The Sweep, October 31 — Dončić Touches Earth, DraftKings Rules Christian Watson Out Too Early, Josh Jacobs Explains a Celebration, and Linda Cohn Says Loyalty Doesn't Pay

Friday, October 30. The Lakers led the Warriors 38-15 after one quarter in San Francisco, with Luka Dončić scoring 21 of them on five threes. Golden State won 112-95. The Associated Press says no team in the shot-clock era has won by that much after trailing by 20 or more after one quarter; the old mark was the Warriors' own 14-point win over the Bulls on March 4, 1976. Stephen Curry scored 31 and passed Dominique Wilkins for 18th on the all-time scoring list. The moment people will remember came in the third quarter, when Curry's crossover sent Dončić to the floor. Michael Grady's call on Prime: "Curry and Doncic. Oh, Dončić touches earth! Curry… insane!" Curry, to Blake Griffin afterwards: "I haven't been that open in a long time." Dončić finished with 37, which is the part the clip leaves out. A 40-point swing in an NBA Cup group game is not proof of anything in October, but the Lakers scored 57 points in the last three quarters, and that is not a highlight.

Thursday, October 29, into Friday. Christian Watson left Thursday Night Football by ambulance in the first half with a chest injury, was cleared at the hospital, came back to Lambeau and finished with eight catches for 113 yards in a 27-19 Packers win, ProFootballTalk reported. DraftKings had already announced that its "Early Exit" promotion would cover Watson bets. Then it reversed itself mid-game: "We prematurely ruled Christian Watson out. The Packers WR has returned to the game. We apologize for the confusion." By Friday morning it said it had "got it wrong" and paid affected customers in cash credits, Covers reported. bet365 kept its Prop Protect payouts in place. On the same night, DraftKings refused to void bets on the Hornets' Naz Reid, benched for the second half while healthy, because "all Naz Reid wagers will stand"; Fanatics, PrizePicks and Underdog voided them. Two players, two rulings, and a different policy at almost every operator. Injury protection is the most popular promo of the season, and nobody, including the books, seems to know what counts as an injury.

Thursday, October 29. Josh Jacobs scored a touchdown against Carolina and held his hands behind his back. Many viewers read it as miming handcuffs. Jacobs was arrested in May after police responded to a domestic violence incident at his home. He faced two misdemeanor charges, including battery, pleaded no contest in September and spent six games on the commissioner's exempt list, CBS Sports reports. On Friday he said the celebration was about a gospel song, "Break Every Chain," planned with Savion Williams, and that the broadcast cut away before Williams mimed unlocking his wrists. "They didn't even get the whole celebration," he said. "But like I said, the media's gonna run with it." The longer clip does support his account of what the gesture was. It does not change the fact that a player who pleaded no contest in a domestic violence case chose a celebration about being freed from chains, and he should not be surprised which part people saw.

Thursday, October 29. The NFL fined Caleb Williams $23,882 for an "unauthorized logo" on his shoes in Week 7 against the Patriots, ProFootballTalk reported. It is exactly double the $11,941 he was fined the week before. The cleats are made by Caddix, which has no league deal, and Williams intends to keep wearing them: "They're science cleats, and they've been working for me." His Week 6 appeal is unresolved. Our judgment: on a rookie-scale contract this is still a cheap experiment, and the league doubling the price each week is a negotiation, not a punishment. The point at which it stops being cheap is the one to watch.

Friday, October 30. The NCAA joined the Bad Actor Program run by the integrity firms IC360 and Signify Group, which scans social media for abuse aimed at college athletes and passes it on for sportsbook bans, exclusion from venues or referral to police, Casino.org reports. Fanatics and DraftKings are the only sportsbooks aligned with it. "Athlete harassment has no place in college sports," said NCAA president Charlie Baker. The NCAA's own survey from November 2025 found that 36 percent of Division I men's basketball players had received betting-related abuse on social media within the past year. This is a serious item and we report it straight. A ban list that covers only two sportsbooks is a start, and two is the number to watch.

This week (episode posted Wednesday, October 28). Linda Cohn told The Sage Steele Show that ESPN cut her pay by 80 percent in her last year there, after it closed the Los Angeles studio: "OK, Linda, you can do 15 events or appearances for us, but we're cutting your salary 80 percent." She also said "They had no place for a Linda Cohn in their mind," and that what people think she earned is "all incorrect." Awful Announcing reports no ESPN response. We have only her account, and ESPN has not disputed it. If the number is right, it is the plainest description yet of how the network has handled its long-serving studio talent, and it sounds less like a feud than a buyout no one called a buyout.

Friday, October 30. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is preparing to leave for a job outside college athletics, staying at least through January. Yormark arrived in 2022, signed the ESPN and Fox extensions early, and rebuilt the conference with Pac-12 schools after Texas and Oklahoma left. His tenure also included an LED glass basketball court scrapped mid-tournament and a public fight with Texas Tech's board chairman. "The next commissioner of this league will inherit a conference that is 16 strong," he said. That is true, and it is the case for him. The early TV deal, which Kansas chancellor Doug Girod credited, is the one decision that held the league together.

What we are not running, and why

• Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson's reported breakup. It rests on TMZ's unnamed sources, published Friday, with no statement from either of them. We will run it if one of them confirms it.
• The Draymond Green, Yaxel Lendeborg and Zach Edey scuffle. It happened on October 24 and was recirculated on Thursday with "new details" from a viral video and a lip-reader. A lip-reader is not a source.
• A Blue Jays bettor banned for threatening John Schneider. The threats followed a 2025 World Series game and Ohio's ban was announced on October 21. It is being shared this week as new; it is not.
• LaMelo Ball's $35,000 fine for an obscene gesture. It appears on a list headed "Oct. 30" with no year. We could not date it to this season.
• "Stephen Curry BLASTS Yaxel Lendeborg after BLOWOUT loss." A YouTube title from a channel we do not know, about a game Curry's team won. No outlet reported it.
• The Clippers in-arena host and the "hot mic." The game was Wednesday, October 28, and the story is a clip and a denial video about a noise. There is nothing to verify and nothing worth verifying.

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