The Chicago Bears won 24-15 in Philadelphia to strengthen their position at the top of a competitive NFC North table.
Their running backs provided the foundation for success against the Eagles, with D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai both rushing for more than 100 yards and each scoring a touchdown.
Caleb Williams found tight end Cole Kmet with a 28-yard touchdown pass midway through the fourth quarter to secure victory.
A win for Green Bay (8-3-1) over divisional rivals Detroit (7-5) on Thursday had tightened the gap to Chicago, but the Bears’ fifth consecutive victory improved their record to 9-3.
Chicago face the Packers in two of their next three fixtures, starting with a trip to Lambeau Field on Sunday, 7 December.
The Eagles, meanwhile, were subjected to boos by a section of their home supporters as they put in a disjointed performance to slip to a second successive defeat.
The reigning Super Bowl champions (8-4) lead the NFC East but the Dallas Cowboys (6-5-1) have closed in with victories over Philadelphia and the Kansas City Chiefs in their past two outings.
Drake Batherson scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:58 to play, and the Ottawa Senators held off a furious Anaheim rally after the Ducks pulled their goalie in the final minutes for a 3-2 victory Thursday night.
Batherson was camped in front of the Ducks net when he deflected a blue-line shot from Jake Sanderson past goalie Petr Mrazek to snap the Ducks’ six-game home win streak.
Nick Cousins and Shane Pinto also scored for Ottawa, and Linus Ullmark stopped 24 shots.
Beckett Sennecke and Mason McTavish scored in the second period for the Pacific Division-leading Ducks. Mrazek, the backup who made his fifth start of the season in place of Lukas Dostal, had 22 saves.
The Ducks were playing their third game in four nights and the second game of a back-to-back, and it showed during a sluggish first period in which they went eight minutes — including a two-minute power play —without a shot on goal and put only three shots on net.
Cousins gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead when he took a pass from Nick Jensen in the high slot, wound up and rifled a shot over the glove of Mrazek with 3:21 left in the first.
But the Ducks scored twice within a span of 1:26 in the second to turn that 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.
The comeback started with a whiff, Cutter Gauthier misfiring on a snap shot from the slot. But the 20-year-old from Sweden was able to control the puck, poke it through the legs of defender Artem Zub and slip a pass to Sennecke, who snapped a shot into a nearly open net for a 1-1 tie with 6:52 left.
Moments later, Ducks forward Chris Kreider, playing in his 900th game, streaked down the right side on a two-on-one break and slid a pass to McTavish, who beat Ullmark stick-side for a 2-1 lead with 5:26 left.
A McTavish interference call with 2:52 left gave the Senators a man advantage, and Pinto took advantage, slipping a puck under Mrazek’s pads with 57 seconds left for his 10th goal of the season and a 2-2 tie.
It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season for Angel City FC. But it’s not one the team is running away from.
“Did we put it all together this year?” team president Julie Uhrman asked. “No.”
In fact, the team won just one of its last eight games; missed the playoffs for the third time in four seasons; saw attendance plummet; lost Alyssa Thompson, its best and most exciting player, on a million-dollar transfer; and watched its two most-decorated players — Ali Riley and Christen Press — retire after a season in which they combined for two starts.
For sporting director Mark Parsons, however, it still counted as progress. Yet the team has a lot of work to do to clear the high bar of community impact and soccer success it set as its twin goals when it launched in 2022.
“This season was about putting in all the foundations and all the pieces where we get to go compete for championships from ’26 and beyond,” Parsons said. “And I could not be happier with the success we’ve been able to do. That helps us win in the future.
“Of course we’d have all loved to win a couple more games,” he added. “But the priorities were try and win, but build for the future.”
Alexander Straus, center, is introduced as Angel City coach by sporting director Mark Parsons, left, and team president Julie Uhrman during a news conference in June.
(Al Seib / For the Times)
The die for the season, for bad or worse, was cast in the embers of the deadly Palisades fire last January. That first night, as Riley’s family home burned to the ground and other players were forced to relocate, Parsons could see the flames from the gated Brentwood estate of Bob Iger and Willow Bay, Angel City’s controlling owners. He was there interviewing for the job he would get nine days later.
And he was brutally honest about what he thought the club needed.
“I looked at them and said ‘We have a lot of work to do. Unless we get really lucky, it’s going to be a roller coaster. However, we will be really excited about our team by the end of the year,’” Parsons recalled this month.
