Former NFL linebacker Darron Lee, a first-round pick in the 2016 draft, has hired a lawyer to represent Lee on first-degree murder charges in Hamilton County, Tennessee.
Via WDEF, former Hamilton County District Attorney Neil Pinkston will be handling the case. He has entered no plea on Lee’s behalf, which is the same as entering a plea of not guilty.
Lee is accused of killing his girlfriend, Gabriella Perpetuo, in February 2026. The details of Perpetuo’s injuries are extensive and graphic.
The case against Lee includes evidence that he used ChatGPT for advice on how to deal with an unresponsive person.
Lee could face the death penalty. The prosecution has not yet announced whether it will be seeking it.
Lee was drafted by the Jets ten years ago. He also played for the Chiefs and Bills.
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Who would say no to an invitation to the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift wedding?
Charles Barkley would. And did.
Via Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing, Barkley said on 97.5 The Fanatic that he was invited to the event, but he chose not to go.
“I don’t go to weddings or funerals,” Barkley said. “But I did get an invite, and I politely declined because I thought it was going to be a crap show. I love Travis and Jason, and I’ve only met Taylor one time, but yeah, I did get an invite. But I said, that’s just too much. I just want to hang out and play golf, and I don’t want to dress up and all that other stuff. But I appreciate the invitation. It was pretty special.”
The invitation reportedly came with an NDA. And, frankly, it’s easy to envision Barkley saying he’s not signing any damn NDA.
Generally, I agree with his approach. I rarely go to weddings. And funerals are sad and awkward and stressful but, sometimes, you just have to go. (Especially to your own.)
For Barkley, who is hilarious and blunt and gives no effs and who I could listen to all day long (especially if Shaq is around), there’s one way they could have enticed him to show up — they could have added a note in the invitation that the menu will include churros.
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
I wasn’t going to say anything more about the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift wedding, but an item from Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing got the addled gears of my brain turning.
Lerner notes that both FOX and Amazon had a very strong presence at the ceremony, with even rules analyst Dean Blandino on the guest list. And while there also was a solid presence from ESPN (Jason Kelce’s current employer), no one seemed to be present from CBS or NBC.
The inclusions and omissions invite speculation that Travis may be thinking about future media employment with Fox or Amazon. Or possibly both.
There were rumors in media circles last year that Travis was interested in Kirk Herbstreit’s seat in the Thursday Night Football booth. (Neither Herbstreit nor his dog were among the Amazon personnel spotted at the event.) With Herbstreit’s deal running through 2026, Travis (who already has a relationship with Amazon through the New Heights podcast) could be in line to take the spot.
And he could then, if he wanted, join the desk at Fox NFL Sunday when the next spot opens.
Doing both would be easier, if Travis wanted to do it. It would be much easier than Herbstreit’s current triple duty of ESPN College GameDay, the top ESPN/ABC college football game, and Thursday Night Football.
Frankly, Travis would get whichever gig he wants, at any network with an available spot. The only question is the price. And the over-under for the combined gigs would be, in our view, $40 million per year, easily.
UPDATE 8:00 p.m. ET: A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, the members of the top CBS broadcast team, were present for the wedding.
Adam Sandler was back in Madison Square Garden for reasons other than watching a Knicks game.
Here’s the only thing we’ll say about the wedding of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce to global superstar Taylor Swift at MSG: Adam Sandler officiated, and sang an original song for the couple.
It’s the one perfectly random nugget that moved the PFT needle.
The other stuff didn’t. So it won’t be mentioned.
No, we won’t mention that Mike Vrabel and his wife were there. Or that Tom Brady left early. Or that the invitations came with NDAs.
Or that one guest, who had to overpay to reserve time for hair and makeup given the avalanche of glitterati into New York City, said of the ordeal, “It’s a really fun shit show.”
Or that another guest griped about the location of the event: “Who on earth is in Manhattan for the Fourth of July? This couldn’t have been a destination wedding?”
Nope. None of that mattered. The only thing that caught our eye was Sandler — who has an impressive catalog of original songs (I didn’t know the one about the zit on his back) — wrote another one for the event.
In Zittly Van Zittles, Sandler bemoans the fact that, by cheating on his girlfriend, he lost the woman who would pop it for him. That’s an important lesson for any newly-married couple.
It’s Fourth of July weekend. And it’s also the weekend on which Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift will be married.
Via the Associated Press, the event will happen later today at Madison Square Garden. Things got going on Thursday night, with a rehearsal dinner at Madison Square Garden.
They’ve reportedly already been “legally married.” (Maybe for the same reason Jim and Pam took a detour to the Maid of the Mist.)
The effort to keep things secret eventually yielded to the practicalities of the various logistical realities of reserving and securing such an iconic venue. And there wasn’t much of an effort by anyone involved to push back once the cat was out of the bag.
It got to the point that some thought the MSG plan was a misdirection. It wasn’t.
So that’s it. They’re now married. Don’t look for her to take his last name. Or for him to take hers.
ESPN has done something it rarely ever does.
On June 18, ESPN posted a new story regarding free-agent defensive lineman Mike Pennel and a murder investigation in the Dominican Republic. Among other things, the story cited unnamed sources to support the notion that Pennel knew the woman whose remains were found on property he previously owned. ESPN has now deleted the story and posted an item with this title: “ESPN update to Michael Pennel Jr. story.”
