The 2022 NFL Draft started fairly calmly, with the first six picks all going to the teams originally slotted to pick there, but after the Giants trade up to the No. 7 pick to land Alabama tackle Evan Neal, the floodgates opened on first round trades.
Picks 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 19 all got shuffled around in deals, with the 18th overall pick going from Philadelphia to Tennessee in a blockbuster deal that saw the Eagles, who moved up to No. 13 to land defensive tackle Jordan Davis, send the 18th overall pick (and the 100th pick) to the Titans in exchange for star receiver AJ Brown.
Brown had expressed his frustration with his situation in Tennessee this offseason, making it clear that he would like to find a new home if the Titans wouldn’t pay him, and when the run on receivers happened from the No. 8 to No. 12 picks, with four of the top wideouts being selected, Philadelphia pivoted to finding a veteran with their stash of selections. Brown will immediately provide Jalen Hurts with the No. 1 option they’ve lacked in Philly, while the Titans moved on and used the 18th pick to take receiver Treylon Burks out of Arkansas as a replacement for Brown — and Julio Jones who likewise left Tennessee this offseason.
As part of the deal, Brown also inked a $100 million extension, with $57 million guaranteed for the next four years.
Source: New #Eagles WR AJ Brown gets a 4 Yr ext for $100M 57M Guaranteed
The Arizona Cardinals have spent this offseason trying to decipher what the future holds for starting quarterback Kyler Murray. As it turns out, one potential solution they’re going to explore is trading for a receiver with whom he played during his time with the Oklahoma Sooners.
The Cardinals and the Baltimore Ravens came to terms on a trade that will see Marquise “Hollywood” Brown go from the AFC North to the NFC West, along with the No. 100 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. In exchange, Arizona will sent Baltimore the No. 23 overall selection.
We have traded WR Marquise Brown and the 100th pick to the Arizona Cardinals in exchange for the 23rd pick. pic.twitter.com/KagFKFaEGg
Murray and Brown were teammates in Norman for two seasons, but the former only spent one year as the team’s starting signal caller. That one season ended up being quite productive for both, as Murray won the Heisman Trophy and Brown 75 balls for 1,318 yards and 10 touchdowns. Brown has spent the entirety of his NFL career in Baltimore.
While he has not always been the most consistent option in the Ravens’ offense, Brown’s speed and big play ability should be a snug fit in Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury’s offense. Through his three seasons in the NFL, Brown has hauled in 195 receptions for 2,361 yards and 21 scores as one of Lamar Jackson’s preferred targets.
If spending your days and nights traveling the world one port at a time aboard a luxurious cruise ship sounds like a dream job, three former Scientologists have got news for you. As The Daily Beast reports, Gawain Baxter, Laura Baxter, and Valeska Paris — who have lived and worked on the organization’s Freewinds cruise ship for more than a decade — have filed a lawsuit against Church leader David Miscavige and five related organizations for alleged human trafficking.
All three individuals were born into the organization and claim that such early indoctrination made it impossible to leave what they described as “a world filled with abuse, violence, intimidation, and fear.” According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the trio were all part of the group’s Sea Org and Cadet Org, subdivisions within the Church that require members to sign one of those famous “billion-year” contracts, in which they agree to provide free or cheap labor.
In exchange and according to their legal complaint (which was filed in Florida), they endured more than a decade of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse.
One of the plaintiffs alleged they were confined to a hot engine room for days after being accused of “monopolizing” the attention of a prominent celebrity who had their birthday on the ship in 2004, and who is believed to be actor Tom Cruise. There is no suggestion Cruise was aware of the plaintiff’s situation.
The case, brought by leading US plaintiff law firms, alleges the free labor on the cruise ship allowed Scientology leader Miscavige to “maintain a facade of legitimacy, a luxurious lifestyle … and influence over members including celebrities.”
The 86-page filing details how parents hand over custody of their children, some of them as young as six, and are only allowed to see each other once a week. Plaintiff Gawain Baxter was just six when he became a member of Cadet Org. By the time he was 10, he would see his parents for just a few hours a week and spent up to 10 hours per day providing free labor.
