PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The road to the Masters is starting to fill up with some high-powered cars.

Consider the last three weeks on the Florida swing.

PGA champion Collin Morikawa’s pure iron play led to his first World Golf Championship title. U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau brought the World Long Drive atmosphere to the sixth tee at Bay Hill, and he also made a few big putts on his way to the win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. And then Justin Thomas had as good a weekend as anyone who ever won The Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass.

The streak likely ends at the Honda Classic because no one from the top 10 in the world is playing.

Still, it’s enough to whet the appetite for Augusta National, which is just over three weeks away.

Just not for everyone.

Rory McIlroy had his highest score since the summer of 2019 and missed the cut at The Players Championship, his second weekend off in four weeks. He said he would head home and start the process of “Bryson cleansing,” which amounts to trying to stop swinging out of his shoes.

Dustin Johnson has made it to the weekend, but he keeps finishing in time for lunch. The No. 1 player in the world, who picked up his 25th victory worldwide in Saudi Arabia just six weeks ago, has finished a combined 36 shots out of the lead in his last two events.

“I’ve got a little ways to go,” Johnson said on a conference call Tuesday for the Masters. “Obviously, the game is not quite in the form that I would like it to be in right now, but I’ve got plenty of time to get it back in order leading up to Augusta.”

Yes, there is plenty of time for Johnson and McIlroy, not to mention Xander Schauffele, who went from mediocre at Concession to missing the cut at Sawgrass. Schauffele had made 22 straight cuts until The Players, so that gets attention.

It’s not the same as it was two years ago heading into the Masters, when eight of the top 10 players in the world had won on the PGA Tour leading into the first major of the year. And it’s not any cause for alarm, even when someone as steady as Patrick Cantlay misses the cut.

Even so, it’s all about momentum at this point in the calendar.

Thomas was lacking that when he arrived at The Players. His head had been spinning from issues off the course, such as the fallout from an anti-gay comment he muttered under his breath and the death of his grandfather. Add that to poor play and he was headed down the wrong road.

“I’ve put too much pressure on myself,” Thomas said one week ago. “I’ve been trying too hard. I think I want to win so bad, and I really want it too bad. ... The sense of urgency, definitely I know. I think it’s present a little bit in myself, but I also have realized it. So I’m hoping that it helps with that.”

It helped. His 64-68 weekend matched Fred Couples in 1996 as the lowest final 36 holes at Sawgrass by a winner. His head is in a better place. His game is in a great place. One week can change everything.

Momentum isn’t everything at the Masters, though the green jacket is rarely slipped over the shoulders of someone who had spent too much time searching in the months leading to Augusta.

Johnson was coming off a runner-up finish when he won the Masters last year. Tiger Woods was one putt away from the semifinals at Match Play in the last event before he won a fifth green jacket. Patrick Reed was coming off three straight top-10s when he won the Masters.

Sergio Garcia and Danny Willett had each won in the Middle East the year of their Masters victories. Jordan Spieth had won, finished second and lost in a playoff in the three events before he went wire-to-wire at Augusta.

Johnson says he’s close, and there’s reason to believe him. It’s easier to clean up a mess than to produce birdies, and the latter was not in short supply at Sawgrass. He made 17 birdies and an eagle. He finished at 1 under par.

“I just made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mental mistakes, just a little bit of everything,” Johnson said. “Just kind of (throwing) shots away, which is real uncharacteristic. But we’ll get it worked out.”

McIlroy sounded as though he had a lot of work to do.

With unfailing honesty, he conceded he got “sucked into that stuff” of trying increase his swing speed after watching how DeChambeau attacked Winged Foot in the U.S. Open. McIlroy says of his own game at Winged Foot, “I would be pretty happy with that again.”

“And then after Winged Foot I had a few weeks before we went to the West Coast and I started to try to hit the ball a bit harder, hit a lot of drivers, get a bit more speed, and I felt like that was sort of the infancy of where these swing problems have come from,” McIlroy said. “So it’s just a matter of trying to get back out of it.”

For some, the Masters can’t get here soon enough. For others, their games can’t turn around quickly enough.

Three weeks after being seriously injured in a car accident in Los Angeles, Tiger Woods is home.

First reported by Golf Digest's Daniel Rapaport, Woods has returned to Hobe Sound, Florida, to continued his recovery from multiple leg injuries sustained in the single-vehicle, rollover crash near Los Angeles on Feb. 23.

“Happy to report that I am back home and continuing my recovery. I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks,” Woods said statement. “Thank you to the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough. I will be recovering at home and working on getting stronger every day.”

