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Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young will have a new offensive weapon to work with in 2024.
The Panthers traded for Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson on Tuesday, acquiring the 27-year-old veteran for cornerback Donte Jackson and a pick swap, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported.
Carolina also sent Pittsburgh a sixth-round pick (No. 177) in exchange for a seventh-round pick (No. 240) in the deal.
2024 NFL Free-Agency Tracker: Grading Every Major Move
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
The Houston Texans are fortifying their defensive line, reportedly agreeing to terms on a deal with star pass rusher Danielle Hunter.
The contract will run for two years and will pay Hunter $49 million, including $48 million guaranteed. It carries a maximum value of $51 million, including incentives, according to ESPN reporter Adam Schefter.
Hunter, 29, has spent his entire NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings. In 2023, he featured in 17 games and registered a career-best 16.5 sacks, along with a league-high 23 tackles for loss.
Before starting this column about Aaron Rodgers possibly being the next Vice President of the United States, I am reminded of a joke I want to use in this space because, let’s face it, these next few paragraphs are bizarre and make a mockery of one of the great names in American political history.
So, anyway, I was thinking of using a good U.S. vice president joke.
But I can’t recall any good United States vice presidents.
Badum-tsss.
On a variety of levels, Kenny Payne was an understandable and defensible hire as the men’s basketball coach for the Louisville Cardinals in 2022. But on the only level that matters, it turned out to be a flaming disaster.
After another dismal loss, this one in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament Tuesday, the disaster is over. When it becomes official is immaterial. Payne is out, and the worst competitive era in school history is over.
Louisville won just 12 games and lost 52 under Payne, an incomprehensible record.
There are people out there fighting the good fight.
On Tuesday, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville gathered some of the leading voices in women’s activism in sports to highlight the growing issue surrounding trans athletes.
Members of the International Women’s Forum shared powerful testimonies and an important call to action during their discussion alongside Tuberville at the “Take Back Title IX” roundtable.
Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens reportedly is packing his bags for Chicago.
His wife, decorated Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, appears to be thrilled about it.
Shortly after NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported the Bears agreed to sign Owens to two-year contract on Tuesday in free agency, Biles weighed in on social media to thank Packers fans and send a message to the Windy City.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The word “fans” was used 24 times by Jay Monahan in his Tuesday press conference at the 50th Players Championship.
After listening to the PGA Tour commissioner for 59 minutes, you would believe fans are the Tour’s most important constituency and that everyone here is committed to making the pro game better for them.
Monahan said early in his remarks that he wanted to speak directly to the fans and, in an apologetic tone, downplayed the discussions of money.
The former two-division UFC champ has found a lot of success and personal fulfillment in his post-retirement career as a UFC commentator and general on-air talent for ESPN, but it’s not without its drawbacks.
If you are an NFL wide receiver, this is the worst time of the year to send a cryptic tweet.
Free agency is open and dominating headlines as the rest of the sports world awaits basketball and hockey postseason tournaments to begin. The expectations of NFL fans are through the roof, and a simple emoji or cryptic sentence posted to social media can set off reckless speculation.
Into these conditions waded Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase on Tuesday afternoon.
“This will be a krazy story to tell,” Chase wrote on social media.
Oklahoma’s loss dropped the Sooners out of the top 16, making way for Colorado to return.
South Carolina is the favorite. And the margin between the Gamecocks and the next-best team may be sizable. But these nine teams are also contenders.
Jay Monahan speaks to the press ahead of the 2024 PLAYERS Championship. | Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Speaking to the media for the first time since August, Jay Monahan updated the media on the tour’s deal with the Saudi PIF.
Talks continue to progress, according to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.
Speaking ahead of The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, Monahan revealed that negotiations remain ongoing between the tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the beneficiary of LIV Golf.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently is eyeing two big-name current and former athletes as candidates to join him as a running mate on an independent presidential ticket this upcoming election.
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura top the list of Kennedy’s potential candidates on the ticket, New York Times journalist Rebecca Davis O’Brien reported Tuesday.
Rodgers, 40, is set to be the Jets’ starting quarterback next season, which conflicts with the peak of the campaign season.
New York Rangers rookie Matt Rempe hasn’t spent much time in the NHL yet, but he’s been throwing hands like a seasoned veteran since his arrival in February.
Rempe has played in just 10 NHL games, and he’s set to miss a handful more after landing a four-game suspension as a result of his dangerous hit against New Jersey Devils defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler during the Rangers’ 3–1 win on Monday at Madison Square Garden.
