But in a subsequent interview he gave, Salisbury suggested that ESPN would never let him become one of its star broadcasters because he wasn't a star NFL player. From Awful Announcing via the LA Times....
"I'm a free agent," he said. "I've been liberated. I knew this was coming, but I couldn't be happier.
"I'd grown tired of being punished for not being an NFL superstar. Analysts who don't work as hard as me, don't prepare as hard as me, and don't have my resume were making more than me just because of their ability to throw or catch a football.
"Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the opportunity ESPN gave me, but they had capped my ceiling. There was only so far I could go there.
"I'd done nothing wrong, and if you hear otherwise, it's not true. I did everything that was asked of me."
If Salisbury is saying ESPN puts too much of an emphasis on attracting star players to its stable of analysts, he has a legitimate point, with Emmitt Smith as the primary example of a star NFL player who wasn't ready for the high-profile TV role ESPN gave him.
But if Salisbury is suggesting, as I think he is, that he has great talents that weren't being put to good use at ESPN, well, let's just see how long a line of network suitors comes to his door.
NFL analyst Sean Salisbury is leaving ESPN, he and the network said in a joint statement today.
In the statement, Salisbury said this:
"I want to thank ESPN for 12 great years of talking football on TV and the radio. I have grown as much as I can at ESPN and decided to expand my horizons. I have created a brand and it's time to expand into other opportunities in TV, radio, Internet, publishing, movies and public speaking, among others. My resume speaks for itself as a football analyst, and I believe I can talk all sports with the best of them."
It is not clear what Salisbury plans to do with the brand he has created, but it's hard to believe he could find a more prominent outlet for his work than the Worldwide Leader.
ESPN's brief statement said, "Sean Salisbury has made many contributions to our efforts for the past 12 years. We thank him and wish him all the best."
Salisbury had brief stints as a quarterback for the Seahawks, Colts, Vikings and Chargers. He has also served as play-by-play man on BattleBots and appeared in the movies The Benchwarmers and The Longest Yard.
According to the Boston Globe's Mike Reiss, the NFL and the Patriots have released statements regarding allegations that New England videotaped the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI.
From the NFL: We were aware of the rumor months ago and looked into it. There was no evidence of it on the tapes or in the notes produced by the Patriots, and the Patriots told us it was not true.
From the Patriots: The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.
Obviously, that the NFL says that "there was no evidence" based on the tapes and notes "produced by the Patriots," and that the Patriots deny the rumors doesn't mean much ... since, you know, New England was the team being investigated.
The league admits that none of the evidence submitted by the Patriots contained information on the Rams. This means that if New England is eventually found guilty (again), Commissioner Roger Goodell has promised to level stiffer sanctions against the team. What that entails is anybody's guess.
This being America and all, the Patriots are innocent until proven guilty. Maybe we could all learn something from Sean Salisbury, NFL and legal analyst, dispenser of sage-like wisdom: SHOW ME SOME PROOF. UNTIL THEN, SHUT UP ABOUT IT!
The Super Bowl will kickoff in about 26 hours but the story isn't how the Giants will stop Tom Brady and the Patriots, its about Spygate. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell punished New England five months ago and we haven't heard much about it since. Until yesterday. And now, it's everywhere.
"When Michael Smith spoke yesterday -- and I don't think that story is apocryphal, I think it was something he had heard from a prominent coach who had talked to another prominent coach after Tom Brady had carved them up on Monday night [football].
And he said, 'Hey, look, I'm sorry I didn't warn you. [The Patriots] steal your signals.' And then the other coach saying, 'Oh my Gosh, no wonder; you can't guess right every time. I've never seen that before, that makes complete sense.'"
Luckily, Sean Salisbury brings some much-needed respectability to the proceedings when he points out that as of now, this story is built on "ifs." But it gets better:
Sean Salisbury played five NFL seasons, with the Colts, Vikings and Chargers. He finished his career completing 318 of 577 passes (55.1 percent), for 3,824 yards, with 19 touchdowns and 19 interceptions.
Salisbury is now an analyst for ESPN, and this morning on ESPN Radio they read an e-mail from a listener who wrote in saying he'd like to give Salisbury a holiday gift of one more career touchdown pass, so he'd be able to say he finished his career with more touchdowns than interceptions.
It was just a joke from a listener, and not a particularly funny one, but Salisbury acted awfully defensive about it, repeating, "I could care less" about his career statistics. And I think that fairly well sums up Salisbury's biggest failing as an analyst: He seems to have something of a hangup about the fact that he wasn't very good in the NFL.
Ron Jaworski, Cris Collinsworth and Tom Jackson were not great players, but they're great TV analysts in part because they don't seem to have that hangup. I think Salisbury needs to stop saying he doesn't care and actually get to the point where he really doesn't care.
