Your “It’s Darkest Before The Dawn” Tuesday Evening Open Thread

NFL Notes:

• Martavis Bryant has applied for reinstatement. 
  • According to ESPN, Bryant has been suspended three times in the past four years for violations of the league’s substance abuse policy.
    • The most recent came in December, when he was suspended indefinitely for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement from a previous ban.
  • He was drafted in 2014, but has missed 36 of a possible 80 regular-season games since then because of suspensions.

• Zeke is contemplating a holdout from Cowboys camp to try & force contract negotiations.
  • He has two years left on his current deal, which will harden the Cowboys’ resolve.
  • Also not helping his case – continued fallout from the incident in Las Vegas where he had an altercation with a security guard.
    • He’s not facing league discipline (yet), but is claiming the guard is “extorting him” by filing a criminal complaint after the LVPD initially investigated & no charges were laid.
  • Pictured below is the incident and the guard in question. It’s open to speculation why the guard is pursuing this even though the police initially dropped their investigation.

• The NFLPA has filed a grievance over Jadeveon Clowney’s franchise tag.
  • The Texans tagged him as a Linebacker, and list him on the roster as OLB/DE, but the NFLPA has statistics proving he should have instead been tagged as a Defensive End.
    •  According to ESPN Stats & Information, he logged 729 snaps at defensive end, 101 at defensive tackle and 33 at linebacker last season.
  • The cost savings are both significant & petty.
    • The Linebacker cost is $15.443 million.
    • The DE cost is $17.128 million.

NFLPA is anticipated to file a grievance against Texans over the position assigned to franchise DE/LB Jadeveon Clowney, per league sources. The Texans labeled Clowney a “DE/LB”, but a LB tag carries a $1.698 million lower salary with it than the DE tag would. So issues on issues.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 15, 2019

Also from Adam Schefter today:

Sources: Wing Tuesdays are back at Buffalo Wild Wings starting today. Deal is buy one, get one free on traditional wings for dine-in customers and will be every Tuesday. #BWWPartner

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 16, 2019

Nice to see the unbroken commitment to accuracy in journalism.

Tonight’s sports:

• MLB:
  • Blue Jays at Red Sox – 7:00PM | Sportsnet / MLBN
• Futbol:
  • International Champions Cup Soccer:
    • Fiorentina vs. Guadalajara – 9:00PM | ESPN2
• WWE:
  • Smackdown – 8:00PM | USA / Sportsnet360
• World Series of Poker:
  • 2019 Main Event Final Table Concludes – 9:00PM | ESPN / TSN

Wow – I apologize to last week. There’s less than fuck-all on tonight.