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Bears overcome Caleb Williams' interceptions for 'SNF' win; resetting CFP race after Week 10

Plus, NFL trade deadline is a day away, and we project AP Top 25 after college basketball's opening week

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🐻 Five things to know Monday

  1. The Bears overcame five turnovers in a win over the Buccaneers. Chicago, somehow, put a bow on Sunday's NFL Week 9 action with a 27-24 victory. Caleb Williams threw a career-high four interceptions, and Luther Burden III coughed up a fumble late in the fourth quarter of what then became a tie game, but just moments after that final turnover, the Bears walked it off with a field goal. Tampa Bay's inability to capitalize on its third consecutive outing with at least four takeaways overshadowed the defensive effort itself and left it with a "C" grade on our Week 9 report card.
  2. Multiple top trade candidates will stay put at the NFL's Tuesday deadline. Even though the Colts are already in selling mode and were willing to listen to offers for Daniel Jones, they reportedly informed their quarterback he will not be dealt ahead of the trade deadline. Another quarterback off the market is Kirk Cousins. The Raiders did not receive any calls about him and are said to want to keep him. Derrick Henry is also expected to stick with the Ravens, and even as they remain winless, the Chargers reportedly have no interest in parting ways with Khalil Mack. One player who could be on the move, though, is Jonathan Taylor. The Colts running back said a preemptive goodbye to Indianapolis in case he departs from the city. And as far as buyers are concerned, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach told NFL on CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson that he wants to trade for a wide receiver ... And to put a big bow on it, our Zach Pereles has his take on who's buying and who's selling ahead of Tuesday's trade deadline.
  3. College football's loaded Week 10 reshaped the postseason picture. Starting at the top, Miami's loss and Georgia's resounding blowout win over Ole Miss placed the Bulldogs back atop the AP Top 25 and should make them the No. 1 team in the eyes of the College Football Playoff selection committee. Meanwhile, on the playoff bubble, Ohio State can probably kiss its championship hopes goodbye. The Buckeyes' home loss to Oregon precipitated a major drop in the Coaches Poll and put Ryan Day back under pressure, because even with a quarterback injury, there are few excuses for his expensive roster looking so lost. Former Buckeyes sounded off on Day and the OSU program, and CBS Sports analyst Damien Harris argued that Jeremiah Smith should sit out the rest of the season now that his team's CFP chances are slim.
  4. Philip Rivers will return to NC State as its head football coach. A program legend is coming home. Rivers is set to become the first hire on the coaching carousel and will be a familiar face on campus as a former star quarterback for the Wolfpack. This is his first college job, but he has been a successful high school coach since 2021. Elsewhere, there were no head coach firings after Week 10, but two schools parted ways with their offensive coordinators. Nebraska fired Dana Holgorsen during its four-game losing streak, and Michigan sacked Jason Beck following an embarrassing rivalry loss to Michigan State.
  5. College basketball's opening week is complete. A battle between No. 2 UConn and No. 16 Michigan delivered a tremendous showdown for the first weekend of the season and gave the Huskies their first marquee win. It may not eliminate the pain of last season's national championship game loss, but the victory in the rematch is a resume-builder for this year's title hunt and will keep the Huskies firmly locked into the top four of the Week 2 AP Top 25. The weekend also offered a stunner. Valparaiso shocked Purdue at the buzzer in double overtime to send the Boilermakers to their first 0-2 start since 1976.

πŸ“ Do not miss this: NFL Week 9 takeaways

Ja'Marr Chase Bengals flex
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Wide receiver play was off the charts to begin the third month of the NFL season. The Bengals and Packers showed off two of the best groups in the league when their top standouts went nuclear. Ja'Marr Chase, Matthew Golden and Christian Watson were among the three most impactful players in the league on Sunday when they combined for nearly 500 yards and three touchdowns.

Chase enjoyed a historic first half in Cincinnati's 34-17 win over the Falcons in Madrid as he racked up eight catches for 142 receiving yards in the opening half hour. Golden nearly matched those numbers in the first quarter of the Packers' rout of the Patriots alone, and he and Watson closed the day as the first pair of Packers teammates with 150 yards and a touchdown apiece in the same game since 1942.

Another one of this week's best performances actually came in a losing effort. Shedeur Sanders played some of the best football of his career in his first start of the season and made a case to remain the Browns' No. 1 quarterback, as our Zach Pereles explained.

  • Pereles: "There were several things Sanders delivered that Deshaun Watson simply doesn't. How about three completions on throws 30+ yards downfield? Watson has one ... all year! … Coaches rarely bench players due to injury, so I wouldn't be surprised if Watson returns to the lineup. Todd Monken refused to talk about it postgame. But in this writer's eyes, Sanders should keep the job."

Unfortunately, the injury bug was about as contagious this week as it has been at any point this season. Each of these big-name players dealt with something on Sunday:

πŸ† Resetting the College Football Playoff race

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: NOV 07 Miami vs Notre Dame
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November college football just hits different. An absolutely loaded Week 10 slate produced de facto College Football Playoff eliminators and shook up the front of the national championship race, so there is a lot to unpack. The projected CFP bracket now sees another new No. 1 seed and features a first-round bye for Utah, which topped BYU in a riveting top 10 rivalry battle. We gave the Utes a "B+" on our Week 10 report card for their 28-20 win, which kept them undefeated and in control of their own postseason destiny.

The biggest winner of the week, though, has to be Notre Dame. Not only did the Fighting Irish secure a cathartic win over the team that sneaked into the CFP field over them last year (leaving Miami's Mario Cristobal furious with the officials in doing so), but they also cemented their 2026 playoff case in the process and earned a signature win for their Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback, CJ Carr. Our Shehan Jeyarajah painted the picture for Carr's award campaign.

  • Jeyarajah: "Carr was magnificent in the win, throwing for 319 yards and three touchdowns, one of the best performances of his career. He jumps to the lead in the Heisman Trophy conversation after the win, especially after outdueling Darian Mensah. But more importantly, Notre Dame effectively punched its ticket to the College Football Playoff."

The SEC, meanwhile, is home to one of Week 10's most significant losers. This conference is so cannibalistic that every team now owns a transitive loss to every other program, and LSU now also owns a head-to-head loss to Alabama. All of the hype around this Tigers squad has run its course now that it is 0-3 against ranked opponents. Does Lane Kiffin have a Crimson Tide problem? That might be a little bit of an overreaction, but our Brandon Marcello did point out some damning history.

  • Marcello: "LSU entered Saturday a 5.5-point favorite, but couldn't do anything offensively -- Kiffin's bread and butter -- and the LSU faithful poured out of Tiger Stadium in the fourth quarter. Kiffin fell to 0-6 against the Tide as a head coach. Four of those losses have been by double digits. The closest he came to defeating the Tide was in 2009, his first try, in a 12-10 loss as Tennessee's head coach."

πŸ‘πŸ‘Ž The best (and not-so-best) of the rest

Lakers vs Trail Blazers in LA
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πŸ“Ί What we're watching Monday

πŸ€ Wizards at Pistons, 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Network
πŸ€ (M) Grambling at No. 7 Texas, 7 p.m. on SEC Network
πŸ€ (M) Radford at No. 8 Tennessee, 7 p.m. on SEC Network+
πŸ€ (M) Wagner at No. 4 UConn, 7 p.m. on truTV
πŸ€ (W) Morehead State at No. 8 Vanderbilt, 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network+
🀼 WWE Raw, 8 p.m. on Netflix
🏈 Bills at Vikings, 8:15 p.m. on ABC
πŸ€ Pelicans at Warriors, 10 p.m. on NBA TV

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