One week after running out of gas on the final laps at Pocono, Joey Logano won a chaotic Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen when he was able to pass Kevin Harvick, who himself ran out of gas, in the final turns of the final lap of the road course.

Things started to get hairy with about 15 laps to go. During the next five laps, several in-car communications revealed that teams were telling their drivers they didn't have enough fuel to reach the finish line, with most teams calculating that they were one to three laps short.

The big problem for the drivers is that they have no fuel gauge in the car. They depend on the calculations made by their crews and hope that jives with how drivers are using their cars.

The only hope for most drivers was another driver running out of gas before the white flag, which would lead to a caution flag in the final laps. But one never came as the race went green for the final 30 laps.

As the race hit the final laps, several challengers, including Kyle Larson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., had already fallen well off the pace, leaving Harvick (No. 4 car) in the lead but needing to conserve fuel to get to the finish. Harvick was able to go easy until Logano (No. 22 car) caught him. With Logano in the rear-view mirror and having enough fuel, Harvick had to go hard and could no longer conserve his own gas.

It looked as if it was just a matter of time before Harvick ran out of gas and Logano took over the lead. But then Harvick caught a huge break.

Just as the two leaders entered the final lap, Logano got loose in the first turn, went wide, and nearly lost control of his car. He was able to stay with it and get back on the track, but Harvick then had a huge lead and could once again try to conserve gas as Logano played catch-up.

Harvick had a big lead, but the 2-1/2-mile course at Watkins Glen filled with elevation changes wasn't helping, making it more difficult to coast.

The first sign something was wrong came as the drivers approached the final two turns. Harvick wasn't on the right line to hit turn No. 6. At this point, it looked as if Harvick was out of gas.

Sure enough, Logano sprinted past Harvick in the final turn.

Logano even appeared to tap his breaks in front of Harvick's car to kill any last momentum it may have had.

All Logano needed to do was hit the gas one last time, and he took the checkered flag with Harvick left to coast across the finish line a distant third.

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The PGA Championship starts Thursday at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, marking the final major of the 2015 season. 

Going into the week, one of the big storylines is: Will Tiger Woods be even the slightest bit relevant? 

When it comes to Woods — although it always seems possible he'll look like his old, dominant self — nothing about Whistling Straits will do him any favors. Perhaps the biggest weakness in Tiger's game right now is driving accuracy, and that's a horrible problem to have at this specific course.

According to the course's Head Golf Professional Mike O'Reilly, the key to playing well this weekend will be hitting fairways. He told the Sheboygan Press that you're doomed if you can't drive the ball accurately:

"The severity of the mounds, the bunkering, now we have the rough grown out and it is so thick and the severity of the drop-offs adjacent to the fairways, hitting the fairway is big. If you do miss the fairway, if you're not 100 percent certain that you can advance the shot and get it on to the green, you might have to take your lumps to get it back into play."

"The tee shot on the Straits course is one of the most important shots, to keep the ball in play."

Keeping the ball in play and hitting the fairway is, of course, sound strategy for any golfer on any course, but O'Reilly's words feel especially important when thinking about Woods because, a) Whistling Straits is not your average golf course (see above), and b) Woods has been extremely sporadic this year off the tee. 

Per PGAtour.com, Woods is hitting a meager 55% of fairways, gaining -1.438 strokes tee-to-green in 2015. His ever-changing swing is still problematic, and woods and drivers offer the least room for error. 

Even in the few tournaments this year where Woods has played well, he has been unable to hold it together for four straight rounds. Two weeks ago at the Quicken Loans National, Woods shot 68-66-74-68. Shooting 74 on a Saturday all but put him out of contention, and — as usual — his trouble was in the teebox, where he hit only half his fairways.

Even if Tiger's game is starting to come together, he'll have to play exceptionally well on a course that's not built for him to contend.

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A year before the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Michael Phelps made a statement by blowing away expectations at the US Nationals.

Phelps was suspended from last week's FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia after pleading guilty to a DUI last December. But while he wasn't able to compete against the best in the world, he still got their attention at a secondary meet on the other side of the planet.

Swimming at the US Nationals in Texas, Phelps won the 200m individual medley in 1 minute, 54.75 seconds, which was faster than the time that won gold at the World Championships and the fastest time in the world this year. He also posted 2015's fastest times in the 100m and 200m butterfly, and he did it in wake of some serious trash talk from 23-year-old South African swimmer Chad Le Clos.

