Smith is the top pass rusher on the top-ranked team in the country.
The senior was hurt in the first half of his team’s 42–20 victory against Florida on Saturday and didn’t return. He appeared the suffer the injury after tackling Gators running back Montrell Johnson Jr. in the backfield for a loss.
After the play, he was seen walking toward the sideline and gesturing to the Bulldogs staff. Smith leads the Bulldogs with three sacks, seven tackles for loss and 16 quarterback hurries.
Smith is considered a potential first-round pick in the 2023 NFL draft. Per ESPN, it’s unclear whether he’ll be ready to fully participate in the NFL combine, scheduled for Feb. 28 to March 6 in Indianapolis. The injury usually requires three to four months to recover, leaving Smith with barely enough time to recover in time to prepare for the combine.
If he cannot take part in the combine, he’d most likely work out for teams later in the draft process.
En los campos del estado de Puebla, México, estas familias cosechan las flores que guiarán los caminos de sus antepasados para que vuelvan el Día de los Muertos a celebrar con los vivos.
In fields of the central Mexican state of Puebla, these families harvest the flowers that will guide the paths of their ancestors to return on the Day of the Dead to celebrate with the living.
Tilda Swinton as Julie in The Eternal Daughter. | A24
Director Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter,starring Tilda Swinton, mesmerized audiences at this year’s Venice Film Festival with its quiet, arresting story about a woman and her elderly mother being haunted by the mysterious presence dwelling within a hotel. After watching the movie’s first trailer, it’s easy to see why it left such a lasting impression.
The Eternal Daughter expands on the semi-autobiographical world of Hogg’s previous The Souvenir films with the story of Julie Hart (Tilda Swinton), an artist who decides to make a go of connecting with her elderly mother Rosalind (also Swinton) by traveling with her to a strange hotel. While Rosalind has fond childhood memories of the hotel from before it was renovated and turned into…
Two young 23-year-old players rising and falling in dynasty trade value, yet they’re both buys.
At roughly the midpoint of the 2022 fantasy football season, we should know whether our dynasty teams are contenders or pretenders. We can see how injuries are affecting us and others. What kind of depth we have at our disposal for these upcoming bye weeks. Whether we’ve been lucky or unlucky with scheduling.
Speaking of which, head-to-head scheduling can sometimes put you in a tough spot where you’re among the top scorers in any given week, yet you just so happen to play a higher scorer. Those are always the toughest Ls to take. If you’re going to lose, it’s nice for the sweet relief of being down big heading into Monday Night Football. You can mentally move on, so to speak.
Rather than hit refresh incessantly waiting for Harrison Bryant to do ANYTHING against the Bengals on Monday night. David Njoku averages over seven targets per contest in Cleveland’s last five games, yet Bryant gets no targets in the Browns‘ 32-13 drubbing of the Bengals—go figure. I digress.
But that aforementioned unfortunate scheduling is just the luck of the draw and it’s out of our control—to an extent. I recommended setting up a extra game system. In Sleeper leagues, it’s possible to set up your league to enable “Extra Game Each Week Against League Median.” As explained in Sleeper support:
This option allows the top scoring teams of the week to gain an additional win, while the other half gets hit with a loss.
The purpose is to help create a fairer option for those times where you finish in the top half of scoring, but you still lost to someone who scored more than you. You would at least go 1-1 for the week instead of 0-1.
You can read more here about the specifics of how this works and extenuating circumstances that can occur like ties and how it doesn’t affect the playoffs. I think this is a very reasonable option to limit the likelihood of luck affecting regular-season wins and playoff seeds. It also rewards teams that are really good and really bad as a streak of 2-0 or 0-2 results in consecutive weeks adds up fast.
As always, it’s best to implement dynasty league changes during the offseason only after consulting your leaguemates with voting options. While you may not feel it necessary to have a league constitution (link to template), as it may feel a bit silly and overkill for a fun, mostly casual league, commissioners need to consider it, especially in leagues with cash prizes. Issues do tend to arise on a long enough timeline. Let’s get back to the dynasty stock watch…
Fields turned a corner in Week 7. I’ll admit I have an inflated sense of player evaluation, but the Bears never quite groomed this offense to fit his skill set. That is, until they did in Week 7 against the Patriots with RPO, moving him outside the pocket and using play action to challenge the defense to either respect the run game or challenge the secondary. I’m expecting an exciting second half and Chicago will push past the Packers in the NFC North standings—perhaps even into an NFC Wild Card spot.
