The Cincinnati Bengals signed CFL standout wide receiver Dohnte Meyers after a workout on Tuesday, according to NFL reporter Aaron Wilson.
Meyers, who will turn 26 in July, recorded 65 receptions, 1,056 yards, and eight touchdowns this year for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Meyers played college football initially at Presbyterian in 2018 and 2019. He transferred to Delta State for his final three years in college.
After going undrafted in the NFL Draft, he signed a futures contract with Saskatchewan in October of 2023. His pre-draft measurables listed him at 5 ft. 9 1/2 inches and 188 pounds.
Meyers will need to impress during training camp if he wants to have a chance to stick around, even as a practice squad player next season.
#Bengals signing @CFL standout Dohnte Meyers, per a source
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The Golden State Warriors have had over 600 players don the more than 60 jersey numbers used by their players over the more than 75 years of existence the team has enjoyed in its rich and storied history.
Founded in 1946 during the Basketball Association of America (BAA — a precursor league of the NBA) era, the team has called home the cities of Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, and even San Diego.
To commemorate the players who wore those numbers, Warriors Wire is covering the entire history of jersey numbers and the players who sported them since the founding of the team. For this article, we begin with the fourth of eight players who wore the No. 35 jersey for the Warriors.
That player would be Golden State forward alum Ray Owes. After ending his college career at Arizona, Owes went unselected in the 1995 NBA Draft, playing in other leagues until until he signed with the Dubs in 1996.
The San Bernardino, California native played the first sole season of his NBA career with Golden State, leaving the league as a player afterward.
During his time suiting up for the Warriors, Owes wore only jersey No. 35 and put up 3.1 points, and 2.9 rebounds per game.
All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.
The Houston Rockets have had players donning a total of 52 different jersey numbers (and have one not part of any numerical series for Houston assistant coach and general manager Carroll Dawson) since their founding at the start of the 1967-68 season, worn by just under 500 players in the course of Rockets history.
To honor all of the the players who wore those numbers over the decades, Rockets Wire is covering the entire history of jersey numbers and the players who wore them since the founding of the team all those years ago right up to the present day.
With seven of those jerseys now retired to honor some of the greatest Rockets of all time to wear those jerseys, there is a lot of history to cover.
And for today’s article, we will continue with the 14th of 14 players who wore the No. 4, guard alum JD Davison. After ending his college career at Alabama, Davison was picked up with the 53rd overall selection of the 2022 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics.
The Montgomery, Alabama native would play the first three seasons of his pro career with Boston, coming to an end when he signed with Houston in 2025, and he remains with the team at the time of writing.
During his time suiting up for the Rockets, Davison wore only jersey No. 4 and put up 1.6 points per game.
All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.
The NFL coaching cycle is rocking and rolling and Tuesday evening saw it take an even more eventful turn as the Baltimore Ravens fired John Harbaugh. Pretty wild stuff.
Way back in the middle of the season, the Tennessee Titans became the first team to be in the market for a head coach this cycle as they fired Brian Callahan. There has been word that Tennessee could look to hire former Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, but as of this writing he has not officially been named as an interviewee (our friends at Music City Miracles are tracking their whole search).
One former Cowboys coach did emerge as someone who will interview and it was not McCarthy. ESPN reported on Tuesday evening that Jason Garrett is set to interview for the job.
Sources: Former Cowboys HC and NBC analyst Jason Garrett is interviewing Friday for the Titans head coaching job. pic.twitter.com/7mAWFJMLfB
Garrett has been a part of NBC’s television coverage of the NFL in recent years and hasn’t coached since he was the offensive coordinator for the New York Giants during the 2020 season, the first after Dallas moved on from him. He notably spent almost a decade as the Cowboys head coach and over a decade with the organization overall from a coaching perspective (he played for the team as well).
The Cowboys host the Titans in 2026 so would face Garrett if he got the job.
Note for Readers: This article does not reflect the opinions of Brew Crew Ball and/or SB Nation. Please refrain from engaging in political discussion or arguments in our comments. We thank you for being a loyal reader of Brew Crew Ball.
Early in the morning of January 3, 2026, residents of Caracas, Venezuela, awoke to bombs falling from the night sky. Gunshots rang out near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s presidential compound. Mere hours later, United States President Donald Trump announced that Maduro was in custody aboard the USS Iwo Jima.
Now, you might be asking: what does any of this have to do with the Brewers?
