Following Sports Archives - Page 17 of 79

What do I need to know about the 2015 Atlanta Falcons?

National Football League (NFL) previews abound at this time of year. We’re close to the start of the 2015 NFL season and basically everyone in the sports world is in a tizzy, anticipating another great season of the country’s favorite sport. Whether you’re a beginning NFL fan, the family member, friend or partner of an NFL fan, or simply someone who doesn’t follow the league during the offseason, our team previews should get you ready for the season to begin.

If you’re curious about the history and culture surrounding the team, and not just the plot and characters of this edition of the team, read What’s special about the Atlanta Falcons?

How are Atlanta Falcons fans feeling heading into the 2015 NFL season?

Confident but trying not to jinx anything

When are the Atlanta Falcons on national television?

Use this to know when you should host a party with locally (or favorite team-ily) themed food!

Week 1 – vs. the Philadelphia Eagles on Mon, Sep 14 at 07:10 PM.
Week 6 – vs. the New Orleans Saints on Thu, Oct 15 at 08:25 PM.

When is the Atlanta Falcons bye week?

Use this to know when to plan that camping trip you’ve been wanting to go on.

Week 10

What was the Atlanta Falcons record last season, in 2014?

Expressed as: wins – losses – ties (if any).

6 – 10

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important departed characters?

Head coach of the Falcons since 2008, Mike Smith was fired after last year’s disappointing 6-10 record. The Falcons under Smith went to the playoffs four times in his first five years — a very impressive feat. Since the NFL playoffs, with their single elimination games, are basically a crap-shoot, it’s not hard to feel sympathy for Smith. How differently would he be regarded if the Falcons had lucked into even a single Super Bowl appearance? As it is, he’s remembered (for now) as a relatively bland manager.

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important new characters?

Smith is replaced by a man who no one would call bland. Dan Quinn, the new head coach of the Falcons, was defensive coordinator for the brash and dominating defense of the Seattle Seahawks for the past two years. In both of those years, the Seahawks advanced to the Super Bowl, thanks in large part to the strength of their defense. A former defensive end and record-setting hammer thrower, Quinn is a dominating presence. Quinn gets a new toy to play with in linebacker Vic Beasley, who the team selected eighth overall in this year’s draft.

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important characters?

When a team hires a defensive coach as their head coach, they’re making a statement about which side of the ball they feel needs more work. Quarterback Matt Ryan is a big reason why the powers that be in Atlanta felt they could let the offense fend for itself for a little while. Ryan’s public persona is bland but his play is anything but that. For the Falcons to succeed this year, Ryan will have to continue to improve. At age 30, he’s closing in on his peak years as a quarterback.

What is the most pivotal pivot point for the 2015 Atlanta Falcons?

Last year’s defense was one of the very worst in the league. If the new characters on defense can drag the rest of their defensive teammates from terrible to even just bad, the team has a good chance at success.

How will the 2015 Atlanta Falcons fare?

The defense will improve from terrible to bad, the offense will be even better than it has been and the Falcons will win their division.

What do I need to know about the 2015 Arizona Cardinals?

If you’re curious about the history and culture surrounding the team, and not just the plot and characters of this edition of the team, read What’s special about the Arizona Cardinals?

How are Arizona Cardinals fans feeling heading into the 2015 NFL season?

Trepidatious

When are the Arizona Cardinals on national television?

Use this to know when you should host a party with locally (or favorite team-ily) themed food!

Week 7 – vs. the Baltimore Ravens on Mon, Oct 26 at 08:30 PM.
Week 10 – vs. the Seattle Seahawks on Sun, Nov 15 at 08:30 PM.
Week 14 – vs. the Minnesota Vikings on Thu, Dec 10 at 08:25 PM.

When is the Arizona Cardinals bye week?

Use this to know when to plan that camping trip you’ve been wanting to go on.

Week 9

What was the Arizona Cardinals record last season, in 2014?

Expressed as wins – losses – ties (if any).

11 – 5

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important departed characters?

Todd Bowles: defensive coordinator for the Cardinals in each of the last two years, Bowles left this Spring for a head coaching position in Atlanta. Bowles was a bit of a magician during his time with the Cardinals, keeping his defense aggressive and effective despite changing personel and large numbers of injuries. Cardinals fans are a little scared about how much his loss will hurt the team.

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important new characters?

