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Jameis Winston’s passionate speeches and radiant smile have made him a media darling since taking over as the Browns’ starting quarterback. But those were traits Sean Payton saw every day while coaching him in New Orleans. “You hear him before you see him,” the Broncos coach said about his former player, who he will face on Monday night at home.

Thursday is a time for turkey, mashed potatoes, dysfunction and confessions. During the holiday the previous eight years, the NFL season tested my ability to enjoy a conversation about the Broncos. No matter how admirable the effort, the topic turned to the quarterback, a character more terrifying than Michael Myers and Pennywise. Emotions were raw.

The Broncos roll into Monday night’s game against Cleveland feeling good but running on tired legs. Denver’s playing for the 13th straight week in the regular season, with its bye week set to finally arrive on Tuesday. Take it back through training camp, and this team hasn’t actually had more than a couple of days off since they reported in late July. In practicality, that means 19 straight weeks of work for Sean Payton’s team. “It’s tough,” fourth-year outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper said of the Week 14 bye week, the latest possible in the NFL.

This week’s perfectly timed impulse of snow, driven by an atmospheric river of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, has been cause for true thanksgiving among skiers, riders and resort operators. Since the storm arrived early this week, Crested Butte led the way in the central mountains with 31 inches as of Wednesday morning, according to the OpenSnow reporting and forecasting service.

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Defeating second-ranked UConn showed the new-look Colorado men’s basketball team is quite capable of competing with the top programs in the nation. Iowa State showed the Buffaloes they still have plenty of work to do before Big 12 Conference play begins in a month. Against, as fate would have it, Iowa State. The Buffs took aim at a second top-five victory in as many days in their final contest at the Maui Invitational but instead were humbled by the fifth-ranked Cyclones, who routed CU 99-71 on Wednesday at the Lahaina Civic Center. A combination of too many reckless turnovers by CU, particularly in the first half, and torrid shooting from the Cyclones made it a long morning in Hawaii for the Buffs, who return home with a 1-2 mark against a loaded field at the most prestigious nonconference tournament in college basketball. “Today, it was all a matter of taking care of the ball and not boxing out,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said.

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