There is clearly no fear from the Mets owner of the “Steve Cohen Tax.”

After reaching a stunning 12-year, $315 million contract agreement with star shortstop Carlos Correa, the Mets are fast approaching an unheard-of total payroll expense of $500 million. 

Yes, half a billion dollars — a very doable outlay for a man worth a reported $17 billion.

As things stand, after the Mets finalize salaries for arbitration-eligible players, they are estimated to have a $381.21 million payroll before taxes. 

The 2023 Mets are set to be charged $108.789 million in luxury tax, including $79.389 million on the fourth tax level — the “Steve Cohen Tax.”

That takes the Mets to just shy of $490 million in total payroll expense. And, the way things are going, Cohen may not be done trying to improve his 101-win team that was eliminated by the Padres in the wild-card round.

The previous highest payroll ever for luxury-tax purposes was the  2015 Dodgers at $341,486,133; their pre-tax payroll was $297,918,661. It’s possible the 2022 Dodgers or Mets top that as the figures for this year are not done yet.

WFAN squarely defeated ESPN New York in the latest ratings book as major changes loom at the latter radio station. 

In the afternoon matchup that has been the most hotly contested between the two networks for the last several years, WFAN’s “Carton & Roberts” with Craig Carton and Evan Roberts ranked second in the market with a 7.5 share in men 25-54 — the demographic to which sports talk radio listeners are marketed to advertisers — while ESPN’s “The Michael Kay Show” with Kay, Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg ranked 14th with a 2.9 share. These ratings are from 3-6:30 p.m., when the two shows overlap. 

WFAN’s “Boomer & Gio” with Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti finished tops in the market with a 9.7 share in morning drive from 6-10 a.m., while ESPN New York’s combination of “DiPietro and Rothenberg” with Rick DiPietro and Dave Rothenberg and “Keyshawn, JWill and Max” with Keyshawn Johnson, Jay Williams and Max Kellerman finished No. 15 with a 2.5 share. 

The Philadelphia Eagles have played 16 games this season with Jalen Hurts starting at quarterback. They’ve won 15 of them.

It seems like the NFL world forgot how good the Eagles were. The Eagles have been great since Week 1, but there were other shiny toys to pay attention to late in the season. As the playoffs approached, you didn’t hear much at all about the Eagles. 

Saturday night was a reminder that the Eagles were the best team in the regular season and could be in the playoffs too. At halftime, the Eagles were up 28 points on the New York Giants, and they went on to win 38-7.

Four of the Eagles’ first five drives were 75, 52, 63 and 72 yards, and all four ended with touchdowns. Hurts threw touchdown passes to Dallas Goedert and Smith. Boston Scott, who is on a heater against the Giants, scored the Eagles’ third touchdown. He has scored a touchdown in all nine career games against New York. Hurts ran in for a touchdown inside  the two-minute warning and if there was even a little bit of doubt about who was moving on to the NFC championship game, that evaporated.