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Former Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers, who ranks No. 2 in SEC history in passing yards, told ESPN on Friday that he's committed to transferring to Washington.

Rogers is on an official visit at the school this weekend, and he told ESPN he committed to the staff. He has one year of eligibility remaining and will be immediately eligible. Rogers threw for 12,315 yards over four seasons in Starkville.

Rogers will be favored to replace Heisman Trophy finalist Michael Penix next season, as Penix led the Huskies to an undefeated season, the Pac-12 title and a bid in the College Football Playoff.

Rogers said he was attracted to the system run by coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, as Washington led the nation with 343.8 passing yards per game in 2023. He also appreciated the collection of skill players, tight ends and offensive line talent.

"Obviously, how Coach Grubb runs his offense, it's one of the tops in the country with how they score points and how quarterback friendly the system is," Rogers said. "People started to catch on to them in 2022, that's when the whole nation took notice. Things didn't go as planned this year [for me], and I entered the portal. I had hoped that they would reach out."

Rogers is from Mississippi and went to school about 90 minutes from his home on the outskirts of Jackson. The move will be nearly 2,500 miles away.

"It was nice to have family and friends to watch all the games," he said. "But at some point, you have to think about what's best for your career. This is the best move for me and my family. That's what we think is best."

Rogers put up prolific passing numbers during his career at Mississippi State. Along with the 12,315 passing yards, he's the only SEC quarterback with more than 1,000 career completions at 1,301. That included 505 completions in 2021 under former coach Mike Leach.

Rogers has started 38 games and is the NCAA's No. 39 career passer. Another season in the neighborhood of 4,000 yards, an area he's approached twice, will put him among the top five all-time passers in the sport.

Rogers' statistics dipped in 2023. Leach passed away late in 2022, which led to a sudden coaching change and a different offensive philosophy. After injury limited Rogers to eight games, he completed just 142 passes in 2023.

"I know I have one more crack at it," Rogers told ESPN. "I know I had to do what I had to do -- win as many games as possible. It's a place I feel like they throw the ball around a lot, as we did my first three years at Mississippi State. That's something I'll be excited about coming in."

Rogers said that two ties helped lead him to Seattle. MSU strength coach Tyson Brown played for Grubb and DeBoer in college at Sioux Falls (South Dakota), which gave him a connection and familiarity. Rogers also saw the experience that former teammate Dillon Johnson had leaving Starkville for Seattle, rushing for 1,113 yards and 14 touchdowns this season.

"Him going there and having some success was eye-opening for a lot of people," Rogers said. "It was eye-opening for a lot of people in the locker room. It's college football these days, man. When someone leaves the SEC that you played with and has some success, you have to take notice of that."

Former MSU tailback Jo'Quavious Marks is also slated to visit campus this weekend.

Thursday Injury Report

The Seahawks' upcoming matchup with the Eagles was flexed into the Monday Night Football primetime slot so each team was given an extra day of rest leading up to Week 15. The Seahawks held their first practice of the Week on Thursday afternoon and were missing four players due to injuries and one to personal reasons.

Among the four players who missed the first practice of the week were defensive backs Jamal Adams and rookie Devon Witherspoon. Witherspoon sustained a hip injury in the Week 14 loss to the 49ers and was unable to return to the game because of it. While his injury is not considered serious, his availability for Monday is in question. "He won't work today," said head coach Pete Carroll. "We'll rest him a little bit longer, and we won't know, we've got to take it day-to-day with that one." The team hopes that he can progress throughout the week and return in time for Monday night.

Also missing practice were linebackers Jorydn Brooks and Nick Bellore. Brooks suffered an ankle injury that forced him to miss the majority of the Week 13 game in Dallas but was able to return for Week 14.

Quarterback Geno Smith was a game-time decision for Week 14 in San Francisco and was ultimately unable to play against the 49ers due to a groin injury he suffered in practice last week. As for his status for this week, coach Carroll is optimistic that Smith could return for Monday night. "Geno went through the walkthrough today, he's going to practice today," said coach Carroll after walkthrough on Thursday. "He had a good lift this morning, so we'll see how each goes, we'll go one day at a time and figure that out. He feels really good, and he threw the heck out of the ball in the morning session, so we'll see what happens today with the hope that he's ready to go."

After suffering injuries over the past few weeks, the running back group seems to be getting healthier as both Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet were not on the first injury report of the week. "They made it out quite well," coach Carroll said. "They looked great today getting started for the week. Both guys feel really good, so there's no issues with what they were dealing with the week before."

The Eagles had three players miss Thursday's practice including star cornerback Darius Slay. Slay is dealing with a knee injury and was unable to practice today.

