01-10-2023, 03:03 PM
There's a shocker. ESPN fact checks themselves and finds themselves to be correct. What a crock. The corporate media care about themselves and their delusion of being authoritative above everything else. They're never going to admit that they got anything wrong.
Who was most served by declaring that the game was going to restart? ESPN and their ratings.
Here's the key point in this story.
ESPN's source was a "Senior Rules Analyst" in the command center. They conveniently don't name him to prevent any awkward fact checking of their fact checking. But it wasn't anyone at the NFL with decision making power.
Buried much deeper in the story is this.
Meanwhile, from Zac Taylor.
So AFTER ESPN declared that they'd been given five minutes to warm up and that the game was going to be restarted, Taylor stated that there was no push for anything to happen.
The fact that Taylor hadn't been told anything when ESPN said that they were supposed to be warming up to restart suggests that ESPN was just spitting out speculative nonsense to fill dead air and keep people tuned in. It's very likely that ESPN asked the NFL rules analyst what was going to happen and the rules analyst told them that normally they would restart after a break. Even ESPN doesn't claim that any NFL executive ever said anything of the sort.
Then come the juicy parts. ESPN outs their source "from one of the teams" as a Bills source and sheds more light on how badly the Bengals got screwed.
This confirms from a Bills source that nobody was ever pressured to resume. NFL officials were probably running through all the scenarios for how they could reschedule and the Bills simply decided to leave. They never intended to allow this game to be rescheduled. They forfeited and the NFL counted it as a win for everyone but the Bengals.
An then finally, there's this from the Bills source.
What do you think ESPN would say about that if someone in an NFL organization said that about one of their black executives?
Outing this source as being from the Bills was entirely unnecessary and self-serving for ESPN. It doesn't serve the story at all. They just wanted to get as many digs in on the NFL as they could. Maybe the Bill's ingratitude for getting handed control of the two seed will discourage the NFL from doing any more to help the media get that Chiefs - Bills AFCC that they so desperately want.
Who was most served by declaring that the game was going to restart? ESPN and their ratings.
Here's the key point in this story.
Quote:Multiple firsthand sources told ESPN that it was a senior NFL rules analyst inside the NFL command center who conveyed the plan to resume play to John Parry, an officiating expert working in the ESPN broadcast booth.
ESPN's source was a "Senior Rules Analyst" in the command center. They conveniently don't name him to prevent any awkward fact checking of their fact checking. But it wasn't anyone at the NFL with decision making power.
Buried much deeper in the story is this.
Quote:Last week, McCarthy said the NFL rules analyst in the command center was "adamant that at no time did he say anything related to a five-minute warmup period to John Parry. ... John is just plain wrong."
Meanwhile, from Zac Taylor.
Quote:Taylor said he "didn't feel any directive that guys need to start warming up."
"We've been through this situation a million times where there's an injury on the field," Taylor said. "There was no push for anything to happen. It was just, let's let these moments play out, see what the next step is, as people get a chance to get their minds right. Ultimately, that's what led to the decision."
So AFTER ESPN declared that they'd been given five minutes to warm up and that the game was going to be restarted, Taylor stated that there was no push for anything to happen.
The fact that Taylor hadn't been told anything when ESPN said that they were supposed to be warming up to restart suggests that ESPN was just spitting out speculative nonsense to fill dead air and keep people tuned in. It's very likely that ESPN asked the NFL rules analyst what was going to happen and the rules analyst told them that normally they would restart after a break. Even ESPN doesn't claim that any NFL executive ever said anything of the sort.
Then come the juicy parts. ESPN outs their source "from one of the teams" as a Bills source and sheds more light on how badly the Bengals got screwed.
Quote:An hour after Hamlin fell, with the game still not officially postponed, some team officials were confused why NFL executives were delaying the inevitable. Multiple ideas and contingencies were floated from New York, two people with knowledge said, including the idea that the Bills would stay overnight in Cincinnati. That was "almost instantly shot down," a source said.
"We felt confusion and nonsense more than pressure," the team official said. "They were still discussing things. In our mind there was nothing to be discussed. ... If they would have said, 'If you leave you're forfeiting the game,' we're still leaving."
This confirms from a Bills source that nobody was ever pressured to resume. NFL officials were probably running through all the scenarios for how they could reschedule and the Bills simply decided to leave. They never intended to allow this game to be rescheduled. They forfeited and the NFL counted it as a win for everyone but the Bengals.
An then finally, there's this from the Bills source.
Quote:"The league screws this s--- up because Troy Vincent screws this stuff up," the official said. "That's the wrong person in the wrong position at the absolute wrong time. ... He wants to be the hero, but he will never take accountability. That's him to a T."
What do you think ESPN would say about that if someone in an NFL organization said that about one of their black executives?
Outing this source as being from the Bills was entirely unnecessary and self-serving for ESPN. It doesn't serve the story at all. They just wanted to get as many digs in on the NFL as they could. Maybe the Bill's ingratitude for getting handed control of the two seed will discourage the NFL from doing any more to help the media get that Chiefs - Bills AFCC that they so desperately want.