After Phelps won the 200m fly with the fastest time in six years on Friday, Le Clos slammed him in an interview with Paul Newberry of the Associated Press.

"I'm just very happy that he's back to his good form, so he can't come out and say, 'Oh, I haven't been training' or all that rubbish that he's been talking," he said. "Next year is going to be Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier."

He added the Phelps only swam such a good time because it was against weak competition.

"Look, I don't want to say it's easy to swim by yourself, but it's a lot harder when you know Chad le Clos is coming back at you the last 50 meters," he said. "That's what he's got to think about really."

Le Clos' dad, Bert Le Clos, even got in on things after his son won the 100m butterfly with a 2015 world-best time at the World Championships. He told the AP, "I don't care about his times, because I know my son is going to beat him."

On Saturday, Phelps responded by besting the mark Le Clos set a day earlier. In the 100m butterfly at US nationals he posted a 50.45 seconds — which was .11 seconds faster than the time Le Clos swam to win gold in Russia.

After the race, he high-roaded the South African. He told SwimSwam:

“I saw the times. I saw the comments. There are a lot of things I could say but I won’t. I let what I do in the pool do all of my talking and that’s how I’ve always done things. From a standpoint of what anybody else says, that’s their own business. You can keep saying anything, I don’t mind it, but you won’t get a rise out of me.”

Phelps was originally going to retire after the 2012 London Olympics, but decided to make a comeback in 2014. After some encouraging times at a comeback meet in April, Phelps announced himself as a legitimate gold medal favorite with his times this weekend. 

Even his coach, Bob Bowman, was surprised by the times.

"It probably does change what I thought might be possible in a year," Bowman told SwimSwam.

Phelps says he has quit drinking until after Rio 2016 and is training the way he trained before the Beijing and London games. For the rest of the swimming world, Phelps being dedicated to the sport and already posting world-best times with 12 months to go is a terrifying proposition.

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In preparation for the PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth is trying to get into Phil Mickelson's head.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Spieth said he's playing a few practice rounds at Whistling Straits, one of which includes a round where he and Justin Thomas will take on Rickie Fowler and Mickelson.

Spieth told reporters about his great plan to troll Mickelson by parading around his US Open trophy:

"But Tuesday we've got a game with me and Justin Thomas versus Phil and Rickie. And I'm going to try to get the U.S. Open trophy flown in so I can sit it on the front of each green for Phil so I'll have something for him to -- that's just dishing it back (laughter). We'll see if we can get somebody to carry it around for the round. It's the first time I have something on him."

Spieth, of course, won the US Open while Mickelson struggled, shooting over par on his final three rounds. The US Open is the only major Mickelson hasn't won.

The two golfers have a slight history of taking playful jabs at each other.

Leading up to the British Open, Mickelson, a notorious trash talker, had tried all of his tricks on Spieth and some of the younger golfers, according to ESPN's Kevin Van Valkenburg. Spieth told Van Valkenburg that when it appears Mickelson is taking young golfers under his wing, he's usually just trash-talking:

"He's a great mentor who likes to see the game grow, and so he grabs guys who are still trying to find their feet and forms relationships. It's not like he's giving us stuff to write in a journal. He's giving us crap and trying to be competitive. He wants us to play well, and he also wants to beat the crap out of us. But if you have questions, he has great answers."

Spieth, however, is impervious to the trash-talk, saying:

"A lot of people, when he dishes it, they try to dish it back. For me, I just sit there and smile and it really pisses him off. He said to me once, 'I really don't get in your head, do I?' I said 'Nah, you're pretty weak at it.'"

We'll see if Spieth is capable of getting in Mickelson's head.

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NOW WATCH: How Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in MLB history, makes and spends his $400 million

Michael Sam made his long-anticipated debut as the first openly-gay professional football player when he appeared for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in their loss to the Ottawa Redblacks this past weekend.

The debut was uneventful as Sam was on the field for just 12 plays and did not record a sack or a tackle. But Sam's rookie season has gotten off to a rocky start on and off the field, and according to reports from Canada it sounds like teammates are turning on him.

Problems started during the preseason when Sam left the team for "personal reasons." At the time, Herb Zurkowsky of the Montreal Gazette wrote Sam was not expected to return and floated a rumor that Sam left simply because he wasn't good enough.

