Last August, PFT and Stephen A. Smith got into a minor kerfuffle after Smith reported (with a deliberate, pump-priming leak from the league office) that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had “destroyed” his cell phone. Four hours later, the Commissioner issued his ruling on the appeal of Brady’s four-game suspension, with the first official mention of a “destroyed” cell phone being the centerpiece of the decision.
On Thursday morning, PFT offered a response to Smith’s strong criticism of NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith’s alleged litigiousness. The article included an interpretation of a tweet from NFLPA spokesman George Atallah that mentioned NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent, who apparently in the opinion of Atallah had planted the notion of the NFLPA wasting “millions” of player dollars on lawsuits -- in lieu of rolling over whenever the league does something with which the union disagrees.
On Thursday afternoon, Stephen A. Smith addressed the criticism on his SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio program, with strong criticism of Atallah and even stronger criticism of me. Smith declined to join PFT on Friday to hash things out, so we instead played and reacted to multiple snippets from his show. Along the way, I cracked the code on Smith’s approach to criticism from others in the media.
If you missed the fun, you can listen to the podcast at Audioboom. The bulk of the conversation appears in hour one, but the topic comes up throughout the three-hour show.