NFL
Aaron Rodgers is officially no longer a member of the New York Jets. As expected, the team released the four-time MVP with a post-June 1 designation. The 41-year-old quarterback can join another team as an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career if he stills intends to play a 21st NFL season. The Jets absorbed a $49 million dead money charge by cutting Rodgers, but are able to spread that over two years instead of one. On Monday, the Jets agreed to terms with former Steelers and Bears quarterback Justin Fields on a two-year deal.
The NFL league year kicked off with two former Super Bowl MVPs hitting the open market. The Los Angeles Rams cut receiver Cooper Kupp just days after signing Davante Adams to be his replacement and the New York Jets released quarterback Aaron Rodgers following a failed two-year stint. A handful of teams could still be in search of a starting quarterback, including the New York Giants, Pittsburgh and possibly Minnesota.
The Los Angeles Rams cut Super Bowl 56 MVP Cooper Kupp after being unable to find a trade partner for their former No. 1 wide receiver. The Rams moved on from the 2021 AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year at the start of the league year. Kupp announced last month that the Rams were trying to trade him despite his desire to remain with the team. But with him being owed $20 million this season, no other team was willing to make a trade.
With Josh Allen's personal and financial life set, the NFL MVP is focusing his attention on unfinished business: leading the Buffalo Bills to a Super Bowl title. The 28-year-old shared his objective in his first comments to reporters since agreeing to a six-year $330 million contract that includes a league-record $250 million guaranteed. The deal capped a memorable season in which Allen became the third Bills player to earn MVP honors. Off the field, he became engaged to actor Hailee Steinfeld. What's missing is a Super Bowl for Allen, who in seven seasons has led the Bills no further than AFC championship game losses to Kansas City in 2020 and this past season.
NBA
Mikal Bridges hit a 25-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the New York Knicks a 114-113 overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Bridges finished with 33 points and AG Anunoby had 23 as New York won its second in a row and improved to 2-2 on its five-game West Coast trip. Scoot Henderson led Portland with 30 points, while Deni Avdija had 27 points — including a three-point play with three seconds left in overtime to give the Trail Blazers a brief 113-111 lead — but Portland lost its fifth in a row. Avdija also had 15 rebounds.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 and Chet Holmgren had 23 points and 15 rebounds to help the Oklahoma City Thunder clinch a playoff berth witha 118-112 victory over the Boston Celtics. The Western Conference-leading Thunder withstood a barrage of Boston 3-pointers to sweep the defending NBA champions in the two-game season series and win for the 17th time in their last 18 games. The victory clinched a playoff berth for the Thunder. Jayson Tatum scored 33 for Boston, which had won five straight and 15 of its last 18 games.
AJ Lawson scored 28 points, Jared Rhoden set career highs with 25 points and 12 rebounds and the Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers 118-105 on Wednesday night in a matchup of short-handed teams. Orlando Robinson scored a career-high 25 points and matched his career high with 12 rebounds to help the Raptors win for the fifth time in six games. Quentin Grimes scored 29 points and Jeff Dowtin Jr. had a career-high 20 against his former team, but the 76ers lost for the fifth time in seven games following a nine-game losing streak.
Trae Young made all of his 21 free throws and scored 35 points to lead the Atlanta Hawks to their fourth straight victory, 123-110 over the Charlotte Hornets. Young became the sixth player in NBA history to make 21 or more free throws without a miss, and he added 12 assists on a poor shooting night from the field. He was 7 of 20 and missed all five of his 3-point attempts. Miles Bridges had 31 points and 11 rebounds, and LaMelo Ball added 25 points and nine assists for the Hornets, who are second-to-last in the East.
De’Aaron Fox had 32 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds and the San Antonio Spurs snapped a three-game skid, beating the injury-depleted Dallas Mavericks 126-116 on Wednesday night. Dallas (33-34) remained 10th in the Western Conference, holding the final spot for the play-in tournament by 2 1/2 games over Phoenix. Fox was 12 for 25 from the field in his highest-scoring game since joining San Antonio in a trade with Sacramento on Feb. 5. Keldon Johnson and Jeremy Sochan each had 18 points off the bench for San Antonio. Devin Vassell added 16. Brandon Williams returned from a one-game absence to lead Dallas with 19 points.
