NFL Tidbits:

• Fletcher Cox & the Eagles agreed to a 6-year, $103 million extension. Unrelated, Von Miller stares at his 50 Ring and licks his lips.
• Run-DMC had elbow surgery after “an accident in his home” and will be out a couple of months at least.
  • Whether he ever sees the field this year is another question.

    

• Not sure if trolling or clickbaiting, but Florio has clips of a Dallas Morning News interview with Stephen Jones on the 20th anniversary of the Cowboys last Super Bowl win in 1996. Among the takeaways,
  • Jerry Jones almost bought the Chargers in 1966? Damn.
  • There has been a generation that has grown up without viewing the Cowboys as “champions”.
    • No word on killing that “America’s Team” garbage, though.
  • They are worried they are losing the older generations that only remember the glory days. (Isn’t that most Cowboys fans?)
  • Since their last visit to the NFC championship game in 1995, only three NFC teams haven’t played in that game: Dallas, Detroit & Washington.
• The Seahawks are giving former UW Husky and NBA point guard Nate Robinson a tryout at defensive back. At 32, it seems more like a publicity stunt, but he did start for the football Huskies, so it’s not Billy Crystal playing Spring Training for the Yankees.
• The Packers are using something called dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), a method that uses two X-ray beams to measure the muscle, fat and bone mass in a person’s body, to gauge the fitness of returning players, not just Eddie Lacy.
  • The logic is sound, and from what I could follow uses the same technology and science as a bone-density scan. (Sill?)
  • Using this is based off the premise that BMI uses too-simple measures that declare otherwise-healthy people obese, like JJ Watt, Eddie Lacy. and Phil Kessel.
    • resulting in a more-accurate measure of where fat is, not how fat you are, for example:
      • 
    • Reading the in-depth story made me feel better about my gut, because the rest of me is trim. Ugly, however, still can’t be fixed.

Finally, si.com is reporting that Fan Duel and DraftKings are discussing a possible merger, with Reuters saying it would be Fan Duel acquiring DraftKings. Either way, nothing much will happen until all state lawsuits have been resolved, and restrictions on operations have been removed.  Back in my day, we only trusted Greeks with our sports books.

Two separate SI covers this week, both hockey related. (SI will only allow partial covers to be clipped.)

The National Cover has the Pens Stanley Cup win

The “Regional” cover is for Michigan and Canada, and stars – for the last time – Gordie Howe.

Kinda sad it can’t be both, but next week guarantees they will have the NBA champs on the cover, so I understand the decision even though I don’t like it.

Wrapping up the Stanley Cup playoffs, Game 6 barely beat the Tony Awards in terms of ratings, 1.9 vs 1.6. That rating works out to about 5.7 million viewers, and takes into account the 35 share the game had in the Pittsburgh viewing area, and the 9.2 share in the Bay Area. The Tony Awards’ audience was the highest since 2003, and is being attributed to the popularity of “Hamilton”. Also, news coverage of the tragedy in Orlando gave news networks and shows higher Nielsen ratings.

Overall, these were the lowest-rated Finals since the Oilers-Hurricanes final in 2006. Total 2016 Playoffs viewership was down 18% in Canada; it actually improved for the Cup finals. US viewership was down 14% from 2015, but the slim victory for the NHL is that it was the highest-rated Finals not involving two Original-6 teams.

In comparison, Monday’s Game 5 of the NBA Finals had a 14.2 rating, equaling 17.5 million viewers, and Sunday’s “Game of Thrones” episode had a 3.9 rating, or about 8 million viewers.

Conclusion: Gary Bettman is ratings poison, possibly actual poison.

I was too late to get in on the discussion about tattoos this afternoon, so I present my salient facts here.

https://vimeo.com/69310297

Because there’s only baseball and Copa tonight,

• Copa America:
  • Chile vs Panama – 8:00 – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia
  • Argentina vs Bolivia – 10:00 – Century Link Field, Seattle

and sweet-fuck-all otherwise on the TV, here’s a few discussion topics to intersperse amongst tonight’s gifs, tangents, and jiggly pics, because who wants to talk to people:

Led Zeppelin is being sued again for “copyright infringement” again, this time over Stairway to Heaven. It’s by the estate of the songwriter they allegedly lifted from, and is for a percentage of royalties since its release in 1971.

The Russians have been threatened with disqualification if there is more fan violence at the Euro. The most complete collection of photos & video can be found at the Daily Mail. No one’s talking about taking their World Cup away, so consider this a preview for 2018.

The NHL has settled on Las Vegas as its sole expansion team, with play to begin in the 2017-18 season. The expansion fee is $500 million USD, which is what scared off Quebec City. The official announcement will mostly likely be made at the NHL awards June 24th in Las Vegas. Hilariously, this may impact whether the Raiders move.

Finally, my – and your – hero for the Euro is Gábor Király, the 40 year-old keeper for Hungary who is wearing honest-to-God sweatpants while playing net. Deadspin has his pants history covered.

By starting today, he became the oldest-ever participant in the tournament, passing German great Lothar Matthäus. The BBC radio broadcast said the ensemble was because his regular black kit got misplaced once, so he wore the grays during a match. They won, so he kept wearing them. They are now a part of his “look” and are even sold as “Király Bottoms” in the 1860 Munich team store. This afternoon, he was tested 28 seconds in and made a diving save

backstopping Hungary to a 2-0 upset victory over Austria. DAD PANTS FOREVER!