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With pitchers and catchers set to report to spring training in just two months, the uncertainty surrounding one of the Seattle Mariners’ primary revenue streams — local television broadcasts — has led to an even more cautious approach in the team’s financial dealings this offseason.

The organization’s financial outlook, already a hot-button topic for a fan base growing increasingly frustrated by the team’s lack of spending, will become further clouded Jan. 1 when the Mariners’ ownership group takes complete control of its regional sports network, ROOT Sports Northwest.

John Stanton, the Mariners chairperson and managing partner, wanted to make it clear: Mariners fans still will be able to watch games through their cable provider in the same manner they always have.

“Our top priority is to ensure all Mariners fans have access to watch Mariners games from their home each night,” Stanton told The Seattle Times on Friday.

Which media entity winds up producing Mariners games — and who foots the bill for operational costs — remains an open question for Stanton and the Mariners’ ownership group.

Since 2013, the Mariners’ First Avenue Entertainment has held a majority stake — 71% — of ROOT Sports NW. FAE had been partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery, a minority stakeholder that has provided full operational support to produce Mariners games.

Warner Bros. Discovery, however, is withdrawing from all its local sports television business, and that means the Mariners’ owners will enter the new year with a 100% stake in ROOT Sports NW at a time when the regional sports network model is collapsing nationwide.

In the decade since FAE took controlling interest of ROOT Sports, Comcast subscriptions have fallen by 65% in the local market — from 3.4 million in 2013 to roughly 1.2 million now — according to one industry source with direct knowledge of the situation.

“The financial impact is real,” another industry source told The Times. “ROOT Sports is feeling that, and the Mariners are feeling that.”

That financial fallout has forced the Mariners into an unexpected quagmire.

Stanton met with ROOT Sports staffers Tuesday to discuss the future of the station, four industry sources told The Times.

Stanton promised a decision on the next steps made by the organization by mid-January but could not promise all staffers that they would retain their jobs, sources said.

The uncertainty surrounding ROOT Sports comes on the heels of Comcast Xfinity’s announcement Oct. 10 that it was nearly doubling the cost of a subscription to the regional sports network, or RSN. That is projected to make a sizable dent in viewership for Mariners games next season, and the team will not receive an increased cut from Comcast’s rate hike.

Since Comcast’s announcement, the Mariners have shed some $44 million in player salary commitments. Notably, they traded popular third baseman Eugenio Suarez to the Arizona Diamondbacks and then included former top prospect Jarred Kelenic in a trade to the Atlanta Braves to rid themselves of the contracts owed to Marco Gonzales and Evan White.

The Mariners’ payroll was roughly $140 million last year, which ranked 18th among 30 MLB teams according to USA Today, and had been expected to rise incrementally in 2024.

Stanton and the Mariners’ ownership group are weighing two options with ROOT Sports NW, as industry sources outlined.

1. The Mariners could absorb the operational costs of producing live games and maintain the status quo in 2024. The exact cost to produce games is not clear, but it would be a significant new investment. Short term, that is believed to be the Mariners’ most likely decision, a source said.

2. The Mariners could partner with Major League Baseball, which has been “aggressively pursuing” teams to join its newly formed broadcasting division. MLB took over the local broadcasts of the Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres midway through the 2023 season when those teams’ RSNs deteriorated.

MLB has said it has the capability to broadcast local games for 17 teams. When and how MLB’s centralized model becomes profitable is unclear, and the Mariners could take a wait-and-see approach with MLB.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each option, just as there are advantages and disadvantages for the Mariners in having ownership of their RSN.

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“They control their own destiny right now, and that’s a good thing,” a source said. “The disadvantage is … you own the risk, too.”

ROOT Sports also owns the local media rights for the NHL’s Seattle Kraken and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, adding two layers of uncertainty with the RSN’s future.

The Kraken have a multiyear contract with ROOT Sports with an annual TV rights fee said to be within the standard $15 million-$30 million range for NHL teams. Warner Bros. Discovery, as it has done with Mariners games, has been running operations to produce live Kraken games (including pregame and postgame shows).

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The Blazers signed a four-year broadcast rights agreement with ROOT for an undisclosed amount in June 2021 that is scheduled to run through the 2024-25 season. The Blazers have their own in-house operations to broadcast games.

The Mariners are hardly alone in bracing for an uncertain future with their broadcasting media rights. The viability of the RSN model has crumbled in recent years as cable television subscriptions have plummeted.

For many years, the TV rights packages were a major source in subsidizing escalating player payrolls in various pro sports. That landscape is crumbling, leaving teams and leagues searching for new revenue options.

