Everybody wants to cover sports media, but maybe everyone shouldn’t.

Mike Florio, “Pro Football Talk” aggregator/insider/gadfly extraordinaire, is on the most watched pregame show, NBC’s “Football Night in America,” every Sunday night, but he fashions himself a little bit of the league’s and media’s police. Some of the stuff he does can be pretty good.

Others, not so much.

This week, on the “SI Media with Jimmy Traina” podcast, Florio praised NBC over its rival network, Fox, regarding Tom Brady, the $375 million TV game analyst who owns a 10 percent stake in the Las Vegas Raiders.

“I’ve been with NBC for 15 years now,” Florio said. “There is no way in hell NBC would give Tom Brady a microphone when he owns a piece of a team. They would never do it.”

Well, except when Dale Earnhardt Jr. owned cars in the Xfinity Series on NBC. Earnhardt called races in the league, just not his own. That has been Fox’s arrangement with Brady so far.

On top of this, NBC just acquired the rights to the NBA and has had talks with Dwyane Wade, a minority owner of the Utah Jazz, and Grant Hill, who currently is a TNT analyst and has an ownership stake in the Atlanta Hawks.

“They would never do it,” Florio told Traina. “They would say, ‘Tom, you’ve got to pick a lane.’”

When asked if this is accurate, an NBC Sports spokesperson said, “We’re not going to comment on hypotheticals.”

Florio created Pro Football Talk almost a quarter century ago, and it is a pretty incredible story of how he transformed from a lawyer with a hobby to an institution that rivals the top football sites and has him front and center on a premiere studio show. But when he made a partnership with NBC, no matter how close he goes to the edge — and he goes further than a lot of people — he went into business with the network and its relationships.

With that, Pro Football Talk’s past criticism of Mike Tirico at ESPN has vanished since Tirico became NBC’s franchise player. Florio, the no-holds-barred, will-aggregate-everything-and-anything, failed to ever post about his teammate, “Football Night in America’s” Tony Dungy’s 2023 apology after commenting on the myth that litter boxes were being put in school bathrooms for children who identify as cats. There was no feline first-grader post on PFT.

“There is a fundamental difference between being a good teammate to a co-worker and owning a percentage of and having a significant voice in the direction of a team that competes in a league that you are covering,” Florio told The Athletic on the comparisons between him and Brady.

All this is not to say that Florio’s overall point about the inherent conflict of interest with Brady’s ownership stake in the Raiders and calling out Fox doesn’t have merit. In an ideal world, it is one or the other.

In Florio’s world, Fox should have given Brady an ultimatum on his $375 million contract to broadcast games or go own the Raiders. Even if you agree with Florio, Fox may not have the right to just back out of a contract.

Florio has built a lucrative business, rewriting, opining and reporting NFL news. He goes all-in a lot of times. In this case, he shouldn’t have. You know glass houses, rocks and all.

(Photo: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels will soon take the field for the biggest game of his football career.

Daniels threw a pair of touchdowns during last week’s win over the top-seeded Detroit Lions to help Washington secure an upset victory and advance to the NFC Championship for the first time in more than three decades. 

Many players from both the Commanders and the Philadelphia Eagles will likely have the full support of their significant other for Sunday’s big game. But, don’t expect a girlfriend to be rooting Daniels on from the stands – according to his mother.

The young signal caller and leading offensive rookie of the year candidate’s mom, Regina Jackson, recently suggested her son is not dating anyone.

Jackson shared some concerns she has for her son amid the Heisman Trophy winner’s stellar rookie campaign and his rising NFL stardom.

COMMANDERS VS. EAGLES: NFC EAST RIVALRY BY THE NUMBERS

“Girls, them girls.” she responded when asked about what she worried about as Daniels prepared to make the leap to the NFL in a clip posted by Amazon Prime Video from the streaming services docuseries “The Money Game.” The series explores how college athletes managed opportunities that arose due to the advent of name, image, and likeness (NIL).

“Some girl out here, she’s got a Jayden Daniels wall and her mama says, ‘Hey honey, you’re going to be the one to get ‘em.’ And I know that sounds crazy, but I guarantee there’s someone who’s trying to get their hooks into Jayden Daniels,” Jackson said about women who look to her son for financial gain.

“So thank god he got a mama like me because it ain’t happening,” she added.

