Via AwfulAnnouncing: Michael Irvin has been released from ESPN.
“Michael will not be with us this fall,” Hoffheimer said.
“This was a decision that came from our annual review,” Hoffheimer said.
This had been rumored for the past several days, and likely is a result of the various controversies Irvin has been involved in since his hiring by ESPN.
Irvin has been a PR nightmare since he joined ESPN, becoming known for his Ahmad/Jordan style favoritism towards Terrell Owens, his troubles with the law, and his bigoted comments. His moronic statements about Tony Romo last fall might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the fact that former Sunday NFL Countdown analyst Bill Parcells is on the market didn’t help either.
Irvin is essentially the destitute man’s Charles Barkley. While Barkley can make jokes that are sometimes offensive, he balances that out with being genuinely likable. Irvin was not even close to being as liked as Barkley — which comes with the territory on a network like ESPN, where analysis consists of someone angrily barking at the camera — which made his transgressions much harder to forgive.
With Bill Cowher having joined CBS, Tiki Barber replacing Sterling Sharpe on NBC and FOX’s line-up virtually set in stone, Irvin’s only option would be the NFL Network. It is highly unlikely that the league’s own network would want a loose cannon like Irvin on their air. In other words, the playmaker will sit 2007 out — but at least that will give him ample time to defend Terrell Owens and crack racist jokes that would tickle the likes of Ken Levine and Gary Thorne.
