The New York Giants were awarded one player via waivers, defensive back Anthony Johnson, Jr., who had spent the summer with the Green Bay Packers.
Johnson, 6-0 and 205 pounds, played his college ball at Iowa State, where he was a safety. He was a seventh-round draft pick of the Packers in 2023, who used the pick acquired in a trade with Jacksonville for offensive lineman Cole Van Lanen the year prior.
Johnson appeared in 12 games last year with four starts and recorded 24 tackles one interception, and three pass breakups.
Johnson, who was said to have had a strong preseason showing and whom Packers head coach Matt LaFleur praised for having an outstanding training camp, appears to have been caught up in the numbers game in Green Bay.
This article first appeared on New York Giants on SI and was syndicated with permission.
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Agent shares how Tommy DeVito feels about situation with Giants
It was unclear as recently as Tuesday morning if the New York Giants would save a roster spot for backup quarterback and fan-favorite Tommy DeVito or subject him to waivers and risk losing him. DeVito ultimately remained with the Giants through Tuesday’s official cutdown deadline, and it appears he’s thrilled with that development even though it’s unlikely he’ll take a meaningful snap for the team anytime soon. “There’s no other place where he wants to be,” agent Sean Stellato said about DeVito during a chat with Steve Serby of the New York Post. “He loves his fans, he loves his teammates. It means a lot to him, they have their trust and confidence in him. At the end of the day, he’s proved how tough he is, how much of a fighter he is. He’s a gamer when he gets the opportunity. …It’s a great story, ‘Local Boy Makes Good,’ but the story is far from complete.”
A New Jersey native, DeVito became somewhat of a cult hero when he won three of his first four starts last season as an undrafted rookie. However, the Giants gave journeyman signal-caller Drew Lock $5M in guaranteed money in March, and that deal left many assuming DeVito had no real future with the organization. Tuesday’s roster decision suggests the Giants were convinced at least one team would’ve grabbed DeVito off waivers before the club was able to stash him on its practice squad. Stellato indicated all that DeVito experienced over the past 13 months or so helped the 26-year-old develop into a quarterback worthy of holding an active roster spot.
“I think part of him was disappointed just in the fact that he wants to be on an active roster,” Stellato said about how DeVito began last season, “but I think at the end of the day, sometimes when we’re humbled or things don’t go as planned, that says a lot about a player how you respond, and Tommy’s middle name is Resilient.” It’s hardly a secret that the Giants may decide to sit starting quarterback Daniel Jones at some point this fall so that they can move on from his contract in March 2025. While Lock is expected to enter Week 1 of the upcoming season as New York’s QB2, general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll may give DeVito opportunities to impress if it’s determined before Week 18 arrives that Jones isn’t the club’s long-term answer at the position.
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‘I don’t want to work here,’ Former World Champion says he was set to quit WWE after…
Having the unwillingness to continue with a promotion could be one of the lowest phases of a wrestler’s career.
And for Dolph Ziggler, that window came right at the stroke of fall in 2019. Lost in the shuffle, the 44-year-old was potentially at his nadir at that juncture. And things got even worse when he was told that he’d be getting squashed by Goldberg at SummerSlam. Speaking to the Busted Open Radio, the reigning TNA Champion revealed that his match with Goldberg and the Raw after SummerSlam were going to be his final dates with the company. He was done. Moreover, Ziggler wasn’t over the moon when he learned about his two-minute bout with WWE Hall of Famer. He went to his boss, which at that point in time was Vince McMahon. Dolph asked McMahon to replace him with any of the local talent. It’s worth mentioning that SummerSlam back then was held in Toronto. The Showoff basically told Vince that he didn’t want to continue working for WWE. The actual match that the real-life Nic Nemeth had with Goldberg lasted 1:50 minutes.
