December 19, 2025
Your Super Bowl frontrunner entering Week 16?
Sam Darnold’s Redemption Tour Rolls On
What Happened: Last night, the Los Angeles Rams scored 37 points. QB Matthew Stafford threw for 457 yards and three TDs (no picks) and WR Puka Nacua’s statline was a video game-like 12 catches for 225 yards and two TDs. Plus, the old Sam Darnold made an appearance right on time, tossing two second-half interceptions to put his team into a 16-point hold in the 4th quarter.
We’ll let you guess who actually won this game.
Why You Care: Entering last night, the Seahawks had trailed by at least 16 points in the 4th quarter of a game 155 times in franchise history. They won zero of those games. Now it’s 1-155.
Darnold shook off the turnovers to lead a scoring drive late in the 4th quarter to send the game into overtime, then answered a Stafford-to-Nacua touchdown by connecting with Jaxon Smith-Njigba to pull within one point of a tie. Just as they had on the previous touchdown, the Seahawks elected to go for two, TE Eric Saubert slipped open, and Darnold found him. Final score: 38-37, and suddenly the NFC is Seattle’s for the taking.
Showing resilience, a measure of revenge for Darnold after LA thwarted him in last season’s playoffs, sure that’s all great. But what Seattle’s win really means is it cleared a path to the NFC’s #1 seed, a first-round bye, and home-field advantage throughout the postseason. Handle business in Week 17 against the Panthers (easy peasy) and the 49ers in Week 18 (less easy) and the Hawks will skip the line right into the divisional round of the playoffs.
Keep An Eye On...
Last night, Jokic surpassed NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for most assists ever recorded by a center. Abdul-Jabbar dished out 5,660 dimes in his career, which spanned 1,560 games. Last night was Jokic’s 771 career game; it took him fewer than half the number of games to catch Abdul-Jabbar.
Sometimes splitting stats by position is a pointless exercise. It’s especially the case for the fluid modern NBA game, where a player’s listed position rarely tells us much about his style of play. But Jokic is still the main galoot out there, fitting passes into impossible windows with his all-time court vision like a man a foot taller and, uhh, slightly less heavy? Yeah, let’s go with that. Anyway, congrats Nikola, and I hope you got to celebrate with a horsey ride.
The 2025 NFL MVP is…
Matthew Stafford — 61%
But yeah, Stafford’s gonna win this thing. He’s putting together a great season, and an MVP trophy will serve as a sort of lifetime achievement award as his career enters its final stretch.
Signed,
Jimmy, a Jets fan happy to see Sam thriving