The Tennessee Titans returned Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers back to the land of sadness, winning via their usual blueprint. They continued to convert goal-to-go situations into touchdowns, Derrick Henry did King Henry things, and the defense held the Pack to 271 yards of total offense.

At 7-3 and at the very least tied for second in the AFC after this weekend, Tennessee is on a similar path as last year. If Mike Vrabel’s team takes care of business in the South and can go .500 against the Bengals, Chargers, Cowboys, and Eagles, they could have a route to the Super Bowl that takes place mostly in Nashville.

I know mentioning Tennessee and the Super Bowl in the same sentence induces eye-rolls from average NFL fans. They were a top seed a year ago and yakked all over themselves at home against Cincinnati. And then there was the collapse against Kansas City that was more Patrick Mahomes than anything they did wrong.

The Titans, to me, are the AFC’s version of the 49ers with the benefit of being in a terrible division. They’re well-coached, physical, have a good-to-great defense, and lean on the run because they don’t have a quarterback.

Having a preference between Jimmy Garoppolo and Tannehill is like saying you have a pre-packaged gas station sandwich, and none of that artisanal shit either. You know the ones in the triangle packaging that are like a couple of slices of lunch meat and a piece of cheese between two slices of white bread that stick to the roof of your mouth? Those sandwiches.

Both QBs have played eight essentially serviceable games, completed a decent clip of passes, and kept the ball out of the opposing secondary’s hands for the most part. So why isn’t Tennessee a trendy dark-horse pick to go on a playoff run?

Kyle Shanahan’s career winning percentage is two games below .500 in his sixth season, and Vrabel is coming away victorious about 64 percent of the time in his fifth year. Is it because San Francisco has a Bosa?

If Tennessee was in a conference with washed Tom Brady and Rodgers coming down from a bad trip instead of one with Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow, they would be getting slurped at an uncomfortable rate. I know that. It just feels like the Titans are due.

Maybe not due for a Super Bowl title, but an AFC championship game is certainly doable, and then anything is possible once you get there, right? … Right?! Here’s another comp for Tennessee: Poorish man’s peak Joe Flacco Ravens. While that Baltimore team didn’t own Brady, they were one of the few AFC teams to knock off New England in the postseason during peak Patriots.

The biggest indication to me that the Titans should start being viewed dangerously year after year is the way they responded to getting exposed as a No. 1 seed and starting off 0-2 this season. A lesser organization would’ve flatlined like the Bengals did after enough sad Andy Dalton playoff losses, or the Texans before all that was wrong with Deshaun Watson was his supporting cast.

Bill Belichick wins ugly with a Country Crock of a quarterback, and he’s a genius. That’s all Vrabel has ever done. No one is bad-mouthing the Hoodie’s most successful disciple (playing for him, not coaching), but no one is talking about him like one of the brightest minds in the game either.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you Ryan Tannehill is elite after going 22-for-27 for 333 yards and two touchdowns on Thursday night because I also saw the horrible interception he threw. The Chiefs, Bills, and Bengals have all looked vulnerable at times, and the Dolphins don’t have battle scars yet.

We’ve seen how the Titans win games. They’ve won seven of their past eight. If they keep winning and making the playoffs, one of these seasons a bounce is going to break their way — and they’re good enough to take advantage of it. 

Let’s get this out of the way. This is not a trend piece arguing why Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander needs to be playing in a bigger market. SGA is just fine where he is. Sure, he could “save” plenty of franchises like the New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, or Los Angeles Lakers.

But, fuck that. The kid needs to stay in Oklahoma City because Sam Presti believed in him enough to give into Paul George’s trade preference to head to Los Angeles to play for the Clippers. The Thunder got a ton of picks back in that trade. But SGA was the best asset OKC received in the deal. All the early signs were there for the 6-foot-6 lead guard to be a star, as he was averaging around 11 points, three assists, and three rebounds, a preview of the all-around threat he would become.

Did you see what he did last night? How’s this cold step-back three, down two to beat the Wizards to cap off a 42-point night?

