#playoffs

#playoffs

Their young, patchwork defense so glaringly lacks playoff experience that defensive coordinator Robert Saleh recently summoned a couple of veterans to explain the playoff mindset that's required going forth. Safety Ji'Ayir Brown spoke up, having intercepted Patrick Mahomes as a rookie in the Super Bowl two seasons ago (spoiler alert: the 49ers lost). Veteran Clelin Ferrell also talked, having reached last season's NFC Championship Game with Washington but also having missed the 2023 49ers' postseason because of a knee injury in the regular-season finale.

DISCLAIMER: The 'top stories' are simply ranked based on how much traffic they garnered for our site over the past calendar year. This is not an opinionated Top 10. The topic that made up the majority of our content between the end of the 2024-25 playoffs and the start of free agency was the Mitch Marner saga and everything that went into it. Whether Marner should stay, whether he wanted to, whether the Leafs wanted to bring him back, and where it all went wrong.

For longtime followers of the league, it's not surprising to see many of Liga MX's heavy hitters involved in the postseason. Current titleholders Toluca are in the mix at the top of the table, while fan favorite powerhouses such as Club América and Chivas de Guadalajara have secured invitations. Meanwhile, perennial playoff contenders such as Tigres, Monterrey and Cruz Azul have also put themselves in the running.

In between, Cherundolo proved to be one of the best coaches in league history, winning an MLS Cup, a U.S. Open Cup and more than 100 games in all competition in his short four-year stay. He took LAFC to a CONCACAF Champions League final and to the first round of the FIFA Club World Cup, compiling a resume no coach in MLS history can match.

Scotland beat 10-man Denmark 4-2 in Group C, with Scott McTominay scoring a superb bicycle kick goal three minutes into the match. Scotland scored a pair of stellar goals in second-half added time -- after Denmark had a player sent off -- to seal the win at Hampden Park. A 1-1 home draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina was enough for Austria in Group H, while Belgium routed Liechtenstein 7-0. Switzerland qualified after a 1-1 draw at Kosovo.

Ever since coming into existence in 1996, Major League Soccer has made a reputation of being unique. Unlike the other leading soccer leagues in the world, there's no promotion/relegation structure. And unlike other leagues, the champion is decided not in the regular season, but the playoffs. From its single-entity structure to profit sharing to the SuperDraft to discovery rights, there are a billion things that make MLS stick out like a sore thumb.

HIGH SCHOOL BOYS WATER POLO PLAYOFFS WEDNESDAY'S RESULTS CITY SECTION FINALS At Valley College DIVISION I #3 Palisades 8, #1 Granada Hills 7 OPEN DIVISION #1 Cleveland 9, #2 Eagle Rock 4

There were almost too many heroes to count during the Los Angeles Dodgers playoff run in 2025, and among them was Clayton Kershaw playing in his final season. The 2025 World Series in particular saw each player on the 26-man roster make an important contribution in some form or another during the seven games against the Toronto Blue Jays. Each one was important to the final outcome and the series could have ended without them.

"Damn, I got a lot to say," Byron said. "Things have a way of working out. God really tests your resilience a lot of times. We've been tested. Just unbelievable. We just worked so hard, and you put everything into Sundays. Sometimes you don't get anything in return. That's been the last couple of weeks and honestly throughout the year. But sometimes life is that way. You just got to keep being resilient. We were. Just feels damn good."

"Who wouldn't want to be the focus and do what our organization is doing for the city and fans? To be quite frank, we draw more than anyone as far as any sports venue in the world. When you're drawing 4 million fans a year, the way you reciprocate is by investing in players, and that's what we've done."

We're in the midst of a quiet stretch for the Atlanta Braves, with not a ton of news coming out of the organization. Rumors have begun to swirl around the league, but the Braves are keeping things pretty still for the most part. We are in a bit of a lull, so for now it's your turn to make offseason predictions.

Most importantly: What if the deciding game in question NEVER FUCKING ENDED? Because on Friday night, fans of the Seattle Mariners-a team that has never gone to a World Series, much less won one-were run through this exact gauntlet. Fifteen innings against the Detroit Tigers. Five hours. Four hundred seventy-two total pitches thrown, each one more sphincter-clenching than the last.

Andrew Abbott, Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Brady Singer, Nick Martinez, Zack Littell, and Chase Burns had a whole lot to do with it. Those seven arms combined to start 152 of Cincinnati's 162 games, pitching to a 3.69 ERA (84 ERA-) in 832 innings. Their collective 16.4 FanGraphs WAR and 8.64 Win Probability Added as starters helped the Reds finish with the second-best rotation fWAR and third-best WPA in the sport.

"I think it's great, I love being in a market where there's so much passion," he said. "I can't imagine wanting to be in a different place where you wouldn't want to win. I really appreciate the passion; it's ingrained in everybody's blood here. I see bumper stickers all the time. I see kids with jerseys at school and I absolutely love it. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

There was justice delayed in Yankee Stadium last night, as Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisolm hit clutch home runs to keep the Yankees alive in a series they seemed sure to lose. We know where they can look if they want some inspiration about coming from behind to win a series after you were on the brink of being swept.

The opening match will be broadcast by ABC at 3 p.m. ET and will feature the two teams that met in the championship of the first season -- the Atlanta Drive GC and the New York GC ( Atlanta was the first champion). Earlier in the year, the league announced that the Motor City Golf Club, representing Detroit, will be its first expansion franchise in 2027.

A whole generation of Toronto Blue Jays fans grew up emulating Joe Carter's 1993 World Series heroics in backyards and neighborhood ball diamonds. Unfortunately, fans young and old who were lucky enough to watch the back-to-back championship teams of the early 90s on that moment of playoff glory for more than two decades. Then it was José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación who came along to give us more franchise-defining postseason moments. Now, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the Blue Jays' current franchise icon, wants to give a new generation of Canadian baseball fans a new playoff moment to hang their hats on this October. If there's anyone who can do it, it's Guerrero.

Hours after Napheesa Collier made a thorough, spectacular argument in favor of the idea that women should be paid to play basketball, the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever supported their colleague's assertions by contesting one of the best and gnarliest games of the WNBA playoffs. The Aces won the Game 5 thriller in overtime, 107-98, against an increasingly depleted Fever team, and earned a ticket to their third Finals in four years.