Woods suffered comminuted open fractures to the upper and lower sections of his right leg, as well as significant trauma to his right ankle, during the crash. He was transported to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to insert a rod, screws and pins to stabilize his leg and ankle, and was transferred a couple of days later to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to continues his recovery process.

Last week, Rory McIlroy told Jimmy Fallon that Woods was nearing a return home.

“He’s doing better,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully, if things go well over the next week or so, he might be able to get home and start recovery at home, which would be great for him, see his kids, see his family. But yeah, he’s doing better. All of us are wishing him a speedy recovery at this point.”

Former federation president Eduardo Li has testified that Keylor Navas threatened to lose games intentionally with Costa Rica unless a coaching change was made after the 2014 World Cup.

A trial is currently underway in Costa Rica's capital, San Jose, with players Navas, Bryan Ruiz and Celso Borges having sued former federation executives, Adrian Gutierrez and Juan Carlos Roman for defamation.

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Gutierrez claimed in a 2018 radio interview that during a meeting four years earlier those players had threatened to lose games on purpose if the federation did not part ways with then coach Jorge Luis Pinto.

However, Gutierrez was not present in that meeting in which Navas, Ruiz and Borges attended as team captains.

The current federation president, Rodolfo Villalobos, was also at the meeting, as was the federation treasurer. Li, who presided the Costa Rica Federation in 2014 and was banned for life by FIFA in 2017 in bribery case, testified on Monday as a witness of the defence.

He said that after telling the players at the meeting that the FA's intention was to renew Pinto's contract, it was then when Navas mentioned a clause in the contract of the national team coach in which if he lost three consecutive games there was cause to terminate his contract.

Li also stated that Ruiz had told him that he was prepared to quit the national team if Pinto continued in charge.

Navas, the starting goalkeeper of Paris Saint-Germain, and Ruiz, testified on Friday denying they had threatened to lose games intentionally and that the comments made by the defendants had affected their dignity and image.

"It is not something that has come out of our mouths and it will never happen, because we have been professional footballers for many years, we have an honour and a prestige to defend," he told the newspaper Extra.

Ruiz did confirm that he had said in the meeting that he would walk away from the national team if Pinto continued due to alleged disrespectful treatment by the coach towards the players.

Under Pinto's second spell in charge of Costa Rica, the national team had their best ever World Cup performance when they went unbeaten to the quarterfinals of the 2014 tournament in Brazil before losing to the Netherlands on penalties.

Pinto, whose contract was not renewed, took over the Honduras national team in December 2014.

The Colombian tactician testified on Tuesday via video link and said: "President Li and I had a meeting and I remember perfectly he took me to one side and said 'the players say that if you continue they will lose two or three games so as to get you out.'

"I told them 'let's not get into that problem, you [federation] and your country are going to be affected.' I had offers and told them that I said that I would like to speak to all the players and ask them that," Pinto said.

Luka Modric has insisted "there's still a lot of hunger" after Real Madrid qualified for the Champions League quarterfinals for the first time since 2018 with a 3-1 win over Atalanta.

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Veterans Karim Benzema and Sergio Ramos were both on the scoresheet, while Marco Asensio added a late third after Luis Muriel had responded with a free kick, as Madrid returned to the competition's last eight on Tuesday night.

The European giants won the Champions League for three years in a row from 2016 to 2018 with many of their current squad playing key roles, but were knocked out in the round-of-16 by Ajax Amsterdam in 2019 and Manchester City in 2020.

"It was important to go through to the quarterfinals, which we hadn't done for two years," Modric said. "We've shown tonight that there's still a lot of hunger in this team, that it wants to keep winning. I hope we can go far, let's see how far.

"I've always said you shouldn't look at players' ages," Modric said, saying he feels 27 rather than 35. "It's about what a player does on the pitch. The years and the passport don't matter. With my physique and what I've achieved here, I'm still hungry to compete at the highest level."

Coach Zinedine Zidane was full of praise for Modric's midfield partnership with Toni Kroos in the absence of the suspended Casemiro.

"As a double pivot, Luka and Toni are phenomenal," he said. "If you talk to me about Luka, we know the player he is... He's really intelligent. He's 35 but on the pitch he doesn't look it."

"At 34, I'd decided to retire," Zidane added, when asked about the team's core of Modric, Benzema and Ramos. "But they're hungry, they want to keep making history, winning games and trophies."

Zidane was also pleased with the performance of Vinicius Junior, who won the second-half penalty converted by Ramos.

"The penalty is down to him, with the speed he has," he said. "We know he can get any defence into trouble. He tries...When Vini gets the ball in space, his speed can make the difference."

