The Minnesota Vikings’ rumor mill has run rampant since the club fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah three weeks ago, with buzz ranging from quarterbacks, free agency, and cap casualties. This week’s rumor focuses on Malik Willis, Nakobe Dean, and Jalen Nailor’s value.

Three Vikings rumors to track: Willis as a QB competition play, Dean as a blitz-fit target, and Nailor’s market climbing fast.

Free agency is about two weeks away, and answers on all things rumors should arrive fast and furious.

The Purple Rumor Mill with Free Agency 15 Days Away

Vikings rumors for Sunday, February 22nd, 2026.

Rumor: SI.com has endorsed Malik Willis as the Vikings’ next quarterback.

Gilberto Manzano of SI.com theorized the main offseason move for each NFC North team, and on Minnesota, he circled a Malik Willis signing as the big swing.

He explained, “Sign QB Malik Willis. It might be tough for them to splurge for Love’s backup, perhaps making Willis available at the start of free agency. Coach Kevin O’Connell can’t hand McCarthy the starting job again unless he proves it by beating out real competition in training camp.”

“Willis, a 2022 third-round pick, showed vast improvement in the games he appeared last season for Green Bay and his determination to make the most of his latest opportunity after how poorly it went for him in Tennessee could bring out the best in McCarthy in a fierce summer battle. It was a small sample size, but Willis completed 85.7% of his passes in four games last year.”

A Willis addition would formalize a true summer showdown between J.J. McCarthy and Willis.

Manzano continued, “For comparison, McCarthy struggled by completing only 57.6% of his passes in 10 starts. Willis could have other options and maybe an easier path to a starting job, but not many teams can offer a wide receiver as good as Justin Jefferson.”

“The Vikings have no reason to commit to McCarthy’s first-round status after the team fired GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. There’s no more time to waste in Minnesota after the disastrous quarterback results in 2025.”

Willis is the Vikings’ most straightforward quarterback solution this offseason because they don’t have to trade anything to get him. They can just … sign him. Therefore, he is in play.

Rumor: Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean is a free-agent fit for Minnesota.

In ESPN’s Matt Bowen’s rundown of the league’s Top 50 free agents, Minnesota surfaced only once — as the premier landing spot for Nakobe Dean. That’s a pretty specific endorsement.

Bowen opined, “Best team fit: Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings have cap issues heading into free agency, but I really like the fit for Dean in coordinator Brian Flores’ defense. Dean, who had four sacks with the Eagles in 2025, is the league’s best blitzing linebacker, and he would join a system that led the NFL in blitz rate at 46.8%.”

For roster construction, the appeal is obvious. Dean’s downhill burst and timing mesh naturally with Flores’s modus operandi. The financials appear mostly manageable as well. Dean’s projected market hovers around $8 million annually, which could translate to a three-year deal in the $24 million range — a number that interim general manager Rob Brzezinski could structure creatively.

It all boils down to whether the Vikings are comfortable with re-signing Eric Wilson to partner with Blake Cashman in 2026 — or if they want more youth. Dean is the youth.

Rumor: Jalen Nailor’s next contract will pay him $12 per season.

This week, Nailor’s free-agent valuation has raised eyebrows. Daniel Popper of The Athletic ranked Nailor No. 29 overall in his free agency rankings, ahead of established players like Rashid Shaheed, Romeo Doubs, Aaron Rodgers, and Keenan Allen.

He wrote about Nailor at No. 29, “Contract projection: 3 years, $36 million. Nailor’s production does not jump off the screen. The 2022 sixth-round pick had a career-high 444 receiving yards in 2025. But Nailor was playing behind Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, and he dealt with poor quarterback play last season.”

“More importantly, the tape shows a player who is ready to take a big jump in the right environment. Nailor has the spatial awareness to weave through zones and find soft spots. He was predominantly a slot player in Minnesota but has inside-outside flexibility. He flashes late hands to prevent defensive backs from turning and locating the ball.”

Nailor’s on-field performance reflects his statistical profile. He consistently created separation, even when facing tight coverage. Comfortable in the slot, Nailor also demonstrated excellent timing with J.J. McCarthy, often appearing to be McCarthy’s go-to receiver when plays broke down. It’s just that he’s never tallied over 500 receiving yards in a season.

Popper added, “Nailor is not a burner, but he can push vertically out of the slot on fades, wheels and corners. He is a compact ball carrier who is capable after the catch, and he is also a quality run blocker for his size.”

“Nailor can get bogged down at the line of scrimmage against bigger, more physical corners. He is not a household name right now, but he could be in the future.”

If Popper has Nailor’s price tag correct at $12 million, the Vikings likely cannot afford him.