Throughout the last few seasons, SGA has grown more and more into a first option. It’s been a slow and steady incremental growth in his points per game and, more importantly, efficiency. He’s shown a willingness to take late-game shots and be both the initiator of the offense and the primary scoring threat. His current stats of 32.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, and 5.9 apg have put him in the conversation for the Most Improved Player and Most Valuable Player awards. His shooting percentages from the field (55 percent) and the free throw line (91 percent) are both career highs. All this led to Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault recently calling him “one of the best offensive players in the league.”

It all started in his first year with the Thunder. That 2019-20 team led by a casted-off Chris Paul over-achieved to 44 wins, making the playoffs and giving James Harden’s Rockets the business in a six-game series. SGA slotted in-between Paul and then-Thunder guard Dennis Schröder to form a potent three-guard line-up, leading a team of reclamation projects in scoring during the regular season. Nobody expected that Thunder team to compete, but as it has been since SGA arrived, the Thunder were too good to tank.

The biggest obstacle in his growth hasn’t been any opposing player, team, or coaching scheme. Nor has it been a lack of playing time, inept coaching, or a crowded roster. It’s been his own front office, as Presti has orchestrated one of the most egregious and perverse tank jobs in league history. In SGA’s first two seasons, he played 82 games in his rookie year and 70 in his second. Once the Presti tank commenced, his very real injuries were perhaps exaggerated to sit him longer. This approach saw the young guard only play 35 games in his third year and 56 games in his fourth season. That’s not to say he wasn’t hurt during those stretches. It’s an obvious assessment that Presti leaned on the side of “caution,” not for any further SGA injury, but not to hurt his lottery chances.

It worked to an extent. The lottery is all about luck, and they won the last two drafts, landing in the sixth spot in the 2021 Draft, where they took Josh Giddey, and third this past summer, where they selected Chet Holmgren. Many around the league wondered if SGA could handle all the losses, especially when it seemed purposeful. How can a player get better when he’s on the bench in street clothes, and his team is fielding a roster worthy of a YMCA pick-up game?

It seemed not to matter. This season, SGA has cemented himself as a top-three guard in the NBA and a harbinger of greatness to come. His emergence has fast-forwarded the Thunder timeline, perhaps to the chagrin of Presti. They are over .500 for the first time since the 2019-2020 season, capping a much shorter “rebuild” phase than anyone could have predicted after fumbling the break-up of the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook duo. This season, he’s been the point of attack for a Thunder team with eight-to-nine above-average players, but no real star talent outside of SGA. The team has scored 11.4 more points per 100 possessions with him on the court, good for the 89th percentile among all players.

In just 13 games, SGA’s superstar turn this season has been magnetic. He currently holds the highest FG percentage by a guard scoring 30-plus points since His Airness, Michael Jordan, 32 years ago. Need more evidence? His current average of two steals and 1.5 blocks a game has only been sustained once throughout a season. By whom? Jordan. In the last five games, SGA has scored 37 or more points four times, as they went 3-2. Furthermore, he’s scored 30 or more points in 10 of the 14 games he’s played this season, a staggering feat for the 24-year-old guard playing in his fifth season. This season, his lowest point output was 18 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Nov. 5. SGA joined franchise greats Westbrook and Durant, as the only players in Thunder franchise history with three straight games averaging 35 points and five assists.

The wildest part? SGA can get even better. Once a healthy Holmgren rejoins the line-up next season, it’s not hard to imagine SGA’s assist numbers going up. His assist ratio is at a career-high, at 22.3%. He is already getting to the basket at will, leading the league in drives to the basket at 24 a game, according to Second Spectrum, overtaking second placers Ja Morant and Luka Dončić, who each average 22.5. As the best driving guard in the league, he’s collapsed defenses, allowing him to spray it out to open shooters (another reason the Thunder need to improve as a team from three drastically) and make quick decisions to find cutters or Euro-step to the basket.

Defensively, he’s made some major strides, not that he was ever terrible on that side of the ball. He’s currently sixth in the NBA in steals and ninth in deflections. His defensive rating of 110.4 is the second-highest of his career, while his PER of 28.9 is nearly eight points higher than his second-best season. There’s no reason SGA should not give the Thunder another All-Star this season, something they’ve lacked since Westbrook’s departure.

This season has provided SGA with the stage needed to exhibit the growth of all parts of his game. Next season will show how ready this Thunder team is to follow suit. With the addition of Holmgren, the continued evolution of Giddey Lu Dort, Tre Mann, and Jalen Williams, plus the 15 future first-round picks Presti has amassed, the future is bright. The Thunder are officially too good to tank. And that’s a great thing for the Thunder’s competitive culture and SGA’s future with the team.