Although I have a degree in international relations, I never thought I’d be writing about geopolitics for Brew Crew Ball. The reality, however, is that the rapidly developing crisis between the United States and Venezuela could have wide-reaching implications for Major League Baseball and its Venezuelan players.
Milwaukee scouts heavily in Venezuela (which could be another article in and of itself). Some of the Brewers’ best players, like Jackson Chourio and William Contreras, are Venezuelan nationals. Last month, the United States imposed a no-fly zone over Venezuela applicable to all U.S. operators, while Caracas’ international airport has been closed since Maduro was taken into custody. This means that Chourio, Contreras, Jeferson Quero, and Andruw Monasterio are all currently stranded in Venezuela, per a Monday report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Curt Hogg, which also notes all players are safe. Recent acquisition Ángel Zerpa, a native Venezuelan, may also be in the country, though Hogg was unable to confirm if that is the case.
As the disclaimer says, I’m not here to give you my opinion on politics. I’m not going to argue for or against military action, for or against foreign intervention, for or against Maduro. What I can do is explain how the competing interests in this situation could affect MLB players.
For those of you following the news as this unfolds, this is everything you need to know about the United States and Venezuela as it pertains to the Brewers:
First, a bit of background on how we got here
Nicolas Maduro is a former bus driver who rose through the ranks of the bus drivers’ union to become a right-hand man to former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. After Chávez died in 2013, Maduro served as the president of Venezuela until his arrest on January 3.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and, during the 1960s and 70s, was the richest country in Latin America and one of the richest in the Western Hemisphere. By the time the 90s rolled around, poverty rates had begun to skyrocket due to economic mismanagement (causing rising inflation) and increased corruption among Venezuelan oligarchs. In 1992, Chávez tried to commit a coup, but failed. After he got out of prison, he ran for president of Venezuela and won.
During his first term, Chávez implemented a socialist government — ostensibly as a method of redistributing oil money away from the elites and back to the people. The reality was more complicated. While poverty initially declined, Chávez also consolidated power, replaced much of the judiciary with loyalists, persecuted political opponents, suspended term limits, and expanded presidential authority. Corruption allegations followed him throughout his rule.
By the time Chávez appointed Maduro his successor in 2013, the economy was in ruins. Things have only gotten worse. The economy has contracted by roughly 80%. Corruption is still rampant; Venezuela has significantly more oil than even Saudi Arabia, yet an astonishing 91% of Venezuelans live beneath the global poverty line. Despite their massive oil reserves, the Venezuelan government hasn’t had the money to invest in infrastructure, so the vast majority of the oil remains untapped.
In 2024, Maduro lost a (disputed) election to opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez but proclaimed himself the winner anyway. He then reportedly sent his security forces after Gonzalez, who is now in exile.
It was initially reported that Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had fled the country to seek asylum in Russia. However, Rodríguez was sworn in as the president on Tuesday, January 6. President Trump gave an interview with The Atlantic that seemingly endorsed Rodríguez, adding that “she’s essentially willing to do what (the United States) thinks is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
“If she doesn’t do what’s right,” Trump added, “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
As of Monday, January 5, Trump had not spoken with opposition leader María Corina Machado, also in exile, whose party claims to have won the disputed 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” Trump told reporters during a press conference. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect to be a leader.”
There’s a famous quote from Thucydides — the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. This also applies to international relations. If you look at the situation in Venezuela through this lens, the legality of the situation doesn’t really matter because both actors (the United States and Venezuela) will do what they can to further their interests. Any legal battles will take months, if not years, and even then, there’s no “world police” to step in and stop a conflict. What happens in the meantime will have ramifications for the Brewers players currently in Venezuela, regardless of legality.
You finally said something about the Brewers! Stop beating around the bush. What does any of this have to do with baseball?
The situation on the ground in Venezuela right now is extremely murky, and any developments will have a pronounced effect on the safety of Brewers (and other Major League Baseball) players in Venezuela.
Ideally, Brewers players still in Venezuela would leave immediately in case the political situation goes sideways. Chourio was reportedly scheduled to leave the country on Tuesday, January 6, although there’s been no word on whether or not he actually has. Less is known about Contreras, Quero, Monasterio, and potentially Zerpa.
The best and safest way to leave Venezuela would be to leave via plane to a third country (due to the no-fly zone) as soon as the airport reopens. If those players decide to stay, or can’t leave, here’s what might happen:
If Rodríguezremains president, this could go two ways. Rodríguez could decide to involve the United States in their oil industry or generally capitulate to any demands out of fear of further retribution. In this scenario, tensions will slowly cool between the two countries (at least for a while). Venezuelan players shouldn’t face any issues trying to leave Venezuela or reenter the United States.
