As the Arizona Cardinals will face the entire AFC West in 2026, they will face Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs had a down year, missing the playoffs, and Mahomes tore his ACL.
Mahomes will be back when the Cardinals play them in Kansas City in Week 11.
In a new episode of the podcast, Chiefs Wire contributing writer Ed Easton Jr. joined me to talk about the Chiefs in the latest opponent preview show.
We talked about the Chiefs' down 2025, the change from Matt Nagy to Eric Bienemy at offensive coordinator, their work in free agency, their draft picks and expectations for 2026.
(1:00) The Chiefs' 2025 season

#down #west #patrick

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with Emmy Award-winning actor and lifelong Kansas City Chiefs fan Eric Stonestreet.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Stonestreet, who stars in the new Coors Light campaign 'Mahomeses' alongside Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, reacted to the disappointing 2025 Chiefs season.
"Well, I, like everybody else, just switched to next season. I just moved on; this season is a no-go, and so now everything we do from here on out is going to be about next season, which means draft choices, which means preserving and making sure we're healthy moving into next season, which was unfortunate with Patrick getting hurt when he did," said Stonestreet. "I just moved on. That's what you learn in football. It's the game of life. You have a bad play, you've got to move on. You have a bad game; you've got to move on. You have a bad season; you've got to move on."
The Chiefs finished the 2025 season with a 6-11 record, failing to make the playoffs or win the AFC West for the first time in a decade. Stonestreet elaborated on his view of the season, emphasizing dedicated support for the players and coaching staff.
"That's the principles of football, and this is the principles of what football teaches you in life as well. I try to keep my fandom just behind that of Andy Reid, that of Patrick Mahomes, and that of Chris Jones because I'm not out there sweating, I'm not out there bleeding, I'm not," said Stonestreet. "I haven't been in the weight room since I was 18." I didn't play college ball and go through the trials and tribulations of getting drafted and all that. I try to keep my anger, my disappointment, my happiness, and my excitement behind the people who actually contributed to the winning, and also feel that they contributed to the losing. I don't want to pile on; I want to be a fan and know they're out there trying their best, and they want to win more than anybody else."

#season #stonestreet #move #easton

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with Pro Football Hall of Famer Dwight Freeney.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Freeney, who is participating in this weekend's American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe, currently airing on NBC and Peacock, shared his excitement for the tournament, his partnership with Performance Golf, and his mindset while collecting sacks during his playing career.
"I got hooked up with Performance Golf, and they have some great things going on from their standpoint. The app is called PG1, which uses A.I. to scan your swing and tell you exactly what your root flaw is," said Freeney. "So, going into this event, it's kind of like having them behind you, helping with that technology. A.I. is taking over now; I can put my phone behind me. It can ***** yze my swing, and tell me, without a coach, the A.I. is my coach, tells me, okay, this is what you're doing wrong, and then sends me a video on how to fix that problem, it's been a good journey, I think it's going to do good for me, and hopefully I can apply it the right way, you know, during the American Century Championship."
During his career against the Kansas City Chiefs, Freeney recorded 4 sacks and 17 combined tackles in multiple regular-season matchups. He recorded 125.5 career sacks over 16 years and said his favorite sack was the one that affected the immediate outcome of a close game.
"For me, it's the sacks that matter now; they all matter, but whenever you can close a game with a sack that is, I mean, there is no better feeling," said Freeney. "It's very comparable to basketball. You have the ball in your hands, the clock is running down three to one, you freaking let it go, and you win it for your team, kind of how you see all the time in the bracket NCAA basketball championship games; that's the feeling of what it is when you go out there. You get a sack on a quarterback when he's driving; they need to score a touchdown or a field goal. I sack him, I cause the fumble, and we recover the fumble, and we win."

The Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox just keep winning.
With Friday's 2-0 win in eight innings over the Bourne Braves (10-9-3), the Red Sox improved their league-best mark to 19-2-1.
The Red Sox did their damage with pitching Friday. Starting pitcher Easton Teel (Oral Roberts) went five innings with no hits, no runs and two walks allowed. He struck out two batters. Connor Hamilton (Vanderbilt) followed with two innings, two hits allowed, one walk and two strikeouts. Peyton Rodgers (UC Irvine) then went one inning with one strikeout.
Avery Ortiz (Oklahoma State) was the only player on either team with two hits.
Yarmouth-Dennis scored first in the bottom of the first inning as Dante Vachini (Cal Poly) homered to center field, his third of the summer.