With Diamond Sports Group, the owner of Bally Sports Networks, filing for bankruptcy in March, the TV rights deals signed by 14 MLB teams were put at risk of not receiving agreed-upon payment. The Diamondbacks and Padres were the first two franchises to lose their deals, with MLB taking over their broadcasts. The Minnesota Twins’ deal with DSG expired after the season, and they are without a network. The Cleveland Guardians and World Series champion Texas Rangers could lose their TV deals in the coming months based on more bankruptcy court rulings.

Though the league has promised to recoup up to 80% of the money teams were expected to receive from Diamond Sports, the lost revenue is still forcing teams to trim payrolls.

Consequently, the Padres plan to trim their bloated payroll by $40 million-$50 million, which is why they traded star Juan Soto to the New York Yankees last week.

The Rangers have said they won’t add significant contracts to their large payroll, and the Guardians are trying to trade All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase and starting pitcher Shane Bieber to shed payroll.

The Twins are trying to reduce a $154 million payroll by $20 million-$25 million this offseason.

“It’s certainly having an impact,” Twins general manager Derek Falvey said at the recent winter meetings. “We’re in a position where our deal expired last year, and so ultimately there’s some uncertainty going forward. That’s just a fact. That’s a reality of our business. We’ve pushed on the payroll front the last few years. We’ve set team records the last two cycles. We knew there’d be some ebb and flow, and that’s ultimately impacted some by revenue uncertainty.”

Ryan Divish: [email protected]; on Twitter: @RyanDivish. Ryan Divish covers the Mariners in Seattle and on the road. Look for his 'Extra Innings' podcast and mailbags during the season.

Adam Jude: [email protected]; on Twitter: @A_Jude. Adam Jude covers the Mariners and other teams for The Seattle Times.

Kalen DeBoer has done this before.

In more ways than one.

Two years after UW’s football coach took a high-profile quarterback transfer in Indiana’s Michael Penix Jr., DeBoer appears to be following a similar path. Will Rogers — the SEC’s No. 2 all-time passer, with 12,315 yards in four seasons at Mississippi State — will transfer to Washington, he told ESPN Friday. Rogers has one season of remaining eligibility.

This also marks the program’s return to Mississippi State, after standout running back Dillon Johnson transferred to UW last offseason.

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Rogers reportedly committed while on an official visit to Seattle. He reposted ESPN’s story detailing his commitment on social media, essentially confirming the news.

In four seasons, 43 games and 40 starts, Rogers completed 69.4% of his passes and threw for 12,315 yards with 96 total touchdowns and 28 interceptions. The Brandon, Miss., native excelled in Mike Leach’s air raid offense, setting SEC records for single-season (505 in 2021) and career completions (1,301) and school records for career passing yards (12,315) and passing touchdowns (94).

By those standards, Rogers struggled somewhat in 2023 — completing just 60% of his passes and throwing for 1,626 yards with 13 total touchdowns and four interceptions, while missing four games with a shoulder injury. His statistics backslid after being thrust into an unfamiliar system, under a first-year coach (Zach Arnett) who was fired in November after just 10 games.

Like Penix after four injury-plagued seasons at Indiana, Rogers brings promise and risk.

But his character is not in question.

“Will … man, that’s a leader. He knows how to lead,” said Johnson, who played with Rogers from 2020 to 2022. “He was our leader when I was at Mississippi State, and he still is a leader.”

Considering UW’s sudden absence of experience, proven leadership will be welcome. Three other scholarship quarterbacks — junior William Haskell, redshirt freshman Austin Mack and true freshman Dermaricus Davis — are expected to fill out UW’s quarterback room.

But without Penix (who’s out of eligibility after finishing as the Heisman Trophy runner-up this fall) and junior Dylan Morris (who entered the transfer portal Monday and started 15 games in Seattle), Rogers is easily Washington’s most veteran arm.

“Those are guys [Mack and Davis] we’re really excited to be part of the program, but they lack experience,” UW offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said Thursday. “So I think the first quality [we’re looking for in a transfer QB] is a guy that has some experience, and then he has to be a fit. The culture piece is huge.

“Mike came in here and made this place better than when he found it. He did that through growing as a leader and as a person. Shoot, today he was just in there and we didn’t have a good practice on offense, and some of the guys I think were a little bit absent-minded on practice. Coaches didn’t have to say anything. Mike kept the offense afterward and got after ‘em, like, ‘What are we chasing? Every practice matters. Every lift matters.’