Modric's contract at the Bernabeu expires this summer -- although he's expected to sign a one-year extension -- as does that of club captain Ramos, 34.

"When you've looked after yourself for so many years, you end up getting it back," Ramos said, adding that there's no news on his own negotiations. "You can't judge anyone by their I.D. It's about performance. The most important thing is we're happy where we are and we give our best. People should value that."

The European soccer season is a marathon. We freak out early over weird results and small sample sizes, only for the world to (mostly) right itself by Christmas. But once the calendar changes, we get a much better feel for what we should really be freaking out about.

Back in early January, I wrote a piece called the PANIC INDEX, in which I graded the big storylines and questions on a panic scale of 1 (remain calm, all is well) to 5 (oh god, oh god, oh god). It wasn't rocket science, but the piece had a pretty good batting average: Manchester City was indeed about to surge to a double-digit Premier League lead, Chelsea's bad close-games luck has indeed begun to turn, and Spurs' offense was indeed in trouble (until Gareth Bale was taken out of mothballs, anyway).

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Now that we're approaching the season's final international break and the home stretch is on the horizon, it's time to PANIC once again.

Should Bayern Munich panic about its transition defense?

Even in otherwise lovely results, the glitches have been hard to ignore.

- Up 4-0 on Lazio in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, Bayern Munich let Joaquin Correa slice right through about six defenders into the middle of the box, where he easily knocked a shot past Manuel Neuer.
- Before they unleashed a 4-0 run on Der Klassiker rival Borussia Dortmund, they first had to fall behind 2-0 after BVB unleashed a perfect, three-pass combination into open spaces, finished by Erling Haaland.
- Up 3-0 against Werder Bremen on Saturday, they allowed a simple two-pass combination to beat five defenders and start a fast break that Niclas Fullkrug finished for a consolation goal.

Bayern are four points clear at the top of the Bundesliga with nine matches to play; despite the fact that RB Leipzig have been able to make the eight-time Bundesliga champs sweat of late, Bayern remain favorites to win a ninth straight title. But after winning basically every trophy in existence in 2020 and early 2021 -- Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, DFL-Supercup, FIFA Club World Cup -- any sign of vulnerability is noteworthy, and like most heavyweights in this odd, compacted season, Bayern had more vulnerable moments than usual.

Almost none of them are on offense, mind you. They're averaging 3.0 goals per match in the Bundesliga; no one else in Europe's Big 5 leagues tops 2.4. With 32 goals in 24 matches, forward Robert Lewandowski has an excellent shot at breaking Gerd Muller's previously-thought unbreakable 40-goal mark in Bundesliga play this year.

But the defense, impenetrable for much of the 2019-20 season, has been consistently glitchy.

The loss of Thiago, whose tactical fouls were extremely noticeable in the Champions League's late rounds, has been apparent, particularly with the amount of lineup shuffling required in this pandemic season, and a back line that was perfectly simpatico last year has lacked cohesion: Jerome Boateng is a year older, David Alaba has struggled to match last year's form and manager Hansi Flick has tried to figure out exactly what to do with Lucas Hernandez and Niklas Sule. (He's been fielding the 6-foot-5 Sule at fullback, and it's worked out quite nicely of late.)

Bayern have kept clean sheets in only two of seven Champions League matches and five of 25 Bundesliga matches. (And two of the five were against Schalke 044, which doesn't really count.) Among FiveThirtyEight's top 20 clubs, they are allowing the most league goals: 1.4 per match. This has already cost them in domestic play -- allowing two goals to second-division Holstein Kiel in January set up a shocking penalty shootout loss in the DFB-Pokal, and their four-point lead over RBL could make April 3's trip to Leipzig awfully big.

Surely this vulnerability will catch up to them in the Champions League, too, right? Possibly. But Bayern does still have one thing going for it in this regard: just about everybody else left in the competition is vulnerable, too.

Here are the key shooting stats -- league play only -- for the 12 remaining Champions League competitors over the last two months. (Teams in bold have already advanced to the UCL quarterfinals.)

A quick key: shot/poss = shots per possession, xG/shot = expected goals per shot and xGOT/SOT = expected goals for shots on target per shot on target (a post-shot xG type of average). Basically, these three measures look at shot quantity, shot value and shot placement.

Even with the glitches, Bayern is still only allowing 1.1 goals per league match in this period, almost identical to Atletico Madrid. Meanwhile, they're scoring like Manchester City. Their offensive numbers are nearly unmatchable, and they're not the only team offering particularly high-quality transition opportunities. They are vulnerable to counter-attacks like all high-line, possession-heavy teams, but they have an attack other teams would kill for.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 2. In this case, the 2 also stands for "second-favorite" -- FiveThirtyEight gives them the second-best odds of winning the Champions League (18%), and Caesars by William Hill lists them as the No. 2 betting favorite (+300, equivalent to 25%). They have ceded the banner of favorites to Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, but they are still nearly the most trustworthy entity remaining in the field, even if they gift you a goal or two at some point.