Bogdan Bogdanovic scored a season-high 30 points, helping the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Miami Heat 119-104. Ivica Zubac had 26 points and 14 rebounds for the Clippers, who won for the fourth time in five games. James Harden finished with 24 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds. The Clippers pulled within 1 1/2 games of idle Golden State for the No. 6 — and last guaranteed — playoff spot in the Western Conference. Tyler Herro scored 31 points for the Heat, who fell 2 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the race for the No. 7 spot and most advantageous play-in position in the Eastern Conference.
Jalen Green had 29 points to lead the Houston Rockets to a 111-104 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night in a game where Houston’s Steven Adams and Phoenix’s Mason Plumlee were ejected for fighting. Alperen Sengun scored 20 points and Dillon Brooks added 19 to help the Rockets extend their winning streak to four. Adams and Plumlee were ejected before halftime after getting into a fight where Adams wrestled Plumlee to the court. Bradley Beal had 25 points and Booker and Kevin Durant added 19 each for Phoenix. The Suns lost for the third time in four games.
Luke Kennard scored 30 points and Ja Morant had 28, helping the Memphis Grizzlies top the Utah Jazz 122-115. Kennard went 7 for 9 from 3-point range, and Morant was 4 for 7 from deep. Desmond Bane added 17 points as Memphis posted its fourth straight win. Utah lost its seventh consecutive game. Collin Sexton had 22 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, and John Collins also scored 22 points. Sexton scored to give the Jazz a 115-114 lead with 1:16 left, but Kennard responded with a 3 for the Grizzlies. Morant then hit another 3 to make it 120-115 with 12 seconds remaining.
Anthony Edwards scored 29 points, Julius Randle added 25 and the Minnesota Timberwolves extended their winning streak to six games by routing the Denver Nuggets 115-95. Rudy Gobert finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds for the Timberwolves as they improved to 3-0 against the Nuggets this season. The last game between these Northwest Division foes is April 1. Nikola Jokic led the Nuggets with 34 points and eight rebounds. He and the rest of Denver's starters were taken out with 5:05 remaining. Jamal Murray was 0 for 7 with one point in the first half. He finished 4 of 15 for 12 points.
Oliver Miller, a beefy center who helped Arkansas advance to the Final Four before playing nine seasons in the NBA, has died. He was 54. Several of Miller’s former teams announced his death on Wednesday, as did the National Basketball Retired Players Association. A cause of death was not disclosed. Miller was known as the “The Big O” for his 6-foot-9, 280-pound frame that ballooned to well over 300 pounds during his NBA career. He was a standout at Arkansas from 1988 to 1992 and helped the Razorbacks reach the Final Four in 1990 under Hall of Fame coach Nolan Richardson.
NHL
Buffalo’s Alex Tuch and Detroit captain Michael Rasmussen were the first to drop the gloves in the fight-filled third period of the Red Wings’ 7-3 victory. They weren’t even among the 11 players assessed 10-minute misconduct penalties in the final frame. Six were from Buffalo, the other five from Detroit. The final tally from the third was 136 of the game’s 150 penalty minutes. All but two of those either roughing, fighting or misconducts.
Elias Pettersson tied it with 6:44 left and scored in the first round of a shootout, Conor Garland added the winner in the fourth round and the Vancouver Canucks beat the Calgary Flames 4-3 on Wednesday night. Pius Suter and Jake DeBrusk also scored for Vancouver, and Kevin Lankinen stopped 20 shots. Playing their lone road game in an eight-game stretch, the Canucks rebounded from consecutive home losses — the last a 4-2 setback against Montreal on Tuesday night. Jonathan Huberdeau scored twice for Calgary in a 2:03 span late in the second period and had the Flames’ lone shootout score — in the third round. Nazem Kadri also scored, and Dustin Wolf made 28 saves.
