We’re less than a week until this whole deal becomes official.

Before hitting Selection Sunday, conference tournaments will determine which teams burst the NCAA bubble, which Cinderella teams serve as bid stealers and which four teams land on the No. 1 line.

There are changes at the top of the updated USA TODAY Sports bracketology as Florida rises and replaces Connecticut, which ended the regular season with a thud by losing to Marquette.

That loss handed the Big East regular-season crown to rival St. John’s and likely results in the Huskies earning a No. 2 seed.

Meanwhile, the defending national champs have rounded into form by winning 11 in a row to win the SEC regular-season title by three games. This torrid run more than offsets Florida’s non-conference loss to UConn and has the Gators in position to secure a No. 1 seed by avoiding an early exit from the conference tournament.

The bubble remains a mess. Virginia Commonwealth has joined the field. For now, Indiana slides in as the last at-large team in the field despite a 3-11 mark against Quad 1 and a 3-2 record Quad 2 competition. But there’s hope for Cincinnati, West Virginia, Auburn and others to make a move in conference tournaments.

Eight teams have already punched their tournament tickets in Long Island (Northeast), Queens (Atlantic Sun), High Point (Big South), Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley), Tennessee State (Ohio Valley), Furman (Southern Conference), North Dakota State (Summit League) and Troy (Sun Belt.).

March Madness bracketology: NCAA Tournament projection

Teams in bold have clinched tournament berth.

March Madness last four in

Santa Clara, Virginia Commonwealth, SMU, Indiana.

March Madness first four out

Cincinnati, West Virginia, Auburn, Stanford.

NCAA tournament bids conference breakdown

Multi-bid leagues: SEC (10), Big Ten (10), ACC (8), Big 12 (8), Big East (3), West Coast (3), Atlantic 10 (2), Mountain West (2).

The NBA is taking action after Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic’s latest interaction with officials.

At the 4:35 mark of the third quarter in the Lakers’ 110-97 win over the New York Knicks on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena, Doncic attempted to draw a charge on Knicks forward Mohamed Diawara on a fast break, but no foul was called and the Knicks got a transition layup.

While still laying on the floor, Doncic rubbed his fingers together on both hands, making the universal money sign.

Two days later, Doncic has been fined $50,000 for ‘directing an inappropriate and unprofessional gesture toward a game official,’ NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations James Jones announced via a statement released by the league on Tuesday.

This is the latest instance of Doncic butting heads with referees. On March 6, he received his 15th technical foul of the season, putting him just one call away from an automatic one-game suspension. He’s currently the player with the second-most technicals in the NBA, behind only Dillion Brooks.

Luka Doncic stats

Gesture aside, Doncic played as well as he has all season in Sunday’s game, scoring 35 points on 44% shooting with eight rebounds and four assists. His season averages are on par with his career numbers and his 32.5 points per game leads the NBA, positioning himself to win the scoring title and as a legitimate contender in the MVP race.

MILAN — The Summer Paralympic Games began in 1960, but it took another 16 years before winter sports got their due.

Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, hosted the first Winter Paralympics in 1976. It featured two sports — Para Alpine skiing and Para cross-country skiing — bringing together 198 athletes from 16 countries. Fifty years later, the Winter Paralympics will celebrate that milestone in Italy, where 665 athletes will compete in 79 events across six sports. 

Team USA sent one delegate, Bill Hovanic, to the inaugural Winter Games in 1976. Growth has accelerated in the decades that followed, from an improbable sled hockey gold-medal run in 2002 to a 2018 first-place finish for the first time in snowboarding, all of which contributed to the domestic evolution of Para sports.

The U.S. took home six medals in 1980, 48 medals short of leader Norway. The U.S. has since won the Paralympic medal count twice — 1992 Albertville and 2018 PyeongChang. 

“We are shifting the narrative around Para sport,” snowboarder Brenna Huckaby (a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana) said. “It’s just how do we get more people excited and engaged? And I mean, the fact that it’s been around for 50 years, why wouldn’t it continue? We’re just growing.”

For athletes entering the Paralympic pipeline today, the anniversary also highlights the legacy built by generations of competitors who helped expand opportunities in Para sports. 