“The latest theory concerning Sam’s departure was that he simply wasn’t good enough to make the roster, sensed this and left to save himself and the organization embarrassment. This particular scenario is gaining steam throughout the Als dressing room and, for that matter, the CFL.”

However, Sam did return two weeks later, just prior to the start of the regular season. That is when the problems really started. Even though Sam did not dress for the first five regular season games, he was kept on the active roster which meant he received a full game check each week, according to Zurkowsky, and his teammates are not happy.

The anger is likely fueled at least in part by Sam's $100,000 salary (~$76,000 US). While that is peanuts compared to the NFL, that is huge in a league with a $5.0 million (~$3.8 million US) salary cap where most rookies make half that, the average salary is about $80,000 (~$61,000 US), and about 10% of players work a second job in the offseason.

That issue might be tempered if Sam was producing as a player, but the criticism of his early play was brutal.

“Sam has become a distraction," Zurkowsky wrote. “He doesn’t play on special teams and isn’t considered competent. Privately, more and more players are criticizing the preferential treatment he has received.”

One of the biggest criticisms of Sam coming out of college at the University of Missouri, where he was the co-defensive player of the year in the SEC, was that Sam was too small to play defensive end but not fast enough to be an NFL linebacker. In his CFL debut, Sam played end and struggled to get to the quarterback.

The heaviest criticism was reserved for one play in particular as Sam fell for a fake that led to a touchdown.

It is still early and Sam is signed to a 2-year contract. So he will get a chance to improve. But if he doesn't do it soon, it sounds like things could get ugly north of the border.

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There could be an official decision on Deflategate as early as Wednesday.

After the NFLPA took the NFL to court over its decision to uphold Tom Brady's four-game Deflategate suspension, there will be a settlement conference on Wednesday to try and help both sides reach a deal.

As SI's Peter King states, while a settlement would help put the whole issue to rest, it may not be the best course of action for the NFL.

While a judge can't force either side to come to a settlement, if they do, it would likely be in the form of a reduced punishment for Brady. That could be a reduced suspension, a lesser fine, or some combination of the two — however, King notes that Brady seems unwilling to accept any punishment.

However, in doing so, the NFL would give players greater incentive to challenge any punishment they get from the league. If the NFL folds and gives Brady a reduced punishment after months of sticking to their guns, it would encourage more players to take their cases to a third party in hopes of pressuring the league to overturn or lessen their punishment.

Brady's case is more of a grey area than most punishments — there was no definitive proof he did anything wrong, as noted in the NFL's investigation, which concluded it was "more probable than not" that Brady was "generally aware" of plans to deflate footballs. Other punishments, like violating the anti-substance abuse policy, are pretty black-and-white.

If the two sides don't reach a settlement, the case would then go back to court in which a judge would have to decide whether the NFL's punishment was fair and consistent — not whether Brady is guilty or not. In this case, the court would either uphold Brady's suspension or negate it. As King notes, the NFL could still protest that ruling and appeal the loss to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Appealing that decision would seemingly be a save-face move to show the NFL believes they were right in their own decision to suspend Brady.

The longer this goes on, the more dangerous is gets for the NFL. Though players aren't eager to hire lawyers and appear in court either, if Brady's punishment is reduced in any way, it's a win for players and reason to believe they can get their way if they appeal their own punishments more often. 

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Under Armour might be encroaching in on Nike's territory: the NBA.

Today, the sportswear company — which has already been Nike's major competitor — announced a major deal with the national basketball league, USA Today reports.

USA Today has outlined the specifics of the crucial deal:

"Under the new deal, the Baltimore-based company will be the presenting partner of the league’s youth basketball program, Jr. NBA, and will also be the title partner of the NBA Draft Combine beginning in 2018 — a deal that the league describes as one that represents a 'significantly expanded partnership' between the two companies."

Company representatives say this is just the beginning.

"It’s a huge deal and we couldn’t be more excited about it as we continue to build our brand and our business around the sport of basketball," Adam Peake, Under Armour's executive vice president of global marketing, said to USA Today.

Additionally, USA Today reports that as of 2018, the brand will create an apparel line for basketball.

Nike has currently been on track to be the NBA's official uniform. In June, the NBA announced that Nike would be provider of the NBA's official attire, beginning in the 2017-2018 season.

