The Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday cut ties with embattled pitcher Trevor Bauer, designating the right-hander for assignment.

The Dodgers are responsible for the more than $22.5million remaining on Bauer’s contract. He is free to sign with any major league team for the $720,000 minimum and can play immediately after completing a record-long suspension for violating MLB's domestic violence and sexual assault policy.

In a statement, the franchise said: "The Dodgers organization believes that allegations of sexual assault or domestic violence should be thoroughly investigated, with due process gives to the accused. From the beginning we have fully cooperated with Major League Baseball’s investigation and strictly followed the process stipulated under MLB’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.

"Two extensive reviews of all the available evidence in this case – one by Commissioner Manfred and another by a neutral arbitrator – concluded that Mr. Bauer’s actions warranted the longest ever active player suspension in our sport for violations of this policy. Now that this process has been completed, and after careful consideration, we have decided that he will no longer be part of our organisation."

The Dodgers signed Bauer – the 2020 NL Cy Young Award winner – to a three-year, $102m contract in February 2021. He made 17 starts during the ensuing season before he was placed on administrative leave due to sexual assault allegations brought forth by a woman in San Diego. Two other additional women from Ohio have made similar allegations.

He received an unprecedented two-season suspension without pay by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for violating the league’s domestic violence and sexual assault policy.

In February 2022, Los Angeles prosecutors decided not to charge Bauer for allegedly beating and sexually abusing the San Diego woman because they said they were unable to prove her accusations beyond a reasonable doubt.

Bauer, 31, has maintained he did nothing wrong, saying that everything that happened between him and the woman was consensual.

The players' association filed a grievance on Bauer's behalf, and a three-person panel headed by independent arbitrator Martin Scheinman started hearing the case last May.

In a ruling on December 22, Scheinman upheld a 194-game suspension rather than Manfred's intended 324-game penalty and reinstated Bauer immediately. Scheinman affirmed that Bauer violated MLB's policy and docked his pay for the first 50 games of 2023, covering part of the period the pitcher was on paid leave in 2021 and 2022.

In 10 major league seasons with the Dodgers, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Arizona, Bauer is 83-69 with a 3.79 ERA in 222 games, including 212 starts.

The San Francisco 49ers are looking to end the regular season in style as they welcome back All-Pro receiver Deebo Samuel and former starting running back Elijah Mitchell from injuries.

Arguably the hottest team in the NFL currently, the 49ers are currently riding a nine-game winning streak, and have done so in spite of some serious injuries.

Their past five wins have come with seventh-round rookie Brock Purdy playing quarterback after starter Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a season-ending injury, while Mitchell has also missed the past five games and Samuel was carted off in Week 14.

Sitting at 12-4 after beginning the campaign 3-4, the 49ers have already punched their ticket to the playoffs, but remain a chance to earn the NFC's top seed along with the Philadelphia Eagles (13-3), Minnesota Vikings (12-4) and the Dallas Cowboys (12-4).

They will enter their season finale against the visiting Arizona Cardinals as heavy favourites, with the road team on a six-game losing streak and without starting quarterback Kyler Murray since tearing his ACL.

The Los Angeles Clippers have opted to rest All-NBA duo Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on the second leg of their back-to-back against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday.

It is a curious decision after neither player eclipsed 18 minutes in Thursday's 122-91 blowout loss against the Denver Nuggets, where they both sat out the entire second half.

Leonard has officially been listed out due to "injury management", while George may have picked up a niggling injury as he is listed out due to his hamstring.

Their absence leaves the Clippers in a difficult situation as they head to Minnesota undermanned and on a four-game losing streak, although they remain in the thick of the playoff picture at 21-19 – currently sixth in the Western Conference.

Leonard has only played in 17 of the Clippers' 40 games so far, but after easing his way back into things in October and November, he began to look like himself in December.

In his 11 games this past month, Leonard averaged 20.6 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists per contest while shooting 49.1 per cent from the field.