Nineteen-year-old Para Alpine skier Audrey Crowley (Eagle, Colorado) will be competing in her first Games, but she’s following in the footsteps of the 254-medal Team USA history before her. Crowley is joined on Team USA by 42-year-old Laurie Stephens, competing in her sixth Games. She’ll also be alongside Jasmin Bambur, who is in his fifth and Andrew Kurka, who is in his third, but has qualified for four Paralympics. 

The Para Alpine skiing team alone has 13 athletes who have competed in previous Games. 

“I think that’s a really cool thing about the Paralympics, the history and the history of the athletes,” Crowley said. “It’s pretty special that it’s the 50th, but also just getting to be with my teammates who have had three-plus Games, and the longevity of Para athletes is also super cool.”

The Games have grown significantly over five decades, welcoming a record 56 National Paralympic Committees and a 160 female competitors, while Para Alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para snowboard and wheelchair curling all will have a record number of NPCs participating. 

Despite the growth in participation and elite-level competition, athletes say visibility remains one of the biggest challenges facing Paralympic sports.

When a young Noah Elliott (St. Charles, Missouri) sat in a hospital bed in 2014, his nurse walked in and flipped the television on. It exposed him to the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics, Elliott’s first time learning about the Games. 

“If that wouldn’t have happened, I would not be the No. 1 snowboarder in the world right now,” Elliott said. “So that’s truly changed my life.”

Media coverage has improved, though. The Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games garnered a record television viewership of 2.1 billion around the world. Those numbers cleared 2.02 billion viewers from PyeongChang 2018.

Steve Emt (DeForest, Wisconsin), who first competed in PyeongChang, said coverage surrounding the Games was limited during his first appearance. He’s seen the improvements firsthand as a competitor.

“The media coverage alone, leading up to the Games, while we were there, was nil,” Emt said.
”There was nothing. Maybe five hours of coverage back home here to watch us. Beijing was through the roof. It was incredible.”

That four-year improvement leaves Emt optimistic for 2026. 

Organizations such as the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have helped elevate the profile of Paralympic athletes. Emt said increased medal compensation and greater media attention have helped bring more visibility to the competitors. 

“We’re on the same playing level now as the able-bodied athletes, and that has not always been the case,” Emt said. 

As the Winter Paralympics celebrate 50 years, athletes say the continued growth of the movement will depend on expanding access and exposure for Para sports. 

NBCUniversal’s TV deal for the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympics is reflective of that change, accounting for an extensive programming plan with more than 80 hours of coverage across NBC, USA Network and CNBC in the U.S.

For the athletes, though, the focus remains on what will bring more attention to their sport.  

“We just need more media,” Elliott said. 

Trevor McGee is a reporter for the Paralympics Project, a partnership between USA Today Network and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Jerry Jones promised his Dallas Cowboys would come out blazing in free agency, given the embarrassment of the defense and that decades-long championship drought.

Yet their aggressive moves on Day 1 of the NFL’s offseason feeding frenzy – calling it a “negotiating window” or “legal tampering” would be just semantics as the market has clearly opened for business – reminded us of a hardcore fact still attached to “America’s Team.”

The Cowboys are still trying to make up for the loss of Micah Parsons.

Maybe, ultimately, Jerry & Co. will get over that bridge and manage some sort of last laugh after dealing away one of the NFL’s premier defenders.

Yet right now it’s quite the process.

The Cowboys just added two starters to the defense that was historically bad without Parsons last season – as in ranked last in yards and points allowed – and seemingly can’t get any worse.

After plucking rising star Christian Parker from the Eagles staff to coordinate the defense, replacing Matt Eberflus, the Cowboys are needing to double down with talent upgrades. Sure, holding two first-round picks (12th and 20th, overall) is some kind of ammunition. Yet Monday was significant with the type of moves that have not happened with this team in free agency for a long time.

This, to some degree, brought to life the bluster Jones – the franchise’s owner, GM and consummate hype man – exhibited on his luxury bus during the recent combine as he described his vision.

“I can see us being aggressive in free agency,” Jones pledged.

Of course, part of that involves creating room under the NFL’s record $301.2 million salary cap. The Cowboys always seem to find a way, creatively restructuring contracts and, well, kicking the can down the road against caps that almost always rise in the future.

“I would bet that we will spend more money in free agency than we have,” Jones said. “The only way for me to push more is for me to go borrow some of my future. Expect me to go borrow some of my future.”

