New York Jets (2-2) vs. Minnesota (4-0) in London.
Sunday, 9:30 a.m. EDT, NFL Network.
BetMGM NFL Odds: Vikings by 2½.
Against the spread: Minnesota 4-0; New York 2-2.
Series record: Jets lead 8-4.
Last meeting: Vikings beat Jets 27-22 on Dec. 4, 2022, in Minnesota.
Last week: Jets lost to Broncos 10-9; Vikings beat Packers 31-29.
Jets offense: overall (22), rush (27), pass (18), scoring (21).
Jets defense: overall (2), rush (20), pass (2), scoring (5).
Vikings offense: overall (10), rush (14), pass (10), scoring (4).
Vikings defense: overall (23), rush (2), pass (32), scoring (4).
Turnover differential: Vikings plus-3; Jets plus-1.
QB Aaron Rodgers. The 40-year-old Rodgers acknowledged he was banged up a bit — he received treatment during the week on a swollen left knee — after being sacked five times and hit 14 times by Denver. He failed to lead the Jets into the end zone, and there were questions after the game and during the week as to whether his cadence has caused some confusion for the offensive line. Rodgers needs 96 passing yards to become the ninth player in NFL history with 60,000 for his career in the regular season.
QB Sam Darnold. The surprise NFL leader in passer rating (118.9) and passing touchdowns (11) is 4-0 as a starter for the first time in his seven-year career and also has his first four-game winning streak as the starter. He's not only facing a strong defense, but he'll be going against the team that drafted him third overall in 2018. Darnold went 13-25 as a starter in three mostly dismal seasons with the Jets. He had a 123.4 passer rating against the Packers, the third best of his career.
Vikings WR Justin Jefferson vs. Jets CB Sauce Gardner. While the Vikings will move Jefferson all over their formations to try to maximize his opportunity and the Jets will certainly rely on more than one player to defend perhaps the league's premier pass catcher, any time there's a one-on-one situation between these stars it ought to be worth rewinding the DVR for another look. Jefferson had seven receptions for 45 yards and a touchdown on 11 targets two years ago against the Jets.
Jets LB C.J. Mosley could miss his third straight game after being listed as doubtful to play with a toe injury. … DL Leki Fotu was also doubtful, but returned to practice for the Jets this week after starting the season on injured reserve with a hamstring injury. ... RT Morgan Moses (knee) was ruled out early in the week. ... Vikings LB Ivan Pace Jr. is expected to play after missing the past two games with an ankle injury. ... Vikings TE T.J. Hockenson was ruled out, but practiced Friday for the first time this year in London, opening a three-week window in which he can be activated from the physically unable to perform list to complete his rehabilitation from a torn ACL and MCL.
The game marks the third time the Jets will play in London and their first since a 27-20 loss to Atlanta in 2021, which was also played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. New York beat Miami 27-14 in 2015 at Wembley Stadium. … Rodgers has played in London once before, a 27-22 loss to the New York Giants while with Green Bay in 2022. He was 25 of 39 for 222 yards and two touchdowns — including one to current Jets teammate Allen Lazard — in that game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. … Rodgers has 65,798 passing yards in regular season and postseason games. He needs 74 more to pass Dan Marino for seventh place on the NFL’s career list. … New York committed 15 penalties, 13 of which were accepted, last week against Denver, including five false starts by the offense. … RB Breece Hall is off to a slow start with 174 yards on 56 rushes, averaging just 3.1 yards per carry. He averaged 5.8 yards as a rookie in 2022 and 4.5 last season. … Rookie RB Braelon Allen is the fourth player in NFL history with 100-plus rushing yards before turning 21 years old. … The Jets held New England to 61 net passing yards in Week 3 and Denver to 60 last week in the first time in franchise history the Jets held consecutive opponents to fewer than 75 passing yards. … Jets edge rusher Will McDonald is tied for third in the NFL with five sacks, with Patrick Jones of the Vikings. ... The Vikings are 4-0 for the first time since 2016. ... The Vikings are 3-0 in London, having won there in 2013, 2017 and 2022. They beat New Orleans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2022. ... Vikings RB Aaron Jones has 100-plus yards from scrimmage in eight of his past nine games including two in the playoffs last season for the Packers. ... Jefferson has a TD catch in five straight games including the 2023 finale. ... Vikings OLB Jonathan Greenard, who's second on the team with four sacks, had two sacks in his previous game against the Jets on Dec. 10, 2023, while playing for Houston. ... Vikings LB Kamu Grugier-Hill has an interception in each of the past two games after getting only three in his first 117 regular-season games. ... Vikings rookie Will Reichard is 6 for 6 on field goals and 14 for 14 on extra points.
