We’re on to Week 8, and I’ve got my eyes on a handful of games.
For those new to this space, if you are looking for a few wagers to get in on the NFL action, I have you covered. Nothing makes football better than having a few bucks on the games weekly.
I’m not going to overreact to the Eagles beating an awful Giants team last week. Yeah, they did what they needed to do, but the Giants OL/QB combo might be the worst in the league right now. It’s not like Jalen Hurts was great, and it had the earmarks of Saquon Barkley simply being motivated against the team that cast him aside. Cincinnati is getting healthier, and I think the best unit on the field is the Bengals offense. It’s a good time for the Bengals to not blow a lead on their home field and finally win one.
PICK: Bengals (-2.5) to win by more than 2.5 points
There might be a little overreaction here to the Tampa WR injuries. The Bucs are still gonna throw the ball. Maybe Cade Otton has a huge day. And remember, the backs are still capable. The Falcons laying points on the road against a team they should have lost to at home a couple of weeks back? What could possibly go wrong?
PICK: Buccaneers (+2.5) to lose by fewer than 2.5 points, or win outright
NFL Week 8 Super Six: Can the Seattle Seahawks pull off the UPSET against the Buffalo Bills?
We don’t know if DK Metcalf is going to play, but there are still plenty of weapons on a Seattle team that might be able to pull off the upset. But I do think with Kenneth Walker, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and others, the Seahawks should put up points on a Buffalo defense that has had a tendency to do such this year.
PICK: Seahawks team total Over 20.5 points scored
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Chris “The Bear” Fallica has covered sports for nearly three decades. While college football has been his focus, he also enjoys the NFL, Soccer, Golf, Tennis, MLB, NHL and Horse Racing, with an “occasional” wager on such events. Chris recently won the inaugural Circa Football Invitational and finished in the Top 10 of the Golden Nugget Football Contest. He’s a multiple-time qualifier for the NHC Handicapping Championship. Remember, “The less you bet, the more you lose when you win!” Follow him on Twitter @chrisfallica.
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The injury occurred with 42 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter after Godwin reeled in a 21-yard completion.
Baker Mayfield, Bucs silenced in tough loss + Chris Godwin, Mike Evans injured
In March, NFL owners voted unanimously to remove the hip-drop tackle, which is “when a defender wraps up a ball carrier and rotates or swivels his hips, unweighting himself and dropping onto ball carrier’s legs during the tackle.”
A defender executing a hip-drop tackle results in a 15-yard penalty. That said, Smith wasn’t flagged for the banned tackle in live time.
Prior to the injury, Godwin logged seven receptions for 65 yards and was leading the NFL with 50 receptions for 576 yards and five touchdowns. Meanwhile, Smith finished the 41-31 Ravens win with a combined 18 tackles. Smith, a two-time All-Pro, is in his second full season with the Ravens, logging 74 combined tackles and one forced fumble this season.
Baltimore has won five consecutive games following its 0-2 start, while Tampa Bay has lost three of its past five and is also expected to be without star wide receiver Mike Evans for at least three weeks due to a hamstring injury.
Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has cleared the NFL‘s concussion protocol and will play against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. It’s his first start since being concussed in Week 2.
The Dolphins designated Tagovailoa to return to practice on Monday after he spent about a month on injured reserve after suffering his third concussion of his NFL career on Sept. 12.
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Tagovailoa has since met with numerous medical experts who deemed it safe for him to play football again, according to the team. He needed to clear the NFL’s five-step return-to-play process, which came after he participated in practices and took contact without exhibiting concussion symptoms.
Tagovailoa was examined after Thursday’s practice by an independent neurological consultant, who cleared him to play Sunday, coach Mike McDaniel said.
“Words can’t describe how excited I get for all players that have opportunities that I know they don’t take for granted,’ McDaniel said Friday. “It’s very exciting from a human perspective as a coach for this team.”
Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa on return from IR: ‘Willing to play the odds’
Tagovailoa was concussed when he collided with Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. He ran for a first down and initiated contact by lowering his shoulder into Hamlin instead of sliding. Tagovailoa said Monday that he has been symptom-free since a day after being diagnosed with the concussion.
“We’ve been talking to him ever since his injury,” Dolphoins running back Raheem Mostert said. “I’ve been telling him, ‘Hey, you need to work on sliding.’ And we all joke around and laugh, but on a serious note, he knows that he has to protect himself a little bit better.”
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He has a history of head injuries since entering the NFL. He was diagnosed with two concussions in 2022 and also suffered another scary hit to the head, which led to changes in the NFL’s concussion rules.
Tagovailoa has traveled across the country in the past month meeting with numerous medical experts who spoke with him about his concussion history, the Dolphins said. No doctor recommended he retire, and the decision to return to the game was made with his doctors and family, the team said.
LOS ANGELES — Aaron Judge paused for a moment as he considered a question this week. The Yankees slugger, whose 2022 MVP season was sandwiched in between two from Shohei Ohtani, was asked this week what he admires about his award-winning counterpart “other than the obvious.”
A smile began to form across his face.
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“Other than the obvious?” Judge repeated with a chuckle before continuing. “I feel like everything’s obvious. He hits for average. He hits for power. The speed, doing what he did this year with the 50 stolen bases, it got talked about a lot, but I don’t think it got talked about enough. He’s an impressive athlete, the best player in the game, and what an ambassador for the sport.”
Ohtani said Thursday, a day before he faces off in a star-studded World Series against the man who paid him the compliment, that he was honored by Judge’s words.
Most years, no one could question Judge’s proclamation. Because most years, no one in the sport could hit a baseball more than 450 feet while spinning a wicked sweeper and firing triple-digit heat off the mound, the way Ohtani can when he’s functioning at full capacity.