Yep, and look at the irony. They swung a deal with their friends up north, the Green Bay Packers, to obtain edge rusher Rashan Gary. Not bad. That’s another first-round talent, with a $19.5 million cap figure for 2026, added to a rebuilt front that includes D-tackles Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark (another ex-Packer). Yet it does seem a bit weird that they went to the well with Parsons’ team.

The other move netted former Arizona Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson, whose reputation as a sure tackler fits with the idea of changing the identity of a unit that missed way too many tackles. Thompson, signed to 3-year, $36 million deal, also has a connection with new secondary coach Ryan Smith, who coached him in Arizona. His ability to communicate on the back end brings added value.

Yet the additions are tempered by the misses. The Cowboys went into free agency looking to add a playmaking linebacker. Now they’ll have to look a bit deeper as their apparent top linebacker targets, Nakobe Dean and Qway Walker, both signed with the big-spending, cap-flush Las Vegas Raiders.

Meanwhile, Devon Lloyd, the former Jaguar rated as the top linebacker on many lists ranking free agents, signed with the Panthers.

This, after the Cowboys missed out on whatever shot they had to land edge rusher Maxx Crosby, before he was dealt last weekend from the Raiders to the Baltimore Ravens in a blockbuster trade.

What next?

There are still big-name players on the market as Day 2 commenced, including edge rusher Trey Hendrickson and linebacker Bobby Wagner. And there’s no way every available impact player was snapped up on the initial wave of the market’s opening.

In other words, there’s a lot more aggressiveness needed for the Cowboys to make up for dealing away Parsons.

Contact Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on X: @JarrettBell

With fewer and fewer top players reaching the open market thanks to extensions and franchise tags, all-out spending sprees by teams are increasingly rare. When agreements began materializing Monday, March 9, as the league’s negotiating window opened, only a handful of pacts entailed truly surprising sums.

But the stakes are still high in March, and several teams took bold action to reshape their fortune for the coming season – and not always for the better.

USA TODAY Sports will be grading all of the biggest deals and trades, so check back often for all the latest:

Falcons add QB Tua Tagovailoa on one-year, $1.215 million deal

Grade: B+

It sure would be nice for Kevin Stefanski if he could fuse the best qualities of each of his quarterbacks – Tagovailoa’s accuracy and Michael Penix Jr.’s ability to drive the ball into tight windows – into one passer. Instead, he’s stuck with two players who each amount to a half-measure behind center. While it’s fair to question whether Tagovailoa is a sustainable solution for the franchise, the Falcons weren’t going to find meaningful competition for Penix elsewhere at this price point. Atlanta now has insurance in case the third-year signal-caller’s return from a torn ACL has any hiccups, or if Stefanski merely wants a different look than a player who doesn’t appear to be much of a fit in the coach’s system due to his preference to work from the shotgun and his reluctance to operate over the middle.

Commanders add DE/OLB Odafe Oweh on four-year, $100 million deal

Grade: C+

Ahead of free agency, I wrote in my latest mock draft that the Commanders might be priced out of landing a big-name veteran pass rusher. Whoops. Washington instead doled out one of the more stunning sums to land Oweh, who came on strong late with all 7 ½ of his sacks after being traded to the Los Angeles Chargers last season. In terms of pure disruptiveness, there’s plenty to like about the five-year veteran. But he’s never played the role of lead option and true catalyst for a pass rush before, and Washington is betting $68 million guaranteed that he can make the leap. Maybe it was a nearly necessary one given how badly the team has whiffed on cobbling together an edge rush, but it’s an inherently risky gamble.

Titans add WR Wan’Dale Robinson on four-year, $78 million deal

Grade: C

Tennessee wasn’t trigger-shy at the outset of free agency, pulling in three players on deals of $60 million or more. The richest agreement came in the deal for Robinson. It’s difficult to square what he can offer an offense as a run-after-catch threat with this kind of payout. There’s something to be said for providing Cam Ward with an option who will encourage more checkdowns and fewer heroic efforts in and out of the pocket. But it feels as though the Titans overbid for another piece new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll knows and is comfortable with.

49ers add WR Mike Evans on three-year, $42.4 million deal

Grade: A

This is probably the rare case when you can believe an agent when he says a decision wasn’t driven by money. Evans’ deal was first reported as a $60.3 million pact, but that’s actually the maximum value with incentives rather than the base. And with only $16.3 million guaranteed, this partnership is pure upside for San Francisco. Evns sizes up as the kind of well-built X receiver to whom Kyle Shanahan used to love funneling targets. He doesn’t need to be anything beyond what he is at this stage in his career to make a massive difference for the 49ers offense. San Francisco just needs to settle the Trent Williams saga to make sure the offense is in top form for a title push.