“So that’s the thing you have to have from a guy coming in from a leadership standpoint, someone that can fall in line with that and try to pick up where Mike left off. They’re not going to be Mike. They have to be their own person. But experience and leadership I think are two key parts.”

Indeed, Rogers cannot and will not be Penix — who produced 66% completions, 8,859 passing yards, 71 touchdowns, 17 interceptions and 24 wins in 26 games (as well as a Pac-12 title, a Maxwell Award and a playoff berth).

But DeBoer and Grubb certainly believe what the statistics say:

The SEC’s No. 2 all-time passer can play.

Mike Vorel: [email protected]; on Twitter: @MikeVorel. Mike Vorel is the UW football beat writer for The Seattle Times.

On Thursday evening, after two weeks of fire-sale discounts and dismayed customers, the last Bartell Drugs in downtown Seattle was ringing up its final sales.

Store #1, as the 39-year-old location at Fifth Avenue and Olive Street was known, is the latest in a string of closures since Rite Aid, Bartell’s now-bankrupt corporate parent, began frantically cutting its retail “footprint” last year.

Of 67 Bartell locations operating when Rite Aid bought Bartell in 2020, 21 have shut down — including, notably, six in downtown Seattle, once one of Bartell’s most important markets.

Indeed, until last month, the staff at Store #1 thought they’d be spared, given their sole-survivor status; the nearest Bartell to downtown is now in Queen Anne, around 2.5 miles away.

But when Rite Aid started reducing Store #1’s weekly deliveries in early November, staff said, it was clear none of the history mattered — and shortly after Thanksgiving, they began breaking the news to customers.

“I don’t know where I’ll go,” said Janice Shaw, who works nearby and reckons she shopped in the store most days.

“That’s messed up,” added Bill Johnson, an elderly downtown resident who had just heard the news last week and dreaded telling the dozen or so of his neighbors who walk to Store #1 for their medications.

The closure of Store #1 and the exit of Bartell from downtown, which had been a centerpiece of the Bartell empire for most of its 133 years, underscores what got “messed up” at Bartell.

That includes the implosion of Rite Aid, of course, and before that, COVID-19. It includes the financial impact of falling prescription reimbursements, and ceaseless competition from vastly larger national chains and Amazon.

But paradoxically, what also messed up Bartell Drugs was a unique and very Seattle business model that may have been too reliant on downtown.

Store #1, which had opened in 1984, had been one of Bartell’s top performers, according to Bartell employees as well as vendors. Located on a busy intersection near the site of Bartell’s former flagship on Pine Street, it had done a brisk trade in a downtown that was recovering from a prolonged slump.

Those customers hadn’t come for the prices. To the contrary, the retailer had the Seattle area’s second-highest prescription prices, according to a 1994 Seattle Times survey.

Instead, Bartell was still winning business much as it had for decades.

Bartell Drugs obsessed over customer service. Many employees were long-serving and not only knew customers by name and preferences, but also believed deeply in the company.

“It wasn’t a job — it was a mission,” says a longtime Bartell employee who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to comment. Getting hired at Bartell, they said, was like coming to work for “Disneyland.”

That zeal produced “a remarkable cadre of loyal customers … who will always shop at Bartell’s even if the price is lower someplace else,” Dick Outcalt, a Seattle retail consultant, told The Times in 1990.

As important, though, was Bartell’s “front of store” business.

Bartell stores were famous for their unusually wide selections, from household products and toys to food and especially candy, much of it upscale.

Bartell also put special emphasis on locally made products, such as Almond Roca from Tacoma-based Brown & Haley; Aplets & Cotlets from Liberty Orchards in Cashmere; and Theo Chocolate from Seattle.

It was a merchandising strategy suited to a booming metropolitan area where “the average income levels are pretty high, the average educational level is pretty high” as George D. Bartell, grandson of the company’s founder, explained when the Rite Aid sale was announced.

Bartell Drugs came to rely on front-of-store sales for around 40% of its revenue, or roughly twice the percentage of national drugstore chains, said George Bartell, now 72, in the 2020 interview.

That heavy front-of-store reliance would be even greater downtown, with its throngs of convenience-minded commuters.

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Downtown had challenged retailers in the postwar years, as shoppers fled to the suburbs. But its revival, starting in the 1980s, spurred a downtown Bartell expansion that accelerated with the tech boom.

By 2019, Bartell had six downtown locations in addition to Store #1. And while the company didn’t break out performance of individual stores, executives later acknowledged that downtown stores generated a disproportionate share of total sales. Store #1 in particular was a top producer, frequently challenging even the company’s flagship store in University Village, according to the longtime employee.

