— Rams 20, Bears 17 OT
Rams drove 54 yards, Mevis kicked 42-yard walk-off FG in OT.
Bears scored a TD with 0:18 left to force overtime.
Rams are 9-0 when they allow less than 26 points.
Rams advance to the NFC title game in Seattle next week.
Bears converted 9-19 on third down, LA 5-16, on a cold night
Chicago ran ball for 160 yards, but were minus-3 in turnovers.
In two playoff games, Bears converted only 5-12 fourth down plays.
Rams’ two TD drives were 91-85 yards, lasted 6:33/6:02.
— Patriots 28, Texans 16
Houston turned ball over on 4 of their first 8 drives.
Patriots scored on a pick-6 to take a 14-10 lead.
In their history, Texans are 0-7 in this round of the playoffs.
Patriots move on to AFC title game in Denver next week.
Texans ran ball 22 times for only 48 yards.
Houston scored only one TD; that was on a short 27-yard drive.
QB Maye threw for 179 yards, 3 TD’s on a snowy/sleet day.
Texans completed only 20 of 47 passes, with four INTs.
— Atlanta Falcons hired former Browns coach Kevin Stefanski as their new coach, the first hire for new Falcons boss Matt Ryan. Stefanski was 46-58 in six years in Cleveland, 1-2 in playoff games.
— Famous birthdays, January 19th:
Dolly Parton, 80
Terry Hanratty, 78
Jon Matlack, 76
Katy Segal, 72
Steve DeBerg, 72
Paul McCrane, 65
Chris Sabo, 64
Michael Adams, 63
Luc Longley, 57
Phil Nevin, 55
— Was laughing the other day when the Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker for four years at $60M a year; hearing New York fans complain how the Dodgers are ruining baseball by spending too much $$$ and I’m like, “Hey, I root for the A’s. Welcome to my world for the last 50 years”
That said, $60M/year for Tucker seems comically excessive; he isn’t Aaron Judge or Juan Soto but he is really good. At first, I thought it said $240 for six years; $40M/year seemed OK, but then I realized he’ll be making $60M/year. Yikes.
— Atlanta Braves made a $46M profit last year, which makes you wonder how high these teams are willing to go to sign stars. $46M is one superstar player or two really good ones. I’m not a big finance guy; this time next year, we’ll probably be hearing a lot more about the finances of major league teams, when the lockout is looming.
— Minnesota Twins signed C Victor Caratini for two years, $14M; with the new appeal system for ball/strike challenges, not sure if good pitch framers are as valuable as they have been, but the Twins think Caratini is. He’s had an OPS of .711+ the last three years.
— When actor Charlie Sheen was a kid, apparently he was really good at baseball; U of Kansas offered him a baseball scholarship, but then he got tossed out of high school for not going to this classes, so college was out of the question.
— Been watching a lot of fantasy baseball mock drafts on the Interweb, watched one the other day where Mike Trout was a 19th round pick. Jeez, how quickly they forget.
— Movie of the Day: Major League (1989)- Woman inherits the Cleveland Indians from her dead husband; she wants to move the team to Miami, so she puts together a roster that is really bad, so fans in Cleveland won’t come to see them play.
Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, Corbin Bernsen are some of the players; former Dodger catcher Steve Yeager is Cleveland’s third base coach. James Gammon is the manager of the team; Rene Russo is also in this, but the late Bob Uecker steals the show as the announcer of the team.
Very funny movie, but moving a baseball team to Miami turned out to be a very bad idea.
— In college basketball, Florida Gators won consecutive national titles in 2007, 2008; since then, only one defending national champ made it to the Elite 8 in the NCAAs the next year, and that was UConn won their consecutive titles in 2023, 2024.
Florida is the defending champ this year; they’re 13-5 right now, 4-1 in the SEC, experience team #65. We’ll see how it goes for them.
— Florida Atlantic 79, Temple 73
Fast-paced game (79 possessions), was fun to watch.
Both teams are the Owls, by the way.
Brickfest for a high-scoring game; teams shot 9-41 on the arc.
FAU won its last four games, scoring 82.3 ppg.
— Wichita State 86, South Florida 85 OT
USF led by 13 early in the second half.
Both teams shot under 40% inside the arc.
Teams combined to shoot 24-51 (47.1%) outside the arc.
— Houston 103, Arizona State 73
Cougars led 56-29 at halftime.
Arizona State has lost six of its last seven games.
Houston has won 11 games in a row (only loss 76-73 to Tennessee)
— San Francisco 85, Washington State 80
Wazzu led by 7 with 6:06 left in the game.
USF was 15-18 on foul line, Wazzu 2-3.
Coogs lost last three games (Zags, St Mary’s, USF)
Dons made 12-22 shots on the arc.
— North Texas 71, Tulane 63
North Texas out-rebounded Tulane, 47-30.
Green Wave shot only 31.3% from the floor.
North Texas is 11-7; they have the #325 eFG% in the country.
