FanHouse JoshElliott

That didn't take long. Jay Cutler has been a member of the Chicago Bears for approximately three hours and the local media are already questioning his leadership skills. From the Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey:

After the big news broke yesterday that Randy Couture would return to UFC to fight Brock Lesnar, I wondered whether the mainstream media would recognize the significance of the news. Most newspapers that I've checked didn't cover the story at all, but ESPN has done solid work today, having Couture and Lesnar as guests on Mike and Mike in the Morning, First Take and SportsCenter. Here's a look:

That was Josh Elliott -- who told me when I interviewed him that he's a big MMA fan -- interviewing both Lesnar and Couture.

ESPN is sometimes criticized for ignoring the sports leagues it doesn't have contracts with, but the Worldwide Leader gave plenty of attention to UFC today, and with good reason.

For as long as I can remember, mornings on ESPN have been one long loop of SportsCenter reruns. That all changes on Monday, when ESPN will launch a new six-hour block of live SportsCenters from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

But is there really enough going on in the world of sports at that time to fill the six hours of live TV that ESPN is offering?

Josh Elliott, who will anchor the SportsCenter every morning from 9 to noon with Hannah Storm, says the most important reason for the new live SportsCenter is that ESPN needs to stay competitive with the Internet. In an interview today, Elliott told me that he sees the morning SportsCenter as the kind of show that blog readers will like. He also talked about his own daily blog-reading habits and his brief tenure as a blogger for Sports Illustrated. The interview is below.