Aaron Rodgers made his first public appearance since the drama over his whereabouts while the New York Jets began mandatory minicamp earlier this month.

Rodgers was seen cageside at UFC 303 in Las Vegas on Saturday night. He was seen with his former Green Bay Packers teammate, tight end Marcedes Lewis. The veteran NFL player now plays for the Chicago Bears.

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Chicago Bears tight end Marcedes Lewis attend UFC 303 on June 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

The star quarterback has been absent from minicamp. Jets head coach Robert Saleh described it as an “unexcused absence,” which sparked a whirlwind of controversy from sports pundits in the New York City area.

Saleh tried to put all the hoopla to rest.

“Aaron and I are on the exact same page,” Saleh said earlier this month, via the New York Post. “There’s no issue between Aaron (and me]) or his teammates, for that matter. We addressed it (Tuesday). It’s more of an issue for everyone outside the building than it is inside. That’s about it.”

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Buffalo Bills wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who also played with Rodgers in Green Bay, said on “The Herd” on Thursday that he had just worked out with the quarterback in Los Angeles.

“Me and Aaron have been great friends since I’ve been in Green Bay. I hit him up, told him I was coming out to L.A., and said, ‘Let’s run some routes,’” Valdes-Scantling said. “So, we got it in, went out to some high school, and ran some routes together. We’re good. It was good.”

Aaron Rodgers of the New York Jets during OTA Offseason Workouts at Atlantic Health Jets Training Center on June 4, 2024, in Florham Park, New Jersey. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)

Rodgers was at organized team activities earlier in the offseason.

Rodgers was the Jets’ biggest acquisition last year, but only played in four snaps before he tore his Achilles. 

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The man the internet knows as “Frederick Flips” will be flipping all the way to Paris.

Frederick Richard won the all-around at the U.S. Olympic trials on Saturday at Target Center with a two-day all-around score of 170.500 to earn his first Olympic berth. The 20-year-old rising junior at Michigan will lead a U.S. men’s team that’s ready to end a streak of three consecutive fifth-place Olympic finishes.

“Very realistic expectation is podium medals,” Richard said. “I don’t know which — bronze, silver or gold — which one it will be, but I know there will be one and we’ll do whatever it takes to get there.”

Richard, the reigning world all-around bronze medalist who also runs popular Instagram and TikTok pages with behind-the-scenes gymnastics content, already knows what it’s like to end a streak. He helped the United States to a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships, the team’s first world medal since 2014. Richard’s world champion teammates Paul Juda and Asher Hong will join him on the Olympic team in Paris along with second-place all-around finisher Brody Malone and pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik.

The selection process, which mostly relies on a complex algorithm that computes scores from two-day competitions at U.S. championships and Olympic trials, was designed to maximize the team’s score in Olympic competition, where four athletes compete with three scores counting in the qualification round and three compete and all count during the team final. The math-heavy approach opened the door for Nedoroscik, who competed in just a single event.

The pommel horse specialist totaled 29.300 across the two days, which was second during the trials following Patrick Hoopes’ 29.450. But Nedoroscik had crunched the numbers from U.S. championships, where he led Hoopes by 0.775, and calculated that if he made a mistake, Hoopes would need a 15.100 to tie his three-score average. Hoopes finished with a 15.000 on Saturday.

“I knew going up for that dismount, I was just like please get this dismount, just please stick this landing,” Nedoroscik said. “I almost didn’t. And then in my head I was like, I think I made it.”

Nedorocik’s consistency might have been key to earning his coveted Olympic position over Khoi Young, the reigning world silver medalist on pommel horse. Young was named a traveling alternate, along with Shane Wiskus, who finished third in the all-around backed by a sold-out hometown crowd that cheered on the Spring Park, Minn., native.

Young needed to battle back from a 12th-place all-around finish after the first day. But the bigger problem was that the 21-year-old Stanford star scored just a lowly 11.650 on his signature event on Thursday. He redeemed himself Saturday with a 14.250 on the event, but still trailed behind Nedoroscik.