This year, though, with that latter ability removed from the equation, the title of “best player in the game” is at least up for debate. Unable to pitch, Ohtani still offered a compelling case by delivering MLB’s first ever 50/50 season, finishing his first year with the Dodgers with 54 homers and 59 steals. He led all players in runs scored and total bases in a career year offensively and will soon become the first full-time DH to win MVP.
“He stays through the zone for such a long time,” Judge said. “Even when you think you got him, you don’t got him.”
Judge, meanwhile, outpaced Ohtani in every slash line category and led all qualified players in homers, RBIs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, walks and WAR, among a number of statistics. He finished just four home runs shy of the AL-record mark that he set two seasons ago.
As staggering as his .701 slugging percentage was, Judge’s career-high .322 batting average was just as noteworthy to Ohtani.
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“Although I’m not as tall as him, I can relate to the fact that being a taller, bigger player, your strike zone’s going to be naturally bigger,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “For him to post a high batting average, he has to be very efficient with what he does, so I’m very impressed at how he’s been able to do both — hit for average and hit for power.”
In doing so, Judge has built a strong case as the best player in the sport this season, even if that’s a title he has already ceded to Ohtani, who will finish the year strictly as a DH. (Despite the progress Ohtani has made in his throwing program this year, manager Dave Roberts confirmed Thursday that there’s “no possibility” he pitches in this Fall Classic.)
With the two stars now in different leagues, though, it’s a distinction that doesn’t need to be made. They both made a run at a triple crown, and they’re both the runaway favorites to win MVP in their respective leagues, which is one of the many facets that sets this star-studded World Series apart.
“We had our battles throughout the regular season over the years when he was with the Angels,” Judge said. “It was kind of back and forth, seeing him hit homers over my head and having some good series. But getting a chance to be on the biggest stage in the biggest moments, I think that’s going to be pretty cool to watch.”
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Juan Soto, already a four-time All-Star and World Series champion, turned 26 years old Friday and could make upward of $600 million in a couple of months. Mookie Betts is an eight-time All-Star and former MVP capable of playing either middle infield spot in addition to right field, where he won six Gold Gloves and is back playing after starting the year at shortstop. Freddie Freeman is an MVP, too, a year removed from leading the majors in doubles. Gerrit Cole, last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner, will take the mound Friday at the same venue where his teammate and fellow Southern California native Giancarlo Stanton, another former MVP, was named the 2022 All-Star Game MVP.
If Freeman is able to suit up, as he intends to do on his hobbled ankle Friday at Dodger Stadium, it will mark the first time ever that five MVPs appear in a World Series. It could have been six had a toe injury not sidelined Clayton Kershaw for the season.
And yet, in this juggernaut championship matchup, the likes of which the sport has never seen, none of those talents are even the most highly-regarded superstars on their respective teams.
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Because this World Series — in addition to featuring the two top seeds in each league, from the two most populous cities in the country, in the first Fall Classic between the Dodgers and Yankees in 43 years — will feature Judge and Ohtani, baseball’s two premier talents on the sport’s pinnacle in a premier matchup that will draw the attention of millions, whether they love or hate the teams they’re watching.
You’d have to go back to Duke Snider’s Dodgers and Mickey Mantle’s Yankees, back in 1956 when the former team was still in Brooklyn, to find the last time a World Series was played with the home run leader from each league.
“You’re talking about two of the classic franchises, two teams that have the sport’s biggest stars,” Max Muncy said. “On our team, you’ve got Shohei, Freddie, Mookie. On their team, you’ve got Aaron Judge, Giancarlo, Juan Soto. You’re talking about the absolute biggest stars in the game, and now they’re going to be playing on the biggest stage? As a fan, how special is this, man?”
It’s been 12 years since the presumptive MVPs from each league battled in a World Series, when Buster Posey faced Miguel Cabrera in 2012. That year, both AL wild-card teams had more wins than Cabrera’s Detroit Tigers, while Posey’s San Francisco Giants had the fewest wins of the three NL division winners.
That won’t be the case when Ohtani’s Dodgers and Judge’s Yankees, the two best teams in the sport this season, meet in the World Series for the first time since 1981. They’re not exact replicas of each other, especially considering the status of the Dodgers’ ravaged starting rotation, but their strategies for offensive success are similar. They homered more than any team in their respective leagues. They also chased less and walked more than any other teams in the majors.
And they were carried by the most prolific offensive forces in the game.
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“Obviously, I’ve gotten to see Aaron now for seven years, got to know him well,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Just the reverence I have for the person, excited that he’s going to get to go be on this stage. Of course, I know playing against Shohei what an amazing talent he is, and obviously going to the Dodgers this year and having the kind of season he’s put out there, I think it’s great for the sport, great for baseball.”
The Dodgers designated hitter has dominated the sport since coming all the way back from his first Tommy John surgery. He hit 46 homers and went 9-2 with a 3.18 ERA in an MVP 2021 season. Judge followed by passing Roger Maris for an AL-best 62 home runs in an MVP 2022 season. Ohtani answered back last year, still thriving on the mound while enjoying a career year at the plate to earn his second MVP.
But despite all the success, Ohtani had never been to the playoffs before this year. And Judge, for all that power and production, had never gotten the Yankees to the World Series. He also, to this point, hasn’t replicated his usual offensive output when the calendar flips to October.
Both have a chance to write new chapters in their prolific careers, the way the Yankees captain imagined when he decided to stay in pinstripes and the way Ohtani envisioned when he joined the Dodgers on a record deal this offseason, a year after winning the World Baseball Classic for Team Japan.
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“He’s such a great ambassador for this game,” Judge said. “He plays the game the right way. You see him hustling around the diamond, I think that sets such a great example for our youth and all the kids that are going to be watching this series. So, definitely looking forward to this.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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