Henry Pollock has signed a bumper contract extension with Northampton Saints worth more than £400,000 a year to continue his stay with the Prem champions and end the speculation over his future.
Pollock signed with Hearn’s Matchroom agency in March, with the boxing promoter talking up the back-row forward as a “seven-figure player” and worth £1m a year, although Hearn was not involved in the contract negotiations.
Northampton were always confident of keeping Pollock, despite the noise surrounding his future, and confirmed that a “multi-year” extension had been reached ahead of the start of the new Prem season on Friday.
“I’m massively happy to re-sign with Saints, my boyhood club,” Pollock said. “It’s an exciting place to be right now. We’re in a great spot as a team, but it feels like there’s still so much more growth in us.
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“I’m still young, and we’ve got a young squad with a brilliant group of lads. Some of my best mates are here, and every day everyone pushes each other to improve and be the best players and team we can be. For where I am in my career, this is exactly where I want to be.”
Pollock started his career with Northampton, making his debut as a 17-year-old schoolboy in 2022, but said during contract negotiations that he was “open to every opportunity” and hinted that he hopes to play abroad in the future.
Eddie Hearn oversees Pollock’s commercial deals but was not involved in his contract negotiations (Getty)
With fellow England internationals Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell all signing multi-year contract extensions with Northampton in the past 12 months, Pollock set his sights on challenging for the Champions Cup this season as well as defending Northampton’s Prem title.
“I feel like we’re only just getting started,” he said. “We won the Prem last season and we want to go again. Winning the Champions Cup is another huge ambition for us. We came so close a couple of years ago, and achieving that together would be incredibly special.”
Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson said Pollock still has room to improve but praised the 21-year-old’s impact off the pitch in attracting new fans as well as his importance to the Saints on the field.
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“We’re delighted that Henry has committed his future to Saints,” he said. Over the last few years, everyone has seen the quality he brings on the pitch and the speed of his rise through the game – but just as importantly, he’s a young man of outstanding character.
“Keeping someone with both his talent and mindset is hugely important for the club. What’s most exciting is that there’s still so much more to come from him. Henry is incredibly ambitious and constantly looking for ways to improve.
“He’s become an important figure not just for Saints, but for the wider game. He inspires young supporters, brings excitement to rugby, and understands that everything off the pitch is built on performing consistently on it. We’re excited to see what he can achieve over the coming years.”
Northampton confirmed Freeman’s re-signing earlier this week, with the England back receiving an uplift in salary.
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Prop Emmanuel Iyogun, who has attracted significant interest from elsewhere, and scrum half Archie McParland are among the club’s other players out of contract at the end of the campaign, and the club have conceded that they may again not be able to keep everyone they wish to having seen club captain George Furbank depart for Harlequins.
France has reportedly postponed this year’s G7 summit in the spa town of Evian-les-Bains in order not to conflict with US President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14.
The meeting of G7 leaders was originally scheduled for June 14-16.
However, US magazine Politico reported that the event has been moved to June 15-17 in order to not disrupt the 47th US president’s birthday celebrations. The US also marks Flag Day on June 14.
The White House this year has plans to hold a mixed martial arts fight on the grounds of the White House for Trump’s entertainment. Trump is close friends with Dana White, the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
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The previous president in the White House, Joe Biden, also turned 80 while in office in 2022 but chose a more low-key celebration of coconut cake at brunch.
Postponement due to ‘consultations with G7 partners’
French President Emmanuel Macron said the event’s postponement was due to “consultations with G7 partners.”
The G7 consists of the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. Each year’s annual summit is held in a different G7 country on a rotating basis.
Trump warns European allies ‘to be careful’
France’s decision to possibly accommodate Trump comes after the US president has frequently verbally attacked traditional US allies. In his second term in office, Trump has launched a trade war which has impacted other G7 members, with Trump also pressuring European countries and Japan to spend more on defense.
You missed something crucial in that Sydney Sweeney ad
Hello and welcome to another edition of Offside.Last week, everyone lost their collective marvels over an ad featuring Sydney Sweeneywhich became a civilisational debate about what a woman can do with her body, with female athletes accusing her of sending us back to the Stone Age. Men jumped up to attack wokeism or whatever they think Sweeney was critiquing. What almost everyone missed, other than the fact that Sweeney isn’t a female athlete, was something staring everyone in the face: that it was an ad for a gambling company.And gambling is the ubiquitous, omniscient, omnipresent and omnivorous elephant present in every room that sports fans continue to miss. More than a century before Sydney Sweeney tried to convince us that gambling was “Just Sports”, Manchester United and Liverpool demonstrated that gambling and sport have never really been just anything.On Good Friday in 1915, relegation-threatened United beat Liverpool 2-0 in a match so obviously suspicious that the Manchester Football Chronicle said it was “surprised and disgusted” by what it had witnessed. Bookmakers noticed a flurry of bets on the exact 2-0 scoreline, an investigation followed, and seven players from the two clubs were eventually banned for life for conspiring to fix the game.To be fair, wagering has been around since humans started running, fighting or throwing things, ever since we invented currency or competitive insecurity. But what has changed is its all-intrusive nature. As people joke, earlier the internet was something that was only available in a cybercafe or a computer classroom for an hour a day before we went out to touch grass. But today, thanks to the internet, it’s almost everywhere.For most of human history, betting was a physical activity. You had to go to a shadowy gully or a physical casino to place your bet. Even sports betting, compared with a slot machine, was a slower activity: you placed a wager and waited for the match to end.Now, that bookmaker occupies the same digital real estate as your social media accounts, your bank and the stream showing you the game.The product is faster, more granular and designed to keep you trapped.The easiest noob explanation is usually dopamine — the neuroscience equivalent of Mercury in retrograde — blamed for everything and understood by no one.Gambling does involve the brain’s reward system, but it’s not just that winning feels good. It’s the anticipation, learning and the gap between what happened and what could have happened. Gambling repeats that uncertainty. A Cambridge study in 2009 found that people who come close and lose have an increased desire to continue. The loss for the bank account isn’t necessarily a loss for the brain.A 2024 study of two million individual online bets found gamblers bet bigger after an immediate loss. Simply put, when you lose Rs 1,000, your brain tells you the next Rs 1,000 could be used to earn that money back.In 2026, the smartphone has stripped away all the barriers and pauses in which common sense could kick in. In-play betting turns a game into thousands of discrete events: the next scorer, the next corner, the next card, player props and a myriad other things.For most people who gamble, it doesn’t become an addiction. But for some — WHO estimates 1.2% of the world’s adult population has a gambling disorder — the belief that the next win will fix everything can become part of the cycle. At a high-risk level, WHO believes an average of six other people feel the ripple effect. And now we have a peculiar problem where gambling is so interwoven into sport that it’s almost impossible to deal with.Different countries have tried different approaches. Britain tried regulating it and gambling became woven into the very fabric of football, quite literally. While new Premier League rules mean the front of shirts can’t carry sponsorships from betting companies, they can still appear almost everywhere else, including sleeves, LED boards, broadcasts and the wider commercial ecosystem. America opened the door to legal betting after 2018 and watched it morph into player props, micro-markets and prediction contracts. India went the other way and banned online money games altogether, forcing companies like Dream11 to shut paid contests, though that hardly affected offshore or illegal operators.And the gambling company promoted by Sweeney is a new kind of digital chimera. Novig describes itself as a sports prediction market built “by sports traders for sports traders”, which sounds like the sort of rebranding exercise one might expect from an industry that has discovered the words punter and bookie lack the aspirational quality of trader and market.Except in this case the distinction is real.In a traditional sportsbook, the bookmaker sets the odds, builds in its margin and takes the other side of your bet. Novig operates as an exchange. Users buy and sell contracts whose prices move between zero and one dollar depending on what the market believes an outcome is worth. A contract priced at 40 cents pays a dollar if the event happens and zero if it does not, but unlike the old betting slip, you need not necessarily wait for the final whistle. If the price moves from 40 cents to 65 cents, you can sell your position before the match is over. Other users take the opposite side and the market, rather than a bookmaker alone, helps determine the price.The vocabulary follows the architecture.Bets become contracts, punters become traders, odds become prices and the whole thing sounds like a Wolf of Wall Street remake. Novig launched nationwide in August after becoming a federally regulated Designated Contract Market under the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, whose filings now include sports contracts covering everything from NFL games and college football to Premier League and Champions League outcomes.Ergo, the bookmaker became the sportsbook. The sportsbook became the app. And now the app represents Mammon’s greatest representative on earth: Wall Street.Which is why the Sweeney outrage was such a spectacular Trojan horse. For days, people argued over feminism, female athletes, wokeism, beauty standards and whatever other culture-war grievance could be squeezed out of a 30-second advert. Meanwhile, the company buying all that attention represented the latest evolution of an industry steadily erasing the old distinction between wagering on sport and trading an asset whose value happens to depend on sport. Since a lot of folks were outraged about what the Sydney Sweeney ad would mean for women, here’s what it can mean in the real world beyond asinine culture wars. The person placing the bet might be a man, but the losses rarely remain his alone. A 2025 review of 121 studies found that women were more often the family members harmed by somebody else’s gambling, with emotional and relationship damage followed by financial and health harms. Another Australian study found that women affected by another person’s gambling were more likely to have been harmed by a partner or family member and tended to report greater overall harm.That can mean savings disappearing, rent or school money being diverted, debt accumulating without a partner’s knowledge and relationships being held together by increasingly desperate financial lies. WHO also lists family violence and child neglect among documented gambling harms.None of that means gambling automatically turns men violent. But the combination of debt, secrecy, shame, arguments over money and pre-existing coercive behaviour can leave women carrying the consequences of somebody else’s compulsion long after the bet is settled.So while the internet spent days deciding whether Sydney Sweeney had somehow set women back, there was already a much less theoretical gender problem sitting behind the advert: women losing household security, relationships and, in the worst cases, physical safety because of gambling by men around them.That is rather more tangible than an imagined slight to female athletes. We spent so much time arguing about the Trojan horse that we almost failed to notice what had been carted into our city.
Brandin Podziemski’s big role under Steve Kerr started chatter around the NBA, and Gilbert Arenas is leading the charge. Arenas went on his Gil’s Arena podcast and openly questioned how the young guard earned so much power in the organization after the front office let Klay Thompson walk.
“Who is Brandin Podziemski sleeping with, bruh? Man, like Jesus Christ. This man gotta know, he got to know something or know somebody because there’s no way I got rid of Klay for him.”
Thanks for the submission!
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Former Warriors big man DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins completely agreed with the sentiment, adding,
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“It’s the real question, bro… When I played for the Warriors, I didn’t get that much of a leash. When I was coming off three, four All-Stars, I didn’t get that much of a leash. When you average 14, five, and four last season… he’s not a game-changer. He’s like a role player.”
When the room argued that fans cannot expect Podziemski to duplicate Thompson’s production, Cousins doubled down, highlighting the shooting guard’s 39% shooting from deep in his last year with the Mavericks.
“He took Klay’s spot. Come on, bro. 18 points. Come on, bro. And they can’t play one minute.”
Arenas didn’t stop at taking shots at the guard’s status, breaking down exactly why he thinks the on-court fit is wrong, adding,
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“Klay got booed out of Golden State averaging 18 with the same stats. So I’m trying to figure out, like, cuz it’s not like your defense… you don’t play defense… It’s just confusing because the style don’t match.”
Brandin Podziemski steps into a much bigger role following Thompson’s departure to the Dallas Mavericks. The franchise icon left a massive void in the backcourt, but Podziemski showed promise last year by averaging 13.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists, proving he can grow with more floor time.
Golden State did draft Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg 11th overall this summer, but a rookie can’t carry the load by himself. They need Podziemski’s scoring to take the pressure off Stephen Curry while Steve Kerr and Draymond Green try to make one last run at a title before their championship window closes.
Read more:“He Might Be Back” – Ex-All Star Drops Wild Russell Westbrook Prediction As Former MVP Enters Retirement Era
Golden State’s looming Brandin Podziemski extension
As a member of the 2023 draft class, Brandin Podziemski is officially eligible for a rookie extension, but Golden State hasn’t locked in a long-term deal yet. He is currently playing out his original four-year, $16.2 million rookie contract, which carries a $5.6 million cap hit for the 2026-27 season.
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He enters this year with a golden opportunity to prove his worth, as Jimmy Butler’s injury opens up massive minutes in the rotation. Butler remains sidelined while recovering from a torn ACL suffered in January. While his rehab is progressing positively with no setbacks, he is expected to miss the start of the season, with insiders targeting a realistic return to the court around January or February 2027.
Until then, a breakout campaign will put Brandin Podziemski in line for a massive payday before he hits restricted free agency in 2027. It will also give the front office a clear answer on whether he is a permanent piece of the new core or a valuable trade chip to move while his value is sky-high.
The form of mixed martial arts (MMA) making its debut at the Asian Games looks almost completely distinct from the visceral brawls of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which have come to define combat sports in recent years.
In order to get a version of the sport into the Games, currently taking place in Nagoya in Japan, adaptations had to be made. The fights take place without the familiar cage, on an open mat and with small boxing-style gloves. While MMA’s presence in the Asian Games is significant in itself, it’s also a clear effort to get close to Olympic recognition.
“We think without the cage we will have a better alignment with the Olympic values and hopefully recognition from the IOC,” Galastein Tan, the director general of Federation of International Mixed Martial Arts (FIMMA), told press agency AP. “It takes time to change a perception. We hope to be able to share that there is a new form of MMA, and this form is more aligned with the Olympics.”
FIMMA is not the only body purporting to represent the sport, with the International Mixed Martial Arts (IMMAF) also staking a claim. But Tan, a Chinese billionaire property mogul, is a vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia. This could potentially open doors in a movement which has so far kept MMA at arm’s length, with violence levels among its concerns. DW contacted both FIMMA and the IMMAF for comment but received no response.