Meanwhile, George has made 30 appearances this campaign, averaging 23.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.1 assists, and remains on track for what would be his eighth All-Star selection.

The Cleveland Browns' franchise player Myles Garrett declared his side is looking for "volunteers, not hostages" after fellow pass-rusher Jadeveon Clowney took to the media to complain about his role this week.

In an interview with Cleveland.com on Thursday, Clowney stated he felt the Browns are more concerned about getting Garrett "into the Hall of Fame instead of winning games".

He referenced the roles each of the two former number one overall draft picks were being asked to play, implying Garrett is being placed into the more favourable matchups in order to boost his statistics.

Since entering the league in 2017, Garrett has been one of the top talents at one of the sport's most valuable positions.

He finished with seven sacks as a rookie before rattling off season totals of 13.5, 10, 12, 16 and another 15 this year to bring his career tally to 73.5 – already surpassing the Browns' franchise record (62) at the age of 27.

He is fourth in the league in sacks this season, while Clowney, who has never reached double-digit sacks in any of his nine seasons, has just two in 12 games this campaign.

Speaking to reporters on Friday about Clowney's comments, Garrett said he was disappointed.

"I knew he was frustrated," he said. "We've all been frustrated – we're not winning.

"I wish we could've talked about this man-to-man... I wish he would have handled it a little bit differently."

He also broke down why he believes Clowney's narrative is false, pointing out he receives the most double-team blocks (31.3 per cent of the time) in the entire league.

"If I'm the most double-teamed guy, it's hard to say I'm getting the most favourable matchups," he said. "What I've done speaks for itself. 

"Of course they're going to put me in positions to make plays. But they're also going to be positions where I'm going to get double-teamed. 

"I move all over the line. [Clowney] has moved, as well. We're both moved to be put in favourable matchups. He's getting those same looks, at least that's what I see, and I wish we could have talked about it."

Garrett said the Browns are looking for "volunteers, not hostages" when asked if he would welcome Clowney back for a third consecutive season.

"If you feel like no one believes in you here, then go where you feel like you're wanted and loved and appreciated," he said.

Clowney, who turns 30 in February, will be a free agent this offseason.

The NFL's one-season rule change could have complicating factors for the Kansas City Chiefs further down the line, but their task for Week 18 is simple: beat the Las Vegas Raiders and earn a bye to the divisional round.

With the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals – both rivals for the first seed in the AFC – to finish the year having played only 16 games, neither will be able to catch the Chiefs should they defeat the Raiders.

That will not necessarily mean an AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium, with a neutral venue potentially coming into play, but it does assure them of a week off and a favourable route through the postseason.

Fans in Buffalo and Cincinnati could reasonably be frustrated, and their hopes of the Chiefs being halted rest with an unlikely Raiders victory.

The Chiefs are 9-1 in their past 10 games against the Raiders, and their most recent nine meetings – including a high-scoring defeat in 2020 – have seen Kansas City score at least 28 points.

Only the Los Angeles Rams against the Green Bay Packers, between 1949 and 1953, have ever scored 28 or more points in 10 straight encounters.

Even in Las Vegas, there is little reason to believe that sequence will end this week, given the Chiefs' dominant road form this year.

They have scored 264 points across eight games away from Arrowhead, meaning the Chiefs will have scored the third-most road points in a season in NFL history if they hit their average of 33.0 again.

MVP frontrunner Patrick Mahomes loves playing the Raiders, too, having thrown more touchdowns in this matchup (26) than in any other.

In 2022, he has passed 5,000 passing yards (5,048) and 250 rushing yards (329) in a season for the second time in his career; only two other quarterbacks in NFL history have ever enjoyed one such campaign (Jameis Winston in 2019 and Justin Herbert in 2021).

Yet the Raiders improbably have their own in-form QB, with former New England Patriots backup Jarrett Stidham last week impressing in his first career start.

