Quick Hits

• Aaron Donald is back. The Rams legend and star defensive tackle came out of retirement to return to Los Angeles — big enough news that CBS Sports immediately ranked where his comeback could stack up against the likes of Tom Brady's.
• Scottie Scheffler passed Tiger Woods. By winning his second FedEx Cup (the PGA Tour's season-long championship), Scheffler moved past Tiger to No. 1 on the tour's all-time money list with more than $130 million earned.
• The NFL trimmed to 53. Every team finalized its regular-season roster, and the headline casualty was quarterback Will Levis, cut by Tennessee after three seasons. Green Bay, meanwhile, traded for running back Kaleb Johnson.
• College football is officially back. "Week 0" kicked off the season over the weekend, headlined by North Dakota State — long a powerhouse at the sport's second level — playing its first game in the top division.
• Baseball's stretch run is here. ESPN's month-in-review flags a weird possibility for October: multiple playoff teams with losing records.

Minnesota Teams

A quiet weekend for the home teams in this roundup — nothing on the Vikings, Twins, Timberwolves, Wild, Lynx, United, or Gophers made the national feeds. The closest thing to local-relevant news: division-rival Green Bay swung a trade (details below), which never means nothing in these parts.

NFL

The biggest move of the weekend involved a player returning rather than leaving: Aaron Donald, who retired after the 2023 season, is rejoining the Rams. CBS Sports used the occasion to rank the 15 greatest NFL comebacks from retirement — names like John Riggins and Tom Brady — the club Donald is now trying to join.

Roster cutdown day (teams shrink from 90 players to the 53 they'll carry into the season) delivered the drama you'd expect. The Titans parted ways with quarterback Will Levis, a former second-round pick who'd already been demoted to third string. CBS ranked him among the 12 most surprising cuts, alongside running back Jaydon Blue, and teams began claiming discarded players off waivers almost immediately.

In the trade aisle, the Packers acquired running back Kaleb Johnson from the Steelers — a 2025 third-round pick out of Iowa — as insurance behind starter Josh Jacobs. Pittsburgh's side of the story is less flattering: CBS notes that trading away Johnson and fellow draft pick Broderick Jones underscores how costly the Steelers' draft misses have been, leaving the roster thin everywhere except its biggest hole, quarterback.

With preseason finales wrapping Saturday (including Bears-Titans), the takes are flying. CBS Sports weighed the loudest preseason "overreactions" — including whether Cleveland's Shedeur Sanders will start by Week 4 and whether Baltimore now owns the AFC's best defense — and for the truly ambitious, SportsLine's Eric Cohen predicted all 285 games on the schedule, through the playoffs and Super Bowl.

MLB

September starts tomorrow, which means the stretch run. ESPN published its August winners-and-losers report card and a lookahead at the playoff races that will define the final month — that's your cheat sheet if you only check in on baseball occasionally.

The strange subplot ESPN is chewing on: the schedule and format could plausibly put multiple teams with records below .500 into the playoffs this October. The piece argues for ways to keep losing teams out, or at least make their World Series path harder.

And a feel-good one from the Little League World Series: the only retired jersey in Williamsport belongs to No. 11, Michael Cammarata — a 9/11 hero whose legacy lives on at the tournament.

College Sports

The season kicked off Saturday with Week 0. The slate included Florida State hosting New Mexico State, an ACC matchup between Virginia and NC State (two programs trying to build on strong 2025 seasons), Memphis vs. UNLV, Sacramento State vs. Eastern Michigan, and the headliner for our region: North Dakota State — the former small-college juggernaut — making its debut in the FBS ranks at home against Jacksonville State.

Two off-field stories worth knowing: USC is drawing embarrassing empty seats despite coach Lincoln Riley's hype, and CBS writes that after four underwhelming seasons, Riley needs actual results to win over a famously flighty L.A. fanbase. Meanwhile, the SEC says it will fight a Louisiana court order that opened the door for former NFL players to play college ball — the conference wants to preserve its right to punish coaches and schools for playing anyone who's already signed a pro contract.

Other Sports

Golf: Scottie Scheffler capped the season by winning the Tour Championship in Atlanta — the 29-player finale with a $10 million winner's purse — giving him his second FedEx Cup title and, with it, the top spot on the PGA Tour's career money list, past Tiger Woods, at more than $130 million.

Soccer: A few weeks into the Premier League season, CBS Sports' power rankings still have Arsenal at No. 1. The movers: Chelsea, in Xabi Alonso's first season, are shaping into possible title contenders despite some defensive wobbles, and Manchester City are surging behind Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland.

NASCAR: The Cup Series spent Saturday night under the lights at Daytona for the Coke Zero Sugar 400, the annual late-summer superspeedway spectacle.