Latest news with #AwfulAnnouncing.com

NBC Sports
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC Sports
Randy Moss looks forward to his return to ESPN
After a bout with bile duct cancer, Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss is ready to go for the 2025 season, when he'll return to his weekly job at ESPN. 'Man, I look forward to it,' Moss told via 'I miss my crew. Greeny, Alex [Smith], Tedy [Bruschi]. But I really didn't miss Rex Ryan much because he got on my nerves. Rex, if you are hearing this, I am coming back, so scoot over. . . . [W]e have a great group of guys that I work with that I tremendously missed for two months. ESPN accepted me with open arms, man, I just can't wait for Week 1 to get back up there with the crew and talk football.' Moss left the show in November for treatment. He had surgery in late November. He returned for ESPN's Super Bowl coverage. 'Just being able to experience that was nothing I wish on any man or any human being,' Moss. 'But for the fact that God took me through it and brought me out of it back healthy, being able to be back with my family, great support system, and some great doctors around me. Like I said, it was an emotional roller coaster, but the people I met on the way, I'm a blessed man. I'll leave it at that.' It's great news for one of the all-time great players. No receiver had more talent than Randy Moss. Despite all the great receivers currently in the NFL, Randy Moss still has a magic and an aura that none since him have matched. And he's from West Virginia. Which, as a West Virginian, has been a point of pride for a long time.

NBC Sports
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC Sports
Terry Bradshaw makes a crack about Tom Brady's Fox contract
When we last heard from Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, he was telling Aaron Rodgers to 'chew on bark.' Bradshaw now has a bone to pick with another all-time great. Sort of. Appearing on something called To The Point — Home Services Podcast (i.e., Terry got a nice little check), Bradshaw riffed on the 10-year, $375 million contract that his employer, Fox, gave to Tom Brady. While commenting on the money Fox made from its massive Super Bowl audience, Bradshaw said this, via Brandon Contes of "[I]f I go in there and ask for a raise, 'Well, we don't have any . . . we're running a little tight.' Well, you just paid Tom Brady $37 million a year. I'll take it. I did some bad deals, that's what it was.' Some would say Fox did a very bad deal with Brady, chasing a name and not truly getting a fair return on the investment (especially given the consensus opinion on his performance in 2024). But, hey, everyone wants to have a cool friend. Tom Brady is the cool friend of the moment. It has gotten him sweetheart deals with the likes of Delta (because Ed Bastin wanted a cool friend), and it got him a below-market stake in the Raiders (because Mark Davis wanted a cool friend). Someone at Fox wanted a cool friend, too — and got one. It's not a complaint. It's an acknowledgement of the reality that there can be very real financial benefits in being someone's cool friend. Brady has become the GOAT of leveraging cool friendship into cold, hard cash.

NBC Sports
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC Sports
De Smith's upcoming book describes Aaron Rodgers as "isolated" and "dismissive"
Former NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith has a book coming out in early August. And Daniel Kaplan of has gotten an advance PDF of Turf Wars. There's some interesting stuff in there. We had a little something back around the time of the Super Bowl. The full apparently book has a lot more something. Including some observations about former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a vocal opponent of the 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement. 'The god of Cheesehead Nation was isolated and dismissive,' Smith writes, regarding Rodgers's demeanor during a player meeting. 'He sat in the back row of the meeting room, issuing loud sighs before standing for a dramatic exit. An incredible quarterback, to be sure, but an even more impressive antagonist.' Smith also says this about Rodgers: 'In August 2021, my phone chirped with a text from Aaron Rodgers. 'Can you call me?' it read. Could I not run into traffic instead?' Smith and I now have something else in common, thanks to his book. If asked, Rodgers likely would suggest that people not waste their time 'reading crap like that.'

NBC Sports
23-06-2025
- Business
- NBC Sports
The OneTeam Partners controversy involving NFLPA, MLBPA becomes a bit more clear
Various vague reports have emerged in recent weeks regarding a controversy of some sort involving OneTeam Partners and the NFL Players Association. A new item from provides more details on the issue that has reportedly attracted the attention of the FBI. It started last summer, when the eight-person board of OneTeam Partners, co-owned by the players associations for five major sports leagues, adopted a plan to give the member union 'profit units.' Those units could be converted eventually to cash. The proposal sparked concerns within the NFL Players Association that labor officials on the OneTeam board (including NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell and MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark) could secure personal gain over and above their union-approved compensation packages. The resolution, obtained by contemplated that the payments from the so-called 'Senior Employee Incentive Plan' would go to the unions, which could then give the money to Howell and/or Clark. An unnamed NFLPA official reportedly criticized the plan, writing that "[t]he explicit goal throughout the process was to financially enrich the individuals who serve on the [OneTeam] Board as labor organization representatives. . . . [T]he idea was to pay the money into the unions, then the individuals.' OneTeam said in a statement to that the plan was ultimately abandoned. If the plan was scrapped, it makes the existence of an FBI investigation even more confusing — unless the authorities are exploring whether a conspiracy had been formed to reach an illegal outcome. Even if the potentially illicit goal wasn't achieved, a single 'overt act' toward its completion is potentially enough to give rise to the existence of a potentially illegal conspiracy. The new article mentions on several occasions an unnamed NFLPA official who seemed to be very aggressive in his/her efforts to thwart the OneTeam plan. A recent item from Daniel Kaplan of indicated that long-time NFLPA in-house counsel Heather McPhee has engaged in whistleblower activities related to the situation. In a memo sent to the NFLPA executive committee in late May, McPhee said that she had been instructed to stop working on anything related to OneTeam Partners. Obviously, it's possible that McPhee is the unnamed official in the new story from If not, the union may have two employees who have potentially acquired legal protection as whistleblowers. As the old saying goes, the coverup is often worse than the crime. In this case, it seems that there are two key questions — was there a conspiracy that was abandoned, and is there now an effort to cover up the potential existence of that conspiracy?

NBC Sports
19-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Report: College Football Playoff will require injury reports
Decades before gambling became legalized in most American jurisdictions, the NFL combatted illegal gambling by introducing injury reports. More than seven years into the era of BET! BET! BET!, college football is taking baby steps toward eliminating secrecy. According to Brett McMurphy of via Sean Keeley of the College Football Playoff will begin requiring teams to provide player availability reports. The SEC adopted the same rule in 2024. Frankly, every conference should require it. It's not about competitive advantage. It's about inside information. More specifically, it's about eliminating it. It's about ensuring that there will be no benefit to seeking it, by giving money to those who have it. It's one of the biggest risks of legalized gambling. Material non-public information. It has real value. Requiring teams to make basic disclosures eliminates some of it. While it's far from perfect, it's better than nothing. And if it's good enough for the College Football Playoff, it should be good enough for all of college football.