Just a day after successfully baiting RG III acolytes, Jason Whitlock is reportedly heading back to the scene of one of his most celebrated public accomplishments (ie. squashing Mike Lupica). The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre — taking stock of the Worldwide Leader’s rehire of Keith Olbermann and acquistion of Nate Silver — says the return of Whitlock to ESPN, makes it “impossible to deny the network’s increased intellectual push”. And that, my friends, will hopefully mark the first and last time the words “intellectual” and “Cowherd” appear in the same story.
Whitlock’s return to ESPN seems odd considering Fox Sports green lit a TV segment featuring him on its new network. Writers and athletes from around the country flew to Los Angeles in July to rehearse the segment, titled “Red, White and Truth.”
However, Whitlock’s sports-as-social-commentary style was an odd mix for Fox Sports 1’s new “jockularity” and the Foxsports.com web site has undergone a dramatic overhaul. Last week the site featured a Jen Engel column that claimed Johnny Manziel was the new Rosa Parks. The column appeared to be a rebuttal to a Manziel column Whitlock had written the previous day. Whitlock tweeted around the subject.