Steve Sarkisian and Co. are pushing to bring another top-five recruiting class to Austin next year.
Texas has had its hands in myriad high-profile recruitments this cycle and it has often times come out with a commitment. That’s been especially true this summer.
The Longhorns landed 11 commitments in June, eight of which were of the blue-chip variety. It has already added two more in July. With 22 total commits in the mix, the class now ranks fifth nationally, according to the Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings.
In what was the biggest recruiting victory of the summer, Texas beat Texas A&M for Five-Star Plus+ cornerback John Meredith, the cycle’s No. 2 overall prospect. He headlines what’s arguably the best defensive back haul in the nation.
Five-Star Plus+ wide receiver Easton Royal, the No. 1 WR overall, has been in the class since the end of November, and while LSU and Florida have tired their hardest to flip him away, he remains in the Texas class coming out of official visit season.

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with Pro Football Hall of Famer and Chicago Bears legend Brian Urlacher.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Urlacher discusses his participation in this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe and air on NBC and Peacock. He discussed that Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton deserves more respect as one of the best at his position in the league.
"They're (MLB players) always so much better than we (NFL players) are (at the American Century Championship). I mean, we have Tony Romo, Marshall Faulk, who is really good for us, but they have Derek Lowe and Mark Mulder, who are just as good," said Urlacher. "They have so many good players; it's frustrating Kevin Millar is also good; they're just stacked with talent."
Urlacher is considered one of the greatest linebackers to play the game, earning numerous accolades throughout his career. He praises several of today's stars, including Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton.
"Man, that dude (Nick Bolton) gets it. He's very overlooked, but Fred Warner is great, but Bolton, maybe just because all the players on that team, he doesn't get the (same) respect," said Urlacher, "Chris Jones up front, and George Karlaftis, those guys up front, and they had the secondary guys, they were good. Nick Bolton does not get a lot of national exposure, and he should, because he makes a lot of plays."

Ruston High 4-star safety Jayden Anding has chosen the LSU Tigers over the Ole Miss Rebels.
Jayden is the younger brother of current LSU cornerback Aidan Anding, and a teammate of 5-star LSU commit Ahmad Hudson. The Ruston High standout is a top-350 player nationally and a top-30 safety in the country. He stands 6’0″ and weighs 170 pounds.
Anding is an off-ball safety who plays with great eyes, outstanding instincts, and excellent ball-hawking ability. He plays the run very well, comes downhill to make solid tackles, and isn’t afraid to deliver a big hit when the opportunity presents itself.
Anding reunites with his older brother in Baton Rouge under Lane Kiffin. LSU is also in the mix to land the nation’s No. 1 overall player, Jalen Brewster. Can the Tigers set off a chain reaction across the 2027 recruiting landscape? Can Lane Kiffin land both Easton Royal and Jalen Brewster?
The Tigers are red-hot on the recruiting trail, and the remainder of this month they expected to turn up the heat even more for Royal and Brewster.

LSU football jumped a spot in the 2027 cycle rankings after adding another recruit to its group. Four-star defensive back Greedy James flipped from Texas to join head coach Lane Kiffin's team.
Rivals' Industry Rankings lists the Tigers at No. 11 nationally and No. 5 in the SEC, a one-spot ****** p in each from before James' commitment. They remained on the outskirts of a solid top-10 class for much of the spring, but a few more additions could be made before the fall.
LSU is still aiming to flip the commitments of five-stars Jalen Brewster and Easton Royal. Both rank No. 1 at their positions and could boost the purple and gold into the national top-five should they choose to play for Kiffin.
Tight end Ahmad Hudson is the lone five-star prospect committed to LSU in the 2027 cycle. Of the Tigers' 15 commitments, 11 are blue-chip players and six hail from Louisiana.
This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: Where LSU football's recruiting class ranks after four-star flip

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with retired Major League Baseball All-Star and FOX Sports ****** yst John Smoltz.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Smoltz discusses his participation in this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe and air on NBC and Peacock. He discussed the Atlanta Braves' bounce-back 2026 season after last year's struggles and its potential similarities to the Kansas City Chiefs ahead of the new NFL season.
"You have pride, you want to find a way to climb the ladder (at the American Century Championship) and be in that last or second or last group," said Smoltz, "It just happens to be that I don't start very well, I finish well, but I gotta, I gotta find a way to start better."
Smoltz's former team, the Braves, had their worst start and season in over a decade last year, missing the playoffs. A similar scenario for the Chiefs, who started last season slowly and eventually snapped their division ****** le and playoff appearances streak after many successful seasons. Atlanta has stormed back in 2026 with the best start in baseball, signaling that last year was a fluke as the Chiefs hope to mirror that performance in the NFL.
"The probability of them (Braves) going 0-9 last year and starting again this year was not high—the probability of all those guys getting hurt in a perfect world that went absolutely wrong. You think that by those things alone, you were going to be better. If they stay healthy in the rotation, they're going to be a tough team to beat. Now it's the perfect start," said Smoltz. "Last year was the absolute worst start, so you see the two ends of the spectrum. You would never think you were going to have a 10-game lead this early in the season, but the entire league kind of went the wrong direction, while the Braves went in the right direction. We're on the flip side, the central, everyone's got a winning record, so you don't know how baseball is going to shake out, and right now, you couldn't ask for a better start."

WESTFIELD – The New Britain Bees hit a three-run home run in the first inning and never looked back in an eventual 15-1 win over the Westfield Starfires on Sunday.
Westfield fell to 11-12 on the season.
In a harbinger of things to come, Brady Paul led off for the Bees, and on a 3-2 pitch, hit a pop-up to shallow center field that Westfield's defense could not find in the sun; it fell in for a double. A strikeout, a walk, and a pop-up put Westfield on the brink of escaping the inning, but Tim Hennig fouled off five straight pitches before cranking a 2-2 offering over the right-field fence for a three-run shot.
Westfield did get a run back in its half of the inning; University of Saint Joseph's senior JJ Fox slapped the first pitch he saw down the left-field line for a double, and ultimately came home on a groundout by Louisiana Tech sophomore Easton Sanders.
That was the only hit for the Starfires, however, and New Britain hit its stride midway through the game. Three straight singles in the fourth plated another run, and another single thereafter made it 5-1, but the real blow was in the fifth as a leadoff fielding error precipitated an inning where the Bees sent 11 men to the plate, including Paul crushing another three-run blast to right and Hennig driving in another run. When the dust settled, the Bees led 11-1.

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with Tennessee ***** ans head coach Robert Saleh.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Saleh discusses his participation in this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe and air on NBC and Peacock. He discussed the decision to hire former Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to his new coaching staff.
"Dab's (Brian Daboll) been there, done that, he's got a history of developing quarterbacks," said Saleh, "In this day and age, where it feels like the entire league has kind of gone to that Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Kevin O'Connell (style), like those guys who are all outstanding in regards to what they do, Daboll presents something a little bit different."
Daboll served as the Chiefs' coordinator in 2012 and, after four seasons as the head coach of the New York Giants, was fired after 10 games in 2025. Daboll's Giants lost to the Chiefs in Week 3 of last season.
"He's got experience. He's got a tremendous amount of knowledge about his scheme and a tremendous amount of experience in how to coach it, how to coach all the snakes in the grass," said Saleh. "He's got a great rapport with quarterbacks, understands them, and can communicate with them. I just felt with Cam Ward and Daboll, a perfect match with regards to personality, and felt Daboll would be perfect at extracting the most out of them."

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with ESPN basketball ****** yst Jay Bilas.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Bilas discusses his participation in this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe and air on NBC and Peacock. He discussed the potential of a successful rookie class in sports and the highly praised 2026 NBA Draft class.
"I don't know that I'm going to play well ( in the American Century Championship), but I'm going to look good." Said Bilas, "Being in all my Peter Millar stuff, long pants, great players wear long pants, so I'll be in good shape."
The 2026 NFL Draft is in the rear-view with the Kansas City Chiefs addressing several areas of need, especially on defense, with their first four picks. There is always a chance the next Hall of Famer is in this NFL class ahead of the 2026 season. As in the NBA, there are high expectations for this year's young crop, already receiving comparisons to past elite draft classes heading into the league.
"It's not unfair to compare them, as long as we're comparing them as of the draft, you know, sometimes when you look back from 1984 to 2003 you're talking about Hall of Fame players, and we don't know where these guys are going to wind up, so that's sort of the rub there, but as far as depth of talent, this draft is is the deep." said Bilas, "A draft of really good players that I can remember, and especially, I should say, this freshman class, is deeper than any freshman class I can recall. It doesn't mean the top five players are better than five or 10 years ago; it means the rest of the players are better. That's why so many teams were interested in having a draft pick. But having it as high as possible in this draft, because you have the chance to get a player that's really going to help you, and it's going to help you right away."

