Eagles Look At Guard John Moffitt

Will the Philadelphia Eagles hire offensive guard John Moffitt?  Coach Chip Kelly’s words and actions are sending two different messages, writes ESPN.com.

The coach’s words indicate that Kelly is comfortable with Allen Barbre, Matt Tobin and Andrew Gardner as possible replacements for the guards that Kelly released.

Since Evan Mathis left with Todd Herremans this month, Kelly has tried to add veteran guards to the Eagles’ lineup.

According to a report by FoxSports.com, the Eagles are interested in signing guard John Moffitt, who retired from the NFL two years ago.  Moffitt was a third-round draft choice of the Seattle Seahawks in 2011, and he announced that he was returning to football last week.

NFL.com writes: “John Moffitt, a former third-round draft pick of the Seahawks, is set to sign with Philadelphia, reports Ross Jones of FOX Sports.”

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000498919/article/john-moffitt-set-to-sign-with-eagles-report-says

http://espn.go.com/blog/philadelphia-eagles/post/_/id/12563/report-eagles-eyeing-guard-john-moffitt

‘The Basketball Tournament’ Has Ex-NBA Players, Offers $1 Million Prize

Nate Robinson, Royce White, Brian Scalabrine, and more than 40 other former NBA players will take part in a 97-team, single-elimination basketball tournament with normal rules that has a $1 million prize, according to ESPN.

It’s called “The Basketball Tournament.”

The event will start on July 10, with the semifinals and championship being played at Fordham University (New York) on Aug. 1-2. The semis and finals will also air on ESPN.

According to ESPN, in just its second year, TBT has grown from 32 teams with a $500,000 prize to 97 with $1 million on the line.

The tournament will begin July 10-12, and the field will be split up into four regions: Philadelphia (Northeast), Atlanta (South), Chicago (Midwest) and Los Angeles (West), according to ESPN.com.

(Updated report)

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13036712/more-40-former-nba-players-shoot-1-million-basketball-tournament

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2490190-the-basketball-tournament-offers-1-million-with-former-nba-players-on-97-teams

Patriots Equipment Managers Suspended

The New England Patriots employees Jim McNally and John Jastremski were suspended on May 6th over deflate-gate.  These two were in charge of inflating Patriots’ footballs to regulation.

According to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, it was actually the NFL’s decision to punish McNally and Jastremski, not the team’s.

From ESPN:

“For those asking why Patriots suspended two employees if those two did nothing wrong, as New England claims: NFL asked Pats to suspend them prior to discipline being handed down, per a league source in New York. New England obliged with the NFL’s request.”

This makes what the NFL said in a statement about the punishments unclear, writes Business Insider.

“Patriots owner Robert Kraft advised Commissioner Roger Goodell last week that Patriots employees John Jastremski and James McNally have been indefinitely suspended without pay by the club, effective on May 6th,” the statement read.

That seems to imply that the team suspended the two. But note the language — it only says that Kraft told Goodell that they had been suspended, not that he had ordered it, according to Business Insider.

If ESPN’s report is to be believed, it gives the Patriots’ denials a little more weight because the team never actually felt the need to punish McNally and Jastremski.

It’s also worth noting that ESPN’s information comes from a “league source in New York,” not from someone within the Patriots who wants to make them look innocent.

It also makes things messy. The NFL released the Wells report on May 6 but waited until May 11 to punish the team and Brady. Yet according to the league’s statement, McNally and Jastremski were punished on May 6.

Business Insider asks:  If that decision was the NFL’s, why did they hand down discipline for the two employees immediately but wait nearly a week to go after the team and Brady? And why did the Patriots comply?

(Updated article)

Epic Uncalled-For Rant By ESPN Reporter

Newser writes that ESPN reporter Britt McHenry wasn’t happy with the employee of a tow truck company, and decided to criticize her education, career, weight and teeth.

Does this reflect the quality of employees hired by ESPN?

McHenry’s insults in April included “I’m in the news, sweetheart, I will f*cking sue this place,” “That’s why I have a degree and you don’t. I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this” and “it makes my skin crawl even being here.”

McHenry goes on to ask the clerk of the tow truck company, “Do you feel good about your job? So I could be a college dropout and do the same thing?” The insults then get even more personal with the ESPN reporter telling the clerk “maybe if I was missing some teeth they would hire me, huh?” and “lose some weight baby girl.”

McHenry has since apologized on Twitter and was suspended for one week by the company.

(Updated article)

More Of Bill O’Reilly’s Untruths And Exaggerations Revealed

Keith Olbermann

A segment by ESPN host Keith Olbermann last year sheds some more light on Bill O’Reilly’s questionable claims about himself (starting at about the 2:35 mark in the video).

On November 19th, 2014, Olbermann named the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly as his daily “Worst Person In The World.”   It wasn’t actually because of their political differences.  Instead, it was about O’Reilly’s past claims about his athletic skills that were presented as fact.

On November 17th, O’Reilly had given a radio interview talking about his days as a varsity football player at Marist College.

“We were undefeated our senior year,” O’Reilly told ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard. “That was a pretty good deal.”

But Olbermann had de-bunked that claim as far back as 2005, and showed that Marist did not have a varsity team until 1978 – seven years after O’Reilly graduated.

Le Batard pointed out Olbermann’s claims. “It was varsity football in the sense of that we played Georgetown, Catholic U., Fordham, Manhattan, Iona,” O’Reilly said in his defense.  “So, you know, look. You know what it is, guys, you know what it is.”

O’Reilly made some claims about baseball that Olbermann also corrected.

What Is Deflate-Gate?

MSNBC

…and does it matter?

According to an ESPN report, nearly all of the game balls on the New England Patriots side during the AFC Championship game were under-inflated and an investigation of the Super Bowl-bound team is underway.

The NFL has found that 11 of the New England Patriots’ 12 game balls were inflated significantly below the NFL’s requirements, league sources involved and familiar with the investigation of Sunday’s AFC Championship Game told ESPN.

Are the officials at fault? Were Indy’s game balls weighed as well? More facts are needed before judging the Patriots, writes Mike Reiss of ESPN.

The investigation found the footballs were inflated 2 pounds per square inch below what’s required by NFL regulations during the Pats’ 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, according to sources.

“We are not commenting at this time,” said Greg Aiello, the NFL’s senior vice president of communications.

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