Name: NFL & NBA Christmas Recap, Sam McQuillan from Legal Sports Report
Uploaded: 2025-12-26T15:45:38-05:00
Duration: 1 s
Description: Craig Mish dives into the Broncos' win streak, AFC seeding outlook, & upsets in NFL & NBA games. Sam McQuillan joins the show from Legal Sports Report.

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Craig Mish dives into the Broncos' win streak, AFC seeding outlook, &amp; upsets in NFL &amp; NBA games. Sam McQuillan joins the show from Legal Sports Report.

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NFL & NBA Christmas Recap, Sam McQuillan from Legal Sports Report

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So let's get right to it. We got plenty to cover here on the show in case you missed it yesterday. 3 games on Christmas Day, a couple of them good, 1 of them not so much. I don't know where we would begin. I guess we could begin with this Broncos Chiefs game, which uh honestly was one of those games where you just knew that they wish that they could change the schedule around. By the way, the Denver Broncos keep winning. But they really don't play particularly well. It's really incredible when you think about it. They're 13-3 on the season, as the Broncos now have moved into a position potentially to have the number 1 seed in the AFC. No Patrick Mahomes, naturally in this game, Travis Kelsey did not do much until the very end. They called it a slog. I think that that's probably fair. But the Broncos are just racking up these wins. They've done it like this all season long. They end up taking the lead and winning late. Here's Sean Payton on the team effort. It's good that it's great to get that one. And You always have to remember this, um. Man, you're playing the heart of a champion, and, and, and I'll get, you know, Andy and this, this team. I, I don't care. Who comes out of that locker room. Um, this is a team that. Basically has, has been at the top of our league for the better part of a century and, and, uh, and so. There's a ton of respect we have for what they've been able to accomplish, and honestly it's playoff time. It's a playoff atmosphere, so you know. I know it's gonna be tough, um, you know, I haven't, I haven't beaten them, and so, um, you know, it's gonna be a good 9 days of preparation and then on the 10th day it's, it's all you got for 4 quarters or how, how however long it takes and so we're excited about it and, um, you know, it'd be good to have rest also, so it'll be a good long weekend for us. A very surprising result yesterday in Minneapolis as the Minnesota Vikings and their great defense take care of the Lions and end their season. 23 to 10 yesterday, Lions were huge favorites, but it was the Vikings who basically had to do nothing on offense because the Lions, simply put, kept giving them the ball. Jared Goff fumbled 3 times, a couple on snaps, he also threw 2 interceptions. Max Brosber was actually sacked by the Lions 7 times, a really bizarre ending and result. In this game, as the Detroit Lions, once the darling of the NFL and making the playoffs and advancing pretty deep, have been knocked out before the playoffs even begin. So naturally, that has Dan Campbell upset with the season coming to an end yesterday. I mean, you know, losing is, is very disappointing, losing. I hate losing. They hate losing, we do. But it, it, look, I mean, some of these things that come up, it's, I mean, the effort's there, it's just, well, we're, we are not, uh, you know, we're just a little off here and it's, and it's costing us significantly, you know, and, uh, We just You know, there again, too many turnovers. That, that's what really got us, man. Just couldn't overcome it. Yeah, it can. Um, they, they did a good job on defense. They had a good plan and exploited some things on us and, um, yeah, we were able to get after us, uh, adding, adding an extra rusher a lot of times and, um, Whenever that happens, it's a free rusher. I'm hot, and they did a good job with that. We had a plan that we thought would attack that, and it didn't work well enough. Lions will close out their season next week. There's a chance the Vikings could actually finish with a better record than the Lions with their win yesterday. Also, very entertaining game between the Cowboys and Commanders. Cowboys win 30 to 23. Dallas was 8.5 point road favorites, but Washington kept this game close. Prescott, 307 yards and 2 touchdowns. Jacorey Crossy Merritt scored 2 for Washington. Meanwhile, coming up, we've got the Ravens and Green Bay Packers on Saturday night. Lamar Jackson is doubtful for the game. It looks like Snoop Huntley is gonna have to start this game. It's a lose and you're out game for the Ravens. TJ Watt did practice for the Steelers as they lead the division, and it looks like college football could have their next new head coach. Michigan is looking closely at Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, and certainly, that would be a very big hire for the Wolverines who let go of Sharon Moore a couple of weeks ago. In the National Basketball Association, there's one team in the NBA that's better than everyone else, and there's one team in the NBA that they can't beat. Oklahoma City Thunder on pace to win 70 games this season, simply do not have the answer for the San Antonio Spurs. Wemy and the Spurs yesterday beat OKC. The final score was 117 to 102. And by the way, Oklahoma City Thunder, 10-point favorites in this game. De'Aaron Fox had 29. 