Saints add RB Travis Etienne Jr. on four-year, $52 million deal

Grade: C-

Similar to the Chiefs, the Saints seemed desperate to invigorate a lackluster ground game, which ranked 31st in yards per carry. But what’s the rush? New Orleans isn’t anywhere close to Kansas City in establishing contending credentials, and the famously atypical spender doesn’t need to get bogged down in paying top dollar for running backs – especially one who is an effective but not transcendent talent. Having Tyler Shough on a rookie contract confers some advantages and flexibility. Still, the more reasonable route might have been to look to the middle rounds of the draft for a ball carrier. New Orleans has more work to do up front to get its rushing attack right, though linking up with offensive guard David Edwards was a nice start to that effort.

Raiders add C Tyler Linderbaum on three-year, $81 million deal

Grade: B-

Few numbers from Monday were as jarring as Linderbaum’s $27 million per year average annual value, which represented a 50% increase over Creed Humphrey’s previous market-setting rate at center. For a Raiders team flush with cap space, however, paying a premium for protection doesn’t seem so outlandish. Linderbaum will fit in perfectly with new coach Klint Kubiak’s zone runs, and reliability at the pivot could pay off in a big way for expected No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza’s development. The Raiders’ free agency strategy at times resembled mashing all the buttons on a controller at once, but this addition could help establish the foundation needed for the Silver and Black to get off the ground floor for once.

Colts trade WR Michael Pittman Jr. for late-round pick swap

Steelers grade: C+
Colts grade: B-

For some teams, free agency can be a mechanism by which teams change their identities. For the Steelers, however, it seems to be a way in which the team can lean into its long-running vision for itself. Pittman, who averaged a meager 9.9 yards per catch last season and posted the fewest receiving yards since his rookie year, can still feast on in-breaking routes as a short-to-intermediate threat. But don’t expect him to revolutionize the outlook for a receiving corps that still might be a little stale even after his addition. This will be easier to stomach if the Steelers keep at that mission, but it still feels a bit risky to hand the 28-year-old a three-year, $59 million extension. The Colts’ salary dump might not move the needle much, but Indianapolis managed to navigate keeping Pittman in he fold until it had worked out the extension with Pierce.

Dolphins add QB Malik Willis on three-year, $67.5 million deal

Grade: A-

Ahead of this week, there was plenty of handwringing about the kind of offer that Willis might field after starting just three games in the last two years as Jordan Love’s backup on the Green Bay Packers. The actual bottom line, however, is entirely reasonable for the Dolphins. Miami gets to pivot from the Tua Tagovailoa era into an outlook with a decidedly higher upside, as Willis and De’Von Achane might be one of the NFL’s most explosive backfield tandems. New general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and coach Jeff Hafley know Willis’ capabilities thanks to their shared time in Green Bay. And with the alternative being forging ahead with Quinn Ewers, the Dolphins at least went with the more promising choice among unproven passers. The financial commitment isn’t daunting, either, as the cap space allotted to Willis might simply have gone to waste elsewhere as part of a significant rebuild.

Panthers add DE/OLB Jaelan Phillips on four-year, $120 million deal

Grade: B

Whether it’s via the draft or the open market, upgrading a pass rush will come with a hefty price tag. Carolina tried to take the former route last year with Day 2 picks Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen, but that just led the team to a point of impatience. Enter Phillips, who isn’t in the league’s first tier of edge threats but already can be a fearsome presence. Now, for the first time since the Panthers traded Brian Burns to the New York Giants, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero has a legitimate force off the edge capable of creating havoc.

Chiefs add RB Kenneth Walker III on three-year, $43.05 million deal

Grade: B-

Seems only natural that Kansas City would try to solve its explosiveness problem in the ground game by securing a running back who had more than three times as many 20-plus yard runs (10) as the team’s entire offense engineered last season (3). With Eric Bieniemy back as offensive coordinator and Walker stepping in, it seems like a good bet that the Chiefs make a large leap with their rushing attack. But the cost here was fairly exorbitant for a team that was saddled with cap problems and now might need to get creative to find solutions for a tattered secondary. Kansas City’s insistence on rediscovering its big-play roots feels a bit misplaced amid wider roster problems, but at least there’s reason to believe Walker’s arrival could expedite an overall offensive resurgence, even if the resource allocation is questionable at best.