Part of the problem has to do with how Angel City was built. The team has had three general managers or sporting directors in four seasons and four coaches, including interim manager Sam Laity, over that span. Parsons and Alexander Straus, his hand-picked coach who started in June, were hired to shore up that creaky foundation and bring consistency to the team’s soccer operations, which mostly had been spinning its wheels.
For Parsons, that basically meant tearing things down and starting over. And if he had to sacrifice his first season in doing so, it was a price he was willing to pay.
“We’re going to try and compete and win every single game, because that’s why we’re here,” he said. “We are not going to do that at the expense of building a championship-winning team. This season is about building the future, to not just get to the top, but to stay at the top.”
So the team made 29 transactions in his first nine months. In addition, seven players won’t be re-signed when their contracts expire at the end of the year, among them midfielder Madison Hammond and defender Megan Reid, who are 1-2 in appearances in club history, and Japanese defender Miyabi Moriya, a World Cup and Olympic veteran.
Of the additions, Parsons is especially high on midfielders Evelyn Shores and Hina Sugita, Icelandic attacker Sveindis Jonsdottir and Zambian international Prisca Chilufya. All joined in the second half of the season, adding to a core that included rookie of the year candidate Riley Tiernan and defenders Gisele Thompson, Sarah Gorden and Savy King.
Angel City’s Sarah Gorden controls the ball against Racing Louisville on Sept. 27.
(Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
Of those eight, only Gorden is older than 28 and three of the others — Thompson, King and Shores — can’t legally buy a beer in California. Parsons will double down on one of those additions Tuesday, announcing he has signed Sugita, 28, a two-time World Cup player from Japan, through 2029.
“Most teams try not to do too much during the season. It can be unsettling,” Parsons said.
But for Angel City, every second mattered.
“The top teams in this league that have been pretty consistent the last couple of years took three years to get to a point of being in the top four. We don’t have three years,” Parsons said. “This is a city that is expected to compete and to win in a stadium that [is] rocking, that represents this community.”
That hasn’t happened for Angel City, which was founded with solid community support and an A-list ownership group of more than 100, including Hollywood stars, former U.S. national team players and deep-pocketed investors. The vision was to build a team that won games while making a deep and lasting impact on the community.
The club certainly has gotten the second part of that equation right by providing more than 2.5 million meals and more than 51,000 hours for youth and adult education; distributing equipment and staff for ongoing soccer programming for the children of migrants trapped at the U.S.-Mexico border; and funneling $4.1 million into other programs in Los Angeles. Last week the club awarded $10,000 grants and access to business coaching to 13 former players to help support the transition to the next stage of their lives.
From the start, Angel City games offered a welcoming place, especially for the LGBTQ community, and that helped the team finish first or second in the NWSL in attendance in each of its four seasons.
“We are committed to providing an environment of connection, community and belonging,” Uhrman said.
But while doing that the club struggled on the field, making the playoffs just once while going 30-42-24 over that span. As a result average attendance plunged nearly 16%, to 16,257 this year.
In its first three seasons, Angel City played before a home crowd that small just once, although the team still ranks second in the league, behind only the Portland Thorns. Making the team a draw again, Uhrman conceded, will require trying something new. Like winning.
“Our goal is to be a dynasty on the pitch and a legacy off the pitch,” she said. “And for that to be true, we need to win on and off the field. We need to have the positive impact in the community and continue to give back, but we also need to win championships.”
Some of the team’s most loyal supporters have grown tired of waiting.
“I’m just frustrated with the team’s performance,” said Caitlin Bryant of Burbank, a season-ticket holder from the first season who has not renewed for next year. “I’m done dragging myself down to BMO [Stadium] every other weekend until this thing turns around.
“The vibes are great. The stadium environment is great. But watching the team lose game after game, season after season, it’s exhausting and it’s not fun. I need the team to win.”
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
Gabriel Landeskog scored his first goal of the season, Nathan MacKinnon had three assists and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Ducks 4-1 on Tuesday night in a matchup of the Western Conference’s points leaders.
The loss ended the Ducks’ winning streak at seven games. Leo Carlsson scored his sixth goal in the past four games for Anaheim and recorded his 100th career point, making the 20-year-old the youngest player in Ducks history to reach that milestone. Troy Terry got his team-leading 15th assist of the season on Carlsson’s goal.
Lukas Dostal made 32 saves in a matchup of first-place teams.
The one goal matched a season-low for the Ducks, who entered the game averaging an NHL-best 4.13 goals per game.
