With the Los Angeles Chargers in the thick of the playoff race in the AFC, the team will now play its final two games of the regular season without a key player on defense. Linebacker Denzel Perryman was suspended for two games following “repeated violations of playing rules intended to protect the health and safety of players,” the league announced.
Perryman’s suspension came a day after he was penalized for unnecessary roughness after a helmet-to-helmet hit on Dallas Cowboys wideout Ryan Flournoy. After making a catch, Flournoy found himself sitting on the ground. As Flournoy attempted to get up, Perryman came in to deliver hit directly to Flournoy’s head.
Flournoy was forced to leave the contest due to a knee injury. He finished the contest — a 34-17 Cowboys loss — with two catches for 18 yards and a touchdown.
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Perryman has faced a number of fines for helmet-to-helmet hits over his career. In both 2023 and 2024, Perryman received fines of $66,666 for “impermissible use of the helmet.” His previous punishments may have factored into the NFL’s decision to suspend Perryman for the final two games of the regular season.
Perryman has started 10 games for the Chargers this season. He has 47 combined tackles on the year, which is tied for fifth on the team. Perryman also has three passes defended and four quarterback hits this season.
Perryman appealed the decision, but the league upheld it on Tuesday. He will now be eligible to rejoin the Chargers on Jan. 5, after the team’s Week 18 game against the Denver Broncos.
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The Chargers will play the Houston Texans in Week 17 before finishing out the season against the AFC West leading Broncos in Week 18. Denver is one of two AFC teams to have already clinched a playoff spot. Like the Chargers, the Texans are fighting to secure their postseason spot.
The Dallas Cowboys are out of the playoff picture, but Dak Prescott is invested in finishing what he started and turning over every stone to help the organization bounce back in 2026.
Prescott told reporters Tuesday that he won’t sit out the final two games of the regular season.
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“Absolutely not,” the now-four-time Pro Bowl quarterback said after being asked a hypothetical question about what he’d tell Brian Schottenheimer if the first-year Cowboys head coach mentioned the idea of sitting the rest of the way, according to The Athletic’s Jon Machota.
The 6-8-1 Cowboys are playing the 4-11 Commanders on Christmas Day this week.
“I’m not trying to be away from my family if I’m not going to get to play this game, and get to do something that I love at a high level, and finish a good individual season, I guess you could say, off strong,” Prescott said, via Machota.
He continued: “You say 15 games under the belt, I want to make it 17, and just show that every chance I get out there, I’m just trying to play to my standard and expectations. And not only that, we were just talking about how important it is to stop this losing streak and finish the season off with two wins. So, yeah, I’d play and I’d fight [Schottenheimer] for it.”
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Fortunately for Prescott, he won’t have to this week — Schottenheimer has spoken about being motivated to finish 5-1 in the NFC East and how his players are all about playing to win.
The Cowboys have lost three games in a row after a streak of three victories — including back-to-back wins over last season’s Super Bowl teams, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs — put them back in the spotlight.
As Prescott alluded to, he’s enjoyed great individual success during the 2025 campaign. In his 10th season, the 32-year-old has already surpassed the 4,000-yard passing mark. He has piled up 28 passing touchdowns while establishing a rapport with wide receiver George Pickens, who is currently third in the league with 1,342 receiving yards.
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That’s nothing new for Prescott. He led the NFL with 36 passing touchdowns in 2023. He was the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2016.
He’s been itching for a championship, just like everyone else in Dallas.
Prescott added: “I feel like the last few times I’ve said that were playoff losses. Each year has its own troubles. Each year has its own highs, lows, ebbs and flows and everything within it. The importance is controlling what you can … I’m going to do my damnedest, controlling what I can and as you get older, I think having more input, having more say so and being asked more questions from the front office. Maybe there’s a little bit more that I can do, and it’s not physically or me getting better at my game. Maybe it’s speaking up and saying that this will help or I think this can help.”
While the Cowboys are tied for third in the league with 6.0 yards per play and rank fifth with 28.3 points per game, they are second-to-last in the NFL with 30.3 points per game allowed and tied for 30th with 6.1 yards per play allowed.