Nike has also dominated the NBA when it comes to footwear.

Since Under Armour signed a partnership deal with Stephen Curry, sales have been soaring for the company's basketball shoes, which was evidence that Under Armour was truly a rising star.

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank said in April that he wants to build a $1 billion basketball brand around Curry, who was named the NBA's 2014-2015 MVP earlier this month.

It will be tough to steal market share from Nike and its Jordan brand, however, which control about 90% of the US basketball shoe market and 62% of the total US footwear market. 

As it stands, Under Armour has been incredibly successful as it continues to expand its empire.

Not only has the brand succeeded in becoming a major competitor in the athletic industry, but it's also very successfully dipped its proverbial toes into the female-dominated athleisure field, proving it to be an able competitor for Victoria's Secret and Lululemon.

SEE ALSO: Under Armour hit the jackpot with its Stephen Curry bet

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NOW WATCH: Subway made 2 mistakes that are destroying its business

When the Toronto Blue Jays traded Jose Reyes to Colorado for Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins, they were an underwhelming 50-49. Despite a high-powered offense that had the best run differential in baseball, the Jays were 7.0 games behind the New York Yankees for first place in the AL East and two games behind the Minnesota Twins for the second AL Wild Card spot. Their starting pitching was suspect, ranking 23rd in the MLB in ERA, and they were horrible in one-run games.

Two days later, on July 30, they bolstered their pitching staff and picked up David Price in a trade with the Tigers. The next day, just before the deadline, they landed Ben Revere from the Phillies. 

Now, following a three-game sweep of the Yankees this weekend in which Toronto allowed just one total run, the Jays have jumped into the top Wild Card spot and sit only 1.5 games behind the Yankees for first place in the division. Their momentum is palpable: since July 28, the day they landed Tulo, the Jays are 11-1 and currently riding an eight-game win streak. Toronto fans haven't seen the Jays in the playoffs since 1993 and are going nuts: David Price said after his first start that the atmosphere in Toronto was the best he'd experienced anywhere in his career. 

It's easy to look at the team's offense and explain their surge, and this is partially true. A lineup that includes Tulowizki, MVP-candidate Josh Donaldson, and Jose Bautista is downright terrifying. Those three alone have a combined 72 home runs this season, though Tulo has only batted .244 since moving to Toronto. Overall, the Jays lead the majors in homeruns with 153.

But hitting is only part of the equation, and it's been the pitching that has really turned the Blue Jays into legitimate World Series contenders since the trade deadline. In his two starts in a Blue Jays uniform, Price has logged a 0.60 ERA — surrendering just one earned run (a solo HR) in 16 innings. During those two starts, Price has struck out 18 batters. Forty-two-year-old Hawkins has come out of the bullpen in six games and hasn't yet given up a run. Twenty-year-old Roberto Osuna has been lights out as the team's closer during this run, giving up just one run and logging five saves in relief. As a team, Toronto's pitchers have an ERA of 1.87 during the month of August.

Between now and the start of the playoffs Toronto will play the Yankees 10 more times. The result of these games will inevitably determine who wins the division, and although the teams are trending in opposite directions at the moment (the Yankees are 4-6 in their last 10 games), there is still plenty of season left. One other major difference between the Jays and Yankees is that the Yankees did next to nothing at the trade deadline. At the moment, Toronto's aggressive approach seems clearly to have been worth it. 

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For the second-straight week fuel usage played a major role in the outcome of a NASCAR race as Joey Logano came from behind in the final lap at Watkins Glen to overcome a gas-starved Kevin Harvick for the win.

The recent rash of gas shortages on the NASCAR circuit has brought to the forefront an often overlooked detail of the highly-complex NASCAR racecars. That is, they don't have one thing most of us a take for granted, a fuel gauge to indicate to the drivers how much gas they have left.

The simple explanation is that, like other information-gathering devices, they are not allowed in the car by NASCAR. In addition, a typical fuel gauge wouldn't work in a racecar because they are often driven at steep angles and bouncing all over the place —conditions that are not ideal for fuel measurement. So something else would need to be used.

But beyond that, they are simply not needed because the crew is able to accurately calculate how much fuel a car has left anyway. Joey Logano explained this in part on "The Dan Patrick Show."

