Dec 2, 2021 3 min read

Antonio Brown suspended

Antonio Brown and two other NFL players have been suspended immediately for three games by the league for violating COVID-19 protocols.

The Tampa Bay wide receiver and teammate Mike Edwards were suspended Thursday. Free agent John Franklin III, if signed by a team, is also ineligible to play in the next three games.

All three players have accepted the discipline and waived their right of appeal. The suspensions are effective immediately.

The suspensions come two weeks after a Los Angeles chef told the Tampa Bay Times that Brown obtained a fake COVID-19 vaccination card shortly before the start of training camp in July. The newspaper reported that Steven Ruiz provided a screenshot of a text message exchange in which Brown’s girlfriend asked the player’s former live-in chef if he could obtain Johnson & Johnson vaccination cards.

In college football

Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall is resigning after the Cavaliers play their bowl game, abruptly ending his tenure at the school after six seasons.

The surprising announcement came in a news release Thursday. In a hastily organized conference call with reporters, Mendenhall said the decision was his alone and that both athletic director Carla Williams and university president Jim Ryan asked him to stay.

• Colorado State fired fiery coach Steve Addazio after a tumultuous two seasons that included an ejection in what would prove to be his final game for the Rams.

The decision came on the day Addazio’s buyout dropped from $5 million to $3 million.

• The NCAA football oversight committee approved a waiver to the deadline for bowl certification so another game can be added to this season’s lineup, upping the number to 42 and ensuring all teams that finished 6-6 can play in the postseason.

The additional game, likely to be held in Texas, was a late replacement for the bowl that was scheduled to be played in San Francisco this season. The Redbox bowl was canceled in September.

In the NBA

LeBron James has been cleared to return to the Los Angeles Lakers after missing one game under the NBA’s health and safety protocols.

The league said that James is not positive for COVID-19 despite a series of tests that produced conflicting results earlier this week. Additional testing cleared James to play when the Lakers host the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday.

Milwaukee Bucks center Brook Lopez has undergone surgery to address the back injury that has kept him from playing since the opening game of the season.