Should Paris Saint-Germain panic about maybe actually losing Ligue 1?

Outside of the Premier League, which itself rarely has a close race and is probably about to award its third title in four years to Manchester City, we haven't exactly wrung much drama out of recent title races in Europe's "Big 5" leagues. Bayern has indeed won eight titles in a row in Germany, Juve nine in Italy and either Barca or Real Madrid has won 16 of the last 17 La Ligas. While PSG doesn't boast anything close to these clubs' overall histories, they have won seven of the last eight Ligue 1 crowns with Qatar Sports Investments' money in their account.

The only time since 2012 that the French title didn't end up at the Parc des Princes was in 2017, when Kylian Mbappe helped to lead Monaco to a surprising title. PSG responded by acquiring Mbappe, winning the next three titles and finally breaking through to the Champions League final in 2020 as well.

COVID-19 diagnoses and injury problems have led to constantly shuffled lineups for PSG this season, however, and the past six months have seen a steady diet of "Okay, now they're rolling" bursts, followed by another blip.

Even a managerial change -- from Thomas Tuchel to Mauricio Pochettino at the start of the calendar year -- hasn't stemmed the tide. In the last two months, they've lost to both 17th-place Lorient and 18th-place Nantes. They're on pace for only 79 points, their lowest full-season point total since 2012, and even worse, their three biggest challengers for the league crown are all producing strong fundamental stats.

Current point totals: Lille 63, PSG 60, Lyon 60, Monaco 56
Points per game, last two months: Lille 2.4, Monaco 2.3, PSG 2.1, Lyon 2.0
xG differential, last two months: PSG +0.97, Lyon +0.95, Lille and Monaco +0.80

FiveThirtyEight gave PSG a 91% chance of winning Ligue 1 before the season began and still had them at 63% in mid-February. But those odds have fallen to just 38% -- Lille are at 36%, Lyon 23% -- and their European ranking has fallen to 16th, between Borussia Dortmund and Ajax.

There's nothing specifically wrong -- their attack is basically tied with Lyon for best in the league, their fundamental possession numbers are strong and they pressure the ball as well as anyone -- but that almost makes things worse.

You can't say "this right here is what they need to fix," either; they just look like themselves right up until the moment they lose to a relegation contender.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 3. They're still technically the favorite, if only slightly, and Neymar should return from an adductor injury soon. They're still alive in both the Champions League and Coupe de France, and it's hard to panic too much when a treble is still technically on the table. But the quality Lille, Lyon and Monaco have offered in recent months likely means there's no margin for error here. Either Les Parisiens hit fifth gear soon, or they lose their domestic crown.

Should Atletico Madrid panic about its shrinking La Liga lead?

On Jan. 31, Diego Simeone's Atletico pummeled Cadiz to win its 16th match of the league season in only 19 tries. Atleti had 50 points, 10 more than Real Madrid and with a game in hand. They were overachieving their expected goal figures in a reasonably foreboding way; there was reason to think at least a slight downgrade in form was coming, but with that lead, it didn't seem it would matter. Even with FiveThirtyEight's club ratings holding extreme fondness for Barcelona, it still gave Simeone's squad a 60% chance of winning the league.

Following Saturday's 0-0 draw with Getafe, those odds are down to 38%. A surging Barca is within four points, and after a seemingly endless array of late-game magic acts, Real Madrid is within six. Atletico have only lost once since Jan. 31 and twice total in league play, but they're hemorrhaging points all the same, suffering draws with Celta Vigo and Levante and giving up a late goal to settle for a 1-1 draw with Real Madrid on March 7.

You could make the case that Atletico's problems are simple, relentless regression to the mean. Through Jan. 31, they were averaging 2.1 goals scored and 0.5 allowed, but their xG figures -- 1.6 xG for, 1.0 xG allowed -- suggested such regression was on its way. Since the Jan. 31 win over Cadiz, xG averages have shifted only slightly: 1.5 for, 1.2 against. But they're scoring 1.3 and allowing 1.0. They were averaging an unsustainable 2.43 points in matches decided by zero or one goal; since 1/31, they're averaging 1.67. For the season, their xG differential (+0.52 per match) ranks only fourth in the league.

They probably should have never been as comfortable as they appeared a few weeks ago.

