There has been a growing trend in sports, a trend that has no merit to be there in the first place: love entertainment stories.
The NFL Playoffs gave two perfect examples of this appalling new genre that has grown out of the dark and murky depths of gossip and the weekly tabloids.
The first is Tony Romo and his relationship with singer/actress Jessica Simpson.
During the first week of the NFL Playoffs, the Dallas Cowboys had a bye because of their ranking as the top seed in the NFC. While most players were sitting at their homes resting or actually preparing for the upcoming week without knowing who their opponent would be, Romo decided to head south with Simpson and her family.
This information would probably not have surfaced had it not been for the paparazzi, entertainment shows and tabloids that stalk such celebrities like Simpson non-stop. But once the likes of ESPN became aware of the situation, the entire incident became well-known public knowledge, talked about every hour on SportsCenter for the next week.
The second story came out during the downtime between the NFC and AFC Championship games and the Super Bowl, as TMZ caught New England quarterback Tom Brady walking down the sidewalk with a boot on his foot.
Again, the rumors and gossip began to fly about what Brady was doing and if the so-called injury"" would have any effect on Brady's ability to play in Super Bowl XLII.
In both instances, the sports world was oblivious to the notion that these things were happening until the underbelly of reporting alerted it to the situation. Unfortunately, the sports world seems to have been swept up in this current trend. The lines between rumor, scandal and sports seem to be more blurred than ever.
It wasn't always this way. A reporter used to have to show up to practice and see that a star player was injured in order to know for sure - not see some video on YouTube showing Brady walk down the street to see his supermodel girlfriend, or the Hollywood actress who is the mother of his child.
Sports - especially football - have grown to be so large that they are just as much about entertainment as they are about tradition. A viewer shouldn't turn on ESPN to see the latest tug-of-war between Romo, Simpson and Cowboys' wide receiver Terrell Owens. They should be told whether Romo and Owens will struggle against the Giants' defense.
There is nothing wrong with using outside sources other than your own to create content, but whether TMZ - whose tagline is ""Entertainment News, Celebrity Gossip and Hollywood Rumors"" - is the most reputable source the sports world can find is something else.
Whether this new trend is chalked up to a new age in which information is in such high demand that it doesn't matter where it comes from, or if it is just laziness on behalf of the sports world, it needs to stop.
It's time to leave the love drama and gossip to Entertainment Tonight, and get back to writing about what sports fans want to read: sports.
To tell Nate to stop being so bitter or to send him some lovely chocolate hearts e-mail him at ncarey@dailycardinal.com.