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UFC has outstripped MMA
In the past the UFC, a lucrative MMA-based competition, has also pushed for Olympic recognition. But the growth of that arm of the sport, highlighted by it staging an event on the South Lawn of the White House at the 250th anniversary celebrations of US independence earlier this year, has meant that the aims of a sport that was marginal two decades ago have shifted according to Karim Zidan.
UFC hosted matches at the White House earlier this yearImage: Kent Nishimura/AP Photo/picture alliance
“I don’t necessarily think it’s that important to MMA. The sport has already found its success on a professional level, which is what the fan base demanded of it,” said Zidan, who has written an upcoming book ‘The Ultimate Strongmen: MMA and the Rise of the New Authoritarian Right’ on the subject.
“The UFC is bigger than it’s ever been in terms of the amount of money it’s making” added Zidan. “The UFC’s growth mainstreamed MMA as a sport, but it also cannibalized it. So there’s really not much remaining. Olympic recognition might seem like a badge of honor, but it doesn’t amount to much else.”
With events for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles already set, the earliest MMA could make its bow would be 2032 in Brisbane. But the IOC told AP that “mixed martial arts does not meet … eligibility criteria” at this point. DW has sought clarification from the IOC on this.
Does MMA have enough appeal for Olympics?
Tan appears to be trying to find a way to change that, citing the sport’s popularity. “MMA is popular globally, able to engage fans at a gut level and attract fans at a youth level,” he said.
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But Zidan argues that its popularity is through the UFC, rather than any grassroots popularity.
“There isn’t much of an MMA ecosystem outside of the UFC for me to say there’s an entirely different worldview existing in the sport that’s demanding this. There are pockets within the sport that enjoy amateur MMA and are operating within it, but I don’t think it’s a significant part of the fan base at all,” Zidan said.
“I’m not particularly convinced that this is a turning point or a significant moment for mixed martial arts, honestly. I think the sport has suffered tremendously under the burden and the weight of the UFC over the past decade.”
Senegal gears up for Youth Olympic Games
UFC’s links with the Trump administration are deep and clear, with UFC president Dana White also speaking at the Republican convention in 2024.
But Zidan also pointed to the IMMAF’s link up with Brave Combat Federation, a Bahraini organization headed by Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, a son of King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. A 2025 Amnesty International Report said Bahrain continued to “to suppress the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through arbitrary detention and prosecutions.”
Authoritarian links remain for MMA
Such links with authoritarian governments have become, Zidan added, fairly commonplace in the sport.
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“They’ve already had associations with authoritarian regimes in the past and it’s very likely that relationship will build. If this [the Asian Games and potential Olympic acceptance] means that we will now have more amateur MMA events being hosted around the world in youth championships, it’s very likely that authoritarian regimes will jump on that.”
The challenge for FIMMA, who appear to want to take MMA in the Olympic direction and away from UFC and its associations, is to make the sport more “normal” and less about spectacle, FIMMA’s vice president Alex Engelhardt told AP.
“It’s very challenging in the sense that the whole mindset in the sport is so focused on promotions,” he said.
Even if that can change, and sport’s debut at the Asian Games adds some legitimacy, the Olympics still seem some way off.
ICC chairman Jay Shah and BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia congratulated the Indian women’s cricket team after it successfully defended its Asian Games gold medal with a commanding 147-run victory over Sri Lanka in the final in Nisshin on Tuesday. India produced a dominant all-round performance to claim its first gold medal of the ongoing Asian Games. Smriti Mandhana’s 79 off 45 balls powered India to a record 216/3 before the bowlers dismissed Sri Lanka for just 69. “Congratulations to India women’s team for winning the Asian Games gold! And well played Sri Lanka on clinching silver in Japan after a strong campaign. As we look ahead to cricket’s return to the Olympics at #LA28, spectacles like this prove that the women’s game is ready to command the biggest multi-sport stages,” Jay Shah wrote on X on Monday.
Congratulations to India women’s team for winning the Asian Games gold! And well played Sri Lanka on clinching silver in Japan after a strong campaign.
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As we look ahead to cricket’s return to the Olympics at #LA28, spectacles like this prove that the women’s game is ready to… pic.twitter.com/SRIWb1MxEf
Mandhana’s innings included seven sixes and five fours, while Shafali Verma contributed 48 off 29 balls. Richa Ghosh then provided the late impetus with an unbeaten 49 off 22 deliveries as India posted the highest total in the history of the women’s Asian Games cricket competition.
Saikia hailed the team for securing back-to-back Asian Games gold medals, while also highlighting the side’s recent success at the Asia Cup.