Yet none of this would necessarily matter if Barcelona, in particular, weren't smoking hot.

The Blaugrana haven't lost in league play since Dec. 5, reeling off 44 of a possible 48 points. FiveThirtyEight's algorithm ranks Barca second in Europe right now, and while you might think that seems odd considering their Champions League elimination, they've more than backed up those numbers in league play. In this supposed "disaster" of a season -- Lionel Messi tried to leave, Ansu Fati's been hurt most of the season, Luis Suarez was sold to Atletico and they opened the season in torrid form, the financial numbers are horrifying, a rickety youth movement is underway -- Barca has decent odds of pulling off a La Liga/Copa del Rey double all the same.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 4. The numbers have been against Atletico for a while, and to a degree, the schedule is too: they visit Sevilla on April 4, they play at Barcelona (May 9) and then go home to host a smoking hot Real Sociedad (May 12) back-to-back near the end of the season. Granted, we might see a couple more plot twists between now and May, but there is nothing to be comfortable about in the Wanda Metropolitano.

Should Dortmund, Leverkusen be worried about losing "second-best" status?

Borussia Dortmund has finished in the Bundesliga's top four in eight of the past nine seasons; Bayer Leverkusen has finished fifth or better in nine of 10. BVB in particular needs Champions League money to hold onto its high-upside young roster corps (Erling Haaland, Giovanni Reyna, Jadon Sancho), but while they've rallied to within two points of fourth place, the road ahead is dicey because of one key thing: the quality of the usurpers.

Eintracht Frankfurt played in one of the most famous matches in European Cup (now Champions League) history, acquitting themselves well against an all-time Real Madrid squad in the 1960 finals but still losing, 7-3. Since then: zero appearances. They won the 1980 UEFA Cup (now Europa League), and they've had plenty of respectable runs in their history; they've finished in the upper half of the Bundesliga four times in the past six years as well. But they haven't recorded a top-four finish since before the Champions League started offering more than one bid per league.

Following a rousing draw with RB Leipzig, however, their top-four bona fides are pretty strong, as are those of Wolfsburg, who haven't finished in the top four since 2015. Along with Bayern and RBL, they've separated themselves from the pack in terms of recent play.

Current point totals: Bayern 58, RB Leipzig 54, Wolfsburg 48, Eintracht Frankfurt 44 Points per game, past two months: Bayern 2.5, RBL 2.3, Wolfsburg 2.3, Eintracht 2.1 (no one else is over 1.5) xG differential, past two months: Bayern +1.41, RBL +1.07, Eintracht +0.89, Wolfsburg +0.49

Despite statistical solidity, Eintracht have leaked points of late, losing to Werder Bremen and drawing with VfB Stuttgart before the draw with RBL. Wolfsburg, meanwhile, have only been slightly ahead of a pack of other teams with its +0.49 xG differential over the last two months. (Borussia Dortmund: +0.44 in that span.) That's kept the door open. But they have earned their top-four status to date.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 4. FiveThirtyEight gives Wolfsburg an 80% chance of snaring a Champions League slot, while Eintracht is at 56%, BVB 49% and Leverkusen 14%. Luckily for all of us, the schedule makers have provided a steady stream of huge bouts in the coming weeks....

April 3: Bayern Munich at RB Leipzig; Eintracht Frankfurt at Borussia Dortmund April 10: Wolfsburg at Eintracht Frankfurt
April 17: Bayern Munich at Wolfsburg
April 21: Bayer Leverkusen at Bayern Munich
April 24: Eintracht Frankfurt at Bayer Leverkusen; Borussia Dortmund at Wolfsburg
May 15: Wolfsburg at RB Leipzig
May 22: Bayer Leverkusen at Borussia Dortmund

If the upstarts are to hold off the old standard and Bayern is to officially take down RBL to win another crown, it will all unfold on ESPN+ a little bit each weekend over the coming months.

Never mind the title race: Should AC Milan panic about making the Champions League?

AC Milan didn't suffer its first Serie A loss until Jan. 6. The Rossoneri were still in first place as late as Feb. 13. And while FiveThirtyEight's ratings have favored rival Inter in the title race for a while, it still gave Milan a 23% chance in the race in mid-February.

Their title odds right now? Just 1%. Starting with a 2-0 loss to 15th-place Spezia, they've snared just seven points from their last six league matches. A 1-0 defeat to Napoli on Sunday dropped them nine points back of Inter and perhaps as importantly, it brought them to within six points of Napoli in fifth. Dreams of their first Scudetto since 2011 have all but vanished, but they have work to do just to ensure they get a Champions League bid.

