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CBSSports.com's Gregg Doyle, on the ESPN/NYT Newton story:

So who is John Bond? He's a Mississippi State guy who feels he has done enough talking for now. Bond had his attorney, Phil Abernathy of Jackson, Miss., call me Monday to decline comment for this story.

But Abernathy did tell me one thing. Well, he implied one thing. He implied that ESPN.com and The New York Times made an enormous error in their stories -- the same error, it turns out. And it's an error so large that, if this were a court of law, the case against Cam Newton would be thrown out in a hail of laughter.

Before I tell you the error, let me tell you the background:

Last week, Bond told ESPN.com and the Times that someone claiming to represent Newton had offered him to Mississippi State for a large sum of money, back when Newton was in junior college during the 2009-10 school year. ESPN.com and the Times reported that the middle man in question, the guy trying to sell Newton to Bond, was Bond's former teammate at Mississippi State, Kenny Rogers.

That would be a first-hand witness, speaking on the record, about a major NCAA violation. Short of a paper trail, that would be some damning evidence.

If it were accurate.

But it's not.

"John Bond never named Kenny Rogers," Abernathy told me, implying that ESPN.com and The New York Times had erred in their reporting.

Read the whole thing.


Lein Shory looks at the connections between the the Times' Pete Thamel, FoxSports.com's Thayer Evans, ESPN's Mark Schlabach, and Florida's Urban Meyer.

Kevin Scarbinsky thinks the current media assault on Newton amounts to "character assassination." Paul Finebaum, who knows from character assassination, surprisingly agrees.

For his part, Meyer denies any involvement to the Gainesville Sun's Pat Dooley; CBS's Adam Jacobi thinks otherwise.