Your Monday, October 5: Monday Night Football, Two ALDS Game 2s, and the Last Day to Claim September's PS Plus Games

Monday has a way of sorting October. The weekend gave us walk-offs and Game 2 drama; Monday is when the postseason settles into its rhythm and football reclaims the night. Between Monday Night Football, a pair of American League Division Series games, and a PlayStation Plus deadline that quietly expires at midnight, this is one of those Mondays where everything is on at once. Here is the full rundown — what to watch, when, and where to find it.

Monday Night Football — Falcons at Saints, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN

The nightcap is Falcons at Saints from Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, and it matters more than a Week 5 primetime game usually does. Both teams come in at 1-2. The winner gets back to .500 with the NFC South hanging in the balance; the loser falls to 1-3 and starts running out of room in a division nobody is running away with.

The storylines are set. Atlanta arrives with 10 days of rest, having last played on Thursday night in Week 3, and the extra preparation shows up in how the Falcons have started seasons under their current setup — rested, healthy, and usually dangerous as road underdogs. New Orleans, meanwhile, is back in the Superdome for its first Monday night home game since 2022, and Monday marks a bit of a milestone: 20 years since the building's most famous Monday night game, the post-Katrina reopening. Expect the building to be loud in a way it only gets on Mondays.

For the full matchup breakdown — injuries, lineups, and what each team has to fix — our Monday Night Preview has it all.

ALDS Game 2s — 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET, TBS

Baseball owns the afternoon and the early evening. The American League Division Series resumes Monday with both Game 2s after Saturday's openers, and both are on TBS.

The early game is White Sox at Guardians, first pitch 5 p.m. ET from Progressive Field in Cleveland. Chicago took Game 1 behind a shutout — catch up on the recap if you missed it — so the Guardians are already in a position they did not want to be in: win Monday or head to Chicago down 0-2 with their season on the line. Cleveland has been one of the league's toughest home teams all year, which makes this one of the day's most interesting leverage points. A White Sox win Monday and this series is a best-of-three with two games at Rate Field.

The late game is Yankees at Rays, 8 p.m. ET from Tropicana Field — the first-place Yankees, owners of the AL's No. 1 seed and a 98-64 record, in a series that was supposed to be a coronation and has been anything but routine so far. New York swept Boston in the wild-card round to get here; Tampa is the kind of October opponent that has ended bigger seasons than this one. Win Monday, and the Yankees take control before the series shifts to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Lose, and the Rays head to New York with a split and all the momentum of a team nobody picked.

Every ALDS game airs on TBS and streams on HBO Max. NLDS Game 3s follow on Tuesday — Dodgers at Braves at 6 p.m. ET, Brewers at Padres at 9:30 p.m. ET, both on FS1 — with the Brewers one win from the NLCS and the Dodgers suddenly fighting for their three-peat life.

The PS Plus deadline — claim by midnight

Here is the one that expires while you're watching football: Monday is the last day to claim September's PlayStation Plus Essential games. Psychonauts 2, Stardew Valley, and Viewfinder rotate out at the end of Monday, replaced Tuesday, October 6, by October's lineup: F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896, and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2, all for PS5.

If you haven't claimed them yet, this is the drill: open the PlayStation Store (or the PS App on your phone — it takes about 30 seconds), find each game, and hit the claim/add-to-library button. You don't have to download them. You don't even have to own a PS5 right now — claimed games stay in your library as long as your Plus subscription is active. But once Monday ends, they're gone, and October's games roll in whether you're ready or not.

October's trio is a genuinely strong month — F1 25 is the flagship racing sim on the market, Hunt: Showdown 1896 is one of the best extraction shooters going, and EDF: World Brothers 2 is pure voxel chaos — but September's set is the one people will regret sleeping on. Stardew Valley is, at this point, one of the most beloved games ever made. Psychonauts 2 is a platformer with a legitimate argument for the best writing in any game of its era. Viewfinder is the clever indie puzzler everyone meant to play. Claim all three before the football game ends.

The rest of the night

Between the first pitch at 5 and kickoff at 8:15, the rhythm of the night practically plans itself: ALDS doubleheader as the appetizer, Monday Night Football as the main course, and this week's streaming lineup waiting for the late crowd whenever the sports are done. October only does this once — four leagues' postseasons and primetime football all colliding in the same week. Monday is the on-ramp. Enjoy it.