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Bucs to leave Tampa on Tuesday ahead of storm

Jenna Laine, ESPN Staff WriterOct 7, 2024, 10:36 AM ET
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TAMPA, Fla. — In advance of Hurricane Milton, the Buccaneers are leaving the Tampa area early this week and heading to New Orleans on Tuesday, ahead of their Week 6 game at the Saints.

The team was able to secure the necessary hotel rooms in New Orleans to avoid having to take another flight Saturday.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Milton has strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph over the southern Gulf of Mexico. Its exact track is still to be determined, but Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, has begun issuing mandatory evacuations for Zones A and B and all manufactured/mobile homes.

Milton could make landfall Wednesday in the area.

“We are preparing for the highest evacuations we have ever seen, most likely since 2017,” Kevin Guthrie, the Florida director of emergency management, said at a news conference. Forecasters have warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge in Tampa.

The area has already seen damage from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area with a Category 4 designation Sept. 26, with the storm’s sheer size impacting much of the state.

The last time the Buccaneers evacuated the area for a major hurricane was in 2022, when the team headed to Miami before Hurricane Ian. It also did so in advance of Hurricane Irma in 2017, chartering four planes to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Meanwhile, the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning canceled Monday night’s scheduled preseason finale against the Nashville Predators. The game initially was rescheduled from Sept. 27 due to Hurricane Helene, which caused extensive damage in the region.

The Lightning open the regular season at Carolina on Friday. There was no immediate word on whether the team would evacuate to Raleigh, North Carolina, ahead of the storm.

College sports are being impacted, too, with UCF in Orlando announcing all home athletic events Wednesday and Thursday have been canceled. That includes Wednesday’s volleyball match against Colorado, Thursday’s women’s soccer match against Arizona and the first day of the men’s tennis ITA Southeast Regional on Thursday.

The school said Saturday’s Big 12 home football game against Cincinnati is still scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff.

Coach Gus Malzahn said the Knights plan to practice Wednesday morning, before the storm’s effects are expected to arrive in the Orlando area.

“We’re trying to stay in our routine as best we can,” Malzahn said. “We’ll adjust with it. We’ll have a plan no matter what happens. We’ve been talking through that. I think the main thing planning-wise is making sure our players are taken care of, and all the people in our program.”

ESPN’s Adam Schefter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NFL

Rodgers labels relationship with Saleh 'great'

Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff WriterOct 1, 2024, 05:07 PM ET
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The speculation started in June, when New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was fined by coach Robert Saleh for missing a mandatory minicamp. Since then, his relationship with Saleh has been under a microscope.

On Tuesday, Rodgers refuted the perception that he and Saleh aren’t getting along.

“Rob and I have a great relationship; we have since Day 1 when I got here,” Rodgers said during his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “We have text-message conversations, threads that we’re in, conversations about a number of different topics outside of football. We have a good friendship.”

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The spotlight has focused on them over the last two weeks. First, there was the infamous non-hug during the Sept. 19 game against the

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Stroud: Wasn't trying to 'little bro' Williams on SNF

DJ Bien-Aime, ESPNSep 18, 2024, 07:48 PM ET
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HOUSTON — Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud said Wednesday he wasn’t trying to “little bro” Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams during their postgame handshake Sunday night, an interaction that drew attention on social media.

Stroud was mic’d up during the Texans’ 19-13 win over the Bears on “Sunday Night Football.” After the game, Stroud embraced Williams and provided advice to the No. 1 pick.

He told the rookie “Good job out there,” and to “stop taking those hits,” after Williams was sacked seven times and took 11 quarterback hits while finishing 23-of-37 passing for 174 yards with two interceptions.

Williams began to walk away, but Stroud pulled Williams back into the conversation and said, “Come here. Learn from those mistakes. And everything that you got, bro, is in you already, bro. You’re going to be a hell of a player in this league.”

Stroud, speaking to reporters Wednesday, made it clear he was trying to help Williams during their interaction and wasn’t trying to belittle him.

“I was not trying to little bro him or anything. He knows that, too. I have a ton of respect for him,” Stroud said. “I had so many guys coming to me after games last year and that meant the world to me that those guys even thought about giving me advice.

“So, I just try to give back to what the game is giving me. So, I wish him the best man. I want him to do amazing in this league. I think he will.”

Social media users focused on Williams’ body language, noting he appeared dismissive of Stroud’s advice.

Williams had little to say about their interaction during his postgame news conference, saying, “We shook hands at the end of the game. That was about it.”

Stroud didn’t view Williams’ response negatively and “wants him to do extremely well.”

“I don’t think he was trying to be any type of way [toward me], he was just upset that they lost,” Stroud said. “I totally understand. So I have a ton of respect for that guy, man.”