If all Italian teams were to maintain their two-month points-per-game pace for the rest of the league season, here's how the top of the table would look at the end of the season:

Inter: 96 points (2.80 points per game in last two months) Juventus: 81 (2.20) AC Milan: 74 (1.60) Atalanta: 73 (1.91) Napoli: 73 (1.90) Lazio: 70 (2.00) Roma: 68 (1.60)

That is tight. Milan have to travel to Lazio (April 25), Juve (May 9) and Atalanta (May 23) in the final weeks of the season, and recent form suggests that Atalanta, Napoli and Lazio could all close in pretty soon if Stefano Pioli's less-than-full-strength squad doesn't turn things around.

While the team is playing well as a collective, individual absences have proven tough to overcome. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been out since late-February with a muscle tear, midfielder Ismael Bennacer has been out since mid-February and recent signee Mario Mandzukic has recorded only 158 total minutes for his new club because of injury. Since this slide began on Feb. 13, only one player -- defensive midfielder Franck Kessie -- has scored more than once in all competitions, and he's done all of his damage from the penalty spot. An actual forward hasn't scored since Ibrahimovic's brace against Crotone on Feb. 7.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 4. Milan's comeback to draw 1-1 against Manchester United in the first leg of the Europa League round of 16 showed that they still have some fight in them, and the positive way of looking at the late-season schedule is that they'll have every chance in the world to earn the points necessary for a top-four finish. But they've hit a skid just as top rivals have begun to step on the gas. They don't have much time to find their rhythm again.

Should Everton panic over missing out on any European competition?

It's been a season of spurts for Carlo Ancelotti's Everton. The Toffees began the season with seven straight wins in all competitions, four straight in the Premier League. And every time a funk sent them backwards, a surge followed -- three points in five matches, then 13 in five. Five points in six matches, then three straight wins.

They're going to need another surge. After a win over West Brom on March 4 brought them back to fifth place, one point behind Chelsea for fourth with a game in hand, losses to Chelsea and Burnley have knocked them back to sixth. They're still only five points out of fourth, and they still have that game in hand, but they're also only five points up on 10th-place Aston Villa.

Here's where I should mention that the predictive metrics HATE the Blues. FiveThirtyEight's algorithm ranks them 12th in England, and they've put together their current sixth-place resume with an xG differential of minus-0.19 per match -- good for 12th in the Premier League. Over the past two months, that has slipped to minus-0.42, 15th-best behind two teams currently in relegation spots (Fulham and West Brom).

This has been a "shot quality over quantity" team all year, ranking 15th in shots per possession (0.11) but first in xG per shot (0.14), but since January, these rankings have fallen to 17th and fourth, respectively. They have no real pressure game to speak of, and for the season, opponents have finished 44% of possessions in the attacking third to Everton's 36%. Individual attacking brilliance has carried them during their aforementioned spurts, but since Jan. 1, Dominic Calvert-Lewin has scored only three goals, and James Rodriguez has missed five league matches and recorded just two goals and six chances created in the other eight. Richarlison did his best to pick up the slack, scoring in four straight matches at one point, but he's otherwise come up empty in 2021.

PANIC RATING (1-5): 5. The metrics had been suggesting Everton would struggle to finish this race in England's top four, but even a top-six finish (which would guarantee European competition of some sort) feels a bit optimistic at this point.

If they've got another spurt in them, it better come soon: after the upcoming international break, they host Crystal Palace on April 3, then visit Brighton on April 10 before four straight matches against teams also vying for European slots (Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Aston Villa, West Ham). The darling of September will need a huge April to remain in the UEFA conversation.

Ross Taylor will miss the opening ODI against Bangladesh due to a hamstring injury with opens the door for New Zealand to field two debutants in their batting line-up in Dunedin.

Taylor, who is New Zealand's leading run-scorer in ODIs, will remain with the squad and it is hoped he will recover to play the final two matches.

Mark Chapman has been called into the squad as cover for Taylor although his absence will most likely mean first caps for Devon Conway and Will Young. Conway was already favoured to make the XI in the absence of Kane Williamson and Young would now appear set to replace Taylor.

The opening game of the series will be the first ODI since 2014 where New Zealand have had neither Williamson or Taylor in the XI.

"It's a shame for Ross to have this happen on the eve of a series," New Zealand coach Gary Stead said. "It's a small tear and we're hopeful after some rest and rehabilitation we can get him fit for the second game in Christchurch.

"It's an exciting time for Mark who's come in and performed well recently for the T20 side, so we have full confidence he can do the job if called upon."