Stidham threw for 365 yards and three TDs against the San Francisco 49ers, joining Mike White last season as the second QB in the Super Bowl era to mark his first start with 350 passing yards and three passing TDs.

Repeating that performance against the highly motivated Chiefs is a tough ask, though.

Skylar Thompson will start for the Miami Dolphins in a must-win Week 18 game against the New York Jets that could be decided by his ability to produce explosive plays.

The Dolphins are on a five-game losing streak that has dropped them from 8-3 to 8-8 and on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

Yet Miami will qualify for the postseason if the Dolphins beat the Jets – who were eliminated with last week's loss to the Seattle Seahawks – and the New England Patriots lose to the Buffalo Bills.

The task of achieving that feat has been complicated by the Dolphins' quarterback situation.

Tua Tagovailoa remains out of action having been placed in the concussion protocol following the Dolphins' Christmas Day loss to the Green Bay Packers, and his backup Teddy Bridgewater suffered a finger injury in the defeat to the Patriots last week.

Thompson was subsequently thrown into the fire and never came close to rallying the Dolphins to a key victory, having also looked ill-equipped to lead the attack in a 40-17 loss to the Jets in Week 5, in which Bridgewater was injured on the first offensive play for Miami while filling in for Tagovailoa after he was concussed against the Cincinnati Bengals.

But the Dolphins have no choice but to look to him to thrive throwing the ball for a passing attack that has racked up 60 passing plays of 20 yards or more, a tally that trails only the Philadelphia Eagles (61) and Kansas City Chiefs (71).

The problem is that the Dolphins are facing a defense that has excelled at taking away the big play.

Indeed, the only team to allow fewer 20-yard pass plays than the Jets (36) are the New Orleans Saints (33).

With the Jets coaching staff perhaps coaching for their jobs, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel will expect his opponents, led by his former San Francisco 49ers colleague Robert Saleh, to offer another stern test.

If Thompson and the Dolphins cannot find a way to come through it and miss out on the playoffs, there will be plenty of questions about what went wrong in a season that once looked so promising.

NFL owners voted on Friday to approve a possible change to this year’s playoff format, allowing for a neutral-site AFC championship game if the participants were affected by Monday's cancelled game betweeen the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals.

The ruling comes a day after the proposed changes were approved by the league's competition committee.

Monday's game between the Bills and Bengals was suspended after Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field and needed to be resuscitated, shocking the sporting world and leaving the NFL with questions about how to proceed.

On Thursday, the NFL said it would not finish the game and officially ruled it as a no contest, leaving the Bills and Bengals – both AFC contenders – with one fewer game played than the rest of the league.

If Cincinnati or Buffalo qualify for the AFC Championship game as the road team and could have been the home team with one more win, this new provision would move the game to a neutral site.

The rule also allows for a coin flip to decide the host of a potential Wild Card round game between the Bengals (11-4) and Baltimore Ravens (10-6) if the Ravens win the matchup between the teams in the regular-season finale on Sunday.

The new procedures are not without controversy and have already received some criticism from fans of the Kansas City Chiefs (13-3), who can secure the AFC's top seed and first-round bye with a Week 18 win over the Las Vegas Raiders. There are scenarios, however, in which the Chiefs would lose the right to host an AFC title game at Arrowhead Stadium against the Bills (12-3).

The league's policy manual says that "a team's standing in its division or in its conference” is to be decided by winning percentage in the case of a disparity in games played, but the league deemed Monday's cancellation extraordinary enough to warrant a new ruling.

It is the first time since 1935 that NFL teams will have played different numbers of games in a season, leaving no modern precedent on which the league could lean.

While the NFL has been tweaking its playoff format, Hamlin has gradually made progress during his four days at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Hamlin, whose heart was re-started twice Monday, is now able to breathe on his own and had his breathing tube removed overnight. The 24-year-old even joined his team-mates briefly on a video call Friday with a simple message: “Love you boys.”

