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LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers had only one player in mind to upgrade a roster with no glaring needs. “It was [Tarik] Skubal or nothing,” said manager Dave Roberts. The Dodgers never even kicked the tires on acquiring any other starting pitchers, according to president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Their discussions with the Tigers started picking up Friday. A day later, the back-and-forths became more aggressive. The groundwork for a trade materialized quickly. Just before first pitch Saturday night at 6:11 p.m. against the visiting Boston Red Sox, Roberts had already heard the deal for Skubal was “pretty much done.” To the astonishment of no one — including the contenders who missed out — but to the chagrin of many, the reigning back-to-back World Series champs landed the reigning back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner. “It just seems like there’s always blowback with us,” Roberts said. “People are passionate. We feel good about it. There’s nothing that we did that no one else couldn’t have done.” As the news broke, one of the only teams with a package of top prospects capable of rivaling the Dodgers’ best was 30 miles away in Anaheim. Putting Skubal alongside Cy Young favorite Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison could have given the Brewers, who have the best record in baseball, one of the most overpowering October starting trios imaginable. Instead, Skubal’s fortifying what was already the most talented roster in the game. “I think the initial reaction from people is wanting to be mad or upset, but [I] just wasn’t, really,” Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick told me Sunday morning. “I think everyone in here really believes in this room. It’s not like we’re here saying, ‘We don’t need anybody, we’re good,’ but it’s not like we’re also saying, ‘We need this guy,’ or ‘We need so much help.’” Still, Frelick acknowledged some disappointment. This was the first time since Frelick debuted in 2023 that he could recall hearing his team involved in blockbuster discussions at the deadline. “So, I think that’s maybe the only area where the disappointment can come from,” Frelick explained, “just because you know there was an offer made, we were trying to get him, and we didn’t.” Friedman officially found out he got Skubal during Saturday’s loss to the Red Sox. The Dodgers sent two top-100 prospects in outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitcher River Ryan to the Tigers as well as 2023 third-round pick Brady Smith, but they managed to get the deal done without losing any of their big-league players or either of their top two outfield prospects, Josue De Paula or Mike Sirota, in the deal. Asked whether he was shocked the Tigers agreed to the offer, Friedman exhaled and paused for a moment before answering. “Ummm, no,” he said. “I mean, I felt like we were being really aggressive and that we put some really talented players on the table, so I felt like that gave us a really good chance. How good, I didn’t obviously have a sense for what other teams were doing. But, no.” Friedman claimed that keeping Skubal from joining another contender wasn’t the impetus for the move. “We’re doing what we can to put ourselves in the best position to have the strongest 26-man roster in October that we feel like gives us the best chance to win 11 games,” he said. Skubal, obviously, increases those chances. On July 31, FanGraphs gave the Dodgers 25.7% odds to win the World Series. After the trade, those odds jumped another 5%. The Dodgers were swept at home by the Red Sox this weekend, but the addition of Skubal, who met his new teammates in the dugout during Sunday afternoon’s defeat, lessened the sting. “I don’t think I’ve felt this good after getting swept,” Roberts said, “so that’s a silver lining, I guess.” Now, the Brewers and the rest of MLB have less than 24 hours to pivot to other options while the Dodgers, who had no clear needs to begin with, consider other ways to restock their pipeline of talent. When healthy, the options in the Dodgers’ rotation include multiple two-time Cy Young Award winners in Skubal and Blake Snell, the reigning World Series MVP in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, 2024 All-Star Tyler Glasnow, 2026 All-Star Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan and veteran Eric Lauer — far more arms than they’ll need the rest of this season or in October. On Tuesday, Glasnow is going out on assignment while Snell is expected to make his final rehab start before returning to the rotation. The Dodgers maintain confidence that Ohtani will be back pitching by season’s end, and he is expected to start playing catch again this coming week in Chicago. They have already informed Lauer he’ll be moving into a bullpen bulk role. Now that Kiké Hernández is healthy, they also have more right-handed bats off the bench than they need, potentially making outfielder Alex Call expendable. So, one option for them is to sell some of their excess — either at the big-league or minor-league level — to continue bolstering a farm system that remains among the best in the sport, even after losing Hope and Ryan. They still have three of baseball’s best outfield prospects in Josue De Paula and Mike Sirota at Double-A and Eduardo Quintero at High-A. De Paula, who has homered four times in his last three games and has 20 on the year, will need to be added to the 40-man roster this winter to be protected from the Rule 5 draft. “We’re still having a number of different conversations on a number of different fronts,” Friedman said. “For us, we’re always trying to balance keeping one eye on the present and one eye on the future.” Adding further to the big-league roster, however, is “less likely” to happen, according to Friedman. “I think coming into this deadline, our mindset was we’re going to be really aggressive for one player,” he repeated. The news that the Dodgers landed Skubal began trickling to their players shortly after their game Saturday night. Roberts chatted with his new ace on the phone after the Tigers finished their game in Sacramento. Closer Edwin Díaz found out via social media. Soon after, he started getting calls on the way home from friends and family, including his brother. “Dodgers always do something to get better,” Díaz told me. “So, as a player, I think I was expecting that.” That doesn’t mean the Dodgers players take their front office’s aggressiveness for granted. “It’s a statement from this organization to the rest of the league and the world that they’re not just satisfied with what happened the last couple years,” said Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas. “And we had a little conversation with Doc (Roberts) the other day, the position player group, and he’s really into winning this year. “Obviously he cares about winning the last two, and it’s really important for him and for us, but he said he don’t really care about what happened the last two years. He wants to win this year. So, it’s kind of like a pressed button for us to kind of continue to go and not let the rest of the league catch up to our standards.” As for whether the big bad Dodgers are breaking the game? “Passionately disagree,” Friedman said.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

Most of the NFL’s 32 teams haven’t completed a full week of training camp practices yet, but there’s still been plenty of news and updates from around the league. The Cleveland Browns’ quarterback competition has dominated some of the social media chatter through the opening days of training camp. Who has the upper hand there? Elsewhere, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made more headlines over the weekend, and the Denver Broncos might be in the mix to add some depth at quarterback as Bo Nix shared an encouraging update about his ankle. Here’s what to know from what happened around the NFL this weekend: In Cleveland, the competition for the starting quarterback spot is officially underway. Browns general manager Andrew Berry noted that Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders still have a “long way to go” in their depth chart battle. “Both those guys, and really that entire room, deserve a lot of credit for putting together a really good offseason program, really working hard with the new staff, learning the offense,” Berry told NFL Network. “The reality of it is, we’re only three days into training camp. So we’ve got a long way to go before any decisions are made.” Berry emphasized that head coach Todd Monken and his staff will ultimately decide who takes the field in Week 1, evaluating a room that also includes Dillon Gabriel and Taylen Green. The decision will be performance-based, taking into account the full body of work over the coming weeks. Sanders is coming off a rookie campaign where he started seven games, leading Cleveland to three wins while completing 56.6 percent of his passes for 1,400 yards, seven touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. Watson hasn’t played since 2024 following injuries and inconsistent play across his three seasons in Cleveland. Highlighting early camp adjustments, Watson was intercepted in the end zone by safety Donovan McMillon during Saturday’s practice session. Sanders has completed 13 of 22 passes with four touchdowns and an interception during team drills, while Watson has completed 12 of 19 passes with three touchdowns and three interceptions, according to ESPN Cleveland. The quarterback battle could stretch well into the preseason, which opens Aug. 15 against the Chicago Bears. Cleveland hopes to have its starter locked in before opening the regular season on Sept. 13 at Jacksonville. The Denver Broncos enter the season with unfinished business. Coming off an AFC Championship loss that saw quarterback Bo Nix sidelined by a broken right ankle in the divisional round, the team faces high expectations as they look for another deep playoff run. Expectations in Denver are at an all-time high following the offseason addition of Pro Bowl wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. To make matters better, Nix says he feels “great” as he returns from his season-ending ankle injury, according to DNVR Sports. “Nothing is holding me back,” Nix told reporters after the weekend. Even after adding Waddle and getting Nix back, the Broncos may not be finished retooling their roster for the season. Head coach Sean Payton said the team will explore signing free agent quarterback and Swiss Army knife Taysom Hill, according to NFL Network. Hill played for Payton when the latter was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints for five seasons. Hill announced last week that his time in New Orleans was over. After Nix, Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger are the other quarterbacks on the Broncos’ roster. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is open to adjusting the iconic glare at AT&T Stadium. After FIFA required the stadium to close its curtains during the World Cup to block the sun during matches played in the afternoon, Jones admitted he is giving thought to tinting the windows facing west. “Thinking about it and doing something about it are two different things… But I’ll think about it,” Jones told reporters. “The sun changes, and the angle of that sun changes from September through year-round. But as we look at it, I like some of the effects of the tinting. And so we’re giving that a thought.” While the stadium’s East-West setup has historically forced teams to navigate direct sunlight during afternoon kickoffs, it hasn’t always been an advantage to the Cowboys, who have also had to deal with the blinding sun. In fact, there was a memorable moment when Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb said he couldn’t catch a ball thrown at him due to the sun getting in his eyesight in 2024. Travis Hunter’s return to the field this season will be one of the biggest storylines among the league’s young players as he tries to once again play both sides of the ball for the Jaguars. As Hunter works his way back from an injury that cut his rookie season short, he gave Jaguars fans a reason to be excited over the weekend. The Jaguars released a video showing Hunter making a tightly contested catch on a pass from quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Shortly after, he delivered another standout play on defense, intercepting backup Nick Mullens. While Hunter stars at Jaguars camp, he’s looking to bounce back from an underwhelming rookie campaign. He played in just seven games before he suffered a knee injury in practice that cut his season short. Hunter didn’t produce much when he was healthy, either. He had 28 receptions for 298 yards and a touchdown to go with 15 total tackles and zero interceptions. He played 324 snaps at receiver and 162 snaps at cornerback. The Jaguars’ plan to use Hunter on both sides of the ball has not changed, especially after the Jaguars shored up the core of their secondary by re-signing Montaric “Buster” Brown in March. “How do we balance his reps here, knowing that we’re trying to ease him in, but he also at some point needs to get double the amount that a normal player gets,” Jaguars coach Liam Coen recently told reporters. “So what does that ramp-up look like? We have it all kind of mapped out … on every single practice schedule, his reps are highlighted in here — where he’s in, what plays he’s in, where he’s at on the field. We’ve been extremely intentional about it.” Hunter was limited during offseason workouts because of his surgery in November. But he used that time to build up some 10 pounds of muscle in his upper body and managed to get even faster. He was actually clocked running at 22.6 mph at the team’s facility last week. “I was a small guy coming in. Everybody was like, ’Gain weight, gain weight,’” Hunter told reporters. “I was scared at first. I’m like ‘Dang, I’ve never played at this weight. I’m going to feel heavy, not going to be able to do what I do.’ Training and being able to put those months in — not just on the grass but in the weight room — just putting in extra work, it made me feel lighter on my feet when I finally touched the grass.” Rams head coach Sean McVay only intensified the chatter that Aaron Donald will unretire and re-join the team for the 2026 season. McVay told reporters that Donald is “trending upwards” following the Rams’ practice on Friday. However, McVay also indicated that Donald’s return likely won’t happen until later in August, at the earliest. “That’ll be something that, I think, once we get back to Woodland Hills, we’ll have a better idea of what that timeline looks like. There won’t be any decision and anything in terms of Aaron’s situation while we’re here. That’s kind of already been set out when we’ve talked for the past couple weeks,” McVay said. Los Angeles is practicing at Marymount University through Aug. 6, and it’s scheduled to return to its practice facility in San Fernando Valley after that. Our Eric D. Williams reported in late July that Donald was leaning toward returning after multiple months of speculation.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports