A weekly addition of news and notes across the sports world, all in the humble eye of Kyle Zies.

NFL Notebook:

The New England Patriots have dropped their past two games and have perhaps slipped from the elite category in the league this season. However, the Cincinnati Bengals and Denver Broncos may have taken the Pats’ spot. Andy Dalton looks like he can do no wrong. Brock Osweiler is the answer the Broncos needed. In the NFC the Arizona Cardinals look like Super Bowl contenders and quite frankly I have to say this… Carson Palmer should be the MVP of the league.

Columbus Blue Jackets:

Just when things were starting to look sunny in Columbus, a dark cloud (again) hovered over Nationwide Arena as superstar goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has sustained a lower body injury that will sideline him for the next three weeks. Bobrovsky has been stellar under new head coach John Tortorella posting 9-4-1 record, a 1.71 goals against average, and a .941 save percentage in the past 14 games. In the meantime, the Jackets will rely on journeymen backup Curtis McElhinney and newly recalled youngster Joonas Korpisalo from Columbus’ minor league affiliate in Cleveland. Koorpisalo took a drive down I-71 in hopes of making a lasting NHL impression. Things are not looking good for Columbus and one shouldn’t be surprised to hear the word “tanking” being thrown out by fans as the prize of draft gem Auston Matthews seems too bright to resist. However, these are athletes, professionals, and competitors and tanking is not in their vocabulary.

Aroldis Chapman:

As a deal was seemingly completed to deal Reds’ reliever Aroldis Chapman to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the deal fell through as news surfaced of a potential domestic violence case against Chapman filed by his girlfriend some time ago. Due to the severity of the case and the amount of unknowns I will not form an opinion or comment on the legal side. But, I can comment on this. Isn’t it a little odd that just as he was dealt, Chapman’s girlfriend decided to release this information? Maybe yes, maybe no. Nonetheless, this has put a kink in the Reds’ and MLB’s offseason plans and until this is figured out, expect an unusual offseason.

Extended Piece: Can we really call athletes lazy?

In the age of social media at our fingertips, terms can be thrown around far too often to describe unfair situations in regards to professional athletes. Focused example being, laziness. In today’s sports world, armchair general managers (guilty as charged) sit at home and scroll through endless databases, forums, and blogs to which they (we) feel that they are the experts at dealing professional athletes and labeling them as “worthless”, “untouchable”, “injury prone”, among others. However, the one that makes me cringe and scour is when one dubs a player as “lazy”.

The example that has recently caught my eye has been of our own backyard hero, Ryan Johansen of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Our beloved kid with the flowing locks and skill that blesses our own eyes, has been called out as someone who is “lazy”. Can we really call a professional athlete “lazy”? Can we really say that someone who receives millions of dollars per year and takes the brutality of an 82 game season to the body is a lazy person? I think not.

The amount of hard work, dedication and yes, a hint of skill that athletes contain is unimaginable to the normal spectator. For all of those (and me) who sit back and label professional athletes as their puppets, please filter next time before you put “lazy” in the same sentence as a professional athlete.