Behind the Big 12, the SEC has been the next-best conference in college basketball this season. Seven SEC teams are projected to earn spots in the NCAA Tournament, a few of them as high seeds, and all 14 member schools are headed to Nashville this week to crown a champion.
The Tennessee Volunteers are favored to come out on top, just like they did in 2022, but they’ll face tough challenges from the Kentucky Wildcats, Auburn Tigers, Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida Gators and South Carolina Gamecocks, all of which are projected to be in the field of 68.
How did professional golf’s split come to life? Here’s a timeline compiled by Bob Harig, from the initial reports of a rival league in January 2020 until now. We’ll update this file as more news continues to develop.
2020: The rival circuit idea takes hold
January: Reports first surface about the potential for a rival golf league that has been meeting with players and agents behind the scenes and touting an 18-event circuit with just 48 players, 12 teams and guaranteed pay. Initial ideas saw $10 million purses with no cuts and a windfall for 12 team captains.
While players are flying off the board in NFL free agency, pass rusher Chase Young is taking his time going on visits to interested teams. The New Orleans Saints, Carolina Panthers and Tennessee Titans are reportedly among the teams that will host Young, and one of the Saints’ core leaders is making his pitch toward the coveted defensive end.
Cameron Jordan took to social media Tuesday afternoon to take a jab at the NFC South-rival Panthers and recruit Young simultaneously, arguing that there is no way Young could choose Carolina over New Orleans.
The two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year is a potential No. 2 selection come April.
The latest incarnation of Deadspin is no more.
On Monday, parent company G/O Media sold the site to an obscure European firm called Lineup Publishing. New ownership subsequently fired the entire Deadspin staff.
Deadspin 4.0 (who’s keeping count?) catered to the “cool kids,” the most in-vogue group of internet users. Deadspin, through its various incarnations, has always catered to the “cool kids.”
However, the current batch of “cool kids” are anything but cool. The right would call them liberals. That’s technically true.
There’s officially a push to bring the NHL to Atlanta for the third time, however, this time around, there may be reason to believe it could work out.
Alpharetta Sports & Entertainment announced its intentions to pursue an NHL expansion team for the Atlanta area on Monday, and that group’s leader is noneother than ex-NHLer and current TNT broadcaster Anson Carter.
In the statement, Carter — a longtime Atlanta resident — said he has been in talks with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman for years about another return to Atlanta.
When fans demand that a team fire their head coach, the next question should be obvious: “And replace him with whom?” Oftentimes, the answer is simply “Anyone else.” That’s not exactly what happened with the Minnesota Vikings, but replacing quarterback Kirk Cousins with Sam Darnold is a potentially catastrophic disaster.
Now, not all Vikings fans wanted Cousins out. Heck, the Vikings franchise didn’t want Cousins out. But, they also didn’t want to engage in a bidding war with the Atlanta Falcons for an aging quarterback coming off of a major injury.
The Las Vegas Raiders are expected to cut quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo on Wednesday, according to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini. The reported move comes just hours after the franchise agreed to sign Gardner Minshew to a two-year deal and days after after the team released signal-caller Brian Hoyer.
The Raiders signed Garoppolo to a three-year, $67.5 million deal in March 2023 to be the franchise’s new quarterback, but the experiment crashed and burned. Garoppolo struggled to start the season and was benched in favor of Aidan O’Connell.
The Big Ten has belonged to the Purdue Boilermakers over the last two seasons. They are going for their second straight tournament championship this week at the Target Center, a feat last accomplished by the Michigan Wolverines (2017-18).
Purdue is projected to earn a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance for the second season in a row but the rest of the conference has regressed a bit since sending an NCAA-best eight teams dancing a year ago.
Time to dive in, and recap a few items on the first couple of days of free agency …
• It is a little ridiculous to think Kirk Cousins just fell into the money he’s made. But I know that sentiment is out there, so I figured, in the wake of the ex-Viking procuring a four-year, $180 million deal in Atlanta, this would be a good time to kill that narrative.
Cousins’s earning power isn’t a result of luck. Rather, it’s the result of him betting on himself.
In 2015, when Cousins first became Washington’s starter, the team offered him a middling deal to stick around long-term.
Just a few hours after Jay Monahan addressed the media for the first time since August, Xander Schauffele came out with an assessment doubtful of the commissioner’s ability to lead the PGA Tour going forward.
