With the first full slate of preseason games this weekend, starting on Thursday, we’re officially out of the off-season, so starting a new thread.
In addition to the news about Shedeur Sanders getting the nod to start in the Browns’ first preseason game, Teddy Bridgewater signed with the Buccaneers today. It seems likely that it’s primarily to give them another arm for camp and preseason games, due to injuries to Baker Mayfield and Michael Pratt.
It’s just been announced that ESPN is purchasing a bunch of the NFL’s “media assets,” including NFL Network and the league’s fantasy football product, plus gaining “linear” (i.e., cable) distribution rights to NFL RedZone. In exchange, the league is getting an equity stake in ESPN.
I’m just curious if those channels will be available at a discount as part of a Disney+ subscription next year.
Not sure it’s good, journalistically, for a league as powerful as the NFL to own part of the network that covers it most comprehensively. Expect more stuff like backing out of the partnership with Frontline to produce “League of Denial.”
The league and teams already use powers of access to lean on media partners and reporters.
I would predict that there’s a nearly 0% chance of any discounts. But it will be interesting to see how the Mouse ends up integrating the NFL into D+ and Hulu. At the end of the day, they haven’t really purchased much of anything they didn’t already have except RedZone, but this could give them an excuse to add a dedicated NFL hub to one or both of the apps. Or they could leave everything in the ESPN app (which would be a mistake IMO).
D+ has started leaking some Hulu exclusive content into their app to cross promote. Hulu has done the same with D+ properties. Maybe we’ll see NFL content popping up in all 3 places in an effort to get people to pony up for an ESPN+ sub or upgrade to a Disney Bundle.
They seem to discount everything for D+ members, even park tickets. They really want people to be members. But you might be right with the NFL. That’s such a hot property they might not need to.
Time will tell, but I think the streaming part is going to be the big impact from this deal. NFL+ being rolled into the Disney streaming portfolio could be huge and if the ESPN+ live games also move there, that product could move from being a niche product (mainly for diehards living out of their home region) into a mainstream product that most cord cutters have ponied up for.
I agree that the ship has completely sailed on the journalism stuff. ESPN hasn’t done journalism for a long time. I think journalism as an industry, not just sports journalism, is basically dead. Look at FOX News and CNN, look at local news stations, name me a place where actual investigative reporting and unbiased stories still happen?
Where I think this will become a huge problem is in the media rights negotiations. If the NFL owns 10% of ESPN and ESPN is negotiating against NBC, CBS, Fox, Amazon and YouTube for the next broadcast deal…how the hell can they compete? This could be the first big step towards the NFL ending the licensing of its broadcast rights and keeping it all in-house and direct to consumer. All these other entities overpay for the licenses, so whether that’s the smart business decision is unclear.
I assume that this thread replaces the offseason thread, so a few news items:
Colts QB Anthony Richardson exited the preseason game versus Baltimore with a finger injury on his throwing hand.
Chargers LT Rashawn Slater is out for the year after rupturing a patellar tendon.
Ravens rookie CB Bilhal Kone was carted off the field after suffering a knee injury against Indianapolis.
Does anyone else find some of the new helmets, distracting?
While taking a blind-side sack from an unblocked blitzer. Shocking!
What’s worse than the sack and injury is the fact that he didn’t read the defense, didn’t adjust the protection, and didn’t sense the pressure. It’s not like the Ravens broke out the Secret Book of Exotic Blitzes, this was as vanilla a blitz as you will ever see in the NFL. Maybe Richardson assumed his RB would chip the 6th guy but I saw no indication he even noticed the extra rusher.
I’ve said several times in these NFL threads that Indianapolis made a mistake drafting this kid. I’ve never been sold on him, and his injuries and ineffectiveness don’t do anything to dispel that notion to me.
Unfortunately for the Colts, Daniel Jones and Riley Leonard didn’t exactly impress either.
Ugly injury in Lions/Falcons game leads to the game being ended early.
But the player is at least conscious and talking.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell said he got some “positive information” on Norris.
“He’s breathing, he’s talking. He’s got some movement and now they’re running more tests,” Campbell told reporters after the game.
In an amusing scheduling convergence: both the Packers and the Brewers have home games this evening. The Packers host the New York Jets at 7pm local time; 50 minutes earlier, the Brewers host the New York Mets.
Cam Little of the Jacksonville Jaguars just kicked a 70-yard field goal against the Pittsburgh Steelers, four yards better than Justin Tucker’s record, but it’s unofficial because it’s still the preseason.
The 70-yarder is thought to be the longest successful field goal ever made in the history of competitive American football.
TreVeyon Henderson showed why @Omniscient coveted him so much in the draft by returning the opening kickoff for a TD in the Pats/Commanders game. It’s preseason, of course, but training camp reports are that he seems to be the real deal.
An update to explain what happened to Morice Norris.
Dr. Solomon Cogan, a spinal injury specialist who served as the Lions’ team chiropractor from 2000 to 2014, explained the severity of the injury.
He described how Norris’s head was down during the tackle, straightening the cervical curve in his neck that normally helps absorb shock. The impact caused axial compression, a dangerous force that can damage the brain and spinal cord.
“His legs started to shake. It’s almost like a seizure. That is a reaction to the neurons in the brain kind of going crazy from your brain getting jostled around. That tells us there’s definitely some brain or spinal cord trauma,” Dr. Cogan said.
Since Norris regained consciousness and could move his extremities after the injury, he might be okay, but they aren’t done evaluating him and don’t know how bad it is yet.