Here’s the full text of the update: “On June 18, 2026, ESPN published a story about Michael Pennel Jr. and an investigation into the death of a woman in the Dominican Republic who disappeared on September 5, 2021. ESPN has determined the story contained errors and has removed it. Since the publication of the story, Pennel’s representatives have provided ESPN with documentation, including travel and financial records, supporting Pennel’s statements to ESPN that he was not in the Dominican Republic at the time the woman disappeared. Pennel’s representatives also issued a statement, which may be found here.”
(Frankly, that’s not an “update” — it’s a full-blown retraction.)
The statement posted by attorney Brian Wainger says that “Mr. Pennel had nothing to do with the death or disappearance of Ms. Roche and was never a suspect or person of interest in that investigation. He did not know her.”
The statement also explains that “Mr. Pennel’s personal records including his passport and other travel documents, banking records and photographs along with their geotracking locations confirm Mike was not in the Dominican Republic in September, 2021 at the time of Ms. Roche’s disappearance, or in the weeks before or after it.”
Wainger writes that “Mike was in Denver, Colorado being treated for a sports injury at the time and was signed by the Atlanta Falcons on September 15, 2021.”
“Mr. Pennel’s Dominican attorney, Cesar A. Duran, never told anyone he expected Mr. Pennel to be arrested,” Wainger adds. “Mr. Pennel owned but never lived in the property where the remains of Ms. Roche were found. Mr. Pennel’s video surveillance system captured several people unlawfully trespassing on the property the night Ms. Roche disappeared. Mr. Pennel saved the video surveillance and shared it with the Dominican authorities who did not know it existed.”
It’s a stunning development. ESPN deleted an entire story, and it has publicly acknowledged that the story “contained errors.”
A link to the update currently appears on the front page of the ESPN website, near the bottom of the list of headlines along the right rail. As of this posting, there’s no mention of it anywhere on the ESPN NFL home page, which scrolls all the way down to the report from the middle of May that the Chiefs and Broncos will play in the first Monday night game of the 2026 season.
We had posted an item on ESPN’s now-deleted Pennel report. Given ESPN’s deletion of the item, our article has been deactivated and the corresponding tweet has been deleted.
A 12-year veteran, Pennel played 2025 for the Chiefs and the Bengals.
Consider it National Tight Ends Day (Taylor’s Version).
With the wedding of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift happening later this week, we’re told that many tight ends from throughout the league will be heading to New York to attend the festivities.
It’s no surprise. The annual Tight End University has created a new brotherhood among the men who are expected to block like linemen and to catch passes like receivers. Kelce founded the TEU with George Kittle and Greg Olsen in 2021.
All signs reported to Madison Square Garden being the epicenter of the gathering. And there surely will be plenty of citizen journalists with their iPhones ready to get pictures of anyone and everyone who will be there for it.
If you’ve heard of Joe Delaney, you already know what this post is about. If you haven’t heard of him, this is for you.
Every June 29, we remember the former Chiefs running back who gave his life while trying to save three drowning children.
Born in Texas in 1958, Joe Delaney grew up in Louisiana. He played college football at Northwestern State in Natchitoches.
Joe Delaney caught the eye of the Chiefs, who made him a second-round pick in the draft 1981. He rushed for 1,121 yards as a rookie, earning a Pro Bowl berth and helping the Chiefs to their first winning record since 1973.
The 1982 strike, and a detached retina, limited Joe Delaney to 380 rushing yards in his second season. But he still had a bright football future.
Then came June 29, 1983. The children were struggling in a man-made pond in Monroe, Louisiana. Joe Delaney didn’t hesitate to help.
“I can’t swim good, but I’ve got to save those kids,” Delaney said. “If I don’t come up, get somebody.”
Joe Delaney lost his life that day. He was only 24. He left behind a wife and three young daughters.
He hasn’t been forgotten. The Chiefs put Joe Delaney into their Ring of Honor in 2004. Last year, the Pro Football Hall of Fame featured Joe Delaney in a “Character” display.
We honor and remember Joe Delaney every June 29. I still remember reading about Joe Delaney’s death in the newspaper. It’s the kind of sacrifice few would ever consider taking.
Joe Delaney’s story hopefully will continue to inspire all of us to take risks in the name of what’s right. There are many ways to help others without making the ultimate sacrifice. Even the smallest sacrifice can make a difference for someone in need.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid won’t be wearing one of the latest offerings from the Tommy Bahama collection to the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift wedding.
Via Nick Brinkerhoff of USA Today, Reid picked up his tuxedo for the event on Thursday.
Peters Clothiers in Kansas City posted on Instagram an image of Reid trying on his formalwear for the upcoming ceremony. Reid’s attire suggests he’ll be one of Kelce’s groomsmen.
The New York Times recently reported that the wedding will happen on the weekend of July 4 at Madison Square Garden.
Speaking to reporters during the Chiefs’ mandatory minicamp earlier this month, Reid said he “cant talk about” the wedding. Someone has been saying just enough to make it clear that it’s coming soon.
And it needs to. The Chiefs have their first training camp practice on July 29.
