First round (7pm, ESPN+; 11:30pm, ESPN2)

• 🏀 NBA: Grizzlies at Rockets (8pm, NBA); Spurs at Lakers (10:30pm, NBA)

• 🏒 NHL: Flames at Blackhawks (7:30pm, NHL)

• 🏀 NCAAM: No. 22 UCLA at Rutgers* (6:30pm, FS1)

*Wrong kind of history: The Scarlet Knights (8-8), led by freshman standouts Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, are trending towards becoming the first team ever to miss the NCAA Tournament despite having two top-5 NBA draft picks in the same season.

🏈 College football trivia

This is the first time since 2004-05 that no SEC teams will appear in back-to-back FBS national championship games.

Question: Which schools played in the 2004 and 2005 title games?

Hint: One West Coast school played in both.

Answer at the bottom.

🍿 Baker’s Dozen: Top 13 plays of the weekend

1. 🏈 Sawyer to the house

2. 🏒 Gorgeous backhand

3. ⛳️ Clutch chip-in for eagle

4. 🏈 Looking like the MVP

5. 🏀 W&M at the buzzer!

6. ⚽️ Mbappé coast-to-coast

7. 🏀 Tobe Awaka!

8. 🏀 Rack Attack!

9. 🏀 Grayson Allen!

10. 🥊 KO of the year?

11. 🏀 Met him at the rim!

12. 🏀 Posterized

13. ⚽️ Unconventional finish

Watch all 13.

Trivia answer: USC 55, Oklahoma 19 (2004 Orange Bowl); Texas 41, USC 38 (2005 Rose Bowl)

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