CBS Sportsline Pulls an ESPN, Tries to Give Mike Freeman Credit for Breaking Brady Story

You likely recall MDS' recent coverage of ESPN pimping out a story as being John Clayton's scoop when it most certainly was not; in fact, Clayton wasn't even claiming to have broken the bit about Daunte Culpepper retiring but ESPN was claiming it for him.

It appears as if CBS Sportsline is pulling the same thing with Mike Freeman. How do I know? See: screenshot, above. Their "BREAKING NEWS" bit indicates that Mike Freeman, CBS Sportsline writer, has discovered and is now reporting the fact that Tom Brady is "unlikely to play" for the remainder of 2008. However, Freeman's column, titled "AFC wide open if Brady is seriously hurt" (emphasis mine), to which they refer, is far from that.

The ripples might be plentiful and repercussions profound. The emphasis is on the word might. The Patriots are not exactly wordy when it comes to injuries. Mimes, come to mind. You would need to put electrodes on the lobes of Bill Belichick and turn on the juice to force him to discuss injuries in detail so we may not know for some time the full extent of Brady's knee damage. Brady could come back next week or next year.

The fact that Belichick joked about Brady's knee might be an indicator the injury isn't season-ending but possibly something that could cause Brady to miss only a handful of weeks. That's one way to look at it.

As you can very clearly see, Mike Freeman has absolutely no clue whether or not Tom Brady is out for the season. In fact, he seems to think that Belichick's jovial nature regarding the injury might mean Tom Terrific will be starting next week.

And frankly, as someone who writes about sports for a supplemental living, and more importantly as someone who reads a lot about sports, I'm offended by this. Jay Glazer "broke" Michael Strahan's retirement. Mike Freeman did not, by any stretch of the imagination, break the injury to Brady.

And CBS manipulating their coverage by splattering the word "reports" all over their website is misleading, unnecessary and a blatant bend of journalistic ethics.