Schauffele, speaking at a press conference ahead of the Players Championship, did not hold back when asked whether Monahan is the “right person” to guide the Tour as it enters a new partnership with Strategic Sports Group and continues negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which backs LIV Golf.
Xander Schauffele at the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational. | Photo by Paul Hennessy/Getty Images
Ahead of The PLAYERS Championship, Xander Schauffele discussed the level of trust he has for PGA Tour leadership.
After PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan spoke to the press for the first time since August, Xander Schauffele was next in line in the media room.
Not even a minute of his press conference had passed, and Schauffele immediately fielded a question about Monahan’s leadership.
“I guess we will start with an easy one,” Schauffele said with a smile.
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament will be missing a familiar face in 2024.
Veteran college basketball presenter Greg Gumbel will not work this coming tournament, according to a Monday evening report from Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. Per Deitsch, Gumbel is dealing with family health issues.
“Look for Ernie Johnson to pick up more studio time,” Deitsch wrote, referring to the Inside the NBA host.
Gumbel, 77, began hosting CBS’s coverage of the tournament in 1998. In 2023, the network celebrated Gumbel’s 25th anniversary hosting one of its tentpole events.
Drew Lock has agreed to join the New York Giants. And while that’s notable because it seemingly settles the Giants backup quarterback spot and means Lock has to find movers to get his stuff across the country, the bigger fallout from this move remains with the Seattle Seahawks.
Because this move means the Seahawks have a quarterback problem to resolve.
The Seahawks now join the number of NFL teams in serious need of quarterback help.
Saban may be retired but he had a thundering message to the college sports world on Capitol Hill on Tuesday: Pay the players — but with limitations.
Former Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa has filed a lawsuit against F1, the FIA, and former F1 head honcho Bernie Ecclestone in which he claims he’s the rightful 2008 Formula World Champion.
Better late than never, right?
This was in the works for awhile, but the suit was officially filed on Monday, per Sky News.
If you’re unaware, the record books currently have Lewis Hamilton — then with McLaren — as the World Drivers Champion in 2008. The now seven-time champ won the first title of his career over Massa on the final lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The UConn Huskies have a target on their back as the reigning national champions and they are the team to beat this week at Madison Square Garden in the Big East Tournament. Following the program’s first outright regular-season title in 25 years, the Huskies are favored to win the conference tournament for the first time since Kemba Walker’s historic run in 2011.
Even as the odds-on favorites, the path to a championship will be tough for UConn considering more than half of the conference is projected to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
The Pittsburgh Steelers secured another big addition in free agency on Tuesday, coming to terms with star linebacker Patrick Queen on a three-year, $41 million deal.
The Steelers’ other key offseason signing, veteran quarterback Russell Wilson, offered a gracious welcome to Queen after news broke of his new contract. Wilson, who agreed sign with Pittsburgh on a one-year deal following his departure from the Denver Broncos, took to X with an excited message for Queen.
“QUEEEEENNN!” wrote Wilson on X, tagging the 24-year-old in his post.
It’s not just supporters of the PGA Tour who have lost faith and trust in commissioner Jay Monahan over the last year and change with the emergence of LIV Golf and continued negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), plenty of players also aren’t exactly pleased with the man in charge of running the PGA Tour.
Xander Schauffele made it abundantly clear that he falls in that group who are much more out than in on Monahan at the moment.
Monahan held his first press conference since August 2023 on Tuesday ahead of this week’s Players Championship.
The New York Yankees entered spring training with sky-high expectations after making one of the biggest moves of the MLB offseason.
After surprisingly struggling on offense in 2023, the Yankees added superstar outfielder Juan Soto, sending prospects and pitcher Michael King to the San Diego Padres. Soto brings to the Bronx an impressive offensive track record, including a 158 OPS+ in 2023. Though his offensive profile may not actually be the best fit for Yankee Stadium.
Iowa‘s Caitlin Clark has often drawn comparisons to Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry, both for her ability to score points in bunches, and for her seemingly limitless range from beyond the arc.
It’s not difficult to see the parallels between the two stars.
But Curry said he believes such comparisons are unfair to Clark and underestimate her diverse skill set during an interview with with CBS Mornings on Tuesday.
Curry told Jericka Duncan of CBS News that the comparison overshadows the Iowa star’s “overall floor game.