Regina Jackson, mom of Jayden Daniels of the Arizona State Sun Devils, celebrates a 42-23 win over the UCLA Bruins at Rose Bowl on Oct. 2, 2021, in Pasadena, California. (Harry How/Getty Images)

Former Eagles running back and FOX Sports co-host LeSean McCoy commented in apparent agreement by saying, “Sound like my mom lol the MOMs KNO.”

Daniels did not appear to be shocked by Jackson’s remarks 

“I bet she did say something like that,” the former LSU star said as he smiled and laughed. This was not the first time Daniels spoke about his mother’s efforts to make sure her son has a trustworthy group around him. 

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels throws a pass against the Lions at Ford Field in Detroit, Jan. 18, 2025. (Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images)

“Nothing gets past my mama,” Daniels told Boardroom in December. “She reads people, she doesn’t want to put people around me that she doesn’t feel will benefit me.”

The Eagles will welcome the Washington Commanders to Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET. On the AFC side, the Kansas City Chiefs host the Bills in the second conference championship game of the day. The winners from each of those contests will meet in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.

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It’s the 50-year anniversary of one of the greatest teams in Southern California high school basketball history — the 1974-75 All-CIF team in Division “AAAA.”

The most valuable player on that team was David Greenwood from Verbum Dei. He went on to star at UCLA and in the NBA. An astounding seven players among the 10 first-team selections made it to the NBA, including Reggie Theus of Inglewood, Bill Laimbeer of Palos Verdes, Brad Holland of Crescenta Valley, Roy Hamilton of Verbum Dei, James Hardy of Long Beach Jordan and Paul Mokeski of Crespi.

“Everyone talks about that year because it was extraordinary with the amount of talent playing,” said Holland, who played for UCLA and won an NBA title with the Lakers in 1980. “We were all blue chippers, all getting recruited nationally and for seven of us to go into the league was pretty remarkable.”

The other All-CIF selections were Neil Arnold of Long Beach Wilson and Bob Losner and Rich Branning of Marina. All three ended up being all-time greats at their schools.

Holland, who went on to be a college coach, said he ended up playing against five of the six players in the NBA. During that final high school season, he knew many of them. He’d play pickup games against Greenwood and Hamilton at UCLA, where all three ended up as teammates. He played Theus in a game of one-on-one at a camp that summer. He faced Laimbeer at a Glendale tournament game. He took on Mokeski in a playoff game.

Greenwood said, “It was a special class.”

Palos Verdes won the “AAAA” championship over Marina and ended Verbum Dei’s six-year championship run. There were only four All-CIF teams and, as Holland recalled, “I can remember All-CIF honors was huge. If you made All-CIF, you were special.”

It’s the 50th anniversary of the 1975 All-CIF boys basketball team in which seven of the 10 first-team selections made it to the NBA.

(Southern Section)

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First, you have to understand how these teams were put together. They were sponsored by the Helms Athletic Foundation, which later was named Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation. Sportswriters would come together in Culver City lured by a free lunch to nominate and vote for players. Sometimes the debates got loud and personal as local writers supported players in their areas. But this team was different.

The 1975 meeting was the first for former Times sportswriter Mike Kennedy. He said nine of the 10 selections “were so obvious” that it was relatively easy to put together.

Nowadays, All-CIF teams are done by coaches and the players selected mainly are from teams that make the playoffs.

When you add who was playing in the City Section, 1974-75 becomes even more historic. Dorsey had one of its best teams, led by James Wilkes, who went to UCLA and played three years in the NBA. Also on Dorsey was Flintie Ray Williams, a fifth-round pick of the Detroit Pistons after playing at Pepperdine and Nevada Las Vegas. The City player of the year was Chris Lippert from Cleveland, another future UCLA player.

Holland said he remembers John Wooden coming to see him play at Crescenta Valley, but Holland was a year too late arriving at UCLA to be coached by him, as Wooden retired after winning his 10th NCAA title in 1975.

Greenwood said it was fun playing with and against the players for years after in the NBA. Theus became his teammate with the Chicago Bulls. And players enjoyed all the attention that Laimbeer received for being a “mean, tough guy.”

“The funny part is Bill is a pussycat,” Greenwood said. “We all know Bill from high school.”

Holland, 68, is retired and living in La Quinta playing lots of golf. Reminded how many players that season reached the NBA, Holland said, “It brings back great memories.”