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Welcome to midweek, and hopefully your NFL team was among the winners — and not the losers — of yesterday’s franchise tag frenzy ahead of the official start of the 2026 “league year” next week. We’ll have a bunch of market details around those moves, and everything else in store this NFL offseason, below. But if football’s not your thing, we also have a Chart of the Day on who should be making moves at the NHL trade deadline, and of course there is no shortage of hoops action this week as we move toward full-fledged March Madness season. (There’s also this wiener dog race on ice from a minor league hockey game.) While I’m not sure what else can top that, here’s what we have our eyes on across the world of sports today:
🗓️ TONIGHT’S DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
NBA:
🏀 Thunder (61%) at Knicks (39%)* - 7 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 Hornets (31%) at Celtics (69%) - 7:30 p.m.
🏀 Hawks (47%) at Bucks (53%) - 9:30 p.m. (ESPN)
NHL:
🏒 Maple Leafs (48%) at Devils (52%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Golden Knights (43%) at Red Wings (57%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Blues (42%) at Kraken (58%) - 10 p.m. (ESPN+)
College Hoops:
🏀 Texas (26%) at Arkansas (74%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN2)
🏀 Miami (45%) at SMU (55%) - 7 p.m. (ACCN)
🏀 Men’s conference tournaments: ASUN/Big South/Horizon/Ohio Valley/Summit first round; Sun Belt second round; NEC quarterfinals
🏀 Women’s conference tournaments: A-10/ACC/Big 12/Big South/Big Ten/Horizon/Ohio Valley/SEC/Summit first round; Sun Belt second round
Soccer:
⚽ Aston Villa (35%) vs. Chelsea (40%) - 2:30 p.m. (USA)
⚽ Newcastle United (37%) vs. Manchester United (39%) - 3:15 p.m. (Peacock)
Tennis:
🎾 BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells) - Men’s: Carlos Alcaraz 46% to win; Women’s: Aryna Sabalenka 29% to win
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
The offseason is on
The first major signpost of the NFL’s 2026 offseason cycle was passed on Tuesday afternoon, when the deadline for clubs to designate franchise or transition players arrived. (What are these “tags”? They are special mechanisms that allow teams to keep their best players from leaving in free agency for another year, at a rate commensurate with the highest-paid players at their position.)
The moves were a mix of the known/expected — Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens received the franchise tag to remain in place, as did Jets running back Breece Hall and Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts — the jarring but understandable — Seahawks Super Bowl MVP RB Kenneth Walker III, Bengals pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, and Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum were allowed to hit the open market, as their teams prioritized cap flexibility over veteran star power — and the surprising — Colts quarterback Daniel Jones became the NFL’s first QB to get the transition tag in 30 years, a move that risks losing him for nothing if Indianapolis chooses not to match an outside offer sheet.
Amid all of the tagging, there were also reports that the Cardinals were planning to cut former Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl QB Kyler Murray as the “league year” begins next week. Murray’s durability and performance have been up and down in recent years, but at his best, he’s an electrifying player who could help a team in need of offense.
All of the player movement, actual or rumored, has the prediction markets fired up for the offseason. Here are some of the more interesting markets around potential shake-ups for the 2026 season.
The quarterback carousel
Murray currently has a 61% chance to play for Minnesota next — followed by the Jets (19%) and Colts (11%) — which casts into doubt the future of former No. 10 pick JJ McCarthy as the team’s starter. Other QB markets include Tua Tagovailoa’s next team (Arizona is favored over Atlanta, 47-44); the Browns’ Week 1 starting QB (Shedeur Sanders is favored over Deshaun Watson, 48-35); whether Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers will retire before next season (45% chance); where Jones will play in 2026 (only a 26% chance it’s the Colts, followed by Houston at 23%); and whether stars like Lamar Jackson (21%!) or Joe Burrow (5%) will change teams.
There’s also this one on which teams have the highest odds of drafting a QB in the first round of April’s NFL draft:
The non-QB impact moves
We love to talk about the quarterbacks, and they tend to be the individual players who make the biggest difference to a team’s bottom line. But including the untagged players we mentioned above, there are plenty of non-QB players who could at least help a team win the Super Bowl and might be available this offseason.
