Aug 22, 2023 3 min read

Mayfield named Bucs’ starting QB

Baker Mayfield was selected as the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ending the competition for Tom Brady’s old job on Tuesday.

The No. 1 overall pick from the 2018 NFL draft prevailed over third-year pro Kyle Trask, a 2021 second-round draft pick who spent the past two seasons as the third-string quarterback behind Brady and Blaine Gabbert.

Mayfield, who’s with his fourth team since July 2022, signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Bucs after spending the first four seasons of his career with the Cleveland Browns. He made six starts for the Carolina Panthers and four more with the Los Angeles Rams a year ago, going a combined 2-8.

Tampa Bay opens the regular season at Minnesota on Sept. 10.

In the NFL

Saints tight end Jimmy Graham is expected to return this week to practice following what team officials have described as a “medical episode” that led police in the Los Angeles area to arrest the veteran player and take him to a hospital last weekend.

“I expect to see Jimmy out here, hopefully tomorrow,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said following practice Tuesday night. “We’ll see, but I don’t think this is going to be anything that’s going to cause him to miss a significant amount of time.”

Dr. John Amoss, the Saints’ team physician, has said Graham likely had a seizure and was disoriented when he was picked up by authorities in Orange County on Friday night.

The Saints had flown to California last Wednesday for joint practices with the Los Angeles Chargers in advance of New Orleans’ 22-17 victory in both teams’ second preseason game on Sunday night.

Graham did not play in the game. The team had Monday off and Graham also missed practice on Tuesday.

Allen declined to go into further detail about what has ailed Graham in recent days.

Tausaga win world title in discus

Discus throw is a game of centimeters. So when Laulauga Tausaga launched a throw that beat her personal best by more than four meters (13 feet) at world championships on Tuesday to win the title, she stunned the crowd – and herself.

“I just screamed,” Tausaga said about the throw that made her the first American woman to win a world gold medal in discus. “I was like, I don’t know how to contain this emotion.”

Tausaga took the title in Budapest with a fifth-round throw of 69.49 meters (228 feet), beating her old mark by a whopping 4.03 meters. That throw vaulted her past her teammate and world leader Valarie Allman for a first-place finish she hadn’t seen coming.

For Allman, silver seemed like a letdown given she had spent most of the evening in first place. A couple things made it feel better. She finished one notch up from last year’s worlds. And she lost to an athlete from her own country.

Serena Williams has second child

Serena Williams has given birth to a baby girl, she posted Tuesday on Instagram, almost exactly a year after her last match as a tennis star.

Adira River Ohanian is the second child – and second daughter – for the 41-year-old Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Their first, Olympia, was born in 2017.

Williams, who won 23 Grand Slam singles titles during a career that transcended her sport, revealed at the Met Gala in May that she was pregnant.