An NFL Sandwich 🥪
On Fridays, we recap the week and preview the weekend. But baseball’s gone, so let’s change the recipe a little today.
How about an NFL sandwich?
NFL Week 10 👔🏈
Thursday Night Football was a battle between the first and last place teams in the AFC West (that’s one of the NFL’s eight divisions).
Last place? The 2–6 Las Vegas Raiders.
First place? The 7–2 Denver Broncos, trying to extend a six-game winning streak.
🎥 Click here to see the highlights on NFL.com!
How big was that blocked punt to set up the go-ahead field goal?
Make it seven wins in a row for the Broncos. And three losses in a row for the Raiders.
And we’re moving on to…
NBA 🏀
The playoffs don’t start until April, but one team’s winning a trophy next month.
Wait, how is that possible?
The NBA Cup!
That’s the name for the league’s regular season tournament, which started last Friday on Halloween.
Here’s how it works:
The NBA teams were randomly divided into six groups, with five teams per group. (🧠 So, how many NBA teams are there in total?)
Right now, each team is playing the other four teams in its group. Most of the NBA Cup games are on Fridays while “regular” regular-season games are on other nights.
Once those group games are done, eight teams advance to the next round. Six are the teams with the best record in each group, plus two wild card teams with the best records of the second-place finishers.
Those eight teams play in a single-elimination tournament until an NBA Cup champion is crowned.
Last year, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the Cup.
Don’t feel too sad for OKC! They won the real championship a few months later.
And since we’re talking about the Thunder…
They started this season 8–0. They played Portland on Wednesday night. They built a 22-point lead in the second quarter before the Trail Blazers started to come back.
🎥 Watch and see if OKC made it 9–0!
Not quite! The Thunder had a chance after that foul call, but couldn’t get a tip-in as time expired.
And now, our NBA time is expiring and we’re going to…
College Football Week 11 🎓🏈
Of the top 25 teams, 18 are playing this week.
And that includes three matchups between ranked teams:
#3 Texas A&M at #22 Missouri
#7 BYU at #8 Texas Tech
#9 Oregon at #20 Iowa
Those rankings?
Before today, we’ve been using the AP Poll, voted on by writers who cover sports for newspapers and websites.
But remember what we learned in the ABCs of College Football?
The rankings that determine who makes the playoff at the end of the regular season come from the College Football Playoff (CFP) Committee.
The CFP Committee makes their own list, looking at things like who you beat, who you lost to, and how tough your schedule was.
And we got the first version of the CFP rankings earlier this week!
👀 Ready for a new kind of spot the difference?
💬 Drop your answer in the comments!
Now, that’s enough about the rankings!
🎥 Let’s watch the best moments from last week to get ready for the action!
Finally, let’s finish with another look at…
NFL Week 10 👔🏈
We had a close game on Thursday.
And there are a bunch more this weekend that should be close. Here are the five games we’ll be watching:
Ravens (3–5) at Vikings (4–4): Can a healthy Lamar Jackson keep Baltimore’s winning streak going?
Patriots (7–2) at Buccaneers (6–2): Which team stays at the top of the NFL standings for another week?
Rams (6–2) at 49ers (6–3): Will the Rams get revenge for their loss in overtime a few weeks ago?
Steelers (5–3) at Chargers (6–3): Are either of these teams good enough to have a chance at the Super Bowl?
Eagles (6–2) at Packers (5–2–1): Will the defending champs continue to cook on Monday Night Football against Green Bay?
Before you go…
🎥 Check out the top plays from last week! (Remember, click “Watch on YouTube.”)
Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Tuesday!
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Eight/8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8 / eight!!!!!!!!!!