However, Rodríguez could instead take a hard-line stance against the United States and keep the government much as it was under Maduro. This would essentially be calling Trump’s bluff, which is a risky proposition considering the size of the U.S. armed forces.
That scenario would probably make things worse for players currently in Venezuela. If a full war breaks out, commercial flights would generally be grounded. The United States embassy would be involved in getting its citizens out of the country (like during the fall of Saigon), but it’s a little murkier for players who aren’t United States citizens. The United States doesn’t have a legal duty to evacuate non-citizens (e.g., a Venezuelan national with a United States work visa). Venezuela is also a really bad place to need help from the United States government in general. Per the State Department:
“The U.S. government has no way to contact U.S. nationals detained in Venezuela, and those detained are not allowed to contact family members or independent legal counsel. According to former detainees, as well as independent human rights organizations, detainees have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment, including severe beatings, prolonged restraint in stress positions, and waterboarding.”
Venezuela doesn’t really have a lot of leverage here — they don’t have a ton of allies, their economy is struggling, and their military is nowhere near the size of the U.S. military. In the scenario where Rodríguez decides to reject U.S. involvement and the United States threatens a full-scale invasion, Venezuela could theoretically detain athletes in order to gain a little more bargaining power. This is dark, but I feel compelled to mention it because war is never pretty.
The final option, if a conflict were to break out, would be leaving via a land border. This would depend on sneaking across an unguarded border, and/or knowing (or paying off) a border guard. The four Venezuelan cities of Caracas, Maracaibo, Barquisimeto, and Valencia are all pretty close to the Colombian border, but that part of Colombia has guerrilla fighters and Colombian army troops stationed at the border right now. Crossing a land border during an active conflict is obviously dangerous and not an ideal option.
If the opposition government takes power, things would change in Venezuela, and probably more drastically than if Rodríguez remains in power. The opposition government is committed to dismantling the Bolivarian (socialist) government and implementing a democratic capitalist system. The United States has historically minimized its cooperation with socialist/communist states, so if the opposition government takes power, relations could be reasonably expected to improve.
Opposition leader Machado sat down for an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier Tuesday. In the interview, she said that Trump “should have won” the Nobel Peace Prize instead of her and stated her intent to return to Venezuela. Based on those remarks, it seems likely that tensions will cool between the two countries if Machado’s government ends up taking power, as Machado seems willing to work with Trump.
However, if Trump endorses Machado as president of Venezuela, a power struggle (and therefore violence) could break out between Bolivarian supporters and opposition supporters. Rodríguez and the rest of Maduro’s old government are heavily entrenched with the military, but per independent polls, more Venezuelans support the opposition government. Worst comes to worst, Venezuela falls into civil war, which could also lead to baseball players being detained or unable to get out of the country.
The final player to consider is the United States government itself. Last year, the United States Department of State made headlines for initially refusing to issue visas to a Venezuelan team that made the Little League World Series. The United States just issued more blanket travel bans; banning Venezuelans from entering the United States would fit the stated policy objectives of the current administration. Such a ban would also be more justifiable in the face of an armed conflict (i.e., for national security reasons).
The Maroon and White are looking to extend their four-game winning streak and put a blemish on the Tigers’ undefeated record at home this season. To accomplish that feat and move to 2-0 in league play, Texas A&M must improve its shooting consistency from the field by getting the ball in the hands of Spainard guard Rubén Dominguez and graduate forward Rashaun Agee, who are averaging 13.3 points combined per contest through 14 appearances.
While Dominguez and Agee have contributed greatly to the team’s success so far, McMillan’s roster is filled with other playmakers who do not shy away from the opportunity to produce quality minutes. That includes fifth-year guard Ali Dibba, who scored 12 points off the bench for Texas A&M in Sunday’s win.
Follow along with live coverage below as the Aggies take on the Tigers in the second conference contest of the McMillan era of hoops:
The Texas A&M vs. Auburn game will be broadcast nationally on the SEC Network. Mike Morgan and Mark Wise will be on the call inside Neville Arena. Streaming options for the game include the ESPN App and FUBO, which offers a free trial to new subscribers.
Texas A&M vs. Auburn time today
Date: Tuesday, January 5
Start time: 8 p.m. CT
The Texas A&M vs Auburn game starts at 8 p.m. CT from inside Neville Arena in Auburn, Alabama.
Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Dylan on X: @dylanmflippo.
