TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Buccaneers rookie linebacker David Walker tore an ACL and likely will miss the rest of the season.
Walker, a fourth-round draft pick out of Central Arkansas, sustained the knee injury in Friday's practice. He had 10 1/2 sacks last season and was expected to bolster Tampa Bay's pass rush. The Buccaneers finished tied for sixth in the NFL with 46 sacks in 2024.
“He was making a big impact early,” coach Todd Bowles said Monday. "Obviously, we were counting on him to do a lot of things. We’ve got other guys that have to step up. I told him he has to look at this as a redshirt year. It’s unfortunate. It didn’t look like it was too much on film, but it ended up being that.”
Walker was competing for snaps with veteran Anthony Nelson behind starter YaYa Diaby in Tampa Bay's 3-4 defense. The Buccaneers signed two-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Haason Reddick and veteran linebacker Anthony Walker Jr. in free agency.
“I thought we had a lot of depth with (David) Walker," Bowles said. "There’s still some spots to be had. I think we still have a lot of depth. Obviously, you’ve got Yaya, you’ve got Nelson, you’ve got (Chris) Braswell Jr. and you’ve got Haason. You’ve still got (Markees) Watts and you’ve got Jose (Ramirez) and you’ve got a bunch of guys still fighting for that spot. We still feel like we’ve got some depth there.”
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, center, stretches with teammates during Back Together Weekend at an NFL football training camp practice Sunday, July 27, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
A Christmas Eve Powerball drawing could add new meaning to holiday cheer as millions of players hope to cash in on the $1.7 billion prize, which comes after months without a jackpot winner.
The United States' 4th-largest jackpot on record comes after 46 consecutive draws without someone claiming to have all six numbers. The last contest with a jackpot winner was on Sept. 6. The game’s long odds have people decking the halls and doling out $2 — and sometimes more — for tickets ahead of Wednesday night's live drawing.
It's a sign the game is operating as intended. Lottery officials made the odds tougher in 2015 as a mechanism for snowballing jackpots, all the while making it easier to win smaller prizes.
The Christmas holiday is not expected to impact the drawing process should there be a winning ticket, a Powerball spokesperson said.
Here is what to know about Wednesday’s drawing:
That ticket placed in a stocking or under the tree could be worth a billion bucks — but with some caveats.
Powerball is played in 45 states, along with Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most of those areas require players to be 18 or older, though some states have steeper requirements. In Nebraska, players have to be at least 19 years old, and in Louisiana and Arizona, people can't buy tickets until they are 21.
Winning tickets also must be cashed in the states where they were bought. And players can't buy tickets in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada or Utah.
Other than that, lottery officials argue there is a chance a lucky Powerball ticket could be a gift that keeps on giving.
Charlie McIntyre, the New Hampshire Lottery's executive director, said Tuesday: “Just think of the stories you can tell for generations to come about the year you woke up a billionaire on Christmas.”
Wednesday's $1.7 billion jackpot has a cash value of $781.3 million.
A winner can choose to be paid the whole amount through an annuity, with an immediate payment and then annual payments over 29 years that increase by 5% each time. Most winners, however, usually choose the cash value for a lump sum.
The odds are high for the top prize, but there are smaller prizes players can reap.
At the last drawing, players in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin each won $1 million. There are also prizes outside the jackpot, ranging from a few dollars to $2 million.
One woman told Powerball officials that she already made plans for her $1 million win: “We’re going to pay off our cars and credit cards and get a bigger house!”
And Thomas Anderson of Burlington, North Carolina, said he intended to use his $100,000 Powerball win from earlier this month to go back to school, according to Powerball.
Lottery officials set the odds at 1 in 292.2 million in hopes that jackpots will roll over with each of the three weekly drawings until the pool balloons so much that more people take notice and play.
The odds used to be notably better, at 1 in 175 million. But the game was made tougher in 2015 to create the out-of-this-world bounties. The tougher odds partly helped set the stage for back-to-back record-breaking sweepstakes this year.
The last time someone won the Powerball pot was on Sept. 6, when players in Missouri and Texas won $1.787 billion, which was the second-highest top prize in U.S. history.
The U.S. has seen more than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. The biggest U.S. jackpot ever was $2.04 billion back in 2022.
It’s hard to explain what odds of 1 in 292.2 million mean. Even if halved, they remain difficult to digest.
In the past, one math professor described the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads 28 straight times.
Tim Chartier, a Davidson College math professor in North Carolina, on Monday compared the odds of a winning lottery ticket to selecting one marked dollar bill from a stack 19 miles (31 kilometers) high.
“It’s true that if you buy 100 tickets, you are 100 times more likely to win. But in this case, ‘100 times more likely’ barely moves the probability needle,” Chartier said. “Using the time analogy, buying 100 tickets is like getting 100 guesses to name that one chosen second over nine years. Possible — but wildly improbable.”
Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Pedestrians walk past a sign showing the Powerball jackpot of over one billion dollars at Rossi's Deli in San Francisco, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A convenience store employee prays while Jackpot payouts for Powerball and Mega Millions are displayed outside the store, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A powerball ticket is pictured Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
A convenience store employee grabs a Powerball lottery ticket for a customer on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A person fills out a Powerball lottery ticket on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