The Carolina Panthers initially placed the franchise tag on star pass-rusher Brian Burns last week after the two sides were unable to come to an agreement on a long-term contract extension.
But on Monday, Burns was dealt to the New York Giants in exchange for two draft picks, and he agreed to sign a five-year, $141 million contract extension.
Country music star Luke Combs, a native North Carolinian and longtime Panthers fan, subsequently blasted the franchise for its inability to land premium draft compensation when its star players leave town.
1. We had quite a kerfuffle here in New York on Monday after running back Saquon Barkley agreed to a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles.
With Barkley leaving for a division rival, former Giant and current WFAN host, Tiki Barber, said the following during his afternoon show: “He’s dead to us now. He’s dead to us. You’re dead to us, Saquon. Good luck. You’re dead to me.”
Now, when you see those words in print, they seem extremely rough.
In discussions of Bay Area basketball, the University of San Francisco tends to fly under the radar.
The Golden State Warriors—NBA champions four times in the past decade—have a tendency to dwarf everything around them. Stanford boasts one of the best women’s programs in the country. California produced pro stars Jason Kidd and Jaylen Brown.
Before other teams in the area were winning, however, the Dons were winning—back-to-back NCAA titles in 1955 and ’56, led by legendary center Bill Russell.
They are, in short, worthy of both respect and correct spelling.
Along with many stars (Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers), there’s a team attempting a repeat title, and another going for an undefeated championship again.
Free-agent linebacker Patrick Queen told ESPN analyst Marcus Spears on Tuesday afternoon that he intends to sign a three-year, $41 million contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to ESPN reporter Adam Schefter.
Queen spent the past four seasons with the Baltimore Ravens after being a first-round pick out of LSU, without missing a game. Last season was Queen’s best to date, as he was selected to his first Pro Bowl while recording a career-high 133 tackles and 3 1/2 sacks.
We are at the point in free agency that I like to call: moves that would have been totally earth-shattering if the team did it three years ago. Imagine waking someone up out of a deep hibernation and saying: Hey! Derrick Henry is teaming up with Lamar Jackson! That person would stumble on his way over to the computer out of pure excitement before throwing on 2023 Tennessee Titans film.
This is not to understate the fact that Henry still carried a massive load last season, with 283 attempts for 1,167 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Kirk Cousins is on his way to Atlanta and Saquon Barkley is going full-villain with a move to Philly, but more difference-makers are still on the market.
Derrick Henry returns to elite fantasy status after news broke that he will be signing a two-year deal worth up to $20 million with the Baltimore Ravens.
No team runs more than the Ravens, whose 2,661 total rushing yards led the league in 2023.
Many of those yards were courtesy of mobile quarterback Lamar Jackson, who led the team with 821 rushing yards of his own. However, unlike in Philadelphia where Jalen Hurts vultures touchdowns from his running backs, Baltimore likes to give the goal-line duties to the runners.
Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
NFL: They have the meats.
The NFL is cyclical, that’s just the nature of the beast. Everyone tries to solve the league, only to have new thinking and fresh approaches change once a team finds a new winning formula. After over a decade of “pass first, rushing doesn’t matter” it now feels like the pendulum is swinging the other way.
Yes, Big Boy Football might truly be back.
The flurry of free agent announcements over the weekend and into Monday made it clear that teams all over the league are looking to go BIG in 2024.
First, Kim Mulkey won the women’s basketball national championship that seemed meant for South Carolina and coach Dawn Staley all last season. South Carolina was ranked No. 1 the entire season and soared to 36-0 before losing to No. 3 Iowa and a Hawkeye named Caitlin Clark, 77-73, in a Final Four national semifinal. Mulkey’s No. 9 LSU squad then upset Iowa, 102-85, for the crown.
Now, Mulkey is wrestling away the villain role Staley has carried for years, not unlike former coach Bill Belichick – minus the spying and deflated balls with the New England Patriots.
Free agent running back Derrick Henry is signing a two-year, $16 million deal with the Ravens, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
One day after being released by the Packers, Aaron Jones is expected to sign a one-year, $7 million deal with the rival Vikings, his agents told ESPN.
The Browns have agreed to terms with Jameis Winston to be their backup quarterback, a source told ESPN’s Jake Trotter.
Fullback Derek Watt, one of three Watt brothers to play in the NFL, has announced his retirement.
The Texans are trading for Bengals running back Joe Mixon, a source told ESPN on Tuesday.