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Two More NFL Refs Retire For Broadcasting Jobs

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The folks over at Football Zebras have been busy breaking news about referees heading into the broadcasting business. First, Cameron Felipe broke the story of Jeff Triplette’s path to ESPN. Now his colleague Mark Schultz is reporting that Terry McAulay is retiring as well to join NBC in the same capacity.

McAulay’s retirement comes after 20 years as an NFL referee. It also is a bit of a surprise for the league, seeing that it happened so long after the May 15th, which is the date officials use as the start of a new season.

According to Schultz, McAulay will be NBC’s first on air rules expert.

McAulay would be the first in-game NFL rules analyst for the network, although SNF director Fred Gaudelli has said that they maintained a live phone connection to the head of the officiating department. Senior vice president of officiating Al Riveron and predecessor Dean Blandino were never live on the broadcast, but probably relayed information to the crew.

But wait folks! That’s not all!

Cameron Felipe reports that Gene Steratore, who has spent the last 15 years as an NFL referee and was the crew chief for this year’s Super Bowl, is also leaving the field and headed for a broadcasting booth.

Steratore will join CBS as that network’s rules analyst. It will be the first time the network has had someone in that role since 2015, when Mike Carey took a lot of heat.

This means three of the four networks with NFL TV contracts will have new rules analysts in place this season. Fox, the only network not making a new hire, already has both Dean Blandino and Mike Pereira in that role.

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RGIII to Danny Kanell: ‘Do Some Research, You’re Embarrassing Yourself’

“Griffin laid out some recent facts about the Buffs since Sanders arrived and chalked the former ESPN Radio host up as a hater.”

Jordan Bondurant

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Robert Griffin III and Danny Kanell

The Deion Sanders-coached Colorado Buffaloes got another taste of top-ranked college football on Saturday and were humbled in a 42-6 blowout loss.

To some, including SiriusXM College Sports Radio host Danny Kanell, seeing Sanders, his sons and their team embarrassed on a national platform was good because it will quell some of the buzz around the program as a potential national power on the rise. There has been much hype and fanfare surrounding the program in Boulder since hiring Sanders as their head coach in the spring.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning went viral ahead of the Ducks game, telling his team in their locker room pre-game that Sanders and the Buffaloes were out trying to get clicks while the Ducks were trying to get wins.

ESPN’s Robert Griffin III on Saturday evening tweeted that Lanning was just trying to do his job in the moment, which was hype his kids up to play a high-profile game and folks were eating it up. He wondered why Sanders was getting hate for essentially doing the same thing.

Kanell quote tweeted RGIII saying ESPN had grown an affinity for Sanders, and people loved what they saw from Oregon because they were tired of so much coverage of Colorado.

Griffin laid out some recent facts about the Buffs since Sanders arrived and chalked the former ESPN Radio host up as a hater.

Danny responded asking why Griffin hadn’t jumped on the bandwagons of other turnaround programs like Tulane, Duke and Kansas, before RGII posted a screenshot from 2021 of him showing support for the direction head coach Lance Leipold was taking the Jayhawks. Griffin mentioned the fact that he was on the broadcast of Tulane’s upset win over USC in the Cotton Bowl in January and that he has given his stance on Duke.

The back and forth continued into Sunday, where Kanell posted some screenshots of his own tweets where he has not been overly critical or hating on Sanders.

But Griffin appeared to get the final word, posting a clip of Kanell throwing an interception on Monday Night Football back in the day when he was quarterback of the New York Giants.

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More Than 5000 Attend Barstool Pizzafest Amid Washington Post Controversy

“Everyone had a great time. The vibes were actually probably higher because of the controversy surrounding it.”

Jordan Bondurant

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Barstool Pizza Fest
Courtesy: Barstool

With the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia bearing down on New York City and a wave of buzz surrounding Barstool founder Dave Portnoy in the days leading in, some 5,000 people braved the elements to attend the One Bite Pizza Festival in Brooklyn on Saturday.

Portnoy went viral last week after he posted video of himself calling Washington Post food reporter Emily Heil to confront her and ask why she and the pave had been contacting festival sponsors and asking them how they feel about Portnoy’s past controversies.

Participating pizzerias and sponsors also faced pressure to back out from other food writers and Barstool critics. But Portnoy told FOX & Friends Weekend on Sunday that the festival was a rousing success.

“It couldn’t have gone better,” he said. “It was our Woodstock moment with the rain. We had 5,000 people strong. Everyone had a great time. The vibes were actually probably higher because of the controversy surrounding it.”

Dave added that he owed the pizzerias a debt of gratitude for standing strong against those trying to shame them out of the event.

“The thing about the hit pieces, what they try to do, whether it’s those or the Washington Post, if you can get one sponsor to drop, one pizza place to drop – which none of them did so I owe them a huge thank you – that becomes a story in itself,” he said.

“They don’t deserve this,” Portnoy added. “They’re just trying to promote their small business, and they’re being put in this box.”

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Mina Kimes: Deshaun Watson ‘Bailed Out Our Entire Industry by Being Bad’

“If he was playing well, I would be inundated by hate mail right now because that’s what happens

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Mina Kimes
Courtesy: ESPN Images

Mina Kimes was not alone in condemning the Cleveland Browns for signing Deshaun Watson to a record guaranteed contract as he was facing dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct. This is the first full season Watson has played for the Browns and he has been less than impressive through the first two weeks of the season.

Kimes says that in a strange way, it something she and her colleagues should be happy about.

“This dude just bailed out our entire industry by being bad,” she said this week on Pablo Torre Finds Out.

She said that she has talked to a number of fellow NFL analysts and writers that feel “a little bit of relief” that there is nothing about Watson to celebrate right now.

It isn’t lost on Kimes that maybe not having to talk about Deshaun Watson like he is any other star in the NFL isn’t necessarily a good thing.

“We never had to reckon with, and maybe we will. You know, it’s been two weeks, but we certainly haven’t, so far, had to reckon with that cognitive dissonance in what it would have entailed,” she said.”

Winning and outstanding performance can scrub clean a lot of scandal in the minds of the public. Kimes noted that even mentioning the allegations against Watson would be met very differently if he weren’t struggling.

“Right now, because he’s playing bad, because he’s playing poorly, if you were to put a clip of me saying something about the fact that he was accused of all these sexual crimes and misdemeanors and whatnot, and if you put that out now, I would not get heat,” she said. “That’s what I want to drill down on here. Like, if you aggregated this and put it out, I would not get hate mails. If he was playing well, I would be inundated by hate mail right now because that’s what happens.”

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