Ohio State’s Shazier to leave for NFL Draft, Miller to stay
January 4, 2014
While We’re Waiting… Searching for an identity?
January 6, 2014
As we have seen in years past, the NFL offseason is typically a time where national media folks kindly ask the local contingent to step aside while they handle all of the latest and greatest on various hirings and firings. Last season, as the Browns were hot after Oregon’s Chip Kelly, it was NFL.com and ESPN.com leading the pack with the various newspaper folks left to merely retweet or re-word others’ reports.
Things do get a bit interesting, however, when a national report comes out and a local person swoops in to immediately refute it. Such is the case with the ongoing discussions surrounding Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops and the reported mutual interest between he and and Cleveland Browns regarding the team’s currently vacant head coaching spot.
On Saturday, NFL.com’s Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported that New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops are the team’s top candidates to replace Rob Chudzinski and that it was Stoops who was expected to interview this coming week. McDaniels has been frequently linked to the Browns, but Stoops (and other collegiate coaches) has been more of a bold, wild card-type name.
Not long thereafter, it was Mary Kay Cabot of The Cleveland Plain Dealer who took down Rapoport’s report as if it were a scud missile. With placement above the fold on A1 in Sunday’s paper as well as the featured link on Cleveland.com, Cabot refutes any report that links Stoops as a person of interest and says that an interview is not scheduled.
For the scoreboard watchers and finger pointers, it was Rapoport who all but cemented Kelly in as the next Browns head coach last season prior to the bizarre, and still under-discussed reversal on the coaches part. Recently, it was Cabot who refuted reports of Jim Tressel being interviewed for the Browns gig as well.
There is a big difference between “mutual interest” and “top candidates.” There’s posturing, and there’s the potential for misdirection from sources. Things can change on a dime, as evidenced by a year ago. For the time being, it appears that Rapoport is sticking to his guns.
Definitely in the mix. RT @spphillips67: @RapSheet response to @MaryKayCabot 's refuting your Stoops report? Still think he's in the mix
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 5, 2014
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(AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)
17 Comments
Today’s tweets are brought to you by: Macbeth!
it is a tale
told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
MKC is really putting her credibility on a long limb here, it will be interesting to see who’s got the better sources…
MKC has credibility? Since when?! Before or after she reported Tressel was being interviewed? Or before she announced Chip Kelly as the new HC?
LOL! This stuff cracks me up. MKC hasn’t sourced a substantial rumor in years. All she does is re-tweet other people’s work. And Rappoport is one of these national guys who tweets a ton of vague things that can never be disproven. So of course he stands by his opinions – his opinions can’t be proven wrong.
If I was a national guy, I would just tweet things like the following all day long: “Sources: Tressel could be in the mix for Browns job. McDaniels and Stoops likely on the top of Browns list.”
My sources are the internet, and nothing I have written is inaccurate, so if someone ever questioned the tweet, I could “stand by it.” The problem – it contains no information.
Did she say Tom Izzo was going to be the next head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers too?
They know as much as Lombardi wants them to know.
I forgot all about that! HAHAHA Oh Mary Kay…
I not here to defend MKC, but I’m pretty sure that was Mary Schmitt Boyer
The best one ever was her retweeting the fake Solomon Wilcots account reporting Kelly to the Eagles (I think), and then apologizing for it.
Question is, does Lomblardi think MKC or Ian is cuter?
No she wasn’t which was kind of what I was trying to intimate. Well that and reminding the WFNY guys how they were all over that reported story too.
Very true besides Lombardi leaks nationally not locally.
Lomblardi leaks anally
Very good point.
Thank you!
national media folks kindly ask the local contingent to step aside
well, in Cleveland. there are still some beat reporters out there that do some actual journalistic digging.
Pretty obvious that MKC is Berea’s outlet on this one. There’s no way she’s going to jump up and gainsay like that otherwise. Stoop’s agent sees an NFL job he’d be a “hometown” candidate for and isn’t going to miss out on the potential leverage.
also, Stoops interviews the past week where he is reveling in backing up his SEC-overrated comments from last year really seem to indicate that he’s very happy where his is at to the point of giddiness.