Outwardly, Bartell’s front-of-store formula appeared incredibly successful.

Between 1986 and 2019, the company grew from 28 stores and around $50 million in annual sales to 67 stores and sales of $550 million, and at one point was the oldest family owned drugstore chain in the U.S.

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But from inside the company, that front-of-store formula was becoming a liability.

By the early 2000s, Bartell’s reliance on front-of-store sales was “probably” making the company more vulnerable to competition by Amazon and other online retailers, said George Bartell in the 2020 interview.

“Our sales didn’t go down [but] they weren’t going up as fast as we thought they should,” he said.

One bright spot was downtown, where office workers still drove solid front-of-store sales, George Bartell said.

But even that proved temporary.

In March 2019, company officials said Bartell wouldn’t open any more downtown locations due to theft and security costs. Months later, Bartell Drugs shuttered its Third and Union store after what former employees said was $1 million in theft-related expenses that year.

But the real damage would come the following year, when COVID-related restrictions largely took away most of Bartell’s downtown customers.

Business at downtown Bartell stores fell at least 50%, employees and vendors say, even as sales ticked up in some neighborhood locations.

“The volume of stores downtown is proportionally higher than our other stores. So when they perform poorly, it takes a whole lot more to overcome that,” Kathi Lentzsch, who became CEO in 2019, said in a 2020 interview with The Times.

Some current and former employees think other factors also contributed to Bartell’s faltering fortunes. These include the move to outside leadership, starting in 2015 with former REI executive Brian Unmacht, and later Lentzsch, after George Bartell stepped back.

Some also blamed poor technology investments and underestimated costs associated with a massive new warehouse that opened in Des Moines in 2018.

What isn’t in dispute is by late 2020, Bartell was in deep trouble and borrowing money to “meet its operating needs and increasing net losses,” according to financial filings by Rite Aid.

The $95 million sale price, which Rite Aid reckoned was around 30% below market value, “reflected the fact the seller would have needed to incur further significant debt” to cover the operating costs of Bartell, according to filings.

At the time of the sale, Rite Aid argued that it had the “infrastructure, scale and expertise” to turn Bartell Drugs around.

Instead, Rite Aid, already heavily indebted, saw its own fortunes spiral under pressure from rivals and mounting financial risks related to opioid litigation.

The acquisition was followed by numerous problems at many Bartell locations. There were massive pharmacy backups that some Bartell employees blamed on Rite Aid’s prescription system.

Bartell employees also blamed Rite Aid for disruptions in store deliveries and relationships with some vendors. Bankruptcy filings by Rite Aid also indicate that many longtime local Bartell vendors were owed millions of dollars as of mid-October.

The bankruptcy itself is still in its early stages. Unclear, for example, is whether Rite Aid can repay more than $3 billion in debt — or whether reorganization becomes liquidation and a fire sale of Rite Aid’s remaining retail assets.

That could bode poorly for Bartell Drugs, which experts say is unlikely to be sold as an intact operation. Not when national chains are closing hundreds of stores, or when the very notion of a brick-and-mortar drugstore is being picked apart.

Competitors like CVS or Walgreens might want to buy and rebrand individual Bartell locations, said Neil Saunders, a managing director at data analysis company GlobalData.

While Bartell remains a potent local brand, Saunders said, “the business itself just isn’t financially viable [enough] for anyone to say, ‘Yeah, this is a great asset for us to come in and buy.’”

Back at Store #1, the focus has been more immediate. Every minute or so on a recent afternoon, another customer filed out wearing various expressions of disappointment.

“Where do you shop … if you live down here?” asked Marilynn Yaffee, a downtown resident of seven years as she stood on the sidewalk outside.

Yaffee was irked to discover that her Bartell prescriptions had been transferred to the Walgreens four blocks away on Pike Street, “and that’s really not where I want to go.”

Yaffee’s real concern, she said, was for the staff. Many weren’t sure whether they’d be able to transfer to other Bartell or Rite Aid locations, given how many had closed recently. “They were so sad.”

It was such a bleak contrast to the vibe she’d gotten used to at Store #1, where, despite the stress of the pandemic and constant security concerns, the staff had always seemed to go the extra mile.

“They even knew my favorite candy,” Jelly Belly Belly Flops, Yaffee said. She said the variety is hard to find, and whenever she went into Store #1, staff would joke about ordering extra for her.

“I mean, think of all the tourists and everybody that lives down here, that they’re going to remember I like Belly Flops?” said Yaffee. “It’s just a silly little thing, but it was just … kind of sweet.”

Paul Roberts: [email protected]; on Twitter: @Pauledroberts.