OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Whichever team drafted Marshall linebacker Mike Green was going to face questions about his off-field history.
That turned out to be the Baltimore Ravens — who were already under scrutiny because of the allegations against star kicker Justin Tucker.
The Ravens drafted Green late in the second round. The standout edge rusher had 17 sacks last season at Marshall. It was his second season there after two at Virginia, and he said at the NFL scouting combine that he transferred after being accused of sexual assault for a second time.
“We understand the severity of what these allegations were, of course,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said Friday night. “But doing our due diligence, we are comfortable with Mike.”
Green told reporters at the combine that he also was accused of sexual assault in high school. He said he was never charged and insisted he did nothing wrong. He was considered a possible first-round pick but ended up going to Baltimore at No. 59 overall.
“We got as much information as we could, we considered the facts, we considered the allegations,” DeCosta said. “We considered what the reports actually were and what they actually weren’t, and we made the decision based off of that.”
Neither of the Ravens' two draft picks Friday were available to the media, but much of the news conference with DeCosta and coach John Harbaugh was spent on off-field concerns about Green.
“The coaches and administrators and teammates at Marshall were fully supportive of everything he had done there,” Harbaugh said. “And same at U-Va. Wasn’t any different at U-Va. It was exactly the same.”
Coming into the draft, one of the questions surrounding the Ravens was whether they'd take a kicker as a potential replacement for Tucker. The veteran kicker's status is uncertain after the Baltimore Banner reported that over a dozen massage therapists have accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior. The NFL has said it would investigate.
Going further back, the Ravens' reputation took a hit over a decade ago because of their handling of the Ray Rice incident. The team released Rice only after a video surfaced of him punching his then-fiancee in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino.
That scandal led Steve Bisciotti to call 2014 his “worst year” as the team's owner.
Time will tell what kind of player and citizen Green will be in the pros. The Ravens insist they've been careful.
“It is a difficult decision,” DeCosta said. “It’s a difficult decision when a guy runs a slow 40, it’s a difficult decision when a guy has allegations, it’s a difficult decision when a guy has an injury that maybe he can’t overcome. That all kind of gets factored in because in the end, there is an element of risk mitigation.”
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FILE - Marshall defensive lineman Mike Green fights past an offensive lineman to pressure Coastal Carolina quarterback Ethan Vasko (15) during an NCAA football game on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, W.Va. (Sholten Singer/The Herald-Dispatch via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
