Shoutouts: B/R’s new NFL coverage team and more
Mike Freeman, who joined Bleacher Report from CBSSports.com this month, hit the ground running. The highlight of his first week was his reporting on the shockingly low opinion NFL scouts have about Tim Tebow’s future, Scouts’ Honor: Tim Tebow Not Fit for NFL, CFL, or Arena League, Unless…. You’ll have to read it to see what the “unless” refers to, but it isn’t the kind of thing that’s likely to keep Tebow in the spotlight.
Freeman didn’t stop there. Among several other great pieces, I particularly liked his feature on college official Sarah Thomas, who appears likely to become the NFL’s first female on-field official in 2014.
Joining Freeman as a new NFL writer for Bleacher Report is Matt Bowen, late of the National Football Post, who, much like Michael Felder with college football, brings the perspective of a former player to his coverage. Bowen’s weekly Second Level showcases his expertise and creativity as he breaks down the league from various angles every Thursday.
A couple more Shoutouts, with comments by B/R’s Quality Editors.
Detroit Lions Legend Barry Sanders Talks Madden Cover and Why He Left the Game by Michael Schottey
Schottey talked to the all-time great about his early retirement and tried, playfully and unsuccessfully, to get him to say something controversial about Bo Jackson.
Schottey also got a shootout this week in Richard Deitsch’s Media Circus column on SI.com for his piece in which Lomas Brown talks about ESPN’s coverage of concussions in the NFL. Brown is a former NFL player who is involved in the litigation against the league, and who—possibly coincidentally—was recently let go as an NFL analyst by ESPN.
MLB Trade Deadline 2013: Updates on Soriano, Peavy, Garza and More by Joe Davis
Davis clearly put a lot of time into this. Each slide could have been an article by itself. “Matt Thornton ranks fourth on the White Sox all-time appearances list. The leader in that category, Red Faber, died exactly 10 days after Thornton was born.” That’s intense!