Longtime owner and general manager Jerry Jones will go back to the drawing board this offseason, as the Cowboys’ Super Bowl drought will reach 30 years this season.
“So, I don’t pay any attention to 30 years this, 20 years that, when I know one good year will change it all, and you’d be at the top of the list. When you start looking at time, it’s easy for me to step up there and say, ‘I can change that next year.’ That’s what you’re wanting to do and that’s what our fans expect me to do, in my mind.”
Prescott wants to affect that change, too.
“Whatever it takes,” he said, via ESPN, “once again I’m going to do my damnedest and make sure that I’m influencing and encouraging everybody else around me, not just the players, to do the same.”
The Oklahoma City Thunder have now lost four games this season. The San Antonio Spurs account for half of those losses.
With Victor Wembanyama coming off the bench again, the Spurs rolled past the Thunder 130-110 in San Antonio on Tuesday night.
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The loss drops the Thunder to 26-4 for the season, still the best record in the NBA by a significant margin. The Trail Blazers and Timberwolves account for the non-Spurs blemishes on OKC’s record.
The Spurs, meanwhile, improved to 22-7, good for second place in the West ahead of the 21-8 Denver Nuggets.
Are Spurs OKC’s kryptonite?
San Antonio’s first win of the series arrived in Las Vegas on Dec. 13 in an NBA Cup semifinal that was tinged with playoff intensity. That game was Wembanyama’s first back from a 12-game absence with a calf injury, and the Spurs eased him into the rotation off the bench.
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Wembanyama remained limited with 23 minutes off the bench Tuesday night. No matter. A Spurs team that went 9-3 in Wembanyama’s absence got contributions across the board to beat a reigning champion Thunder team that started the season on a historic pace.
The Spurs were dominant Tuesday night despite limited minutes from Victor Wembanyama.
(Kenneth Richmond via Getty Images)
The two teams will run it back again on Christmas for the third game of the budding rivalry’s season series. The venue will shift to Oklahoma City, where the Thunder will look to reassert their dominance in the West.
But for now, the Spurs have the Thunder’s number. And it wasn’t close Tuesday night.
Spurs break open close game after halftime
The first half was nip-and-tuck, and the Thunder went into halftime with a 60-58 lead. But the Spurs closed the third quarter with a 13-6 run to assert control and take an 87-82 lead.
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Then in the fourth, a Wembanyama 3-pointer extended the San Antonio lead to double figures for the first time at 98-86.
And it was all Spurs the rest of the way as they rolled to a 20-point win. By the time it was done, Wembanyama was able to watch from the bench and cheer as his teammates closed out the victory.
Spurs are more than their All-Stars
San Antonio cruised Tuesday despite Wembanyama’s limitations and a bad shooting night from All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox, who went 0 for 4 from the free-throw line and 0 for 4 from beyond the arc in a six-point, nine-assist effort.
But he didn’t turn the ball over on a night when the Spurs committed just eight turnovers against a swarming Thunder unit that rode to last season’s championship on the strength of its ball-hawking defense.
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The Spurs played efficient basketball, protected the ball and got 20-plus points from three players not named Wembanyama or Fox. Keldon Johnson led the way with 25 points off the bench while shooting 10 of 16 from the floor and 5 of 9 from 3. Stephon Castle added 24 points, and Harrison Barnes scored 20 from the starting lineup.
Wembamyama, meanwhile, was impactful in his limited minutes while tallying 12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a plus-13 in the plus/minus column. His streak of 101 consecutive games with at least one block — the third-longest in NBA history — ended against OKC.
As a team, the Spurs shot 56% from the field. And they rode a 13-8 advantage in takeaways and an 18-6 edge in made free throws to victory on a night when the Thunder shot just seven free-throw attempts.
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For the Thunder, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was his typical über-efficient self with 33 points and eight assists while shooting 14 of 22 from the field. Jalen Williams added 17 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds, and the Thunder shot 54% as a team.
But Chet Holmgren struggled with seven points and three rebounds on a 3-of-10 shooting night before leaving early after getting elbowed by Gilgeous-Alexander as Wembanyama got the best in the matchup of dynamic 7-footers.
Holmgren and his Thunder teammates will have their chance to answer back in just two days in front of a OKC crowd that will surely be eager to greet the Spurs.