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“Heartiest congratulations to our Women’s Team @BCCIWomen on winning Gold at the Asian Games 2026 in Nagoya! Back-to-back Asian Games Gold medals — a remarkable achievement and a truly proud moment for Indian cricket. After a dominant Asia Cup campaign in Dubai , the team carried that winning momentum into Nagoya, playing with confidence, flair and determination throughout. Congratulations to each member of Women’s Team , both players and support staff. You have made the nation proud once again!”
India’s bowlers then completed a comprehensive victory. Deepti Sharma was the standout performer with figures of 3-6, while Shafali Verma and Sree Charani claimed two wickets each. Shreyanka Patil also took two wickets as Sri Lanka were bowled out for 69.
Chamari Athapaththu top-scored for Sri Lanka with 29 off 21 balls, but the chase never gained momentum as India kept striking at regular intervals.
The victory saw India retain the gold medal it won at the previous edition of the Asian Games, where it also defeated Sri Lanka in the final.
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India’s 216/3 also broke the previous Asian Games record of 202/4, set by Hong Kong against Mongolia in the 2023 Hangzhou Games. The total was also the highest in a women’s T20 final, surpassing the previous mark of 210 set by Brazil against Spain earlier this year.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Repeat after me—there’s no such thing as an ugly win in the NFL. Especially when it’s against a division rival that won the NFC North last season and put up 59 points last week. But the Vikings defense forced two turnovers and held the Bears’ supposedly unstoppable offense to a field goal in a 9-3 win at rainy Soldier Field on Sunday.
The Vikings are in a great position as sole division leaders at 2-0 with two wins in the division as their starting quarterback Kyler Murray has now cleared concussion protocol. Kevin O’Connell said Monday that Murray will be the starting QB next Sunday in Tampa Bay against the winless Bucs. Carson Wentz returns to the backup role after playing efficiently in directing the wins over the Packers and Bears with no turnovers in either game, three TD passes, and a solid 106.4 passer rating.
Here are My Reactions to the Vikings Victory Over the Bears
1. Chalk one up for O’Connell and Brian Flores over Ben Johnson: Johnson’s boastful talk about wanting to break the NFL scoring record fell flat in Week 2 as the Vikings D pressured Williams and his backup Tyson Bagent (after Williams’ fourth quarter hamstring injury) along with the rest of the Bears offense to the tune of four sacks (including the game-ender by Dallas Turner), 10 QB hits, one interception, one huge goal-line fumble recovery, five tackles-for-loss and seven passes defensed.
Dec 21, 2025; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Jalen Redmond (61) reacts with linebacker Eric Wilson (55) during the first half at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
The Vikings followed up their high blitz rate of Jordan Love in Week 1 with an even higher blitz rate of 81.8% of Williams’ drop backs as he passed for only 138 yards with a poor 56.2 passer rating.
For a supposed offensive genius, how does Johnson allow Turner as the Vikings best pass rusher to be single blocked on the final play by tight end Colston Loveland instead of left tackle Braxton Jones with help from a back or tight end?
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2. O’Connell wisely leaned on the run game (28 runs vs. 23 pass plays). Wentz had a few inaccurate throws including a potential first down to Jordan Addison and a high throw in the end zone that Jefferson couldn’t haul in but perhaps a star of his caliber should’ve made that catch. Wentz did make several key completions including the 30-yard back shoulder throw to Justin Jefferson that helped set up Will Reichard’s field goal on the opening drive of the game.
Wentz also made key completions to Addison for 15 yards and T.J. Hockenson for 19 yards (on a great play call by O’Connell) on the critical final drive of 11 plays, 67 yards that wound up with Reichard’s third field goal, the six-point lead and killed 5:12 off the clock. The Bears burned all their timeouts and got the ball for their final drive with only one minute left.
3. There were so many Vikings heroes in the big win. On offense, Aaron Jones carried the load in the backfield with Jordan Mason on IR. Jones rushed 23 times for 105 yards, showed great vision in finding holes and following his blockers along with tremendous toughness in shaking off a vicious hit by Tyrique Stevenson that knocked Jones’ helmet off. Jones ran for 25 yards on the final drive and did a great job of staying inbounds to keep the clock running.
Sep 20, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson (18) catches a pass against Chicago Bears safety Dillon Thieneman (31) during the first quarter at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Matt Marton-Imagn Images – Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The offensive line and tight ends did an excellent job for the most part in run blocking (4.3 yards per carry, 119 rushing yards total) and were OK in pass protection (three sacks allowed as the Bears dialed up plenty of blitzes).
And of course Wentz as the QB not turning it over on a rainy day with a wet ball.
