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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺️ Fox fires Charlie Dixon. According to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, Fox has officially fired Charlie Dixon. The now-former Fox Sports executive had previously been placed on leave after being named as a defendant in two lawsuits accusing him of sexual battery that were filed by former employees, including hairstylist Noushin Faraji and on-air personality Julie Stewart-Binks. Per court documents, Fox Sports is currently in talks to settle both lawsuits.

🏀 WNBA makes major announcement. For the first time in its history, the entirety of the WNBA’s preseason slate will be nationally televised. The W’s 15-game national preseason slate will kick off Friday on ION, which will air a doubleheader featuring the Dallas Wings vs. the Las Vegas Aces and the Chicago Sky squaring off against the Brazilian women’s national team.

🎙️ 670 The Score announces Bernstein replacement. One month after letting go of Dan Bernstein following his viral social media back and forth in which he threatened to dox a follower, 670 The Score has announced a full-time replacement for the longtime radio host. As of Monday, Leila Rahimi will team with Marshall Harris to host the Chicago sports talk station’s midday show, becoming the first-ever female to hold such a position during Chicago’s prime hours.

🏈 White House implies it deserves credit for Shedeur Sanders pick. Among those to weigh in on Shedeur Sanders falling out of the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft was President Donald Trump, who called on teams to pick the Colorado quarterback “immediately.” And while Sanders would have to wait until the fifth round for the Cleveland Browns to call his name, that didn’t stop the White House from implying that the 45th and 47th president deserved credit for ending the slide.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

What exactly is happening here?

For all of the coverage that Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson has already received, it somehow hasn’t been enough. That was the basis of a column I wrote on Monday in the wake of the eight-time Super Bowl champion’s viral interview on CBS Sunday Morning.

For the uninitiated, the interview’s signature moment saw Hudson — intently watching on a monitor off-camera — quickly shut down a question to Belichick about how the couple’s relationship started. On Monday, TMZ reported that Hudson stormed out of the interview at one point, delaying production by 30 minutes. The entire story only reinforces the idea that the 73-year-old Belichick and 24-year-old Hudson’s personal relationship also possesses a professional element.

It’s crazy to me that this isn’t being talked about more.

Here’s the greatest football coach of all-time spending his next (and perhaps final) act coaching a power conference college football program with his 24-year-old girlfriend appearing to help him pull the strings. Based on previous reporting, we know that Belichick has informed UNC staffers to copy Hudson on emails, and that she has been vocal within the program about public relations matters despite not being officially employed by the university.

All of this raises questions, including how far her reach in Chapel Hill extends, whether or not she’s qualified for whatever this unofficial role actually is and even why she didn’t want Belichick to be asked about how they first met. But while those answers may never come to light, I at least now have an idea of why it isn’t being covered more.

Because it’s not fun to talk about!

Sure, we might might like to gossip about whatever’s going on at UNC, especially considering the couple’s 49-year age difference. But when it comes to actually reporting and opining in a journalistic manner, it’s a tight rope to walk, especially without knowing what’s personal and what’s professional about their relationship.

Still, I think this is a topic worth covering, especially with regard to its potential impact on Belichick’s debut season with the Tar Heels. And to that end, it will be worth monitoring whether this story gains traction or fades into the background as the 2025 college season approaches in the months ahead.

📱 SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE DAY 🏆️ 

RG3 gets philosophical about prank phone calls

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️ 

• “Maybe don’t show him over and over again during the game. You motherf**kers. Aggregate that. I don’t care” - Bill Simmons on ESPN repeatedly showing Jalen Rose during Game 3 between the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks less than two years after laying off the NBA analyst.

• “It’s like hating blow jobs” - Bill Simmons on people who aren’t fans of Steph Curry.

• “I have a shoulder injury, despite what ESPN says” - New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr providing an injury update during a sermon on Sunday.

• “To Jeff Ulbrich, I sincerely hope he whipped his kid’s ass. That’s an ass whipping. That is a required ass whipping” - Stephen A. Smith on how he’d like to see 21-year-old Jax Ulbrich punished after the son of the Atlanta Falcons’ defensive coordinator prank phone called Shedeur Sanders during the NFL Draft.
  

• “You guys were bitching in 2018 about Josh Allen, you wanted Josh Rosen and now you guys are bitching that we don’t have a receiver. I don’t get it” - Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane to WGR 550’s The Jeremy & Joe Show about the team waiting until the seventh round to draft a wide receiver.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

Clairvoyant Peter

As Shedeur Sanders’ free fall during the NFL Draft continued into Saturday, I found myself thinking about Peter Schrager’s recent appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast.

At one point during the episode, Schrager and Simmons discussed the media coverage of Deion Sanders’ son as a draft prospect. And it proved prophetic.

"Deion has a lot of people that he has done work with and works with in the media. So I think there's been a little bit of like the sensitivity of being negative on Shedeur and I don't know if it's helped Shedeur in the long run,” Schrager said. “'Cause now if Shedeur doesn't go in the first 20 picks, it's this great slide… Like we all love Deion who worked in the media in any spot with him… I think this whole lead up to the draft, the people who have been talking about the draft are careful. I don't know if that's done him any favors if there is a slide in the draft."

The versatile ESPN personality later added: "It's a lot safer just to say, 'ah yeah we like Shedeur.' But when the rubber hits the road, who's gonna be there answering the questions as to why is he slipping out?"

Of course, there’s no way Schrager — or anyone — could have envisioned Sanders sliding to the fifth round, but that only speaks to his larger point. Ultimately, there wasn’t any way to get a true gauge of the Colorado quarterback’s draft stock heading into this past weekend; it was much easier for (almost) everyone to go along with the idea that he was a first-round pick, as saying otherwise would have put you at odds with the Sanders media machine.

Obviously, NFL teams felt otherwise, having enough concerns about him as a prospect — for a variety of reasons — that even the team that picked him was willing to pass on him six times before pulling the trigger. Ultimately, there was a disconnect between how the media and league each viewed Sanders.

While others touted conspiracy theories, I really don’t think the entire situation was anymore complicated than what Schrager laid out. And it will be interesting see how both Deion and Shedeur are covered moving forward as a result.