It’s a special edition of the pod with Ray Garvin and Matt Harmon as the two preview the Christmas Day games slate and Saturday games. While some games may not matter for playoff standings, every game has massive potential impact players that are in fantasy championship lineups. Harmon and Garvin tell you who’s going to make or break your title lineups in each of the 5 games.
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(5:00) – Cowboys @ Commaners fantasy preview
(26:30) – Lions @ Vikings fantasy preview
(48:40) – Broncos @ Chiefs fantasy preview
(58:30) – Texans @ Chargers fantasy preview
(1:15:00) – Ravens @ Packers fantasy preview
It’s a special edition of the pod with Ray Garvin and Matt Harmon as the two preview the Christmas Day games slate and Saturday games. While some games may not matter for playoff standings, every game has massive potential impact players that are in fantasy championship lineups. Harmon and Garvin tell you who’s going to make or break your title lineups in each of the 5 games.
It’s been a rough start to the 2025-26 season for the Sacramento Kings.
As rumors swirl about who could be on the trade block, guard Malik Monk has been made available, according to Chris Haynes. Over the past few years, Monk has been one of the most reliable sixth men in the NBA, but has fallen out of the Kings’ regular rotation this season.
Monk played just five minutes in the Kings’ win over the Houston Rockets on Sunday, and just 14 minutes off the bench in Tuesday night’s 136-127 loss to the Detroit Pistons. He had nine points, one rebound and one assist.
“One thousand percent,” Monk said Sunday when asked if he was confused by the decision to start bringing him off the bench, via the Sacramento Bee. “But it’s not my job to try to figure out why I’m not playing because I deem myself more than the whole, so I’ll just be ready when my name is called.”
Through 24 games this season, Monk’s minutes are down significantly from last year. Monk played over 31 minutes per game in 65 games last season, and this season, his minutes have dropped to barely 23. Along with his minutes, many of Monk’s other numbers have dropped as well. His points per game have fallen from 17.2 to 12.5, and shot attempts have gone from 14.4 to 10.3 so far this season. Monk has suffered in just about every major statistical category across the board.
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Head coach Doug Christie, his coaching staff and the Kings’ front office have made it clear that Monk will not be part of any plans in Sacramento. A once-valued piece in Sacramento, Monk could be out of town within a matter of weeks if not sooner. Monk set new career highs in points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks last season. Now, the nine-year veteran has become an afterthought in the Kings’ rotation.
The additions of Russell Westbrook and Dennis Schroder in the offseason, plus Zach LaVine coming over last season, has had a huge effect on Monk’s value in the eyes of those pulling the strings in Sacramento. Fourth-year guard Keon Ellis has also cut into Monk’s minutes and seems to be the preference over Monk moving forward.
With Westbrook and Schroder playing roughly 29 minutes each night and LaVine around 32, there just aren’t enough backcourt minutes to go around, which has resulted in the drop off for Monk. Prior to Haynes’ report, it had been rumored that Sacramento could look to unload some veterans from the roster. The first names that came to mind were Westbrook, LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, due to a reported “disconnect” between Christie’s staff and some veteran players.
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Sacramento fell to 7-23 after Tuesday’s loss, which is good for last place in the Western Conference. If the Kings are looking to move toward a youth movement, they’ve got a ways to go and could be quite busy over the next two months.
Hoops 360 hosts Caroline Fenton and Cassandra Negley look back on an eventful 2025 and highlight their own top five moments of the year. Between the WNBA, college hoops, and everything happening on and off the court, the duo run through their most memorable moments you won’t want to miss.
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Got questions or topics for Hoops 360? Email us at hoops360@yahoosports.com and you could hear them on the show!
02:04 – Cass and Caroline’s 5th top moment of 2025
05:02 – Cass and Caroline’s 4th top moment of 2025
10:05 – Cass and Caroline’s 3rd top moment of 2025
14:09 – Cass and Caroline’s 2nd top moment of 2025
19:06 – Cass and Caroline’s top moment of 2025
26:41 – Recap of Cass and Caroline’s top moments of 2025
While it may be a meeting of of 2-13 teams, Sunday’s game between the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants features big stakes with the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL draft potentially on the line.