I also talked about Justin Fields in my Week 8 cheat sheet. Now the former Ohio State product was already on a bit of a hot streak coming into the Dallas game, but given that the Cowboys have one of the best pass rushes and the Bears’ propensity to allow a ton of sacks, Fields didn’t figure to have a great game. But he did. I still feel Fields is a decent value as we’re witnessing a bit of a parallel to Jalen Hurts. Over a year ago, the Eagles were a run-centric team with limited talent at wide receiver. They drafted Devonta Smith and traded for A.J. Brown and now the Eagles have turned it around very quickly. Can the Bears follow the same trend? Maybe. They’re just two star receivers away after all (that’s a tongue-in-cheek joke, they are miles away from where the Eagles are now).
I’m willing to buy in because, as Fields has shown, we don’t need him to pass for 300 yards every week. When he can contribute 50-plus rushing yards with the occasional rushing TD, we only need something like 100 passing yards and one TD pass to break even every week. I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on Fields in my Week 8 cheat sheet, but the gist of it boils down to an evolving offensive game plan that had failed him up to this point in his career. There’s been such a shift in how the Bears’ offense uses him, that my previous disdain for Fields has gone right out the window.
I recently traded an early 2023 1st for Fields in a superflex, which is a fair value, maybe even a borderline good deal in the coming days as Fields’s value climbs. I’d stick with that as a price baseline.
Price check: 2023 first + tack-on pick or player in superflex Win-now: Hold Rebuild: Buy
RB Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts It doesn’t take long for the fantasy community to turn on a guy, does it? I suppose Jonathan Taylor has been mediocre and underwhelming according to our high standards for almost the entire season. But he’s coming off back-to-back monster seasons. He’s not even 24 yet! He’s only human, of flesh and blood he’s made.
The Colts have been a hot mess and after a great Week 1 against the Texans (31-161-1), it’s been more lots of duds and no touchdowns. I believe, based on no evidence, that Taylor tweaked something in Week 2 when he only rushed nine times for 54 yards against the Jaguars. Then, he probably made it worse by playing on it for a couple weeks after feeling the pressure to perform. Then, he sat out a couple games because the injuries weren’t getting any better. Now, Taylor is in an offense that just fired its offensive coordinator, Marcus Brady, earlier Tuesday morning and is relying on a 2021 sixth-round, second-year quarterback.
Now, did Taylor suddenly lose a quarter of his talent? No. So why is trade value down the drain at that rate? Every player experiences in-season performance volatility and this is a team sport. The Colts are the problem, not Taylor. So in case it’s not clear, I’ll say it more clearly: Taylor is a hold or buy. He’s still a few months away from his 24th birthday and he’s a couple months removed from being the top dynasty running back commodity. Is Nyheim Hines going to take over this backfield? Deon Jackson? Are the Colts going to use high draft capital to displace Taylor? Of course not. He’s still got another year on his rookie deal. We can’t just think about right now, we have to try to maintain a long view, which includes Taylor having another presidential term’s worth of prime seasons. Even though Taylor’s trade value is the sixth-highest on Fantasy Calc, it’s fallen sharply and he remains a buy across the board. Your mileage may vary of course, as some managers may be more or less bought into Taylor’s short-term struggles and unreal expectations.
Price check: 2023 first + 2023 second Win-now: Hold/Buy Rebuild: Hold/Buy
An announcement by the team is expected sometime this week.
The 52-year-old has worked in Kansas City since the 2013 season, including during the ‘15 World Series championship season. The Royals recently interviewed Grifol for their manager position, but Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro was hired instead.
Grifol will replace Tony La Russa as the White Sox’s manager. La Russa began his second stint coaching Chicago in 2021. However, the 78-year-old did not finish the ’22 season due to health issues, causing Miguel Cairo to act as interim manager for the remainder of the season.
The other potential managers interviewed for the position included Cairo, Astros bench coach Joe Espada and Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza, according to Olney.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that multiple White Sox coaches will not be asked back next season, although it’s unclear who he’s referring to at this time. Rosenthal did note that pitching coach Ethan Katz will return.
The White Sox finished 81–81 this season and placed second in the AL Central, causing them missing the playoffs despite preseason expectations that the team would be a postseason contender.
The FOX Sports NFL staff ranks the top 10 running backs in the game, starting with Derrick Henry. Where do Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley rank?
