Who’s in charge of the NFL’s AFC West with three weeks to play? The 10-3 Chargers, who’ve won nine of 10 coming off a Week 3 loss to the Rams, are still looking up at 11-2 Kansas City. Add to that the Chiefs’ season-opening 38-28 win at StubHub Center in Carson over the Chargers. This Week 15 rematch at Arrowhead Stadium in K.C. (5:20 p.m., Channel 11) has a chance to figure out how the AFC will shake out, considering the Chiefs are also No. 1 in the conference (with New England at No. 2, Houston at No. 3 and Pittsburgh at No. 4 based on leading their respective divisions, which makes the Chargers at No. 5 and Baltimore at No. 6). The Chiefs, by virtue of a 27-24 OT win over Baltimore, have secured a playoff bid, and the Chargers can pretty much do the same with a win here. If the Chargers win on Thursday and draw even in the standings, the Chiefs would hold the tie-breaker at that moment with a better division record. The Chiefs would be 4-1, the Chargers 3-2.
If the Chiefs win on Thursday, they’ll clinch the division, having swept the season series with two games remaining, and then it will be a matter of getting the best seed possible.
Meanwhile, the 11-2 and NFC West secure Rams have another Sunday night prime-time contest against the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles (5:20 p.m., Channel 4) at the Coliseum. These two also faced off at the Coliseum in Week 14 last season, and the Eagles pulled away with a 43-35 win that was marked by Carson Wentz throwing for four TDs before he tore his left ACL and missed the rest of the season.
The end of Week 14:
* Minnesota at Seattle, Monday at 5:15 p.m., ESPN
The rest of Week 15:
* Houston at N.Y. Jets, Saturday at 1:30 p.m., NFL Network
* Cleveland at Denver, Saturday at 5:20 p.m., NFL Network
* New England at Pittsburgh, Sunday at 1:25 p.m., Channel 2
* Dallas at Indianapolis, Sunday at 10 a.m., Channel 11
* Oakland at Cincinnati, Sunday at 10 a.m., Channel 2 Continue reading “12.10.18: Five things you should plan for the week ahead based on unscientific evidence of guaranteed importance”
It’s not too little or too late for this “L.A. Football In Prime Time” run to play out as the NFL season comes to the realization that both the Rams and Chargers remain viable NFC and AFC contenders. In Week 14, the NFC West champs Rams are in a flexed-in game at Chicago going to NBC (Sunday, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4). This comes after the Week 11 Rams-Chiefs 54-51 historic matchup and the Week 13 Chargers’ appearance on “Sunday Night Football” at Pittsburgh. Coming up: A Chargers at Kansas City Week 15 matchup on a Thursday night just before the Rams play host to Philadelphia on a Sunday night, the Chargers at home on a Week 16 Saturday night against Baltimore, and on the final Sunday of Week 17 we have both the Rams (home vs. San Francisco) and Chargers (at Denver) are in two of the three late-afternoon de-facto spotlight games (up against Arizona-Seattle) for national attention. But by that point, both teams will have likely clinched a playoff spot and be trying to make sure it’s injury free before the Jan. 5-6 playoff schedule begins.
The dust will settle on the conference championship games played out on Friday and Saturday, meaning they can settle on the final College Football Playoff poll, rankings and bowl assignments in a Sunday TV production (9 a.m., ESPN).
Promoters of this Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury matchup at Staples Center (Saturday, card starts at 6 p.m., Showtime PPV, $65) call it the “most important heavyweight fight in the United States since Lennox Lewis took on Mike Tyson in 2002.” We gotta take a quick look at that one: It was held in Memphis because Nevada wouldn’t give Tyson a license after a press conference brawl he had with Lewis and admitted to biting Lewis on his leg, giving him $335,000 in restitution. Ring Magazine voted it the “Event of the Year” before the fight even took place between Lewis, with the WBC, IBF and IBO title belts, against Tyson, who used to hold all those titles and more. Lewis knocked Tyson out in the eighth round. Both won $17.5 million. Ring Magazine also called it the “Knockout of the Year.” Now there’s this: the 6-foot-7 Wilder (40-1, 39 KOs) as the WBC heavyweight champ from Tuscaloosa, Ala., against the 6-foot-9 the “linear (WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO, Ring)” heavyweight champ Fury (27-0, 19 KOs), who, when he was born in England in 1988, was named after Mike Tyson by his father. Staples Center won out over Las Vegas and New York in bidding to have the fight venue. “I’ve worked my ass off to get to this very point in my life and now I’m here,” said Wilder. “Right now is the biggest fight in the world in the heavyweight division and we’re going to L.A. to do this thing and bring out all the stars.”
Between the Lakers and Clippers, only one of their games this coming week draws national attention. Don’t bother guessing: It’s the Clippers contest at Sacramento on Thursday (7:30 p.m., TNT).
Because this is the time we look forward to measuring up Southern California college basketball teams against each other, the most intriguing may turn out to be 7-0 Loyola Marymount’s trip to UCLA on Sunday (at Pauley Pavilion, 7 p.m., Pac-12 Network). The Lions are off to the best start in school history and includes some notable wins over Georgetown, UNLV and even a two-pointer over Central Connecticut with a couple of free throws with one second left. No. 17 UCLA comes into the week 4-2 after back-to-back losses to Michigan State at North Carolina in Las Vegas.
Also:
“Look at the size of his hands,” Leavy said with amazement. “I describe them in the book as being the size of a back hoe. Twitter? I don’t think he’d have been able to Tweet with those hands.”
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 