The fans in attendance ate that up and loved every second of what the two men did out there. I go to the boss, and I am begging. Boss, you could have a local do this. If I can’t do this, you can’t trust me to do this, then you can’t trust to me do anything. I don’t want to work here. Dolph Ziggler aka Nic Nemeth via Busted Open Radio It was a night that Dolph would like to forget. He endured a trifecta of spears to his gut. In the aftermath of it, the former 6-time Intercontinental Champion didn’t leave WWE. Despite having palpable resentment over jobbing to The Icon, Nemeth found a way to stay with the Stamford-based promotion. But that didn’t work out either for the man who almost had a two-decade-long career with WWE. Nic was finally released from his WWE contract in September 2023.
Is Goldberg at solace with how his WWE career ended? In hindsight, Goldberg had a brusque but underwhelming exit from WWE. His swansong fell way short of being memorable for the 57-year-old. The WCW legend succumbed to a much-superior Roman Reigns at the Elimination Chamber in 2022. Despite having contacted COVID three weeks prior to the show, Bill made it anyway. However, in return, the former Universal Champion asked WWE to give him one more match afterwards. It would’ve probably been his actual retirement match. However, Vince McMahon backpedaled from his promise. It even led to Goldberg publicly chastising the former WWE Chairman. Once Triple H took over as the creative spearhead, he didn’t renew the WWE legend’s contract. There were even talks of Da Man’s potential AEW switch at one point. But it just came off as nothing.
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Raiders release veteran QB as part of 53-man roster cutdown
Here is how Antonio Pierce‘s first Raiders effort moved down to 53: Released: CB Cornell Armstrong WR Alex Bachman TE Zach Gentry WR Jalen Guyton QB Nathan Peterman WR Kristian Wilkerson Waived: DE David Agoha G Clark Barrington QB Carter Bradley G Ben Brown RB Brittain Brown DT Matthew Butler WR Terrell Bynum T Andrew Coker TE Cole Fotheringham DE T.J. Franklin CB Woo Governor S Jaydon Grant WR Tulu Griffin DT Marquan McCall RB Sincere McCormick T Jalen McKenzie WR Dax Milne LB Jackson Mitchell C Will Putnam S Phalen Sanford DT Noah Shannon TE John Samuel Shenker CB Ja’Quan Sheppard DE Charles Snowden T Dalton Wagner CB Sam Webb LB DaShaun White CB Rayshad Williams Waived/injured: OL Corey Luciano DE Elerson Smith DE Ron Stone Jr. Placed on IR/return designation: S Trey Taylor Waived/failed physical: LB Darien Butler Peterman’s exit leaves two quarterbacks — the two that vied for the starting gig (Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell) — on their 53-man roster. Peterman, however, has been quite resilient in his career. The Bears dropped him last year only to circle back via a practice squad invite. The eighth-year passer also has an extensive past with the Raiders, who rostered him for much of Jon Gruden‘s tenure. Teams have six practice squad slots they can use on vested veterans. Guyton followed GM Tom Telesco from the Chargers.
The ACL tear he suffered early during the 2022 season sidetracked his career, with the former Justin Herbert deep threat — who totaled 959 yards from 2020-21 — catching just 12 passes over the past two seasons. The Raiders kept rookie UDFA Ramel Keyton and third-year UDFA Tyreik McAllister among their six-man receiving corps. Four of the six wideouts on the Raiders’ roster are ex-UDFAs, with only Davante Adams and Tre Tucker being drafted. The Raiders are using one of their injury activations on Taylor, who arrived via seventh-round pick this year. Elsewhere in the secondary, Webb is off the roster after having previously worked as a three-game starter. This came during Josh McDaniels‘ only full season in charge.
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NBA
Markelle Fultz and the five worst NBA No. 1 picks of all time
Seven years after the Philadelphia 76ers selected Markelle Fultz with the No. 1 overall pick, the 26-year-old is unsigned and could be out of the NBA. But he’s still not the worst top pick we’ve ever seen. Here are the five worst No. 1 picks in NBA history.
Honorable Mention The honorable mention goes to “The Man of a Million Shots,” Clifton McNeely, who spurned the Pittsburgh Ironmen after going first overall in the NBA’s very first draft in 1947. McNeely decided to become a high school basketball coach instead, which proved to be a wise career choice when the Ironmen folded before the season. McNeely may not have played an NBA game after going No. 1, but neither did the Ironmen. 5.
