Sometimes people write fake news about real people, and sometimes people who write real news believe the fake news. That's what happened on Thursday to the New England Sports Network (NESN) when it picked up on a fake story from Sportspickle.com.
The sports satire site published a fake story about Brian Urlacher's decision to sign a one-day contract with Green Bay and retire as a Packer. The fake story included these fake quotes from Urlacher, "I know this may rub some people in the Bears' organization the wrong way. And some Bears fans, too, probably," said Urlacher. "But it's my right to end my career the way I want to end it, and doing it as a member of the Green Bay Packers -- unquestionably the best franchise in the NFC North throughout my career and, really, all of NFC North history -- brings me great joy. Not being a member of the Bears on this day is the highlight of my career."
Urlacher did not retire as a Packer, though. He retired as a Chicago Bear on Wednesday, which makes sense because he spent his entire 13-year career with the Bears.
However, someone at NESN saw the fake Packers story and decided to run with it -- and by run with it, I mean they scrolled it across the screen during a baseball broadcast and labeled it as one of the "top stories." You can see video of the unfortunate error at Deadspin.
Getting all the graphics wrong in a broadcast -- like the Fox Sports Kansas City crew did during the Royals-Angels game this week -- is one thing; falling for an obviously fake story like this, though, is a level of failure that can only maybe be matched by Mark Sanchez's 2012 season.
Wink of the CBS Eye to @FSURich for the picture.
