#playoff-performance

#playoff-performance

The last 11 Super Bowl champions finished with an average scoring-defense rank of 5.3. Recent winners fit that pattern too, highlighting the importance of defense in championship success.

Over the last decade, the Cowboys rank No. 2 overall in terms of Weighted Approximate Value (wAV) for the players they drafted. wAV comes courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com and is their attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year.

With John Carlson off to California, there was a spot available on the team's leadership group - and after Dylan Strome wore the "A" the first two games, Matt Roy got his shot last night.

The Yankees finished last year with a 94-68 record, tied with the Blue Jays for the best record in the AL East and the American League as a whole. An 18-7 record in September and an eight-game win streak to close the season put a bunch of pressure on the Blue Jays to keep winning. Unfortunately for the Yankees, though, a 5-8 record against the Jays swung the tiebreaker in Toronto's favour.

The biggest story going into the game was that the guy that was one vote away from being the MVP was historically bad in the playoffs. Like historically.. Again, the guy that was one vote away from being the MVP is historically bad in the first half of the game... made one real throw. And the first three quarters of the game, he stepped up and threw a deep curl route to Stefon Diggs in the first quarter.

But, simply put, it'd be absolutely crazy for the Dolphins to bring back Tua. A large part of the Dolphins' recent changes is breaking from the past. Ex-general manager Chris Grier, ex-coach Mike McDaniel and Tua represent the past more than any others. On top of that, you know what comes along with Tua. The lack of mobility. The injury risk. And he most likely won't have speedy wide receiver Tyreek Hill. All of those factors spelled doom for Tua last season.

Bassitt was his usual reliable self as a starting pitcher last season, recording a 3.96 ERA and 166 strikeouts across 170 ⅓ innings pitched. He made at least 30 starts for the fourth straight year despite landing on the injured list at the end of September. The 36-year-old returned from his injury as a reliever in the ALCS before becoming one of the Blue Jays' most trusted weapons in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The New England Patriots' offensive line has struggled in a major way across this playoff run. In each of their three games, they've allowed five sacks, something that happened just three times in their 17 regular-season games. Before the playoffs, they hadn't allowed five-plus sacks in a game since Week 9. While rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson have been inconsistent at best, right guard Mike Onwenu is playing his best football when it matters most.

The crowd inside Gillette Stadium, as it would be for some much more important home games in January, went absolutely berserk. It was a sign of things to come for Henderson, who as the Patriots' speed compliment to running back Rhamondre Stevenson in the backfield, is uncatchable when he finds so much as a crease. He scored touchdowns on four runs of 50-plus yards this season, which is tied for the most by a rookie in NFL history.

"Obviously, I didn't pitch a shutout," Campbell said Wednesday. "I had two or three plays that I wish I could have back. But that's $300 million in defensive ends and I've got a ton of respect for those dudes. It's going to be like that every week in the playoffs. "Like Coach [Mike] Vrabel said, you've gotta be willing to spill a little blood and violence. You've just gotta hope you don't spill more than they do. That's the name of the game."

The problem was, under Shanahan, the Leafs never made it past the second round of the playoffs. Not great for someone whose tenure as team president and alternate governor kicked off in 2014. Friedman's not wrong, but the on-ice performance in the playoffs speaks for itself, and Shanahan didn't do enough to catapult the Leafs into deep playoff runs. Maple Leafs should have been better off during Brendan Shanahan's tenure While Shanahan was in charge, the Maple Leafs also only took two division titles, and one was during the truncated 2020-21 season.

Gausman was as good as anyone could have expected him to be, maybe even better. He carved up the Yankees lineup for almost six full innings and kept their bats mostly silent when the game was still close and could have gone either way. It was the perfect outcome for a team that perhaps needed a Game 1 win more than anything.

"I played `MLB: The Show' and mercy-ruled someone," he said.

There's never been a better ad for St. Paul than Kirill Kaprizov's new contract. Kaprizov has decided that he wants to stay put with the organization that drafted him as a teenager. In a deal announced by the Wild on Tuesday morning, he'll earn $136 million over eight years of work in which he'll attempt to lead Minnesota out of icy purgatory and into ... well, at least the second round of the postseason.

I can't feel anything other than grateful [and] fortunate to have played for the Boston Bruins for 6 years,

The Dolphins appear to be so-so, somewhere in the 8-, 9- or 10-win territory and, more importantly, nowhere near winning a playoff game.

The Blue Jays have struggled to develop starting pitchers, with only two homegrown players starting playoff games in ten years: Marcus Stroman and Alek Manoah.

The Milwaukee Bucks have finished with 40+ wins for nine seasons straight but faced first-round playoff exits, raising questions about Giannis Antetokounmpo's future.

Moody's surgery on a torn ligament in his right thumb is expected to have him ready for training camp, despite affecting his postseason performance.

There should be a separate stat sheet for guys like him because of the type of stuff that he does.

Curry scored 36 points in the Warriors' 104-93 playoff win against the Rockets, showcasing the team's championship DNA despite aging players.