When he began working on the Freewinds, which the Herald notes “never docks in U.S. ports or territorial waters,” Gawain had his passport confiscated and would sometimes work 24 hours per day.
“To this day, there are completely defenseless minors being mistreated by Scientology leadership,” Baxter said in a statement. “Just as I was, they are isolated from family and have no way to protect themselves. Scientology must be held accountable for the human rights abuses and trauma it has inflicted without a shred of remorse.”
Fellow plaintiff Valeska Paris also became a member of Cadet Org at the age of six, and she says that she was sexually assaulted on several occasions over the next decade. By the time she was 15, Paris was working as a personal assistant to Miscavige, a role that required her to regularly work 16-hour days.
“Scientology is a system that is designed to perpetuate fear, and I continue to struggle with the trauma,” she said. “No person–child or adult–should have to go through the daily abuse and manipulation I faced.”
The Herald reached out to the Church of Scientology for comment, but had not received one by press time.
The Philadelphia 76ers will not be the first team to lose a series despite taking a 3-0 lead. The team went north of the border to take on the Toronto Raptors on Thursday evening, and thanks to a dominant performance in the second half, Philly picked up a dominant 132-97 Game 6 win to move on to the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Neither team was able to get a whole lot of breathing room in the first half. While the Sixers led by five at the end of the first and one at the end of the second, the Raptors always seemed to have an answer — after Joel Embiid scored at the start of the second quarter to open up a 7-point lead, Toronto ripped off an 11-0 run to take the lead.
Part of the reason they had an answer throughout the first was their ability to maul Philly on the offensive glass. Toronto pulled in 10 offensive boards in the first half, and a rather surprising 1-2 punch made the Sixers pay. Siakam had 18 points, five boards, three assists, and a pair of steals at the break, while Chris Boucher came off the bench and went for 19 points and nine rebounds in the first half.
The Sixers relied heavily on Embiid, who gave them 16 first-half points, and got a good first half from James Harden, who gave them 12 points and eight assists. Add in that Danny Green hit four of the team’s seven triples in the half and Philadelphia looked like it did not have a hangover from its tough Game 5 loss.
Out of the break, the Sixers started to pour it on. The team ripped off a 15-0 run at one point early in the third quarter and led by as many as 23 points in the quarter.
Harden, in particular, looked like the guy worthy of the bounty the Sixers paid at the trade deadline. The former league MVP generated 18 of the Sixers’ 37 third-quarter points, whether it was due to his scoring or his ability to set up his teammates.
The fourth quarter was merely a march towards the inevitable, and by the time it ended, Philly outscored Toronto in the second half, 70-36. Embiid led the way with 33 points and 10 rebounds, while Harden likewise had a double-double, going for 22 points and 15 assists with six rebounds. Maxey pitched in 25 points and eight assists, Tobias Harris had 19 points and 11 boards, and Green had 12 points, all off of threes. For Toronto, Boucher had 25 points and 10 rebounds; Siakam stuffed the stat sheet with 24 points, seven assists, seven rebounds, and three steals; Trent had 19; and Scottie Barnes had 18 with seven rebounds and three assists.
With the win, Philadelphia punched their ticket to the second round for a matchup with the Miami Heat, which are led by former Sixer Jimmy Butler. The two teams split their season series with two wins each.
While the early part of the 2022 NFL Draft was defined by unpredictability, one thing that was missing through the first 10 picks was a team trading up. After the New York Jets selected Ohio State wide receiver Garrett Wilson with the No. 10 overall pick, the New Orleans Saints and Detroit Lions decided it was time to make a move.
New Orleans called up the Washington Commanders, which sat at No. 11, and pulled off a move to jump up from 16. According to Albert Breer of The MMQB, the Saints put together that pick with a pair of picks a little later in the Draft to go get someone.
