In the United States National Football League action is heating up this weekend.With the reduced college schedule, the NFL is able to spread over more days ofthe weekend, with the current weekend starting on Thursday and lasting untilMonday. Yesterday the Detroit Lions kepttheir playoff hopes alive by beating thehapless Chicago Bears 20-10 in a rare Saturday game. Young quarterback Mitch Trubisky tried topull out a win, but the team fell short. 24 teams will play in Sunday's 12 big games.
The Los Angeles Rams, who travel to Seattle to take on theSeahawks, have a great possibility of pulling off an upset. Seattle is favoredby 1.5 (up from an open of one), but the Rams have been playing well, and couldpresent a challenge. The San Francisco49ers are slight favorites over the Tennessee Titans, but they look likely towin. The 49ers are 3-10, but have beensurging late in the season, having won three of their last four, that is, afterthe arrival of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. He seems to have inspired the young 49ers. The Titans, meanwhile, are 8-5 and in thehunt in the AFC South, so they won't roll over easily. They suffered a tough loss to underdogArizona last week and have been highly inconsistent on offense. This season they have also struggled awayfrom home. Should be an interestinggame. The Steelers and Patriots -- bothlegitimate Super Bowl contenders, are in the hunt to shore up their strengths,and so their play should be good this weekend. In international Cricket, each day makes it seem less likelythat England will "bring home the ashes," after this year's tour ofAustralia and New Zealand. Today is thefourth day of the third test, and the English appear to be demoralized, living the Ashes experience themselves, one might say. Australia,beginning the day on Saturday 203-3, scored 346-1 as the failings in theEnglish bowling attack were brutally exposed again by captain Steve Smith andMitchell Marsh. England now face twodays to try and save the match and at least keep the series alive to Melbourneand the fourth Test. Australia couldvery well go up 3-0 by the end of this match, preserving the ashes andrelegating the tour to just another national visit. Steve Smith struck his highest Test score onSaturday with an unbeaten 229, and his unbroken partnership of 301 for thefifth wicket with Marsh (181 not out) has turned the game from one whereEngland were still in a good position to one where their best case scenario nowis a draw. Australia is enjoying their best all-roundbowling attack for a decade in Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood andNathan Lyon to call from. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is currently on their tour of India, andwill meet the home team today in their third ODI (One Day International) atVisakhapatnam. After today's action, thetour will conclude with three successive T20 matches, on December 20 andDecember 22, culminating with the final action of the Tour, on Christmas Eve atMumbai. European Soccer appears to present a ho hum Sunday, with afew exceptions. Spanish La Liga play presentsfour games. League leader Barcelonacould really surge in the standings, as challenge Real Madrid, fresh from yesterday'svictory in the Club World Cup, has no games in Spain this weekend, and socannot garner any points. GermanBundesliga and French Ligue 1 both have a few games, but nothing overwhelminglyinteresting, at least to this space. Onthe surface, the Italian Serie A has many games on Sunday, 7 in total, but seeminglynothing of great interest. The most interesting soccer games Sunday inEurope would appear to be in the English Premier League, in which West BromwichAlbion will take on Manchester United, and AFC Bournemouth will contend with Liverpool. Man U and Liverpool are both near the top ofthe standings, and West Brom and Bournemouth near the bottom, but these twoteams often pull out unexpected wins. -- Posted By Rex to SR at 12/17/2017 12:36:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