Malone, who missed the competition in 2023 while recovering from a career-threatening knee injury, shook off a fall on high bar in the opening event Saturday. He finished just two-tenths behind Richard, highlighted by a second stuck vault in as many days of competition that solidified his second Olympic berth.

Hong’s only major misstep came on pommel horse, where one of his legs appeared to clip the horse during a flare element, sending him crashing to the mat. He slipped from second place in the all-around standings to fifth entering the final event. But the Stanford star left the selection committee with a final exclamation point to consider going into the meeting room by sticking his dismount on rings in the last rotation. His 14.700 was the highest score on the event across both days of competition.

The 20-year-old’s high-flying vault and huge difficulty on rings and floor symbolize a recent trend in U.S. men’s gymnastics to push for bigger skills to compete with world powers Japan and China. The strategy is working faster than expected, men’s high performance director Brett McClure said. He believed initially that the bold strategy wouldn’t truly take off until the 2028 Olympics. But a world bronze medal last year has the Americans on track for an early arrival in Paris.

“It’s doable,” Ruda said of ending the Olympic medal streak. “This team is the best team possible. … It’s been done, we broke the drought once and we’ve got so many returners that are going to have the exact same mindset.”

Diana Taurasi is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in WNBA history. Meanwhile, rookie Caitlin Clark has helped bring an unprecedented amount of attention to women’s basketball.

Clark and the Indiana Fever will faceoff with Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury on Sunday. The game will mark Clark’s first opportunity to compete against Taurasi in the WNBA.

Clark was asked about her feelings leading up to the highly anticipated matchup with a player she grew up idolizing. 

“It’s incredible,” Clark told reporters on Saturday about Taurasi’s two-decade run in the league. “I don’t think people realize how hard that is to do.”

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Clark also said taking the court for a game against a player of Taurasi’s caliber was “a dream come true. You get to live out your dream while playing against the best.”

Diana Taurasi #3 of the Phoenix Mercury looks on during the game against the Las Vegas Aces on May 14, 2024 at Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/NBAE via Getty Images)

Clark went on to describe Taurasi as one of the WNBA’s all-time greats. “Obviously, she’s one of the greatest players our game has ever seen, the greatest scorer our game has ever seen,” Clark said.

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Despite Clark’s latest praise, a budding rivalry between the two high-profile players could be on the horizon.

When Taurasi was asked to share her thoughts on facing Clark for the first time, she delivered a brief response. “Yeah, it’ll be fun,” she said.

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In April, Taurasi was asked about what incoming WNBA rookies could expect. She proceeded to suggest that a rude awakening was in store.

“Look, SVP, reality is coming,” Taurasi told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt during an appearance on SportsCenter on April 6. “There’s levels to this thing. And that’s just life. We all went through it. You see it on the NBA side, and you’re going to see it on this side. You look superhuman playing against 18-year-olds, but you’re going to (be playing against) some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time.” 

Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever looks on during the game against the Seattle Storm on June 27, 2024 at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington.  (Mollie Handkins/NBAE via Getty Images)

While the comments were about the rookie class as a whole, some believed the remarks were a direct jab at Clark, who dominated at the college basketball level.

Nevertheless, Taurasi and Clark also share some similarities. Taurasi is the WNBA’s career scoring leader, while no one scored more points at the NCAA Division I level than Clark. Both point guards are also strong 3-point shooters.

Taurasi is one of three players on the Mercury’s roster who will represent the US in Paris next month for the Olympics, joining Brittney Griner and guard Kahleah Copper. Team USA will be competing for a record eight consecutive Olympic gold medal.

The 2024 Olympic roster notably does not include any players who recently rose from the collegiate ranks. Clark’s exclusion from the roster sparked considerable debate. Her teammate and the league’s reigning rookie of the year, Aliyah Boston was also left off the roster.

The Fever and Mercury tipoff at 3:00 p.m. EST on June 30.

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