Second thoughts

Saturday, May 10, 2014

This explains how Browns got this way After an agonizing 2-hour, 45-minute wait in the NFL Draft green room Thursday night, Johnny Manziel is now a Cleveland Brown.

Apparently he has a homeless guy to thank for his new job.

Manziel's fall was one of the early stories of the draft, and once he was picked ESPN cut to Sal Paolantonio in Cleveland with a pretty strange story. According to Paolantonio, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam received guidance from an unlikely source.

"Here in Cleveland, everywhere I go, people know me," Haslam told Paolantonio. "I was out to dinner recently. A homeless person was out on the street. He looked up at me and said, 'Draft Manziel.'"

Apparently that's all it took to convince Haslam that Browns fans wanted Manziel. Cleveland made a draft night trade with Philadelphia to land the 22nd pick.

Oh, and that wasn't all. The Browns' Twitter feed was a little too excited getting their pick out on social media. Posted along with a picture of Manziel the team's helmet were the words, "Cleveland Browns 22th overall pick."

22th?

Let the circus begin.

Rattled or not?

Were the Portland Trailblazers rattled, literally, before their 114-97 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday?

A snake -- the Trailblazers thought it was a rattler -- turned up in the locker of reserve forward Thomas Robinson before the game, ESPN reported.

Robinson said he had only seen snakes on the Discovery Channel until Thursday night.

"I was scared," he said. "I ain't going to lie, I was scared."

He said he screamed and leaped "about 5 feet high and 20 feet back."

Reserve guard Will Barton, Robinson's neighbor in the locker room, said he kept calm while hopping up on a chair. There was all kinds of commotion until the team's "brave trainers" caught the reptile, according to Robinson.

A Spurs official said the snake was determined to be non-poisonous before being released into the wild, according to ESPN. The snake was black and white, the Spurs' colors, Robinson noted.

ESPN said rumor has it that Spurs shooting guard Danny Green collects snakes.

"That's the No. 1 suspect right there," Barton said with a laugh.

A slam dunk

Justin Leonard made his 20th consecutive start at The Players Championship a memorable one Thursday.

Leonard, 41, is still competing week to week on the Tour even though he's not nearly the player he once was. But even with that long history at TPC Sawgrass, the 1998 champion did something he's probably never done before at the Stadium Course. He destroyed the opening hole.

Leonard put his opening tee shot Thursday in the middle of the fairway at No. 1, but still had 147 yards to the front-right pin location. The greens this week are especially soft, and players are taking aim at almost every pin. Leonard did that and more, slamming it right in the jar for an eagle that severely damaged the lip of the cup.

Leonard's slam-dunk of the hole required Tour officials and course maintenance to re-cut it for the rest of the field.

Sports on 05/10/2014