“Iconic” gets tossed around like fairway grass on a windy day, but the Olympic Club qualifies. A dozen USGA championships hosted, the 2033 Ryder Cup on the way. That glorious clubhouse framing the tricky par-4 finishing hole …

Well, that’s not Olympic’s main clubhouse. Its primary digs are its City Clubhouse, located 10 miles away, in San Francisco’s famed Union Square district. The Olympic Club isn’t just a golf club. It’s an athletic club — America’s oldest, founded on May 6, 1860, five months prior to the first Open Championship being held in Scotland.

James J. Corbett, prizefighting’s “Gentleman Jim,” joined Olympic in 1884, 40 years before the club opened its Lake and Ocean courses. Corbett later became heavyweight champion and taught boxing at the club, which is like having Greg LeMond as your SoulCycle instructor. Speaking of cycling, it’s traditionally one of Olympic’s fortes, with the 1924 U.S. Olympic cycling team coach (Ernest Ohrt) and later several professional road racers among its number.

Then there was the member who set the shot put world record in 1909 (Ralph Rose); the innovative college basketball superstar who developed an early version of the jump shot (Hank Luisetti); the 1950 U.S. Open tennis champion (Arthur Larsen). There isn’t time here to list the club’s team accomplishments in basketball, cycling, track and field, football and rugby, but rest assured they, too, are of historic proportions.

The current City Clubhouse isn’t the original, which was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It houses a fitness center, a cardio solarium, squash and handball courts, circuit training facilities, two basketball courts and a pair of swimming pools.

Less strenuous amenities include a pub, dining room, meeting and banquet rooms, guest rooms and a rooftop deck. Or you could jump in a car and be at the first tee in a half hour, depending on traffic.

Man Utd’s youngsters are through to the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup after beating Oxford United earlier this week.

Manchester United are looking to extend their rich history in the FA Youth Cup this season. United have won the competition more than any other club, and Darren Fletcher is hopeful of clinching the trophy again.

Fletcher returned to manage the Under-18s after serving as first-team caretaker for two matches. The Scot was offered the chance to be part of Michael Carrick’s backroom staff, but he decided to return to his coaching role in the academy, in which he has plenty of young talent at his disposal.

The U18s were knocked out of the Youth Cup semi-finals by eventual winners Aston Villa last season. They have the talent to take it one step further, so here are five players spearheading their campaign.

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Chido Obi

Chido Obi dropped down to U18 level for the first time in 11 months when he started against Derby County in the FA Youth Cup last month. The Youth Cup is for players who are under the age of 18 on August 31 of the current campaign. Obi celebrated his 18th birthday in November, making him eligible.

Obi started for the U18s again in their Youth Cup win against Oxford on Wednesday, but he did not play for the U18s in their ‘run of the mill’ league fixture against Wolves this weekend.

The Youth Cup is the pinnacle of youth football, and playing Obi in the competition is a statement of intent from United. The youngster has scored two goals in two games so far.

Jim Thwaites

Jim Twaites has a name befitting of an English player in the 1950s, but he would be regarded as an extra-terrestrial if he played in that decade due to his incredible ball-striking technique.

Thwaites has already built a reputation as a dead-ball specialist. He has scored several excellent free-kicks during his time in the academy and added another to his highlight reel in the U18 Manchester derby last week.

The 18-year-old was absent in December and January due to injury and was a big miss in the early rounds of the Youth Cup. However, Thwaites is firing again and will be key in the competition.

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JJ Gabriel

JJ Gabriel is just 15 years old, but he doesn’t need any introduction. The supremely talented teenager is playing well above his age group and making light work of tearing apart United’s opponents.

Gabriel has scored 16 goals in 20 academy games this season and has already trained with the first-team on a handful of occasions. The youngster was close to leaving United in the summer, but Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada were involved in an eleventh-hour meeting to keep him at the club.

Each of the United Youth Cup-winning teams has had a poster boy. Gabriel is this generation’s star man. MUTV subscriptions are probably selling like hot cakes just so fans can watch him.

Godwill Kukonki

Godwill Kukonki has plenty of experience playing with the U21s and he is another who has dropped into the Youth Cup in a clear signal of intent. The defender has played at left-back and centre-back so far in the academy, but his long-term future is expected to lie in central defence.

Kukonki’s presence is huge at the back and he will help to provide a solid defensive foundation in the competition. The 18-year-old is also excellent at playing out with the ball at his feet.

There have been early comparisons made between the exciting Kukonki and Manchester City defender Josko Gvardiol and he is a rare option because he is a left-footed defender.

Kai Rooney

If Kai Rooney isn’t involved much in the Youth Cup for the remainder of this season, the silver lining is that he will still be eligible for the competition for another two campaigns.

