Crossing Broad
The Inquirer published a Marcus Hayes column on Wednesday morning about Isaiah Rodgers. This was the Twitter caption:
Disgraced gambler Isaiah Rodgers helped save the Eagles’ season | Marcus Hayes https://t.co/v2MnQ8FMBN
— Philadelphia Inquirer Sports (@phillysport) January 22, 2025
As expected, people are killing Marcus and the Inquirer in the comments. He’s the worst, the Inquirer is the worst, etc.
When you click on the link, the full header and subheader look like this:
‘I guess these moments are destined for me’: Disgraced gambler Isaiah Rodgers helped save the Eagles’ season |
After a yearlong suspension, the 27-year-old cornerback is on the brink of a Super Bowl
The “disgraced gambler” description is still in there, but the column itself is not incendiary in any way. It’s actually a nice redemption story, and includes passages like this one:
…Rodgers went home to Tampa, Fla., where he hoped and prayed and worked. For a year he rose daily at 5 a.m. to begin a three-hour workout. He set up cones in his backyard. He spent more than $3,000 on a JUGS machine to fire NFL-caliber passes at him. (He donated the machine to a local high school this summer.) He spent another $3,000 on authentic NFL footballs to practice with. He worked out hardest on Sundays, as if he were still playing, and took off Tuesdays like the rest of the league. He did speed work and got faster. He had no guarantee that he’d ever play again, but he wanted to be ready.
On April 23, just before the 2024 draft, the league reinstated Rodgers. He made the team and settled into a reserve role as the fourth cornerback, coming through time and again, never more so than last Sunday.
There are positive quotes in there from Slay and Vic Fangio, praising Rodgers for the way he’s stepped in this season. There’s actually very little about the gambling suspension itself. It was a good read.
So what we have here is a classic case of “innocuous Marcus Hayes column destroyed by a questionable headline.” Again. We’ve been here plenty of times before. Marcus is viewed by many as a shit-stirrer and has built this reputation of being a provocateur, which sometimes results in NBA players shoving him in the locker room. Every time his byline shows up, a portion of Philadelphia sports fans immediately shit on the column without reading it, and the stories are locked behind a paywall anyway, so even if potential readers were curious about the column itself, there is an obstacle in the way, and they ain’t paying. As is usually the case, Crossing Broad then reads the entire thing and discovers that most of it is totally fair, usually with a bad paragraph or misleading headline ruining the article.
And here’s the thing about that – doesn’t anyone at the Inquirer realize that you have to be cautious with Marcus headlines? Calling Isaiah Rodgers a “disgraced gambler”...