In 2008 when I started covering the New York Jets, I also joined Twitter. It was a great way to break news, see what your competition knew, and hear from regular fans.

That was before accounts were verified, so I actually went to players, like Jets DB Kerry Rhodes, to verify that they were actually the authors behind their tweets.

Since then, the way sports fans have used social media has definitely evolved. For millions, it’s the second screen on an NFL Sunday, with moments like Odell Beckham Jr’s one-handed catch in 2014 for the Giants followed by thousands of tweets, as if Twitter were the largest sports bar on the planet.

Teams have connected with their fans online, some fans have built tidy followings, and some of them have even used their Twitter platform to propel themselves into careers or sports-related enterprises. Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites have proven to advertisers that women’s sports are a good investment, given that women who play have proven engagement with wide-ranging fanbases. Think of Oregon’s Sedona Prince at the start of the 2021 NCAA tournament.

What will sports fans do if it’s the second week of the World Cup, they open the app, and Twitter isn’t there?

First, how did we get here? Until 3 weeks ago, the site was running like a well-maintained engine. This week, the architecture that has supported a decade of sports moments is struggling. New owner and narcissistic billionaire Elon Musk is firing people with the same frequency he shit-posts (would that make it Shitter?), and the cracks in the infrastructure are starting to show.

At first, he had the brilliant* idea to charge $8 to anyone for a blue check, which formerly signified a verified account, but without actually vetting the customers. So, as Twitter’s own strategists predicted, plenty of pranksters chose names of public figures like Lebron James, and then tweeted fake news.

*It was not brilliant. And now droves of brands are taking their advertising dollars elsewhere.

“With the sackings and the resignations, in brand protection and moderation, it is just a little bit too toxic,” The Social Element chief executive Tamara Littleton said to the Telegraph in London.

Sports Twitter has been somewhat insulated from all these issues for a few reasons. Nights, college football Saturdays, and NFL Sundays are generally slower news times. Functionally, that means there will be less timeline interference from weekday political Twitter.

With the World Cup poised to begin, the site could attract stadiums of fans from all corners of the globe who want to watch the games in their own languages and in real time. The question is, whether it can still handle the traffic.

So let’s say the worst happens and there is some engineering failure with Twitter. This is hardly just speculation when a number of engineering types have been warning of this all week. There are already reported issues with two-factor authentication and other features like archive requests.

What makes Twitter such a great place for sports fans is its speed. The speed of conversations, the rapid turnaround time to watch video, and the ability to quickly locate like-minded users on the site. And it’s also where you will find athletes tweeting about projects, grudges, and advocacy. You can see them make mistakes in real-time, and be first to their apologies and their non-apology apologies.

This has been a huge boon to sports leagues and teams, because it allows fans to be well more engaged than they were in the era of newspapers and season tickets. You can still do that, but you can also hear how every practice of training camp went in real-time without having to show up to a facility.

It’s not clear where fans could go if this all falls apart. Mastodon, a more sedate social media alternative that has attracted academics and scientists, has a similar timeline and allows for conversation, but it isn’t as easy to find your fellow travelers or upload media. Instagram is more one-way communication. Discord has esports and sports communities, but the single subject channels would be an adjustment.

There isn’t a natural second site for fans because there hasn’t had to be. Twitter nurtured sports communities by creating event emojis and stories that made it easy to get up to speed on a conversation.

For sportswriters and broadcast outlets, Twitter was invaluable. ESPN and other outlets have had evolving social media policies that deal with things like verifying people are who they say they are, how news can be broken and by whom, and how much of your non-sports opinion should make it to your social media accounts.

Think however, of how many sports stories were generated by tweets? Who can forget when, via Twitter, Rob Lowe “reported” Peyton Manning’s retirement in 2012? Only four years before Manning actually retired. Thankfully the term “sliding into their DMs” has migrated to other social media or it could be lost forever.

Hopefully, Twitter remains for sports fans. Musk said, in a Delaware court to address a Tesla-related issue on Wednesday, that he expected to find a new CEO “over time.” Not too much time, if this magical sports space is going to continue being the sports fan’s favorite second screen.

The Buffalo Bills have lost two straight and may lose a home game this weekend regardless of whether they’re on the wrong side of the scoreboard after their matchup against Cleveland. The NFL is exploring the option of relocating the contest due to a casual three to six feet of snow in the forecast for Orchard Park, New York this weekend.

The collective reaction of NFL Twitter was elation because everyone loves a bad weather game. Watching pro athletes play a children’s game like children — bad throws, slips, fumbles, dog piles — makes you feel better about yourself.

Wednesday night MAC-tion gave us a little taste of powder-tough football, and you can’t tell me the sport sucks to watch in conditions like in Mount Pleasant, Mich., last night.

Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving are frowned upon in my house, but this guy’s use of a Santa Claus outfit seemed appropriate.

The caveat is the storm might be lifted by kickoff in Buffalo, and the only thing holding back the game from being played is teams and stadium workers’ inability to get to Highmark Stadium.

What does the forecast actually say?

From Thursday night through Saturday morning, the chance of snow oscillates from 100 percent to 90 percent, with a foot or more slated for tonight and Friday day, and a meager eight to 12 inches predicted for Friday night.

There’s (comparatively) less snow forecast for Saturday day and evening (one to four inches total) and only occasional flurries on game day. So it might not even be the raging blizzard, poor visibility aesthetics that at least I crave.

I understand commuting after a blizzard is discouraged, and the only vehicles on the streets should be the plows, but the fine people of Buffalo are used to traversing across feet of snow. Though I don’t have a snarky solution to the logistics of clearing the field — or the stands — short of an army of shovelers and dump trucks.

The silver lining is they’re not going to be able to clear all of that fluffy wet and damp stuff (if they opt to go that route at all). So, there should still be plenty of ammo for Bills Mafia to celebrate touchdowns with snowball fights.

Where could the Browns-Bills game be moved to?

The reason why the location might be changed instead of pushing the game to Monday like has been done in the past, according to reports, is because Buffalo got the privilege of destroying the Lions on Thanksgiving this year. And even the NFL thinks three days’ rest is not enough.

Due to the short week, the Bills’ upcoming trip to Detroit, and a vacant Ford Field as Dan Campbell and Co. are in New York on Sunday, it sounds like that’s where the game might be moved to.

Updated Thursday Nov. 17 at 4:14 p.m.:

I understand what the league is thinking; I just don’t agree with it.

We’re gifted a snow game in Buffalo every season. It’s a wintertime tradition. The NFL taking that away is akin to Ron Burgundy spurning the monthly KVWN Channel 4 pancake breakfast, and we’re all Champ Kind.

For those of you with nine figures of disposable income, you have a chance at owning Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball. The person who caught it, Cory Youmans, is putting the ball up for auction. He told ESPN’s Jeff Passan that he is going to sell the ball through Goldin Auction House.

A logical move. It’s what was done with Barry Bonds’ 756th home run, Mark McGwire’s 70th, and many others. However, apparently Youmans has already reportedly received quite a lucrative offer for the ball.

“We’ve already had an offer for $3 million,” Youman’s lawyer told Passan. “Talking to the auction people, they don’t really commit to a number, but they said it just could be significantly higher based on New York, the New York fan base and how crazy it could get at an auction.”

Yes, Yankees fans can be a rambunctious lot, but turning down $3 million on the spot is quite the all-in. Youmans hit his third king on the river, but there’s also an inside straight draw and an ace on the board. While this ball might mean the world to some generational season-ticket holder at Yankee Stadium, Judge didn’t break an MLB record. When he hit the home run, the ticker at the bottom of the screen showed that he set the all-time, American League single-season home run record.

Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball was auctioned off in 1999 for $3.05 million — still the record for the highest price ever spent on a ball at an auction. Accounting for standard inflation — in addition to the supercharged 2022 one that electrically shocked gas and bacon prices worldwide — it’s reasonable to expect that the Judge ball could sell for way more than that.

But, McGwire actually set a record. Before Barry Bonds broke it, when the MLB record stood at 70, that ball was the actual all-time single-season home run record. Also, it could be argued that the home-run chase of 1998 was baseball at the height of its popularity. It rose from the ashes of the strike with one of the biggest American sports storylines in years.