The Achilles Heel for last year’s Cardinals was that they were unable to keep a quarterback upright and healthy because their offensive line was so poor. They’ve tried to address that problem by signing veteran guard Mike Iupati from the San Francisco 49ers and drafted Tackle D.J. Humphries from Florida in the 24th pick of the first round. Neither of these moves will launch the offensive line to stardom, but the hope is that they shift it from terrible to mediocre.

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important characters?

Head Coach Bruce Arians is almost always the biggest character in the room. He’s an iconoclast who wears his weirdness literally on his head. He’s famous for wearing kangol hats. When it comes to football, he’s ready to try just about anything that might work but he has some clear preferences. On offense, he wants to throw the ball farther down the field more often than any other coach in the league. This high-risk, high-reward strategy asks a lot of the team’s quarterbacks and offensive linemen, which has been a problem in the last two years.

What is the most pivotal pivot point for the 2015 Arizona Cardinals?

Will the offensive line improve enough to keep the Cardinals quarterback of choice, 35-year old Carson Palmer, survivor of two torn ACLs and a damaged nerve in his shoulder already, healthy enough to play out the season?

How will the 2015 Arizona Cardinals fare?

Nah… the line will be better but Palmer will probably get injured anyway. That’s football, I guess, but it does feel a little tragic. Arizona won’t have as good of a record as last year.

Deflategate: How Brady and the NFL have already won

Today or tomorrow, U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman will rule in the legal case between quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and the National Football League which wants to suspend him for four games for participating in or having knowledge of the illicit deflation of some of the footballs the Patriots played offense with during the AFC Championship game last spring or at least of not having cooperated fully in the NFL’s investigation of the incident. When Judge Berman rules, he will effectively write the ending of a saga that has lasted throughout the NFL’s offseason. There may be appeals after this, but because the new season starts in a week, they probably won’t last long or be hotly followed. Judge Berman can rule in any of three ways. He could uphold the NFL’s suspension of Brady, he could eliminate the suspension, or he could reduce the penalty to a shorter suspension or even just a fine.

In days past, this second paragraph would have been a bulleted list of the outcomes with a short explanation of what to say about each possible outcome. This is still a practical way to think about preparing for the Deflategate ruling, but not the most meaningful one. That’s because, with the ruling (finally) approaching, it seems clear that regardless of the legal outcome, the outcome in popular opinion has already settled inextricably into a simple mold: both sides have won.

Tom Brady and the Patriots have won the battle of public opinion. When the Deflategate controversy first broke, most people believed that Brady or the Patriots had doctored the footballs. This was partially because the NFL and some media outlets were telling the public that this was true but also just because it seemed like something the Patriots and Brady would do. Everyone knows the Patriots are shady! Believing that they would be shady in this particular way was a small leap for most non-Patriot fan football fans. Throughout the spring and summer, the Patriots waged a fairly impressive war for public opinion, starting with Bellichick’s mildly bizarre foray into the science of gasses and continuing as Brady appealed the NFL’s decision and then took the league to court. In court, Judge Berman has been publicly quite critical of the NFL’s handling of the situation. By now, most people either believe that the balls were never deflated, or that if they were, Brady had nothing to do with it, or at least that the NFL’s investigation and ruling on the matter has been so out of proportion to the crime as to render the crime itself insignificant. People on the other side of the issue are either biased fans of rival teams or moralizing, holier-than-thou teetotalers.

The NFL has lost in the court of public opinion, so how can they also have won? Back in February, I asked whether the entire Deflategate controversy was a clever piece of misdirection on the NFL’s part to keep the football world talking about balls instead of brain injuries. Perhaps Deflategate was something the NFL was using to keep football fans and media from writing about the far more disturbing and threatening twin issues of brain injury and domestic violence that should have dominated the football conversation in the fallow period leading up to the Super Bowl. I was wrong — we were going to keep talking about Deflategate all through the offseason, but maybe I was also right. The NFL is in a tight spot when it comes to brain injuries. After years (maybe decades) of denying their impact on players, the league now needs to find a way to address the causes and consequences of brain injury and concussion before it robs them of their workforce and consumer base in any meaningful way. The NFL has not yet come up with any realistic solutions to address the problem (maybe they should read my proposed solution!) The football world would have been focused completely on brain injuries, especially when as amazing a focal point as the retirement of 24 year-old linebacker Chris Borland appeared, but instead it talked about deflated balls and morality all summer. Regardless of how bad the NFL looks on those topics, they are not a threat to football in the way that brain injuries are. By keeping the Deflategate “scandal” going all summer, the NFL has won another season to solve the concussion crisis. That’s a victory for them too.

