Al Michaels is not on the call for “Sunday Night Football” for the second straight week, which is coming as a surprise to viewers who are used to hearing his voice on Sunday evenings.
They did not specify whether Michaels tested positive but said the 76-year-old announcer did not clear protocol.
“Michaels has not been cleared to work this weekend’s game in accordance with NBCUniversal COVID-19 safety protocols,” NBC said.
“I feel great, I have no symptoms, and my temperature this morning was 97.5. I look forward to returning to the booth as soon as possible,” Michaels said in a quote shared on Friday.
Mike Tirico was scheduled to host “Football Night in America” for NBC but instead stepped in to call the Browns-Giants game along with Cris Collinsworth. Michele Tafoya also returned for sideline reporting duty after missing the Week 14 game.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have officially moved into position for the No. 1 draft pick following the New York Jets’ surprising win on Sunday.
The Jets entered Week 15 0-13 but stunned the Los Angeles Rams with a 23-20 road win on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Jags have lost 13 straight since wining their season-opening game. Jacksonville got smashed 40-14 by Baltimore and is now 1-13.
Though both the Jets and Jags have 1-13 records, the Jags would get the No. 1 pick for now due to the strength of schedule tiebreaker.
This entire outcome has to be heartbreaking for Jets fans who have been looking forward to the team landing Trevor Lawrence. They have endured an entire season of misery and embarrassment. An entire season of this nonsense. And they might not even get the No. 1 pick out of it.
Meanwhile, despite being almost as bad, the Jags have mostly escaped the same kind of criticism and ridicule as the Jets, and they may run away with the top pick.
So can they finish off the task with two more losses? The Jags host the Bears and finish at Indianapolis. The Jets host the Browns and finish at the Patriots. It is plausible for either team to squeak out another win and eliminate the need for a tiebreaker.
Cam Jordan was ejected during the second half of the New Orleans Saints’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
The Chiefs were leading 21-15 and driving early in the fourth quarter and threw incomplete on a second down play. Jordan was tossed for the game after smacking Andrew Wylie.
The Saints defensive end smacked Wylie with a punch or slap.
The Army Black Knights posted an impressive 9-2 season in 2020, and unlike a number of teams, were willing to participate in a bowl game. Yet they still didn’t get an invite, much to the disgust of many. People were especially peeved at Army not being invited to either the Military Bowl or Armed Forces Bowl despite the fact that Army bested its fellow service academies, Navy and Air Force, during the season.
Army’s exclusion is ultimately down to a combination of a preseason guarantee and convoluted contractual agreements between schools and bowl games. As laid out by Stewart Mandel of The Athletic, Army made a preseason commitment to play in the Independence Bowl, which would have pitted them against a Pac-12 team. However, so many Pac-12 teams opted out of bowl games that the Independence Bowl, as well as the Armed Forces Bowl, had an insufficient slate of teams to choose from, forcing them to cancel the games.
The Armed Forces Bowl did not take Army due to a pre-existing agreement between ESPN and the AAC, which requires the network to take a predetermined number of AAC teams in its bowl game productions. That meant the Armed Forces Bowl took Tulsa to face Mississippi State.
One source was critical of conference commissioners, blaming them for Army’s bowl snub.
“The number of schools whom opted in earlier in year – then opted out when they didn’t get the game they liked – is disturbing,” the source told Brett McMurphy of Stadium. “And those commissioners just stood by & let it happen.”
Unfortunately, the unforeseen circumstances of the 2020 season have really hurt Army. The list of Power 5 schools declining bowl bids is enormous, and has left a lot of second-tier games without enough teams to choose from. That had an effect on Group of 5 schools who suddenly don’t have enough opponents to even go to bowl games.
Arizona is looking for a new head coach after firing Kevin Sumlin, and Brent Brennan apparently is emerging as a hot candidate.
Brennan, 47, has been the head coach at San Jose State for four seasons. The Spartans went 2-11 and 1-11 in his first two seasons, but then they improved to 5-7 last season. This year they are 7-0 and won the Mountain West Conference Championship Game on Saturday against Boise State. The success the Spartans have enjoyed this season has led to increased interest in Brennan as a candidate, according to Yahoo’s Pete Thamel.
Sources: The name picking up traction in the Arizona search is San Jose State coach Brent Brennan. He's a former Dick Tomey GA, the hottest coach on the West Coast and just led SJSU to the Mountain West title.
Brennan played wide receiver at UCLA from 1991-1995 and then worked as a graduate assistant at Hawaii, Washington and Arizona. He later coached at San Jose State from 2005-2010 in various offensive assistant roles. He was at Oregon State from 2011-2016 as a wide receivers coach before landing the San Jose State head coaching job for 2017.