Colts re-sign WR Alec Pierce to four-year, $116 million deal

Colts grade: B-

Is it an overpay? Almost certainly. It’s difficult to look at a $29 million average annual value – not to mention the $84 million guaranteed – and conclude otherwise for a player who still relies so heavily on his wins in the vertical game to sustain himself. But general manager Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen are entering a make-or-break campaign, and they couldn’t afford to flinch as they try to reassemble the pieces that made them successful in the first half of last season. Indianapolis might not have managed this in an ideal fashion, but at least the team avoided the very real threat of losing Pierce in a booming receiver market.

Packers trade DE Rashan Gary to Cowboys

Cowboys grade: C
Packers grade: A

So much for Jerry Jones’ rumination that the Cowboys could be uncharacteristically aggressive in free agency this year. This feels less like a splash and more like a belly flop for Dallas’ defense. Gary’s 7 ½ sacks last season belie his limited effectiveness as a pass rusher, with a pressure rate that has continued to plunge yearly before falling to 12.1% last year. He neither properly capitalized on Micah Parsons’ arrival nor stepped up when the All-Pro edge rusher was lost for the season to a torn ACL. Gary can stop the run and register some clean-up sacks, but that hardly feels like an efficient use of a $19.5 million cap hit. Meanwhile, Green Bay somehow extracts a fourth-round pick – albeit in 2027 – for a player who otherwise might have just been cut loose.

Dolphins trade S Minkah Fitzpatrick to Jets

Jets grade: B
Dolphins grade: Incomplete

Despite entering Monday with a good deal of spending space, Gang Green mostly scrounged through the bargain bin in the early stages of free agency. Their one splurge might have come in the form of acquiring Fitzpatrick, whom they signed to a three-year, $40 million extension – essentially the going rate for a nice-but-not-elite safety. The five-time Pro Bowler is hardly at his playmaking peak anymore, but he’s a respected leader who can get the back end of the Jets’ defense in order. That’s nothing to sneeze at for Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey, who don’t have much to count on beyond their floor-raising pick-ups in free agency. New Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan, meanwhile, gets a reprieve for cleaning up the missteps of his predecessor.

MILAN — Would you ever call a WNBA player an NBA player? 

For Chuck Aoki, that’s the comparison he uses when he is called an Olympian. It’s not a flattering title for Paralympians, who already face a coverage deficit. What media coverage Paralympians receive often revolves around disability rather than achievement.

Dani Aravich saw the gap firsthand in the lead-up to the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, when she worked for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Aravich, 29, began posting more herself to change the narrative. It’s the only way she could make an immediate impact. 

That initiative led to the founding of Culxtured — a media collective dedicated to telling authentic stories from the Paralympic world. Aravich, alongside Aoki, Brenna Huckaby and Ryan Neiswender, started moving the needle on a platform that could bridge the gap in coverage. 

“I realized a long time ago that this didn’t exist,” Aravich said. 

While Milano Cortina will be the first Games for which Cultxured is assembled, the initiative is to progressively move the Paralympic needle into its own space, separate from Olympians, but one where coverage mimics the level of elite sport. 

“This is just the beginning,” said Anna Johannes, the collective’s newest member. “It’s the tip of our iceberg.”

Holistic view of the Games

Increasing visibility for Para athletes is central to Culxtured’s mission. 

“If you don’t see yourself represented, how do you know you can do it?” Huckaby said. “… We want more disabled people in sports feeling like they belong in a place.”

The collective also works to redefine how Para athletes are portrayed.

Coverage tends to lead with disability. Headlines celebrate how athletes “overcame despite” their impairments, rather than focusing on how they compete at an elite level while living with those disabilities. Culxtured wants the average fan to recognize how harmful the ‘despite’ story is. 

“Our goal is to call people out and to make it better, and say, ‘This is how you tell the sports stories without putting this sometimes unnecessary sob story disability lens onto it,’ ‘ Aravich said.

When Aravich calls out, she also wants to bring people back in. It’s corrective, not rejective — something the collective wants people to realize to join the movement. 

