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)
BEIT EL, West Bank (AP) — As Donald Trump’s victory became apparent in last week's U.S. elections, Jewish West Bank settlement advocates popped bottles of champagne and danced to the Bee Gees at a winery in the heart of the occupied territory, according to a post on Instagram. The winery said it was rolling out a special edition red named for the president-elect.
Settlement supporters believe they have plenty of reasons to celebrate. Not only did the expansion of housing for Jews in the West Bank soar past previous records during Trump's first term, but his administration took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights.
This time around, as Israel is embroiled in a multifront war, settlement advocates believe Trump’s history of fervent support could translate into their supreme goal: Israeli annexation of the West Bank — a move that critics say would smother any remaining hopes for Palestinian statehood. Some are even gunning for resettling Gaza under a Trump administration.
“God willing, the year 2025 will be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” Israeli Finance Minister and settlement firebrand Bezalel Smotrich said Monday, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name, in comments that sparked international uproar. He said he would make sure the government lobbies the Trump administration on the idea.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move most of the international community does not recognize and in 2005 it withdrew its settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip, where it has been fighting a war against Hamas.
Settlement expansion in the West Bank has ballooned during Israel’s open-ended occupation, with more than half a million Israelis living in about 130 settlements and dozens of unauthorized outposts. The Western-backed Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous parts of the West Bank that are home to most of the Palestinian population.
During his first term as president, Trump abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements. He proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all. His ambassador to Israel was a staunch settlement advocate and opponent of Palestinian statehood.
But Trump also took steps that are keeping some settler proponents cautious. His Mideast plan did leave room for a Palestinian state, even if critics say it was an unrealistic vision for one. And the Trump-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries held the country back from annexing the West Bank.
While he has not explicitly stated his policy for his second term, his initial administration picks, including ambassadors to Israel and the U.N., are deeply pro-Israel, indicating he likely will not stand in the way of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government advancing settlement building.
“There has never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel,” Mike Huckabee, Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel, told Israel Army Radio, when asked about the possibility of West Bank annexation. “I fully expect that to continue.”
A spokesperson for Netanyahu declined to say whether the Israeli leader would pursue annexation during Trump's presidency. But Netanyahu has named an American-born, hard-line settlement activist, Yechiel Leiter, to serve as ambassador to Washington.
Rights groups already claim Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank, and annexation would open Israel up to similar charges if it doesn’t grant Palestinians there equal rights. Israel opposes giving West Bank Palestinians citizenship, saying it would destroy Israel’s Jewish character.
Regardless of whether annexation comes, settler advocates envision unbridled expansion under Trump and under an Israeli government where settler leaders and supporters hold key positions. They see a presidential term where they will be able to more deeply entrench their presence in the West Bank with a proliferation of housing, roads and industrial zones.
“I’m sure that with President Trump it will be much easier because he supports the state of Israel,” said Israel Ganz, the chairman of the Yesha Council, a settler lobbying group.
Israeli settlement expansion has carried on to varying degrees under multiple American administrations. During Trump's term, Israel advanced nearly 33,000 housing units, according to Peace Now, an antisettlement watchdog group, almost three times as much as during President Barack Obama's second term.
The numbers fell significantly during the first two years of the Biden administration, but shot up again in 2023, shortly after Israel's current far-right, prosettlement government was formed, and have surged throughout the war.
The Biden administration has slapped sanctions on Jewish settlers suspected of fomenting violence against Palestinians, an approach that is likely to end under Trump.
In the West Bank, billboards advertise new settlement housing, beckoning passersby to make their home there. In Beit El, next to the Palestinian administrative center of Ramallah, a new neighborhood boasts not the red-roofed, single-family homes that became icons of the settler movement, but rather six towering multistory apartment buildings that can house hundreds, and look like any Israeli suburb.
Palestinians view the settlements as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace, a position with wide international support. Israel considers the West Bank to be the historical and biblical heartland of the Jewish people and says any partition should be agreed on in negotiations. Peace talks have been moribund for more than a decade, and support for a Palestinian state among Israelis fell after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that sparked the war.
Wasel Abu Yusuf, a Palestinian official, said Trump hadn’t yet made his positions clear and it was unknown if he would support Israeli annexation.
Dror Etkes, an antisettlement researcher and activist, said that during the first Trump administration, West Bank outpost farms, which have forced entire Palestinian communities off huge swaths of land, saw a “meteoric rise,” as did infrastructure projects that allow settlements to expand, like roads and water systems.
Over the next four years, “we can assume that we will see more significant steps of de facto annexation or maybe even official annexation," Etkes said.
Some settler advocates, like Daniella Weiss, believe Trump will not pressure Netanyahu to withdraw troops swiftly from Gaza, creating an opening for resettlement. That notion would be a nonstarter with other American administrations, and much of the international community would oppose it.
A similar strategy in the early years of Israel's West Bank occupation led to the proliferation of settlements there. Two of Netanyahu's key governing partners also support resettling Gaza, although the Israeli leader has said it is not “realistic.”
Yair Sheleg, a research fellow at Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute who studies the settler movement, said Trump was “fickle” and that in his expected push to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, he could end up being less favorable to the settlement enterprise than many hope.
But nonetheless, he said, the overarching feeling among settler advocates is that "Trump understands ... the needs of the settlement enterprise.”
A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha settlers council and head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, poses for a portrait holding a bottle of wine bearing the name of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Shaar Binyamin Industrial Park in the West Bank, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha settlers council and head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, poses for a portrait holding a bottle of wine bearing the name of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Shaar Binyamin Industrial Park in the West Bank, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
FILE - Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., takes questions from the media, prior to laying a brick at a new housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Aug. 1, 2018. President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Trump said Tuesday that Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel’s interests as it wages wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)
A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinian laborers work at the site of a new housing project in the Jewish West Bank Jewish Settlement of Beit El, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha settlers council and head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, poses for a portrait holding a bottle of wine bearing the name of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Shaar Binyamin Industrial Park in the West Bank, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha settlers council and head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, poses for a portrait holding a bottle of wine bearing the name of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Shaar Binyamin Industrial Park in the West Bank, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
FILE - Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., takes questions from the media, prior to laying a brick at a new housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Aug. 1, 2018. President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Trump said Tuesday that Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel’s interests as it wages wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)
A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinian laborers work at the site of a new housing project in the Jewish West Bank Jewish Settlement of Beit El, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
