Packers wide receiver Randall Cobb has made it to the final year of his contract. But he plays for the Packers, so he knows nothing is guaranteed.

The odds were stacked up against me to get my bachelor’s degree. It was a surreal moment, he told the Associated Press. I kind of put it up there with the Super Bowl, neck and neck. Super Bowl probably would have been better if we’d won two in a row. It was a great moment, not only for me but for my son and my family. I’m glad I got to experience it.

The NFL paid Irvin’s tuition as part of a program that encourages players to pursue their degrees during the offseason. Irvin, who turned pro after two seasons at West Virginia, said he wanted his son to see the importance of education.

I think people made the mistake that Mike’s job was to predict what the official on the field was going to rule, and his job really was to give his opinion and his interpretation of the rules with respect to a specific play, McManus told Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. When he disagreed a number of times with the officials, I think he was unfairly maligned on social media and it became a running theme. It was a shame and I think it hurt his ability to be considered an expert in this area, which I don’t think was fair.

McManus is definitely correct that maligning Mike Carey became a running theme on social media. But if it was unfair, CBS should have stuck with Carey through the down times and kept him on board, rather than moving on from him after the 2015 season. The reality is, Carey just wasn’t as good at his job as Mike Pereira, who was doing the same job at the same time on FOX, and CBS decided that if it couldn’t beat FOX, it was better not to compete in the officiating analysis department. Now CBS is hoping Steratore can live up to the standard Pereira has set.

The NFL has completed its investigation into allegations that Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston groped an Uber driver. Winston will be issued a three-game suspension by the NFL for violating its personal conduct policy, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Winston has yet to be informed of the official punishment, though.

Winston was never arrested or charged with a crime for this alleged incident. But the NFL’s personal conduct policy is broad and does not carry the same burden of proof as the criminal justice system.

That would be easy for Goodell to say. But he hasn’t. And he won’t. Because he’s scared.

You have to understand this: There was a time when calling Goodell scared was unthinkable.

But now, we’ve heard nothing from Goodell as the NFL has undergone perhaps one of the most blistering attacks on it ever. Goodell and all of his cronies have run scared as Trump has played them for suckers.

How did this happen? Where did Goodell get lost?

Perhaps Owens is even loving every bit of the criticism aimed in his direction since he announced Thursday that he’ll pretty much take a knee on the Hall’s traditional enshrinement christening. Hey, that’s his prerogative.

But it’s a terrible mistake.

It seems like a no-brainer conclusion that Owens, who seemed to crave the spotlight during his heyday, feels like he needs to make some sorry point — at the expense of fellow Hall of Famers and people like George Stewart, his former position coach tapped to present him — by becoming the first (living) Canton-bound enshrinee to not bother to show up.

He already has as much or more WAR than 74 position-player Hall of Famers and more than 56 modern-era Hall of Fame players at any non-pitcher position. That includes modern legends such as Mike Piazza, Vladimir Guerrero, Willie Stargell and Kirby Puckett, or less-recent legends such Harmon Killebrew, Yogi Berra, Hank Greenberg, Joe Medwick or George Sisler.

Graham had more touchdowns last season (10) than Dickson has in his last six seasons with the Ravens and Panthers (six).

Tight end Jermaine Gresham is solid, and running back David Johnson was an All-Pro in 2016, but Gresham (who isn’t much of a playmaker) is recovering from a torn Achilles, while Johnson is also trying to fight his way back from a 2017 season that was lost almost entirely to a wrist injury. 

Even if Johnson bounces back fully, there isn’t much reason to believe anyone else will be a game-changer for Bradford (or Rosen) in 2018.

The Miami Dolphins didn’t have a lot going for them in 2017, but they at least had plenty of talent at the offensive skill positions. Jay Cutler failed to take advantage of that while starting at quarterback in place of the injured Ryan Tannehill. 

One year later, Tannehill is back. But he has a lot less to work with now. 

That’s because the penny-pinching (tanking?) Dolphins traded top receiver Jarvis Landry and released No. 1 tight end Julius Thomas, just months after dealing lead back Jay Ajayi to the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

Wednesday, reports surfaced that star Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston might be facing a multi-game suspension stemming from an alleged incident involving an Uber driver in Arizona from March 2016.