As for who that someone ended up being, it turns out New Orleans was a little worried about the run on wide receivers that was happening and wanted to go get their guy. The team decided that they did not want Michael Thomas to be their only former Buckeye at receiver and selected Chris Olave.
A back-to-back first-team All-Big Ten selection and one of the best receivers in the sport over the last two years, Olave might be the smoothest route runner in the entire 2022 Draft, and should give Saints QB Jameis Winston one heck of a vertical threat. During his four-year collegiate career, Olave caught 175 balls for 2,702 yards and 35 touchdowns.
One pick later, the Lions called up the Minnesota Vikings to get a game-changing receiver of their own. The team moved up from 32 to get Jameson Williams, a dynamic pass catcher from Alabama who spent one year in Tuscaloosa after teaming up with Olave and Wilson at Ohio State.
While Williams is coming off of a torn ACL, his season with the Crimson Tide made him one of the best receiving prospects in this Draft. As a result, Jared Goff now has a No. 1 receiver who caught 79 passes for 1,572 yards and 19 touchdowns en route to earning first-team All-American honors.
To say that Mickey Rourke did not have a great experience making Iron Man 2 just might be the understatement of the century. Since the movie’s original release in 2010, the Oscar-nominated actor (and SVU superfan) has taken every possible opportunity to trash the Iron Man sequel and Marvel at large. But it sounds like the feeling could most definitely have been mutual.
Over at Vulture, senior reporter Chris Lee traveled back a dozen years to revisit the behind-the-scenes chaos on Iron Man 2, much of which revolved around Rourke, who was fresh off a Best Actor Oscar nomination for The Wrestler. The one-time hottie was hot again (critically-speaking), but when he was approached about playing Ivan Vanko, Iron Man 2’s baddie, Rourke didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t know a thing about Marvel, nor did he really seem to care.
Despite asking “What’s Iron Man 2?” and “What’s Iron Man?!,” Rourke agreed to sit down with star Robert Downey Jr. and Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige. That’s when things got even more bizarre. As Lee writes:
Still, without having read so much as a page of the script (which was not yet finished) and in spite of his total unfamiliarity with the Marvel Comics foil he would portray, Rourke showed up at a meeting with Feige and Favreau at Beverly Hills’ Four Seasons Hotel to lay out his demands. “I’ll do it,” this source recalls Rourke saying. “But I have to have my hair in a samurai bun. I have to speak in a Russian accent. And I have to have a bird on my shoulder.” (All three demands were met.)
Though Rourke wanted more money than the $250,000 he was being offered, sources claim Downey offered up part of his own $10 million paycheck in order to get the actor in the film. The 9 ½ Weeks star reportedly took the role seriously and took a deep dive into researching the life of a Russian prisoner, even going so far as to visit Moscow’s Butyrka Prison.
Though it’s unknown exactly when Rourke finally got around to reading the script, he was seriously irked that so much of his research was for naught. “I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a murderous, revenging bad guy,” Rourke said in an interview with Crave Online. “Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up on the floor.”
At the end of January, Rihanna and ASAP Rocky shocked the world by announcing that they were expecting their first child. Since then, we’ve received reactions from Rihanna’s dad, promises from her to continue making music, romantic details about a road trip the couple enjoyed together, and an equal amount of engagement and cheating rumors (which were both debunked). Nearly three months later, it seems like Rihanna is giving birth to her first child and a good sign of that comes after the couple held a baby shower. The event was a private and intimate one, but some details about it still emerged.
According to Paper, which cites a HipHollywood report, Rihanna and ASAP Rocky switched things up and threw a “rave-themed” baby shower this past Friday at a studio in Hollywood. The event was described as both “over the top” and “super intimate and private” as attendees were asked to show up in bright neon attire. Party favors from the night included a 90s throwback t-shirt with photos of Rihanna and Rocky as kids. The shirt read, “I Went 2 Rih & Rocky’s Rave Shower and All I Got Was This Amazing Shirt.”
