Episodes

The 2026 NFL season is starting to separate the contenders from the pretenders, and this week’s Missing the Point NFL Power Rankings bring arguments, overreactions, humiliations, and two more teams officially sent to the playoff graveyard. The San Francisco 49ers remain No. 1 after surviving a wild 32-29 battle with the Seattle Seahawks. Brock Purdy continues to look electric, San Francisco keeps overcoming injuries, and the 5-0 Niners are beginning to put real distance between themselves and t...

Forty-five points can make anybody drunk on optimism. So before New England Patriots fans start planning the Super Bowl parade route through Foxborough, we’re asking the question that actually matters: are the Patriots really back, or did they just catch the perfect moment to steamroll a bad Las Vegas Raiders defense? After a huge road win over the Buffalo Bills and a 45-point beatdown of the Raiders, the Patriots suddenly look like one of the most interesting teams in the AFC. And at the center...

Five teams are sitting at 0-4, which means the 2026 NFL season has already reached one of our favorite annual traditions: deciding whether it is socially acceptable to bury a team’s playoff hopes before the leaves have even changed. This week on Missing the Point, we dive headfirst into our NFL Week 5 Power Rankings, starting at the very bottom with the league’s winless teams and asking the uncomfortable question: which NFL teams can officially be crossed off from playoff contention? The Los An...

Week 3 of the NFL season is when the “sure things” start looking shaky, the weird teams start stacking wins, and every fan base convinces itself the truth is hiding just one Sunday away. We sit down and run our latest NFL power rankings with zero mercy, starting at the bottom where some teams already feel cooked, then working upward through the messy middle where everything is still up for grabs. We cross off the Dolphins, debate whether the Patriots deserve an absolutely brutal drop, and ask t...

The Patriots are 1-2, the vibes are rancid, and the schedule does not care. We set the scene from Jacksonville to Buffalo and ask the question every New England fan is yelling at the TV: what happened to this football team so fast? Drake Maye looks nothing like the guy people were ready to crown, the turnovers are piling up, and the offence feels like it is searching for answers on every snap. We dig into the most alarming stuff, starting with Maye’s decision making and why missing AJ Brown cha...

September football is a stress test, and the league is already cracking. We open by digging into the rash of NFL injuries and the uncomfortable preseason question nobody can answer cleanly: are players getting hurt because the warm-up has become too soft, too short, and too staged to prepare them for real hits? We kick around realistic and not-so-realistic fixes, because the product is better when the stars are actually playing. From there, we get personal with the Caleb Williams discourse. We ...

Three fourth quarter interceptions can turn a manageable road game into the kind of loss that sticks with you for months. We come in still annoyed about the Patriots dropping a 13-10 game to the Seahawks, not because losing to Seattle is unthinkable, but because New England had control early, got a break when the starter went down, and still found a way to give it away late. If you’ve been searching for honest Patriots talk that doesn’t dodge the ugly details, we go straight at the decisions tha...

Wednesday night football is a crime against tradition, and it also sets the tone for the messiest kind of Week 1 energy. We’re back with Power Rankings, only now Matt Wilcox is holding the clipboard, and we’re locking the preseason board before the season starts moving pieces around. That means no instant overreactions, but also no free passes. Our rule is simple: prove it, even if your logo used to scare people. We start in the basement and work up, because the bottom teams tell the clearest s...

The New England Patriots enter the 2026 NFL season facing an entirely new challenge: expectations. After their stunning Super Bowl run, can the Patriots prove they’re legitimate contenders—and take the next step toward another championship? Veteran Patriots reporter and returning fan favorite Karen Guregian joins Mike for an essential New England Patriots season preview. Karen’s trusted reputation, decades of experience covering the team, and outstanding insider access to the Patriots make her ...

The fastest way to ruin your peace before Week 1 is to write down your NFL season predictions in ink, so that’s exactly what we do. We bring back our annual record-prediction game, complete with our “within one game” scoring and the chaos button: the steal, where you can challenge the other side’s win total and try to grab extra points. We go division by division and force real choices. The NFC North turns into a tight fight between Lions confidence, Bears hope, Packers skepticism, and a Viking...

Liverpool win the league, then stumble to fifth, then pull the trigger on the manager. That kind of swing forces one uncomfortable question: when you’ve invested big and the football turns joyless, how patient are you supposed to be? We unpack the Slot era hangover, why the sack feels justified to us, and what we actually want to see from Andoni Iraola beyond buzzwords. For us it’s simple: clear pressing, bolder attacking patterns, and players put in roles that make sense. From the back line to...

The best sports moments don’t just happen on the field, they imprint. We’re in the dog days of summer, so we turn the mic toward the plays, matches, and memories that built our fandom in the first place: the ones you can still see with your eyes closed, down to where you were sitting and who was in the room. We draft our personal top three professional sports moments and follow the emotional thread through wildly different worlds: a Red Sox Yankees classic at Fenway that felt like October, Live...