It’s real positive, really positive, Carroll offered. You guys have watched him, and he’s just such a wonderful kid on your team, and there’s just been a spirit about him about wanting to compete and extra stuff and always at it, and then last year he couldn’t do that, he wasn’t able to.

And now he’s back freed up and ready to go again, so you see all that great spirit and the energy that he generates.

It’s easy to forget just how dynamic Lockett was as a kick-return ace and downfield receiving threat in his first NFL season. There years later, he’s entering the final season of that rookie contract as one of the key cogs in an offense that will have to do more heavy lifting in 2018.

That’s part of the game, Holder said. That’s part of being young and having (minor-league) options. I just took it one game at a time. Go down and work on stuff.

After pitching to a 3.00 ERA in four outings for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Holder returned. And ever since he’s been lights out allowing just three unearned runs and nine hits over 22 innings.

Major League Baseball is trying to remove a leaked profanity-laced video of former Mets manager Terry Collins getting into a dispute with an umpire from a 2016 incident that went viral earlier this week.

Democrats said they had the right by 82 percent to 16 percent, and Independent voters split with 54 percent saying they did and 42 percent saying they didn’t.

Republicans, however, said by a margin of 81 percent to 16 percent that players did not have the right to protest. Black voters backed the players’ rights by 85 percent to 11 percent, and 67 percent of Hispanic voters said they did while 28 percent said they did not.

Trump slams NFL’s ‘disrespectful’ new national anthem policy

White voters said they had the right by 53 percent to 43 percent.

But Ohtani just kept doing his thing, albeit mostly on the West Coast, which meant hundreds of thousands if not millions of East Coast and Midwest fans didn’t get to watch, either because of a clash with sleep schedules or a general lack of awareness.

There was a thought that the All-Star Game would’ve been a great place to re-ignite Ohtani Mania. There seems to be little doubt that Ohtani would’ve found a place on the AL roster. It wouldn’t have mattered whether it was as a pitcher or as a hitter. Anything that would’ve let the greater baseball world watch his greatness unfold in prime time would’ve been great for Ohtani, the Angels and baseball.

Thompson said that fellow Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews was the first person she called after hearing that the photos were out there. Andrews had been through a similar situation when she was photographed nude through a hotel’s peephole in 2008.

Jung Ho Kang’s third DUI prompted him to get completely sober.

The Pirates infielder said his December 2016 arrest was the final straw and that he has since stopped drinking.

Obviously, I’m not touching a drop of alcohol moving forward, Kang said Wednesday through interpreter Mark Kim, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Look, I am very open with my life and I don’t hide a lot of things, but when it comes to your physical being and intimate photos between you and your boyfriend and things that you sent to someone when you were in a long-distance relationship and in love, it is your private property, Thompson told The Athletic. So it felt — the obvious — like such an invasion. But then the depths I am still taking to get back that privacy are unbelievable. The way I equate is someone came into my home, robbed my home of all its possessions, put it out in the cul-de-sac right in front of me, and I had to buy all of it right back to put back in my house.

A reporter asked him, Winston, I’m sorry, where’s the Winston that has given us illumination and information at past press conferences? Did we do something that you’re down on us again? … We want to talk about your guys, and I’m not quite sure what you want from us to make that happen.

Naturally, the Twittersphere had plenty of thoughts on the uncomfortable situation, taking both Moss’ and the reporter’s side in the standoff.

But Kay called it what it so clearly was not: And that ball is gone! … A three-run blast!

Blast? Paul O’Neill next said, I think everybody’s shocked [it was a home run], even [left fielder] Brett Gardner. … Nobody in the ballpark thinks that one’s out.

Over the first two rounds of the U.S. Open, FOX noted how the generosity of a sponsor would limit the number of commercial breaks. Cool.

But what difference did that make when FOX kept taking us here, there, everywhere — canned features, taped interviews with swing coaches, on-camera chats between anchors and analysts, a taped close-up of 10-over Tiger Woods’ face with analysis, seriously, of what he was looking at — rather than show live golf being played in a major?