Judge Berman’s ruling will be announced soon and what it is will seem like a referendum on who “won” the Deflategate scandal. If the suspension is upheld, it will seem like the NFL won. If it is eliminated, it will seem like Brady and the Patriots won. If Brady’s penalty is reduced but not eliminated, it may seem like the two sides fought to a draw. This will be an illusion. Regardless of the Judge’s ruling, both sides have already won.

How to plan for the week of Aug 31 – Sept 6, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: Uh… I thought the sports doldrums of the summer season were over, but here they come again, in waves of sports wilderness. With European soccer leagues paused during their transfer period and the college and professional football seasons just about to take off, there’s basically nothing on the sports schedule except tennis. The U.S. Open opens in Queens, NY, on Monday and you can spend all day watching them, from 11 a.m. until late in the evening. There are always a few upsets in the early rounds of the tournament and the crowd is second to none.

Thursday: If you’re sick of tennis by Thursday, (and if you really spend all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday watching it, you might be), then breathe a sigh of relief, Thursday brings variety to this week’s sports. Iceland probably doesn’t have a chance against the Netherlands in their men’s soccer European Championships qualifying match, but you never know. In the evening, tune into one of the first big college football games to watch Michigan and their new coach, Jim Harbaugh, who once starred as a quarterback there, play against Utah.

Friday: Date night takes on a patriotic tone this week as the U.S. men’s national soccer team plays against Peru. Earlier in the day, the deep and tortured history of conflict between Germany and Poland plays itself out on the soccer field as well.

Saturday: Football, football, football! This is the first truly full day of the college football schedule. There are good games to watch from noon to midnight and beyond, but the one that I’m most interested is Alabama, one of the favorites to win the championship, against Wisconsin, a team that has a punchers chance of beating them. Two playoff teams face off in one of the last games of the NWSL regular season. There’s more tennis and a NASCAR race, as well as some rare international Rugby Union action on NBC Sports Network.

Sunday: The week closes with, (yes), more tennis from the U.S. Open. Pending rain, the Round of 16 should start today, and that’s where you start to see the best play against the best. Other than that, there’s the final round of the week’s golf tournament, another NASCAR race, a decent MLS matchup, and boxing on CBS.

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.

How to plan for the week of Aug 24 – 30, 2015

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Liverpool vs. Arsenal is a hack of a game. Nice work by the British Premier League setting that up. If you work a 9-5 (or 6, as they seem to be these days,) set your DVR and watch the soccer when you get home. There’s no point in watching any NFL Preseason game, really, but the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers is truly pointless.

Tuesday: Do you enjoy watching little league baseball? I do. More than other sports, baseball is fun to watch for joy of the game, not skill of the players. Monaco vs. Valencia is the best of the early season UEFA Champions League play.

Wednesday: Manchester United looked strong in the first half of their two game series against the Belgian Team, Club Brugge. They won 3-1 and should easily advance in today’s soccer game. There’s more little league baseball in the afternoon and then a NWSL match in the evening. The Boston Breakers are in last place and the Seattle Reign are in first. The last time these two teams played, I was there in person, and the Reign won handily despite some very spirited defense from the Breakers.

Thursday: There’s nothing quite like a Canadian Football league game sandwiched between two little league baseball games. Think of it like a really weird sports ice-cream sandwich.

Friday: Date night! I think an NFL preseason game would be a hard sell, but a West Coast MLS rivalry game? Also… probably a hard sell. Neither one is a good hill to die on.

Saturday: Football, football, football, football. It’s not even time for the start of the NFL season yet and we’ve already got a weekend dominated by football. Watch some high school kids at noon and then the championship of the Arena Football League at seven p.m. The British Premier League schedule in the morning isn’t star studded, but the Tottenham vs. Everton game does feature two of the more popular teams in the U.S. market.

Sunday: There’s no hotter rivalry in United States soccer than that between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. If you don’t believe me, watch the match at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN. The final day of competition at the IIAF track and field World Championships should be a doozy, especially if Usain Bolt continues to struggle. I’m also interested in the last NWSL regular season game of the season on Fox Sports 1 between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit.

Dear Sports Fan's Football Fan and Friend Fantasy Football League

Joining a fantasy football league can be an intimidating prospect. It’s a big commitment – usually 16 weeks. Fantasy football seems to require a great deal of knowledge about and passion for football. Then, you add a level of game-play on top of that. Fantasy football is also challenging from a social perspective. Leagues are closed societies with their own culture and expected behavior. The people in them look like they are having a ton of fun but it’s almost impossible to share their enjoyment if you’re not on the inside. All of this adds up to making fantasy football a difficult thing for beginners to break into. This fall, we’re going to try to find a soluton!

