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ESPN reporter unloads on the nasty part of the NFL Draft
Happy NFL Draft Eve to all who celebrate! And, by the way, that’s all of you, because the NFL is king and even something as silly as a draft brings in more eyeballs than most other live sporting events.
Say what you want about Roger Goodell, but the guy knows how to market his product. Fair is fair.
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Anyway, the NFL Draft is always one of the biggest nights on the calendar, believe it or not. I remember when it used to be a two-day event on Saturday and Sunday only.
Remember those days? When it would start at noon and run for eight straight hours? Amazing.
It got too big a few years ago, and, naturally, the first round got moved to the prime time slot on Thursday night. It’s on 14 different channels now, with 14 different broadcasts. Again, it’s a monster event.
And ESPN’s Peter Schrager, a veteran in the NFL reporter world, has a plea for anyone watching tomorrow night: Stay off your phones!
“Would you watch a reality show if, three minutes before the end of the show, they tell you who is being eliminated?”
Amen, Peter. Preach! No, I wouldn’t. Neither would you. The NFL Draft is one giant reality show. It’s why we watch everything like hawks. The facial expressions. The green room. The WAGs. All of it. It’s a content machine.
But Schrager — again, a veteran reporter — didn’t stop there. He later divulged just how easy it is for insiders to get access to the pick ahead of time. Apparently, it’s not as impressive as you’d think.
“The NFL requires that name to be sent to them, and the entire league gets that name three minutes before the pick is made,” he said. “Anyone who’s got a credential has one source in the league, and that one source, whether it be from the 32 teams, or the league office, or an agent, they have access to the picks 90 seconds before they’re announced.
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“There is no valor in spoiling an NFL draft pick.”
Bingo! If you happen to have some actual scoop — like the pick 10 minutes ahead of time — go for it. That’s fine. That’s fair. If you have sources that deep in the business, you deserve to break it.
But if you’re getting the same info everyone else is getting, and just tweeting out the same exact thing everyone else is tweeting … come on. What’s the point? To spoil it for everyone watching? Seems silly.
Sure, there’s also the argument that we (the viewer) could just put the phone down and watch. It’s rare nowadays, outside of Augusta for a week out of the year. But, we could also just put the phones down and not be spoiled, either. As far as I know, nobody is forcing you to scroll social media for three hours with the NFL Draft on in the background.
If they are, blink twice!
Regardless, it’s interesting to see how insiders get their info. Sure, there’s a Russini joke somewhere in there, but I ain’t making it!
Happy NFL Draft Day Eve.
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Line in the sand: Why Trump is drawing flak for the James Comey indictment over seashells
The second James Comey indictment is not just absurd, it’s deeply troubling.
Trying to prosecute a guy for threatening the president’s life by posting a picture of seashells?
After a previous, much broader indictment against the fired FBI director despised by President Donald Trump was thrown out of court?
But don’t take my word for it:
JAMES COMEY INDICTED FOR ALLEGED THREATS AGAINST TRUMP: DOJ
ABC’s Jonathan Karl: “Even Trump’s allies are privately calling it ‘embarrassing,’ or as one very prominent former Trump DOJ official told me last night, ‘depressing.’”
National Review’s Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor: “This farce, then, is nothing more than a continuation of Trump’s lawfare campaign against a political enemy. It is inconceivable that Comey could be convicted of a crime in these circumstances, but the president’s minions are putting him through the anxiety, expense, and stigma of the judicial process.”
Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox: “I must be in a parallel universe to be talking about the shell art of James Comey…Just showing the picture’s going to be a weak case in terms of a threat.”
“It’ll be thrown out. It’s classic revenge,” Ty Cobb, a Trump White House lawyer in the first term, told CNN.
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The seashell collection, which Comey said he found on a North Carolina beach, said 86 47. In restaurant parlance, 86 means to get rid of a customer or dish, not kill them. And the other numbers refer to the 47th president. It was spectacularly bad judgment for Comey to post the photo on his Instagram account.
But after an uproar, Comey deleted the posting and said he in no way meant to suggest political violence.
“I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go,” Comey said after the new charges were filed.
It’s no secret at this point that the Justice Department has become an aggressive player in Trump’s retribution campaign. One reason he fired Pam Bondi as attorney general is that he was unhappy with the pace of the probes.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche denied yesterday that the president had ordered him to bring the indictment. “Anybody who tries to put forward some narrative that this is just about seashells or something to the contrary is missing the point,” he told CBS. “You cannot threaten the president of the United States.”
But Trump didn’t have to make a secret phone call to demand the indictment. He talks openly about those he views as enemies, such as Letitia James. He said he was glad when ex-special prosecutor Bob Mueller died.
In the past, Trump has referred to Comey as “scum,” “slimeball” and a “lying scumbag.”
Trump told reporters yesterday that 86 is “a mob term for kill them, you know? You ever see the movies? “‘86 ‘em,’ the mobster says to one of his wonderful associates.”
Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on whether he felt his life was in danger, Trump said “probably.”
“The people like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others. You know, Comey is a dirty cop, he’s a very dirty cop…He’s a crooked man.”
Other presidents might have declined comment on what is now an ongoing criminal prosecution, but that’s not Donald Trump.
FORMER FBI AGENT SAYS COMEY CHARGES HINGE ON INTENT EVIDENCE AND JURY INTERPRETATION
The first indictment, last September, came after Secret Service agents tracked down the former FBI chief. It included charges of leaking and lying to Congress, but Tuesday’s stripped-down version deals only with the shell photo.
Trump defenders say he was persecuted during his first term with four criminal cases. So this, in their view, is proper payback.
But during the campaign I lost track of how many times Trump told me “the best retribution will be success.”
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Instead, he’s gone after political opponents, law firms, news organizations and others with a vengeance.
These efforts have so far fallen short in court. The Comey indictment is such a stretch that even most conservative legal commentators aren’t defending it.
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