— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) November 9, 2020
Only 15% of experts around the NFL’s orbit picked the New Orleans Saints to defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 9, which looks awful in hindsight. But no one came out of this looking worse than the on-air personalities who crowded pregame panels and sports talk radio in the hours leading up to kickoff.
“We’re in trouble, though,” said NBC Sports analyst Chris Simms on Sunday night after he and all of his colleagues turned in unanimous picks for Tampa Bay to win. “We’re gonna get trolled by New Orleans if things don’t happen this way.”
And he was right — the Saints put together a supercut of that TV spot and several others after winning 38-3 in Tampa Bay, set to the iconic outro tune from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the Larry David vehicle specializing in awkward social mishaps. It’s a great social media jab from New Orleans.
But it wasn’t received well by Simms and his NBC Sports colleague Mike Florio. Simms and Florio spent a substantial chunk of their Monday morning-after NFL coverage criticizing the Saints for singling them out, putting on a great display of self-seriousness.
“I understand players use motivation, whatever. But this is not a motivational tactic, and I’m with you (Florio), I’m sick of it,” Simms bemoaned. As one of NFL media’s most notorious hot take artists, it sounds like the kitchen got a little too heated for him this time. Maybe he should take a break.
you would have thought Mike Florio & Chris Simms were playing on the Bucs team.
y’all hurt them @Saints 😭😂 pic.twitter.com/hSgkP7ibWH— ِ (@itsbriaaa) November 9, 2020