Dear Sports Fan’s Football Fan and Friend Fantasy Football League (the DSFFFFFFL for short) is a brand new kind of fantasy football league. Teams will be owned and operated by pairs of people: one a football and fantasy football veteran; the other, someone who is brand new to fantasy football. Throughout the process, we’ll be open and attentive to explaining anything that needs explaining. Both sides will learn a lot and have fun too! I’ll write about the league in Dear Sports Fan and will likely ask for each pair of owners to do a podcast with me about the experience sometime during the year.

If you’ve ever wanted to play fantasy football but were afraid to try, find an experienced friend of yours and get her to join with you.
If you’re an experienced fantasy owner who has always wanted to share the experience with a friend of yours, invite him to join the DSFFFFFFL.

Send an email to dearsportsfan@gmail.com with a little bit of information about who each of you is and how you know each other. We will be taking applicants until Saturday, August 29.

How to plan for the week of Aug 16 – 23, 2015?

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The Supercopa is not Spain’s most coveted soccer prize, but this game between Barcelona and Bilbao is fascinating. It’s the second leg in a two game cup tie. Bilbao upset Barcelona 4-0 in the first half, so Barcelona will need to win by even more than that today to stay in the tournament. That means the greatest offensive team in the world (Barcelona) will be throwing everything they have at the opponents in this game. Should be fun to watch!

Tuesday: During periods of Champions League play, there are a set of games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The best of the bunch and the most easily watched in the United States is Liverpool vs. the Belgian team, Club Brugge. Pair this game with the over-the-top good movie, In Bruges, and you’ve really got something!

Wednesday: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team won the first stop on their victory tour last week, 8-0 against Costa Rica in Pittsburgh. Today, poor Costa Rica gets another shot at the World Champions, this time in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The results will probably be similar, but don’t cry for Costa Rica, they’ll be making some very nice money for their country’s soccer federation.

Thursday: The Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns are more famous for losing football games than winning them. Lucky for everyone, preseason football isn’t really football. Someone’s got to win and someone’s bound to watch, but it won’t be me.

Friday: Date night! Head off for a date night of watching some of your favorite women’s soccer players face off in a nationally televised NWSL game!

Saturday: A great blend of soccer, track and field, volleyball and car racing enables you to pretend that it’s the Olympics, if that’s your sort of thing. It’s definitely mine!

Sunday: The last stage of the Cycling USA Pro Challenge takes its riders from Golden to Denver and up the famous Lookout Mountain — a formidable pass even if the riders weren’t a mile high to start with. Which they are… so it should be exciting to watch. British Premier League soccer, golf, and preseason football round out the day’s offerings.

Did EA Sports' FIFA '16 rate the USWNT players fairly?

EA Sports’ newest installment of their soccer video game, FIFA 16, will be coming out on September 22, 15. When it does, it will feature women’s soccer players for the first time ever. This is an exciting development for fans of gender equality AND fans of the U.S. women’s soccer team. One of the most hotly anticipated aspects of the release of any new sports video game is the rating of players. Fans (and even players) obsess over player ratings. Is Player A too high? How could they possibly have made Player B only a 75 (all the ratings are out of 100)? For the first time ever, we get to obsess over the ratings of our favorite female soccer players as well as male. On Twitter today, I saw the first leak of the overall ratings of the players from the U.S. Women’s soccer team from Women’s Football Comp. Here they are, in order, with my comments. If you want to know more about any of the players, I’ve linked to the profiles of them that I wrote before the World Cup.