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with ESPN basketball ***** yst Jay Bilas.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Bilas discusses his participation in this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 10-12 at Edgewood Tahoe and air on NBC and Peacock. He shared his thoughts on the impact of NIL and the transfer portal on NFL and NBA draft front-office evaluation decisions.
"I think everybody competes hard (at the American Century Championship), and they want to do well, but at the same time everybody realized we're not PGA Tour players," said Bilas, "This is a hobby for us, so you have to show yourself a little grace too."
A significant change in the NFL and NBA draft evaluation process has been players' adjustment to multiple schools in college due to NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) and the transfer portal.
"It just depends on the why of it. Look, we see players moving from AAU team to AAU team; they switch high schools, which wasn't really a thing when I was younger, so it's more a part of the culture now." said Bilas, "But I think if it's a, you could argue, it's a question of stability, or, but I don't think the NBA would really worry about that too much, unless there was something about the player's personality that was some red flag for him. The NBA is after talent. One of the things we've seen, especially with NIL, is that players are staying in school longer, waiting until they're ready, or getting drafted where they want to be drafted."

Game Thread #31 : Milwaukee Brewers (16-14) @ Washington Nationals (15-17)

The Milwaukee Brewers and Washington Nationals open a three-game set in the nation’s capitol tonight, three weeks after the Nats swept the Brewers in three games in Milwaukee. The Brewers will obviously be looking for different results this weekend, and they’ll get things started tonight by sending Jacob Misiorowski to the mound to take on Washington’s Jake Irving.
But first, we’ll cover today’s roster news: after the concerning dip in velocity that forced the Brewers to remove Brandon Woodruff after just 1 1/3 innings on Thursday, he’s been placed on the 15-day injured list. The news, though, is mostly encouraging. You can see Woodruff talk about what happened yesterday at the link, but imaging revealed nothing more than minor inflammation and nothing major appears to be an issue. Woodruff doesn’t sound like a guy who expects to be out long, so considering how alarming Thursday’s game was, it’s pretty close to a best-case scenario. Woodruff will be replaced for now on the roster by Easton McGee, but expect someone else (Logan Henderson?) when Woodruff’s rotation spot comes up in a few days.
We also got a small update on Luis Peña, who collapsed in the dugout during the eighth inning of the Timber Rattlers’ game on April 22nd. Matt Arnold told reporters that all tests on Peña, who hasn’t played since then, have come back normal, though he is scheduled to see a neurologist on Monday. The fact that all the tests have been normal is encouraging, though his visit to see a neurologist suggests that the Brewers are going to make darn sure that there’s nothing wrong with him before letting him get back on a baseball field.
As for tonight’s starter, Misiorowski’s last start continued a season-long trend: he’s pitched quite well and showed some real signs of progress, but hasn’t quite been able to put together a full-length, dominant start yet. Against the Pirates in Milwaukee on Saturday, Miz struck out nine and walked only one, but the Pirates got him for three runs, all of which came in innings in which he plunked the leadoff hitter. The Brewers lost that game in ten innings. Miz missed the Nationals when they were in Milwaukee (and didn’t face them last year), so it’ll be the first time that Washington gets the experience of facing one of the most electric starters in the league.
Washington counters with the 29-year-old right-hander Jake Irvin, who faced the Brewers on April 10th. Washington won that game, but Irvin didn’t factor into the decision; he was wild and walked five batters in that game, but allowed only two hits and was able to limit the damage to three runs in five innings. Irvin had his best start of the season his last time out against the White Sox, when he allowed no runs on four hits and no walks while striking out nine in 5 2/3 innings. The bullpen blew Washington’s lead, but they won in extras. For the season, Irvin has a 4.85 ERA but more encouraging 4

Retired NFL Linebacker reveals personal ties to Super Bowl LX winner

This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with retired NFL linebacker turned actor Stevie Baggs Jr.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Baggs discussed his partnership with Beyond the Game Health, which contributes to youth in the community. He also revealed his unique connection to Super Bowl LX.
"During my career, I didn't even understand that the game was as mental as it was when I was playing it. You start to really recognize that later on in your career," said Baggs, "But when I fully retired, I was able to step aw