“It's up to the engineers and the crew chief,” Logano told Patrick. “They do such a great job on being able to calculate how much fuel we have in the car and how much we need to save. And we talk about it a lot. We don't really need a gas gauge. We're able to calculate it so well by the lap times we're running and we have strategies on how much I need to save as a driver and what I need to do.”

In other words, the calculations are probably more accurate than any gauge would be.

Teams are so good at calculating fuel usage that with about 10-15 laps left at Watkins Glen most teams had a pretty good idea of exactly when their driver would run out of gas if they kept pushing their car. Matt Kenseth's crew knew their driver had 10 laps of fuel left with 11 laps to go.

Other drivers had even more precise measurements. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew told him he would be 3.5 laps short.

The reason drivers at Watkins Glen ran out of gas wasn't that they didn't know how much fuel they had left. They ran out of gas because there were no caution flags for the last 30 laps despite 16 yellow flags in the first 60 laps and at least one caution in the final 20 laps of the previous seven races at this track. Caution flags allows cars to come into the pits for more gas without losing an entire lap to cars that don't need more fuel.

So, in the case of the Watkins Glen race, it was more about bad luck than bad knowledge.

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Chip Kelly's dramatic overhaul of the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason has hit its first snag.

At the start of training camp, Kelly, who took over personnel decisions in 2015, traded cornerback Brandon Boykin to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a conditional 2016 fifth-round pick.

As NFL.com's Kevin Patra wrote at the time of the trade, trading Boykin signaled a belief that second-round pick Eric Rowe and sixth-round pick JaCorey Shepherd could step in and play right away.

Nine days after the Boykin trade, Shepherd collided with running back Darren Sproles during practice and went down with a torn ACL. ESPN's Phil Sheridan reports that Shepherd is out for the season.

Though Boykin only played 42% of the team's snaps in 2014, he was arguably their best corner, and defensive coordinator Bill Davis called him one of his favorite players. The draft pick the Eagles got in return was nice, but the trade now looks worse as their secondary took a step back, and the player thought to replace Boykin is out for the year.

Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that the Boykin trade made sense on some levels. Boykin was entering the final year of his contract and was unlikely to re-sign due to his frustration with his lack of playing time under Kelly. Additionally, at five-foot-ten, Boykin didn't fit the long, tall mold of cornerback that Kelly prefers.

Shepherd, meanwhile, had supporters on the Eagles and was gaining momentum as Boykin's replacement. New cornerback Byron Maxwell said of Shepherd, "JaCorey Shepherd got a chance to make some waves. I'm excited about him. He has ball skills, so his ceiling is high." 

In training camp, Domowitch said that Shepherd was taking reps at nickel corner, Boykin's position, despite never playing it in college. Kelly said after practice one day, "We're really, really impressed with him. We're excited about his development and his growth."

Without Boykin or Shepherd, the team may have to rely on second-year defensive back Jaylen Watkins or undrafted rookie Denzel Rice to fill in. The one good thing for the Eagles is that they don't play five defensive backs at once as often as some other teams, so it's not a position that's central to what they do on defense.

Nonetheless, Kelly rolled the dice, gambling that a handful of rookies could replace a proven cornerback's production. With Shepherd's injury, that pressure shifts even more onto the rest of the cornerbacks, and the Eagles' secondary could take a hit because of it.

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One of the beautiful elements of action cameras like Go-Pro is their ability to fade into the background. You strap on the camera and then you just do what you normally would. You don't have to worry about breaking it or setting up each shot — the whole process is simplified.

That is, until you have to edit the footage.

Slogging through hours upon hours of footage can be a major pain point for action camera users. Now one startup is taking a stab at solving it by releasing an action camera that will auto-edit your footage for you.

The camera, which is available for pre-order at $249, is called Graava. So how does it work? According to the creators at Matter Design, Graava uses different sensors — image sensors, microphones, accelerometers, GPS, third-party heart rate monitors — to identify the most exciting moments of your life.

The heart rate option is particularly intriguing. Imagine a heightened heart rate, monitored by a device like an Apple Watch, being able to control the way the footage of your bike ride or snowboard run is edited.

But the real question around Graava is not whether the concept is compelling, but whether the device actually works. Here are two videos showing a bit of the process.

This is a 30-second clip edited by Graava:

And here is the original four-minute footage:

SEE ALSO: The awesome life of GoPro's Nick Woodman, America's highest-paid CEO

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Nick Symmonds, the best 800 meter runner in the US and the reigning world silver medalist, will not be going to this year's World Championships in Beijing. 

In a release on Monday morning, the USATF announced its official roster of competitors heading to Beijing for the IAAF World Championships, set to take place from August 22-30. 

Symmonds, who won his sixth 800m title at the US championships in June, has been vocal in recent weeks about Nike's requirements that US athletes, who may be sponsored by other shoe companies, wear Nike gear while at "official" team events. 

On Saturday, Symmonds said in an interview that his problem with the Nike agreement is that the conditions on what is required of US athletes — as far as when and where they have to wear Nike gear — isn't clear.

Letsrun.com posted the full agreement that US athletes are required to sign, which says only that, "I will dress appropriately and respectfully for all 'official' Team functions, wearing the designated Team uniforms provided by USATF."

Symmonds is sponsored by Brooks Running, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

Other major sponsors on the professional track circuit include Adidas, Saucony, Reebok, and Puma (which sponsors 100m world record holder Usain Bolt). 

Word came down on Sunday night that Symmonds would not be on the team, and Symmonds said on Twitter that on Monday he'll "present proof that [the USATF] is stealing millions of dollars" from US track and field field athletes.

In a statement, the USTAF's Jill Geer said, "We respect Nick’s decision not to represent the United States at the IAAF World Championships."

At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, Symmonds won a silver medal, the first medal for an American man at the 800m since 1997 and the best-ever finish for an American in that event. 

Akron University sophomore Clayton Murphy, who was fourth at the US championships, will now run in Symmonds' place. 

Here's Symmonds' 2013 race:

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From 2004 through 2014, the Kansas City Royals never ranked higher than 25th in attendance in Major League Baseball. But one season after coming within a game of winning the World Series, the Royals have jumped all the way up to No. 10 at 33,402 fans per game, a 38.3% increase over last year, the biggest jump in baseball.

The Houston Astros, who are leading the AL West, are the only other team that has seen attendance this season jump more than 20%.

Overall, average attendance in MLB is up 1.1% so far this year from 30,458 per game to 30,807 per game.

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NOW WATCH: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The historic 1996 Chicago Bulls championship team

Tristan Thompson and the Cleveland Cavaliers are in one of the strangest stalemates of the NBA offseason.

After Thompson was reportedly nearing an $80 million dealwith the Cavaliers, things suddenly turned quiet between the two sides for weeks and nobody knew why.

Michael Grange of Sportsnet reported on Monday afternoon that Thompson will take the one-year, $6.8 million qualifying offer to become an unrestricted free agent next summer:

Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group clarified that the discussions are ongoing, but Thompson would supposedly leave after this season if he doesn't get a long-term deal:

Thompson entered the summer a restricted free agent, meaning the Cavaliers could match any offer he received from another team. Under normal circumstances, restricted free agents have almost no bargaining power since their they can sign an offer sheet from other teams, but still be retained by their original teams.

However, as ESPN's Brian Windhorst reported on Monday, the Thompson-Cavs impasse was different this year because of the impending salary cap boom next year when the NBA signs its new TV deal. 

Windhorst reported that Thompson was seeking a max contract of $94 million this summer while the Cavs were offering "significantly less." With the salary cap expected to jump from $70 million to $88 million next summer, there's never been a better time in the NBA to be a free agent. Thompson's has two viable options: 1) get a max contract this summer before it becomes much more expensive next summer (max salaries are tied to a percentage of the salary cap), and 2) take the one-year qualifying offer this summer, become an unrestricted free agent next summer, and start a bidding war when at least 20 teams will have cap space to offer a max contract.

It's not such an easy decision for the Cavaliers. As Windhorst notes, with five players — LeBron James, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, Iman Shumpert, and Anderson Varejao — making over $10 million next season, the Cavs are already $4 million over the tax line. Signing Thompson to a contract that averages $15 million per year could cost them over $35 million in taxes — virtually unprecedented territory.

Still, if Thompson takes the qualifying offer, it would be a huge blow to the Cavs. Haynes and Grange have both reported that Thompson's agent, Rich Paul, says he will leave if he's forced to take the one-year deal. During the postseason, LeBron — who is also repped by Paul — was already publicly endorsing the Cavs re-signing Thompson, saying he could be a Cav for life. Losing Thompson would not only upset LeBron, it would cost the capped-out Cavaliers a talented player they couldn't easily replace.