Abby Wambach – 88: Okay, this is clearly an honorary legacy rating for the greatest international soccer goal scorer of all time. At 35, she’s no longer the best striker in the world, not even on her own national team. She came in off the bench in the last few World Cup games and that’s one of the reasons the team won the Cup. After all she’s done for the country and sport, I’m okay with this. Wambach forever!
Megan Rapinoe – 87: This is an interesting rating and perhaps shows what strengths the FIFA game weighs more heavily than others. The U.S. vs. Germany semifinal notwithstanding, Rapinoe is normally a player who emphasizes technical skill over speed and strength. She’s can strike a set piece with the best of them and hit streaking attackers in stride with her accurate passing. The best non-Wambach player though? I’m not sure.
Hope Solo – 87: Now we’re cooking with gas. Solo is still the best goalkeeper in the world. An intimidating presence in the net, Solo has earned every one of those 87 rating points.
Carli Lloyd – 86: The hero of the World Cup for the USA, Lloyd’s strengths translate well to video gaming. She’s a physical beast, strong and durable, and if her long-range shooting rating is not 100, something is very, very wrong at EA Sports headquarters.
Becky Sauerbrunn – 84: I could not be more happy with this rating. The back-four for the USA were my favorite part of the World Cup and, although she didn’t get as much acclaim as some of her defensive teammates, Sauerbrunn was the solid foundation that made it all happen. She’s totally dependable, which is exactly what you want out of a defender.
Alex Morgan – 84: Yeah, well, okay, fine. I’m not a big fan of Morgan, either on the field or off, but she does have some very easily replicable skills. She’s very fast and extremely clever at making threatening runs through the defense. Her finishing touch leaves something to be desired, but at 84, I think that’s probably represented in her rating. She does everything else very well.
Tobin Heath – 83: This overall rating is surely bolstered by the fact that Heath has the dribbling skills of an alien whose entire evolution has been devoted to soccer dribbling. She’s a freak.
Christie Rampone – 83: Another honorary rating and another acceptable one based on her overall career arc. The only woman who was on the team that won the 1999 and 2015 World Cups deserves everything she gets. Just get her out of your lineup if you play as the United States in the game. Don’t break up the true back four for Rampone’s honorary strength.
Sydney Leroux – 82: Leroux had trouble breaking into the U.S. lineup at the World Cup, but this rating rings true nonetheless. She’s virtually interchangeable with Alex Morgan, just ever so slightly worse. It’s why it’s hard for her to get playing time in real life and in video games.
Lauren Holiday – 81: If I had my druthers, I’d push Holiday’s rating a little bit farther up, but her true strength, vision, is virtually impossible to capture in a video game.
Julie Johnston – 81: If Johnston had been able to continue her scoring streak from the Algarve Cup into the World Cup, she’d be one of the top five players in the game. As is, this rating probably reflects that we should expect a little bit of regression to the mean in her play. She had a sublime streak of about fifteen games but there are cracks in her armor, which we saw against Germany and Japan.
Heather O’Reilly – 81: I guess? For her have played only nine minutes in the World Cup and to be higher than several players who played key roles seems strange to me.
Kelley O’Hara – 81: The proverbial spark plug off the bench for the U.S. in the World Cup, O’Hara looked every bit as good as her rating suggests. I might even push her up past Leroux and Heath, but at this point we’re quibbling over a few rating points.
Ashlyn Harris – 80: Being stuck behind Hope Solo is no shame. The second best goalie on the U.S. team may also be the second best goalie in the world.
Ali Krieger – 80: I’m surprised to see a core member of the U.S. defense so far down the list, especially one whose public profile is as high as Krieger’s.
Whitney Engen – 79: Engen could have, might have, would have been the starting central defender if an injury had not given Johnston a chance to seize the day (and the position.) Engen is a solid player but given her lack of playing time in the World Cup, I’m surprised she was not at the bottom of the list.
Morgan Brian – 74: Here’s where things start getting crazy. Brian was a key piece, some would argue THE KEY PIECE, that, once inserted into the lineup, made the U.S. team’s run to the World Cup championship possible. Even playing slightly out of position at defensive midfield, Brian was a rock. At 22, she’s also has one of the brightest future’s in the game, something that, in many game modes, players should actually get to experience. I hope that the programmers at least put that in. If you play more than a year or two into the future, Brian should be the top rated U.S. player seven times out of 10.
Amy Rodriguez – 74: Oh, fine. I think Rodriguez gets a raw deal, but she’s used to it. There’s no way she’s ten rating points worse than Alex Morgan.
Christen Press – 72: This is just stupid. Anyone who can do this to the French defense should be rated much higher. The awkwardness of her fit with Lloyd and Rapinoe in the midfield held her back from World Cup stardom and now it’s being reflected in this rating. That’s a shame!

Missing – A few players were not included in @jigsawwill’s Twitter posts. Here is my best guess at what their rating might be and why.

