Vikings Kick Off the Season Against Packers Today — and No. 1 Ohio State Just Went Down
It's Vikings day in Minnesota. The season opener against Green Bay — a rivalry game if there ever was one — headlines the local weekend, and CBS Sports writers Jordan Dajani and Jared Dubin made it one of their featur...
Quick Hits
- The NFL's first full Sunday is today, and the Vikings are right in the middle of it: they open the season against the division-rival Packers, one of the marquee matchups CBS's experts circled for Week 1.
- College football chaos: No. 4 Texas rallied past No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday night behind quarterback Arch Manning, and CBS projects the Longhorns to take over the top spot in the rankings.
- The other stunner: Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker — once a high-school B-team punter — threw for 317 yards and three total touchdowns to knock off No. 6 Oregon.
- Baseball's first playoff tickets are punched: the Rays became the first team to clinch a postseason spot this season, and the Brewers became the first National League team — with a 20-0 demolition of Cincinnati.
- Team USA basketball meets France in the World Cup final in Berlin, chasing a fifth straight gold medal.
Minnesota Teams
It's Vikings day in Minnesota. The season opener against Green Bay — a rivalry game if there ever was one — headlines the local weekend, and CBS Sports writers Jordan Dajani and Jared Dubin made it one of their featured Week 1 picks (no consensus verdict in the excerpts, so we'll let the game settle it). No score to report yet since kickoff is Sunday. Beyond that, today's feed has nothing on the Twins, Timberwolves, Wild, Lynx, or Gophers — football season has swallowed everything else whole.
NFL
The first full Sunday of the NFL season is here, which means everyone's record is 0-0 and optimism is at its annual peak. The featured early window games include Buffalo traveling to Houston, where C.J. Stroud and the Texans are getting some love as underdogs from CBS's betting writers.
The nightcap is the one to circle: the Giants and Cowboys, old NFC East rivals, open the "Sunday Night Football" schedule in a matchup CBS notes doubles as John Harbaugh's debut — same guy who long ran the Ravens, now with new scenery. If you like a computer's opinion, SportsLine's simulation model is backing the Lions and Eagles on Sunday.
MLB
The postseason picture is starting to fill in. The Tampa Bay Rays became the first team in baseball to officially clinch a playoff spot this season, and CBS Sports lays out the case that they're a legitimate World Series contender rather than a one-and-done.
Not to be outdone, the Milwaukee Brewers became the first National League team to clinch — and they did it in style, hanging a 20-0 rout on the Reds on Friday night. Garrett Mitchell hit the Brewers' first grand slam of the entire season, one of four Milwaukee home runs in the game, and ESPN notes the Brewers own baseball's best record. The bigger storyline, per CBS: Milwaukee has never won a World Series, and this might be the roster to finally change that.
College Sports
The week's headline: Texas beat Ohio State. The No. 4 Longhorns erased a deficit against the No. 1 Buckeyes on Saturday night in Austin behind what CBS calls a "signature rally" from quarterback Arch Manning, and CBS now projects Texas to surge to No. 1 in the new rankings. The flip side: CBS says Ohio State is suddenly "walking a College Football Playoff tightrope" — an early loss to a elite team leaves almost no margin for error the rest of the way.
The weekend's other earthquake came in Stillwater, where Oklahoma State knocked off No. 6 Oregon behind Drew Mestemaker, whose backstory is genuinely wild: he was a B-team high schooler who punted before eventually becoming the Cowboys' starting quarterback. In CBS's "Week 2 overreactions" column, the loss raises major questions about Oregon — and the outlet writes that quarterback Dante Moore's much-hyped return to the Ducks is "backfiring badly," with the defeat clouding his NFL draft stock.
Other Sports
Team USA basketball has a final to play: the Americans face France in the World Cup final in Berlin, going for a fifth straight gold. Worth knowing, per CBS's preview: France came within a whisker of beating the U.S. at the Paris Olympics, so this is no ceremonial coronation.
At the U.S. Open, the men's final is set: Alexander Zverev against Ben Shelton. CBS's tennis handicapper Jose Onorato has picks if you're the wagering type — we'll simply note someone's taking home a trophy Sunday.
And from Saturday night's Noche UFC card: Alexa Grasso knocked down Manon Fiorot on her way to a win, then declared her days as UFC champion aren't over — she's promising to reclaim the flyweight title. Earlier on the card, Tommy McMillen survived a serious scare, dropped Marwan Rahiki, and kept his undefeated record intact in what CBS called a thriller.