Many were unsure if the baby shower would still go down as ASAP Rocky was recently arrested in connection with a November 2021 shooting. He allegedly shot at a man three or four times during an altercation, and as a result, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon charge. Rocky was released from jail after posting $550,000 bail.
One defining feature of the pre-draft process in 2022 was the lack of a clear-cut No. 1 overall prospect for the Jacksonville Jaguars to take with the first pick. Following an NFL Draft Combine in which he put on a show, a whole lot of rumors began popping up indicating that the Jags were interested in selecting Georgia defensive lineman Travon Walker.
On Thursday evening, that became official, as the Jaguars opted to select Walker with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Walker, a former 5-star recruit, was a starter along the line for the indomitable Bulldog defense this year, but did not put up the kind of gaudy numbers as the perceived top defensive lineman in this class, Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson. During the 2021 campaign, Walker registered 33 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, and six sacks. The Bulldogs did take advantage of his versatility, placing him at defensive end and occasionally lining him up on the inside.
He saw his profile blow up at the Combine, though, as Walker stood 6’5 and 272 pounds with 35.5 inch arms and 10.75 inch hands. When it came time to show off his athletic traits, Walker put on a show, running a 4.51-second 40-yard dash with a 35.5 vertical jump. He will join a Jaguars defense that was 28th in the NFL in sacks last season.
Walker is the first Georgia player to go No. 1 overall since Matthew Stafford in 2009.
While 2022 may officially be the Year of the Tiger, in Trumpland, it’s the Year of the Hypocrite. It’s been well over a year since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, but many of his supporters — including voting officials in high places, with direct access to voting machines and records — are still doubting the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory. In Colorado, one top-ranking election official is so sure that the voting machines were rigged in Biden’s favor that he attempted to prove it… by tampering with a voting machine.
As Reuters reports, Dallas Schroeder, the clerk and recorder for Elbert County, Colorado, who is currently under investigation by the Colorado secretary of state, was actually caught on camera “fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information.” When questioned about the video, which was taken in Kiowa, Colorado, on August 26, 2021, Schroeder explained that he was getting instructions from a retired Air Force colonel/Trump diehard on how to clone the system’s classified data. He later handed this information over to a pair of lawyers who are hellbent on proving that the perfectly legitimate election was anything but. One of those lawyers was hired by kooky Pillow Man Mike Lindell, because of course he was.
Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.
As Reuters reports, Schroeder’s indiscretion is one of eight confirmed incidents in five states of voting machines being illegally compromised in order to obtain classified voter information. In each case, the people doing the tampering were Republicans who have publicly voiced their belief in The Big Lie.
“Some of the breaches, including the one in Elbert County, were inspired in part by the false belief that state-ordered voting-system upgrades or maintenance would erase evidence of alleged fraud in the 2020 election,” according to Reuters. “In fact, state election officials say, those processes have no impact on the voting systems’ ability to save data from past elections.”
Many people are still coming down from the high that was provided at this year’s Coachella festival. Performances by Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Harry Styles, Baby Keem, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, and many more proved to be highlights by the end of the festival’s two weekends. With that being said, there was one name that did not take the stage at Coachella contrary to the expectations of many. That person was Kanye West as he was set to headline the festival’s third day on the respective weekends. However, he dropped out at the last second leaving the showcase to scramble for a replacement which ended up being The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia.
In a new interview with the LA Times, Coachella’s co-founder Paul Tollett spoke about Kanye’s last-second exit and how he felt about it. “I Zoomed with him a couple days prior, and I think it was a good decision for him,” he said. Luckily for Tollett and the rest of Coachella, The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia’s manager Wassim “Sal” Slaiby reached out to him to see what he needed for a replacement.
“Abel [Tesfaye] and Sal called and said, ‘What do you need?’” Tollett said. “I said, ‘I actually don’t know yet. Right now I’m a little stunned with Kanye leaving. I’ve got to think what to do here.’” Thankfully, the lineup change worked itself out in a couple of days as The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia stepped into the spot that Kanye West left open.
You can check out Tollett’s full interview with the LA Timeshere.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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