September 15, 2025

The Rams took care of business yesterday against the Titans! The Rams are now 2-0 with a pair of very good wins and encouraging signs. Matt Stafford was outrageous good and made some very difficult throws that were just effortless. Generally, the Rams have played down to competition in recent years, but yesterday, that was not the case. They did have a few stalls in the red zone, but eventually they did break through later in the game. The first week it was all about the defense. This week it was all about a balanced offense with Davanta Adams and Puka Nacua putting up big numbers, while Kyren Williams put up a solid effort on the ground with 66 rushing yards. The bad news is that Ahkello Witherspoon, one of their top corners, is out for a while after breaking his clavicle. Now it’s on to Philadelphia, where the Rams will be looking for revenge after losing in the playoffs to the Eagles last season!
As for the Chargers, they will take on the Raiders tonight on Monday Night Football. We sometimes forget that as good as both the Rams and Chargers are, we did not have an NFL team in SoCal for 20 years. That means there are still a lot of Raider fans in LA that will be buying up the tickets. In fact, Vivid Seats estimates that 86% of the ticket sales are to Raider fans. If that’s the case, that’s going to be pretty embarrassing for the Bolts in their home stadium,

In Colllege Football, USC continued to pad its win total over the weekend with a win on the road at Purdue. This was actually a game that told us a little bit more about how good the Trojans could be. They had not won in 14 tries in the Eastern and Central time zone, which is obviously a big problem entering Big Ten play last year. This was exactly the kind of game they lost last season on the road, which was the difference between them being a playoff team or not. Who knew that Lincoln Riley had teams that could play defense? Bishop Fitzgerald had a pair of interceptions, and Jaiden Maiava played a solid game without turning it over while rushing for a touchdown. USC has now entered the Top 25 in the AP Poll, which is the first time they’ve been ranked since the first week of last October. USC should be able to beat Michigan State at home next week, when they are two touchdown favorites, but after that, they’ll face 3 straight ranked opponents, so we’ll see what they are really made of then.

Things are going pretty badly for UCLA Football. After falling to 0-3, they fired head coach DeShaun Foster yesterday. Foster probably wasn’t ready for a head coaching job, but he was also put in an impossible situation. When Chip Kelly left, his top recruits left, and the Bruins didn’t have many credible options at the time for who they could bring in to take over the program. Not to mention they are broke and have a terrible financial situation. One season and 3 games isn’t long for a college coach to prove much, but UCLA clearly saw things with Foster that were going to be short term embarrassing for the program. The problem is, no matter who is coaching this team for the remainder of the season, they might not win a game anyway. In fact, considering the transfer portal is open for their players because Foster is gone, it’s likely that most of their talent will leave. It’s probably not that big of a deal if Nico Iamaleava does though. He looks like a just swindled $2 million out of some poor sponsor. This is going to be a complete tear down job for whoever takes it. They will need to re-establish the entire credibility of the program, where fan interest has deteriorated tremendously in a conference that will be very challenging to take on. This is a shame because UCLA Football used to have some pretty exciting teams on the field. In reality though, this is still a basketball school.

Elsewhere around College Football, Notre Dame would probably agree to join the Big Ten or SEC this year if the College Football Playoff suddenly had 16 teams in the tournament. Irish fans are ready to jump off the top of the Basilica after they are now 0-2, with two devastatingly close losses. Georgia Tech stunned #12 Clemson on a field goal that was pretty much from the parking lot. #11 South Carolina got shocked and rocked by Vanderbilt. Texas won again, but Archie Manning is so bad, he’s going to set back nepotism for years!

ESPN Reporter Pablo Torres is really throwing haymakers on the Clippers right now! Last week I wasn’t really sure where this was going, and if the Clippers were really guilty of cap circumvention on the Kawhi Leonard deal. Now I think it’s highly likely they did circumvent the cap. Mark Cuban just told us about 10 days ago that if Ballmer were guilty, he would be an idiot for letting Aspiration fail, and all the financial records getting public, which would incriminate his franchise. Well we found out shortly after that it was the Clippers co-owner that invested money two weeks before Kawhi Leonard received a payment from the failing company, and we’ve also heard former employees claim the endorsement deal didn’t align with the company strategy. When you combine that with all the rumors about Uncle Dennis over the years, there is way too much smoke coming out of this story for the Clippers to come out of this clean. I’m fascinated to see if the league comes down with a major punishment here or not. Stay tuned!

To baseball where even though the Dodgers have now won 7 of 8, this Dodger team is just having way too many issues and inconsistencies to make a run in the playoffs. They can kiss their chances goodbye on the #2 seed. I think they will still win the division, but a 3-game series with their offensive inconsistencies, and bullpen deficiencies seems like a recipe for instant doom. There is truly no reason that Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, or Michael Conforto should be on the playoff roster. However, I can guarantee you they will be. For some reason Andrew Friedman and Dave Roberts are committed to making a redemption story work with these 3. However, it’s September, and we’ve seen enough to know these 3 guys just don’t have it this year. None of them are Mookie Betts types of talent where eventually they are likely to figure it out. They are good players, who will probably turn it around at some point, but that point is not this season. The fact Roberts and Friedman continue to force the issue here will ultimately be the Dodgers downfall this season, which is strange for a couple of guys who made such brilliant decisions last year.
As sure as the sun rises in the east, the Angels are now 12 games out of the wild card and 12 games out of the division. These dudes were actually buyers at the trade deadline six weeks ago. What a bunch of buffoons. The only exciting news? Mike Trout’s chase for 400 homers in his career. That’s it. If the Angels ever become good again, there is probably not a single player on this roster that should be around for it.

There are suddenly rumors that the Lakers are more motivated than they were previously to make a trade with the Heat for Andrew Wiggins. I’m in favor of this move, but ultimately, it comes down to working out draft compensation. In my mind, the Lakers are unlikely to acquire a player as good as Lebron James in the next two years. They have Luka, Lebron, and Austin Reaves on their team now, so why not be aggressive and make moves to win now? The Lakers have the expiring contracts and assets to make the deal happen with Maxi Kleber, Gab Vincent, Rui Hachimura, and Dalton Knecht. Hachimura is a good player, but Wiggins is probably a better fit given his ability to defend wings. The only thing the Lakers have to ask themselves is if they truly believe that a star like Giannis will be available to trade for in the next two years, if they want to preserve their draft capital. I don’t think that’s happening, otherwise it would have happened already. For that reason, they should figure out how to make the Wiggins deal with, even if it costs them a 1st rounder.

There is some news on the ice ahead of NHL Training Camps. Oilers Superstar Connor McDavid was fairly non-commital when asked about his contract extension talks with the team, as he approaches free agency next summer. That sent shock waves through the league, because if the Oilers had to trade him, or he hit free agency, every single team in the league should position themselves to get him. That includes the Kings, who McDavid would probably at least consider, but either way, him moving out of the West would help the Kings not get knocked out by the Oilers every year. The Kings also learned that Corey Perry injured himself skating last week, and he’ll be out 6-8 weeks. Perry is a long time Kings nemesis who signed with the team in July. Not sure what is worse. Corey Perry playing for the LA Kings, or fans being annoyed that Corey Perry won’t be playing for the LA Kings.