There are two games left in the regular season and the loser of the Week 17 matchup will have improved odds of earning the first choice the night of April 23 in Pittsburgh. But while having the top pick might help, building a winning football team takes time and shrewd decision-making.
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Raiders and Giants fans might be hoping their teams lose out to ensure getting the No. 1 pick — just don’t ask any of the players if they’re thinking about the potential prize at the end of a losing season.
“Yeah, I don’t give a s*** about the pick, to be honest,” Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby said Tuesday. “I don’t play for that. That’s not my job. My job is to be the best defensive end in the world. That’s what I focus on every day. Being a great leader, being an influence. Being that guy on a consistent basis for my team.”
Owning the No. 1 pick doesn’t guarantee immediate success or improvement, as Raiders fans know when bringing up the name of JaMarcus Russell.
Crosby, a five-time Pro Bowler, wants to win — plain and simple. The 27-year-old has been in the NFL since 2019 and has played 110 regular-season games, but only one playoff game.
Success wasn’t there at the end of the Raiders’ time in Oakland and it has not followed them to Las Vegas. The franchise has two playoff appearances — and zero playoff wins — since appearing in Super Bowl XXXVII at the end of the 2002 season.
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Crosby wants to keep his focus on what happens on the field and let the decision-makers who are in charge of putting together the roster do their jobs off the field.
“That’s their job. That’s the front office, the coaches, they do that,” Crosby added. “That’s got nothing to do with me. I’ve learned my lesson in the past. You can’t control everything. That’s not my job description. My job is to be the best in the world at what I do. And that’s wrecking the game.”
According to the NFL, this will be only the third time in NFL history that two teams that are 11-plus games under .500 will meet and the first time since 1991.
The Giants finish the regular season against the Dallas Cowboys. The Raiders will wrap up the regular season against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Snap share stock report time! This is where I examine snap share data from every single team and highlight some players that may have seen a notable spike or dip in playing time and/or usage.Fantasy football championship week, LFG!!!
Taysom Hill – STOCK UP
When folks were debating, “Audric Estimé or Evan Hull???” it turns out the answer was Taysom Hill. The do-it-all weapon had the Taysom-est stat line ever versus the Jets: 12 carries for 42 yards, four catches for 36 and chipping in with a 38-yard passing touchdown to boot.
Hill got the rare start and played a season-high 42% of the snaps. Watching the game it felt as if the coaching staff, who has no affiliation with Sean Payton, also came to realize that Hill was a much better running back option than the end-of-the-rotation guys they had left over after the Neal injury.
Alvin Kamara is still working through a MCL injury and missed Tuesday’s walkthrough practice. If he is out again this week versus Tennessee, why the hell not swing for the fences and start Taysom in your TE spot?
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Marquez Valdes-Scantling – STOCK UP
With DK Metcalf suspended for the rest of the regular season it could be Rodgers’ ole buddy MVS to step up in that X-receiver role for the Steelers.
The former Packer/Chief played just 43% of the snaps this past week but it was tied for the second-most among the Pittsburgh receivers and if you look around the roster, it’s hard to find another reliable outside receiver among the bunch.
MVS already has one touchdown from Rodgers this year. Let’s see if they can’t rekindle a little bit of that magic against a Browns defense that has given up four touchdowns to outside wide receivers over their last four games.
Kenneth Walker III – STOCK NEUTRAL
Every few weeks we seem to play this same old song and dance. Walker goes off, we get excited thinking OC Klint Kubiak will FINALLY take the bumpers off and unleash the beast but each and every week the only thing that changes is whether Walker can hit on a big play.
This is a long way for me to say he did not see an increase in playtime — in fact, his 43% snap share was the second time in as many weeks Walker’s played less than half the offensive snaps.
Against the Panthers in Week 17, expect more of the same.
Rashid Shaheed – STOCK DOWN
After seemingly “breaking out” in Week 15, Shaheed once again fell back in Week 16, playing his usual 50-55% of the snaps.
On that aforementioned Week 15 game, Shaheed set a Seattle high in targets, receptions and yards. This past week? One meager target, no catches. In real life his impact was much greater as he scored on a punt return and had one big-time run for 31 yards.