Landeskog’s second-period goal, which gave Colorado a 2-1 lead, was his first in the regular season since March 5, 2022. The 32-year-old left wing had missed the entire 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, as well as the 2024-25 regular season, after undergoing a series of knee surgeries. After the goal, the home crowd serenaded him with chants of “Landy.”
Scott Wedgewood stopped 35 of the 36 Anaheim shots he faced for his NHL-leading 10th win of the season. It was the seventh time in 14 starts this season that Wedgewood has allowed one or fewer goals.
Artturi Lehkonen, Martin Necas and Parker Kelly also scored for Colorado, with Lehkonen’s goal coming just 28 seconds into the first period. MacKinnon’s three assists gave him 32 points for the season, the most in the NHL.
With the win, the Avalanche are 6-0-1 in their last seven games and improved to 16-1-2 in their last 19 meetings against the Ducks.
ATLANTA — With the Lakers down by 20 in the third quarter at Atlanta, the only sound coming from their bench was Nick Smith Jr.’s hollow claps of encouragement. The rest of the Lakers sat with slumped shoulders on the bench or loitered with blank faces in a semicircle waiting for their coaches to join.
There wasn’t much that could be said.
The Lakers’ five-game winning streak ended in a blowout as the Hawks dominated 122-102 on Saturday at State Farm Arena.
Playing a third consecutive game without Austin Reaves, Luka Doncic tried to keep the Lakers (7-3) in it with 22 points, 11 assists and five rebounds, but all his points came in the first half and he came out after only 27 minutes as the Hawks built a 25-point lead by the middle of the third quarter. Forward Jake LaRavia had 13 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals, and Jarred Vanderbilt had 18 rebounds, one shy of his career high.
“This isn’t the identity of this team,” LaRavia said. “This game was an outlier of the first 10 games that we played. [We have to] just not let it break us and be ready to play the next game.”
The Lakers, who won their first four road games, started their five-game trip on a sour note and now need to bounce back when play Charlotte on Monday.
The Hawks (5-5) were playing the second game of a home back-to-back after losing to the Toronto Raptors on Friday. They had four of five starters sidelined, including Trae Young (knee), Kristaps Porzingis (rest) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (back).
The Lakers should know the dangers of a desperate, shorthanded team. Only five days ago they ended Portland’s three-game winning streak without Reaves, Doncic or LeBron James. Coach JJ Redick said he would reiterate the lesson before Saturday’s game to avoid a letdown.
Then the Lakers fell behind by 13 in the first quarter. Their deficit ballooned to 26 after three quarters. Redick began sitting his starters by the middle of the third.
“Just not a lot to like tonight,” Redick said matter-of-factly.
Facing a cross-country trip, the Lakers arrived in Atlanta on Thursday and scheduled a practice Friday with a team-bonding activity that night. They held a shootaround in the arena Saturday morning.
Yet even with the extra time to prepare, Redick could tell within the first two minutes that the team didn’t have the necessary energy to win. What did the coach see during that fateful stretch?
“Nothing,” Redick said.
Atlanta Hawks guard Vit Krejci shoots between Lakers center Deandre Ayton and forward Rui Hachimura in the first half Saturday.
(Mike Stewart / Associated Press)
It was the final word of his news conference, which lasted 100 seconds.
Doncic helped lead a quick third-quarter surge, assisting on three consecutive baskets in a 7-0 run that cut the lead to nine, but the Hawks responded by scoring seven unanswered points and forcing two turnovers. Center Deandre Ayton subbed out for the last time with 8:49 to go in the third.
“They played phenomenal,” said Ayton, who had 11 points on five-for-five shooting and five rebounds. “But us not even damn near competing in a sense, it looks bad on paper and it looks bad on film. This is one of them games where yeah, food’s going to taste bad tonight.”
Doncic and Marcus Smart, another veteran leader, were not made available to reporters after the game.
Atlanta’s Mouhamed Gueye torched the Lakers for 21 points on eight-for-12 shooting and made four three-pointers. The Lakers, who had credited their connection and chemistry for carrying them through long stints without their stars, suddenly fell silent when faced with a large deficit in front of a rowdy crowd.
With most of Atlanta’s fans streaming toward the exits in the final two minutes, the Hawks’ most dedicated fan group, the “404 Crew,” echoed through the mostly empty arena with a final chant: “Where is LeBron?”
The superstar has yet to play a single minute this season because of a bout with sciatica.
