Contenders, reconsidered
Happy Wednesday! And today is a day for revising our preconceptions. Six weeks into the NFL season, the league’s preseason power-structure has already shifted: San Francisco, Kansas City and a few other expected heavyweights have strengthened their cases, while teams like the Rams, Eagles and Chargers have gone from Super Bowl-hopefuls to varying degrees of disaster. We’ll look at which contenders have risen and fallen the most below. Plus, the WNBA Finals are in Atlanta tied at 1-1, the NBA keeps the ball rolling after Opening Day, and Arsenal-Bayern headlines another huge Champions League afternoon, as we await the World Series on Friday. Here’s what we’re watching today:
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
WNBA:
🏀🏆 WNBA Finals: Valkyries (41%) at Dream (59%) - 8 p.m. (Peacock) - Game 3 (Series tied 1-1)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Dream 58% to win
NBA:
🏀 Timberwolves (49%) at Heat (51%) - 7:30 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 Warriors (33%) at Lakers (67%) - 10 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Thunder 24% to win
MLB:
⚾🏆 World Series: Off-day. (MIL-TB series begins Friday)
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Brewers 64% to win
Soccer:
⚽ Champions League: Arsenal (32%) at Bayern Munich (44%) - 3 p.m. (Paramount+ / CBS Sports)
⚽ Champions League: RB Leipzig (9%) at Real Madrid (80%) - 3 p.m. (Paramount+)
⚽🏆 Champions League title check-in: FC Barcelona 27% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 61% to win
⚽🏆 Europa League title check-in: AC Milan 18% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 20% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: San Diego Wave FC 24% to win
NHL:
🏒 Panthers (50%) at Senators (50%) - 7:30 p.m. (Scripps Sports / TSN) - Brady Tkachuk’s OTT return
🏒 Flyers (37%) at Sabres (63%) - 7:30 p.m. (TNT)
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Hurricanes/Avalanche/Panthers 11% to win - 3-way favorite tie??
Football:
🏈 CFB: New Mexico State (56%) at Sam Houston (44%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN2)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 17% to win NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 18% to win national title
Diverging paths for NFL powers
Remember when the NFL entered this season looking unusually top-heavy?
The LA Rams spent the offseason assembling what looked like a fantasy roster, while teams like the defending-champion Seahawks and the Eagles still had football’s deepest overall rosters, the Chargers were supposed to take another step under Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel, and traditional heavyweights like Kansas City, Buffalo, Baltimore and San Francisco remained squarely in the championship mix.
Six weeks later, though, that contender class has split in two. We can see this if we take every team with a preseason Super Bowl market price greater than 1¢ and compare them based on their change in Elo ratings since preseason:
At 6-0, the Niners are sitting pretty as Super Bowl favorites, and they’re joined by the Chiefs, the Vikings (at 5-0!) and the Bills, Bengals and Jaguars as teams who’ve gained at least 30 points of Elo as the season has progressed. Minnesota is a wild one, having relied on their defense (No. 1 in fewest schedule-adjusted PPG allowed) to win despite subpar play from new QB Kyler Murray, but the rest are not entirely unexpected. We could have seen all of these teams trending in this direction if the optimistic versions of their seasons materialized.
However, it was difficult to imagine that the Chargers, Rams, Eagles, Texans and Bucs would be a collective 7-23 (.233 winning percentage) to begin the 2026 campaign.
Injuries have certainly played a role — though that hasn’t needed to be an excuse for the 49ers — but some of these teams’ problems run deeper than that. The Rams have underperformed on offense (they have a -2.3 schedule-adjusted PPG versus league average on that side of the ball) and found ways to lose winnable games that belie their elite talent and coaching. The Chargers have gotten atrocious quarterbacking from Justin Herbert, the Texans have regressed some on defense (though their season is improving recently), and the Bucs are being held back by an offense that’s scored 19 points or fewer in 4 of their past 5 games.
Then there’s the Eagles, who have been a dumpster fire of increasing intensity with each passing week. Whether it was losing to Case Keenum on 1,009 days of rest, multiple injuries to Saquon Barkley, losing an almost-impossible-to-lose game to the Jags in London, seeing a cornerstone of their recent success retire mid-season, or — most relevant this week — having Jalen Hurts play in London on no sleep while dealing with what was later revealed to be blood clots in both lungs, Philly has been arguably the NFL’s biggest disaster even in a season with the Chargers imploding and the Rams embodying a failing Superteam.
The season is still young, but it’s remarkable how quickly we need to revise our opinions of NFL teams after just a month-and-a-half of action. Some of the preseason top-heaviness has carried over, but a lot of it hasn’t — whether because supposed contenders have merely disappointed, or because their seasons have already devolved into smoking, unsalvageable piles of toxic rubble before we’ve even gotten to Halloween.
There’s only one basketball?
After a lot of fêting of the 2025-26 NBA champion New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden — rings, banners, tearful montages, etc. — the team’s follow-up season finally got underway in Tuesday night’s much-anticipated battle against the LeBron James-era Philadelphia 76ers, making their own debut. One big question for those Sixers was going to be exactly how they managed the big talents (and bigger names) on the new-look roster, and the early answer in Philly’s 106-100 win over the champs was that Tyrese Maxey got the largest share of team usage — followed by Joel Embiid — with Jaylen Brown and LeBron coming in behind them. (But ahead of VJ Edgecombe, whom we could kinda guess would take the biggest back-seat.) LeBron’s usage did tick up in the fourth quarter, however, so there seems to be a deliberate effort to conserve James for the game’s biggest moments late.
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “Holy crap LeBron is a Sixer” by Tyler Lauletta
🏈 “Making sense of Week 7’s CFB carnage” by Brendan Farrell
🏀 “Better Know a Conference 2026: SEC” by Eamonn Brennan
🏐 “Checking in on the professional women’s volleyball wars” by Katie McInerney
🏈 “TransferPortl Intelligence: Week 8 Edition” by Ray Carpenter
🏁 “NASCAR Enters the CTE Discussion” by Aaron Bearden
Next on deck…
Thursday (10/22)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Patriots at Bears
🏈 CFB: James Madison at Appalachian State
⚾🏆 MLB Playoffs: No games. (Off-day prior to World Series)
🏀🏆 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day)
🏀 NBA: Nuggets at Thunder
🏒 NHL: Rangers at Maple Leafs
⚽ Europa League: AC Milan at Bournemouth
Friday (10/23)
🏈 CFB: Duke at Virginia
⚾🏆 MLB Playoffs: Rays at Brewers, World Series Game 1 (Series tied 0-0)
🏀🏆 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day)
🏀 NBA: Knicks at Celtics
🏒 NHL: Lightning at Avalanche
⚽ Premier League: Ipswich Town at Nottingham Forest
Saturday (10/24)
🏈 CFB: #7 Ole Miss at #19 Texas
🏈 CFB: #14 Houston at #10 Utah
⚾🏆 MLB Playoffs: Rays at Brewers, World Series Game 2
🏀🏆 WNBA Playoffs: Valkyries at Dream, WNBA Finals Game 4
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Suns
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Oilers
⚽ Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur at Chelsea