NFL

Sources: Niners, Aiyuk reach $120M extension

Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff WriterAug 29, 2024, 06:50 PM ET
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The dramatic roller-coaster ride that has been the high-stakes contract negotiations between the San Francisco 49ers and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk ended where it all began when this started more than six months ago — with the Niners and Aiyuk sticking together for the long haul.

Aiyuk and the Niners on Thursday agreed to terms on a four-year, $120 million contract extension that will keep him in San Francisco through the 2028 season, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

It’s the same deal that has been on the table from the 49ers since Aug. 12, league sources told Schefter.

The extension includes $76 million guaranteed, with $47 million to be paid to Aiyuk before April 1, 2025, a source told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

Aiyuk joins Miami Dolphins star Tyreek Hill as the fifth-highest-paid receivers in the NFL with an average annual value of $30 million per season.

Player	AAV
Nick Bosa	$34M
Brandon Aiyuk	$30M
Deebo Samuel	$23.85M
Trent Williams	$23.01M
Javon Hargrave	$21M
Fred Warner	$19.045M
Christian McCaffrey	$19M
George Kittle	$15M

The deal comes on the heels of perhaps the most contentious move yet in these negotiations as the Niners publicly declared Aiyuk healthy on Wednesday with coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch saying they expected him to participate in practice.

Aiyuk did not practice Wednesday or Thursday, opening himself up to the possibility of team discipline. Thursday’s agreement, however, ensures Aiyuk can spend the next 10 days preparing for the Sept. 9 opener against the Editor’s Picks

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The result was a long-awaited deal that ensures the Niners’ top wideout isn’t going anywhere as San Francisco pursues the franchise’s sixth Lombardi Trophy that has narrowly evaded it in four of the past five seasons.

Now the Niners not only have their best receiver for another run at the Super Bowl, but they can keep him with quarterback Year Player Tm YPT 2023 Brandon Aiyuk SF 12.9 2011 Victor Cruz NYG 12.1 2023 Nico Collins HOU 12.0 2021 Deebo Samuel SF 11.8 >>YPT: Yards per target; min. 100 targets — ESPN Stats & Information

To reach this point, of course, it took plenty of time and patience on both sides. Soon after the 49ers lost Super Bowl LVIII in February, Aiyuk said he would stay in San Francisco “if it was the right move.”

Asked what that would look like, Aiyuk said simply, “being a champion.”

From there, things appeared to get more contentious after Lynch insisted at the league meetings in March that the team wanted to pay Aiyuk. After those comments, Aiyuk posted a series of emojis to his Instagram story that translated to “money talks, bulls— walks.”

April’s NFL draft brought another important benchmark in the negotiations. At the time, Lynch and Shanahan made it clear that they would listen to calls on their receiver just as they would any other player but still had no desire to move on from Aiyuk.

“I’ve communicated on many occasions: our wish is that he’s here and part of the Niners for the rest of his career,” Lynch said in April. “We’re working through that. … I can say we’re having good talks, and I’m just going to leave it at that.”

Because of that, a trade involving Aiyuk was always going to require a substantial return coming to San Francisco. During draft weekend, no deals were ever close, and Lynch and Shanahan again emphasized the desire to re-sign Aiyuk, even after spending their first-round pick (No. 31 overall) on Pearsall.

The Niners selecting Pearsall offered some insight into the state of the relationship between the team and Aiyuk, who played briefly with Pearsall at Arizona State. Moments after the pick, Aiyuk texted Lynch and Shanahan, “Fire pick, I can’t lie.”

Aiyuk stayed away from the team’s offseason program and he also did not show up for the full-squad minicamp in early June, incurring more than $101,000 in fines as the negotiations reached a temporary stalemate.

In the meantime, other receivers around the league reeled in big contracts:

Those deals simultaneously provided an outline for a potential Aiyuk deal and drove his price higher, which contributed to his eventual trade request.

Just before the Niners opened training camp on July 23, Aiyuk officially requested a trade. Even after that, Lynch insisted that Aiyuk was likely to stick around at least through this season, with sources telling ESPN that other teams had reached out about trading for Aiyuk only to be told that the Niners had no interest in dealing him.

“We fully intend on Brandon being a Niner moving forward,” Lynch said July 23. “We’re always open to listen to things but like I said, we expect Brandon to be an integral part of our team like he has been and excited about that.”

Aiyuk then reported to training camp with his teammates, though he did not participate in any practices. He did, however, take part in meetings and watched practices from the sideline.

Despite a wild week, an Aiyuk trade to the Steelers or any other team never materialized, and the sides restarted the discussions that finally yielded an extension. Before Thursday’s deal, Aiyuk was slated to play the 2024 season under the fifth-year option that came standard with the rookie contract he signed in 2020, which would have paid him $14.124 million.

This is the fifth year in a row that the 49ers have re-signed one of their stars either just before training camp or during: tight end

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