The NFL Network Has Had a Not-So-Super Week

The week preceding the Super Bowl is tailor-made to be one of the NFL Network’s better weeks of any given year. Their analysis trumps the talking heads’ echo chamber at ESPN and their exclusive coverage of things like the Pro Football Hall of Fame voting makes it a destination for football fans fiending for the last bits of NFL action before the long off-season. Instead, for two of its on-air personalities, the network’s trip to Miami has been more trouble than triumph.

First, on Thursday, Michael Irvin was named in a lawsuit filed this week that alleges he sexually assaulted her during a 2007 visit to a South Florida hotel. The parallels to Ben Roethlisberger’s lawsuit are easy to see: Both alleged incidents reportedly happened in a casino, and Irvin’s accuser likely waited to file her suit until Irvin was in town again, much as Roethlisberger’s accuser did, in hopes of getting his attention and keeping him around to handle it. Unfortunately for Irvin, the comparison may end there. ESPN terminated his Dallas radio show contract on Friday, though the network claims that had been “previously decided.” And while Irvin will appear on NFL Network programming this weekend, it’s hard to see him being asked to stick around if his situation gets messier in the wake of his splashy countersuit.

Then, on Saturday, Warren Sapp was arrested for allegedly choking a woman at a Miami Beach hotel. NFL Network has already pulled him from Super Bowl coverage, but with a mug shot on The Smoking Gun and a long history of boorishness in his past, asking fans to reserve judgment seems like a poor plea in the court of public opinion. (Also, as of the wee hours of Sunday morning, NFL Network was running ads on ESPN that still featured Sapp.)

This is certainly not what NFL Network envisioned for their South Beach coverage. Rich Eisen, Deion Sanders, and Marshall Faulk haven’t run into trouble, and should handle both their typical broadcast duties and the issues at hand capably. But viewers may wonder if NFLN needs to address anything while watching coverage today, and that speaks to the turmoil the network faces. NFL Network has to be happy with the lack of outrage so far, but the network’s executives may be happiest when Super Bowl 44 is over.

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