The 16-year-old made his debut in the competition against Derby at Old Trafford but was not included in the squad to face Oxford. Fletcher can call upon players who have plenty of U21 experience in the competition, so Rooney did well to make his debut in the Youth Cup just a month after turning 16.

Rooney is left-footed and drifts in from the right wing after his position switch, and he’s been able to craft his finishing technique under the guidance of one of the best strikers the game has ever seen.

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Jimmy Roberts has a well-earned reputation as one of the most respected broadcasters in sports, but even he has an on-air moment he’d like to forget.

The 16-time Emmy winner was this week’s guest on GOLF’s Subpar podcast, and he regaled co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz with the story of his biggest broadcast blunder.

The moment occurred during Roberts’ coverage of the Deutsche Bank Championship in the early 2000s. At the time, Roberts said he was tasked with providing short updates during the tournament broadcast that touched on highlights from the wider world of sports.

In this particular instance, Roberts was preparing to introduce a clip that featured a home run from an MLB game.

“The information was kind of sketchy sometimes,” Roberts began. “And you really had to ad-lib, and you had to kind of just fly by the seat of your pants. But that’s OK, because that’s kind of what we do, right?

“Anyway, so the note that I got, I was doing a baseball game or a highlight of a baseball game, and I don’t even remember who the player was. But I had my rundown in front of me, and I do my intro, and then they’re gonna roll some tape, and I know the first event is a baseball highlight. And I say, ‘We go to Cleveland where, you know, whomever the player’s name was, huge home run,’ and it’s underlined like three times.

“And there’s no more details. It might have said 4th inning, whatever, somebody’s pitching, right? So, we go to the highlights: ‘We go to Cleveland, 3rd inning. Don Smith on the hill, facing Jim Jones. And the pitch …’

“And I’m here to tell you, it’s the most massive home run I have ever seen. And the trick for doing this stuff is not to read, but it’s to watch the screen so that you can intuitively describe what you’re seeing, and that’s broadcasting, right? But I was caught totally unaware about how big this home run would be.

“So, I’m watching the screen, I say, ‘And the pitch, it —’ and I go, the following: ‘Holy sh!’

“And I only get as far as ‘sh.’ And I didn’t have the presence of mind at that point to kind of pivot and say something like, holy sugar! Holy shamole! Whatever, right? I was just so overwhelmed by the magnitude of this home run. I just left it at holy shh.”

Roberts said he was humiliated by the gaffe, but consoled himself by believing that few people would see it. That is, until he left the booth.

“I start walking back to the clubhouse and I run into Steve Stricker,” Roberts said. “And he says, ‘[Stricker’s wife] Nikki just texted me that you just said holy sh– on the air! Is that true?’

Ryan Garcia cruised to a lopsided decision win over Mario Barrios on Saturday, winning the WBC welterweight title in the process.

Garcia dropped Barrios in the very first round, and while he could not replicate or better that moment as the fight wore on, he stayed in complete control throughout.

After the final bell sounded, Garcia was declared a unanimous-decision winner (119-108, 120-107, 118-109), as he became a full world champion for the first time.

The precocious 27-year-old previously held an interim world title at lightweight, but Saturday marked a grander triumph for “King Ry”, as he dethroned Barrios in Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena.

Garcia is best known for his powerful, check left hook, but it was a clean right cross that scored a flash knockdown of his fellow American in the first round. A startled Barrios did well to recover, but the 30-year-old champion could do little more than that, failing to mount any meaningful offence as the fight progressed.

Garcia, meanwhile, relied on that right cross a surprising amount, troubling his southpaw opponent with it time and again. Midway through the fight, Garcia’s father – his head coach – actually told DAZN that the young boxer’s right hand might be injured, but King Ry was using it again before long.

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Still, combination punching served him well, too, as he eased over the line in the final rounds, condemning Barrios to a third straight fight without a win; the champion had drawn his previous two bouts, including against a 46-year-old Manny Pacquiao last summer.

Conor Benn was expected to be next for the winner of the Vegas main event, with the British star holding the status of mandatory challenger. However, Benn’s shock departure from Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom has complicated the situation.

On Friday, it was announced that Benn was leaving Matchroom to join rival promotion Zuffa Boxing, which is led by UFC president Dana White and intends to move away from boxing’s traditional belts.

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Whatever is next for Garcia, Saturday’s win is the finest moment of his career – a career that has been far from straightforward.

In 2023, Garcia was stopped by Gervonta Davis; in 2024, his win over Devin Haney was overturned when Garcia failed a drug test; and in 2025, after returning from a year-long ban, he was dropped and outpointed by underdog Rolly Romero.