Arizona fired Sumlin after the team went 0-5 this season, including a 70-7 loss in the Territorial Cup against Arizona State.
The New Orleans Saints blew an incredible opportunity to get a gift touchdown at the end of the first half of Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Chiefs punt returner Demarcus Robinson tried for an ambitious return with roughly 10 seconds left in the half and his team holding a 14-7 lead. Robinson fumbled backwards into the end zone, and it looked like any number of Saints players would fall on the ball and steal a game-tying touchdown just before halftime.
One problem, though: linebacker Alex Anzalone whiffed on the fumble recovery, causing it to go out of the back of the end zone.
Because the Chiefs had clearly possessed the ball on the return, it counted as a safety, so New Orleans got two points out of it. However, six were there for the taking if Anzalone hadn’t overshot the ball.
The Chiefs should be thanking their lucky stars after this one. They’ve had some real good fortune on plays like this in 2020, and while this was still bad, it could have been a lot worse.
Alabama will face Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinals at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Jan. 1 in what oddsmakers consider the biggest mismatch in CFP history.
The 10-0 Crimson Tide are regarded as the No. 1 team in the country by far. Notre Dame is 10-1 with a win over Clemson in November when Trevor Lawrence was out due to COVID. In the rematch on Saturday, the Tigers crushed the Fighting Irish.
SportsBetting.com has Bama listed as a 19-point favorite in the game, which is the largest margin ever in a CFP game.
Here is the list of the largest spreads. Unsurprisingly, Alabama was the favorite for five of the nine largest spread games.
2020/21 Rose Bowl: Alabama (-19) vs. Notre Dame
2018/19 Orange Bowl: Alabama (-14.5) vs. Oklahoma
2019/20 Peach Bowl: LSU (-12.5) vs. Oklahoma
2016/17 Peach Bowl: Alabama (-12.5) vs. Washington
2018/19 Cotton Bowl: Clemson (-10.5) vs. Notre Dame
2015/16 Cotton Bowl: Alabama (-10) vs. Michigan State
2014/15 Sugar Bowl: Alabama (-7.5) vs. Ohio State
2014/15 Rose Bowl: Oregon (-7.5) vs. Florida State
2020/21 Sugar Bowl: Clemson (-7) vs. Ohio State
19 points is a lot, but it makes some sense. Bama has put up over 50 points in its last three games. And though they allowed 46 points to Florida, their defense has been pretty stout for most of the season.
The Seattle Seahawks clinched a playoff berth with their win over Washington on Sunday, and no one was more excited about it than All-Pro safety Jamal Adams.
Adams spent the first three seasons of his career with the New York Jets. Needless to say, he has never appeared in a playoff game. He spoke with reporters about that following Sunday’s 20-15 win and did not try to mask his emotions.
“That’s a he– of a feeling, man! I’m sorry, I’m not used to this guys. Forgive me,” Adams said. “I know you guys are used to, you know, Seattle and always going to the playoffs. I’m not used to this. I’m used to sending my cards home by this time, already packing up, learning where I’m going next, where’s the vacation, when am I seeing family. Sorry to cut you off, but I’m just excited, man.”
Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson had a moment of frustration with his quarterback on Sunday that he feels was being blown out of proportion.
A field microphone picked up Jefferson yelling at Kirk Cousins to “throw the ball,” complete with an expletive, after the quarterback was chased out of the pocket near the end zone in Sunday’s loss to Chicago. You can see that video here, but be warned, there is strong language.
After the game, Jefferson shrugged off the incident, defending himself and making clear that there was no big issue.
“Y’all love blowing stuff out off proportion,” Jefferson wrote on Twitter. “And I ain’t no diva don’t get it twisted.”
It’s been a bad season for Cousins, who has had to answer questions about his consistency. There wasn’t really a lot the quarterback could’ve done here. Ultimately, these guys are competitors, and heated moments like this are going to happen. They just usually don’t get picked up that clearly on television.
Dez Bryant is officially back after scoring his first touchdown in three years in Week 15, a moment he says made him emotional.
The Baltimore Ravens wide receiver admitted he was trying not to cry after scoring in the Ravens’ blowout win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
“I had to hold back my tears, you know, because it was very emotional,” Bryant said after Sunday’s game. “That love is real. I’m not joking when I say that. These guys here, they are one hundred. They are amazing, phenomenal people. Win, lose, or draw, I swear, it’s love in my heart for Baltimore forever.”
There had to be a time Bryant wondered if he’d ever have a moment like that again. It hardly mattered that the 11-yard touchdown was his only catch of the day. It was very obviously a triumphant moment for him, and he’ll definitely feel like a contributor now.