Treylon Burks – STOCK UP
He saw his snap share spike up, going from 46% the week prior to 83% this past game against the Eagles, tying Terry McLaurin for the most snaps played at receiver.
His five targets wasn’t overly impressive but it did lead the team.
Like you, I’m not terribly interested in the former first-round flame out but he’s someone you should at least pay attention to for next year, if only to see if he has ANY juice left. It’ll be interesting to see if Washington rolls him out there at such an expansive rate again.
Emeka Egbuka – STOCK DOWN
Let me issue a mea culpa because last week I liked the idea of Egbuka seeing a slight tick down in snap share if that meant a big uptick in efficiency. That was obviously under the assumption that Egbuka’s snap share wouldn’t continue to slide, which it absolutely did.
After his snap share was in the high 80’s all year long, he dipped to 64% in Week 15 but in Week 16 that number fell to just 57%. Anything between 65-75% I’m good with, but below that, it starts getting into that Shaheed-ish volatility range.
With Jalen McMillan playing just one snap less than Egbuka, the rookie ended up seeing just two targets, converting one for a big 40-yard gain.
Egbuka’s got a good matchup versus a Miami defense with one foot in Cancun but he’s impossible to trust.
Isiah Pacheco – STOCK UP?
With the offense in utter shambles and KC down to their third-string quarterback, the team leaned on the run more and Pacheco played a season-high 73% of the snaps.
The question really becomes, do we care? A massively disappointing season, the life has been sucked out of Arrowhead in more ways than one. With a scout team level offense, can anyone reasonably play Pacheco against a stout Broncos defense this week?
Kevin Austin Jr. – STOCK UP
The former Notre Dame product absolutely sounds like a Madden create-a-player NPC but with the Devaughn Vele injury, Austin played a whopping 85% of the snaps this past week.
An excellent athlete, Austin at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds ran a 4.43 with an impressive 39-inch vertical. That being said, don’t get too, too excited as Austin is actually a fourth-year player with 14 career receptions.
This past week, he ran the second-most routes and posted a 3/2/18 slash line.
OTHER SNAP SHARE NOTES:
Marvin Harrison Jr.: Coming back from a heel injury, the team obviously capped his playtime, as he only played 50% of the snaps. Look for that number to jump this week versus a bad Cincy defense.
Kyle Williams: Keep an eye on the rookie. He only played 38% of the snaps last week but it seems like his utilization is creeping upwards ever so slightly. After scoring a touchdown AGAIN, (3/2/46/TD) the rookie now has three scores on just SEVEN catches. The funny thing about it is, the former Wazzu man is scoring on these big, go balls deep downfield. Collegiately he was much, much, much, much more of an in-breaking, intermediate area of the field, run-after-the-catch guy. So to see him doing this downfield is a really exciting part of his game that was previously an unknown. He’ll be one of my favorite deep sleepers next year.
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Konata Mumpfield: With Davante Adams sidelined, the seventh-round rookie from Akron/Pitt stepped in. The 5-11, 185 pound receiver ran a slow 4.59 at the combine but has solid chops as a route runner. He posted a 8/3/40 slash line in relief of Davante. I thought Jordan Whittington would have gotten more burn but he only played 16% of the snaps, running just four routes.
Raheim Sanders: Quinshon Judkins suffered a gruesome broken leg and we saw Sanders split the workload with Trayveon Williams. It sounds like Dylan Sampson (hand/calf) is close to returning though and if he does, he’s most likely the lead with Sanders and Williams splitting backup touches.
Jaylen Wright: Outsnapped fellow backup Ollie Gordon II, 31% to 5%. It’s the second time in three games he’s done that. Wright is a freak athlete but Gordon was significantly more productive at the collegiate level. If I’m in a dynasty league and looking for a taxi squad dart throw, I’m more interested in Wright than Gordon.
Now that we’re outside the blast radius of College Football Playoff hot takes, let’s pause for a breath. Yes, the two G5 games were every bit the blowouts everyone expected. Yes, Notre Dame or Vanderbilt or Texas almost surely would have put up a better fight than Tulane and James Madison.
