TWIST: This Week in Sports Talk October 15, 2017

You don’t love professional sports, but your livelihood and/or personal happiness depends upon your being able to converse intelligently about it. It’s a common dilemma with a simple solution: you need to learn a new language. You need to learn how to talk sports. And we’re here to help! The TWIST is our weekly Dandelion Chandelier guide to what’s happened on the field, on the court and on the ice. Every Sunday you’ll find the three (and only three) things you need to know this coming week to speak cogently about professional sports with the boss, the gang at the office, your barber, your barista, your secret crush, or your in-laws. Do the TWIST every week and we promise you’ll know how to talk about sports like a champion.

This week’s edition of TWIST: This Week in Sports Talk is jam-packed. The coming week will see the continuation of the MLB post-season, the NBA pre-season, and the NHL regular season. Plus there have been college football and NFL games all weekend. So you have plenty of options for showing how high your sports IQ is.

For Those Who Do Not Follow Professional Sports, here’s what you need to know (and not a single thing more).

3 for the week of October 15, 2017:

1. Role reversals in the NFL. Must know: The season of upsets in the NFL continues. Last weekend saw another round of teams who were once considered Super Bowl contenders dropping the ball. The current standings in the AFC East are the exact opposite of what the experts expected just five weeks ago. And three teams have not won a game all season. Nice to know: The New York Jets are perpetual underdogs who were ridiculed for possibly going 0 – 16 (meaning it was conceivable that they would lose every game this season). They’re now 3 – 2, and at the top of the AFC East (ahead of the once-fearsome New England Patriots). The New York Giants, a team some speculated might win the Super Bowl this year, are 0 – 5 as of this posting, and sitting in last place. Meaning they have lost every game this season. Extra Credit: The only solace is for Giants fans is that the team is definitely on track to achieve a higher position in the upcoming draft (the worse your record, the higher your draft position). USC star quarterback Sam Darnold is the prize everyone is hoping for with a first draft pick. Sour beer, but it may be the best news at Giants Stadium all season.

2. MLB League Championship games begin. Must know: Last week in the American League Division Series (ALDS), the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, and the Houston Astros beat the Boston Red Sox. In the National League Division Series (NLDS), the Chicago Cubs beat the Washington Nationals, and the LA Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks. Nice to know: So now what happens? The League Championship Series (LCS), which is best-of-seven. The Yankees play the Astros in the ALCS; in a “marquee matchup” the Dodgers play the Cubs in the NLCS. Both series will see ace pitchers facing off, including Justin Verlander (Kate Upton’s fiancee), who was traded to the Astros from the Detroit Tigers expressly for the post-season. Be sure to follow “your” team, and you’ll be able to keep up with the sports talk in the coming week (just FYI, we’re all in for the Yankees, even though as of this posting, they’re 0-2 against the Astros). The two league champions will meet in the World Series. Extra credit: The Yankees came back from a 0-2 hole in the ALDS to win 3-2 over the Indians, making the Cleveland team the new “cursed” MLB team. The Indians had the chance to win both the World Series and this division series in 6 decisive games, and went on to lose them. (They were up 3 – 1 in the World Series and lost the next 3 games). If you say “Man, the Indians are the new Cubs” and shake your head in a wry manner in the next couple of days, you will appear to be a sports pro.

3. The culture wars spill onto the field in the NFL. Must know: Like it or not, you need to be able to converse intelligently about this polarizing topic, and you should probably formulate your views now, before you get drawn into a debate. Last season, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled silently during the singing of the national anthem to draw attention to police brutality against black Americans. A few players followed his lead last season. This season, he became a free agent, leaving the 49ers. No team signed him, and many assume this is due to the controversy over his “taking a knee” during the anthem. Nice to know: In recent weeks, the issue has taken on new life. Many politicians, players, owners and fans have strongly held opinions about the appropriateness of standing – or not – during the anthem. In the first couple of weeks of the season, most teams tried to find unity (or at least, tried to defuse the situation) by either kneeling together before the anthem, or locking arms during the anthem, or having some kneel and some stand, usually with an arm on the teammates on either side. High-profile owners participated in some cases. Athletes from other sports weighed in on the discussion. In the past two weeks, though, the attempts at de-escalation have unraveled, and there is a heated discussion underway about what role the owners can and should play in this matter. Extra credit: This coming week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will meet with the owners at NFL headquarters in New York to discuss making it mandatory that players stand for the anthem, and imposing fines or benching them for any violations. Gold Star Extra Credit: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued such a mandate at the start of the NBA pre-season a few weeks ago. The most recent national polls find Americans very nearly evenly split on this issue, with half supporting the players’ making their own choices about what to do when the anthem is played, and half supporting enforcement of a requirement that they stand during the national anthem. Bet you have an opinion on this one now, too.

For the remainder of the college football and NFL seasons, we’ll highlight the key weekend games you need to know about, and if we go to press before they’re over, it will be up to you to find out the final scores before hitting the office on Monday morning. Remember: you always need to know how “your” team did. Here are the key match-ups that the sports-minded will want to discuss this week:

College Football Games:

• It was a weekend of upsets: Syracuse beat #2 Clemson 27-24 in a major upset of the national championship team; unranked California rolled over #8 Washington, 37-3; and LSU beat #10 Auburn after falling into a 20-point deficit, 27-23
• #6 TCU beat Kansas State 26-6, continuing its unbeaten record for the season
• #12 Oklahoma defeated Texas 29-24 in the classic rivalry known as the “Red River” game, keeping their College Football Playoff hopes alive
• In the Big 10, Purdue lost to #7 Wisconsin 9-17, so Wisconsin remains undefeated for the season; #17 Michigan recovered from last week’s loss to beat Indiana 27-20 in overtime
• Oregon lost to #23 Stanford, 7-49 – this Pac-12 matchup was expected to be the most interesting game of the weekend, but wan’t even close
• In case anyone is interested, in the Ivy League, the big game was Columbia versus Penn, and the Lions won 34-31, remaining unbeaten for the season

NFL Games:

• Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings – The Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys last weekend in a “grudge match” and now all eyes are on this NFC North matchup.
• Pittsburgh Steelers at Kansas City Chiefs – The Chiefs are on a 9-game winning streak on the road, and are 5-0 for the season; this week they have home field advantage and are favored to win, but Vegas has a reasonably tight spread on the game, so perhaps it will be a close one.
• Detroit Lions at New Orleans Saints – The Lions are coming off a loss to the Panthers last week and have something to prove. The Saints are coming off a “bye week” (meaning that they didn’t play last weekend), so they’re rested and they’re playing at home. Sounds like the makings of a good game.
• New England Patriots at New York Jets – as with every New York-Boston rivalry, this one is fierce. The Jets are on a roll, the Pats have been disappointing – the Pats are expected to win, but if we have learned anything this season, it’s that expectations can be wrong.

Don’t forget to check out our roundup of perfect holiday gifts for sports fans.

We held our own in the friendly NFL pool last weekend. Wish us luck this week. Go, Lions! That’s it. You’re good to go. See you next week.

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