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But Garcia looked to back to his best against Barrios, and he said after his win: “It feels great, man, but it feels better to be a child of God, to be honest. I dedicate this to my dad, though.

“I wanted to show my full arsenal. I believe it was a kind of masterclass, but I should’ve got the finish. But I hurt my right hand, [and] Mario’s a tough warrior, a fellow Mexican-American. I hurt him multiple times, but like I said, he’s a tough son of a b***h.”

Garcia also called for a showdown with compatriot Shakur Stevenson, who picked up the WBO welterweight belt in January by schooling Teofimo Lopez in New York City.

“You know who I want,” Garcia said. “He’s right there: Shakur Stevenson. Let’s go, let’s run that s***. I’m not scared of anything.”

The U.S. men’s hockey team will look to replicate what the women did against Canada on the final day of the Winter Olympics on Sunday, and take home a gold medal.

It’s the matchup that every Olympics fan was hoping to see at the end of the Milan Cortina Games – two hockey powerhouses with a revved-up rivalry going against each other on the biggest stage in the world.

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United States’ Brady Tkachuk (7) celebrates after scoring his side’s sixth goal during a men’s ice hockey semifinal game between the United States and Slovakia at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026.  (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

American gold medalist Taylor Heise, who was responsible for the assist on Megan Keller’s game-winning score against Canada on Thursday, said she had no advice for the men but had confidence in their ability to win the game.

“They have it,” she told Fox News Digital. “I got to watch them in person yesterday and they’re an electric team. We all said we remind each other of each other and I think they have such skilled players on their team and they have the right team to do it.

AMERICAN WOMEN’S HOCKEY GOLD MEDALIST TAYLOR HEISE OPENS UP ON WHAT IT MEANS TO PLAY FOR TEAM USA

United States’ Taylor Heise (27) joins the celebration after Abbey Murphy, third from left, scored a goal against Sweden during the second period of a women’s ice hockey semifinal match at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

“If you show up in the right moment, and I think Quinn Hughes had the quote, it’s like, it’s not the best of seven, it’s the best of one. So, it’s whoever shows up better on that day. I’m excited and I think I’m gonna be able to go to the game tomorrow. I’m hoping that we’re gonna be able to see them win gold.”

The puck is set to drop at 8:10 a.m. ET.

The U.S. men’s hockey team hasn’t won a gold medal since 1980 when the “Miracle on Ice” team upset Soviet Union on its way to defeating Finland for the top prize. It’s the 44th anniversary of the win on Sunday.

Team USA took home the silver in 2010, 2002, 1952, 1932, 1924 and 1920 – each of those times losing to Canada.

United States’ Grace Zumwinkle, left, and Taylor Heise (27) celebrate after winning the women’s ice hockey gold medal game against Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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The Americans defeated Slovakia in the semifinal to get to this year’s gold medal game. Canada defeated Finland.

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Scott McTominay’s stock has been on a drastic rise since departing Manchester United in 2024, with a pay bump to relfect his Napoli status on the horizon

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Scott McTominay isn’t on the wage many would expect at Napoli, but this could change drastically in the near future.

The former Manchester United midfielder departed Old Trafford in 2024 for pastures new in Italy. He signed a four-year deal with Napoli in a £25.7million move and became an instant hero at the club.

He won the Serie A title at his first attempt, scoring 13 goals and assisting six times, which earned him the league’s player of the year (MVP) award. McTominay is already on 14 goal contributions this season and this form has prompted Napoli to discuss a new deal.

Currently, the 29-year-old is on around £90,000 per week, a surprisingly low amount given his contributions to the club, albeit reflective of his status when he joined. This wage is set to significantly increase if he renegotiates a deal with the Italians, which is reportedly already in the works.

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It has been claimed that McTominay’s agent, Colin Murdock, has met with Napoli’s hierarchy to discuss an extension to the Scot’s contract. It is understood that a deal through to 2030, with an option for a further year, is expected.

McTominay’s deal currently runs until 2028, and there had been rumours that other European clubs had been sniffing around the midfielder. Transfer journalist Nicolo Schira said Premier League and Saudi sides had sent bids to the Scot, but his main priority would be to stay in Naples.

This contract extension would put to rest any speculation that McTominay would return to his boyhood club, United, in the near future. However, the Red Devils would still benefit if the 29-year-old does decide to move on from Napoli and join another team.

As part of the deal to sell him, United made sure to include a 10% sell-on clause. Transfermarkt value him around at least £40m, although prying him away from Naples would likely require more than that this summer.

United would therefore pocket at least £4m from his sale. Fans would likely appreciate the impressive player back in their ranks rather than a cash boost.

However, it appears clear that McTominay’s priority is staying in Italy and United’s is to move on from the past, with the likes of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo now carrying the attacking burden.

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