Apparently Roger Goodell couldn’t bribe Jerry Jones with the NFL Draft.

The feud between the NFL Commissioner and the owner of the Dallas Cowboys has gotten testier now after reports last night that Jones has hired a lawyer and threatened to sue the NFL to try and stop Goodell from getting a contract extension:

Jones said in a conference call last Thursday with the six owners — those of the Chiefs, Falcons, Giants, Patriots, Steelers and Texans — that legal papers were drawn up and would be served this Friday if the committee did not scrap or delay its current plans to extend Goodell’s contract.

As of Wednesday, the owners and the league had not been sued.

Jones, who has owned the Cowboys since 1989, has been a nonvoting member of the committee that is considering Goodell’s contract, which expires at the end of the 2018 season. He has fought to have a say.

After Jones’s conference call last week, the six owners revoked his status as an ad hoc member of the compensation committee, which decides on pay packages for the top league officials.

Of course all of this stems from the Ezekiel Elliott case as the Cowboys’ star fights every week with injunctions and court appeals to delay and potentially overturn a six-game suspension that is looming over Elliott and Dallas. For now, Elliott is eligible to play, but is due in court today.

As you would expect, Goodell is not taking this well:

A person who spoke recently with Goodell said the commissioner is “furious” about Jones’ and other owners’ insistence that his next contract’s compensation should be more performance-based, including incentives that would allow him to be paid at roughly the same level of his current deal. “He feels as if the owners have made a lot of money and he should be compensated accordingly,” the source said. “The incentives thing really angers him.”

Maybe the 2018 season would start without Elliott or Goodell? That would be something most football fans would cheer about.

Let’s go.

The Roundup:

Philadelphia, the Major League Baseball community, and many others are still reeling after the tragic death of Roy Halladay on Tuesday. Kyle has a story, like many do, with Halladay. His Thank You post, in part:

The first ever post I wrote on this site was on the day the Phillies traded for him in December of 2009. I of course celebrated the arrival of Halladay but criticized Ruben Amaro for trading away Cliff Lee to make it happen. It’s a bad post. But it’s also one that quite literally changed my life, or at least my “career,” if that’s what you can call sitting at home blogging about sports.

I started multiple sites over the years, and none of them stuck. No one read them. But interest in Philly sports may have been at an all-time time high when the Phillies traded for Halladay. I figured I’d try one more time to start a website and see if I could make something of it.

I took to Facebook to create a Halladay fan page. At the time, you could be a fan of anything on Facebook– from a sausage link to a famous athlete. The social network wasn’t used for brand or official pages yet, and there were probably 10 or so dedicated to Halladay as a Phillie, but for some reason mine is the one that stuck, and it quickly amassed a few thousand fans, and then 10,000, and eventually more than 80,000.

I realized that I had a captive audience and that I could post links to my blog posts on the page. Despite the accusation of some Phillies bloggers at the time, I never posted as Roy or pretended to be him, I simply ran a fan page dedicated to him.

The readers I got from those early posts are the reason the site exists today.

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated also posted a great ode to Doc yesterday:

Just by being himself, Halladay somehow became the best pitcher in baseball with a dearth of attention. When I once asked him about such a rare achievement in this noisy world of sports, he replied, “It’s definitely by choice. For me the satisfaction is always the competition, and the self-gratification knowing you did something to the best of your ability and I think that’s all it will ever be for me. It’s not ever going to be who knows me and what do they think about me. It’s ultimately going to come down to how I went about doing my job.”

Never before or since have I seen ferocity of greatness combined with such humility. Halladay was the genuine article: a gentle, charitable soul with the most aggressive, attacking pitching style you could ever find.

Sadly an asshole in Boston mocked Halladay’s death.

TMZ Sports posted some pretty breathtaking videos from witnesses of Halladay’s flight and the crash aftermath.

The latest Crossing Broadcast dropped yesterday and was dedicated to Doc.

In hoops, the Sixers extended their winning streak to five games with a 104-97 win over the Jazz on Tuesday night. Our Sixers reporter Kevin Kinkead has his observations from the west-coast win:

It was January 9, 2012, the last time Philly won five games in a row. Andre Iguodala put up 20, 9, and 5 in a 96-86 win against the Pacers. Lou Williams added 13 off the bench and Tyler Hansbrough was still in the league.

So it’s been awhile since we’ve seen this kind of success, and I’m not still not even convinced they’ve played their best basketball this year. Again we saw Brett Brown’s team come flying out of the gates only to slump through an ugly 14-point second quarter.

But again they shot above 44% from three-point range and ripped off timely steals, blocks, and defensive stops. Again they outworked another team in their home building. Again and again and again. They just find a way to get it done despite the circumstances.

Jahlil Okafor played on Tuesday night, just his second appearance this season. HoopsRumors summarized the potential landing spots for the former Duke Blue Devil, should the Sixers trade him:

The Celtics are one obvious suitor, with an $8.4MM disabled player exception available to use on Okafor, but the Sixers seem unenthusiastic about sending the big man to a division rival. The Bulls and Hawks have been mentioned as possible landing spots, and it makes sense that rebuilding teams like those would be willing to take a shot on a player with Okafor’s pedigree. The Suns – another rebuilding club – reportedly has some interest in Okafor too. And the Bucks look like an ideal fit — they just traded Greg Monroe, and they’re armed with a $5MM trade exception that is the perfect size for Okafor’s $4,995,120 salary.

The team returns to action on Thursday night at the Sacramento Kings (2-8). Tip is at 10pm.

Back to the NFL, things are pretty quiet on the Eagles front with the bye week and no media availability for a few days. NBC’s Tony Dungy probably wishes he was quiet, instead of talking about the Colts, on a hot mic.

Another team that is in disarray, the New York Giants, may be making some changes, sooner or later:

Another report:

https://twitter.com/AllbrightNFL/status/928358386332327943

If you don’t have an NFL RedZone or Sunday Ticket package, on cable, you’ll get Pittsburgh-Indianapolis, Minnesota-Washington, and Dallas-Atlanta this sans-Eagles Sunday.

Have you missed the Flyers yet? They return to the ice tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks at 7pm. There will be a moment of silence for Roy Halladay.

Meanwhile Danick Martel has been crushing it for the Phantoms as he scored in his sixth straight game in Lehigh Valley’s win on Wednesday. Martel leads the AHL with 14 goals on the young season to help the Phantoms jump out to a 9-3-2 season.

In non-sports news…

A woman got each of her 20(!!) boyfriends to buy her a new iPhone 7s…the best part? She sold them and used the money for a down payment on a house. Baller move.

AT&T has to make a decision, to keep CNN or buy Time Warner?

Facebook is testing a way to prevent your ex from posting revenge porn videos/photos of you. Its solution? Upload a nude photo of yourself.

The State Trooper who was shot on Tuesday was ID’d yesterday.

Barack Obama was in Chicago on Wednesday to report for jury duty.