Mr. Scot

Side Note: I'm gonna guess Dianna Russini is feeling pretty good about moving from ESPN to The Athletic right about now.

Don't remember if it was ESPN, but there was a story a short time ago about a sports site using AI to write articles attributed to either actual or non-existent writers (don't remember which). I thought that was silly. This is even more ridiculous.

Prestige, career advancement, pay raises, etc. What's goofy is I'm pretty sure College Gameday earned a lot of that sort of thing organically. This turns all of that into a laughingstock.

Nah, not him I know we've got some big ESPN detractors on here who probably find this story pretty funny, but it's also a little confusing so I thought I'd break it down a little bit. Might also help explain why Aaron Rodgers is suddenly back on Pat McAfee's show after he'd apparently been pressured to take him off.

Something that ignites an explosion 🫥 (or a basic intro/summary of a particular subject)

So for those who've been hearing about the ESPN award scandal but don't know the details, here's a basic explanation: If an ESPN show like College Gameday (focal point of the drama) were to win an Emmy, the actual award statuettes were supposed to go to the show's producers. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences would get the info on who those producers were from ESPN after the fact (a procedure that apparently didn't require much verification). What the ESPN employees behind the scam were doing was giving the Academy phony info, names of people who didn't really exist but whose monikers might sound similar to actual on-air personalities. Those trophies would then be re-engraved to make it look like they were won by the on-air people, thus allowing the actual producers (and the network itself) to brag about their "award winning talent". Examples cited by The Athletic included: Kirk Henry (Kirk Herbstreit) Lee Clark (Lee Corso) Dirk Howard (Desmond Howard) Tim Richard (Tom Rinaldi) Steven Ponder (Sam Ponder) Gene Wilson (Gene Wojciechowski) Chris Fulton (Chris Fowler) Shelley Saunders (Shelley Smith) Erik Andrews (Erin Andrews) Wendy Nickson (Wendi Nix) Jenn Brownsmith (Jenn Brown) Not terribly imaginative if you ask me, but I digress... To be clear, the report states that the on-air people who received the fake awards were actually not in on the scam. They'd just be told they won an Emmy and think "Oh cool, didn't even know I was up for one". The goal was to add prestige to the network and its programming, especially those run by the producers in question, by artificially inflating the number of awards won. One executive (who was not involved) provided the following quote: "(S)ome company leaders were obsessed with the Emmys, using the numbers of wins each year to prove their dominance over competitors.“ Obviously that's backfired, and even the recipients of the phony awards are pissed about it. So now, "The Worldwide Leader in Sports" has award winning egg on its face...and Pat McAfee has plenty of new material (as well as reason to laugh hysterically) Full story here: ESPN used fake names to secure Emmy awards for College Gameday stars

Bloom might be off that particular rose after this past season.

Yep, but at least so far this cycle we haven't put in a request.

Pretty sure that's been a team policy since Jerry Richardson.

My former brother in law is a fun guy that everybody loves to be around. Leadership and ability wise, I wouldn't put him in charge of a lemonade stand.

Lots of speculation that if McCarthy gets bounced, it's for Dan Quinn. Mind you, that was before the Seahawks job opened up.

General belief at the moment is that the Patriots will go for Vrabel over Mayo.

Solid Twitter thread by Vincent Richardson about offseason suggestions...

Yeeeeeah...that's a "believe it when I see it" thing. It's possible, but right now he's so bad we're prescreening our interview requests out of fear people will run away.

He wants the all time win record.

The most likable bosses aren't always the best ones

I can sign on with pretty much all of that.

Re: ESPN...

We didn't have Tepper back then

That could be a Rooney Rule thing. Lotsa speculation they want Belichick.

...stop trying to use the team to make myself look smart 🫥

Someone already suggested bringing Saban aboard to help with Bryce Young.

That's true of at least one team pretty much every offseason.

I'd pay big money to have him not get any say in draft picks.