Deadspin
We were on a very slow-moving piece of public transportation and therefore are just hitting the late news: Michael Irvin has been suspended for one week following his arrest last Friday for having a "pipe" in his car. This is only two days after handsomely named ESPN exec Norby Williamson said "Right now we take Michael at his word. ... And we
re there to deal with him as he deals with this."
Apparently that position has changed. Officially, Irvin is being suspended because he waited until two days after the arrest to even tell the network about it, and that's only because a reporter told them first. This is the official story, and seems believable enough ... or at least considerably more believable than, say, Irvin's ridiculous original story. Whether it's backed up by a pastor or not.
No word on that Dan Patrick-Keith Olbermann-sponsored drug test, by the way. Can't we get Jason Whitlock to storm the countdown set and get to the bottom of this?
A prediction, however: "NFL Countdown" gets its best ratings of the year this Sunday. Just a hunch.
Irvin Suspended For One Week [MSNBC]
Comments
1) Best Deadspin Headline Ever. 2) Amazing picture of Irvin. 3) I think he's hiding something in those shorts. No? My mistake.
Gee, way to stretch with your prediction.
The Austin American-Statesman is reporting that a Dallas pastor is backing up Pipemaker's story.
Any word on what outspoken black man they will find as a temporary replacement? Maybe Deion wants to skip out on the Ravens' secondary for a week...
This headline made me laugh out loud. If Deion took a week off, would the Ravens notice? My big question is that if ESPN is suspending him now because they were upset he didn't let them know right away, why was he on Monday Night Countdown last week? The whole thing broke Sunday evening, they would've had plenty of time to plan a show without him for Monday. It's like they didn't think it was a huge deal (after all the people that greenlighted Stuart Scott's poetry slam and the Steve Phillips fiascoes can't possibly know right from wrong) then realized that people were actually upset by the whole thing and made an excuse up. Kind of like Michael Irvin did. Hmmm...
Whoa, dude. That is a fully mod 1989(?) Alpine Bimmer M3 behind him. It is easier to get drugs into this country than one of those. (I guess he would know?) Where is that car now? Get your bud Jalopnik on this right now! Merely THE iconic M3.
Pat, my take on it is that they were just waiting to see what the PR fallout would be, and that when it came out that they had already known (on Sunday), they figured they needed to go ahead and get rid of him for a while. So the question is: if their exec never admits that they didn't find out until Sunday, would they have disciplined Irvin at all? But there's precedent for Bristol acting really slowly in these situations -- in today's column, Hiestand at USA Today points out how they took forever to get rid of Limbaugh after the McNabb comments. Also worth reading Solomon's bit on it today. Apparently Bristol doesn't return his phone calls, either.
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