3rd time in two weeks, San Antonio defeats Oklahoma City. Here's Mitch Johnson on discussing just exactly how they're getting these wins. You know, I think we learned that when you play a team, Multiple times in short stretches, there's a familiarity obviously that it breeds. And when you play a team of this caliber, The details are that much more magnified because of the familiarity. And I thought we did a, a, a good job and I thought we did a phenomenal job as the game. Uh Progressed at Adhering to those details and nuances. We have to get better as a group, um. You don't lose to a team 3 times in a row in a short span. Without um them being better than you, so we, we have to get better, you have to look in the mirror, um, and that's everybody. Uh, from top to bottom if we wanna reach our ultimate goal. The Knicks beat the Cavs late 126 to 124. Jalen Brunson had 14 points in the fourth quarter. He had 34 in the game. The Cavs, this was a very up and down game. Cavs were up big, Knicks came back, and Cavs were up 17 points in the fourth. When the Knicks came back to win, here's Mike Brown on picking up the very important win against Cleveland. Uh, but our guys, you know, throughout the course of the game, had plenty, plenty of opportunities to say, hey, you know what, 12 o'clock game. You know, we've been through this, been through that, and we'll just cash it in and get the next one. but there was a lot of fight in our guys and our guys just found a way to get a win. And that's what you need throughout a long season. Um, we did a lot of good things tonight, uh, got a, got a lot of good contributions. I mean, Evan, Evan goes out there and gives us some good minutes. Um, you know, and then I think the 4th quarter came down to shotmaking, right? I think we, our shot quality was actually pretty good. Um, didn't put him down there, but that, that stretch really hurt us, that, that rebounding stretch. Um, I think Mitchell ended up with 88 offensive rebounds, I believe. And then, you know, you can't give this, um, team extra, extra shots, um, and we end up losing the possession game, which was kind of number one key on our board. Um, tough to beat a, a, A heck of a team if you're not, if they're getting more shots than you. Rockers crush, Rockets crushed the Lakers 119 to 96. Kevin Durant with 25 points. Lakers have lost three straight. It seems like JJ Reddick has hit the breaking point. Cause we don't care enough right now. And that's, that's the part that bothers you a lot. We don't care enough to like do the things that are necessary. We don't care enough to be a professional. It's, You know, we had it, we had it. This is, this is, I always say this about, you know, culture. I always say this about the team being a, uh, you know, a good team being a functioning organism organism. It can, it can change like that. We don't have it right now. JJ, and as you talk about today's modern basketball, you guys have two days off, but I'm guessing you guys are only going to practice once. How do you improve on these things when you can't practice enough? Well, we practice them all the time. It's not, again, it goes back to what I said the other night. It's, it's a matter of making the choice, and too often we have guys that don't want to make that choice. And it's pretty consistent who those guys are. And so Saturday's practice, I, I told the guys, it's, it's gonna be uncomfortable. The meeting is going to be uncomfortable. I'm not doing another 53 games like this. Hiding words from JJ Redick. Nikole Jokic, 56 points yesterday, 16 rebounds, 15 assists, even Anthony Edwards had 44. Nuggets beat the Timberwolves 142 to 138. Also, the Warriors beat the Mavericks 126 to 116. Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid as we wrap up our week of shows during this holiday season. Let's bring in Sam McQuillan from Legal Sports Report. Sam is, uh, great to have Sam back on the show and talking about some of the big stories in sports wagering. You also can read about all of our content that we discussed here over at legal sportsReport.com. Sam, welcome back. Happy holidays. Thanks for coming on the show. The NBA yesterday taking Christmas Day, uh, to take the spotlight away a little bit, I thought, from, uh, from the NFL. Games were really good yesterday. NFL games were so, so, we'll see what the ratings say. Uh, NBA also saying, hey, look, it's time for us to jump on board and do what Major League Baseball is doing, which is stopping people and max betting on some of the unders in the props, which you and I have talked about so often. I thought that this would just simply solve the problem, max bets. And yes, that, that's what they have actually come to. And, and who could argue with that, right, Sam? Like if you are a player that wants to bet on a prop, you still can do it. But there's just a maximum that you're gonna be allowed to, and I think that that solves this problem. Yeah, it's, it's funny to see the NBA now taking steps to do, like you're mentioning, Craig, what we've talked about and others in the industry have talked about from, um. When it comes to the prop betting that you have. Have on players easily manipulated or readily susceptible, uh, to bad actors because obviously you're just really controlling the performance of one person versus an entire team. It's a lot easier to control. That's obviously what we saw with the pending scandals with Terry Rozier, um, and Jonte Porter last year as well. But yeah, we've talked about this for a while, um, just. Uh, ideas that were proposed by the NBA this week, uh, that would ban the ability to bet on the unders of props. Most people only like to bet on overs of props anyway, the casual bettors we're talking about. So the NBA now telling teams that it's looking at that. It's looking at offering less player props as well, um, you know, just really stars instead of people on the team. We've already seen them kind of move towards that since the whole Jonte. scandal. Uh, they no longer offer player props on guys who are on 10-way, uh, 10-day contracts or two-way contracts. So they've already kind of limited that. I wouldn't be surprised if they go ahead and limit it even more. And then, obviously, another thing we've mentioned, Craig, is limiting how much you can bet on these props. So you don't stand to make tons of money on, you know, a sensitive small decision being changed. Um, this is just kind of another step the NBA is taking. It's slower than it should be, but they met with members of Congress in October after all these scandals happened. So, um, you know, whether these actually get adopted or not, I think it's just kind of another sign of the NBA at least wanting to signal it's doing something more as it, you know, becomes more sensitive about, um, you know, manipulation in sports betting as the public's kind of worry about this stuff, um, you know, uh, goes up. While we have all these scandals coming out in the NBA and the MLB, and it certainly won't be the last we've heard about any kind of scandal in pro sports. So just, you know, the NBA taking another step to kind of deal with all this stuff. The next step would be, as they acknowledged in their memo, is actually working with sports books, actually working with teams to change this stuff. This is all kind of in the proposal stage right now. So we'll see where it goes from here. 2026 definitely could be some big changes in store. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, same could be in store for Chicago. You'll have to catch me up here, Sam, because obviously, I could read the story here, but I, I don't know why this has really come down to the wire so much where because of some, I mean, I don't know what, what you would call it, language maybe in their budget, that some sports books are saying that they could potentially shut down. Uh, how, how did this happen so fast and catch up on us here at the end of the year? Yeah, it really is a fascinating development. Chicago is the first city in the US to propose taxing sports books on top of what the state already taxes. You know, historically, the states have taxed sports books at a certain rate. Some states very high, some states very low. In Illinois, there's been about 3 tax hikes over the past year and a half years of sports betting, where sports books now have to pay about a 40% rate for the highest sports books on top of a per. Uh, per bet fee, a 50 cents fee uh per bet that they have to pay. And we've seen them pass it down to the customer because it's kind of been untenable for them to continue business. Now, as the state was having a lot of success doing that, the city of Chicago has said, why don't we place an additional tax on sports books? So there's a 10.25% tax currently proposed in the city's budget that would then layer that additional tax on top of sports books. Uh, the budget is set to go in effect January. First, uh, as is proposed right now, it has not been changed despite sports books like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Bed MGM this week coming out saying that we might have to pull out of the city of Chicago if this goes into effect. So, effectively, it would be a change that was added in the