Gerald McCoy joins Craig Carton for a new segment called ‘The Real McCoy’. Gerald has to decide if these NFL teams are the real deal, starting with the 8-0 Philadelphia Eagles. After coming away with yet another win in Week 8 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Gerald tells Craig shy Jalen Hurts has proven his team is nothing to sneeze at. They also discuss his former team, the Atlanta Falcons, who are currently No. 1 in the NFC South.
For eight years now, the College Football Playoff selection committee has served up its first set of rankings right around this date. Roughly five weeks later, the committee delivers its last set. Things always change in that interregnum, but not as much as you might think.
In order to figure out how much stock to put in the committee’s opening top 25 when it drops Tuesday night, The Dash crunched some numbers. Here are the findings:
Nineteen of the 32 CFP participants were in the top four in the initial rankings, an average of 2.4 teams per year. So you can reasonably expect at least half the top four on Tuesday still being there come Selection Sunday in December.
There has never been a year when none of the opening top four eventually made the field. The fewest is one out of four. There has been one year when all of the opening top quartet made the field.
In the 2020 season, Alabama and Ohio State were both part of the initial top four. They later met in January’s title game.
Kyle Robertson/USA TODAY Network
The team ranked lowest in the first top 25 to make the field was 16th. Only one team has gone from the top four in the first rankings to unranked on Selection Sunday. Only once has the eventual national champion not been in the top four in the initial CFP rankings.
Here is a Dash ranking of the opening rankings, from the chalkiest field to the most turbulent:
2020 (31). Teams in the original rankings that were still there at the end: four out of four.
The amazing part of 2020 being the most stable of rankings is that it was the least stable of seasons—the pandemic created upheaval the likes of which hadn’t been seen in college football since World War II.
2018 (32). Teams in the original ranking that were still there at the end: three out of four.
In terms of how the Playoff unfolded, the first rankings in 2017 were more accurate than the last, since Georgia and Alabama met in a memorable title game that the Crimson Tide won on an overtime bomb from Tua Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith.
2019 (34). Teams in the original ranking that were still there at the end: two out of four.
First rankings: 1. Ohio State, 2. LSU, 3. Alabama, 4. Penn State.
Moved in: Clemson, from fifth; Oklahoma, from ninth.
Moved out: Alabama, to 13th; Penn State, to 10th.
Champion: LSU.
Whoever finished fourth was going to get torched by the Tigers in the semifinals, and the Sooners played the part. The other semi, between Ohio State and Clemson, was one of the most dramatic in a Playoff history littered with mismatches.
2021 (35). Teams in the original ranking that were still there at the end: two out of four.
Moved in: Michigan State, from seventh; Oklahoma, from 15th.
Moved out: LSU, to 20th; Ohio State, to seventh.
Champion: Alabama.
Reigning champion Ohio State’s upset loss in the rain to Michigan State tilted the Playoff’s balance of power to the South, and it’s been there ever since.
2014 (38). Teams in the original ranking that were still there at the end: one out of four.
Moved in: Oregon, from fifth; Alabama, from sixth; Ohio State, from 16th.
Moved out: Mississippi State, to seventh; Auburn, to 19th; Mississippi, to ninth.
Champion: Ohio State.
The first year of the Playoff era was a wild one, with big movement up and down. The Buckeyes barely got into the bracket and then won the whole thing. The Mississippi schools had their moment and haven’t been heard from since. We haven’t had a year like it since.
Coach Who Earned His Comp Car This Week
Scott Satterfield (39), Louisville. The fourth-year coach has resuscitated his on-the-rocks tenure with three straight victories, most recently a shocking blowout of No. 10 Wake Forest. The Cardinals (5–3) forced a ridiculous eight turnovers in the game—including five straight possessions in the third quarter, two of them pick-sixes. A victory Saturday against James Madison would make Louisville bowl eligible, and one more win would lock up its first winning season since 2019. With a highly ranked recruiting class committed, that likely would be enough to earn Satterfield a fifth season.
Coach Who Should Take the Bus to Work
Mike Gundy (40), Oklahoma State. Rarely does a top-10 team flop as completely as Gundy’s Cowboys did Saturday at Kansas State, losing 48–0. Oklahoma State was a banged up team coming off a couple of big games, but there isn’t any justifying laying down like that. “We got our ass kicked,” Gundy said, accurately, on Monday. It was the Cowboys’ first shutout loss since 2009.
Point After
The Dash is going into overtime to tout Legends (41) in Champaign. Grab a Legends Lager, made locally by Riggs Beer Company, and thank The Dash later.