Whatever your playoff argument was heading into the first round, it’s now invalid given that we have eight blue-chip teams, most of them old-school, blue-blood programs, up and down the CFP bracket. And between all the machinations among conferences and networks, and the fawning love for Notre Dame, it’s obvious that the future of the CFP has little room reserved for any program that doesn’t fit either the big-conference or legacy-brand designations.
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So with a few days of breathing room before the spicy Rose/Sugar/Orange/Cotton takes, let’s ask a question we probably should’ve been asking a long time ago:
What exactly is the point of a playoff in the first place?
The answer is not quite as simple as it seems. Let’s get a little philosophical here: Is a playoff’s purpose to crown a season’s best team? Because if that’s the case, we already know who it is for 2025: Indiana, the only FBS team to finish undefeated at 13-0. If you want to go matching Indiana up with teams in Division II or III that finished undefeated — and there were several — you could, but that would probably qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.
Or is a playoff’s purpose to give the best X number of teams a second chance to win the title — effectively, a second season on top of the regular one? Nice little regular season you’ve got there, Indiana! Your reward: three more games to prove you’re worthy!
Only one team in college football finished undefeated — Indiana — but that means nothing now in the College Football Playoff. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
(Michael Hickey via Getty Images)
(The real answer to the “why playoffs?” question, especially expanded ones, is money. Playoffs generate ungodly gobs of revenue for conferences, schools and broadcast partners. It’s why postseason play takes up an ever-larger share of the calendar. If, say, Alabama were to win the national championship, nearly a third of its games — five of 17 — will have been postseason ones. Know what that sounds like to the institutions profiting off the playoff? A good start. But we digress.)
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We’ve all collectively decided that the postseason — a party where only the cool kids are invited — is the way we wish to crown our champions. Yes, it’s more dramatic, hence the increased viewership. But it also tamps down the need for consistent regular-season excellence. Every team with one loss gets into the playoffs, quite a few teams with two losses get in, and this year one with three losses made the grade.
Contrast that with, say, the English Premier League, which crowns a champion based not on the playoff, but on a season-long run of elite-level play. That could lead to a future champion building an inexorable lead, but it also gives every single match day throughout the entire season an extra sheen of importance. (Side note: SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has long eyed the Premier League — a consortium of only the most popular, profitable clubs — with great interest, for reasons you can probably guess. The Premier League’s ability to garner the vast majority of soccer-related revenue in England surely intrigues certain CFB powers, but the no-playoffs system and relegation for season-long losers probably don’t hold the same interest.)
Or, if soccer’s not your thing, look a little closer to home, deep in the heart of SEC country. For decades, NASCAR crowned champions like Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt with a season-long, no-playoff battle. Then, in 2004, NASCAR decided to implement a playoff system that, again, selected a small percentage of the overall field to race for the title. The system jacked up the drama for each playoff race, but also increased the likelihood that a driver could get hot at just the right moment and win the championship despite a lackluster regular season. For this reason — among many others — fans and drivers alike have complained about the NASCAR playoffs literally since their inception.
Clearly, American college football fans — and those making money off those fans — aren’t going to accept that kind of structure, not when there are profitable games to be played. Not when you can get more than one bite at that championship apple, when a loss in August or September can’t keep hurting you in January.
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The fundamental problem here is that everyone’s gotten a taste of the postseason, and everyone wants in on the action. We’ve lost sight of the fact that in sports, there are few winners and many losers. More often than not, your team will be among the losers. But many of the loudest voices in college football — like other arenas in this country — have decided that accepting that sometimes you just lose is, well, loser behavior.
So we’ll just go on giving chance after chance for losers to win, expanding the field from 2 to 4 to 12 to 16, until the entire season is nothing but playoffs, until every game is a playoff game, until there’s only one team remaining without a loss.
We’ve rounded up all of our fantasy football rankings in one place, so you can get the start-sit advice you want when setting your Week 17 championship lineup. Below you’ll find Yahoo consensus rankings for point-per-reception scoring.
Prefer to get advice from a particular analyst rather than the group? No problem. There are links to rankings from Justin Boone, Matt Harmon, Scott Pianowski and Joel Smyth below.