The 2020 Australian Open grand slam tournament is not going like it did in 2019 where you had the top ranked women tennis player in the world at the time in Naomi Osaka winning the Women's Singles title. No, for this year there are many more early exits and upsets.

Serena Williams lost in the third round, to #27th ranked Qiang Wang. And defending champ Naomi Osaka lost to unranked and 15-year-old Coco Gauff in the third round as well. On the women's side of things #4 Halep and #2 Pilskova are still in play but two of the favorites are already eliminated.

On the men's single side of things Federer, Djokovic and Nadal are still in so we haven't had a big blow there yet, but you gotta except something notable will happen there too.

Will update more when more upsets inevitably happen. Post vids if you have good ones to share of matches.

I think doing away with divisions and just sticking to the best 8 teams per conference for the playoffs would be a good move. Just like they do with the NBA. Only problem is the scheduling - NBA has 84 regular season games to NFL's 16. So it would mean you have to do away with each team playing each divisional opponent twice. But I would be all for that actually.

As for the Pats being out.. YES. Please. Dynasties are annoying (mostly when its not your team). The Pats/Rams Super Bowl was the worst one I have ever seen, at least since I started watching in '94.

Every time NFL Playoffs discussions start up I hear this same debate - would you rather be a 1 or 2 seed and get the bye so your team can rest a week, or would you rather play in the first round and keep up your momentum?

Basically there are a lot of people that think some teams benefit from the confidence earned by playing in the first round and that it's actually better for those teams to get even more playing time vs getting to rest a full week instead. They argument is teams can get on a roll and the teams with a bye can be at a disadvantage because they won't be as 'hot' going into the divisional playoff game.

I gotta disagree, because the #s do not bear that out at all.

Looked up the win %s of teams with home field advantage in the playoffs for each round. And from 1990 (when the wildcard round was introduced to the league) until 2019, here's how the numbers shake out:

Wildcard Round home teams win 61.6% of the time.
Divisional Round home teams win 71% of the time.
Conference Championship home teams win 67.1% of the time.

So this means if you finish better in the regular season than your opponent and get to host the playoff game, you win at least 61% of the time no matter what. But it also means the 1 and 2 seeds that earn a bye week win 71% of the time. They get to rest in the first round. Game plan for 2 full weeks. And play their first playoff game in their home stadium. Makes total sense that they would win a vast majority of those games.

Sure there are teams that have bucked the trends like the Giants. But those are the outliers. If you were told you had historically a 29% chance to win a game one way or a 71% chance to win another, and the higher odds way was WAY easier, which would you choose?

Just wanted to put this argument to rest. Unless you have a compelling argument against these numbers?

JFoster Wrote:

4. The very first bowl game to be played was the Rose Bowl in 1902. It was Michigan vs Stanford. The funny part about this story is that it was originally created to draw attention to the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. The Other bowl games didn't come around until the 1930's. This was back when the Orange Bowl was called Festival of Palms Bowl.

Completely agree with Max Kellerman here. Hopefully the tapes get released of what they actually filmed.

Was worried about Ohio State for about a quarter in that game but they pulled it together. But they played just weak enough to drop to #2. LSU clearly deserves to be the top team after dismantling Georgia. And congrats to the Sooners for getting a playoff spot; that Baylor game was maybe the most entertaining of all the champ games. Real surprised Utah lost so badly though.

In a division that started off with so much promise, it has quickly become the absolute worst division in football this year. The Giants are arguably the worst team in the league, maybe just above Cincy. The Redskins are showing a bit of life but have been the worst offense basically all year. The Eagles have had a really bad combo of key injuries, terrible WR drops and bad QB play to currently make them 2 games under .500. And the Cowboys, who started off 3-0 have lost 7 of their last 10 games.

All around terrible. But someone HAS to win this division, and whoever does WILL host a home playoff game, crazy as that sounds. Still looks like my prediction will hold but this division will 100% come down to the Week 16 matchup between the Cowboys and Eagles.

Both teams have the ability to win out and make the playoffs. But it sure looks like the winner of this division will be 8-8. Maybe 7-9. I think if the Eagles find a way to win, they are easily a one-and-done in the playoffs. But at least the Cowboys have a chance to get their act together and win at least 1 playoff game.

They will be playing either the 49ers, Seattle, Vikings or maybe even the Packers. Suffice to say the NFC East won't do much this year. Could see coaching changes for both teams in a few weeks.