• Injury-riddled Philadelphia fall to defeat

• Chicago hold off Atlanta comeback in QB’s return

• Cardinals beat Rams with final play of game

Bryce Young threw for 281 yards and two touchdowns to Tommy Tremble, and Chuba Hubbard ran for 120 yards and a score to lead the Carolina Panthers (3-2) past the injury-riddled Philadelphia Eagles (2-4). The Panthers had little trouble in the second half picking apart the Eagles, who were missing quarterback Jalen Hurts and running back Saquon Barkley. Hurts is on injured reserve and will miss at least four games with a blood clot in his calf. Tanner McKee started for Philadelphia and finished 26 of 45 for 215 yards and a touchdown.

• Texans 34-31 Jaguars in Wembley thriller

• Week six: Seahawks 14-17 Broncos | Email Graham

Speaking to how good they are against the run, the Jaguars have gone 22 games without allowing a rusher to go for more than 75 yards. Good luck, Woody.

Texans 0-0 Jaguars 11:08, 1st quarter

Nicole Noren says ESPN sidelined investigations into sports betting companies as gambling partnerships reshaped the network’s priorities

Earlier this week, investigative journalist Nicole Noren did something almost impossible for someone who has spent her career behind the scenes.

She made herself the story.

• Former QB says he is looking ‘for next landing spot’

• Aikman and Buck said to have argued over contracts

Longtime Monday Night Football announcer Troy Aikman said he is looking for his “next landing spot” with ⁠his ESPN contract set to expire after February’s Super Bowl.

“I’ll broadcast through this season, and I’ll be ⁠a free agent ⁠at ​the end of the year and kind of see what happens,” Aikman said in a radio interview ⁠with KTCK of Dallas on Thursday morning.

With the season approaching its climax, we look at the players who have perfected the art of smack talking through the years

Today, even the most casual of WNBA fans have watched some of the league’s biggest stars talking trash on the court. But while the snarling convos look heated, most of the time, they are good-natured, competitive fun.

Still, we wondered, who are the best trash talkers in the game? Which players over the years have turned talking smack into an art form? Let’s explore.

• Receiver liable for two counts, not liable on eight others

• Lakeeta Vaccaro alleged abuse by NFL receiver

A Miami jury on Tuesday found Tyreek Hill liable for two counts of battery but not liable for the eight remaining claims made by Lakeeta Vaccaro – ending the high-profile civil trial involving the NFL wide receiver and his estranged wife.

Hill, who has played for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, was found liable for two counts of battery – one stemming from an incident in January 2024, and another from April 2025. The jury awarded Vaccaro $500,000 in compensatory damages but did not award her punitive damages.

The once heroic boxer showcases a frankness in this compelling new series but also an unwillingness to take accountability for his darkest moments

Mike Tyson never envisioned old age. And yet here he still is, having outlived his parents, Brooklynites of ill repute who died when he was a teenager, and the Brownsville tough guys who teased him for being scrawny and having a lisp. Here he is after doing hard time for rape in his prime, winning and losing great fortunes and battling addiction to drink, drugs and fame. Here he still is, 60 years old and a grandfather now, mixing it up with Jake Paul in the ring, opening up to manosphere-adjacent podcasters, bobbing into an impromptu White House press briefing – Māori face-tattoo unmistakably in the frame – while on a DC visit to buck up his old pal as his party faces a bleak midterm forecast. “I don’t have to exist,” the champ says in Tyson, the latest four-part vanity project on his turbulent life and times. “Some reason, something allowed me to exist.”

In his heyday, Tyson was a mesmerizing sporting event unto himself – the ruthless knockout machine who struck fear into opponents at first sight, felled them in seconds and looked back on the carnage with cool nonchalance. His darkest episodes – the combustive relationship with actor Robin Givens, the six-year prison sentence for rape, biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear – only deepened the public fascination with him, adding to the lore of boxing’s baddest man. In the winter of his life, Tyson’s self-reflection, so deep it tips into self-parody, is the enthralling spectacle now. And if generations of Black comedians have proved anything, it’s that the appetite for Mike Tyson impersonations is inexhaustible.