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4. Defensive heroes were plentiful for the Vikings, starting with Turner who is on an All-Pro path if he continues his outstanding early season play (even if J.J. McCarthy doesn’t pan out, the Vikings and ex-GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah got the other first-rounder Turner right in the 2024 draft).
Andrew Van Ginkel was impactful as usual. He had one sack, three QB hits, and was chasing Williams on the play where the QB got hurt. Blake Cashman is off to a great start this season and he had 10 tackles and a sack. Ivan Pace made a big play in standing up D’Andre Swift before he fumbled when Jalen Redmond knocked the ball loose. Redmond had another fine game and Caleb Banks had more snaps (49%) as his role increases and he had six tackles.
Sep 20, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Minnesota Vikings linebacker Dallas Turner (obscured) celebrates with linebacker Blake Cashman (51) and quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) after sacking Chicago Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent (not pictured) to end the game in the second half at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Matt Marton-Imagn Images – Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The entire secondary was so much better than in Week 1 especially Byron Murphy who looked like his former Pro Bowl self with a nice interception and solid coverage. Isaiah Rodgers was a big play guy with his key goal-line fumble recovery, a near pick on the last drive, and his tremendous burst off the edge to block a field goal in the fourth quarter and hold the lead. Josh Metellus was better in coverage including breaking up the second-to-last play that went incomplete and he added seven tackles with some strong tackling.
5. Big day for special teams: besides the huge blocked field goal by Rodgers, Reichard was 3 for 3 on field goals (including a 49-yarder) on a bad field in the rain. Punter Brett Thorson did an excellent job holding and was terrific punting with a 49.5 yard average and he tilted field position in the third quarter with a 56 yarder after the goal line turnover that backed the Bears up to their own 13.
6. After a season with the highest number of giveaways (30) and the third-worst turnover ratio (-9), the Vikings have only one giveaway in two games and a +3 turnover ratio to tie for the league lead. They also had fewer penalties than their opponent for the second straight game—3 for 25 yards vs. the Bears 8 for 58 yards.
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7. There were just a few negatives on Sunday: 134 rushing yards allowed (including 56 yards on the opening drive of the third quarter that ended in the goal-line fumble) and only converting 3 of 13 on third down (but they did convert their only fourth down). The Vikings D held the Bears to 5 of 15 on third down and the Bears were 2 for 3 on fourth down. The punt cover unit did allow a 24 yard return by Kalif Raymond late in the second quarter but Van Ginkel sacked Williams to end the ensuing drive.
Sep 20, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell looks on against the Chicago Bears during the first half at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images – Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Bottom line: 2-0 for the Purple and going from the rain in Chicago to the heat in Tampa against a desperate Bucs team in what could be a trap game after two emotional wins in the division. But the return of Murray and the opportunity to go 3-0 against a Baker Mayfield led team struggling with a new offensive scheme should be enough to get the win with the Vikings defense riding high.
I’ll preview Vikings-Buccaneers on Friday.
Around the NFL Observations
1. There were several upsets on Sunday and the Packers were near victims before rallying from 10 points down to beat the Jets 20-17 on the road. Cincinnati upset Houston with the Bengals moving to 2-0 and the Texans off to a 0-2 start for a team expected to contend in the AFC.
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The Browns knocking off the Bucs behind a rare good game from Deshaun Watson was a surprise as was New Orleans’ win in Baltimore. The Vikings are at the Saints in Week 5 in what looks like a tougher game than expected.
Kirk Cousins threw three TD passes as the now 2-0 Raiders upset the 0-2 Chargers in L.A. Jim Harbaugh says it’s not time to panic but he may change his tune if the Chargers are beaten by the hot Bills in Buffalo on Sunday.
The Harmanpreet Kaur-led Indian women’s cricket team stamped their authority yet again at the continental level by defending their Asian Games title in style on Tuesday. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side’s gold was India’s first of the ongoing edition and was shaped by a brilliant batting performance that left Sri Lanka chasing a record target of 217. Smriti Mandhana was regal as ever with her 79 off 45 balls before Richa Ghosh (48 off 22) came up with a brutal assault in the death overs to fire India to 216 for three, the highest total in Asian Games history.
Once India scaled that record total, the result was a foregone conclusion. NDTV talked to veteran India bowler Deepti Sharma after the win.
Q: India have defended its Asian games gold. Your first thoughts?
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Winning gold is a big thing. The hard work has paid off. We are used to winning trophies, but this time we have won a gold medal. This is our first gold of 2026, so it’s great.
Q: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, ‘Don’t buy gold.’ So do you think the motto going forward should be to ‘win’ gold, rather than buying it?
A: (Laughs) I think we should win gold before buying it. This is a great opportunity for Indian athletes. I send them my best wishes for the Asian Games.
Q: From the Asia Cup till now, there has been a gulf of difference between India and the other teams?
