The Patriots and Seahawks are set for a Super Bowl rematch

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🚨 Headlines

⛳️Scotty wins again: In a surprising move, Scottie Scheffler (-27) won his season debut, dominating the American Express by four strokes for his 20th career PGA Tour victory. He now has 14 wins in his last 35 games, a win rate of 40% (!!). Ridiculous.

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🏈 CFP expansion paused: The College Football Playoff will remain at 12 teams next season after conference commissioners failed to agree on an expansion plan by Friday’s deadline. The Big Ten favors a 24-team playoff format, while the SEC wants a 16-team format.

🏀 Giannis out 4-6 weeks: Giannis Antetokounmpo has already missed time this season with a calf strain and is expected to miss another 4-6 weeks with the same injury. “I didn’t think it looked good,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “It’s concerning that this calf keeps showing up.”

🏈 Steelers hire McCarthy: The Steelers hired former Packers and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy to replace Mike Tomlin. Could that entice Aaron Rodgers, who played 13 seasons for McCarthy in Green Bay, to stay in Pittsburgh?

⚾️Ramirez’s contract extension: José Ramírez, who has been with Cleveland since his debut in 2013, signed a seven-year, $175 million contract extension that will keep him with the Guardians for the remainder of his career.

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🏈 Super Bowl LX is scheduled

NFC Championship: The Seahawks beat the Rams 31-27 in Seattle on Sunday night, capping an epic trilogy between division rivals this season and winning the franchise’s fourth division title in the past 20 years (2005, 2013, 2014, 2025).

Game Star: Sam Darnold (25/36, 346 yards, 3 TD) and Jaxon Smith-Ngiba (10 catches, 153 yards, TD) were controversial for the third straight game these teams held off Matthew Stafford (22/35, 374 yards, 3 TD) and Puka Nakua (9 catches, 165 yards, TD).

• November 16th: Rams 21, Seahawks 19

• December 18: Seahawks 38, Rams 37 (overtime)

• January 25: Seahawks 31, Rams 27

The charm of the fifth team: The Jets traded Darnold. The Panthers let him go. He was a backup for the 49ers. He won 14 games with the Vikings, but they still didn’t believe he was the one. Now, he’s one win away from becoming a Super Bowl champion and playing in his home state of California, where his football journey began. You absolutely love seeing it.

AFC Champions League: The Patriots beat the Broncos 10-7 at Empower Field in Denver on Sunday afternoon in a defensive battle that started on a manicured green field and ended on a snow-covered white gridiron.

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Back where they belong: This will be the Patriots’ 12th Super Bowl appearance (no other team has more than eight), returning to the sport’s biggest stage after going 4-13 each of the past two seasons. The last team to win a Super Bowl after five wins or fewer the year before? In 2001, Tom Brady served as the starter in his first season with the Patriots.

From Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports:

The Patriots dominated the NFL for the better part of two decades, and when they fell, they fell. Just not for long. The celebrations of the end of their dynasty are over, and now perhaps there will be a new round of complaints about a new era of dominance.

Looking to the future: Eleven years after Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson in the end zone to help the Patriots win in Super Bowl 49, New England and Seattle will meet again in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks open as a 5-point favorite at BetMGM and ticket prices for the Feb. 8 game in Santa Clara are already skyrocketing.

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🇺🇸 Statistics for the day

mine Favorite trivia question New wrinkles may soon be added…

💯 Big numbers

🏀 40+ points

Illinois’ Keaton Wagler (46 points against Purdue), BYU’s AJ DiBanza (43 points against Utah) and Houston’s Kingston Flemings (42 points against Texas Tech) all scored 40 or more points on Saturday, marking the first time in Division I history that three freshmen scored 40 or more points on the same day.

But wait, there’s more: Four other freshmen also scored 30 points on Saturday, including Duke’s Cameron Boozer (32 points against Wake Forest) and Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. (31 points against LSU).

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🎾 0 unseeded players

At the Australian Open, only seeded players (including 11 of the top 12 players) advanced to the fourth round of the men’s singles, making it the first Grand Slam in the Open era (1968) where no unseeded player reached the last 16.

American phenomenon: One of them was 20-year-old No. 25 seed Learner Tien, who beat Daniil Medvedev to become the youngest American man to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since Andy Roddick in 2002.