That list starts with (possibly) erstwhile Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby, whose next team is favored to be Chicago at 35%, followed by a 30% chance he stays in Las Vegas and a 16% chance he lands in Dallas. There’s also the perpetual drama around Eagles WR AJ Brown, who has a 56% chance to stay with Philly but also a decent chance to move on to Chicago (33%) or San Francisco (25%). Speedy receiver Tyreek Hill, released from the Dolphins in February, has a 32% chance to return to the Chiefs (followed by New England at 23% and Chicago at 12%). At the same time, TE David Njoku has a 31% chance of joining the Eagles, and veteran 1,000-yard receiving machine Mike Evans has a 25% chance of staying with the Bucs — though the Bills and Niners are next at 14% to acquire him.
Here’s a chart of Kalshi’s market on the NFL players most likely to be traded this spring/summer or during the season (which honestly might have some interesting arbitrage opportunities versus the individual “next team” odds we listed above):
The… Bears?
Finally, the most bizarre “move” of all might involve a literal franchise packing up and leaving town: the Chicago Bears, which are engaged in a stadium fight with their home state of Illinois and threatening to leave for Indiana or even Iowa (!) as part of a multistate bidding war for one of the NFL’s longest-running teams. While it may seem unthinkable for the Bears to play anywhere but Chicago, there’s currently a 30% chance they would leave for another state — and only a 9% chance some kind of stadium site change (even if staying within Illinois) fails to happen by 2028.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
Let’s make a deal
With the NHL trade deadline approaching on Friday afternoon (3 p.m. ET), we’re all still waiting for the big moves to materialize — due to a combination of new cap rules, leaguewide parity, and a dearth of major difference-makers on offer. But without question, there are a lot of teams out there that would benefit from an upgrade. To quantify who they are, I used my Elo-based forecast model to calculate the simulated correlations between a team adding talent and improving its playoff and/or Stanley Cup odds. The teams with the highest correlations in either category below are the ones whose odds are most sensitive to changes in talent: the Columbus Blue Jackets, for instance, are the team whose playoff odds (currently 49%) could improve the most with a deadline upgrade, while the Colorado Avalanche is the team whose title chances (26%) would get the most bang for the deadline buck.
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “St. Jimmy Part 2: More NBA Teams as Green Day Songs” by Chris Gunther
♟️ “Kasparov’s Last Stand (1996)” by Michael Weinreb
🏈 “How to Spot a Great (or Terrible) Athletic Director in 2026” by Alex Kirshner and Richard Johnson
🏀 “Winning>Computers: A 31-0 Miami University Not Making the Tournament would be Flat-Out Wrong” by JDB College Hoops
⚾ “The New York Mets and the Need for Luck” by Chase Thomas
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Thursday (3/5)
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Rockets
🏀 NBA: Lakers at Nuggets
🏒 NHL: Sabres at Penguins
🏒 NHL: Islanders at Kings
🏀 MBB: Michigan at Iowa
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC second round
⚽ EPL: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Crystal Palace
⛳ Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational
🎾 BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells)
Friday (3/6)
🏀 NBA: Mavs at Celtics
🏀 NBA: Clippers at Spurs
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Red Wings
🏀 MBB: Miami (OH) at Ohio
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC quarterfinals; Big East first round
⛳ Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational
🎾 BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells)
Saturday (3/7)
🏀 NBA: Magic at T-Wolves
🏀 NBA: Sixers at Hawks
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Thunder
🏒 NHL: Capitals at Bruins
🏒 NHL: Rangers at Devils
🏒 NHL: Lightning at Leafs
🏀 MBB: UNC at Duke
🏀 MBB: Vandy at Tennessee
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC semifinals; Big East quarterfinals
⛳ Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational
🎾 BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells)
🏁 F1: Qatar Airways Australian GP
🏁 IndyCar: Good Ranchers 250 (Phoenix Raceway)
🥊 UFC 326: Holloway vs. Oliveira 2
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.