Ken Goldin, of the same Goldin Auction house that will be auctioning off Judge’s home-run ball for Youmans, estimated that McGwire’s ball is worth about $250,000, per TMZ. Losing the record to Bonds three years after setting it, and the alleged performance enhancing drugs that have stained it, certainly contributed to the steep decline in value. That might also explain why Barry Bonds’ record-breaking 756th home run ball sold at auction for less than $800,000, and his final 762nd didn’t even go for $300,000.

Judge has never been linked in any way to PED usage, but that era does cloud the game for some of the baseball pursuits. For those who aren’t bothered by that part of baseball history, many of them don’t care about the sport the way that Americans did during the great chase of 1998.

Youmans is pushing those Yankee pinstripes to the middle of the casino table. He’s betting that the magnitude of that franchise, and Judge being a clean player, so far will net him a figure beyond his wildest dreams.

I hope it works out for the man.

The Philadelphia Eagles have gone all in on winning a championship. The proof of that is seen in their latest signing. It was reported Thursday afternoon that the Eagles have signed former All-Pro defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to a one-year deal. Suh, at one time, was considered the nastiest player in the NFL, so it’s only fitting he’d end up paying for the nastiest fan base in the league.

A man of few words, Suh brings another veteran presence to that Philly locker room and is a player who can help anchor the front seven in stopping the run. While the Eagles have been rather stout defensively, they did allow the Commanders to rush for 152 yards last week, suffering their first, which resulted in Philly’s first loss of the season. The Eagles rank 17th in the NFL, stopping the run, so Suh should help plug up the middle to improve in that area.

Philadelphia’s ability to stop the run is the most significant question mark plaguing this Eagles defense, and even with that, they still rank in the middle of the pack. Suh should help improve the defense up front, but he also brings the kind of edge Philly fans thrive on. The people of Philly embrace their heel persona the same way Suh once embraced his in Detroit and Miami.

Suh isn’t the same player he was in his prime, but his willingness to play dirty and win at all costs will never be forgotten. This is the perfect team for Suh, and that fan base will embrace him like none other. The former five-time Pro Bowler has never been afraid to stomp or kick a guy to get an advantage, even if it was just psychologically. He’s been fined/suspended multiple times for using his feet as a weapon, with one of the most notable incidents stemming from him stepping on Aaron Rodgers’ leg twice in one play.

So, Suh should fit right into the rowdy culture of Eagles Nation. He’s played the heel most of his career, and they are the heels for eternity. Suh was once voted the “dirtiest” player in the game by his peers. And everyone knows how loathsome Philly fans can be. They’ve come to own it, and rightfully so. It really is a match made in football heaven. This should’ve happened years ago.

But the Eagles should be given some credit, as general manager Howie Roseman is attempting to take advantage of the team’s hot start. Adding Suh as a marquee name on defense is still enough to intimidate any offense. Roseman also picked up Linval Joseph, a former two-time Pro Bowl selection with the Vikings and Super Bowl champion with the Rams last season.

With interior linemen, it’s not always about how many tackles or sacks they compile. Suh and Joseph are there to clog the middle and improve the run defense. Roseman is taking a page from the same playbook as the Rams and Bucs of the past two years. Load up for that playoff run with as much talent as possible. It wouldn’t be shocking to see Philly sign Odell Beckham Jr., similar to how the Rams acquired him midway through last season. The Eagles weren’t included on OBJ’s recent list of teams, but that could be a smoke screen.

Philly is going for broke and leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of another Super Bowl. At least the Eagles are showing us how much they want to win, unlike other teams whose owners talk about doing anything to win but never follow through on what it takes to get it done. 

It feels like we’re already in midseason form. Truth is, we’re barely a month in.

Due to the breaking news battles between Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania, off-season intrigue around free agency, summer league, and a daily television show dedicated to discussing the league on ESPN, the NBA has become a 24/7, 365 league. But this season, it feels different. The usual optimism and fun that a new season brings feels like it’s lacking as the drama surrounding Kyrie Irving, Ime Udoka, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Los Angeles Lakers have sucked all the air out of the room.

And because of that, some players and teams are off to hot starts and doing surprisingly better than most assumed they would. Here’s a list of 10 storylines that would be getting more love if Adam Silver’s league wasn’t playing out like an episode of The Young and The Restless.