Johannes says coverage tends to come from an unintentionally ableist view, and the collective’s goal is to inform. 

“It’s about calling people in and being like, ‘This is exactly where you want to be. You are a fan of this, and we’re going to help you understand how to be,’ right?” Johannes said. “And I think that’s where there’s been a gap.”

But part of that issue stems from access. For many fans, the Paralympics are their first exposure to athletes with disabilities. A Humanities and Social Sciences Communications study found that Japan, Malaysia and the United Kingdom were the top three countries with the highest number of articles and photographs at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. A hole remains in the United States’ coverage, leaving access limited while coverage fades between Paralympic cycles.

“I want the sports fan who claims they’re a sports fan and appreciates good sports to realize they’re also a Para sports fan,” Aravich said. “And for a lot of people, they just don’t have that entry point, because it’s not very accessible for people to get to experience it.”

Culxtured is not seeking to replace traditional media, but rather provide a platform to bridge the cycles in coverage. The collective plans to publish content centered around athletes, aside from their disabilities — using the help of freelance writers, retired athletes and content creators. 

Aravich also wants it to be a place for fans to learn about Para sports — classifications, equipment, accessibility challenges and strategy. 

“What I would love to see is that if someone has a question about elite, Para sport, they know to come to us,” Aravich said. “And if we don’t know the answer, we know someone who will know the answer.”

Until Para sports are fully integrated, platforms like Culxtured are necessary to ensure athletes receive coverage as elite competitors. And if that storytelling becomes standard practice across sports media? 

“Then we’re doing our jobs, right?” Aravich said.

Trevor McGee is a reporter for the Paralympics Project, a partnership between USA Today Network and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

The New York Jets have agreed to terms with the Las Vegas Raiders to acquire the veteran quarterback in a trade. ESPN’s Adam Schefter was first with the news of the trade.

Smith, 35, joins his third team in three years after a one-year stint with the Raiders. The veteran quarterback initially landed in Las Vegas from the Seattle Seahawks via a trade before signing a two-year, $75 million extension.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on March 6 that the Raiders had intended to release Smith at the start of the new league year on March 11, barring a trade. Instead of a release, Las Vegas recoups some draft capital in their agreement with the Jets. The trade will be finalized at the start of the new league year on March 11.

The Raiders owns the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and are expected to draft Indiana quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza.

In his lone season with Las Vegas, Smith led the Raiders to a 2-13 record in 15 starts and led the league with 17 interceptions. His 3,025 passing yards and 19 touchdowns were his fewest in a season as a starter since 2014, his second year in the league.

Smith will get a shot at a second chance in New York for the 2026 season.

Geno Smith trade details

Here’s how the transaction that lands Smith back in New York looks for each team:

Jets receive:

QB Geno Smith
2026 seventh-round pick

Raiders receive:

2026 sixth-round pick

The Raiders will also take on most of Smith’s contract, which was restructured before the trade, per Schefter. The Jets will pay Smith ‘just over (the) veteran minimum.’

For a player with more than seven years of NFL experience (Smith is entering Year 14), the veteran minimum is $1.3 million.

Jets QB depth chart

Geno Smith
Justin Fields
Brady Cook

Smith is expected to be the Jets’ starting quarterback in 2026, re-joining the team that originally drafted him in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft. The veteran quarterback last played for the Jets in 2016.

Justin Fields is expected to be released at the start of the new league year, ending a disastrous one-year stay for the 2021 first-round pick.

Former NFL linebacker Darron Lee is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, Gabriella Perpetuo.
Prosecutors presented evidence during a March 9 hearing that Lee used ChatGPT to ask what to do for an unresponsive person hours before calling police.
Lee, who was on probation for a prior domestic violence charge, is being held without bond in Tennessee.

A former NFL and Ohio State University football player asked ChatGPT about what to do for someone who was unresponsive more than 12 hours before calling police, who later found his girlfriend dead in a Tennessee home.

Darron Lee, 31, is charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in Hamilton County, Tennessee, where he remains held without bond. Lee appeared for a preliminary hearing on March 9, where a judge ordered his case be bound over to a grand jury.

Lee, who last played for the Buffalo Bills in 2020 during a five-year NFL career, is accused of killing his girlfriend, 29-year-old Gabriella Perpetuo, inside a home the couple had begun moving into 10 days before she was found dead on Feb. 5.