Chapman has played six ODIs having debuted for Hong Kong, but in his four matches for New Zealand has yet to reach double figures. He played an important role with the ball in the recent T20I decider against Australia in Wellington when he sent down two overs of left-arm spin and claimed the key wicket of Glenn Maxwell. Having overcome a shoulder problem, Chapman is hopeful of increasing his bowling load to grow his all-round value.

"Last year I had to pull back on the bowling front. Every time I bowled more than five or 10 overs I got pretty sore but this year it's come right and I'm able to get some real volume," he told reporters at Auckland airport. "That's been a good thing for me and a string to my bow I'm looking to add."

"First and foremost my batting is important, I need to be batting well, but with that added quality of being able to bowl and bat in the top order, with World Cups coming up in the subcontinent I think it's something that will work in my favour."

New Zealand have not played ODI cricket for more than a year - since their curtailed tour of Australia when the pandemic first struck - and have only played four matches since the 2019 World Cup final.

The Buffalo Bills and wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders reached agreement on a one-year, $6 million deal that includes another $500,000 in incentives, a source told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Tuesday.

The New Orleans Saints released Sanders earlier this month as they scrambled to get under the salary cap. He had been scheduled to make $8 million, with $2 million guaranteed, in 2021.

Sanders, 33, caught 61 passes for 726 yards and five touchdowns in 14 regular-season games last season. He caught another eight passes for 51 yards in the playoffs.

The 5-foot-11, 180-pounder has a total of 662 catches for 8,619 yards and 47 touchdowns in an 11-year career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers and the Saints.

He has been selected to two Pro Bowls and has appeared in three Super Bowls -- winning a title with the 2015 Broncos.

Later Tuesday, the Bills traded tight end Lee Smith to the Atlanta Falcons for a 2022 late-round pick, a league source told Schefter. Smith, 33, made his four catches last season count, scoring two touchdowns and totaling 35 yards.

Smith was a fifth-round draft pick of the New England Patriots in 2011 out of Marshall.

ESPN's Mike Triplett contributed to this report.

Tiger Woods said he has returned to his South Florida home to continue recovery from the serious leg injuries he suffered in a one-vehicle crash in Southern California on Feb. 23.

Woods, 45, said in a statement via Twitter that he is "so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks.

"Thank you to all the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center," Woods said in the statement. "You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough.

"I will be recovering at home and working on getting stronger every day."

Woods, a 15-time major champion, had not played an official tournament since he tied for 38th at the November Masters. He was recovering from a Dec. 23 back procedure and hoping to ramp up activities when he went to Riviera Country Club to perform his hosting duties at the Genesis Invitational the weekend of Feb. 20-21.

As part of that trip, Woods was also scheduled for two days of activities as part of an endorsement deal.

He was on his way to the second day's events just after 7 a.m. local time when he was involved in the single-car crash in which his SUV hit a curb and rolled over. Woods needed to be extricated from the car and endured hours of surgery for what a doctor described as "significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity."

As part of the statement that day released on Woods' Twitter account, Dr. Anish Mahajan of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center said that Woods had multiple "open fractures'' to his lower right leg, and he had a rod placed in his tibia and screws and pins inserted in his foot and ankle during an emergency surgery.

Later that week, Woods was transferred to another hospital, and his team had not released any official statements prior to Tuesday since Feb. 28.

Several players, including Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas, said that they had been in communication with Woods in recent weeks. Several wore red and black in his honor on Feb. 28 at the WGC-Workday Championship, and DeChambeau said he had received words of encouragement from Woods before winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Thomas said Sunday after winning the Players Championship that he, too, had been in touch with Woods.

"I was replaying what he told me a lot in my head," Thomas said. "He likes to give me a lot of grief, especially when he's not here, and calling him, like Bryson said. ... We're all pulling for him. And I'm so glad to hear everything has been going well with him.

"But part of me wishes he was here so I could rub it in his face a little bit more. But, no, I'm happy and I hope he's happy, and I always appreciate his help."

Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens said Tuesday that he's flattered by being mentioned as a candidate for the head-coaching opening at Indiana University but that he's "extremely grateful" to be the coach of the Celtics.

"It means a lot," Stevens said of the groundswell of support for him to return to his home state and take over the program at its flagship university. "It means a lot. I know that ... listen, I've got a lot of friends back there. I've got a lot of people that are really important to me there. My dad's still there. That does mean a lot. I won't act like that doesn't. Like I said earlier today, it's flattering.

"But I also realize that I'm the coach of the Celtics and that's -- it's been an amazing opportunity, an amazing challenge every day for the last eight years and I'm extremely grateful for that."

