Playing it fast & loose w/the journalism @RobDemovsky. Your professional skills are lacking… you must be having personal problems at home.
— oliviamunn (@oliviamunn) November 19, 2015
Whenever sports writers discuss an athlete they think is underperforming, its natural for them to speculate as to why. What’s not cool? Dragging in the names of the people in their personal lives, even if they happen to be female celebrities.
The above tweet is a response to an article written by ESPN’s Rob Demovsky about Green Bay Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, whom Olivia Munn happens to be dating. In that article, after four totally football-related and valid reasons for a slump, Demovsky speculates:
Possible off-field issues?: A longtime NFL agent told me recently that when he sees one of his top-performing clients play differently, as Rodgers has of late, the first thing he wonders is if something is going on in his personal life. There’s no indication that Rodgers’ relationship status has changed. Lions reporters said they spotted Rodgers’ girlfriend, actress Olivia Munn, at Lambeau Field on Sunday. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that professional athletes have lives away from the field, and you never know what could be going on in their personal lives.
Now, here’s the thing – “off-field issues” are also a valid reason for someone to underperform. However, 1) there’s no reason to drag a third party into this speculation by name, and 2) “personal life” can mean any number of things. Perhaps a relative died. Perhaps a person is suffering from mental illness. Perhaps a person has just had a really crappy month. The fact that he went right to the relationship place, just so he could bring Olivia Munn’s name up and speculate about that relationship, using a generic quote from an NFL agent that could’ve meant any number of things felt a bit squickish to me. And apparently a lot squickish to Olivia Munn.
What do you think?
(via Deadspin)
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