Perpetuo’s preliminary autopsy found she suffered multiple injuries that led to her death, including knocked-out front teeth, a broken jaw, brain hematomas, shallow stab wounds and a broken neck, WDEF-12 News in Chattanooga reported.

WDEF reported a detective presented evidence gathered during a forensic download of Lee’s phone during the March 9 hearing. That evidence included a Feb. 4 conversation with ChatGPT, an AI agent, about 12 hours before police were called.

The detective testified Lee called the AI agent ‘Allie’ and sent messages under the moniker ‘Xander,’ a shortened version of Lee’s middle name.

‘Don’t know what to do right now. Fiancee did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up,’ one of the messages shown in court said. ‘I wake up and she has two swollen eyes (I didn’t do anything, self-inflicted) she stabbed herself, slit her eye? but she isn’t waking up or responding what do I do?’

Lee also sent messages asking what he should tell a friend to do and asking about injuries that would be consistent with someone falling in a shower.

‘Okay, pause the jokes for half a second because while yes the eyes being swollen is still possible from a fall, but it crosses into ‘seek immediate help territory’ not ‘meh, ice it’,’ ChatGPT responded, according to the TV station.

‘Bet. She got blood all over the damn place,’ Lee responded.

Lee initially told responding deputies that Perpetuo had fallen in the shower and he found her unresponsive. Perpetuo was found on the home’s living room floor.

Detectives testified at a previous hearing that blood was found in nearly every room of the couple’s home, including on handrails and walls. Attempts also appeared to have been made to clean up some evidence.

Perpetuo’s family has filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Lee. The Hamilton County District Attorney’s office previously said it was evaluating the case to determine if the death penalty would be sought. That process remains ongoing with no decision yet made.

In 2023, Lee was charged in Franklin County Municipal Court with domestic violence after an incident involving a female family member. During that investigation, Dublin police learned of another incident involving the mother of Lee’s child.

Lee pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in 2025 and received a sentence of probation, which he was on at the time Perpetuo died.

Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com.

Top-seeded Duke basketball will be without one of its key starters for a ‘foreseeable time,’ ahead of the ACC Tournament and 2026 men’s NCAA Tournament.

In a media availability on Tuesday, March 10, Duke coach Jon Scheyer said that junior guard Caleb Foster suffered a fracture in his right foot during the Blue Devils’ 76-61 win over rival North Carolina on Saturday, March 7.

Scheyer added that Foster had surgery the following morning and is already working on his rehab process.

‘He’s on the road to recovery,’ Scheyer said. ‘In his mind, in our mind, we’ll do everything we possibly can with our mindset to continue to advance, where we can give him a shot to come back when it’s all said and done. But he is gonna be out for a foreseeable time here coming up.’

Caleb Foster injury update

Foster suffered his injury in the first half following a made basket by UNC. He lunged toward the ball and went down immediately, grimacing in pain. He was treated on the bench before limping to the locker room with a trainer. Foster spent the second half in street clothes and a walking boot and was using a knee rover to move around.

‘It was just an awkward play,’ Scheyer said. ‘He lunged and it just happened. He wasn’t feeling anything before, and it just happened really out of nowhere and you hate to see it. Some things you feel are preventable and you want to manage it and other things, other times, freak things happen. And I think this is one of them.’

Foster missed the last nine games of his freshman season with an ankle fracture.

Scheyer provided a timeline on a potential return for Foster, which would require another deep run for the Blue Devils in the NCAA tournament.

‘I think the reality of it is we’d have to advance to a Final Four,’ Scheyer said. ‘And is there a chance earlier? I’m not going to eliminate that right now, but I think that’s really difficult to try to even imagine that scenario. But we’re not going to have him the next couple of weeks, next few weeks here.

‘But again, in Caleb’s mind, he’s going to be back tomorrow, and so for me, I’m with them in the sense of doing something that hasn’t been done. Like I’m with them in the sense of let’s chase this, let’s keep winning and let’s give him the opportunity to join us.’

Caleb Foster stats

Foster has started every game this season for the Blue Devils. He reached his season-high 20 points against Louisville on Jan. 6.

Here’s a look at Foster’s stats in his junior season with Duke:

2025-26: 8.5 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.3 steals per game on 44.2% shooting, 40.2% 3-point shooting in 25.4 minutes per game (31 games, 31 starts)