We'll update this post when more details emerge. 

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NOW WATCH: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The historic 1996 Chicago Bulls championship team

Seattle's All-Pro safety Kam Chancellor has been holding out of Seahawks training camp for nine days and will reportedly continue to do so until he renegotiates his contract, per Field Gulls. Following an off-season in which multiple Seahawks earned large contract extensions, Chancellor wants to join the club and get his.

But for all his talent, the strong safety has very little leverage as he attempts to negotiate a new deal. Seattle has a strict policy of only renegotiating contracts during their final year and doesn't want to set a precedent that does otherwise. Chancellor, meanwhile, is under contract until 2017.

The holdout is not just about principle, however. Like all holdouts, it's ultimately about money, and the Seahawks are strapped for cash. Chancellor will make $4.55 million in 2015, per spotrac.com, and Seattle only has $4.9 million left in cap space. This makes the likelihood of a bigger deal with more guaranteed money quite tricky, and so the stalemate presses on.

The longer Chancellor holds out, the more money he'll continue to lose. Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times nicely explained the details of how punitively teams can fine players during holdouts, all as part of the most recent CBA:

[T]he team can fine [Chancellor] for $30,000 for every day missed, so up to $330,000 at this point, along with the ability to recoup up to 25 percent of his signing bonus for this season (which as $1 million) if he misses all of training camp. The way that rule works is the team can ask to recoup 15 percent of his bonus after the sixth day and then one percent a day up to 25 percent. So, Chancellor would be subject to fines of up to $530,000 as of today. But fines are at team discretion and often waived once a player reports.

If Chancellor somehow didn't get a deal done before the start of the regular season, the penalties would increase further. Joel Corry, a former sports agent, broke down holdouts last year at CBS Sports:

An additional 25 percent can be recovered with the first missed regular season game. After four missed weeks, a team can recover 1/17 of the prorated amount for each additional week of the player's absence. The maximum a team can recover in a season is the entire prorated amount of the player's signing bonus.

It's highly unlikely that Chancellor will miss any regular season games, but if he does, it will cost him $267,647 on top of the holdout fines. Right now, with Chancellor holding out and Earl Thomas still slowly recovering from injury, the Legion of Boom will open its first preseason game with a safety tandem of DeShawn Shead and Steven Terrell. Nobody wants that when the games start to matter. At some point either the Seahawks will have to change their rule on renegotiation or Chancellor will have to swallow his pride.

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Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson signed a four-year, $39 million contract a year ago, but that doesn't keep him from returning to his family farm in tiny Riley, Kansas, every off-season and putting in a full day's work.

In an interview in the new issue of ESPN the Magazine, Nelson said he would work up to 12 hours a day on the farm, driving a combine to cut wheat or rounding up the 1,000-cow herd in the town whose population is 992.

"Working cattle is my favorite farm duty," Nelson told ESPN. He said he identifies "more as a farmer" than as a football player.

Nelson went on to say that in Riley he is "just the farm kid they have always known."

After starring as a quarterback at Riley High School, Nelson walked on at nearby Kansas State, where he ultimately moved to wide receiver.

Since being drafted in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft, Nelson has caught 49 touchdown passes and was a Pro Bowler in 2014.

In an interview with The 700 Club this year, Nelson explained how life on the farm prepared him for the NFL.

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Everyone has heard about athletic superstars who go bankrupt.

Though athletes make crazy amounts of money, their careers don't last forever, so if they don't responsibly spend and invest that money, they could (and often do) run into financial troubles after retirement.

But Ryan Broyles, a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, is hoping to escape that fate.

"He knew NFL players, and athletes in general, go bankrupt," ESPN's Michael Rothstein writes. "He saw athletes blow through millions. He was determined not to have that happen to him."

Though Broyles signed a contract worth over $3.6 million — with over $1.4 million of that guaranteed — he decided to support his family on an annual budget of $60,000.

The rest of that money, he says, is going into investments and retirement savings to secure his post-football future. Broyles declined to give ESPN specifics about his investments.

"Whatever comes, it's just a blessing," Broyles told ESPN. "But I got the mindset of a businessman off the field, I'll tell you that.

"The pressure I put on myself is just being the best player I am," Broyles added. "I would never play [just] for money, you know what I mean — that's not my intentions whatsoever."

