Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 9-25-18

Sports
Steelers 'Listening To Trade Offers' For Le'Veon Bell Amid Holdout
LE’VEON BELL
The Steelers are reportedly "listening to trade offers" for running back Le'Veon Bell. Bell has sat out Pittsburgh's first two games of the season due to a contract dispute, and is likely to miss the Steelers' Week 3 battle with Tampa Bay on Monday night.
Bell has been fined over $1.5 million by the Steelers for missing the first two weeks of the season. He will forfeit $853,000 for each game he misses.
Pittsburgh has gotten off to an 0–1–1 start without the three-time Pro Bowler. Second- year running back James Con- nor has tallied 152 yards and three touchdowns in Bell's ab- sence.
Bell doesn't seem to be too concerned with a potential de- parture from Pittsburgh, though. He liked a tweet on Sunday signaling his last final carry with the Steelers came in 2017.
Baltimore Hosts Parade For Ray Lewis, Gives Him Key To City
RAY LEWIS
Hundreds of fans lined the streets on Saturday to pay hom- age to former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis for his recent induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Lewis, who was enshrined on Aug. 4, was honored with a downtown parade and was given an engraved key to the city. Mayor Catherine Pugh proclaimed Sept. 22 as Ray Lewis Day.
In a nine-minute speech at City Hall, Lewis preached unity and even asked fans to hug one another at one point. He ended by performing his signature dance as the Ravens marching band played Nelly's "Hot in Herre."
Tiger Woods' First Win In
Bucs Sticking With Ryan
Fitzpatrick At Quarterback
After Jameis Winston Returns
Win or lose against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Fitzpatrick will remain the Buccaneers starting quarter- back even after Jameis Win- ston returns from his three-game suspension in Week 4, according to multiple reports.
Fitzpatrick will stay under center for 2-0 Tampa Bay unless he does something "drastically bad." The team has not yet met to make a for- mal decision, but it expects to stick with Fitzpatrick as the signal caller for the short term.
Earlier this week, wide re- ceiver DeSean Jackson said the team, "can't take the hot man out" in reference to Fitz- patrick, who led the NFL with 819 passing yards in the first two games. Jackson led the league in receiving yards and yards per catch after
RYAN FITZPATRICK
Week 2 with 275 yards on nine catches.
Fitzpatrick completed 78.7% of his passes and tossed eight touchdowns in wins over the Saints and Eagles to open the season.
The Buccaneers host the Steelers on Monday (tonight) and then hit the road to face the Bears on a short week for Week 4. Tampa Bay has its bye during Week 5.
Winston is not eligible to return to the team until Tues- day, Sept. 25.
After 10 Year, $100M Deal,
There were children lining the fairways at East Lake Golf Club who hadn't been born the last time it was like this, men whose beards had grown grey and young adults with only faint memories of what it felt like to watch the greatest sports phenomenon of their lifetime in his prime.
And as superstar golfer Tiger Woods crushed his tee shot down the 18th fairway Sunday, all of them had had enough. Enough of being told to be quiet, enough of being constrained by ropes and golf etiquette. This is the South, after all, where it's practically expected to rush onto the field following the biggest wins.
Even Woods was caught between smiling as he looked back and staying in the mo- ment as a sea of humanity flooded the fairway behind him. Just like the field behind Woods this week, the security guards had no chance. As thousands of people drew closer, all of them chanting "Tiger! Tiger!" one of At- lanta's elite golf clubs had sud- denly turned into a scene straight out of a football game at Auburn or Clemson.
But who cares about deco- rum when Woods just won his first tournament in five years?
"This was different," Woods said, acknowledging that the scene on the final hole was unlike anything he experi- enced in his previous 79 career
TIGER WOODS
victories. "I guess it’s different now because the art of clap- ping is gone. You can’t clap with a cell phone in your hand, so people yell."
It may be the best descrip- tion yet for why Woods' comeback is unlike anything we've ever seen, and why the emotion following him at every tournament this summer has been so intense.
Woods' first PGA Tour victory since Aug. 4, 2013, his first triumph after being be- trayed by his body so badly that it was uncertain he’d ever play again, was less a test of nerves than a rekindling of his muscle memory. Conjuring his old-school dominance against the best players on tour this year felt far more like a new be- ginning than a last hurrah.
While Woods’ pair of near-misses at the British and PGA Championship this sum- mer certainly portended the possibility that he would win again — and soon — what hap- pened here this weekend opens the door for something far greater.
Five Years Feels Like A New
Beginning, Not The End
Gruden Is Proving To Be A
Nightmare For Raiders
The Raiders are 0-3, and in all three of those losses, have been waxed in the second half. The mark of a good — or great — coach is being able to adjust and then winning the final 30 minutes. In the case of Jon Gruden, everything is fine on the initial script. It’s the pesky rest of the game that keeps tripping him up.
Incredibly, it’s also his comments both during the week and after games that con- tinue to amuse and befuddle. After losing 28-20 to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday af- ternoon, Gruden talked about needing to play better, about getting “this show on the road here hopefully soon.”
Hopefully soon? Gruden is the one who was handed a franchise-altering deal, the richest in league history for a head coach. He immediately blew up the roster, jettisoning Michael Crabtree before en- suing with the Khalil Mack fiasco that has him starring with the Chicago Bears. With some of the best players gone, Gruden brought in a who’s who from a decade past, and the results have been pre- dictable and ugly.
Then there are the reports coming out that Gruden brought in his own personnel team, rendering general man- ager Reggie McKenzie and his pupils utterly useless. Why
JON GRUDEN
owner Mark Davis continues to pay them if that’s the case is a great mystery, but then again, so is the rationale to hire Gruden at such an obscene rate in the first place.
Gruden was never a great coach, and he’s more out of place and out of his depth than ever before. In his first run with the Raiders, Gruden went to the playoffs twice and won a pair of playoff games. In 2002, his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Gru- den won the Super Bowl largely on the back of defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin and the roster of Tony Dungy.
Since that year, Gruden’s record is a haphazard 45-54 without a single playoff win. Yet here we are, with Gruden taking $10M over each year of the next decade, because he left the Raiders with the intrigue of what could have been in his wake. He beat them in the Super Bowl, forever making him the one that got away.
Nike's Deal With Kaepernick Adds Almost $6B To Company's Market Value
COLIN KAEPERNICK
Nike added nearly $6 bil- lion to its company’s market value since announcing its deal with former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.
The company’s shares rose 36 percent on the year and the brand has also become a top performer on the Dow's index
of 30 blue-chip stocks.
Share prices for the com-
pany also continued to per- form at an all-time high weeks the company’s stock initially fell more than 3 percent fol- lowing the announcement of their endorsement deal with Kaepernick.
PAGE 14 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2018