Sometimes, if you’re a college football fan, it’s not wise to get upset or angry when a player enters the transfer portal. Because the door isn’t closed until it is.
One of the surprise transfer portal entries this cycle has been Michigan football right guard Jake Guarnera, who had indicated during the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl prep that he was excited about Kyle Whittingham and the new era for the maize and blue. However, as the Wolverines took a few days to get new offensive line coach Jim Harding in place, Guarnera decided to test the waters outside of Ann Arbor.
However, on Tuesday, Guarnera announced that he will indeed be returning for his third season with Michigan football.
Guarnera was garnering attention from some SEC schools but ultimately chose to stay with the program that originally recruited him.
Not originally a starter in 2025, the redshirt freshman first got meaningful time in the Week 2 game at Oklahoma, when Brady Norton went out with injury. He quickly acclimated and became one of, if not Michigan’s best, offensive linemen. He started every game the rest of the way, even when Norton returned to full health.
Along with Evan Link, Blake Frazier, and Andrew Babalola, Guarnera is the fourth offensive lineman to announce he will be returning to Michigan football this upcoming season. He’s also the second player to withdraw from the transfer portal thus far, with cornerback Zeke Berry announcing he has withdrawn from the transfer portal as well.
LAS VEGAS — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has for now denied the A’s request to trademark the names “Las Vegas Athletics” and “Vegas Athletics.”
The club, which intends to move to Nevada in 2028, has three months from when the refusals were issued Dec. 29 to ask for an extension to file a new application within a six-month period.
The A’s were told the nickname “Athletics” was too generic and could be confused with other activities even if associated with Las Vegas.
That, however, has been the club’s nickname since the Philadelphia Athletics began playing in 1901. The A’s kept the nickname when they moved to Kansas City in 1955 and Oakland in 1968.
The Patent and Trademark Office denied the NHL’s Utah team to use the nickname “Yetis” on Jan. 9 because of potential confusion with companies such as Yeti Coolers. Utah, which moved from the Phoenix area in 2024, now uses the nickname “Mammoth.”
The A’s relocated to West Sacramento, California, last year to play the first of three planned seasons in the city’s Triple-A ballpark. The team is going solely by “Athletics” while playing in the Northern California city.
A $2 billion, 33,000-capacity stadium on the Las Vegas Strip is under construction. Club officials told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on Dec. 4 that the ballpark is on schedule to open in time for the 2028 season.
Nevada and Clark County have approved up to $380 million in public funds for the ballpark, and the A’s have said they will cover the remaining expenses. Owner John Fisher has been seeking investors to assist in the funding.
In preparing for the move to Las Vegas, the A’s have signed some notable contracts. The most recent was an $86 million, seven-year deal for left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, the richest in team history. Soderstrom signed his contract Dec. 30 at the A’s Experience Center in Las Vegas.
Fans and analysts have done plenty of chiming in when it comes to Jaylen’s standing among the NBA’s best. Ex-Celtics guard Jeff Teague recently said that Brown is indeed the game’s best two-way player, and Teague even said that he’d take JB over Luka Dončić. Celtics legend Paul Pierce said that Brown is No. 2 in the MVP race behind only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Ex-NBA wing Nick Young was the latest voice to contribute to the discussion. Appearing on the Gil’s Arena podcast, Young brought up Brown’s elite durability while reiterating the notion that Jaylen is the best two-way player in the business.
“You go by availability, (and) he is more available then Wemby and Giannis,” Young said. “Plus he guards a harder position and teams’ best player every night.”
Nick Young agrees with Jaylen Brown saying he is the best 2 way player in the NBA
“You go by availability he is more available then a Wemby and Giannis. Plus he guard a harder position and teams best player every night”
Brown recently drew acclaim when it was revealed that he requested to guard Kawhi Leonard by sending Joe Mazzulla a text on the plane to Los Angeles. Not only did JB take on the Kawhi assignment in LA, Brown proceeded to drop 50 points. If that’s not the best two-way player in the NBA, it’s hard to imagine who is.
Brown has leveled up as an offensive force this season amid Jayson Tatum’s Achilles injury and the offseason losses of Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, and Luke Kornet. Through 33 games, Brown is averaging 29.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.9 assists on 50.1 percent from the field and 36.3 percent from 3. His efficiency and playmaking have propelled the Celtics to a 23-12 record.
The fans know who they want — the 10 All-Star starters from the first round of fan voting a week ago remain the 10 who would start after another week of voting has been added to the totals.