The wide receiver says he checks his investments daily using a mobile app and takes advantages of everything to increase his savings, including the NFL's matching 401(k) plan. He even traveled to Washington, D.C., in March with New Orleans running back Mark Ingram to speak with students about financial planning.

Check out the full story at ESPN.

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The Dallas Cowboys' running back experiment is off to a slow start.

After refusing to pay DeMarco Murray the big contract he wanted in March and watching him sign instead with Philadelphia, the Cowboys entered training camp with plans for a running back by committee— an assortment of little-known backs that would split reps and divide the workload in the back field. The Cowboys didn't make a splashy move for Adrian Peterson, as some anticipated, and have reportedly expressed no interest in guys like Ray Rice or Chris Johnson.

Before training camp, the Cowboys planned to have some combination of Lance Dunbar, Joseph Randle, Ryan Williams, and Darren McFadden share running back responsibilities. But now, just a few days away from their first preseason game, this committee of backs is shrinking. At the moment, every single one is sidelined with an injury.

Randle is out with a strained oblique, Dunbar has an ankle sprain, and Williams was cut after a knee injury. McFadden has yet to practice in training camp as a result of hamstring issues. Retired Steelers player Rodney Harrison recently told Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio that McFadden was in worse shape than he was.

Yesterday, Brandon Roy of the Dallas Morning News reported that undrafted free agent Gus Johnson (no, not this Gus Johnson) is taking first-team reps and will likely start in the team's Thursday preseason game against San Diego. Fullback Tyler Clutts and 2014 sixth-round pick Lache Seastrunk are the only other backs left on the depth chart.

It sounds apocalyptic for the Cowboys, but it might not be quite so awful. According to Football Outsiders, Dallas had the best run-blocking offensive line in the league last year. With a line that good, you don't need DeMarco Murray, or a prestige rusher. You'll probably be fine with Darren McFadden and a handful of others.

The running back positions is changing, with more teams finding success on the ground without having a big-name back. Consider the Patriots, who just won a Super Bowl with LaGarrette Blount, or the fact that no running back has led the league in rushing two years in a row since LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006-07. After losing one of the best running backs in the league, the Cowboys have adopted the Patriots model.

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One of Hollywood's most beloved couples, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, are getting divorced after ten years of marriage. The root of their issues seems to be the couple's 28-year-old former nanny, Christine Ouzounian, who allegedly had an affair with Affleck.

Affleck has denied any romantic relationship with Ouzounian and stated that he was merely friendly with her. On Tuesday, New York Post obtained a photo of Ouzounian that suggests Affleck at the very least pampered her.

In the photo, Ouzounian is on Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady's private jet and wearing a bunch of his Super Bowl rings. The Post claims Ouzounian was invited to fly on Brady's jet by her then-employer, Affleck, and it also suggests Affleck's wife didn't know about the trip or invitation that was extended to Ouzounian. The trio reportedly were headed to Vegas for a poker tournament. When Garner found out, The Post says she "flipped out" and the couple split just a few days after the photo was taken.

Here's the controversial nanny photo on NY Post:

SEE ALSO: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner announce divorce after 10 years of marriage

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With NFL training camps underway, Miami Dolphins defensive tackle A.J. Francis can resume playing football, his biggest priority.

During the NFL's long off-season, however, Francis took up another job — driving an Uber.

In a video with ESPN, Francis said that despite making over $318,000 last year and $530,000 for this coming season, he wanted to supplement his income since he doesn't get paid during the off-season.

"I have a workout bonus this year, but as anyone with a workout bonus will tell you, when you have a workout bonus, you don't get that bonus until July, August," Francis said. "So, I decided to be my own boss."

According to Spotrac, Francis has made over $440,000 in his career and this season has a base salary of $510,000 and a workout bonus of $20,000.

But the Dolphins' season ended in December when they didn't make the playoffs. That means that from January to July, Francis would have only his savings.

"Instead of just spending money that I made last year, because I'm not getting paid this offseason, I'm making it another way," Francis said. "I'm just out here trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents."

Francis said his teammates either find it funny or haven't talked to him about it. Francis said he hadn't talked about it to new Dolphin Ndamukong Suh, who signed a $114 million contract this offseason, but said, "We're looking at life from two different viewing points."

"I'm looking at it from the third floor — they're looking at it from the penthouse."

Watch the entire video below:

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