WWE is showing up on ESPN like it belongs there, and we think it does. Mike Marcangelo is joined by Zachary Gray to talk about why pro wrestling fits the “Entertainment Sports Programming Network” label perfectly, and why seeing WWE treated like a real sports property feels strangely validating for fans who’ve heard “you know it’s fake, right?” for years. From there, we go match by match through a stacked SummerSlam 2026 preview as the event heads to two nights in Minneapolis. We get into CM Pu...

One decision, one bell, and one referee turned a title match into a real-life rupture that fans still argue about decades later. We go deep on the Montreal Screwjob and why it hits harder than any “worked” twist: because the people involved believed the stakes were real, even if the sport is scripted. We trace the full road to Survivor Series 1997, starting with how Bret Hart becomes WWF’s reliable standard in the post-steroid-scandal 90s, while Shawn Michaels becomes the era’s most magnetic pe...

YouTube golf has turned a traditionally closed, formal sport into something that can feel like you are riding in the cart with friends and that shift has fans fired up on both sides. We stage a full debate on whether creator golf has made the game better or whether it has created a new kind of chaos that shows up as slow pace, wrecked greens, and crowds that treat tour events like a comment section. If you care about golf culture, golf etiquette, and where golf media is headed, this one gets rea...

They kept repeating one word at the press conference and it somehow made everything feel worse: “optionality”. We sit down right after Brad Stevens and new owner Bill Chisholm face the microphones, and we try to translate what Boston is actually telling fans after sending Jalen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and picks. The Celtics call it a path forward. We call it a move that begs for straight answers about value, direction, and whether this front office just blinked. We dig i...

The Boston Celtics just traded Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft picks, and Missing the Point is officially entering emergency podcast mode. Dave Clarke and Matt Wilcox break down the shocking Jaylen Brown trade, the Celtics’ decision to send a Finals MVP and franchise cornerstone directly to one of their biggest Eastern Conference rivals, and whether Brad Stevens just made one of the worst trades in Boston sports history. Is this worse than the Mookie Betts trade...

The Missing the Point crew is back with a full four-man NBA debate show, and this one is built to start arguments. Dave, Mike, Zach, and Matt draft their ultimate teams of the most overrated players in NBA history, taking on some of basketball’s biggest names, loudest legacies, and most untouchable fan favorites. From Michael Jordan vs. LeBron discourse to the mythology of Kobe Bryant, the Celtics legacy of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, the MVP arguments around Steve Nash and Russell Westbrook...

The New York Knicks just pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, erasing a 29-point deficit against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. Was it a legendary Knicks comeback, a generational Spurs collapse, or both? On this episode of Missing the Point, Dave and Matt break down the chaos from every angle: Wemby’s late-game fatigue, the Spurs’ three-point addiction, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns refusing to quit, Knicks fans taking over the sports world, and whether th...

The Spurs had the lead, the crowd had the vibe, and the Knicks still walked out with a 2-0 series edge. We react in real time to a Game 2 that flips from “go to bed early” to full chaos, starting with Victor Wembanyama getting a clean late look and ending with the kind of execution questions that decide NBA playoff series. We also get into the moment that keeps bugging us: when you’ve got a timeout and only seconds left, why are you choosing speed over clarity? From there, we zoom in on what th...

The NBA Finals can feel like a chess match, but sometimes it’s simpler than that: can you survive 48 minutes against a 7'4 alien who bends every possession. We break down Spurs vs Knicks with the two storylines that actually decide the series: what “stopping” Victor Wembanyama really looks like in playoff basketball, and whether New York can win without turning the game into a parade of foul trouble and desperation threes. We talk traps up top, physical wear, emotional edges, and the uncomfortab...

The playoffs always expose what a team really is, and we get into the version of that truth that Celtics fans do not want to hear. We break down Boston’s exit with an unfiltered coaching conversation, from predictable offence to the difference between “shoot more threes” and having real counters when a series tightens. If you have strong takes on leadership, max contracts, or what “easy to play against” actually looks like, you will have plenty to argue with here. Then we zoom out to what is ma...

The New England Patriots are entering one of the most important seasons of the post-Tom Brady era, and Missing the Point is breaking down every major storyline surrounding Foxborough. On this episode of Missing the Point, Mike Marcangelo is joined by Zachary Gray for a full New England Patriots 2025 offseason preview, covering Drake Maye’s year three expectations, the Patriots’ offensive line concerns, A.J. Brown trade rumors, Stefon Diggs comparisons, Romeo Doubs’ role in the offense, New Engl...

The NBA Playoffs are rolling on, and Missing the Point is back to break down a second round that has been weird, brutal, frustrating, and occasionally incredible. Dave Clarke and Mike Marcangelo start with the Oklahoma City Thunder looking less like a fun young team and more like the NBA’s next inevitable monster. OKC’s defense, depth, pace, and ridiculous two-way pressure have overwhelmed the Los Angeles Lakers, even with LeBron James still playing at a shocking level for his age. The guys deb...