Luka Dončić remains the overall leading vote-getter, while Giannis Antetokounmpo leads in the East in the second round of fan voting released by the NBA. Two international players garnering the most votes feels fitting in the year the All-Star Game becomes a three-team USA vs. World three-team format — and returns to NBC while debuting on Peacock. Five of the 10 would-be starters are international players.
Here is who the fans have voted as the starters for each conference up to this point (voting runs through Jan. 14):
Western Conference
Luka Dončić, Lakers (2,229,811 votes) Nikola Jokić, Nuggets (1,998, 560) Stephen Curry, Warriors (1,844,903) Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder (1,554,468) Victor Wembanyama, Spurs (1,321,985)
Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo remain the leaders in their conferences in the second fan returns in NBA All-Star Voting 2026.
Fans (50% of the vote) join NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%) in selecting five players in each conference honored as starters. pic.twitter.com/u8tlbj9GA8
• Consider this a reminder that the fan vote counts for 50% of who gets to be an All-Star Game starter. The fan vote is combined with a vote of the players (25%) and select media (25%) to determine the ultimate 10 starters. After that, a vote of the coaches picks the seven reserves for each conference. Those players will be divided into three teams for this year’s game (more on the format below).
• The only change in the top five in either conference is that Jalen Brunson leapt over Tyrese Maxey to be the second leading vote getter in the East, but none of the players changed.
• If I were going to make one bet on something that changes once the player and media vote are added in, it will be that Boston’s Jaylen Brown will leap past Donovan Mitchell into the starting five in the East.
• Nikola Jokic remains out injured after hyperextending his knee. However, the latest reports suggest he should be back in late January, which means he could play in the All-Star Game. Even if that timeline is optimistic and he is out longer, Jokic will get voted in as an All-Star starter, and if he cannot play, then NBA Commissioner Adam Silver will replace him.
• LeBron James leaped over Kevin Durant in the latest vote tally, and the legends of the game are Nos. 8 and 9 in the West voting. It’s hard to imagine an All-Star Game without these two future Hall of Famers, but after LeBron missed considerable time at the start of the season, it is possible it will take a special invitation and designation from Commissioner Silver. That said, there is no way the All-Star Game is coming to Los Angeles — Feb. 15 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., the home of the LA Clippers — and LeBron is not playing.
• A year ago, LaMelo Ball was the runaway fan vote leader in the East (but didn’t make the All-Star Game because he didn’t have the player or media votes to start, then the coaches did not select him as a reserve. This season he is 11th in the East, behind Pascal Siakam and Michael Porter Jr.
All-Star Game format
The 2026 NBA All-Star Game returns to NBC and debuts on Peacock — right in the middle of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. That was a perfect setup for the first-of-its-kind All-Star Game pitting the best of the USA vs. the best of the World.
The 24 All-Star players (10 starters voted in, 14 reserves selected by the coaches) will be divided into three teams — two USA teams and one world team — that will compete in a round-robin tournament of four 12-minute games. Each of the three teams will have a minimum of eight players (if the USA or World teams are short on players, the league office will select one or more players to reach the required number).
At the end of the round-robin, the two top teams will play a championship game (the fourth 12-minute game of the day) for the title.
All-Star weekend tips off on Feb. 13 with the Rising Stars at the Intuit Dome at 6 p.m. PT, featuring the league’s top first- and second-year players. Also on the 13th is the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, which features stars from media, sports and entertainment playing at the Kia Forum. The Forum also hosts the fifth annual NBA HBCU Classic at 8 p.m. that night.
On Saturday, Feb. 14, All-Star Saturday night — featuring the Skills Challenge, 3-point Contest and the Dunk Contest — will take place at the Intuit Dome.
The 75th NBA All-Star Game will take place on Sunday, Feb. 15, at 5 p.m. Eastern, earlier than in previous years, leading into more coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
How to Watch the NBA on NBC and Peacock
Peacock NBA Monday will stream up to three Monday night games each week throughout the regular season. Coast 2 Coast Tuesday presents doubleheaders on Tuesday nights throughout the regular season on NBC and Peacock. On most Tuesdays, an 8 p.m. ET game will be on NBC stations in the Eastern and Central time zones, and an 8 p.m. PT game on NBC stations in the Pacific and often Mountain time zones. Check local listings each week. Both games will stream live nationwide on Peacock. NBC Sports will launch Sunday Night Basketball across NBC and Peacock on Feb. 1, 2026. For a full schedule of the NBA on NBC and Peacock, click here.
