Wednesday’s 6-pack:
NFL’s worst teams in turnover ratio:
minus-17— Raiders
minus-11— Jaguars, Titans
minus-10— Browns
minus-9— Falcons
minus-8— Cowboys, Giants
minus-6— Patriots
Quote of the Day
“Nolan wants to win, and there’s more details, but that’s really between them and I don’t want to have any effect on what [Cardinals president of baseball operations John] Mozeliak is trying to do. Nolan’s willing to strongly consider it, if it’s the right place to go, but he’s not going to go just anywhere. He has a full no-trade clause, so he has that right, and he’s a veteran player and we hope something good happens, but he’s not going to approve and move his family and go play (just anywhere).”
Nolan Arenado’s agent Joel Wolfe
Wednesday’s quiz
Where did Jameis Winston play his college football?
Tuesday’s quiz
Kevin Durant played his one year of college basketball for the Texas Longhorns.
Monday’s quiz
Terry Collins was manager of the Mets last time they were in the World Series, in 2015.
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— Good week for baseball fans; lot of stuff going on.
Mets are going to be paying Juan Soto $51K a year for the next 16 years; last year, the entire payroll for the Oakland A’s was $63M. Awesome.
On Opening Day, when Soto suits up for the Mets, he’ll be playing for his fourth different team in the last four Opening Days. Very unusual for a 26-year old star.
— When they signed Soto, Mets’ odds to win the World Series plunged from 12-1 to 15-2.
— With Soto leaving the Bronx, New York has lot of extra $$$ to spend- Bombers signed P Max Fried to an eight year, $218M deal- that is $27.25M per year.
Fried will be 31 next month; he was 11-10, 3.25 in 29 starts for Atlanta last year. In his career, he is 73-36, 3.07 in 151 career starts, all with the Braves. Fried was an All-Star two of the last three seasons.
— P Nathan Eovaldi re-upped with the Texas Rangers, getting $75M for three years.
— Dodgers signed reliever Blake Treinen for two years, $22M; they also signed OF Michael Conforto for one year, $17M.
— Phillies signed reliever Jordan Romano for one year, $8.5M.
— Blue Jays signed reliever Yimi Garcia for two years, $15M.
Toronto also acquired 2B Andres Gimenez from Cleveland.
— Top two picks in July’s baseball draft:
1) Washington 2) LA Angels
— Mariners, Cardinals jumped the highest in the draft lottery; Marlins, Rockies have to be really disappointed with where they’re picking- they fell in the lottery.
— Tampa Bay Rays will draft 14th in July, highest pick they’ve had since 2017.
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Famous birthdays, December 11:
Rita Moreno, 93
Donna Mills, 84
Gary Dourdan, 58
Doug Nussmeier, 54
Shareef Abdur-Rahim, 48
Joe Blanton, 44
Jacoby Brissett, 32
Allen Lazard, 29
Hailee Steinfeld, 28
Mark Vientos, 25
— Bengals 27, Cowboys 20
Burrow threw a 40-yard TD pass to Chase with 1:01 for the winning TD.
Chase caught 14 passes for 177 yards, two TD’s.
Dallas muffed a blocked punt just before that, giving Cincinnati the ball back.
Bengals are 5-1 if they allow 24 or fewer points, 0-7 if they allow more than 24.
Bengals are 4-0 ATS as a road favorite TY.
Dallas is 1-6 SU/ATS at home this season.
Cowboys are 1-8 when they allow more than 20 points.
Bengals outgained Dallas, 433-322.
Game was 17-17 after the third quarter.
Cowboys’ last three drives: 12 plays, 31 yards, no points.
— Central Florida hired Scott Frost as its new football coach; Frost led UCF to a 13-0 record in 2017, then bolted to Nebraska, where his teams struggled, going 16-31 over five years- they gave him $13M to take a hike during the 2022 season.
This season, Frost has been working with the LA Rams as a special assistant.
— Brandon Aubrey is the Dallas Cowboys’ kicker; he never played college football, he played soccer in college, but he was drafted by the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions and kicked for them for two years, before he made the Cowboys’ roster.
Jake Bates is the Detroit Lions’ kicker; he kicked for the Michigan Panthers in the UFL last year and now he’s in the big time.
Spring football will be starting up at the end of March.
— Would Alabama have been left out of the college football playoff if Nick Saban was still their coach? Has their perception changed since he retired? You could make an argument that they wouldn’t have lost three games if he was still coaching, but that’s a different question.
— Kansas City Chiefs are 0-7 ATS in their last seven games; no team that won the Super Bowl has ever had an 0-6 ATS streak during that season.
— Duke’s football team is 9-3 this year, their best win %age since 1962, but QB Maalik Murphy is going into the transfer portal. He’s thrown for 2,932 yards, 26 TD’s, 12 INTs after coming over from Texas.
Duke was 9-4 last year with Riley Leonard at QB; he bolted to Notre Dame last spring.
— Arkansas 89, Michigan 87
This game had the feel of March, like a Sweet 16 game.
78-possession game, very fast pace.
— North Dakota State 71, Butler 68
Big East teams aren’t supposed to lose to Summit teams.
North Dakota State outscored Butler 9-1 over the final 2:39.
Bison shot 13-30 on the arc; that’s how upsets happen.
— Brown 84, Rhode Island 80 2OT
URI came in at 9-0; they led by 12 in first half.
Rams turned ball over 21 times (minus-7)
— Providence 70, DePaul 63 OT
DePaul led by 8 with 3:37 left in regulation.
Blue Demons have now lost their last 33 regular season conference games.
— Charleston 78, St Joe’s 75
St Joe’s led by 11 with 10:55 left in the game.
Chris Mack’s Cougars are 7-2; they were 13-13 on foul line.
