Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APIn six Cup starts at California, Carl Edwards has four top-fives and five top-10s. Only once has he finished worse than sixth at this two-mile track. Edwards comes off a win last weekend at Bristol, which earned him a spot in the Chase.
Others who should have strong races include Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, and Martin Truex Jr.
My darkhorse is David Ragan.
Keys to success at California
It's a flat track that's super smooth, wide and multi-grooved. These characteristics make passing a lot easier at this venue than at other tracks on the Nextel Cup circuit.
As the track, which hosted its first Cup race in 1997, has seasoned, it has become more and more of a multi-groove layout. That creates opportunities for drivers to try different grooves in their attempts to pass other cars.
You have to be extremely good to run the bottom for the entire 500 miles, but I think that as the race goes on the groove that's best to run will move towards the top of the track.
The optimum groove changes. Whatever works for 200 miles might not work for the next 200 miles. Adapting to the changing groove is critical.
Aero push is important as drivers want the front end of their car to be as close to the track as possible, thus making the car fast. If a driver's car is handling well, this is a track where it's certainly fun to watch him race.
Front grip will be key to overcoming the aero push, and drivers who have solid front grip working on their cars can move around more and use more of the track.
Also, the pit area is wide open with plenty of room for each of the pit stalls, and it has two acceleration lanes from which to exit. So there is really nothing about pitting at California Speedway that should cause time to be lost on a pit stop.
Drivers just have to watch not to speed entering pit road. Their total focus has to be on how fast they are going entering the pits so they don't get hit with a penalty by NASCAR.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
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