Profootballtalk.com

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Profootballtalk.com is a news and rumor website that focuses on the National Football League. Though much of the information on PFT is aggregated from mainstream media sources, site editor Mike Florio sometimes writes original stories based on tips given to him from his network of league sources.

Though the main focus of the site is the "Daily Rumor Mill", which consists of postings of the aforementioned news items as well as editorializing by Florio, the site has many other notable features as well. Throughout the season, weekly rankings of players at various positions for fantasy football are posted, and Florio operates a "Live Blog" for one or two games each week. Furthermore, the site maintains a year-round "Turd Watch" competition, in which teams are ranked based on the criminal activities of their members.

The site was created on November 1st, 2001, by Mike Florio, who is also the site's primary editor and contributor. Florio is responsible for the multiple daily updates to the primary page of the site, the "Daily Rumor Mill." Other elements can also be found on PFT, such as humorous photo-illustrations and periodic live blogs by Mike Florio of NFL games or the draft.

1 PFT 'Staff'
2 Site Sections / Elements
3 PFT & 'The Real Media'
4 Notable Errors
5 Style
6 References

[edit] PFT 'Staff'

Name	Duties	Notes
Mike Florio AKA "The Grand Poobah"	Main contributor	Aside from his work on the website, Florio works as a lawyer and has a wife and son. He resides in West Virginia, supporting the Mountaineers collegiately - in the NFL he is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Before creating the site, Florio worked as an editor for ESPN.
Michael David Smith	Journalist	Michael David Smith fills in for Florio when lawyer duties occupy his time. "MDS", who also writes for the AOL NFL Fanhouse blog and Football Outsiders, often offers his opinion on the recent NFL news.
Taco Bill	Photos	Taco Bill produces photos for the site, usually by Photoshopping images for humorous effect.
James Clinton	Technical Design	JetBlackNinja handles the design and layout of the site.

[edit] Site Sections / Elements

Rumor Mill - The main aspect of the site. Multiple articles are posted every day on all sorts of NFL related information.
Team Pages - Contains links to individual team websites (official and unofficial), message boards and updated daily news links.
Ten-Pack - Ten observations on various football-related things.
Power Rankings - Ranking the 32 NFL Franchises, commenting on each as they're ranked.
All-Turd teams - Annual 'All-turd' teams and 'Hall of Turds' inductions, which feature lists of players that Florio asserts are the worst "characters" of the NFL.
Merchandise - Buy PFT hats and shirts.
Archives - Read all PFT's stories since its creation in 2001, as a sign of accountability Florio refuses to remove incorrect or ignorant articles, preferring to explain or apologize instead. There is also an archive of all the images posted on the site.
Turd Watch - Tracking the arrests of every NFL player on every NFL team just like wins and losses.

[edit] PFT & 'The Real Media'

PFT offers a free service to football fans which often conflicts or attacks the views of other media outlets. As a result PFT struggled to gain acceptance and its breaking stories often were, and still are, stolen by the paid writers and commentators around the country. PFT's reputation has grown due to its continued success in delivering news and has been accredited in myriad online columns and even on television (Peter King of SI.com and Tom Jackson of ESPN are two prominent examples). The fact that Florio now makes multiple radio appearances around America is further proof of PFT's increasing reputation. The site is reportedly read by many NFL 'insiders,' including players, coaches, journalists and most NFL front offices. Whilst not often acknowledged, issues originating from the site have been confronted by people of these positions. Inaccuracies and criticisms of official NFL team websites have often been addressed and fixed within hours of being noted at the site.

PFT often acts as a watchdog for the NFL media. In an effort to improve the NFL product, PFT keeps an eye out for the lazy, incorrect or biased stories that are often written, scrutinizing their authors in the process. While PFT has criticized a lot of journalists, franchises and media outlets, certain entities have become repeated targets of PFT. Some of these include;

Michael Irvin - For his unmitigated defense of troubled wide receivers like Terrell Owens.
Joe Theismann - For his contradictions and general lack of NFL common knowledge. For example: He has referred to The University of Miami as "The M." Theismann has taken to beating down any writer's door to get press on his demotion from the MNF booth. Theismann is still on the ESPN payroll, but refused to do college football like his former Sunday Night crew. He writes Cup-o-Joe for ESPN.com. These articles are written in a simple 5 item format.
'ESPN Monday Night Football' - For promoting non-football related products by interviewing various non-football "celebrities" live during games.
Chris Havel - A former writer for the 'Green Bay Press-Gazette,' Havel has wrote several books on Brett Favre, yet still claims to be an unbiased journalist.
Len Pasquarelli - Florio often alleges that Pasquarelli, a senior ESPN.com writer, defends players represented by certain agents by writing overly positive articles in an effort to help out the player and thus the agent. Florio claims that Pasquarelli does this to keep on the agents' good side so that the agents will continue to supply Pasquarelli with inside information. PFT often refers to Pasquarelli as "Pastabelly" and "Don Vito". PFT has also noted that Pasquarelli has a bias against the Washington Redskins, writing columns that have smeared the organization, the death of Sean Taylor, the second retirement of Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, and owner Daniel Snyder.
Emmitt Smith - For his complete inability to speak using correct English or properly conjugate verbs, using phrases such as "blowed out" and "rightsize the ship." Florio criticizes Smith for his reputed refusal to prepare, which in turn is an indictment of ESPN because it hired such a blatantly incompetent broadcaster in hopes that viewers would tune in based on name recognition alone instead of solid studio analysis. Smith has also infamously referred to one of the league's teams as a "golf club" and has repeatedly used the terms "conference" and "division" interchangeably, among a litany of other gaffes.

[edit] Notable Errors

Pro Football Talk has developed a reputation around the internet for erroneous reporting. PFT posted and thus spread the unconfirmed rumor that broadcaster and former Steeler Terry Bradshaw had died in a car accident. This proved to be incorrect.^[1]

PFT Reported that Brodrick Bunkley may have been arrested on weapons charges, when he was stopped by a Port Authority Police Officer when crossing over a bridge from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. However, it was later confirmed by the "real media" that in fact Jabar Gaffney had been the one arrested and not, at the time, unsigned first round draft pick Brodrick Bunkley.

[edit] Style

Amid the information and observations PFT also provides humor to entertain its fanbase. References to television shows such as Seinfeld, The Office, The Simpsons and Family Guy, combine to make the site even more enjoyable.

Seinfeld above anything else is used in comparison to NFL situations;

"Maybe the Bills should treat G.M. Marv Levy like the Yankees treated George Costanza, and wake him up only for the important meetings."

The site received much negative feedback for making fun of the death of Barbaro. They used a reference to the movie Animal House with the scene of the dead horse in the dean's office.

Mike Florio often refers to himself as "we", "us", and "some internet hack". He almost always writes "stupid" as "stoopid". Additionally, he frequently calls the Internet "the intergoogle."