Stevens was born and raised in Zionsville, Indiana, just northeast of Indianapolis and a little over an hour north of Bloomington, where Indiana is located. He played college basketball in the state at DePauw University, and then coached Butler to back-to-back national championship games in 2010 and 2011 before leaving to coach the Celtics in 2013.

Despite his success with the Celtics, including going to the Eastern Conference finals three of the past four seasons and getting a contract extension during the 2020 playoffs, any time a prominent college job becomes available, Stevens' name is floated as a potential candidate. But that noise is only ratcheted up by the possibility of him returning to Indiana and restoring it to the glory days it enjoyed under Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight.

Archie Miller was fired earlier this week after four disappointing seasons with the Hoosiers. Indiana hasn't made the Final Four since 2002 and hasn't won a national championship since 1987.

"Listen, every job has its challenges," Stevens said when asked about why Indiana hasn't won lately. "Every job has it's great things. I don't really wanna act like I know. I know -- and I said this today -- obviously, I have a great affinity for that state and basketball in that state. That place was a huge part of what drove my passion for basketball. In fact, it was the central thing. I don't know what challenges each place has because you don't work there. But I know when you're a kid growing up in that state, basketball means a lot and the college programs in the state mean a ton. And, for me growing up, it was certainly IU.

"But you know, hey, I think Archie is a good coach and he did a really good job of preparing [current Celtic] Romeo [Langford]. I thought when Romeo came in you could tell he was advanced in a lot of ways. I've known Arch for a while, I haven't talked to him much. I think, in coaching, you always recognize how hard it is to be good, how hard it is to win."

Stevens was much happier to talk about former Celtics assistant Micah Shrewsberry taking another Big Ten coaching job, as Shrewsberry -- who also coached with Stevens at Butler -- was named the head coach of Penn State University earlier this week.

"I said in my little quote that they asked, the greatest compliment you can give somebody on a sports team is that they made everybody around them better," Stevens said. "I used to play with Micah in open gym, traveling across the city of Indianapolis when we were 16, 17 years old, when we didn't hardly know each other. And it was obvious then he was a guy you wanted to play with, because he knew how to play and he'd get everybody the ball and he made his team better. Then I played against him in college, and it was the same thing. And I worked with him at Butler, it was the same thing. We both had young families together; they're always there for us. And spending six years with him here. He's as good as it gets, he's got great perspective. He's a great basketball coach. Obviously, I think going back to Purdue was a great move for him because it got him back into the mindset of recruiting, Matt [Painter] let him call the plays and run the offense at Purdue, which tells you a lot about Matt Painter and the way that he approaches things. I'm happy for him. I'm really happy for him."

CHICAGO -- An Illinois appellate court ruled Tuesday a woman struck by a foul ball at Wrigley Field can move ahead with a lawsuit she filed against Major League Baseball.

In upholding a lower court ruling, the appellate court said the plaintiff was not limited to arbitrating her case with Major League Baseball. It noted the arbitration provision was hidden in fine print and couldn't be appreciated by the plaintiff.

Laiah Zuniga was struck in the face by a foul ball during a 2018 Chicago Cubs game. In the lawsuit filed last year, Zuniga says the ball knocked her unconscious, caused facial fractures and extensive damage to her teeth. She says she was hit because the stadium hadn't extended netting that protects fans from foul balls all the way down the third base line, where she was sitting.

Professional sports teams have largely been protected from lawsuits. Language on the back of ticket stubs states the ticket holder assumes the risks and dangers that come with attending a game. The assumption of risk has been spelled out on ticket stubs for more than a century.

In its opinion, the court noted the likelihood a ticket holder would see or read the full arbitration provision by accessing a team's website or visiting its administrative office is diminished further by the minimal effort on the ticket to draw the holder's attention to the need to do so in order to understand they are agreeing to binding arbitration.

"I think it was a well-reasoned ruling," said Henry Simmons, managing partner of the law firm representing Zuniga, noting a ticket holder is at a disadvantage when it comes to the conditions listed on the ticket stub.

Simmons pointed out the need to go to a team website to learn the terms of the arbitration agreement and finding out that ticket holder option of notifying them within seven days if you rejected the terms.

"It doesn't make any sense," Simmons said. "That is the reason the court found it unconscionable."

An attorney representing MLB did immediately return telephone calls for comment on the appellate court decision. The appellate court's ruling can be appealed before the Illinois Supreme Court.

MLB issued recommendations for protective netting or screens in December 2015, encouraging teams to have it in place between the ends of the dugouts closest to home plate. The push for an expansion increased after a series of spectator injuries.

Before the 2018 season, Major League Baseball mandated netting extend to the far end of each dugout.