— The best Cowboys fans could hope for Von Miller is that, at 37, he might be as good as he was last year, when his nine sacks were his best since 2021. Or a half-sack better than Jadeveon Clowney. They might also hope he won’t do anything to get himself suspended by the NFL again. He sat out the first four games in 2024 after charges of domestic abuse of his pregnant girlfriend. Those charges were later dropped, but the league made its point, something that rarely deters Jerry Jones.

— The Cowboys proved their back-ups were better than the Seahawks’ in their first no-count game, which is something, I suppose. The rise of undrafted free agent Camden Brown is interesting. The more receivers the Cowboys stack up, the less likely the need to lavish a long-term deal on George Pickens next year.

— Of course, it’s still early and there are lots of new parts, but Nick Sorensen might want to clean up his special teams, which weren’t exactly sterling last year, either. 

— Coming home from a 2-5 road trip through the likes of the Angels and A’s isn’t much of a recommendation, yet the Rangers remain just two games behind the first-place Astros, who are almost as bad. Doesn’t anyone want to win the West? 

— Of any expectations you might have had for Joc Pederson this year, did his status as one of the game’s best lead-off hitters strike you as a possibility? 

— After a season of near-misses while remaining No. 1, Scottie Scheffler opened the PGA Tour playoffs with a blowout in Memphis.  Consider this bad timing for the field. 

— Klay Thompson wants to play for a championship contender, and the Mavs would like to oblige him. Just not in Dallas. Masai Ujiri’s makeover continues. 

— As I type this, we’re less than two weeks from TCU playing North Carolina in Dublin. If Sonny Dykes picks up where he left the Tar Heels last year, he just might drive Bill Belichick into retirement. 

— Biggest hot seat under any local college football coach? Baylor’s Dave Aranda, and it’s not even close. Unless former Horned Frog Josh Hoover makes everyone forget Fernando Mendoza at Indiana, and then Sonny might feel some heat, too. 

— Story time: The service for Don Nelson last week at Preston Hollow Presbyterian ran into triple overtime as one speaker after another regaled the mourners with tales of one of the NBA’s most colorful personalities. Given the mounting evidence, you might think there wouldn’t be anything left worth telling, but then you’d be wrong.

One of Nellie’s poker pals on Maui was a guy named Greg Booth, who lived on the island part-time. The rest of the time he lived in Dallas with his wife, Carol, and family. Booth made his bones as a photographer and ran his own shop.

On Aug. 29, 2008, two days before his 61st birthday, Booth drove over to Nellie’s place in Maui for poker. He’d just arrived, as Nellie told long-time California columnist Tim Kawakami, when he handed the host a couple of expensive cigars, high-fived the rest, then “walked over to the kitchen, grabbed his chest, down he went.”

He didn’t get up.

Now, most people might have been overwhelmed by the death of a friend in their midst. Most would have at least called it a night.

But Nellie was not like most people. 

Or any, for that matter.

After moving the departed to another room, the survivors called an ambulance, then Nellie made a speech. He told them Booth liked to have fun, and his final wish, had he been able to render one, would have been that they’d play on.

And that they did, though not before slipping a $20 chip into his pocket first.

Kawakami appropriately asked Nellie if the passing of a friend gave him any thoughts about his mortality or retirement.

He offered up a fitting epitaph.

“If I’m having fun,” he said, “I’m going to keep plugging.

“Bop ‘til you drop, baby.”