Sports
As Giants await word from Aaron Rodgers, it’s clear N.Y. picked a terrible time to need a QB
As the hours tick by with the New York Giants awaiting word from a 41-year-old who quarterbacked a 5-12 team last season, there’s an inescapable feeling that they picked a terrible time to be on the hunt for a QB savior.
The Giants are in a particularly perilous position this offseason. The Daniel Jones experiment was a colossal failure, leaving them without a quarterback under contract aside from Tommy DeVito. DeVito’s most notable contributions in two years have been a celebratory gesture and an improbable three-game winning streak in 2023 that pushed the Giants out of range of landing a franchise quarterback in last year’s loaded draft.
Things went so far off the rails with Jones and everything around him the past two seasons that general manager Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll are on the hot seat entering Year 4. Co-owner John Mara’s postseason edict for an immediate turnaround has echoed for the past two months as Schoen has pursued every possible quarterback option.
“It better not take too long because I’ve just about run out of patience,” Mara said.
With that declaration removing any thought of a measured approach to the offseason, Schoen first applied the full-court press on Matthew Stafford when the Rams allowed the Super Bowl champ to explore his market value. The Giants were all-in on Stafford, prepared to sign the 37-year-old to a contract believed to be worth at least $50 million per year and to part with the necessary draft compensation to complete a trade.
But Stafford elected to remain in Los Angeles, which forced the Giants to pivot to Plan B. Aaron Rodgers, the aforementioned 41-year-old quarterback, has come into focus as that backup plan. Unsurprisingly, the courting of Rodgers has been shrouded in mystery.
First, some of the seats had to be claimed in the league-wide game of quarterback musical chairs. Geno Smith was traded from the Seahawks to the Raiders; Sam Darnold left the Vikings for the Seahawks; Jones left the Vikings for the Colts; and Justin Fields left the Steelers for the Jets. Those moves provided some clarity, narrowing Rodgers’ options to the Giants and Steelers, with the Vikings looming as a dark horse.
Rodgers officially became available Wednesday when the Jets released him at 4 p.m ET. But he had been free to negotiate with other teams since new Jets general manager Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn announced their intention to move on from Rodgers on Feb. 13, as well as a willingness to eat $49 million in dead money over the next two years.
The new regime didn’t want to hitch its fortunes to Rodgers after his two seasons in New York were a total flop. Rodgers tore his Achilles four snaps into his much-hyped debut in the 2023 season opener after a blockbuster trade from the Packers. He returned last season and posted respectable numbers, but it wasn’t nearly enough to overcome a dysfunctional environment that led to the firings of coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas.
That Schoen and Daboll are willing to attach their fate to the mercurial Rodgers after his flameout with the Jets demonstrates how desperate they are to find a quarterback.
It’s impossible to know how long Rodgers’ deliberations will take — he famously embarked on a four-day darkness retreat in 2023 to determine if he wanted to continue his Hall of Fame career. Once Rodgers announces his intentions, the Giants will have a road map. Either they’ll roll with Rodgers for at least one season, or they’ll direct their energy toward landing Russell Wilson, who visited the team last year before signing with the Steelers because he was informed he’d serve as Jones’ backup in New York.
The Giants aren’t sitting on their hands. They’re scheduled to host Wilson for a visit on Friday, according to a team source. Perhaps complicating matters for New York, the Browns will host Wilson for a visit on Thursday, league sources told The Athletic.
The drawn-out process involving big names has inflated the stakes of this quarterback search. Whether it’s Rodgers, Wilson or — gulp — someone further down the list of options, the Giants still need to accomplish Mara’s stated top priority: Finding the quarterback of the future.
Schoen and Daboll may be able to save their jobs by showing progress should Rodgers or Wilson lead the Giants to, say, seven wins in 2025. But neither is the long-term answer.
That solution will have to come via the draft. And the path to landing a quarterback there isn’t any clearer than this murky search for a suitable bridge QB.
The Titans hold the No. 1 pick, and all signs point to them taking Miami quarterback Cam Ward with that selection. The Titans haven’t been linked to any of the veteran quarterbacks on the market, and Will Levis, who went 2-10 last season, is the only QB on their roster.
The Titans entered free agency among the league leaders in cap space, but they have spent judiciously. Their only major investment was a four-year, $82 million contract for left tackle Dan Moore. They added veteran right guard Kevin Zeitler on a one-year, $9 million contract to fortify their offensive line.
The Titans are building an ecosystem to nurture a young quarterback. If they are sold on Ward, it could be a repeat of last year, when the Giants were unable to trade up from No. 6 to No. 3 because the Patriots were set on taking quarterback Drake Maye.
That’s where things could get really interesting. The Browns are a total wild card at the No. 2 pick. They could take a quarterback, as they need an off-ramp from the disastrous Deshaun Watson era.
Even if the Browns pass on a quarterback, there are questions if any other QBs in this class are even worthy of a top pick. The Giants showered attention on Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders during the fall, but it’s unclear if the twinkle in their eye has dimmed as the polarizing quarterback has been further dissected. Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart’s stock appears to be going in the opposite direction, but taking him with the third pick would be a major reach. And if the Giants were sold on Sanders or Dart, would they be chasing aging quarterbacks so aggressively?
The Giants have the next six weeks to sort through their quarterback evaluations and chart a course of action for the draft. In the meantime, they await word from Rodgers. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have any other choice.
(Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Sports
Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam is a ‘generational matchup,’ WWE legend JBL says
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Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.
Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.
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Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)
At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.
WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”
“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.
Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)
“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.
“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”
Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Sports
Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout
Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.
Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.
Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.
That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.
Not even at home?
“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”
Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.
Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.
“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”
His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.
In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.
“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”
For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.
Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.
“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”
Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.
“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.
“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”
Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.
“It’s like win or die.”
It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.
No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)
Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.
“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”
Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.
He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.
Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.
“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.
“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”
At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.
“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.
“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”
So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.
Sports
London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France
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Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.
France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.
As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May.
Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.
A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)
Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.
KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO
It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.
Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.
Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)
Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.
Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.
One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.
France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.
It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.
Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
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Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.
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