The Patriots and Seahawks are set for a Super Bowl rematch

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🚨 Headlines

⛳️ Scottie wins again: Surprise surprise, Scottie Scheffler (-27) won his season debut, dominating The American Express by four strokes for his 20th career PGA Tour victory. He now has 14 wins in his last 35 starts, a rate of 40% (!!). Ridiculous.

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🏈 CFP expansion on hold: The College Football Playoff will remain at 12 teams next season after conference commissioners failed to agree on an expansion plan by Friday’s deadline. The Big Ten is in favor of a 24-team playoff format, while the SEC wants a 16-team field.

🏀 Giannis out 4-6 weeks: Giannis Antetokounmpo, who already missed time this season with a calf strain, is expected to miss another 4-6 weeks with the same injury. “I don’t think it looks great,” said Bucks coach Doc Rivers. “This calf keeps coming up and it’s concerning.”

🏈 Steelers hire McCarthy: The Steelers have hired former Packers and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy to replace Mike Tomlin. Could this entice Aaron Rodgers, who played under McCarthy in Green Bay for 13 seasons, to stick around in Pittsburgh?

⚾️ Ramírez signs extension: José Ramírez, who’s been with Cleveland since debuting in 2013, signed a seven-year, $175 million extension that should keep him with the Guardians for the rest of his career.

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🏈 Super Bowl LX is set

NFC Championship: The Seahawks beat the Rams, 31-27, on Sunday night in Seattle to cap an epic trilogy between the division rivals this season and win the franchise’s fourth conference title, all in the last 20 years (2005, 2013, 2014, 2025).

Stars of the game: Sam Darnold (25/36, 346 yds, 3 TD) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (10 rec, 153 yds, TD) bested Matthew Stafford (22/35, 374 yds, 3 TD) and Puka Nacua (9 rec, 165 yds, TD) in the third straight down-to-the-wire game these teams have contested.

• Nov. 16: Rams 21, Seahawks 19

• Dec. 18: Seahawks 38, Rams 37 (OT)

• Jan. 25: Seahawks 31, Rams 27

Fifth team’s the charm: The Jets traded Darnold. The Panthers let him walk. He was a backup with the 49ers. He won 14 games with the Vikings but they still weren’t convinced he was the guy. Now, he’s one win away from becoming a Super Bowl champion, and he’ll be playing in his home state of California, where his football journey first began. You absolutely love to see it.

AFC Championship: The Patriots beat the Broncos, 10-7, on Sunday afternoon at Denver’s Empower Field in a defensive slugfest that began on a green, well-manicured surface and ended on a white, snow-covered gridiron.

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Back where they belong: This will be the record 12th Super Bowl appearance for the Patriots (no other team has more than eight), who are back on the sport’s biggest stage after going 4-13 each of the past two seasons. The last team to win the Super Bowl after having five or fewer wins the year before? The 2001 Patriots in Tom Brady’s first season as the starter.

From Yahoo Sports’ Frank Schwab:

The Patriots ruled the NFL for most of two decades, and when they fell, they fell hard. Just not for long. The celebration for the end of the their dynasty is over, and now perhaps there will be a new round of complaints about a new era of dominance.

Looking ahead: 11 years after Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson in the end zone to clinch the Patriots’ victory in Super Bowl XLIX, New England and Seattle will meet in the Super Bowl once again. The Seahawks opened as 5-point favorites on BetMGM, and ticket prices are already through the roof for the Feb. 8 game in Santa Clara.

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🇺🇸 Stat of the day

My favorite trivia question could be adding a new wrinkle soon…

💯 Big numbers

🏀 40+ points

Illinois’ Keaton Wagler (46 points at Purdue), BYU’s A.J. Dybantsa (43 points vs. Utah) and Houston’s Kingston Flemings (42 points at Texas Tech) all scored 40+ points on Saturday, marking the first time in Division I history that three freshman topped 40 points on the same day.

But wait, there’s more: Four other freshmen also topped 30 points on Saturday, including Duke’s Cameron Boozer (32 points vs. Wake Forest) and Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. (31 points vs. LSU).

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🎾 0 unseeded men

Only seeded players, including 11 of the top 12, reached the fourth round of men’s singles at the Australian Open, marking the first Grand Slam of the Open Era (1968) in which no unseeded men reached the Round of 16.

American phenom: One of those men is 25th-seeded Learner Tien, 20, who beat Daniil Medvedev to become the youngest American man to reach a major quarterfinal since Andy Roddick in 2002.