budget instead of lawmakers passing a law on their own. It's something that happens a lot in politics where you want to change the law by making it one of many things that you change in a bigger budget that gets passed, because Includes tax revenue as opposed to, you know, just proposing this in the city council where it would really just kind of be weighed on the merits of itself. We have now the sports book saying we might pull out of Chicago. Whether or not they do that remains to be seen. There's still time for the city to effectively change its budget and not pass this. You have had a lot of lawmakers urge them not to do it. Um, but yeah, it would be huge news if this actually ends up going through and if the sports books actually end up pulling out. Obviously FanDuel, DraftKings and Bendit MGM are pretty much the biggest players in the state and in the city. It would really be interesting to see how that affects the other sports books as well, um, and how it impacts other cities potentially weighing this as well, because again, Chicago's the only place to really propose this. So it would be kind of major news for every other city in America that's considering a similar tax. And, uh, you know, when you talk about the offshore sports books and the prediction markets, which we'll get into in a bit, it really would just be a huge, huge change for sports books, which is Obviously a big threat. All right, we lost Sam, uh, there for a minute to, to some technical difficulties. We'll see if we got him back. Uh, internet is a funny thing this time of the year. A lot of people using it. Uh, all right, Sam, let's close out on, uh, FanDuel. FanDuel says, hey, look, we're getting into the prediction markets as well. 5 states without legal sports betting following suit from DraftKings the week before. Yeah, FanDuel launching its prediction market in 5 states, Alabama, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and South Carolina. All states where it doesn't have a legal sports betting product. This is just kind of the latest effort for a sports book to reach, uh, states where sports betting isn't legal. We've certainly seen Calhi have tremendous success with this, reaching all 50 states regardless of sports betting law. FanDuel now joining DraftKings and Fanatics. Kind of a sports book saying we're tired of waiting. We don't want to let Calhi and Polymarket and these other prediction markets gobble up this market share in states before we can, you know, despite a number of lawsuits, despite now 30 plus states, uh, joining those lawsuits saying that these products are illegal sports betting, that are not following the law. Uh, in the meantime, the courts kind of, we wait on a decision to be made. FanDuel comes in with their new Product, uh, only in 5 states to start, notably less than DraftKings and Fanatics. Uh, FanDuel actually, interestingly enough, said that if a state legalizes sports betting, a state like California, Texas, Georgia, presumably where it plans to expand with its sports prediction markets next year, one of those states launches legal sports betting, uh, then FanDuel said it will pull out with its prediction products. So, right now, it's really looking like just a way to Reach the sports betting customers in states where you don't have it, and they would still much, much prefer, uh, reaching those sports betting customers with an actual sports betting product, where they can offer parlays, where they can offer, um, you know, higher margin, uh, more profitable, um, offerings for the book itself. Uh, FanDuels come out and said that by February, it expects to be, you know, in at least, I, I think 30 states is the number, which is about what DraftKings is at right now. Um, and it really wants to have the best competitive product if prediction markets are here to stay. That would mean offering parlays, that would mean offering other bet types as well. Uh, for now, this is just kind of the start of it, but definitely a huge, huge change, uh, for a company that has been doing sports betting, uh, since the fall of past, but only focusing on that. FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics all left the American Gaming Association recently because of this split on prediction markets. We'll see just how heavily, uh, they kind of double down or get involved with it in the year ahead and, um, the ripple effects that it has on other policies and other sports books in general. Yeah, will be another big story I, I would assume for us next year too as we get to next year, which is, by the way, next week. That's when we will see you again, Sam. Thanks for coming on Newswire. Have a great weekend and appreciate you making the appearance after the holiday. Thanks again. Thanks, Craig. See you next year.

NFL & NBA Christmas Recap, Sam McQuillan from Legal Sports Report

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