Markelle Fultz, 2017 Philadelphia traded up to get Fultz ahead of the 2017 draft, sending Boston a 2019 first-round pick along with the No. 3 pick, which turned into Jayson Tatum. Whoops! Fultz’s career was immediately derailed by a Summer League knee injury, then a mysterious shoulder ailment later diagnosed as thoracic outlet syndrome. After shooting 41.3 percent from three-point range in college, Fultz’s shot completely abandoned him as a pro, while he tried increasingly strange methods to regain his accuracy. While he was rehabbing the injury, Philly traded him to Orlando, where he tore his ACL in Jan. 2021. He was a reliable backup guard for the Magic, but knee problems have limited him to playing only 40 percent of their games.
It’s hard to call Fultz a bust when he was betrayed by his own body, but it wasn’t what the Sixers hoped for. The silver lining? The Fultz trade brought in the pick Philadelphia used to draft All-Star Tyrese Maxey. 4. LaRue Martin, 1972 Martin was the top pick in 1972 as a result of the battle between the ABA and the NBA. Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo was the clear top talent, but the Portland Trail Blazers were scared off by rumors he had an ABA deal. Or they simply refused to meet his contract demands. McAdoo went to the Buffalo Braves one pick later and was NBA MVP by his third season. While Martin put up huge numbers in college (18.2 points, 15.9 rebounds), he did so for a terrible Loyola-Chicago team. The empty-calories stats didn’t translate to the pros, where the young center averaged 4.4 points and 4.6 rebounds as a rookie. Martin’s confidence was crushed and got worse when Portland drafted Bill Walton with the No. 1 pick in 1974.
He never played in the NBA again after Portland traded him in 1976, finishing his 271-game career with averages of 5.3 points and 4.6 rebounds. 3. Greg Oden, 2007 Portland’s whiff in the 2007 draft looks worse because of the players selected after Greg Oden: Kevin Durant, Al Horford and Mike Conley are still in the league 17 years later, and all might be headed for the Hall of Fame. But Oden’s promising career never got started. After missing half of his lone college season (where he and Conley reached the NCAA Tournament final) with a wrist injury, Oden missed his entire rookie season after having microfracture knee surgery. He came back for his second season, but Oden later admitted he “pretty much became an alcoholic.” Oden was turning it around in Year 3, averaging 11.1 points and 8.5 rebounds before breaking his kneecap in his 21st game.
That was it for nearly four years before he returned to play 23 games for the 2013-2014 Miami Heat. Overall, the former No. 1 pick played only 105 NBA games. 2. Anthony Bennett, 2013 Bennett was a surprise No. 1 pick in 2013 by the Cleveland Cavaliers out of UNLV and immediately made Cleveland regret its selection. He missed the first 16 shots of his NBA career, not scoring until his fifth game, and not scoring in double digits until his 33rd NBA game.
Bennett averaged 4.2 points and 3.0 rebounds in his rookie season and then had offseason surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids to relieve his sleep apnea and asthma, cited as the reason for his poor conditioning. After the season, Cleveland traded Bennett along with the next season’s No. 1 pick, Andrew Wiggins, to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Kevin Love. He was marginally better there, averaging 5.2 points, but Minnesota bought out his contract after the season. After two more brief NBA stops, Bennett was playing overseas by early 2017, just three-and-a-half years after going No. 1. 1. Gene “Squeaky” Melchiorre, 1951 “Squeaky” Melchiorre put the “bust” in “draft bust.”
The top pick of the Baltimore Bullets, Melchiorre was busted in a massive college point-shaving scandal three months after the 1951 draft. While attending Bradley, Melchiorre accepted bribes to “hold down scores” in two college games, then pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge. The judge in the case suspended Melchiorre’s sentence, but NBA Commissioner Maurice Podoloff wasn’t so lenient, banning him for life.
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