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NCAAM Chris Gardner / Getty Images The Pulse Newsletter ? | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Earn a Pro Bowl nod today. Coming up: We begin this morning on basketball courts at various locations, because the results were worthy of a first mention. Quickly: Sure, the Super Bowl is still on the calendar, but it’s truly basketball season now. Onward: Sanders — yes, Shedeur — gets Pro Bowl nod
No rookie in the NFL inspires controversy among fans and dissidents like Shedeur Sanders, so allow me to sidestep any fandom wars by saying this: The Browns quarterback earned a spot in the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement yesterday, a source confirmed to The Athletic, which is just a strange reality. Sanders might turn out to be a good QB in this league, and we’ve seen talented signal callers thrive in the right situations after struggling in bad spots. But Sanders was simply not great in limited action this year: seven touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 18. 9 QBR. To compare, the league median in qualified QBR rankings this year was between Bo Nix’s 58. 4 and Caleb Williams’ 58. 3.
Sanders will replace Drake Maye, who’s playing the Super Bowl, on the roster. Read more here. Advertisement More news: ? Find more news here 24/7. There is a frankly toxic trope that surfaces every postseason in most sports, and it goes something like this: The championship game/series wasn’t the actual title matchup. That happened the round before between Semifinalist A and Semifinalist B. Real ball-knowers get it. It’s an easy slope to fall down, and here I am, packing up a sled and riding down with glee. Because I still can’t stop thinking about Sunday’s NFC title game, which felt like a game between the NFL’s two best teams. And as “The Athletic Football Show” mentioned in its recap, the Rams and Seahawks may have completed the best season series in NFL history. Consider: We’ll stop waxing about these two now. I’ll cherish watching all three games between the two teams this year. And of course, after all this, the Patriots could come out in two weeks and win the Super Bowl. Let’s keep moving: ? NBA: Bucks at 76ers
8 p. m. ET on NBC and Peacock
I am fascinated by the endless, confusing misery Milwaukee is enduring this year, with superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo at the center of the weirdness, as Zach Harper mentioned yesterday. We may touch more on this later in the week. ? Soccer: USWNT vs. Chile
10 p. m. ET on TBS/HBO Max/Universo/Peacock
What more can we even say about Trinity Rodman at this point? She headlines a less experienced American roster than we’re used to seeing. Oh, and Rodman scored over the weekend in her USWNT return. The Chileans are ranked 47th in the world, too, so this should — key word — be an easy win. Get tickets to games like this here. Jon Krawczynski is our excellent Timberwolves writer and a longtime Minneapolis resident. His column about the city in the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s death was equal parts gripping and heartbreaking. Make time for this today. Advertisement The Senators made “Heated Rivalry” jerseys that are understandably flying off the shelves. Julian Mc Kenzie has the inside story on how the unis came to be. Genius, to be honest. Mikaela Shiffrin is the winningest skier in the history of the sport. She also crashed out of the last Olympics. Can she overcome the hex this time around? It’s high time for a check on the women’s college basketball top 25, where Sabreena Merchant wonders if Duke’s 11-game winning streak is legitimate or, as she terms it, a quirk. NASCAR is ditching the “Roval” course this year. It’s another big win for the organization, as Jeff Gluck writes. Yasiel Puig was one of MLB’s most exciting players. Now, he’s on trial. Former Indiana coach Bob Knight’s legendary Purdue rant — “I’m f—ing tired of losing to Purdue” — turned 35 years old this week. No one still knows how it leaked. Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Andrew Marchand’s review of Tony Romo and Jim Nantz’s TV performance Sunday. The verdict: underwhelming. Most-read on the website yesterday: ☝️ Chris Branch is a senior writer for The Athletic's daily newsletter. Before joining The Athletic, he covered the Phillies for The News-Journal and worked as a content strategist for various industries. He graduated from LSU, where he worked for The Daily Reveille. Follow Chris on Twitter @cbranch89