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1. He is gone. He’s not out. He is gone.
The Drew Brees-NBC saga is finally over after a few murky weeks.
The New York PostAndrew Marchand reported a month ago that Brees would not return to NBC to call Notre Dame football and work on the network. Football on Sunday evening studio show.
Shortly after, Brees sent out a bizarre tweet about his up-in-the-air future.
Now, in a new interview with the Associated Press, NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua confirmed that Brees was out at NBC and that “this was definitely a lifestyle choice for [Brees]which is completely understandable.”
There was also speculation that Brees no longer wanted to work in a studio and call games, which would not be possible with NBC as the network has Cris Collinsworth as its network. SNF analyst.
Despite all the confusion, it’s clear that Brees’ poor performance in NBC’s wild-card game between the Raiders and Bengals caused him to admit.
You’ll never convince me that if Brees were generating positive headlines instead of bad reviews across the board, he’d still be with NBC in some capacity.
As I wrote in Traina Thoughts at the time, Brees had a rough broadcast on that wildcard game, but NBC was ultimately blamed for having no business giving him such a high-profile assignment when he’d never had an NFL game before. mentioned before.
This was an important topic on a recent SI Media Podcast episode featuring Marchand, who took the stance that Brees had experience for mentioning Notre Dame football games. My point of view was that football games at Notre Dame don’t even come close to the level of NFL games, let alone NFL playoff games.
The difference in visibility, pressure and importance between a Notre Dame-North Carolina football game at 2:30 a.m. ET on a Saturday afternoon and an NFL playoff game is huge.
Notre Dame football matches averaged 2.5 million viewers in 2021. That Raiders-Bengals match that Brees mentioned drew 27.7 million viewers. NBC actually called Brees up from Class A ball and made him the starting pitcher in a World Series game. That wasn’t fair.
The problem for Brees with NBC is that the network only has one game a week, and it happens to be the most-watched primetime show of the year — every year. If Brees worked for CBS or Fox, he could name the third or fourth best game every week to gain experience and get better at the job.
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It’s hard to believe that Brees’ NFL broadcasting career is over, and it shouldn’t be. He deserves another chance sometime in the future.
2. Kevin Durant got a big kick out of JJ Redick and CJ McCollum teaming up to confuse Stephen A. Smith about Russell Westbrook on Tuesday first take†
However, we don’t condone Durant’s blatant disrespect for the legendary Chris “Mad Dog” Russo!
3† This is a great quote from Klay Thompson.
4. Josh Hart of the Blazers confessed on Twitter that he is a serial AirPods loser.
And here I felt a complete dope as I am on my third pair!
5. WWE legend John Cena, who has granted more Make-a-Wish requests than anyone else, recently came through for a teenager with Down syndrome who was able to flee Ukraine.
6. The last SI Media Podcast has a conversation with the athletic‘s media reporter and former SI writer Richard Deitsch.
Among the topics covered: why it has become a thing to beat Bill Simmons; is Greg Olsen-Tom Brady-Fox Sports’ situation “weird”? what the Brady-Fox Sports deal is about; ManningCast copycats; NESN to offer its own streaming service for $29.99 per month; and Al Michaels is named an emeritus at NBC Sports.
We also talked about Deitsch’s decision to stop tweeting on February 20 and when he will be back on the social media service.
Deitsch is followed by the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment with Sal Licata of WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York. Jimmy and Sal lay out the surreal Tommy Pham-Joc Pederson-Mike Trout fantasy football controversy, share their take on Derek Jeter joining Twitter, and answer listeners’ emails.
You can listen to or download the podcast below on Apple, Spotify and Google.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: This person came up with the excellent idea of filming people having their first and last drink at a wedding. The results are exactly what you would expect.
Make sure you catch up on previous editions of Traina Thoughts and watch the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple† Spotify or google† You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter† Instagram and TikTok†