It’s not just that the club’s recent charges themselves are unprecedented – it’s the language used to describe them too

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The language of football is a fine and highly nuanced dialect. The majority of people involved in the game speak it with a high degree of sophistication. Minor deviations from the familiar, almost imperceptible to outsiders, can set off alarm bells: what’s really going on there? Why isn’t he happy? What’s she hinting at? But it’s an argot developed to talk about football, and when applied to other subjects, it can sound extremely jarring.

Erling Haaland is one of the brighter, more engaging players. There’s an appealing quirkiness to him that suggests he has a higher-than-usual level of self-awareness. He doesn’t mind stepping outside the norms, being a bit different. But consider his assessment of Manchester City’s 3-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday.

After three straight game-winning drives, Cleveland’s quarterback was sacked eight times in a dismal defeat that punctured the hype surrounding him

I guess the New York Jets didn’t get the memo. This was supposed to be a Deshaun Watson lovefest. A day where, much to the chagrin of those of us with a moral compass and a functional memory, football fans worldwide could declare Watson was “so back” and that the Browns were in some blinkered, alternate universe, a Super Bowl contender. No such luck, as the Browns looked like the Browns – reminding an otherwise jubilant city of Cleveland that they are trapped in the sports equivalent of the Backrooms.

Limping along for 155 passing yards and one touchdown, Watson fell to Earth harder than David Bowie in a Nicolas Roeg film (yes, I just watched the Dennis Miller Monday Night Football documentary on HBO). He completed fewer than 50% of his passes and ended the day with a 69.6 passer rating. I should also probably mention he got sacked eight times. Yes, eight times. EIGHT TIMES. He only completed seven more passes than he received punishing hits behind the line of scrimmage. It was a performance NBC NFL writer Patrick Daugherty called “unspeakably bad.” Actually, I think the performance was very much speakable, as I’ve demonstrated here. Stick around for another 400 words.

• Daniels’ late scramble leaves Washington unable to kick

• Giants rally from 14 down but settle for 27-27 draw

• Maye throws four TDs as Patriots rout Raiders 45-17

• Jaguars stun Eagles in London with one second left

Jayden Daniels took off on an ill-advised scramble in the closing seconds of overtime with the Commanders in field-goal range, and Washington were unable to stop the clock before time expired, settling for a 27-27 tie with the New York Giants on Sunday after both teams made critical mistakes in the extra period.

Washington (1-3-1) got the ball with two minutes left in overtime when Daron Payne stripped the ball from Cam Skattebo with the Giants in range for a game-winning field goal. Daniels quickly moved the Commanders to the Giants’ 24-yard line, but with 12 seconds left and Washington out of timeouts, he held on to the ball and went down for no gain. Washington lined up to spike the ball, but the clock ticked down to zero and coach Dan Quinn ripped off his headset in disgust.

Mike Ditka: legendary Bears head coach’s life in pictures
Players ejected after brawl in London | And mail Graham

TOUCHDOWN! Bengals 7-0 Dolphins 14:03, 1st quarter

J Burrow to M Gesicki for four yards

J Croskey-Merritt 33 yard rush

• Jaguars’ opening kickoff return TD called back

• Two players ejected after midfield confrontation

• Chaotic scenes force opening kickoff to be replayed

A 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown nullified and two players ejected.

It was quite a start to the game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

• Knibb overtakes Norwegian rival in final kilometer

• Defending champion Løvseth collapses while leading

• France’s Vincent Luis wins men’s title on Kona debut

American triathlete Taylor Knibb has won her first Hawaiian Ironman world title after one of the most dramatic finishes in race history.

With a mile left, Norwegian defending champion Solveig Løvseth led Knibb by more than a minute and looked rock-solid, having taken the lead from her inside the final 10km of the 42.2km marathon run.

• Guijarro and Navarro score in opening 14 minutes

• US midfield and defensive lapses exposed by Spain

• Yohannes misses penalty as US fightback falls short

In less than a year’s time, the United States and Spain will almost certainly arrive in Brazil as the top two contenders to win the Women’s World Cup. Spain, holders of the top spot in Fifa’s rankings for the past 60 weeks, are the defending champions; the second-ranked US won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

This month’s pair of friendlies between the two sides are taking place with caveats. Both sides are missing several of their most important players to injuries. The opening match in Brazil is 258 days away. Spain have booked their place, but the US still have to actually qualify for the World Cup, through a regional tournament that begins next month.

