On July 30th, PFT posted:
THURMAN DONE WITH FOOTBALL?As a torrent of rumor and innuendo continues to swirl around Bengals linebacker Odell Thurman, we're getting the distinct impression that the kid might never play football again.
At a bare minimum, he's not likely (in our opinion) to play this season.
Thurman already has been suspended for the first four games of the season for violating the substance abuse policy, and based on some of the things we've heard we think the penalty could have been more severe. Because the obligation to submit to testing continues, it still could be.
And as further evidence to support our belief that coach Marvin Lewis is reaching (or beyond) the breaking point regarding the actions -- and ensuing scrutiny of -- his in-house butthole patrol, Lewis offered a string of contradictory sound bites on Saturday when asked about the failure of Thurman to report for training camp.
"It's a non-factor. We expect him here. If you want to be in charge of him you're welcome," Lewis said. "He's dealing with some things with his family and they'd asked if he was allowed to do this. There's no pressing need for him to be here."
PFT was one of the first to float the Thurman rumor he was getting suspended. Head Coach Marvin Lewis denied those allegations every time the subject was raised. Even said last Monday that it wasn't true only to see two days later broke the news at the pre-training camp media luncheon. .
Almost makes you want to question Lewis anytime he speaks regarding a more controversial issue. I don't blame him though. He's just protecting his players; which usually defines a great leader and develops great respect (take note of that PFT). I won't deny PFT enjoys the luxury of some "inside" information. But it makes you wonder if some of the "inside" information is simply made up. If you get one breaking headline story right that drives the website hits up, what do you do to keep the hits up?
In the PFT post, it says, "based on some of the things we've heard". What have you heard? I've heard Peyton Manning is a pretty good quarterback. Conclusions based off assumptions are careless that voids credibility.
On a completely related noted, Odell Thurman is in Bengals camp now.
Perhaps it's time for another industry anonymous deep throat super-doper CIA covert source to tell us there's a chance Thurman could be playing after the bye week. Here's my guess at their next upcoming anti-Bengals diatribe.
The Cincinnati Bengals play football in the AFC. We've heard from some inside sources that Marvin Lewis is indeed a head coach and Mike Brown is the son of the legendary Paul Brown. There seems to be speculation that Odell Thurman's four-game suspension is, in fact, a four-game suspension. We've heard that the Bengals will NOT play a game during their bye-week.
Maybe it's just me. I've never liked gossip and speculation. I like fact and truth. You could just simply point out that it's a "rumor" site. However, the amount of times I've heard from various fans, that this is credible news-like informative site is what lights my fire. Then again, I believe, if you're going to cover football THEN TALK FOOTBALL! Alright, I'm off my horse... for now.