This video is from his pre text messaging days. It's from 1985 to be exact, in a game between Salisbury's USC Trojans and the Baylor Bears. With USC down 10-7 in the third quarter, Salisbury has the Trojans on the march inside the Baylor "red zone".
He also had his sights dead set on a receiver facing double coverage. You know what happens next.
Remember this video the next time he agitates about a quarterback making an impossibly bad decision.
USC would go on to lose that game 20-13. Think that end zone interception made a difference?
Remember during the 2006 draft, following the Redskins' playoff season, when head coach Joe Gibbs appeared on ESPN to talk about Washington's off-season? No? Well, here's a refresher (the first minute or so be enough to make you sufficiently queasy):
Who knew Gibbs would be so prophetic? Last year, Sean Salisbury was given a little mandatory time off from his ESPN gig and recently, we found out why. And Joe, no need to buy a camera for the event, Salisbury brings his own, apparently. Although how funny is it that Gibbs says, "... and we know [Salisbury] wouldn't make a statement like that if he wasn't going to live up to it"? True that, Joe. True. That.
Oh, and let me join Trey Wingo in saying that we would all be better off in a world where Salisbury kept his clothes on.
Great news for all you Sean Salisbury fans out there: he's auctioning off two spots in his annual Sean Salisbury Golf Classic. The proceeds from the auction will go to his former high school's athletic department. Which might explain this:
...Salisbury is also coming [to the area to] have his No. 12 [high school] football jersey retired. Salisbury is the first Patriot to have a number retired.
"Whenever I hear about guys having their jerseys retired I think that is so cool," Salisbury said ... "There are games at USC, the Grey Cup and in the NFL that stick out, but my fondest athletic moments are at OG (Orange Glen High School).
Salisbury played 10 seasons of professional football (five in the NFL), and won a 1988 Grey Cup title with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Apparently, after his playing career, he got his start in television on Comedy Central's "BattleBots" before landing on The Network. Sorry I missed his "BattleBots" days; I'm sure that was compelling television. (Here's a glimpse into what it was all about. Oddly, it involved robots ... battling.) In any event, mark your calendars because the jersey-retiring ceremony will be in early June.
It's a story that is not going away. During Sean Salisbury's analysis of a Colts drive against the Patriots, he said what sounded to me and everyone else I've talked to like, "No need to panic. We'll nip. We'll tuck. We'll go. We'll crunch. We'll Jew." I have no idea what "We'll Jew" means, but it sounds like something offensive.
"I said crunch and chew," Salisbury said [in an interview with the Chicago Tribune]. "I don't know where a Jewish comment would have any place in talking about a quarterback driving down the field. If a blogger heard what he wanted to hear, there's nothing I could do about that. But I didn't say anything remotely close....People who know me know when it comes to religion, race, color, sexual preference, those things don't matter to me"
I'm a blogger, and what I heard wasn't what I wanted to hear. What I heard is what Salisbury said. That doesn't mean Salisbury is anti-Semitic. It could be as simple as that he was slurring his speech, something all of us do every day. But Salisbury needs to stop putting the blame on bloggers and give a more thorough explanation, starting with telling us what on earth "we'll chew" means in a football context.
UPDATE: One commenter proposes that it means, "We'll chew up yardage." But can anyone point to even one instance of any coach, player or analyst using the words "we'll chew" without following it with something like "up yardage" or "time off the clock"?
On Monday's edition of "NFL Live" on ESPN, analyst Sean Salisbury made what I hope was just a massively unfortunate slip of the tongue when talking about Peyton Manning's 2nd half performance against the Patriots. Here's what actually came out of Salisbury's mouth:
"I saw a calmness about him. We've always known he's a great player, but a calmness that said, 'You know what, no need to panic. We'll nip, we'll tuck, we'll go, we'll crunch, we'll Jew, we'll do it all.' And he nickeled and dimed 'em, and Peyton made the play when it mattered."
I'm not entirely sure what it would mean to "Jew" your way down the field (of course, I don't know how you "chew" your way down the field, either), but I hope it's not some kind of NFL locker-room lingo that ties into a stereotype that might also have to do with "nickel and diming."
And it's also entirely possible that it was one of those things where you mean to say one thing, and another comes out, or you're thinking of two different words, and what actually comes out of your mouth is a hybrid of the two. People misspeak all the time, and Salisbury should probably get the benefit of the doubt and a chance to explain himself before he gets labeled an anti-Semite.
ESPN and NFL commentator Sean Salisbury went their separate ways yesterday, and in the joint announcement they released, Salisbury sounded just fine with it. 
NFL analyst 
Sean Salisbury played five NFL seasons, with the Colts, Vikings and Chargers. He finished his career completing 318 of 577 passes (55.1 percent), for 3,824 yards, with 19 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. 
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Great news for all you Sean Salisbury fans out there: he's 
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On Monday's edition of "NFL Live" on ESPN, analyst 
