The first week of the NFL preseason is complete with the Chargers topping the Saints 27-13 and the Bears and Dolphins finishing in a 24-24 tie. L.A. is the first team to improve to 2-0 this preseason, having also played in the Hall of Fame Game.

Trey Lance led the Chargers’ attack, passing for 55 yards while rushing for 48 yards and a touchdown. Rookie cornerback Eric Rogers had two interceptions, including a pick six, but suffered a late injury. Rookie Tyler Shough made his debut for New Orleans, passing for 165 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

Tyson Bagent went 13-of-19 passing for the Bears for 103 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, while Zach Wilson led the way for the Dolphins, passing for 96 yards.

Week 2 of the preseason begins on Friday with two games: Titans at Falcons and Chiefs at Seahawks.

The 2025 NFL preseason continued in a big way on Saturday with eight games after three games on Thursday and three more on Friday.

Saturday’s action featured the debuts of the top two picks in April’s NFL Draft – Tennessee’s Cam Ward and Jacksonville’s Travis Hunter. Each only played part of the first quarter in their respective games alongside the rest of their team’s first string offense.

Ward was solid against Tampa Bay, completing 5-of-8 passes for 67 yards. Hunter was targeted only twice but caught both passes for 9 total yards. He also played cornerback against Pittsburgh later in the game.

There are two more games on Sunday to wrap up the first week of the NFL’s preseason:

“NFL RedZone” is my favorite TV show and has been since I first turned it on in 2011. Host Scott Hanson once gave my kid an on-air shoutout before the popular weekly “Touchdown Montage.” It’s among the most brilliantly executed TV shows in history, sports or otherwise, and I am among its many devoted fans who subscribe every fall.

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ESPN acquiring the rights to the “RedZone” brand is a fun, exciting component of its larger blockbuster deal with the NFL, and I hope the network tries to be creative with it. Many people are discussing the idea of applying the show beyond the NFL and creating a “RedZone” for college football (or, let’s call it, “CFB RedZone”).

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell accelerated the discussion, appearing on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” on Wednesday by saying the network purchased the “RedZone” name and can use it for other sports, including college football.

There are specific reasons why “NFL RedZone” works so well. It is unique as a product and is challenging to replicate. However, it is unlikely to be matched across other sports, even ones with as much popular appeal as college football.

1. Why people watch “RedZone” (aka my fantasy team)

The most obvious reason to watch “NFL RedZone” — beyond marveling at Hanson’s rhetorical dexterity — is because you play fantasy football, and it’s a fun way to monitor all of the various touchdowns and big plays for your fantasy team (and maybe that week’s opponent). College football doesn’t have traction as a fantasy product; the games themselves are frequently and consistently exciting, but any given player scoring any given touchdown matters less to fans who have no vested interest in that player’s performance.

There is also the essential “RedZone” promise — “Every Touchdown From Every Game.” It is the heart of the original, successful pitch to NFL executives, and it is one of the most effective catch-phrases in sports media. “CFB RedZone” could make no such promise; there are too many touchdowns to monitor and show to fans. A typical “NFL RedZone” on Sundays might have 60, 70 or even 80 touchdowns. That’s a standard Saturday in the Big 12 alone, not to mention every other conference that is playing. Speaking of monitoring…

2. Rights

The NFL controls its deals with every network, which allows “RedZone” to exist. Fox and CBS executives begrudgingly live with the show because every subscriber means one less fan watching the Fox or CBS broadcasts. ESPN controls its deals with the games it has the rights to, which means a great Big Ten game on CBS, a massive Notre Dame game on NBC or the Week 1 Game of the Year on Fox’s Big Noon Saturday potentially won’t be part of the “whiparound” coverage, defeating the purpose.

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Could ESPN theoretically offer an incentive for Fox, CBS and NBC to allow its “CFB RedZone” to duck into their games? Sure. ESPN could give the networks cash, or maybe it could be rolled up into an ESPN upsell offer on the ESPN app to access NBC’s Peacock or CBS’s Paramount or Fox’s Fox One streaming networks, but that seems like an imbalanced trade for Fox, CBS and NBC that they are unlikely to accept.

Also, even though ESPN’s “College GameDay” occasionally travels to a school site where the game itself is on another network, it would be odd for ESPN to promote a great game on another network, which could lead to fans turning off ESPN’s “RedZone” and tuning in directly to an awesome ending on Fox, NBC or CBS. It would be equally odd for an ESPN-games-only version of “CFB RedZone” to not have the rights or access to take you to an exciting game on another network. (ESPN tried this previously with a product called “Goal Line,” and it fizzled for many reasons, including that one.)

One of the draws of “NFL RedZone” is that it shows every touchdown from every game. (Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)

3. Access

One of the big draws of “NFL RedZone” is the “every game” part of the “every touchdown from every game” promise. Unless you have a product like “NFL Sunday Ticket,” you can only watch the NFL games selected for your home region — typically, your local team and one other game in the other window. One of the key benefits of “RedZone” is access to other games being played.

