Michael Gallup is playing today?! ESPN again 're-breaks' a Cowboys story
ARLINGTON - ESPN has done it again, breaking Dallas Cowboys news, this time regarding Michael Gallup's plan to play today against the Packers, this time the 'news' coming just after midnight on Sunday. Except maybe there is a time zone problem for Adam Schefter. Is Bristol six days behind Frisco?
Congratulations are not due Adam Schefter, as at 1 a.m. this morning he reported that "according to a source,'' Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup is playing today, This is an important story, but as is too often Schefter's habit - I assume the pressures of filling time for the all-important Sunday morning pregame shows being the driving force - it's a story that he is only pretending to be breaking.
Gallup is returning to the field today just two weeks after arthroscopic knee surgery. But today's return is the culmination of a series of "returns'' that began on Tuesday, as we reported live that day on the Cowboys flagship radio station 105.3 The Fan, and here at CowboysSI.com.
TUESDAY Gallup update
We reported on the one-man "try-it'' practice on Tuesday, which was otherwise the players' day off. ... but Gallup, supervised by trainer Britt Brown, used it as his own practice day. (This was exclusive reporting by us from inside The Star.)
WEDNESDAY Gallup update
Then on Wednesday we reported that Gallup planned to practice again that day. The story was widely-read, in part because it was re-tweeted by Sports Illustrated and by the MMQB.
THURSDAY Gallup update:
Then came a Thursday update, this one with quotes from Gallup.
“It’s going to swell for a while, but not enough to keep me from starting to play,” said Gallup, who will likely be listed as "limited'' after today's work. “The doctor said my knee is fine. I can’t really do (damage) to it. It's just I’ve got to get it through my head that I can do it.”
FRIDAY Gallup update:
Then came our Friday afternoon story on Gallup, with a key quote from our one-on-one with his position coach Sanjay Lal.
“Gotta give credit to (trainer) Britt Brown and Michael Gallup,'' Lal told me. "That should be mentioned. Those two together willed MG back (to play this Sunday after knee surgery). He's gifted genetically, maybe. But his desire was high.''
ESPN's Schefter again 're-breaking' a Cowboys story isn't new news. It is in fact a constant irritant for those of us who cover NFL teams 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We usually poke fun at the phenomenon and treat it like a joke. But as NFL coverage is as competitive as ever, and in a climate in which the definition of "real journalism'' is being debated, maybe we should quit telling jokes about this. Maybe somebody should say something about "The World-Wide Leader'' taking local breaking news from Wednesdays and morphing them into "re-broken news'' on Sundays ...
Or maybe we'll just continue to trust our readers, viewers and listeners to recognize a truth so obvious that even Schefter could simply Google his way there.
In any event, I do love our line, as applicable as never now: "Do you want to get your Cowboys news from Bristol, or from Frisco?''
