We’re down to 2 ½ weeks left in the regular season, and it’s time to survey the landscape and look at the weekend ahead. Starting on Monday, TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage will be folded into our daily sports category—the spot that normally reviews the TV options for the sports fan each night, will update the game-by-game action in the final two weeks of the MLB stretch drive.
If you’re a Red Sox fan, it’s a pressure-free time to watch your team, look forward to the postseason and see if you can help knock out your rival in the process. For the time being, it’s a high point and I should be looking forward to watching the games this weekend.
But I don’t feel that way.
TheSportsNotebook’s NFL analysis previewed the four national games of Week 2, from Thursday night to late Sunday afternoon to the Sunday-Monday prime-time parlay. Now let’s wrap up our prep for the season’s second week with a rundown on the 12 undercard games. Each one is picked on the moneyline, with the odds for an outright win noted in parentheses…
The big game of college football Week 3 is Alabama-Texas A&M, and that game, along with a couple other marquee TV games, are previewed here. The SportsNotebook’s college football coverage closes out our prep for the weekend with eleven other games that are worth at least finding out the score when you get caught up on the events of Saturday.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that the big markets of the East Coast are in the spotlight for Thursday’s daily sports. Whether it’s the NFL or major league baseball, New York is prominent, Boston is heavily involved, and you throw Baltimore in the mix as well.
Week 3 of the college football season is highlighted by the big Alabama-Texas A&M battle from College Station on Saturday. And bracketing that game in the early and late time slots are games featuring contenders from both the Big Ten and Pac-12. Let’s hone in on the three biggest games of Week 3, taking them in TV order…
The marquee games of NFL Week 2 are highlighted by three divisional showdowns that are each important in their own unique way, along with the next installment of the Manning Brothers Civil War. Let’s focus on each of the four big games that the entire country will see.
Wednesday’s a pretty quiet night in daily sports, reminiscent of the days of summer when a single baseball game had to carry the TV load. But at least Wednesday’s showcase is a game with impact—the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays meet in a 7 PM ET start on ESPN. The Sox are looking to secure the division, the Rays are looking to keep in that race, and to give themselves some room to breathe in the wild-card push.
The biggest game of Week 1 was Green Bay-San Francisco, and that one was recapped here. Let’s close out our NFL analysis on the season’s opening week with a run through the 15 remaining games…
If you’re a part of the conventional wisdom that sees Green Bay-San Francisco as a logical—even likely—matchup in this coming January’s NFC Championship Game, then nothing happened on Sunday afternoon to change your mind. The 49ers held serve at home with a 34-28 win over the Packers, but both teams set a high bar for any challengers to come after.
After the five-day pounding of football, Tuesday marks baseball’s time to regain the daily sports spotlight, and MLB Network is taking full-advantage, going right into the high-profile AL East for split coverage of two big divisional showdowns that include all four playoff contenders.
One of the more surprising developments of the second half of the major league baseball season has been the blowing open of the AL East race. While I’m enough of a partisan Boston fan to still be on pins and needles as they get set for a three-game series with Tampa Bay starting tomorrow, I also know how I’d view a race that had a margin of 7 ½ games with three weeks left if I were on the outside looking in—as all but over.
