The Columbus Blue Jackets have been in the NHL for a quarter of a century. They have made the Stanley Cup playoffs six times and won just one postseason series in their franchise history.
These are all things The Ringer's Bill Simmons brought up while trying to determine who the "most irrelevant franchise in professional sports" is during the podcast reboot of his mailbag column on a podcast earlier this week. The question was sent in by a Blue Jackets fan who also made the case that his favorite team was completely irrelevant.
Simmons tried to come up with a less relevant franchise, but ultimately agreed it was probably the Blue Jackets before moving on to the next question.
On Wednesday Awful Announcing posted about all this and tweeted a link at 1:05pm. Less than two hours later the Blue Jackets' official account tweeted at Awful Announcing saying, "tried to go to grantland to read the full article but got a 404" with a thinking face. They did not @ Simmons, so there's no way to know if he even saw it.
tried to go to grantland to read the full article but got a 404 🤔
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) November 19, 2025
Some people agreed with the Blue Jackets. Some agreed with Simmons.
Whatever side you want to take, Grantland still exists in archived format. And Simmons went on to found The Ringer and sell that to Spotify for a ton of money. The Blue Jackets probably would have been better off leaving that one alone, but based on the 100 retweets, that decision probably isn't relevant either.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Blue Jackets Take Shot at ‘Grantland’ Over Bill Simmons Mailbag Question.
