Jalen Hurts vs. Patrick Mahomes for MVP; Charissa Thompson? Meh; Bengals should lose draft picks

It will be just the 10th game of 17 for each of them, but, come early January, it might be the decider for MVP voters.

Jalen Hurts, the 2022 MVP runner-up, entered the weekend a slight favorite over 2022 winner Patrick Mahomes on DraftKings. The pair were even, at plus-280, on FanDuel. Certainly, the outcome after the Eagles visit the Chiefs on Monday Night Football will skew the odds one way or another in the short term. However, with almost two more months of tough games left for both, the odds will continually shift.

Last year Mahomes ran away with the voting after Hurts missed Games 15 and 16. However, the week before he injured his shoulder in Chicago, Hurts had just passed Mahomes as the MVP favorite.

Norm Van Brocklin is the only Eagle to have been named NFL MVP, in 1960, so there has been no Philadelphia winner in the Super Bowl era. The Phillies have won it eight times, the Sixers have won it six times, and the Flyers have won it four times.

Certainly, Hurts would rather win the Super Bowl MVP. But we’re sure, as Mahomes did last year, that Hurts wouldn’t mind winning both.

At this moment, my money’s on the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.

Prime Video and Fox Sports host Charissa Thompson bragged on a podcast Tuesday that she fabricated halftime reports in her previous role as a sideline reporter, and I couldn’t care less.

“I would make up the report sometimes,” Thompson admitted.

Do tell.

You’ll find no media watchdog as rabid as I am, but what happens on NFL sidelines isn’t journalism. It’s a sanitation project, clumsy propaganda from the shallow vessels that are NFL coaches who either offer no insights, are downright rude, or, like Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, refuse to participate at all. Not only are the halftime reports and the quick questions useless, sideline reporters are handcuffed. For instance, they’re forbidden from reporting what they overhear, and they overhear plenty.

We’re not talking about strategic misinformation. We’re talking about an unremarkable sideline reporter serving pretend nothing-burgers instead of actual nothing-burgers. She wasn’t being lazy or dismissive. She didn’t do her job because so many coaches don’t do their job, which is making themselves available with relevant information.

It’s been exhausting to endure the hand-wringing regarding how the Thompson controversy makes sideline reporters look bad, or useless. It makes them look no worse or more useless.

It’s been tiresome to endure the worries about how this episode injures the profile of female journalism. One dummy’s please-like-me confession does not diminish the work of Lesley Visser and the legions who have followed her. They’ve been too good for too long.

What irked me most about the situation was less her fabrications but rather that she taunted the establishment and her bosses, by saying, “I haven’t been fired for saying it.”

Thompson shouldn’t be fired for fabrication; if, for anything, she should be fired for her entitlement. I mean, how Elon Musk do you have to be to say something like that?

You’d also have a strong case for dismissal in light of her contradictory statement released Friday: “I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster.” She’s saying that she lied on the podcast; that, instead of complete fabrications, she only obliquely editorialized her reports.

If you want to fire her for weapons-grade stupidity, that’s fine.

Thompson should never again be allowed on a sideline, or, for that matter, in any other media role that requires original reporting. If she wants to be a talking head asking softball questions to has-been jocks who are supposed to have some sort of insight to a game that has passed most of them by, who cares?

Joe Burrow exited the team bus in Baltimore on Wednesday wearing a brace on his right wrist, clearly visible in a video the Bengals posted on X, then deleted. Burrow exited the game on Thursday with a torn ligament in that wrist after throwing a pass on which he was never touched. Burrow never appeared on the Bengals’ injury report.

Benglas coach Zac Taylor said he was not “aware” of any issue with Burrow’s wrist before the game. If you believe that the head coach didn’t know before the game that his $275 million quarterback was wearing a compression sleeve on his throwing hand, we’ve got a lovely bridge to sell you. It’s a head coach’s job to know his quarterback’s every hangnail and hemorrhoid.

Taylor said Burrow appeared to sprain his wrist on the previous play, but Burrow fell on his left side, not his right. Burrow did not address the press after the game, which is a violation of NFL media policy (only athletes with concussions or those who have left the building for medical exams are exempt).

The Bengals might argue that, since Burrow was not limited in the Bengals’ brief practice sessions on the short week before the Thursday Night Football game, they were not compelled to report his injury. However, injury reports exist to reflect a player’s likely availability and relative fitness for the upcoming game.

If you’re wearing a brace on the bus, you’re not 100 percent.

And if you’re not 100 percent, gamblers deserve to know.

The NFL has partnerships with DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars Entertainment. They, like every sportsbook, expect the league and its teams to provide accurate information. According to the American Gaming Association, sports betting, decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2018, now produces $2.3 billion in annual revenue for the NFL.

Burrow is the second-best passer in the NFL. His backup, Jake Browning, had thrown one NFL pass before Thursday. Millions of dollars were wagered on the Bengals to win or to cover, but surely many bettors would have wagered differently, if at all, if they knew one of the star quarterbacks might have to play left-handed. Dave Portnoy, the litigious founder of Barstool Sports, threatened to file a class-action lawsuit over his $120,000 bet on the Bengals to cover the four-point spread.

Portnoy might be joking, but the NFL isn’t happy, either. Multiple reports say the league is investigating the Bengals’ actions, and inaction.

Crush them.

The league in 2019 fined the Steelers and coach Mike Tomlin a total of $100,000 for hiding Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow injury before Week 2. Big Ben left that game and required elbow surgery. Clearly, $100,000 in fines was not enough of a warning.

The NFL should fine the Bengals $1 million. They should fine Taylor $100,000. They should make the Bengals forfeit their sixth-round draft pick in the 2024 draft.

If you want to add real teeth, for every successive violation, league-wide, double the fine and move the draft pick up one round. So, say the Eagles hide Hurts’ knee injury next week: $2 million fine for the team, $200,000 fine for Sirianni, and a fifth-round pick lost in 2024.

Not that the Eagles would ever do anything like that.