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A: We have a lot of camps, and we get to know where we can improve. Our support staff is outstanding. When you think in that way, you become mentally strong. That’s why I think the Indian team is strong.
Q: Do you feel it’s a little different at the Asian Games as you don’t have a Player of the Match or Player of the Series award?
A: I mean, in normal cricket, we do have post-match presentation ceremonies. But in such multi-sport events, we have won gold. You get a different feeling here because it is a team effort.
NDTV also talked with India coach Amol Muzumdar.
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“It’s a surreal feeling. The ODI World Cup was very special, but the Asian Games gold is also a special moment,” he told NDTV.
“I would not like to comment too much on the difference with other teams. Our aim is to play to our potential. Not every time will we win everything, but if we put our best foot forward, more often than not we will get better results.”
Muzumdar also emphasized the need to keep the momentum going in future events.
“We have been doing well in the five matches that I have been a part of. In ODIs, we are the world champions. In T20Is, we did not win the World Cup, but we are pushing ahead. The bowling looks really settled. The batting is experienced. This set has a great road ahead,” he said.
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“I want to wish the entire contingent a great Asian Games. Hopefully, India will win a lot of medals.”
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Spain’s Royal Family Welcomes World Cup Champions To Zarzuela Palace
Football fans and pundits frequently reach back to say or post, “Welcome to the NFL,” this time of year.
It’s a four-word phrase – if not a four-letter word – that illustrates how quickly things can change, namely when a team’s Week 1 highs get pancaked by Week 2 lows.
But it also works both ways.
The Los Angeles Rams proved that on “Monday Night Football,” thumping the visiting New York Giants 28-6 in a remarkable rebound from a season-opening dud against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 10.
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“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “And sometimes you have a dumbass coach that makes travel plans that put you in a bad spot.”
On Monday, the Rams relied on another conditional they hope remains constant. Sometimes, Aaron Donald plays nearly 60 percent of your defensive snaps after coming out of retirement.
Throughout the Los Angeles locker room, players cited the return of No. 99 to the defensive line as a leading reason they prevailed.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford admitted Donald’s jubilation while running out of the tunnel made Stafford “so juiced” that “I couldn’t control myself.”
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He was speaking figuratively, of course, because Stafford completed 71 percent of his passes for 327 yards and four touchdowns, including two scores to Davante Adams.
The performance of Stafford’s counterpart, Jameis Winston, impacted the game significantly, too. Thrust into action after Giants franchise QB Jaxson Dart exited with a left-knee injury after just seven snaps – “in the neighborhood” of an MCL sprain, coach John Harbaugh said – Winston sputtered.
And that may be putting it mildly.
Winston completed just 11-of-27 passes for 111 yards and interception while leading the Giants only to a pair of Dominic Zvada field goals.
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“We have to execute better,” Winston said. “We are focusing on being in better down-and-distance. We were in third-and-long a lot, so we have to execute better; I have to execute better on first and second down.”
Easier said than done with Donald looming on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
Still ramping up after ending a retirement of two-plus years about 10 days earlier, Donald didn’t travel to Australia.
With eventual partner in crime Myles Garrett watching from a suite after being placed on injured reserve with a knee injury, Donald notched three tackles, one for loss. While he didn’t generate a quarterback pressure, Donald helped the Rams nearly double their pass rush win rate from the previous week simply by lining up, as his coach saw it.
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“He elicits attention,” McVay said. “He brings everybody up around him. And I didn’t think it was by coincidence that the energy that we played with [tonight]. I thought really the defensive coaches did a great job with their game plan, but ultimately just elevating situations he’s in and people that he’s around and that’s what the greats do and that’s what he does.”
With Garrett likely to miss at least the next three games while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, Donald must continue to adapt around LA’s other talented pass rushers.
Working through more double-teams than he would with Garrett around doesn’t quite scream “Welcome to the NFL” for a veteran of Donald’s accomplishments.
If Donald still is up to it, though, imagine how the Rams might look in another month.
Control Resonant has one default difficulty setting, but you can adjust it to your preference through Assist Mode. You can make the gameplay harder or easier by tweaking several options. That said, there’s no penalty for turning on Assist Mode, and you can still unlock all achievements for 100% completion.
Here are all the details regarding Control Resonant’s difficulty settings and how you can customize them using Assist Mode.
How to use Assist Mode and adjust difficulty in Control Resonant
Turn on Assist Mode from Options (Image via SK Gaming || Remedy Entertainment)
To adjust your difficulty in Control Resonant, start a playthrough or load an existing one. Afterward, go to Options → Gameplay → Assist Mode. Afterward, enable the mode to customize the difficulty settings.