In a Friday statement, the Bills said Hamlin's "neurologic function remains intact and he has been able to talk to his family and care team."

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is unhappy with the NFL's alterations to the playoffs, which could cost his team home-field advantage.

On Friday, NFL owners voted to approve proposed changes after the Bengals' game against the Buffalo Bills on Monday, in which Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest, was cancelled.

Those changes would include a coin toss to decide who would host a Wild Card round clash between the Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens if Cincinnati lost to their AFC North rivals in their final regular season game this week.

Meanwhile, a neutral venue will be used for the AFC Championship Game if it is contested between two teams who have played different numbers of regular season games and the lower-seeded team could have been the number one seed by playing a full 17-game season.

Taylor, who preferred the Bengals to be judged simply by their winning percentage, believes the outcome is unfair as Cincy are dealt "only negatives" by the decision.

"What's in front of us is to win this weekend and reclaim the opportunity to have a home-field Wild Card game. That's the task that's at hand in front of the team," the Bengals coach told reporters on Friday.

"As far as I'm concerned, we just want the rules to be followed and when a game is cancelled that you just turn to winning percentage to clarify everything, so we don't have to just make up the rules.

"There's several instances this season where the club is fined or people in our building are fined and we are being told to follow the rules. It's black and white in the rulebook.

"Now, when we point out the rules, you are told we are going to change that. I don't want to hear about fair and equitable when that is the case.

"What this team will do is all we can control, going into a game this weekend and doing our best to win. We are going to channel our energy into that.

"Opportunities are lost for us that we had a chance to control; now we don't. It seems like there are positives for a lot of teams and just negatives for us.

"We have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that can only negatively impact us; we don't have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that positively impacts us.

"Let's just follow the rules; we accept that. We just have to turn our focus to getting ready for Baltimore and doing everything we can to control what we can control at that point."

The New York Mets are considering ending their pursuit of Carlos Correa as an impasse continues in contract talks between the team and the star shortstop’s camp, according to a report from New York sports television network SNY.

Correa and the Mets had agreed to a 12-year, $315 million contract on December 21, shortly after the San Francisco Giants pulled out of a 13-year, $350m agreement with the two-time All-Star over concerns about a previous ankle injury.

The Mets also raised issues about Correa’s surgically repaired ankle following a physical exam which has since held up that deal as well, and Friday’s report stated the team remains 'frustrated' in its attempts to revise contract language to the point it’s contemplating walking away altogether.

The New York Post reported Thursday that Correa’s agent, Scott Boras, has restarted discussions with other teams while remaining in contact with the Mets. Sirius XM MLB Radio Network analyst Jim Bowden announced on Friday that Correa’s former team, the Minnesota Twins, have re-entered talks with the 28-year-old still unsigned.

According to the New York Post report, a source within the Mets organisation said the team was still optimistic it could reach an agreement.

Correa signed a three-year, $105m contract with the Twins shortly after last offseason’s lockout ended in March, with the deal containing an opt-out clause after one year that was ultimately exercised.

The 2015 American League Rookie of the Year hit .291 with 22 home runs and 64 RBIs in 136 games for Minnesota last season.

Correa spent his first seven MLB seasons with the Houston Astros, who selected the Puerto Rico native first overall in the 2012 draft, and was a core part of that team’s run to the 2017 World Series title. He is a career .279 hitter with 155 home runs and 553 RBIs in 888 games.

The Dallas Mavericks are waiving Kemba Walker, who has played only nine games for the team since signing in November 2022.

ESPN reported the Mavs would cut their ties with Walker on Friday ahead of his salary for the remainder of the season becoming guaranteed this weekend.

Walker moved to Dallas last year after he was waived by the Detroit Pistons, for whom he did not play a game.

The four-time All-Star was brought in to boost a then struggling Mavs team who are increasingly reliant on superstar Luka Doncic after Jalen Brunson left for the New York Knicks at the end of last season.