Dylan Guenther broke a tie on a power play at 7:03 of the third period and the Utah Hockey Club beat the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 on Wednesday night. Guenther beat goalie Ville Husso with a one-timer from the left side off a feed from defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. Guenther has a career-high 24 goals this season. Jack McBain and Alexander Kerfoot also scored to help Utah move within two points of the second wild card in the Western Conference. Karel Vejmelka made 19 saves. Alex Killorn and Mason McTavish scored for Anaheim, and Husso stopped 36 shots.
Brandon Mountour had the fastest goal in NHL overtime history, scoring his second goal of the game four seconds into overtime to give the Seattle Kraken a 5-4 comeback victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night. Chandler Stephenson won the faceoff, with the puck going to Montour. He streaked in on goalie Jakub Dobes and beat him with a shot to the upper-right corner. The goal matches the fastest to start any period in NHL history. Seattle overcame two-goal deficit to tie it in the third period. Jani Nyman, making his NHL debut, scored on a power play with 9:07 left, and Matty Beniers tipped in a hard shot by Vince Dunn on a power play with 2:12 left to tie it at 4.
MLB
Hundreds of fans at Tokyo’s Haneda airport lined up 10 deep and hoping to catch a glimpse of Shohei Ohtani as he arrived in Tokyo. But they saw nothing of the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar. What they saw was a 40-meter-long (130 feet) temporary white wall to shield the players in case they came through the arrival area. The Chicago Cubs exited the same way when they arrived late Wednesday night. The Dodgers were seen on the tarmac disembarking from their charter from Phoenix, and Ohtani was one of the first off. But the players didn’t make it to the arrival area, apparently taking an escape route.
GOLF
Tiger Woods is out of the Masters and probably for the rest of the year after surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon. Add that to a list of injuries that outnumber the 15 majors he has won. The latest surgery raises questions about whether golf has seen the last of Woods. Rory McIlroy says he feels badly for Woods and that hopefully golf will see him again next year. From the knee surgeries to back surgeries to his LA car crash, the 49-year-old Woods has managed to keep coming back. But he hasn't been competitive for more than five years since his record-tying 82nd career title.
More than four decades of The Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass has shown to expect the unexpected. Scottie Scheffler made history last year as the first player in tournament history to win back-to-back. It's a great course. There are great players. And predicting how it will unfold is not easy. Tiger Woods won there only twice. Phil Mickelson won in 2007 and years later wondered how he ever managed. Past champions like Rory McIlroy have a longer history of missing the cut. All eyes will be on Scheffler as the No. 1 player going for three in a row.
FORMULA ONE
Mercedes team principal and chief executive Toto Wolff has denied rumors on the eve of the Australian Grand Prix weekend that he’s still seeking to sign reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen for 2026. Mercedes, which has a new driver lineup this year that sees rookie prospect Andrea Kimi Antonelli join George Russell, is hoping to emerge from its recent lean spell in F1 that has seen it score just five wins from the last three seasons, four of which came in 2024. But while Verstappen was reportedly on Mercedes’ shopping list last year as a top-gun replacement for its then-outgoing star Lewis Hamilton, Silver Arrows’ team boss Wolff says extending Russell’s contract beyond 2025 is the priority.
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
The next few days should be stressful for Ohio State after the Buckeyes lost 77-70 to Iowa in the Big Ten Tournament. Ohio State is on the NCAA Tournament bubble. Not only did the Buckeyes lose Wednesday, but fellow bubble team North Carolina took care of Notre Dame 76-56. Elsewhere, the SEC has a chance to put 14 teams in the tournament after Texas beat Vanderbilt, Arkansas beat South Carolina and Oklahoma beat Georgia.
The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team’s season is over after losing 73-53 to SMU in the ACC Tournament last night.
UMass is also going home early, falling 78 to 71 to LaSalle in the Atlantic 10 conference playoffs yesterday.
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
On the women’s side, the Quinnipiac Bobcats won their MAAC quarterfinals game against the Iona Gaels 79-51. They’ll next face the winner of this afternoon’s Siena-Merrimack game, which is set for 2:30 p.m.
© 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
