Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was set to appear on ESPN First Take Friday, but it seems no one from the Worldwide Leader bothered to schedule the appearance.
ESPN supposedly set up the interview with the Maxwell Football Club, who was honoring Vick with an award for his comeback season.
But no one from the Maxwell Football Club or ESPN contacted Vick or the Eagles to schedule the interview.
“I did not receive any media requests from ESPN for Michael’s appearance,” said Chris Shigas, Vick’s spokesperson. “No one ever asked Michael Vick, the Philadelphia Eagles or my agency for an interview request. Apparently, ESPN set up this interview with the Maxwell Football Club without Michael’s knowledge.”
ESPN First Take host Dana “I’ll Have Another Bourbon” Jacobson then had the gall to suggest that the Eagles had pulled Vick from doing the interview.
“We have some bad news. We were supposed to have an interview with Michael Vick, we’ve been telling you about it, and sadly the Eagles actually pulled the interview, is what I’m being told. In all honesty, we were looking forward to talking to Michael about what has been a turnaround season for him and what has been a rough few years and getting to some other stuff.”
Sounds like Jacobson had one too many again.
As you might guess, Jacobson’s accusation didn’t sit well with the Eagles. On Friday, Eagles spokesman Derek Boyko sent an e-mail to Pro Football Talk saying that the scheduling screw up should be blamed on Lou Tilley, who works in media for the Maxwell Football Club.
“Lou Tilley booked Michael for an interview with ESPN and never asked Michael or myself or any Vick representative,” Boyko said. “I was here with Michael. He never canceled. He was never asked. It was ridiculous.”
Ridiculous doesn’t begin to describe this situation.
Are we to believe that no one from ESPN had the sense to contact Vick, his representative or the Eagles to schedule an interview?
You’d think the great and powerful Worldwide Leader would have learned how to set up an interview by now, unless of course the person responsible was hanging out with Jacobson at the local tavern.
I’ll bet that’s what happened.
I watched the entire FirstTake show yesturday waiting for the interview with Michael Vick, througout the entire show Jacob’s and the other hosts repeatedly announced the interview with Vick was coming up, they in fact led viewers to believe that Vick was there. At the very last moment they informed viewers that Vick wouldn’t be there because the Eagles had pulled him out of the interview. You would think that if they had scheduled an interview for Vick to be on their show, they would have at least confirmed it.
That was the crux of the point I made in the article. If they set up the interview with the guy from Maxwell, you’d think the same person that made the arrangements would confirm it. Blaming Vick made ESPN look incredibly stupid.