Dallas have since improved considerably, climbing to fourth in the Western Conference at 22-17, but their ascent has owed more to Doncic's form than Walker's contributions.

While Doncic is leading the NBA in scoring 34.0 points per game, including 41.7 in the team's seven-game winning run across Christmas and New Year, Walker has played only 144 minutes for the Mavs.

Over nine games, the point guard averaged 8.0 points and 2.1 assists in 16 minutes, starting just once.

That sole start was in an overtime defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers, in which Doncic and Spencer Dinwiddie were absent as Walker scored 32 points.

News of Walker's imminent departure from Dallas was greeted with a message from Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum, hinting at his interest in a return for a former team-mate.

Walker spent two years in Boston between 2019 and 2021, although he played only 99 times for the Celtics.

England head coach Steve Borthwick has made former All Black Nick Evans his new attack coach ahead of the Six Nations.

With Kevin Sinfield already installed as defence coach, Borthwick believes he has found another ideal candidate to galvanise the Red Rose at the start of a Rugby World Cup year.

Evans will take time out from his coaching duties at Harlequins to join the England set-up.

It is unclear for now what involvement Martin Gleeson will have, having been attack coach under Borthwick's predecessor, Eddie Jones.

Evans, who won 16 caps for New Zealand before signing for Harlequins in 2008, retired from playing in April 2017 but remains an influential figure at the Premiership club.

Borthwick said: "I am delighted that Nick is joining our team ahead of the Six Nations. Nick brings with him a wealth of different experiences as a player and coach, which will be incredibly valuable to the growth of our team. 

"I know that Nick understands the pride and responsibility that comes with representing your country. We aim to build an England team that our nation can be proud of, and I know that our supporters will be very excited by what Nick can bring to our side."

Former Leicester Tigers head coach Borthwick took over from Jones after the Australian was sacked in December, and it remains to be seen whether he may want Evans to stay involved leading up to the World Cup if the Six Nations brings positive results.

Harlequins, who were thanked by Borthwick on Friday, have said Evans will return to them on a full-time basis after the Six Nations.

The appointment of Evans comes during a week that saw Matt Proudfoot's tenure as England forwards coach come to an end.

England launch their Six Nations campaign against Scotland at Twickenham on February 4, having won just two of their five matches in each of the past two championships.

Damar Hamlin can breathe without assistance and is improving "remarkably" after his cardiac arrest, with the Buffalo Bills revealing he has already spoken to his team-mates.

The latest uplifting development arrived on Friday as Hamlin continues his recovery at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (UCMC), where he was taken on Monday after collapsing mid-game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hamlin joined the Bills' Friday team meeting on FaceTime and told the group: "Love you boys."

UCMC's Dr Timothy Pritts spoke on Thursday of how Hamlin had "won the game of life" by surviving, after it was revealed the safety wanted to know whether the Bills had won against the Bengals.

As it happens, that game was abandoned and will not resume, with the NFL recognising its outcome would not impact any team's qualification or elimination from the postseason.

Hamlin's future in the NFL is unclear for now, with doctors saying on Thursday it was too soon to talk about the prospect of him playing again, but the 24-year-old is making significant day-by-day progress in hospital.

The Bills said in a statement: "Per the physicians at UCMC, Damar's breathing tube was removed overnight. He continues to progress remarkably in his recovery.

"His neurologic function remains intact and he has been able to talk to his family and care team.

"Damar Hamlin FaceTimed into our team meeting today to talk to players and coaches.

"What he said to the team: 'Love you boys.'"

Reports said Hamlin has also spoken individually to a number of team-mates, yet another encouraging sign.

It had been revealed on Thursday he was able to communicate by writing notes, and to be speaking and breathing without a tube a day later is another major step towards being discharged.

Hamlin collapsed after a collision with wide receiver Tee Higgins and had to be resuscitated on the field.

He received "textbook" medical attention at the stadium, Pritts' colleague Dr William A. Knight said.