🔝 1,667 feet

Alex Honnold successfully completed his free solo climb of Taipei 101 on Saturday, ascending the 11th-tallest building in the world (1,667 feet) without any ropes or safety nets in just over 90 minutes. “Sick,” said Honnold as he summited the 101-story skyscraper live on Netflix.

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Historic feat: In climbing Taipei 101, Honnold finished the highest “free solo” climb of an urban structure in history, topping Alain Robert’s 2009 climb of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Robert scaled the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in 2011 but was required to use a rope.)

🏒 90 points

Connor McDavid recorded five points (and scored the game-winner) in Saturday’s 6-5 (OT) win over the Capitals to reach a league-leading 90 on the season. In doing so, he joined Wayne Gretzky as the only players in NHL history with 10 consecutive 90-point seasons.

Dynamic duo: McDavid (32 goals, 58 assists) has 20 more points than his next-highest scoring teammate, which sounds like a wide gap until you realize that teammate, Leon Draisaitl, ranks fifth in the league with 70 points (25 goals, 45 assists).

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📸 In photos: The ‘56 Winter Games

70 years ago today, the 1956

Winter Olympics began in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the charming Italian ski resort town that will co-host the 2026 Winter Games with Milan beginning next week.

License to ski: Cortina was featured prominently in the 1981 James Bond film, “For Your Eyes Only,” starring Roger Moore.

Skiing: Austria’s Toni “Wonder Boy” Sailer was one of the stars of the ’56 Games, becoming the first person to sweep all three alpine skiing events (downhill, slalom and giant slalom) in a single Olympics.

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Footage: Sailer carving up the snow

Figure skating: When she was 11 years old, American Tenley Albright contracted polio and doctors wondered whether she’d ever walk again. 10 years later, she won an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

Did you know? The Cortina Games were the last Olympics to host the figure skating competition on an outdoor rink.

Hockey: Canada’s starting goalie in ’56 was Denis Brodeur, father of Martin Brodeur, the NHL’s winningest goaltender.

Podium: After winning six gold medals and one silver through the first seven Olympics, Canada earned a disappointing bronze in Cortina, while the USA took silver and the Soviet Union took gold.

Medal table: The Soviet Union led all participating nations with 16 medals, finishing ahead of Austria (11), Sweden (10), Finland (7), USA (7) and Switzerland (6).

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Then vs. now: The 1956 Olympics saw 821 athletes from 32 nations compete in 24 different events. The 2026 Olympics will feature nearly 3,000 athletes from over 90 nations competing in 116 events.

📺 Watchlist: Monday, Jan. 26

🏀 College Hoops

Freshmen phenoms Cameron Boozer and A.J. Dybantsa, who are among the nation’s leading scorers and may very well be the top two picks in the NBA draft, are in action tonight as No. 5 Duke hosts No. 23 Louisville (7pm ET, ESPN) and No. 13 BYU hosts No. 1 Arizona (9pm, ESPN).

In the area? Use Gametime to grab tickets for tonight’s games at Cameron Indoor Stadium (Durham) and The Marriott Center (Provo).

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🎾 Australian Open

The quarterfinals get underway in Melbourne (7pm, ESPN+; 9pm, ESPN2), headlined by No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz vs. No. 6 Alex de Minaur in the men’s bracket and No. 3 Coco Gauff vs. No. 12 Elina Svitolina in the women’s bracket.

More to watch:

• 🏀 NBA: Magic at Cavaliers (7pm, Peacock); Trail Blazers at Celtics (8pm, Peacock); Warriors at Timberwolves (9:30pm, Peacock) … Boston (28-17), Cleveland (27-20) and Orlando (23-21) are part of a crowded group of teams between second and ninth place in the East.

• ⛳️ TGL: Boston Common vs. The Bay (7pm, ESPN2) … Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley and Michael Thorbjornsen vs. Shane Lowry, Min Woo Lee and Wyndham Clark.

Thinking about heading to a game tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets, with instant delivery to your phone. Tap in, grab seats and go.

🌹 NBA trivia

Derrick Rose, who starred for his hometown Bulls from 2008 to 2016, had his No. 1 jersey retired by the franchise on Saturday.

Question: Can you name the other five teams Rose played for during his NBA career?

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Hint: Three East, two West.

Answer at the bottom.

🍿 Baker’s Dozen: Top 13 plays of the weekend

Watch all 13.

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Trivia answer: Knicks (2016-17, 2021-23); Cavaliers (2017-18); Timberwolves (2018-19); Pistons (2019-21); Grizzlies (2023-24)

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