Everything Everywhere All at Once

Happy Monday! And if you liked having ALL the sports ALL happen at the same moment, this was the weekend for you. (I will admit it tested my own ability to multi-screen and multi-task!) To help you catch up on what you might have missed, we’ll run through all the major stories — and their prediction-market implications — below. Then we’ll take one more look at MLB’s still-baffling playoff seeding process before the Wild Card round begins tomorrow. As we all catch our breath, here’s what we’re watching today:

The Main Events

All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game

Football:
🏈 Monday Night Football: Eagles (66%) at Bears (34%) - 8:15 p.m. (ESPN/ABC) - Case Keenum starting for CHI
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: Bills 14% to win NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 16% to win national title 

MLB:
⚾ MLB Playoffs: No games. (Off-day prior to Wild Card Series)
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Dodgers 31% to win

WNBA:
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day between First Round games)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Aces 25% to win 

Soccer:
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Belgium (25%) vs. France (52%) - 2:45 p.m. (FS1/ViX)
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Italy (38%) at Türkiye (36%) - 2:45 p.m. (Fox Soccer Plus/ViX)
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Poland (27%) at Sweden (48%) - 2:45 p.m. (ViX)
⚽🏆 Champions League title check-in: FC Barcelona 25% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 60% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Vancouver Whitecaps FC 24% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Gotham FC/Washington 28% to win

Weekend whiparound

We’ve spoken before about how fall is truly the busiest time of the sports year, and you probably FELT that this weekend. So in lieu of focusing on just one sport in this segment, we’ll dance around all of the different things that happened over the past few days with some quick-hit thoughts and impressions.

⚾ Baseball’s regular-season came to a conclusion on Sunday — the Phillies didn’t need to back into the NL playoffs, avoiding one of MLB’s worst-ever playoff-race collapses, while the Astros won the AL West at 81-81, avoiding becoming the first losing playoff team ever. Good endings all around!

⚾ The playoff field is set! We have a bracket, even:

And the Wild Card series will commence starting tomorrow with four games. According to the prediction markets, your favorites are…

• Yankees (60%) over Red Sox (40%)

• Braves (55%) over Phillies (45%)

• Astros (55%) over White Sox (45%)

• Padres (54%) over Cubs (46%)

Of those, the Red Sox and Cubs seem most dangerous as underdogs; they ranked Nos. 3-4 in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) during the regular season — ahead of their first-round opponents — though neither has home-field for the first round. And of course, after this, the playoff bracket remains messed-up by MLB’s bad seeding process (more on that below).

⚾ Your opening World Series favorites:

• Los Angeles Dodgers (31%)

• Milwaukee Brewers (17%)

• Tampa Bay Rays (11%)

• New York Yankees (11%)

🏈 Football continues to flummox: with Denver coming back from down 16-0 to beat the mighty Rams, Washington knocking off defending-champ Seattle with Marcus Mariota outdueling Sam Darnold, Baltimore stealing one from Dallas late in Rio, Pittsburgh moving to 2-1 by beating Cincinnati, New England getting absolutely smoked by Jacksonville, and the Chargers falling to 0-3 against Buffalo despite 5 takeaways.

🏈 Oh, and this was also one of the closest set of game results in a week in NFL history, with 80% of all games being decided by one score.

🏈 Here’s your current Super Bowl odds check-in:

🏀 The WNBA playoffs immediately went off-script: As we warned might happen, the star-powered underdog New York Liberty beat the pre-playoff favorite Minnesota Lynx 91-75 to open their series, behind 34 points from Breanna Stewart. The rest of the games went according to seeding in lopsided wins, but Minny’s loss flipped the playoffs upside down, dropping them from favorites to third among leaders in the current title-odds:

• Las Vegas Aces (25%)

• Golden State Valkyries (22%)

• Minnesota Lynx (19%)

• Atlanta Dream (18%)

• New York Liberty (14%)

• Indiana Fever (4%)

🏈 College football began doing its chaotic thing — here were the AP poll-ranking upsets of the weekend:

• #21 Florida 52, #4 Ole Miss 28

• Wisconsin 24, #13 Penn State 20

• Wake Forest 30, #16 Louisville 27

• #20 Oregon 41, #12 USC 27

• #24 Mississippi State 31, #19 Missouri 24

And we have to also add #17 Iowa beating #18 Michigan 20-19 on a final-play TD pass (Michigan was favored by the odds despite the rankings), and credit #1 Texas for avoiding being upset, holding off #14 Tennessee at the end of the week’s marquee matchup.

⛳ The US won the Presidents Cup — again — but it was a lot closer than normal for the usually dominant Americans: They needed a dramatic Sunday comeback to extend their win streak at the event to 11 in a row.

🏁 Kyle Larson took control of NASCAR’s Chase playoffs with a commanding performance at Kansas, recording a PERFECT 150.0 Driver Rating and leading 235 of a possible 267 laps (88%) to set a new track record.

⚽ The big soccer story from the weekend wasn’t a game result — it was a long-awaited financial-scandal ruling. On Friday, an independent commission reportedly found Manchester City guilty on 114 of the 115 Premier League charges around their alleged financial-rule breaches. As a result, their odds to win the league fell, Arsenal’s got a boost, and City also saw a sharp rise in the odds to be relegated — because the penalty for the violations might include points deductions or outright expulsion from the EPL.

This might make more sense

You can only go through the playoff path in front of you, but the way MLB’s postseason is set up remains mind-boggling. Because of how unequal the divisions were in this year’s AL, and the rule that division-winners are guaranteed Top-3 seeds, the 93-win Yankees and 87-win Red Sox will play for the right to face the 98-win Rays in the Division Series, while the 85-win Guardians will get a bye before facing the winner between the 84-win White Sox and 81-win Astros. (Huh?) In a more sane system that still ensures division-winners make the playoffs but seeds according to record otherwise, here’s how the 2026 MLB playoff odds (based on Elo forecasts) would change:

What else we’re reading

Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.

🏀 “The Ravenous Maw Of The Celtics” by Hardwood Paroxysm
🏒 “Previewing every NHL team with 1 chart: San Jose Sharks - It’s time to hop on the bandwagon at the Shark Tank” by Brendan Farrell
🌍 “The Week in International Sport: More volleyball, age-grade soccer and Anna Kristensen” by Ben Wylie
⛳ “Singles-minded focus steers landslide comeback” by Bob Harig
🏈 “Everything you need to know from Week 3 of the NFL season” by Tyler Lauletta

Next on deck…

Tuesday (9/29)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Red Sox at Yankees (Game 1)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Cubs at Padres (Game 1)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Phillies at Braves (Game 1)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: White Sox at Astros (Game 1)
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: Aces at Fever (Game 2)
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: Lynx at Liberty (Game 2)
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Hurricanes - Start of 2026-27 season!
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Spain vs. Croatia

Wednesday (9/30)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Red Sox at Yankees (Game 2)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Cubs at Padres (Game 2)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Phillies at Braves (Game 2)
⚾ MLB Playoffs: White Sox at Astros (Game 2)
🏀 WNBA: Dream at Mystics (Game 2)
🏀 WNBA: Valkyries at Wings (Game 2)
🏒 NHL: Penguins at Flyers
⚽ UEFA Women's Champions League: OL Lyonnes vs. Chelsea

Thursday (10/1)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Steelers at Browns
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Red Sox at Yankees (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Cubs at Padres (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Phillies at Braves (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
⚾ MLB Playoffs: White Sox at Astros (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: Liberty at Lynx (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: Fever at Aces (Game 3 - if necessary) 🚨
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Germany vs. Serbia
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Greece vs. Netherlands
⚽ UEFA Women's Champions League: Manchester City vs. Real Madrid