Pick a favorite, any favorite
Happy Monday! And after a wild weekend, the NFL MVP race is officially a mess — in the best way possible. Joe Burrow climbed into the lead with another huge Sunday (in Spain, no less); Jordan Love played perhaps the best game of his career; Brock Purdy stayed firmly in the mix; and Caleb Williams briefly looked ready to crash the party before kinda crashing out. We’ll sort through the chaos below, with Josh Allen still set to play tonight against Minnesota. Plus, the NFL’s greatest broadcast partnership may be nearing the end of the line after a record 25 straight seasons together, Georgia has taken over as college football’s No. 1 team, Kyle Larson is your 2026 NASCAR champion, and the Hurricanes keep steamrolling the NHL. Here’s what all we’re watching today:
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
Football:
🏈 Monday Night Football: Bills (62%) at Vikings (38%) - 8:15 p.m. (ESPN/ABC)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 18% to win the NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 29% to win the national title
NBA:
🏀 Lakers (52%) at Hawks (48%) - 7 p.m. - Luka Dončić looks for his fifth straight 40+ point game
🏀 Nuggets (26%) at Rockets (74%) - 8:30 p.m.
🏀 Pelicans (22%) at Warriors (78%) - 10 p.m. (NBA TV)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Spurs 23% to win
NHL:
🏒 Rangers (40%) at Oilers (60%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Flyers (56%) at Canucks (44%) - 9:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Islanders (56%) at Sharks (44%) - 10 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Hurricanes 17% to win - Canes have won 6 of 7 by combined score of 31 to 12
Soccer:
⚽ FA Cup: Berkhamsted (24%) at Plymouth Parkway (52%) - 2:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
⚽ Frauen-Bundesliga: RB Leipzig (25%) at FC Köln (54%) - 12 p.m. (DAZN)
⚽🏆 Champions League check-in: FC Barcelona 24% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 80% to win
⚽🏆 Europa League check-in: Bournemouth/SL Benfica 21% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 23% to win MLS Cup (playoffs start Wednesday, 11/19)
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Washington Spirit 53% to win (playoffs continue w/ semifinals on Saturday, Nov. 14)
College Basketball:
🏀 Wagner (1%) at #4 UConn (99%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 Grambling (1%) at #7 Texas (99%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 Radford (2%) at #8 Tennessee (98%) - 7 p.m.
🏀🏆 March Madness check-in: Duke 20% to win the men’s national title
MVP Madness
Some years, the NFL MVP race quickly coalesces around a particular favorite, or a small group of a few players (usually quarterbacks these days) that take up the focus over the rest of the season.
And then there’s 2026.
At the moment, four different players — Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Brock Purdy and Jordan Love — have at least a 15% chance to take home the MVP award, per Kalshi, and two more — Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams — were in the double-digits going into the day Sunday, with Patriots QB Drake Maye hanging around at the periphery of that group as well.
Sunday’s results swung those odds around a lot:
Burrow was the big winner of the day, taking over as the MVP favorite after leading the Bengals to a 34-17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in Madrid. In a scorching performance, Burrow completed 24 of 29 passes for 271 yards, 3 TDs and zero INTs, yielding high marks in the QB stats (like a 91.1 in ESPN’s Total QBR metric). His odds to win jumped roughly 10 percentage points on Sunday alone, helping him to surpass Allen in the pecking order.
But somehow, Burrow was not even the highest-rated QB of the day per QBR. As Love’s Packers were beating Maye’s Patriots head-to-head, 45-27, Love went 23-for-29 with 372 yards, 3 TDs, 0 picks, and a near-perfect 98.0 QBR. It was the best game of Love’s NFL career — part of a ridiculously torrid stretch in which Love is completing 69.1% of his passes with 295.7 YPG, 13 TDs against 4 INTs, and a 106.0 passer rating as the Packers have won 5 of their past 6 games by a combined score of 160-100.
Meanwhile, Purdy stayed in the conversation with a 94.2 QBR of his own — yes, also somehow higher than Burrow — as the Niners handed the Raiders their fifth loss in six games by the score of 38-17. The San Fran signal-caller was an early award favorite, and while those odds dimmed some with a few less-than-amazing outings against Seattle and Atlanta, he remains squarely in the MVP mix.
Lawrence was perfectly good on Thursday as Jacksonville cruised past a depleted Baltimore 33-10, and he could be a sleeper here — we argued last week that the Jags are probably the NFL’s best team, so Lawrence might be flying under the radar until the wider consciousness picks up on that fact. And then there’s Williams, whose odds spiked to 17% briefly as he was dominating early on Sunday Night Football — hinting that an MVP surge was incoming — before inexplicably cooling off and finishing the night with a career-high… in interceptions, that is, throwing 4 picks after the red-hot start.
When the dust settled on the day, that left Burrow atop the heap… for now. But the dust has NOT settled on Week 9 overall — and tonight’s Monday Night Football matchup between Buffalo and Minnesota could offer even more seismic changes to the MVP picture. If Allen and the Bills come out strong on the road and make an offensive statement against coordinator Brian Flores’ Vikings’ D — the league’s best defense (by far) — it’s hard to imagine Buffalo’s QB won’t re-take the MVP’s pole position tonight.
And that is the point where we all remember that the 2026 season will be only halfway over! (The end of Week 9 out of 18.) So there’s plenty else that can happen from here — and if Sunday was any indication, the MVP race could be a week-to-week roller coaster all the way to the end of the year.
The end of the line?
As mentioned above, tonight’s Bills-Vikings matchup promises plenty of intrigue on the field. (It might even be a Super Bowl preview, between the two teams with the most Super Bowl appearances without a win!) But the biggest drama could be in the broadcast booth. According to recent reports, a rift has developed between longtime announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman — with the latter still left unsigned beyond this season — even as the pair prepares to call ESPN’s first-ever Super Bowl together in February. It would be a shame if this marks the end of their partnership, which dates back to 2002 at FOX and has lasted a record 25 consecutive NFL seasons, according to my analysis of broadcast data from 506 Sports. That’s four seasons longer than the legendary duo of Pat Summerall and John Madden, who worked together for 21 straight years across CBS and FOX:
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “How Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum’s Celtics partnership quietly unraveled” by Jay King
🏀 “The Rematch Was a Different Story: UConn found a way to exploit Michigan's defense. What it means moving forward.” by Jordan Sperber
🏁 “The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Season Visualized” by Daniel Céspedes
🏈 “Week 9 Sunday Night Bears-Buccaneers: Advanced Review” by Kevin Cole
⚾ “The Master of Two-Strike Hitting” by Pages From Baseball’s Past
Next on deck…
Tuesday (11/10)
🏈 CFB: Ohio at Miami (OH)
🏀 NBA: Celtics at 76ers
🏒 NHL: Wild at Canadiens
⚽ Champions League: PSG vs. Bayern Munich
🏀 CBB: Champions Classic - No. 23 Kentucky vs. No. 17 Kansas
Wednesday (11/11)
🏈 CFB: UMass at Toledo
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Rockets
🏒 NHL: Mammoth at Golden Knights
⚽ WSL Cup: Liverpool vs. Aston Villa
🏀 CBB: Marquette at No. 16 Michigan
Thursday (11/12)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Commanders at Giants
🏈 CFB: Memphis at South Florida
🏀 NBA: Mavericks at Timberwolves
🏒 NHL: Canadiens at Bruins
⚽ UEFA Nations League: France at Italy
🏀 WBB: #2 UConn at #18 Ohio State
⛳ PGA Tour: Butterfield Bermuda Championship (Round 1)