With college football, there is no regionalized walling-off — if it’s airing on TV, fans can find any game they want. (There are some exceptions, like games exclusively airing on a streamer like Peacock or smaller-school broadcasts airing on ESPN+, which are unlikely to rise to the level of “CFB RedZone” coverage anyway.)

4. Volume

The NFL’s early afternoon Sunday window (1 p.m. ET) has between seven to 10 games. The late afternoon window (4:30 p.m. ET) has four to six. This allows for a manageable flow between games. The “NFL RedZone” Octobox is an amazing visual, but it gets overwhelming after a few seconds, which is why producers take it off the screen.

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The average college football Saturday windows (noon, 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET) feature many more games, making it more complicated to program. As amazing as the frantic, frenetic “Witching Hour” is on “NFL RedZone,” in the end, it’s only a handful of games you’re being bounced around. With college football, the quantity of games to navigate would quickly overwhelm the quality of the production.

5. College football weirdness

There is a certain cadence to the way NFL teams score. Oh, sure, there are frequently explosive plays or dramatic, instant reversals of fortune. But it’s called “RedZone” because the backbone of the channel is tuning in when teams get inside the 20-yard line. In contrast, college football over-indexes on the volume of crazy plays. The Sun Belt Conference alone feels like one big scoring play after another.

“CFB RedZone” would be less about going live to a game because something exciting might be about to happen and more about showing the highlights of a crazy moment, which is not too far off from the role played by TikTok, X or your group chat.

I don’t mean to be a naysayer. I’m open to reasons why this can work. NBC’s “Gold Zone” channel was successful during the 2024 Paris Olympics because it checked many of these boxes, including the presence of Hanson. However, “NFL RedZone” is an obsession for fans for a reason, and those elements are why it will be challenging to replicate across other sports.

(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

The first NBA game on NBC in 23 years will feature the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder against perhaps their chief competition in the West, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are back on Christmas Day for the first time since the LeBron James era, league and network sources confirmed to The Athletic on Friday.

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The Rockets, who finished second in the West last season and traded for Kevin Durant, will play the Thunder on ring night on Oct. 21 — as is tradition in the NBA — followed by the Golden State Warriors at the Los Angeles Lakers.

This coming season is the first of an 11-year, $75 billion national TV contract for the NBA, which features a new partnership with Amazon and a reuniting of the league with NBC. ESPN and ABC remain partners — and will carry Christmas Day games per usual — while TNT is no longer a league partner.

ESPN was the first to report NBC’s opening night slate as well as the five Christmas Day games, which are:

Cleveland at the New York Knicks

San Antonio at Oklahoma City

Houston at the Lakers

Dallas at Golden State

Minnesota at Denver.

The Cavs finished first in the East in the 2024-25 season and have developed a rivalry with the Knicks. The team that beat them both in the playoffs last season — the Indiana Pacers — lost star point guard Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and they did not re-sign center Myles Turner in free agency.

The Spurs should have star Victor Wembanyama back from his blood clot that cost him the end of last season. Depending on what he decides career-wise, this could be LeBron’s last Christmas game, and the Timberwolves and Nuggets played each other on Christmas last season.

The Cavs last played on Christmas in 2017, in an NBA Finals rematch against the Warriors.

Cleveland and New York are the only two East teams playing on Christmas, in no small part due to injuries to stars on other teams. Not only is Haliburton out for the Pacers this season, but Celtics star Jayson Tatum will not play due to a torn Achilles — a likely factor in Boston not appearing on the league’s marquee day in the regular season.

The NBA will face competition from the NFL again on Christmas Day. Last year, it had to face off against two football games; this year, there will be three.

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The Cowboys will play the Commanders at 1 p.m. ET, the Lions and Vikings are set to kick off at 4:30 p.m. ET, and the Broncos and Chiefs will play at 8:15 p.m. ET. All three of those games will be streamed — the first two on Netflix and the latter on Amazon — so the NBA will have linear television all to itself.

Last year’s Christmas Day games did not lack viewers. It was the most viewed slate of games in five years, according to Nielsen, averaging 5.34 million viewers.

The Lakers-Warriors prime-time game averaged a combined 7.91 million viewers between ESPN and ABC. It was a hearty number for the NBA.

(Photo: Angela Weiss /AFP via Getty Images)

Tonight’s Lions-Falcons game was ended early in the fourth quarter after Detroit safety Morice Norris was taken off the field in an ambulance following an apparent injury to the head/neck area.

Lions coach Dan Campbell said after the game that Norris, who was taken to a local Atlanta hospital, was breathing, talking and had some movement.

Detroit was leading 17-10 when the game was ended thanks to a pair of touchdown passes by Kyle Allen.

Two other games were in action tonight as Week 1 of the NFL preseason continued, headlined by the debut of QB Shedeur Sanders for the Browns. Sanders threw two touchdown passes as Cleveland beat the Panthers 30-10.

Elsewhere, the Patriots beat Commanders 48-18, with the play of the night seeing TreVeyon Henderson return the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.