Bryan Gumbel's NFL controversy

[atxrocker]

Gumbel's job status unclear after remark

NEW YORK (AP) - The job status of Bryant Gumbel, scheduled to be the play-by-play broadcaster on the eight late-season games on the NFL's in-house network, could be the subject of a discussion by NFL officials after Gumbel's suggestion that Paul Tagliabue show his successor "where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash."


Tagliabue said Monday that incoming commissioner Roger Goodell and Steve Bornstein, who runs the NFL Network, will discuss the remarks after Goodell takes office Sept. 1.
Gumbel addressed his closing remarks on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" last Tuesday to Goodell.
"Before he cleans out his office," Gumbel said. "Have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."
Tagliabue's response: "What Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and our owners is about as irresponsible as anything I've heard in a long time."
Upshaw did not immediately return a call placed by The Associated Press.
However, a number of owners have said that they thought they had given away too much to the union in a last-minute six-year contract extension that added almost a billion dollars in the league's contribution to the players.
And Upshaw told the AP several weeks ago that he was able to get more from the owners than he had agreed to just a few days before the owners finally agreed on the new deal.
Gumbel, once the host of the NBC pregame show and later co-host of "The Today Show," said when he was hired that no restrictions had been put on his ability to comment on what he sees on the field.
"It's a lot like covering any story," he said. "You see what is front of you and you report on it." The two-year-old NFL Network will televise eight late-season games on Thursday and Saturday nights this season.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5892232?FSO1&ATT=HMA

 

[VF21]

This isn't a surprise. I have never liked Bryant Gumbel. He speaks sometimes as though his mouth and his brain aren't even connected.

 

[Spike]

It wouldn't be the first time he's said something stupid, although not 'as' racially charged as this statement during the winter olympics:

"So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I think Gumbel is a pompous jerk. Except in this case Gumbel's pretty much right on, football players don't have the contract protections of any other sport yet the potential for career threatening injury is higher than any other. This largely falls on the head of the player's union.

As we all know when an NBA player signs even a mid-level multiyear deal everyone freaks out looking at the guaranteed backend of the contract. After the NHL restructured their CBA to include a cap once proud franchises immediately began the firesales on their star players. And in MLB when Johnny Damon turned Benedict Arnold many Sox fans consoled themselves by laughing at how much Damon would dent Steinbrenner's otherwise seemingly infinite pocketbook in the final year of his contract.

Meanwhile in the NFL everyone chuckles whether or not the latest blockbuster 7 year deal will last more than 2-3 seasons.

Of course if he loses his job it will probably result in a more tolerable play by play guy... probably.

 

[mcsluggo]

I like Bryan Gumbel.

He actually thinks and occasionally makes commnts that go deeper than the .0048 mm that ALL of the other "sports guys" cover. I'd much rather disagree with something HE says, than yawn at whatever almost everyone else says.

 

[RoyalDiva]

Bryant Gumbel has been notorious for being quite a jerk. When he was on the Today Show, he was always insulting his co-workers.

 

[D-Mass]

Jerk or no jerk...

I just find him to be one of the most BORING people on the planet. Not an ounce of personality in that guy.

 

[StevenHW]

Part of RoyalDiva's post:

...When he was on the Today show, he was always insulting his co-workers.

The most famous of which was an internal memo that he wrote in 1989 to one of the show's producers. Somehow, the memo got leaked out to the media. Gumbel wrote something very negative about the show's weatherman at the time, Willard Scott, as well as their movie critic, Gene Shalit. There was such a huge backlash afterwards, that Bryant and Willard later made up during the show, but not in a convincing way.

 

[RoyalDiva]

Part of RoyalDiva's post:

The most famous of which was an internal memo that he wrote in 1989 to one of the show's producers. Somehow, the memo got leaked out to the media. Gumbel wrote something very negative about the show's weatherman at the time, Willard Scott, as well as their movie critic, Gene Shalit. There was such a huge backlash afterwards, that Bryant and Willard later made up during the show, but not in a convincing way.

Yeah, I remember that. Even Willard Scott's kiss didn't make it very genuine.

 

[tubiscus]

Jerk or no jerk...

I just find him to be one of the most BORING people on the planet. Not an ounce of personality in that guy.

Sorry, you got it wrong.....There's not an ounce of CLASS in the jerk!