Georgia tops preseason AP Top 25; Jets have another headache to deal with

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🏈 Good morning to everyone but especially …

THE GEORGIA BULLDOGS

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Georgia is No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25 for the second straight year. The Bulldogs, which also topped the preseason Coaches Poll and the CBS Sports 134, garnered 46 of 62 first-place votes. In fact, the AP and the coaches are in agreement on each of the top seven:

1. Georgia
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
4. Texas
5. Alabama
6. Ole Miss
7. Notre Dame

Ohio State earned 15 first-place votes from the AP, and Oregon took one. Eight of the top nine teams in the AP Top 25 are from the SEC or Big Ten.

As Shehan Jeyarajah notes, all 10 champions in the four-team College Football Playoff era were in the top six of the preseason poll. But with the playoff expanding to 12 teams, Shehan has plenty of buy-low candidates, including …

• Jeyarajah: “Boise State: The entire Group of Five was left out of the preseason poll, but expect that to change in the coming weeks. While Boise State will likely get its doors blown off against Oregon in Week 2, running back Ashton Jeanty and a stacked defense makes for a serious top 25 contender. Don’t be surprised to see the Broncos deep into the College Football Playoff race.”

👍 Honorable mentions

• Knicks-Celtics and Timberwolves-Lakers will open the 2024-25 NBA season.
• Jayson Tatum won’t rule out the 2028 Olympics despite a frustrating 2024 Olympics.
• The Raiders hope to name their starting quarterback soon.
• Jazz Chisholm doesn’t care about fellow players voting him “most overrated.”
• Welcome back, Mookie Betts!
• Welcome back, Jordan Walker!
• The Mariners extended Victor Robles.
• The Rays are calling up Junior Caminero.
• The Dolphins activated Jaelan Phillips (Achilles) off the PUP list.
• Jason Kelce still hangs around Eagles training camp.
• Scottie Scheffler added another $8 million to his earnings this season.
• Georgia Tech got its first five-star recruit: 2025 offensive lineman Josh Petty.
• E.J. Smith, son of Emmitt Smith, will have a big role at Texas A&M.
• Walk-ons getting scholarships is always awesome.

🏈 Not such a good morning for …

HAASON REDDICK AND THE NEW YORK JETS

Add another item to the Jets‘ strange, strange journey the last few seasons. Less than five months after being acquired via trade from the Eagles, Haason Reddick has requested yet another trade as he and the Jets haven’t made progress on a new deal.

• Reddick, 29, asked out of Philadelphia ahead of the final year of his deal, and the Eagles acquiesced by sending him to New York for a conditional third-round pick. (The Eagles signed former Jets pass rusher Bryce Huff shortly before that trade.)
• Reddick reportedly anticipated getting a new deal with the Jets, but that has not happened. As such, he did not report to mandatory minicamp and has not reported to training camp. He has racked up significant fines along the way.
• The Jets made it abundantly clear they don’t plan on trading Reddick with general manager Joe Douglas saying he informed Reddick of that stance and adding, “Since the trade discussions back in March, we have been clear, direct and consistent in our position.”

I’ll ask it plainly: What is going on here?! After letting Huff walk, the Jets had a need, and they filled it (or at least believed they filled it) by adding Reddick. Now, he has no plans of being there, a massive gaffe by a win-now team. Remember, this is the same team that said Aaron Rodgers wouldn’t play this preseason only for Rodgers to say that was news to him and Robert Saleh to half-backtrack on his statement. Where is the internal communication? This is basic stuff!

Again, the Jets say they will not trade Reddick. But if that stance changes, Cody Benjamin has five potential landing spots for the two-time Pro Bowler.

👎 Not so honorable mentions

• Rodgers regrets his “immunized” comment.
• There’s another star edge rusher in the Northeast unhappy with his contract.
• The Lions suffered a rash of significant injuries, including a hamstring injury to Jahmyr Gibbs.
• Please pitch to Aaron Judge.
• Jarren Duran was suspended two games for calling a fan a homophobic slur.
• Kevin Durant admitted he’s thought about retirement.
• Tyreek Hill thinks he’s faster than Noah Lyles. That is (almost 100%) not true.
• Matt LaFleur hates the phrase “No. 1 wide receiver.”
• Amarius Mims (pectoral) will miss several weeks.
• Dearica Hamby filed a federal lawsuit against the Aces alleging intimidation, discrimination and harassment over her pregnancy.

🏈 Winners, losers, overreactions from NFL preseason Week 1

We’re through one week of the NFL preseason. If your team didn’t look great, don’t panic. If your team looked awesome, don’t get too excited … or do! That’s a really fun part of being a fan! Anyway, having seen all 32 teams play, we have plenty of thoughts, including Cody Benjamin’s winners and losers. In one of the few true quarterback battles, one option didn’t play and the other one didn’t help his cause.

• Benjamin: “Loser: Justin Fields — Was he ‘bad’ in his live-action Pittsburgh Steelers debut? Not necessarily. But after an offseason trailing Russell Wilson, desperate to shed his reputation as a turnover-prone starter from Chicago, two fumbled snaps isn’t going to vault him ahead in the quarterback competition. The one thing he needs is to protect the ball, which he did not cleanly do.”

The Steelers have somehow made do despite poor quarterback play for several years. But poor and turnover-filled quarterback play could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back on Mike Tomlin‘s streak of non-losing seasons. Advantage, Wilson … for now.

Another loser is the injury bug. It’s all over the place, and Marquise Brown‘s sternoclavicular joint dislocation could loom large. Tyreek Hill suffered the same injury in 2019 and missed four weeks, meaning Brown’s status for the Chiefs‘ season opener against the Ravens is up in the air. That’s bad news for a wide receiver group that struggled in 2023. Cody assessed whether the Chiefs are back in trouble at the position.

Here’s more big-picture looks around the league:

• The good, the bad and the ugly for all 32 teams
• The good, the bad and the ugly from the new-look kickoff
• Overreactions and reality checks

🏀 Who will be the best men’s college basketball team?

Candid Coaches is back! Our annual series — in which Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish talk with more than 100 men’s college basketball coaches to obtain their candid thoughts on a variety of topics — has returned with one simple question to start: Who will be the best team in 2024-25?

Nine teams received at least one vote of confidence, but one stood out among the others: Kansas topped the polling with nearly 36% of the vote. Here’s what was said about the Jayhawks:

• “They had a down year for them — and I think Bill Self‘s press conference at the end of the year said it all. He will be more motivated and locked in than ever before. They have a strong group of returners, with Hunter Dickinson being a potential player of (the) year. AJ Storr could prove to be a huge pickup for them, with [Rylan] Griffen from Alabama being a major sleeper too.”
• “They have a phenomenal core of experienced players in Dajuan Harris, Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams. They also add AJ Storr and others to go with that incredible home-court advantage.”
• “They absolutely reloaded. Self ain’t going through what he went through last year!”
• “Kansas returned plenty of experience and filled holes with high quality transfers.”

Two-time reigning champion UConn received 7.7% of the vote, but remember, the Huskies only received 1.9% of the vote in this exercise last year. Then they went out and dominated everyone else, and by the end of the season, they would have received 100% of the vote. With Dan Hurley leading the charge after considering the Lakers job, UConn will certainly factor into the title conversation in some way, shape or form.

📺 What we’re watching Tuesday

⚾ Dodgers at Brewers, 8:10 p.m. on TBS
⚾ Pirates at Padres OR Braves at Giants, 9:40 p.m. on MLB Network