NFL
BALTIMORE (AP) - With reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson under quarantine as part of an outbreak of COVID-19 that has ravaged the Baltimore Ravens, the team has turned its focus from breaking out of a slump to simply getting healthy and back to practice.
The Ravens have more than a dozen players on the reserve/COVID-19 list and the training facility is closed to prevent the spread of the virus.
Jackson tested positive this week and will not play against the unbeaten Pittsburgh Steelers next Tuesday night, a game that was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving night and postponed to Sunday before the NFL moved the game again.
With that game moving to Tuesday, Baltimore’s game against Dallas, scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 3, will instead be played at 5 o’clock on Monday, Dec. 7 and telecast by FOX/NFL Net/Amazon.
The NFL also has ordered all team facilities not involving teams playing Monday or Tuesday to be closed on those days. The Eagles and Seahawks play Monday night, and the Ravens and Steelers play on Tuesday.
LAKE FOREST, IIll. (AP) - Mitchell Trubisky will be the Chicago Bears’ starting quarterback against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night.
Trubisky took all the first-team snaps at practice this week, but coach Matt Nagy had stopped just short of designating him the starter, just in case Nick Foles was able to return from a hip and glute injury. But Foles was unable to practice again Friday and Nagy turned to Trubisky.
The Bears are trying to end a four-game losing streak.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Ohio State coach Ryan Day has tested positive for COVID-19 and will not be with the Buckeyes if they play at Illinois on Saturday.
Ohio State said Friday it had an increased number of positive COVID-19 tests in the program this week. The game against the Illini was still on, but the Buckeyes were not traveling on Friday as originally scheduled.
Ohio State said it planned to do a second round of testing Friday before flying to Champaign, Illinois, on Saturday ahead of the game scheduled for noon EST.
Across college football, 15 of the 58 games originally scheduled for this week have been postponed or canceled, though some replacements have been added.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Soccer player Sarah Fuller will don a football uniform Saturday for Vanderbilt and is poised to become the first woman to play in a Power 5 game when the Commodores visit Missouri.
“Let’s make history,” senior Fuller wrote Friday on Twitter with a photo of herself wearing a football jersey with a soccer ball between her feet while holding a football in her hands.
No woman has appeared in an Southeastern Conference football game or for any Power 5 gridiron team. Liz Heaston became the first woman to score with two extra points for Willamette in NAIA on Oct. 18, 1997.
NBA
NEW YORK (AP) - The NBA released a condensed 49-game preseason schedule Friday, with teams playing between two and four games starting on Dec. 11.
Preseason contests will continue through Dec. 19. Teams begin training camps next week.
The league plans to reveal the first half of the 72-game regular season schedule - that meaning games to be played between Dec. 22 and March 4 - in the coming days. Games for the season’s second half, scheduled as between March 11 and May 16, will be revealed around the midpoint of the season.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Golden State Warriors signed top draft pick James Wiseman, the team’s No. 2 overall selection out of Memphis.
The center averaged 34.2 points in three games as a freshman for the Tigers before a 12-game suspension by the NCAA because his family received money during the recruitment process. While serving the penalty, the 7-foot-1, 240-pound Wiseman decided to turn his attention to the NBA draft.
Golden State also signed rookie guard Nico Mannion to a two-way contract, the team announced Friday. He was selected 48th out of Arizona.
GOLF
The PGA Tour has acquired minority stake in the European Tour’s media production company as part of an alliance that could be the start of a global golf schedule.
The alliance announced Friday allows the PGA Tour and European Tour to collaborate on commercial opportunities, global media rights in certain territories and scheduling.
As part of the arrangement, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan will join the European Tour board.
Golf executives have talked about a global schedule for more than a decade, and finding a solution has not been easy given the independence of both tours.
OLYMPICS
TOKYO (AP) - The postponed Tokyo Olympics are getting a kickstart.
Local organizers on Friday announced a series of 18 test events set to begin in March and run into May.
The Tokyo Olympics are set to open on July 23, 2021, after being postponed eight months ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials said at least four of the test events will involve athletes from abroad, including tests in swimming, gymnastics, diving and volleyball.
SOCCER
GENEVA (AP) - Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are facing a more serious charge of fraud after Swiss federal prosecutors this week intensified a five-year investigation into the pair’s past dealings at FIFA.
The open criminal proceedings had been focused on suspected mismanagement and misappropriation, plus an act of forgery by Platini, linked to FIFA paying the French soccer great $2 million with Blatter’s approval in 2011.
Now the investigation has been widened to include suspected fraud.
HORSE RACING
PARIS (AP) - The champion jockey of British horse racing was banned from riding for three months on Friday following a positive test for cocaine.
The punishment was handed down by France Galop, four months after Murphy returned a positive test for metabolites of the drug in a test undertaken at Chantilly.
Murphy, a 25-year-old jockey from Ireland, denied he had taken any drugs and requested a B sample. He avoided a six-month ban given to riders for similar cases after a disciplinary hearing was persuaded by Murphy’s testimony that the positive test arose unintentionally from what was described as “environmental contamination.”
The ban will run from Dec. 11 until March 11, ending before the flat-racing season begins in Britain.
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