🔝 1,667 feet

Alex Honnold successfully completed a free solo climb of Taipei 101 on Saturday, reaching the top of the world’s 11th tallest building (1,667 feet) in just over 90 minutes without any ropes or safety nets. “It’s disgusting,” Honnold said during the Netflix live broadcast of his ascent to the top of the 101-story skyscraper.

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Historic feat: In climbing Taipei 101, Honnold completed the highest “free solo” ascent of an urban structure in history, surpassing Alain Robert’s 2009 climb of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Robert climbed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in 2011, but was asked to use a rope.)

🏒90 points

Connor McDavid scored five points (and scored the game-winner) in Saturday’s 6-5 (overtime) win over the Capitals to reach a league-leading 90 points on the season. In the process, he joined Wayne Gretzky as the only players in NHL history to score 90 points in 10 consecutive seasons.

Dynamic duo: McDavid (32 goals, 58 assists) has 20 points more than his second-highest scoring teammate, which sounds like a huge gap until you realize that teammate Leon Draisaitl ranks fifth in the league with 70 points (25 goals, 45 assists).

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📸 In Photos: 56 Winter Olympics

70 years ago today, 1956

The Winter Olympics kick off in the stunning Italian ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo, which will co-host the 2026 Winter Olympics with Milan starting next week.

Ski License: Cortina Yes outstanding The 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only starring Roger Moore.

ski: Austrian Toni “Wonderboy” Seiler was one of the stars of the ’56 Olympics, becoming the first man to win every alpine skiing event (downhill, slalom and giant slalom) in a single Olympics.

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Lens: Sailor paddling in the snow

figure skating: When American Tenley Albright contracted polio at age 11, doctors doubted she would ever walk again. Ten years later, she won an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

did you know? The Cortina Games were the last Olympic Games to hold figure skating competitions on outdoor rinks.

hockey: Canada’s starting goaltender in ’56 was Denis Brodeur, the father of Martin Brodeur, the NHL’s winningest goaltender.

Podium: After winning six gold medals and one silver medal in the previous seven Olympics, Canada finished with a disappointing bronze medal in Cortina, while the United States took silver and the Soviet Union took gold.

Medal list: The Soviet Union leads all participating countries with 16 medals, ahead of Austria (11), Sweden (10), Finland (7), the United States (7) and Switzerland (6).

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Then and now: At the 1956 Olympics, 821 athletes from 32 countries competed in 24 different events. The 2026 Olympics will have nearly 3,000 athletes from more than 90 countries competing in 116 events.

📺 Watchlist: Monday 26th January

🏀 College Basketball

Freshman phenoms Cameron Boozer and AJ DiBanza, the nation’s top scorers and likely top two picks in the NBA draft, will host No. 5 Duke tonight against No. 23 Louisville. (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) No. 13 BYU takes on No. 1 Arizona (9 p.m., ESPN).

In the area? Get tickets to tonight’s game with Gametime: cameron indoor stadium (Durham) and Marriott Center (Provo).

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🎾 Australian Open

Quarter-finals kick off in Melbourne (7 p.m., ESPN+; 9 p.m., ESPN2)Carlos Alcaraz, ranked first in the men’s group, faced Alex de Minaur, ranked sixth, and Coco Gauff, ranked third in the women’s group, faced Elina Svitolina, ranked 12th.

More to watch:

• 🏀NBA: Magic at Cavaliers (7 p.m., Peacock); Trail Blazers vs. Celtics (8 p.m., Peacock); Warriors play for Timberwolves (9:30 p.m., Peacock) … Boston (28-17), Cleveland (27-20) and Orlando (23-21) are part of a crowded field between second through ninth in the Eastern Conference.

• ⛳️TGL: boston common vs bay (7 p.m., ESPN2) … Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley and Michael Thorbjornsson take on Shane Lowry, Min-woo Lee and Wyndham Clark.

Thinking about going to the game tonight? Game Time is the best place to get last minute tickets delivered instantly to your phone. Click to enter, grab a seat and go.

🌹 NBA Trivia

Derrick Rose played for his hometown Bulls from 2008 to 2016. His No. 1 jersey was retired by the team Saturday.

question: Can you name five other teams Rose has played for during his NBA career?

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hint: East three, west two.

The answer is at the bottom.

🍿 Baker’s Dozen: The 13 best dramas of the weekend

Watch all 13.

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Trivia Answers: Knicks (2016-17, 2021-23); Cavaliers (2017-18); Timberwolves (2018-19); Pistons (2019-21); Grizzlies (2023-24)

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