It seemed like the relationship between Bill Simmons and ESPN had moved away from the whole "sleeping on the couch" thing in recent weeks, and I personally felt like he was firing out some pretty good content recently. But then I wondered, "Hey, where the hell is that loser's picks column this week? Even I managed to limp mine in on Sunday."
Perhaps he had a family emergency. Or perhaps Time Warner egged again. Or, perhaps not -- turns out, according to his personal blog, that ESPN decided not to publish the column. (All of this after a summer of "vacation" too.)
Quick update: I received a slew of e-mails yesterday wondering what happened to my Friday NFL column and blaming me for being lazy and all the usual crap. Please know that I handed in that column as scheduled - on Thursday night, on time, like I always do -- and on Friday afternoon, ESPN.com decided not to run the column. These are the facts.
He also proceeds to say that "We are on the record ... *END*" which is either some bizarre Jim Morrison-esque way of saying "FUESPN!1" or I'm simply reading it wrong.
I will say that I was fairly struck by the aggressiveness of his reference to a bong named "Barack Obonga", although I don't know if that paragraph (which was funny as hell) is actually worth ESPN flipping out and canceling his picks column.
More than likely, it was something that he put in this week's offering that didn't meet editor approval, followed by Simmons refusing to take it out, followed by Disney refusing to run the column. Which means we should, at the very least, have some more angry emails from Simmons to bloggers about what the WWL did to screw him over. Or the Sports Guy back to sleeping on the couch. Sorry, ESPN ... no sex for you.
Bill Simmons Picks Column Not Posted on ESPN; Sports Guy Calls Them Out on Blogger originally appeared on FanHouse Back Porch on Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