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This option is only available during a playthrough, as the difficulty settings affect only the current save slot. This lets you customize different playthroughs to suit your preferences using Assist Mode.
Here are the Assist Mode preset options:
Field Agent: Lowest combat difficulty, perfect if you only want to enjoy the story.
Strategist: Approach fights methodically. You need to dodge enemy attacks perfectly and strike at appropriate times, all while managing your health bar.
Ranger: Both incoming and outgoing damage are low, so you’ll spend more time dealing with enemy waves.
Here are all of the Assist Mode options that you can customize, along with their details:
Power Recovery Speed: Adjust how fast or slow your Power recovers.
Incoming Damage: Adjust how much damage you take.
Outgoing Damage: Adjust how much damage you deal.
Outgoing Falter: Adjust how much Falter you deal (the bar below the enemy health bar).
Perfect Dodge Window: Increase it to have more time to execute a perfect dodge.
Enemy Projectile Speed: Lower it to make enemy projectiles slower.
Enhanced Melee Magnetizing: Enable it to lock on to enemy targets from a bigger distance.
Immortality: You will take damage but will not die.
One-Hit Kills: Kill enemies in a single hit.
One-Hit Falters: Deal max Falter to enemies in a single hit. You can immediately follow up with an Execution.
Enemy Aggression: Adjust how many enemies attack you simultaneously.
You can have a hack-and-slash experience (Image via SK Gaming || Remedy Entertainment)
If you want to have a balanced difficulty to enjoy fast-paced combat and explore the locations to complete quests efficiently, you can opt for these settings:
Power Recovery Speed: 500
Incoming Damage: 50
Outgoing Damage: 250
Outgoing Falter: 300
Perfect Dodge Window: 300
Enemy Projectile Speed: 60
Enhanced Melee Magnetizing: Yes
Immortality: No
One-Hit Kills: No
One-Hit Falters: No
Enemy Aggression: Medium
Since you need to do a lot of exploration and solve complicated puzzles in Control Resonant, I opted for these settings so I can enjoy both the combat and finishing quests. The combat feels like a hack-and-slash and lets you finish objectives faster.
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As we saw in Australia to start the year, travel and body clock are things to keep in mind when making NFL picks. The Week 3 NFL schedule is one ripe with contests that could be affected by travel, including a pair of West Coast teams having 1 p.m. ET kickoffs on the East Coast. The Chargers will visit the Bills, with Buffalo 7-point favorites per the Week 3 NFL odds, while the Seahawks will visit the Commanders, where Seattle is a 6.5-point favorite over a Washington team likely without Jayden Daniels (elbow). Claim the latest Polymarket promo code CBSSPORTS to get a $50 bonus after $10 in trades:
The model, which simulates every NFL game 10,000 times, is up well over $7,000 for $100 players on betting sites on top-rated NFL picks since its inception. The model enters Week 3 of the 2026 NFL season on a 53-41 run on top-rated picks dating back to 2024. Anybody following its picks at NFL betting sites could have seen strong returns.
We can tell you one of the model’s strongest Week 3 NFL picks for the best betting apps is that the Lions (-6.5, 47.5) cover versus the Jets in a Sunday 1 p.m. ET kickoff. Detroit has a rest advantage in coming off a Thursday loss, but Dan Campbell has shown the ability to get the most out of his players after a defeat. Detroit is 12-3 ATS following a loss since 2023, with that 80% cover rate the best in the NFL. Campbell should also know the tendencies of Jets HC Aaron Glenn, since the latter coached under Campbell for four years in Detroit. The Jets have played better than expected this year, but they still haven’t picked off a pass since 2024 — a stretch of 19 games — and they’re just 3-6 ATS over their last nine when having less rest than their opponents. T/he model has Detroit prevailing versus the spread well over 60% of the time. See which other teams to pick here.
Another one of its Week 3 NFL predictions: the 49ers (-8.5, 47.5) cover versus the Cardinals at home. San Fran is forecasted to cover the spread in well over 50% of simulations as it’s looked like, arguably, the best team in the league through two weeks. The Niners are the only team ranking in the top 5 in both scoring offense and scoring defense, also ranking in the top five in red zone performance at both ends of the field. Arizona is coming off a 24-point home loss to a backup QB in Seattle, and the Cards are in the bottom 10 on both rushing and passing offense. Brock Purdy, who is 5-1 versus Arizona, is projected for 299 total yards and 2.6 touchdowns as San Fran wins by double digits per the model, with the Over connecting almost 60% of the time. See which other teams to pick here.
How to make Week 3 NFL picks
The model has also made the call on who wins and covers in every other game on the Week 3 NFL schedule and just revealed five A-rated spread picks, potentially giving you a huge payday. You can only get every pick for every game at SportsLine.
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