Alyssa Naeher – 80: As a Boston Breakers fan, I get to sit right behind Naeher and watch her work on a regular basis. She is an extraordinary keeper. I’m putting her even with Hope Solo’s other backup, Ashlyn Harris, who I haven’t seen play as much, but who I assume must be equally good.
Meghan Klingenberg – 82: Ahead of Julie Johnston and Ali Krieger? Yes — Klingenberg’s ridiculous speed bumps her above those players and will maker her a particular joy to play as in the video game. Speed kills in video games, just ask fans of Michael Vick and Bo Jackson.
Shannon Boxx – 72: At 38, Shannon Boxx’ time as a world class holding midfielder has come and gone. Unlike Rampone and Wambach, Boxx doesn’t have a high enough profile to get one of those charming honorary rating boosts.
Lori Chalupney – 74: Versatility is another quality that’s hard for video games to represent. Without Chalupney’s ability to play every position on the field (except, I assume, goalie) I’m not sure she would have been included on the team. Being a Swiss Army Knife is valuable, but not when quantifying the skills required to play each position.

How to plan for the week of Aug 10 – 16, 2015?

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: If you didn’t get enough British soccer on Saturday or Sunday of last week — maybe you were away at a Scrabble convention — there’s one final game from the opening weekend of the British Premier League.

Tuesday: Two Spanish soccer teams play in the UEFA Super Cup which is a matchup of the winner of the UEFA Champions League (the most prestigious club soccer tournament in the world) and the UEFA Europa League (a glorified consolation tournament.) In the evening, watch some little guys (and maybe a gal or two) play baseball.

Wednesday: Errr, there’s some more Little League baseball, but otherwise… take the day off.

Thursday: The Rogers Cup is the Davis Cup of Tennis — which means it’s a team tournament where players who are used to playing only for themselves play on national teams. That makes it sometimes fun to watch, especially if you’re free during the day. In the evening, you can choose between Canadian American Football and American International Football.

Friday: Date night! Head off to your date after watching a good British Premier League soccer game or head off for a date night of watching some of your favorite women’s soccer players face off in a nationally televised NWSL game!

Saturday: Soccer, tennis, golf, and football! Who could ask for anything more? Really though, ignore the football. Even the most dire of sports fans who pay attention to preseason football risk their finely balanced sanity.

Sunday: The highlight of the day is the first friendly game on the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s victory tour. They take on Costa Rica at 1:30 p.m. in what should be a massive celebration. Manchester City vs. Chelsea should also be a humdinger of a way to start your Sunday morning.

How to plan for the week of Aug 3 – 9, 2015

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Our week starts out very slowly… with only a single Canadian Football League game on the calendar. The Montreal Alouettes are a little more famous than most Canadian teams, thanks to their habit of having higher profile players. This year, they have Michael Sam, the only openly gay professional football player, on their roster but have yet to play him. Tonight won’t be the night for Sam to see his first professional action.

Tuesday: The UEFA Champions League is the most prestigious men’s club soccer competition but in its earliest stages, it rarely produces memorable games because the match-ups are so uneven. That’s probably true for tonight’s game between Monaco and Young Boys. Worried about that name? Don’t be. The Young Boys were named in opposition to a nearby rival called the Old Boys over 100 years ago.

Wednesday: The International Champions Cup, which is far less prestigious than the Champions League, finishes today with a game between the British champions, Chelsea, and Italian team Fiorentina. With domestic leagues starting soon, these two teams are likely to treat this game like a fairly serious last walk-through before they begin to play in earnest. The day of sports ends with two CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and the Caribbean) Champions League games between two MLS teams from the Pacific coast, Seattle and Vancouver, and two Mexican league teams, America and Motagua.

Thursday: The Tour of Utah is a miniature version of the Tour de France. Instead of 20 days of racing, the cyclists only have to endure seven days. The mountains are no less huge though. Stage Four features more than a mile and a half of elevation gain during a 127 mile ride. The Special Olympics continues in L.A. and continues to be rewarding to watch. And tonight’s CONCACAF Champions League game features the star-studded Los Angeles Galaxy.

Friday: Date night! Either blow off sports completely or go to a Canadian bar and watch some football while drinking Molson and eating poutine.

Saturday: There’s basically no off-season in soccer anymore, but for fans of the British Premier League, today’s opening day of matches is long awaited and highly anticipated. You can easily spend all day watching soccer, starting at 7:45 a.m. with breakfast and ending at Soldier Field Stadium in Boston, enjoying a sausage while watching the Breakers in their last home game of the year! On a non-soccer track, you can happily follow golf at 2 p.m. ET, motocross at 3, and the NFL Hall of Fame speeches at 7 p.m.

Sunday: The opening weekend of the British Premier League is joined by the first game of the NFL preseason today. Those are probably the two most hotly followed leagues in the Western World. In between there is fun golf, NASCAR, and beach volleyball action to keep an eye on.