• Hall of Famer led 1985 Bears to Super Bowl title

• Coach was known for tough, gruff demeanor

• The Super Bowl Shuffle to SNL: a life in pictures

Mike Ditka, who won NFL titles as a player and coach with the Chicago Bears, has died at 86, his family announced Friday.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Mike Ditka,” the family said. “While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach, and leader of the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl XX championship team, we knew him as the heart of our family. Mike will be missed beyond measure and remembered forever.”

• Confederation president clarifies his intentions to staff

• Canadian was eyed as potential rival to Gianni Infantino

Victor Montagliani has told Concacaf staff he intends to stand for re-election as the confederation’s presidentnext year, which will rule him out of going up against Gianni Infantino for the top job at Fifa.

The Canadian businessman is understood to have relayed the message to most of the 41 members of Concacaf, the North and Central American and Caribbean confederation.

Some of the biggest names in European football will bid for a franchise in ESL-style league, now due to launch in 2028

The launch of NBA Europe will be delayed 12 months until 2028, with a pre-qualifying competition planned for next year to find four temporary members to join the 16-team league’s inaugural season alongside 12 permanent franchises.

The NBA is planning to invest about $10bn (£7.6bn) over 10 years in what sources have described as the sporting world’s biggest-ever startup competition. It is understood to have received multiple offers for the 12 franchises that exceed their targets, with prices expected to range from $500m to more than $1bn for the London franchise.

Teams have always symbolized division within America. And the Fever have come to prominence during a time of dark political intensity

It’s over for now, but no professional sports team spent more time receiving and drawing attention to itself than did the Indiana Fever this season. The Fever has broken, the team eliminated by the defending champion Las Vegas Aces for the second straight season, but Indiana succeeded in being the WNBA’s canary in the coal mine, embodying both the obvious and unintended consequences of rapid growth, while also allowing themselves to be a season-long distraction: part-time professional basketball team, part-time right-wing culture war centerpiece. Less than a decade ago, Atlanta and Minneapolis were praised for their unified political stances. Today, Trumpism has replaced social justice as the defining characteristic of the league – and as the curtain closed on the 2026 WNBA regular season, Indiana stood at its epicenter.

The Fever were the most polarizing team in professional sports, known less for their basketball than their culpability in pulling the league from its old cultural identity as a Black/queer league into its current climate of political divisiveness – a calculated and dangerous path to popularity. This season, there was the basketball of the WNBA, and then there was the Indiana Fever, the league’s Maga-friendly option.

This article originally appeared on Howard Bryant’s Substack. You can subscribe here.

• Rays sweep Yankees 3-0 after fan interference call

• Dodgers eliminate Braves to keep three-peat bid alive

• Ramírez leads Guardians past Sox to avoid sweep

Victor Mesa Jr hit a tiebreaking two-run homer off Max Fried in the sixth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the New York Yankees 4-3 on Wednesday night with the help of a fan interference call to complete a three-game sweep of their American League Division Series.

Ryan Vilade also homered for the Rays, who reached the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2020 and will host either the Chicago White Sox or Cleveland Guardians in Monday’s opener.

Jorge Messi wanted his country to fall in love with his son. That ambition was fulfilled during a brilliant international career that ended this week

“What Argentina is doing in this World Cup is of a sacred order,” Brazilian writer Milly Lacombe posted at the height of the tide of anti-Argentinian sentiment during this year’s tournament. She was exploring the contradiction she felt around her support of Lionel Messi: “a player who is a God and a man who shakes Trump’s hand”.

Lacombe highlighted the importance of acknowledging the complexities around Messi and the Argentinian team. How is it possible that Messi was not speaking out against the racist incidents we all saw around the Argentina team, she asked. “That’s why it hurts so much to see someone with Messi’s power choosing to make himself small,” she wrote.

From ‘the new Toni Kroos’ to the US’ next big hope, Cavan Sullivan, we select some of the most talented players born in 2009. Check the progress of our classes of 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 … back to 2014. Here’s our Premier League class of 2026

FIFA’s network was vulnerable to anyone with even minimal access.