Lazard leads the Jets with 206 receiving yards and three TDs, with No. 1 WR Garrett Wilson off to a slow start from a fantasy perspective. Lazard, who has 20 catches for 239 yards and two TDs in four games against the Vikings, was targeted by Rodgers eight times last week.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) runs the ball past Green Bay Packers defensive end Kingsley Enagbare (55) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) steps back to pass against the Denver Broncos during the first quarter of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
BEIRUT (AP) — Diplomats and other officials say there have been several sticking points in ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as conditions for an agreement appear to be ripe.
Israel’s military has killed nearly all of the militant group’s top leaders, but it continues to fire missiles into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis who were evacuated from the border months ago are pressuring their government to go home. And the world wants to stop regional conflict from spreading after more than a year of fighting.
Following the latest visit to the region by a U.S. mediator, Israel hit central Beirut over the weekend, and Hezbollah responded with its biggest barrage in weeks as each applied pressure to reach a deal.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily since the day after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in Gaza.
Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago, then a ground invasion. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, many of them civilians.
More than 70 have been killed in Israel, over 40 of them civilians. In addition, over 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Here’s a look at the proposal and the sticking points.
The proposal under discussion to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.
The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.
An international committee would be set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah but never fully implemented. Hezbollah never ended its presence in southern Lebanon, while Lebanon said Israel regularly violated its airspace and occupied small patches of its territory.
It is not clear whether a new deal would be any more successfully implemented than the one in 2006.
Michael Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that the deal aimed to improve surveillance and enforcement of the previous resolution. While he said there were still certain points that needed to be finalized, a deal was close and could be clinched “within days.”
A U.S. official said negotiations continued to progress on Sunday, but the parties still need to work out some outstanding issues to close the deal. The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private talks, declined declined to detail the outstanding issues.
Two Western diplomats described several points of dispute to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing negotiations.
They said Israel was asking for more guarantees to ensure that Hezbollah’s weapons are removed from the border area. Israeli officials, concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah launching the kind of attack that Hamas carried out from Gaza into southern Israel, have said they would not agree to a ceasefire deal that doesn't explicitly grant them freedom to strike in Lebanon if they believe Hezbollah is violating it.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks, said the issue remained a point of contention, although he said the talks were headed in a “positive direction.”
Lebanese officials have said agreeing to such a deal would violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem has said the militant group would not agree to a deal that does not entail a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and does not protect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Lebanon and Israel have also disagreed over which countries would sit on the international committee overseeing implementation of the deal and Resolution 1701.
In a sign of progress, Israel appeared to have dropped its opposition to France, which has remained close with Lebanon since its colonial rule there ended and has recently been at odds with Israel.
On Monday, an official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes negotiations, said that France would be part of the monitoring committee. Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bousaab, also said Israel had accepted France.
But Lebanon has refused to allow Britain, a close ally of Israel. It was unclear Monday if Lebanese officials had dropped their opposition following Israel’s concession.
Meanwhile, Israel does not want to enter into negotiations on 13 disputed points along the border as part of a ceasefire deal, the diplomats said.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, who has a contentious relationship with Israel's government, said Sunday during a visit to Lebanon that he's not convinced that Israel is “interested clearly in reaching an agreement for a ceasefire."
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran's armed proxies, is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of war between Israel and Iran directly. It's not clear how it would affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it has now dropped that condition.
One diplomat said there are fears that if no ceasefire is reached, the war will expand further into Syria and Iraq as Israel attempts to cut off the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel has carried out regular airstrikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and has threatened to strike in Iraq, where Iran-backed militias have periodically launched drone attacks on Israel.
Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said during a visit to Damascus on Sunday that ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon are critical to “avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict.”
Meanwhile, analysts say Hezbollah has been weakened but continues to keep up steady fire into Israel, including strikes far from the border.
On Sunday, Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut. Violent clashes continue in southern Lebanon as Israeli forces attempt to take control of strategic towns.
Israel says its goal in the war with Hezbollah is to enable displaced Israelis to safely return home. In Lebanon, a quarter the population has been displaced, and parts of the country, particularly in south Lebanon and areas south of the capital Beirut, have been destroyed.
In Lebanon, where officials and residents are anxious for war to end, an initial rush of optimism dissipated after the Biden administration’s point man on Israel and Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, left the region last week without a deal.
Many now believe no agreement will be reached before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.
Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
A man walks past a damaged building after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A member of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A Civil Defense worker uses a skid loader to remove the rubble in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Residents pass in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A man checks his damaged apartment which was resulted from Sunday's Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israeli soldiers take cover on the side of the road during an alert of incoming rockets, near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A man stands in front of a destroyed building after Sunday's Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
