The Realist

I called into my guy Bomani Jones' radio show this morning to talk about my take on the Albert Haynesworth situation and how the NFL and the Redskins have successfully manipulated the media and the fans on the issue. I definitely think its worth a listen. Warning, NSFW language.

Piggy backing on the things I said on air another story came out today about our local media and the way they handled a story from last week. Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik told the local beat writers last week that the team had the ability to fine left tackle Donald Penn for missing the mandatory mini camp as well as training camp and any regular season games he misses even though he hadn't signed his restricted free agent tender. This story didn't make sense to me on its face but just about every local sports media outlet reported it as fact. It was a curious assertion because it came just a few days before the deadline for Penn to either sign his tender or risk having it reduced to 110% of his salary from last year. Now I have already blogged about why I thought Penn should hold out until they offer him a long term deal, but him being fined would obviously complicate that calculation.

Well it turns out the story was bullshit. Absolute unequivical bullshit. And not one member of the local media fact checked the assertion before the deadline passed. Obviously if Penn's agent had fallen for the ploy and urged him to sign a tender based on false information it would have been on him for falling for the okie doke. But how sickening would it have been for him personally to sign the contract because of that threat only to subsequently find out he had been played? Better yet what kind of apology would any of those members of the media been able to offer for their role in perpetrating what could have been a VERY costly lie?

Its crazy because all of a sudden today all of the same media outlets are simultaneously reporting that they "discovered" that the assertion wasn't true. As if they all at the same time decided to do some fact checking. I will leave it up to you to decide how they all came to this revelation at once but the question remains, why in the hell didn't they fact check it to begin with when the assertion was made and before they "reported" it?

And that in a nutshell is the problem I have with members of the media and in this case specifically the sports media when it comes to reporting on NFL players. Instead of reporting nowadays they are instead doing more repeating than anything else. Hell if I was Dominik and I knew nobody would call me out for spreading false information I might do it too. What exactly is the downside for him if the media is willing to be his happy accomplice? People this is why I keep telling you to make up your own mind about these situations. Im not saying you should back the players on every issue, but at least be open to the fact that you may not be getting the whole or correct story.

You certainly didn't get the truth this time.

*To listen to my segment just click on the archives button

Worst. Coverage. Ever.

Look, I think Ndamukong Suh is a really good college player and should be a very good NFL player. Hell he may even end up being great. But ESPN's coverage of the Holiday Bowl or should I say coverage of Suh, was pretty embarrassing. The guy had all of 2 tackles tonight.

That's right, 2 tackles.

But you would have thought he not only made every play on defense but also scored every touchdown on offense as well. Its not just that they were over selling the guy, it is also, and maybe more importantly, that they greatly undersold his teammates. Nebraska's quarterback had a helluva game tonight and didn't even resemble the guy who looked rattled most of the Big 12 Championship game. That was him moving their offense up and down the field against an Arizona defense that had been ranked pretty high all year. But the announcers barely noticed because they were so busy stroking off Suh.

The defensive backfield for Nebraska had such excellent coverage downfield play after play that Arizona's quarterback who normally had an above 60% completion percentage, couldn't even complete simple curl routes. But by the end of the game you hadn't even heard most of those guys names except when the starting lineups were announced at the beginning of the game.

I can appreciate that Suh is the hot story and that he will likely be the number 1 pick in the draft, but that is no reason for them to just drop their responsibilities of announcing the game in favor of acting as a stand in for his PR people.

I know some people watching the game probably think I am off base because people have said time and time again that Suh is the next Reggie White and therefore he deserves to be covered extensively but I have to believe that even some Suh supporters had to be disgusted by the announcers by the end of the game. It got so bad that they actually showed a replay of him obviously getting blocked one on one when one of his teammates got a sack and instead of talking about the teammate who actually made the play they instead just made up some shit and gave Suh credit saying that him getting double teamed is what opened it up for his teammate. I mean a blind man could have watched that play and discerned that he wasn't double teamed. But it was more important to promote Suh than it was to give credit to his teammate.

I certainly hope that the guy lives up to the hype because right about now they have made him up into King Kong, and we all know how that movie ended...